Alms for Oblivion: A Poem in Seven Parts

By Bryce Milligan

Alms for Oblivion is a 400-line quest poem, seeking the roots of inspiration, in which the protagonist is split in halfthe "he" represents the rational, scientific mind; the "I" is a mystic romantic, deeply imbued with muse lore ranging from Fanny Brawne to Cerddwen to the Ur-poet Enheduanna's goddess Inanna. New World and Old World mythologies are intertwined. Eventually, the split protagonist reintegrates and finds that both sides are seeking the same thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781609400965

Book preview

ALMS FOR OBLIVION

Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir

Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,

And every song-bird shout awhile for her;

But I am gifted, even in November

Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense

Of her naked magnificence

I forget cruelty and past betrayal,

Careless of where the next bolt may fall.

—Robert Graves, from In Dedication

Alms for Oblivion © 2003 by Bryce Milligan

First limited edition printing ISBN: 1-899179-96-8

Print edition originally published by Aark Arts;

Sudeep Sen, Publisher

65 Greenford Road • Harrow HA1 3QF • London

Ebooks published by Wings Press

627 E. Guenther, San Antonio, TX 78210

via Independent Publishers Group

www.ipgbook.com

ePub ISBN: 978-1-60940-096-5

Kindle ISBN: 978-1-60940-097-2

Library PDF ISBN: 978-1-60940-098-9

U.S. Library of Congress:

PS3563.I42283 A45 2003 811.54

for Enheduanna,

first poet,

and for the one and many muses

Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write.

—Sidney, Astrophil and Stella, 1.14

Everything that reminds me of her goes

through me like a spear.

—John Keats, of Fanny Brawne

I am yours.

Why do you slay me?

—Enheduanna, Lady of Largest Heart

ca. 2,300 B.C.

I.

I have encountered a photograph:

my father, older than I am now,

older than he ever was

and I am struck by the resemblance

to Tecayehuatzin, though

the single image of the old Aztec

is simply a stylized encounter of lines,

an abstraction become a glyph in a codex

created long after his death