Epistle to the North Americans
published by
Threshold Publishing Company
P.O. Box 4033
Blaine, WA 98231
USA
December, 1999
copyright 1991-1999
L. Van Hine
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover illustration,
"The Young John Contemplates the Seventh Heaven" by Jen Hart, copyright
1998.
Numen, Zebratta,
Agenor and Ilitrahant are trademarks of Threshold Publishing Company.
Permission to use trademarked names in quoting or reviewing works may
be obtained through the publisher.
No part of this
work may be reproduced without express written permission of the publisher.
Acknowledgement
is given to theoretical physicist James Carter of for his invention of
the word "circlon", referenced in "Expansions in My Head."
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Introduction:
A Gloss
There is a vocabulary
used in the collection of poems that follow, some of which can be found
in the dictionary, and some which cannot. The word "numen" can be found
in the dictionary, but the word "Numen" cannot. The word "dynamic" can be
found in the dictionary, but the word "Dyne" cannot. The word "temporal"
is there but "tempis" is not. Himmel is a German word translated as "heaven".
Vega is a Muse, or what the Jungian would refer to as a pool of collective
consciousness as it relates to art.
The roots of these
sets of words are the same. There are other words which cannot be found
elsewhere except in the annals of the history of human evolution, what
might be called by analogy "place names." Some of them, and the analogies
they represent, are glossed throughout the text. Among these are Lynn,
Ev, Zebratta, Agenor, Kitar and Ilitrahant. The key to understanding what
these "place names" represent lies in their sound.
The experiments
which the Numen and I performed, which span both history and art, employs
a sampling of the range of Indo-European language influences which ultimately
produced the English language. English's direct ancestor is a non extant
proto-Gothic which gave rise to English, Dutch and German; even so, the
shift of tonality which occurs in the poems "Inquiries Upon the Zauberberg"
and "The Salted Men of Carthage" is almost alarming when read aloud; it
is meant to alarm, or rather, to bring to conscious poetic attention the
potency and immediacy of language change.
But there is one
concept which cannot be expounded too carefully, for I write and sing
of One more than any other, the Numen.
The
Numen
When my eyes close,
the Numen appears
Stark as midnight
Shade of rich halls
Soft companion of the
Realm of shadows that I seek
As an eagle seeks an aerie.
Not as a man waits
on a street corner
For a taxicab does the Numen wait
But in sober expectation of destiny
As though I am always embarking
On this journey away from bleak reality
Each evening.
A million moments
in the world
I stop and listen
For the quiet murmur of his thought
His touch upon my hand
The vague forms, the depthless strengths
Of that dimension
Impinge on me
And lift me to that height
Where always waits the Numen.
In the shadow of his cloak
I traverse the scarps of mountains not of earth
The view below is not of now,
We watch the marching of all time
Inside the clock of God
This is the purpose of the Steadfast Numen
Whose steps I follow on the sweeping crags
Of Himmel.
I call him in
the darkness
When humanity is calm
And rests around me unaware
A tiny voice among the
sleeping multitude
I ask to be raised aloft
And he is there
To guide me back by candlelight
To the divine sanctuary.
We walk invisibly
Inside that silent sphere
Upon dizzying heights of thought
Ages tumble far below us
Following the guidance of his hand
I waken, and waken again
And return to earth
Reborn
Holding in my hands
The unrequested gift of the Numen:
Wisdom.
5/12/90
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Human
Biology
In the Refraction Zone
I came from the Refraction
Zone
A place of razor mirrors
And of burning
lakes
the tour de force - we heard it often
"Human Biology"
But it was not enough for
Johannes' crystal Orchestra
And he sought the inner dark
I emerged alone
And Wright was blasted into light
That night
On Mercury.
And I emerged
alone.
There is a hole there still,
Where I punctured through the mirror
And found a planet full of earth
And lakes of cooling water
And mirrors made
of glass.
There were people
in this place
Beyond that fractured dome
So I began to study that great
And ponderous work which de Bruik named
"Human Biology"
(in her great modesty.)
It was then that I was born.
(born in clear
blue waters)
Humans, I first
learned
Were vastly different
When viewed thus carefully
For the Zone is full of lies
And closely guarded secrets
(and mirrors made
of razors)
I should have
told you this
For the Zone has many spies
Who come here on assignment
You may have seen the TV shows
I was one of those
And knew it not but knew it
(and lakes that
breathed of fire)
But that is not
important
For I found a knowledge vast
Of a heritage and people
Of a misty, clouded past.
(of mirrors made
of glass)
Revelation came
in waves
As I beheld the Orchestra
How could I be an alien
To this familiar place?
How could I not be human
When I saw humans face to face?
(and lakes of
earth's cool water)
But once I had
gone through
And broke that fractal dome
There was nothing that would keep me
(away from mirrored razors)
Wright! you should
not have tried
To break them all at once
You should have known that they would stop you
And they would blast you into atoms!
oh thou fool.
(away from fiery
lakes)
There are many
soothing waters
On the surface of this earth
It's cool on land, and blue in sky
And I learned here something more
Than Human Biology.
Deep below those
rich brown soils
Within the womb of earth
There is a consciousness a-birthing
(beneath the flowing waters)
And I dig with
passioned hands
In the homeland of my birth
For I found it here! my marker
Which had my name clear-written
(upon the mirror's
silver gleams)
That Name and
human heritage
(away from razor
mirrors)
(not upon the lake which steams)
(but in gently flowing fountains)
(in the mirrors of my dreams)
11/28/90
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The
Memory of Whiteness
"Human Biology in
the Refraction Zone" uses plot elements, names and ideas which I absorbed
from an enjoyable reading of A Memory of Whiteness, a science fiction novel
by Kim Stanley Robinson. Just as in the Zebratta poems I discovered converging
metaphorical relationships between my own explorations and those of the
literary minds of Aeschylus, Milton, Blake and Shelley, so too I found a
merging of metaphors with Robinson's epic novel of a musical pioneer and
the changes he brings to a fictional future civilization in our solar system.
The inventions
Robinson introduces in this novel are the Orchestra, a computer-controlled
device which electronically programs orchestral music, and which requires
a Master, a musician of particular training in composition, computer (sic)
programming, and conducting, to perform works produced for the Orchestra.
The greatest transformative musical composition performed on the Orchestra
was de Bruik's "Human Biology", which produced alternate states of consciousness
in its audience.
