A Poetic Interlude

COMPOSITE – F. SCOTT WEITZ – MADNESS IN POETIC FORMS VARIABLE

[(Afterlife)↑↓ (Laughing with Lynda) by F. Scott Weitz (with Estella Fernandez-Weitz)
©F. Scott Weitz (This book is dedicated to my sister: Lynda Jean Bock-Weitz: 1959-2005) ©Estella Fernandez-Weitz]
(The traditional-verse poetry of Francis Scott Weitz)
[!Traditional verse with a kick – and a wicked sense of humor!]

[*I used to read for speed because so much, to learn, I wished *until I realized how much, by hurrying, I missed.]

[Redundant Passages]↓ (Eric Howard Weitz 1963-1965)

I never knew, father, my brother as a man.
As a man, never could my brother have known me.
Father, the pain you felt, I’ll never understand.
Painful enough it was when, left, each of you three.
I speak with you sometimes when morning fills my room.
Rising, I look inside myself where I might find
you, my mother, my sister – never my brother.
I look. It seems he’s never moved inside my mind.
I imagine you’re all with me – each one inside.
Yes, you may hide behind my eyes. I will conceal
the pain I’m glad to foster so that you, anew,
may live. One day I hope my brother may reveal
that within me he remains though he is silent.
Perhaps my brother moves - but calm and very deep.
Maybe, one morning I’ll glimpse him in the mirror,
Light making clearer he whom I’ve seen when I sleep.
I’ll, these ghosts, keep with me as long as I remain,
retain the memories which I can quite often touch -
to hold as real the feeling you are yet with me.
Never believe the pain is ever just too much.
I’m calling to you brother. You may come to me.
Your mother, sister will be glad that this has passed.
The emptiness your father, for so very long,
felt now has gone for we’re as one, brother, at last.

[Morning]↓ (Lynda 1959-2005)

Your second husband was kinda kinky./ Your third was such an ass.
Too bad that diagnosis came so late./ ‘Oh well, this too shall pass’
I thought before you left the second guy./ The first was very nice.
You kept changing religions. What was up with that –
some cosmic roll of the dice?
Love ya babe. I gotta go now sister./ I’d rather be in bed.
No, no, I like just fine talking with you,/ the ghost inside my head.
But, wait; is mother calling now?/ Come back again real soon.
Maybe not quite so early next time, sweetheart, though –
and, please, night’s better than noon.
Remember, I’ve got many things to do./ Time is so insistent.
Life is mere distraction – our dad might say./ but, it’s quite persistent.
I miss you sister. I’ll, now, say goodbye./ I’ll see you soon enough.
But, I don’t really want to think about that now.
Our kids think they’ve got it rough.

Screw it: you stay here as long as you like sister.
Life is short – so take your time.
Counterintuitive is just what I live for –
Talking to myself ….sublime.

[My sister, Lynda, lost a long + painful battle with breast cancer – despite, believe it or not, being told by her apparently clueless doctors, late in the process, that she was cured.]

[Mother]↓ (Love + Life + Time)

Mother, I hold with no religion, but at a certain cue,
I hold the windows open that have allowed we two to view
each other, and then to, once again, share love and life and time
as we did last time I held your hand and spoke to you a rhyme
that your mother spoke to hers before, and you, in turn, to her
of this passing love and life and time. It still makes my heart stir
when I think of you and yours and mine together through the years.
And, there is a joy, each time, I feel beneath each sorrow’s tears.
So, when we two next meet to repeat the words of ageless rhyme,
speak, for me, the words I wrote for you of love and life and time.

For Jean Estelle Watson-Weitz (1928 – 2001)

[A Desperado’s Obit]↓ (A Traditional-Verse Poem)
[A version of this poem was first published in (The Lyric – the oldest magazine in North America in continuous publication devoted to traditional poetry) by the grace of editor Jean Mellichamp Milliken. Thank you Jean.]

Billy was a cactus. The kid would slip beneath the sun,
Hide there among the needles, peering from behind a gun.
The tell-tale smoke of powder would arise …and, with it, night -
reveal the odd relationship that shadow has with light.
A prickly kind of business is fame earned by methods mean -
to coldly calculate the cost …then buy it sight unseen.
I wish I could have met him. I’d have cut him down and run.
I’d have cast a shadow darker - my back turned to the sun.
On the dry, hard ground, Fort Sumner, on a plaque by Billy’s stone,
my name would live in infamy …six feet above his bones.

