I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu

Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,
Alcinous and Ulysses both rose, and Alcinous led the way to the
Phaecian place of assembly, which was near the ships. When they got
there they sat down side by side on a seat of polished stone, while
Minerva took the form of one of Alcinous’ servants, and went round the
town in order to help Ulysses to get home. She went up to the
citizens, man by man, and said, “Aldermen and town councillors of
the Phaeacians, come to the assembly all of you and listen to the
stranger who has just come off a long voyage to the house of King
Alcinous; he looks like an immortal god.”
  With these words she made them all want to come, and they flocked to
the assembly till seats and standing room were alike crowded. Every
one was struck with the appearance of Ulysses, for Minerva had
beautified him about the head and shoulders, making him look taller
and stouter than he really was, that he might impress the Phaecians
favourably as being a very remarkable man, and might come off well
in the many trials of skill to which they would challenge him. Then,
when they were got together, Alcinous spoke:
  “Hear me,” said he, “aldermen and town councillors of the
Phaeacians, that I may speak even as I am minded. This stranger,
whoever he may be, has found his way to my house from somewhere or
other either East or West. He wants an escort and wishes to have the
matter settled. Let us then get one ready for him, as we have done for
others before him; indeed, no one who ever yet came to my house has
been able to complain of me for not speeding on his way soon enough.
Let us draw a ship into the sea—one that has never yet made a voyage-
and man her with two and fifty of our smartest young sailors. Then
when you have made fast your oars each by his own seat, leave the ship
and come to my house to prepare a feast. I will find you in
everything. I am giving will these instructions to the young men who
will form the crew, for as regards you aldermen and town
councillors, you will join me in entertaining our guest in the
cloisters. I can take no excuses, and we will have Demodocus to sing
to us; for there is no bard like him whatever he may choose to sing
about.”
  Alcinous then led the way, and the others followed after, while a
servant went to fetch Demodocus. The fifty-two picked oarsmen went
to the sea shore as they had been told, and when they got there they
drew the ship into the water, got her mast and sails inside her, bound
the oars to the thole-pins with twisted thongs of leather, all in
due course, and spread the white sails aloft. They moored the vessel a
little way out from land, and then came on shore and went to the house
of King Alcinous. The outhouses, yards, and all the precincts were
filled with crowds of men in great multitudes both old and young;
and Alcinous killed them a dozen sheep, eight full grown pigs, and two
oxen. These they skinned and dressed so as to provide a magnificent
banquet.
  A servant presently led in the famous bard Demodocus, whom the
muse had dearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil,
for though she had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had
robbed him of his eyesight. Pontonous set a seat for him among the
guests, leaning it up against a bearing-post. He hung the lyre for him
on a peg over his head, and showed him where he was to feel for it
with his hands. He also set a fair table with a basket of victuals
by his side, and a cup of wine from which he might drink whenever he
was so disposed.
  The company then laid their hands upon the good things that were
before them, but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink,
the muse inspired Demodocus to sing the feats of heroes, and more
especially a matter that was then in the mouths of all men, to wit,
the quarrel between Ulysses and Achilles, and the fierce words that
they heaped on one another as they gat together at a banquet. But
Agamemnon was glad when he heard his chieftains quarrelling with one
another, for Apollo had foretold him this at Pytho when he crossed the
stone floor to consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the
evil that by the will of Jove fell both Danaans and Trojans.
  Thus sang the bard, but Ulysses drew his purple mantle over his head
and covered his face, for he was ashamed to let the Phaeacians see
that he was weeping. When the bard left off singing he wiped the tears
from his eyes, uncovered his face, and, taking his cup, made a
drink-offering to the gods; but when the Phaeacians pressed
Demodocus to sing further, for they delighted in his lays, then
Ulysses again drew his mantle over his head and wept bitterly. No
one noticed his distress except Alcinous, who was sitting near him,
and heard the heavy sighs that he was heaving. So he at once said,
“Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, we have had enough
now, both of the feast, and of the minstrelsy that is its due
accompaniment; let us proceed therefore to the athletic sports, so
that our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends
how much we surpass all other nations as boxers, wrestlers, jumpers,
and runners.”
  With these words he led the way, and the others followed after. A
servant hung Demodocus’s lyre on its peg for him, led him out of the
cloister, and set him on the same way as that along which all the
chief men of the Phaeacians were going to see the sports; a crowd of
several thousands of people followed them, and there were many
excellent competitors for all the prizes. Acroneos, Ocyalus, Elatreus,
Nauteus, Prymneus, Anchialus, Eretmeus, Ponteus, Proreus, Thoon,
Anabesineus, and Amphialus son of Polyneus son of Tecton. There was
also Euryalus son of Naubolus, who was like Mars himself, and was
the best looking man among the Phaecians except Laodamas. Three sons
of Alcinous, Laodamas, Halios, and Clytoneus, competed also.
  The foot races came first. The course was set out for them from
the starting post, and they raised a dust upon the plain as they all
flew forward at the same moment. Clytoneus came in first by a long
way; he left every one else behind him by the length of the furrow
that a couple of mules can plough in a fallow field. They then
turned to the painful art of wrestling, and here Euryalus proved to be
the best man. Amphialus excelled all the others in jumping, while at
throwing the disc there was no one who could approach Elatreus.
Alcinous’s son Laodamas was the best boxer, and he it was who
presently said, when they had all been diverted with the games, “Let
us ask the stranger whether he excels in any of these sports; he seems
very powerfully built; his thighs, claves, hands, and neck are of
prodigious strength, nor is he at all old, but he has suffered much
lately, and there is nothing like the sea for making havoc with a man,
no matter how strong he is.”
  “You are quite right, Laodamas,” replied Euryalus, “go up to your
guest and speak to him about it yourself.”
  When Laodamas heard this he made his way into the middle of the
crowd and said to Ulysses, “I hope, Sir, that you will enter
yourself for some one or other of our competitions if you are
skilled in any of them—and you must have gone in for many a one
before now. There is nothing that does any one so much credit all
his life long as the showing himself a proper man with his hands and
feet. Have a try therefore at something, and banish all sorrow from
your mind. Your return home will not be long delayed, for the ship
is already drawn into the water, and the crew is found.”
  Ulysses answered, “Laodamas, why do you taunt me in this way? my
mind is set rather on cares than contests; I have been through
infinite trouble, and am come among you now as a suppliant, praying
your king and people to further me on my return home.”
  Then Euryalus reviled him outright and said, “I gather, then, that
you are unskilled in any of the many sports that men generally delight
in. I suppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in
ships as captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of
their outward freights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be
much of the athlete about you.”
  “For shame, Sir,” answered Ulysses, fiercely, “you are an insolent
fellow—so true is it that the gods do not grace all men alike in
speech, person, and understanding. One man may be of weak presence,
but heaven has adorned this with such a good conversation that he
charms every one who sees him; his honeyed moderation carries his
hearers with him so that he is leader in all assemblies of his
fellows, and wherever he goes he is looked up to. Another may be as
handsome as a god, but his good looks are not crowned with discretion.
This is your case. No god could make a finer looking fellow than you
are, but you are a fool. Your ill-judged remarks have made me
exceedingly angry, and you are quite mistaken, for I excel in a
great many athletic exercises; indeed, so long as I had youth and
strength, I was among the first athletes of the age. Now, however, I
am worn out by labour and sorrow, for I have gone through much both on
the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea; still, in spite
of all this I will compete, for your taunts have stung me to the
quick.”
  So he hurried up without even taking his cloak off, and seized a
disc, larger, more massive and much heavier than those used by the
Phaeacians when disc-throwing among themselves. Then, swinging it
back, he threw it from his brawny hand, and it made a humming sound in
the air as he did so. The Phaeacians quailed beneath the rushing of
its flight as it sped gracefully from his hand, and flew beyond any
mark that had been made yet. Minerva, in the form of a man, came and
marked the place where it had fallen. “A blind man, Sir,” said she,
“could easily tell your mark by groping for it—it is so far ahead
of any other. You may make your mind easy about this contest, for no
Phaeacian can come near to such a throw as yours.”
  Ulysses was glad when he found he had a friend among the lookers-on,
so he began to speak more pleasantly. “Young men,” said he, “come up
to that throw if you can, and I will throw another disc as heavy or
even heavier. If anyone wants to have a bout with me let him come
on, for I am exceedingly angry; I will box, wrestle, or run, I do
not care what it is, with any man of you all except Laodamas, but
not with him because I am his guest, and one cannot compete with one’s
own personal friend. At least I do not think it a prudent or a
sensible thing for a guest to challenge his host’s family at any game,
especially when he is in a foreign country. He will cut the ground
from under his own feet if he does; but I make no exception as regards
any one else, for I want to have the matter out and know which is
the best man. I am a good hand at every kind of athletic sport known
among mankind. I am an excellent archer. In battle I am always the
first to bring a man down with my arrow, no matter how many more are
taking aim at him alongside of me. Philoctetes was the only man who
could shoot better than I could when we Achaeans were before Troy
and in practice. I far excel every one else in the whole world, of
those who still eat bread upon the face of the earth, but I should not
like to shoot against the mighty dead, such as Hercules, or Eurytus
the Cechalian-men who could shoot against the gods themselves. This in
fact was how Eurytus came prematurely by his end, for Apollo was angry
with him and killed him because he challenged him as an archer. I
can throw a dart farther than any one else can shoot an arrow. Running
is the only point in respect of which I am afraid some of the
Phaecians might beat me, for I have been brought down very low at sea;
my provisions ran short, and therefore I am still weak.”
  They all held their peace except King Alcinous, who began, “Sir,
we have had much pleasure in hearing all that you have told us, from
which I understand that you are willing to show your prowess, as
having been displeased with some insolent remarks that have been
made to you by one of our athletes, and which could never have been
uttered by any one who knows how to talk with propriety. I hope you
will apprehend my meaning, and will explain to any be one of your
chief men who may be dining with yourself and your family when you get
home, that we have an hereditary aptitude for accomplishments of all
kinds. We are not particularly remarkable for our boxing, nor yet as
wrestlers, but we are singularly fleet of foot and are excellent
sailors. We are extremely fond of good dinners, music, and dancing; we
also like frequent changes of linen, warm baths, and good beds, so
now, please, some of you who are the best dancers set about dancing,
that our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends
how much we surpass all other nations as sailors, runners, dancers,
minstrels. Demodocus has left his lyre at my house, so run some one or
other of you and fetch it for him.”
  On this a servant hurried off to bring the lyre from the king’s
house, and the nine men who had been chosen as stewards stood forward.
It was their business to manage everything connected with the
sports, so they made the ground smooth and marked a wide space for the
dancers. Presently the servant came back with Demodocus’s lyre, and he
took his place in the midst of them, whereon the best young dancers in
the town began to foot and trip it so nimbly that Ulysses was
delighted with the merry twinkling of their feet.
  Meanwhile the bard began to sing the loves of Mars and Venus, and
how they first began their intrigue in the house of Vulcan. Mars
made Venus many presents, and defiled King Vulcan’s marriage bed, so
the sun, who saw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very
angry when he heard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy
brooding mischief, got his great anvil into its place, and began to
forge some chains which none could either unloose or break, so that
they might stay there in that place. When he had finished his snare he
went into his bedroom and festooned the bed-posts all over with chains
like cobwebs; he also let many hang down from the great beam of the
ceiling. Not even a god could see them, so fine and subtle were
they. As soon as he had spread the chains all over the bed, he made as
though he were setting out for the fair state of Lemnos, which of
all places in the world was the one he was most fond of. But Mars kept
no blind look out, and as soon as he saw him start, hurried off to his
house, burning with love for Venus.
  Now Venus was just come in from a visit to her father Jove, and
was about sitting down when Mars came inside the house, an said as
he took her hand in his own, “Let us go to the couch of Vulcan: he
is not at home, but is gone off to Lemnos among the Sintians, whose
speech is barbarous.”
  She was nothing loth, so they went to the couch to take their
rest, whereon they were caught in the toils which cunning Vulcan had
spread for them, and could neither get up nor stir hand or foot, but
found too late that they were in a trap. Then Vulcan came up to
them, for he had turned back before reaching Lemnos, when his scout
the sun told him what was going on. He was in a furious passion, and
stood in the vestibule making a dreadful noise as he shouted to all
the gods.
  “Father Jove,” he cried, “and all you other blessed gods who live
for ever, come here and see the ridiculous and disgraceful sight
that I will show you. Jove’s daughter Venus is always dishonouring
me because I am lame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and
clean built, whereas I am a *******—but my parents are to blame for
that, not I; they ought never to have begotten me. Come and see the
pair together asleep on my bed. It makes me furious to look at them.
They are very fond of one another, but I do not think they will lie
there longer than they can help, nor do I think that they will sleep
much; there, however, they shall stay till her father has repaid me
the sum I gave him for his baggage of a daughter, who is fair but
not honest.”
  On this the gods gathered to the **

