“What’s it to ya Well?” Wordy eyed his friend spiciously over his shovel plate of cold beans.
Well smiled.
“Might wanna come along,” Well said right neighborly.
“Gol dangit Well,” Wordy said slapping his sides so that dust swirled up offin his breeches like sawdust in a grist mill. Some of the dust settled back in his beans but Wordy didn’t notice.
“Cain’t you ever just let me go somewhere along?!”
Well was patiently quiet a moment after Wordy’s antipenchant display. As he usually was when Word went off on one of his ineffectual tangential tirades. Then Well threw his head back and finished his drink before leaning forward and spitting out the swill-mash that had settled at the bottom of his glass. After that he straightened.
“So does that mean I’m coming witcha, or not?” he finally asked.
Wordy looked at Well as sasperated as a flied walleyed rout, and then shook his head slowly as if he had just watched a hell-bent bull pull loose from his plow.
“Oh git your damn saddle Well… I ain’t totin you on my back.”
Many in the chamber murmured uncertainly but Jhönarlk stood suddenly upon the base of his throne and then stepped down from it and approached. Not far from the Commander he paused and spoke softly, but also clearly.
“Then I would hear you,” he said.
Marsippius turned abruptly and faced the chamber. His voice was tired and hoarse with war, and with his recent agonies, but clear and cold with resolution.
“Though I am not of your number, and a Man, I come to you with a warning.”
“What!?” shouted a voice among the Eldevens, after barely a pause, but it was not clear who had spoken or his real intent in speaking. For some among the Eldevens hated the men, and the Basilegate in particular. But some perhaps respected them, or were even secret allies. It was difficult to know, so cryptic and veiled were the motives of most Eldevens to most men.
Marsippius scanned the crowd curiously, hoping to spot the one that that had addressed him, but could not fix upon who had spoken, so he addressed them all.
FF8CA1 PRESTER JOHN. /nLegendary medieval priest and monarch of Asia or Africa. Enthroned on a map of East Africa. Detail from 16th century atlas.
“You know well that I am not one of you,” Marsippius said, and though he spoke with the stoicism of the soldier and his hands remained at his side and did not move, still the earnestness of his words was the only flourish he seemed to need. “Yet I still come from a Free People’s with a High Christian Duty,” and again many among them murmured, deeply suspicious of the man’s god, religion, and ideas about Magic and Miracle. “Thus I say this to you, as long as you all wait for someone else to begin, no one of you will dare. And even if one among you may dare,” and his eyes seemed to shift over his shoulder momentarily back towards the Samarl, “then all his efforts will also be in vain as long as no other join him. To all peoples who have ever lived, on this world, or any other, comes danger, comes hardship, comes risk, and comes war. The time between these things may be long, so that one generation forgets even the nature of what it means to be threatened, or short, so that every new generation rightfully wearies of what must be done, and sacrificed, but eventually all woes and risks return to all peoples. It is only a matter of time; great, or brief. Do not ask me why this is so, I am merely a soldier, not a priest, prophet, or philosopher, yet that is the nature of things. Whether any of you like it, or not. And even those who are not soldiers know this truth, though they are loathe to admit it aloud for lack of public courage. Which we Romans do not lack, and never have, though we lack many other things you have apparently well-mastered.”
The chamber fell silent and yet the hall was constructed in such a way that the echoes of Marsippius’ words ran thrice more around the room so that even those to the very rear of the hall heard them all clearly.
“Yet your mastery is not in dispute. Your courage and your Manhood, if such a term applies to you, and in one great sense I think it does and may even unite your people with mine, however, are indeed presently in dispute. You lack deeds of courage consummate with your mastery of other matters.”
Marsippius paused and openly surveyed the hall and those assembled before him with some obvious and unstated admiration. Even the hostile Eldevens noted it.
“Though what will it matter if all you have achieved is squandered now by shameful passivity? Brought low and ruined by your own inaction; in a day, a week, a month, a year? Disaster is upon you, you know this, and likely war, and you well know this too, and all of your almost countless achievements; your art, your music, your culture, your cities, your farms, your families, your very happiness and future are now to be wasted not by your lack of ability, but by your lack of purpose, will, and public courage? You are still a very formidable people, all with honest eyes can see this plainly, and I would gladly call you ally, and even friend, and I would gladly do whatever I can to defend and strengthen you, yet I cannot save you, and Fate cannot save you, and prophecy cannot save you, and even God will not save you if you make no real effort of any kind to save yourselves.”
The hall was still, as well as quiet, though it was obvious to all that many in attendance were angry, and many others uncertain, though some seem swayed. Or at least swayable.
It seemed also to most that Marsippius had more to say, perhaps far more, but, being the soldier he was, and disdaining much talk he simply returned to his place and turned back in the direction of the Samarl and stood lightly at attention.
Many among the Eldevens, who often by both custom and habit talked at length, found this abrupt ending confusing, even bizarre, uncanny, and unnatural. But Marsippius’ efforts were at an end. He was a simple man, used to action and planning, he looked scornfully on much debate and indecision. As eventually all real men must.
Jhönarlk however instantly understood the hopeful gap the Commander of the Basilegate had opened among his own indecisive countrymen and the various races of the Eldevens assembled there. He did not speak immediately but let the man’s words turn themselves thoroughly throughout the chamber before he acted. And then the Samarl of Samarkand spread his hands before him and looked directly at Marsippius. He spoke not to the hall, but as one old friend might to another, though neither knew the other well.
“Son of Rome, and son of man, then, let us begin…”
over the past few days I have been further developing/redeveloping my Science Fiction Universe, better classifying the players involved and the better defining the systems and societies and groups and organizations and individuals operating within it, as well sketching out timelines and the major events occurring in this universe and where those events occur.
To that end I have developed the following notes and plans for the Human Navies (space and stellar) in my universe and exactly how they will operate.
Below is an improved list of these organizations and players and their ships:
Stellie – common or popular name for any crew working aboard (any type or form or class of) space and star and planetary ships
Stellarne – common or popular for anyone working aboard a military or patrol type ship
Asterisk – colloquial term for any of the risks associated with or assumed by service aboard any type of space or star or planetary craft or station, uninsurable, and except for the military rarely compensated for in case of serious injury or death
Psychoids – general term for any of the psychological disorders or psychoses common to those who operate in deep space or for prolonged periods in space. Eventually most of these dissipate in lifers and tend to be uncommon (for reasons unknown) in Frontiersmen.
Pathocoers – general term for any of the somatic or physical disorders that occur over time due to prolonged exposure to deep space or to prolonged service in space. Some bodies eventually adapt to these spatial and temporal and positional and accelerative/velocity stressors, others do not and are either forced form service, suffer lifelong chronic disorders, or die as a result of daily living in space.
Ship Forms:
Cosmeres/Spaceships – ships operating farthest from human space and in unexplored regions beyond human Frontier(s); and much later a very small number of ships that traverse different dimensions, other realities, and into different temporal epochs – Typically these are Explorer ships or sometimes, though very rarely, during wartime, that number may include Warships. Ships operating in Extra-Boundary Space, Hyper-Field Space, Protospace, or in so called Cosmic Space.
Starships – ships travelling between or operating between/for human controlled or previously explored star systems, up to the Frontier. Ships that operate in so-called “Gray Space,” or within Boundary or Inner or Intra-Frontier space. See ship classes below. *
Planetary ships – ships which move between human occupied or human dominated planets, stations, colonies, bases, and facilities along long established travel and trade routes. Ships that operate within the well-established boundaries of Human Space, or within “Safe Space.” Within Inter-Frontier Space. These ships tend to be commercial ships, police craft, patrol ships, and transport ships.