Francis Scott Weitz Albuquerque, New Mexico

[This Sh#t is …Getting Old.]↓

*Life is all but over – over sixty. The afterlife, my very old friend, is now.
*Noisy, clueless children dictate the terms. ‘I want it now.’ ‘I want it now – and how!’
*I’m not BIPOC or LGBTQ. I’m old-school quadrosexual.
*Well, I still think I’d do anything for a quarter. I’m ‘queerly’ intellectual.
*I’m only a quarter Yiddish. ‘You may submit your writing for free…if you’re Black.’
*My childhood home was very small. If I could find my White privilege, I’d give it back.
*Cocaine was my recreational drug of choice long ago. Now, it’s ibuprofen.
*The number symbol is now a hashtag. Young man, my eyes are still wide open.
*That’s why I didn’t speed through the gap. A car, jerk, was coming the other way.
*Get on your horn, I’ll slow down even more. I’ll take the time with you, fool, to play.
*I do not need Viagra every time. My wedding ring is my personal shield.
*I let the young gals see it before they get defensive – tell the old man to yield.
*I’ve made no advances toward you dear. It’s called communication, being civil.
*Intelligence is what gets me hot these days. With you, there’s nothing there to shrivel.
*Let’s face it, mating rituals were always strange. I’ve just slowed down enough to see
*that constant excitement is way overrated - and it tends to sap one’s energy.
*I’ve got a wife. Yes, we still get down. Yes, it’s a little harder to get back up.
*I let my youngest son program my iphone while I make myself another cup
*of coffee. That’s the thing for me. But, of course, another blood-pressure pill
*may just slow me down a little bit too much. In that case, I know for sure I will
*let it happen – nice and easy. We see that time is precious; so I’ll take it slow.
*I certainly will not run to reach the end my friend. It will be here soon enough. I know.

[Relativity]↓

The star emits a light the night allows to wander by.
And, tails of comets whisper that the dark is deep on high.
Reflections of the moon reveal what’s known – cradled in lie.
The truth is out there. This I know – and so, brother, am I.

[To The Past, We All Are Bound]↓ (Father + Son)
[A version of this poem was, like ‘A Desperado’s Obit’, published in (The Lyric) of Jericho Corners, Vermont + Savannah, Georgia.]

My father moved with tides. I find time moves, with me, the same.
Were I to find the words, I’d touch this ocean in his name,
increase the volume of the depths with soon forgotten tears,
and hope my sons may do the same when, claim me, do the years.
My father lives within my sons. Perhaps I will remain
as tears upon the seas as they repeat this sad refrain.
I will look out from deep within your eyes with love my son
as you in time reflect alone, another day now done,
or hear in echoes of your child’s words spoken for you,
‘My love lives here.’ And, in those eyes, you’ll see these words are
true.

So, steal away in hours of darkness. Fill the void again
with moonlight made of thoughts colored by all that glows within.
For fragments of refracted day, as dreams resolved to sight,
recall a time when you and I might move ‘neath sails of night.
Pray, let me ride upon the waters that your words evoke.
For sons and daughters, waves like fire, we’re embers in the smoke.

[For Frank Weitz sr. (1927 – 1996), for Jason Ualesi + Matthew Malua Weitz, for Hector Highland Weitz]
#by F. Scott Weitz #© F. Weitz #Albuquerque, NM. #UMass, Amherst (English + Journalism) class of 1984

[doggone]↓

A pile of dog I came upon ….next to a stain of cat.
Sad to think a child’s pet might end up quite like that – ‘ker-splat’.
But, if I’d swerved the day before, then I may have, bereft,
the poor parents of the child with the dog on the long leash, left.

[Beyond Knowledge]↓ (If Then)

I’m dead already. Well, posthumous fame is really what I wanted.
Who needs the aggravation of accolades? My writing is haunted
by all the people that I’ve known who live alone now in paradise –
perhaps a couple in someplace else that isn’t really quite as nice –
like, maybe, in a damp and dark hole. Eternity must truly stink
if you’re the sucker who killed yourself with all the drugs and
drink.
Maybe she finally got the dosage right. Did he figure out the way
to sense an endless night encroaching – beyond, reach the
approaching day?

And, might I find you here now that I find it’s nowhere I have to be?
Maybe, alone, we’ll each feel at home. So all alone you felt with
me.
They were, of course, right to believe. I believe now nothing is more
real
Then to feel that sense of reeling. Knowing nothing’s far too real
to feel.
If I could live forever alone with you, I would surely do it.
Knowing what we both do now, I’m sure you’d agree there’s nothing
to it.

