If you crush a cockroach, you’re a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you’re a villain. Morals have aesthetic criteria. — Nietzsche
If you need a deep and poignant laugh, consider the Cassia fistulaL, also known as the golden shower. C’mon, you know that’s funny. They sit valuable and innocuous, their little pinnate flappers eclipsed—you could almost say they are hiding—when the sun concentrates its long perpendicular smile and we feel the see, feel the shining; coaxes a bright waterfall of golden flaxen lemon blooms weeping from its arms that branch to enfold the spirits on the ground into its dilative physical range of glory.
With such grace Cassia releases these offerings, attracting their companions in missive source of healing. The anti: diabetic, inflammatory, oxidant, and stagnant motionless and gastronomical space where wait is weight until you see Cassia and know pure bright healing love. Well this cannot be a bad world. It can only be an arbor of seering beauty and sheer grace.
Of course the container can’t be torpid. They tolerate a cold shoulder here and there but too much of that can kill them and why would one risk their own salvation. Even salt on it’s mighty shoulders is but dander of the environment: dry but but a humor and thirst is but to quench. Fistula is full of surprises with a heartwood more durable than yours or mine.
One of the best—and I mean the very best—things about this golden shower is that the pollinating bees and butterflies have a strange and cunning ally in their fistula mission. Said ally is the golden jackal. I don’t know if I’ve ever observed a more beautiful river dog wolf, but I’ve asked it to come on in to a series I’m writing on our nation’s watersheds.
This little furry tidbit is drawn to the fruit of the golden shower tree which it eats it with its soft wild fluffy mouth—whether the fruit just tastes good or there is a deeper medicinal need—then disperses the seeds.
Turns out I’m in a relationship with myself. I mean, obviously, but is it obvious. Am I nice to myself? I like you. You are a fun and constant companion <3 I have no suggestions for your body or your efforts except to maybe say that you could use some more hugs for those beautiful arms holding in one of my favorite souls. Come here, sweetheart. Big big hug.
I’m almost ready, dearie. Just a little more stirring.
Now, when one casts out suggestions planted in your pretty psyche—like what you should or should not be based on the layout of your glands—it is important to save a little nut butter for the next round. One day you’ll have the most delicious starter that no crawly can resist.
Ok, now I want you to be as angry as you’d like and I’ll make ready to snap that rat like a twig if it scurries out to try to call you ugly.
Ready?
Cahkoo cahkoo: the feminine ideal is not all soft … SNAP!
Cahkoo: the feminine and masculine is the union … SNAP!
Woo! We got some! AROOOOOOOOOOOOO.
You bare your teeth when it tells you to smile. Now look out the window, you see that long line of people waiting to criticize you? Well it’s actually kind of thoughtful of them to take the burden off of you like that. No worries, free bird, they can’t get in here. Wouldn’t know a pane from a salamander’s bark. That’s enough for today. That crazy rat is a big one and we gotta get some supplies to take down that little whispering dread. Those things breed like it’s their purpose and they get you right down to the mites because that entire clan is terrified of the Furies.
Do you ever get the strange sensation that you might be having telepathic sex? No? Me neither. Sure is a pretty day. Yep. Ok, have fun. You too. Yep. Roger that. Yep. Bye! We’ll see ya. Yep yep yeppers.
Allow me to give you a little back story. I was born. 25 years later, I adopted “George of the Jungle” as my theme song, swapping the word “George” with “bored.” In truth, there’s no end to my fascination with plant life.
But enough about me. Why is it so crippling to tell someone how you feel? Just say it: “I miss you and I’m sorry you treated me like a fucking groupie even though we expressed a connection and capacity deeper than the average chat,” said the chit. Chit chat paddy whack chitty shitty bang bang.
I suck at this. Say it: I love your heart and accept all of you but stay away from me because you are a bull in a psychic china shop. Nope.