Classes of Ships:
Explorers/X-Boats/X-Craft (explorer ships involved in exploration, science, research, development, and discovery both within and sometimes outside Human Spatial Frontiers) – armed (astatic) and unarmed (silent), ships may rnage in size form mid-range to small craft and even to stealth vessels
Patrol ships – armed, but swift and light
Battle/Conflict/Warships – heavily and experimentally armed, defended, armored, and shielded: battle lightest class, in squadrons of 10 or less, or in war in dispensillas, conflict mid-range in tandem with teams of 2 or 3, or in war to support conflict and Warships, warships largest class, heavily and experimentally armed, and armored, designed to operate singly and independently on long patrols, also designed to scavenge and scoop resources from space, unoccupied bodies (like explorers), and in war operate in wargroups of 2 to 4 with support vessels.
Commercial ships – unarmed or lightly or experimentally armed
Note: All explorers and battle/conflict/warships are of entirely unique and modular designs suited to those Actions most anticipated or expected of them (one of a kind ships), all patrol and commercial ships are of various standardized blueprints and designs with slight Captain or Commander modifications as desired or needed
The Astronautical Corp:
Astroceanic (pronounced as-troscenic by most or by civilians and civilian contractors, or astro-ce-anic by crew) – any ship or event or enterprise involving the Astronautical Corp.
Astronautical Corp – ships transported by armed explorers to worlds with oceans or liquid atmosphere where “subnautica” ships can be deployed to explore those environments. The crews of such ships are call astronauts.
The Curae:
The Curae – the Superpriests of the Future who lead the “Potter’s-Revolt” or Curare against human society
The Frontiersmen:
The Frontiersmen – explorers who operate alone or in very small teams in previously unexplored areas of the extreme Frontier (both in space and by campfall/planetfall), or well beyond the Frontier of human or known space. Such expeditions are extremely resource and capital and technology intensive and are usually funded by megacorporations or private interests or even sometimes by groups like the Curae, despite the fact that most Frontiersmen are anti-authority and hate oversight and often disobey assignments and orders and will even conceal or hide discoveries (like early American Frontiersmen, id est, Boone).
Frontiersmen tend to be highly trained (especially in science, survival, exploration, alien habitats, adaptive invention and innovation, and xenobiology) loners who learn early to forage and scavenge on their long assignments.
If a Frontiersmen is alone on assignment it is called a Soquest and he is said to be soquestered until he returns. If he goes to the same area more than once that is a Sequest and he is sequestered.
If he goes in a small team of 2 to 3 others that is a Commission and while so missioned this team is said to be committed. If it is a multiphased commitment to the same place it is called a Chartor, or Longstake.
Some Assignments can last a year or more and a few have lasted decades though the typical deployment is roughly six months, Solaterra Time (ST – seasonal conversion time adaptive to alien planets) or Solar Orbital Time (SOT – fixed) or AtomicTime (AT) or Astronomical Time (AST) which are standard Time Forms among future humans, though some Frontiersmen go Native even as to counting time.
Frontiersmen are typically deployed by Explorer Craft though some lifelongers or well-funded Frontiersmen design, develop, and have built their own delivery ships, beacons, living shelters, micro and orbital satellites, and other gear. A Frontiersman that expresses a desire to never return to human space is called an Exilean, one who goes Native is said to be “Occupied,” and one who disappears into the Frontier and whose real fate is unknown, even if suspected, is said to be “Bewildered,” or “Baffled.”
Although many other secondary and tertiary players and events are involved, and although larger issues do occur within my science fiction universe (religious, political, corporate, business, alien, military, scientific, technological, etc.) most of the stories set in my science fiction universe revolve around three main groups; the Curae, the Astronautical Corp., and the Frontiersmen. And around so-called “God Technologies.”
Is absolutely vital. As they are the ones who inspire the Audience/Reader to attempt and to Do Great and Important Things.
Yet every Secondary Character is also of enormous import as they are the ones who inspire the Main Character to attempt and to Do Great and Important Things. So in your Own Life, and in Real Life, always be the Main Character, but in the lives of others be a necessary and outstanding Secondary Character.
from Form and Function, The Literate Man’s Guide to Real Life
There is a Stone within my side as great as all Golgotha A Rock of Ages, and of eons lived in exile from myself Lithos, peltast, it assails me still Gravestone, great rounded block that seals away my inner tomb It lingers on within me, pangs me by means no other men may see Milestone of all my worst misdeeds, burden of all the Good I never wrought Wet Whetstone of my Secret Soul, grinding boulder of Sisyphus alone Pillar of what I might have been, monument of nothing yet Marbled within me, of form uncut Statued still in long repose, no Master but myself at Work And I inactive at my task,
A stone weighs within me, harder than my coldest heart Frozen neath the whitest moon whose surface is a crystal shard So like the flint that pierces me, Who shall cut this bloody gem from me? The one that heavies out my heart, and feasts my flesh as if alive By mass of what is lost to me, by bile to gall me, stone all calcified Of blood a stupor, dried and vain, my veins collapsed to chiseled dust Does circulate to fix itself upon the stone that grows and harries hard in me To hammer I should go at it, to daily ring my utmost blows, To crack, and score, and sure reduce this thing that parasites my Inmost Man,
To split that stone of bone, sepulcher of graven lots, expose its marrow soft and withered Grind it down as it does me and carve that rock to fractured gravel Sledge and batter, pummel it, yet it remains and bides like bronze Fresh cast and hardened long in unsung seas
What if I surgeoned it by razor, spliced the flesh that harbors it, and then reached in to grasp it, slick as slime, yet hard as woe?
What if I but excised this tumor all of stone and pulled it from my bleeding self? I would and yet I know it has grown vessels, arteries to feed itself, all made of me for I have fed it even though I never wished, and thus it roots there where it grows, nested, certain of its place, unruined by my surgeries,
So there malingers still deep within me the minerals of my own misdeeds, an unchipped gem acursed of undone Goods, uncaring hard, all solid sharp, it weighs there still in pain and longing, dis-ease encased like pearls envested,
“I mean, look at you Denn. There’s literally nothing you won’t do. Seems to be nothing you fear,” she said almost desperately. She momentarily put both hands to her face and then dropped them again and looked down at the ground. “Most of the time I’m just so afraid. So lonely. So tired. There’s no one you need, but I need everyone.” Then her shoulder’s collapsed and she seemed to sag all over.
But Denn stepped forward and caught her and stood her erect again.
“Carole,” he said softly but firmly. “Everyone needs who they need, and I’m no exception. But you’ll never get over fear and loneliness through other people. Some things in life are just one man jobs.”
She sighed deeply and looked up into his eyes.
“I’m not a man,” she said softly, less desperate now, but still unsure of herself.
Denn smiled at her warmly, “That you aren’t my dear. That you aren’t. And yet that still doesn’t change any of the facts. Eventually you’re going to have to stand alone, if you ever want to stop being alone. And stop being so damned afraid all of the time.”
As he held her she seemed to want to move towards him, but he held her at a slight distance for a moment and then he finally released her. Almost as if to see what she would do. She didn’t move towards him, but she didn’t move away either. Instead she stared at his set face for a long time, studying it. He was tall, and his face was cut and hard, but there was also something very relaxed and open and human about him that maybe she had never noticed before. Fearless, but not without obvious sympathy. Height without arrogance, strength without cruelty. Demand without condemnation. Manhood without malice and calculation. She thought about this as a sort of flash of insight, and suddenly he seemed very alien to her, and to most other men she had ever known. And yet he also seemed very familiar. As if he had arisen from a long forgotten memory. But then she came to herself again, and she shook her head and said,
“Well then, will you stand with me?” The question was entirely sincere.
Denn nodded ever so slightly.
“With you Carole,” he replied flatly, though not coldly. “But not for you. With you is my job as a man, and as your friend, but for… well, it’s time you finally learned to do yours. And woman is no excuse in life for failing at a one man job.”
She watched him again, silently and reflectively for a moment, and then she sighed deeply once more and said, “Okay, Denn. I’ll do it your way.”
