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.

Resurrection

Today my Love has returned to me.

The Love that is Life

and can know no death, yet died

for love of those who know not love.

Today my Love has returned to me.

My heart now bursts with life and joy:

the hope which had fled

is born anew and will not fade again.

Today my Love has returned to me.

He holds me in His arms and will not let me go.

God, who bled

and died for me heals my hurting heart.

The Harrowing of Hell

Today Light invades the darkness.

The darkness has no power

it can not understand the Lightⁱ

it has no substance nor form.

Today the gates of Hell are broken.

Today Satan’s conceit is shown.

Today his petty power is overthrown.

The souls of the just cry out with joy:

“Welcome to Thee, Oh Christ our God!

Holy Divine One,

Holy Strong One,

Holy Immortal One:

Thou art come to deliver us

from out the grave

and to have mercy on us!”

Their trials are over. 

Their hope is fulfilled.

Their joy is complete. 

The new bearer of Light,

the True Day-Star, the Faithful One

the Lord of Life is come to them.

i“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” [Jn 1:3 KJV]

Judas' Lament

Thirty pieces of silver, a slave’s price,

I took for the life of the Lord of Life.

Not out of greed, nor drear despite;

but out of love: twisted, yet bright.

I cared to be noted. 

To be a part of His world:

preferring lambent hate 

(not to be ignored)

to dim indifference; 

for she’s the truly frigid

antagonist of ardour’s heat. 

He blessed my bread

then, with gentlest deference,

He urged me on my way.

So with Him then I could not rightly stay,

and I stepped into the night:

not out of spite, nor sweet revenge;

but out of love: twisted yet bright.

I desired to affect Him.

To constrict Him to react to my brazen act.

Not to reject me: but account me

as a relevant and worthy opponent:

He knelt in prayer, his soul alight with fear and pain.

I gave him my kiss:

not out of treason, nor harsh betrayal;

but out of love: twisted yet bright.

He called me friend.

For me He’s to die.

Of love there is no greater token:

not kind caress, nor gentle word.

Now my heart is broken.

The silver pieces I did return,

redeeming the life I’d sadly sold:

not out of anger, nor wish to slight;

but out of love: twisted yet bright.

Now He is mine, as He hangs on high

and redeems my life from the grave.

Not out of need, or hope of gain;

but out of love: faithful and brave.

Palm Sunday

Into the City He rides; 

but not as conquering hero.

He rides not in majesty, 

but in soul-felt lowly sorrow.

He rides on a donkey’s foal 

caught up in the flow

of acclaim: of shallow 

celebrity and mirth,

His passion’s start will show

this fame’s full worth.

The eve of His last dark 

Passover draws nigh

and His sweet soul 

does languish with a sigh.

He knows full-well the fate 

of those who enter by this gate.

The prophets stoned, 

or cast down wells

to drown in irksome mud.ⁱ

He knows full-well His fate 

that’s set by entering this gate.

His body scourged and strung on high

to drain its Precious Blood.

He knows full-well the fate 

of sinners held behind the gate

of Hades – bound awhile – awaiting Him

to ’claim their hapless good.

We welcome Him 

with cheers and hollow hoots.

We greet our own expectations 

and sallow hopes.

Hosanna to the Son of David!

Hosanna liberating Prince!

Hosanna provider of our need!

Hosanna social reformer!

Hosanna to God’s prophet deer!

Hosanna kind and good teacher!

Hosanna wonder-working seer!

We cast our rags before his feet,

hoping that He’ll stoop and put them on

and what we most desire He’ll then become:

be re-made in our image, accept the gown

of our threadbare renown:

and justify our empty fabrication.

He passes by, ignoring our desires.

His eyes are fixed on a far greater prize:

His countenance incipient with glory:

the kind that’s only won through travail,

pain, passion, death and betrayal,

He is the spotless host:

the Lamb of God.

He alone may pass the veil.

He willingly enters the Temple.

Showing Himself to the priest,

He bows his head

and accepts the garland wreath

of our disaffected thorny wroth.

The sacrifice is now chosen,

the oblation sanctified:

the offertory complete and done.

iJer 38:5-6.

Laughter

You laugh and my gut churns. 

I cringe before your mockery.

Your ridicule cuts deep, 

severing the bonds of breath and life.

Your careless disrespect is more than I can bear.

I desire your love: the bloody business of your heart

but all you care to offer me is bile.

I need your affirmation and regard

but you would rather me revile.

Satan laughs and darkness churns,

the world lies in dismay.

His despite rings through all the halls of men;

greed and hate and soft conceit:

the comedy of error and of ill

which he does pen and close direct,

with force of iron will.

This vale of tears for us is his dire cauldron vast,

where he does compound fell

and noisome brews, his pain to sooth at last.

God laughs at the plight of men:

the sorrow and betrayal,

the sickness and the pain,

the hardships and travail.

God laughs, not with mirth, but from sympathy:

not that God can know our woe

in His Eternal Being;

but that He’s ever present in our sorrow

and absurdity.

In that laugh God exceeds Himself

and falls for man from Heaven to Earth,

becoming one with us

and taking up the very comic role

which you and I and all our kin play out

and that had first brought forth His laugh.

We laugh and hate is spent

error and pain are overcome.

The wounds we have inflicted close

and healing can begin.

Now grappling can become a form of play,

not strife,

and all our wanton ways

be shown in purest light.

Laughter frees us from our sin

and all that locks us in,

binding us with false wisdom

and denying our necessary freedom.

I laugh and the whole Universe stands still,

the absurdity of life bounds forth

and will not rest until its sympathetic force

is spent. Empathy moves my bowels.

My heart is pulled towards the trials

and sufferings of my fellow men. Perforce,

I must else laugh or yet weep copious tears

of bitter, stinging woe: so I do choose to laugh.