O WOMEN, kneeling by your altar-rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song,
Till the Attorney for Lost Souls cry her sweet cry,
And call to my beloved and me:  "No longer fly
Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.'

Thus did he speak, and they all held their peace throughout the
covered cloister, enthralled by the charm of his story, till presently
Alcinous began to speak.
  “Ulysses,” said he, “now that you have reached my house I doubt
not you will get home without further misadventure no matter how
much you have suffered in the past. To you others, however, who come
here night after night to drink my choicest wine and listen to my
bard, I would insist as follows. Our guest has already packed up the
clothes, wrought gold, and other valuables which you have brought
for his acceptance; let us now, therefore, present him further, each
one of us, with a large tripod and a cauldron. We will recoup
ourselves by the levy of a general rate; for private individuals
cannot be expected to bear the burden of such a handsome present.”
  Every one approved of this, and then they went home to bed each in
his own abode. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn,
appeared, they hurried down to the ship and brought their cauldrons
with them. Alcinous went on board and saw everything so securely
stowed under the ship’s benches that nothing could break adrift and
injure the rowers. Then they went to the house of Alcinous to get
dinner, and he sacrificed a bull for them in honour of Jove who is the
lord of all. They set the steaks to grill and made an excellent
dinner, after which the inspired bard, Demodocus, who was a
favourite with every one, sang to them; but Ulysses kept on turning
his eyes towards the sun, as though to hasten his setting, for he
was longing to be on his way. As one who has been all day ploughing
a fallow field with a couple of oxen keeps thinking about his supper
and is glad when night comes that he may go and get it, for it is
all his legs can do to carry him, even so did Ulysses rejoice when the
sun went down, and he at once said to the Phaecians, addressing
himself more particularly to King Alcinous:
  “Sir, and all of you, farewell. Make your drink-offerings and send
me on my way rejoicing, for you have fulfilled my heart’s desire by
giving me an escort, and making me presents, which heaven grant that I
may turn to good account; may I find my admirable wife living in peace
among friends, and may you whom I leave behind me give satisfaction to
your wives and children; may heaven vouchsafe you every good grace,
and may no evil thing come among your people.”
  Thus did he speak. His hearers all of them approved his saying and
agreed that he should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken
reasonably. Alcinous therefore said to his servant, “Pontonous, mix
some wine and hand it round to everybody, that we may offer a prayer
to father Jove, and speed our guest upon his way.”
  Pontonous mixed the wine and handed it to every one in turn; the
others each from his own seat made a drink-offering to the blessed
gods that live in heaven, but Ulysses rose and placed the double cup
in the hands of queen Arete.
  “Farewell, queen,” said he, “henceforward and for ever, till age and
death, the common lot of mankind, lay their hands upon you. I now take
my leave; be happy in this house with your children, your people,
and with king Alcinous.”
  As he spoke he crossed the threshold, and Alcinous sent a man to
conduct him to his ship and to the sea shore. Arete also sent some
maid servants with him—one with a clean shirt and cloak, another to
carry his strong-box, and a third with corn and wine. When they got to
the water side the crew took these things and put them on board,
with all the meat and drink; but for Ulysses they spread a rug and a
linen sheet on deck that he might sleep soundly in the stern of the
ship. Then he too went on board and lay down without a word, but the
crew took every man his place and loosed the hawser from the pierced
stone to which it had been bound. Thereon, when they began rowing
out to sea, Ulysses fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike
slumber.
  The ship bounded forward on her way as a four in hand chariot
flies over the course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curveted
as it were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark blue water
seethed in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a
falcon, swiftest of all birds, could not have kept pace with her.
Thus, then, she cut her way through the water. carrying one who was as
cunning as the gods, but who was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of
all that he had suffered both on the field of battle and by the
waves of the weary sea.
  When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to
show. the ship drew near to land. Now there is in Ithaca a haven of
the old merman Phorcys, which lies between two points that break the
line of the sea and shut the harbour in. These shelter it from the
storms of wind and sea that rage outside, so that, when once within
it, a ship may lie without being even moored. At the head of this
harbour there is a large olive tree, and at no distance a fine
overarching cavern sacred to the nymphs who are called Naiads. There
are mixing-bowls within it and wine-jars of stone, and the bees hive
there. Moreover, there are great looms of stone on which the nymphs
weave their robes of sea purple—very curious to see—and at all times
there is water within it. It has two entrances, one facing North by
which mortals can go down into the cave, while the other comes from
the South and is more mysterious; mortals cannot possibly get in by
it, it is the way taken by the gods.
  Into this harbour, then, they took their ship, for they knew the
place, She had so much way upon her that she ran half her own length
on to the shore; when, however, they had landed, the first thing
they did was to lift Ulysses with his rug and linen sheet out of the
ship, and lay him down upon the sand still fast asleep. Then they took
out the presents which Minerva had persuaded the Phaeacians to give
him when he was setting out on his voyage homewards. They put these
all together by the root of the olive tree, away from the road, for
fear some passer by might come and steal them before Ulysses awoke;
and then they made the best of their way home again.
  But Neptune did not forget the threats with which he had already
threatened Ulysses, so he took counsel with Jove. “Father Jove,”
said he, “I shall no longer be held in any sort of respect among you
gods, if mortals like the Phaeacians, who are my own flesh and
blood, show such small regard for me. I said I would Ulysses get
home when he had suffered sufficiently. I did not say that he should
never get home at all, for I knew you had already nodded your head
about it, and promised that he should do so; but now they have brought
him in a ship fast asleep and have landed him in Ithaca after
loading him with more magnificent presents of bronze, gold, and
raiment than he would ever have brought back from Troy, if he had
had his share of the spoil and got home without misadventure.”
  And Jove answered, “What, O Lord of the Earthquake, are you
talking about? The gods are by no means wanting in respect for you. It
would be monstrous were they to insult one so old and honoured as
you are. As regards mortals, however, if any of them is indulging in
insolence and treating you disrespectfully, it will always rest with
yourself to deal with him as you may think proper, so do just as you
please.”
  “I should have done so at once,” replied Neptune, “if I were not
anxious to avoid anything that might displease you; now, therefore,
I should like to wreck the Phaecian ship as it is returning from its
escort. This will stop them from escorting people in future; and I
should also like to bury their city under a huge mountain.”
  “My good friend,” answered Jove, “I should recommend you at the very
moment when the people from the city are watching the ship on her way,
to turn it into a rock near the land and looking like a ship. This
will astonish everybody, and you can then bury their city under the
mountain.”
  When earth-encircling Neptune heard this he went to Scheria where
the Phaecians live, and stayed there till the ship, which was making
rapid way, had got close-in. Then he went up to it, turned it into
stone, and drove it down with the flat of his hand so as to root it in
the ground. After this he went away.
  The Phaeacians then began talking among themselves, and one would
turn towards his neighbour, saying, “Bless my heart, who is it that
can have rooted the ship in the sea just as she was getting into port?
We could see the whole of her only moment ago.”
  This was how they talked, but they knew nothing about it; and
Alcinous said, “I remember now the old prophecy of my father. He
said that Neptune would be angry with us for taking every one so
safely over the sea, and would one day wreck a Phaeacian ship as it
was returning from an escort, and bury our city under a high mountain.
This was what my old father used to say, and now it is all coming
true. Now therefore let us all do as I say; in the first place we must
leave off giving people escorts when they come here, and in the next
let us sacrifice twelve picked bulls to Neptune that he may have mercy
upon us, and not bury our city under the high mountain.” When the
people heard this they were afraid and got ready the bulls.
  Thus did the chiefs and rulers of the Phaecians to king Neptune,
standing round his altar; and at the same time Ulysses woke up once
more upon his own soil. He had been so long away that he did not
know it again; moreover, Jove’s daughter Minerva had made it a foggy
day, so that people might not know of his having come, and that she
might tell him everything without either his wife or his fellow
citizens and friends recognizing him until he had taken his revenge
upon the wicked suitors. Everything, therefore, seemed quite different
to him—the long straight tracks, the harbours, the precipices, and
the goodly trees, appeared all changed as he started up and looked
upon his native land. So he smote his thighs with the flat of his
hands and cried aloud despairingly.
  “Alas,” he exclaimed, “among what manner of people am I fallen?
Are they savage and uncivilized or hospitable and humane? Where
shall I put all this treasure, and which way shall I go? I wish I
had stayed over there with the Phaeacians; or I could have gone to
some other great chief who would have been good to me and given me
an escort. As it is I do not know where to put my treasure, and I
cannot leave it here for fear somebody else should get hold of it.
In good truth the chiefs and rulers of the Phaeacians have not been
dealing fairly by me, and have left me in the wrong country; they said
they would take me back to Ithaca and they have not done so: may
Jove the protector of suppliants chastise them, for he watches over
everybody and punishes those who do wrong. Still, I suppose I must
count my goods and see if the crew have gone off with any of them.”
  He counted his goodly coppers and cauldrons, his gold and all his
clothes, but there was nothing missing; still he kept grieving about
not being in his own country, and wandered up and down by the shore of
the sounding sea bewailing his hard fate. Then Minerva came up to
him disguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien,
with a good cloak folded double about her shoulders; she had sandals
on her comely feet and held a javelin in her hand. Ulysses was glad
when he saw her, and went straight up to her.
  “My friend,” said he, “you are the first person whom I have met with
in this country; I salute you, therefore, and beg you to be will
disposed towards me. Protect these my goods, and myself too, for I
embrace your knees and pray to you as though you were a god. Tell
me, then, and tell me truly, what land and country is this? Who are
its inhabitants? Am I on an island, or is this the sea board of some
continent?”
  Minerva answered, “Stranger, you must be very simple, or must have
come from somewhere a long way off, not to know what country this
is. It is a very celebrated place, and everybody knows it East and
West. It is rugged and not a good driving country, but it is by no
means a bid island for what there is of it. It grows any quantity of
corn and also wine, for it is watered both by rain and dew; it
breeds cattle also and goats; all kinds of timber grow here, and there
are watering places where the water never runs dry; so, sir, the
name of Ithaca is known even as far as Troy, which I understand to
be a long way off from this Achaean country.”
  Ulysses was glad at finding himself, as Minerva told him, in his own
country, and he began to answer, but he did not speak the truth, and
made up a lying story in the instinctive wiliness of his heart.
  “I heard of Ithaca,” said he, “when I was in Crete beyond the
seas, and now it seems I have reached it with all these treasures. I
have left as much more behind me for my children, but am flying
because I killed Orsilochus son of Idomeneus, the fleetest runner in
Crete. I killed him because he wanted to rob me of the spoils I had
got from Troy with so much trouble and danger both on the field of
battle and by the waves of the weary sea; he said I had not served his
father loyally at Troy as vassal, but had set myself up as an
independent ruler, so I lay in wait for him and with one of my
followers by the road side, and speared him as he was coming into town
from the country. my It was a very dark night and nobody saw us; it
was not known, therefore, that I had killed him, but as soon as I
had done so I went to a ship and besought the owners, who were
Phoenicians, to take me on board and set me in Pylos or in Elis
where the Epeans rule, giving them as much spoil as satisfied them.
They meant no guile, but the wind drove them off their course, and
we sailed on till we came hither by night. It was all we could do to
get inside the harbour, and none of us said a word about supper though
we wanted it badly, but we all went on shore and lay down just as we
were. I was very tired and fell asleep directly, so they took my goods
out of the ship, and placed them beside me where I was lying upon
the sand. Then they sailed away to Sidonia, and I was left here in
great distress of mind.”
  Such was his story, but Minerva smiled and caressed him with her
hand. Then she took the form of a woman, fair, stately, and wise,
“He must be indeed a shifty lying fellow,” said she, “who could
surpass you in all manner of craft even though you had a god for
your antagonist. Dare-devil that you are, full of guile, unwearying in
deceit, can you not drop your tricks and your instinctive falsehood,
even now that you are in your own country again? We will say no
more, however, about this, for we can both of us deceive upon
occasion—you are the most accomplished counsellor and orator among
all mankind, while I for diplomacy and subtlety have no equal among
the gods. Did you not know Jove’s daughter Minerva—me, who have
been ever with you, who kept watch over you in all your troubles,
and who made the Phaeacians take so great a liking to you? And now,
again, I am come here to talk things over with you, and help you to
hide the treasure I made the Phaeacians give you; I want to tell you
about the troubles that await you in your own house; you have got to
face them, but tell no one, neither man nor woman, that you have
come home again. Bear everything, and put up with every man’s
insolence, without a word.”
  And Ulysses answered, “A man, goddess, may know a great deal, but
you are so constantly changing your appearance that when he meets
you it is a hard matter for him to know whether it is you or not. This
much, however, I know exceedingly well; you were very kind to me as
long as we Achaeans were fighting before Troy, but from the day on
which we went on board ship after having sacked the city of Priam, and
heaven dispersed us—from that day, Minerva, I saw no more of you, and
cannot ever remember your coming to my ship to help me in a
difficulty; I had to wander on sick and sorry till the gods
delivered me from evil and I reached the city of the Phaeacians, where
you en

