Thursday, December 18, 2003

Under the cover of darkness.

'For some go completely astray and become engulfed in superstition, and others, when they fly from superstition as from a quagmire, on the other hand unwittingly fall, as it were, over a precipice into atheism.' --Plutarch, Moralia, "Isis and Osiris"

'Xenocrates also is of the opinion that such days of ill omen, and such festivals as have associated with them either beatings or lamentations or fastings or scurrilous language or ribald jests have no relation to the honours paid to the gods or to worthy demigods, but he believes that there exist in the space about us certain great and powerful natures, obdurate, however, and morose, which take pleasure in such things as these, and, if they succeed in obtaining them, resort to nothing worse.' --ibid

  "the Desperado (de Nerval)"

I am the bereaved, the widower, the shadowy,
the Cathar prince of the devastated citadel:
My guiding star is snuffed, my galactic lute
carries Melancholy's sable pentacle.

You who consoled me in the dark of the sepulcher,
give me back Posilipo & the Mediterranean,
the fragrance that enchanted my sere despair,
& that arbor where the rose & grape are intimate.

am I Cupid or Apollo?....Poe or Byron?
the kiss of some dread queen still becrimsons my brow;
I have dreamed in the grotto where the siren plashes...
& twice have I crossed Acheron victorious:

practicing in turn on the lyre of Orpheus
moans of a mystic, sobs of a dying elf.

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When i've hurt my index finger & have to tie shoelaces, it's incredibly clumsy until i make the conscious effort to realign my attention--to "deputize" the second finger with the directedness of the first--then it goes easily. (An allegory of much else.) [N.B. learning to snorkel-breathe for the aqualung of scuba classes was like that too.]

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