Arouse, O Muse, thy ancient mouth,
And form thy song upon the theme
Of converse between gods and men.
For many times the gods have come
And made a mockery of love.
But now, Behold! Thy tale has changed!
The earth is large, but not the world. Occasionally, he who is privileged to live upon the earth for a brief sojourn before he travels into Hades or Elysium (Depending on his deserts, not his cunning, for the Feather of Truth lies not) finds a space, perhaps an island surrounded by coral, perhaps a walled garden, perhaps a vessel upon the deeps of the sea, where the very landscape seems to be bounded Being.
There once was such a place, half of a small Aegean island, neither in Ilium nor far from that great dead city of Troy. The gods had seen fit to raise up a mound of stone in the midst of the sea, the island of Gaes. Mostly mountain it was, but in between the two feet of the stone titan (the mountain had no name, for the people of the island were sensible enough not to honor a mountain that did not occasionally spew fire like an angry god) there stretched an expanse of rolling grassy hills, with hedges and small forests of pine, juniper, birch and aspen scattered here and there.
One could not discern the sea from the midst of the plain, where the brooks and rivers met, for Poseidon had shown favor to the people of the island, shrouding it in mist during the day, thus warding off the hostile eyes of enemy ships. Unfitting it was, therefore, for those who lived there to gather their food from the sea. Some were farmers, others shepherds, and all looked upon the sea and the gods with reverence and gratitude for their plentiful flocks, their abundant fields of grain, and their life of peace.
The king of the island, descended in a line of sons from time immemorial, bore the name of Cithos. He was a shepherd, and he diligently kept the festivals, drawing the sacrificial bull to the altars and pleading with the Apollo and the spirits of heaven and earth for plentiful harvests, numerous lambs, perpetual peace, and cornflowers. (It was unknown why he prayed for cornflowers; this too had been handed down in a line of sons from time immemorial.) And, so that the line of the kings might not fail, he himself had two sons: Lithmanes, the older and a farmer, and Karethos, the younger and a shepherd.
This is the description of the island of Gaes; its lands, its peoples, and its inhabitants. And if there be anything lacking, any beauty unmentioned, hold me not at fault, O Muse, Who walks upon the mists of the grey sea!
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Surprise...Yes, this is a TRUE story...Hee Hee!
Step falls on step, just like the day before
Falls flat on floor (it's on Nebraska ground),
Eyes view white walls, and closed and opened doors
No laughter gleams, and no scared heartes pound.
The statue stands as he has always stood
Upon his pedestal of cubic wood
The carpet's clean, just as it ought to be
So free of clutter that it looks empty.
It grabs my head and whips it straight around
I cry: "I say! Where did all of it go?
There's nothing here! This is such empty ground!
And Andy says: "It's like this always, though."
The hallway is just as its sposed to be
But never has it been so wonderf'ly.
Falls flat on floor (it's on Nebraska ground),
Eyes view white walls, and closed and opened doors
No laughter gleams, and no scared heartes pound.
The statue stands as he has always stood
Upon his pedestal of cubic wood
The carpet's clean, just as it ought to be
So free of clutter that it looks empty.
It grabs my head and whips it straight around
I cry: "I say! Where did all of it go?
There's nothing here! This is such empty ground!
And Andy says: "It's like this always, though."
The hallway is just as its sposed to be
But never has it been so wonderf'ly.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
On Snow
Give light a shape; when merely it reflects
From anything, it carries not itself
But like a word it humbly genuflects
And it is lost in bush, or tree, or shelf:
Unto whatever’s seen it gives a pass
And dies unto the solid, colored form.
Take all the world and cover it in glass!
In sparkling hints that their weight misinform
So that the eye, when seeing what seems dust
Does gladly say that there is Something More.
It feels, but does not know, it, rather, trusts,
That “Shapeless blobs” have really shapes galore.
Why does a whitened world our minds awake?
Because this thing called snow is light with shape.
From anything, it carries not itself
But like a word it humbly genuflects
And it is lost in bush, or tree, or shelf:
Unto whatever’s seen it gives a pass
And dies unto the solid, colored form.
Take all the world and cover it in glass!
In sparkling hints that their weight misinform
So that the eye, when seeing what seems dust
Does gladly say that there is Something More.
It feels, but does not know, it, rather, trusts,
That “Shapeless blobs” have really shapes galore.
Why does a whitened world our minds awake?
Because this thing called snow is light with shape.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Inspired by a passage in the Office of Readings...I wish I could remember which one!
The flowers send forth fair odors from their eyes
The sight of the gardener, the one whom they love
Causes their scent, song and soul of their selves
To throw itself in loving ecstasy
Towards His Divine Face.
Praise Him!
He treads by the river
The grasses savoring every soft step.
His gazes upon His beloved Lily-flower
Her perfumes grow ever greater,
Her whiteness ever purer.
Praise Him!
The sight of the gardener, the one whom they love
Causes their scent, song and soul of their selves
To throw itself in loving ecstasy
Towards His Divine Face.
Praise Him!
He treads by the river
The grasses savoring every soft step.
His gazes upon His beloved Lily-flower
Her perfumes grow ever greater,
Her whiteness ever purer.
Praise Him!
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Tale of Athanasius: From the Lay of the Land of the King book II
“One golden day; when from the stone-hewn plow
Which, though my frame was slight, my heart urged on,
I turned with ruddy rounded face, sweat-healthy brow,
And clothing dusted with light grassy fronds;
I gathered up the lilies of the field
And tripped with clumsy passion through the grass
For romance, clean and innocent and feeled,
Then made me love my long-known neighbor lass.
I knew not how a courter was to clad
But walked in the sun’s light in working clothes
And that I may not seem a manless lad,
I wore a sword upon my trouser-close.
All large and free and fresh and strong I felt
Just as the hedgéd field where’pon She dwelt.
She was a modest maid of quiet ways
Who passed unnoticed in her family’s home
And no one saw her worthy of a praise
When to her healthy meals they did come.
But I knew she a secret virtue had
That, did the dragon depart from the brack
And waste the meadow, I’d be knightly lad
And she the one who would my cow’rdice crack.
For when she spoke of anything at all
(How no-one saw but I?) her words would bite
Like chisels on the hardened marble wall
And truth and justice follow. Will of might!
Who by home-acts by men all counted wrong
Can do what we cannot: You make us strong!
And in this mood, this palace crystal-light
That multiplies the goods refracted there
Until they become a bewildering, bright
And glorious thing that fillés all the air,
I shattered out when crashed a clashing shout.
My love cried out with high and helpless wails!
“A cruel, cruel man is lurking hereabout
To knife me like he’s processing a whale!”
I burst in through the opened heavy door
Into the stony house (it closed behind).
And there she lay, supine upon the floor
Her father o’er her with a deranged mind.
He thought himself to force upon her there
To soil her, and tug her lovely hair.
And as he sank a knife into her side,
I drew my sword. Its loyal metal rang
One with my voice: “You shall not touch my bride!”
My sword arm flew, and all things for me sang!
But fey he was and much too quick for speed
Of mine to make a fatal, fell dispatch.
We whirled all o’er: I followed, he did lead
The crisis trumping furnishings well-matched.
And every china plate upon the shelf
Did die in willing sacrifice for her
For though she loved them like a man loves wealth,
They and she, against HIM pow’rless were.
But he was old and dull, I young and skilled
And soon I had the daughter-killer killed.
But she had not a breath. I sat and wept
Upon her hands for full space of an hour.
But as the setting sun the meadows swept
With moist and bloody light and sinking pow’r
I thought upon her corpse, that she must not
Endure without a cleansing bath of earth.
I tried the door, to dig the grave I ought
But it was locked. Of op’ning there was dearth.
I searched for the key: upon the ice
That was her father dead my hands combed:
With caress loathsome my hands searched him twice
And through the rooms vile furnishings I probed.
Then noticed I a drain upon the floor.
The keys had flowed away. Unlock! No more!
And with them went all of my waking life.
I swooned. Insensible, I sprawled upon
Her pierced side. She would have been my wife!
Would that I slept! Awake was fear, not dawn.
I started up about at three of morn,
Awake as if I’d never slept at all,
To see a glowing filament or frond
Slow-serpentine itself between the desk and wall
As if a gorge-head lurked behind the desk:
A man with woman’s features, woman’s lips
And scorpion-tails a-sprouting from his mouth
Each one a tendril, groping for my leg.
And as it grabbed my shin, the truth I saw:
It came from inside the dead father’s jaw!
The jaw was moved by an unknown force
“My dear son, Athan, list to me,” it slimed
With slowness aggravating as, perforce,
The swamp-light cloud crawled up towards my spine.
“Do not reflex toward your wanted bride,
For I, through pact immortal, have the power
To move your limbs to mutilate her side
When’er I reach your heart. The devil’s dower
I paid in life. I wished to win at whist
You see. And for my soul’s priceless excheque,
I got all powers wanted: they’re on this list
That I’ll not read, so as to take you quick.
Don’t try to stop me: you can’t love the dead’s
Cold corpses. Wait. Keep your life and head.”
And then there surged, a heavy metal-mass
Through water: soft displaced by the weight
All overwhelming of the solid facts;
Cold duty, strong and real, surpassing great
Shoving aside the loving wat’ry thing
Of romance, which though hot and compelling
Is bleached in compare to all the cries:
The cold-filled cries, yet hotter cries than “love”
The cries sans nicety all filled above
The breaking point of romance with more blyss:
The beauty, glory, majesty, desire
Of Moral Duty. I, Athanasius,
Escaping from the demon, was inspired
To slow down its effects by hero-stroke:
With my own sword, my own legs I then broke.
Then, helpless, I did writhe upon the floor
Five minutes, maybe, freed from demon’s grasp,
Yet able not to flee from the horror
Impending: my free will's last final gasp.
Then as the tendrils closed upon my breast
To hypnotize me ever for its will,
There broke upon the door another guest
Quite uninvited by the man-devil.
From his free mouth there came a blast of spells
Uncountable and rapid and devout
With flying waters spurged from leafy wells
And oils designed to drive such demons out.
For several hours they fought upon the floor
a-Wrestling, and dueling spells galore.
And when ‘twas done, the magic-man emerged
And taking out his bag of healing herbs
With incantations healed the severed legs
And raised from sleep the girl (he used a dreg).
I, Athanasius saw that love was dead.
I’d tasted magic’s work in time of need,
When only it could save from That Most Dread
And from the Chains of death, it ‘lone could free.
She woke to life, and I to bitter death
We shed great tears of wormwood at the sight
Of all the joyful life the other hath.
No sin of envy: these tears were our right.
For I knew that I must magician be
A celibate, yet still He loved She."
Which, though my frame was slight, my heart urged on,
I turned with ruddy rounded face, sweat-healthy brow,
And clothing dusted with light grassy fronds;
I gathered up the lilies of the field
And tripped with clumsy passion through the grass
For romance, clean and innocent and feeled,
Then made me love my long-known neighbor lass.