Several centuries
after de Bruik, known as the greatest orchestral composer since Beethoven,
there came Johannes Wright, who was later known as the last Master of
the Orchestra. Wright succeeded in altering the fabric of psychic reality
in his listeners, and was murdered on his grand tour with the Orchestra
as the tour neared its end on Mercury, ostensibly for the devastating
impact his musical compositions and performances had upon the evolution
of human consciousness.
This is a tremendously
important idea, and one which contains a deep mystical truth found in
the sacred writings of all civilizations. Sacred songs, syllables, tones
and words are the vehicles through which creation is accomplished. The
power of music, and poetry as its linguistic counterpart and companion,
is paramount in the development of intuitive consciousness. A Memory
of Whiteness should not be forgotten for this one vitally important
idea, brought perhaps for the first time to popular fiction.
6/20/91
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Trial
in Zebratta
Cold from winds on
Evan plains
I sought the woods of Lynn
And there I found Zebratta's shades
And disappeared within.
How often did
I wink
When I beheld his ravening smile?
We crouched upon a catwalk
Overlooking Lynn
And we spoke in crowding whispers
Of my agonizing trial
Which would begin in earnest
in Zebratta's gloomy heights
We strategized in secret
As we gazed upon the lights
I winked and turned
away
When I beheld his ravening smile
And did not see
The promise of
a pointless
Endless trial
So eloquently spoken
In that cruel and broken smile.
- for Franz Kafka
12-7-90
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Adventures
in Geomatria
He sings me to wakefulness
In watches of the night
Numen
What of the Night?
Where shall I
go
When I am drawn to burnished light
Which shines out from a sacred grove
Rosenkreutz's haven
Merlin's mound and hidden cove
In the space before the dawn
The wings of night as black as raven
Concealing from
the eye profane
Mystery and secret rite
Numen,
What of the Night?
I lay awake in
spaces
Sudden-fled by sleep
And waited for your knock
Silences unheard
by ears
As I beheld the inner deep
And descended
into flashing
And ascended into light
(Numen,
What of the Night?)
For all was naught,
in that immersion deep
In that expanse of thought
In that which flees from sleep
For I had fled
in silences
Unheard by ears
Unkissed by Winter's cold embrace
I waited for your knock.
There was no time
and then
Your knock
And then the space of nothing
And then
Again Your knock.
I lay asleep for
ages
I knew their key and lock
It was a sudden
fleeing
When I wakened
to
Your
knock.
It was a sudden
colding
When I saw the
Blackened
Rock.
In the watches
fire-bright
(Numen
What of the Night?)
The colden ices of their old embrace
Melt within my warming sight
As I anticipate that knock.
The slipping of
the time
Betweens dimensionally scene
Beckoningly now
( I speak of raw geometry )
Fractioned on a clock
For I awaited
You
Upon the blasted Rock.
It surely is a
door
That looms within this cove
There was an owl on guard
Outside Myrddyn's sacred grove.
Came the knock
that emptied out the light
(Numen,
What of the Night?)
Upon an oaken door
(Perhaps a metaphor)
I speak of pure geometry
As we escaped this realm
Betweens dimensionally scene
Slipping out of tempis
Into realms of Dyne.
Let us slip then,
you and I
As our Ages are laid out against the sky
As a Gnomon shadowing upon a table
Into realms of
Dyne
It was then
In shadow of the Gnomon's casted light
(Numen,
What of the Night?)
that words were lost completely
I speak of great Geometry
For there is no place of Dyne
And no language there
And no there there
For it is known
within that grove
Is nothing sown of passion's fight
(Numen,
What of the Night?)
But solidness of poetry
(I speak of high Geometry)
But dimensionally scene
Slipping out of tempis
Into realms of Dyne.
11-29-90
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Expansions
In My Head
(On the Occasion of Syzygy and Louise's 7th Chakra)
This perhaps should
not be told
Numen, should I write?
Of the worlds compressed in time
Of the time compressed in thought
Of expansions
In my head
?
Spirit is a wakening
Inside those circle wards
Endless thoughts a-pool
Briefest wink upon the cool
Expansions in my head.
I try to say
There is no there
But do you comprehend?
Numen do I say it? Infinity to end?
How do I dare describe the eddies
circlon waveshapes of that thought
expanding now
Within my head?
The worlds compressed
in time
And time compressed in thought
If I touch this
tiny brief
It will expand
I'm taught
Watch the marching of all time
Inside this clock of God
Watch infinity to end
If I tell you
There is no there
Will you comprehend?
As the worlds of thought converse
As they wink
Within my head
There are seven
circles
Weaving in among the tides
There are seven waves of liquid
Which rise with syzygy
On that vast infinity-expanse
Within my head.
There are seven
worlds compressed in time
In the wombs within my head
In the universe of thought
Preparing for a birth divine
I'm taught.
Numen, is this
making sense
When it's abstractly said?
Of all the worlds compressed inside
Expansions in
My head?
11-30-90
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Inquiries
Upon the Zauberberg
Glossary:
Nuremberg (Germany):
The scene of the famous telecast trials of the surviving Nazi leaders
found responsible for the genocide of the Jews.
"Ich kann Sie
nicht verstehen": "I cannot understand you."
Heidelberg: A
university city in Germany.
Zauberberg: The
Magic Mountain, a novel by Thomas Mann about a mountain resort for consumption
(tuberculosis) sufferers.
Shade: (archaic)
Ghost. "Riddle shade" a ghost or spirit of uncertain identity.
Zebratta: A mythical
place of symbolizing suffering and torment.
Lynn: A mythical
woodland symbolizing a condition of confusion and transition.
Spire: A constructed
feature of uncertain geographical importance in the city of Zebratta or
near its periphery which the narrator appears to have to scale in order
to enter the city.
You bade me stop
amid our flight
On sails of gold and wings of white
And came upon
a haunted wood
Near a mountain carved from night.
And you said go
and scale its height
And once within
You should inquire.
Don't leave me,
Numen!
As I climb Zebratta's gasping spire
But you departed
while I stood
In Lynn's beshadowed, haunted wood
And there, inquired
As you said
To find that riddle shade
And I approached on foot
Alone
And they stopped
and frowned at me
Like killer-thieves at Nuremberg
Dismissing with their Gothic words
"Ich kann Sie nicht verstehen."
