THE TROUBLE WITH YOU – TUESDAY’S TALE

“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.

 

THE LIGHT THAT MADE – FIRST VERSE

THE LIGHT THAT MADE

The Light that made the formless dark
Did crown and shape the outer world
Yet within it forged the Inner Soul
That fashioned all that lives and breathes
The Light dispersed gave birth below, yet
Solid all and made of substance in itself
A Secret spawns, a kind of Cosmos bred
Of the very Blood that feeds the restless
Ever-turning, Eternal Mind of God…

 

 

AN ANCIENT RACE – FIRST VERSE

AN ANCIENT RACE

I came upon myself one day
Hoping there to find
Someone truly great and grand
Some One quite divine

Reflections of me seemed to prove
That I was all I thought
High and noble, quite advanced
Superior, self-wrought

To all the others I was king
At least so to myself
I was different than they were
And twice as good as well

No one could me anything
Was not my Image clear? (dear)
Me to everyone I met
Was what I made most dear (clear)

Then one day I found that I
My mind, my soul, and flesh
Was just as mortal as they were
And now not quite as fresh

The image that I fawned upon
The reflection I adored
Was but of human denouement
And mirrored self-amour

Now no greatness lingers here
No moral high and grand
Except this caution, yet my friend,
Like me, “you’re just a man…”

 

THE EMBRACE OF WARM FLESH – FIRST VERSE

I apologize for my absence this past week. I’ve had a stomach virus which has been, just to be honest, the worst intestinal infection I may have ever had in my entire life. It made me violently ill, later exhausted (I still tire easily and it started last Monday, so I’ve had it for 8 days now), and I am just now really recovering. Still, I would say that I’m actually more of about 85 to 90% recovered rather than fully recovered.

Below is the first real work I’ve been able to do in a week or more. It’s unfinished but came to me this morning when I awoke. Hope you enjoy it and hope you are well. If not well, if you’re like me, then I hope you rapidly recover. Not slowly, like me.

 

THE EMBRACE OF WARM FLESH

The embrace of warm flesh

Ardent in its vigor
Constant in its desire
Purposed in its method
Relentless and intrepid

Determined in consummation
Fearless in elation
Without an accusation
Quiet desperation…

 

 

NOT A CONCERN – BOOKENDS

“You know, you’re not the first to react this way. A great many people seem very frightened by the fact that I am not frightened. However I am not in the least frightened by the fact that they are frightened by that. As a matter of fact it greatly encourages me when I meet people like you.

You’d be really frightened if you knew just how much.”

Steinthal (The Detective)

DO NOT THIS WORLD ALONE – FIRST VERSE

DO NOT THIS WORLD ALONE

I awoke again this morning in a black mood. Then as dawn approached and I lay in bed thinking of my as yet unborn grandchildren this poem came to me and the dark passed.

 

For you are young and sweet
But I am old and doomed
I’m summoned to my sleep
Yet you have yet to bloom

I tremble as I walk
You’ve yet to take a step
I mutter as I talk
You babble joy instead

You’ve yet to know the dark
I search the night for light
To everything you hark
My memories I fight

Dawn she calls to you
Dusk she calls to me
To you it all seems true
I’ve been too long deceived

You laugh and coo and crawl
I’m stooped and bent and broke
I’m burdened with it all
You’re free of weight and yoke

You see just what is near
I’ve seen things from afar
My eyes drowned in my tears
Your sight is still unmarred

You hear the small birds sing
You wonder at their calls
I hear the echoed screams
I know what soon befalls

If I could by (buy) some wish
Shield you from what comes
Would that be damned foolish
Or work of High Wisdom?

I do not know my child
I never knew with me
The world was often wild
Most bloodily conceived

I will tell you this
For it is all I’ve known
Keep God deep in your heart
Do not this world alone

or, variantly:

(Do not this world bemoan)
(You’ll not this world atone)

A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY, AND … TWO FOR FIRST VERSE

Two for First Verse.  So, lucky you, you’ve got a twofer.

 

A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY

A little goes a long way if a little’s all you’ve got
A long way is a long way though and often costs a lot,

New is sometimes better if it’s really something new
Then again tis often just the useful bid adieu,

Yet the old is still the old because it’s worked awhile
That isn’t always e’re the case, but life is not a mile,

Is new improved – a treasure hoard that purchases the world
Or is it effete novelty that’s simply trimmed in pearl?

