The Vagabond, Entulloch's Soulful Prayer

With no fixed domain to bear, his closest ally was a singlar place in the universe nestled between a massive, grey-white wing and an engorged breastplate with musculature that was of iron, yet with an inviting comfort of down, and an inner, radiating warmth.

The blood of God coursed in that breast, the energy of the universe, the power of all things combined (and then some).

It was his only refuge, nestled there like a babe. It was his only place of comfort.

He feared the great being. He knew (for he had a taste still left in his mouth, even after millenia), he knew of that wrath, that God-forsaken wrath.

It was terrible. God, awe-filled. God, awful.

It was the eye of a raptor, the eye of a shark (yet the shark might show fear - but not the raptor). There was no passion in the wrathful eye; while he knew that love was there, it was love subdued; love, restrained. Necessary, oblique and disdained.

He knew that eye, that facet. He feared it, but more, he feared that in himself that could illicit such an eye as that. He feared his sins, his weakness, his proclivity to illicit such a seeming, heartless stare.

And so, he soared.

"Heavenly Father,
rest me now,
for I know the dangers
of Thy embrace.

It is not of You, Father, that I fear,
but of myself in that warm place.
For what I might do,
Heavenly soul, for what I might do.

To earn that mantle,
to become that one,
for which Saviour pleads,
'forgive him, for he know not'.
This is my tremble, this my fear.

I must learn to rest this quake,
to quash this tremble, Oh Adonai,
and become AS you, the rock,
and soar in Thy way with confidence
that I will not falter, like remnant on The Wind.

Give me necessary strenth,
my liege,
make me so wise,
that I might soar with You,
call you friend, and tremble not!"

It was his constant prayer, as he wandered the Universe of God's will, of God's plan, and of God's design.

It was his way to rush through the cold spaces of icey breath's bluster there within God's domain (for even on cold wind, He doth move). To wander the universe at once seeking that nestled wing and finding it there, in all the recesses of a black and distant space.

Even in that chasmic nothingness, this believer sees that wing, feels that warmth and understands that presence. For even in that nothingness, His wing and His wind that lifts it, prevail.

He is there for those, like Entolluch, who will open the breast-buried eye, rend the fabric of darkness, utter the soul-filling prayer




...and see.

nuther clock

Beebo's Time Out

Together they trekked through through the miles of mire on a trail that snaked through a terrain one could describe only as a jungle-canyon.

It wound through the hills like an intricate weave of an intricate string on an intricate bead; the path it followed would turn switch-back here and knot around in and on itself through endless permutation.

Would there be a destination for the lonely two?

He had not had Beebo long when they took this trek. He'd heard of this place before, how treacherous it could be. The serpent would be out twisting in these hills as well, as the weather had been fairly dry, and God knows they like to seek moisture and shade.

Didn't bother Beebo much. With nose to the ground, he plowed through that trail as if his nose were a blade; the plowshare digging and turning on an ivey path.

Levin was getting a little concerned. The wind was picking up and it made the upper canopy to sway and caused what seemed a whisper from above as tree on tree, limb on limb and leaf on leaf would brush and whoosh as a deified wind animated them like tall giants towering, protecting and tip on tip scratching at each other.

It was like a battle of light touch, but an incessant campaign.

At once a gust would rip through the canopy and space itself would open from above. The sky, so little seen in these woods, would wink at him.

Yeah, Levin was concerned. Concerned that that damned Beebo would continue snorting the ground until that beast that his nostril percieves becomes one with which they would both tangle, like the vine tangles in the tree, once encountered completely entwined in a fight in its domain.

At once, Beebo froze. His tail was so stiffened that hairs on the tip shook like the branches in the wind.

His back was as straight as the cleave in a fractured boulder, yet his resolve as strong as the force that split it.

Levin felt a chill in his spine.

Today...today they would encounter the beast.

Levin's Dog, part one

Scrawngy.

Matted, tufted...twisted-into-knot on twisted-knot; hair that grew like wire, barbed - heavy in places and sparse in others.

His step was like a coiled...or rather, uncoiled roll of barbed wire.

When he was a kid, he'd work on his daddy's farm helpin' to mend the fences (Matthew Levin, Beebo's Master, that is). Thick, heavy leather gloves, as thick as old Beebo's black and tarry hide - they were the only protection.