[Ovation]↓ (Afterlife)

Your trials are incredible. Your courage is immense.
We know that when, upon this act, the curtain’s, sister, drawn,
it is you for whom, with admiration, we will arise –
the one we will, Lynda, shower so much praise upon.
It’s been written that truth is stranger than could be fiction.
Eyes to the sky, I swear that I am down upon my knees –
demanding that he, behind the stage, impose restriction.
In the interest of taste, I beg the silent author please,
allow us, this audience, to speak with admonition.
The fans of this brave woman, we cry out – in one pained voice.
We would witness now, from you, an act of sweet contrition,
witness the writer, in simple righteousness, now rejoice.
Your trials were incredible. Your courage was immense.
If justice had a role, then the play were better ended.
But, truth is often cruel, and, having found a talent true,
it’s you for whom this part the artist coldly engendered.
Your courage was immense. Your trials are now, sister, all over.
Your daughters, left behind, move, Lynda, from the theater dark.
And, back upon my knees, with my head lowered to the ground,
I know alone I must to my own, sister, now embark.

I’ll pray not for your children. They’re alone. I wish them well.
Pray fund a cure. Save our daughters from doing time in hell.

(If you honestly believe that life goes on after we die, please, please continue to do so. No sentient being with an expiration date should be fully cognizant of that fact. The older I get – the more I believe …that this is true.)

[The Temporal Infinite]↓

The atmosphere, by light, appears illusion
for we know the night is real beyond the pale.
Reflection that the sea fosters confusion’s
an admission that our vision is unreal.
The sea is blue, and though it may seem, by night, to blacken,
slacken mere the grip that plays upon your mind –
as translucent games of youth in the watery shallows past,
as memories in the sands now left behind.
I thought the light that shone as if from heaven, or just for me,
would bid the boundaries of forever never set me free.
[Herein, Lies, the Truth] – © F. Scott Weitz

*I could, something to you terribly clever, say. There’s surely, you will see, poison in this strange pen.
*I’ll borrow thoughts of some old sage … almost forgotten – allow that wisdom, through me, to live again.
*I see an ending irresolute …quite clearly. I feel it powerfully in my mortal chest.
*Sometimes I find myself agreeing …nearly - in the larger context, imagine a final rest.
*Before a conclusion you see must be drawn, might I capture the look of true fear in these eyes –
*or must I, for the sake of my children …of you …or of yours, resolve with artistry to disguise
*what really need I not imagine for I have, after all, deep within myself seen that the truth
*comes almost as wretched contagion that eats away, austerely, at the foundation of those proofs
*which we tell ourselves so that others might listen, and might then not, from true ugliness, turn away.
*I can’t help but see, within arguments seemingly black and white, colors dissolve to shades of gray.
*Yes, I see there is obvious wisdom in the acceptance of that which we know surely must be.
*I’ll hide the terror of that vision between the lines, a condition of just how much one might see.
*Alone is where the clearest perception of pain is apparent – for it resides within the self.
*Writer, sterilize that vague conception, return such great awful tomes unto the cold, lonely shelf
*were must they occupy the private spaces that will remain almost unnoticed as we pass on …
*only the words that may ease the celebrated passage of all but those who have silently gone.
*This fear is often my companion. Sometimes, I’ve quite thankfully far better things myself to do.
*Sometimes, the tears we must abandon. I leave thoughts of them now to comfort you strange and troubled few
*who would look right through my aged eyes only to see then behind the words which I, to myself, keep.
*I have honestly told you of these precious lies that must lie here with us …alone until we sleep.
*Thank you precious few for seeing clearly and nearly bringing, in my most difficult times, some rest.
*You have allowed me, through the tears that I have for you shed, to see beyond myself …at your behest.
*Herein, lies the truth I espouse for truth virtually must be, we believe, wherein wisdom does lie.
*Among my betters, has it been proven that wisdom may live on. The words of mere mortals must die.
*I look to you often to find that truth which I imagine I may see behind your perceptive strange eyes -
*as clearly as would I, if I could, have you see beyond the words I merely arrange as disguise.

