The Cabinet Of Wonders

Intro: Not only do beings and things have spirits that in turn take the forms of beings and things, but deeds, words, thoughts, and feelings also have spirits of their own. Thus is may happen that the soul of a beautiful deed may assume the form of an angel. – Sheikh Badruddin

_______________

Greetings…
One of those dry periods for Turfing entries, (unless you get “The Mini Turf” of course (If you want to notified about Turfing or The Mini-Turf send me your email addy of choice to – llwydd (at sign) earthrites.org – and I will add you right away) though I have been thinking about Turfing (like the new look?) and fiddling about.

So much to write about, but I shan’t burden you with all of the details in this intro. It has been a wild couple of weeks, in so many ways. We installed a new poetry pole, and still moving forward with The Invisible College. I cover what else that has been going on in The Cabinet Of Wonders

I hope you enjoy this entry!

Blessings,
Gwyllm
______________

On The Menu:
The Short Note: Event Of The Week!
The Cabinet Of Wonders
The Links
In Tom’s Head
Vieux Farka Touré : Bullet The Blue Sky
The Angel Of Death
Ahmed Taha Poems on Anwar Kamal
Vieux Farka Touré – Fafa
_______________

The Short Note: Event Of The Week!

In This Pic: Guido Orio (Grip-Writer), Rowan Spiers-Floyd (Assistant Director/Producer-Writer), Wiley Parker (Director – Writer & Fill in Actor!)

Rowan worked in concert with a group on a 24 hour film project this past weekend on “Above and Beyond”, and their film will be first shown tomorrow night at the Hollywood Theatre at 42nd & NE Sandy, at the Portland Film Race 2010 Screening.
Here is the addy and other info:
Portland Film Race 2010 Screening
Location:The Hollywood Theatre
Time:Wednesday, 30 June 2010 19:00
Admission is 10.00 at the door
Be there early, “Above and Beyond” will be the first film shown!
_______________

The Cabinet Of Wonders:

Well, it’s been awhile. I have been working hard in the actual world, and trying to figure out this place we call Here and Now… I am going to describe some events from the last couple of weeks.

First: It’s in between rain showers, and Mary and I are working in North East Portland. I hear a cry from the air, and see a hummingbird, doing a dance. It hovers, and then climbs, climbs, and climbs up through the ladders of air, dives straight down and as it almost hits a roof it pulls up and cries out. This ritual is done everyday at the same time, at the same place. It is absolutely beautiful.

Second: “Oh what is that!” I hear Mary cry in the darkening of the evening outside. I look to where she is pointing, and up on a roof nearly 3 stories up is a very, very large shape. It is circling the roof, and then settles in on the South West corner. “Is it a raccoon?” Mary asks, and as I flash my torch up at it, I see it is a cat. So large, at first I thought it a Lynx or a Wildcat, but no, it is a domestic cat. Obviously it had climbed the cedar next to the house perhaps in pursuit of a squirrel, and gotten struck. I bring Sophie (our dog) out and tried to point it out. She just doesn’t see it. The cat is staying stock still, Sofie being a sight hound doesn’t see it until Mary’s torch later catches only its shining eyes moving. Sophie goes absolutely nuts. In the morning, the cat is gone, having finally figured out a way off the roof. I had visions of the fire department coming to get it off of the roof if he was still stuck.

Third: Late night: After working in our yard together, Mary and are sitting in chairs outside. The moon rises up, and everything glows with beauty. We sit together, as we have all these years, sharing in the moment with the arch of the heavens above. In that moment, everything is right. Buster the cat lies in front of Mary, and Sophie lies where I can rest my foot on her. I feel the now deeply, and I drink it in.

Fourth: I have several nights of dreams about un-finished emotional work stemming from events that happened in my teens. Two nights of heart rending memories welling up, with mornings filled with hauntings. The third night, I wake up, and my heart feels like a knife is passing though it. No matter what you have done to change things, sometimes you carry actions by others and yourself for life. These are the depths that run often unexplored. Yet, in the end all must come to that place where truth abides, and all the stories culminate. Sad as these moments are, they must acknowledged whatever the cost. How do you reach across decades to people you no longer are in contact with?

Fifth: We show up to work at a clients house. Mary works mainly on the outside, and I am repairing a mural I painted on her neighbors garage wall. The old balloon with her family I had painted had faded to nothing due to my use of florescent paints. I get up on the wall, and slowly obliterate the balloon, and then the basket with her family. The client, her two children, and then last her husband who’d died 5 years previously. Just like that, as if they never were under a covering of white. I move further down the wall towards the street, and start anew. Different balloon, different basket, and maybe the family again.

Sixth: I am reading Essential Sufism, edited by James Fadiman & Robert Frager. I can’t describe the beauty of this book, I write James and tell him of my early adventures in the world of Sufism. He writes back with some wondrous tales of his own. I find that the book goes with me everywhere. I read it before I go to sleep, I read a page or two during the day. It is almost a home coming on many levels.

Seventh: Mary and I are working in the yard, taking down old beds, moving the dirt, going to the plant nursery, coming home and prepping, cutting back bamboo and blackberries for the summer. We work together like the matched pair, she has the drive and direction, and I the brute strength where it is needed. She talks, and before my eyes she creates the garden for this summer around us. What was virtually jungle now has her imprint upon it. This is a story that goes back before the neolithic, and it plays out in our small space. Loam between fingers, the smell of earth, and the salt of sweat in ones eyes. We sleep the sleep of the dead, and give it another go the next day, trying to catch up along with all the other workers of the soil, the gardeners, and the farmers after out very, very wet spring.
______________________

The Links:
Shark’s Carrying Anti-Bacterial Monsters
The World Fire
Burning To Leave The Office?
The Nuclear Reactor Next Door…
Moments with Shams
_______________________
In Tom’s Head

____________
Vieux Farka Touré : Bullet The Blue Sky

____________
Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish, by J. E. Hanauer [1907]

The Angel Of Death

Three mighty angels were standing before the throne of Allah with the most profound reverence, waiting to fulfil His high behests, and Allah said to one of them, “Descend to the Earth and bring hither a handful of its dust.” On receiving this command the messenger, with swift wing cleaving the atmosphere, descended to the Earth, and gathered a handful of its dust in obedience to the most High. No sooner, however, had he begun to do this, than the whole world shuddered and trembled from its centre to its circumference and groaned most pitifully; and, moved and startled by the distress and anguish which his attempt had caused, the gentle angel let the dust which he had gathered fall back, earth to earth, and returned weeping and ashamed to the Presence of Him that had sent him. And Allah said, “I blame thee not, it was not written on the tablet of destiny that this should be thine office. Stand now aside for other service.” Then Allah said to the second of the three angels, “Go thou, and fetch a handful of Earth’s dust.” He, too, flew swiftly down to Earth and tried to gather up a handful of its dust, but when he saw how the Earth shook and shuddered, and when he heard its groans, the gentle angel could not do the deed but let that which he had gathered fall, dust unto dust, and lifting up himself, he returned ashamed and weeping to the Presence of Him Who had sent him. And Allah said, “This task was not for thee. I blame thee not, but stand thou too aside, and other service shall be thine.” Then Allah sent the third angel, who descended swiftly, and gathered up the dust. But when the Earth began to groan and shudder in great pain and fearful anguish, the sad angel said, “This sore task was given me by Allah, and His Will must be done, even though hearts break with pain and sorrow.” Then he returned and presented the handful of Earth’s dust at Allah’s throne. And Allah said, “As thou the deed hast done, so now the office shall be thine, O Azrael, to gather up for me the souls of men and women when their time has come; the souls of saints and sinners, of beggars and of princes, of the old or young, whate’er befall; and even though friends weep, and hearts of loved ones ache with sorrow and with anguish, when bereft of those they love.” So Azrael became the messenger of Death. Azrael had done some wrong in Heaven, to expiate which he was obliged to live a man’s life on earth, without, however, neglecting his duties as Angel of Death; so he became a physician and, as such, attained wide celebrity. He married and got a son; but his wife was a dreadful shrew; and it did not increase his happiness in her society to know that she was destined to outlive him.