Perhaps I should give up on this and just go groom the show ponies. They’re up next and will be pooping out poetry prompts. I want to get involved as I get a splash of dopamine with every Like. The overall theme of this year’s word circus is AI. Are we scared as a hole society of losing our programmed ability to feel if we rely on AI to chat about the weather? Do our institutions need to buy different hoops for student ponies to jump through to obey their tedious grail tasks for that golden diploma of soft skills mixed with hard skills mixed with viscous sun-baked skittles? Will a chicken cease to peck at a button if their reward center can no longer be stimulated and how does the emulated pecking of artificial intelligence interfere with our own basic sufferable human right to peck at a button or to one day become a button or to dare to hope to dream that one day we might rubberize the chicken. And what’s next, roosters roaming the garden with their slick oily plumage, rutting and crowing at the crack of dawn like a sight to behold that we get to enjoy while we wake when we please and a lab-grown cell burger drops down from the air vent as the chickens also live and you fought that unmerican meat it at first — those science nerds think they’re so smart with their pansy murderless magical utopian conspiracy to steal our guns — but you’re told you’re very happy with your choice and something about the sanctity of life and there was that bit about a high psi of absorbable proteins that makes this delicious amino burger taste reeeeal good. Is that panko? Jessup? Hand me my beak so I can get this dang breading off and see what the tarnation is under this bun!
I need therapy. Because that’s a new concept. Can you be sued for breaking a therapist’s mind? What if Hannibal Lector went to see Becky Green who just got her certification and Becky said problems and answers come from within. What part of Becky would you choose to eat? Personally, I don’t like to see anyone suffer, so I’d probably mustard an epiphany emoji on my face and float out of there with great relish before pulling over on the way home to cry by the side of the road.
Anyway, hamburger bun, will AI ever mean we get to be more free? Our studies certainly show that people seem to be more productive when given freedom and that happiness is a marketable commodity. One of our biggest findings from that study is how paranoid people seem to be about being monitored.
It is hard to revisit vulnerability with someone who didn’t notice your efforts or even respond when you said directly what you needed. How many more years was I supposed to sit around and giggle while the men did their important writing? It is almost as if I had no choice but to clear the prairie, Pa. I’m pretty sure it was prescribed fire but am fuzzy on who wrote the script. I’m not proud of walking away and I’m sorry if that made you skip a beat. It’s certainly not fun to try to just forget about someone you care for and just push them out of your limbic zone. It’s like Judge Doom trying to impersonate Arthur Fonzarelli up in here.
Boy do I hate what constitutes a mating dance these days. Y’all are so rehearsed with repeated stories of who you are, what you love about yourself, what will bring you around to what you want to be; riding that addictive neurochemical high—god damn you look good—in the mirror—before it crashes into lovesick depression with a hangover you gotta boohoo through before you can do a long evolution-of-man crawl back to society using the ever-focusing energy of anger. It is a nice sword and it’s really too bad you can’t take it with you. Unless of course the reaper hands it to you then you are the reaper. I just said that. Come on, society, pitch in here. Speaking of pitch, your music sucks. Pulse beats are decent but the monotony is numbing: untzs untzs untzs untzs bitches hoes untzs untzs libido-o-o-o-ooo untzs untzs animal untzs untzs gonna ding dat ho
We’re all so turned on that the hyper-lubrication is actually making our endocrine system ignore its other duties. Luckily our prayers are not unheard here in the 9th circle. And you even get a cup with some string to communicate with Master Skroll up on 3. O great Skroll, I pray to thee. Text me spark and spontaneity and subtlety of tone. I offer thee as sacrifice this hermateacherstudent whose sex has been flushed down a symbiotic drain. O enter me, great Skroll, through my eagerly open authority gap. Dent me with your confident lol. Frolic through my vetiver lumps and bring me sweet limerence with your psychotropic anemone. Trauma-bond to my suffering coochakra with your deep sorcerous DM. Wrap your chiromanic palms around my vulvatic throat and take me to that brinky veil, so that I may actualize my petty fear of death in worship at your feet. Fuck fuck fuck me.
