Tuesday, May 28, 2013

DIGNITY #1


"He is not less in little things -- 
for these little things are to be measured
not by their own greatness
(which does not exist),
but by the wisdom of their Designer."

Augustine of Hippo
The City of God, XI.22

Thursday, May 23, 2013


a crack at my own psalm

Oh LORD. Is this purgatory? Tell me. No... you don't owe me that. You are more distant from me than the most disloyal friend, yet you flow out of this pen; you emergeth from my lamp this dark night; you project my own vision. You are throughout, yet wrapping your justice in my skin. Not alone I am. My work flickers; yours sets ice ablaze. Your end is a sloth's dream. Were you ever curious? Did you ever self-deceive? You knew the measure of creation's dark – did you tell no one? or did your apostate sneer at your avow, and call you a guesser? For what? For what does the most proud one seeketh the limit of ignorance? Ah. I see: He wanted the void to prove his character – now he begs the blind to admire him. He flirts the lost as a drunk comedian. And what a set he's having, this very night with his yearling prey. How? I say. With a clock? A whistle? God, a kiss? LORD, my fellows run! They careen and bounce from a mangled wreck, and seek to spoil a virgin, or murder a dandelion. Already dead, loving it, they cast not a shadow but by their own hate. A moth itches them; it loveth light more than they. They don a yoke and chains under the sun; they name the sun chairman. Buffoons! They purchase filth with their stone words. The temple of the father's tongue is abandoned. One upon another draw bows of derision; to kill all truth as if you were not Truth. You catch their arrows, of conceit and poison, with two fingers, every which-way they shoot, and turn the missiles to plague. I smell it. I sweat it. I eat it. But I will call you my Father and rest on the vine of green and dew. May I breathe the eternity of a never-ending seventh chapter, a praise and a swashbuckling and a howling chorus of the north, in the deepest crack of the most brilliant dawn; a righteous adventure of vision, sojourn and friendship of excellent wild. The ghettos will be moss. The prisons will be mangroves. The towers of fear will be chimneys for termites. Nature will seize nature. Order will seize order. Law will seize law. Decay and vigor shall wed and be faithful. May you preside; Amen. The conquest of the lie shall complete itself in the thundering echoes of the Word, betraying the bounds of zero to the devils who sought, and led captives, to steal the worthless treasure within its pit. Glory will see no summit, and no creature will fear the drop. Trust will be the palm of your hand. Knowledge will be but love, and honour, and tales of the chivalrous of the dust road. Crags of the Old World shall sunder up fountains of wax under bonfires of pine; Creation shall dance free all around. And the New shall imagine and remember the birth of the deep as a grandfather tortoise. Rain shall find not a rebel on earth – war? a joke. Weapons shall be verse. Honesty will be its own preacher, and no child will despair of a home, nor a companion. Eyes will murder teeth in the theatre. The kingdom will laugh, be filled, blessed and rejoicing in sympathy, comforted in their exhilaration and tears of mirth. No beauty will be denied. The massive and the dwarfish, the vast and the dense, the king and the pawn and the games of brotherhood will have their place in the Book. Villains will be funny; heroes wily. Art shall assault with color or nothing. Fantasies shall have no fear in them and not one barrier. Ballads will be contemplative like unto silence in winter. Observance and pace on a walk will find balance. Bold will not offend; happy shall wander. Math shall be everything superficial. Surprise shall be history; anticipation shall be the science. Christ was the journeyman to my heart becoming; so was he ever: May He clue what he discovered, and command my mystery. Your grace be with me. Amen.

Giambattista Tiepolo [1696-1770]

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

"NO SPEEKEE ENGLISH?"

[dear] ___,


i appreciate your thoughtful and sincere attempt to advise me on my conduct with relations. however, i have already pointed out to you that i had already apologized to R___ for what happened 4 years ago over and over and over again. and i noticed a misinterpretation in your analysis of what i emailed to R___ initially the other day which i paraphrased to you. you said:

"He didn't want to think about you and he didn't know what to say to you when he did think about it."

that was not the acquittal of R___ that i offered him. rather, i said that he was having problems applying his native language, 1, and 2: he wasn't thinking about his OWN feelings much at all (and subtextually i implied that this went for his other relations).

this is just silliness to talk on and on about childish emotional motives or fears that mature adults should be able to get over. the real issue is (1) cultural narcotism, and (2) the modern degeneration/erosion of the English language. it's very simple. and no, i do not understand why people would flush the most sacred element of their ancestral heritage -- their native language -- down the toilet. and no, no, no: i see NO EXCUSE for it and it DISGUSTS me. when people are shamelessly ineloquent and proudly speak like dope-shooters ["chill out, man"] as a response to plain English with unmisinterpretable meaning, it fries my brain and baits me. [This author had responded to R___'s "chill" command with a string of obscenities -- which yet illuminated nevertheless(!).] well, oh well.