When Azrael had grown old, and the time for his release drew near, he revealed his real character to his son under oath of the strictest secrecy. “As I am shortly to depart,” he said, “it is my duty to provide for your future. You know all that can be known of the science and practice of medicine. Now I am going to tell you a secret which will secure infallible success in that profession. Whenever you are called to a bedside, I shall be present, visible to you alone. If I stand at the head of the bed, be sure the patient will die in spite of all your remedies; if at the foot, he will recover though you gave him the deadliest poison.” Azrael died, as was predestined; and his son, following his instructions, soon grew rich and famous. But he was a spendthrift, and laid by nothing out of all he earned. One day, when his purse was quite empty, he was called to the bedside of a rich notable, who lay at death’s door. On entering the sickroom, he saw his father standing at the head of the bed; so, after going through a form of examination and deliberation, he pronounced the patient’s case quite hopeless. At that the poor rich man, beside himself with fear, clasped the doctor’s knees, and promised him half his possessions if he would save his life. The son of Azrael was sorely tempted. “Well,” he said at length, “I will see what I can do, if you will make it three-fourths of your wealth, to be mine whether I succeed or no.” The patient in fear of death consented, and a contract was drawn up, signed and sealed and witnessed. Then the physician turned to his father, and by frantic gestures implored him to move to the foot of the bed, but the Angel of Death would not budge. Then, having called in four strong men, he bade each take a corner of the bed and, lifting all together, turn it round quickly so that the sick man’s head should be where his feet had been. This was done very cleverly, but Azrael still stood at the head. The manœuvre was oft repeated, but Azrael always moved with the bed. The son was forced to rack his brains for some new expedient. Having dismissed the four porters, he suddenly fell atrembling and whispered, “Father, I hear mother coming.” In a trice fear flamed in the grim angel’s orbs, and he was gone. So the sick man recovered. But from that day forth Azrael ceased to appear to his son, who made so many mistakes in his practice that his reputation fast declined.

One day he had been at the funeral of a Jew, his victim, and was strolling down Wady-en-Nâr, 1 in sad thought of his father, when he saw Azrael standing at the door of a cave. “In a few minutes you are going to die,” said the father sternly. “For thwarting me in my duties, your life has been shortened.” The youth implored his mercy, falling at his feet and kissing them, till Azrael said more kindly, “Well, come into my workshop, and see if your wits can find a way out of the difficulty. Though I myself am powerless now to help you, it is possible that you may yet help yourself.” They passed through a suite of seven chambers, the sides of which looked like the walls of an apothecary’s shop, being covered with shelves on which were all sorts of bottles, urns and boxes; each of which, as Azrael explained, contained the means of death for some human being. Taking down a vessel, he unscrewed its metal lid, and it seemed to the son as if some air escaped. “A certain youth,” he explained has to die within a few minutes by a fall from his horse, and I have just let loose the ‘afrìt’ who will scare that horse.” Of a second vessel he said, “This contains egg-shells of the safat, a strange bird, which never alights, even when mating. Its eggs are laid while on the wing and hatched before they reach the ground. The shells only fall to the earth, for the young are able to fly as soon as they leave the egg. These shells are often found and devoured by the greedy and blood-thirsty shibeh, 1 which goes mad in consequence and bites every creature that comes in its way, thus spreading hydrophobia and giving me plenty of work.”

Thus they passed from room to room till they came to a mighty hall, where, on rows upon rows of tables, were myriads of earthen lamps of various forms and sizes; some of which burned brightly, others with a doubtful flame, while many were going out. “These are the lives of men,” said Azrael. “It is Gabriel’s place to fill and light them; but he is rather careless. See! he has left his pitcher of oil on the table next to you.” “My lamp! where is my lamp?” cried the son feverishly. The Angel of Death pointed to one in the act of going out. “O father, for pity’s sake, refill it!” “That is Gabriel’s place, not mine. But I shall not take your life for a minute, as I have got to collect those lamps at the end of the hall, which have just gone out.” The son, left standing by his dying flame, grasped Gabriel’s pitcher and tried to pour some oil into his vessel; but in his nervous haste he upset the lamp and put it out. Azrael came and took up his son’s empty lamp, carrying it back through the rooms to the mouth of the cave, where the dead body of the physician was found later. “Silly fellow,” he thought to himself. “Why must he interfere in the work of angels. But at any rate he cannot say I killed him.” Azrael always finds an excuse, as the saying goes.

Among the soldiers of Herod there was an Italian named Francesco, a brave young man who had distinguished himself in the wars and was a favourite with his master as with all who knew him. He was gentle with the weak, kind to the poor, and except in fair fight had never been known to hurt a living thing. Children especially used to delight in his companionship. He had but one vice: he was an inveterate gambler, and all his spare moments were spent at cards.

Not only did he gamble himself, but he seemed to take a special delight in persuading others to follow his example. He would waylay boys and lads on their way to school, and apprentices sent running upon errands, and entice them to try their luck at a game. Nay, so infatuated did he become, that he is said to have ventured to accost some respectable Pharisees on their way to and from the Temple and invite them to join him at his loved diversion. At last, things went so far that the Chief Priests and Rulers betook themselves to Herod in a body and demanded his punishment. But card-playing happened to be a pastime in which Herod himself delighted so he did not take the charge against Francesco very seriously. Only, when the Jewish rulers kept on worrying him, he gave the Italian his discharge, and bade him leave Jerusalem and never again be seen within its walls.

Francesco entered on a new course of life. Gathering round him certain of his former comrades whose time of service had expired, he became the leader of a band of armed men whose business it was to waylay travellers on their way to and from the Holy City. Their principal haunt was a large cave on the road a little to the north of El Bìreh, the ancient Beeroth. In no case were they guilty of violence and they always let the poor go unmolested. Their mode of procedure was singular. They used to stop and surround travellers who seemed wealthy and invite them to their cave to play a game with Francesco. The travellers dared not refuse so courteous an invitation when delivered by a band of armed brigands. They were politely welcomed by the gambler, treated to wine, and made to stake at cards whatever valuables they had with them. If they won, they went undespoiled; if they lost, they were compassionated and begged to come again with more money and try their luck a second time.

This went on for a long while, till, on a certain day, the sentinel on the look-out announced that a party of pedestrians was in sight. “If they are on foot,” said the leader of the outlaws, “they are not likely to have with them anything worth playing for; still, let us see. How many of them are there?” “Thirteen,” was the answer. “Thirteen,” said Francesco musingly, “that is a curious number. Now where was it that I met a party of just thirteen men? Ah! now I remember; it was at Capernaum, where the Carpenter-rabbi of Nazareth cured the servant of one of the centurions belonging to our legion. I wonder whether by any chance, he and his twelve pupils can be coming this way. I must go and see for myself.” So saying he came out of the cave and joined the watchman at his point of vantage. The travellers were now near enough for Francesco to know them for Our Lord and His Apostles. He hastily called his men together, and told them that this time a really good man and a great prophet was coming, and that they must hide away the cards and all else that was sinful, for this was quite a different sort of person from the hypocrites of Jerusalem. Leaving them to prepare for the coming guests, he hurried down the road and, saluting the Saviour and His companions, pressed them, seeing evening was at hand and a storm threatening, to honour him and his comrades by spending the night with them. The invitation was accepted, and Jesus and His followers became the guests of the outlaws, who did their best to make them comfortable and, after supper, gathered round the Divine Teacher and, drinking in his gracious words, wondered. Although in all He said there was not a word that could be construed into blame of their way of life, yet a sense of guilt fell on them as they listened. The brigands made the guests lie down on their own rough beds, whilst they themselves wrapped their abâyehs around them and slept on the bare ground. That night it was Francesco’s turn to keep the watch. It chanced to strike him that the Saviour, lying fast asleep, had not sufficient covering, so he took off his own abâyeh and laid it over Him. He himself walked up and down to keep warm, but could not help shivering. Next morning, having breakfasted with the outlaws, Jesus and His Apostles departed, Francesco and some of his own men setting them on their way. Before parting, the Saviour thanked Francesco for his hospitality and that of his comrades and asked whether it were in His power to gratify any special wish he might have. “Not one, O Lord, but four,” replied the gambler. “What are they?” asked Jesus. “First,” said Francesco, “I am fond of playing cards, and I beg Thee to grant that whoever I play with, whether human or otherwise, I may always win. Next, that in case I invite any one to sit upon a certain stone seat at the door of our cave, he may not be able to get up without my permission. Thirdly, there is a lemon tree growing near the said cave, and I ask that nobody who climbs it at my request, may be able to descend to the ground unless I bid him. And lastly, I beg that in whatever disguise Azrael may come to take away my soul, I may detect him before he come too near, and be ready for him.” On hearing these strange petitions, the Saviour smiled sadly and answered, “My son, thou has spoken childishly and not in wisdom. Still, that which thou hast asked in thy simplicity shall be granted, and I will add thereto the promise, that when thou shalt see thy error, and desire to make a fresh request, it shall be granted. Fare thee well.”

Years passed away and many of Francesco’s comrades had left him, when one day the Angel of Death, disguised as a wayfarer, was seen approaching. Francesco knew him from afar, and when Azrael came to the door of the cave, the gambler invited him to sit down on the stone seat without. Having seen the angel fairly seated, Francesco cried, “I know thee. Thou hast come to take my soul, or the soul of one of my comrades, but I defy thee! I entertained the Lord of Life in this cave years ago, and He gave me power to forbid, any one who sits on that seat to rise from it without my leave.” The angel at once struggled to get up but found himself paralysed. Finding rage of no avail, he humbly begged to be released. Francesco extorted from him a solemn oath not to seek his soul nor that of any of his comrades for the space of fifteen years, then let him go.

