Damascus, Movement Six

One of the lesser considered of the "Damascus" series of poems, about the early evolution of the poet's relationship with his second wife, this piece is very typical of the author's reputation, layered with Biblical and mythological allusions.

Damascus, Movement Six

"For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I
found also an altar with this inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What
therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. " - Acts 17:23, RSV

So many mythologies. So little time.
I have knelt at many an altar, breathing the incense
meant, I thought, for me, only to see the flowers
left wilting in the sacrificial urn while gynomorphic gods
played games in the name of broken vanities.

My pelt adorns many a trophy room wall, mated and matted,
like some albinistic wolverine taken in mid rut, cut down
and made something to take out and show friends
to prove that the bearer is, after all, someone or something
to be respected, even revered, like the muse of a poet.

And on my way to throw myself before the juggernaut,
I find an old prayer. A philosopher, stoned, posing riddles
that skitter like cold water on a hot campfire griddle
as we plunder our souls for answers already sold for comfort
when couer rage was too rare a commodity, and the night was long.

I will drink no more venoms of vanity. I will worship no more
the deities I have fashioned with my own hands, placing on pedestals
I carried from the stoneyard boneyards of yesteryear and yesterthought.
For illusions add up to naught when the calculations are carried
to the full seven digits and we fidget in the electric chair of judgment.

Too many idols have called me acolyte. Too many robes of a priest
have I worn for the comfort of belonging to choir where the song
is like stale blood on my tongue, a dung beetle does not make fire
from the droppings of camels, we merely wish it were so. And lies
to ourselves are the most powerful of eloquences we can fall to.

The presence of light does not destroy all shadows, but merely exiles
them to a proper distance. In contrast with the madness made measure
of a time of amomancy made mockery in the coliseums of a Rome
across two millennia and three thousand miles or so, I am unpersecuted
by all but my own nagging doubts and regretful recollections.

I have found my unknown deity. I proclaim my unknown deity.
And, come what may, I will stand in my faith until the wraiths of wrath
rain down their keening cries of Apocalypse and the folly of faith
is proven to have been the only wisdom left in a world of harlequins
who were merely colorblind to the spectrum they stood astride, to die.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.