And fuck you, too, she whispers, so no one can hear her or proceed to torture her with their one-dimensional ingrained Scorpion lyrics: The bitch is hungry / She needs you to pull / through the drive-thru so she can get her sack of scorn / Lol / Laugh Off Lung / titter like schoolgirls up on 6.
… Yeah, so I miss you, but this whole slight of hand thing is fooling no one. Gah, so close. Perhaps Mr T can help me explain:
NOTHING’S BLACK AND WHITE, FOOL! PUNK-ASS ONE-SIDED CONVERSIN ACTIN LIKE YOU HURT DONE TRIED NOTHIN LET ALONE EVERYTHIN AIN’T TALKD TO MY GIRL IN YEARS, SUCKER!
*clap clap clap* Thank you for that, Mr T. That was lovely. Hey, call me if you ever reboot your cartoon and need a kicky character whose career is parodying love songs about their dog.
Also, if anyone I know reads this, please keep your concern valves in the OFF position. Don’t turn my writing and expression into some kind of ‘real’ moment that essentially censors me to a shelf where there are knitting needles and makeup tips. I’m not saying I’m some kind of artist or smart or have unlocked the afterlife or anything. I’m just letting it out and am way too naive to know what I’m saying. You have no idea how long it took to appear this naive. Thank you, have a nice day. And for gosh sake get out there and enjoy this spring weather!
Not sure why I wanted to try to maintain another site. It is nice to come back and see some work posted here.
I can’t stop thinking about three themes, but am trying not to blow my wad. By writing about them before they become lyrics or poems. And it’s nice to do something with these cycling thoughts beyond stacking a piece of paper or filling another 13kb of text on my laptop. Do I try another writing group? Stand in line to read on zoom? Get influenced by the words of others and spot patterns or even trends. Ooh, trends. Give a firm smile on feedback like someone likes one piece more than another. Might I then use said feedback to cherry pick before patting myself on the head? Feel downright precious about the loverly evening before nodding off into a snug and smug dreamland.
Between zooms with dozens of students and meets with committees every week, there’s really only one person I want to see on zoom. Maybe two. It’s pretty much one. The other is a hungry ghost. Unus Mundus. My game face hurts and I’m tired. I feel like a fool. And never know who is talking to me in the way that I really speak. Few can really hear me. Cassandra parts her hair down the middle and rises as Persephone. I am a limbic writer. It does not matter what that means to anyone. Humans who go through extreme childhood trauma are chemically marked. And also statistically resilient. Even if you live in the self-help section, there will never be a return to normal or contentment with exclusively normal companionship. It’s chemical. And we are unusual flowers.
Amongst said flowers, I can feel a ruminative longing pulling at me and have to be careful with that tug. It is recommended to allow two minutes to think about a fixation, but there was no other parameter to that formula. Is that two minutes a day or per four minute time increment? Is this metric out of 0.0666667? That last neighbor of the beast is minding its own business but would love to help. I could really use some guide rails with beauty and terror taking up so much lung capacity. Mostly, I need a heads up if there’s a monster who might turn me to stone. So I can wipe any kind of regrettable look off my face: ugly scream or hiss, backslashes for eyebrows over bulging sclera eclipsed by o-gape lips. Or worse, some kind of unsuspecting slack-jawed mouth-breathing look of wha? I don’t really want to be immortalized as a punch line. As perfect as that sounds.
Unusual flowers can bring you joy like no one else, but they can also take the joy away and leave you rattled. I know, that’s my bullshit unmet needs, and I tried hard to set up some dumb rules as if I could just avoid any kind of sloppy handling of my super-glued psyche. One thing after another without knowing anymore where I begin or end and, blammo, I did get knocked out. Creatively wilted. I used to have many methods of healing, but it’s been quite an adjustment going from living alone most of my life, before I felt I could be a worthy companion, to having a 24/7 watch party while trying to keep my mind toons from showing. Somehow I haven’t ruin my marriage but did wave goodbye to many familiar ways of coping and being. After great loss: nil and pain and outrageous acts, challenging death, foot up on the hill, casting scream songs over battlefields; it is not hard to notice my kind there, swathed in rusty sawteeth and phantom arms. Can I drag you or devise a pulley. Can I save you without being killed?