The fifteen years passed, and Francesco now dwelt alone in his cave as a godly hermit, when the Angel of Death drew near once more. The recluse at once withdrew into the cave and lay down on his bed, groaning as if in agony. This time, Azrael entered the cave dressed in a monk’s habit. “What ails thee, my son?” he asked. “I have fever and I thirst,” came the reply. “I beg you to gather a lemon for me off the tree which grows close to the cave, and to mix a little of its juice with f water that my thirst may be slaked.” As it wanted yet some minutes of the time appointed, Azrael saw in the request a good excuse for administering a mortal draught; so he climbed the tree to reach the fruit. But, no sooner was he up in the branches than he heard a laugh and, looking down, beheld Francesco in the best of health. He strove to descend but could not move without Francesco’s leave, which was not granted until he had pledged his word to keep away for other fifteen years.

That term elapsed and Azrael came a third time. “Do you intend to play any more vile tricks on me?” he inquired of Francesco, now an aged man. “Not if you will grant me one favour,” answered Francesco, “and allow me to take my pack of cards into the other world.” “Will my giving you the permission lead to some fresh practical joke at my expense?” “No, I most solemnly assure you,” replied the old man. Hereupon the Angel of Death snatched up Francesco’s soul and his pack of cards and went with them to the gate of Paradise where St Peter sits to admit the souls of the righteous. Francesco was told to knock at the gate. He did so and it was opened, but when the porter saw who it was, and that he had brought his cards with him, he slammed the door in his face. So Azrael lifted the poor soul up again and descended with him to the gate of Hell where Iblìs sits, eager to seize and torment dead sinners. On beholding who it was that the Angel of Death had brought, he said in great glee, “Here you are at last, my dear. I have waited long for your arrival, and so have many others with whom you played cards on Earth. They all hope to see you beaten at your own game, for as you did not allow travellers to reach the Holy City till they had played with you, so shall I not allow you to roast on the red-hot coals till you have played a game with me. You have your cards, I see, so we will begin at once.” So Francesco and the Evil One began to play, and to the surprise of both Francesco won the game. Satan insisted on a fresh trial of skill, and when he was once more defeated, he would insist on another trial, till at last, when he had been beaten seven times, he lost his temper and drove out Francesco, saying that he could not have any one in Hell who excelled him in any thing even though it were a game. On hearing this, fresh hope was roused in the poor sinner’s heart, and, recalling the Saviour’s pledge to grant him one more boon, he begged Azrael who had stopped to watch the game to take him back to the gates of Paradise, as he felt sure the Saviour would not treat him as harshly as the Prince of Saints and the chief of lost spirits had done. So Azrael took the poor soul to Heaven’s gate and it once more knocked thereat, and when St Peter opened, and would have driven it away, it pleaded the Saviour’s promise to grant one more boon. So St Peter called his Master, Who, when Francesco asked for admission, confessing that his life had been one great mistake and offering to throw away his pack of cards, told Mar Butrus to let him in; and so the lifelong gambler entered Paradise.

Footnotes

177:1 This account of the appointment of Azrael was given by a Moslem lady of rank to a Christian woman, who passed it on to my wife.

179:1 Hell has seven gates, one of which is in Wady-en-Nâr; and the Angel of Death has his workshop in one of the caves in that gloomy valley, as appears in this story.

180:1 Shibeh (lit. “the leaper”) is one of the names of the leopard. But in folk-lore it is described as a creature combining the characteristics of the badger and the hyæna.
____________

Ahmed Taha Poems on Anwar Kamal

From: The empire of walls (cantos and stories)

Portrait of Anwar Kamel

You extend your spider web
beyond all exiles
and beyond the years that escaped you
this is why
the regime’s soldiers couldn’t hunt you
and your fragile threads remained
a dusky home for
the comrades who died or immigrated

How do you forget that you’re the one
who started departing
then invented your face
that we see so enigmatic
and the fingers that take refuge
in your eyes
whenever you hide
behind a stone table
or a silk coat

How do you hear now the beats of your body
whenever you read Nietzsche or Paul Eluard
you extend your hands to the desert
in order to meet God away from both the “Pasha” square
and the chairs of the “Odeon” café
you whisper to him about your rebellion
you remember your briefcase,
so you gesture to him
and give him the nearest poem, he reads it
and leans toward you
and the eyes smile

From: A final portrait of Anwar Kamel

Notes:
Anwar Kamel was an important member of the Egyptian avant-garde in the forties, a friend of George Henein and Edmond Jabes. Kamel was an early Trotskyite and wrote a book “El-ketab El-mamnoo’” that was banned then. After the military takeover in 1952, most of his friends either immigrated or were forced into exile. In the eighties, an old man, he published the new generation of Egyptian poets in his free, limited distribution, magazine/flyer “Fasilah”.

Shobra is a very crowded lower middle class neighborhood in Cairo where Ahmed grew up.
________
Anwar Kamel widens his exile:

For thirty years
you were alone in your exile
meanwhile, we crawled,
screamed,
and wore fatigues

You knew
that our path goes through here
so you were widening your exile
and building a fortress of names between your tomb
and the regime’s soldiers:

this is George Henein
taking out maps from his armpit
in order to pick where he would be born
and where he would get lost

this is Trotsky
bending over a book
and pointing to his heartache

this is Ramsis Younan
drawing a city of dreams and illusions
and disappearing in its streets

this is Besheer El-Sebaai
writing a romantic apology
for not dying in 1848

this is Ahmed Taha
creating these traps and holes
around himself
in order to chase his runaway childhood

this is Cairo, your city
not a single alphabet letter can penetrate it
to disclose its streets that host different epochs
like homeless old people
these streets where deities are conversing
as if they were friends in a coffee shop

and this is “Shobra”
a body that extends like a graveyard
that is big enough for everyone
yet doesn’t fit a single person
Shobra that is embarrassed of its sagging breasts
so it kneels
and the dead,
the hungry,
the kids,
and the grieving women
drop from it
like warm milk
yet the armies of police remain,
the empty cable cars remain,
the train graveyard in the north end of Shobra remains,
also the kids whose skin is mere dust,
men who mumble at night
and yell during the day,
women who weep — the same way they laugh —
beneath the weight of their husbands
or behind their coffins
women who get impregnated with men’s panting
and under their gowns their kids walk.

Anwar Kamel dies a natural death:

I always saw you
lying on the road
bullets gathered around you like flocks of flies
meanwhile your gray coat is completely open
and next to you, was this dark featherless bird
that — moments ago — used to be your leather briefcase
before they removed your papers from it

Yet you died an ordinary death
that is similar to your last escape
and similar to this awful type of death that we have in
Cairo,
Hegazz,
Nagd,
and Damascus
out of hunger
overeating,
laughter,
and depression

This canned death
that has already expired
and can only bring
vomit
and headache
this death that can be defeated by
aspirin and valium

You must feel jealous then of our surreal death
coming from the desert
riding its camouflaged camel
with computerized rockets in its saddlebag
and in the distance between its head and its fingers
a bowl of the leftover Fatta*
from yesterday’s dinner
________________
* Fatta is a Bedouin food

Anwar Kamel didn’t build a home country in his briefcase:

For thirty years
you were alone in your exile
and you were thinking
“Where does the original Cairo sleep
and how did the barracks extend to reach my window”

You were thinking
“How could the lost George Henein
have a home country
to put his arm around
or sit with in a café
and maybe feel its body after his second drink”

As for you
the home country that sits next to you doesn’t know your name
even after ten drinks
it may stretch
you may rub your eyes a little
then it would go about its daily journey
and you would go with your daily journey”

Well, let it be then
you only have this chest without nipples
after all the comrades have left forever
like wandering butterflies
where nipples grow like grass
on coffee shop tables
waiting for the dry lips
of those who migrated from the east

Let it be then
you will surrender your body to them
without any sign that points to your
specializing in death for thirty years
let them bury it in the graveyard of July
and you go back to what you were:
a spirit that wanders
in the relics of Heliopolis

A last dance with Anwar Kamel

As usual
I’ll slightly disagree with you
regarding who should die first:
Marx
or the husband of the woman I’m sleeping with?.

The General who is in khaki,
or the General who is in jeans?

