Song To The Siren

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From Rumi: Ghazal 2133

wake up, wake up

this night is gone

wake up

abandon abandon

even your dear self

abandon

there is an idiot

in our market place

selling a precious soul

if you doubt my word

get up this moment

and head for the market now

don’t listen to trickery

don’t listen to the witches

don’t wash blood with blood

first turn yourself upside down

empty yourself like a cup of wine

then fill to the brim with the essence

a voice is descending

from the heavens

a healer is coming

if you desire healing

let yourself fall ill

let yourself fall ill

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Welcome to Sunday… Visited our Tom and Cheryl last night, it was very pleasant, we got to see friends that we haven’t seen for quite awhile, Darren & Donna and their son Gavin. Gavin and Rowan were friends when they were young(er), until we moved over to the Hawthorne District (The People’s Autonomous Region Of Hawthorne) Gavin is a drummer, a very good singer and an actor. It was nice to see the connection being made again. We had a great time, staying later than we planned originally but that was nice as well.

Heating up at this point, about to head out to Sauvie Island for some relief from right angles.

Stay tuned….

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

Tim Buckley – Song To The Siren

Tom Moore and the Seal Woman

Poems – Ira Cohen

Art by Nicholas Kalmakoff

Tim Buckley – Song To The Siren

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Tom Moore and the Seal Woman

A PROPOS of the following tale, I may say: The intermarriage with and descent of men from beings not human touches upon one of the most interesting and important points in primitive belief. Totemism among savage races in our day, and descent from the gods in antiquity are the best examples of this belief; derived from it, in all probability but remotely, are family escutcheons with their animals and birds and the emblematic beasts and birds of nations, such as the Roman eagle, the British lion, the American eagle, the Russian bear. The Roman eagle and the wolf which suckled Romulus may have been totems, if not for the Romans, at least for some earlier people. The lion, eagle, and bear of England, America, and Russia are of course not totemic, though adopted in imitation of people who, if they had not totems, had as national emblems birds or beasts that at some previous period were real totems for some social body.

There is a tale in Scotland concerning people of the clan MacCodrum, who were seals in the daytime, but men and women at night. No man of the MacCodrums, it is said, would kill a seal. The MacCodrums are mentioned in Gaelic as “Clann Mhic Codruim nan rón” (Clan MacCodrum of the seals).

In the village of Kilshanig, two miles north-east of Castlegregory, there lived at one time a fine, brave young man named Tom Moore, a good dancer and singer. ‘Tis often he was heard singing among the cliffs and in the fields of a night.

Tom’s father and mother died and he was alone in the house and in need of a wife. One morning early, when he was at work near the strand, he saw the finest woman ever seen in that part of the kingdom, sitting on a rock, fast asleep. The tide was gone from the rocks then, and Tom was curious to know who was she or what brought her, so he walked toward the rock.

“Wake up!” cried Tom to the woman; “if the tide comes ’twill drown you.”

She raised her head and only laughed. Tom left her there, but as he was going he turned every minute to look at the woman. When he came back be caught the spade, but couldn’t work; he had to look at the beautiful woman on the rock. At last the tide swept over the rock. He threw the spade down and away to the strand with him, but she slipped into the sea and he saw no more of her that time.

Tom spent the day cursing himself for not taking the woman from the rock when it was God that sent her to him. He couldn’t work out the day. He went home.

Tom could not sleep a wink all that night. He was up early next morning and went to the rock. The woman was there. He called to her.

No answer. He went up to the rock. “You may as well come home with me now,” said Tom. Not a word from the woman. Tom took the hood from her head and said, “I’ll have this!”

The moment be did that she cried: “Give back my hood, Tom Moore!”

“Indeed I will not, for ’twas God sent you to me, and now that you have speech I’m well satisfied! And taking her by the arm he led her to the house. The woman cooked breakfast, and they sat down together to eat it.

“Now,” said Tom, “in the name of God you and I’ll go to the priest and get married, for the neighbours around here are very watchful; they’d be talking.” So after breakfast they went to the priest, and Tom asked him to marry them.