[The Facts About Fiction]↓

Samuel Clemens followed Orion west by sky of star.
A Huckleberry Finn-like tale; to fail, and to win – and far.
He burned his forest down. And, yonder, was his mine claimed, then jumped.
Of calaveras county, the jumping-frog typewriter thumped.
Virginia city scripted mayhem and mischief. Such a pen!
To ride in on a comet’s tale; and to ride it out again.
A haunted, haunting irony – twinkle in his sky refrain.
To whisper back to Earth below how the Mark remains yet Twain.

[A Picture of Stella]↓ (Stella Stephenson- grandmother)

Stella looks out from this picture with eyes that see as new.
The glow of sun now fain begun in 1922.
As callow youth the day is all. She thinks not where she lies.
The night is naught but rest, and dreams dissolve as morning dies.

[Communication]↓ (w/ my wife, Estella Fernandez-Weitz)

I just received a call from Lynda. Yes, I’m aware that Lynda’s dead.
Yes, I’m getting old. I suppose it could be a ringing in my head.
No, I can’t afford cocaine anymore. That was quite some time ago.
I drink quite moderately - and it’s not yet noon. Yes, I’d tell you so.
Oh, I should see a doctor huh? Even better – a psychiatrist?
You think ‘more drugs’ is, then, the answer. Is there something that,
dear, I’ve missed?
No, it’s not a silly lie to cover up a very nasty deed.
‘The Day of the Dead’, ‘the evil eye’ are real – but this you don’t
believe?
Alright, just hang up. I know. I know. You say you’ve finally heard it
all.
Yea, yea; I’ll call you later. I gotta go. I’m waiting on a call.

(Love you E. – mi amor verdadero) - Frank

[An Apology]↓

Friend, you must forgive me; I’m a pagan.
I worship mainly birds and trees.
So, when you’re walking through the forest,
You see me prostrate – upon my knees,
Don’t think ill of me. Give me some space.
Let me commune in my own way.
I’ll not knock down those gilded church doors –
So I may, then, tell you how to pray.
If you see me talking to a tree,
think the percher flips out at my word -
remember, only for myself I speak.
It’s not for you I flip the bird.

[Alone Apart – Another Fall]↓

Trees for hills, and winds to climb – garrulous sky of pink and gray.
I’ll up and down ‘till black and brown make reticent the day.
A lonely and didactic walk – my children to embrace.
From temporal roads not leading home, my loneliness to chase.
The beauty of these colors, rippling mind on distant sea,
reminds me, for a time, we are all of ubiquity.

[After Life]↓ (My Own)

The ‘afterlife’ ….we live right here./ We walk in shadows old.
Pain’s the companion we have left./ Morphine’s no longer sold.
Clear minded at the trigger pull/ - oh, what a f#cking drag.
If weed is what I wanted sis’,/ I’d climb inside that bag.
It smells so good. I was a head/ so many years ago.
I’ll leave my brains upon the page/ ….let all those strange thoughts
flow.

[For Mother]↓ (Jean Estelle Watson-Weitz)

You closed your eyes and, without fright,
lay down to face that final night.
And, if those who believe are right,
to heaven may you now take flight.

(I love you mother. Goodbye.) –your son, Frank xxoo

[A Prayer for the Dying]↓ (That’s you.)

It’s not all sh#ts and giggles – dealing with the dead.
Sometimes it gets real heavy – so I laugh instead
of crying. I’m, too, dying. I’ll want you to call
sometimes ….to laugh or not. There are no rules at all.
Read all I have written. You’ll get it soon enough.
Google the words you don’t know. It’s not very tough
to follow if you recall quietly to bleed.
Gently always should you fall. Never, please, speed read.

The End


The Last Word (by Francis Scott Weitz)

I’m rotting in a hole. My soul? I am dead – as is my brain.
‘If only I believed’ you say, ‘I’d live’. I say – please refrain
from childish thoughts that lift you up. I am long past rising now.
Believers might console themselves. Me – I never quite learned how
to convince myself that resurrection represents the truth,
or reincarnation is so clearly where points all the proof
that mortals have convinced themselves will one day let them fly high.
Only the honest, the intelligent, truly ever die.
I’ll lay, not lie, among my peers. Fears, I’ll face. I will be brave.
It’s alright if, when I’m gone, some cry beyond my lonely grave.
It’s as natural as getting old. What’s physical will fail.
The truth is just the truth; and, I swear, reality is real.
Comfort the young ones and the old - for too short, I know, is life.
Laugh and love, think, compromise, for words can be the sharpest knife.
Thank you, Estella. You did so much to make me often feel
that, though a fool I am, you would not, your love for me, conceal.
I revealed, I’m sure, too much for you – but truth you handled well.
Thanks for smiling when I said, ‘It’s time for me to go to hell’.
Picture me down here with Darwin, Vonnegut and all the rest.
We are laughing, happy …warm! Wishes -we send you all our best.

