Canticle for Manasseh Riven
XXIV
They whose judgment was not to drink of the cup, shall certainly drink:
And shalt thou come off as innocent?
Thou shalt not come off as innocent, but drinking thou shalt drink.
Thence on a morning bedewed, sea-smoked and in matinal gloom-wet,
Ruffians gathered for sport at Ein-Gedi departed accoutered,
These for a time shall be call my companions, all possibly doom-met;
Hoar-mist rose up from deep in the earth’s stone lesions unsutured,
Formed from the bored holes deeply embedded in rock by the crisp falls,
Green growth bearing their witness in crowds of perennial leaf-shoot
Gathered around wet violence of waters contained by the thick walls
Leading to pastured arrangements of gardens all spangled in tree-fruit,
Constantly washed as the proximal watchers of waters invis’ble
Reaching from depths in the rock (as I crawled in before I escaped it),
Hedging a bound’ry we mutely acknowledged as right indivis’ble,
Furnished with branches and trunks which made a mirage of a snake-pit,
Speckled and spotted in damp cloak, mired and logged, disregarded,
Suitably lost and forgotten, as much as we also were hated,
Must we be hated to join cold, armed men, coppery-hearted,
Banded together for spoils a vanquishing nudely awaited,
Sultrily gathered and stored by the labors of thieves’ convocation;
There we were drawn by allures, or myself, by a more disrepute minx,
Violence itself, an avenging: en route to our target location
Walking in relative silence, for each of us, catching but few winks,
Filled on provisions of barley and dry cakes march indistinctly,
Printing our feet on a trail of the guilty, we eager are driven,
Caught in between worlds; surely Manasseh compares us succinctly,
Halves of the tribe split down by a river, a hemisphere riven,
Out-side Israel, also within: forasmuch we are corpses,
Knowledg’ble not of our fate, and as well we are warr’ors yet come,
This is the happy, the damnable river with tenebrous courses
Drained to the bitumen seas we depart for a combat addendum,
Yea, we shall mark on ourselves our predestined emergence with due wounds —
Sorrow to those who escape from a battle unwounded, with hands clean —
Given Jerusalem’s torching had ceased celebration of new moons
Now we can only remember the times as the Jews Alexandrine,
Speaking in figures and harsh allegorical cuttings of Torah,
Only embodied and bloodied in conflict and chivalric sequence,
Cycles of mortal’s heroics whose hot blood lathers the flora,
Feeding the fauna their damp bones, earning the pastures’ allegiance,
Which I expected today, if I died, it be nothing diminished,
Even a blessing: undoing a curse or accepting correction
Speaking no ill of the Lord, for He made us in light of His image,
Which He enshrined in our ordure and charged to our modest protection,
Meaning we ought, on our march to despoil our foes of their spoils,
Sweating at first light, solemn and coated in dust from the chalked heights
Murmuring one to another of life and its numerous toils,
Recondite not, for us each had a vision for treasure as hoplites
Might we be victory-bound, grown bold as our lumbering thundered,
Echoing out with the sweep of a gale on the clutch of the canyon,
Southward around rock-faces and mountains in mini’ture, sundered,
Lonesome, and much as I felt in the crowd, a suspicious companion:
Equally svelte as the others from clambering upward and downward,
Circling back on the switch-backs trestled in daunting arrangement
When I was eagerly searching to nourish from promont’ries froward,
Scarcely producing enough for the birds, much less my estrangement,
Round and about great heights, and without arm, eye or equipment,
Save for a sword, and a mighty amusement it seemed for my person!