That wire, when a calf would knock it undone, pulling it from the fragile and rusted staples in weathered old wood, damn would that stuff uncoil fast.

God help ya if ya was workin' it when it unfurled.

Damn. Cut into ya like briar, shore nuff.

Old Beebo was the same. Son-of-a-bitch would jump till his last day, just like there was dynamite in his feet.

Good, old Beebo.

What a dog he was, in his youth.

Hell, he's lost half his teeth, and he's still better'n any Democrat I know. Course, none of them have any anyway. Crawl on their bellies like a worthless lap dog and lick your ass to death. Varmints gotta love that.

Old Beebo were'nt no lap dog...no sir. Probably wasn't no Democrat neither, if'n he could vote.

Damn good old dog, Beebo. Damned good old dog.

Be ashamed to put him down. Damned shame.

wow clock

Knoxville

http://www.worldtimeserver.com/clocks/wtsclock001.aspx

Your candidate, squire

ode to the pastoral cityscape

the diesel fumes confront me from the riotous city's splendor
of traffic lights reflected off the shattered pools of water
on concrete covered earth that conceals all soft or tender
each street a tomb of meadows, monument to ancient slaughter

the horns a-blare and distant sirens echo from the walls
that rise around me like the fists of man's complete dominion
their imperfections hidden by the night ere morning falls
and men arise to share their lot with rat and roach and pigeon

Refrain, oh ye Profane

Ode to the Profane,
may ye live in peace.
Through Cerberus disdain
he chases you, your pain
and no refuge found in any crease.






Ode to the Profane,
may your days be always numbered.
Like that killing brother Cain,
for you, there, a trouble that is lain.
In whithered hour, your dream-color, only umbre.

Ode to that Profane,
life for you to only agonize.
In your life, only pain,
the devil in your eye, pure disdain,
and all those about you only patronize.

Ode to you, Profane.
Tis a life not worth living,
birth for you ney again,
(for that first, from womb, was never sane)
and now your life's blood is only for the giving.

Ode to you, Profane,
your books you may write,
and the necks, they may crane,
but on the minds only strain,
and yours is a legacy of the trite.

Ode to you, Profane.
While great bastions from ye are pummelled.
But in the melee of that great train,
your thoughts, they sum in a certain refrain
of the fact of a life that is never humbled.

Ode to you, Opie Taylor
for yours is the heart of a Louveteau.
While your idol is Kaaba,
The cowan's heart in you, Jablichas
pitied soul pours forth like blood from wounded doe.

Quoth the Wraith: I have seen destruction, and I am him

Sweat saves blood.
Erwin Rommel


But, can sweat stop a bullet?
-Visum


All war is deception.
Sun Tzu


So is global warming, but just look at the hullabaloo it has caused. More than one war has been fought by the deceived.
-Visum


The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Sun Tzu


Sounds like the collectivist motto that the supreme art of working is to create something without doing anything; of course, it has gone far to create a bunch of porky couch potatoes; you might call them the "fog of boar".
-Visum


Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
Plato


I see dead people...and they are fighting over potato chips and who owns the remote control for the idiot box.
-Visum


A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.
Herbert V. Prochnow


Yes, but can a microbe on a meteorite assist that nation in cultivating civility in the rest of the world? I'd say that like the socialist, all the microbe can do is promulgate and infect and ultimately lead to the downfall of civility.
-Visum


I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.
Ulysses S. Grant


A piece of Georgia, a piece of Bamie, and a piece of Tennessee.
-Visum


What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
Robert E. Lee


Alternately we can take a passive approach...just sit on our haunches and let the barbarians (and other assorted enemas) burn a path from New York to San Diego, rather than simply a paltry 50-mile swath through the Southland. Cruel, yes. Necessary? Depends entirely on how much you actually care about things like joy, happiness, your personal God and whether you consider Columbia, Atlanta and Savannah "fair faces" in this "beautiful world".
-Visum


To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
George Orwell


I wonder if he saw what was wrought on Columbia by the blue-blood, socialist hoard?
-Visum


War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.
Albert Pike


And to the victor belongs the catastrophes that are the spoils of the achieved "peace".
-Visum


Men do not fail; they give up trying.
Elihu Root


And worse, they fail to try again...danged ol' under-achieving socialists.
-Visum


We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.
Jeane Kirkpatrick


And when what they want is not tangible, such as the soul of the infidel...what then, tit for tat? Soul, for eternal soul? Eye, for spite-filled eye? War exists as long as the devil believes one singular soul is left that can be turned from righteousness. And what is righteousness? That eternal attempt to gain a peace that only exists in total on the "other side"; a place where evil has no home. It is an attempt won only by fighting vehemently to bring some semblance of that peace to a world seemingly run by a soul-consuming devil and existing here just shy and short of heaven's bright shore.