(A Memory of Now) ©F. Scott Weitz 2024 (A Prose Poem)

The detritus of memory colors my past. But, I really don’t like to cry. -Fragments of freebasing with a colorful woman I knew after college. For two years, I lived with her. -Broken memories here are few. -Hudson, Massachusetts -1987. Wait; the pictures left now are as purple as my prose. But, I must be tired. I just need sleep. I’ll do what I promised I’d do …when I get home. I’ll put on some music that puts me in a very different state of mind …right now.
If I didn’t know better, I’d consider that period of our lives as bordering on the artistic. But, I know better -don’t I? The mirror upon the past, as did Barbara, kindly lies. Oh, please -don’t think about that now. I only hit her once. I’ve beaten myself up about it many times. No, I can’t even see her now – past the goddamn tears. I don’t care what that man thinks. I’ve got a tire checker right there on the passenger seat …if he cares to get stupid. I can do stupid …still.
I never cried when I was 25. These colors are almost, in retrospect, inviting. But, I broke my fingers on inanimate objects and other angry young men. They were red and white and broken and dressed in black. I was mad and often fighting. The future held little appeal for us. There was a lot of time to waste …at high speed. -Manny’s Tavern. Duane Beech dragged that guy outside.
Hours ago, you left work. -Street lights through the curtains. -Colors refracted through the snow upon the sill. I’ll go and clean the fish tank. I need to maintain. Yes, I’ll do that too …today. I said I will. So, I will. Do you doubt me? I will. -Albuquerque, New Mexico -2023.
-Then, the past as prelude …to a future grave. -A mirror image. -Features have shifted. It doesn’t matter. The time would yet be spent –whether more wisely ...or in vain. I’m nowhere near as angry as I was. No, I believe back then I was definitely sadder also.
The pictures, in my mind -yellowed, are hard to see. I don’t want to remember. There are more things than ever I need to do -right now. Poetry can be such a troubling and troublesome thing. In reflection, in dreams, we are but children… still. I am staring at the wall. No, I don’t drink much anymore. I prefer now to be lucid …more often than not. Balloon Fiesta was great this year. We went at night this time. I got a sweatshirt with the logo and with the year embroidered.
There is no anger available to make one brave when one’s asleep. I imagine being in stasis for 100 years –and scared. Halfway through college, I walked in dreams ...among those reluctantly waking. -Amherst, Massachusetts -1982. Thank goodness for the imperfection of memory. I remember, not, the pain. Sure, I woke up in jail a couple of times.
For 2 of the 4 years I spent at UMass -on a scholarship -academic- between hits from the bong and hits on the headphones worn very loudly -atop hair grown long and wild and too free to, for too long, remain, I walked in and out of hell. -Yes, one of my own making. I believe it was actual brain damage. Yes, yes; that explains it …indeed.
The thread to which I loosely held -Yes, like a denim jacket …already fading- was a momentary mantra, improvised -and carried like a weapon, repeated in my mind that my feet may find their way without me, deliver me back to my little room …where would my body rest. I think very clearly now. Time even heals that wound. At times, I’m almost sane …and/ or coherent. Busted at the school store in the Student Union building -twice the price of the merchandise …I didn’t get to keep.
-Peace upon the walls there -Pink Floyd -above the little bed, that poster with the green pyramid -a spider plant upon a hook beside the light. -The air so thick around me. -Taut muscles slowly loosening. Yes, we taught ourselves to feel what we had not. Actually, at the time, I thought that being amoral was the way to be. But, too much drug use, in retrospect I’d say, can make one almost evil. Yes, I’d say that a person is rarely or never truly evil -maybe f#cked up. Yes, I’d say the idea of good vs. evil is a simpletons way of viewing any reality.
Pure reason isn’t really something that, it seems, we humans try to achieve. Reflections upon metal surfaces held secrets I can’t remember. But, they were real. I can see them still, now only in shadow. -Imperfect resolution. –Resolved imperfectly. Thankfully, I find memory doesn’t work that way. Oh, do you think so? Think about it more …when you’re alone. Think about it …metaphorically.