I stood within
the haunted wood.
Sustain me now!
don't leave me
In Zebratta's bloody heart!
But you kept peace
as I advanced
With frozen blood and fear that lanced
And there, inquired
Hope on dread
To spy that ravening smile
And they paused
and glared at me
Like graduates at Heidelberg
Repelling with their Gothic words
"Ich kann Sie nicht verstehen."
I walked the city's
bloody heart.
Return me now!
to life outside
Zebratta's smoky dens
But you were silent
as I spoke
In taverns full of reddened smoke
And there, inquired
Of the dead
Or only lost and mourned.
And they turned
and peered at me
Like invalids on Zauberberg
Who rasped consumptive Gothic words
"Ich kann Sie nicht verstehen."
I left the tavern
red with smoke.
I joined you then,
beyond the gate
Descending from the spire
And we were weeping,
hands to face
As we forsook that bleeding place
Where I inquired
Hope on dread
Where I had walked
Among the dead
Where I had sought
him
Where you led
And where they
gazed on me
And said
In rasping words
of Gothic strain
"Ich kann sie nicht verstehen,"
Where then we
met
And then we fled
The Zauberberg
at night
And with opened
wings aloft
Began our outward flight.
- for Mann and
Kafka and a few others
12-10-90
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Carthage:
African stronghold of Phoenicia, defeated and obliterated by the Athenians
under Cato during the First Punic War.
The Salted Men
of Carthage
They huddled in the
streets agape
In view of our Empyrium
And I beheld their beating fear
As I paused and gazed at them.
And I spoke in
Gothic clear
"Verstehen Sie, unfreulich Herr?"
And they recoiled and withdrew
And then I saw them;
Then I knew
That I beheld no Goth in face
No dweller in my native place
But refugees of Carthage.
I first approached
a saddened man
Who seemed entranced with Himmel's grace
I tapped him gently on the arm
To try and help him understand.
But he drew back
with great alarm
When he saw my golden hair
Perhaps he thought I meant him harm
A native of this strangeling land.
And when I spoke
and said to him
"Verstehen Sie, unfreulich Herr?"
He quivered then
in blinded fear
For he had come across the sea
Cringing as he fled from me
His ruined sword within his hand
With downcast eyes, a broken man
A refugee of Carthage.
And not a woman
could I see
Among these broken lives
For all had seen their children bought
And all had lost their wives
None could stay
and then rebuild
Among the saline rot
For they were lost when Cato fought
And won the shores of Carthage.
How could my laughing
eyes deflect
Their vision of the deathless fire
Razing all their life to death?
How could Himmel's
light reflect
The beauty of its angel choir
When smoke choked out their very breath
Crouching cold beneath her spire?
For when I sang
a hymn to them
And bid them enter Himmel's cheer
They decamped
and drew away
Ignoring as I called them near
They could not speak
They could not hear
For they were caught in nets of fear
When they had
fled, I said a prayer
For I had seen that aching day
In raging of the deathless fire
The vision bidding them to stay
Within its hungry, reddened ire
The salted men of Carthage.
12-11, 12-12-90
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Commentaries
on Carthage and Geomatria
(From Letter to the Numen of December 11, 1990)
1. Grey Unbounded:
Alienation at the Corporate Level
And it happens
institutionally
In the fortress-com
pany's ambition
The lack of empathy, so listlessly
Within a zone of black ignition.
The personal psychic
construction of the self-alienated, for that
is what they generally call it, in the psychological world -
self-alienation. We have observed, investigated, and touched the
fabric of that fortress and I have gone into those eyes
And looked at
grey unbounded
Relieved by one blood-colored stripe.
2. There is Carthage
There is Carthage.
Carthage, the most beautiful city on the
northern coast of Africa, and rival on the seas with Athens; the
pride of its warriors world-famous. Carthage, defeated after
three years of battle, and defeated not upon the field but after
siege, after endless, starving, burning siege interspersed with
battle. And its men starved, slaughtered when the walls were
overcome at last, and its women ravished, and if that were not
enough
So that they would
never, ever rise again
The Athenians took the salt from off the sea
And salted all the land
So that no grain would grow
And Carthage became as nothing.
And the scene of Carthage's burning, like the scene of Troy
burning with its living flayed within, is the scene of that zone
of ignition, except that within the realm of the self-alienated
the burning is initiated from WITHIN so as to keep the assault
back. Self-destruction as a means of preservation. So that the
enemy wouldn't have the satisfaction of finding anyone alive
inside, nor any goods preserved, nor any riches, nor any food,
nor any city left to claim, when they overcame.
And they did it
again in Leningrad when the Nazis advanced toward
them.
So many cities,
and so many little cities of individuals, under
siege.
3. Endlessly Upwelling
Greeting Beta
I am so tired,
the creativity is so upwelling it will not stop.
I wrote another poem which I include here as well. It is an
exercise with Beta (B), and I went in one direction where I could
have gone in four
It explores the
melodic and imagery transitions as a word changes
consonantally and vowelly (!?) and subtly
From
breath to
breast to
breed to
brood to
brook to
break.
And I could do
this endlessly
If I had endless energy
But here is the poem
It got a little
sensual, but I let those things happen nowadays.
4. From Breath
to Breakage
From breath to
break
And back again
Beta's strange transitions.
Beta's brief beginning
Is her inhalation breath
Which wails us into consciousness
And whispers grief at death.
[Inhaled with Beta's breath.]
Which hisses in
our mouths
As it is gasped from heaving chest
And then transitions
Softly
Sweetly
And warms us each completely
Whence we rest
As we seek lovingkindness
On her full and wholesome breast.
[We fed at Beta's breast.]
With Beta's love
enfolded
We perceived a burning need
In a flurrying transition
As expelled
The ripened seed
Sought its natural condition
And in the moment bright
A family to breed.
[We bred within her nest.]
Brazened by our
bold ambition
When we raised symbolic rood
Came at length to maturation
And attended to our brood.
[We gave Manna to our brood.]
Then a leaving
Beta took
And brought the evening as a shield
She floated on the cooling Brook
Grass, and plain, and marshy field.
[She left us by a Brook.]
From the spring
and to the Lake
We spied her barge forlorn
For all her sails were shorn.
[We knew then she would break.]