“Where did you get the wife?” asked the priest.

Tom told the whole story. When the priest saw Tom was so anxious to marry be charged £5, and Tom paid the money. He took the wife home with him, and she was as good a woman as ever went into a man’s house. She lived with Tom seven years, and had three sons and two daughters.

One day Tom was ploughing, and some part of the plough rigging broke. He thought there were bolts on the loft at home, so he climbed up to get them. He threw down bags and ropes while he was looking for the bolts, and what should he throw down but the hood which he took from the wife seven years before. She saw it the moment it fell, picked it up, and hid it. At that time people heard a great seal roaring out in the sea.

“Ah,” said Tom’s wife, “that’s my brother looking for me.”

Some men who were hunting killed three seals that day. All the women of the village ran down to the strand to look at the seals, and Tom’s wife with the others. She began to moan, and going up to the dead seals she spoke some words to each and then cried out, “Oh, the murder!”

When they saw her crying the men said: “We’ll have nothing more to do with these seals.” So they dug a great hole, and the three seals were put into it and covered. But some thought in the night: “Tis a great shame to bury those seals, after all the trouble in taking them.” Those men went with shovels and dug up the earth, but found no trace of the seals.

All this time the big seal in the sea was roaring. Next day when Tom was at work his wife swept the house, put everything in order, washed the children and combed their hair; then, taking them one by one, she kissed each. She went next to the rock, and, putting the hood on her head, gave a plunge. That moment the big seal rose and roared so that people ten miles away could hear him.

Tom’s wife went away with the seal swimming in the sea. All the five children that she left had webs between their fingers and toes, half-way to the tips.

The descendants of Tom Moore and the seal woman are living near Castlegregory to this day, and the webs are not gone yet from between their fingers and toes, though decreasing with each generation.

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Poetry: Ira Cohen, 3 more…

Atlantis Express

Let’s take a silver train underground

to the back streets of Atlantis

thru the corrugated iron roots &

then to the peak itself, to the

saddle of the last ridge past strewn

boulders,

finally meandering thru cascading snow

wearing miner’s hats on the perpendicular

dark night &

going up to the edge of the Southern Cross

where we reach at last the pure white

glistening glaciers &

begin to chant over bones in rags

of Scorpio

Armless in the sticky substance how could

they ever have had a chance?

Permission will not be required

only poems of blood offered to

the memory of TREE

It is not ice which is eternal

but the fury of the absolute

separating the void from the spirit

of man,

uplifting like life when it is used

against itself,

that is, Radical Love — & again, we

are reduced to living beings

Caught by the instant

we are taken away

We live in the imprint of the flame

& we are helmeted within the internal

blackness

where the ray begins its passage

across the indignant sky

Vain clouds uncaring in a tangle of

crossbeams

culminate in the hermaphroditic mirror

of the epileptic dancer

asleep

And during sleep

the light is joined

to the light

It is all a matter of getting up

and then to abandon the pain

It is there that the journey beings

in the self generated flame of

Spontaneous Combustion

(Swayambhunath)

The main line running counter

to the triangle comprising the

MAELSTROM, the DOLDROMS & the

SARGASSO SEA where sleeping Atlanteans

dream forever,

this line, this battlefield of the ages,

crosses the divide of my most wandering

backdoor heart.

We will all have to go

if we want to reappear

in the rhythm of the ritual

It’s the wheel of fools spinning

over my bed

If I put my left foot first

they will find a way to call me

by that name

tracking tremors

like glyphs

on drunken walls

in the negative palace

just before taking eave

of my senses

the white powder dissolves

in the sunlight

& making noise like a peacock

he hops on one foot up the mountain.