Heavy and broad, but no man tried theft or to strike me indignant,
Seeing the ease through which I maneuvered it, absent exertion,
Rivaled the curious feats of theatrics, appearing unnat’ral,
Acting a sign of a spirit or blessing usurped or predestined,
Which was sufficient to keep me alone from my flanks and my lat’ral
Whether I walked by a curse, was anointed — neither was questioned,
Both were of similar odor for calculus men had equationed:
Something was off, and involvement is risky, so better to leave it;
Thence I was trailing the spear-head when a the news was occasioned
Right from our lord that now was the hour our march was completed,
Minutes perhaps from noon, and my tongue clung tight to the roof of my dry mouth,
Thirsting for drink, and for battle; the plan as it was frostily stated
Sought to surprise their encampment, intending in driving their flight south,
Nooked in a crevice-corral we can rapidly close in unaided,
Leisurely slaughtering all of their verminous kind with no quarter,
This was a trivial task, and their treasures were set for our plunder:
Each of us, sweaty and bellicose, yowl’d, understanding the order,
Merged in a mass of profaneness and stench and a deafening thunder
Clad in refit loin-cloths and the arms of some leftover-loadout
Flung with impatience our bodies upon this bivouac’d gulley,
Wildly hooting and, each indiscriminate, swung as we flowed out
What dull blades we had, finding but one lone rampartish scully
Easily trampled, and greeting the fortyish bandits astonished
Countered with some near hundred of rapturous, desperate scoundrels
Rose from the camp great shouts as their arms and redoubts were demolished,
Fearsome expressions we offered, and neither parleys nor a counsel
Flashed in the avarice-eyes of our vict’ry predestined and certain,
Cutting their men at the first few moments with fatal precision,
Which I partook with a high swing, scissured a rogue in a turban,
Then with a broad-weight slice left made it another division,
Gathering his armor and donning it; better prepared for the slaughter,
Hurriedly met with a man of significant stature and great brawn
Thrusting with spirited force into flesh, spilt entrails as water,
Followed it through with discretion, and turned to a knave with his blade drawn —
Picture the effort: the sword, at its full weight over its full length,
Staunchly defies weak hands, so a maimed man needs a solution:
Keeping my fore-arms cross-wise tight and compact so my pull-strength
Leveraged well, can suffice counteracting my limb destitution —
Raising it over me fiercely, but courage resurged in my bowels,
Lunging I seized of his torso and wrestled him down to the fallow,
Pinning him, striking him hard for his dirk as he scuffled and howled,
Taking it, slashed him, his viscera slid from his clutches as tallow;
Whence I withdrew of my sword from the earlier scuffle and tarried,
Scanning the cleft and observing a handful of harlots distressing,
Seven or more in undress, with a few who were wounded they carried,
Bleeding or otherwise dead as mistaken assaults were progressing,
Baring their corpulent nakedness free, a disgraceful appearance
Custom in barbarous contests and vivid in crass definition,
Which nonetheless was disturbing, but lest I be dared interference
Toward their harlotry’s wages, I legged it with sharp intuition
Circling south to the possible neck sought out by the flighted
Leading to treacherous ridges around salt flats and the north sea,
Where I was met with combatants, the two sword-swinging, excited,
Possibly drunken opponents of foreign complexion cerac’ous and swarthy,
Swiftly maneuvering, cunning and brash in their movements and bare limb,
Wily indeed, but I rather possess bronze heft than their guile,
Cleaving the air with contempt, and the right one goaded to square him,
Closing our distance and bobbing about with his blade in pestiferous style,
Peddling back with a leap with my strokes as the other, astraddle,
Swiped at my flank, but the benefit thus of a scimitar mighty:
Once it connects, it dissevers and ends the exasperate battle,
Meeting his hip with a sickening crunch as I, wielding it lightly,
Cut it across much swifter than anyone might have expected
Splitting his girdle in twain, and his comrade was sullen to witness,
Doubling back to the southern suffocation and fled undirected;
Two of his swipes bored blood-founts, coating my body in slickness,
