YES
I am the king
of the strung-out soldiers
in the night
for I am the most
strung-out of them all
What saves me
is that I’m a Poet
establishing reality.
That poem was written after the fall, from within the abyss. Imagine a saint who had fellowshipped with the Lord Jesus in glory (in spirit, by faith), now thinking himself bereft of His life and Spirit and become vampiric in nature, one of the living dead who walks without God, of the lineage of zombies. A faulty faith begets a faulty life.
As one can see in the story, “HORROR ON APOKALYPSE FIELD,” there is indeed such a realm where zombie and vampire walk, but for a saint to be so deceived as to think himself thus is horror multiplied. In these days, desperate not to lose touch with my awareness fully awake, I resorted to the old sorceries of my past, acid and grass, and a new one, angel dust.
With Teresa, upon first writing to her, my poems and letters bringing into realization the state of my heart, I first became aware of my utterly hollow core; worse than hollow, a hungry vacuum, the ravening desire for the life-blood of the living, not the blood itself, but that to which it gives life, the soul. Not the soul per se, but the love of it, thence the life of it, for love is the heart of a life. It was her love I craved, but for an utterly hollow creature with absolutely nothing to give — thus no reciprocity at all — this is the essence of vampirism in the spiritual realm, and upon the earth as well. That is what the vampire in the real world craves, and that what the werewolf ravages in his raging assaults. To drain or otherwise despoil the life of the soul. Concerning modern love, one may not properly call it love, not when there is no chance of true reciprocity. So you see, were all the illusory and delusional aspects of modern “love” stripped away, vampirism is not so uncommon at all!
One time while high on grass, and writing a poem where these things came to the surface of my awareness, I wrote, “O zombie I!”, and the horror of it so overwhelmed me I….not fainted, but passed into “bummed-out” unconsciousness, so terrible was the knowledge of what I now was.
When writing the poem, “A GRADE ‘B’ HORROR VISION”, this represented a further development in the awareness of my state. I realized that the quality — the nature — of my voice was such I had withal to lift my song on the world stage, but what manner of song could such a monster sing? The strange thing about poets — those in whom the art is woven into their breath — is that they must sing, as we learned and took heart concerning from Arthur Rimbaud. Le courage d’être. The courage to be.
What if Dostoevsky
were a poet
after acid
in this day
what if Rimbaud
were alive today
in children of integrity
come what may
what if
Dylan
had a brother
who now took his stand
Un Poète terrible
So, in “A GRADE ‘B’ HORROR VISION” I lifted my voice as a poet of the human condition. What? Do you think I was writing simply of a sheer and peculiar madness of my own? I tell you (if you are yet blind to what is called “the doctrine of human depravity”) this is the human condition in those who walk not with God; they are the living dead now, and will be forever save they turn to Him for mercy unto life.
Because this is not widely spoken of does it mean this is not true? The Bible says it clearly enough: “Dead in trespasses and sins,” and “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Ephesians 2:1; 5:14). “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12). It is the custom of civil discourse, and the unspoken social contract, of those who live “in the region and shadow of death” (Matthew 4:16), not to make mention of this consequence of alienation from God. It is a very law of society to keep one’s mouth shut about such things, for to speak of them breaks the spell of false well-being and hinders one’s savoring the pleasures of flesh and mind.
Anyway, this zombie poet spoke up, even though he was alone. Seeing as he was the premier poet (first among no others!) of the walking dead and damned, the only one to speak (“Better terrible truth,” he said, “than none at all, or the usual hype and jive”), all others asleep in their dreams, he seized the laurel and in a fever of vision and self-loathing, called himself “king of the Zombies,” true poet of the damned. And yet, as that poem shows, there was a hope yet alive of redemption, of salvation from this most awful state of being.
A dubious honor, is it not, such a title? Not such as one would care to announce in polite company, nor any company at all, save when recounting visionary adventures among the damned and the blessed, in the realms of the spirit-world.
Am I mad
I better read
my poems
to see if I can tell
often I pondered
what madness might be
Solomon pondered it
mine heart is utterly alive
naked bare Destiny a flashing sword
O heart this is madness divine
He would not forsake you
not psalmist no
of these o beauties
terror living dying
love
Imagine having this consciousness while on grass, or worse yet, acid? And worse even yet, PCP, the notorious angel dust? Little wonder I secluded myself from most all, save my poor little daughter, and those somewhat superficial relationships at work. I was a horror unto myself, reckoning myself akin to the dread Gorgon, Medusa in whose eyes to look was to be turned to stone, this figurative of the profoundly deadening touch of one whose spirit dwelt among the dead and damned. I shunned all social intercourse. On those occasions I sought the spiritual help of older Christians in the various churches I visited (and I visited many), I think I frightened people. I remember one time after a meeting I told a leader of my struggles and failures in spirit (sparing them the deep inner knowledge I talk of here, for who could bear that?), and they looked upon me with horror in their eyes, as though I were already one of the damned, whom they had the dire misfortune to meet! Such encounters tended to extinguish my behavior of seeking help in the churches!