I knew not how a courter was to clad
But walked in the sun’s light in working clothes
And that I may not seem a manless lad,
I wore a sword upon my trouser-close.
All large and free and fresh and strong I felt
Just as the hedgéd field where’pon She dwelt.
She was a modest maid of quiet ways
Who passed unnoticed in her family’s home
And no one saw her worthy of a praise
When to her healthy meals they did come.
But I knew she a secret virtue had
That, did the dragon depart from the brack
And waste the meadow, I’d be knightly lad
And she the one who would my cow’rdice crack.
For when she spoke of anything at all
(How no-one saw but I?) her words would bite
Like chisels on the hardened marble wall
And truth and justice follow. Will of might!
Who by home-acts by men all counted wrong
Can do what we cannot: You make us strong!
And in this mood, this palace crystal-light
That multiplies the goods refracted there
Until they become a bewildering, bright
And glorious thing that fillés all the air,
I shattered out when crashed a clashing shout.
My love cried out with high and helpless wails!
“A cruel, cruel man is lurking hereabout
To knife me like he’s processing a whale!”
I burst in through the opened heavy door
Into the stony house (it closed behind).
And there she lay, supine upon the floor
Her father o’er her with a deranged mind.
He thought himself to force upon her there
To soil her, and tug her lovely hair.
And as he sank a knife into her side,
I drew my sword. Its loyal metal rang
One with my voice: “You shall not touch my bride!”
My sword arm flew, and all things for me sang!
But fey he was and much too quick for speed
Of mine to make a fatal, fell dispatch.
We whirled all o’er: I followed, he did lead
The crisis trumping furnishings well-matched.
And every china plate upon the shelf
Did die in willing sacrifice for her
For though she loved them like a man loves wealth,
They and she, against HIM pow’rless were.
But he was old and dull, I young and skilled
And soon I had the daughter-killer killed.
But she had not a breath. I sat and wept
Upon her hands for full space of an hour.
But as the setting sun the meadows swept
With moist and bloody light and sinking pow’r
I thought upon her corpse, that she must not
Endure without a cleansing bath of earth.
I tried the door, to dig the grave I ought
But it was locked. Of op’ning there was dearth.
I searched for the key: upon the ice
That was her father dead my hands combed:
With caress loathsome my hands searched him twice
And through the rooms vile furnishings I probed.
Then noticed I a drain upon the floor.
The keys had flowed away. Unlock! No more!
And with them went all of my waking life.
I swooned. Insensible, I sprawled upon
Her pierced side. She would have been my wife!
Would that I slept! Awake was fear, not dawn.
I started up about at three of morn,
Awake as if I’d never slept at all,
To see a glowing filament or frond
Slow-serpentine itself between the desk and wall
As if a gorge-head lurked behind the desk:
A man with woman’s features, woman’s lips
And scorpion-tails a-sprouting from his mouth
Each one a tendril, groping for my leg.
And as it grabbed my shin, the truth I saw:
It came from inside the dead father’s jaw!
The jaw was moved by an unknown force
“My dear son, Athan, list to me,” it slimed
With slowness aggravating as, perforce,
The swamp-light cloud crawled up towards my spine.
“Do not reflex toward your wanted bride,
For I, through pact immortal, have the power
To move your limbs to mutilate her side
When’er I reach your heart. The devil’s dower
I paid in life. I wished to win at whist
You see. And for my soul’s priceless excheque,
I got all powers wanted: they’re on this list
That I’ll not read, so as to take you quick.
Don’t try to stop me: you can’t love the dead’s
Cold corpses. Wait. Keep your life and head.”
And then there surged, a heavy metal-mass
Through water: soft displaced by the weight
All overwhelming of the solid facts;
Cold duty, strong and real, surpassing great
Shoving aside the loving wat’ry thing
Of romance, which though hot and compelling
Is bleached in compare to all the cries:
The cold-filled cries, yet hotter cries than “love”
The cries sans nicety all filled above
The breaking point of romance with more blyss:
The beauty, glory, majesty, desire
Of Moral Duty. I, Athanasius,
Escaping from the demon, was inspired
To slow down its effects by hero-stroke:
With my own sword, my own legs I then broke.
Then, helpless, I did writhe upon the floor
Five minutes, maybe, freed from demon’s grasp,
Yet able not to flee from the horror
Impending: my free will's last final gasp.
Then as the tendrils closed upon my breast
To hypnotize me ever for its will,
There broke upon the door another guest
Quite uninvited by the man-devil.
From his free mouth there came a blast of spells
Uncountable and rapid and devout
With flying waters spurged from leafy wells
And oils designed to drive such demons out.
For several hours they fought upon the floor
a-Wrestling, and dueling spells galore.
And when ‘twas done, the magic-man emerged
And taking out his bag of healing herbs
With incantations healed the severed legs
And raised from sleep the girl (he used a dreg).
I, Athanasius saw that love was dead.
I’d tasted magic’s work in time of need,
When only it could save from That Most Dread
And from the Chains of death, it ‘lone could free.
She woke to life, and I to bitter death
We shed great tears of wormwood at the sight
Of all the joyful life the other hath.
No sin of envy: these tears were our right.
For I knew that I must magician be
A celibate, yet still He loved She."
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
On Truth
The sleeper floats and slides in bliss of night
With dreams abounding. Facile to his will,
An endless line of decadent delight
Prostrates itself before his choice whimful.
Then presses he upon the sweetest sweet
That fits his mind like key into a lock
A sweet too perfect to be treat
Believable. Then comes the greatest shock.
He reaches for the thing. Behold! It shakes!
Transforms itself like whirlwinds made of steel
Into a monster-lion of golden make
That eats the rest of that most supine meal!
O well for you, who would those poisons eat,
They’re made by mind: the mind itself would eat.
In mind sweets, all teeth languish in the soft
And sug’ry clouds of nothing offered there.
Likewise the palate weakens slowly. Oft
There’s problems in the void, enticing air.
For if that which desired was what was,
All men would bore the faster with the earth.
The human being’s kept alive because
It’s’uprised from a Source of great rebirth.
O do not mourn, thou who hast Chocolate lost!
For candy made by minds is nothing good.
For beauties like to death, exchange for most
Solid, advent’rous, fierce, and filling food!
This thing is not a mush all soft and slack:
When you do push at truth, it pushes back!
With dreams abounding. Facile to his will,
An endless line of decadent delight
Prostrates itself before his choice whimful.
Then presses he upon the sweetest sweet
That fits his mind like key into a lock
A sweet too perfect to be treat
Believable. Then comes the greatest shock.
He reaches for the thing. Behold! It shakes!
Transforms itself like whirlwinds made of steel
Into a monster-lion of golden make
That eats the rest of that most supine meal!
O well for you, who would those poisons eat,
They’re made by mind: the mind itself would eat.
In mind sweets, all teeth languish in the soft
And sug’ry clouds of nothing offered there.
Likewise the palate weakens slowly. Oft
There’s problems in the void, enticing air.
For if that which desired was what was,
All men would bore the faster with the earth.
The human being’s kept alive because
It’s’uprised from a Source of great rebirth.
O do not mourn, thou who hast Chocolate lost!
For candy made by minds is nothing good.
For beauties like to death, exchange for most
Solid, advent’rous, fierce, and filling food!
This thing is not a mush all soft and slack:
When you do push at truth, it pushes back!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Inspired by St. Edith Stein....
This sonnet set, in a manner similar to the "Four and a Half Romantic Sonnets" that I posted maybe about half a year ago, explore the differences between the behaviours of men and women. The first sonnet explores St. Edith Stein's idea that gender (how you think and behave) is partially independent of sex (what you are). The second explores her ideas about how men and women use their work-faculties differently.
The third explores her ideas about how men and women grow closer to God differently. The third explores her belief that it is the husband's responsibility to give himself and his wife to God. Like the last sonnet set of which I spoke, the sonnets have the tone of the man struggling with and eventually overcoming the idea of himself being pointless compared to the woman.
O Muse of Poesy, having knowledge great
Of things unproven, read for me this code:
Should I behave according to the mode
Accustomed, or with charism counter fate
And act according to ‘clination strange?
For if one’s habit-acts proceed in kind
Unnaturally from the norm arranged
By certain sex, then how shall judge our minds?
Tis best to know both masculine and male
Or rather to inquire separately?
For they are like, but not identical.
Sex, not gender, is necessary.
I know not which provides the method best
But for the present, both of them we’ll test.
What purpose serves to separate the parts
That constitute a task? Seems weakness is
At work in this. He cannot handle th’art
Of intricate yet humble task-filled webs.
Or else the things that are this kind of work
Seem to outshine, like misty gold morning,
On plains, all else, and make it look a shirk
Quite far removed from important things.
But who is man to judge upon the use
Of studies, arts, and rulings God-decreed
By Him providing their full parts and juice?
Engage then, in heroic thoughts and deeds!
It may take strength and valor to combine,
But, hero, separation’s also thine.
When one does journey, does he take a road
To see a friend, on which he swerves aside
To paint a picture, kill a dragon-toad
Or else? Or does he direct ride?
When with a blazing love and loyalty
A man is fired, like a lightning flash
Or lava flow that slow engulfs a tree
Why does he burn the tree, and not just crash
Straight through to love the one he loves? Both ways
He groweth strong with exercize of love
So why, when pathway straight is good pathway
Does loyalty divert the thoughts of love?
It is because one does not love the less.
Love’s r’ward’s prompted, deferred by willingness.
Why would one choose a living book of lore
Arcane or with no ready-to-hand use,
A near machine that rituals galore
Pour forth from for the things that it does choose,
To be the channel through which waters new-
Expelled from Mother, from the skies azure,
And from the channel’s very walls, shew
Their joyful burbling to give God pleasure?
The channel’s virtues are its contents bright
And all the love with which they’re placed before
The throne of God. And this master of lore,
Whose sex does sometimes seem to be a blight,
Was chosen for his truly ritual dance
So e’en gift-ACT is love-obedience.
So never fear, man: you’re not challenged least.
Love you don’t lack, nor privilege of the priest.
The third explores her ideas about how men and women grow closer to God differently. The third explores her belief that it is the husband's responsibility to give himself and his wife to God. Like the last sonnet set of which I spoke, the sonnets have the tone of the man struggling with and eventually overcoming the idea of himself being pointless compared to the woman.
O Muse of Poesy, having knowledge great
Of things unproven, read for me this code:
Should I behave according to the mode
Accustomed, or with charism counter fate
And act according to ‘clination strange?
For if one’s habit-acts proceed in kind
Unnaturally from the norm arranged
By certain sex, then how shall judge our minds?
Tis best to know both masculine and male
Or rather to inquire separately?
For they are like, but not identical.
Sex, not gender, is necessary.