Yet we will agree before the night ends
that everyone should die
and we will agree that we will organize everything
whenever the time permits
in the evening that follows
your final departure

Anwar Kamel celebrates the 14th of July:

Don’t say that all these defeats have colored me
with the color that doesn’t show in the darkness
this was my color from the beginning
as it is your color now
call it whatever you want
it is all you have

There is not a half death for you to die
and there is not half a color for me to live it
this is why I will stay — as I was created — a terrorist
and stuff my head with these big-bellied dying children
and ambush these blonde worms
like a fat spider

I won’t suck their viscous blood
I will organize them in my old notebooks
placed deep in each of their chests, a spear.
I will return their horns they put in museum halls
and their eyes that were stuck to the heads of fish
maybe I would dance around their corpses
that are lined up without shiny coffins
maybe I would fill their limbs with my words
that don’t know Rousseau or Voltaire
and don’t care about the 14th of July
and don’t resemble these three words
that fall from the pages of books
like fetuses in their third month
that stuck to the rears of cannons
like genital flees

But I embrace every moment with this shiny sword
that falls like an angry god
to put the heads of kings, prostitutes,
poetry recite-rs, revolutionary intellectuals,
Generals, beautiful women, and men of God in one basket

I wish if I were there
I would have brushed against the shoulders of these women
who are peeling their vegetables
then would have sat immediately behind that basket
wetting my quill with fresh blood
and write a love poem daily
on my sweetheart’s head

How did the gods ask about the tomb of Anwar Kamel:

There should be a dark universe
where the gods who created it stumble
while searching in the rubble of ancient cities
for any monument from the past
I’ll guide them like blind people
through the ruins that I know well
pointing at what remained of
steel,
plastic,
and canned sex organs

I’ll lie to them whenever I can
like tourist guides lie
to old folks seeking immortality

I will point at Paris’ skull and say:
here Anwar Kamel was born
and point to London’s vagina that is covered with gray hair:
here the faces of the revolutions of third world countries got stuck
and to Washington’s ass:
here third world countries’ officers became leaders
and to Moscow’s breasts that drip rotten milk:
here the leaders turned into philosophers

And when the gods try to return to their far skies
while holding their fake monuments
their eldest will ask me with his dignified voice:
what do you want you obedient servant?

I’ll kneel down in front of him
holding back a chuckle
and chant in a pious tone:
I want more flourishing cities,
more T.N.T.,
and more valium.



Anwar Kamel doesn’t intend to be a saint:

Now, here are the comrades: The Decembrists, the Octoberists
and the romantic assassin writers
unifying their death
they all arrive
with their unkempt beards dangling
with lit pipes.

They will fill the earth with saliva
the air with coughs,
and the sky with something dark
that resembles smoke

In between their sporadic exhalation
their teary voices will echo
while reciting the books of the ancestors
who followed God’s calling
so their blood flowed on His door
while carrying sharp-edged crosses

And you never return

Here are the comrades
raising the white flags
with bloody stripes
and the smallpox scars that resemble the stars
and chant the book of the Ecclesiastes

And you never return

Here are the comrades
their feet shaking absently
while they pray for exodus
the jazz music calms down,
the psalms begin,
their bodies are free from December’s ice
and they begin the New Testament
with their feet flying in the air
their beards touch in ecstasy
and moans that are louder than rock music
in front of the sacrifice scene

And you never return

Maybe you will write the last page
starting with a greeting
and ending with an apology
not for specializing in death for thirty years
and not for escaping from the time of the military and the Bedouins
and certainly not for migrating with the birds in the fall
but because — unlike these birds —
you won’t return the next spring.

_________

Vieux Farka Touré – Fafa

_________
Outro:
This spirit of divine origin appears in a man as man, in beast as beast, and in plant as plant. And it appears differently even within each species, appearing in each person in a different manner in accordance with his different capacity and predisposition. The spirit neither disappears not diminishes nor changes when the body is destroyed.
The body, until its end, is in continuous transformation, whereas the spirit never changes. It cannot be identified by anything other than the body it inhabits. There is no identification without appearance; therefore, it is essential for the spirit to have a form. Yet if the spirit becomes fully identified with a specific body, it cannot return to its origin. – Sheikh Badruddin

Adventures In The Thought Trade…

Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya spoke a while on the subject of the departure of the friends of God from this world. One of those present mentioned the name of a particular man and said that at the time of his death he was softly uttering the names of God. This moved Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya to tears and he reited the following quatrain:

Ayam be sar-e-kuye to puyan puyan
Rukhsar be ab-e-dide shuyan shuyan

Bichare rah-e wasl-e to juyan juyan
Jan mideham o nam-e to guyan guyan

I came to the end of Your street, running, running.
Tears came down my cheek, washing, washing.

Union with You, I am helplessly seeking, seeking.
My soul I surrender while Your name I am reciting, reciting.


____________

This is perhaps a bit early, but I have had some time on my hand due to the weather and all. It has been a strange time as of late, and I have been a bit pensive with the strangeness of it all.

Life rushes so fast. Wait, I am catching my breath!

Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
On The Imaginarium & Musings on Mortality
Mammoth Time Lapse
The Banshee
Marconi Union – Tokyo Ginza District
Three Sonnets On Mortality
Marconi Union – Glace Bay (Part One) / Border Crossing
Art: Henry Siddons Mowbray
____________

On The Imaginarium & Musings on Mortality

Rowan’s key phrase from the film: “As long as the story is told…the unvierse will keep going”
My rejoinder: “And we all have a chapter in the story. When that chapter ends, we winkle out of existence, (or not)”

Last night at Caer Llwydd, we watched Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”. This was of course Heath Ledger’s last movie, he sadly died before completing it. Heath was one of my favourite actors, his past work with Terry Gilliam in “The Brothers Grimm” is a household favourite. “Imaginarium” is a most wonderful work of art. Every scene is chock full of eye candy, and has a cornucopia of philosophical underpinnings strewn about in a willy-nilly fashion. I kept on feeling I had read the story before, but no Gilliam has said it came all from him. I think the film touches on deep parts of the human psyche, and generates emotive responses to the questions and situations being layed before the viewers eyes. There are sincere questions on morality, mortality, and the role one wants to or should play in the world. Gilliam has such a deft touch (some would say daft), but this little film, is a fine, fine creation. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

Earlier this week, I seemed to be dogged by the feelings of fleeting mortality….

A friend had confided that they were contemplating ending their life. We had sat and talked for quite a bit what this meant for them. They were feeling worn down by decades of work and responsibility. It was one of those conversations that on one hand you don’t want to have, but on the other it was (perhaps) the most important conversation that we have had in our times together. In the end, it seemed like a dream scenario. People rushing past us on the street, and there we were talking about the limits of mortality. I felt weary after the talk, I must confess. The sky opened up, and the rain came down. I ended up at home, reading poetry and thinking deep into the evening.

So, this little encounter set me up for some interesting musings. I am prone to thinking about mortality, I mean it is the great mystery isn’t it? The divide between life and either another, or oblivion. The one raging question it seems for philosophers, sages, fools, kings and beggars, it has engaged everyone at sometime in their life. Of course, life is to be lived in the here and now, but there are those moments when you attempt to peer across the river…

Later in the week I found myself standing in the yard with the sun (fleeting as it is now days) and wind upon me. I had fallen into a fugue… I was a static point in the universe whilst the winds of time were playing across my mind and life. I felt as if the winds were pulling the fabric of my corporeal being apart in a splay of atoms, slowly increasing in speed and everything was dissolving into light. I must of stood there for an eternity before I returned to the present. I had been in a place where I wasn’t, yet was. I wasn’t sad, or panicked, but oddly detached from everything. Perhaps it was a moment of grace. I don’t know. Yet, the taste of it lingered for hours and into the next day.

I have no idea what really lies ahead, I used to think that I had a good idea, but really who actually does? We have this moment, this now in which we exist together. Though I easily contemplate what might follow in the world, I realize that everything I imagine is a projection of the now unto an unknown field. Intuitively I understand my actions and the way I comport myself sends a message to those who will be when I am not, and those who will not know that I once was. How I treat others, how I loved does have an effect and probably deeper than we realize. Our dealings with others in the present does indeed shape the future to come. What we inherited we have the choice to pass along; either the genuine inheritance from countless generations, or those cultural traps and eddies of stagnation and sleep.

I find myself again on that street talking with my friend; in that one beautiful moment we share our hopes, our fears, the essences of our lives; the mortal and the immortal parts of our beings.

Gwyllm

You Mustn’t Be Afraid Of Death

you mustn’t be afraid of death
you’re a deathless soul
you can’t be kept in a dark grave
you’re filled with God’s glow

be happy with your beloved
you can’t find any better
the world will shimmer
because of the diamond you hold

when your heart is immersed
in this blissful love
you can easily endure
any bitter face around

in the absence of malice
there is nothing but
happiness and good times
don’t dwell in sorrow my friend
Rumi – Translated by Nader Khalili
____________

(Thanks To Paul Bingman for finding this!)

.