The newer goes a long way if your way is just so long
Then again the road is wild, and it goes on and on,

Fresher is the fresh man whose foot has yet to tread
Then again he knows not yet the dangers he must dread,

If I want newer thinking then the young are where I’ll start
But guides who know the jungle are the ones who know their art,

So give me lots of young men, and new, to carry loads
They often make the portage light, divert along the road

Yet if I must into the way where paths are dim and dark
Then let my scouts be old men, and let them know their parts…

________________________________________________________

MARX HE WENT TO MARKET

Well Marx he went to market
With theories great and grand
He sold them to the ignorant
In every foreign land,
At discount did they prosper
To fools they multiplied
In Truth they found no purchase
Yet with mobs they did abide,
Revolutions soon arose
With fires burning bright, and
Still the theories sold by Marx
Could not a dime incite,
Still what is that to theorists
Or professors in the clouds?
They packaged for their profit
Though no profit was allowed,
Well Marx he went to market
Just to find his market share, and
So he did ‘mong idiots
No Intelligensia to spare,
They took his empty theories
To spin out governments, and
That is what they’ve truly done
With dark and dim intent,
They convinced the public masses
They convinced the public schools
They tamed the dupes and gullible
Conscripted all the fools, yes
They sold Marx in their markets
In place of goods instead
Now markets teem with people
But no one has their bread…

MY POWER IN HER PLEASING

As part of my reading today I came across this passage in a work of ER Eddison:

“My pleasure is my power to please my mistress:
My power is my pleasure in that power.”

Which, compared to the surrounding work, struck me as dull and listless and uninspired. I didn’t like it and thought it could have been much better, comparatively speaking. (If it is indeed a quote cited from another work I have not as yet found the original source.)

So I decided to rework the couplet (and thereafter expand it) to see if I could render a better and more apt and more fit version (given the surrounding context). As an experiment, such as the kind of experiments I did on rewriting verse as a young kid.

 

This is what I developed:

“My pleasure is my power to please my mistress:
Her power in that pleasure is to my pleasing
Such powers, pleasing to us both
Yield pleasures sweet and e’er unending
In memory and reminiscence all alike
To the very powers of those pleasing acts.”

BREAKPOINT

Tonight, while readying my Work for tomorrow I had an interesting idea for a science-fiction short story.

I’m going to call the story, “Breakpoint.”

It sounds like it might be a military sci-fi tale, or maybe a sci-fi espionage story, but it actually has to do with human longevity.

The story will be a sort of reverse Logan’s Run story (I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember Logan’s Run), in a very loose way. Although it will have an altogether different point and moral.

In the future, for a very peculiar reason, it is discovered that if people over a given age undergo a certain taxing process then they will either die prematurely as a result, or they will reach their Breakpoint, and survive, and by so doing their lifespans will increase exponentially.

That’s all I’m going to describe until I write the story.

So for now I’m gonna go walk Sam and then make out my sketch notes for the story and go to bed.

See you later and have a good night. Or morning.

Whatever ya got out there.

A LITTLE MURDER STORY

A Little Murder Story – I was working on this in my mind on my way home from town one night about 11:30 or so. It has some rough language in it, and if that offends you then skip it. (I’m not a big fan of rough language myself just to have rough language, unless it is a matter of realism, then it doesn’t bother me at all.) I couldn’t write it in the car and didn’t have my tape recorder, so I had to reconstruct it from memory. Might not be exactly what I saw in my head, but it’s pretty close.

A Murder Story is as close as a title as I’ve got, but I kinda like that, so I might just stick with it.

It isn’t the full story, as I plan to publish it. But this is my Tale for Tuesday’s Tale.

Enjoy.

_____________________________________________________

“Man, you say that shit to me again and I’ll kill your punk ass.”

I sighed. Deeply even.

“Sure kid, I have a bad case of the ‘you scared me already.’ How bout we just go back on point now?”

“I told you, I ain’t got shit to say to you.”

I pivoted. More outta habit than necessity.

“Alright then, let’s try this. I’m gonna wave my left hand in the air and you’re gonna try and track it with both eyes at once. If you can do that it’ll prove to us both that you’re smart enough to do that.”

It took him a second, but I waited through it.

“Mutha-“ he stepped towards me with his chest bowed out, hands by his side, so I raised my left hand and when he looked I hit him in the mouth with my right. He rocked back for a second, kinda stunned. So as he was still figuring the right I elbowed him across the nose with my left arm. He sat down on his knees looking up, his mouth open.

To keep it moving at a brisk pace I caught him by the shoulders, bent him back double, and slammed his head back into the chewed up pavement. Hard enough his skull bounced. Then just to be sure I grabbed him by the sides of the head and did it again.

While he flirted with a concussion I rolled him over onto his stomach and cuffed his left wrist (I had been watching him, he was definitely a southpaw) to his right ankle. He was kinda fat and big boned so it was a bit of a stretch for us both, but I had come prepared for all contingencies. Sure, they always looked funny that way but then again it usually did wonders for cooperation. This guy looked like he’d at least try and dance under duress, once he was moving again, but ya just never knew. Nine outta ten times this setup did the trick.