I know not which provides the method best
But for the present, both of them we’ll test.
What purpose serves to separate the parts
That constitute a task? Seems weakness is
At work in this. He cannot handle th’art
Of intricate yet humble task-filled webs.
Or else the things that are this kind of work
Seem to outshine, like misty gold morning,
On plains, all else, and make it look a shirk
Quite far removed from important things.
But who is man to judge upon the use
Of studies, arts, and rulings God-decreed
By Him providing their full parts and juice?
Engage then, in heroic thoughts and deeds!
It may take strength and valor to combine,
But, hero, separation’s also thine.
When one does journey, does he take a road
To see a friend, on which he swerves aside
To paint a picture, kill a dragon-toad
Or else? Or does he direct ride?
When with a blazing love and loyalty
A man is fired, like a lightning flash
Or lava flow that slow engulfs a tree
Why does he burn the tree, and not just crash
Straight through to love the one he loves? Both ways
He groweth strong with exercize of love
So why, when pathway straight is good pathway
Does loyalty divert the thoughts of love?
It is because one does not love the less.
Love’s r’ward’s prompted, deferred by willingness.
Why would one choose a living book of lore
Arcane or with no ready-to-hand use,
A near machine that rituals galore
Pour forth from for the things that it does choose,
To be the channel through which waters new-
Expelled from Mother, from the skies azure,
And from the channel’s very walls, shew
Their joyful burbling to give God pleasure?
The channel’s virtues are its contents bright
And all the love with which they’re placed before
The throne of God. And this master of lore,
Whose sex does sometimes seem to be a blight,
Was chosen for his truly ritual dance
So e’en gift-ACT is love-obedience.
So never fear, man: you’re not challenged least.
Love you don’t lack, nor privilege of the priest.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Necessity (not the use) of Poetry
Usually, I am a little put off by those writings that begin “there are two types of people.” Today, however, I am not. There are two types of people, those who think that the truth is outside their own heads, and those who do not.
As those of you who read this blog know, there are ways of communicating to those in the first category. You find your evidence, make your case, and hope that either you already agree with the other person, the other person is honest enough to believe your case, or that you are honest enough to believe theirs.
To those in the second category, however, communication seems like an impossibility. When anyone communicates, they take their concepts out of their heads and put them in the heads of others. For those in the second category, however, this is very difficult for several reasons:
1: Are there any others? (Extreme Cartesianism)
2: If there are others, is there any medium by which I can send my concepts to them? (Extreme Deconstructionalism)
3. If it’s all in the head, how can my concepts have validity for others, or theirs for me? (Relativism, even the non-extreme kind)
People of categories one and two are rare, for to believe either of those two positions requires enough knowledge, education, and intelligence to ask the necessary questions. You cannot be indoctrinated into being a Cartesian because the normal experiences of everyday life indoctrinate you into being an anti-Cartesian so much more effectively. You cannot be an extreme Deconstructionalist at all and remain sane because if language has no meaning, than the statement “language has no meaning” has no meaning. But people can, and are, indoctrinated into being relativists.
Unless you are a relativist yourself, you think that they are wrong and ought to mend the error of their thoughts. Yet, it is quite impossible to communicate anything relevant to them using the method of case-and-evidence.
Therefore, write poetry!
One cannot convince a consistent relativist of Truth by proofs. Proofs deal with truths and thus have no common ground with the relativist. What does have common ground with them is that which is not true or false, those things which have always been inside their heads. And among these are desires, passions, pleasures, pains, tragedies, laughters, fascinations, lifes, and loves: the very stuff of poetry.
He who addresses a relativist must be exceedingly crafty. His prime concern must appear to be not truth, but the beauty produced when his work meets the mind of the relativst.
In fact, it would be best if his prime concern actually was beauty, for then he is honest. But then, how does he convince the relativist?
His work must be made in such a way that its beauty is dependent on the truth in it. If he writes a beautiful poem about a tree, it must be so made that if you take away the truth about the tree, the beauty of the poem vanishes. If he wishes to excite passion for the truth, the essence of his work must be such that passion for the truth is essential to it: remove the passion and the work vanishes.
If he does these things, there is some hope that the relativist, in swallowing the beauty, will swallow the truth as well, and come to love it and believe it.
The one who wishes to possess truth and give it to others must know a great many things. It is a great misfortune that some who are knowledgable about the fundamentals of truth-finding and truth-communicating (metaphysics) and who are enthusiastic about giving truth away dislike poetry, the way in which truth seduces the myriads of those who hate it.
As those of you who read this blog know, there are ways of communicating to those in the first category. You find your evidence, make your case, and hope that either you already agree with the other person, the other person is honest enough to believe your case, or that you are honest enough to believe theirs.
To those in the second category, however, communication seems like an impossibility. When anyone communicates, they take their concepts out of their heads and put them in the heads of others. For those in the second category, however, this is very difficult for several reasons:
1: Are there any others? (Extreme Cartesianism)
2: If there are others, is there any medium by which I can send my concepts to them? (Extreme Deconstructionalism)
3. If it’s all in the head, how can my concepts have validity for others, or theirs for me? (Relativism, even the non-extreme kind)
People of categories one and two are rare, for to believe either of those two positions requires enough knowledge, education, and intelligence to ask the necessary questions. You cannot be indoctrinated into being a Cartesian because the normal experiences of everyday life indoctrinate you into being an anti-Cartesian so much more effectively. You cannot be an extreme Deconstructionalist at all and remain sane because if language has no meaning, than the statement “language has no meaning” has no meaning. But people can, and are, indoctrinated into being relativists.
Unless you are a relativist yourself, you think that they are wrong and ought to mend the error of their thoughts. Yet, it is quite impossible to communicate anything relevant to them using the method of case-and-evidence.
Therefore, write poetry!
One cannot convince a consistent relativist of Truth by proofs. Proofs deal with truths and thus have no common ground with the relativist. What does have common ground with them is that which is not true or false, those things which have always been inside their heads. And among these are desires, passions, pleasures, pains, tragedies, laughters, fascinations, lifes, and loves: the very stuff of poetry.
He who addresses a relativist must be exceedingly crafty. His prime concern must appear to be not truth, but the beauty produced when his work meets the mind of the relativst.
In fact, it would be best if his prime concern actually was beauty, for then he is honest. But then, how does he convince the relativist?
His work must be made in such a way that its beauty is dependent on the truth in it. If he writes a beautiful poem about a tree, it must be so made that if you take away the truth about the tree, the beauty of the poem vanishes. If he wishes to excite passion for the truth, the essence of his work must be such that passion for the truth is essential to it: remove the passion and the work vanishes.
If he does these things, there is some hope that the relativist, in swallowing the beauty, will swallow the truth as well, and come to love it and believe it.
The one who wishes to possess truth and give it to others must know a great many things. It is a great misfortune that some who are knowledgable about the fundamentals of truth-finding and truth-communicating (metaphysics) and who are enthusiastic about giving truth away dislike poetry, the way in which truth seduces the myriads of those who hate it.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Lay of the Land of the King: Book the First
In which the king rescues a boy from the Vale of Thry to be put into his service.
Canto I
Within a vale of green, upon a hill
Both small and rich, where chickens ranged about,
Where men and women lived, and had good will,
And where the sky did smile on all things out,
There lived a faml’yd boy of modest birth
Beguiled and read of books of fantasy,
Of gods and heroes from around the earth,
Of bonzelike mages working magically.
No stupid boy was he, although a brain
Of genius stature possesséd he not.
He tended crops, bewailed the pouring rain,
Sat down to read, and ran when Sun came out.
And none of them that lived in town did guess
That he would grow to save their happiness.
Canto II
In dripping caves where dankness’s looming breath
Unluminates an atmosphere of gloom
The Rebels gathered round to talk of death
To everyone who lived outside that room.
Like men seemed they, though gruesome and defiled.
Their horrid hides hid haunting organisms
With eyes that blazed with knowledge fell and wild
And noses smelling power through nose-spasms.
Of plots they spoke: of building living cranes
By which they’d dangle humans over knolls
Of poison-flower covered quicksand plains
And thus increase their deadly, hellish tolls.
No goal had they. Plots gave their lives no spice.
They hated their own King and wished malice.
Canto III
The centerpiece, the Rome of this fair land
Where peasants dwelt while Rebels peril brewed,
Was filled with all its ruler’s many hands
And eyes and mouths by which his land was ruled.
Benign was he, this ruler of the realm
Who dwelt in house of gold, not built by slaves
But by his many subtle powers alone.
Far-great was he, deserving of all praise.
And on this day, when whispers of “the plot”
Imbued the merry air with grayish tint,
He called his min’sters all, to test the blot
And see what could be done in spite of it.
And they all formed a council wondrous wise
Who’d meet the deadly plot with live surprise.
Upon his left sat his most trusted aide
Like man he seemed, although of wav’ring sort
With skin that did with armor plating trade
Its look, its notion, and warlike comport.
And then there sat a man who fused with fish
Seeméd to be, though one could not describe
Just where discerned there was to be this fish.
And in his hand he held some healthy dyes.
Across the row from King, there sat a man
Who seeméd stretched, like cords of telephone
Across the silent space of sky and land
And yet, he seeméd more than skin and bones.
And on the right hand of this glorious king,
There sat his Great Queen, loved above all things.
“Your worship,” said the head, the warlike one,
“You know The Rebels, who denied your rule
So many moons ago, ‘fore years did run,
Are once again fermenting malice cruel.”
“Prosperity” the fishlike healer said
“Although an august landlord, is not a king
Who plans for all his subjects well ahead.
From their excess is where this fester rings.”
“Indeed, I sat within their walls of cave
(Within, and not betwixt, the walls was I)
I heard them plot and rant and plot and rave
Do burn the town most pure in Vale of Thry.”
(These words were spoken by the third great lord
In order that dark secrets might be heard.)
“As wielder of your pow’r, I beg to speak”
The warlike one revealed, “If by your leave
I ventured to the vile cave, your strength
Which all do know is limitless, would cleave
The evil end from end.” With laughter glowed
The golden room like fertile unfarmed sheaves
Do fill a silo when the stomach’s whole
The laughter of the King! “We thank you, sir.
The realm is mine, and all who dwell within.
These problems serve as tests where they may turn
To better things unknown. And only sin
Makes most great change into honor and love
Therefore, help’s of themselves, and not above.”
Canto IV
Upon a day within the Vale of Thry,
The boy, in feyful mood that’s caused by books,
Did step out into lawn and ground and sky,
In search for something magical. He shook!
For every day of every year he’d moped
That he could not, by drinking potion rare
Or chanting words, move even his light cloak.
Yet when his hope was least, its goal was there!
Uncurling like a watchly-pendulum
As languid and as quick as op’ning bud
A deadly nightshade plant popped from the scrum
And grew to full-grown size like oozing blood.
