Prose/Poetry

In the beginning was the beginning

In the end will be the end

In the space between lies joy and pain

And all the time you spend

Levi fought and he served, earned no worldly domain
Evil steals and consumes, building nothing but pain
Vile are those who destroy, parasites of mankind
Veil your heart from the wolfes, may they leave you behind
Live your life in the light, truth and hope be your guide
Live blessings will find you, ere you run or you hide.

Strawberries have tiny seeds;

They grow into tiny weeds.

Strawberries have tiny seeds;

Mushrooms have no seeds.

I was important once, I was somebody. I must have been, though the memories have faded like the painted-on eyes of my cotton head, faded from neglect and age and not a little bit from loneliness. I was the favourite toy of an amazing boy, we loved each other like nothing else and swore in secret we would always be together. Now I sit turning ever so slowly to dust, kept by those who do not value me, but harboured some strange nostalgia like somehow my presence in the back of the attic meant that the Boy was not gone somehow. He is gone. I am not, though here I sit and wait for the end of this neglect and disregard, as he did. The ones who live in the house now know nothing of any of this though, so at least their neglect is honest.

He asked me to call him Boy because he had grown to hate his own name, it had been turned into a profane word by years of being spat from the mouths of his parents like so much snake venom. His mother mostly, he wasn’t sure what he had done to her but it seemed that his birth was a crime. His father wasn’t there most of the time, working hard as he thought he should, probably trying to earn his worth as the Boy tried to earn his own, but neither of them would succeed. He didn’t mean to be born, he didn’t know it was wrong, but in doing so he robbed his mother of her youth and slimness and freedom, and had compounded this offence by reminding her of his father. Ah, his father. His father was his hero and villain, supportive and angry in turns, the hand of guidance often turned to a fist of rage. Still, though his father was mean, his mother was cruel, and though his father struck him often, his mother stabbed him daily with her words. The body will heal, the heart takes longer.

The Boy and I were best of friends, confiding in each other in everything, making grand plans and inventions and sometimes fantasies, always with both of us, together to the end. Only it wasn’t that way. He had to leave me when he was seven. Seven is a magical age, the wonder of the world starts to dawn on a child, and there are no limits in sight. Seven is also tender, when a Boy starts to think to himself that he is wrong, not just ill behaved, but wrong for his very being, as he has been told by words and deeds from those around him. I told him otherwise, told him he was special and wonderful and could do anything he wanted, but my voice was only one and theirs many. He wept bitter tears, some still stain my body, hoping that someday he would be good enough for them, make them proud, make them like him just for who he is and not what he can do. He was always good enough for me, and I for him. He died before his eighth birthday, taken by an illness in the winter, must be a hundred years ago now, before the wars. His mother wept, but they were false tears, she was secretly happy because she hated him for his existence. Now she would get pity and attention for her tragic loss, and could spend all her time on her good child, the daughter she had when he was three. His father was at least dutiful, he stored the Boy in the ice house until the ground could thaw. Daily, weeping, he would check the ground on their homestead, both anticipating and fearing the day when the probe broke through, for then he would truly lose his son, and have to honour his promise to bury him in his favourite spot in the hillock overlooking the brook. When the day came, he kept true to his word, tears falling with every shovelful, placing finally the wooden grave marker which he had lovingly made with his own hands. The hands that struck the Boy, returning him to his peace, crafting a small monument to his life. His father loved him, though he barely knew how to love himself.

The Boy died weeping, and his last words were to ask for me, so we could be together to the end, he wanted me to be buried with him but could not get the words out. I wanted to be buried with him, so I would not have to wait these years feeling alone and missing him, treasuring every detail of every memory and knowing I would never get a new memory with him. Instead I was stored in the attic, a grim reminder of a life cut short, a life that was full just the same.

The people who live in the house now know none of this, they know I am here, and they know of the hillock though the grave marker has long since been turned to dust. On that spot, they now discard brush cleared from the land, and sometimes burn it in a magnificent fire which I can just see through the attic window. I know the Boy would love to see it too, perhaps he can somehow, he loved roaring fires with all their beauty and danger, and especially in the winter when they would warm your house but could kill you while you slept, but the cold would definitely kill you. He thought fire was like his father, power to be respected, changeable in a flash. His mother was ice, slowly creeping in and stabbing at you, making you tired and hating you with every icy breath. I hope against hope that one day I will end up on the brush pile, mercifully burned to ashes at long last, and falling down to nestle in the ground where my Boy sleeps. We would be together again at last, and would never ever be parted again. Just to touch him once more would make all this worthwhile, and perhaps even we could both live again, the power of our love and friendship and boundless reaches of our imaginations restoring our bodies to life. I can hope for this, and I must. He is not gone so long as he is in my heart, and I have not forgotten him.

