Monday, September 28, 2015

A Prayer

I pledge:
to push hard to get better and smarter,
grow my devotion to the truth,
fuel my commitment to beauty,
refine my emotions,
hone my dreams,
wrestle with my shadow,
purge my ignorance,
and soften my heart—
even as I always accept myself
for exactly who I am,
with all of my so-called foibles and wobbles.

I pledge:
to wake myself up,
never hold back,
have nothing to lose,
go all the way,
kiss the stormy sky,
be the hero of my own story,
ask for everything I need
and give everything I have,
take myself to the river
when it's time to go to the river,
and take myself to the mountaintop
when it's time to go to the mountaintop.

~ Rob Brezsny

At the very least...

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.”
~ Dalai Lama XIV

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Sometimes...

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”


~ Leonardo da Vinci

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

The Oracle of Delphi Advises: "Know Yourself"

"Delphi"

HIS SONG

Now I know
there is no before
nor after,
that all escape lies in the perfect
       contour;
now I know that the tale of his lust
is lies,
his allure has outwitted the flesh,
his lust
is pure-lust of the eyes
for beauty
in tangible things;
his words
fly with wings;

now I know
that all who have spoken ill,
who imperil
and threaten the god,
are holding their souls to the mirror,
light threatens, is active, is gone,
so it is with a song;

are you strong?
he is strong;
are you weak?
he prevails--but not you
to question
his power when you falter,
the blame is your own;
he knows not remorse nor repents,
he remains

faultless and perfect and whole;
he is;
you may burn,
you may curse,
you may threaten,
you may pour out red-gold on his
       altar,
he comes to no call,
not to magic,
nor reason;

his word
is withdrawn,
hieratic,
authentic,
a king's,
yet all may receive it;
he turns at a whim,
who answers no threat,
no call of the flute,
no drum-beat of the drum,
you may bargain
and threaten,
the prophet
is distant and mute;

yet one day
he will speak
through a child or a thrush
or a stray in the market;
he will touch
with the arm of a herdsman
your arm,
he will brush
with the lips of a brother
your lips;
you will flame into song,

that no merchant can buy,
that no priest can cajole;
he is here,
he is gone.

HIS PRESENCE

I foreswore red wine
and the white,
I was whole,
I foreswore lover and love,
all delight 
must come 
I had said,
of the soul;
I waited impassioned,
alone and alert
in the night;
did he come?

I foreswore child and my home;
I said,
I will walk,
to his most distant wood
for his laurel;
I wandered alone;
I said,
on the height, I will find
      him;
I said,
he will come with the red
first pure light of the sun;

I read volume and tome
of old magic,
I made sign and cross-sign;
he must answer old magic;
he must know the old symbol,
I swear I will find him,
I will bind
his power in a faggot,
a tree,
a stone,
or a bush or a jar
of well-water,
I went far
to old pilgrim-sites
for that water;

I entreated the grove and the spring,
the bay-tree in flower,
I was wise on my way,
they said I was wise,
I was steeped in their lore,
I entreated his love,
I prayed him each hour;
I was sterile
and barren
and songless.

I came back;
he opened my door.

HIS RIDDLE

In his power then
a toad,
or a flower,
I asked,
does it wither?
does he rise in the clod?
 does he die?
his riddle is painful,
his coming too facile,
if I serve him,
I lie
for years,
a field fallow
then furrows of rye, of wheat and of 
      barley,
spring up
all too early;

the wheat-ear
and the poppy,
nod, one with the lily,
iris
and anemone;
when my days are lonely,
he shuns me,
when busy,
he crowds through the throng
of my friends and my guests,
remember your vows, he says,
you are priest:

if I kneel at a shrine,
he says,
song is wine.

HIS ECSTASY

He is yours,
he is mine,
if we quarrel to hold him,
he goes;
his the red-lily,
the white-rose;
if you struggle to whet
your stylus,
if you hurry to melt
scented wax
for your tablets,
he knows
no pity;

you will write in the city
of fir-trees and loam,
in the fields
you will sing of the market;
you will be
among prophets,
a satyr;
when the note of the flute
calls to dance,
you will walk
drunk but not
with that mixed wine;
his tune is his own;
in his, not in your time,
ecstasy will betray you;
if he cares,
he will flay; 
if he loves,
he will slay you.



H.D. Collected Poems 1912-1944

Friday, September 18, 2015

Love of My Flesh, Living Death

"Love of My Flesh, Living Death"

By Lorna Dee Cervantes
 
after García Lorca

Once I wasn’t always so plain.
I was strewn feathers on a cross
of dune, an expanse of ocean
at my feet, garlands of gulls.