___________________

The Banshee

(Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland –
by Lady Francesca Speranza Wilde [1887])

The Banshee means, especially, the woman of the fairy race, from van, “the Woman–the Beautiful;” the same word from which comes Venus. Shiloh-Van was one of the names of Buddha–”the son of the woman;” and some writers aver that in the Irish–Sullivan (Sulli-van), may be found this ancient name of Buddha.
As the Leanan-Sidhe was the acknowledged spirit of life, giving inspiration to the poet and the musician, so the Ban-Sidhe was the spirit of death, the most weird and awful of all the fairy powers.
But only certain families of historic lineage, or persons gifted with music and song, are attended by this spirit; for music and poetry are fairy gifts, and the possessors of them show kinship to the spirit race–therefore they are watched over by the spirit of life, which is prophecy and inspiration; and by the spirit of doom, which is the revealer of the secrets of death.
Sometimes the Banshee assumes the form of some sweet singing virgin of the family who died young, and has been given the mission by the invisible powers to become the harbinger of coming doom to her mortal kindred. Or she may be seen at night as a shrouded woman, crouched beneath the trees, lamenting with veiled face; or flying past in the moonlight, crying bitterly: and the cry of thus spirit is mournful beyond all other sounds on earth, and betokens certain death to some member of the family whenever it. is heard in the silence of the night.
*
The Banshee even follows the old race across the ocean and to distant. lands; for space and the offer no hindrance to the mystic power which is selected and appointed to bear the prophecy of death to a family. Of this a well authenticated instance happened a few years ago, and many now living can attest the truth of the narrative.
A branch of the ancient race of the O’Gradys had settled in Canada, far removed, apparently, from all the associations, traditions, and mysterious influences of the old land of their fore-fathers.
But one night a strange and mournful lamentation was heard outside the house. No word was uttered, only a bitter cry, as of one in deepest agony and sorrow, floated through the air.
Inquiry was made, but no one had been seen near the house at the time, though several persons distinctly heard the weird, unearthly cry, and a terror fell upon the household, as if some supernatural influence had overshadowed them.
Next day it so happened that the gentleman and his eldest son went out boating. As they did not return, however, at the usual time for dinner, some alarm was excited, and messengers were sent down to the shore to look for them. But no tidings came until, precisely at the exact hour of the night when the spirit-cry had been heard the previous evening, a crowd of men were seen approaching the house, bearing with them the dead bodies of the father and the son, who had both been drowned by the accidental upsetting of the boat, within sight of land, but not near enough for any help to reach them in time.
Thus the Ban-Sidhe had fulfilled her mission of doom, after which she disappeared, ‘and the cry of the spirit of death was heard no more.
*
At times the spirit-voice is heard in low and soft lamenting, as if close to the window.
Not long ago an ancient lady of noble lineage was lying near the death-hour in her stately castle. One evening, after twilight., she suddenly unclosed her eyes and pointed to the window, with a happy smile on her face. All present looked in the direction, but nothing was visible. They heard, however, the sweetest music, low, soft, and spiritual, floating round the house, and at times apparently close to the window of the sick room.
Many of the attendants thought it was a trick, and went out to search the grounds; but nothing human was seen. Still the wild plaintive singing went on, wandering through the trees like the night wind–a low, beautiful music that never ceased all through the night.
Next morning the noble lady lay dead; then the music ceased, and the lamentation from that hour was heard no more.
*
There was a gentleman also in the same country who had a beautiful daughter, strong and healthy, and a splendid horsewoman. She always followed the hounds, and her appearance at the hunt attracted unbounded admiration, as no one rode so well or looked so beautiful.
One evening there was a ball after the hunt, and the young girl moved through the dance with the grace of a fairy queen.
But that same night a voice came close to the father’s window, as if the face were laid close to the glass, and he heard a mournful lamentation and a cry; and the words rang out on the air–”In three weeks death; in three weeks the grave–dead–dead–dead!”
Three times the voice came, and three times he heard the words; but though it. was bright moonlight, and he looked from the window over all the park, no form was to be seen.
Next day, his daughter showed symptoms of fever, and exactly in three weeks, as the Ban-Sidhe had prophesied, the beautiful girl lay dead.
The night before her death soft music was heard outside the house, though no word was spoken by the spirit-voice, and the family said the form of a woman crouched beneath a tree, with a mantle covering her head, was~ distinctly visible. But on approaching, the phantom disappeared, though the soft, low music of the lamentation continued till dawn.
Then the angel of death entered the house with soundless feet, and he breathed upon the beautiful face of the young girl, and she rested in the sleep of the dead, beneath the dark shadows of his wings.
Thus the prophecy of the Banshee came true, according to the time foretold by the spirit-voice.
___________________

___________________

Three Sonnets On Mortality
– by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 19: Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets.
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity—
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desart,
And this my hand, against myself uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part.
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love I can allege no cause.
________________________

________________________
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.
– Rumi

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
– Rumi

Early Sunlight…

“Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat.”
Robert Anton Wilson

__________________
Ah… heading off to work so not much to say. New artist gracing our pages Caspar David Frierich, a romantic landscape artist this time around. Two articles, some links and some quotes, and two of my favourite Fever Ray videos. I hope she keeps going, she has an interesting musical style.

We finally have a bit of sun, gotta go and bask in it. Here is to beauty!

Have a good day, more coming soon.

Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
The Links
Random Quotes
Fever Ray – Keep The Streets Empty For Me
Programmed Communication During Experiences With DMT – Tim Leary
Cheerful Reflections on Death and Dying – Robert Anton Wilson
Ryokan For A Rainy Day
Fever Ray – Im not done
Art: Caspar David Friedrich
__________________
The Links:
The Ancients Within
The Life Nearby…
The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries
The Perniciously Persistent Myths of Hypatia and the Great Library
___________________

Random Quotes:
Dave Barry – “You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.”
Abraham Lincoln – “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
Nicholas Butler – “The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.”
Unknown – “People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.”
Elizabeth Aston – “Love has no place in a lawyer’s office.”
Will Rogers | “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”
M.C. Escher – “He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.”
___________________

Fever Ray – Keep The Streets Empty For Me

___________________
Programmed Communication During Experiences With DMT (dimethyltryptamine)

Originally appeared in the eighth issue of Psychedelic Review, 1966
by Dr. Timothy Leary
During the first two years of the Harvard Psychedelic Research Project rumors circulated about a powerful psychedelic agent called dimethyltryptamine: DMT. The effect of this substance was supposed to last for less than an hour and to produce shattering, terrorizing effects. It was alleged to be the nuclear bomb of the psychedelic family.

The Hungarian pharmacologist, Stephen Szara, first reported in 1957 that N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and N,N-Diethyltryptamine (DET) produced effects in man similar to LSD and mescaline. The only difference was in duration: whereas LSD and mescaline typically last 8 to 10 hours, DMT lasted from 40 minutes to 1 hour and DET from 2 to 3 hours. The higher homologues, dipropyltryptamine and dibutyltryptamine, were also said to be active but less potent. The parent substance, tryptamine, by itself has no effect. Chemically, DMT is closely related to psilocybin and psilocin (4-hydroxy-N-dimethyltryptamine), as well as to bufotenine (5-hydroxy-N-dimethyltryptamine). The mechanism of action of DMT and related compounds is still a scientific mystery. Like LSD and psilocybin, DMT has the property of increasing the metabolic turnover of serotonin in the body. An enzyme capable of converting naturally-occurring tryptamine to DMT has recently been found in some mammalian tissue; this suggests that mechanisms may exist whereby the body converts normally-occurring substances to psychedelic compounds. (1-5)

DMT has been identified as one of the ingredients in the seeds of Mimosa hostilis, from which the Pancaru Indians of Pernambuco, Brazil, prepare an hallucinogenic beverage they call vinho de Jurumena. It is also, along with bufotenine, one of the ingredients in the seeds of Piptadenia peregrina, from which the Indians of the Orinoco Basin and of Trinidad prepare an hallucinogenic snuff they call yopo. (6)

William Burroughs had tried it in London and reported it in the most negative terms. Burroughs was working at that time on a theory of neurological geography–certain cortical areas were heavenly, other areas were diabolical. Like explorers moving into a new continent, it was important to map out the friendly areas and the hostile. In Burroughs’ pharmacological cartography, DMT propelled the voyager into strange and decidedly unfriendly territory.

Burroughs told a gripping tale about a psychiatrist in London who had taken DMT with a friend. After a few minutes the frightened friend began requesting help. The psychiatrist, himself being spun through a universe of shuttling, vibratory pigments, reached for his hypodermic needle (which had been fragmented into a shimmering assemblage of wave mosaics) and bent over to administer an antidote. Much to his dismay his friend, twisting in panic, was suddenly transformed into a writhing, wiggling reptile, jewel-encrusted and sparkling. The doctor’s dilemma: where to make an intravenous injection in a squirming, oriental-martian snake?

Alan Watts had a DMT story to tell. He took the drug as part of a California research and had planned to demonstrate that he could maintain rational control and verbal fluency during the experience. The closest equivalent might be to attempt a moment-to-moment description of one’s reactions while being fired out the muzzle of an atomic cannon with neon-byzantine barreling. Dr. Watts gave an awe-full description of perceptual fusion.

In the fall of 1962, while giving a three-day series of lectures to the Southern California Society of Clinical Psychologists, I fell into discussion with a psychiatrist who was collecting data on DMT. He had given the drug to over a hundred subjects and only four had reported pleasant experiences. This was a challenge to the set-setting hypothesis. According to our evidence, and in line with our theory, we had found little differentiation among psychedelic drugs. We were skeptically convinced that the elaborate clinical differences allegedly found in reactions to different drugs were psychedelic folk tales. We were sticking to our null hypothesis that the drugs had no specific effect on consciousness but that expectation, preparation, emotional climate, and the contract with the drug-giver accounted for all differences in reaction.

