Canticle of Vanishing
VII
For he is accursed of God that hangeth on a tree:
And thou shalt not defile thy land.
Over the hills and the plains of Judea, the journey ahead a
Mystery great as it ever had been, to have followed the curving
Landscape brought a renewed doubt: toward the south I had ventured,
Morning became night, lost in a wilderness storied, unnerving,
Full of mysterious things and unspeakable sprites of an evil
Face, so the rivers the venture had forced to be forded I waded
Through, and by night the exhaustion had once more taken me captive,
Which had relented by morning the next day, weariness faded
After sojourning in soil again; so the route I had chosen
Opened and lent to the morning a portrait of wonder and power,
After a day and a half of a journey, the southern environ
Opened and laid out, quartered by valleys Judean, the hour
Dripped on as billowy moments perturbed, and a tormented sleep I
Trounced in the desert with one eye open sufficiently rested
These bones, pushed to another unknown day, taking a wayward
Path in the mountains and flats to the south — or at least, I invested
Energy toward a path in appearance to head to the south, so
Onward and out was the sun in the sky, its position I rarely
Kept as a truth, for the rush in an ecstasy held in my mind well
Past the escape and deliverance, far from the trial unfairly
Brokered by Roman miscarriage of justice, and cowardice that I
Left in the hills of Judea, a levy Baradamah paid undeserving,
Yet as the trial proceeded, the fact of it all was I never
Even deserved to be tried in the first place — words for preserving
One’s own skin, to be fair, an excuse for the coward to bow out
Cornered, and largely forget the horrific distress of the evening,
That of a murder by hand and others by actions with knowledge
Clear and discrete and the subsequent chase in the desert, believing
Such apparitions perceived are illusory, products of thirst and
Hunger, and hunger the chief of concerns, its discomfort a twitching,
Burning, a feeling of nausea, rather a constant discomfort
Barely unlike wood born on the shoulders; without an enriching
Diet assuaging it, hungers enrapture the senses and could take
Hostage the mind, unintentional fasting resulting, so spattered
Thoughts of a meal undeserved had recurred on my tongue, and
Lively illusions had danced in the mist of remembrance, so mattered
Food for the moment, the stones in the wilderness might be enough to
Soothe it, unless it were truly a stone, and if so, it presented
Such a convincing mirage it had measured a fool to have picked it
Up and observed it with hunger, considering eating fermented
Shale with the sand as its sauce; so it fell into dirt as it once lay,
Barren and certainly not for consumption, the hunger resuming
Reign for the moment at least, its lonesome endeavor the trodden
Heart had endured and betrayed, an extent for a man unassuming
Wandering during the days of the summer, with nary a field to
Till nor possession to ponder, no children to speak of nor treasure
Buried afar but the sack-cloth grating against my uncovered
Skin, and if man comes naked before God, judged by the measure
Given, the hunger is certainly equal to whatever comely
Days are ahead, the exchange of a breath for the pain of a peril
Marring the mind as a river uprooted by desert decree for
Wilderness purposes, such is starvation, the worst of the feral
Instincts besides one obvious impulse, unspoken; so passes
Most of a human’s desires except his unanswered starvation,
Thirst, and perhaps a repose, if indeed it were time for it, these the
Needful and precious of quiet a heart of the flesh, its privation
Spells a disaster beyond death: suffering, that my concern
Falls with the stomach before the untreated infection beginning
Rapid expansion up through the exposed wound trailing my arm shows
Fully how serious hunger has raptured the mind, in its spinning
Haze of mirages disturbed and distressing has not a relief, save
That of relenting for one satisfaction, and when had arrived such
Dawns so abound in the sufferings wrought by delirium, these needs
Went unattended for over a week, or perhaps I survived much
Longer on dew-drop waters on stones in the morning, exhaustion
Warping the passage of time and distorting the number of fearful
Nights in the plains of uncertainty, this the repetitive journey
Rending the body and choking the spirit for terrible, tearful
Hopes in disquieted prayers for the high, deaf heavens, my evenings
Punctuate still in the soil and dust, with the words of the dream-wise
Giver of law as the angel to serve lone guide in among the
Desperate plains, and the words of the dream had become or had seemed lies,
Trickeries given for this man born dead dying enclosed by
Mountains had nothing to show for obedience save for a striking
Thought of the horror in heaven at wandering dead in the Holy
Land, and at things in his nature, all the things he had done to his liking
Neither concerned nor ashamed for the people he bothered to leave to
Die: his city, a Sadducee, one of the sons of his nation,
Even himself, so to bravery, duty, and faith I have nothing
Shared; run, run to the plains and for nothing, to seek my damnation,
Seeking the silence, and running is that one thing I was ever
Good for; indeed, resurrected to merely evade, to escape the
Error of heaven in giving a loosed breath back to my body,
Merely to starve in the desert and shrivel to gaunt and unshapely
Water-deprived bones left in the heat of Judea, for wild
Dogs or for sand to envelop and desiccate, here I have wandered
Lonely and starving for days to complain of the wilderness that has
Lacked the essentials of living, and to never have questioned or pondered
That in the wilderness Israel also had fled, and in some ways
These are the same plains, yet for the traveling caravans bearing
Abraham’s promise, the seed of his seed, in the parallel journey