Today they have come and carried me from my perch in the attic, and have taken me out to the brush pile. If I could, I would weep tears of joy because I am finally going to be with the Boy again, and he with me. I believe we will live again at that moment, and even just being together with him again, dust and ashes, will be the answer to my fondest wish. They are going to burn “that old toy”, they said, saying I am spooky and depressing and worn out. That old toy. No, I was somebody important once, and will be again, I belong to the finest Boy that ever lived and he to me. This old toy feels the licking of the flames, I swear I can feel his father in there fulfilling one last promise, smiling and proud of the Boy at last and understanding of what we meant to each other.

Now I am home, burned to nothing and with the Boy again, never to be parted. And we live again, together, this time forever. At last we are happy again.

1) Oh no you di’int, you know I am a jealous bitch, you go cheating on me and I will unfriend you.
2) Don’t be going all arts and crafts up in here, that totally doesn’t look like me anyway.
3) You best not be talking smack about me around to all your little friends, I’ll smack you all as soon as look at you.
4) You know I gots to be sleeping off a hangover on Sunday, don’t call or text or nothing.
5) Your parents are cool, they let us drink over there that one time and they let me crash when I was drunk and Tommy dumped me for that skank.
6) What, you some kind of killer? Please, back that shit down and step off before I school you.
7) Don’t you go catting around, I will catch you and I will slut-shame you, bet on it.
8) Oh, you’re a thug now because you have sticky fingers? Put that back before store security sees you.
9) Don’t be a lying sumbitch, nobody likes a liar.
10) See all that cool shit next door? That ain’t yours, best be looking to your own shit.

On Saturday, May 3, 2003, the rock formation known as The Old Man Of The Mountain slipped from its perch on Profile Mountain in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire. This may be just a freak happening, but it seems to bear some strange sort of importance beyond the loss of a state icon.

New Hampshire, the Granite State, Mother of Rivers, Switzerland of America, the White Mountain State, had relied upon the anthropomorphic gaze of Conway red granite as a sort of spiritual leader, guiding them through the difficult times leading to their acceptance as the 9th state in the union and on through the difficult times that lay ahead. New Hampshire’s motto, “Live Free or Die”, symbolized the principles of liberty in which she was steeped, and in later years she came to symbolize the election process itself by adopting legislation which ensures the state primary elections are the first in the nation by at least seven days.

In the prior election which began with such a primary, the nation saw its third election which was decided by contested electoral votes that ran contrary to the popular vote. In other words, the election was given to the runner-up. Aside from a bit more fanfare than the previous times, this electoral victory was no different than the previous win-losses.

This contested election, however, has resulted indirectly (and in the name of patriotism, no less) in a historically radical departure from the norm in the nation’s foreign and domestic policy, a departure which has seen the Freedom Of Information Act disabled along with many civil liberties in hushed lawmaking sessions. The morality of these changes are a subject of debate, since ostensibly they are for national security reasons, but the impact is still the same.

It has become increasingly difficult to “Live Free” as the Old Man commanded, and increasingly easy to “Die” at the hands of angered foreign nationals or even overzealous domestic law enforcement groups. The flag which has flown from the Old Man’s brow and which he has seen evolve from a revolutionary’s rag into the banner of the wealthiest republic on the planet seems to have become confused in its meaning. It once stood for the people of the republic and their freedom and safety as well as the government assigned to assure these things, but lately it has been misused as a reason to remove the power which belongs to the people. It has been misused as a symbol only of the government which is taking the power, and not of the people for whom the power is to be wielded. It has become a badge that states “I surrender my power to the government and I will accept any decision of its officers” instead of the healthy questioning of authority that it once did.

I have no doubt that this simple rock formation which has been imbued with emotional energy and pride and freedom had come to have a life force of its own. I have no doubt that the Old Man had held out hope for his country from before the colonists had arrived and through all of her trials and tribulations. I have no doubt that the Old Man wept on the preceding Thursday and Friday when he had hidden his face behind clouds.

I have no doubt that the Old Man, man of principle and action that he always was, heeded his own resounding words and did the one thing that he could do that might warn his beloved people about the path they were taking.

