Teabags for Two: Poems

The State of Lavender Address

2012-01-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

The State of Lavender Address

He lies with me like lavender

On a sleepless sultan's eve

With the masks of marvels plundered

The oaths of love's offices retrieved

O Love and Ardor, stately shine

Like a flute and pipe with choicest wine

Speak to me with words divine

Steep, high ether of empirical chimes

In a measure of silent wonder

He flows my eyes to face

The sole spell that I am under

Ebbs as his most faithful grace

O Love and Ardor, stately shine

Like a flute and pipe with choicest wine

Speak to me with words divine

Steep, high ether of empirical chimes

My Sunshine by Christie Elise Jones

2012-01-07T10:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/My-Sunshine-Christie-Elise-Jones/dp/1453613668/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325959942&sr=8-1

The Smallest Matey

2012-01-06T18:24:00.000-08:00

Long ago and far away

A tall magician packed a sleigh

Children dreamed in a deep, high sleep

As pixies pranced with tiny feet.

Mighty rivers flow and flow

'Til frosty winds blow and blow.

Ten tall masts set at sea

Watched the magic pageantry.

The wintry sky hung like looms

As inland children slumbered safely.

Whilst the wand of winter bloomed,

The seafarers lulled the smallest matey.

Healthcare: Universal Conditions, Universal Qualifications, and Universal Ramifications?

2011-09-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

Healthcare in Spanish-Speaking Countries vs. Healthcare in the United States of America

September 2011, C.E. Jones

HEALTHCARE IN SPANISH-SPEAKING NATIONS (THOSE WITH AND WITHOUT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE)
I. MEXICO
Public health care delivery is accomplished via an elaborate provisioning and delivery (Obstetrics [OB]) system instituted by the Mexican Federal Government. Public health care is provided to all Mexican citizens as guaranteed via Article 4 of the Constitution of Mexico. Public care is either fully or partially subsidized by the federal government, depending on the person's (Spanish: derechohabiente's [right to citizenship]) employment status. All Mexican citizens are eligible for subsidized health care regardless of age, gender, or employment via a system of health care facilities operating under the federal Secretariat of Health (formerly the Secretaria de Salubridad y Asistencia, or SSA) agency. Employed citizens and their dependents, however, are further eligible to use the health care program administered and operated by the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) (English: Mexican Social Security Institute). The IMSS health care program is a tripartite (See: Black's Law Dictionary, 8 ed.) system funded equally by the employee, its private employer, and the revenue and reserves of the federal government. The IMSS does not provide service to employees of the public sector. Employees in the public sector are serviced by the Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE) (English: Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers), which attends to the health and social care needs of government employees. This includes the tripartite branches: local, state, and federal government employees. The government of the states in Mexico additionally provide health services independently of those services provided by the federal government programs. In most states, the state government has established free or subsidized healthcare to all their citizens. In the states that have not done so, the citizens are treated via federal funds.

On December 1, 2006 the Mexican government created the Health Insurance for a New Generation also known as "life insurance for babies," assigning prenatal policies.
On May 16, 2009 Mexico to Achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2011.
On May 28, 2009 Mexico announced Universal Care Coverage for Pregnant Women.

II. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
A universal health care system is extant in Trinidad and Tobago and is the primary form of health-care available in the country. It is used by the majority of the populus seeking medical assistance, as it is free for all citizens.

VS.

THE LACK OF UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE IN THE UNITED STATES

The United States does not have a universal health care system; it is a proposed reform. The Congressional Budget Office and related government agencies scored the cost of a universal health care system several times since 1991, and have uniformly predicted cost savings, probably because of the 40% cost savings associated with universal preventative care and elimination of insurance company overhead costs. In 2009, a universal health care proposal was pending in Congress, the United States National Healthcare Act (H.R. 676, formerly the "Medicare for All Act").
The Obama administration health care reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as amended by the Health Care and Educational Reconciliation Act of 2010, seeks to have near-univesal healthcare insurance coverage to legal residents, as well as mandatory neccessary health care, including immunizations. Exceptions to these medical practices may and will occur due to religious reasons. An officially recognized religion of 200 or more persons is what comprises a rligious corpus that has legal rights and recognition. Individuali preferences and beliefs that differ are usually addressed psychiatrically. The law's a priori conditions include the almost unconditional requisite of almost everyone to have insurance by 2014, closing the gap for universal healthcare during that interim, and prevents insurers from capping their liability for a person's health care needs, a move which is expected to rectify medically induced bankruptcy, or the usual way to total a hospice or hospital check out.
The CBO issued an estimation that the bill would reduce the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured by about 32 million, leaving about 23 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the scope of the board on mortality (which actually does have an office and commitee) the legislation, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent in 2010 to about 94 percent by 2019.
National health insurance
Publicly-funded health care
Single-payer health care
Two-tier health care
Universal health care: Not Yet

There have been a number of different health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration. The first of these reform proposals to be passed by the United States Congress is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which originated in the Senate of the 111th Congress, and passed the House of Representatives in an amended form on March 21, 2010 (with a vote of 219–212).President Obama signed the reforms into law on 23 March 2010.
Key reform topics include post-operative wounds, corpulence, prevention and treatment of chronic conditions, defensive medicine (e.g., martial arts)or tort (judicial system) reform, incentives that reward more care (higher quantity of treatments and longer natural life span) instead of better care (an actual cure), redundant payment systems (recurring charges for the same problem or condition), tax policy (which affects ability to pay), rationing (which affects who is at the top of the organ recipient lists), a shortage of doctors and nurses (usu. called staph infections which result in bedsores and are due to medical neglect and/or abuse), intervention (or coercion) vs. hospice (or medical isolation)and fraud (false claims and falsified treatments [malpractice]).
Healthcare rationing in the United States exists in various forms. Access to private health care insurance is rationed based on price and ability to pay. Healthcare, just like justice, is a commodity that is bought and sold. Those not able to afford a health insurance policy are unable to acquire one, even if those persons are full-time employees who have no health problems. Furthermore, sometimes insurance companies pre-screen applicants for pre-existing medical conditions and either decline to cover the applicant or apply additional price and medical coverage conditions. De facto, medical facilities can and do sometimes disclose the cause of death of an employee or applicant pre mortem. Access to state Medicaid programs is restricted by income and asset limits via an analysis of the pragmatics of providing health care, under federal and state guidelines for eligibility. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) that commonly cover the bulk of the population, restrict access to treatment via capacity of the facilities.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in March 2010 and will prohibit insurers (HMOs both private and public) from limiting coverage to people in the future tense with preexisting conditions beginning in 2014, which will alleviate this type of medical experimentation and correctional rationing.
Some in the media and academia have advocated rationing of care to limit the overall costs in the U.S. Medicare, Medicaid, and related social programs. These entities argue that a proper rationing mechanism is more equitable and cost-effective. The assignment of risks and of benefits in a world that does not have access to of knowledge for self-healing is like juggling mortality within a population. The Congressional Budget Office, whose acronym is CBO, argued that healthcare costs are the initial determiner of governmental spending of tax revenues over the long-term, which means for the duration of that government. The failure of a government to stand indefinitely is not the same as the failure of a people to exist. For example, the Roman Empire ended with the decay of its social mores, codes, and practices. The Roman Empire enjoyed Pax Romana for a long time, and some sources vary on the duration of the peace.

Phylum Porifera: An Introduction

2011-07-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

   The phylum Porifera, consisting of about 10,000 known species, more commonly called “sponges,” are aquatic animals that first appeared in Precambrian (approximately 5 billion to 570 million years ago) times, characterized by much volcanic activity, in marine environments. Sessile (mostly immobile) animals that rely upon water currents for oxygen and food deliveries of dissolved organic matter, sponges have many pores (hence, the phylum nomenclature of Porifera). These animals are asymmetrical, lack tissue or organs, are classified taxonomically mainly by variations of spicule patterns into three major groups (Hexactinellida, [glassy sponges with 6-rayed spicules], Demospongia [which secrete a collagen-form called spongin], and Calcarea [calcareous sponges with excreted 3-4 rayed spicules and crystalline calcium carbonate{CaCO3}]) (Starr).