And then he saw that every day for weeks
It had approached his house like this, like feet.
All awestruck by this obvious conjure
The child, hardly daring to approach
For fear of poison’ng powers long abjured
By everyone, on encroacher did encroach.
And then a rattle of unfitting wind
Did overturn the sensual leaf. Revealed
Upon the side that closer lives to sin:
Downside leaves of night with stars a-pearled.
His eyes did see this velvet blue but more
In that small fateful moment held the leaf.
A full-black shape, a groping hand of war
Did flow from it, OUT of the thrice-thin leaf.
Upon the foot of child the hand did start
Then, groping up, sans wrist, it felt his heart.
And then, a spot of wet was by them felt
Like cleansing rain, although from bush, not mist
And the hand fell, like newly curéd welt
And went away. And as it went, it hissed.
The bush then shook. The boy approached, of course
And, parting branches, saw a silken shoe
Perform a loop. He saw invis’ble force
Was flipping a strange man, just out of view.
What sort of magician would flip himself?
Or cause another to be thus so flipped?
And why did he not want it to be smelt
By anyone who through the grove did trip?
He parted branches, then he saw The Feet
Soft walking on the grass, yet floating o’er it!
Canto V
There weren’t just feet this time, but also legs
Attachéd to a thin, but full grown, man.
“O child, know ’twas I who cast the dreg
That rescued you,” he said “from phantom hand.”
“’Twas you who flipped as well?” the child asked.
The man’s thin face turned down in light disgust.
“Ah yes it was. ‘Twas not my power tasked
But rather that of King, a distant gust.
To me he has just given commission
To find and bring you to his distant school
Where you’ll be taught his legal cantations.”
“That’s great!” the child said. “Not cool?
I like it. You omit that cliched word
But soon you must depart your home and world.”
And so into the child’s house they stepped
To say goodbye unto his mother fair.
And premonition on the child crept
That he’d not see her there, or anywhere.
But then her smile, like glaze upon her face
That has its shape, yet shows what’s under through,
Betrayed her worry that they’d be erased
But also showed her joy at what he’d do.
“My son,” she spoke with tones of ancient grace
Crafted with labor, like a violin,
That makes a home a soaring, joyful place.
She spoke no more, but merely embraced him.
And lest it seem their parting was too fast
The messenger, he would not let it last.
For all at once, the roof did burst apart
And flaming dogs, like hailstones, blasted through
Assaulting the sad scene of broken hearts
But not the third one. He knew what to do.
Invoking mysteries on a nearby pot,
He then o’er turned it. Furious and fay,
The frothy flow extinguished the dogs hot
Then grabbéd he the child’s arm. Away!
They ran, while Zeus’s lightning bolts
Imploded walls. Construction in reverse
Collapsed the house as quick as earthquake jolts
Cause colonies of fleas to be dispersed.
The two, fleeing the chaos, did not rest
Until they reached the nearby green forest.
Canto VI
“My mother!” sobbed the boy from calmer wood,
“I fear you die!” but then the master said
“I would not fear for her, they’re after you!
The selects of the king are often dead.”
He built a fire from some nearby sticks
And threw upon it powder smelling sweet
“Such pantomimic deadlies will end quick
For they will flee this fire on fleet feet”
“Who are these they, and why do they want me?”
The boy inquired, worried but intrigued.
The master spoke: “They are an enemy
Who keeps you from the service of the king.
But now the time comes, now it is the age
For your first lesson as the King’s new page.
When light was newly made and stars were young,
And one fell Power ruled the world
As absolute as lightning’s whiteness flung
Upon the darkened sky, it then was heard
That thrown against this ordered, whirling state
Opposing all its per’lous perfect poise
One sole ambitious mind, both free and great,
Did seek to make orig’nal things and toys.
And so in search of equal majesty
Where monarchs none there were to take and tax
Those things that seeméd not to be their fee
This spirit shook the kingdom ruled. His back
Denied accustomed load, did straighten out
Never again to bend or bow or pout.
He poised himself in midst of lily-pond
And with his power, with dreamy, curling grace,
Did spike some lilies that grew quite close around
With hollow, brilliant jewels. And then effaced
The lilies were: like lotus they became.
Arrived then the allies of the first,
With sweet and sinuous wounding words they came
To dwell within the lotuses new-birthed.
All burn within that dry and freezing pond
Where nothing dwells, except alluring flowers
That fade away when touched, mere dreams bedrawn
From heartless passion, inf’nite-licensed powers,
And weightless stones of might. Then comes a knife
That cuts aside the beauty of false life.
This tale is not a thing on how to rhyme,
But works on our minds all subconsciously.
The jewels, my son, prefigure…” Then, a vine
Curled up into a cobra strikingly.
The tale’s decode was ended as the wood
Broke into tree-ish ranks of phalanxes
That aimed their spears upon the master good
Too many to be cowed by woodsman’s axes.
Tell, poet, of the running that ensued:
Bark flying like the bullets of the gun
Thry’s boy with his old master good
By speed alone did they the chaos shun.
There are some who lament a forest fire
But more than burning, THIS made the trees tire.
Canto VII
When night was come, and all the air was dark
And tightly wound around the tensile spring
Of danger and adventure, Lo! A spark!
And with a wooden brand concealed, burning
And lighting stones with eerie orange glow
They lightly ran along the quiet path
The humid air about them. All its flow
Embraced them like impending peril’s waft.
They ran all of the night until their bones
Did turn from structurals to drums a-beat
Of tired agony unfit for stones
For both their lives depended on their feet;
Then cast themselves upon savannah space;
Then rose they with the moon, again to pace.
Then when the boy from Thry could go no more
And tripping on the very air he fell
The two looked up (the man had bent to floor
To help him nicely as he could). The swell
Of beats of fainting, tired hearts increased
To frantic pace as fin’lly they beheld
Their palace-goal, with all its floors of fleece.
Its walls were thick, and sweetly flowed its well.
Then realized they that danger now was past
And, slowing their exhausted step, they strode
With regal beat the journey’s paces last.
Behind them, strong kind gates were slowly closed
And with them closed the days of Thry’s small vale.
A strange new life would this great change entail.
Canto I
Within a vale of green, upon a hill
Both small and rich, where chickens ranged about,
Where men and women lived, and had good will,
And where the sky did smile on all things out,
There lived a faml’yd boy of modest birth
Beguiled and read of books of fantasy,
Of gods and heroes from around the earth,
Of bonzelike mages working magically.
No stupid boy was he, although a brain
Of genius stature possesséd he not.
He tended crops, bewailed the pouring rain,
Sat down to read, and ran when Sun came out.
And none of them that lived in town did guess
That he would grow to save their happiness.
Canto II
In dripping caves where dankness’s looming breath
Unluminates an atmosphere of gloom
The Rebels gathered round to talk of death
To everyone who lived outside that room.
Like men seemed they, though gruesome and defiled.
Their horrid hides hid haunting organisms
With eyes that blazed with knowledge fell and wild
And noses smelling power through nose-spasms.
Of plots they spoke: of building living cranes
By which they’d dangle humans over knolls
Of poison-flower covered quicksand plains
And thus increase their deadly, hellish tolls.
No goal had they. Plots gave their lives no spice.
They hated their own King and wished malice.
Canto III
The centerpiece, the Rome of this fair land
Where peasants dwelt while Rebels peril brewed,
Was filled with all its ruler’s many hands
And eyes and mouths by which his land was ruled.
Benign was he, this ruler of the realm
Who dwelt in house of gold, not built by slaves
But by his many subtle powers alone.
Far-great was he, deserving of all praise.
And on this day, when whispers of “the plot”
Imbued the merry air with grayish tint,
He called his min’sters all, to test the blot
And see what could be done in spite of it.
And they all formed a council wondrous wise
Who’d meet the deadly plot with live surprise.
Upon his left sat his most trusted aide
Like man he seemed, although of wav’ring sort
With skin that did with armor plating trade
Its look, its notion, and warlike comport.
And then there sat a man who fused with fish
Seeméd to be, though one could not describe
Just where discerned there was to be this fish.
And in his hand he held some healthy dyes.
Across the row from King, there sat a man
Who seeméd stretched, like cords of telephone
Across the silent space of sky and land
And yet, he seeméd more than skin and bones.
And on the right hand of this glorious king,
There sat his Great Queen, loved above all things.
“Your worship,” said the head, the warlike one,
“You know The Rebels, who denied your rule
So many moons ago, ‘fore years did run,
Are once again fermenting malice cruel.”
“Prosperity” the fishlike healer said
“Although an august landlord, is not a king
Who plans for all his subjects well ahead.
From their excess is where this fester rings.”
“Indeed, I sat within their walls of cave
(Within, and not betwixt, the walls was I)
I heard them plot and rant and plot and rave
Do burn the town most pure in Vale of Thry.”
(These words were spoken by the third great lord
In order that dark secrets might be heard.)
“As wielder of your pow’r, I beg to speak”
The warlike one revealed, “If by your leave
I ventured to the vile cave, your strength
Which all do know is limitless, would cleave
The evil end from end.” With laughter glowed
The golden room like fertile unfarmed sheaves
Do fill a silo when the stomach’s whole
The laughter of the King! “We thank you, sir.
The realm is mine, and all who dwell within.
These problems serve as tests where they may turn
To better things unknown. And only sin
Makes most great change into honor and love
Therefore, help’s of themselves, and not above.”
Canto IV
Upon a day within the Vale of Thry,
The boy, in feyful mood that’s caused by books,
Did step out into lawn and ground and sky,
In search for something magical. He shook!
For every day of every year he’d moped
That he could not, by drinking potion rare
Or chanting words, move even his light cloak.
Yet when his hope was least, its goal was there!
Uncurling like a watchly-pendulum
As languid and as quick as op’ning bud
A deadly nightshade plant popped from the scrum
And grew to full-grown size like oozing blood.
And then he saw that every day for weeks
It had approached his house like this, like feet.
All awestruck by this obvious conjure
The child, hardly daring to approach
For fear of poison’ng powers long abjured
By everyone, on encroacher did encroach.
And then a rattle of unfitting wind
Did overturn the sensual leaf. Revealed
Upon the side that closer lives to sin:
Downside leaves of night with stars a-pearled.
His eyes did see this velvet blue but more
In that small fateful moment held the leaf.
A full-black shape, a groping hand of war
Did flow from it, OUT of the thrice-thin leaf.
Upon the foot of child the hand did start
Then, groping up, sans wrist, it felt his heart.
And then, a spot of wet was by them felt
Like cleansing rain, although from bush, not mist
And the hand fell, like newly curéd welt
And went away. And as it went, it hissed.
The bush then shook. The boy approached, of course
And, parting branches, saw a silken shoe
Perform a loop. He saw invis’ble force
Was flipping a strange man, just out of view.
What sort of magician would flip himself?
Or cause another to be thus so flipped?