We were eager to see if the fabled “terror-drug,” DMT, would fit the set-setting theory.

A session was arranged. I came to the home of the researcher, accompanied by a psychologist, a Vedanta monk and two female friends. After a lengthy and friendly discussion with the physician, the psychologist lay down on a couch. His friend’s head rested on his chest. I sat on the edge of the couch, smiling in reassuring expectation. Sixty mg of DMT were administered intramuscularly.

Within two minutes the psychologist’s face was glowing with serene joy. For the next twenty-five minutes he gasped and murmured in pleasure, keeping up an amused and ecstatic account of his visions.

“The faces in the room had become billion-faceted mosaics of rich and vibrant hues. The facial characteristics of each of the observers, surrounding the bed, were the keys to their genetic heritage. Dr. X (the psychiatrist) was a bronzed American Indian with full ceremonial paint; the Hindu monk was a deep soulful middle-easterner with eyes which were at once reflecting animal cunning and the sadness of centuries; Leary was a roguish Irishman, a sea captain with weathered skin and creases at the corners of eyes which had looked long and hard into the unseeable, an adventurous skipper of a three-masted schooner eager to chart new waters, to explore the continent just beyond, exuding a confidence that comes from a humorous cosmic awareness of his predicament–genetic and immediate. And next to me, or rather on me, or rather in me, or rather more of me–Billy. Her body was vibrating in such harmony with mine that each ripple of muscle, the very coursing of blood through her veins was a matter of absolute intimacy…body messages of a subtlety and tenderness both exotically strange and deliciously familiar. Deep within, a point of heat in my groin slowly but powerfully and inevitably radiated throughout my body until every cell became a sun emanating its own life-giving fire. My body was an energy field, a set of vibrations with each cell pulsing in phase with every other. And Billy, whose cells now danced the same tune, was no longer a discrete entity but a resonating part of the single set of vibrations. The energy was love.”
Exactly twenty-five minutes after administration, the psychologist smiled, sighed, sat up swinging his legs over the side of the couch and said, “It lasted for a million years and for a split-second. But it’s over and now it’s your turn.”

With this reassuring precedent, I took up position on the couch. Margaret sat on the floor holding my hand. The psychologist sat at the foot of the couch, radiating benevolence. The drug was administered.
___________________

Cheerful Reflections on Death and Dying
Robert Anton Wilson

I don’t understand why people fear death — although of course I see good reasons to fear the process of dying. Dying often involves a great deal of prolonged pain, and in this country at least may drain your life savings into the bank accounts of the A.M.A.. Both prospects seem equally terrifying especially if you hoped to leave a decent estate to your children.

One can avoid these deplorable conditions, however, by moving to a civilized country with a national health plan and legal help to assist you in suicide if you have reached a condition where you can’t do it yourself. I personally intend to move to Nederland in the event that a painful, expensive and prolonged death seems inescapable. The medical banditos have made enough money out of me already; I refuse to enrich them further on my way out.

But as for death, and what — if anything –comes after death, I see no cause for apprehension whatsoever.

To consider the alternatives in order:

Most people through most of history have believed that after death comes rebirth (reincarnation). I think most people, planetwide, still believe that. It fails to terrify me. If I get reborn as a cockroach, I intend to hide in the vicinity of somebody’s computer and write poems on the keyboard at night, like archy, the famous roach who left his verse in the typewriter of Don Marquis. If I get reborn as a human, I might meet my wife Arlen again and love her again and marry her again. That sounds great to me.

Other rebirths, as a tree, say, or a blue whale, also seem more entertaining (and educational) than frightening.

Unfortunately, I have no good reasons to believe in reincaration, although I’d sort of like to. I include it only for the sake of completeness.

A sinister rumor, widely believed in the Occident, holds that after death we go to a place called Heaven. From all the descriptions I’ve read, it sounds dreadful to me. It seems to have a population made up entirely of some gang of Christians; the experts on Heaven disagree about which conglomeration of Christians will qualify, but they always seem to think that they personally belong to that elite group. An eternity with people that conceited seems intolerable to me,but fortunately I am not a Christian so I won’t be consigned to such a boring place.

An even more nefarious report appears in the United States Marine Corps hymn:

If the Army and the Navy
ever looked on Heaven’s scenes
they would find the streets were guarded
by the United States Marines

A place where every street is guarded by Marines sounds like a particularly vicious police state, especially if Christians run it, and I definitely don’t want to go there, even for a visit. I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemy, if I had any enemies. (Some people hate me for the books I write, but I refuse to hate them back, so they don’t count as enemies.)

Fortunately, as noted, I don’t qualify for Heaven, with all its harps and fanatic Christians and martial law by Marines. A worse idea, which has terrified millions, claims that some of us will go to a place called Hell, where we will suffer eternal torture. This does not scare me because, when I try to imagine a Mind behind this universe, I cannot conceive that Mind, usually called “God,” as totally mad.

I mean, guys, compare that “God” with the worst monsters you can think of – – Adolph Hitler, Joe Stalin, that sort of guy. None of them ever inflicted more than finite pain on their victims. Even de Sade, in his sado-maso fantasy novels, never devised an unlimited torture. The idea that the Mind of Creation (if such exists) wants to torture some of its critters for endless infinities of infinities seems too absurd to take seriously.

Such a derranged Mind could not create a mud hut, much less the exquisitely mathematical universe around us.

If such a monster-God did exist, the sane attitude would consist of practising the Buddhist virtue of compassion. He seems very sick in His head, so don’t give way to hatred: try to understand and forgive him. Maybe He will recover his wits some day. (I wrote “He” instead of the fashionable “He or She” because only male Gods appear to have invented Hells. I can’t think of a single Goddess who ever created a Hell for people who displeased Her .)

A fourth alternative after-death scenario involves merger with “God” or with “the Godhead” (the latter term seems more popular.) This idea, which seems Hindic in origin, currently enjoys vast popularity with New Agers. I see nothing terrifying here; in fact, I suspect I would enjoy it, based on my previous experiences in which this merging/melting seemed to take place on LSD. An infinite Acid Trip in which the whole universe seems like your body: who could fear that (except Republicans)?

The fifth and, as far as I know, the last thinkable alternative holds that after death comes total oblivion. This has either terrorized or angered many intelligent writers (e.g. Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre, who seem to have hated “life after death” for not existing, just as they remained permanently pissed off at “God” for not existing. ) Sorry: it doesn’t seem terrible to me at all. If I become totally oblivious, I won’t know about it (by definition of oblivion.) How can you feel terrified of something you can’t experience?

Besides oblivion means freedom from “all the ills the flesh is heir to,” from bleeding piles to cancer, including even bad reviews of my books.

Living in New York or Los Angeles seem much worse than not living in Oblivion.

Although I have a few opinions, or hunches, I have no dogma about what happens after death. But none of the above alternatives seem really unpleasant, except the ones that seem too absurd to take seriously.

As some Roman wrote:

Nothing to clutch in life.
Nothing to fear in death.
___________________
Ryokan For A Rainy Day

Who says my poems are poems?

My poems are not poems.
When you know that my poems are not poems,
Then we can speak of poetry.

* * *
The winds gives me
Enough fallen leaves
To make a fire

* * *
This world
A fading
Mountain echo
Void and
Unreal

Within
A light snow
Three Thousand Realms
Within those realms
Light snow falls

As the snow
Engulfs my hut
At dusk
My heart, too
Is completely consumed
***
Wild peonies
Now at their peak
In glorious full bloom:
Too precious to pick
To precious not to pick

O lonely pine!
I’d gladly give you
My straw hat and
Thatched coat
To ward off the rain
* * *

In my little begging bowl
violets and dandelions
Mixed together
As an offering to the
Buddhas of the Three Worlds
Picking violets
By the roadside
I absent-mindedly
Left my little bowl behind –
O poor little bowl!

I’ve forgotten my
Little begging bowl again –
No one will take you,
Surely no one will take you:
My sad little bowl!
____________
Fever Ray – Im not done

______________

The Rains Of Summer

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from. Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements. — William Shakespeare

I started this entry out with the discovery of 2 Shpongle video’s I’ve not seen before. I think you might enjoy them. The art of William Waterhouse has been a long time favourite, and his colours always remind me of early summer. The 3 pieces I picked are some of the lesser known ones, which in itself is a bonus.

The Drowning of the Bottom Hundred is a Welsh Fairytale. It is highly entertaining! Being early summer, William Shakespeare comes to my mind. It seems the bard is everywhere now days; I woke up this morning to a program on the radio about the bard’s effects on students when read aloud, the cult around Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” etc… I watched “Midsummer’s Night Dream” with Mary again. I love that film, I truly do.

