‘Life’ is the leaves which shape and nourish a plant, but ‘art’ is the flower which embodies its meaning. (Charles Rennie Mackintosh)
(Nouveau – Gwyllm Llwydd)
Conspiracy: There is a conspiracy within consciousness, to awaken itself from it’s slumber of matter and dreams. It conspires through acts of love, through every act of kindness, of every moment of awareness. Everything seems to want to merge with something greater, to enter into the great marriage that has been promised. We catch a hint of it in the sky, the trees, the plants, the animals, and within each other.
It is like a secret fire, a current running just below the surface of everything. It wants us to awake to our beingness. Every act is a sacred act, in this moment of the eternal now. I can’t gather the words to express it correctly, but perhaps in time. We all have our part in the great unfolding, it’s a conspiracy…
~~
This Edition:
Years ago when I worked off and on at Rhino Records I had the pleasure of meeting and being around Richard Grossman, who played with many of the jazz musicians I had the pleasure of knowing back then. (Richard was an amazing Pianist/read the link!) Richard worked at Rhino, and ran the Jazz section. It bloomed while he was there, and I learned a lot about various artist from him. He introduced to his wife, Dottie (Dorothea) at a party of Nels Cline & D.D. Faye’s in the early 80′s. Richard and Dottie had the east coast Bohemian charm. I was in awe of their work, and their relationship. They were very fun to be around. Mary and I left L.A. (again) in 1988, and we lost touch with them. Richard died in 1992, and off and on we would hear about Dottie through friends. I am featuring her poetry today, heaven knows why I never did before. She has a wonderful touch to her work.
I hope you enjoy this entry, it has some very diverse elements to it! I have included two new art pieces. (“Nouveau” & “Her Presence” both probably working titles) Don’t forget the new site: EarthRites
Blessings,
Gwyllm
~~~
On The Menu:
The Stranglers: Longships
A.E. Housman Quotes
The Poetry Of Dorothea Grossman
Touching the Elements
The Stranglers – The Raven
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The Stranglers: Longships
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A.E. Housman Quotes:
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out… Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.
~~~~~~
The Poetry Of Dorothea Grossman
I knew something was wrong
I knew something was wrong
the day I tried to pick up a
small piece of sunlight
and it slithered through my fingers,
not wanting to take shape.
Everything else stayed the same—
the chairs and the carpet
and all the corners
where the waiting continued.
~~
For Allen Ginsberg
Among other things,
thanks for explaining
how the generous death
of old trees
forms
the red powdered floor
of the forest.
~~
Love Poem
In a lightning bolt
of memory,
I see our statue of Buddha
(a wedding gift from Uncle Gene)
which always sat
on top of the speaker cabinet.
When a visitor asked,
“So, does Buddha like jazz?”
you said, “I hope so.
He’s been getting it up the ass
for a long time.”
~~
It is not so much that I miss you
It is not so much that I miss you
as the remembering
which I suppose is a form of missing
except more positive,
like the time of the blackout
when fear was my first response
followed by love of the dark.
~~
I allow myself
I allow myself
the luxury of breakfast
(I am no nun, for Christ’s sake).
Charmed as I am
by the sputter of bacon,
and the eye-opening properties
of eggs,
it’s the coffee
that’s really sacramental.
In the old days,
I spread fires and floods and pestilence
on my toast.
Nowadays, I’m more selective,
I only read my horoscope
by the quiet glow of the marmalade.
~~
Spring
The murderer,
on his way to work,
stops to admire the wisteria
framing his doorway,
and waves
to the bug-eyed azaleas
~~~~~~~
Touching the Elements
(Shetland Islands)
A fiddler belonging to Yell was waylaid and carried off by the trows while on his way to supply music to a Samhain gathering that was being held in a neighboring district. After playing for some considerable time he was allowed to depart, and immediately proceeded homewards. When he came to his house, however, he saw with amazement that the roof was off, the walls decayed and crumbling into ruins, and the floor grown over with rank grass. He questioned the neighbors, but they were utter strangers to him and could cast no glimmer of light on the remarkable situation. The place had been in that ruinous condition all their time, they said. He sought out the oldest inhabitant, but even he had no recollection of anyone staying in the place, but he did remember hearing a tale to the effect that at one time the guidman [master] of that house had mysteriously disappeared, and never returned. It was commonly supposed that the hill-folk had taken him.
The fiddler, of course, knew no one, and had nowhere to go, and when the old man asked him to spend the night at his house, he very gladly accepted the invitation. It so happened that the following day was Sacrament Sunday, and they both went to church. The fiddler asked to be permitted to communicate. This request was granted, but no sooner did he touch the “elements” [bread and wine of the Eucharist] than he crumbled into dust.
~~~~~~
The Stranglers – The Raven
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(Her Presence – Gwyllm Llwydd)