Denn nodded silently again.
“But what do I do?” she asked searchingly after a quiet moment wrestling with the obvious. “I mean, this is all so new to me. Where do I start?”
Denn smiled and pointed at her chest.
She mistook his intent.
“My blouse?” she asked puzzled.
Denn laughed freely at her question.
“Your heart my dear,” he replied when he finally finished laughing. “That’s as good a place as any to start, and the one place it might just stick this time.”
(This scene was inspired by something an old friend said to me this morning, about most people in life being lonely and afraid, and seeking companionship and safety above all else (and why this makes them naturally unhappy) and my reply about it.
The story/scene involves my Pulp and Action/Adventure hero Denn Templemann and a girl he knows, and has known for a very long time, Carole Vange.
It is perfect subject matter for Denn and his Pulp stories as Denn fears almost nothing, and needs almost nobody (though he is by nature very sociable and gregarious, just not dependent upon anyone) and Carole, who fears almost everything and thinks she needs everyone, even those who are terrible for her. (She flits form man to man hoping to find one who will “save her.” I’m sure you’ve met females like that before at some time in your life.) And it also, as I envisioned the scene, touches briefly upon their on-again/off-again Romantic attraction and why it isn’t and can’t work with Carole as she is.
Denn is not typically Romantic in nature, as some of my other male characters are [Marsippius, Alternaeus, the Boy, etc.], for he more represents my more entirely pragmatic-romantic side. But like me he is also extremely Chivalrous, in a very antique or Medieval way. He represents, in me, Action-Oriented Romance and Problem-Solving Romance and Manhood-Romance, not necessarily erotic or devotional romance. This is how he handles Carole and how he handles females/women in general. Which tends to confuse most women, but Denn, like me, doesn’t actually care.
[I do have other Romantic and Chivalrous aspects in myself, as my wife can tell you, but if Action-Oriented Romance is what is most needed then again, as my wife and many other females can tell you, that is certainly what comes out first. Problem-Solving first, tra-lah-lah later. For I also, like Denn, have an antique sense of Manhood.]
So, with that in mind, and having wanted to write this scene for awhile but not knowing exactly how to proceed, when my buddy said what he said about other people it gave me an excellent opening. I hope you enjoy the scene and feel free comment if you so wish.
The “One Man Job” is, of course, an obvious play on words and meaning in the scene.)
“Drink this!” she said gaily, and perhaps a little too loudly. She handed him a fine-wrought yet small cup of some unknown metal. It seemed to flow into his hand as if it too were made of liquid, yet it also felt smooth, hard, and warm.
“He took the cup not unenthusiastically, for he had previously partaken of Eldeven wines on other occasions and knew them to be excellent and comforting. Even to the disheartened. Perhaps more potion than mere drink.
He sipped, and then drank more vigorously.
Then he help the cup in the palm of his hand, still feeling the peculiar warmth it seemed to radiate through the cup, or because of it, and stared at the remaining draught. It was almost weightless in his hand.
“Would that in consuming I would always far better account for that which most oft consumes me…”
She laughed. “Is that verse?” she asked good-naturedly.
He frowned quickly. “If you wish.”
Then he added somewhat moodily, “However do not mistake the report of a thing for the thing itself.”
He paused a short while before speaking again, still puzzling at the fine and almost arcane work upon the Eldeven cup from which he drank.
“I think rather it the philosopher, mystic, and metaphysician in me,” he finally admitted. “Or perhaps I am but a frustrated soldier. Or priest.”
The latter remark may have been the more truthful he thought to himself, or perhaps they all were.
She smiled pleasantly, but also somewhat craftily and perhaps even knowingly.
“Is it not enough then to be a Master Poet among men?” she teased him.
Larmaegeon placed his cup upon the heavy, large feasting table with its unspun cloth of gold and dark silver filigree for needleless embroidery. He smiled in his own turn but it seemed more an inner musing than a pleasantry.
“Poetry is Mastery of Nothing. Except mere words. And words are absolutely nothing without a Mastery of Life to birth them. Otherwise words and verse both are but whispers upon the winds. Perhaps they go here, perhaps there, seen to bend this limb, displace that grain of sand, but other wise no one knows from whence they came or where they go. If they go. Otherwise they catch the ear of this wandering man, or that pleased lady, or travel out in time to light upon the fancy of some child yet unborn. But poetry is not mastery, so much as its echo. Art, without Manhood, is neither master of anything, nor does it master anything. And clever words are not achievements or Life, they are at best, and most often, the mere reflection of both.”
This seemed to both disturb and yet curiously satisfy the Russian Witch. Larmaegeon watched her eyes momentarily as they adjudged him, and then noticed that her reddish-blonde hair, though it shifted in colour and aspect often in the day, appeared as smooth and flowing and shimmering gold in the strangely steady glow of the surreal fires of the Eldeven hall.
Klura picked up her own cup and drank lightly from it, her eyes and quizzical brows peeking above the lip of her drink as if they looked at the Bard from a great distance, or from another time. She finished, lowered her drink, and spoke again.
“Do you then think so little of what you do, while so many others think so well of it?” she asked, but not teasingly this time.
“I do,” Larmaegeon replied instantly and without any hesitation. “I do think little of it.” Then he raised his cup again, saluted her and hers, and said without any irony at all, “And yet, my dear, I excel at it…”
Then he made a small bow and rose fluidly from his chair and having stood looked down at her.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I will indeed be poor company tonight. And that is entirely my own fault.”
Then he turned and walked away and towards the hall’s great doors and swung them open unaided by the guards, who watched him warily but without movement, as he silently departed the room.
Klura watched him go, his simple green wardrobe seeming to darken almost into a glistening black as he left. And then he was gone, and not even his restless shadow seemed a lingering memory at that moment to her. And yet, somehow, his words remained…
(This is a first-draft bare-sketch I wrote of a scene between the Welsh Bard Larmaegeon and the Russian Witch Klura as they were being entertained at the hall of the Samarl of Samarkand by the Sidh and Prester John [Jhönarlk]. It came to me this morning as I have been writing and working on several of my novels much of late. Even been composing a fair amount of poetry. I guess to be occupied of mind is to be occupied, if you’ll act on it that is. Anyway I have edited it once, for spelling so far but no farther. It concerns what Larmaegeon thinks of Poetry and his profession as a Bard, especially given recent events in the novel, and what Klura thinks of him [to a degree]. In one way you could call it a scene of Romance and in another a criticism and critique of both Verse and Romance sans Action. Or, yet another of my criticisms of the State of the modern World in the West. Which effeminately thinks that mere thoughts and words and wishes [filigrees and embroideries and pedigrees, or in modern terms information/journalism and memes and talk] fix or resolve the world. Or that those things alone ever amplify the true Good, or protect anyone or anything from actual evil…)
From the second novel in my High/Mythological Fantasy Trilogy The Kithariad (The Doom of Kitharia)
“In this I am alone,” Denn sighed to his old friend. “That I know what I know, and yet I cannot truly describe to you what I know, and I cannot truly know what you describe. All we can do is proceed into this thing together, knowing that no matter what else happens, as we go, that ultimately, we are also alone even in what we share.”
Fin sighed in his turn.
“I know Denn,” and Fin paused a moment before continuing, “but maybe that is enough, ya know. Or maybe… maybe it is enough for us.”
Denn stared off into space awhile but then he smiled warmly and clapped his old friend on the shoulder and turned to look at him.
“In this together then,” Denn replied to Fin, already starting to feel better and more hopeful about what was to come. “Alone, and yet together. Live, or die my friend.”
Fin too smiled, perhaps a little less enthusiastically, but smile he did.
“If it’s all the same to you Denn,” Fin said matter of factly, “I’d rather we all lived.”