Flower doesn’t get it. If I were a teen, I’d have had Conan The Barbarian open its skull and make me a useless soup bowl. …Conan from the paperbacks and even the comic books, not Arnold. No offense, Mr Schwartz; you looked like someone’s Conan but those overacted blathering sounds were cheesy. Did a couple of bees fly into Ray’s Romano’s mouth moments before he tumbled down a hill? WUHWUHWUHWUH WHOOP WHOOP BULGIKOOOOW. His propellor arms whirling but never quite regaining balance before a final thump. The end. Wait, no, he lives: YAAAAARGLLLOOOEY. [End Scene]
Those sounds ruined the movie. I don’t mean to be mean, but the name “Destroyer” means something to me. You are Conan The Destroyer, now fucking act like it. An archetypal warrior quenched by murderous rage and vindication should not sound like a vaudeville routine. This is serious business, despite your outfits.
Um, I’ve been working hard on a plan for getting some coping methods back and that plan is coming together now. I figured out how to subsidize a space where I can be alone and hear my inner voice come through it all with me. Reunite. It has been work to prepare, but I am there for longer and longer moments of stories I’d all but abandoned. I can let off some steam by releasing the vocalizing maniac that formed my voiceover and singing skills. It is freeing to have a bit of privacy again to bask in the type of silence I can’t get from a day of audio work. And speak in tongues a bit.
this is a limbic poem it rattles around kicking up dust moves the furniture, cleans up, throws out old rat traps and all such mistrust summons magnetic iron and oxide leftover rust blows it to the wind
scents evaporate faster in humidity and rain its memory is etched in there somewhere sighs for sensory association. Makes my fingers draw receptors through your skin long and knowing vestiges draggingly lettered, lovingly intended
please stay longer through this cold day and fading heartbreak
sight scythe sigh, the cut reframed, explained to a t. a lee from your name filling my skin. an exoskeleton dance of #sign ature defeat bows to the wind, spins and sheds its memories
I wrote that the morning of May 16, 2022 on the prompt #sign. Big time gap, right? I’ve done many prompts now. Things have gotten so busy for me that I almost have to choose between prompts and other projects during my morning writing time. And I needed space to know what daily prompt writing is accomplishing. Am I learning enough from presenting to this group in lieu of research? And is my writing style being influenced by an exchange of Likes? Or by the short nature of prompts?
I’m working on some new training in addition to adjusting to new work. Will find a balance and pop back in from time to time. I do love many of the people on there–hearts and souls of poetry. I am around many “brand” writers and often wonder what kind of spell people are under that the realm of poetry too has to be reduced to slogans. I like checking back in on Twitter and seeing growth in people’s writing and love that there seem to be deeper themes and bigger words explored. Of course, anyone can write what they please. I am not judging; I am looking for my arena.
My personal site has been filled with spammers who would like me to mark my own emails as spam or buy their product. I have shown myself that I can keep a consistent schedule and will probably move to a new platform while keeping this one as a type of backup to the backup.
3/22/22 The horse and the elephant and the monkey and me, listen to the forest for the trees. To #taboo, meaning sacred, and came to mean unclean. We #mew about while the falcon molts. Our missions, in a widening gyre, receive and emit. #vssdaily#prompt#vss365
This was an honor. I wish it came before I took my hiatus. I’ve done hundreds of these, mostly under vss365, and earned the respect of the community, but they did not respond to my request. I almost wonder if it was a matter of followers, judging by some of the prompt masters. I did get turned off from vss365 by the political right-wing ranting of a prompt master who put their association in their profile name, so that it appeared that the political opinions could have been ties to the group. Or at least been a platform for divisive cocoa puffs. Write a poem about it, faboo flashneck.
noun: 1-a gull 2-meow 3-an enclosure for trained hawks—usually used in plural 4-a place for hiding or retirement verb: 1-to utter a mew; to meow 2-to shut up; confine (used with up)
I’ve done many prompts now. Things have gotten so busy for me that I almost have to choose between prompts and other projects during my morning writing time. And I needed space to know what daily prompt writing is accomplishing. Am I learning enough from presenting to this group in lieu of research? And is my writing style being influenced by an exchange of Likes? Or by the short nature of prompts?