   Sponges are mostly found in saltwater; however, many sponges thrive in arctic waters and in freshwater (Starr, et al.). Of saltwater marine Porifera, abiotic conditions are not a determining factor of aquatic community habitats. Some sponges are suited for reefs, as these sponges have a slower growth rate, while others thrive in mangrove habitats (Wulff). Evidence supports that marine sponges have a uniform worldwide microbial habitat, as well as a common history of evolution from ancient metazoans (Hentschel, et al.) The species of Spongilla lacustris is an interesting example of a sponge that thrives in brackish freshwater in places such as a sphagnum bog, a bog inhabited mostly by mosses of the genus Sphagnum (Sphagnales), in New Hampshire, USA (Frost, et al.) Porifera in extreme conditions of a sphagnum bog or of an Arctic sea have adapted to the harsh environments in many ways, especially by the means of reproduction via gemmules, a hard-coated minute mass of cells that survive the harshness then grow into mature sponges. Most sponges, however, are hermaphrodites, producing both sperm cells and egg cells. Many others reproduce asexually, breaking off into pieces, and, much like a severed piece of a hologram contains the information of the part as the whole, the piece of a Porifera that reproduces in this manner is capable of reproducing the whole.

   Ecologically, sponges are threatened by the over-consumption of many Porifera in the $40 million dollar economic industry of their harvest. Mankind and womankind have found uses for Porifera since the ancient days. For example, most Classical Latin students know that the ancient Romans used a Porifera-on-a-stick in the public latrines of the Roman Empire. An ancient Roman on a latrine would dip the Porifera (one of the mostly spongin Demospongiae that lack spicules) into a stream of water powered by aqueducts in order to cleanse him/herself. (One would not wish to be downstream of too many others!) A recently discovered medical use of Porifera, especially of the Okinawan marine sponge (Agelas Mauritianus), is the medical use an extract of the sponge’s glycolipids (glycosphingolipids) has anti-tumor, anti-diabetes (type 1), as well as the property of stimulating the immune system (Haaf).

Works Cited

Frost, Thomas M.; De Nagy, George S.; Gilbert, John J. "Population Dynamics and
   Standing Biomass of the Freshwater Sponge Spongilla Lacustris." Ecology. 63.5
   (1982): 1203-10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1938844 Web. 5 Jul. 2011.

Haaf, Wendy. “Sponge compound found to protect against diabetes.” Medical Post. 2
   Oct. 2001: Health Module, ProQuest. Web. 5 Jul. 2011.

Hentscel, Ute; Hopke, Jorn; Horn, Matthias, Friedrich, Anja B., et al. “Molecular
   evidence for a uniform microbial community in sponges from different oceans.”
   Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 68.9 (2002): 4431. Sciences Module,
   ProQuest. Web. 5 Jul. 2011.

Starr, Cecie, Ralph Taggart, Christine Evers, and Lisa Starr. Biology: The Unity and
   Diversity of Life. 12th ed. Belmont, CA: BrooksCole Pub Co, 2009. Print.

Wulff, Janie L. “Trade-Offs in Resistance to Competitors and Predators, and Their
   Effects on the Diversity of Tropical Marine Sponges.” Journal of Animal Ecology. 74.2
   (2005): 313-21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3505620 Web. 5 Jul. 2011.

My New Book: My Sunshine

2011-04-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

Check out my website. It has a link to a YouTube interview with me and a link to purchase my new book. My Sunshine--get your copy.

CLICK HERE to visit my website.

Confucius Say:

2011-03-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Confucianism is the system of thought that originated in China from Kong Fuzi (551-479 B.C.E.), more commonly called Confucius. The Analects are a collection of his adages that were recorded by his disciples. Confucianism arose in a time of Chinese societal chaos, and Confucius, although never attaining his desired position as a powerful minister, influenced Chinese society immensely. In understanding the restructuring of Chinese society, it is imperative to be familiar with the system of thought that Confucius and his disciples employed in returning order to society.

The fundamental triad of Confucian thought, applied to microlevel and macrolevels of society, are: ren, or humanistic compassion; li, or deference to and compassion for elders and superiors; and xiao, or a familial code of honor. These core principles of interpersonal conduct allowed Confucian leaders to establish social harmony and equilibrium by public and private example, the Confucian junzi, or superiors who possessed the fruits of the triad principles, which include the qualities of courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, an indominatable spirit, and an egalitarian worldview.

Elvis Died Today

2011-03-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

In Memoriam:

Elvis, a blue androgynous Betta fish, died today,Wednesday, March 23, 2011. (S)he committed accidental suicide, leaping out of the water, falling three feet onto the floor. I found Elvis dead on the floor, next to my remote-controlled blue bunny car and a wooden initial of capital "E" (my middle initial). A representative of Science Diet helped me pick out the Betta fish, and she even paid part of the tax at PetCo. I had printed out instructions on how to care for a beta fish. I regret that I had placed Elvis in too small of a container because the fishbowl with marbles made Elvis go crazy from seeing his/her reflection. Elvis had a short, well-fed life in my room. Elvis liked darkness, quiet, food, water, fresh air, candles, and incense.

I am not ready to replace Elvis. I will read the instructions on how to care for a Betta fish before I get another one.

Devon's Way

2011-02-27T15:54:00.000-08:00

Like a riddle that left a cradle,
A triumphant wizard cloaks a child of
Another world that can be entered
Through a portal of canopies of trees
He lifts his staff and guides the
Energy fields in a spectacle of skills
A deft magician of another realm
Clever and wise with soft, kind words
Speaking peace and taming the winds
Of dark forces of the divide
Between the two worlds of ways
Devon, child of wonder and magic,
Reaches for the wand that is offered
As a gift of love's light is raised to discover
Leaves of trees like seeds of guardians
Protecting the initiate of possibility
Kindness and virtue encircle
And yield to the masterful
Flowering brooks of songs
That open the empyrean
With a joyous muse's gong.

Dance Macabre

2011-02-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

A balded hilltop crest,
Peopled with moss and pebbles,
Planted by an ancient sky
That hummed with honeyed tongue
A violet, starry lullaby;
Crowning with foolscap and mandrake
Kindness and dark arts that struggle
In the awkward embrace--the humble folding
Of the primal greens
Into tamed streams--
Like a salt lick without a hunt
Or a wet kiss without a bloody bite.
Elgalon's bashful maidens braiding sandy hair
On the shell-lined shores, in deep foam, in low mist,
In divine, dreamlike touches of nimble digits
That enumerate the pale pages of
A lost history that hushes in elevated slumber,
As a remorseful magician reigns with violent thunder;
And the untouched, silent seas part like the quaking, velvet legs
That are bared before a novice midwife's nods:
The canonized Mother of creation's crux of news,
Assisted to birth music into blue hues
Of a cottony, straining empyrean,
Jettisoned like the slippery sea and sunken shore,
Impassioned by the eureka moment
Of a hybrid universal harmony,
Clothing stone with memory and embellishment...
A tiger in a timid trance...
A lion leaping a lonely dance.

Geographic Population Cleansing and Genocide

2011-02-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

When Germany was having economic crises, Hitler's regime scapegoated the Jews as the source of poverty and economic disparity in Germany following much propaganda and civil unrest, the Jews in Germany had three options: work, die or flee. If children were too young to work, then the Nazis killed children. This is one case of genocide from history.
From the reign of Elizabeth on, laws were passed to punish the "rogues and vagabonds," to imprison them in workhouses, or to exile them. Indenture was a systematic removal of displaced, unwanted poor people. Through indenture, the English cleansed the population of these destitute people. For example, as much as 10 percent of the population of Maryland in 1755 were white servants. In much the same way that the Americans gave Indians blankets laden with smallpox, the shipping merchants who profited from the shipment of indentured servants gave the indentured servants scurvy, fever, dysentery, headaches, heat, constipation, boils, cancer, filthy water, bad food, and old and highly salted meat. Governor Berkeley of Virginia, in 1671, reported that in previous years four of five indentured servants died of disease after their arrival.
Nothing was done to change the conditions for indentured servants who were being shipped to the colonies, despite reports of the high mortality rate.
In Nazi Germany, desk clerks were paid by the regime to officiate the genocide of economic outcasts. Merchant clerks were paid by the shipping companies to officiate the certain deaths of 80% of indentured servants sent to Virginia prior to 1671.
Should there be an Indentured Servant Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.? Do you agree that this was a form of population cleansing and genocide? What life-affirming options are there for a government with a large population of poor people?