Denn smiled again and then laughed out loud. He slapped Fin on the knee like they were both young boys and then he stood up enthusiastically and offered his hand. Pulling Fin easily to his feet Denn nodded curtly and said,
“How ‘bout we work at that then?”
Fin nodded back at Denn.
“Yeah, how ‘bout we…”
From The Adventures of Denn Templemann, The Man Who Went Alone Together
My Pulp Adventure novels for boys, young men, and old men
Continuing my tales of the Wizard Alternaeus and his apprentice.
GOODLY EVILS, AND THE EVILS OF “THE GOOD”
“I have no satisfactory answer for you lad. Because to this very day, my boy, I am still amazed at those quantities and diversities of important things that evil men will fearlessly attempt over the paltry count of those same things that good men will attempt. Not because evil men are so much more numerous than good men, they are certainly not, if anything they are the distinct minority of all men. Nor because evil men are so much greater than good men, because by both inner nature and by outward behavior, they are not.
No, it has been my perpetual and sad observation that evil triumphs so often in this world not because evil is so irresistibly inconquerable in number, or because evil is so inherently imposing in nature, but merely because men who profess themselves to be good are so very often so very, very afraid.
Now that might very well seem to you like a bleak prophecy about the nature of men in general and the rather uncommon occurrence of real manhood in this world. And to be honest it truly is. But as far as foretelling what you must become, or any man must necessarily be, it says nothing about either of those things by any means.
So, if you have heard and understood all that I have said then this is the only answer I have for you. For all of that, still, be a good boy, and an even better man. For those two ends are very worthy ambitions.
Just remember this though as you mature; be yet far more courageous than most self-described good men.
For to be good without courage is no real ambition at all. And as a matter of fact it is the timid good man who is the certain mid-wife and the sure wet-nurse of most of the goodly evils that men do.”
A LIST OF SOME OF THE SUBJECTS AND SUBJECT MATTERS I PLAN TO ADDRESS IN MY BOOKS THE CHRISTIAN HERO, THE CHRISTIAN WIZARD, AND THE CHRISTIAN SAINT
These are more general subjects and not specifically geared towards the peculiarities of any of them. I had planned on further developing these today but my wife needs me to take her to the airport today. These are only recent Subject-Matter additions to the books as they are further developed.
And although these books are addressed to the Christian Layman I think that I shall develop a different term for him/her that shall encompass all of the aspects I mean by Layman, such as: worker, disciple, hero, wizard, (lay or common man’s) saint, and skilled spiritual and psychological craftsman.
I shall have to think on the term first of course, and all that it should imply.
SELF-EDUCATION/AUTO-EDUCATION
DISEASE
INJURY
REST AND RECOVERY
VACATIONS
AVOCATIONS
VOCATIONS
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
TRAINING
WORK – beneficial, good, profitable, productive, clean
THEURGICAL PRACTICE
THEURGICAL WORK
FORMS OF BENEFICIAL ENTERTAINMENT, RECREATION, AND
“Yeah, well now, time might not heal all wounds but it will either significantly assure that you will succeed on time, or dramatically increase the odds that you won’t. Now how that works out precisely is pretty much up to you, but if I were you I’d spend less time bitching about your wounds and more time getting your ass up off the ground so we can succeed in getting the hell outta here.”
“A modern investigation is simply another way of saying that nothing of any real importance will ever be truly resolved, nor anyone of any real consequence ever tried or convicted.
Therefore fuck their investigation. I’m after Justice, and if possible the prevention of future evil. Let them investigate. If they wish to do so. That will keep them out of my way effectively enough.
As for me I have an entirely different goal. And the intent to go with it.
We’ll see in the end who has the most success. But if I were a betting man Maugham I’d run the table.
Because God-damnit, and you know I mean this, I’m gonna run the fucking table.”
And as he listened to his friend a sort of weird and horrific chill ran up Maugham’s spine.
My opinion is this. A man’s true Word-Hoard isn’t just what he knows, for not all coins are of the same weight and measure. Rather his true Word-Hoard is what his treasures will buy and sell, and often and uppermost, in secret…
THE SECRET ACCORD
I dug a Word Hoard
Connate and wide
To bury the Wealth
That often abides
When the Weal and the Wisdom
That cannot be spread
By exchange in the markets
Still dwells, it is said,
In the bed of Procrustes
Asleep for awhile
In dreams made of amber
For this mind of exile
Has mastered the tongue
Of the treasures beneath
Subterranean efforts
In caverns replete
The facade of the fashion
A looking-glass hall
Where the hordes
Glom the gilt-work
And the herd is a-stall
There’s an ark, and an archway
A cup dipped in brass
For written upon it
Inscribed is a task
In proesy a notion
An omen you say
That word is prophetic
Indemic, assay
What you will
Of what cannot be termed
For the fire is sire
As the Worm of it turns
Broken and paltry
Forgotten and lost
The Latin beneath us
The Greek at all cost
The Wales of the Harlech
The Angles at Wrox
Gold-banded the cold Danes
With the Norsemen at bay
All did they answer
More did they say
Of the Word-Hoard we carry
When tarry we will
At the heart-spring
Of language
That flows from us still
Neath that Selenic moot
When nothing may be
‘Cept the terms that you loot
When demanding you seek
To be understood
In the things that you know
When the other is clever
Ingenious and bold
Having bled in his efforts
To get a Word-Hoard
He can share with his brothers
With a secret accord.
Suddenly Alternaeus looked up to see the boy standing beside him. How long the boy may have stood there patiently waiting for him to finish or may have attempted to summon him from his numinous labors he knew not.
He looked back down at the grael. The roiling and lotic liquid was lentic and smooth again, untroubled and clear. Not a shadow lingered, not a ripple disturbed the surface or the depths. It was as if the grael were one more and without any apparent transition a spotless and terrene lens by which to view our naïve and evident world. Or at least some sort of polished glass to see blemishless to the bottom of the Black Sea. From whose distant waters Alternaeus had filled the grael.
“What is it boy?” Alternaeus asked.
“You are summoned sir.”
“By whom, to where, and for what possible reason?”
“I know not the reason sir, I am but a boy,” he said. “But it is by the lord Drew and by master Iter, and to the main hall and hearth. They wish to converse with you, I think.”
“I see,” Alternaeus answered. He rose stiffly. How long had he sat hunched over the bowl this time he wondered?
The boy stepped back with that certain kind of awe reserved for children in the presence of people they considered dangerous or miraculous in some way.
“Did I disturb you sir?” he asked Alternaeus with unfeigned reverence.
“What?” the Wizard asked. Then realizing the boy’s intent he smiled sympathetically and said, “No more so than usual.”
“What I mean is sir, were you able to finish? I waited as long as I dared to signal you as I feared you might be deep in some vital craft I cannot understand,” the boy said in a hushed tone. “But my masters demanded you come quickly.”
Alternaeus placed his hand lightly upon the boy’s shoulder.
“You did well lad. However you reacted. Though I was merely in my private communions. Nothing more. I will come with you shortly. I need merely drain this grael and wash my face and hands. Wait for me at the door.”
“Yes sir,” the boy said, but he did not move.
Alternaeus noticed his non-compliance and motioned for the boy to speak again.
The boy hesitated but then pointed at the grael.
“Is your cup enchanted? Or is this more a cauldron for mixing poisons and curses?”
Alternaeus almost laughed.
“I mix medicines, not poisons. And that requires a mortar, not a cup. Also I never curse anyone or anything. Well, only once have I ever done so. And that ended very badly. This then is neither a Warlock’s cauldron nor a Wizard’s cup. This is but my grael.”
“The Lord’s Grail!” the boy said too loudly and in shock.
“Lower your voice boy, and no, not the Lord’s Grail,” Alternaeus answered firmly. “Though I would certainly pay all I have or know to but discover and examine it for a short time. No, this is but a far less impressive thing. This is my Grael of Spirits.”