Wounds I was worried of not, these far from a fatal prognosis,
Barring me not from collecting the spoils of war from my slain foe
Draped in a mantle, with breast-plate, turban and tassels of Moses,
Tied by a delicate sash with the hues of a Tyrian rainbow;
This was a Jew of diasporan affluence, running with cold thieves,
Possibly one in another conjuncture we maybe be well-met:
Flashing an intricate scythe with a scabbard begilded in gold leaves,
Proved he was once Sicarim — most violent persuasion of Zealot,
Raising the question of whence he had come to be known with the sordid;
Either he stole it from one or belonged to the sect as a member,
Matching his dress to the cause, and in sore circumstances aborted,
Caught in the lust of the spoil and lit by its sinister ember,
Joined by a comrade in avarice, heritage, mint and maneuvers
Fleeing as soon as the circumstance changed to the worse from the better;
Whither he ventured is subject to only the mind and its rumors,
Thus for the moment, content with the loot as promised in letter,
Deed and by custom, I donned all his raiments in prompt combination,
Tying the scythe to the breast-plate, then I returned to the fray’s midst
Only a span from my slain as it swelled to a brute collocation
Swinging with reckless abandon, eliciting spray-mist,
Dark and of warm flow, after my swings and defiling my raiment,
Down to the last man: pleading for life with us butchers with deaf ears,
Cutting him down; and we took all their ladies and beasts in enslavement,
Gathered in one flock, panicked and sounding their moans expressed fears,
Taken by those of a worse breed toward a fate as a spoil,
Others were gathering booty from now-cold bandits as raptors;
Neither was what I desired as wages for battle and toil,
Even the glory of combat, among our inglorious chapters,
Came to be stale, but the feast in the soak of my vengeance enraptured,
Whetting the appetites darkly with sons of my fathers preceding,
Slain as they stood, with no man to be seen as defected or captured,
Only possessions they stole, all dispersed in the triumph proceeding,
Each of the bandits with histories spilled on the rocks and its tan dust,
Names unremembered and none with a mother expectantly waiting,
Wives with a bath drawn, neither a child to provide as a man must,
Only the whips of indifferent winds as they run, fluctuating,
Kissing their faces with neither a tear nor a sound of compunction,
Withering each as the soil consumes their remains into nothing,
Swallowing bones as oblations, and bathed in their blood as an unction,
Witness to God for the fate of our race all condemned to our suff’ring,
Evils we hoist on ourselves, and so, hoisting myself on a mud-ledge,
There I surveyed the tableau of the battle’s detritus with wry gaze,
Sword on my lap, flat, mindlessly running a thumb on its blood-edge
Having deserted the riot of those who were now on the high-ways
Carrying plunder and carrying out their disastrous compulsions
Met on the road to volitional slavery; now as the sun melts,
Each of the bodies, unburied and naked, are likened to cushions
Piled haphazardly, puce-hued votives for vultures and none else:
Searching among these, one I had skirmished was notably absent,
Kin to the noble I slew with maneuvers and nimble performance,
Once I had noticed, the air was becoming progressively stagnant
Which to my sense was confirming a thing of no paltry importance,
That I am not so perturbed or distressed or concerned with apparels
While the day fled; shadows extended, obscured by the hood-peaks:
Torpid a scene in the glow of the pale-rot, likened to beryls,
Putrid with death but alight with its slickness, deprived of a good peace,
Caught me in wonder to whence my opponent had gone on, surviving,
After I glared on the odious gallery minute to hour
Seeing no sign of him, making me curious, set for descending,
Crept on the ridge to the dead end south and its corridor dour,
Leaping with flies and abuzz with the buzzards, with nothing extending,
Nothing permitting escape; but I crossed to the crest of the mud-slope,
Hearing a faintest but audible noise with the zephyrs — a whistle? —
Then I observed it, a narrow incision in stone and a cut rope,
Gaping enough for a man to descend to its hollow abyssal,
Hidden and somewh’t unclearly connected, but see, nonetheless here,