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
     Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
     The nose is holy! The tongue and **** and hand
     and ******* holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
     holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
     angel!
The ***'s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
     holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
     holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
     Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
     sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
     beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the *****
     of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
     apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
     hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
     the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
     mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
     middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
     ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
     Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
     Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
     clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
     the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
     locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
     tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
     abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
     bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
     kindness of the soul!

                                   Berkeley 1955

I therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, beseech you that ye
walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith ye are called,
2 With all lowliness and
meekness, with longsuffering,
forbearing one another in love;
3 Endeavoring to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace.
4 There is one body, and one
Spirit, even as ye are called in one
hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one
baptism,
6 One God and Father of all,
who is above all, and through all,
and in you all.
7 But unto ever one of us is
given grace according to the
measure of the gift of Christ.
8 Wherefore he saith, When
he ascended up on high, he led
captivity captive, and gave gifts
unto men.
9 (Now that he ascended,
what is it but that he also
descended first into the lower parts
of the earth?
10 He that descended is the
same also that ascended up far
above all heavens, that he might
fill all things.)
11 And he gave some, apostles;
and some, prophets; and some,
evangelists; and some, pastors
and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity
of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man, unto the measure
of the stature of the fulness of
Christ:
14 That we henceforth be no
more children, tossed to and fro,
and carried about with every
wind of doctrine, by the sleight of
men, and cunning craftiness,
whereby the lie in wait to
deceive;
15 But speaking the truth in
love, may grow up into him in all
things, which is the head, even
Christ:
16 From whom the whole body
fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint
supplieth, according to the
effectual working in the measure of
every part, maketh increase of the
body unto the edifying of itself in
love.
17 This I say therefore, and
testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth
walk not as other Gentiles walk,
in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them,
because of the blindness of their
heart:
19 Who being past feeling have
given themselves over unto
lasciviousness, to work all
uncleanness with greediness.
20 But ye have not so learned
Christ;
21 If so be that ye have heard
him, and have been taught by
him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 That ye put off concerning
the former conversation the old
man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit
of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the
new man, which after God is
created in righteousness and true
holiness.
25 Wherefore putting away
lying, speak every man truth with
his neighbour: for we are
members one of another.
26 Be ye angry, and sun not: let
not the sun go down upon your
wrath:
27 Neither give place to the
devil.
28 Let him that stole steal no
more: but rather let him labour,
working with his hands the thing
which is good, that he may have
to give to him that needeth.
29 Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth,
but that which is good to the use
of edifying, that it may minister
grace unto the hearers.
30 And grieve not the holy
Spirit of God, whereby ye are
sealed until the day of
redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath,
and anger, and clamour, and evil
speaking, be put away from you,
with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you.

Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was
acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save
his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he
could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer
folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god
prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all
these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may
know them.
  So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got
safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to
his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got
him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by,
there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to
Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his
troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to
pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing
and would not let him get home.
  Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world’s
end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East.
He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was
enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the
house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At
that moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by
Agamemnon’s son Orestes; so he said to the other gods:
  “See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all
nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make
love to Agamemnon’s wife unrighteously and then **** Agamemnon, though
he knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him
not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to
take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury
told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has
paid for everything in full.”
  Then Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it
served Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he
did; but Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that
my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely
sea-girt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an
island covered with forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a
goddess lives there, daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after
the bottom of the ocean, and carries the great columns that keep
heaven and earth asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of
poor unhappy Ulysses, and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment
to make him forget his home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks
of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys.
You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy
did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should
you keep on being so angry with him?”
  And Jove said, “My child, what are you talking about? How can I
forget Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor
more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in
heaven? Bear in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with
Ulysses for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the
Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter
to the sea-king Phorcys; therefore though he will not **** Ulysses
outright, he torments him by preventing him from getting home.
Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to
return; Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind
he can hardly stand out against us.”
  And Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then,
the gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send
Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our
minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca,
to put heart into Ulysses’ son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call
the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother
Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I
will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear
anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make
people speak well of him.”
  So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals,
imperishable, with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea;
she grasped the redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and
strong, wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased
her, and down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus,
whereon forthwith she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses’ house,
disguised as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held
a bronze spear in her hand. There she found the lordly suitors
seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten, and
playing draughts in front of the house. Men-servants and pages were
bustling about to wait upon them, some mixing wine with water in the
mixing-bowls, some cleaning down the tables with wet sponges and
laying them out again, and some cutting up great quantities of meat.
  Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting
moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how
he would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to
his own again and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as
he sat among them, he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the
gate, for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for
admittance. He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him
her spear. “Welcome,” said he, “to our house, and when you have
partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for.”
  He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were
within he took her spear and set it in the spear—stand against a
strong bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy
father, and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he
threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,
and he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors,
that she might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and
insolence, and that he might ask her more freely about his father.
  A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer
and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and
she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them
bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the
house, the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set
cups of gold by their side, and a man-servant brought them wine and
poured it out for them.
  Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and
seats. Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids
went round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls
with wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things
that were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink
they wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments
of a banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they
compelled perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and
began to sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close
to hers that no man might hear.
  “I hope, sir,” said he, “that you will not be offended with what I
am going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it,
and all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in
some wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were
to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs
rather than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he,
alas, has fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say
that he is coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him
again. And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where
you come from. Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship
you came in, how your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation
they declared themselves to be—for you cannot have come by land. Tell
me also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house,
or have you been here in my father’s time? In the old days we had many
visitors for my father went about much himself.”
  And Minerva answered, “I will tell you truly and particularly all
about it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the
Taphians. I have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men
of a foreign tongue being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron, and I
shall bring back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the
open country away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron under the
wooded mountain Neritum. Our fathers were friends before us, as old
Laertes will tell you, if you will go and ask him. They say,
however, that he never comes to town now, and lives by himself in
the country, faring hardly, with an old woman to look after him and
get his dinner for him, when he comes in tired from pottering about
his vineyard. They told me your father was at home again, and that was
why I came, but it seems the gods are still keeping him back, for he
is not dead yet not on the mainland. It is more likely he is on some
sea-girt island in mid ocean, or a prisoner among savages who are
detaining him against his will I am no prophet, and know very little
about omens, but I speak as it is borne in upon me from heaven, and
assure you that he will not be away much longer; for he is a man of
such resource that even though he were in chains of iron he would find
some means of getting home again. But tell me, and tell me true, can
Ulysses really have such a fine looking fellow for a son? You are
indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes, for we were close
friends before he set sail for Troy where the flower of all the
Argives went also. Since that time we have never either of us seen the
other.”
  “My mother,” answered Telemachus, tells me I am son to Ulysses,
but it is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were
son to one who had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you
ask me, there is no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they
tell me is my father.”
  And Minerva said, “There is no fear of your race dying out yet,
while Penelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell
me true, what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these
people? What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a
wedding in the family—for no one seems to be bringing any
provisions of his own? And the guests—how atrociously they are
behaving; what riot they make over the whole house; it is enough to
disgust any respectable person who comes near them.”
  “Sir,” said Telemachus, “as regards your question, so long as my
father was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods
in their displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him
away more closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have
borne it better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his
men before Troy, or had died with friends around him when the days
of his fighting were done; for then the Achaeans would have built a
mound over his ashes, and I should myself have been heir to his
renown; but now the storm-winds have spirited him away we know not
wither; he is gone without leaving so much as a trace behind him,
and I inherit nothing but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply
with grief for the loss of my father; heaven has laid sorrows upon
me of yet another kind; for the chiefs from all our islands,
Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island of Zacynthus, as also all the
principal men of Ithaca itself, are eating up my house under the
pretext of paying their court to my mother, who will neither point
blank say that she will not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end; so
they are making havoc of my estate, and before long will do so also
with myself.”
  “Is that so?” exclaimed Minerva, “then you do indeed want Ulysses
home again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple lances, and if
he is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking
and making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally
suitors, were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was
then coming from Ephyra, where he had been to beg poison for his
arrows from Ilus, son of Mermerus. Ilus feared the ever-living gods
and would not give him any, but my father let him have some, for he
was very fond of him. If Ulysses is the man he then was these
suitors will have a short shrift and a sorry wedding.
  “But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to
return, and take his revenge in his own house or no; I would, however,
urge you to set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take
my advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly to-morrow -lay your
case before them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors
take themselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother’s
mind is set on marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will
find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so
dear a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you
to take the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go
in quest of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may
tell you something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some
heaven-sent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask
Nestor; thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home
last of all the Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on
his way home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make
for yet another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his
death, come home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due
pomp, build a barrow to his memory, and make your mother marry
again. Then, having done all this, think it well over in your mind
how, by fair means or foul, you may **** these suitors in your own
house. You are too old to plead infancy any longer; have you not heard
how people are singing Orestes’ praises for having killed his father’s
murderer Aegisthus? You are a fine, smart looking fellow; show your
mettle, then, and make yourself a name in story. Now, however, I
must go back to my ship and to my crew, who will be impatient if I
keep them waiting longer; think the matter over for yourself, and
remember what I have said to you.”
  “Sir,” answered Telemachus, “it has been very kind of you to talk to
me in this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you
tell me; I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a
little longer till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I
will then give you a present, and you shall go on your way
rejoicing; I will give you one of great beauty and value—a keepsake
such as only dear friends give to one another.”
  Minerva answered, “Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way
at once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it
till I come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give
me a very good one, and I will give you one of no less value in
return.”
  With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had
given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever
about his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that
the stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the
suitors were sitting.
  Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he
told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had
laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his
song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not
alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the
suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supp

SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS

THERE was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.

I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;

Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.

Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flow'r, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task:
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart
As any thund'rer there. And I can feel
Thy follies, too; and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Reflect dishonour on the land I love.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,
Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth
And tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'er
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight; when such as these
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In ev'ry clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill th' ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
The hope of such hereafter! They have fall'n
Each in his field of glory; one in arms,
And one in council--Wolfe upon the lap
Of smiling victory that moment won,
And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame!
They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown
If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd.
Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!
Or all that we have left is empty talk
Of old achievements, and despair of new....


There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know. The shifts and turns,
Th' expedients and inventions multiform
To which the mind resorts in chase of terms
Thought apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,
T' arrest the fleeting images that fill
The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,
And force them sit, till he has pencill'd off
A faithful likeness of the forms he views;
Then to dispose his copies with such art
That each may find its most propitious light,
And shine by situation hardly less
Than by the labour and the skill it cost,
Are occupations of the poet's mind
So pleasing, and that steal away the thought
With such address from themes of sad import,
That, lost in his own musings, happy man!
He feels th' anxieties of life, denied
Their wonted entertainment, all retire.
Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such,
Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.
Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps
Aware of nothing arduous in a task
They never undertook, they little note
His dangers or escapes, and haply find
Their least amusement where he found the most.
But is amusement all? Studious of song,
And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,
I would not trifle merely, though the world
Be loudest in their praise who do no more.
Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?
It may correct a foible, may chastise
The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,
Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch;
But where are its sublimer trophies found?
What vice has it subdu'd? whose heart reclaim'd
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform?
Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd.
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands.
The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fill'd
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware
With what intent I touch that holy thing)--
The pulpit (when the satirist has at last,
Strutting and vapouring in an empty school,
Spent all his force, and made no proselyte)--
I say the pulpit (in the sober use
Of its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs)
Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand,
The most important and effectual guard,
Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause.....

Heidi Williams


If I edit language, call me poet, a word-smith if I pro it.
But if I edit music, there's no such name, no tags of respect
just beats to collect, sometimes trash that collects.
I'm a trash collector, musical dumpster diver,
producers dump their trash
I turn their trash to treasure.
Treasure hunter, trash tuner.
There's beauty everywhere
to the eyes of see-ers, the the ears of hearers.
Seagulls see trash and turn obsessive, possessive.
And we feed the other birds, but shoo them away,
but once winter comes,
we hear seagull sounds, and we feel the beech.
We listen for summer in seagulls.
We listen for oceans in seashells,
but I can hear waves in my headphones,
and I can change the tide when the trash comes.

There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.

It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.

Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.

I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;

Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man:  gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.

Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.

THERE where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind:
We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.
Sing on:  somewhere at some new moon,
We'll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
Its flesh being wild, and it again
Crying aloud as the racecourse is,
And we find hearteners among men
That ride upon horses.

No spring nor summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnall face.
Young beauties force our love, and that’s a ****,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot ’scape.
If ’twere a shame to love, here ’twere no shame,
Affection here takes Reverence’s name.
Were her first years the Golden Age; that’s true,
But now she’s gold oft tried, and ever new.
That was her torrid and inflaming time,
This is her tolerable Tropique clime.
Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,
He in a fever wishes pestilence.
Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,
They were Love’s graves; for else he is no where.
Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
Vowed to this trench, like an Anachorit.

And here, till hers, which must be his death, come,
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.
Here dwells he, though he sojourn ev’ry where,
In progress, yet his standing house is here.
Here, where still evening is; not noon, nor night;
Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at revels, you at counsel, sit.
This is Love’s timber, youth his under-wood;
There he, as wine in June enrages blood,
Which then comes seasonabliest, when our taste
And appetite to other things is past.
Xerxes’ strange Lydian love, the Platane tree,
Was loved for age, none being so large as she,
Or else because, being young, nature did bless
Her youth with age’s glory, Barrenness.
If we love things long sought, Age is a thing
Which we are fifty years in compassing;
If transitory things, which soon decay,
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
But name not winter-faces, whose skin’s slack;
Lank, as an unthrift’s purse; but a soul’s sack;
Whose eyes seek light within, for all here’s shade;
Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than made;
Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,
To vex their souls at Resurrection;
Name not these living deaths-heads unto me,
For these, not ancient, but antique be.
I hate extremes; yet I had rather stay
With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day.
Since such love’s natural lation is, may still
My love descend, and journey down the hill,
Not panting after growing beauties so,
I shall ebb out with them, who homeward go.

There is something so calming
About the spiders spinning web.
Something so comforting,
A song sung by the dead.
Hear it wallow in the distance
Like an unforgiven tune.
Sung by the rivers daughter,
The beauteous sunset muse.

Bask in the moonlit waters
Barely but blessed by shining sun.
Hold to your heavn'ly quarters,
The likes of which shall come undone.
For if you catch the spider spindle
You are likely to be safe.
In other wares, their finer fares
In absence, stay awake.