After that I rolled him onto his side and watched for signs of life. Sure enough he began to display a few. So I pulled out my knife to firm it up a little.

“Okey-dokey, here we go city bang-bang. Now you do believe in blood at first sight? Right? Cause I think this is the part where you tell me all about how you’re gonna saw my head off with my own knife, rape my mother, eat my dog, and commit all of the other higher level functions you’re so expert at. Boo-yah and brimstones! Or, on second thought, we can just skip that part, if it’s all the same to you, and you can go ahead and tell me who murdered the girl. I mean I’m sure you’re frightful and all but that’s my real interest. And I’m salaried, so sooner is better.”

“Man I din’t kill no little girl.” His lip was already swelling and the blood around his nose was already blackening. That would be useful in a minute or two.

I started to step over him and when I did he tried to use his right hand to catch my leg. So I stomped on his hand. Hard. He groaned, I smiled.

“I thought we had a working negotiation. But I guess we’re still gonna hav’ta work out a few mutual misunderstandings. I’ll go first if you don’t mind.”

I kicked him in the solar plexus and all his breath ran out in a huff. I think he also started to cry a little. Sometimes I had that effect on certain people.

“Isn’t this exciting? Now first of all, I said murder, not kill. And secondly I said girl, not little girl. So clearly we’re still having definitional difficulties. But we can work that out. Let’s start over, for old times’ sake.”

I bent down and took my knife and cut his cheap windbreaker off him. Then as he caught his breath I cut his sweatshirt off too.

“Wooo-weeee. That really looks cold. Old Man Winter sure does bite iffin you give him a reason, don’t he? But that’s okay, I just had coffee and a hot Danish. I’m good for an hour or two.”

He spat and cursed some. Wiggled on the icy ground. I waited politely for him to finish.

“Boy, that was an illuminating display. Thanks for that. I’m gonna write that down for later, but for now you just try and track with me for a moment, won’t ya? See, you seem to be under two unfortunate misimpressions about our situation here.

First, I don’t have a murder warrant out on me, nor have I ever done time for a previous murder conviction. Bet you’re wondering if it’s because I’ve never killed a man, or if, unlike you, I’m just good enough to have never gotten caught. Well, we’ll get around to that part later this evening, during the entertainment interlude.

And I guess the second problem is, although I’d think it might be kinda obvious by now, even to you, that I’m not exactly what you’d call a real cop. Maybe I’ve never been a real cop. If we have time tonight we might get around to that part too. Just for giggles.”

“Man, I’m telling ya I ain’t KILLED NO GIRL!” He practically roared the last part and for the first time in our whole brief relationship he said it sincerely enough that I knew he really wanted me to believe him.

“Isn’t that sweet? We’ve finally reached the stage where you care what I think. Or think I care what you say. See, we can make progress. All we gotta do is really work at it awhile. Eventually we’re even gonna get at the truth.

But before that I’m gonna take my knife and cut off your pants. And just before you’re shivering so hard you go numb all over I’m gonna cut your balls off. You’d be surprised at the amount of truth that causes to spill out of a man. So hold on tight now, we might hav’ta go around the block a couple of times before you finally figure out where we’re headed. But I promise ya, it’ll be well worth the effort when we finally get there. And if at any time you wanna take a shortcut then just let me know. Like I said, I’m salaried. So the quicker we get at the truth, the better for everybody. Especially you.”

Then I took my knife and went to work.

It didn’t take long. I’m pretty good at my work.

THE SORCERER’S TONGUE

THE SORCERER’S TONGUE

The Sorcerer’s tongue an adder crawls
To slither through the hearts of men
A viper coiled in roils of lies
Seduces all with poisoned ends,
The Necromancer of the Age
Raising up deceit and death
From tombs and tomes by ruin lost
Has given form and stirred cold breath,
Enchantments webbed and eldritch spun
Like spiders creep across the mind
So even men who seem themselves
Are slaves to him, enthralled like kine,
Hades vast and oceans deep
Are hidden in his crafty art
The conjured word is as he speaks
A servant dim and set apart,
The warlock’s gloom – bespoken like a spell
Has snared the fool and baited traps
To line the road of Truth along which
Even brave men cannot make their maps,
The Waystaff of the Witch’s word
Has charmed the Wise with venoms dark
Bound in blood men sound in every other way
By sound of him fall all unnerved
Their manhood washed away in flood,
The alchemic base of rank and rot
Has made a potent portion of regret
Yet who still speaks of deeds begot
When dread by sorcery yet abets?
The Witch’s teat, the serpent’s tongue
Eidolons frozen in the soul
Glams and dictums (dicins) doom us all
Who should by wit the Witch atone,
We have fallen all and one
Under shrouds envoked by terms of fraud
Cultic does the lie allure
Guile the noose of little gods,
If we will not soon this wrong dispel
Cut out the tongue that binds us so
Then sorcery shall be our gaol
The price of prison be our soul.