The boy considered the meaning of the answer.
“Do you then call up and speak with the dead sir?” the boy whispered, conscious of his manners this time, but still awed. “That seems very impressive to me.”
“Perhaps to you it might.” Alternaeus said. “But, no, you err again, but only from inexperience. I do not call up and speak with the dead, or with any spirits. I am forbidden to converse with or to seek the counsel of the dead or of any spirit not of this world. I merely watch them, and mark their habits, and from time to time see what I may learn by my observations.”
The boy nodded slightly, then continued with his inquiry.
“My mother, sir, says that those who practice traffick with the dead are damned and should be avoided at all times. For the good of my soul. Should I therefore avoid you?”
“Your mother is wise,” Alternaeus answered. “It is a hard enough thing and a complicated enough thing just to try to understand the living and those who inhabit this world. One should not place too much emphasis on the actions of those in other worlds. Their behaviors and motivations are indeed very hard to read, their worlds are yet alien to us, and we can know little of their true intent.”
The boy was quiet and pensive for a moment.
“You are a very strange Wizard sir,” he said after a while.
Alternaeus laughed.
“You think so? Then help me boy to drain this grael and to return these waters to their proper vessels. Your masters await us and my strange assistance.”
“Yes lord,” the boy said with a slight bow.
“And never call me lord. I am no man’s lord, and have no desire to be,” Alternaeus insisted.
“Yes sir,” the boy replied. “But I am not a man,” he then protested as an afterthought.
“You come much closer than many men I have known for far longer.”
“Yes, lor… yes sir.”
Alternaeus pointed out the vessels for storing the waters and when the boy had fetched them they set about their task. Then, after completing their work the boy walked to the door and Alternaeus ritually cleaned his hands and face in a small pewter basin.
“There,” he said. “Let us now see what lord Drew and master Iter require of me. Then, after that is concluded, you will return to this chamber and explain to me how and why you know such much for a mere serving boy, and how your language has flourished so being as you are so often surrounded by knaves and fools.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered doubtfully. “But if I do will you promise not to hex me?”
“Oh, I may do far worse than that,” Alternaeus said craftily.
“Sir?” asked the boy, his eyes widening in surprise.
“I may very well apprentice you…”
from The Wizard and the Wyrdpack
Note to my Readers: Recently I have been moving between my main novel, this novel, my detective novel, and writing short stories. So I’ve been posting here some of my work as I have been creating it. Just been in one of those moods.
“You look very young to be a Wizard I should say,” she replied confidently, and yet quite demurely.
“Yes, well,” Alternaeus said, staring at her searchingly for a moment. “I’ve never been as young as I look my dear. Or as young as I desired to be. But some things are not within our mortal sphere of action, choice, or circumstance. Though once, long ago it now seems, I was almost young enough to wish to remain happy for a while. But, as with most things, Fortune did not favor me.
I suppose, now that you have made me reconsider my unlikely fate, that my lifelong argument with Fortune is perhaps the chief reason I became as you see me now.”
“Sir?” she asked. “Mayhaps I do not fully comprehend. You seem to me the very most fortunate of all men. Kings consult thee, lords fear thee, wise men seek thy company, men of war avoid vexing you, high and low churchman both look upon you with some measure of real wonder, women seek thy weird but alluring charms, and I have even heard that demons and many other forms of diverse spirits bow before thee and thy power.”
He placed the instrument he held back upon the table very carefully, as if he exaggerated in his own mind some memory of it, and then turned his attention solely to her once more.
“Indeed, my lady. If only men were what was said of them then our reputations would be our lives. And our portion in life. But we do not so easily gainsay Good Fortune, or Evil Fortune, or our unsleeping and jealous God.”
She smoothed the folds of her gown, moved closer to him, touched his hand and looked studiously into his face.
“Are you indeed only a man, sir Wizard?” she asked him questioningly.
He sighed. Deeply.
“I am, in both nature and in deed, only a man, my good lady,” he answered sincerely.
“Is there then nothing else?” she inquired.
“Indeed,” he whispered wistfully. “Is there nothing else?”
“Maugham, do you remember that time a few years back when I drew my revolver on you and shot you in the face with a blank round?”
“Hell yes I do,” said Maugham. “Scared the shit out of me. I thought you were really going to shoot me.”
“I did shoot you, you idiot. Just not with a bullet. But tell me, what lesson did you draw from that?”
Maugham looked at his friend, then squinted.
“Never assume I guess,” he answered.
“Then you drew the wrong lesson. The real lesson was ‘always assume.’ That the other person is dangerous. Cause they are.” Steinthal countered.
Maugham looked thoughtful for a moment.
“What are you saying then?”
“I’m saying that just because she is pretty and sexy, and nice, and smells good, is fine in bed and is maybe even sincere doesn’t mean she won’t shoot you in the face. If she needs or wants to. As a matter of fact maybe she already has and you’ve been too busy or too stupid to notice.”
Maugham looked thoughtful again. That’s twice in one day Steinthal thought. Hat trick coming?
“Yeah, I guess love will do that to you,” Maugham finally conceded.
“Or being pussy-whipped by the wrong woman,” Steinthal said. “Or, even the right one. Take it from a man who knows.”
Maugham nodded as if he agreed, at least in theory. After a moment or two of silence though he turned sinister to look straight at his friend.
“By the way. I never asked you Steinthal. Why did you shoot me in the face with that blank?”
“Because someone else tried it on me.”
“They shot you in the face with a blank,” Maugham asked, kind of surprised.
“Not exactly,” Steinthal said. “They tried to shoot me in the face with a live round. Luckily they missed.”
“Was it a lady?” Maugham asked.
“Hard to say,” Steinthal replied. “You never really know about that kind of thing nowadays, do ya?”
Maugham laughed.
“So then, you were trying to forewarn me?”
Steinthal smiled broadly. Then he clapped his friend on the shoulder.
“Maybe. That, or I just needed the practice. You can never get too much practice shooting someone in the face.”
“Yeah,” said Maugham kind of wistfully. “I’ve had the same thought myself once or twice.”
Steinthal smiled again. But this time he kept it to himself.
“Oh, I understand you completely madam, but, perhaps not in the way you presume I do. You see the thing that may disturb me the most, it certainly repulses me the most, about you supposedly ‘civilized people‘ is that you are always unfailingly polite, and extremely well-mannered, and pretentiously and profusely diplomatic. Your high ideals are on constant display for all to hear, and although I rarely see them or detect them in actual action, I must say they get a whole lot of airplay on rebroadcast.
On the other hand the pointless wrongs you people encourage, the self-absorbed misdeeds you recklessly commit, and the evils you so callously allow strike me as rather atrocious. Just. Fucking. Atrocious.”
Suddenly her serving man snorted. Or scoffed. It was difficult to say which but otherwise he remained unmoving and at attention. Steinthal carried on as if he had failed to notice.
“So please excuse me if I decline any further excuse to endure your company. I suddenly feel the need to take a hard, dirty shit. And probably a long shower.
Good night my dear. Good night ladies.
Let’s not do this again, real soon.”
Steinthal placed his untouched whiskey glass back upon the silver serving plate, tapped the phone in his trouser pockets, then turned and walked for the door.
Just before reaching it he turned again and bowed graciously.
“My apologies. That was rude and somewhat misleading. I’ve reconsidered. Let’s not do this again – ever.”
Unresolved I nothing did
Resolved at once I swiftly bid, but
Finding other ends so hid
Within the beam, and bound amid
I resolutely, God forbid,
Discovered not what cause undid
What cunning tactic
Could not Cure, what resolution
Did procure, does thinking thus
Make sure allure, or do our thoughts
Our acts abjure when Time
Is counted Friend or Foe,
Does it matter, do you know?