I speak not for the Titan,
Or God nor Goddess alike.
I speak not for the tongue
Of the mumbling friars might.
For Alas my hearers hear this plea,
Beware the nymph of sophistry

Here lieth one who did most truly prove,
That he could never die while he could move,
So hung his destiny never to rot
While he might still jogg on, and keep his trot,
Made of sphear-metal, never to decay
Untill his revolution was at stay.
Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
‘Gainst old truth) motion number’d out his time:
And like an Engin mov’d with wheel and waight,
His principles being ceast, he ended strait.                        
Rest that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm
Too long vacation hastned on his term.
Meerly to drive the time away he sickn’d,
Fainted, and died, nor would with Ale be quickn’d;
Nay, quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretch’d,
If I may not carry, sure Ile ne’re be fetch’d,
But vow though the cross Doctors all stood hearers,
For one Carrier put down to make six bearers.                        
Ease was his chief disease, and to judge right,
He di’d for heavines that his Cart went light,
His leasure told him that his time was com,
And lack of load, made his life burdensom
That even to his last breath (ther be that say’t)
As he were prest to death, he cry’d more waight;
But had his doings lasted as they were,
He had bin an immortall Carrier.
Obedient to the Moon he spent his date
In cours reciprocal, and had his fate                                
Linkt to the mutual flowing of the Seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase:
His Letters are deliver’d all and gon,
Onely remains this superscription.

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

20 But ye have not so learned Christ;

21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.

26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

27 Neither give place to the devil.

28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

All ears willing to hear,
   let listen.
We must not only be
   hearers of The Word,
but doers of The Word.
This is a call to action.
let this not be a simple
   reaction of emotion.
It is time to set our lives in motion.
It is the day to live a new way.
A renewing of our minds.
Together we must say,
   "It is time to live a new way!"
Speak loudly, persuade boldly
store up The Word in your hearts.
Salvation is your reason.
In Jesus Christ is our redemption.
Love like it's repetition.
God as my witness, this is my mission.

Hearing history whisper in the background

in an aural realm
I hear enkidu bled
ink
to fill the pens

of ready writers after
ever
lasting word
forms
a name
Enki, wisdom and life
flowing

into length of days
ancient
days
long

remembered, visited
in daydreams
featuring

all that may have been,
then.

Some soporific drink drunk
in old Uruk

vicareate, those in lieau of you.

Dying for you to go into the
realm
of knowns past
knowing knowns now in this

realm

make your mind reach mine.
Stand under my lines and

lean toward joy
good and calm,

gentle waves of peace
swirling fibrating threads
forming

woven things, matrices,

see the points crossed over
and under,
see the edges wound around,
to keep the rubbing of

reality from fraying ends.

did the fingers gno the math,
the ciphers we see
in carpets woven by magi
families
for centuries, ere

The Prophet were told to Read,
and he refused
to learn,

but chose to teach that which
an angel of light,

warned against by Paul the Gnostic Jew,

taught? Told to read, but never learning to do it, because angel said,
say exactly what i say...

Teachers once learned by teaching, but
never has reading been masterd
sans
sensibility of the graphemes
re
presenting the noises

common in every human ear
hearing in
sapience, abruptly

Hear!
Easy to be entreated. You have ears?
Hear.
How is never asked, why is clear; ears hear,
we all have ears.

Not all ears hear.
But eyes can learn to read, with some effort.

I magine it your task. You the first speaker of your
magic tongue-lung-teeth-lips, epiglot-tonsil-nasal

noise making system, engineered
to permit

song in accord with this, our shared realm of
noises, common.

Ha. This tale of an angel telling a messenger to read,

is this a famous story? Have I not learned of a war being
waged,
i.e. fought with stand-ins paid to fight, live or die.

Soldiers formed from hearers of empty songs
stretched to cover eyes, as well,

push and pull, hot and cold, balance value
weight and worth

imagine knowing no written tongue

you, dear reader, this book of lives in life per se,

who could see this coming?

Papyrii and clay and stone

cities are inventions of men

men who would be kings
imagined
delegating

knack for knack *** for tat

this for that all
for me,
the man wombed or un who would be

like the most high god I can imagine

ah the danger of falling into anachronism

you first must imagine, dear reader, that
writing is an invention

intended to bher the burden of learning to
remember, really,

no po'etic license claimed or blamed

famine of the written word
negates not the worth of rhyme and dance

masques and noises of roaring bulls

thrumming, thundering herds

screaming hawks, squeeling rabbits,
caw
cawing crows or ravens if that
distinction is
ever
necessary...

as the story is told, some time after ever starts.

This has been a chapter in our history,
dear reader from the times before the pictures
were scratched on the rock Sisyphus rolls.

Twixt now and then lies a realm of stories locked in idle words
never written for never having a reader
who grasped the message to the prophet,

read.

-----
Uruk, was there a ****** who watched you rise and learned
to make a city sufficiently

enslaving to raise a king from the son of a king

to the level of luxury allowing

reading all that writing demands

suggestive is the fact that the written word for C2H5OH
is a spirit ual thing caught in a word
as old as the earliest writing
remaining

alcohol, spoken now, would call for a drink in old Uruk and Akkad,
as would reference to kohl warm eyes,

be cool

as are we all, we living words spoken in times past,
listing in lusting vacuums of empty songs

ah, you shall not surely die, poor Gilga-
mesh, the net

spread in your sight, you never thought

networking and weaving were skills teachable, thus
this witty idea, the best potter makes only one pattern of ***,
all for me,
I take them a ll and feed the potter meat. Mighty hunter, am I.

I feed many with one mammoth

I am worthy of all they make with strength taken as granted

while chewing the carcass of my
****
--- here it comes,

civilization---

things in abundance might be made,
and traded
for
that which we lack the knack to make

so soon does some medium of exchange manifest

as witty inventions emerge from seeds carried from the garden

How? Now, off-scour, **** of the earth, us-all,

poor you have with you always,

we, the feeble-but-not-un-minded, people, whisper

when we sing,
shuffle when we dance, fly when we dream
and live until we die and leave mere words to live ever after in the wind,

making peace for the heirs of the earth.

True Home


I was just passing on my way to heaven earthen paths stretch over the years and the lives of others
When they know not they are speaking the loudest when they enter dark paths the pain they feel floods
My soul they are then dearer than many sun sets of beauty because all of their heart is revealed
Nothing hidden all is purest truth all that they ever yearn to be is made clear through blessed tears
The weary sigh reaches over great distances it appeals because they are the product of heavenly dreams
That stream through earths wayward isles and contradict vanity and shallowness there is no place for
Ingenious ideas when all that is being sought is designs that is unfamiliar to the unkind and ******
That only walks for themselves but a rich life is not made by what you earn alone in the workplace
But it’s after effects what do you do to bless others make their lives a story that resounds in triumph
It takes getting yourself out of the way and considering the dreams and hopes of others more important
Than your own by self the accomplishments will be few but when you harness the great potential in
Others fan the flame by love and support that is so needed in a world that is negative charged tears will
Stop there flow smiles will glow untrimmed lights will rise from earths plane reaching heaven’s heights
Sparking delights not only will the evergreen in the window shine but trees of all kinds will be fired by
Light they will light many a pathway and in their burning life’s hidden yearning will be released you will
Be the generator and the benefactor too slow down and read the signs of the souls that are passing you
Every day from just a whisper thunder can be born the kind that gives comfort and deep joy to the
Hearers no bogus thoughts will live when you stir your heart with kindness give the best that dwells in
You I hear the sounds of much laughter born on the wind because you took to care and gave yourself
Away just like the father from a manger to a destiny never dreamed of before there are still big jobs and
dreams that are waiting just for your particular flame you alone can set the tender ablaze never say
you don’t amount to anything you have God’s breath in your body exhale and see and feel the wonder
it releases into a hurting world were only here for a little while then its time to fly away home bless you
at this  holy  time of year

آج کوئی حال پوچھے تو کہوں

بھر چکا ہے دل جوابوں سے مرا
ہے مزین سچ سرابوں سے مرا
اپنے اندر سے میں باہر دیکھتی ہوں
زاویہ مخفی حجابوں سے مرا
یوں بھی ہو خود سے نکل پاؤں کبھی
موم کے شیشے پگھل جائیں سبھی
نور ہے پر اس کے نیچے راکھ ہے
خاک سے کھرچی ہوئی یہ خاک ہے
گو طلاعی ہے چمک اس سوچ کی
کھوکھلی ہے، اس کے اندر لاکھ ہے
کیمیا گر کی ہتھیلی پر اُگی
پھونک کے زد میں یہ اپنی ساکھ ہے
کب تلک اپنے تقرب سے بچوں
کب تلک اپنے تعین سے جچوں
سننے والے ہوں اگر تو بول دوں
قفل ان سب طائروں کے کھول دوں
ورنہ یہ بھی عین ممکن ہی تو ہے
انکہی اک داستاں میں میں رہوں ۔۔۔۔۔
آج کوئی حال پوچھے تو کہوں

ع
۱۳۔۳۔۱۷

My heart is done with answers
My truth is with mirages, adorned
I look from within myself outside
A perspective, on obscurities formed

Maybe I can get out of myself
Maybe the walls of wax can melt
There is light but underneath are ashes
Dust that has been scraped off from dust
Though the shine of thought is like gold
They're hollow, and only filled with gust
Grown on the palm of the alchemist
My facade is in the target of a single breath

How long should I avoid facing the mirror  
How long should I render embellishments
to my impressions
If there are hearers, I can speak
I can unleash the trail of what I seek

Or otherwise this is entirely possible
That it all remains hidden
in the epic never bared
But if one were to ask today,
I would have shared.

The speaker had said
“success is not money”
and for some strange reason
the hearers thought this was funny

Then his words went unheard
future sadness he could have rid
and they were missing this message
as ignore him they did

You'll find success in your joy
which money can't buy
it's found deep in your heart
like you were a boy

The days filled with fun
the games played with your friends
I know, I know
that's not a means to an end

Yes I know we must work
to provide for our needs
but there's no happiness in it
when it's to further our greed

When there's never enough
and we always want more
we're not satisfied
and behind in lifes score

Thing is life is for living
enjoying our days
however they come
in so many strange ways

Whether with family or friends
or at the job site
it's happiness that's important
you must know this to be right

Though the statements I made
may seem kind of funny
the truth is success is much more
than accumulated money

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

6 The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.

7 Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.