Yet the love of Teresa did indeed quicken me (this story told in the short piece, “A Great and Terrible Love”) even in these depths, and I now had withal to continue my odyssey in the Abyss.
After many years (riddled with repeated attempts to return to the Savior) God had mercy on this burning wretch of a poet, and lifted him into the life of His Son, granting him the understanding of how to walk consistently, which amazingly he was able to do. As told in the story, “Stripped of the Gift of Poetry,” he had lost the ability to write, and this, he discerned, by divine fiat. It was a great relief, in some respects! But now, he realized, upon his return into the presence of the King and His glory it was his again. It had only been the divine life within that was wanting. Only He could re-integrate the poet's broken soul.
He had come from the regions of the damned, survived the howling wastes, the pool of terrors where one becomes the various horrors of legend and myth, and come back into the world of the living. For a good while he did not write anything. He looked at the dark laurelled crown he’d worn as a badge of his madness in Hell, and it had been transformed into a wreath shimmering with glory. He himself had been changed from the representative voice of the damned into….what? Still poet of the human condition — his condition — he had been changed. The human condition he now knew was of the blessed eternally, humanity indwelt by the Spirit of God, not yet glorified as was the Forerunner of the new human race, but filled with the Spirit of glory nonetheless, even while only “an earthen vessel” containing this treasure. He was now one of the archetypal new humans, and he sang a new song.
He pondered again the strange quality of his voice, able to lift as a poet the way prophets of old lifted to the nation. The issue of identity for the children of God is not easy for them, they are so used to mistaking littleness for humility, finding safety from megalomania in micromania! It remains that we are a nation of kings and priests, queens and priestesses, though we mostly live like oblivious serfs! Which ought not be. Still, I will be to my King that which He has made me, and I will sing as He has given me voice and vision.
DECLARING THE VISIONWhere there is no vision the people perish.—Solomon
Because I am silenced from the place of open utterance
by opposition and unyielding circumstance, my voice walled in
by forces of him who cast Death-Spell in the deeps
of being, in whose thrall the world lurches and reels....
Because I see my brothers and sisters planet-wide
go the fatal way of the world unaware and unwarned
by any credible witness and kin of spirit,
the roar of whirlpool Thanatos in the subtle sphere unheard....
I lay hand on that great Blade reposing in the heart
of Zion's mystic Stone, Lightning Sword of the poet-king and seer,
to build in the heartlands a realm of vision
and vital force, a place from which the spell of death is cleared.
I break Death-Spell for all who draw near this art,
this pure, last, great weapon of the heart,
and I know the wave of Destiny I ride
will scatter the potent words of these poems far and wide.
This speech issues from the halls of Beth-Or
— in ancient Hebrew, House of Light — fierce citadel
withstanding both flesh and subtle-sphere legions of the Dark Lord,
spirit-refuge of pilgrims who wander globe wonderland made hell.
Who wields like sword and who abides in the house
must have clean hands and a pure heart according to the word
not of this world, spoken by Him whose blood cleansed the world.
Those without, death’s bright fools, hate that wise mouth.
It would seem that all the world would flock to this rare door
esteeming the dear price of entrance nothing for love
of them within — especially Him who dies no more
having died as our ransom once, then mightily rose above
the Dark Lord’s ceiling of death, scattering the strong guard
which panicked and fled at His might — but strangely they rather
mock this pure champion than love Him, their hearts hard
to follow the glitter without the house, lure of death-father.
This is the vision, the house, and Him whose life lights it
into eternity, past the resurrection of all bodies,
and the two destinies: the House of Light, and its counterfeit,
whose death-door leads to terror lake, dump of follies.
This is the vision, that one chooses one’s destination
according to the sight and the love given one’s heart:
to abide under Death-Spell, with this world’s decaying rations
one’s fleeting joy, or seek the light breaking in this art.
In the song, “Chimes of Freedom,” Bob Dylan had these words, his flashin’ chimes
strikin’ for the gentle, strikin’ for the kind,
strikin’ for the guardians and protectors of the mind,
and the poet, and the painter far behind his rightful time…
Those who know him realize the title of this story is taken from his song. May he take those words about the poet back, for you do indeed now gaze upon chimes of freedom flashin’!