   Sirens and gulls. They couldn’t tame you.
You know as well as they: to be
a dove is to bear the falcon
at your breast, your nights, your seas.

   My fear is simple, heart-faced
above a flare of etchings, a lineage
in letters, my sudden stare. It’s you.

   It’s you! sang the heart upon its mantel
pelvis. Blush of my breath, catch
of my see—beautiful bird—It’s you.


"'Love of My Flesh, Living Death'" by Lorna Dee Cervantes, from From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger.

Time Does Not Bring Relief

“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”

By Edna St. Vincent Millay
 
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied   
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!   
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;   
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,   
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;   
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.   
There are a hundred places where I fear   
To go,—so with his memory they brim.   
And entering with relief some quiet place   
Where never fell his foot or shone his face   
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”   
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Time Does Not Bring Relief” from Collected Poems.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Mashup Messup Remix No More Redux

There were adventures, words, you're beautiful. Sometimes supportive, honest, intense intimacy. Too intense. Dancing in dreams. I thought you could hear me. To dance is to live. Kissing until you forgot your name. I've forgotten my name. I thought you could hear me. Messing up each others' lives. Denying the truth. Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies. What did it matter? Nothing else mattered. I thought you could hear me.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Musing

There is a beautiful old man,
a storyteller.
Sometimes I visit his dreams;
He calls me his muse.

He said once that for him
every sunset
is the color of my hair.
But that's not quite right.

He thinks I'm the ghost
of a long lost love,
who haunts him.
But I am not her;

I am alive.
His stories give me life.


And So It Is At An End

Tomb of Baudelaire

By Michael Palmer
 
At the end of the bridge is a state of prison. Then
it goes back into my throat drying my throat.

Miracle of Sicilian weeping. Bleeds in one of his many
dreams.

He announced that he was about to give a free ‘poetry
suicide’—a free ‘poultry recital.’ Everyone be-
lieved him.

_______   


At the end of the bridge is a state of prison. A
voyage will hide itself in your heart, bleeding from the   
left eye, the organ of sight. A voyage will hide
itself in someone unfamiliar like a heap of salt.
Mingled with the ordinary blueness would be waves of
foreheads shaped like cups.

She thought he could hear her.

To dance is to live.

_______   


Calm and order of an autumn sky. At the end of a
bridge is the state of prison, voyage of eye and   
throat full of the fear of night. Then all of winter
will enter like a red block, or like the calm and
order of an autumn sky.

139. Change of form. 139a. Change of colour.

122. Pitfalls. 136. Covers with a lid.

_______   


It doesn’t matter what you say but how you say it. By
pronouncing the words they become different. It comes
from above (pointing to his head). Then it goes all
sorts of ways down. Then it goes back into my throat
drying my throat.

Tonight it’s a certainty that the President will resign
(‘a virtual certainty’).

After the party they drove back to her house where she
sucked him off while he spoke to someone on the tele-
phone about the possibility of a job.

_______   


Plato’s warning against telling stories, mython
tina diēgeisthai.

Or the certainty of the ten fingers and ten feet. You
laugh a lot because during the first phase someone
who has taken hasheesh is ‘gifted with a marvelous
comic sense’ which contains its own opposite like the
end of a bridge.

The verb divides us evenly into two objects.

_______   


A pretty girl is like a melody.

You must be more confident now that you’ve won the
prize.

And if you listen. And if you listen hearing, if you   
listen thought. I’ve been thinking about the whole
trouble about how I got lost in the woods.   A man my-
self is lying in a house. Or alone among myself answering
a house. To be calm and voluptuous conjuring a house.
To be eligible for the house. If you listen image, if you
listen house. Ordinary calm and order of the house.
Coffee comma parentheses. Coffee parentheses order.
Coffee parentheses coffee. 131. Untrodden. 136. Covers
with a lid.

_______   


137. Combination. 138. Arrangement.

Plato’s admonition against telling stories about   
being, mython tina diēgeisthai.

Dear Apollinaire: We drove 500 miles to attend the
wedding of a relative. Our son was to be in the
bridal party. The wedding was to take place at 4 p.m.
on Saturday. On the Friday night before the wedding,
the bride and groom got into a fight and the groom
broke the bride’s nose so the wedding was canceled.
          What do we do with the wedding gift we were
going to take to the church? Who pays for the
tuxedo our son rented for the occasion and never got
to wear? And how about the motel bill?
 
 
“Tomb of Baudelaire” by Michael Palmer, from The Lion Bridge. Copyright © 1998 by Michael Palmer.

This is the way the world ends

The Hollow Men

~ T.S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz-he dead
            A penny for the Old Guy



                       I

    We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar
   
    Shape without form, shade without colour,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
   
    Those who have crossed
    With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
    Remember us-if at all-not as lost
    Violent souls, but only
    As the hollow men
    The stuffed men.