There are a few brave souls left who will fight like hell for an impure and clouded reflection of heaven's peace right here on earth. To they alone belong the victory that is heaven's ever-lasting peace."
-Visum


We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill


Uh, best of luck to all you socialists out there. Happy hunting!
-Visum

Thoughts about Language...

... or why there are no good Soviet poets.

Ever since college I have believed that the only two things the world does well anymore are lust and despair. All "art" as such which is any good seems to be based on either or both of those strong emotions. The many nostalgic poems, like the ones I try to write, are a part of that despair.

But look at Gerard Manley Hopkins

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

And Robert Burns

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine,Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,Tyrannic man's dominion;
The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry,The flutt'ring, gory pinion!

And W. B. Yeats

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

Here an englishman, an irishman, and a scottsman all wrote soft pastoral poetry. Was it because they knew and understood country scenery better? Surely not.

Why did people give up? Was it too easy or too hard? I believe actually it is because the language itself has become less poetical. I believe it is because of the manipulation of the language by the elite, and by the media Furthermore it says something about the way we approach things. Instead of aiming for the universal, we aim for the "lowest common denominator" or for a level of abstraction only attainable by the professional. Thus art either becomes a speciality of the elite or merely fast food for the unwasahed masses.

The Dry Well

Someplace under a dead red bud tree, there is an old well and a rope.


When I was a kid, I'd pull back one of the wood planks and look into the blackness.

For a quarter (sometimes a dollar) from my brother I'd stand on the blanks, bend my knees, push off. The old boards would bend and spring me up. They'd fall back down clattering on the stones. I'd land in the dry dust.


Belly in the dirt, I'd look down into that darkness.


Around noon, if you were lucky you could see fifteen feet and maybe more. My friend said twice a year you could see all the way to the bottom and catch a view of yourself down there. But I never did once, not in fifteen years before we moved away. All I saw was the dirt walls. All I heard was an occasional drip of water, or a plunk from a rock or from some spit. Not even that from a handful of dirt.


If my momma caught me over there by the well she'd have my daddy whip me, but there's a thing for dangerous places we boys had. I wanted to go down to the bottom. I got the rope ready to go. One end was tied around the old tree and another around my waist. I was going down, but I got scared. Would I be able to pull myself back up? I was scrawny and not very strong. Damn that scrawny kid.


I lied, that well ain't there anymore except in my mind. Someone filled it in and someone else put a lot of houses where that well was, and someone cut down that tree. The people who live there now don't know anything about that well. They don't know anything at all. Nothing at all.

From The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter IV

We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!
We come, we come with horn and drum: ta-runa, runa, runa rom!
To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone;
Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door;
For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars-we go to war!
To Isengard with doom we come!
With doom we come, with doom we come!

-J.R.R. Tolkien

A Poem for a Poet

Two faced god of night and day,
Hot breath, foul corpse, mocking fear,
Corruption, skull, grinning from ear to ear.
Barren desert land beyond a boatless quay.

You I know, I know so well, I know,
I know, I name a thousand ways,
And each name its own annointed tome,
A great new novel or a novel poem,
But each is all the same

The same great devil within each thought,
The same wraiths in each inkblot,
The same fingers split between the rocks,
The same last gasp beneath the waves
As I am dragged into that liquid grave.

This I know, I know I know, I know.
It's all I hear, it's all I see,
The steady beat of tuneless drums,
The drums that call, I come, I come!
Fly far away from me.

YIKES...MEEEEE?