What are the most crucial rituals in your life, the ones you could not possibly live without?

2011-01-27T20:06:00.000-08:00

I have developed a lot of rituals that are integral parts of my life and livelihood. I enact theatrically many self-generated scripts that are meant to enlighten, inspire, amuse, empower, and entertain myself and those few friends and family members who have been privy to these. I have a prop box that is a handmade pine box that looks like a small coffin. It has my initials on it in raised wood. It is stained mahogany and has brassy handles on the sides. Also, it has a lock. Within this box, it is lined with crushed velvet. I have many articles within: a reiki rattle from Peru, sacred oils (amber oil for protection, dragon's blood oil also for protection...), a special mugwort salve to open the third eye chakra, various jewelry pieces (including an Egyptian ankh [the cross of life]), candles for the four elemental directions, candles for other purposes, herbs (such as elder flowers for blessings), holy water (thunder water from a first Spring rain and White Christmas healing water from snow on Christmas Day), a Pandora's box, Russian sage that I harvested from my garden, tea sets for fairy rituals (I offer them berries and make fairy bubble baths with tiny towels and amenities), and much more. I have a redwood wand from Alivan's master wandmakers. I have a wand that glows. I have a selenite stone wand. I have a collection of some rocks, including pyrite for prosperity ceremonies (it is the fool's gold) and a geode from Mexico that symbolizes harmony, balance, and completion. I have imbued these objects with my own psychic interpretations, as well as some more conventional ones that I have gathered from my studies of world religions. These items are essential for my theatrical rituals. I have sacred books that are stored in a locked bookshelf. I have sacred books that are not locked up as well. I have a personal library, complete with my own library cards, stamp set, and inventory list. I select the books like a curator. The most essential books are in a reference section. The most sacred and potentially harmful ones to younger persons or those who cannot comfortably explore such occult and esoteric subjects are locked away. So, those are the props for my theatrical rituals.

The scripts of my dramas (and comedies) are usually self-generated, sometimes recorded, and sometimes improvisational. Sometimes I pull a ritual such as the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram from a book. Some of the rituals that I perform are derived from the Abydos Passion Play. THese rituals usually reference Teutonic gods and goddesses. The most empowering ritual that I have performed was above the Parthenon. The punch line was: "Osiris, slain and risen!" Another line was: "You are young again, and you live." Here is an example of one of myself-written recorded rituals from one of my books of shadows:

1. Set up altar

2. Light candles.

3. Ground and center (yogic breathing).

4. (Begin at North candle. Walk clockwise once around area, pointing wand downward, slowly raising rod. By the time the third pass is completed, the wand should be raised to the sky.) While walking circle, first round, intone:

(North) Black and red, white and gold

(East) Rising circle taking hold

(South) New moon's blessing bright and clean

(West) Full moon's magic sight unseen.

Second Pass:

N: North is earth, and east is air.

E: Mighty ones, attend me here.

S: South is fire and west the sea.

W: Ancient ones, please be with me.

Third Pass:

N: Rise, O circle, Queen's great cloak

E: Hunter's might and Witch's Oath

S: Planets spin and kiss the stars

W: Hearken to the Witch's charge!

(Stationary @ North)

Make the magicK; make the change.

Nothing is beyond my range.

Between the worlds this circle sealed.

(Tap rod once)

And naught within shall be revealed.

As above and so below

As I say, it shall be so!

(Face North)

Ye elemental gates open here.

Bring your special powers here.

(facing North)

Earth!

(facing East)

Air!

(facing South)

Fire!

(facing West)

Water!

Hail, Mistress of the universe!

I, Pythia Parnassus, your daughter of the Craft of the Wise, do call thee forth and beseech you in mine own name as your earthly child, who is in need of your assistance. Great Mother, lend me your ear in this situation:

O Mighty Lady of Light and Love, I come to you for guidance with humble supplication as your child. My heart is troubled, and I trust my fate unto a mother's eyes. My voice is like an unborn babe in your sea of a womb. The seeds of my dreams are like the seeds that my Father, your lover, planted in the sky, as numerous as the stars. Take charge of my course, and steady my will. Please warn me of heartaches and keep me from danger, chiding me when I stray from Truth. I offer my midsummer's eve pouch on this wintry eve. The new moon is set, and the morrow is Lovers' Tryst. I did slumber with this pouch beneath my pillow two seasons hence, and no dreams issued forth. I beseech you to guide me to the safety of my intended's sight, and I implore that my love be selected by maternal sight. You, in the crown of the stars with my heavenly father, take kindly to my request, I ask. Please, under this red, red sky with the dreams of the new moon do make the tie. As you delight in the face of my father, O Great Mother, bring my match to me. Let his love be revealed by the light of your perfection. In your wise craft, I do trust my selection. As I will, so mote it be!

North star high

And earth below

Fidelity and love

Do bestow

As a mother's eye spies

A son of another

Reveal the disguise

Of my true lover

Set my heart in beats

Matching his own

Spirit lifting words

As works lift stone

(Arms to sky.)

All gratitude to Spirit!

(facing West)

Ye elemental gates,

Begin to close;

Your gifts were welcome;

Your energy goes.

(Walk clockwise once, sucking the energy into the rod or wand.)

(Walk widdershins, lowering wand from sky to ground.)

(@ North)

This circle is open,

But never broken.

So mote it be!

(Conclude with a libation and witch's cakes.)

So, that is what the scripting is about in my personal rituals. As for the audience, it is small. My family and friends witness these rituals, and each observer gets a gift, usually a glow in the dark necklace. I have had friends ask me to include them in a ritual at times. In such a case, I write a script that is appropriate for what the seeker needs, as in prosperity or love.

These rituals are essential for my life. They are my own book of dreams, desires, passions, and petitions.

Blessed be!

Theatre

2011-01-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

   Art, in its simplest definition, is a work of human creativity. Theatre is a dramatic art, and, when executed with the means and ends as art, is a medium for the reflection of an audience. Art is not regurgitation. Theatre, in its creative premise, is not an encapsulation of life, but, rather is an explosion of thought, culture, and dialogue that defies or exaggerates convention. Through repetition, it becomes ritual, in many cases supplanting older customs and norms. Theatre is an apparent dialogue, a conversation of, amongst, about, and for culture and climate: both ordinary and extraordinary, including the innocent and the obscene.

   It may seem a myopia to digest theatre from a personal perspective alone; however, that, as the audience, is the base experience of ego. When viewing a theatrical production, it, at times, seems effortless to be shocked and/or amused in a response of personal pathos, yet to truly frame the art is exponential. From the perspective of the individual to the perspective of the collective, interpretation of the art form of theatre is endless.

   Sometimes the parameters of theatre are not so simple as a stage or a screen. For example, I enjoy thespian activities in a less staged atmosphere. I recently dined at Amerigo in downtown Nashville and did some unsolicited improvisational comedy with my companions. The humorous, satirical conversation ensued as we took on the personas of Belle Meade millionaires, ranging from our gossip about the Hellmann mayonnaise, Dasani, and Aquafina dynasties’ fortunes, where the dynasties are schooling their children, how the Aquafina family recently decorated their summer home with a shabby chic white color palette, to MBA and Harpeth Hall cotillions, new money, and wintering at Key Biscayne. Such spontaneous spectacles may not easily be dismissed as art: many people with less scruples than my companions and I at Amerigo make such art a mode of deceit. That glamorous millionaire may be a thespian, or, worse yet, a confidence artist. Theater is an art that happens every day in many unexpected and staged ways.