Well we are working as we can, dodging rain. I have never seen early summer quite like this except in the UK. I think the Ice Age cometh.

Blessings,
Gwyllm
___________

On The Menu:
The Random Quotes
Shpongle Demo Video For Electroplasm
The Drowning of the Bottom Hundred – Cymric Fairytales
Four Sonnets From William Shakespeare
Shpongle – Invisible Man In A Fluorescent Suit
Art: William Waterhouse
____________________
The Random Quotes:
David M. Ogilvy – “Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left.”
Gore Vidal – “Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.”
Evelyn Waugh – “It is a curious thing… that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.”
George Orwell – “On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”
Will Rogers – “There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”
Sir Francis Bacon – “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.”
Dale Carnegie – “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain – and most fools do.”
____________________

Shpongle Demo Video For Electroplasm

____________________
The Drowning of the Bottom Hundred
Cymric Fairytales….

I

In the beginning of the sixth century, Gwyddno Garanhir was King of Ceredigion. The most valuable portion of his dominions was the great plain of the Bottom Hundred, a vast tract of level land, stretching along that part of the sea coast which now belongs to the counties of Merioneth and Cardigan. This district was populous and fertile. It contained sixteen fortified towns, superior to all the towns and cities of the Cymry excepting Caer Lleon upon Usk. It contained also one of the three privileged ports of the Isle of Britain which was called the Port of Gwyddno, and had been known to the Phoenicians and Carthaginians when they visited the island for metal in the dim dawn of history. This lowland country was below the level of the sea, and the people of the Bottom Hundred had in very early times built an embankment of massy stone to protect it from the encroachment of that hungry element. This stony rampart had withstood the shock of the waves for centuries when Gwyddno began his reign. Watch-towers were erected along the embankment, and watchmen were appointed to guard against the first approaches of damage or decay. The whole of these towers and their companies of guards were ruled by a central castle, which commanded the seaport already mentioned, and wherein dwelt Prince Seithenyn, the son of Seithyn Saidi, who held the office of Lord High Commissioner of the Royal Embankment. Now, Seithenyn was one of the three immortal drunkards of the Isle of Britain. He left the embankment to his deputies, who left it to their assistants, who left it to itself.

One only was there who did his duty. He was Teithrin, the son of Tathral, who had the charge of a watch-tower where the embankment ended at the point of Mochras, in the high land of Ardudwy. Teithrin kept his portion of the embankment in good condition, and paced with daily care the limits of his charge. One day he happened to stray beyond them, and observed signs of neglect that filled him with dismay. This induced him to proceed till his wanderings brought him to the embankment’s southern end, in the high land of Ceredigion. He met with abundant hospitality at the towers of his colleagues and at the castle of Seithenyn: he was supposed to be walking for his amusement. He was asked no questions, and he carefully abstained from asking any. He examined and observed in silence, and when he had completed his observations he hastened to Gwyddno’s palace. It had been built of choice slate stone on the rocky banks of the Mawddach, just above the point where it entered the plain of the Bottom Hundred, and in it, among green woods and sparkling waters, Garanhir lived in festal munificence. On his arrival, he was informed by the porter that the knife was in the meat, and the drink in the horn; there was revelry in the great hail, and none might enter therein but the son of a king of a privileged country or a craftsman bringing his craft. The feast was to last so many days that Teithrin despaired of delivering his message, and went in search of the King’s son, Elphin.

The young Prince was fishing in the Mawddach at a spot where the river, having quitted its native mountains and not yet entered the plain, ran in alternate streams and pools sparkling through a pastoral valley. He sat under an ancient ash, enjoying the calm brightness of an autumnal noon and the melody and beauty of the flying stream on which the shifting sunbeams fell chequering through the leaves. The monotonous music of the river and the profound stillness of the air had all but sent Elphin to sleep. He was startled into attention by a sudden rush of the wind through the trees, and he heard, or seemed to hear, in the gust that, hurried by him the words, “Beware of the oppression of Gwenhudiw!” The gust was momentary: the leaves ceased to rustle and the deep silence of nature returned.

Now, Gwenhudiw is the mermaid Shepherdess of Ocean: the. waves are her sheep, and each ninth wave, which is always greater than the rest, is called her ram.

It was not the first time that the kingly house of Ceredigion had been warned against her oppression. Gwyddno had often heard the same mysterious words borne on the breeze. They had so haunted his memory and imagination that he had ceased to go down to the sea in ships, and dwelt inland, avoiding as far as he might the sight of the great waters. Elphin, too, had heard the prophecy before, but it had formed no part of his recent meditation. He could not, however, persuade himself that the words had not been actually spoken near him. He emerged from the shade of the trees that fringed the river, and looked round him from the rocky bank.

At this moment Teithrin discovered and approached him. Elphin knew him not and inquired his name.

“I am called,” he answered, “Teithrin, the son of Tathral.”

“And what seek you here?” said Elphin.

“I seek,” answered Teithrin, “the, Prince of the Bottom Hundred, Elphin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir.”

“You spoke,” said Elphin, “as you approached?”

“Nay,” said Teithrin, “I spoke never a word.”

“Assuredly you did,” said Elphin, “you repeated the words, ‘Beware of the oppression of Gwenhudiw!’ ”

Teithrin again denied having spoken the words; but their mysterious impression made Elphin listen readily to his information about the decay of the royal embankment: and after their talk the Prince determined to accompany Teithrin on a visit of remonstrance to the Lord High Commissioner.

They crossed the centre of the enclosed country to the privileged Port of Gwyddno, near which stood the castle of Seithenyn. They walked towards the castle along a portion of the embankment, and Teithrin pointed out to the Prince its decayed condition.

The sea shone with the glory of the setting sun: the air was calm: and the white surf, tinged with the crimson of sunset, broke lightly on the sands below. Elphin turned his eyes from the dazzling splendour of the ocean to the green meadows of the plain: the trees that in the distance thickened into woods: the wreaths of smoke rising from among them, marking the solitary cottages or the populous towns: the massy barrier of mountains beyond, with the forest rising from their base: the precipices frowning over the forest: and the clouds resting on their summits reddened with the reflection of the west. Elphin gazed earnestly on the peopled plain, reposing in the calm of evening between the mountains and the sea, and thought with deep feelings of secret pain, how much of life and human happiness was entrusted to the ruinous mound on which he stood..

II

The sun had sunk beneath the waves when they reached the castle of Seithenyn. The sound of the harp and the song saluted them as they approached it. As they entered the great hail, which was already blazing with torchlight, they found the whole household roaring the praises of the blue buffalo horn:

Fill high the blue horn, the blue buffalo born:
Fill high the long silver-rimmed buffalo horn:
While the roof of the hail by our chorus is torn,
Fill, fill to the brim the deep silver-rimmed horn.

Elphin and Teithrin stood some time on the floor of the hall before they attracted the attention of Seithenyn, who during the chorus was tossing and flourishing his golden goblet. The chorus had scarcely ended when he noticed them, and immediately shouted aloud, “You are welcome all four.”

Elphin answered, “We thank you, we are but two.”

“Two or four,” said Seithenyn, “all is one. You are welcome all. When a stranger enters, the custom in other places is to begin by washing his feet. My custom is to begin by washing his throat. Seithenyn, the son of Seithyn Saidi, bids you welcome.”

Elphin answered, “Elphin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, thanks you.”

Seithenyn started up when he realised that he was in the presence of the son of the King, and with a bow intended to be gracious, invited the Prince to take his seat on his right hand. Teithrin remained at the end of the hall, on which Seithenyn shouted to him, “Come on, man, come on, sit and drink,” and motioned him to seat himself next to Elphin.

“Prince Seithenyn,” said Elphin, “I have visited you on a subject of deep moment. Reports have been brought to me that the embankment which has so long been entrusted to your care is in a state of dangerous decay.”

“Decay,” said Seithenyn, “is one thing and danger is another. Everything that is old must decay. That the embankment is old, I am free to confess; that it is somewhat rotten in parts, I will not altogether deny; that it is any the worse for that, I do most sturdily gainsay. It does its business well: it keeps out the water from the land. Cupbearer, fill.”

“The stonework,” said Teithrin, “is sapped and mined: the piles are rotten, broken and out of their places: the floodgates and sluices are leaky and creaky.”

“Our ancestors were wiser than we,” said Seithenyn; “they built the embankment in their wisdom: and if we should be so rash as to try to mend it, we should only mar it. This immortal work has stood for centuries and will stand for centuries more, if we let it alone. It is well: it works well: let well alone. Cupbearer, fill.’,

Elphin and Teithrin tried to reason with him, but all their words were met with the assurance that all was well with the embankment, and as every speech of the Lord High Commissioner ended with the command, “Cupbearer, fill,” it was not long before he fell on sleep. The members of his household had been imitating the example of their chief, and the words of host and visitors had been punctuated by the heavy falls from their benches of men sent to sleep by the yellow mead. By the time their chief fell all except the cupbearers were lying flat on the floor.