8 Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:

9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.

10 Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him:

12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

14 Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.

15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.

21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.

24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,

25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;

26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

Homage To Sarasvati

Consort of
The One
Holding in his hand
A raised silver sword
Who helps
slice
A momentary
Middle  way
Through your day

Woman of
The spoken word
And songs that are sung
Delighting the ears
Of all who hear
Gliding upon
The wings of a swan
Wearing a heavenly
Silken suit
With two arms holding
A lute

With the swish
Of his sword
Words of wisdom
And reverence
Words of aural
Eloquence
Igniting bliss
In hearers' hearts
Which through the channels
Slowly flows,
When wisdom words are heard

Sean Hunt
Windermere  2015

Now, the dau,
that idea, first bubble we be in,
and the final thought
we pay attention to,

a-priori, is a popular phrase on the pundit trail,
first any ever once,
enfolding now, augmented mortal
appropriation of the spirit
dau, the truth in life,
being.

Thinking is reading my mind.
You have the knack, read,
wiser minds have left letters locked in glyphs
of tradition,
-flash k;ab;alla; wink blink image of the map

this not terrain mortals trod, this is where
Shakespeare and Browning smoke ****
with me and Lady Wei, as seen
from a smoky hut
leaning on granite decomposing as I write,

this came to the surface, as a we, reader/writer
we may think in one
mind, while doing in another, and becoming
something else, in a third,

but it does not stop there, I hear in my realm,
Everest Pax, a child named
in a happy state of mind,
by my daughter,
at whose marriage, I broke the rule,
I made a pact,
with my son-in-law
using my own scruples,
stretched to threads of finest wire,
through holes but one photon wide,
one bit serial thought, off set by a function
forming
matter in states where nothing has mattered,
for a long, long time,
then today
- dao, kapow
the link to how often I proclaimed, I,
have always, and do now
take the easy way,
and that, they say,
is cheating. Wu wu boo who wu wei is
as water in our once crossed rivers, in the median,

between the freeways…

As I remarked early on this trek to find your name
in the book of my life, knowing
readers of this line, even, perhaps,
hearers, some day,
knowing tasted good, not knowing tastes evil as hell.
You exist in the book of my life as a reoccuring
character, who may be formed from early
childhood scruple implants,
Ossie Davis, look you in the eye, say
Do the right thing.

… which brings us, flop, stop, 2021 - three brothers
jonesing screens- Evvy screaming, he is five,
on no screen Sunday, a family tradition
in its first iteration, set by the mother
reinforced by the father, ignored
by Grandpa who is doing a show with Lady Wei,
on the experience
of Yang His, who received a vision from Lady Wei,
while Pine Valley high above the maddened crowd,

I hear it said, His had that Habakkuk habit, wu wei,
lady, did you lead me, write the vision, make it plain,
or is this all just
pretend, knowing is a given, one taste, concentrate

okeh, we on wu wei now, read and watch,
think and see,
what if this was happening to me, and I have
hyper-text such as no manuscript
on earth ever had,
no ink needed,
no ashes of prayers in the tea,
I used Pine Valley honey and flowers from a herm-kush
take a l'taste,
hear this, I think, I say

say, have you ever used Dragon Naturally Speaking?

On mute. If we think in Wade-Giles, and write in Pinyin,
- we can pass any shibbolethic judges of twang
and we got this Tuvan singer,
from New York City, a place he never saw

the glass harmonica can hold the high notes,
and we can channel the blind throat singer to hold down
the baser notes of life in soil creation,
till the hard rows, right,
sow the finest seed,
available, by chance, legally blind, where I went into total
last days, wait and see, here is here I presupposed
wu wei, no intervention
you came, now see,
this is where I live when in my right mind.
Now, I can make up my mind on matters of the wish,
last wish
from the magic golden carp in the castle mote,
I caught a thought in Ape and Essence,
and may have wished a bogus wish to live,
among the words that I redeem worth my use
-to form a more perfect union
-with my own heart's desire to be the best I may imagine,
given the tools fit for the perfectly happy, lazy old man,

who giggles at the idea of pulling down imaginations
that exalt themselves as institutes of authorized knowns.
Scratch my ear.
rethink, how Swedenbord did not doubt,
that old dude, just kept dippin' n' scribblin angels
who love to wrestle with scriptures gone pointy crown
shape burr, itches, crave, yes, the wish of which, witches mix
doubt is the art of balance between lines of several minds,
redo, redone, redo, redone, soon, we laugh
and walk away,
lady Wei, and I
leave His, making all this plain to the degree,
of telling history, I thought this, so real, it seems still
as real as any angel duty ever…
Yang His says:
Lady Wei, looks to me and said to me unspeakable things.
This is confusion, she let me know with
a single drop of black,

ashes of talismans burned in vain, never, to my knowledge
written in vain,
think once a godly thought, as used to say, just now,
think that as a practice,
this is that exercise
unto godliness.

First, gnoshit, attain the Yang His state of cannabis-bliss.

Or go on lying about what I think we know
already, this is
that earth,

where happy people think happy thoughts and others
find that maddening,

and Lady Wei laughs with me, we know the traits we give
to those who chose on any given day

to put on a mind made from words alone,
and listen.


----------------- author's note:
Taoism: An Essential Guide by Eva Wong, these lines occur
while listening to Chapter Four
The Shang-ch’ing texts tell us that Yang Hsi received a vision
from Lady Wei (who had become an immortal)
and then “wrote” the scriptures
under the influence of a cannabis-induced trance.

{strange to feel so understood
strange that I am not alone}
{{https://hellopoetry.com/cielnoir/}}

Walking out of sleep, into
-- noonday sun
-- post atmospheric river
-- deep gray-purple days past
editreadyreaderprepresent-tensing

noise directed traffic, trending
psy-sci-psilliness dissing

ontological first thoughts, first
stretch, and last yawn,

seeing some connection from
former time to formations now
serving purposes proposed as ifs.

If duty calls us, and we have ears
discerning us as those called, hearers,

saying nothing, listening -
acknowledging life, itself, is not ours,
not experienced alone, ever, after we

agree to merge ourselves into me,
the leader, left-foot first, marching
ants selecting territory to sift for worth,
ax-el-
what good can I find to do, in response
to differentiation, feel the touch of other,
bump spring gentle
level speed to fills and tunnels

others, advisors, certified professional
advisors of the unfinished, unpolished

ones, you and me, creatures of literal

evanescence, perhaps never appearing,
glimpsed as in a zen riddle, popped
when a country kid asks who
tamed the bull… the ox

yes, I see, says the country kid,
I understand, you think oxen are
natural, that limits your wisdom.
-----------------
But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.

Now, hear this, as a stranger in that garden.

Make up a mind that may as well imagine
having access to this single window lens,
in a fly's eye/

see me see you, sit tight. Bee, alright,
flea'ld be okeh by me, ye'll see,

what ever two or more of my kind agree, we be.
'pon acknowledging

the reality of energy, and us being, small,
upto a point.

We break the wave function and drift, pointless

reasons for the faith we take as granted, we think

we have a full portion, rationally, fair share, we think.

But few are free to find time to take words as power.

We agree we means primary person acting as one,
in the spirit form we form as we read, and write,

and hope to hold
the gentlest wind in our fists, as we expand
as breaths, and breathers, nameless alienated minds,

cohere, at once, each point possible,
once…

------------------


Old Jobe, and me,
we considered the works of God,
we saw all the noise and storming

contenders for worth of your loyal
adherence to a plan from a committee,

a party platform, from which leaders,
may stand and look into tomorrow's

victory over all wrong thinkers, leading
away from the best way for all of us,
we, the part-takers in policies of common
wealth taken from the losers to use

for the betterment of all mankind,
losers included, of course, abort no

unwanted child, let society eat them alive.

------------------

Rush to publish, shush nidicolous muse,
Peace awaits inpatient perfecting grace

- long form war, for goodness sake,
- so simple a child can participate,
- the game of life under standing
- constituted authorities established,
Under God, by God, and you
you,
good citizen had better believe we've
GOT GOD, and the entire dairy industry
on our right side, and our enemies,
on our left side, we are destined
to rule over, as gold over silver,

and plutonium ove' all.
Y'all'd know if I lied.
Some ideas are poison,
some are radioactively poisoning,

as life imitates art, foul miasmatics, sniff.

Uric acid industries, good side hustle,
set pots to **** in behind the pub,
public minds congregate to process,
fermented bread purified water,
into precursors for alchemists.

It was a profitable enterprize.
Vertical integration, however…

even then, there were regulators.

Identity, registered voter,
have you read your party's rules for us.

What must we hold true to trust
the committee of good for us reasoners?

Whereas, conjunctive fact fixer, that said,

It being the fact that; inasmuch as.
While at the same time.
While on the contrary…
------------------
Rushing to  betterment, settling
for plenty good enough, betting

on welfare shared by knowing users
of the tools we used
to build the channels of commerce
and learning used to make living easier

inventing means of exchange, symbolic
worth determinants, worth of cows
after…

blah… no mas.

---------------
measure for measure, reassure me,
nidicolous commiseration,
promi-sorry noted aliegiance
conserved determined formal
arrangement of shared woe and weal
- we authorize these changes, we think.
let us imagine, set an image of our wedom,
we… the ready readers granted all meaningful
words ever read by our massively parallel process

of gaining means to branch out and make shade.

Trees, Bees, Toads, Children

Who do I think we are,
who do you think I am,

what do we agree is true,
what do we do to prove it so?

If it is true, any it, we use it.
If it is not true, we see it so, because

we do not trust those ordained to lead.

-----------
Bring measure, come fair trade with me,
take my offering, think it linked to God,
the spirit entity historical Jesus called Father,

when he asked
forgiveness, as with all our debtors
debts, dissolved as gnosis knots
snot-nose brats can have
for a thank you, missed, to whoever
made truth the way life makes us take

at certain instances where signals merge

at a certain round-about in Montana,
we forget forgiveness generally given,
we take if as granted, as we should.