2010-12-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

  My name is Christie Elise Jones, and I am majoring in University Parallel Studies with a concentration in English. This is my second to last semester at Volunteer State Community College, and next fall I shall be attending the University of Memphis. At the University of Memphis, I shall be double majoring in English and either Political Science or History, with a minor in Judaic Studies. I plan to acquire my MFA, and it is my hope to be a professor at Volunteer State Community College. I am a native of Hendersonville. I was born at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, and I have resided in Hendersonville for almost the entirety of my life since the age of one year old. My family is of Scot, Irish, and Cherokee ancestry, and my parents met at the Gold Rush bar near Vanderbilt University, a university that both my mother and one of my three brothers attended. My father preached during my childhood, and he now works for the state. My family has roots in this area, and my grandfather’s business, which was subsequently my father’s business, is on the National Registry of Historic Places: Acme Farm Supply.

   Before it was a feed and seed store, it was a buggy store, and the building stands as a testament of time on First and Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. I consider Acme to be one of the most significant historic sites in my area because its success gauged the transition of the area from an agrarian economy to a service economy. Loyal farmers of the area would purchase Sweetena horse chow, chicken scratch, Purina chows, Purple Top turnip seeds, 7 top Turnip seeds, fescue, and all manners of farm necessities. The business thrived for many decades, but in 1998, it closed its doors. Across the street of the empty feed and seed store, Hard Rock Café hosts the new clientele of First and Broadway. Times change, and downtown Nashville no longer has room for a great part of its roots: a feed and seed store.

   As a child, I gladly carried out feed to the cars of farmers and businessmen alike, and I took pride in the heritage of the area. What I know about the first peoples of the area seems be a narrative of two worlds that collided: the world of Native Americans and the world of colonial frontiersmen of Fort Nashboro on First Avenue, upon the banks of the Cumberland River. The Native Americans trekked the treacherous Trail of Tears, driven away by the colonials. Cherokee women and children, separated from husbands and fathers, would keep hope along the trail when they found the signature arrowhead of their father or mate, a testament that he was still alive. The trail is along the Natchez Trace, not too far from Fort Nashboro and Acme’s closed doors. History has a way of closing doors. Within her dark chambers, the past is like the womb of mystery for the future.

These Courses of Treat Meant...

2010-10-28T16:36:00.000-07:00

Shall I entreat thee, O Kind Man,

To sup where I dine; to rise as I stand?

Words fall short in this course of meal;

A kiss of refreshment I do hope to steal.

Ever I retire as a passive choice;

Ever I arise in active voice.

Tall and proud, I stand dismayed,

As my smile in a while...

My sentiments betrayed...

These words, unspoke:

This silence, a kind oath.

Little Boy of Snowy Stars

2010-10-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

I built you a magical palace

By the light of the moon

With a view of the aurora borealis
And your private hot air balloon...

And a winding crystal ice maze

Leading to a star chart
That absolutely conveys
The language of my heart.

I speak to you of forever,

And you are wildly amazed;
And I pull a magic lever,
And the world's roof is raised.

The stars careen out of sight,

And you and I are alone,
In a frost kingdom's candlelight,
Eating ice cream cones.

Little boy of snowy stars,

I bring you home to bed,
Tell you tales of red Mars,
Then kiss your soft forehead.

Good night, my dear little one,

I love you more than you know.
Rest in the land of the midnight sun,
And dream of Martian snow.

The Rose of Avalon

2010-10-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

O'er glade and meadow sing a song

Of loves we lost; of lands far gone.

When the blue of sky is gone,

I'll hand you the rose of Avalon.

O Come with me across the sea

To the land of Tir-na-nog,

Where maidens play all the day

In mirth and lively song.

A priestess chants with morning bells

In a tongue from sunken shipwreck spells.

Truth and proof walk in night's shade,

As light and sight hide far away.

Pull away from this tired shore,

And cast a net in the sky.

Tell me where your hopes do float,

And that is where we'll fly.

O'er glade and meadow sing a song

Of loves we lost; of lands far gone.

When the blue of sky is gone,

I'll hand you the rose of Avalon.

O Come with me across the sea

To the land of Tir-na-nog,

Where maidens play all the day

In mirth and lively song.

I Love You

2010-10-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

So here we are, here, you and I,

Somewhere between the sheets

And the streets.

I could occupy your mind

Like a riddle undefined

One more time...

I could court you like a King

Bestowing you with dreams,

As it seems...

Instead, I grasp your hand

And clasp your ringed fist,

Shouting from the balcony:

Goddammit I love you!

The Human Condition: Li Bai, Giovanni Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarch

2010-10-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Civilization is the continuing story of mankind's rethinking of a worldview, a dialogue of and between the ages. Literature is a vehicle of recorded expression, and the literature of the past retains its pertinence and application in the revision of social structures and individuals. Straying from god and hero worship, the works of the Chinese Tang poet Li Bai; the prose writer at the opening cusp of the Renaissance, Giovanni Boccaccio; and "the first Renaissance man," Francesco Petrarch are representatives of Humanism (Davis et al. Early Modern World 67). All are diverse in origin; however, each author is inciting revolutionary compassion for and interest in the human condition on an individualistic level.


Li Bai (701-762) writes for an academic audience, at the appointment of and with the patronage of the emperor Xuanzong. Frequently compared to European Romantic poets, "a melancholy strain of loss and regret tempers even Li Bai's most celebratory poems." Li Bai's works repudiate his predecessors, and he celebrates worldly extravagance, earning him condemnation from many state-appointed conformists, especially including Confucianists and Communists (Davis et al. The Middle Period 331-3). The poet, writing in first person, exalts the pleasure of wine, tinged with pensive sadness: "Who can bear spring's lonely sorrows, who \ face it without wine? It's the only way" ("Drinking Alone beneath the Moon" 31-2). In "Seeing Off a Friend," he masterfully expounds upon the sad farewell between two intimate individuals, and Li Bai's personality flashes on display. He employs imagery in this piece to communicate the human pathos that is echoed in nature, including the "lonely brambles"; "floating clouds"; and "falling sun" (4-6). The human emotions are mirrored and affirmed with universal imagery.


Although Li Bai writes independent of the Europeans, his sentiments of humanism correspond with Boccaccio's (1313-1375) later humanistic prose. Boccaccio writes humanistic Romanticism, and in a courtly love theme of The Decameron, complex human misery pilots the story's pathos. Seven women and three men meet up at church in the midst of chaos and death in Florence from the Black Death. With the premise of Europe's great encounter with mortality, an actual historical occurrence that he experienced firsthand, Boccaccio weaves one hundred stories for a sympathetic audience (Davis et al. The Middle Period 851). Boccaccio's The Decameron opens: "Most gracious ladies, knowing that you are all by nature pitiful, I know that in your judgment this work will seem to have a painful and sad origin" (853). The compromising situations of the characters in the tales is extremely corporeal, yet Boccaccio's treatment is understanding. Each character possesses a unique persona, and the stories tell a collective tale of common suffering and, in some cases, a tale of bittersweet triumphs.


As the literary voice of the individual strengthens, Petrarch, during "lifelong exile," spearheaded Humanism at the dimming of the Dark Ages with his writings, especially with his cycle of sonnets to Laura, oscillating from depths of pain to heights of worship (Davis et al. Early Modern World 67). The historical inaccessibility of Laura, the subject of his sonnets, parallels the poet's personal vain attempts of intimacy. "Despite his love for Laura, Petrarch fathered at least two children by an unknown woman" (Davis et al. Early Modern World 70). The mysterious reality of his paternity parallels the enigma of his poetic female subject. The audience of his self-conscious works may identify with his circumstances, as the theme of unrequited love is as ancient, perpetual and universally understood as the human condition. The reader may respond "...with thoughtful eyes \ with pity true or false, it's all the same" ("Sometimes She'd Comb Her Yellow Braids Out Loose" 5-6).


The works of the Chinese Tang poet Li Bai, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Francesco Petrarch, present examples of humanistic perspectives. From the independent time and space vantage points, each author entertainingly explicates the human condition on an individualistic level. The forum of literature preserves a storehouse of wisdom: the repetitive echoes of human passion that may advance human progress.


