July 21, 2003
"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." A Son's Soliloquy: I am a man of my times: I owe what I am to you: You are my country, my father, my maker, my destroyer -- my god of war, my angel of perpetual enmity: I am able to glimpse, now and again, how it happened: How the pain and panic drove me to this state: The staggering doubt, the endless hyper-vigilance, the reflexive flinching, the need to keep my head down, the relentless anxiety, the clenched jaw line, the clamped teeth, the cramped bowels, the ceaseless remorse, the sudden fury, the empty appetite, the constant companionship of regret, the nagging feeling that something vital has been lost -- Your rage, good god! -- It was your rage that conferred these things upon me -- And it's not only me: Look around you: It has decimated and diminished all that it has touched.... You: My father, my leader, my country, my God have beaten, bribed, threatened and manipulated me into withholding so much of what is within me (the myriad responses, reactions, impulses, memories, hopes, dreams, protests, imaginings, reflections, ruminations, rants, ridiculous assertions, out of context epiphanies, scores to settle, apologies to proffer, sighs, moans, grunts, howls, bleating, chittering, various guttural sounds and utterances of high-pitched keening...) -- You: My father, my leader, my country, my God have forced me to push it all down and for so long now that I can't even begin to take stock of all I have locked away within me to languish: Is there a retarded child chained in my brain's basement room, an idiot savant, drooling algorithms, gibbering Goethe and Wittgenstein; perhaps, there is a mad aunt muttering vile incantations in the attic, imprecating the house with woe and contretemps? -- Daily, Ophelia descends into a swirling stream of drowning self-doubt.... At night, I dream of falling towers, of poison mists rising from subway grates, of city streets roiling with roving mobs, of my own limbs liquefying from an infestation of bone-devouring termites.... Dawn arrives without rest nor promise: Only new humiliations will come to pass -- The old equivocation will give way to new regrets of opportunities missed -- lost hours, days frozen in fear, years imprisoned in mental lock-down in a secret detainment camp of the spirit -- where I am bereft of everything but your pervasive voice, my father, my leader, my country, my God: I have tried and failed to shut it off: I can't bear to hear your pronouncements about me when I have dared to disobey you -- of my born treachery, of the failed humanity inherent in my being, of the mendacity of my mere breathing -- And you sought to set me right with rage -- You told me that it was not only me who threatened you: You said your enemies were legion -- You promised if they were destroyed I would be loved by you -- that I would be safe and needed -- so I set out to redeem myself to you and I went off to fight your wars: First, I hated any and all who you told me opposed you -- I pummeled them with words, silenced them with threatening gesture -- and then you had me illuminate the night with bombs, and, by day, we soaked the ground in blood.... Yes, my father, my leader, my country, my God -- at last, I was close to you -- and we got so damn high on it -- The intoxication of our shared and sacred vehemence, the moments heightened by winged fury: We were propelled out of ordinary time and mundane circumstance into the sublime of sanctioned homicide that is otherwise known as history.... War has always given me and those like me purpose; for this, I must thank you, my father, my leader, my country, my God: You taught me well how to create an entire existence within the close quarters of combat's deadly intimations, but you were loath to instruct me as to how to survive much else: I know hatred, rancor, dread, the boredom between battles, I can navigate the scarred landscape of internal carnage; conversely, I am an ignorant, anxious stranger during the idle of peace; I don't know who I am without your defining enmity; I am invisible, sans the form and features you carved for me from the hardened volcanic rock of your monumental scorn.... Since I have returned from war and your rage towards me has turned to indifference, my body feels weighted down, I can't lift my arms to lash out at you for your betrayal of my trust and loyalty, and my mind has left me -- It has taken flight like a startled quail at my own panicked thrashings through the thickets and brambles of the remote hill country of my self-awareness -- It flies over head, on occasion, but does not land -- It makes its nest deep in the wilderness, camouflaged in feathers the hue of soil and brush.... I have made my own camouflage the colors and textures of concrete and asphalt, of plaster, carpeting, and wallpaper, of brick walls and stone edifices: Now -- people do not notice me, I do not register: I should take to wearing a day-glow orange hunting vest to guard against being repeatedly smacked into on public sidewalks.... I bet I could make myself reappear in a barroom brawl -- or find you -- my father, my leader, my country, my God -- and your clarifying ferocity, once again, in the face of a cop who pushes me face down on the asphalt; I'd smell your ghost lingering in my cell in the city jail: -- You have made me hate the air, You have made me long for endless war -- I have become a stupid, viscous dog that growls at distant thunder.... I wish there was some place of sanctuary where I could find rest, where my strength might gather, where I might have a rapprochement with my own mind, where I might rise in the cool air of morning, in a place where I am no longer haunted by the memory of you: You -- this vengeful ghost who has usurped my name, where I might dodge this mind-grinding, soul-defying, death-worshipping legacy of yours, my father, my leader, my country, my God -- and where I might sit beneath the spreading branches of an ancient oak tree, gazing upon the sun-suffused grasses of midmorning, as the day lengthens before me and my love and need for you, my father, my leader, my country, my god -- might lift from me and evaporate like the last mists of clinging dew. · · · · · ·
America the 'beautiful' on Swans Phil Rockstroh, a self-confessed gasbag monologist, is a poet and a musician who lives in New York City (Manhattan). Rockstroh is co-author, with Chris Chandler, of Protection From All This Safety, (Portals Press, 1997, ISBN: 0916620301). He's had short fiction published in Silver Web Literary Magazine, Thin Ice, Brutarian, and poems included in a few anthologies, such as "From a Bend in the River." Owed royalties galore by various publishers, Phil Rockstroh sent his first contribution to Swans with the queasy relief that he would not be financially compensated for it. Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this poem on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first stance. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work on the Web without the expressed written authorization of Swans. This material is copyrighted, © Phil Rockstroh 2003. All rights reserved. |
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