So… with no evil intended, good happens

for all who know not what
we are doing as we survive our helplessness,

and discern the order of effort and participation,

ruled by lines drawn long ago, proper and right,

my peace, my home place, my self assurance,

good by my own estimation, nothing missing,
nothing broken, all things, at scale working
together to gather the harvest, year after year.

-------------------------

Let us project an image we agree to see, knowing
we are showing what we hope to make you see,

a reason for your efforts to be joined to ours,
for your right to influence the rules we use

to keep enemies enemies and workers working…

---- Republican Evangelical shot across my bow

Quantifiable worth of one
person, weight of one person's wish
to willingly partake in persistent life,

life after all is said and done to come this far,

to have taken communication
from the Babel excuse for our misunderstanding,

to these days of Google Translate,
and Assisting Intelligence Coherency, here we be,

now, or never, as we must be to breathe
and have our being orbiting our normal ordinary star.

On the ball we all live on

some rule, some obey, say they who rule.

Those who rule themselves,
obey or stay beyond the reach
of proper societies, as such,

far from the maddened crowds,

herds of humanity harnessed
for war, for defense of local
wealth in terms of valued
conditions to which we become
accustomed, ordinarily following

the leader, as in the children's
games of emulation, marching
as to war

"With the cross of Jesus
going on before… glory, glory…"

Pied, perhaps, are we, on power.

We publically profess to all the world,
say those voting for Donald J. Trump:

We believe in American exceptionalism.

{eh, except ye believe, and say, I see, and
I agree, to this entity inviting all, except those
who are forbidden by religious ties, from knots

to hold yoke to cart or plow. Free souls,
lost in old bet you regret that nows

sould in spirit to a conception, love your enemy.

Refuse to partake in war, deserve no part
in the victor's loot.

Die in dispair, or let go, lose it all…

See the hand hold
a finger, or a toe.

Watch a babe locate a nose,
or an ear, or recognosticate

a familiar face, smiling.

We think, as common, completed
successful sprouts from random
spurts of natural gumption, urging us

reproduce, take pleasure, participate,

in using up our sources of sustained
existence atop the only gravitating thing
equipped to host us.

Chance, and timing, chaos in orderly

coordination with wind and water,
rare fair weather in early March,

beware the Ides, nay, not this year,

March, she came in like a lion,
dumping a whole winter's withheld snow,

at once, reminding many, we are very small.

Reminding few to thank foresighted good luck,

we chose to build upon actual rocks, solid
state soil free to consist as structure base,

for anything two or more of my kind, agree
to see as possible, seeing as believers do,

we must mean the rooting through the fruit

falling to become soil substance for next year.
be seed settled

Be not deceived, as a command, presupposes
reception, once,

be not deceived, many voices in the wilderness

cry this is the way to become lorded over, follow me.

Waveforms collapse, sometimes.

The principle of superposition
of waves states that
when two or more propagating waves
of the same type are incident
on the same point, the resultant amplitude
at that point is equal
to the vector sum
of the amplitudes
of the individual waves…

Slowslooo slide into home. Tune

to zero beat, co hear silence
unbelievable yet evident to any hearing it

as we exhale, in recognosis, this is that

state of mind,
combined,

we free spirit informants,

conforming ourselves to norms, imagined

before the concept of wave coherence formed
in the mind of man kind,
common access
general available knowing,

when, on earth,
as it must be in heaven, if we imagine happiness
constantly overriding common knowledge,
-stretching our hold on the joy of living
chirality insisting we not let our right hand know,
what our left is imagining in this outreaching way,

Beggar's banquets, ***'s rush, breathe

with first reason sought, breathe out,
breathe in, no idea

not a clue, nothing random, but this bubble
we have our being in,
as a liposome time bubble,
when we pause, to think about it….

--------------
In my seeding mind,
reseeding reason to rationalize,

worth and weight, in ancient terms,
57 something tons of silver's worth,

a single talent of silver, once mentioned,
for scale,

to make a warring spirit acknowledge truth,
bow and pay obeisance, kow-tow,
or bolt
upright, how now

may we intercede,
in the spirit of mere words,
redeemed to base value in moral terms deemed

ethical, under these circumstances,
we are free to think this line of thought bought
dearly with the patience taken

to make it all possible at all, what? me worry?
- you may laugh, but take no anxious thought.

We are most alien of all minds, sacred places,

signaling knowers to know, now, time is as a dream,
only if you maintain consciousness of that fact, as art.

Now, consider life a game.

Your move. My move. We agree, we become

one of these things in the form of Paul's God,
all's supreme being spirit form of Truth's Way

taken, as granted any willing to think, why not
me, the stranger in paradaise, asking whom

do we imagine wise,
as the serpent, while remaining harmless,
of no effect, ill or good, either real, or not.

At our we level, we laugh at me.
I become the first beggar in paradaise.
I think we think we know, we meet
at the mean

and we play the balancing Sisyphean
paen to Science of Light Amplification

you push my buttons, I pull your thread,

we make up a mind, to get past this.

This is Ken Pepiton, as he sat in the sun,
thinking of Van Gogh's ghucking sunhat
self portrait,

and laughing at having dropped my name,
where he left his hat.

i.
"Why didn't you make it clear, prove your self?"
Maybe Bertrand Russell, an ashiest, anyway.
Vapours of smoke.
Signs of the times,
asked for during old days
in search of living dreams
on discovery of reason sought,
thinking what, in truth, declared
did the mighty king of Nineveh see?

Not the wondrous rescue
and return to mission, after three days
attested to
by the business
of Christianity, testing hearers
of words, logical words, if this, then that,

hold, hold this thought, think imperative
faith in unseeable thinkable things,
only holds true the evidenced hope.
No if,
no sign but the Sign given Nineveh, the preaching
of Jonah, whose fish story was not mentioned ---

And what remedy remains for the sign seeker,
not the rising from the dead, or the monstors
from the depths of hope deferred…?

ISIS actually hammered the Assyrian Lion to dust,
yet we have video and can see the symbol's self
evinced in illiterate prisoners of holy interpretations,

in the spirit of the destroyer, hater of hateful things,
holy ordo of bulls over lions, elephants over ***'s assets.
Where no peace is, I say,
Isaiah says Peace, Peace is ai ah, aight

---------- channel enough water of life, chi
in essence, mistaken for brute force mastery,
spirit in a child, or a colt or a pup, or most carnivores,
tamable by reinforcement learning, habituation holdover
appetites control the will, as we all must learn, control
or be controlled, such are life's lessons, learned
time after time, as seasonal patterns reflect
cosmic realities, in terms of carnivorous
reasons for wars against Caine's kind,
tillers of trees and weeds and grasses,
beaters and rhetters of fibres,
twisters of threads and cords and ropes,

platers of hairs,
weavers of warm soft things…
fabricating knacks aquired taught,
re
fabricating first after all was lost, now
once more, we begin when nothing is known

true enough to **** for.

--------------------

ii.
Simple conversation,
making knowable a mystery hid,

between the lines, truly hiding hoped for
signs like unto those witnessed
in Nineveh, at the doing
of the logical, logos presented as fact,

repent or perish, no fish story needed,
the miracle is that the whole    
population did turn from sin,
- as it is writ it was done, indeed…
apparently… reconnecting to the way
and the truth and the life, by choice,
turning back to the global cosmic reality.
Awe.
As we agree touching anything…
seeing seems believed hormonally.
Apparition, as a reified image of a scene,
let us imagine using words alone, asking,

in hope of clarity, focus, point of preaching
single point attention pre paid, point made
look away from the legerdemain stream
of stories told to children, seriously since
ever there was a wizard learned in ritual
lost when the walls of the temple fell,

as witnessed by a professional watcher
seeing as from an NPC,
all the setting of this scene…

Here we be,
you and me,
I am thinking you exist, as yet
you may not, you know, my then,

when I choose to use my worth,
my treasure in this life, my ready
made mind making - up, up know,

you know? We declare, I do, so go

find the next lie you continue to hold
self-evidently true, by virtue of you

thinking it, filtered through all you
hold true by rule of laws, nature
and nature's god, empowering
time to carry our burdens,

letting go the unclean spirit,
the devouring demonstratives,

chicanery for entertainment, magic,
imagine that we all know what magic

is, or was in olden times, when men
called prophets and soothsayers
foretold according to the signs,

auspices, gut symbolic evidence, woe
or weal, go forth, and conquer,
take all that belongs to mind,

leave all that lingers in the brain
to run the works while we seek

true demonstratives, imperative
upon us, indeed, not word alone.

Seeing the whole accumulated known
universe infested as Josephus's
translator saw Jerusalem,

as the last temple fell… ask

is this that, or was that all command
decision from the power that denies
free will, as if you have no choice
to know, or remain unknowing,

innocently ignorant, never having
certainly set the angle's azimuth

at the level of the reader's witness
plain, across time and chance
through now in no time to then,

when the first scribe, wrote
the first rule, from memory.

Fear God and keep his imperatives.

Oh? Exoterica, meanings of things,
Thoth thoughts sought and found,
given Solomon by Sheba, we may say,

and you might agree, thinking we know.

We may believe we do, but believing
does not make what we believe true.

----------- The art in thinking I know
imagining, bringing to mind another's

reason for, cause of declaration, you know?

Seven ideas more twisted and tangled
than was the first fear of falling away
from present tense, now and then,

true, as seen
from an innocent by-stander,
POV witnessed
in the storied way, read, you see.
Ready, now, this is ever after that.



iii.
Thoughts on stores of knowns
to be remembered, as knowns shown,
on stone as images graven 3-d as seen
projected vision reflected in or on or from,
we, a we of you and me, at minimum,
we know a reason for the ag-agag

hesitation to keep breathing, in and out,
in time's long line of stored reasons for
by the agreement grouping pattern,
we
see, instances, occurences, accumulate
interruptedly, we have witnessed intial loss

of significance in ISIS, as a sound said since
ancient of days, only the redhat entities,
can be imagined to hold as appearing
clearly evincing any lie disputing true
declaratives, ala Aimee, This is that,

the mystical money making leading
into twistedness too tight to loose,
chosen wholeness, usnonothern,
select elect
we, the participants in this epic effort
to take away a veil, an artifice,
effectual ignorance imposed
supposed to focus the chi
cognate in any warring li-e
see, we coknow so many
mysterious reasons
for faith we hold true, in word,
indeed, in wisdom tested, twice,

nice and fine, infinite instances
of yes,
that exact thing, exactly re-enacting

iv.
- dingalingading

So, Mickey, how does it feel,
to be free, in the public domain,

whistle for a while,
think in tinkling musing, using
musical wills given patterns, remind

remember, becoming a knower of un-
known knowns one may know now, free,

BHATTACHARJEE , calls me, no lie,
at yon line end, I am called by my
Psychiatrist, attending to my
mental health, interrupting
my fantasy with tinkling chimes,
actually reminding me, my calendar
is written on wrong, BHATTACHARJEE
points out, to me,
I see, I said, yet
now… that can never matter, save
I use it poetically licentiously.