Works Cited


Bai, Li. "Drinking Alone beneath the Moon." The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, The Middle Period, 100 C.E. - 1450. Eds. Paul Davis et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004, 337.  Print.

Bai, Li. "Seeing Off a Friend." The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, The Middle Period, 100 C.E. - 1450. Eds. Paul Davis et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004,337.  Print.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. "The Decameron." The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, The Middle Period, 100 C.E. - 1450. Eds. Paul Davis et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004, 853-77.  Print.

Davis, Paul et al. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, Beginnings - 100 C.E. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.  Print.

Davis, Paul et al. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.  Print.


Petrarch, Francesco. "Sometimes She'd Comb Her Yellow Braids Out Loose." The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Early Modern World, 1450 - 1650. Eds. Paul Davis et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004, 82.  Print.

Juxtaposition: Toni Cade Bambara and Nathaniel Hawthorne

2010-10-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

   In Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” and in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” respectively, the main characters Sylvia and Young Goodman Brown, find their places in society by means of discovery. Each experiences a hero’s round of a coming of age, in which characterization is as much a process of introspection as it is a process of finding the exhibition of an external reflection. Young Goodman Brown enters his hero’s round at sunset, representing a dark romantic tone, and Sylvia enters her hero’s round in the summer, representing a time of youth that ironically is a time when children do not receive educational instruction. Both characters embark upon journeys: Young Goodman Brown journeys into the wilderness, and Sylvia journeys to F.A.O. Schwarz. In the hero cycles of these two characters, comparisons of a similar coming of age experience are evident, yet notable contrasting features are apparent, including distinctions of plot, characterization, atmosphere, setting, symbolic references, tone, and protagonist’s worldview.

The plots, characterization, and atmospheres of these two stories contain striking and less obvious similarities and differences. Both Sylvia and Young Goodman Brown are the agents of the respective plots, and both plots are coming of age stories that cycle through a hero’s round. Hawthorne and Bambara follow the mythic hero’s journey pattern. Sylvia and Goodman Brown leave home; both cross a boundary into unfamiliar areas; both are initiated and tested in this foreign territory; and, both return home with a boon of experiential enrichment. Sylvia leaves home to journey to F.A.O. Schwarz, a toy store, and Goodman Brown leaves home to journey to the wilderness. Both characters take a physical, psychological, and sociological journey; and a companion spurs both characters toward tests and into new paradigms of reality. Both characters of the stories are similar in lack of experience, and both achieve similar boons of wisdom and experience. The pollution or disharmony is similar throughout the plots of both stories. Both agents assign the blame on external forces: Sylvia assigns blame upon society at large, while the narrator of Goodman Brown’s story assigns blame upon his community. In Sylvia’s narration and dialogue, she assigns blame implicitly upon society, and in some places more explicitly and specifically. For example, when Flyboy claims that he has no home, Sylvia elaborates, placing Flyboy’s remark into the context: “…like he do at school to keep the white folks off his back and sorry for him. Send this poor kid to camp posters, is his specialty [sic]” (Bambara 112). In Goodman Brown’s story, the narrator’s assignment of blame more tenuous. Hawthorne writes, “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? Be it so if you will” (90). The narrator accosts the reader, and like a trial of atmosphere, the limits of possibility are open for deliberation. The atmospheres of both stories bear different limits and conditions. For example, nothing extremely supernatural occurs in Sylvia’s journey, whereas trees seem to anthropomorphize, and Young Goodman Brown seems to hear unbelievable conversations on the trail. These stories diverge on other points as well.

   The stories have different settings and symbolic references. The setting of Sylvia’s story is a journey from urban squalor into the unfamiliar area of urban excess, while the setting of Goodman Brown’s cycle is a journey from community and religious comfort into the unfamiliar wilderness of secrecy and profanity. The dominant integral symbols of the stories are different as well. Sylvia’s paltry sum of money represents the ticket into her quest, and the fiberglass ship represents relative deprivation. Of the toy boat’s high price, Sylvia remarks: “That much money it should last forever [sic]” (Bambara 113). Goodman Brown’s symbol of the cane represents both old age and temptation, and the pink hair ribbon of his wife symbolizes the purity that he cannot maintain. Goodman Brown sums his worldview in one statement: “That old woman taught me my catechism” (Hawthorne 85). Sylvia’s self-image is summed up in the opening line of the story: “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right…[sic]“ (Bambara 110). Both Sylvia and Goodman Brown, as agents, use another character as agency: Sylvia uses Sugar as her agency of commentary, while Goodman Brown uses his wife, “Poor little Faith,” as his agency for faith (Hawthorne 81). While the main characters make similar use of agency, the tonal use of irony in the stories is dissimilar in some respects.

   The tone of each story is similar in that both narrators employ irony; however, in Sylvia’s case, this irony is used to delineate her worldview from the so-called real world that the reader implicitly shares, while in Goodman Brown’s case, the third person narrator uses irony to unite the worlds of the writer, the text, and the reader. Sylvia’s narration is irreverent and bold, as in “a la-de-da apartment [sic]” or the final statement “But ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin [sic],” calling the reader’s attention to the disparity of her socio-economic dilemma (Bambara 110, 115). The narrator of “Young Goodman Brown” petitions the reader’s values, beliefs, and experiences as the contextual judge of the story. Both heroes return to a home that is strange and foreign, with a sense of alienation and of a loss not only of innocence, but also of belonging: the results of coming of age and growing up.

   Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” when juxtaposed, illustrate two different points of view on growing up that are alike in mythic journey, and the stories are similar in effect, signifying disillusionment and a point of no return. The two stories are both effective in conveying this theme, yet the narrative voices of conflict and emerging worldview paradigms are poles apart. The stories can be compared and contrasted in the aforementioned areas: plot, characterization, atmosphere, setting, symbolic references, tone, and protagonist’s worldview. Perhaps the historical context of each story, the protagonists’ respective life situations, and the values of the writers constitute two separate worlds of origin. Even so, across the pages, translated by the lens of an ever-changing audience, the meaning of these stories retains some integrity by way of the collective human experience.

Works Cited

Abcarian, Richard, et al., eds. Literature: The Human Experience, Reading and Writing. 10th ed. New York: St. Martin’s, 2010. Print.

Bambara, Toni Cade. “The Lesson.” Abcarian et. al. 110-15. Print.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.“ Abcarian et. al. 81-91. Print.

What Next?

2010-10-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

Marx enumerates the five stages of social class struggle as manifested in socio-economic theory. Our nation is on the verge of the final cycle:

(1) Primitive society: Native Americans

(2) Slavery: African-Americans

(3) Feudalism: Indentured Servants, with vestigial structures of this as rental property

(4) Capitalism: All I have to say is thank God that it at least has the safety net of welfare at this point.

(5) Socialism: Which will accordingly evolve from the realization that a welfare system is necessary in a capitalistic society, along with the attendant moral and ethical considerations that will be expressed initially as a Utopian idealism, with a longevity in direct proportion with cultural and social adaptation

What next? Back to the beginning? Or is something higher possible?

Marital Rape: Proposal for a Solution

2010-10-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

30 July 2009

Marital Rape: Proposal for a Solution

   The institution of marriage is subject to law from the formation of the social contract, throughout the duration of the relationship, and, if necessary, at the dissolution of the bond. Marriage is a popular institution in America, and this nation’s founding fathers made provisions for the domestic units that are an essential part of the social fabric. The Preamble of the United States Constitution opens with the following words: “We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility…” (US Const., preamble). Domestic tranquility is a crucial factor in American private and public life, and private sexual practices are under public scrutiny. Marital rape, specifically of women, is a problem of the institution of marriage and an unresolved legal dilemma in the United States of America. The problem of rape in a marriage is a consequence of a forced proprietary monogamy, which should be solved by: altering the structure of marriage to allow the practice of polyamory, no longer allowing adultery to be grounds for divorce, necessary cultural evolution, and criminalizing marital rape.