A MAN OF COURAGE from THE LETTERMEN

“Monk, I don’t expect there’s a man of honor among us. That ain’t even the question the way I sees it.

The question is, ‘Is there a man of courage among us?’

Cause if we got that much we at least got a chance. Otherwise all this whining and moaning and bitching and complaining don’t mean shit to me. And it won’t mean shit to the rest of the world neither.

Eventually every man has gotta decide for himself, “Am I talking my manhood up, or am I just talking it away?'”

An argument among the Lettermen concerning what really makes a difference in this world.

THE HEART WILL ROAM from THE ENDLESS FRONTIER

“Son, the heart will roam where the heart will roam. It may have no worthwhile destination at all, yet still it will attempt the journey. And if it thinks it may eventually find a better land to inhabit than what it now knows then there is no ocean vast enough, no desert barren enough, and no forest dark enough to turn it back upon itself.”

A short bit of dialogue from my book The Endless Frontier in which an old Mountain Man explains to a young man that the human heart was built for frontiers. All kinds of frontiers…

THEY LONG…

They do not long conceal their face
With deceits framed on inner lies
Who seek to promulgate their aims
With patient work and longing sighs,

Their eyes reflective in their heart
Stare dead into the endless void
Of horrors spawned by theories vast
They would see true, not ere avoid,

The softer ones, the powdered plight
Those seeming meek with cunning tongue
Plan long into the moonless night
To write in blood what they’ve begun,

It does not matter that they bow
To Tyrant Chaos and his Reign
It matters only that they grow
The death inside with bitter pain,

‘Ware those long who wrap their face
With endless craft to gild their goals
Within them they have souls erased
They long the same to you enroll.

ANCIENT AFRICA, THE ORO, AEZANA OF AKSUM, AND THE RUINS OF THE DEFFUFA

As some of you know my youngest daughter recently asked if she could do a special study on some of the Ancient and Medieval kingdoms of Africa as part of her homeschooling studies. I readily agreed as I like the subject myself and she just finished a great course of study on archaeology. So this seemed like a natural extension of her previous study set.

Well, I got as much good material together as I could from our local library system, which admittedly has little decent material in the way of books on Africa (any part of Africa, especially African history). What I could get though I got. Most of the books – I wasn’t too impressed with except for a very excellent book on the early spread of Christianity throughout northern and eastern Africa called The Blessing of Africa, which I had previously read myself in my studies for the priesthood. (One day I intend to help found churches in Africa. Or refound is perhaps a better term since much of Africa was Christian until the Muslim invasions and slave trade.)

As I said many of the books were less than stellar but the video materials I got were quite good and since I’m here at the house alone today I thought I’d look at one of the videos on the Lost Kingdoms of Africa. I’ve watched two episodes so far, one very good one on the Nubians and Cushites and a truly excellent one on the Ethiopians and the Aksum Kingdom.

The guy who is the host or moderator is obviously a black Brit archaeologist (given the accent) who nevertheless tends to dress something like an American cowboy and definitely does not like desert environments. He’s got that cold blood of the Brits I guess. It’s very amusing to listen to him say over and over again, “Man, I have never been so hot!” He’s an eclectic character, and his manner of dress, speech and aversion to heat make me laugh. Nevertheless he is bright and a good host and the show explores some fascinating places and investigates some interesting history.

One thing in particular that I learned regarded Ezana the Ethiopian (Aezana of Aksum), who was educated by two Syrians who had become shipwrecked in Ethiopia. One of the Syrians was a Christian monk (Syria being the first Christian kingdom in the world – most of the entire Near East and much of Africa being Christian before the Muslim invasions) who converted Ezana and Ezana become the very first Christian Emperor of Ethiopia.

Considering his background, the size of his kingdom (which was quite impressive), the number of Near Eastern, Arabic, and Christian states it was in contact with, and given the novels I am writing I cannot help but think that Ezana was at least one chief aspect of what would later become the historical template for the Prester John myth.

Ezana converted to Christianity, expanded the empire considerably, instituted educational and religious reforms (similar to what Charlemagne and Alfred the Great would later do in France and England), imported people from all over the nearby world as advisors, and expanded trade. He was also the first to mint Christian coins, interesting since Syria was the first Christian kingdom, and he had been educated by a Syrian.