Thence had the bandit perhaps been routed in heat of engagement
While we battled above (and we joined blind eye to our deaf ear),
Knowing it burrowed to refuge; I hardly contained my amazement
Wondering where his escape led, that he deserted in right haste
Knowing the path for departure without search? thus I encircled,
Cautiously slinking around to avoid that hideous light paste
Formed by the bodies of men who were slain, as their viscera curdled,
Bare as the women they gathered in camp, who were now in the distance,
Whence I had come, as for now I remained to assess a direction
Thence in the midst of a cool, dry whip of the wind’s intermittence
Where the lacuna was headed, a tunnel defying detection;
Languor had settled on me and demanded the rest it entitled
After my exercise this day, though I continued inspection,
Till I at last had established the hole as a cistern suspiral,
Hearing familiar running of water and, noting contritely,
That it was near spring-heads and so likely was feeding a basin,
Whereto and whence? I embark and I vault on the precipice lightly,
Much as a ram or a goat, and I unnecessarily hasten
Scaling the side of the cliff-face till I am facing the sky south
Almost a victim to slipping, but caught of myself and proceeded,
Leaving my sword on a ridglet below; I with suddenly dry mouth,
Hissed at the sight, at the monument recently Rome had conceded,
Fortress Masada: the scythe I had taken belonged to Zealot,
Called Sicarim, and the cistern I think I have found is their holding
Coursing a path in the stone to the former command of the prelate
Now in the clutches of rebels withdrawn from their tumult unfolding,
Keeping a vigil from mighty a pillar of sky in plateau court,
There were the brigands responsible, gathering bandits we struck down,
Even perhaps (I am musing) begetting the pitiless cohort
Whom had enkindled my valley and filled all the cisterns I dug ’round,
Though at the least, it was these and their kind as were froward with riot
Sentencing Israel sieges upon Mount Zion, and ruin —
Battle again was acreep in my blood, and I questioned it quiet:
What have I done? to myself? to my race? by my vengeful solution?
Always I lusted for death I believe, for I killed in my drear youth,
Taking the life of a mortal, and since I have grieved of my stained soul;
Now it is deeply engraved on my terrorized flesh as a dear truth,
Mutating mine own spirit and body, a changed and sustained whole,
Which I observed for the first time once as a boy from my father
After we hunted a stag and had cleaned it, the blood for oblation,
Something I said was uncouth in comparing a murder to slaughter:
Turning his eyes to my own with a fear and disturbed adumbration,
Never again did he meet mine gaze up until he was buried;
Eyes, yea, these I compared: to the slow disappearance of motion,
Windows of soul and the fount of the anima consciousness ferried
Turning to glass as the last waves fled from the ocular ocean,
Till all the life in the blood had departed to God and it ceases,
Golden in origin comes to an end both dusky and reddened,
Still and no longer disturbed, cord cut and the spirit releases:
This it had feared from the start, and the dead call tolls as was threatened;
What am I, having observed both man and the lesser domin’ons
Sharing the same fate? yea, I revealed on my soul an opaque stain,
Fault is my own: for the interior man is betrayed by opin’ons,
That in my words I disclose of my being, my language will make plain,
Read it again: for I hungered for flesh in the lecherous manner,
Hungered for flesh to appease starved bronze, and enjoyed it immensely;
Violence is violence, for under a blanket or under a banner
Lonely existence is whelmed to the tendons, I feel it intensely,
Either remits to me grave satisfaction, a kind of defiance,
That I am cursed on the face of the Earth to be ever divided,
Riven at rivets and scarcely endure in committing the violence
Till it has soaked to my principle: blood flushed, passions excited,
Knowing a power, but more than control — I connect as a causal,
Make it my own, not that I have sought to be God by my quarrels,
Rather from solitude bursting I quicken, becoming the docile
That I have taken, to still be the loneliest child of mortals.
marching to the camp • the battle begins
victory and despoiling • a Zealot escaped by a tunnel
it leads to Masada • reflecting on shedding blood