You scored as J.S. Bach, You are dedicated and intelligent. People who know you don't understand how you get it all done, and you never give up on life. J.S. Bach 100% Haydn 100% Brahms 80% Hector Berlioz 65% Liszt 65% Wagner 60% Schumann 60% Handel 60% Beethoven 60% Tchaikovsky 45% Chopin 45% Schubert 35% Mozart 35% Which classical composer are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Quote

"Oh Narcissus! When will you tire of that paled reflection in that shallow pool so filled of thy mirrored self ? How unfortunate for this naked ape, to be so self-aware, and now aware of nothing else."

Humor

Parched.

It was all about.

The water even...dry and dusty. Not really putrid. If you let it sit in the bottle, sand would fall to the bottom of the cut up plastic shell you use to scoop it up from the earth, and then, from the heat of the sun, it was so warm against the back of your throat you felt as if you'd need to chase it with some of the bottom sand, just to cool it off (your throat, that is).

Yeah, it was hot. And dusty.

The ground was cracked and craggled like an old woman's face, barren from years of depravation, and it too full of dust; gaping wounds in the mantle would remind you of the old gal's screams and laments as she cursed another day with that puckered, toothless grin.

Only the ground didn't smile. It just sat there, agape. Like a dead man's mouth.

Even the flies crawled through the cuts, looking for that drop of center-seeking dew.

Nodda.

"The rains will come again one day, old boy," the old man on the front porch said.

He leaned back on his wooden chair 'gainst the wooden shuts on the wood-framed store and spat his 'backer cross the dusty lot.

He took a swig off his RC.

"They always come back. Earth deems it that way. Even God wouldn't deprive a dying man a drink, no matter his fate after the fact."

Leyton just huffed.

Kicked the ground with his boot just to watch the tiny dust devils leap from the sandstone lot.

Then he huffed again.

"Reckon so, you ol' coot. But I'll tell ya...Ain't n'er seen it dis dry."

"Dry as an old man's dreams. Rain's ey'll come though. 'Ey always do," the old man snickered.

"Reckon I'll get back to the farm, old man. Cow's ey'll need feedin'," countered Leyton, exasperated and labored.

"You do 'at boy. Feed 'em good. See you round tomorrow," old man bit another chomp of his moon pie and spat dry graham cracker dust mixed with Penn's Thins tobacco juice across the decayed wooden porch right as he spoke.

"Feed 'em good boy. See 'at t'ey git plenty water too," he laughed long and hard.

"Yeah old man. Check! See you tomorrow you old coot. Don't choke on 'at moon pie uh yorn," and with that, Leyton began the long walk down the dusty road that laid out before him like all the rest of his born days stretching to that event horizon where for brief instant, those alley lines, left and right will meet before parting again to infinity.

And on his walk to that long, dusty home, it began...to rain!

Life sustaining rain.

And, just like the road...

on it goes.

The City of Man

The world it slogs and trudges on
the same dull battle every dawn
the veil unrolling cross the land
unrolling doubt in every man

No sooner does that sun arise
than man awakes and purpose flies
betrayed by light and roiling heat
betrayed to flesh and rotting meat

Though stalwart hearts arise at dawn
by noon all goodness long has gone
scorched by the world's relentless might
but empty husks before the night

So sleep does come and peace arrives
whatever grace a man derives
will empty soul and heart restore
to wake and lose the fight once more

PM 13: In the Canteen

The disgorging of my stomach contents had left me feeling light headed and suddenly empty and ravenous. I was weak and wanted to lie down, but I seemed to have no choice but to follow Diot into the room.

It was a large room well-lit unlike the morgue with several long tables. And it was almost completely empty save for a few lean looking men and women sitting alone or in small groups. Two men were having an argument at one of the tables, otherwise the room was quiet. “This is the Canteen. Pamille should be showing you around. Not me. You won’t need to know anything about it really because you won’t be stationed here but I’ll show you where you can get some food. Then I’ll leave you.”

She led me to a long serving counter which we walked along as rapidly as was possible under the burden of our own weights. At the end of the counter she pulled out a small plastic tub from a cabinet and handed it to me. “Here. You open the lid up at the corner and drink it. That’s exactly one long shift worth there and you won’t be hungry. In fact you won’t want anymore for a while. I’d suggest you drink it slowly over there at the tables.”

“Where do I get something to drink?”