These had the guidance of pillars of fire and cloud, who in swearing
Covenant faithfulness came to a hope and a heart of uncalloused
Flesh, who had seen in the signs of the plagues and in Moses a wonder,
Yet a more glorious sign had appeared in the latter of days, my
Birth in Gehenna, and never had those seas rendered asunder
Seemed to be small in the face of the coming of one of the dirt, a
Mystical sign of the presence of God in the world, and my little
Faith had expired in passage of days, as Israel once had,
Such as it warranted turning to those skies silent and brittle
Seeking another unspoken deliverance, though for the Lord, He
Never appeared, no indeed, the elliptical skies overhead late
That tenth day had a peculiar image of hovering cranes, all
Colored a faded cerulean matching the skies, as if dead weight
Fell from the birds and the skies were a harbor, the cranes were all closed of
Wing, so the flocks of the cranes stood still in suspended unmoving
Power, in color repose with a leg perched, folded and steady,
Which was enough indication the sight was delusion, and worth my reproving,
Though for its worth, it was reason enough to be worried my hunger
Might be a worse thing that it is causing mirages to clearly
Manifest, freed of the dream-world made of unseen, indiscrete and
Trivial spirits, and though the unraveling mind, in severely
Crippling hunger produces delusions, it occupies something
Other than hunger, and that is a grace in itself, for the beating
Heat is the lurid alternative, spurned and unfavored, so hunger
Means momentarily that in a fast of the desert competing
Not for attention with sunny psychosis, the passing of days shall
Offer reprieve in a sense as the sun, in its envious gazing,
Seeks for itself an insightful perspective on dreadful occurrence
Shaded in darkness and cover, and day descended in phasing
Toward the twilight, rays of a radiant glare had retracted
Leaving an empty celestial court ruled by the moon, who
Hung in the lowest of spheres and had yet to arise, so the absence
Left an uncertainty scarcely unsettled, the frightful of dark and too-soon-to-
Tell, and the darkness tonight had allowed the discerning and furtive
Beings the desert abounds with to play in its shade, and before long,
Gasts had begun to appear on the edge of the visible scape, in a dark dance
Mired in mystery, scarcely a tune to be heard nor a score, song,
Poem, nor soft benediction to better accompany the spirits
Writhing to music unheard or disturbing to those who were simply
Visiting wilds the cities abhorred, and in such a monstrous
Choir of silence emerged a surprising disturbance, a limply
Manifest man in the shadows unleashing a flurry upon me,
That in response it was only appropriate that I collapse, by
Mercy it ended in moments upon the collapse, and I felt weak,
Helpless again, the sensations of burning in places perhaps I
Minded for sensitive care, so especially that of my right arm,
Open, infected, and painful to look at and less to address, the
Anguish of blackening limbs and uncertain conditions, and surely
Hunger has left not nearly enough to sustain me the fleshy
Blows of the evening’s assailant, a figure who never appeared yet
Struck as a man all the same, and to which the as-yet-to-be covered
Wounds were reopened profusely so, bleeding upon the unflinched sands,
That in the dusk of a terrible series of days, I discovered
Strangely inhabiting pools of the warm blood fleeing my arm a
Curious sight, as the blood flowed out, in a smallest
Vessel for sailing contained or revealed from inside of my flesh, a
Creature appeared, in clothing a sailor would attire, a flawless,
Small reproduction, and turning to speak, the creature addressed me:
Hail, and I say in sincerity, thou are a stormy and violent
Tempest, to which in my years on the sea I have scarcely had witness,
Blessings be that I am out of the turbulence! Nothing my silence
Offered had seemed to affect it, and the cover of darkness and smallness
Made it a difficult task to identify what it was living,
Sailing perhaps, in my blood, and as though it had privy to what I
Thought, it began to explain, For its worth, I am thankful thy giving
Blood to a salt-borne dog as myself, for I offer in trade not
Silver nor wisdom, but only the nature of whom it is riding
Out in the pageantry flowing in blood in thy body, for this I
Know: I am called Skull-Duggery; what it pertains to providing
Only my name, it is fair to refer to the man who is called this
Curious name by my sobriquet, Duggery — such in exchanging
Time in thy blood and my taking a residence, that it so beams fair
That for the time we have left to acquaint, we unmake of the strange thing
That has befallen us two, having been said, the suspicious
Being had leapt forth quickly and perched on the side of my bleeding
Shoulder, and shewn in the last lights day had unfurled, this
Creature unknown: it is light as a fly, frog-like in exceeding
Ways, especially face-wise, that it partially resembled
Frogs in a frightening memory, though for its torso,
Legs, and its arms have a quality quite man-like, and its fleshy
Texture alike to a plucked quail, though for its color and more so
Size, it resembled a seed, coriander, and eyes had a certain
Space and mysterious character, pale and pastel, as a moon hung
High in the daytime sky, in obscured and mysterious luster,
This so the creature had something akin to a power it soon brung
Forth, for it smiled, revealing a toothy and troubling grin, as
Scarcely sincere as I ever imagined, and slowly it brandished
Wider and wider a smile until it resembled a horror
Hell had disfigured; as quickly it came was as quickly he vanished.
lost in the desert at dusk • a sign in the sky of perched herons
assaulted by unseen assailants • a creature in the spilled blood
he calls himself Skull-Duggery • vanishes