Or is this best solved in the Heart
Some never do, some flaming start
Yet those who finish, finish true
Brook no excuse, all pleas eschew
When they start they set off hot
Then burn until most have forgot
But in their souls no fire dims
They seek a crown, and seek it grim
They go on, and on, up to the rim
To end what ere they first begin
While others speak, they act
And act, and act again…
In habit so unlike most men.
You ask me what has most import
The time, the nature, or the sport?
I tell you that it matters not
It matters what you’ve yet begot
While others to their fallen lot
Pause to rest, and then do squat
For good – though good be ill
To carry on no more, still,
Stillness is their end:
So yes, the question solves itself
If any will but hear it well,
The start is vital, this is true
The middle hard to labor through
Yet if you but continue on
While others drop,
Their motives gone –
Your end will come, and come anon…
Resolved, your aim is true.
I have now either written, created, or started writing all of the books that shall be included in my Paths of the Great Man series of non-fiction books.
There will of course be the three main and general books: The Christian Hero (or Knight), the Christian Wizard (or Magi), and the Christian Saint.
Then there will be the specific texts and works addressing specific ideas, ideals, virtues, and capabilities.
These texts will include:
The Psychinosis – On the Operations of the Soul-Image The Psychokon – Psikonic (Soul Image) or Psychodynamic Powers THEOPHOTOS – God Light or Light Work (On the Fundamental Principles of Theurgy and Thaumaturgy) THE THEURGICON – on Theurgical Theosis THAUMAPHIA – The Wisdom of Miracles
I have made amazing progress on some of these books, good progress on others, and have barely begun a couple.
I have also started work on a very, very basic primer on the subject matters and principles discussed in these series of books and what they mean and what I mean by employing terms like Magic, Psuchos, Theurgy (God Work), Thaumaturgy (Wonder or Miracle or Marvel), etc. (Generally I mean these terms by their ancient or early Christian meanings and denotations not their later Medieval and modern connotations (such as witchcraft and sorcery). Almost all magic in the ancient and early Christian world was in actuality Divine or religious magic, not as the Medievals and moderns saw/see it as a “force or power – a la the Force in Star Wars” in and of itself. Though that is kind of unfair to the Medievals who did not believe in natural forces of Nature as separate from God as only the moderns see these things.
Plus I suspect I have a very different definition of things like Magic and Psyche (based on early Christian and ancient writings and ideas) than do most people today.
Anyway that is the progress I have made so far.
In any case my intention is to create a set of practical works whereby the Christian layman can parallel the training and work of priests and pastors in their own lives and in the lives of those around them.
But more to the point to better replicate the works (mundane, theurgical, and thaumaturgical) of the early Apostles and Disciples.
There is a sunset hall
Far away from here
I’ve seen it dim and small
But in my heart it’s near
It’s empty when I look
No matter, day or night
By everyone forsook
A wasted, ruined sight
Yet in my soul it burns
Dark with bitter tears
For in my mind it churns
Fires still that sear
I wish the light would fade
From all I have seen there
It is an open grave
Ling’ring in the air
It will not go away
That sunset never ends
The stones will not decay
And I cannot defend
Myself from it…
The empty song of it…
The coming night of it…
The wasted flight from it…
If one day you find
Me sitting by the sea
Drowned, but still I’m dry
Despite all you see
Know an empty hall
Sunset, far away
Has found me after all
Or did I go to stay?
Seek it…
Did I go seek it?
The ruined site of it…
Because…
There is a sunset hall
Far away from here
Sometimes it will call
From where is never clear
But when I close my eyes
I find my heart within
No matter how I lie
I live there in myself
“And what about her? I mean, I know we’ve got him, but what about her?” asked Maugham. “Isn’t she too clever and too important to touch?”
Steinthal looked at him as if trying to search his friend’s mind for sincerity, or the lack thereof.
“I thought you would have known better by now,” he said.
“Know better than what?” said Maugham.
Steinthal bent over and picked up something from the ground, pocketed it, then turned back to Maugham.
“Everyone thinks they are too big to touch. Everyone thinks they are too tough to touch. Everyone thinks they are too clever to touch. Everyone thinks they are too important to touch,” he replied. “No one ever is.”
“Are you sure about that?” said Maugham.
“Absolutely certain,” said Steinthal.
“Because some people are awful hard to get at,” countered Maugham.
Steinthal narrowed his eyes.
“If you know what you’re doing then no one is really hard to get at. It’s just an urban myth to think otherwise.”
“Good,” said Maugham. “That’s my thinking too. But I just wanted to hear you say it out loud.”
Steinthal looked at him quizzically.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“Because when you say things out loud with that look on your face shit actually starts to happen,” said Maugham. “And I’m about ready for this shit to happen. I’m through waiting. Sure enough.”
Steinthal looked hard at his friend for a long moment, as if weighing him in his mind for a prizefight.
“Alright then,” said Steinthal. “Let’s make some shit happen.”
“It’s a question of precisely what is the most ethical possible practice,” Termkin said, apparently annoyed by Steinthal’s relentless and unswerving line of inquiry.
Steinthal stared at him intently, but unreadably.
“Is it?” asked Steinthal.
Termkin seemed puzzled by the question.
“What do you mean?” Termkin said.
“See,” said Steinthal twirling the brim of his hat in his hand, “that’s where I think we both know you’re wrong.”
Termkin furrowed his brow, his expression a mixture of ongoing annoyance and a genuine struggle to understand.
“I still don’t perceive your exact meaning?”
“No, I don’t think you do,” said Steinthal. “And I really didn’t expect that you could. But let me simplify the matter for you. You see I have this theory that everything is always really about morality. And that ethics is just something that lawyers and other no count types like you employ as a cheap legal substitute.”
Termkin seemed to follow Steinthal’s explanation at a slightly slower pace than it had been enunciated. But when he finally caught up he suddenly flushed red and showed his ire.
“Why you smart mouthed son of a bitch!”
Steinthal laughed good humoredly.
“Probably,” he said. “But I noticed you didn’t bother to refute me.”
Termkin mulled on that for a moment before his snappy comeback finally came to him.
“Oh yeah, well exactly how is one supposed to refute you smartass types?” Termkin demanded. “You think you’re always right.”
Steinthal stood up and put his hat on his head. He smiled to himself as if Termkin wasn’t even in the room though he was still staring right at him.
“See, that’s the part about this whole thing that’s easiest to resolve,” said Steinthal. “We are always right. Even when no one else knows it yet. Like you. As for the thinking part, well now, if you ever really bothered with that then I presume you could figure it out for yourself.”
Steinthal tipped his hat at Termkin in a peculiar gesture. “But I’m not gonna lay real money on it.”
Steinthal walked across the room, opened the door and then looked back at Termkin.
“I’d like to say it was nice to meet you Termkin. But, we met anyway. So at least we’ll always have that.”
The he left.
Still full of questions, but certain he finally crossed the right man.
______________________________________________
A bit of dialogue involving my Detective Character Steinthal. I didn’t really get a chance to do a Tuesday’s Tale this week. Too busy. So I’m posting this today instead.
My youngest daughter read it and I asked her what she thought of it and she said, “Dad, Steinthal talks pretty much just like you.”
Which made me laugh.
“Yeah, funny how that works, ain’t it?” I told her…
Failure is the one thing that modern men are almost always willing to excuse and yet are almost never willing to learn from. No wonder it does them so little good.
“You ask me how I know this and I can only tell you what I’ve seen.
High Fortune came upon me like a silent serpent, slithering from behind in such a stealthy manner as to conceal his true intent and to scarcely warrant my attention.
Low Fortune approached me like a titled lord, resplendent all in showy pomp and decorative circumstance, attired in the lofty regalia of finely whispered shadows spun from venomous spider silks.
Low Fortune is, you see my friend, the King of Seeming and the Prince of Cunning Craft yet I advise you eschew his long seducing and ever seductive company. For his court is all fantastic façade and fraudulent fashion and his manner and his manor are both estates of ruin.