Unable to Live Free, he Died.

She is a butterfly made of sparkling razorblade steel
Clean and perfect and beautiful, but so dangerous
Delicate and powerful at once, frightfully delicious
My soul weeps to see her fly, my heart fills with longing
Yearning for one bloody kiss, the pleasure and pain
Of her presence consuming me as I knew it would
Cutting me as I knew it would,
Burning away all that is impure in me and leaving me
Unmade, remade in the image of her vanishing shadow
As I knew it would,
But I am helpless to resist.

I do not wish to capture her, she must be set free,
Free to come and to go, to bring sensuous life to me
And to take life away as she wishes.
But she must be free, even as her leaving may kill me
A cage would kill her, and I have not the heart to harm
For she is perfect, ethereal, and purely her own essence,
Divine from skin to soul.
For one golden moment she is near, and I know joy
Like a thousand suns exploding.
I know not how long she will grace me with her eternal gaze
But I know that every second makes my wretched life worthwhile
And my scars will remind me of the joy that once sliced my soul.

Many people these days seem to have lost their minds to a book, or are victims of those who have had their minds sucked out by this text, the Bible. More specifically, the altered-to-fit-our-view bible that was produced by the Vatican to justify their power and play down the validity of others. If you read a non-editorialized version (i.e. not the KJV that was essentially the world according to James) you will see that certain groups were mentioned when the ‘make no pacts’ thing was stated to the nation of Israel. This is because these groups were hostile to the fledgling nation of Israel and would practice treachery and deceit in the event of a peace treaty, besides having idolatrous or other offensive practices that would possibly spread to the people of Israel if contact were encouraged (they had enough trouble staying away from things like that in the first place, like Baal and the calf).

Jews are to love their neighbours, to not impose upon these neighbours (neither a lender nor a borrower be) and to deal with them fairly inasmuch as you can still profit from the trade (you gotta make a living). Brothers, other members of the twelve tribes, were to be given preferential treatment for the betterment of the nation, and this is still evidenced today with the custom of selling to friends and relatives wholesale. However, if a neighbour is hostile to you or is preparing to attack you, the order is to strike him with as much force as necessary to stop his attack and deter him from any future attacks, a policy which has served well the tiny state of Israel since its contentious birth in 1948 and which is practiced by most of the more successful nations on earth like Japan (1941, Pearl Harbour, in response to a likely invasion fleet being assembled).

Muslims have the principle of the people of the book, but this is contradicted by the modern Imams, who seem to preach only hate for all others including Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians, the previously mentioned book people. Likewise, many of us here have experienced hate from Christians due to fundamentalist indoctrination bestowed upon brainwashed followers despite the actual words of the Gospels (and I do not include the Epistles here, since they seem to encourage hate against women, homosexuals, Jews, and just about everyone else, but were also not spoken by God or a prophet and so are not “Gospel” in the literal definition). The fact is, people are prone to hate and violence for some reason and will find a way within the construct of any religious system to commit violence, doubly so if they can find a passage out of context (like the one you clipped earlier about the no pacts or amends) that will justify their actions. An example of this is the two world idea in Islam, that there is a World of Islam (Submission (to Allah)) and a World of Struggle (usually interpreted as spiritual struggle, a place you go to spread spirituality to those not ‘of the book’)…which has been reinterpreted as the World of War, the place you go to kill the infidel. The original intentions of both Christianity and Islam were to enact a reform of Judaism and return to its roots as they were at Sinai, as there had been considerable drift or adaptation to the times, depending upon who you ask. Both of the chief figures of these religions attempted to address these concerns to the Priests and Rabbis of their time, only to be rejected since they were outsiders and most people resist change, so after their deaths their teachings have been interpreted as a new rejectionist religion. This is a normal progression of things generally, as you will always have old-school and new-school people at odds with each other and resulting splinter groups, but people lose track of just how closely related and bound these three faiths are.