I’m working on some new training in addition to adjusting to new work. Will find a balance and pop back in from time to time. I do love many of the people on there–hearts and souls of poetry. I am around many “brand” writers and often wonder what kind of spell people are under that the realm of poetry too has to be reduced to slogans.
2/19/22 Jon was starting to feel hangry. “What a stupid word. Do we all just pull up language by the roots and salt the earth? It’s like a destructive child making mud castles while lightening #larrups a tower and all comes crumbling down. The child can’t be bothered to look up.” #vss365
2/14/22
It was a war of attrition. Zno babies were raised as slaves. Sae could feel her child #tremble and awaken at the magic age of 7. In harmonia, she absorbed the tacit vibrations, then #thrust, from her bones and throat, dominant waves of calm resolve back to her child.
2/3/22 Lorn and forlorn are words I can get behind. Forlorn is more common nowadays: to lose, forlost to the point of completion; lost or left behind.
2/2/22
The godforsaken creature reeked of deadly sin or revelation—black sun, blood moon, and starlight stripped from the sky.
Aza, she #breathed. I will find you and set you free.
beacon captive hill mountain balk egg duet rain fall devil
January 18, 2022 to January 30, 2022
from the full to the new moon in Capricorn and Aquarius
The realization struck her like a beacon from the moon; held her captive in its lunacy, in the long trance of night. Flushes of rose and gold reached the earth first, outlining Hemlock Hill in amber glow. There. She’d prolong the scatter of violet light with ashes.
I sang up the mountain, arpeggiating up a balkanized cord. Each step echoed its linear thread. Stumbling chromatic contradictions of blue and scarlet duets key the triad to strike at the top of the whole mountain.
She heard the rain sizzle on their skin before finding them huddled together in the thick fog. Old Harry, Azazel, Belial, and Baal. But who was this new fallen devil? He was wearing an attractive meatsuit. “That’s Skroll,” Azazel said. “He’s in charge of the internet.”
Last Friday night after work, my husband was cooking dinner and I was checking out the writers on Twitter. Our big plans were to have a nice meal, curl up with the pups, and watch Nobody on HBO Max. It was snowing hard and we were homebound on yet another Friday night, trying not to catch the Omnicron strain of Covid, that every third person we know has caught lately in Columbus, Ohio.
I scrolled Twitter, sorted by vss hashtags, and saw a writer I respect, Helen Laycock, post about a poetry battle, a collaboration between From One Line and the Move Me Poetry groups. Then I saw Arliden The Bard was involved, another very good poet I know of from Twitter. I hadn’t done any battles in years, but had fond memories of hitting various clubs in Chicago like the Green Mill. Problem is that I’m no slam poet and slam poets get people’s adrenaline going on the stage, which, often, makes for livelier entertainment and engagement. I always thought of slam as the air guitar of poetry–hey, I agree that we all need to write, creatively vent, express, rent our garments like suppressed maenads ritually releasing oppression in a bloodthirsty frenzy; this is not dissimilar to endless accounts in folk culture, right up to modern needs to cast out demons, connect with source and spirit, and shake the almost biocentric vent of every person/soul’s emanating tension. But slam is not my way. I never connected to the inner voice that way.