My mind works fine. From time to time, my mind works very well. When I write traditional-verse poetry, I often see rhythms forming clearly. And, I wrote a dictionary for writers -OK, for myself …to this point.- that has been of great assistance -through many rhymes. Sometimes, I can chew gum and walk straight …if I really pay attention to detail. -Arlington, Texas -2002.
Yet, I hear not a thing –not anymore. I’m not tormented– not by that. I have a blind spot to remind me of when I stumbled. -And, yes, I did fall down. I cannot see the wary eyes of strangers about me when I go back there these days, feel my own confusion as an imprecation against each. What the hell did we wonder then? Could we stay high forever? I was burned for sure by that strange experiment …on myself.
But, the echoes of their unsympathetic voices died so long ago. And, the memory of a pain profound is just a scar- hardened, a lesson made, by time, inchoate, and, in an odd way, rendered colorless. Yes, I’ve read her stuff. And, yes; I find it quite appealing.
I pray that state will not, with age, descend again upon me darkly. In dreams, I fear the child who may return. I would really rather some things remain with him alone. I sincerely hope that some extraordinary places I’ll not be required to revisit.
Upon the grass of Autumn long ago, beneath a tree, another boy lay with the leaves upon the earth. In the gloaming, colors dim to mere clarity -magnification comes …to mind. Yet, the stark, clear beauty of those memories hold another kind of sorrow. -Ashland, Massachusetts -1975.
The amber, rose and rusted sky above me is forever. Ripples, like echoes upon the water, fill my eyes. My wife’s father cries for his wife alone. His mind flees to the past –where, was, he perfect. Where will, he now wonders, my perfect body rest? -Walking home from high school- the only one in town. Communication was not a strength -I must admit. -It’s merely true. But, ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’. I’d learn that soon enough. It’s benefitted me a time or 2 since then.
He is the bully once again -and not a tired old man …who often terrorized the women in his life. It’s painful to look upon the mess one may, with age, become. -Discolored, dismayed. -Undone by deprivations of the flesh …with which he troubled, for so long, the daughters who now lament this inexorable passage. -Some facility for the aged infirmed -in San Angelo, Texas? -I didn’t catch the name.
-From a book …of course. -Another page turned. -Just one final line. In 100 years, will anybody read this? No one will remember. What would Albert Camus say to this? -Hunter Thompson? In movies, the ‘wise’ invariably say that only death brings meaning to life. When it’s time for you to die, tell me if this -in black and white- you still see as truth.
His wife feels guilty for the bruises he deals himself in stumbling, in thrashing -in his refusal to, to the past alone, return. -For, to the past, we are all bound. -Abilene, Texas -2023. -White and red and black again …for me. Feliz, of golden nights, of smoke and whiskey, dreams.
And, in what colors does the father of my wife see his little girl again? Does Estella spin -that blood-red skirt about her flying? -Munday, Texas -1980. His eyes turned to the ceiling -a blue and purple bruise …of memory. What will he see beyond himself …beyond the emptiness of sky remembered?
Is he a child now -again …in living color? The people on the television advertisement are so happy. They’re bright; and they are sure. This hospital wants more than his social security check to secure his spot …his bed. They’re not allowed, by law, to engage the restraints at the sides of that …accommodation – whether for his benefit …or their own.
Does he see Estella standing here before him? Does he see how strong this child has become? Can he see the woman she is through his darkness …vision blurred? Turn the volume down! She takes this old man’s hand now gently ..to quiet a troubled mind. Confused, in pain, he looks to her …in wonder.
Does he know her? Without confusion, she looks at him. Without hesitation, she holds a palsied hand. She will show him love -beyond her own doubts …if only for a while. This morning he woke up angry -talked sh#t to all the nurses. -Lashed out -and injured …himself. Will he remember her kindness? And, will he, this time, smile?