And why did he not want it to be smelt
By anyone who through the grove did trip?
He parted branches, then he saw The Feet
Soft walking on the grass, yet floating o’er it!
Canto V
There weren’t just feet this time, but also legs
Attachéd to a thin, but full grown, man.
“O child, know ’twas I who cast the dreg
That rescued you,” he said “from phantom hand.”
“’Twas you who flipped as well?” the child asked.
The man’s thin face turned down in light disgust.
“Ah yes it was. ‘Twas not my power tasked
But rather that of King, a distant gust.
To me he has just given commission
To find and bring you to his distant school
Where you’ll be taught his legal cantations.”
“That’s great!” the child said. “Not cool?
I like it. You omit that cliched word
But soon you must depart your home and world.”
And so into the child’s house they stepped
To say goodbye unto his mother fair.
And premonition on the child crept
That he’d not see her there, or anywhere.
But then her smile, like glaze upon her face
That has its shape, yet shows what’s under through,
Betrayed her worry that they’d be erased
But also showed her joy at what he’d do.
“My son,” she spoke with tones of ancient grace
Crafted with labor, like a violin,
That makes a home a soaring, joyful place.
She spoke no more, but merely embraced him.
And lest it seem their parting was too fast
The messenger, he would not let it last.
For all at once, the roof did burst apart
And flaming dogs, like hailstones, blasted through
Assaulting the sad scene of broken hearts
But not the third one. He knew what to do.
Invoking mysteries on a nearby pot,
He then o’er turned it. Furious and fay,
The frothy flow extinguished the dogs hot
Then grabbéd he the child’s arm. Away!
They ran, while Zeus’s lightning bolts
Imploded walls. Construction in reverse
Collapsed the house as quick as earthquake jolts
Cause colonies of fleas to be dispersed.
The two, fleeing the chaos, did not rest
Until they reached the nearby green forest.
Canto VI
“My mother!” sobbed the boy from calmer wood,
“I fear you die!” but then the master said
“I would not fear for her, they’re after you!
The selects of the king are often dead.”
He built a fire from some nearby sticks
And threw upon it powder smelling sweet
“Such pantomimic deadlies will end quick
For they will flee this fire on fleet feet”
“Who are these they, and why do they want me?”
The boy inquired, worried but intrigued.
The master spoke: “They are an enemy
Who keeps you from the service of the king.
But now the time comes, now it is the age
For your first lesson as the King’s new page.
When light was newly made and stars were young,
And one fell Power ruled the world
As absolute as lightning’s whiteness flung
Upon the darkened sky, it then was heard
That thrown against this ordered, whirling state
Opposing all its per’lous perfect poise
One sole ambitious mind, both free and great,
Did seek to make orig’nal things and toys.
And so in search of equal majesty
Where monarchs none there were to take and tax
Those things that seeméd not to be their fee
This spirit shook the kingdom ruled. His back
Denied accustomed load, did straighten out
Never again to bend or bow or pout.
He poised himself in midst of lily-pond
And with his power, with dreamy, curling grace,
Did spike some lilies that grew quite close around
With hollow, brilliant jewels. And then effaced
The lilies were: like lotus they became.
Arrived then the allies of the first,
With sweet and sinuous wounding words they came
To dwell within the lotuses new-birthed.
All burn within that dry and freezing pond
Where nothing dwells, except alluring flowers
That fade away when touched, mere dreams bedrawn
From heartless passion, inf’nite-licensed powers,
And weightless stones of might. Then comes a knife
That cuts aside the beauty of false life.
This tale is not a thing on how to rhyme,
But works on our minds all subconsciously.
The jewels, my son, prefigure…” Then, a vine
Curled up into a cobra strikingly.
The tale’s decode was ended as the wood
Broke into tree-ish ranks of phalanxes
That aimed their spears upon the master good
Too many to be cowed by woodsman’s axes.
Tell, poet, of the running that ensued:
Bark flying like the bullets of the gun
Thry’s boy with his old master good
By speed alone did they the chaos shun.
There are some who lament a forest fire
But more than burning, THIS made the trees tire.
Canto VII
When night was come, and all the air was dark
And tightly wound around the tensile spring
Of danger and adventure, Lo! A spark!
And with a wooden brand concealed, burning
And lighting stones with eerie orange glow
They lightly ran along the quiet path
The humid air about them. All its flow
Embraced them like impending peril’s waft.
They ran all of the night until their bones
Did turn from structurals to drums a-beat
Of tired agony unfit for stones
For both their lives depended on their feet;
Then cast themselves upon savannah space;
Then rose they with the moon, again to pace.
Then when the boy from Thry could go no more
And tripping on the very air he fell
The two looked up (the man had bent to floor
To help him nicely as he could). The swell
Of beats of fainting, tired hearts increased
To frantic pace as fin’lly they beheld
Their palace-goal, with all its floors of fleece.
Its walls were thick, and sweetly flowed its well.
Then realized they that danger now was past
And, slowing their exhausted step, they strode
With regal beat the journey’s paces last.
Behind them, strong kind gates were slowly closed
And with them closed the days of Thry’s small vale.
A strange new life would this great change entail.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
My Personal Library
I recently went through the exercise (and I think you should too) of looking through my family's library and deciding which things I thought I would want to take with me, should I ever leave the library behind. I selected based on my opinion of them, whether I thought I would need my own personal copy (not just a library copy) and the likelihood of them being in another library (I didn't take Frankenstein for example). A book could either fit category 2 or categories 3+1 to be selected. Some Chesterton works only fit #1.
And then, when I was done, I arranged them. Not historically, and not alphabetically, but in quite another fashion. I arranged them in order from most Literary to Most Theoretical, which sort of corresponds to Most Dionisyian to Most Apollonian. Now that you know what Dionisian and Apollonian mean, (if you read the last post) you might want to see my list and my ordering. Please comment on my arrangement. Books that are both very Apollonian and very Dionisyan are generally placed close to the middle.
List of books from Most Literary to Most Theoretical
Category 1: Poetry
The Yale Complete works of Shakespeare
Beowulf
The Odes of Horace
Category 2: Prose
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, with notes by Joseph Pearce
Nancy Drew: the Thirteenth Pearl
The Hardy Boys: While the Clock Ticked
Intermediate Category 1: Historical Fiction
Come Rack! Come Rope! By Robert Hugh Benson (a story about Catholics in Elizabethian times)
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Spanish Lover by Spearman (the story of Don Juan of Austria)
Intermediate category 2: Literary Criticism
A Student’s guide to Classics
The Politically Incorrect guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Cantor
Shadowplay by Claire Asquith (Sort of like the Da Vinci Code for Shakespeare, except that it’s
both scholarly and rabidly pro-Catholic.)
Intermediate category 3: The Silmarillion
Category 3: History, Theology, and practical matters
St. Francis of Assisi by GK. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton on War and Peace (Nespaper articles written around WWI)
33 Questions about American History you’re not supposed to Ask by Thomas Woods
The Bible
The Everlasting man by GK Chesterton (The theoretical midpoint of the collection)
The American Boy’s handy book
The Student’s guide to the Core Curriculum by Mark Henrie
The Student’s guide to Liberal Learning by Father James V. Schall
The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Kreeft
Saint Thomas Aquinas by GK Chesterton
The Story of Thought by Brian Magee (history of philosophy)
The Catechism (book on Catholic doctrine)
Category 4: Art Theory
The Elements of Music by Ralph Turek
The Art of Counterpoint
Intermediate category 4: Aesthetics
Placing Aesthetics by Robert H Wood
Art And Scholasticism by Jaques Maritain
Category 5: Philosophy
Philosophy 101 by Peter Kreeft
Socrates meets Marx by Peter Kreeft
Socrates meets Descartes by Peter Kreeft
The Hellenistic Philosophers (selections from Stoics, Epicureans, etc)
Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (Selections from Summa, commentaries, etc)
Five Texts on the Mideval Problem of Universals (If you don’t understand the title, don’t read the book.)
And then, when I was done, I arranged them. Not historically, and not alphabetically, but in quite another fashion. I arranged them in order from most Literary to Most Theoretical, which sort of corresponds to Most Dionisyian to Most Apollonian. Now that you know what Dionisian and Apollonian mean, (if you read the last post) you might want to see my list and my ordering. Please comment on my arrangement. Books that are both very Apollonian and very Dionisyan are generally placed close to the middle.
List of books from Most Literary to Most Theoretical
Category 1: Poetry
The Yale Complete works of Shakespeare
Beowulf
The Odes of Horace
Category 2: Prose
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, with notes by Joseph Pearce
Nancy Drew: the Thirteenth Pearl
The Hardy Boys: While the Clock Ticked
Intermediate Category 1: Historical Fiction
Come Rack! Come Rope! By Robert Hugh Benson (a story about Catholics in Elizabethian times)
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Spanish Lover by Spearman (the story of Don Juan of Austria)
Intermediate category 2: Literary Criticism
A Student’s guide to Classics
The Politically Incorrect guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Cantor
Shadowplay by Claire Asquith (Sort of like the Da Vinci Code for Shakespeare, except that it’s
both scholarly and rabidly pro-Catholic.)
Intermediate category 3: The Silmarillion
Category 3: History, Theology, and practical matters
St. Francis of Assisi by GK. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton on War and Peace (Nespaper articles written around WWI)
33 Questions about American History you’re not supposed to Ask by Thomas Woods
The Bible
The Everlasting man by GK Chesterton (The theoretical midpoint of the collection)
The American Boy’s handy book
The Student’s guide to the Core Curriculum by Mark Henrie
The Student’s guide to Liberal Learning by Father James V. Schall
The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Kreeft
Saint Thomas Aquinas by GK Chesterton
The Story of Thought by Brian Magee (history of philosophy)
The Catechism (book on Catholic doctrine)
Category 4: Art Theory
The Elements of Music by Ralph Turek
The Art of Counterpoint
Intermediate category 4: Aesthetics
Placing Aesthetics by Robert H Wood
Art And Scholasticism by Jaques Maritain
Category 5: Philosophy
Philosophy 101 by Peter Kreeft
Socrates meets Marx by Peter Kreeft
Socrates meets Descartes by Peter Kreeft
The Hellenistic Philosophers (selections from Stoics, Epicureans, etc)
Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (Selections from Summa, commentaries, etc)
Five Texts on the Mideval Problem of Universals (If you don’t understand the title, don’t read the book.)
Monday, July 13, 2009
Writing Rules for Athiests
It's very preachy. But when you set the Argument from Causation and the "Third Large" argument into heroic couplets, preachiness is kind of hard to avoid. And the thing I'm preaching against ends up looking just as preachy as what I'm preaching for.
To every man who falsifies a thing,
There ought to come a time (the fact is rare
Except in realm of belief-mind) when their
False forgery is to the real compared.
And in this final test, they shake and sing
With jitters like a high-school musical
Full-hoping that their skill is hidden well.