   Although marital rape is not a new problem, the recognition of it as a punishable crime is relatively recent. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, marital rape is presently defined as “[a] husband’s sexual intercourse with his wife by force or without her consent” (Garner, 1288). This definition and its application are subject to change, within the flux of the common law tradition. The American legal system functions as a body of law that operates via judicial decisions rather than a code of statutes or constitutions (Bouchoux 75). Gratian, the twelfth-century founder of common law, set the original precedent on the issue by decreeing that consent was desirable but not necessary for conjugal union (Russell 246-7). Historically, rape in marriage is treated as a non-issue. Susan Brownmiller, as quoted in Rape in Marriage, with a keen historical observation, states: “Rape entered the law through the back door…as a property crime of man against man. Woman, of course, was viewed as the property” (Russell 227). The treatment of women as property is a byproduct of the establishment of a patriarchal society. Marital rape should be uniformly criminalized, in order to maintain order in the bedroom. Furthermore, by altering the structure of this proprietary relationship and opening up the bedroom door, consensual sex with persons other than the wife and/or husband becomes an option and an alternative to rape.

   If a wife is consistently unwilling or incapable of engaging in sex acts, then the recourse for the spurned husband should not be rape. Rather, the sexually frustrated spouse should find a willing extramarital person with whom he (or she) may have sexual relations. This should be an open door policy: both husband and wife should enjoy sexual liberation. Waning sexual satisfaction and decreased sexual relations in marriage are hypothetically attributed to ennui and regularity. Research supporting this idea has shown “that men are both more likely than women to report having sexual fantasies involving a partner other than their spouse or significant other and that the likelihood and frequency of such fantasies increase as relationship length increases” (Tewksbury and Golder). Men tend to react to prolonged monogamy by fantasizing about polyamory.

   Merriam-Webster defines polyamory as “the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time” (Polyamory). Polyamory assumes the total knowledge and full consent of all parties involved. In an article about a set of polyamorous partners in the New York Times, Alex Williams writes, “All parties here are committed to polyamory, which for them means maintaining multiple steady relationships, with the knowledge and consent of all involved” (Williams 1). To legitimize polyamory for marital relationships, which would aid in preventing unwanted sexual intercourse between husband and wife, adultery must be made obsolete, especially as a ground for divorce. Eliminating the stigma of extramarital relationships would promote sexual intercourse with willing partners and would minimize the incidence of marital rape; furthermore, allowing husband and wife to be polyamorous promotes sexual health.

   The New York Times reported on polyamory recently and discovered that polyamory fosters healthy sexual relationships. In fact, polyamory has many proponents who are arguing for open relationships to become more mainstreamed: “Within the past year, books like Open, by Jenny Block, and Opening Up, by the sex columnist Tristan Taormino, have argued for polyamory. Celebrities like Tilda Swinton and Carla Sarkozy, the first lady of France, have expressed support for open relationships” (Williams 1). There is research that shows that opening relationships prevents the stress of frequent sexual activity from being narrowly directed at the wife of a husband and instead expanded to other partners (Tewksbury and Golder). This suggests that opening the marital contract sexually would prevent the problem of marital rape.

   Although historical treatment of the problem of marital rape as a non-issue obviates the scope of historical quantifiable research, the occurrence of marital rape is well documented in recent studies. A survey of mostly married persons in the mid-1990’s reports that 14.8% of women are victims of forced penetrative sex without consent at some point in their lifetimes, and of those women, 19% of the perpetrators are intimate partners (Basile et. al. 1-2). Predominantly, in the United States, a man cannot be prosecuted for marital rape. The Illinois rape statute states that rape is when a man uses force to have sexual intercourse with an unwilling woman who is not his wife (Finkelhor and Yllo 1). Legal definitions are not only open to interpretation but are also inconsistent on the whole. State sovereignty authorizes each state to formulate separate statutes independently, and there is no legitimate national consensus on the unresolved legal dilemma of what constitutes rape in a marriage.

   Not only is there incongruence between state laws, but also legislation is not consistent at higher levels of the American legal system. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994 is legislation to protect victims from gender-motivated crimes, including rape (42 U.S.C. § 13981). Within its parameters, several states changed policy on marital rape, striking the exemptions. This allowed women who are victims of forced or nonconsensual marital sex a legal recourse for the previously closeted crime. VAWA catalyzed some changes in state statutes; however, as of the year 2000, it is no longer in effect. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress has no authority to enact the VAWA Civil-Rights Remedy provision, in the case of United States vs. Morrison. This case, in which the defendant was involved in a gang rape on a college campus, is now a standing precedent in the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and in state sovereignty. The United States legal system is a body of ongoing dialogue and debate, and this creates a state of dynamic flux that, if not guided by some principles that are static, would be a state of complete chaos.

   To establish order in the bedroom and the courtroom, criminalizing wife rape would altogether provide a structural change in the American legal tradition regarding rape. The legal tradition would no longer be able to view wives as their husbands’ properties. A federal statute or statutes in each state removing any mitigation provided by the fact that a rapist is married to his victim is a policy proposal to prevent wife rape in the United States.

   Criminalizing wife rape in American law would also provide a cultural change: education about rape in schools across America would have to include a discussion of the equality of women and men in marital contracts. The culture of male dominance in the American patriarchy would be heavily challenged by such a policy proposal.

   In the current culture and legal tradition, some argue that it is impossible to rape one’s wife. States vary in legislative practices, yet an often quoted British authority is Matthew Hale, who proclaims that marriage is an institution of a permanent consent by a woman to intercourse with her husband, in Hale’s words, “a consent…which she cannot retract” (Finkelhor and Yllo 166-7). Our common law tradition, although it is derived most directly from Britain, is guided by a national Constitution that divides it from Britain. Hale’s voice echoes from the waning times of male dominance and imbalanced gender roles and reverence. Much to the chagrin of alpha males, modern culture is evolving to embrace womanhood as a powerful nature, resurrecting the Goddess from the fury and flames of a harsh dogma.

   The predominant cultural worldview of American society is through the dirty lenses of Judeo-Christianity. Women are marginalized in this system of thought and belief. However, this is changing. Women and men are coming to embrace the female aspect of Godhead. Silver Raven Wolf, an authority on witchcraft, who was interviewed as such by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and U.S. News and World Report, states that the worship of the Goddess arose in the Paleolithic Age, and the Goddess gained stature in the transition from hunting and gathering to horticultural then agricultural ways of life (39). She says of the riddance of the Goddess from the pantheon of divinity: “we know that the supremacy of the Goddess even existed in early Christianity, until She was tossed out. Let’s face it, if the women of the time were treated like baggage, enslaved, and considered property, how could one employ a female divinity in one’s religion?” (40)
Now that women have gained a foothold and the brotherhood’s stronghold is shattering, modern man, awakening from a Madonna/whore complex, must search again for a meaning to life, redefining his relationship to woman and ultimately to his god.

   Presently, spirituality is replaced by a mechanical objectification of the human. Culture fails to provide the resources of personal sustenance, and “the individual is forced back to the realization of an ancient truth which Western civilization has permitted itself to forget: the realization that the basic resources for life are contained within the human personality” (Progoff 19). The problem with Judeo-Christianity is elegantly summed up by Alan Watts in Psychotherapy East & West:

Now one of the most important Christian conventions is the view of man as what I have called the ‘skin-encapsulated ego,’ the separate soul and its fleshly vehicle together constituting a personality which is unique and ultimately valuable in the sight of God. This view is undoubtedly the historical basis of the Western style of individuality, giving us the sensation of ourselves as isolated islands of consciousness confronted with objective experiences which are quite ‘other.’ We have developed this sensation to a particularly acute degree. But the system of conventions which inculcates this sensation also requires this definitively isolated ego to act as the member of a body and to submit without reserve to the social pattern of the church. The tension so generated, however interesting at times, is in the long run as unworkable as any other flat self-contradiction. (12)

This failure to not only deify the female aspect of godhead but also to imprison the ego in the organ of the flesh, leaves no other alternative to current society other than to create an antithetical synthesis of God and Goddess, man and woman, body and soul. Much like the progression of the dialogue of philosophy, modern culture stands at an ineluctable impasse. The breakdown of the church, the collapse of the domestic quarters, and the crisis of modern man all could be the downfall of this nation. Change is imperative, and marital rape is a symptom of these social illnesses, which must be remedied by a reworking of the personal, social, and legal spheres.

