FINITUDE UNBOUND

FINITUDE UNBOUND

But the wager of our finitude, /Each a custodian of our own/ Demise, is a more bearable freight. / Till then—/...Let all the world wait. --- From “Saturnalia” by Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Quarttsiluni, 09-02-11 

There are no steel bars here constricting enough

to fence me in-- I am already there, my own

gaoler, and, if I am not mindful, my own hangman. 

How long will it take before all discarded days

turn into ghouls on an unforgiving watch

for the quickest demolition of my soul? Not long? 

I put up my sandbags to stem floodtides of despair,

but these become the dams ready to burst

upon me, drowning me in whirlpools of loneliness. 

Why should anyone even chatter about faint hope,

when even that is as fragile as a desert mirage?

I have bricked-up chambers of routine. What habits? 

When pushed against walls, I fight back with feral

outrage; when stabbed with lies and betrayal,

should I not twist the blades deeper with the twin? 

A fool’s lex talionis does not work half as well here,

I do better with a limp shrug, a Judas-kiss,

I flutter with the wind wherever it blows. Whenever. 

I would not call a spade a shovel, nor flatter idiots

with obfuscating euphemistic euphuisms, (sic)

no one bleeds for maladies like mentally challenged. 

Too little life left for these misplaced kindness, too;

too much lifetime wasted on prancing shadows

posturing as the real deal. The one true deal is here. 

A silent revelry marks this mute’s free incarceration:

I am true to myself. I have an affair with myself.

I need not even wait. A crapshoot world can. I won’t. 

Would not the aggrieved root of this cold, cold heart

know when waiting is enough? Either way,

enveloped like these lines, there is no exit, no escape.

---Albert B. Casuga

09-02-11