This thing might save some folks from horrid hell,
Yet done it’s ever not, this wondrous thing.
Yet once there was an atheist who sat
Exam’ning bills and coins, to see their worth
See if they had a true and minted birth
Such a job was very detailed work.
And every day he looked at this and that
Examining the currency reprints
For counterfeits, subversives to the prince
And honest work of thinking labor whence
Would come the story we do here recap.
For by and by the money flew so thick
That goodly coin and counterfeit were one.
Of course he lost his job (a gainful one)
And by and by became immersed in fun
And turned to writing tales. No tales of God
Would he relate. An athiest was he,
Not a denier, who, though he thinks God Be,
Denies His Existence most spitefully.
Attempted he to take all trace of God
Out of his tales he penned in idle time
And forméd he a list of Godly rhyme
That would be scraped away like muddy grime
Away from his new tale so very Mod.
And here’s the list of his forbidden things:
Societies, economies, and arts
(For these rely on morals in the heart)
All happiness beyond ephermal bliss
(For if God’s not, no lasting pleasure is)
Profoundish thoughts and thinking on our lives
(For meaning ends is what such things imply)
All his penned men lived inside Ure’s torte
And all their lives were nasty, brutish, short.
Then, he did think about his written world,
Upon the theme of whether it implied
In its integral shape, a Divinized
Imaginary there necessetized.
Then haunted him a vague foreboding old
Implying that he missed a Godly blot
And that He’d sneak in (“Even though He’s not”)
Despite the author’s very bestest shot
In subtle form quite metaphysical.
Began he then upon a thoughtful stream
Considering what “materialist” means:
“There’s only matter, spirit’s gone” quoth he,
“It behoovs them to be or not to be.
Or are there things that are or aren’t, or are
There only things of which the things are made?
No, there are things. If not, than that would bar
The structures real from being even made.
So there are things that are, or they are not.
But whether are or not, the things remain
Like unicorns, or trees, or hybrids wrought
In future times by cunning human brains.
Hence it is true that what is must be caused
For its being is not necessity.
The men in tales by peopleness are caused.
Peopleness and being, certainly.
But then how shall we ever make an end?
For in this, Peopleness is like to men!
But can it be that what a something is
Itself provides itself with being power?
Then there would be no difference ‘twixt the “is”
And the true fact that it was tree, or flower.
And with no difference tween these needful two
Existence, meaning same in all that are,
Would be sole molder of the what and who
Rendering same all the things near and far.
Something must be in which the “what” and “is”
Are one and same, and yet it has been shown
That there cannot be more than one of these
For different things must differ. That is known.
But if there is but one Existent True
How differs it from God? This will not do!
And so the writer made a second list
Of things that with his doctrine would not fit.
Permitted not were things of actual types
(Like quarks and leptons, vitamins, and kites)
Which have objective diff’rence from things else.
And through this rule there were removed from tales
People, puppies, planets, plants,
Poverty, plutocrats, pandas, pebbles
and everything
As well as everything else that was different.
And thus the athiest ended up with no story.
Therefore all you who read: it is proclaimed
That when we speak of var’ous types of things
Implied by this, by necessity named,
Is God, the Source and Summit of All Things.
To every man who falsifies a thing,
There ought to come a time (the fact is rare
Except in realm of belief-mind) when their
False forgery is to the real compared.
And in this final test, they shake and sing
With jitters like a high-school musical
Full-hoping that their skill is hidden well.
This thing might save some folks from horrid hell,
Yet done it’s ever not, this wondrous thing.
Yet once there was an atheist who sat
Exam’ning bills and coins, to see their worth
See if they had a true and minted birth
Such a job was very detailed work.
And every day he looked at this and that
Examining the currency reprints
For counterfeits, subversives to the prince
And honest work of thinking labor whence
Would come the story we do here recap.
For by and by the money flew so thick
That goodly coin and counterfeit were one.
Of course he lost his job (a gainful one)
And by and by became immersed in fun
And turned to writing tales. No tales of God
Would he relate. An athiest was he,
Not a denier, who, though he thinks God Be,
Denies His Existence most spitefully.
Attempted he to take all trace of God
Out of his tales he penned in idle time
And forméd he a list of Godly rhyme
That would be scraped away like muddy grime
Away from his new tale so very Mod.
And here’s the list of his forbidden things:
Societies, economies, and arts
(For these rely on morals in the heart)
All happiness beyond ephermal bliss
(For if God’s not, no lasting pleasure is)
Profoundish thoughts and thinking on our lives
(For meaning ends is what such things imply)
All his penned men lived inside Ure’s torte
And all their lives were nasty, brutish, short.
Then, he did think about his written world,
Upon the theme of whether it implied
In its integral shape, a Divinized
Imaginary there necessetized.
Then haunted him a vague foreboding old
Implying that he missed a Godly blot
And that He’d sneak in (“Even though He’s not”)
Despite the author’s very bestest shot
In subtle form quite metaphysical.
Began he then upon a thoughtful stream
Considering what “materialist” means:
“There’s only matter, spirit’s gone” quoth he,
“It behoovs them to be or not to be.
Or are there things that are or aren’t, or are
There only things of which the things are made?
No, there are things. If not, than that would bar
The structures real from being even made.
So there are things that are, or they are not.
But whether are or not, the things remain
Like unicorns, or trees, or hybrids wrought
In future times by cunning human brains.
Hence it is true that what is must be caused
For its being is not necessity.
The men in tales by peopleness are caused.
Peopleness and being, certainly.
But then how shall we ever make an end?
For in this, Peopleness is like to men!
But can it be that what a something is
Itself provides itself with being power?
Then there would be no difference ‘twixt the “is”
And the true fact that it was tree, or flower.
And with no difference tween these needful two
Existence, meaning same in all that are,
Would be sole molder of the what and who
Rendering same all the things near and far.
Something must be in which the “what” and “is”
Are one and same, and yet it has been shown
That there cannot be more than one of these
For different things must differ. That is known.
But if there is but one Existent True
How differs it from God? This will not do!
And so the writer made a second list
Of things that with his doctrine would not fit.
Permitted not were things of actual types
(Like quarks and leptons, vitamins, and kites)
Which have objective diff’rence from things else.
And through this rule there were removed from tales
People, puppies, planets, plants,
Poverty, plutocrats, pandas, pebbles
and everything
As well as everything else that was different.
And thus the athiest ended up with no story.
Therefore all you who read: it is proclaimed
That when we speak of var’ous types of things
Implied by this, by necessity named,
Is God, the Source and Summit of All Things.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
To the Air
They look at you with gaze eternal, bright
The clouds and sun, the lords of sky and soil,
And fill you, as a basin, with their light
Till very Emptiness shines as a foil.
The bleached clouds make perfect fifthes ring
For sky is neither overwhelmed nor brash
And like the crystal curtain of the rain,
The light processes downward like a wash.
And from my glassy realm that colors all,
Resplendent visions do my eyes embrace
For here the languid tart airs of the fall
Join with the airs of joyful springtime’s grace!
Not air are you, O Neighbor, Firmament,
You are a pool of water heavensent!
The clouds and sun, the lords of sky and soil,
And fill you, as a basin, with their light
Till very Emptiness shines as a foil.
The bleached clouds make perfect fifthes ring
For sky is neither overwhelmed nor brash
And like the crystal curtain of the rain,
The light processes downward like a wash.
And from my glassy realm that colors all,
Resplendent visions do my eyes embrace
For here the languid tart airs of the fall
Join with the airs of joyful springtime’s grace!
Not air are you, O Neighbor, Firmament,
You are a pool of water heavensent!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Ideas, Anyone?
I am seriously considering writing a Shakespearean drama based on the plot of "The Three Little Pigs."
Any suggestions?
Any suggestions?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Clerihews
The priestiess, Diotima,
Would have disliked Grima
Beauty draws us to God
Grima to Grave-sod.
Skinny Grima Wormtongue
Never hurted no one.
He just sat and said things
His words did the hurting!
John Cage
Puts us in rage
For composing sonatas
That are so-not-a's.
Would have disliked Grima
Beauty draws us to God
Grima to Grave-sod.
Skinny Grima Wormtongue
Never hurted no one.
He just sat and said things
His words did the hurting!
John Cage
Puts us in rage
For composing sonatas
That are so-not-a's.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Chastity as a Having, not a Lacking
Conceive I had a crystal, clear and clean
Hev'n-hard and bright and inn'cent like a child
Along a simple sidewalk, all unknowing
Soul-secret secrets of her or'gin wild.
Take I this treasure, fragile like a maid,
Into the deepest ice-caves of my cloak
To guard it from the dirt and from the trade.
Yen dirties pure things, and by these they're broke.
How then shall I percieve those nearest me
Who know not of the treasure that I claw.
Which of these two the greater secret be
That when they're told, the hearer shakes with awe:
The one before them drops, in mud, jewelry,
Or that the same conceals them secretly?
Hev'n-hard and bright and inn'cent like a child
Along a simple sidewalk, all unknowing
Soul-secret secrets of her or'gin wild.
Take I this treasure, fragile like a maid,
Into the deepest ice-caves of my cloak
To guard it from the dirt and from the trade.
Yen dirties pure things, and by these they're broke.
How then shall I percieve those nearest me
Who know not of the treasure that I claw.
Which of these two the greater secret be
That when they're told, the hearer shakes with awe:
The one before them drops, in mud, jewelry,
Or that the same conceals them secretly?
Friday, March 27, 2009
LOTR poetry
> > > When he, the herald voice of Gil-Galad,
> > > Did come to Elendil’s folk bearing news
> > > Of war, of pestilence, of last alliance
> > > Twixt Elves and Men against the Eastern Fire
> > > And Eastern Ring, he set his eyes upon
> > > The creaking ships, the aged hands that held
> > > Age-transcendent elven-works and scrolls,
> > > The young hands with the psalm, the child, the sword.
> > > Amidst this grandeur next to futility,
> > > He saw, like one might see a raven in
> > > The forests of Eol, a wizened maid
> > > Who walked towards him with a look of fate.
> > > “Elendil be’eth occupied,” she said.
> > > “Orowen be’eth I. I hail from there,
> > > The House of Healing. There, the wounded die
> > > In peace, while we do tend their hurts” she said.
> > > “Elendil sai’th that my house is yours
> > > Throughout your stay within our humble town.
> > > For when the king is occupied, I oft
> > > Fulfill this humble task of great import.
> > > For some few guests. Now tell me, elven-man,
> > > You treat all speaking tongues with dignity.
> > > But does this task degrade your king or self:
> > > Namely: for maid to play the host to man?
> > > The herald laughed, a sound like carven urn
> > > Of silver plate. “A forward tongue you have,
> > > Dear Orowen, to ask this thought so strange so first
> > > Among our words, but I will answer it.