******? well, guess what? i still think less of her to this day for calling my mortal, soulful expression of merely  "longing for love" -- she called it "thinking too much" and "philosophy"! that was grossly offensive -- black. frankly, it was tantamount to blasphemy.

if people want my respect, then they ought to speak English. plain and simple. that is NOT a tall order, and whoever thinks it is is a sell-out and can go to hell and find some enlightenment there.

finally, R___ IS INDEED OFF THE HOOK. he has become both a worm and a monster. i want nothing to do with him. the man is dangerous and poisonous to one's basic self-respect.

NOW, AS FOR US: i repeat, i am very sorry about the pain i have caused you, ___. anytime you want to discuss your personal, residual demons concerning our past affairs, i am available.

take care. cincinnati prevails.

And if thy brother
be waxen poor,
and fallen in decay with thee;
then thou shalt relieve him:
yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner;
that he may live with thee.

Take thou no usury of him,
or increase:
but fear thy God;
that thy brother may live with thee.

Thou shalt not
give him thy money upon interest,
nor lend him
thy victuals for increase.

I am the LORD your God,
which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt,
to give you the land of Canaan,
and to be your God.

Leviticus 25:35-38
rug blueprint


"9/11/2099"


He that overcometh
shall inherit all things;
and I will be his God,
and he shall be my son.

But the fearful,
and unbelieving,
and the abominable,
and murderers,
and whoremongers,
and sorcerers,
and idolaters,
and all liars,
shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone:
which is the second death.

Revelation 21:7-8
"GHETTO PLANET"


detail 1
detail 2
detail 3
detail 4

Don't you know?
that it's true
that for me
and for you:
the world is a ghetto?

War, 1972




self-portrait, Chicago mansion, 2002


"Love Against the Machine" 


detail 1

detail 2

untitled


How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.

Shakespeare
King Richard II; V, v, 42

Drugs are bad for you.

OVERNIGHT
DELIVERY


"Vomit in the Sink; $5.00"


"And since I am deceived,
how am I deceived in believing that I am?
... "Neither am I deceived in knowing
that I know.
... "And when I love these two things,
I add to them a certain third thing, namely,
my love,
which is of equal moment."

Augustine of Hippo
The City of God, XI.26
"Opium and a Belt-Buckle"


I said of laughter,
It is mad:
and of mirth,
What doeth it?

Ecclesiastes 2:2

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

"Reptile Prostitute"


"Kidnaping the Virgin"

inmate, one hour prior to forced injection


"Is that what I think it is?"

"Roeror's Imperative"


I rise, I rise,
I, whose tread makes the earth to rumble.

I rise, I rise,
I, in whose thighs there is strength.

I rise, I rise,
I, who whips his back with his tail when in rage.

I rise, I rise,
I, in whose humped shoulder there is power.

I rise, I rise,
I, who shakes his mane when angered.

I rise, I rise,
I, whose horns are sharp and curved.

THE RISING OF THE BUFFALO MEN
unknown Osage Poet
EMAIL TO A MAN STILL HURT

dear ___,

i regret the contentiousness of our unintelligible discussion this evening concerning friendship. the one conclusion i drew from it is that you are still very hurt by the way i've treated you over the past decade. i don't blame you for that, and i am sorry i took out my frustrations about my problems out on you over that period of time. my only attempted excuse is that the problems facing the young today (including myself and certainly seniors of mine as well) simply cannot be put into eloquent words as a way of correcting them. instead, these frustrations are expressed as inflictions of pain and provocations to mutual anger. i have learned to go forth with my own life in this morbid and wretched social climate and physical environment of mine by rejecting the world and what perpetuates it wholesale, and retreating into my own self. perhaps that is what others are doing, however maybe unconsciously, and maybe for a long time. i myself did try a dance with this world for a long time, but it brought on misery and confusion; you cannot dance with a corpse, even though it may be possessed, animated, and thinking itself vigorous. at bottom, i really have no genuine hope for my society, and in some ways everyone i know, and i look forward to my earthly death.

my attempt to speak English with r___ was a regression back into hope. it was foolhardy, and the only closure to our non-relationship was to speak as if i cared. and i did care -- erroneously. caring about the sins of others has always been an error however noble, because their pride is so immeasurable. no matter how subtextually you suggest that they may not be as alive as they self-deceitfully tell themselves that they are, the savage devil inside of them rings the alarm to deafen them and blind them so that they may not perceive the truth. but that is their fault ultimately, and the devil's. i wish them well, but if they ever enter Paradise, i have no doubt i will no longer recognize them, because every way that i do recognize them in this life is distorted. sadly, perhaps this applies just as much to my own self-concept.