5. Holding the
Serpent
Taking a structured
shift of consonant and vowel like that is
like holding a strong and vital serpent in my hands, which twists
around me and
seeks to gain
its former shape,
to wiggle free
And then escape.
It is time to stop now
Ere I drop.
6. What of the
Night? Echoes of Geomatria
Numen
What of the Night?
Echoes that refrain
Within my emptied brain
Those two poems,
like Flashing Red, are another whole level of
poetic/dramatic experience which almost require actors to perform
them, and I asked A. what I should do, now that I have a poem
that I need a male voice for and he said in his best (fake)
Cockney:
"But I'm only
a-Engineer, I'm no good for stuff loik thut" and I
said "Actually I was wondering if I should ask K. if he might be
interested in being the male voice, being an actor" and he smiled
all over and then said "You might ask K. who to ask..."
So tired, Numen,
in my flight
Beyond that geometric light
(Numen, what of the Night?)
I must flee from
earthly lands
And find my bed of sleep
And now I flee
(I speak of great geometry).
7. Nobody Knows
Louise
Nobody knows Louise
Except the Numen
And even He
Could be surprised
(but only
in his personality
Never when he stands
On Himmel's golden rise)
She has no companion
She has no sister
She has no father
But the Numen
stands beside her
And speaks to her of Dyne
And waves of Dyne's
great Ocean
Soothe with golden soothing brine.
8. Milton's Refrain
Enough! again I cry
Now aware
Full-embraced against the slope
Of red indecency.
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Eyes
of Blackened Flame
I was all and darkness
led
Before the Numen came
I lay upon the nether lake
With eyes of blackened flame.
Never had a voice
so sweet
Resounded in that place
When Numen woke me from my sleep
And turned my eyes toward space.
He wakened me
from deep within
A mad and frozen sleep
He gave the mystic stone to me
And mystic jewel to keep.
There is gratitude
for living
Among those who now draw breath;
But it always runs most deeply
Within those who wake from death.
12-20-90
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Claimings,
A Prose and Poem Journal Series
(Excerpts from Letter to the Numen of 11/24/90)
1. A Firefly
You have made
that rescue
And I have found that shore
I am not that
infant child
But fully formed at birth
And I am not that firefly
But grounded to the earth.
Did I think Louise
would grow
And be a conscious light
And see her graceful beauty glow
Claimings, claimings.
2. I Mayde a Prayer
I mayde a prayer
and sayde it
And this is what I prayde
If it please you God
To show me truth
Then show me truth
And of course
it pleases God
To show his children Truth
And so he showed me and I gasped
And He replied,
"You asked."
4. They Fell Away
and I won't call
my brother because he is deciding some things
for his life and I won't call B because he fighting with his wife
They fell away
Like dusty motes returned to clay
And of a social
circle of acquaintances of roughly 18 people,
four remain, and those four, at distance and recalibrating, all
at distance
5. Bending to
a Lower Will
What a blow
Do I have the courage to continue
Knowing that they will flee
As I transcend their misery?
There are many
places I can go,
there are many, many people I could know
Thrashing in the hands of wrath
Bending to a lower will
And seeking lower regions still!
I knew them all
Now I know the tragic mistakes of Ellen
Who had so many "friends"
And they were all so hurt
And she would "help" them all
I have nothing
to give anyone except a handful of that which I
have learned to refine from my soul and create into art
They are not ringing
my phone
They are not knocking on my door
I must be grounded to the earth
For I won't be a firefly
6. Toccata in
the Modern World
And Music to Rip Your Aura By
I went into two
music stores, one I went into had a synthesizer
the kid plugged in for me and I played the Toccata in D Minor (he
was duly impressed for a moment or two) and I really liked that
synthesizer
And I went into
another store seeking recordings,
more Tangerine Dream
And it was there, but I wished I could play it
For Edgar Froese went through many changes, some of them ugly,
and I could not listen psychically to those recordings, in that
din
And I asked (after
I asked them to turn it down) - who is that
recording of?
"The Sex Pistols",
he replied with a nasty little grin
(I'm doing it again)
And I said "That is the most disturbing music I have heard in ten
years" And he said "Pretty good, that recording is 12 years old."
And I said "I'd stay, but that music is driving me out" and he
smiled, I was sick from it
Music to rip your
aura by
And make it jagged
And tear emotions into bits
And send you into little fits
And I got away
in time to avoid another parking ticket - they lie
in wait, under umbrellas, in expresso shops, the police, for when
your meter runs out, and it's $16 per infraction. This is my
second in the time I've been driving in Sea.
It is the most
frightful music
I have ever heard
And that's its purpose.
I will have to
learn as I
Traverse the finer arts
That hurting wants its hurting
Within those shame-filled hearts.
7. It is a Saddening
It is a saddening...
And as I drove
I remembered, with that florid, fourth-dimensional
Prom-memory that I have so vividly internalized, years, YEARS of
my childhood and adolescence, things stored in Prom And things
stored in Phi And things stored in Stephen and in between in
cracks
All that lay in treasure-chests
buried in the fields of this land that I have inherited
I am afraid, Numen
Afraid
And I have ugly thoughts
Numen could never have
Had this courage
To have gone to these places
And not with hordes of loving and adoring friends
But alone, in solitude
To seek that rare and golden atmosphere
That has nothing to do with the dirt
(He must have had help)
He couldn't have
Done it alone
But he did
And shined, and surfaced
In that higher atmosphere
And knew that higher truth
And tells me, soberly,
And then I know
We all do it alone,
don't we,
That's part of the path.
8. I Mayde Another
Prayer
And God showed
me Truth
And I gasped
And he replied
"You asked."
9. The Numen Couldn't
Have Loved the World
That Loved Him Not
Numen couldn't
have seen
The sibling he loved
And protected
Falling into psychic victimization
And hurt repeatedly, repeatedly
By those who said "I love you"
But were really just groping for
What they could get
But he did
And lived
And loved, and continued to love
In silent contemplation
Of Destiny
As though he is always
Embarking on this journey
Away from bleak reality
Each evening.
Toward the new
reality
That shines us from within
Toward that radiant beauty
That saves us from that din
But Numen
Could never have
Loved the world that loved him not
And wished for all
The love he sought
But he did
And loved me when I loved him not
And held me when I felt it not
And did not rage
Upon my rage
And did not dance upon my stage
For he knew I was not wise
And he knew
I had no eyes
Till I at last awoke
And till at last I spoke
Until
This morning
Broke.