There is a character in my Other World novels, a man by the name of Erasto Qwara, and he is a primary character in the party of the Oro (Moonshadow), which is a rough analogue of the Byzantine Basilegate. The more I study Ezana though the more I think that some of Ezana’s attributes will be adopted into the character of Erasto.

Erasto, while recovering in Egypt from combat injuries decides to join the Oro to try and discover, almost precisely as the Basilegate is trying to do, why so many odd and unexplainable things are happening in our world.

Before that however Erasto has a vision, or a dream, or a mystical experience in which he is instructed to go to Alexandria and from there to Constantinople.

But while watching the video today on the Nubians I discovered that they had built a large, room-less and solid, very impressive mud-brick temple or ritual building (part of a large ritual complex at Kerma) called the Deffufa. It reminds me of nothing so much as the Ziggurats in the Near East, but it is far more oddly shaped.

Originally I had planned to have Erasto’s vison occur one night while he lay alongside the banks of the Nile, the vision echoing Abram’s vision of God when he called God a “Horror of Great Darkness.” But now I think that I will rewrite that scene to make it so that Erasto’s vision occurs while he sleeps one night alone on the top of the Deffufa, and that instead it will far more closely resemble Jacov’s vision of the Ladder or Stairway to Heaven.

Also, since later the entire Oro will have a very eerie experience with the obelisks at Karnak in which the obelisks ring like gongs and then produce weird music and a spooky voice I think I might also work in as a prelude something to do with the “Rock Gongs” of Cush and the cobras of the Split Egyptian Kingdom.

So, it seems my daughter’s homeschooling project has actually turned out to be of enormous benefit to the plot and historical research of my novels. I’m quite glad she chose this particular course of study.
Well, that’s enough research for one day so I’m going to go play Metal Gear. Have a good evening folks.
By the way, below is a brief character description of Erasto Qwara the Ethiopian, and his position in the Oro (Moonshadow).

 

Erasto Qwara – born in Axum, the third of six children, Erasto grew up following his family tradition of soldiering. At fifteen he became a Christian Soldier and rose quickly through the ranks, so that local officials were soon sending him as an escort and emissary to foreign lands, such as to the courts at Egypt. Smart, driven, and self-educated Erasto learned six African tongues and was soon able to read and write Koptic, Greek and Latin as well. Because of his linguistic skills and general education by the age of 19 Erasto was made commander of a unit formed to escort diplomatic missions throughout the Nubian kingdoms, along the coast of east Africa, into the tribute states of the Arabian Peninsula, into the Near East, and also into Egypt. The farther afield Erasto roamed the more types of people he encountered and he soon discovered that he loved to mix freely with people of different nations and races. Developing a personal interest in trade Erasto also was soon gaining experience as a trade representative in addition to his diplomatic and military skills. Born into a devout Christian family Erasto nevertheless had no interest at all in religious matters until traveling in Egypt he discovered an early copy of some of the works of the Philokalia written in Koptic. Reading it eagerly Erasto became a devout Christian and returning to Axum began to study under Aksumite Christian Masters. Erasto remained a solider but also developed a strong interest in interpreting scriptures from a Monophysitic point of view, and became such a skillful writer, fluent interpreter, and powerful debater on Christian doctrine that he soon earned the nickname, Qwara, the Cushite Christian (even though that was a misnomer). At the age of 25 Erasto was assigned to escort a trade and diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Empire by way of Egypt and the Mediterranean. At sea his ship, along with several others, was attacked by Sicilian pirates and many on his ship were killed. Erasto was severely injured in combat and had to return to Egypt, where as a result of his injuries he was retired, but allowed to retain the rank of Commander as a Christian Soldier. While recovering in Egypt he studied with Kopts in Alexandria to become a Christian Cleric and within two years was ordained. After ordination he was returning to Axum but stopped at Karnak where he met Addo and the other members of the Moonshadow.

THE EARTH AND MAN

THE EARTH AND MAN

The Earth is plowed
The Earth is sown
The Earth she swells
The Earth is grown,

The Earth below
The humble Earth
The Earth she knows
There is no dearth,

But for now…

The Earth is dark
With blood she’s stained
The Earth she moans
In endless pain,

We think we must
We think we shall
In constant lust
Our sins allow,

Yet…

The Earth she wants
A Man grown True
To care for her
As men should do,

The Earth desires
To grow Great
The Man should help
Her Procreate,

All that’s Good, and
All that’s Best
That is his Duty, and
His Test,

So…

The Earth is plowed
The Earth is sown
Her great renown
The better known,

When Man is Just
When Man is Strong
And escorts her
From every wrong,

Thus…

When all men steward
Their own Earth
With time and patience
Giving birth

Within themselves
To greater things
The humble Earth
Will endless bring

Forth High and Holy
Life…

WHEN NIGHT IS NO MORE – a modern poem

WHEN NIGHT IS NO MORE

When night is no more
I shall miss her winsome ways
The dark that settled on my heart
When she arose with mantled moon

