The Madness of Frederick

As a boy

I was taught

right from wrong

by parents

and by clerks

dressed down in fulgin cloaks.

I was told “thou shalt not”

by belligerent busibodies

who owned the divine rules

as their own shackles

and urgently pressed

those moral chains

on my full-virile frame:

seeking to hold me down,

so they might rape my mind.

The tirade of their words made no sense to me.

Obedience and observance are no virtues

they merit nothing

for they comprehend nothing.

They are empty of soul and spirit

and dark as the deepest abyss.

To conform to imperial diktat

is to abdicate one's own crown,

to resign one's own humanity

and forswear one's own existence:

aping some abstract essence

foreign to one's own truth

which must be found and forged

in the coil of life.

Their God is dead for me.

He serves no use,

has no crevice in my life.

What need have I of any tyrant governor,

who seeks only to carp

and criticise my acts,

curtail my will

and circumscribe my manhood.

And yet, if God is dead,

and rule of good and ill is passed away,

than how can I survive?

What sets my way,

directs my path?

What aim or end

can hold my heart's intent

and give me hope?

Without an ethic, how can I live:

or even set life apart from death?

It seems I must make up my own

and pass beyond the fancy-land

of good and evil

to the unknown country

of want and will

from make-believe

to made-belief!

I must impose my will

on an empty world,

project my private rational account

on a futile public pageant,

bereft of sense.

But if this lore

is nothing other

than want and will,

how can it bind

or help or guide?

How can it be more

than wanton urge

of lowly brute,

not the noble aspirations

and lofty ambitions

of superior man?

Pursuit of pleasure does not suffice,

no lasting satisfaction provide;

but only fleeting respite

before the dismal dawning

of the next drear day.

If will to power is all;

then what is that power for?

What motivates its exercise,

directs its choice of act?

There is no point in ability to do

if there's no point in doing anything!

It seems my mind must know

(or at least glimpse)

what is desirable and what desire is for

before my will can reasonably desire at all.

I am confused and stare into the abyss

of my whirling thoughts

which will not rest and

where there is no peace

nor hope nor joy.

From out that chasm

of woe

my gaze is turned back

onto me.

At first I fear

and then I find a clue:

to know myself, that is my task:

and in that knowledge

disclose what's good for me

by virtue of mine own constituent form

and so unearth,

by delvings of my reasoned mind,

what I most need,

what I may do,

and what I must forego.

I have to mine within myself

a precious ore: the lode-stone

to direct my own way by.

Departures

First to go was David,

hostage to father’s work.

No adult cared ’bout what they did

the precious bond they broke.

I stood and cried outside

the house where I had played,

but which to me was now denied.

He was gone, I know not where;

but always for him I shall care.

My bedmate’s end was then decreed:

“That duck must be undone!”

I do not know who did the deed;

but his frail fabric off was flayed:

soap and flannel of him was made.

Of resurrection hope there’s none.

Karl was dear, we hugged and held;

but off to Oz he went.

Long years until again we spoke

were separately spent.

Then tears of joy did whelm my eyes:

till he did vanish into cyberspace,

with no clue of why;

or what then I could do:

or even of an act or unkind word

which I should sorely rue.

Next my mother went to heaven,

slaughtered by a stroke.

To hold me fast God promised then,

but my heart almost broke.

David danced into my life,

then danced again away:

except one latter day,

when he remembered naught

of that strange play

when I did nearly go awry.

Deepest loved was Adrian.

He better far than I my love did ken;

but Pete then Julie had his heart,

and so from me he did depart.

I’ll not see him again!

Nick and Philip, Tom and John,

shared faith and college years;

but seasons came and now are gone

and they did me forsake;

save John, who kept troth ’gainst my fears,

until that bond I’d sadly brake

for fear of hurt I could not take.

An elven flautist ’tranced my soul.

With questing mind and hopeful heart,

striding into my life he came.

He glimpsed the part and saw the whole;

but even his name does now my mem’ry flee.

Derek was dear,

he taught me much,

I slighted him, I fear.

To southern land he went

and we lost touch;

but grace was sent:

so rather than my sin full drear

should bind me in the grave,

he lately me forgave.

My heart, Keith warmed,

but Wales his formed:

the rock from which his being was wrent,

so he took off with glee for Gwent.

Of Pauls let less be said

than floods right through my head.

One despoiled my soul,

one despised me whole

one pursued his goal

to teach the poor

of Africa;

then follow the spoor

of feminine lure

to America.

All are for me no more.

Henry burst into my world,

as poet’s muse and mad daemon;

he gave me life, but now he’s gone

and I am dead within.

Last, Philip loved and learned:

the son I never had;

but off he flew, to Orient far,

in search of wife,

renouncing faith, he left my life

and made me sad.

And so it goes: the eternal train

of broken faith and forgèd chain;

of given love and taken pain.

My only hope for my own gain:

of this frail life I’ll soon be free,

for all of these are lost to me.