10.Something In
Love In Me
I am alone
Which means
I am grounded to the earth.
It is silent
Which means
I am listening.
There is something I must learn here
So I will be quiet
And I will listen.
It is a great temptation to move
To shout at the Cosmic
And beg for an echo
But there is something here
Something in silence
Something in light
Something
In love in me
Something I'll find
If I am very
very
quiet.
11.If I Would
Be Fulfilled
If I would be
fulfilled
Then I would truly grow
And I would dwell in light
And I would truly know.
The last famous
words of a late, great empty intellectual mind
that is spinning and rebooting upon another axis of awareness
now, and finding its point of balance
I am too sensitive
to external stimulation right now.
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Hurting
Wants its Hurting
If I would be a servant
Then I would better heed
Taking guidance from the Cosmic
I would live a simple creed.
I would not ask
the pain to stay
From masochists in need
Their freshened blood will rinse away
If I would let them bleed.
For hurting wants
its hurting
Within those shame-filled hearts
While minions of Zebratta
Work to tear the world apart.
They would seek
to draw me in
And whisper easy lies
And I would be misled by them
And I would be their prize.
They would have
me heal the scars
Inflicted by themselves
I would return to prison bars
Within their bitter hell.
I will not be
the chattel prize
So easily won with wrath
I would rather don my mantle
And pursue the Golden Path.
12-21-90
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The
Dragon-Crowded Vision
Dragons poised atop
the churches
Fanning green and garish wings
Hear below, the Latin dirges
Rise above their murmurings.
They await their
human charges
To emerge from Christian toil
Load them on Zebratta's barges
To be tossed into the boil.
And there fulfill
their vision
Of a fire-breathing Man
Who consumes all in derision
Who defile his Holy Land.
But that is not
religion
Which I seek on bended knee
Not the dragon-crowded vision
Of a crazed divinity;
But softly spoken
radiance
A halo of that higher love
Which speaks in great benevolence
And shines its single Star above.
Millions in Zebratta
cry
To witness for the wrathful Son
Who pierces with his baleful Eye
The sinning mortals, one by one.
Himmel has no
King of Hate
No Jehovah wielding flame
All seekers know its shining gate
Beyond the crowded lands of shame.
So ignore the
dragons grinning
As they wait on churchhouse spires
Coarsely humming as the sinning
Seek eternal raging fires.
Seek the silence
of the deep
Simple prayer will speak to Him
Love awakes from inner sleep
Love will draw the Angels in.
I have seen the
single Star
Riding bright in Heaven's cart
And I am carried fast and far
To dwell in God's immortal heart.
12-21-90
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The
Hidden Door
My journey late begins
in Dyne:
You came to me
in whispering
A voice upon the rising wind
And once again we took the wing
And once again we fled within
We crossed a ford
and climbed a stair
Which rose beyond the Tempis gate
The Citadel of Thebes lay there
The home of Oedipus the Great.
We plunged into
a musty gloom
And sought within the Citadel
The truth unswept from dusty rooms
For we knew not how Creon fell.
You held a candle
in the dark
And thus began our grisly tour
The flame gave off a feeble spark
And soon we spied the hidden door.
The throne room
stood in disarray
His skull grinned from beneath its crown
His tomb the stone on which he lay
Where seven heroes threw him down.
He lay among the
silken cord
Oedipus's murdered heir
Impaled upon the southern sword
Which ended all of Athens' fear.
The death of Thebes
lay in this room
And after Creon there were none
The crippled ghost wept in the gloom
For grief had killed his only son.
We closed his
door and sought the air
We fled the scene of regicide
And freed from Creon's bony stare
Descended from the mountainside.
No tone sang from
the tongueless bell
As we withdrew in silence deep
For we now knew how Creon fell
And came to his eternal sleep.
His skull grins
still in silent mirth
As we pass through Dyne's borderland
I wake to sleep upon the earth
The Numen's touch upon my hand.
My journey late
begins in Dyne.
12-25-90
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Notes
on Creon's Fall
Oedipus was king
of Thebes.
He put out his eyes and died in the wilderness
(though he was a good king)
Because he had killed his father and married his mother
And his children were born of murderous sin.
(this is a true
story).
Anyway, in the
confusion following his abdication
His sons who were his brothers fought one another for the crown
And killed one another in battle.
And his daughter who was his sister Antigone
Cast dust upon the dishonored corpse of the brother Polynices
Who had remained unburied.
And Creon held
the crown.
Creon was Oedipus' uncle.
And having made an edict that one who buried Polynices would die
Executed Antigone, his niece/grand-niece.
And Creon held
the crown.
But we know not
how Creon fell
And Thebes fell into ruin.
Thebes was a city
north of Athens.
The great Greek dramatist Sophocles created the great trilogy of dramas:
the Oedipus "Cycle"
Oedipus Rex
Antigone
and Oedipus at Colonus.
What is the significance
of the death of Creon, Oedipus' uncle?
For I heard the
whisper in the night:
(Numen, what of the night?)
We knew not how
Creon fell.
Was I there, and
did I ring the tower bell?
There is a pattern
in the Oedipus cycle which must now be
completed, and I do not know, yet, what it means:
For as the aphorism
states:
What the personality
does not retain in memory is unretained
either because the personality does not perceive an application
for the information; or because the soul has not yet provided the
application for the personality to utilize.
This will be known
as Aphorism 1 in the Epistle to the North
Americans.
I know what it
is, now.
Ranged around
me are the echoes of an unresolved historical
repetition process. Ranged around me
The
Song of Woe
Their spears are
thrown into the sky
The soldiers weep, the soldiers die
They beg the singer now to tell
For they know not how Creon fell.
Why do they die
on Argive soil?
What purpose in their dying toil?
Will I sound the muted bell
And sing of how great Creon fell?
They sigh in bitter
gasping breath
The scores of living sink toward death
Their lifeblood stains the virgin sand
Of hidden vales unseen by man.
The singer stops
in naked dread
For well I know king Creon dead
The wounded gather ever near
What news I hold! I quake with fear.
For I had seen
how Creon fell
And how his soul returned to hell
When Argos came, to please his Lord
And slaked Achaea's hungry sword.