> > > Tis true, we ought to not think it a social slight
> > > The times we find ourselves with maids alone
> > > Except for three small points of nature’s plan.
> > > The first is that in times when Woman’s host,
> > > She’s careful not to show her wit and make
> > > Her manly guest regret his lack thereof;
> > > When man is host to man, the two can speak
> > > More freely knowing they ‘lmost equals are.
> > > The second’s that in times when Woman’s host,
> > > The things of which she knows are not the man’s,
> > > And thus insulted are his speech and wit.
> > > The third is that the man is king of home;
> > > For one king to be hosted by his peer
> > > Is honor, loyalty and due respect,
> > > But e’en the greatest consort’s not a king.”
> > > (As they spoke they walked a ways through town.)
> > > And Or’wen laughed, a cloudy sunset sound,
> > > “I know of many things be known to men,
> > > I hope I’m not like those thrice dull women.
> > >
> > > But see, we reach my house,” the widow said.
> > > A quiet house, with garden filled with vines
> > > Of creeping shade, green holly-bush of yew,
> > > And bitter herbs for medicine to make.
> > > An archen door with beams of ancient wood
> > > That stagnant stood like Morwen’s wild tomb
> > > Did ope upon the wrinkled walls within
> > > Encrusted with her baubles of the past
> > > Soft and tender mathoms fancied she:
> > > A tapestry of Nienor’s nakedness,
> > > A pukel-girl with knife and shield and fat
> > > War-grimaced face of strong impending doom,
> > > A china urn of nightshade-color’d ink
> > > Ornate within and out with sleepy runes.
> > > From thing to thing the herald’s eye did dart
> > > Confounded with the faintly war they made:
> > > Like orcs confounded with tree-light they waged
> > > Upon themselves and on his senses six
> > > A little bit like in the elder days.
> > > And as she spoke in quaint and silvery tones
> > > That quieted and blended with the fight
> > > While the herald listened, wholly stupefied,
> > > By her age-temperate verbage and décor,
> > > She brought a drink in piquant, steaming cup.
> > > “Small stirrup-cup” he said (a feeble joke).
> > > She laughed. “Why should I serve such cup to you,
> > > The cup that goes from maiden’s hand to king’s,
> > > When we can drink the equalizer, tea?”
> > > She laughed again, and with a trembling hand
> > > So wrinkle-thin like chestnuts from the Wold,
> > > She disposed of the brew within his mouth.
> > >
> > >As when the lights of Valinor were quenched
> > >By struggling 'gainst The Spiders beak and webs
> > >When life and light were sucked from trees, and pools
> > >Imprisoned in Ungol'ant's mucky hulk,
> > >So was the trick within the fatal brew:
> > >Surprise unlooked for, death unprophesied,
> > >Steamed forth from it; the ancient widowed maid,
> > >Became more violent than the youngest, freshest dark
> > >Demonic uruk-hai of fatal brood
> > >In her surprising scheme of drinked death,
> > >And the elf, the drinker unaware
> > >Felt his life grow dim, his vigour faint.
> > >His slender elven-love did stand right there:
> > >Was she an elf, or Entwife of the beech
> > >Convulsed into a blend of troll and orc?
> > >And in that tone of fear and anger mixed,
> > >He fell to ground, all cold and faint-away.
> >
> When with a block of ice a prankster strokes
> A sleeper's head, and rouses from his rest
> The one who sleeps so soft and peacefully,
> The sleeper feels his life-force drain away
> In slow and gradual headache agony
> (Like short-lived fizz escapes mead-jars unsealed);
> The herald rose, and with the sudden start,
> With which one wakes when hearing war-cry's gong,
> He felt a red-hot iron pinching him
> And with despair realized his limbs were bound.
> "How now!" She leered with coldest vict'ry cry
> "Do you expect to bear your message forth?
> You fool-mistook me for a common nurse,
> As innocent and simple as a wife.
> No wife am I, no widowed olden maid.
> A terrible swift Mordor-queen am I.
> With promises from HIM of future fame.
> If I kill you, no message shall be sent
> From Gil-Galad to southern king of men.
And when your lord hears of this deadly deed,
Attribuiting its guilt to Elendil,
There will be no new league, the elves and men
Are left to face the great Dark Lord alone!"
And as he writhed and cried aloud in pain
The messenger of Gil-Galad despaired
And in the mood that causes suicide
(a pleasure in which elves do not indulge)
His mind began to work its fantasies
Of deark and dearth and hallways full of fear
In which the very stars were always veiled
And life and light extinguished for all time
Except in sundry jails and torture-halls
In which resided fair Celebrian
But fair no more, a shell of former self,
Doomed to die unless some daring one...
UNLESS some daring one would come:
One whose task it is to hope
Against all hope and live against all death
With sword in hand and eyes light-blazing fresh
So that without the sword, the eyes will do!
And as she moved a knife towards his wrist,
A Harad-blade, convulsed with swirls of steel,
He said, with voice of calm and even tone,
"I pleasure in the thought of that small thing's
Invigorating, lightly tickling touch."
And as she laughed at his final jest,
Her cutting hand then gave a little slip,
There came from it the sound of sawing things
That bind the muscle to some harder thing
By name, the table on which he was bound.
And as she coiled in her joyless mirth
He stood and looked upon her shriveled form.
"Were you a man," he said "I'd bow before,
The duel that'll deal your deathly punishment.
But since your not, I'll grab your wrinkled arm,
And simply bind you in your own jail cell."
He left her there, and, telling Elendil,
Saved the lands and had her put in jail.
> > > Did come to Elendil’s folk bearing news
> > > Of war, of pestilence, of last alliance
> > > Twixt Elves and Men against the Eastern Fire
> > > And Eastern Ring, he set his eyes upon
> > > The creaking ships, the aged hands that held
> > > Age-transcendent elven-works and scrolls,
> > > The young hands with the psalm, the child, the sword.
> > > Amidst this grandeur next to futility,
> > > He saw, like one might see a raven in
> > > The forests of Eol, a wizened maid
> > > Who walked towards him with a look of fate.
> > > “Elendil be’eth occupied,” she said.
> > > “Orowen be’eth I. I hail from there,
> > > The House of Healing. There, the wounded die
> > > In peace, while we do tend their hurts” she said.
> > > “Elendil sai’th that my house is yours
> > > Throughout your stay within our humble town.
> > > For when the king is occupied, I oft
> > > Fulfill this humble task of great import.
> > > For some few guests. Now tell me, elven-man,
> > > You treat all speaking tongues with dignity.
> > > But does this task degrade your king or self:
> > > Namely: for maid to play the host to man?
> > > The herald laughed, a sound like carven urn
> > > Of silver plate. “A forward tongue you have,
> > > Dear Orowen, to ask this thought so strange so first
> > > Among our words, but I will answer it.
> > > Tis true, we ought to not think it a social slight
> > > The times we find ourselves with maids alone
> > > Except for three small points of nature’s plan.
> > > The first is that in times when Woman’s host,
> > > She’s careful not to show her wit and make
> > > Her manly guest regret his lack thereof;
> > > When man is host to man, the two can speak
> > > More freely knowing they ‘lmost equals are.
> > > The second’s that in times when Woman’s host,
> > > The things of which she knows are not the man’s,
> > > And thus insulted are his speech and wit.
> > > The third is that the man is king of home;
> > > For one king to be hosted by his peer
> > > Is honor, loyalty and due respect,
> > > But e’en the greatest consort’s not a king.”
> > > (As they spoke they walked a ways through town.)
> > > And Or’wen laughed, a cloudy sunset sound,
> > > “I know of many things be known to men,
> > > I hope I’m not like those thrice dull women.
> > >
> > > But see, we reach my house,” the widow said.
> > > A quiet house, with garden filled with vines
> > > Of creeping shade, green holly-bush of yew,
> > > And bitter herbs for medicine to make.
> > > An archen door with beams of ancient wood
> > > That stagnant stood like Morwen’s wild tomb
> > > Did ope upon the wrinkled walls within
> > > Encrusted with her baubles of the past
> > > Soft and tender mathoms fancied she:
> > > A tapestry of Nienor’s nakedness,
> > > A pukel-girl with knife and shield and fat
> > > War-grimaced face of strong impending doom,
> > > A china urn of nightshade-color’d ink
> > > Ornate within and out with sleepy runes.
> > > From thing to thing the herald’s eye did dart
> > > Confounded with the faintly war they made:
> > > Like orcs confounded with tree-light they waged
> > > Upon themselves and on his senses six
> > > A little bit like in the elder days.
> > > And as she spoke in quaint and silvery tones
> > > That quieted and blended with the fight
> > > While the herald listened, wholly stupefied,
> > > By her age-temperate verbage and décor,
> > > She brought a drink in piquant, steaming cup.
> > > “Small stirrup-cup” he said (a feeble joke).
> > > She laughed. “Why should I serve such cup to you,
> > > The cup that goes from maiden’s hand to king’s,
> > > When we can drink the equalizer, tea?”
> > > She laughed again, and with a trembling hand
> > > So wrinkle-thin like chestnuts from the Wold,
> > > She disposed of the brew within his mouth.
> > >
> > >As when the lights of Valinor were quenched
> > >By struggling 'gainst The Spiders beak and webs
> > >When life and light were sucked from trees, and pools
> > >Imprisoned in Ungol'ant's mucky hulk,
> > >So was the trick within the fatal brew:
> > >Surprise unlooked for, death unprophesied,
> > >Steamed forth from it; the ancient widowed maid,
> > >Became more violent than the youngest, freshest dark
> > >Demonic uruk-hai of fatal brood
> > >In her surprising scheme of drinked death,
> > >And the elf, the drinker unaware
> > >Felt his life grow dim, his vigour faint.
> > >His slender elven-love did stand right there:
> > >Was she an elf, or Entwife of the beech
> > >Convulsed into a blend of troll and orc?
> > >And in that tone of fear and anger mixed,
> > >He fell to ground, all cold and faint-away.
> >
> When with a block of ice a prankster strokes
> A sleeper's head, and rouses from his rest
> The one who sleeps so soft and peacefully,
> The sleeper feels his life-force drain away
> In slow and gradual headache agony
> (Like short-lived fizz escapes mead-jars unsealed);
> The herald rose, and with the sudden start,
> With which one wakes when hearing war-cry's gong,
> He felt a red-hot iron pinching him
> And with despair realized his limbs were bound.
> "How now!" She leered with coldest vict'ry cry
> "Do you expect to bear your message forth?
> You fool-mistook me for a common nurse,
> As innocent and simple as a wife.
> No wife am I, no widowed olden maid.
> A terrible swift Mordor-queen am I.
> With promises from HIM of future fame.
> If I kill you, no message shall be sent
> From Gil-Galad to southern king of men.
And when your lord hears of this deadly deed,
Attribuiting its guilt to Elendil,
There will be no new league, the elves and men
Are left to face the great Dark Lord alone!"