The Lament of Odysseus © F. Scott Weitz

*Listen to me now. Odysseus am I. You are, are we,*
*members who have heard, will hear, this tale of this, our family*
*- of those thoughtful here before us, of those we pray may follow next.*
*Translator of this tale, I’ll sing to leave our sons and daughters vexed*
*as each now gathers ‘round this old man, joined by every vital soul.*
*We shall revive the history spoken, and so together play our role*
*- weave a thread of hoary yesterdays lest tomorrow we forget*
*and loose what’s bound to tie us to what’s not tied fast by us as yet.*
*So watch my stuttered step with your wide and perspicacious, learned mind*
*that you may follow this path true ‘mongst patterns plain, and hard to find.*
*And when this yarn is worsted, may it comfort you to feel*
*the better textures that, with time and touch, are spun on this crude wheel.*

*I see a figure misshapen, beloved of dimmer night.*
*What features draw us to it are but shadows in the light.*
*The clear reproval of the day denying all we held.*
*In tender arms, in tender hearts, the feelings swelled.*
*Don’t cry my dear Penelope. Your son must travel wide to be a man*
*- too young to know that tears may help the heart to understand.*
*Deep, clinging bonds will keep us strong; bind us to this, our place.*
*The wasted hours you toil now to shroud your clear disgrace*
*will make just that much dearer the final time that we must lie*
*while our good neighbors stand in sorrow. Our arms, were their children enfolded by.*
*My faithful wife, thou sure hast doubted, but I have yearned so to be free;*
*and prayed upon the favors of a goddess that, through such intrigues, this might be.*

*My path back homeward thus commences, as this storm rages on*
*beyond the red sun here, disguised as peaceful dawn.*
*From good Phaeacians, came I to you. Death for hospitality, exchanged.*
*See how the laws that govern a god, like water for wind, are rearranged.*
*And slipping from Calypso’s grasp – what pains to fill this cup. Would I have known what now I do, would I return*
*to live again as fluidly, temper the heat of such a goddess, to slake her thirst, to soothe the fire that, for me, burns?*
*With craft, I gained what wiser men might sure have learned to live without.*
*With time, I’d trick the sisters fate, teach gentler gods to foster doubt.*
*But, on such treacherous seas, men pass as six and six and six.*
*They are but coins tossed into the Aegean - a tributary to the Styx.*

[{A Crew of Lotus Eaters: *Then who’s, Odysseus, to doubt the relish with which we next partook of, in our minds, the slow and distant measured beat?*
*We’d wake to ruminate, not on fate, but joy, and, bound by nothing, when we next may deign to linger or to eat.*
*Maybe the gods, it once occurred, are proven mortal; and vain Icarus lives on forever in free flight.*
*I didn’t have to once believe, but merely used my eyes to see him falling, to sense the beauty and the endlessness of this, his plight.*
*We gazed upon the parallax of years, contemplating life divided, as if in twain*
*- at once, to climb aboard and ride this comet’s brilliant tail - once more, to be returned upon the very same.*
*One starless day, rueful Ulysses, turning down many twisted ways, tied to me an anchor, then filled me as a sail.*
*A brother of Orion might hunt the sky for twists and turns, perceive the limits of the light to be merely the darkness through a veil.*}]


*But I, Odysseus, was driven, driving onward. I bound these men, and to my kingly fate returned.*
*How we were blown now to and fro, my hubris and their jealousy - trials that saved, enslaved us, flared and burned.*
*Run swift from giants; their demented cries are only in your ears. The death they wield like rocks, merely a specious claim.*
*Poseidon is your father; and below the huddled waves, nobody waits to, once again, decry your names.*
*Off my attenuating crew on this journey swollen so beyond the precepts that may hold Acean faith*
*- and reduce men to mere wistful things too tied to only knowledge, to but an ending in the ferry of a wraith.*
*Even the faintest sparks might set ablaze imagination in a soul now so impaired, and start reluctantly, with the muse in mind, to wonder*
*how the sound and the fury of a god, as real as any, could mimic our fear beneath the echoed cry of thunder.*
*And knowing better too the path now wasted – having tasted life, having starved, and having gorged,*
*could we truly hope to walk the line the chaste did, hold as anathema all we formed, all that had been forged?*
*On certain days inside the rain, alone, I’m reawakened to the state of mind, it seems to me, that madness must replace.*
*And, imagining the time I’ve purchased simply unaware, recalls a void I may prefer simply not to face.*
*Yet, I will stand for myself; I will not be charged reticent – perhaps laconic if the stratagem pertains.*
*As long as I am counted, with the few or all alone, when all are left to gasp, and grope for what remains.*