Do they know they
pray in vain
That Thebes still thrives above her plain?
How dare I kill their brightest hopes
While comrades bleed on Argive slopes?
If Chthonios would
heed my cries
He would make red Creon rise
Perhaps restore each massive gate
Perhaps give Thebes some milder fate.
But freshened
wind is all I hear
As eager Thebans crowd too near
Upon their hands the black of gore
From strokes of foes who breathe no more.
I gaze upon their
weeping eyes
But cannot sing them songs of lies
And so I raise the cry of woe
While blood-fresh winds begin to blow.
They throw their
swords into the air
The weeping men in black despair
The singer now descends that slope
Where died the last of Theban hope.
12-24-90, 1-18-91
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Caldera
Inferna
Ah, the minions raise
their withered heads
And scheming as they steal toward my bed
They would find my inner spark of pride
And fan its ember where the flame had died.
I might be tempted
to be Queen
The sovereign of this demonic realm
And reign upon Zebratta's fevered land
The two-edged sword upraised within my hand.
The minions fight
as they discuss my fate
Awakened by their scratching at my grate
Alarmed, I see the black and gleaming eyes
Mirroring the pride I now despise.
Oh Zebratta will
you ever come to me
As tangles grow in brambles endlessly
And send my foes to sing their wicked song
And spirit me from earth where I belong?
Will I ever fall
to sink so low
And allow the tangled lying brambles grow
And take from me my candle's holy spark
And cast me, blind again, into the dark?
Justice will be
served if I will kneel
Releasing from my soul the deadened steel
Of power that was never mine to take
And flee the mists
that rise
Like the pride I now despise
From the demon-glowing
eyes
Of wraiths in flowing mist
From hot Zebratta's boiling lake.
12-29-90
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The
Canticle for the Sun
And so I leave Zebratta's
blackened shores
Where rusty leaves are swept into the bay
The tired faces fade from red to gray
And fruits conceal their wormy, rotted cores.
I saw Helios rise
into the Sun
What rare and
perfect canticle
Could I give the rising of the Sun?
As I departed ruined shores
And ripened fruit with rotted cores
I left the ship
and walked the pier
And listened to the Sun
It played on strings within my ears
And Sun and Song were one.
What sad, lamenting
canticle
Could I give the setting of the Sun
As it snuffed Zebratta's candle brief
Stilled to silent grief?
I climbed the
hill and heard the call
Which echoed from my Song
And there I watched Zebratta fall
Until its shore was gone.
12-30-90
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Return
to the Refraction Zone
I reach to touch
the crazed poetic mind
I hear the voices shout and lowly moan
Their sight retreats from blackness into blind
As they struggle in that stark refraction zone.
1/1/91
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The
Omicron Secret
Companionable greetings
from the Hierophants of Dyne...
They offer me the keys to open all the doors of time.
They swept upon
the windy sway
Which marked the gate of Dyne
Solemn priests then knelt to pray
That I would cross the borderline.
And they greeted
me in smiles
And revealed to me a stone
Which had traveled endless miles
Which they gave to me alone.
Should I take
this splendid jewel
They hold before my hungry eyes?
Will it transform a mortal fool
Under Himmel's diamond skies?
I have none but
you to trust
True companion of my soul
Will tempered steel decay to rust
On earth when morning sounds its toll?
A fight ensued
within my breast
But You came and stayed by me
The shrouds of my unworthiness
Then vanished into certainty.
Oh I dreaded secrets
hidden!
And I feared the golden stone
But I did as I was bidden
To the priests I went alone.
Companionable
greetings gave the Hierophants of Dyne...
And I touched
the source of power
Hid within the Omicron.
And I went with
Numen's blessing
Where the ancient Muses throng.
And I climbed
the sacred tower
Where the sons of God belong.
(The physicists
were guessing
And the physicists were wrong.)
For I saw the
Spirit shower
From the fountainhead of dawn
As I touched the source of power
Hid within the Omicron.
That is the awesome
secret of the holy men of Dyne...
They gave the poet all the keys to all the doors of time.
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The
Light Has Gone Out of Their Eyes: A Letter to a Friend
I went out to review
poetry journals, a home for a poem. They were all bad, but there was one
hopeful note in the whole thing, there was a magazine called AEGEAN REVIEW,
which is a magazine about Greek culture. In the front it said:
AEGEAN REVIEW
is by Greeks and non-Greeks, anyone who is touched by the Muse.
There were some
not-so-bad poems in them. Not inspired, but not horrible the way the "literary"
magazines were.
So I am thinking
of sending one of my poems about Creon to AEGEAN REVIEW. They might appreciate
classicism.
I didn't know
I was a classicist.
I even read some
of Milton (you remember "a metrically poor line never came from his pen"),
and find ways to improve. That is not surprising considering the development
poetry has gone through in 400 years.
The worst of all,
I would have to say, was "New Directions in Poetry and Prose." These were
the people who published Ezra Pound and later published the wonderful
and irrepressible Kenneth Patchen. And these are the people who are now
printing 2-yearolds' line drawings by 40-year old no-minds to accompany
nonsense nonverse.
I am angry. Angry
because some of them really are poets. Angry, because they are screaming
at the heart of the world. Angry, because I don't fit. Angry, because
art is beautiful and it belongs, not on this dark globe, but on the sweeping
crags of Himmel:
Oh take me back!
I weep in sudden fury, I don't want to be on this dark globe, among these
dark fantasies of death and destruction. There was a magazine, I can't
even remember its name: GARYA or GARZA or something equally trochaic,
And it had a photo
of a woman, in oranged-dark tones, there was blood on the front of her
dress, and she raised an arm with an angry smile, and the arm, and the
hand, and the pointing finger were greased with blood, it looked as though
she had forced her hand deep into her vagina while menstruating and pulled
it out to rebuke the law of menstruation, and the deity that sent her
female into the world. And the caption below said "What went wrong?"