The crowd-pleasing nightlife effect of rant poetry is not too different, to me, from market research showing that enraged social media posts get the most engagement while posts with excitement run second place. This trope may have lessoned now that we understand the extent of interference from a world that understands psychological control. This understanding is required learning for powers of governance and marketing. People hate being manipulated. But just watch an Adam Curtis documentary to understand that this has been driving the world for a long time, and it works. This understanding was the basis for the first public relations firms and the first commercial firm marketing strategies and has only increased in acuity over the last hundred years. Ignoring it and contributing to a prescribed fantasy of give-a-fockless stardom might make for a better socialized day, but doesn’t do much for awareness, breakthrough, and change. Riding the status quo was never the drive of our young idealized hearts. My generation, the groups I grew from anyway, shared active experience—better than reactive—to connect. TO CONNECT.
Shrugging off new contemplative art to gush over trend ignores the profitable machine of art, with its statistical understanding of what moves human hearts, or better, drives human hearts to spend in the search for divine connection. Corporate brands struggle to appear genuinely interested in humanity instead of in their bottom line of profit. With this understanding of what spirit seeks, it is so encouraging to see the younger generations hold brands accountable for standards and sustainability. The youth that do it anyway.
I talk about this with youth I mentor. There is a very natural bucking against parental authority that is often needed to move on to independence, especially when there has been a caretaker with unhugged and untreated mental disability, mood disorder, or a deep unembraced shadow. This can translate to offspring feeling confused. And, notably, in cases where protective parents have not released containment of their child’s free will and individual soul. These understandings happen incrementally and are challenging to reframe, but greatness leads to greatness and it goes both ways. I have explained to my few mentees that understanding the intentions of your elder’s guidance means seeing their soul and forgiving human error, which can set you free to be a forgiving, grateful adult.
One brilliant young mind I mentored railed on about the boomer distraction. Ie, “Ok, boomer.” I get it. Did the same thing at their age, believing that the world would evolve if new voices were to rail against or wait out the outdated mindset and influence of former generations. But a scapegoat is a scapegoat, and early family controls nothing but a seem/seam shadow haunting our independence. Most people are not born with modern idealism. Modern ideas evolve, so there is important history/belonging in acknowledging the struggles of former generations that led to your own enlightenment. Saying “boomer” flippantly can erase past equality efforts, such as the suffragist movement, the civil rights movement, and many others. Not that everyone does this, but my point is that respect is an evolving contagion. As a united humanity, we have to figure out how to be motivated by positive emotions that are stronger and vivider than spite.
I regularly digress, but my tangential point is that life is about minimizing regrets. And while there are many cases where abuse is about a criminal level of sickness, many others are about tracing threads of subtler abuse to free themselves from the knots. See the human faults of caretakers but try to understand and forgive souls.
Wow, what is this post about again? Right, From One Line and Move Me Poetry poetry battles. I got off on the other stuff, but hope it relates a bit of why I love the freeform expression of poetry. And music. These are powerful expressive processors of primal conflict that, for all, may not be covered by the logic of western psychology, the exorcism of religion, nor the slogans of art.
Gosh, back to the poetry post. I was moved by their line: “I have a hunger” and riffed on their one line prompt, noticing that others posted documents and images unlimited by character limits. Character limits have been the biggest twitter challenge and here was a chance to stretch out. I was in. I flowed, uploaded my piece, and went to sleep.
I didn’t understand the difference between quoting a tweet and retweeting, so it wasn’t until the next day that I saw this response video. It was stunning to wake up, in the low light of the morning, to this dose of grace:
I have to put this on my timeline where I can find it. What a wonderful thing she did here to send a supportive video! Starting the day with a shiny heart ???? https://t.co/1r0wUSaT1x
This is JD Greyson from Move Me Poetry. She is unbelievably open, unblocked, supportive, and like a rejuvenating springthrough breeze. I have been so tired of tension and the void, in this territorial, non-inclusive arena I landed in, so this was a breath of much-needed oxygen, reminding me of who I want to be despite the Covid- heightened isolation. I want to build here and move others like this…extend lifelines to isolated poetic minds.