“You need to drink after each job. You’ll be provided drinks by your supervisor. I’m only giving you this because you haven’t eaten anything.” She gestured toward a place and as I turned to sit down she left the canteen. I sat down and began to eat. Hungry as I was I couldn’t control myself. It was grainy and sweet like the pulp of some fruit, thick but not at all sticky and it flowed easily. It was almost without color. I drained the container and regretted it immediately as it left a sharp pain in my stomach. There was another sudden wrenching of the room and I felt myself almost turn weightless. Again I was overcome with nausea but I managed to hold the food down. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach.

And then I sat there wondering alternately what caused that horrible lurch, whether Diot or Pamille would return to claim me, whether I was dreaming or dead and in hell and when and where I could lie down and sleep. The people in the room would get up and leave, others took their places, going up to the counter sitting at a lonely place at a table and slowly consuming the contents of the containers. When they talked, they talked quietly, in short staccato sentences primarily consisting in yes’s and no’s and about things I couldn’t begin to understand. They mostly were dressed in gray uniforms like mine most often, occasionally powder blue or peach but they were all thin and miserable looking. I must have been the most miserable of all.

The only real point of interest in the room was the two men arguing. They were dressed in black as Bud had been dressed and equally animated in contrast to all the others. The taller of the two was bald and skinnier than any of the others. His features were skull like especially as his lips were always curled back showing his teeth to the pale pink gums. As a consequence he looked like he was frozen between agony and hysterical laughing. He would lick his teeth with his tongue in a way that struck me as a kin to blinking. The other man who did more of the talking was smaller and more bent. Not fat but definitely more fleshy. He had thick lips which appeared to brutish to form words and eyebrows as bushy as caterpillars and a face with coarse skin and deep wrinkles. He was in a word ugly.

As others came and went these two remained in their animated conversation. I tried to concentrate and listen but try as I might my mind simply could not cling to their words and instead I kept returning to my own predicament. I do remember one small snippet however: “It’s no good!” the skull faced man said “You can’t turn them into anything more than passive participants unless you pump them full of chemicals. And then they’re psychotic and unmanageable. Yes, we can reason with them but they are completely pragmatic. All they want is recognition and power and they get it more readily from PULVA than from us.”

“Yes you see they do want something”, the brute said, “they think they deserve it. They think the way to get it is to follow the rules. But we can give it to them…”

“They don’t like to break rules. They don’t like to cut line. They get angry when you try to make them. Even now when amnesty comes along we’d lose half of them if we didn’t shoot them ourselves.”

And then it hit him...

"But of course," he thought "organization!".

And with that, he began to become that ordinal creature that had interminably existed at his core. He shuffled a deck of cards, and in the dishovel, there it was. Plain as the nose on your face. It was order.

Everything he touched was again as it should be.

The deck, once a jumbled mess of suit and color, of rank out of rank and number following incongruent number now had become perfection and grace, and all with one, solitary shuffle.

"Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts & Spades - low to high, ace on high so that the flush so royal would show every time," it was just as he liked it...just as he needed it to be.

The weeks went by and shirts were ordered in his closet. The plaids, they were with plaids...solids with solids...all of them ranked in order of his colors from favorite to least.

Ties, they were ordered by texture and material, again by pattern and then by color.

His days would be numbered just as his suits, from low to high. It would always be a low day when he got down to his leasts, so it was incentive to do his laundry often to keep his moods good.

"Looking good, Darby!"

"Lookin' sharp there, Darb."

Every day the same exclamations, every day the same expectations. The comely lass, with the comely look.

"Looking good!"

"Felling good, thank you very much," came Darby's usual reply.

His humidor was ordered in accordance to the pungency of the smoke, and then again by color (from light to dark).

Brandies and wines were done likewise, and the spirits, by frequency of use (they really required no firm order, as from this consumption sprang dissaray, and he really did not care which of those he chose as he liked them all equally, and that feeling of power he'd get by pricking one card out of place; by twisting a tab collar slightly askew, or tying the tie in a half-windor).

One day ol' Darby would be buried, and it was said that somehow, there would be order there as well. Perhaps each decaying strand of DNA would be ordered in accord with his favorite building blocks, from the adenine to the thymine, guanine to cytosine and back again in endless combinations that together comprised his favorite order of what Darby McCray believed to be that perfect array of that man of perfectly arrayed perfection.

Order.

So imperfect.

Ain't it grand?