Song to Nothing

And surely we will die without memory

coming to cold in the shadow of space

& if it isn’t too late

for the star to love you

spraying the sky w/ whispers

attuned to galaxies hungry for flame

And if the tongue of night sings

of Albino winos

till the morning light shafts

the doorway

then surely we will die tonight

faceless at the White

Gate

sharing the smoke

w/ ancient shapes in future garb

and you stand somewhere there

on the other side

feeding on the pain of dreamlessness

Wherefrom the misty morning of

white shadows

& the unresisting need to destroy?

Samael, Samael, I beg it may be forgiven

that they may be driven

out of the black into the white

Only let the dazzle remain

for gamblers to surprise,

the strategic diamond, the throne

of compressed bone

in the unshored dark

where only light can forgive

& your mind is singed

Embers of echoes in the vastness

disguise the yearning to burn

blind eyes

in arrogant displays of feeling—

Running wild these beasts will feast

on the newborn kind

for surely we will die tonight

unless we learn to ignore

what the others live for

on the other side of morning

& the Skin of Nothing left by the same

summer

masks the faceless wanderer

O let it happen,

this weird to discover

the shape of Beauty in everything

extreme

for surely we will die tonight

whether we will or whether we

dream

O Samael, forgive the dreamer

forgive the dream

The Song of Nothing is your lullabye.

—-

If my heart were made of bread

I would wait at least one moment

before breaking the sunrise —

The Arm of the Dorje

Sunyata – Song to the Winter Sun

There was much wind

but I new not how to call it,

a roomful of strangers,

how familiar the feeling,

how cold it must be – barefoot

at the fountain when the sun goes down,

how the brown people love the blond baby

The white horse which looks out

from the wall suggests a journey

I once might have taken,

a covered memory reeking of sulphur

Words, they can go anywhere,

can they tell me where I come from,

the name of my planet,

the empty space which was my home?

The condemned murderer longs for

a firing squad, knows

where to put the shadows

you keep inside –

Between hands there are worlds

of ashes & thunder,

silent collisions of meaning,

the utter sugar of nights

taken for granted

They say the sun rises every day,

that sleep is incidental

I say myself

& so I look for your face at dawn

rising over my grief, over

the twice told terrain, violet w/ciphers,

Suffused w/ yr eternal smile

I would offer my flesh to your tiger,

turn your stone wheels w/ my water

Longing for the peaks the stars say

it will be clear

Let us meet in the sky then

till we come closer down here.

The Day of the Basilisk – The Wayfarer’s Song

It started in the dark room

thinking that night had fallen at dawn

Then arising we glued red eyes

into the dry sockets of a dead bird

its belly full of dirty cotton

Then across the paddies & out of

the town

where familiar figures of Kleist &

Eschenbach

rise from the road in eddies of dust

The voice of the Changeling names the day,

the day of the Basilisk, usurped

from the tyrant’s quest to know

how not to maim the Gilded Hind of

self knowledge

Licchavi sirens shortchanged of a renaissance

spread out cracked wooden arms,

split skulls of haunting beauty, smiling

Mud murtis made by nature distract

Goethean comments fearful of what is hidden

while the delicate head of Mahadev

whittled by the wind

still seals the lingam in the ancient temple

We look with Mudusa’s eyes

at the first born fruits,

the full breasts of the river

where there is no infidelity –

The golden larva w/ the royal face of Narayan,

hold it by its tail & call it by its name

Narayan, Narayan

it will dance for you & shake its head,

it lives only on air –we do not know if

it is alive or if it is dead, so gilded

its beauty

The face of Vishnu etches a dream of

ancient seas tinted w/ fallen light

Your face is everywhere

Your glory rings out over the peaks

capped w/ flame

Your shadow is enclosed within your shadow

You watch yourself falling

While falling you watch yourself looking down

You want to pick up the Tamang corpse

no one will touch

You call the children of darkness,

refute the wasted years of salt

poured into furrows

You see the thread needled to the hem of Night

betrayed by the shinbone of Day

where the fear is burned away

You look w/ basilisk eyes

turning the day to stone,

touched & transfigured

by the human, by the changing,

by the eternal, the always repeating

Alone.

Dhulikel/Panauti