but if one denies me honesty, they do not help erase that vile obfuscation. please do not defend disingenuous politeness in my company, ___. it is not something to be defended -- it is analogous to telling a man that life thrives at zero Kelvin.

anyway, please speak for yourself in the future, and do not use my relations as proxies for your condemnations of my roughness. i'd much rather you get your anger about our own past off of your own chest, and you do not need to worry about hurting me if you do so. it is worth a reconciliatory discussion. we'll never have total closure, though, but those very ways and degrees in which we cannot we must both accept. i respect you and i love you, but i will follow no man into the dark of false values and no man should follow me in the like. that is the pain, because the world stinks. go on and say what you like; seriously and soberly.

neil

Monday, May 20, 2013

"in the shade"


And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil
hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be discovered.

John 3:19-20

"Hitler and the Beanstalk"


If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do?

Psalms 11:3
"purpose"






untitled



I'm lying on my back in a shallow grave. My arms are limp. I can't pull myself out of the ditch. Some guy standing over me asks if I need a hand. I think I remember him from high school. I'd seen him on Fountain Square last fall, too, but didn't say hi. I ask him what he wants in return. He says a good deed is its own reward. I don't believe him. “What do you want?”
“I want you to ask.”
“Fuck you.” I try again to free myself but still can't do it. Some kind of rodent is biting me; it itches. The sky is a blinding white. Now it's raining. It stings. I'm bleeding! No, it's the droplets... they don't stop. It's raining blood. Where is the guy from high school? I see a bulldozer; it's marked 'CYPRUS UNIVERSITY POLICE'. I can't breathe. Mud and gravel are falling on me. I want to take one last breath. I can't. “Will you help me?” Everything goes black.

 "a death too little"


then worms shall try
that long-preserved virginity

Andrew Marvel
"To His Coy Mistress"

THANATOPSIS


(excerpted from the title poem by
William Cullen Bryant)

"Bring the Mud"


And the kings of the earth,
and the great men,
and the rich men,
and the chief captains,
and the mighty men,
and every bondman,
and every free man,
hid themselves
in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
And said
to the mountains and rocks,
Fall on us.

Revelation 6:15,16

"Public Enemy, Public Darling"


... with kings and counsellors of the earth,
 which built desolate places for themselves; 
or with princes that had gold, who filled 
their houses with silver ...

Job 3:14-15
"Deep Vanity"


For there is no remembrance of the wise more than the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.

Ecclesiastes 2:16
"weapons of relatively
negligible destruction"


"Jane Whatshername"


Who is she that looketh
forth as the morning,
fair as the moon,
clear as the sun,
and terrible as an army with banners?

Canticles 6:10

Sunday, May 19, 2013

important plea to fans; please watch


You can email me at:

neiljw1983@gmail.com

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Crisis of the World


I am the Providence of everything.
I became like my own human children. 

I existed from the first.
I walked down every possible road. 

I am the wealth of the light.
I am the remembering of the fullness. 

I walked into the place of greatest darkness and on down.
I entered the central part of the prison. 

The foundations of chaos quaked.

(The Apocryphon of John)

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

11:21 pm EST

"A DARKNESS EMPTIED"

[S&B readers: The blog is in cruise-control. This post will be a series of quotations concerning a common theme, picked out and transcribed with purposeful intention by myself. An Afterword will follow the selection.]

The Mission Carmel,
June, 1960

I ponder how He died, despairing once.
I've heard the cry subside in vacant skies,
In clearings where no other was. Despair,
Which, in the vibrant wake of utterance,
Resides in desolate calm, preoccupies,
Though it is still. There is no solace there.

That calm inhabits wilderness, the sea,
And where no peace inheres but solitude;
Near death it most impends. It was for Him,
Absurd and public in His agony,
Inscrutably itself, nor misconstrued,
Nor metaphrased in art or pseudonym:

A vague contagion. Old, the mural fades...
Reminded of the fainter sea I scanned,
I recollect: How mute in constancy!
I could not leave the wall of palisades
Till cormorants returned my eyes on land.
The mural but implies eternity:

Not death, but silence after death is change.
Judean hills, the endless afternoon,
The farther groves and arbors seasonless
But fix the mind within the moment's range.
Where evening would obscure our sorrow soon,
There shines too much a sterile loveliness.

No imprecisions of commingled shade,
No shimmering deceptions of the sun,
Herein no semblances remark the cold
Unhindered swell of time, for time is stayed.
The Passion wanes into oblivion,
And time and timelessness confuse, I'm told.

