the Lament of the Oldest Man In the World

I apologize for all the postings I have made today, but I have been reading Just Rob all morning and he has got my creative juices flowing.  I highly recommend that those who have not read his work check him out because he will, I'm sure, stir you up as he has me.


This rather dark poem came about while lying in bed during an episode of insomnia. I began thinking about the possibility of an ancient, timeless man who had viewed the history of humanity and I wondered what conclusions he would have made.


Oh I am the oldest man in the world and I am weary.
I can no longer feel the sun, no longer does the moon
enchant me with romantic ideology . . . my eyes
are now blistered, for I have seen too much.
I have seen Creation's misunderstood finger initiate
time and space, have seen a man limp in awe
from the first cave, have seen the karmic wheel
spin forever with little or no change.
I have seen a choir chant in a cathedral draped in dust,
while down in the streets, paupers and the disabled
stagger with empty bellies toward damp, miserable
hovels.
I have seen a saint forsaken with nails, a centaur
commit suicide from the highest peak, a poet
choke on the angst of his own words.
I have seen a naked woman beneath a stone angel,
seen Quasimodo and Abelard moan from bell
towers, trapped in the sorrow of loveless beds.
I have seen four horsemen ride away from
the stable in a dull flash of light, seen monks
abandon the holy throne.
I have seen armies gathering in Heaven and I have
seen the eventual outcome.
I have seen the war, the God awful war that never
ends, that continues to crucify the sacred blood
of Love's forgotten veins.
I have seen a powerful magi wave his blasphemous
wand and fill our eyes with a dark presence.
I have seen seraphim suck the nectar from the hearts
of flowers.
I have seen the apocalyptic zoo become a reality,
a rainbow dressed in angry colours, the ache
of peace banished to a moldy demented
dungeon.
I have seen a circus of dis-eased raindrops fall upon
oblivious cities, watched the slumbering cavalcade
of puppets, who, clad in the finery of a timeless decadence,
simply yawn and return to the sleep
of complacency.
I have seen a clown drown in a bucket of his own
tears.
I have seen living things not vibrant, only static,
a bastardized wind lust of time, an overflowing
phantom of ritualistic evidence that curses
in the concrete notation of minutes, years and aeons.
I have seen birds melting upon a sidewalk of plastic,
the sex organs of ancient gargoyles frozen,
an artist die in a gutter of rancid
paint.
I have seen frogs born with 25 limbs, trying to move
in deformity through mud puddles of unnatural
light.
I have seen 10 million butterflies explode across
the political capitals of the world, but the leaders
were too busy hallucinating beneath a depleted sun
to notice.
I have seen black lesions grow upon the decrepit
orchard of individualized souls . . .
Oh inconsequential masterbation of non-spiritual
genitalia, the undoing of all that was learned
before we began to worship the industrialized
goddess, who coughing upon her deathbed,
still smiles behind a putrid mask.
I have seen her frozen husband, fornicating between
sheets of rusty metal, producing children
desensitized at the very moment of conception.
I have seen infants wipe tubercular moisture
from their pillows, while foliage weeps
and the planet spins in the direction of a thousand
dark prophecies.
I have seen the thin veil of eternity ignored,
seen the beloved cast out, seen inquisition used
as a symbol of religiosity.
I have seen the front door closed forever, the window
of the mind shattered, the Universe swoon in sorrow
and the dance of the spirit slow down.
I have seen the daffodil weep, the mythological grail
crushed beneath unconcerned feet, the human face
become a mask of indifference and the dove cast
aside by a hand of utter mockery.
I have seen the lament of hollow cheeks disregarded,
seen the ferryman's craft forever empty, seen bags
of sadness placed outside the circumference
of the globe.
I have seen the electronic garden usurp all that was
once green, a robot bless a child with rancid oil,
the moon raped of its virginity.
I have seen the mediocrity of ego-driven philosophers
and the half-backed similes of priests spread words
of propaganda that should only be recognized
by the rotting dust of desecration.
I have seen time march like an unretrained lemming,
crash into the yawning abyss and fall toward
the future without any sense of purpose.
I have seen laughter avoid an infant's face, poets die
like over-ripe fruit on the vine, turtles rise
to the surface and finding no light, return to
the mud of an endless sleep.
I have seen the perpetuation of grassy fields fed
by human blood, a parade of ghost forms come
back to wander forlorn with outstretched palms,
seeking the sustenance of human warmth.
I have seen the icicle of the world born on a historical
breeze . . . it blows with the heat of a frigid crone,
wrinkled, seeking recognition in the pages
of cataclysmic events.
I have seen our inner power shifting, watched us weep
in undone solitary rooms, spin upon a mandala
completely devoid of nirvanic possibility.
I have seen a distant muse sing from a hut in Babylon
. . . no cadence of clarity, just blues calamity
wrapped up in the hoarse throat of cigarette paranoia.
I have seen that the archival mantra has been out
of tune for far too long, that we must orchestrate
another deeper level of music whose vibration
caresses the eardum of be-ing with tonalities
of wisdom.
I have seen children murdering other children
instead of lingering over the faces of embryos
not yet born.
I have seen the haze of technological dichotomy,
blooming hypocrisy on the floor, wooden
and soiled by television evangelists, while illogical
scientists try to negate the beauty
of the Madonna's face.
I have seen the insensitive biological chariot race
toward the ultimate borderline and then stop
short.
I have seen the complacent gnome ruling the dying
land, while the populace, afraid that their
offspring may starve, succumb to his bleary
command.
I have seen the spark of incensed contemplation,
where men could all see the fog,
but eventually they turned away and re-ented
the mist of a mortal morass.
I have seen the external revelation, seen in simply
to be an illusive lesson taught by guilt riddled
practioners, fallen citified saints who failed
to see that every individual pilgrim
is bless-ed.
I have seen the bleak horizon, colourless, waiting
for the sunglow light of an unseen divinity
to show its face.
I have seen the metaphysical stone upon which
the slow paced heart is scraped as it moves
forward and upward.
I have seen downtown hobos, iridescent lost angels
who thread their veins with opiate relief.
I have seen teenage hookers, street criers with untuned
guitars, harmonicas from hell, moaning out into
the apathetic air.
I have seen an old woman who still weeps upon
her sagging breasts, offering the nutritional value
of her blistered nipples and hardly finding
a thirsty mouth.
I have seen aching broken fingers scratching
upon the human wall while hearts fall to the ground
and wonder why they haven't evolved since
the day the snake first crawled
into the garden.
Oh I am the oldest man of the world and I have seen.
I have seen a leviathan uncontrolled misery envelope
this poor aching planet with seemingly no end
in sight.
But I have also glimpsed the never ending flame,
the cosmic link of light and fire, that which is
beyond our day to day miscellaneous excuse
for breathing . . .

And I have seen that the ancient collective soul
is thirsty . . .

OH SO THIRSTY

FOR


REDEMPTION.