And as he writhed and cried aloud in pain
The messenger of Gil-Galad despaired
And in the mood that causes suicide
(a pleasure in which elves do not indulge)
His mind began to work its fantasies
Of deark and dearth and hallways full of fear
In which the very stars were always veiled
And life and light extinguished for all time
Except in sundry jails and torture-halls
In which resided fair Celebrian
But fair no more, a shell of former self,
Doomed to die unless some daring one...
UNLESS some daring one would come:
One whose task it is to hope
Against all hope and live against all death
With sword in hand and eyes light-blazing fresh
So that without the sword, the eyes will do!
And as she moved a knife towards his wrist,
A Harad-blade, convulsed with swirls of steel,
He said, with voice of calm and even tone,
"I pleasure in the thought of that small thing's
Invigorating, lightly tickling touch."
And as she laughed at his final jest,
Her cutting hand then gave a little slip,
There came from it the sound of sawing things
That bind the muscle to some harder thing
By name, the table on which he was bound.
And as she coiled in her joyless mirth
He stood and looked upon her shriveled form.
"Were you a man," he said "I'd bow before,
The duel that'll deal your deathly punishment.
But since your not, I'll grab your wrinkled arm,
And simply bind you in your own jail cell."
He left her there, and, telling Elendil,
Saved the lands and had her put in jail.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Announcement Announcement exclamation mark
For my next composition assignment, I am going to set the 'Four and a Half Romantic Sonnets' (published earlier on this blog) to music. As far as I know, no composer has ever set their own poetry to music before.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
That the Musician should be Poet
Despite the rationality and love of precision possessed by the Ancient Greeks,
there was one distinction they failed to make. Due to an accident in
terminology, both Homer and Pythagoras were said to have practiced the same
profession: the art of music. For music, as is clear from The Republic, went
far beyond the system of pitched sound that we identify with the art today; upon
reading The Republic, one might think that the poetry, not the notes, were
primary, while the music was secondary.
Ah, that the philosopher might be king, Plato moans (and then proceeds to train
them so that they are anything but philosophers; his system would make them into
inhumane illiberal eugenicists, but that is, unfortunately, beside the point).
He did not moan that the philosopher might be musician, for not only would he
consider this an inferior role for such a person, but it had already been done.
Pythagoras, philosopher, mathematician, and musician, had embodied such a
person, blessed with a vision of truth to enhance his artistic beauty.
And the result was quite good, to say the least. For Pythagoras discovered the
basics of what we now term “Tonality,” the system of rules embedded in the very
nature of music by which our principles of harmony function. Every note was
governed by a ratio, and these completely rational mathematical principles
produced a music that was perfect, proportionate, sonorous, truthful, and
beautiful. What has Homer produced to compare with it: an over-long, rambling
duet of poems about stupid humans and stupider gods using, of all things, the
imperfect medium of language? How does this compare to the perfection of
Pythagoras?
And what is the perfection of Pythagoras? Hammers in a prescribed size ratio
banging simultaneously on an anvil! Oh joy.
Perhaps a king would be better as a philosopher, but there is one thing that is
absolutely needful for a musician: he must be a poet, for poets are human. The
commonsense of humans assents to Pythagoras’ theory, even if it does not
understand it. Yet, simultaneously, it recognizes that art can, and (to save
itself from itself), must have other aims besides it. Why do we remember the
Iliad, but not a single music of Pythagoras? Because Homer was trying for mere
perfection (whether he achieved that is debatable), but was willing to risk the
chance of losing perfection for the sake of making something besides another
perfect fifth. Why do we remember the Preludes and Fugues of Bach, but not the
musical works of Pythagoras? Because mere perfection is a paltry and easy
target: just as one might become a sinless saint by dying directly after
Baptism. The later philosophers of music recognized this, and seeking
philosophical perfection but being unwilling to find it in the system of
tonality, denied it and true musical perfection along with it. The earlier
musical poets, by accepting Pythagoras but preserving their poetry, were able to
become both Pythagoreanly perfect and everything else as well.
there was one distinction they failed to make. Due to an accident in
terminology, both Homer and Pythagoras were said to have practiced the same
profession: the art of music. For music, as is clear from The Republic, went
far beyond the system of pitched sound that we identify with the art today; upon
reading The Republic, one might think that the poetry, not the notes, were
primary, while the music was secondary.
Ah, that the philosopher might be king, Plato moans (and then proceeds to train
them so that they are anything but philosophers; his system would make them into
inhumane illiberal eugenicists, but that is, unfortunately, beside the point).
He did not moan that the philosopher might be musician, for not only would he
consider this an inferior role for such a person, but it had already been done.
Pythagoras, philosopher, mathematician, and musician, had embodied such a
person, blessed with a vision of truth to enhance his artistic beauty.
And the result was quite good, to say the least. For Pythagoras discovered the
basics of what we now term “Tonality,” the system of rules embedded in the very
nature of music by which our principles of harmony function. Every note was
governed by a ratio, and these completely rational mathematical principles
produced a music that was perfect, proportionate, sonorous, truthful, and
beautiful. What has Homer produced to compare with it: an over-long, rambling
duet of poems about stupid humans and stupider gods using, of all things, the
imperfect medium of language? How does this compare to the perfection of
Pythagoras?
And what is the perfection of Pythagoras? Hammers in a prescribed size ratio
banging simultaneously on an anvil! Oh joy.
Perhaps a king would be better as a philosopher, but there is one thing that is
absolutely needful for a musician: he must be a poet, for poets are human. The
commonsense of humans assents to Pythagoras’ theory, even if it does not
understand it. Yet, simultaneously, it recognizes that art can, and (to save
itself from itself), must have other aims besides it. Why do we remember the
Iliad, but not a single music of Pythagoras? Because Homer was trying for mere
perfection (whether he achieved that is debatable), but was willing to risk the
chance of losing perfection for the sake of making something besides another
perfect fifth. Why do we remember the Preludes and Fugues of Bach, but not the
musical works of Pythagoras? Because mere perfection is a paltry and easy
target: just as one might become a sinless saint by dying directly after
Baptism. The later philosophers of music recognized this, and seeking
philosophical perfection but being unwilling to find it in the system of
tonality, denied it and true musical perfection along with it. The earlier
musical poets, by accepting Pythagoras but preserving their poetry, were able to
become both Pythagoreanly perfect and everything else as well.
Monday, February 23, 2009
February 20, 2009, Part 1
In the first hour, I crept to the cavern,
The crater beneath the treacherous tarp
Where Bacchic dancers declaim, sing, and tap
Waiting for the film to break, overturn
And thus upset the balance of the world.
Had there been gargoyles (there were then none)
With lustful devils lurking by each one
Casting spells of decay-smelling powder
That numbs the mind with depressing power
More death in the air that day would not have swirled.
And there I planted a papyrus perfume
That on March Ninth would hopefully bloom.
In the second hour, I limped from the place
With tears streaming down the back of my face
For from the ordeales, I wanted to flee,
My mind was filled with fair far scenery.
A tree-filled meadow, sunny and green
Dotted yet open with tannish buildings
Filled with books and words that are destined to last
Where some things are ugly, but nothing is dullest.
I desired that place like a potter, who spins
His clay on the wheel, but when does he win
The cup he is making? Is perfection achieved
When exhausted and spent he regretfully cease?
In the third hour, when tumbling tears
Of fear and regret made thundering storm
I tried to sit quietly, though my mind leered,
In front of my God, to recite the form
Of prayeres learned in long-forgotten years.
From this, only exhaustion there was born.
But when I fixed my gaze upon Him
Tried to wrench the round key of my Image-Machine
That lover’s pen, drunken anti-turpentine
Wild monster of swamps unheard, unseen,
Into Truth’s small square unspoiled key-hole
To “put” God in that ring of paltry rubied gold,
He grabbed me, threw me, twisted me (like a newspaper’s
Darling politicians tweaks truth over long years
To bend opinions into an eastern circle)
So my every drawn breath was a feverish oracle
In praise of Him.
The crater beneath the treacherous tarp
Where Bacchic dancers declaim, sing, and tap
Waiting for the film to break, overturn
And thus upset the balance of the world.
Had there been gargoyles (there were then none)
With lustful devils lurking by each one
Casting spells of decay-smelling powder
That numbs the mind with depressing power
More death in the air that day would not have swirled.
And there I planted a papyrus perfume
That on March Ninth would hopefully bloom.
In the second hour, I limped from the place
With tears streaming down the back of my face
For from the ordeales, I wanted to flee,
My mind was filled with fair far scenery.
A tree-filled meadow, sunny and green
Dotted yet open with tannish buildings
Filled with books and words that are destined to last
Where some things are ugly, but nothing is dullest.
I desired that place like a potter, who spins
His clay on the wheel, but when does he win
The cup he is making? Is perfection achieved
When exhausted and spent he regretfully cease?
In the third hour, when tumbling tears
Of fear and regret made thundering storm
I tried to sit quietly, though my mind leered,
In front of my God, to recite the form
Of prayeres learned in long-forgotten years.
From this, only exhaustion there was born.
But when I fixed my gaze upon Him
Tried to wrench the round key of my Image-Machine
That lover’s pen, drunken anti-turpentine
Wild monster of swamps unheard, unseen,
Into Truth’s small square unspoiled key-hole
To “put” God in that ring of paltry rubied gold,
He grabbed me, threw me, twisted me (like a newspaper’s
Darling politicians tweaks truth over long years
To bend opinions into an eastern circle)
So my every drawn breath was a feverish oracle
In praise of Him.
Monday, February 16, 2009
In Honor of St. Valentine
The Love Sonnet Aragorn Never Wrote
I ponder, Arwen, if I ought to speak
To honor you, with tones of lore and song
Or whether, to be honest, I should speak
With sharp but gutt’ral Ranger talk and tongue.
Are you, perchance, the lovely drops of pools
Residing in the blessed realm undead
Molded in Yavanna’s craftsman-schools
To be a symblemune, but soft and red?
Or are you, sweet, more like Athelas plant
That, when the ranger flees across the bleak
Rain-driven windy moors of adamant,
He sees you, finds an unknown pow’r: to speak!
For you the child of Elf and Dunedain are,
Both blossoms are you, Arwen Evenstar.
I ponder, Arwen, if I ought to speak
To honor you, with tones of lore and song
Or whether, to be honest, I should speak
With sharp but gutt’ral Ranger talk and tongue.
Are you, perchance, the lovely drops of pools
Residing in the blessed realm undead
Molded in Yavanna’s craftsman-schools
To be a symblemune, but soft and red?
Or are you, sweet, more like Athelas plant
That, when the ranger flees across the bleak
Rain-driven windy moors of adamant,
He sees you, finds an unknown pow’r: to speak!
For you the child of Elf and Dunedain are,
Both blossoms are you, Arwen Evenstar.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)