Mickey Mouse excuse, per use, in spirit,
in mind, exercise in more than one may
think, or ask, yet,
asking while accepting good enough
is enough to use,

making do, getting by on minimums,
most winters, remembering when we
were poor and made permanent refugees

For Jesus sake, then Allah's, the science
of the mind warring reasons for all wars,

money loved for money's sake, interesting
times, seasons measured, emperically,
as once was the writing only spoken,

dreamers dreamed, interpreters told,
children listened and imagined knowing

knowing growing beyond our fears,
through oral obligations required
for acceptability, remember
require order normalize
actualize eventuation

right now, we used
use to say, indeed, we think…

we know what group pledges,
oral recitations of golden rules,
and repetitionings for deliverance
do
due to oaths long made self evident,
We all swore, on our own life's pledge
of aliegiance to a Socratic republic form
of mental norm tyranny socially entertained,

aggregational wedomains accrue as we imagine,
herds of ruminants,
packs of canines,
prides of felines,
hordes of rodents,
flocks of flying scavengers

spirits, characters, powers that seem

and oceans and wind
and hard and soft
and flex and snap bo'
realization, at an insistent, knot, loosed
thread of all my reasoning remaining, why
should I imagine your reasoning drawing wrong
excuses for the uses words are put to, in real life.

Enchanted evenings,
entrancing commands taken to this point
imperitive
we've made up a mind, an awesome form
informative up to a point, instantiated from
as crossing over or under or through a rough
time
to come alive.



v.
-------------
The engined pens imaginable now,
since Mickey was animated and empowered
demonstrate the weapons of war in imagination,
are not invincible to pens as powered mind makers
we use to take an objective
position, while beguiled by the politics. used
to represent the glorified reification function
children used to make Velveteen Rabbits real,
as ways are made where no ways were,
rabbit trails through Jungleland,
fringes
on a red-haired Judaic kid,
at Disneyland, when it was imagined
by many
to be
at that moment
of American greatness, again

The Happiest Place in the World, which is small,
after all, who am I
to be heard
by the likes of you, first world tech users
of the freest reusable theories
of worth,
in the opensource public domain,
aggie testing 'tractor attention
pull of mindshare in the moment
measured priceless
in mental connection tension,
held for a thousand line test, hook

!Þorny issue, misperceived precept, clearly shown
evincing convincingly old monstorous enormities…
now, knowing where this is all going, those
are powerless meaningless metadata
in free will mindspacetimes
fabricated using ready readers ready to bet the worth

of the push to the pull, ag ag agree aggressively

loose dis-belief, use the kid inside, the pain, sorry,
there, there, that kid, you did call a ***, sorry,
I did not know your grandma had the tat.

Thank you for writing, but your reason for war
is still invalid in the Peaceful Kingdom, on Earth

as expected,
any day now, right, any day  

vi.
---------------
Recalcitrant inculcations,
kicking back at prideful goads,

go up, thou bald head, go up,
yes, there were such sayings,

seeing the smoke of evil deeds,
world witnessed, as all wars are now,
we need only wish to see, and see we do,
and when the algorithms insist testing we do
persists to show some interest, agging on,
test me more,

how much is the attention paid a thousand books,
were one to pay for it with social interaction,
participation in the great debates,

do old lies live, or do old patterns follow
seasonal guidelines in cosmic time.

Today, I watched a pine tree grow,
where I had stairs built between stones,
and I wondered how few folks have such scales.

Today, I watched a gopher clearing a hole,
where the old swing set holds a hammock,
and I wondered how many folks have such scales.

Relatively complex life goes on
whether many notice, or only you.


vii.
Reasons used by or
imagined, in story, Cortez,
came from Cuba, Night of Sorrows,

Spanish Reconquista Minds for War,
Jesuitical ferver birthed already,
whither came the terror of wars reason

cannibalists, ritual abnormal geomancy

take the captives for sacred making,

meet the explosive force of knowing
how magic really functions in life,

explosive possibilities, any shred
of evidence, any knowledge lost,

comes to mind once more under
upright standing armies of guardians
called by justice to know the truth,
and defend against the hatred
sown and grown to righteous
use of hate, to spite the peace made.

Each season. From total war to total war,
as our mindspacetime presents itself,

as the end in urban centers draws near,
hear the prophets of doom, doubt not,

but believe the idea that believes
Donald's team is GOD's good side.

But peace passing the weight of destruction,
remains taken for free… peace of mind,
during games of holy terror, with nukes.

viii.
If we were to cease warring,
stop where we are, empty our prisons,
and distribute the national debt to the planet
as credit due to generational over payment,
-- when warriors learn the terms, winning
having
being done, indeed, first, merest gentle
touch of the individuating brush,
by which bards bid characters
appear as seen in vision,
here, where evidence emerges
feel *** heros are being called to arms,
for truth, or old reasons holy folk use for war,

Oy, the Reacher, Tom Cruise sized, on TV,
warning my god mocking spirit by assuring me
truth is not mocked, as we agree, God must be
truth or nothing ever is, and we know,
something happened,
e-motives hate
for peacemakers acting where no peace
was imaginable, while
in an orderly state of ego, epluralized.

The End of Everything happens every day,
each one bit of our whole wedom, has
one chance to wake, and be, doing your
bit in the skit, until tomorrow,
accepting no anxious thought
no sense of seriousness, no sense
of war being a functioning solution
to certainty that madness must be hated,
and gentleness despised…
hush the focal point in courage,
become the peace past next
hush a negative imperative,
magic, settled, taken
chance to smother
force of hatred
fanned, in frontal mirrors,
encrusted darkly using alchemy
of uses fruited knowings held close.

The game is played for money.
Life wins, when money becomes
significant of nothing, one way
or another,

breathe, or

call all peace gone,
and find a global mind, kind of like,

this one, deterrence spending reflective terror,
revenge, righteous vengeance, now is ours,
say the defenders
of the faith that war works.

Peace in one mind is just like peace in mine,
thinking breathe

ix.

Nay, stay thy will.
Warring creature pushing me,
making me grit my teeth and imagine,

at the core of all a man stands for, imagining
heros from prophecy and umph from many trials,
all to win the part, where the head of the snake,
is spoken of as did the messenger from perfection,

when resetting the whole idea we agree to be leaving
possible with the laws of physics and common sense,

full spectrum, standard bell curves among wordform
information entities used with muses to expand
bubbles of innocense and pockets of ignorance.

As the will of our wedom is done, on earth,
in the air we breathe and have our behavior in.
As wise as all serpentine forms.
Harmless as doves, in our right minds.

Brittle branches claw
the blue-gray sky.
No figs wiggle in the tree.
Barren like Old Testament
women, clinging to their ancient
age, bereft of an heir to bless.

Jesus curses the tree's
emptiness: Bear fruit
of die! Who sinned?
the disciples ask: the tree
or its seedlings? Neither,
Jesus, proclaims. I curse

to show the glory of God.
As always, his hearers stand
amazed, not understanding,
stomachs growling for figs.
None to be had, they march on,
hoping to evade God's glory.

When it was the holy ghost, and fire,
keeping us alive,
believing was just what we did,
knowing one does not live
by bread, alone. As
we'as born free,
as free as we could be,
while knowing nothing needful,

truth wise, having no clues to start with,

how might one discover fire can be made
artificially, using wit wit' gumption,

to feel the heat,
live and learn to keep a secret
without ever asking why
why why, I wonder
did she run away,

why do some say life
is like an egg,
is that a hardboiled egg, eh

the games around egg finding, learning
where to look, what to look for, color,

blue, on green, jewel among jewels,

all the manifestations of gravitational
coherences causing such things as us

and causing us to be the first mortals,

contemplating long now laws on
conscience usage, with knowing never outlawed,
forgone conclusions forbade partaking,
for mere hearers of the songs,
learning early to enjoin the dance,

but never hearing music laugh.

I am Shiva, imagine me,

I rode the ox, imagine that,

death
merely threatened life,
life laughed and let its shadow pass.
us gaseous weform nodes in ancient hate.

Old bull minds baited good as bears...
After somebody did let the dogs out,
a we cheered to witness the killing,
made the ****** proof
a national pride,
freedom from the press, let us have,

teach the children backward thinking,
make them read Red Badge of Courage,

after the library lady recommended Plato,
as a follow up to Orwell, in 1962,

break my mind, feed me lost generations,
recollections, all we learned of war is lies,
all we learn from peace is past understanding.

DON'T   PREACH !
Don't preach with words you don't intend to live
and make your hearers weak by what you give.
You inject poisons that makes others frail;
then it gets easy for your sword to ****.

When preachers make the devils get docile,
it will be easier for them to get hostile.
The devil none can **** with that great ease,
but when docile, you treat him as you please.

When preachers use their words for their own gain,
I feel they get much worse than ****** satan.
At least the satan is quite known to all
that he works for the odious lore of hell.

Don't preach, but show man deeds that convey love
through gifts and tender hearts that can forgive,
through tears that well and shame a sobbing heart
while man tries hard to hide them but he can't.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________

I can't really stop writing
Though at times I've tried

For some reason lately
The words can't be denied

My forgotten life quite ******
It's been a wild and woeful ride

The sounds seek out the hearers
To show the secret side

Borges was a Reader
Emily a Bride

I'm a silent Pleader
My children are my pride