Silence Wager Stories
By Susan Howe
When I come to view
about steadfastness
Espousal is as ever
Evil never unravels
Memory was and will be
yet mercy flows
Mercies to me and mine
Night rainy my family
in private and family
I know I know short conviction
have losses then let me see why
To what distance and by what path
I thought you would come away
_____________
1
Battered out of Isaiah
Prophets stand gazing
Formed from earth
In sure and certain
What can be thought
Who go down to hell alive
is the theme of this work
I walk its broad shield
Every sign by itself
havoc brood from afar
Letting the slip out
Glorious in faithfulness
Reason never thought saw
2
You already have brine
Reason swept all away
Disciples are fishermen
Go to them for direction
Gospel of law Gospel of shadow
in the vale of behavior
who is the transgressor
Far thought for thought
nearer one to the other
I know and do not know
Non attachment dwell on nothing
Peace be in this house
Only his name and truth
3
Having a great way to go
it struck at my life
how you conformed to dust
I have taken the library
Volumes might be written
ambiguous signs by name
Near nightfall it touches it
Nothing can forbear it
So fierce and so flaring
Sometimes by the seaside
all echoes link as air
Not I cannot tell what
so wanton and so all about
4
Fields have vanished
The Mower his hopes
Bow broke time loose
none but my shadow
she to have lived on
with the wood-siege
nesting in this poem
Departed from the body
at home of the story
I'm free and I'm famished
And so to the Irish
Patrol sentinel ensign
Please feel my arms open
5
The issue of legitimation
Identity of the subject
Circumcision of a heart
driven outside its secret
Elysian solitary imagination
by doubt but not by sight
Fear that forever forever
perfect Charity casts out
The Canticle is an allegory
unchangeable but changeable
Fluttering robes of Covetous
He is incomprehensible he
makes darkness his covert
6
Ages pre-supposed ages
the darkness of life
out of necessity night
being a defense by day
the cause and way to it
From same to the same
These joining together
and having allegiance
Words are an illusion
are vibrations of air
Fabricating senselessness
He has shattered gates
thrown open to himself
7
Though lost I love
Love unburied lies
No echo newlyfledge
Thought but thought
the moving cause
the execution of it
Only for theft's sake
even though even
perturb the peace
But for the hate of it
questionless limit
unassuaged newlyfledge
A counter-Covenant
8
Mysterious as night itself
All negligently scenery
if Nothing could be seen
Sacraments are mysterious
Ambiguous in literal meaning
the Pentateuch the Angels John
all men form a silent man
who wrote the author down
Sackcloth itself is humility
a word prerogatives array
Language a wood for thought
over the pantomime of thought
Words words night unto night
9
Drift of human mortality
what is the drift of words
Pure thoughts are coupled
Turn your face to what told me
love grazed here at least
mutinous predominant unapparent
What is unseen is eternal
Judgments are a great deep
Confession comes to nought
half to be taken half left
From communion of wrongdoing
doubleness among the nouns
I feed and feed upon names
10
Claim foreign order
dismantling mortal
Begotten possibility
plummet fetter seem
So coldly systems break
Fraught atvantaging
Two tell againstself
Theme theme heart fury
all in mutiny
Troubleless or sadder
Estranged of all strange
Let my soul quell
Give my soul ease
11
Antic prelate treason
I put on haircloth
Clear unutterable
Secret but tell
What diadem bright
Theme theme heart fury
Winged knowledge hush
Billeted near presage
such themes do quell
Claim foreign order
Plummet fetter seem
wild as loveDeath
Two tell against self
12
Strange fear of sleep
am bafflement gone
Bat winged dim dawn
herthe midmost wide
I did this and I
But forever you say
Bafflement nether elegy
herthe otherwise I
Irreconcilable theme
keep silent then
Strange always strange
Estrange that I desire
Keep cover come cover
13
Lies are stirring storms
I listen spheres from far
Whereunder shoreward away
you walked here Protector
unassuaged asunder thought
you walked here Overshadow
I listen spheres of stars
I draw you close ever so
Communion come down and down
Quiet place to stop here
Who knows ever no one knows
to know unlove no forgive
_____________
Half thought thought otherwise
loveless and sleepless the sea
Where you are where I would be
half thought thought otherwise
Loveless and sleepless the sea
Copyright Credit: Susan Howe, “Silence Wagers Stories” from The Noncomformist's Memorial. Copyright © 1993 by Susan Howe. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: The Nonconformist's Memorial (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1993)