   The most novel development of a counter-claim is that to criminalize marital rape would cause a proliferation of inmates who are the husbands of spiteful wives. In the opinion of Alfred Onorato, of the Connecticut General Court:

The jails are full of guys because of vengeful wives, and there are a lot of them….A lot of these cases are pumped through the court system because the wives are angry at the husbands. The guy stayed out too late or he was running around with other women. And since society is already burdened with these kinds of women, the last thing we need is a law making it illegal for a husband to sexually assault his wife….Giving a wife the opportunity to charge her husband with sexual assault? That would really open the floodgates. (Finkelhor and Yllo 169)

Onorato’s argument, which is based upon his judicial experiences, is a common claim. The financial burden on the penal systems of America, coupled with the taxing process of courtroom dramas, are not the fundamental problem. Women who would abuse the system with the suspicion or evidence of infidelity are women who are in exactly the structure of a marital contract that should be outmoded. The problem of infidelity is easily remedied by a common culture of polyamory.

   In closing, the legal problem of wife rape persists, a fixed form of violence with a variable chain of victims, perpetrators, policies, and legal procedures. Whether or not it is even criminalized is a continuing problem, which is posed generation after generation in bedrooms and courtrooms across the country. Marital rape is an inherited problem: a legacy of a patriarchy with such commemorated hosts as Gratian, Matthew Hale, and many others. The current Judeo-Christian worldview obstructs the psyche of men and women alike, and it also terribly obstructs the vehicles of order and justice in gender-based relationships. A policy of opening up the marital contract sexually would assist in minimizing the incidence of marital rape. This policy can be enforced legally by removing adultery from the statutory codes outlining the grounds for marital divorce. Furthermore, criminalizing the act of marital rape would provide deterrence against the act. All of these claims of policy suggest a sensible solution to the problem of marital rape.

Works Cited

Basile, Kathleen C., Jieru Chen, Michele C. Black, and Linda E. Saltzman. “Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence Victimization Among U.S. Adults, 2001- 2003.” Violence and Victims 22.4 (2007): 437- 48. ProQuest. VSCC Lib., Gallatin, TN. 05 June 2009

Bouchoux, Deborah E. The Practical Paralegal: Strategies for Success. 1st ed. New York: Aspen, 2006.

Finkelhor, David, Ph. D., and Kersti Yllo, Ph. D. License to Rape: Sexual Abuse of Wives. 2nd ed. New York: Holt, 1986.

Garner, Bryan A., ed. Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th ed. St. Paul: West, 1999.

"Polyamory." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Online. 1994 26 July 2009.

Progoff, Ira. Depth Psychology & Modern Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959.

Raven Wolf, Silver. The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation: Solitary Witch. Woodbury: Lllewellyn, 2003.

Russell, Diana E. H. Rape in Marriage. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1990.

Tewksbury, Richard, Ph.D., and Seana Golder, M.S.W, Ph.D. “Frequency of Sexual Activity among Men Who Visit Prostitutes.” Diss. University of Louisville, 2008. Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality 11 (2008). 27 June 2008. .

42 U.S.C. § 13981

United States vs. Morrison; Brzonkala vs. Morrison. Nos. 99-5, 99-29. Supreme Ct. of the US. 12 November 1999.

Watts, Alan. Psychotherapy East & West. New York: Random House, 1961.

Williams, Alex. “Hopelessly Devoted to You, You and You.” The New York Times. 3 October 2008. 25 July 2009.

Click HERE to knock on heaven's door.

The Fable of Reason

2010-10-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

While you were celebrating

The much-anticipated advent

Of the Age of Reason,

I was a dancing salute

In a sylvan landscape

With faery folk fires.

I hitched a ride on

Pegasus–-sidesaddle--

To Mount Olympus

And met all of the gods

That are supposedly dead

In your world of science,

With its pill factories

And mundane machinations

And rampant deicide

By means of hieratic hermeneutics.

I laugh at your Towers of Babel,

Because everyone understands comedy.

Your skyscrapers are now orthodox,

And my outmoded beliefs are heterodox.

Thought and memory

Circled your world

And reported to Odinn

At this very nightfall

That the fires of Olympus

Are burning so low

That Vulcan asked Hades

For a stock of fags

To burn in Vesuvius

As a signal smoke

To awaken the slumbering

Elder occultist at Delphi.

You lost your art of divination

On the pyre of your gods, but

Mercury is coming with all celerity.

In wings he is shod, and

This missive he bears:

Offer your scientific prayers

As the ultimate defiance

On the altar of your reliance

Upon a supernatural god;

This season ends with

Many unsound goodbyes.

This Illusion Meant...

2010-10-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

I kissed a hooker for the first time.
And it was her first time, too.

I read How to Be Born Again
For the second time, and
It still did not work.

I saved up my social security
Because I found out that
It costs a lot to die.

I got a job at a fast food
Restaurant in heaven
Because it costs a lot
To be born on earth.

I threw anti-psychotic pills
At my television because
It went insane.

I washed a porn magazine
With bleach and Lysol
Because it was filthy.

I went to an empty church one time
Instead of the emergency room
Because I believed.

I visited a graveyard on Christmas
And left milk and cookies
On Santa’s tombstone
Because I did not believe

That he would want to lie there.

Pagan Paradise

2010-10-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

My faith in my faculty to create my own experiences allowed me to do the unworkable. I drove 1,000 miles on an empty tank across the desert, and I danced in the fires of Christian hell unharmed, at the pinnacle of my Buddhist pursuit. As a Wiccan, I watched bullets become fairies, then become fireflies, on a forsaken gravel road with fallen trees making it impassable. The further that I fled from the familiar, the more occult were my experiences.

While meditating in a field in what seemed to be the state of Kentucky, I sat in the lotus, having fasted for days. The grassy plains stretched as far as my eyes could see. My companion was behind me, wandering in the woods. We are betrothed to kiss as immortals. As I posed beside the woodland, I forgot him, and I forgot myself. I forgot the human condition and embraced the divine. My eyes were like a Hindu mystic: I had not slept or even blinked in days. I stared into eternity, and as I sat, seasons passed, and years. The finale of the show of spring, summer, autumn, and winter—or at least where I chose to reconnect with the slower streams of time—occurred when entire cities and subdivisions were erected before my eyes. I felt like Christ must have felt when Satan showed him the kingdoms of earth. Like Christ, I shunned these offerings, and I then turned back to the woods to find my version of Dante’s Beatrice. We rested next to the limpid blue pool of Narcissus, and we frolicked in the forest night and day, finding the river Styx complete with a ferry. I had considered mythology, and I concluded that I did not wish to cross that river yet, or to taste its treacherous waters. Charon had upgraded his ferry to modern times, and it was a ferry that could carry a modern chariot. I perceived the road on the other side stretching through an infinite sea of green grass. I reached into my pocket for a coin to offer, but, then again, the prospect of having to pay to rejoin the land of the living proved to be beyond my present means.

My male Beatrice and I ventured to Mount Vesuvius, where we wandered an uphill trail to discover the remnants of a house at the summit of the climb. We fabricated stories about who had lived there, and we sat on a bench, smoking tobacco. I expounded upon the great luxury of being able to smoke a controlled fire atop the volcanic mountain, and he concurred. As I sat in judgment and awe, visions appeared in the sky, much like a movie. I watched the trails forming, and I viewed each hiker who had mounted that titanic tor. The first were Native Americans, then hunters, and finally men and women wearing fanny packs, carrying plastic water bottles. We then went into an extremely small cave on the side of the mountain, where we examined the mossy fertility of Malkuth, like the decomposed muck of the mirage of mortality. I cleaved to my partner like there was no distinction between the two of us. Our thoughts mated, spawning an experience that was beyond the claims of earth. I heard my father in the distance calling my name, as though I had entered the afterlife unawares. I rolled down a steep, grassy hill that was about 1/4 mile long, and I laughed during the entire descent. The pastures of heaven unfolded before me. My Beatrice called, concerned for my safety, and he joined me at the bottom of the hill. We lied on the grass, as insects swarmed our bodies. A vision appeared in the sky from Malkuth. A woman with a stomach distended by death writhed in agony on the ground. I coached her, telling her to give up her body. I told her that she could do so without disappearing.

