Canticle for the Inevitable
IX
And thy life shall be as it were hanging before thee.
Thou shalt fear night and day, neither shalt thou trust thy life.
Nary a drop to demand for a drink has appeared in the time since
Gone in discovering dry wells littered across the entire
Land in between the ascents of the mountains resembling that of
Ancient Paran, on its peaks was a luster of glorious fire
Thrumming oppressive with whipping and furious winds in the day, and
Night had its own rich dangers, assaults in the dark by assailants
Always concealed, and although the demonic intruder in my bloodstream
Never returned in the period after, its presence was a fragrance
Not unfamiliar, always nearby and unseen, and I think though
Demons are salient presences, what is divine is a slowly
Manifest factor, a fire for keeping in spirit; I think that
God has accompanied me, so I fear not evil, His holy
Finger engraving the providence meant for the journey ahead, yet
This is the sadness of Israel, that the Almighty is silent
Most of the time, and as dryness envelops the skin, for my sweat is
Fully exhausted, and flesh burns red in the sun by the violent
Rays of a solemn celestial, misery feels in the moment
More real than God, false as it stands in the face of the truth, still
Horror can ravage a soul to the point of a still desiccation,
Beaten by sun and defeated by heat in the sands of its ruthful
Construct, o ashes of witnesses under the cruelest of wardens,
Mercy is not an imbued high virtue in thee; so for patient
Days in the toil of wandering through a demonic design, I
Found naught here for a weariest soul, save that of an ancient
Monument this day: facing a cleft in the south, by the scarlet-
Topped peaks, there a relief was engraved and supported by oblation
Remnants on pedestals crafted of black bronze, forged into chain-works
Blossoming radial patterns of antediluvian blazon,
Figures to captivate eyes and distract to a world of a higher
Origin, modeled in something of red bas-relief by missing
Folk of a time and distinction no longer a privilege known, that
Either concealed it themselves, or were lost to consuming, insisting
Sands, and the temple of never-ordained false worship removed by itself the
Tragic offense left dead in Paran, and bequeathed to the roaming
Desert its figure, and taking to heart the commands of the angel,
Herein had nothing to offer or tempt, but so fleeting my combing
Walk in an ever-deserted dimension was that I had cast one
Glance for its way, and itself had a glance in return, in the lifeless
Way the inanimate idol can glance, but it seemed to me terror
That for an altar for worship, and one as artisanal like this,
Something of wherefore its purpose displays not, such as it warrants
Given the false gods nations indulge are demanding of stolen
Valor and curt recognition, and this had no signs of its type nor
God, it was barren and lacking its offerings, trusting the hole in
Rock it had occupied somehow sufficed to entice a potential
Man with a curious mind — oh, indeed it had, not for intended
Methods but minded the same, and so turning away, I began to
Walk in a diff’rent direction, the foot-hills sharply descended
Down and until it was flush with the plains of the ever-horizon,
Which in itself was the eye’s invitation to roam for observing
Delicate, clear skies wrapped in the linens of clouds, the prepared wisps
Meant for the passage of days and the yesterday gone; it is serving
Shrewd of a purpose in burial, moving across a procession
Held by the sky’s pallbearers, the sun and the moon, in the noonday
Movement of time as it traveled to that place where it is destined
Rest, and in this exploration, so seemed in an obvious, crude way
That the intention in lonely an altar among all the hidden
Alcoves, a secretive nature so meant to conceal it from churning
Mornings and evenings and ever-enduring observance of God, as
If He constrained His dominion only to visible burning
Sacrifice meant for another in hidden adultery; even
Now, in a desert forgotten, the respite of demons and fallow
Ground in illusion’s Paran, He is here, and in confidence knowing
Where He has carried me, laying me down in the midst of the shallow
Sands and unknown lands, God is a keeper of oaths, and has not yet
Given a man resurrected to demons for torture or other
Terrors, so what is it worth to be bidden to altars of craft and
Careful design; and as these were the thoughts on the alar, another
Voice had arisen, familiar croak in the well and my blood called
Once Skull-Duggery, speaking from somewhere unseen: Art thou starving,
Thirsty, or beaten enough to be pliable, lest it be here thy
Death be ordained for a reason in nothing: a curious carving
Jutting by the south foot-hills, in the question I longed to have asked of
Thee — wilt thou please do the kindness to go, to behold of the labour
Taken for friendly intrigue? and it seemed to be fitting the evil
Altar was crafted by sly Skull-Duggery, playing a savior
Role and reclusive to sight, for it wasted enough of its time in
Trying to question directly and therefore it now has developed
Something for wandering men to observe, but it seemed to me foolish
