A Fine Thing

It's a fine thing to become a worse poet and be given a new soul. Some have chosen to pass over acclaim for better things.

Weeds and Thorn

Take your staff in your hands tightly,

And on my word, strike it rightly.

On my word, and don't stray an inch,

Or we'll take this rope and with a cinch,

Arrest your freedom and all your hope,

We'll steal it, like thieves, with this rope.

On three, 1, 2- Now you've done it,

What'd I say? I warned you. Now get

You're hands behind you and your head turned low,

You sneered our help? We'll make your back glow,

With our lash's poisonous kiss,

Whispering in your ears a dreadful hiss.

3 days in this pit, now how do you feel?

Tell you what- listen, we'll cut you a deal.

Our orders are a burden we've carried by our backs,

Down to you, and we'd like to unload our packs.

So listen and obey, and I promise, we swear

We'll loosen our grip, give you some air.

Don't you know, we have masters too?

Something above us, we're not different than you.

A curse lingers on us all thick in our lungs,

We're all in a fight, ever since we were young,

To get to the top? For some, to do our job

To do what we feel. We must do our job.

So, enough child! Strap this yoke on and plow.

Heels in the earth, food by the sweat of your brow.

That's the way, good child. Fate carries the willing,

Drags the reluctant feet. That will fetch a nice shilling,

Good work. Persist and you soon may fasten your own

Fine yolks to others working the fields that you've sown.

Balance in your skull what I'm telling you,

We're all cursed, we have masters too.

Beacons of Science

Take up your pen, brother

And with your quill sting!

Don't mind the slow and rhythmic

Breath of the great Beast,

who's heart you've pierced

With the venomous ink

Dripped from your feathered fang!

You and I, brother, are a family

Of this great light, can't you see it?

You can't see it? It's the bright,

Shining truth we carry to

The pagans; darkened masses.

We are the trustees, stewards of

The gods: Mathematics and sensuality!

You and I, discovered in like fashion,

This great power! Like demigods of old,

We are made half-holy by this knowledge,

Precious to man. With lances

Of truths and breastplates of our

Self-righteousness, we impale!

Skewer the demagogues who sought gain.

We grasped this power like coal-miners,

Carved from dark earth, sooty

By our efforts. And like men,

Hold it in glory of our strength,

Take up your pen brother!

And wield that quill still!

Don't mind the quieter breath.

Like Achilles, in my rage

I rail against the falsehoods of men!

By my anger brought lowly

And writhing in the dust like

The ones I've slain, my soul quivers.

Sunk to the undergloom- one last truth:

Woe to the one whence judgement comes!

Unfinished

Sweet roses and all that wheat

In the baker's pantry all white with flour

Could make you snow blind

We got lost between the trees past that

far, distant hedge,

just beyond the edge,

of our home's garden.

The roses are sweeter here,

And our belly's less full.

It's the cost of adventure you said.

And so is the cold earth for our bed,

mossy and wet- an explorer's bed.

I can't get a piece of that delicious

Fruit on the savory berry bushes grabbing

The ground and our socks with their prickly fingers.

I've tried twice now and the pain still lingers

on my bleeding, stuck fingers.

I miss the orange butter sauces

Of our home's modest larders,

Couldn't we go visit the baker now?

Watch him tie the dough into bows,

then toss it into the brick oven which glows

Red and coal-blackened orange?

Courage, courage little child

Remember your heart's more wild

Than the biggest beast that's loping here

Your face braver than their fiercest sneer.

Still I wish, bigger brother

We could go home to mother

And father and delightfully imagine

In safety: the dragon and its dark, dark cavern.

Orange butter sauce dipped in Ice-creamy

Snow melts which have the effect of

going snow blind in all the white light.

I haven't got a piece of it, that delicious

fruit. The savory berry bushes grabbing

the ground and our socks with their prickly fingers.

Thorns in the Cushion

Embarrassingly, I never know whether to fight something or let it lie. The question to accept rebuke (most especially a personal indictment) or strive beyond it is a difficult one. To look at one's capacity and decide whether to attempt expansion or to sagely avoid destruction is in no-wise a mathematic determination. I think it has mostly to do with pride or alternately "cajones."

Is it possible, by belief, to step over deficiencies? American Idol suggests otherwise. But perhaps they have reached a sublimer artistry than the crude masses can comprehend. Perhaps all that really matters is your confidence. If you are lucky, your expression lends itself to more, or just smarter, people.

But it's more complicated than that. I think. Dog gone you Thackeray. Dog gone you.

A Couple Thoughts

I picked up and skimmed a copy of the Hobbit the other day. Functioning on the edge of my brain like some marginal residue leftover from a pleasant dream, was an emotion triggered by this book- and consequently Beowulf, old English as a whole, Edmund Spenser, C.S. Lewis, Japanese lanterns, G.K. Chesterton, and Arthurian legend.