   
                              II

    Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
    In death's dream kingdom
    These do not appear:
    There, the eyes are
    Sunlight on a broken column
    There, is a tree swinging
    And voices are
    In the wind's singing
    More distant and more solemn
    Than a fading star.
   
    Let me be no nearer
    In death's dream kingdom
    Let me also wear
    Such deliberate disguises
    Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
    In a field
    Behaving as the wind behaves
    No nearer-
   
    Not that final meeting
    In the twilight kingdom

   
                   III

    This is the dead land
    This is cactus land
    Here the stone images
    Are raised, here they receive
    The supplication of a dead man's hand
    Under the twinkle of a fading star.
   
    Is it like this
    In death's other kingdom
    Waking alone
    At the hour when we are
    Trembling with tenderness
    Lips that would kiss
    Form prayers to broken stone.

   
                     IV

    The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
   
    In this last of meeting places
    We grope together
    And avoid speech
    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
   
    Sightless, unless
    The eyes reappear
    As the perpetual star
    Multifoliate rose
    Of death's twilight kingdom
    The hope only
    Of empty men.

   
                           V

    Here we go round the prickly pear
    Prickly pear prickly pear
    Here we go round the prickly pear
    At five o'clock in the morning.

   
    Between the idea
    And the reality
    Between the motion
    And the act
    Falls the Shadow
                                   For Thine is the Kingdom
   
    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow
                                   Life is very long
   
    Between the desire
    And the spasm
    Between the potency
    And the existence
    Between the essence
    And the descent
    Falls the Shadow
                                   For Thine is the Kingdom
   
    For Thine is
    Life is
    For Thine is the
   
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.
 
 
1. Mistah Kurtz: a character in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."
2. A...Old Guy: a cry of English children on the streets on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, when they carry straw effigies of Guy Fawkes and beg for money for fireworks to celebrate the day. Fawkes was a traitor who attempted with conspirators to blow up both houses of Parliament in 1605; the "gunpowder plot" failed.
3. Those...Kingdom: Those who have represented something positive and direct are blessed in Paradise. The reference is to Dante's "Paradiso".
4. Eyes: eyes of those in eternity who had faith and confidence and were a force that acted and were not paralyzed.
5. crossed stave: refers to scarecrows
6. tumid river: swollen river. The River Acheron in Hell in Dante's "Inferno". The damned must cross this river to get to the land of the dead.
7. Multifoliate rose: in dante's "Divine Comedy" paradise is described as a rose of many leaves.
8. prickly pear: cactus
9. Between...act: a reference to "Julius Caesar" "Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma or a hideous dream."
10. For...Kingdom: the beginning of the closing words of the Lord's Prayer.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Word of The Day: Lazuline

lazuline, adj.

Pronunciation:  /ˈlæzjʊlaɪn/
Etymology:  medieval Latin lazuli genitive of lazulum meaning "rare"

ine - Forming adjs., repr. Latin -īnus, -īna, -īnum, added to names of persons, animals, or material things, and to some other words, with the sense ‘of’ or ‘pertaining to’, ‘of the nature of’, represented in French by -in masc., -ine fem., in English now usually by -ine, formerly and still exceptionally by -in. Examples are Latin adulterīnus adulterine, anserīnus anserine, asinīnus asinine, canīnus canine, dīvīnus divine, fēminīnus feminine, genuīnus genuine, lībertīnus libertine, marīnus marine, masculīnus masculine, supīnus supine; in some cases with blending of a previous suffix, as clandestīnus clandestine, intestīnus intestine, mātūtīnus matutine, vespertīnus vespertine.



  Of the colour of lapis lazuli.

 

1877   C. Patmore Unknown Eros i. 3   Love's three-stranded ray, Red wrath, compassion golden, lazuline delight.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Note to Self

Note to self: do not fall in love with your sadness again.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

La Douleur Exquise

I always knew the end was nigh. I'd hoped otherwise, but I knew that was foolish. That way lies madness.

"Tell me about your lacerations," he said, flashing that deadly smile. I knew I was done for.

Ode to an Achilles Heel

The perfect masculine aesthetic:
6'2" eyes of blue
strong silent
type. Good
with mechanical device
or in the wild.

I was enthralled. Sybaritic.
I thought it was you
wrong spent
hype. Good
between my sheets
or in the wild.

Our first touch--synesthetic.
Dreamt in shades of blue
taste bud bent
hue. Typed. Bad.
In your arms
home and so much sad.

We're All Going to Die

"We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."

~ Uncle Buk