That it announced its intent, and unless it has mountain-enveloped
Sites as the one here scattered about, it has done a disservice
Unto itself, and in hearing the voice and request, I abandoned
Gandering south and began to retreat north, wary of what the
Purpose of calling attention to what is effectively stranded
Out in the mockery of Paran, and so whether the action of leaving
Leads to the thing Skull-Duggery wants or if what a capricious
Demon desires is merely observance, and human denial
Matters a little but hardly enough to dissuade the pernicious
Torments of forces the desert has sired, but nevertheless I
Stayed unresponsive and turned not toward the demon, wherever
Might Skull-Duggery stand, but without hesitation, the shrill call
Came from behind and the demon pursued, If thou wander forever,
Maybe forever will wander with thee, and to live as a foreign
Alien for all of thy days in Paran is a fate for rebelling
Sons of the covenant, not for a man as thyself who has risen
Up from the grave; in considering where it is thou wilt be dwelling
Over the length of thy days in the desert, I urge in the strongest
Way to be mindful of what it is thou art rejecting, refraining
Silence in sad expectation for nothing particular; listen
Closely — and here it continued and all went unheeded, pertaining
Something to trick or to stupefy men, and no word I had heard till
Silence returned; not even an echo had stayed to respond or
Carry its spurious speech, and along a defile I found in
Lonesome traversal of mysterious foot-hills, here I could ponder
Long on the nature of this place: some sheep-fold for the fallen
Stars or a mindlessly derelict emptiness left and abandoned,
Measured and made for a little — a curious — man who inclined to
Walk forth hither and thither, comedic in kind in a canyon
Ever-forsaken and always a ruin for things of a long-lost
Era, if ever the era was not lost, made for the wicked
Ones, for the sons of the darkness who once had defied and defiled
Light, compensation for angels in wake of transgressions and stricken
Down to a dry place made to be ruin: creation is crafted
Only to hallow His name most precious and sacred, to ponder
Light in the grand alabaster of heaven, and fallen to earth and
Lower estate; in the shrinking of light, in the wretched I wander,
What was unclear was unfurled in the bounties of time I enjoyed, that
Not underfoot had the hills nor the mountains of Seir unraveled,
Meaning the desert was never Paran, and it even had naught a
Reason to be, for it bore no resemblance to Zin, and I traveled
Not by the Salt Sea, not for a moment; so here I envision
That in the land dwelt not, an unknowable agent enrolled king,
Crown, and crescendo to form from a fragment of nothing a prison
Running concurrent to paths fulfilling and righteous, the whole thing
Wrapped in caresses of canyons and might, and it seems a distilled place
Coming by visions perhaps, for preceding were sights of the heron
Flock in a flight of distressing appearance, for folded of wing and
Still in demeanor, the herons were still in heralding the baron
Ruling the desert: the fiend Skull-Duggery bent of my torment,
Maybe announced by the herons as marsh-meant birds of a long-gone
Exile, symbols conveying to captives arriving in dryer
Lands of the kind of disturbance to come, as a glorious song on
High is to greet the elect on the Day of the Lord, as the lovely
Hymns as unspoken as waters restoring the flow of my soul’s spring
Once had enveloped the courts of Jerusalem, now for the herons
Needing no wings for the flight had instead borne kind of a cote-wing,
Shadowing this place darker competing with Cush in its flies’s wings;
Here was the shade in the wings of the swamp-dwelt herons whose quiet
Countenance stole air eerie and frosted, the portal to Hell, the
Gate to a garden we never belonged, and so might I defy it
Now in the after-the-fact by the way of retreat, or denial
Thus of the talkative liege Skull-Duggery, where in the blowing
Winds of Paran his unsourced voice haunts and addresses allotment
That for my portion, I see in the chalice, my cup overflowing:
Trite conversation or evil persuasions in language intended
Darkly, the foul machinery harsh and unsound as it beckons
Fast to the deeper abyss, if the desert were not a sufficient
Hell, so the demon of this cursed place may attest and reckons
Piece by avowed piece, tending his garden allotted, a broken
Place, as the Lord well-pleases; the breadth of eternity swelling
Much as a rivulet running along the designs of a sinking
Firmament opened to heavenly waters: a sorrowful, telling
Purchase of time in the eyes of our God, for the penalties found in
Hearts systemic excused not; neither the God of our fathers
Nor His angelic appointment descend to a land for the sake of
Saving the damned He already has judged, for the silverer offers
Lead for his craft to extract dross once, and if even the errant
Ways of a man can require precision, so God in His quelling
Things of impurity tends well once, and a spiritual furnace
Hitherto mentioned resides in the court, in the garden, my dwelling
Here by the judges of precious and rare stones, left to the free and
Evil device of the demons in furtive corruption who solely