Elphin and Teithrin were gazing in disgust upon this scene of drunken disorder, when a side door, at the upper end of the hail, to the left of Seithenyn’s chair, opened, and a beautiful young girl entered the hall with her domestic bard and her attendant maidens.

It was Angharad, the daughter of Seithenyn. She gracefully saluted Prince Elphin, and he looked with delight at the beautiful lady, whose gentle and serious loveliness contrasted so strikingly with the fallen heroes of revelry that lay scattered at her feet.

“Stranger,” she said, “this seems an unfitting place for you: let me conduct you where you will be more agreeably lodged.”

“Still less should I deem it fitting for you, fair maiden,” said Elphin.

She answered, “The pleasure of her father is the duty of Angharad.”

Elphin paused to think what he should say in ‘reply to this, and Angharad stood still, expecting that he would follow. In this interval of silence, there came a loud gust of wind blustering through the holes of the walls. “It bids fair to be a stormy night,” said Elphin.

“We are used to storms,” answered Angharad. “We are far from the mountains, between the lowlands and the sea, and the winds blow round us from all quarters.”

There was another pause of deep silence; then there came another gust of wind, pealing like thunder through the holes. Amidst the fallen and sleeping revellers, the confused and littered hall, the low and wavering torches, Angharad, lovely always, shone with single and surpassing loveliness. The gust died away in murmurs and swelled again into thunder and died away in murmurs again: and, as it died away, mixed with the murmurs of ocean, a voice, that seemed one of the many voices of the wind, pronounced the ominous words, “Beware of the oppression of Gwenhudiw!”

They looked at each other, as if questioning whether all had heard alike.

“Did you not hear a voice?” said Angharad, after a pause.

“The same,” said Elphin, “which has before seemed to say to me, ‘Beware of the oppression of Gwenhudiw!’ ”

Teithrin hurried forth on the rampart: Angharad turned pale and leaned against a pillar of the hall. Elphin was amazed and awed, absorbed as his feelings were in her. The sleepers on the floor made an uneasy movement and uttered a cry.

Teithrin returned. “What saw you?” said Elphin. Teithrin answered, “A tempest is coming from the west. The moon has waned three days, and is half hidden in clouds, just visible above the mountains: the bank of clouds is black in the west: the scud is flying before them: and the white waves are rolling to the shore.”

“This is the highest of the spring tides,” said Angharad, “and they are very terrible in the storms from the west when the spray flies over the embankment and the breakers shake the tower which has its foot in the surf.”

“Whence was the voice,” said Elphin, “which we heard erewhile? Was it the cry of a sleeper in his drink, or an error of the fancy, or a warning voice from’ the elements?”

“It was surely nothing earthly,” said Angharad, “nor was it an error of the fancy, for we all heard the words, ‘Beware of the oppression of Gwenhudiw!’ Often and often in the storms of the spring tides have I feared to see her roll her power over the fields of the Bottom Hundred.”

“Pray Heaven she do not to-night,” said Teithrin.

“Can there be such a danger?” said Elphin.

“I think,” said Teithrin, “of the decay I have seen, and I fear the voice I have heard.”

A long pause of deep silence ensued, during which they heard the peals of the wind, and the increasing sound of the rising sea, swelling eve into wilder and more menacing tumult, till, with one terrific impulse, the whole violence of the tempest seemed to burst upon the shore. Before long there came a tremendous crash. The tower, which had its foot in the sea, had long been sapped by the waves: and the storm hurled it into the surf, carrying with it a portion of the wail of the main building, and revealing through the chasm the white raging of the breakers beneath the blackness of the midnight storm. The wind rushed into the hail, putting out the torches within the line of its course, tossing the grey locks and loose mantle of the bard and the light white drapery and long black tresses of Angharad. With the crash of the failing tower, and the shrieks of the women the sleepers started from the floor, staring with drunken amazement, and Seithenyn rose staggering from his chair.

The Lord High Commissioner of the Royal Embankment leaned against a pillar and stared at the sea through the rifted wall with wild and vacant surprise. Then he looked at Elphin and Teithrin, at his daughter and at the members of his household, but the longer he looked, the less clearly he saw: and the longer he pondered, the less he understood. He felt the rush of the wind: he saw the white foam of the sea: his ears were dizzy with their mingled roar. He remained at length motionless, leaning against the pillar, and gazing on the breakers with fixed and glaring vacancy.

“The sleepers of the Bottom Hundred,” said Elphin, “they who sleep in peace and security, trusting to the vigilance of Seithenyn, what will become of them?”

“Warn them with the beacon fire,” said Teithrin, “if there be fuel on the summit of the landward tower.”

“That, of course, has been neglected too,” said Elphin. “Not so,” said Angharad, “that has been my charge.” Teithrin seized a torch and ascended the eastern tower, and in a few minutes the party in the hall beheld the breakers reddening with the reflected fire, and deeper and yet deeper crimson tinging the whirling foam and sheeting the massy darkness of the bursting waves.

An unusual tumult mingled with the roar of the waves. Teithrin rushed into the hall, exclaiming, “All is over! The mound is broken and the spring tide is rolling through the breach.”

Another portion of the castle wall fell into the mining waves, and by the dim and thickly-clouded moonlight, and the red blaze of the beacon fire, they beheld a torrent pouring in from the sea upon the plain and rushing immediately beneath the castle walls, which, as well as the points of the embankment that formed the sides of the breach, continued to crumble away into the waters.

“Who has done this?” shouted Seithenyn. “Show me the enemy.”

“There is no enemy but the sea,”, said Elphin, “to which you, in your drunken madness, have abandoned the land. Think, if you can think, of what is passing in the plain. The storm drowns the cries of your victims, but the curses of the perishing are upon you.”

“Show me the enemy,” shouted Seithenyn, drawing his, sword furiously and flourishing it over his head.

“There is no ‘enemy but the sea,” said Elphin, “against which your sword avails not.”

“Who dares to say so?” said Seithenyn. “Who dares to say that there is an enemy on earth against whom the sword of Seithenyn is unavailing? Thus, thus I prove the falsehood.” And springing suddenly forward, he leaped into the torrent, flourishing his sword as he descended.

“Oh, my unhappy father!” sobbed Angharad, veiling her face with her arm on the shoulder of one of her female attendants.

“We must quit the castle,” said Teithrin, “or we shall be buried in its ruins. We have but one path of safety, along the summit of the embankment, if there be not another breach between us and the high land, and if we can keep our footing in this storm. But let us go: the walls are melting away like snow.”

Angharad, recovering from the first shock of Seithenyn’s catastrophe, became awake to the imminent danger. The spirit of the Cymric female, vigilant and energetic in peril, disposed her and her attendant maidens to use their best exertions for their own preservation. Following the advice and example of Elphin and Teithrin, they armed themselves with spears, which they took down from the walls.

Teithrin led the way, striking the point of his spear firmly into the earth and leaning from it on the wind. Angharad followed in the same manner: Elphin followed Angharad; the attendant maidens followed Elphin: and the bard followed the female train. Behind them went the cupbearers, and behind them reeled those who were able and willing to move.

In front of them, as they marched, was the volumed blackness of the storm: the breakers burst white in the faint and scarcely perceptible moonlight: within the mound the waters rushed and rose: the red light of the beacon fire fell on them from behind: the surf rolled up the side of the embankment and broke almost at their feet: the spray flew above their heads, and it was only by thrusting their spears into the stony ground that they bore themselves up against the wind.

They had not proceeded far when the tide began to recede, the wind to abate somewhat of its violence, and the moon to look on them at intervals through the rifted clouds, disclosing the desolation of the flooded plain, silvering the angry surf, gleaming on the distant mountains and revealing a lengthened prospect of their solitary path that lay in its irregular line like a ribbon on the deep. Morning dawned before they reached safety; daylight showed fully how dreadful was the destruction. The foaming waves were covering the fertile plains which had been the habitation and support of a flourishing population. Of the inhabitants, only the party led by Teithrin from Seithenyn’s castle and a few who saw the beacon fire in time to run to the high lands of Ardudwy and Eryri escaped destruction.

The nearest town to the submerged realm of Gwyddno is Aberdovey. If you stand on the beach there, you will sometimes hear in the long twilight evening chimes and peals of bells, sometimes near, sometimes distant, sounding low and sweet like a call to prayer, or as rejoicing for a victory. The sounds come from the bells of one of Gwyddno’s drowned churches, and these are “The Bells of Aberdovey” that the song speaks about.


____________________

Four Sonnets From William Shakespeare

CI
O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fixed;
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermixed’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now.

CII
My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear;
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
The owner’s tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
Because I would not dull you with my song.

CIII
Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!
O! blame me not, if I no more can write!
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

CIV
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
____________________

Shpongle – Invisible Man In A Fluorescent Suit

____________________


LX
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith, being crowned,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow;
And yet, to times, in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.