These centuries removed from either fact
Have lain upon the critical expanse
And been of little consequence. The void
Is calendered in stone; the human act,
Outrageous, is in vain. The hours advance
Like flecks of foam borne landward and destroyed.

"Before an Old Painting of the Crucifixion"
N. Scott Momaday

"And in the last three seconds... five human beings have died, taking with them, each one of them, a world.

"We can no more believe the universe insane by our own measure of sanity and altogether indifferent to our urgencies than we can prove it sane.

"Why should we suppose that any end has been set to the growth and advancement of our race while the time garment still wraps about it and veils its eyes? For our history is just a story in space and time, and to its very last moment it must remain adventure."

The Outline of Man's Work and Wealth, XVI
H.G. Wells, 1936

"In vain... [they] attempt to compute definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from the mouth of the Truth... To point out how each of them supports his own opinion would take too long, and is not necessary."

The City of God, XVIII.53
Augustine of Hippo

"Time, by making man conscious of his mortality, has caused him either to seek for some assurance of security beyond its reach or induced in him a pessimistic resignation to its logic. Accordingly, we may reasonably assert that the various religions and philosophies of life have stemmed from the sense of insecurity that man's awareness of time has inspired... The origin of civilization may also be legitimately traced back to this innate consciousness of time.

"For Western thinkers there can be no more urgent task than that of resolving this [spiritual malaise], and, if possible, of producing an adequate philosophy of history, i.e., of the meaning of man's life in time, in both its individual and its communal extensions."

S.G.F. Brandon, 1966

"This is my self within the heart, smaller than a grain of rice, than a barley corn, than a mustard seed, than a grain of millet or than the kernel of a grain of millet. This is my self within the heart, greater than the earth, greater than the atmosphere, greater than the sky, greater than all these worlds... this is the self of mine within the heart; this is Brahman. Into him, I shall enter, on departing hence. Verily, he who believes this, will have no more doubts."

Chandogya Upanisad, III.14.54

"Surely I come quickly."

Revelation 22:20

AFTERWORD


Dear readers, the direction of my own research concerns Time, i.e., the concept thereof. An earlier glimmer of interest toward it was for an attempt to reconcile the ideas of Final Judgement and Karmatic Reincarnation. (If any of you would like to aid that still-continuing attempt, I'm "all ears".) It was an inconclusive attempt; however, it was pleasurable, interesting and fulfilling at the time of publishing. But I put it on the back-burner, maybe leaving it to fate. Well, now, fate has come: A 1950 essay by Thomas Merton turned me on to the theory of the Fall of Man or Original Sin and how it has a great deal indeed to do with the philosophical endpoint of the New Testament. Keeping in mind that much of this blog concerns theology -- theology that I fully intend to be consistent with the essential tenant of my own personal Cincinnatian catholicism; which is that the quality of humanity is in no way dependent upon biological distinction as we understand it, but rather that it is transmitted spiritually as a quality of personality to anything at all we may consider living -- I became very, very preoccupied with determining a metaphysical point of delineation for the occurrence of the Fall, with the understanding that it had to be a descent into falsehood or delusion and disharmony which could affect the entire catholic constituency of my theology.

Time entered the picture upon my having read Momaday, a Cherokee whose poem is transcribed above. I got the idea that it is the sense of Time, even before an abstract concept of Time, that all creation can possess and be besieged by in its longing for rest in God. Time-sense is nonintellectual. Concurrently, though, creation itself can perceive its feeling of being trapped in both memory and expectation, regret and hope, or also nostalgia and foreboding. Every perceiving being, even no matter how animistically we may idealize its inner peace and security, is just-this-close to a chasm apart from penetrating the present moment; the present instant; whatever you call it. Our soul finds itself in an obscenely inverted mind: we look at existence without "duration" as ice, or death, or hell -- some prison. But the truth is that it is the exterior of the present which most typically paints our spiritual locus, and it is the real prison. Accordingly, as a living thing myself, I have struggled historically to grapple with the dread of BOREDOM in Paradise; boredom! during the "course" of eternal friendship with God. What could be more insidious to the spirit?

This investigation into my sapling concept of a truly catholic Original Sin and Fall will continue. There are a few more intuitions smoking and bouncing in my fingers at the moment, but they are vague, and also very secure in their imminence to the overall problem and task. So, then, I leave it at that for now. I hope to not recapitulate too laboriously on previous posts as this problem's dissection goes on toward a hopeful solution; I will try to be colorful or succinct or clever for expediency out of realism concerning your dedication to S&B's progress (meaning, there is little of it!) -- but I would encourage you all to really find your footing in this blog and ascend as progressively as you can with me. Thank you.