A few days later, my husband and I are enjoying the evening in our living room, each with a dog and an instrument on our lap, talking about changing the lead counter melody on a song and wondering what instruments would work best. I checked to see what the Twitter writers wrote that day and stumbled on this poetry battle highlights link, Poetry Battle Highlights: A Special Edition, Medium post by JD Grayson:
I can’t seem to embed it, but will try again. Anyway, my boo and I gaped at each other with big WOW faces. What she wrote about my words was more than I needed to keep going. For years I’ve been telling myself that I only need a few people whose work I respect to respect mine. But everything got so heavy the past couple of years, so it nice to be seen. I took a screenshot of what she said to put in my “Keep Going” folder.
I still have a wow on my face. Then the YouTube audio on the page started playing automatically. It was a narrator reading his entry choices to sound design. The first one he read I’d seen and noted, as it mentioned “ambrosial cup.” My piece mentioned the red-winged blackbird’s first flight being a search for ambrosia, the food of the gods, in that the bird flew. I imagined a great mystical cause evolved into wings and thought of the storytellers who penned the myths that formed our words (I’ve been studying Proto-Indo-European words lately to understand even earlier communication). So I noted this poet’s synchronous use of the word ambrosial to describe a cup and questioned what was in that cup.
The narrator, Ethan McCaffrey, kept reading on and I kept wondering on. On his fourth and final read, he read my piece! My husband and I both did a Home Alone gesture, clapping the sides of our wowed faces. And then? The narrator used an effect on the side line voicing of the piece; it sounded almost like a vocoder speaking the imprint words like one might in the counterpoint of song. We were stunned. It was this interpretation of the kind of reference we use with lyrics on songs! Here was someone we had never met understanding the lyric notes. What?!
This writing group is great. Conductive. I am wanting to sing again, to rosin up my bow, write, and see if I can grow. This is something good to be a part of. And I want to encourage others the way they encouraged me.
I wrote this poem on a prompt of the word midnight and wanted to share some insights on the word choices. Without getting too deeply into it at this time (though I wish this was my job), I’d like to share a short key.
At midnight, the witches gather and abdicate their veils, revel by the sconce of fearless perception on the winged misdivision of the adder and the newt; sing basilisk elegies and play, then fly away when lore gives way to darker hours.
The Witching Hour is from midnight to 1am, and the Devil’s Hour, the darker lore, is from 3am to first light. The 3am time is thought to be an inversion of the 3pm time that Christ was crucified.
Veil refers to both veiled feminine insight, personified by the goddess, and the veil of perception between worlds, most notably the mortal world and the preternatural world. Veil of perception also refers to mystical insight, studied and learned on the quest for transmutation. Females were long kept from study, science, sacral roles, healer roles; and the female alchemist was moreoften referred to as a witch. They don’t explain this well on the CW channel. Popular culture puts a lot of more work to put into fetishizing the feminine and nurturing generations to assume gender roles.
[I hope this explains to a certain friend of mine why I trailed off when he referred to my work as “witchy shit.” I study all kinds of things and have been writing a long time, so it is annoying to hear my efforts dismissed as being some kind of misunderstood mystical lunacy. Many have hemmed me into self-doubt over the years, by implying or directly saying that my work is too opaque–Dense! Confusing! Baffling! Weird for the sake of being weird! Perplexing! Cryptic! A word spell striptease! You have to slooowly arrive at a plain, relatable idea: the arrival!]
It took me many years to realize the gift of outer critics and how their energy frees up my inner critic.
Okay, it feels like a weight is lifted every time I post about the slights that have chipped away at my energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. I will get back to the short & sweet key. … And not go on about how gender is weaponized, consciously or unconsciously (please do wake the fock up), to reduce competition. The gloves fit differently but they are on.
Sconce refers to light, illumination, discovery, revelation. From Abscondere! Abracadabra!