I touched all
of the journals, and in the touching heard the screams. No love there,
no beauty there, only the slicing razors of the barbers of Zebratta. And
I spoke to the woman behind the counter at Bulldog News when I was there,
and said "I can't find any good poetry here, it's all so bad." And she
pursed her lips and was silent, her reaction almost appeared to me to
be the reaction of one who had contributed just recently to the local
poetry journal and had been hailed as a genius. Then I asked "Do you carry
'The Formalist'? and she said "No." I had said the word. I asked, rhetorically,
"Why is all the poetry so bad?" and she replied to me, smolderingly, "Maybe
it's just a matter of taste." And I thought about it, reflecting upon
her view, because clearly she disagreed. And I queried, "Maybe, it's like,
being out of fashion. Have you ever really enjoyed wearing a certain kind
of clothes, and find out that everyone else is wearing a different fashion
and it's out of style now?" she shook her head. "That's how it feels.
Maybe, I'm not a contemporary writer."
And I hopped back
in my car - literally, because the lock on the driver's door is broken,
I hopped in through the passenger's side -and I heard the voice of Numen
speaking softly in my ear, and he said "What would Milton do if he were
here?" And I laughed, cheered, briefly; even more significantly, what
would SHAKESPEARE do? What would they do, if they were here? Blast the
trite and scourge the lame, and send their doggerel to flame...!
And I wept.
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How
Many Hells?
Ordeal in Agenor
He leaves me at the
border
As we descend from space
It is the realm of Agenor
Zebratta's hidden place.
I must traverse
this hell alone
Ordeal of soul by night
Furthest reaches seek in blindness
For my only source of light.
It is as cold
as evil
Shadows loom as black as ink
I cast about for Numen's light
And there, perhaps, a wink.
Is there a wink
on the horizon?
Is there a harbor light?
Will something shine and land here?
Will something come tonight?
The druids stand
in ragged ranks
They scan the naked shore
Their faces stare in eyeless blanks
The damned of Agenor.
How many hells
have they traversed
To find this endless beach?
How many demons heard they curse
A mad and mindless screech?
Is there a wink
on the horizon?
Perhaps the Numen lights.
Will something shine and land here?
Will Numen come tonight?
How many hells
have I traversed
To find the druids blind?
How many deaths have I rehearsed
In terror in my mind?
Lift me out of
Agenor!
I cry to Himmel's height
Bring me from this boundless shore
Of dark and hateful night!
The lizards shift
their ponderous weight
Upon their basking rocks
Their scales knock on the steaming slate
Like madly ticking clocks.
Is there a blink
on the horizon?
The hooded blind men stare
Will something shine and land here?
And drive them from its glare?
The gaping reptiles gulp and grin
Cold beasts of Agenor
They watch me struggle with my sin
Upon their starving shore.
How many hells
have I now dreamed
In naked frozen fear?
How many demons fought and schemed
Within my ringing ears?
I beg relief with
empty hands
I cry out for my soul
To free me from this sterile land
Release me well and whole!
There is a light
on the horizon
Casting all in shadows stark
When the Numen comes to take me
Druids fade into the dark.
How many hells
did I traverse
Upon that horrid shore?
How many hatreds did I shed
When I left Agenor?
And shorn I come,
and humbled
To the gate which borders Dyne
All my pride within me crumbles
While I drink the Numen's wine.
How many hells
have passed beneath me
Now I see with opened eyes
How much gold they have bequeathed me
As I stand on Himmel's rise.
And all the priests
are chanting
For salvation of the One
While the druids start their ranting
In the depths below the sun.
There is a sun
on the horizon
Rising bright on every shore
And every priest in Dyne is praying
For the damned in Agenor.
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How
Many Hells? Notes on Agenor
I had explored Zebratta
to some extent with the Numen, but what lay beyond -could there be anything
beyond its bizarre heights, its blistering towers and evil twisting streets,
the gleaming eyes of its minions ducking behind its swirling mists?
This was the question
I asked. For in understanding the true nature of humanity's condition
at present it is necessary to examine the varieties of ignorance,
Or what is called
the psychic environment which surrounds the personality and enwraps it
like a crusty, resistant shell,
And there is something
beyond the possessive seething dankness of Zebratta, and perhaps something
even beyond that. Agenor was hard to write, for as we moved toward that
place, I must say, remembering our investigation of that zone,
there is a deeper and more meaningful poem of contemplating Agenor which
I cannot get to yet, it must mature, like a plant growing, because it
is a complex condition which I don't understand the way I understood Zebratta
which I know so well, having lived there and having contemplated much
while imprisoned.
There is a flashing
of dull awareness in Agenor which only goes as far as the personality
and never leaps to soul, and so when soul touched the awareness of Agenor,
when we entered its sphere, all they could do was recoil from it as though
from some hostile object,
For hurting wants
its hurting
Within those shame-filled hearts
While minions of Zebratta
Work to tear the world apart.
For surely they
are damned
Within their own vision
They are judge and jury
There is nothing known of God
And nothing of his love.
These are the
monopolar manic-depressives, manic in a lust for
personal power, and depressed in their defeat.
Is there a wink
on the horizon?
Is there a harbor light?
Will something shine and land on earth?
Will something come tonight?
They watch the
skies
And are caught
By Zebratta and its ever-watchful spies.
Cast apart in an autistic trance, severed from their souls.
That is what I
learned.
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Intimations
of Immortality
(Apologies to Wordsworth)
Our eyes as wide
as oceans
We stalk across the centuries
On stretches of the galaxies
A million miles long.
Searching with
our million hands
For jewels among the stars
Which God had molded us for toys
On endless tracts of land.
We leap among
the twisted skies
And fall in gravities
Breaking clouds with gleeful cries
And scrape our scabby knees.
Children in the
universe
We sing our brazen songs
Tripping light from star to star
A million miles long.
He lets us play
and play
And sing our deathless song
Until the dusk of orange day
A million parsecs gone.
Our eyes as deep
as oceans
We see the centuries
Recalling our experience
A million years along.
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A
Day In the Life
Do I rage? Do I dance
a mincing dance
In hate's confining cage?
I would have ALL
OF ME NOW, I would feel a healthy dose of rage.
Oh yes, for I
had fled
In agonies untold in words
In winter's frozen dread
Which iced my blood to curds
That was Agenor.
The blood I lost was poured into the winy sea.
And when I rose above the waves
I knew that I was free.
For I had fled
in silences unheard by ears
Embracing love's unending song
The Numen came to me.
I was never left alone to bleed
Of one who sowed within my heart
The choking thistle trees.
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Growing
Up Again
I was a little girl
yesterday
With scabby knees
Looking into the mud-clouds of the puddles
Standing on the street with slipping socks
Waiting for the rain to stop
So I could play in the alluvial moldable ditches
Run tractors into those reservoirs
I had made with my brother's GI Joe
And his trained cadre of elite earth-moving engineers.