Those are the obvious thoughts. There are more operating beneath and around them like a wallpaper, but are harder to identify. Perhaps there is an avenue in late-romanticism, post-impressionism, its fascination with the Far East and the Chivalric similarities to those movements. But grounded in something more concrete- more terra firma.

I saw a blurb the other day. A critic was reviewing a book that discussed ethics with the suggestion that, like money, ethic/morality is a castle we build in the sky and live in. It is fictitious and illusory but because of our common agreement, it becomes a meter that we can all build with.

That idea is interesting, but terrifically flawed, and the critic is the one who makes the observation. And it's probably the observation that undermines all deconstructionists, which is what the book's author ultimately was. A dollar is an idea and nothing more. However, what it represents is not. And that's really the crux of everything. A dollar 100 years ago might have represented a day's hard work for an unskilled laborer. Today it represents about 10 minutes of work. The work- the underlying principle- is unchanged. A meter is a subjectively determined unit of length. The length itself is unchanging.

Applying this to morality needs more precision. What was modesty 100 years ago is not modesty today. The underlying principle, which is adultery and lusting, remains the same. People get sloppy. Whether I use metric or English, the building won't stand unless I obey the underlying principles of physics. Whether I use dollars or euros, the workers won't work unless they're paid a fair wage- unless I observe the underlying principles of the matter.

And this is what the critic observed. He suggested that what we, as a society observe as "law" is perhaps an instrument to sense or gauge the underlying reality of things. When we come up with a law for anti-trust, that is an instrument for feeling out the fundamental truth of "fairness". Therefore, the underlying reality of morality or ethics is absolute and exists over and against us. Societal observations on this truth may be imprecise or outright wrong, like bad instrumentation, but the underlying principle does not change.

And now in an act of alchemy, I will wed these disparate themes into a salient whole:

The Hobbit, through Tolkien, grew out of a fascination with the roots of things. It's interesting to observe that Hobbits live in the ground. Tolkien loved old English, etymology, and the idea of language. All those things are concerned with genesis. They all look for the foundation of things and are an observation of how little things have changed. Tolkien was fascinated with the solidity that echoes throughout time like a bell- the eternal. In finding the roots of a word, or the roots of myth, he takes a hammer and sees how the meaning echoes. He listens for its fidelity. So when he names a sword "Sting" it is unlike the nickname for a WWF wrestler. It sounds immediately like the hot needle of a wasp bringing agony to a larger opponent. It sounds like a pin that could prick the belly of a monster and bring to it doom. The Hobbit, like "dollars" grasped at something beneath us. Something true. Tolkien's philological empathy helped English to act as a conduit of these verities that a sloppier author would blithely pass over like a beachcomber looking for sand dollars when jade, and emeralds, and doubloons, and crimson rubies lay buried. In his linguistic savvy, Tolkien brought along a metal detector. And his excavation yielded us quite a booty.

Through Tolkien, I find new gems of the older linguistic heritage. Like a forest path, it leads to fields of meaning and significance. Through him, a newfound appreciation for Beowulf, Gawain, and by extension, Arthurian legend. It's like a world where each path leads to other paths, and throughout them is this sensing of the firm, the underlying sameness, the truth. Some are perhaps closer than others, but all carry some observation of something far larger than themselves.

So continuing further we arrive at romanticism. Romanticism's main aim, above all else, was expression. It sought to say and was not particular about what. This can be outrageously fortuitous or evil. But in every respect, it is louder. And so some of these romantics latched on to the earth and spoke it loudly. They guessed at truths and proclaimed them boldly. It's not surprising that they had an interest in the Far East. The world was growing smaller and a discipline obsessed with expression is always hungry for new ways to say something. It's easy to see why they clung to the marvelous minimalism of Japan. In it, they found a new medium perfectly suited to the aims of Romanticism. It stripped all away but the meaning- the spirit or essence. It turned down all the channels in a mix except the one that you want everyone to hear. It is a form of amplification.

So, in the ways that this minimalism branched from traditional romanticism or served it, it still accomplished the thing that great art always can. It observed a fundamental truth. It was a seismograph that looked deep into the ground, felt reality, and conveyed it to us in a language we can understand.

So in conclusion, I certainly don't like every example of any of these mediums I've mentioned. Some are outrageously bad, or dangerously wrong. Yet, at its best, they sound like a clear chime that resonates, like a tuning fork, somewhere deep inside my soul. Sometimes it sounds much like the peace that God declares for us. The peace of which He alone is source. It echoes throughout time, throughout language, and throughout cultures. Sometimes dimly, but there is always an element of it there. After all, He built everything. As C.S. Lewis (another who was fascinated with the terra firma) suggested, the best evil can do is distort truth.

Tolkien served as a door to these larger treasures. I can't help but feel the old thrill of traveling again to the hole under the Hill and finding Mr. Baggins' coat pegs hung with the colored hoods of unexpected guests now emptying his larders of cakes and ale. There's something pleasant about the earth there.

One Cinquain

Coffee,

Robust and fresh.

Searching, hoping, wishing

For employ, I really need my

JAVA.