When night is no more
I shall miss her distant stars
Harbingers of other worlds
That flourished in the vaulted veil

When night is no more
I shall miss her quiet sighs
The canopy and blackened sky
That no thought could penetrate

When night is no more
I shall sing of when she was
A lonely thing, yet beautiful
Ancient in her closing eve

When night is no more
I shall remember her
Not in her desperate closeness
But in her accrescent absence

TRUTH IS FAR KINDER

TRUTH IS FAR KINDER

I try to be kind
But sometimes I’m not
Truth is more vital
When kindness cannot,

I’m not kind to myself
Or to other men
When kindness will limit
The good we expend,

Kindness is gracious
Kindness is high
But kind isn’t always
Well-reasoned or Wise,

The Truth is the kind
Of kindness I must
When men are most ruled
By corruption and lust,

So kind will I strive
To be great in my deeds
But in service and pledging
To Truth I accede…

IF CHRIST PREVAILED (Merry Christmas)

IF CHRIST PREVAILED

(My Wyrdwend Christmas Card, 2014)

If Christ prevailed men would not cower
If Christ prevailed God’s Holy Tower would
Stand a rampart in this world that none could
Raze nor hope to break, nor should
His Kingdom ever quake for fear of being over-run

If Christ prevailed men would fear not Death
If Christ prevailed men would not fear to truly Live
If Christ prevailed there would be no tribes
At endless war, no pointless hate consuming every shore
With riot, hatred, fire, and fury circumscribed

If Christ prevailed “Repent!” on every tongue and wrong
Would be avoided, not relived eternal in profitless cycles
Of sorrowful sin, evils would be un-grown and long buried
Not watered with grasping human grievance, a song of
Festering harm sung to our children like Grimmaged fairy tales

If Christ prevailed all men would as brothers walk long
Beside another, traveling from place to place in happy peace
While laughing of marvelous discoveries made and deeds
Redeemed in better fortune than they had first imagined
When humbly in their abandoned pride they were again Reborn

If Christ prevailed then Justice would rule this Earth
Not vengeance, not crucifying and murderous retribution,
If Christ prevailed then innocents would not lie dead
In pools of blood or lay breathless and abandoned
In favor of our own prideful assumptions about the Truth

If Christ prevailed all men with Mercy would extend themselves
To rework wrong into a better thing, a home fit for
Good and Godly conduct, Law would be Great and not merely law
No man would flee responsibility, Duty would reign, and
Sacrifice would paint and decorate our halls with Holy Acts

If Christ prevailed we would need no government of man
For God would live within, and Man Himself, once so ennobled
Could neither bow nor sit for any other king, and all
Other governance would seem a dream of despair long deserted
In the desperate nightmare of an unreal and wasted world

If Christ prevailed then such a Kingdom as the world has never
Known would be everywhere apparent, its Frontiers swollen
With ceaseless growth, no enemy would want to stand against it,
Old foes would be absorbed and made equals, no Jew, no Greek,
No Gentile would be alien or stranger in that Better Land

If Christ prevailed all men would be equals, anxious
To outdo the other in holiness and good, competitive in our
Desires to be more like God, not less of honor and of grace,
Our Feats would be of Saintly Salt, Virtues would accrue, and
Our Peeraged Manhood we would hold a Holy Thing from God

But Christ does not prevail

For we are sorely and surely most ourselves, self-absorbed,
Split into endless, bickering tribes, minted into our
Mindless classes, divided in our sickened hearts, soulless
In our lack of faith, impotent in our works, spiritless and
Dead within ourselves – we guard nothing, build nothing,
Claim nothing, oppose nothing, promote nothing, become nothing

For deep inside we are afraid, and we are small and we are
No men to build Mighty Kingdoms of, and so

Christ does not prevail, for we are cowards all by choice,

and so instead we prevail unto our doom.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL

MAY YOU HAVE THE WORLD YOU MOST DESIRE…

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2014

WILD UPON THE FIELD!