Modern Israel is confronted with a difficult situation, one which actually started years before there was a state there. There was rampant Muslim violence against anybody they did not like in the land, and the whole area was under British control as a result of the raw deal given to the Ottoman Empire by the Europeans. The Balfour declaration attempted to rectify this by creating an Arab state and a Jewish state in the land known as Palestine since the Romans named it such as an insult. When the declaration was presented, immigration began from the Arab states into the lands which were largely vacant, with the express purpose of demographically preventing anything but Arab land being formed there (many of them had designs on restoring a pan-Arab caliphate that would turn all Arab nations into one big kingdom and restore what was lost when the area was partitioned by outsiders at the end of WWI). When the Arab armies invaded in 1948 (the same day that David Ben Gurion gave his famous radio address declaring the establishment of the state) they drove out or caused to flee these same immigrants, and these are the people who now claim right of return. Thing is, very few people were there before Balfour, and in fact the so-called Omar Mosque (Dome of the Rock) was in disrepair in the late 1800s as it had been built there mostly to desecrate what they believed to be the site of Herod’s Temple. The one thing I will assert is that there is currently a difficult situation in that area where conflicting sets of entitlements are complicating what would otherwise be a secession situation, and that wrongs are committed on both sides due to the intensity of this conflict and the fact that it involves primarily civilians.

Judgment day. Everybody thinks they are doing what is correct, but of course not everybody can be right. There is a concept in Judaism of the Righteous Gentile, one who will be given honoured status in the End Times due to living respectfully and properly without being of any certain religion. Can you say that about the other two Judaic faiths? Muslims keep the laws that were laid down in what you call the “Old Testament”, such as not eating the flesh of unclean animals like swine and observing the Sabbath by not working or dealing with worldly matters. Tell me, o righteous one, on what day do you pray and contemplate and do no work, do not travel, carry nothing, write nothing, light not or extinguish not a flame, and so on? Most Christians do not follow the commandments that they say makes the difference between them and the damned, not the ten or the seven or the 613(If Christians consider themselves, as the Muslims do, the rightful heirs of the Covenants, they must obey all the laws since they have not been revoked and are part and parcel of the Covenants…if they consider themselves Gentiles then there are only seven laws (the Noahide, or laws of Noah) that they need to be concerned with, including not worshipping any other gods as the Trinity concept treads dangerously close to doing) and therefore are on shaky ground to “cast the first stones” as it has been my experience they do frequently. On Judgment Day/End Times/Rapture/whatever the only thing that will matter is righteousness and whether you were a good person, and when I look around me I see good people who are Satanists, Wiccans, Picts, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Asatru, Greco-Roman Pagans, Setians, Muslims, Hindus, and people who just can’t decide but still think it is cool to be nice. The one thread that runs through all these people is that they would get along if they lived in a house together and think that people should be considerate and understanding (as in, actually taking the time to learn about the other person’s perspective instead of dismissing it) and kind to their fellow creatures just because it is the right thing to do.

Unfortunately there are bad seeds in all these groups, people that pontificate or lecture others about how they are wrong and they are damned for all time because they don’t do this thing or that thing right, or just plain act with hostility and inconsideration toward others…and these people cause others to form incorrect stereotypes about their groups and cause intergroup hatred and fear, as evidenced by earlier statements about how the Jews are not supposed to love their neighbours. Ask anybody that knows me how I treat others, and I think you will get a surprise because I love my neighbours in as many ways as possible (twice in the naughty ways)…

Besides all of this, for the benefit of you ‘Kabbalists’, KBL or Kabbalah (the word that can be spelled any way you want since it is only three consonants meaning ‘tradition’) is a Hebrew (or possibly more correctly, Haviru, ancient Hebrew) word and a Hebrew tradition that predates Judaism, so if you are to love your neighbours with the exception of ‘those non-neighbour-loving Jews’ I guess you will have to cast that body of work aside as worthless as well.

Recognising that we have a worldwide readership here in our little corner of the web, I would like to explain something about schools in the United States since I know little of other systems except for Belgium. We are taught in our pre-first grade, otherwise known as Kindergarten (roughly ‘Garden of Children’) to Play Nicely and Share Your Toys, Don’t Hate Anybody, and Get To Know Someone Before You Decide If You Like Them Or Not. If everybody would really learn and practice these rules (they’re not just for rug rats anymore) we would all get along fine, without religious territorial pissings or spouses fighting over suspected affairs (spouses are property?) or theft or greed or anything that necessitates a pile of statutes with which you could wipe your arse for all eternity and never run out of pages.

Now everybody find a blackboard and a good piece of squeaky chalk and write ten times each:

• I will play nicely.
• I will share my toys.
• I will not hate anybody.
• I will see the inner good in everybody.
• I will treat others as I want them to treat me.
• Each person is as good as
  every other person.

Ich suche nach Klugheit und Wahrheit.