“Larazetto”

I didn’t feel much like writing this week, but in creating this blog I made a commitment to myself and all those following. No less than a post a week, no excuses. I dug around in my files for something to post. An old story or a poem, something that I could re-work for an hour or so and then publish. If only to have something to post, to make me feel that I’m working to be a writer or at least delude myself a little longer. Then I thought “No, that’s lazy, I need to be better than that.” Then the week came and went, and I had nothing new, so here is something old.

I composed this for a creative-writing workshop class in college but find that it still resonates with me. Writing is lonely work. You sit and stare at a screen for hours at a time with no company but the voices in your head. It isn’t fun. It isn’t sexy and you don’t look cool doing it. The goal is ultimately to share it, to let what you created be experienced by others, but even that is a tall order.

It is not a picture, or a painting or a piece of clothing that be seen and observed and appreciated in but a moment. It isn’t a video or a game that requires but passive interaction with. It demands work of its audience. It forces them to read and to think, two activities people largely avoid. Poetry especially. Perhaps that is why I don’t write more of it. I read about half as much as I write which is a complicated way of saying I don’t do enough of either.

This work is inspired by Lazarettos, walled communities were those suffering from leprosy among other ailments would be quarantined. These communities could be in isolated locations or in the middle of large cities. I could only imagine the pain that would come from being surrounded by a world you could never be a part of.

---

Lazaretto: A trudge through Pariah Alley  

There is no warmth among the vagrant,

our flame has dimmed as,

we linger here in cloudy light,

like cenobites in huddled prayer.

Anticipating the emancipation of eternity,

in the shade of these Lazaretto walls.

–

Frankincense whispers out of hovels on,

salty breeze while dogs lap at the wounds on an old man’s knees.

He does not fear their fangs,

savors the rabid concern, 

welcomes contact of any kind.

–

We have conquered mortal terrors,

discomfort and death cannot dissuade us, 

for the parables of the Lord have vowed us paradise,

release, from this transient dungeon of flesh. 

All we must do, 

is endure the growing absence.