High Fortune, on the other hand, wears no glittered crown of kingship nor rankish robes of high office nor encrusted jewels of state, he is as plain of face, as rough-built by effort, and as quiet in nature as if stable bred. Yet if on turning round by chance or calculation you find him standing nearby then reach out your hand quickly and grasp him in so firm a hold that he cannot escape, and never let him go until he promises to bless you as his friend.
Leave Low Fortune, brother, where he dwells, even if he home in temple renown or palace grand, for he is the sure slum-lord of soon-to-be sad misdeeds and the master of all unenviable fools.
Instead set your watch and wait patiently for High Fortune, for one day he will approach you in sly disguise, silent and unannounced, to see what can be made of you if you will ever dare. For he is your steadfast, stalwart, and subtle Friend and the Maker of that Fortune you truly seek.
Low Fortune churns like stormy waves, he ebbs and flows and never settles ought. High Fortune stands alone and trembles not, he shelters and secures all Men of Enterprise.”
Since the beginning of this year I have been in one of the most productive periods/phases of my entire life as far as the creation of poems, songs, short stories, novels, scripts, and other literary works are concerned. I have recently produced hundreds of pages of new works.
Above is a section of my novel series the Kithariune. In this passage the Welsh Bard Larmaegeon is trying to explain the difference(s) between High and Low Fortune to his friend and companion, the Spanish Paladin Edimios. And why he should wait upon the one and avoid the other.
My wife arrived home from a trip to the beach on July the First. The next morning we had get home sex. She went to sleep afterwards but I got up and wrote the following poem.
I like the poem a lot but I am having difficulty naming it. I like these potential names/titles: Rich Everafter, Those Treasures Within, The Labors of Love, The Harvest of Human Labors, or Sweat of Our Love.
If you have a preference among those or would like to make your own suggestion then feel free to do so. I look forward to reading your ideas.
Here is the poem. Let me know what you think, and what you would call it.
My wife’s body is naked and soft like broken ground
My wife’s body smells rich like fertile soil
My wife’s body is dark and moist like morning loam the restless Meander has watered at sunrise
I think that I shall plow her deeply again when she wakes and see what treasures within us both lie hid
Like the open fields of tended Pharos or the silty banks of the flooded Nile we shall suddenly sprout silver and salt and bare fecund Earth overflowing with milk and honey and blood dark wine and rampant wild oats and thus shall we feed ourselves a lifetime on the harvest of our human labors and the sweat of our love
My wife’s body is naked
My body is naked
Now shall we again labor in earnest, produce in abundance, and be rich everafter…
But three most vital and prime: Body, Mind, and Soul.
Of Body – movement, grace, strength, and sensation
Of Mind – craft, thought, apprehension, and creation
Of Soul – his inmost Self, Endurance, Honor, Truth, and Love
Well, it ain’t really a Tale for Tuesday, but it is a tale about how you should tell what you can’t really tell when you try. Not in words, anyway…
ON POETRY
Poetry involves the minute manipulation of words in such a way that they are constantly and subtly altered in definition, either so that they take on a broader and more flexible implication than they have ever possessed before, or so that they take on a more narrow and peculiar resolution in terminology than they have ever before possessed.
Do this wisely and well and with patient and practiced craft and you will be considered a master of phrasing and sound, perhaps even possessed of real poetic genius. Do this sloppily or shoddily and in haste and without regard for the demands of true meaning in language and you will be considered a mere dilettante or perhaps even a hapless hack.
I conceived of the idea for this poem about a week and a half ago but was unable to work on it due to other business and work demands. On Sunday night (the 26th of June) about an hour before the Game of Thrones finale I began work on it. It shall be a long, narrative poem with what I hope is an unanticipated and unusual conclusion, and a twisting storyline. At this point of course it is in its infancy and is far from complete.
Aside from being a long narrative poem I am also thinking very seriously of turning it into a Graphic Novel which will also serve as a de-facto manual on ancient Mnemonic Techniques. I am already sketching out possible illustrations or old woodcut designs for the Work.
Hope you enjoy it thus far.
HARD THE HAMMERSMITH
Hard the Hammersmith worked all day
Hard the Hammersmith would not say
What his toiling would produce
Or why he labored so profuse
Hard the Hammersmith worked all night
Hard the Hammersmith knew delight
For his hammers truly rang
Fire, metal, sturm und drang
Hard the Hammersmith took no rest
Hard the Hammersmith did his best
For he always set his task
Above whatever weakness asks
Hard the Hammersmith took no bread
Hard the Hammersmith shunned his bed
For the Work to which he bent
He would master, or be spent
Hard the Hammersmith took no drink
Hard the Hammersmith did not think
Yet on he drove himself to act
With anguish was his body wracked…
I began this poem around noon as a response to today’s Daily Postprompt on Voyage. I got two stanzas in and then my daughters needed my help and then someone working with me on one of my start-ups demanded my attention and so therefore I have had to leave it at this point. I apologize but that kinda thing happens in life.
I intend to finish it but cannot do so at the moment. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless, and have a good day folks…
TO PORT OUR HOME, TO STARBOARD STILL UNKNOWN
To port was home, to starboard unknown foreign seas, and
Lands bespoken of in dream, where endless roam great beasts
Not seen since man was in the cradle of his mother’s shore
The stars still young and uncertain in their unfixed course
Across the skies of night still bright with constellated myth
Prodigious like the unseen figures which grappled in the dark
Around the moon’s white lantern in desperate search of a world
So new, so full of wonder, that no other home would do,
Not, at least, to the Daring
To port is home but on every other course the waves break
Upon a soil unsown with the tares and tears that common habit
Bestrew along the Earth we know so well by mundane states
Unchallenged in their broad decay and rush to ruin
Across the fields of ancient countries whose ground is salted
With the misery of crawling empires and rotting kingdoms
Made of man beneath the shadow of what is most foul within him
So old, so full of apathy, that no such home can seem true
Not, at least, to the Wise…
Lately I have been doing a lot of what I call Cross-Over Work.
In this case I mean by saying that I have been doing a lot of work that cross-fertilizes itself in other works I am simultaneously creating. For instance I might be writing one novel and a particular scene or bit of dialogue I create will inspire another scene or piece of dialogue in another book or novel I am working on.
Though such things are not necessarily related to or limited to my various fiction writings. I might be drawing a map or making a sketch, designing something, working on a start-up project, developing an invention, writing a poem or song lyrics, or writing a novel or a non-fiction book and all of these things, or others, might give me an idea for another work I’m currently pursuing.
So today, and below (and in allusion to my previous post on actors), I am posting some of my latest Cross-Over Work. Little vignettes, or to be more accurate, often just little snippets (bits of dialogue, sections of scenes, sketch notes, etc.) of various Works I am creating and pursuing at this time.
Does your Work cross over in this way, from one work to another?
If so then feel free to comment below.
___________________________________________
NOT A FAIR FIGHT
“Again I don’t get it. Take one shot at your actual target and three at yourself… don’t seem like much of a fair fight to me.”
From my Western The Lettered Men
A CLUE
“Not every possibility is true, that’s certainly true, but every possibility is always a clue – to something other than itself. If you keep forgetting that then it’s very possible the Truth will entirely escape you. And if it does then what other possibilities really matter?”
From The Detective Steinthal
TRUE DARKNESS
“True darkness obscures. Few things can thrive in perpetual shade but those things that can definitely always wish to remain hidden. That is, until they are ready to be discovered. For reasons of their own.”
From The Detective Steinthal
ALWAYS BEST
“It is always best to hunt in silence.”
The Detective Steinthal
YOUR TRAINING IS OVER
“What are you training for kid? To train forever? Now who wants that kinda shit anyway? Only officers and politicians, that’s who. No, you get your ass in the fight. You’ve trained long enough. Time to be somebody.”