Seek to commiserate, offering torment by way of a shepherd’s
Staff for the sheep, rod kept by the side, are a comfort my lowly
Earthly condition desires, as this is a purpose, and taking
Purpose is worse to a man if compared to neglect, but I thank it
Not in duplicity, lest it be thought as a boon; I regret that
Always throughout my allotment of days on the earth, for the banquet
Herein, if scourges for man are a bounty, the time I have lived since
Rising are bountiful, that by the virtue of suffering, fallow
Soil is laid for the better, and even the demons betray the
Waters distilled in a silent faith, where it leads me to hallow
These the undoings of bondage in death: it is always the blessing
That an existence can prove by the natural intellect, showing
Merely in waking the joy of a man born dead; I rejoice still that
Having anointed my head in an oil refined; so in knowing
Always the preference over the grave for the flesh resurrected,
What rank horrors await in the world to become, my rejoicing
Even in hunger, in lashes, in wicked eternity here in
Desert desertion, is never to cease; and if creatures of voicing
Shadows return, in eternally-bound resignation my mirthful
Spirit enjoys, for the table He fashioned before all the hostile
Ones of the dark is afforded in stark recognition; the silence
Ever-oppressive cannot be of God, for the deserts I crossed still
Languish ahead, and the trials are real demonstrations of favor,
That if the Lord had unbelief in one overcoming the testing,
Might He endow an ordeal or at least be expectant of swift and
Rather decisive deliverance, that if He saw as the best thing
Charted as total destruction of one such man: is He not to
Look at the man and his sufferings, pitying them — I reason
Such as superior than the idea of derelict justice,
Frivolous mystery shadowed by morning extended by season,
Under heavens of scarleted flush, but by faith I have found these
Hosts, and myself have assembled a favor for finding my lost will! —
Screeching began to resound in the desert before a relentless,
Formless barrage had beset by the slopes of a silvery-washed hill
Closest to that high central of mountains in spotlessness gleam: I
Fell and in gasping response, so another barrage had been bidden,
Tearing upon flesh over and over, and shortly my right arm
Buckled and splintered in grisly a crimson unfurling, and ridden
Now of a right arm, what can a man stand that he cannot be
Called in reproach for his cry of distress — and indeed, as I crumpled
Tattered and maimed, so the flurry continued, and sequences of snapping
Bones and unwanted disposal of teeth had transpired; my rumpled
Form was reduced to a misery worse than the time I had risen
Out of Gehenna, and now as the last of the blows were delivered,
Movement had ceased and the fountains of blood were discovering courses
Each were to take on the beaten, pathetic repose of my withered
Heap; as the bluster of high-pitched screeching subsided, I chanced to
Gaze to a wretched figure disguised in the shade of the sunlight,
Placing a foot on the stump of my elbow, it spoke with its cruel
Tone in familiar cadence of voice, Skull-Duggery: One might
Wonder if this is the cost for ignoring my pleasures, my seeking
Goodness and kindness, pursuant exclusively once I have drank it
Full, but a needless desire it seemed, as the demon had moved its
Foot, turned over my body, and pressed down hard as a blanket
Poured by my blood soon covered my body, I retched of my fluids
Till he had stopped, and continuing, Pray, and thy God will not hear thee;
Cry, and it brings no salvation; or plead, and nothing will change, for
Only am I here; once thou hast learned I am one thou shouldst fear — me,
Even, perhaps, more, maybe relenting will seem to be somewhat
Reasonable – I neglected to listen to this, for the places
Injured, were searing in shock, but I heard indeed — If thou still dreamst
Over the hills, in the pastures of tenderest grasses and graces,
Count it as naught– so continued in kind Skull-Duggery, muffled
Greater by degrees by a ringing surrounding my head by the burning
Pain: as a fiery knife in my arm thus gone, a sensation
Rooting about in the ocean of fresh Hells frothing and churning
Over my flesh, and for once I had felt true absence of any
Thought but my mortal despair; Skull-Duggery grasped at my shoulder,
Paused, and so quite unpredictably thrust stalks, black and unseen, through
Cold hands that in his malice were growing so terribly colder,
Piercing my limp flesh — piercing my right eye — herein he rendered
Me as immobile, and thus as he spoke I was more inattentive,
Fading in mind as he tried to describe his intent or whatever
Crueler expounding he planned in his torture, he gave no incentive
That I should listen; I wished for the Angel of Death to return, or
Romans to crucify me, by the last of my thoughts was a prayer
That I be done soon, to be ended, and God to have taken
Me to the grave as I once had belonged, to the bottomless layer.
desperate for relief • a ruin of a idolatrous altar
refusing Skull-Duggery twice and thrice • assailed again in the desert
losing a right arm and a right eye • praying for death