Hello, Los 😉
Regarding nadder and ewt, the misdivisionreference is about bracketing, or metanalysis. Nadder lost the ‘n’ from spoken ref to ‘an adder’ and ewt gained an ‘n’ from ref to “an ewt.” Spelling mistakenly recorded. I liked how the imagery conjures the idea of treacherous witches stirring their cauldrons and adding eye of newt or tongue of asp. There’s more on why misdivision is winged, but it is work to clarify, and basilisk is next.
Basilisk, adjective, means spellbinding, and as a noun is a lizard; and as noun in lore, a lizard known for its lethal stare.
Kinda cool, right? Cool to reflect and consider language and poetic reference. I do understand the need to give some context and always read the Norton Anthology notes, etc, especially with James Joyce. How cool! But I don’t have a whipsmart publisher. Yet. I’m standing between critics and breakthroughs to new levels. And I am hungry to spill gold.
Time still for gold to spill: the fleece, the bough, and the ratio All those mysteries alive at your fingertips Above as so below
(from a song I lyricized and sang years ago with a talented artist who hasn’t released it yet, probably due to the pandemic. It refers to the golden fleece, the golden bough, and the goldenratio. Did I need to say that? We’ll never know.)
Lorn and forlorn are words I can get behind. ____Forlorn is more common nowadays: to lose, _________________forlost to the point of completion; ________________________________lost or left behind.
I am solorn lovelorn hopelorn sadlorn greedlorn thricelorn sixpencelorn anxlorn neurolorn sublorn lostlorn hatelorn gherlorn deathlorn lifelorn alorn
A psychic messaged me on Twitter to say there were snakes posing as my friends that would like to see my downfall. How cool is that?
I don’t think so, though. Thanks to two years of Covid, I haven’t spent much time with peripheral friends. I’m at an age where loyalty is no basis for overlooking weird tensions or getting involved in pockets of social hierarchy. Many artists are looking to connect, but you can’t find simpatico vision if you’re maxing out your time/energy with the wrong people. You can tell the wrong people because they will ignore your work. If you work hard at writing, they’ll ignore it. If you sing, they’ll ignore it. If you make a video, they’ll ignore it. Whatever you accomplish, they’ll ignore it.
I had a couple of nut sandwiches barely try to conceal that I was on the menu as they were trying to show off for each other. I almost burned the gymnasium down with my mind but got out of there before my face dropped too far. Can you imagine winding up to be surly with someone the moment they appear? Being so scrambled into caricature that internal reflection is not something your icons would have done? Hawking the scene from within a bad novella? One bumbler actually told me I was not in my place: “Blah blah shiny blah, I was surprised you got that bone of recognition because we didn’t sanction it and also so and so is so much better at what you do, don’t you think?” All I could think about was how they were going to dress up such a lame story when they retold that yawner to their sycophants, while trying to insert themselves as a bold VIP in some weak game of broken thrones for The Great Hierarchy of Mediocrity. #hierarchyofmediocrity.
I had to get out of there fast as well, before my face fully morphed into the wolf-woman who feeds on outdated social roles. I had to get Hel, Baba Yaga, Kali, Keres, Eris, Nox, Scylla, Charybdis, all the Banshees, and some chimeras to talk me down. Why are these two so threatened by me? More accurately, why do so many women behave awfully toward other women?
No thanks! I’ve seen this kind of thing a hundred times and every single time it results in a loss of time. No one cool acts like that. Talent in your arena helps everyone grow to the size of the tank. It is crucial to being in an actual arena. Stand by your vision, keep on with your work, and spend thy limited free time with people who appreciate you authentically, and not because it furthers their brand. You don’t need a train of people as you work on growing and understanding your artistic talents. Artists can determine if something is subjectively good without being told it is or because it is gaining in popularity. Music-poetry-art circles, by the very nature of art, could imply an intimate or transcendent connection, not some self-aggrandizing starfuckery.
Between stars and celestial starfuckers, orbiting weak-on-weak gravity, debris attracts debris. Don’t be shackled to any false hierarchy. Honor yourself. See clearly.