*So, onward, ever onward, sometimes onward through the weaving, broken labyrinth of what often linear passes.*
*We fool ourselves that love and ease may give some brief reprieve, but slop like pigs when e'er not braying more like asses.*
*And time, we tell ourselves, is circular in nature, forever working back itself in graceful flow.*
*But all’s a rut, a cock to strut; so proudly do we bear a chain about the waist, with iron balls to drag below.*
*Still there is, of course, an art to this illusion; and, though the vision passes, we may yet touch a vestigial trace.*
*I’ve walked through hell for revelation, and endured the conversation, that I may know the path, and how, thereon, my foot to place.*
*But only id are we to the great ego of a god. Not unconditionally, gives one who comes to us as a cold storm.*
*It is a far, far better thing I do and place to where I go; the frail embrace of a truer love will help to keep me warm.*
*As a polemic for ease of interpretation, or the deus ex machina as obvious as air,*
*picture the bounds of all as a minor remonstration, or the endlessness of nothing beyond there.*
*And, so the limits are so easily defined, as rarely seen without the gimlet human eye;*
*disabusing one who thought he rose above his station – me, an apostate caught in such a complex lie.*
*The siren sings too of revelation. A brave man struggles so to loose these earthly bonds*
*- to fit the rope about his neck that tied him to the mast, to touch the vision beauty hides, then deftly dons.*
*Were I to walk in beauty of cloudless climbs or depthless night, and so lose my sight, only Achilles in regret*
*could understand, and sing with joy of unsung heroes that, knowing restraint, shut their eyes, and stopped their ears, remembering what’s better to forget.*

*Still I would, you, so lament that, seeing clearly, never faltered; and never failed to pass as ships pass in such a night*
*- for stars must be concealed, and moonlight yet must surely yield, or pale beneath the shadows sealed in only dawning light.*
*There is a choice we make between life and truly living – to sacrifice, or lose much more in lesser time.*
*Tempted, tormented, and in tatters, I’m clinging to pure inspiration, but driven mad by the need to always fit the rhyme.*


[{The Crew Upon the River Styx: *We are dead, and herded off to hell. We stood as shallow portrayals in another man’s tale – in his shadow*
*– discordant notes in an unsung tune now, as always …as never. And still the truth from which we hide, we surely would know.*
*Ragged claws scuttling is the sound of jingling coins in the pocket of that shrouded thing before us; and, after, naught.*
*Yet all are players minor, come to nothing in the end – if might we learn what history has in the end, in our ending, truly taught.*}]

*In war and peace, no power more cunning than the elements alone; a natural hazard in the guise of seas becalmed*
*must tempt us to believe this is the gift it seems to be, without an end, without a price due to whom it’s from.*
*And, shall I bow down to the master, a slave upon the Earth; so very grateful that, for chance, I did survive*
*- or, cursing, stand as witness to the nature of this beast, perceived a fool? No element’s alive!*
*Sometimes existing here, it seems alone, we find ourselves thinking the means might be by ends, then, justified.*
*The mind within a depth of cave may distort a simple vision. And I’ve wondered if that distortion appears to be a light before our eyes.*
*For, in my mind’s retrospective admonition, shadows reveal, perhaps, I may have gone astray*
*- just as the time Athena shone her light, and, eschewing not deception, did conceal from me what I now, for, must pray.*



*So, as experience has shown, for very high I too have flown, such proffered insights may make receptive a man’s mind.*
*The tempest time might seem a ripple on the surface, or mere hyperbole, for one who, such things, may divine.*
*A shadow moves across the hall, his brow, a ghostly pallor in the dearth of noble light*
*where, piously, Amphinomus may contemplate the shaft, feel but embittered at the virtue of his plight.*
*Inhospitable omens, blood oaths, birds of prey! In genuflection, nothing feebler crawls than man;*
*and, if I were a god, in the guise of a righteous gale, I’d tear the structure down and surely understand.*
*And, so, the roads divergent reconnect. The bow is bent as Agamemnon, peaceful, sleeps.*
*Locked are the doors; and, locked within our minds, our story nears an end. Penelope, from just off stage, yet gently weeps.*



*The prescient are the few who chance may favor – sacrificed flesh to sheath these intrigues like a knife.*
*The miserable ones, whom blinded justice has pursued, shall be embraced by that dark river like a wife.*
*So speaks the humbler servant who has done as he was bid. I stood erect, I swear, unmoving as the tree.*
*But, in the reflection of the schemer, the warrior, the dreamer, I’ve viewed the deeper part that longs merely to be.*
*I have divulged in these distortions, through the exigencies of opaque vision, what’s axiomatic to a more-transparent soul.*
*By inconsistent, forced, and repetitious ramblings, I’ve allowed a fool to herein play a sage’s role.*
*Truly, I have been but a conduit, mere words to mask my mortal shame*
*- here exhuming for your pleasure, once again, the Son of Pain.*