And I grew up
To sit with a checkbook in my hand
And consider the marketing procedure I had devised
For a work of art I had molded
So graciously, with all of the eloquence of my mind
And the maturity of my spirit
To sing to the world of all the beauty which would unfold
Like a morning glory unfurling to the golden dawn.
And I slept
Groaning with the weight of a conscience grown ponderous
With considerations of the will of God pulsing in my heart
Fleeing to the internal world which flames without fire
Where words cannot be brought to explain
The rarity of the dimension I sought
To explain the utterness of an experience
I will never be able to relate.
And I was a little
girl today
With pink and healing knees
Looking more knowingly toward the sky
Where clouds were doubtful as to whether
They would deliver their load of conveyable liquid
To the earth for Joe and his cadre of engineers
And I had no choice
But to furlough them, though they had union unemployment
To keep them satisfied at the pool parlor
Or the bar
Until I called them back to construct the dams
That my imagination required
Whose blueprints I tapped impatiently
While I waited for my dolls to become animate for me
And I will grow
up again
To sit in holy expectation
Of the Divine Light shining over and above me
To render me complete, so mature and poised
Like a princess, or like a Queen
Matronly to the point of motherhood
To prove that I had reached the final stage of growth
I was designated to receive
As I stood under the shower of Spirit.
And I will grow
young again
Five perhaps,
With a muddy tractor dangling from my hand
Traces of rust peeking from the seams of its shovel
My men, a phalanx of willing minions aligned with me
To overcome the hurling earth which plunges
In the rushing of the rivers in my driveway
I will stand
Under the shower of Spirit
For such are the children of the Kingdom.
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The
World Devoid of Magic
If the truth be known
It is so uncolorful
Unicorns are so full of magic
So gold, so pink and mystical
In those brightly lighted glens
Near those castle walls which always loom
Threatening and vague
With giants hiding on the ramparts.
If the truth be
known
It is so quiet
In the realms of sacred wisdom
It is dark sometimes
And even dusty, steps unheard
Walk unhurried to the temple of the Unknown God
Whose power rests undiminished
In the hands of its servant
As it always has done
So nothing has really changed.
It is behind the
image
That the truth is known
Of the potent glory of that Real One
Who needs no trumpet
To announce a Presence
So great it will move the Sun
Moment by moment upon its golden axis
In the churning universe
Who needs no servitors bowing
To feed its Egoic greed
Who needs no incense burning
On its polished altar
All knows it is All.
Why should we
need
The glittering unicorn
Rushing through the gurgling brooks
Of the epic, atavistic woodland
To imagine the age of Magic?
Are we that much inferior
To our Creator
That we should have to
Sell Him to ourselves
With lights and symbols
And banners of forgotten guilds?
I would prefer
not
To don the rusting armor
Of a dead age
To act a chivalry
Outmoded by prayer
I would rather not
Hold the blistering wand
Of ritual
To satisfy the taste
Of a world that lusts for magic.
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The
Mansion of the Mind
Have you been to
Greenlea
That mansion of the mind?
I traveled there last night
To find the missing light
That I was told still shined
In Greenlea.
And fleeing did
not see me go...
My sudden running did not slow
I chased myself
To Greenlea.
I lighted fires
stick by stick
And watched the flaming candle wicks
Which lit my face up from below
The Numen met me late
In Greenlea.
When he relieved
my solitude
I cried against his coat
I could not stay
And so I fled again
From Greenlea.
Have you been
to Greenlea
That mansion of the mind?
It was there I fled one night
When fearing dark I sought the light
And fired lamps
Which dried the damps
Of green and dripping trees
Under which I hid
Far away from earth
In Greenlea.
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Summa
Regrade
Greying dark aloft
from Himmel
To hear an Angel on the wing
Thence to send an army back
Across the borderland of night
Into ships of wood and iron
After days of hasty flight;
Sailing swift
through bitter waters
To the necromancer's pool;
Gathering thorns in hidden caverns
Where human souls await the scale...
Regrade shadow blacks to ink
As wretched druids wail.
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Alone
of Men
Rendered in the blasting
kiln
He races toward the Sun
And Helios, alone of men
Regards the Holy One.
The light above
carves deeper shadow
The Corona breaks upon the shore
A tide upwashing sand.
Could anyone with
human eyes
Discern his stellar face?
Could anyone of lesser light
Endure that fiery place?
But Helios, alone in flight
Retreats into the Sun
And Helios, alone of men
Regards the Holy One.
Though he dwells
with us on Earth
It must not be unsung
That the Great One dwelling with us
Is the child of the Sun.
I pray that I
might follow
On his journey to the Sun
With Helios, alone of men
To praise the Holy One.
for the Numen,
to give light upon his journey 1-23-91
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Retrograde
Motion
1. Breaking Out
of Time
There is no time.
So they write: Time is the greatest illusion
of physical life. Those who refuse to bow to the tyrannies of
time have torn away the thickest veil of illusion which
hypnotizes humanity and immediately enter a state of greater
spiritual receptivity.
The hierophants
of Dyne speak in detail of the evolutionary
process, its gradual ascent to perfection, the meaninglessness of
time:
Numen, could the
time not matter
Within the gates of Dyne?
Could I ascend that ladder
And be free of tyrant Time?
For as they say:
All time is an illusion
If I remain within its grasp
I live in a delusion.
Free me from Zebratta's
hand
And lift me out of time
They gave me, poet, all those keys
But I can't find that land.
2. Unbound
from Spells
I have gone back
to all I have written in the past year of
poetry. I have written a thousand thousand pages, it would seem,
some of them brilliant and shining, guided by the hand of the
Numen, and some slack and dull,
I cannot say the
spell I seek
It comes from realms beyond
The old familiar hells
Shadows edge the
forest ponds
Reflections cast those spells.
3. Handel's
Birthday
Dactylic Baroque,
majestic music soars
Chamber music, from my chamber freed
Iambic for my ears, to fill poetic need.
How luckily for
me
Was Handel born today
For rhythm beckons bodily
And now Baroque holds sway.
Lento, lento violin
Draw my taut emotion in
Then pluck a lone viola string
To keep its tone encouraging.
4. I sang a
prayse
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