Helpless

Sturm und Drang, or stress

and moods –

take it as read, an overflow of nerve-force must

expend itself in some direction, as Herbert Spencer long ago

opined … Knocked

this-a-way then that, tumbled

and wrenched, those most acutely

tormented commune

initially with fellow sufferers, after

with the dead, whose spectres or residues

permeate the parks, the filthy

air, the malls. The real is so tightly woven

that forward movement is infrequent,

betrayed … I struck

firmly the board, struck

myself, thought of taking up fasting, aware, as a savant

might put it, that when a bird

is seen waddling about we still know

it has wings … and yet – now facing my own

incomprehension – how is it

you manage to live, I again

and again demanded, in fury,

to which – as itty-

bitty sparrows do, dear over-anxious

Father William, by pecking

between paving stones, hopping hither and thither, or maybe

their quivering feathers

nourish themselves; from new-mown hay

I inhale sustaining odours – and when

the glittering sun, after much ado, much

fumbling, rises, it surges

clean through me, irradiates

these veins, cleansing all that might hinder

my effortless ascent; for I’d tread

this burning earth

unencumbered, knowing truth fails not, nor angst

and turmoil, nor the urge to preach

and convert. And if, as I believe, transfiguring

thoughts still issue from the mouths

of mighty sages, bridging time

and space, fusing

language and our sexual organs, then surely

it behoves us all to mutter

in unison – avaunt

suspicion, take back your scaly threats

and watery promises, the fretful

ballet you’d choreograph in the blood! For here

our wounded nerves

salute the light, rage

and roar for justice. The serpent – yay, we see it,

feel it – shall perish

and the false poison plant

shall perish too, and Assyrian spices

spring from the land: by channelling the unwavering

emaciated martyrs of old, we too

abandon the waste places, outrun

the vixen scavenging

at our heels …

What urn or monument

for whoever concludes they’d prefer

not to – yet

can never say why? … we study health,

deliberate upon our diet, but in a minute

a cannon batters all … I suffer

from a kind of squint, and neither

foresaw nor forestalled the incisions

slowly healing, nor figured

I’d end up so short of breath, of depth,

of verve, scrabbling

through the past for lines

whose meaning

scarcely mattered as long as, like

a rubber ball, they ricocheted

and bounced … No

Surrender the pub

crowd roars, but whatever I touch turns bitter

and spiny, for among so many sour berries

o where

can the sweet fig bloom? To calm

the overactive strata

of the mind I recall how few of life’s days

and hours are ever

noted, how ressentiment first brims

then o’erflows her cup. I wear

headgear these days, even indoors, to protect

my cranium, plus strands

of imaginary poison ivy intertwined

about my core. I’m trying

to accept that insider

knowledge – duh – is for insiders, therefore

cannot be spoken; that age underpins the body’s

deformations, and that the curses

we inflict

upon it leave us helpless,

outmanoeuvred, crying

in the night

for mercy …