From Snyder’s Spiders
IT BLEEDS
“And how now is your wound?”
“It itches fiercely, it hurts mightily, it swells darkly, but it bleeds freely and cleanly. It is good that it bleeds so and thus I will not complain of the other things. But if you have any more of that strange brew you drink then I will not complain of a skin full of that either.”
“I have not a skin, but I can manage a cup.”
“Then so can I…”
Suegenius describing to Fhe Fhissegrim the condition of his wound
From my fantasy The Kithariune (The Basilegate)
A RARE AND WONDROUS FEAT
“If you cannot stand up to your own old man then you will never stand up to anyone. If you can stand up to your own old man then you can stand up to anyone else, and everyone else.
If your old man ever forces you to rebel against him then do not hate him for it, respect him for it. He has done more for you in that regard, as regards the development of your actual manhood, than any other thing anyone else could ever do for you in the world. That man who forces his son into rebellion has bred a man. You owe such a father an enormous and generous debt.
That father who always insists his son obey him, right or wrong, has bred a mere and helpless and fearful slave. You owe that father your utter disdain and yourself nothing but shame for your own endless submission.
Drink to your father Edomios. Drink long and deep. He has bred a man in you. A man who can stand upright and unafraid. A rare and wondrous feat in our age.
Maybe in any age.”
Marsippius Nicea the Byzantine Commander of the Basilegate explaining to Edomios the Spanish Paladin why he owes his father a debt of manhood
From The Kithariune
THAT WAY YOU SPEAK
When Michael first lands in Thaumaturgis he is met by Harmonius Hippostatic who makes fun of the way he speaks and tries to explain to Michael where he is, and what life is like in the Lands. Michael does not at first speak in verse, but speaks in prose, but as he stays longer and longer in the land of Thaumaturgis he also comes to speak in metered, rhyming verse.
Harmonius: That way you speak, it’s quite a feat
But it will never do,
No meter, rhyme or rhythm,
It’s really quite obtuse.
Michael: Where am I?
Harmonius: Why this is Thaumaturgis,
Don’t you know your lands?
It’s one of the three countries,
Not earth, not stone, not sand.
No one’s ever figured
How it got this way
Tomorrow is the same as now
It’s always been that way.
If want you life miraculous
Or supernatural,
It’s really quite so marvelous
And never, ever dull.
But one thing in this country
You really must avoid
Speaking words in plain old prose
Is what will most annoy,
So put on your best rhyming
Your metered rhythm too
Don’t dally up a worthwhile speech
Without so much ado,
Be mannered in your speaking
Poetic when you talk
Or everyone will soon declare Your words taste just like chalk
This morning, right after waking, I began this poem.
I wrote the first two stanzas in bed, in my bedside notebook, went downstairs, fed the animals, made breakfast for the wife and kids, and then sat down at my desk and hammered out the third stanza. It wasn’t hard. It flowed as if I had taken no break in between.
I started in on the fourth stanza which to me was absolutely brilliant (the best part of the entire work) and right as I got to the third line of the fourth stanza the power went out at the house, and for some reason my backup power fluctuated as well so that my computer shut down. By the time I rebooted I had lost the entire fourth stanza.
I tried reconstructing the stanza from memory but I was so pissed off and taken off guard by the unexpected power failure (why should that happen at the start of summer with not a cloud in the sky I ask you?) and by the delay in reboot time that I ended up producing a mere shadow of my original effort.
I’m still satisfied by the stanza, and the poem overall so far, and it is far from finished, but just to be honest the fourth stanza isn’t nearly what I produced the first time around. So I apologize for that. This is yet another valuable lesson in why I should never compose at my computer, but only in my notebooks.
Nevertheless I am pleased with the poem and when it is finally finished I suspect I will name it, Things Long Unseen.
That is, at least, the place-holder name I am giving it for now. Enjoy and have an excellent and productive and profitable week my friends.
THINGS LONG UNSEEN
I shall exceed all things, and having so excelled all things
Shall bow to me, not as brutish, mindless slaves but as one man
Instinctively declines his head to yet another in whom he recognizes
His equal.
The loss of me is not the less of me, and the lending of me
To another is no lack of either thing made true in itself,
For pushed on by High Labour where can I go but where
I am, and where I Am dwells a still fairer land than I may truly
Ever know, though God knows, how much I wish for such
Things long unseen
I shall excel all things, and having thus exceeded nothing
Shall bow to me, nor find an alien compass with which to navigate
That Long Frontier that I so long ago remembered in myself
Unequaled
The less of me is what is left of me, for the debt of me
To another is both the loss and gain in ourselves untrue,
Subsumed in Reckless Profits, destined where I know not that
We are, or when, or how, or why it is that we know these things
Improper in themselves, though we all know how much we wish for
Things Long unforeseen…
I went to your graves to speak with you dead
You answered with nary a sound, but
The echoes of stone, and the blood and the bones
Still in the air they redound
Someone must live, and someone must die
I’ve seen my share of those things, yet
You know them all well in your marrow and flesh
For the shroud is the shield that still clings
To the toil that you wore, to the deeds that you bore
To the future and past you present
When I see countrymen free, and the grass
Green overseas that otherwise death would have spent
If you could arise, recall how you died
Who then could discharge the debt?
That we owe in our souls, but don’t really know
In the war and the wound that beset
About you in harm, the wrong, the alarm
As you struggled the catch your last breath
Yet it fled far away, like your soul on that day
By demand, or command, or request,
What can I say, much less best relay
Of what your great efforts have earned?
You’ve written in blood, in anguish, in mud
We’ll honor, and then we’ll adjourn, oh
The tombs that we’ll build, of marble and steel
Carved with your names and your stars
Will pass with the times as the ages unwind
As you fade into memories afar, yet
The world that you built, the anger, the guilt
Of your blood on the altar of Mars
These will live on, and not just in song, but
In the hope and the home of my heart…
Maugham sighed, then leaned over with a groan and put his head in his in hands for awhile. He rubbed the top of his head slowly as if to somehow comfort his own mind. But it didn’t seem to work.
When he lifted his head back up he looked at Steinthal.
“Do you think it will ever change?”
Steinthal looked at him and then shrugged wearily.
“I suppose that’s entirely up to the people involved. I only know one thing for sure… and even that’s not much…” and then he fell silent.
Maugham waited but when Steinthal said nothing else he just stood back up. It was obvious he was hurt though, so Stenithal moved over and put his arm under his friend’s and around his back and helped him start to walk again.
“What’s the one thing by the way?” Maugham asked as the men made their way torturously out of the ruined building.
“Oh that,” said Stenthal, as if he had just assumed his friend already knew. “Nothing ever changes much when no one ever much changes.”
So they made their way back to the river, dripping sweat, shedding blood, grunting in pain, and limping as they went.
“Personally I have never understood the idea that the herd is so all pervasive that you dare not leave it or the pack so all powerful that you dare not defy it. You don’t like the herd, then go your own way. Plenty of places the herd won’t dare go that you can. The pack turns on you then you turn on it. They’ll even be plenty of times you should turn on the pack when it doesn’t turn on you. That’s life.
See, it’s just a herd son, it’s just a pack. Simple as that.
This ain’t rocket science kid it’s just plain old fashioned manhood. And whenever necessary a man stands absolutely alone and entirely unafraid. But don’t pretend with me what I’m saying is so unbelievable you can’t even imagine it.
You’ve imagined it plenty. You’ve just never had the balls to act like a man about it.
So the trouble ain’t them boy, the trouble has never been them. The trouble is you. I know it, they know it, and you know it. Because the trouble will always be you until it ain’t anymore. And then the real trouble starts.
But at least by then you’ll finally be a man about it.”
From The Detective Steinthal
Steinthal talking to a low level informant and petty criminal. From one of the cases of my Detective Steinthal.
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Wyrdwend 
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