When I was young I let all things settle as they would
If anybody wanted to I said then that they should
Then as I aged I noticed that a lot of things were wrong
I could not stomach anymore just to get along

Evil men, and wasted lives, practices corrupt
They were no longer over there, they overflowed my cup
I did not want, I did not care, I did not wish to take
All the wrong I saw around, nor all the ills it makes

So now I Rant, and sometimes Rave, and often I Revolt
I care no longer it offends, often that’s my hope
For people nod, and people smile, and meekly they agree
If everything is mildly spoke – all passion absentee

But if with fire, fume and smoke, and fury you explode
In righteous anger ‘gainst what’s wrong it will then expose
Their passive manner, pliant wills, and subservience
That Free Men should all best eschew in their establishment

So if by heat, so if by blood, so if by reason sharp
I offend, or I contend, I’ll surely hit my mark
Mild is well, and meek is good, when little is at stake
When all that’s right is up for grabs that is when I break

And run wild upon the field!

INTERMINABLY SO… from DIVINE SOPHIA

God is the least passive and static Being and Force in the universe. Any universe. If you are “waiting upon God” then it is only because you have gravely mistaken your real position in relation to things. God long ago easily and immediately surpassed you and is merely waiting upon you to catch up to him, not the other way around.

Do not deceive yourself. You do not “sit and wait upon God.” God sits and waits upon you… sometimes interminably.

THE FREE, THE NOBLE, AND THE GOOD from HUMAN EFFORT

When the Free and Good and Noble Man is too powerful to resist then you have peace and prosperity. When the Free and Good and Noble Man is too weak to resist then you have tyranny and war.

WAITING ON GOD

Waiting on God to save the world I never raised my hand
I trusted him to do it all as was his holy plan
I thought he’d cure my poverty, I thought he’d make me smart
I thought he’d make me popular so I’d not stand apart
I thought he’d answer all my prayers, isn’t that his job?
I thought he’d bring me great success and save me from the mob
I thought he’d send me other men to mend and fix myself
I thought he knew my talents weren’t worth taking off the shelf
I thought he’d make me holier than if I (n)ever tried
I hoped he’d make me famous so I’d never be denied
I trusted him to make me strong, no effort on my part
I trusted him to think for me and sanctify my heart
I trusted him to cure my sin and make me into Him
All I had to say was, “Lord!” and it would all begin
He’d do it all, he’d do it all, nothing more from me
Would ever be required as far as I could see
Then I would be the Perfect Man because my God was true
And everything he’d do for me just like I always knew
Yet still I find myself the same and still I’m waiting so
Why has God not fixed it all for me down here below?
I cannot fathom why this is, and why is life so dark?
I said to him, “Here, do it all,” before I disembarked
You’d almost think – no, could it be – that God expects from me
Some effort to repair myself and fix the world I see?
Is that what I’m missing when I shirk it all away
That somehow I might have a part, a part of mine to play?
Oh, now I see, oh, now I hear, yes, all that wasted time
He was always hoping that I’d finally make the climb
I trusted him to do it all as per his holy plan
I never understood, that here, I am his hired hand…

THE BOOK OF THE GREAT MAN

The Book of the Great Man is marque of his make
The shape of his concepts is thus hard to shake
Anyone living can write of his views
Will they then flower, or merely amuse?

True is the market that all wares will sell
But what of their value and which things will tell?
Only by testing do theories breed facts
Time then will prove what the Great Man redacts

But all men have theories, and theories will out
Today that’s as true as the proof that’s without
For of every treasure there are gilders of gold
Thus hoards breed aplenty, and sometimes they’re sold

Cause the peddlers of wares know the ways of their marks
So copper is bronzed, and silver is sharked
Scribes promptly copy and with furious pace
Books breed like mayflies (or is that junebugs?), tis part of the race

Yet still there are tomes that expose what is Great
That most will know clearly come early or late
‘Gainst fashion or fad or aging they’ll stand
To any with Wisdom they’ll still give command

Rare is that written that works in this way
More rare still that record that forever remains
Though what of it people? Thus always was so –
True in the making, and true when bestowed

So write like the First Bard or whine like a whelp
Somewhere there’s shelf-space and someone to help,
But ask me at sunset, or ask me at dawn
I’ll still say the same thing – Book to Last Long…

THAT MAN from THE CURAE

“That man whose only concern is that he survive – it is not at all important that he does.”

BEING PASSIVE from HUMAN EFFORT

Being patient and peaceful in the midst of adversity can often be Great Virtues. Being passive in the face of anything is, more often than not, merely a vice.

GRAVE AND ALL

In the dark where dead men dance
Their graves arise to make advance
For built of stones and barrows deep
There stirs that night that will not sleep,

The days grow short, the moon goes out
When wild things scream and hopeless shout
Then men run far to be away
Yet find no morn at coming day,

In that eve when passing starts
There comes to leave the desperate heart
The soul’s own breath, the chambered beat
The blood grown cold with fleeting heat,

I tell you now I’ve seen this all
More often than my words recall
For made with stones are barrows deep
That stir those nights that never sleep,

When flesh is lost to sink in mud
When strength is bled like seeping blood
What matter that the watch-fires burn?
It still comes on, more grim, more stern;

The brave hold not it long at bay
The coward will in turn be slain
The hard earth knows no blade that kills
It is not charmed, nor turned by skill,

It may be thing or living beast
But it creeps in come fast or feast
No place of culture long retained
It’s challenged not, nor ever tamed,

The stars retire, the comets fall
The fates are frozen, silent all
The timbers crack in shriven halls
I tell you now I’ve seen this all,

In the dark of certain’s chance
There yawns a maw of great expanse
For far below are barrows deep
Where old things groan and wet bones weep,

The fire-pits may still burn bright
The cold clans hunch like huddled wights
But of man, his might and awe
Time will eat him, grave and all…

SO MANY MEN – from DIVINE SOPHIA

So many men think that if only they lived in a good and just world then they too would be by nature and in all things good and just. Not realizing, or not wishing to realize, that it is not the world that so makes the man but the man the world.

TIME RUNS BACKWARD – unfinished poem with neologisms

Time runs backwards as I age to taunt the pretense I presage
A quiet evening gathers force against the efforts I endorse

I build, I dream, I recreate, alluring hope I’m not too late
I treasure up those goods I keep yet still comes on that endless sleep

Protean made, a crown of gain, is nothing more than shadows slain
For time runs backward like that dawn that shall soon cease to carry on

A starless night, a moonless sky, an Earth devoid of my reply
This versive current of the clock has made of me a thing to mock *

Awkward does my every care seem amplified – a blind man’s snare
Bound within me I’m unknit, my ledgers lost, my tack unfit

Nostic lies the length of me, consumed in doubt and dread defeat *
For time speeds backward like the flight of birds of prey who track my plight

What matter if I shape the world so tightly is my soul so whorl’d
That I can never free myself from ravage, ruin, or dispel

The loss I suffer while I decay, my aims in life all led astray
I raise, I reach, my fall is great, the night comes on, I woke too late

Drommund grows the darkened eve, when will not this soon relieve *
For time bleeds backward like the wound that to cure is all immune…

 

versive * – to be both poetically metered and twisted or torsioned into an aversive design or subversive shape

nostic * – to be physically exhausted and unable to continue yet fully aware and sensate

drommund * – to race through the world in a reckless and violent or suicidal manner

THE MODERN WAY from THE BUSINESS, CAREER, AND WORK OF MAN

The modern artist is on rare occasion entirely right. The modern scientist is on many occasions completely wrong. The difference in relation to everyone else is this: the artist, even if he is sometimes entirely right, has no guarantee of any kind that he can convince anyone of it, except himself, whereas the scientist, even if he is completely and habitually wrong can easily convince millions of the gullible that he must be correct.

NO IDEA (AND YET I DO) from HUMAN EFFORT

I still have no idea what man may yet best me at something. But I always know that man who will never best me at anything – the man who does not try.

THE SEDENTARY MAN from HUMAN EFFORT

I would venture to say that most of the diseases and disorders (especially the chronic ones) faced by modern man develop as a direct result of his mostly self-inflicted sedentary and passive nature. He is sedentary and passive in his work, he is sedentary and passive in his entertainments, he is sedentary and passive in his ambitions, he is sedentary and passive towards evil and injustice in the world, he is sedentary and passive in the amount of tyranny he will endure, he is sedentary and passive in his economic ventures, he is sedentary and passive in his relations with others, and he is sedentary and passive in his very nature.

Modern man is filled with the sitting and waiting diseases. He is mainly merely an observer of life, sitting upon his plump ass in his comfortable cafes, staring at his various diversionary devices and inventions, waiting for something to happen. Of course everything that is really happening around him he is entirely unobservant of and uninvolved with.

How could such a way of life, practiced continually, breed anything but disease and disorder?

THE ANSWER from HUMAN EFFORT

Just because, for the moment, you cannot pursue the repairs you wish to make does not mean you should make no repairs. Just because, for the moment, you cannot obtain the cure you wish to obtain does not mean that you should attempt no cure of any kind. Just because, for the moment, you cannot create the permanent solution you most desire does not mean you must desire to never act upon the temporary solution. Repair what you can, cure what you can, and resolve what you can as you can for even only a partial answer is a far better response than the reply of apathy, inaction, sloth, and despair.

TO BE OF ANY USE from ON MAN AND WOMAN

To be of any use in marriage one must be patiently forgiving of the shortcomings of your partner while eagerly desirous of eliminating your own.