Death is a bureaucracy. For all practical purposes, I had crossed over with my Beatrice. However, I was not presented with my death certificate, and I was free to return to live the life that I am still living. I am grateful to be here, but the freedom on the other side is something that I still crave. I still miss those yellow-skinned Masons at the coffee shop on the other side. I still miss the disregard for the earthly laws that the afterworld offers. Most of all, I wanted to join my father at the bottom of that hill. It is all downhill from here.

The Bhagavad Gita: Life, Death and the Self

2010-10-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

The science of politics, as related to science of religion, is like the balancing of an ecosystem. The supply of religious claims meets the demand of secular needs. In India, Hinduism continues to be a profound source of almost existential religious wisdom. According to the Bhagavad Gita, Hindu ideas of life, death, and the self reflect a profound detachment from materialism and sensation and the belief that life and death are polarities in a perpetual cycle of existence, whilst the self, or ego, is a costume that transcends reincarnation once fit for immortality.

Hindu ideas about life, as reflected in the Bhagavad Gita, explain the caste system as assigned roles in life. Bodily attachment causes suffering, and annihilation of the ego and exaltation of the atman cause bliss. Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu, advises Arjuna to kill his enemies because death is certain for the body anyway. Hence, he proposes that murder is impossible. “Our bodies are known to end, but the embodied self is enduring, indestructible, and immeasurable; therefore, Arjuna, fight the battle!” (Reilly, 98). Life and existence in general for Hindus is a state of being that is amorphous, much like the four states or phases of matter (solid, liquid, gas, and plasma).

Like the Hindu ideas about life, the ideas about death are of the same detached attitude. Krishna speaks: “You grieve for those beyond grief, and you speak words of insight; but learned men do not grieve for the dead or the living” (97). Immortality is a state of being that permeates all levels of the caste. The untouchable is just as immortal as the most exalted Hindu superego. Death, in terms of the Bhagavad Gita, is like the transition of an formless atman into a new costume.

With these terms of the transient state of an individual lifetime, the Hindu ideas about self are both of self-denial and of self-importance. Krishna speaks: “The self embodied in the body of every being is indestructible; you have no cause to grieve for all these creatures, Arjuna!” (99). The self, according to the Bhagavad Gita, is so sacred that not only do temperature and time not affect it, but also the self does not perish without these temporal properties.

Finally, the Bhaghavad Gita embodies a text that stands aloof from the society and caste system itself, a testament to the core of the Hindu culture and customs that is both a ratification and a repudiation of India’s position in time and space. Such detachment from an original cause as this text inspires is a work of the science of the soul. With the assumption of the claims in this work as truth, the reader or devotee may indeed have cause to transcend the mundane.

Works Cited

Reilly, Kevin. Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader. New York: St. Martin’s. 2010. 96-102. Print.

Dr. Seuss on Board (A One Act Play)

2010-10-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

CHARACTERS:

Anne Bradstreet, a Puritan emigrant

Dr. Seuss, a linguist

Dorothy Yorke, Anne’s mother

John Winthrop, leader of the Arbella’s voyage to the New World

SETTING: The bow of the Arbella, daylight. Stage left is port side, and stage right is starboard. The captain’s deckhouse is a small wooden box-like building stage up center. The sound of waves and sea gulls continue throughout the duration of the play.

Anne, John, and Dorothy are on the deck of a ship, the Arbella. All three are in yellow spotlights. Anne is peering through a scope, stage down center, facing the audience. John paces slowly right center. Dorothy looks over the port side rail left center.

ANNE BRADSTREET (excitedly):

I am so delighted that my Mother is accompanying me on this odyssey to the New World. Unlike my nativity in England, I am entering this world uncurled.

JOHN WINTHROP (stops pacing):

Indeed we are entering a foreign land, a land of possibility and of promise.

DOROTHY YORKE (still leaning over the port side rail):

The shore! It is in sight! So desolate! So bleak! Red clay and wilderness!

JOHN WINTHROP (approaches Dorothy and takes her arm gently, leading her into the cabin):

Oh, dear woman, it is God’s country, and we are the missionaries of purity to this lost world. Do not despair. Rather, say a pure prayer for such a pure country.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

Mother, we have a whole world to explore once we reach shore.

DOROTHY YORKE (as she enters the cabin):

I shall not live in a world of unformed castles! I would rather be swallowed by the sea!

Dr. Seuss approaches Anne, in a red spotlight, wearing a red and white striped top hat.

ANNE BRADSTREET (with surprise):

This man who approaches seems queer. Alas, he does draw near!

DR. SEUSS:

Allow me to introduce myself to you, and your Mother won’t mind if I do.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

Who are you?

DR. SEUSS:

I am Doctor Seuss, that is who. How do you do?

ANNE BRADSTREET:

I am doing quite alright, but my Mother is filled with fright. Could you assist her with this plight?

DR. SEUSS:

To tell the truth, I certainly may, and I must confuse your tongue to save the day!

ANNE BRADSTREET:

I speak English, as a matter of speech. What new language do you teach?

DR. SEUSS:

I befoozle and befuddle as I confoozle and confuddle. What kind of wackadoodle caught your noodle? Are you made of woobled streusel?

ANNE BRADSTREET:

I beg your pardon, dear Doctor Seuss, but how do I put this language to use?

DR. SEUSS:

Flip it, trip it, grip it, tip it, but never ever Freudian slip it. Leave poet trees to the birds and the bees.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

I am much perplexed, and my English grows weak. Soon I shall not be able to speak!

DR. SEUSS:

Flip the doodle. Trip the foodle. Grip the hoozle. Tip the noozle. But never ever slip the noodle.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

Give a gaggle a wooden haggle, and take the paddle to the saddle. Diggory, dockery, slimmery slock. One flew over the cuckoo clock.

DR. SEUSS:

Wiggle the rezzle with yellow kezzle, and fribbish the gibbish with delirious dibbish. You are doing the shuttled rock. The bliming morning will rattle the cock.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

Tootles and flibberish! What fun gibberish!

DR. SEUSS:

Tell your Mother what you think. This new language will make her sink.

Dorothy emerges from the cabin with John Winthrop.

DOROTHY YORKE:

Anne, dear, I do fear that I cannot set ashore here!

ANNE BRADSTREET:

First you doozle, then you dock. Then you noozle with a cuckoo clock.

DOROTHY YORKE:

Is this some code that I must crack? I feel that I must turn back. Red clay and wilderness is all that I see. The future looks too akin to ancient history.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

Just jabber the wocky, Mother. In due soon it will be loony noon.

DOROTHY YORKE

We are almost ashore. What is all of this nonsense for?

DR. SEUSS:

It is exquisite sense to not go overboard, as you did on the Arbella once before.

JOHN WINTHROP:

Sir, I must ask why you are so odd. Are you of the devil, or are you of God?

DR. SEUSS:

I am a doctor of language arts, and my specialty is naval natal charts.

JOHN WINTHROP:

That is the queerest occupation, sir. In whatsoever language did you and Miss Anne confer?

DR. SEUSS:

Ah, the language of broken hearts and unsolved history. Her naval natal chart is no longer a mystery. Now I must be off to another world’s ways, and all aboard this ship must step upon clay. I bid you farewell, and have a good day!

Dr. Seuss flies away off-stage over the audience on a hidden harness and cable cords, with the red spotlight following until he is out of view.

ANNE BRADSTREET:

Look, Mother! On the shore! A castle appeared, and we must unboard!

DOROTHY YORKE:

A miracle of sight, and it must be true! Gone is my fright, and the day is new!

ANNE BRADSTREET (hugging Dorothy):

Oh, Mother, I do love you!

Click HERE to enter the world of Dr. Seuss! And your Mother won't mind if you do!

Last Night

2010-09-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Last night the moon was in my room,

And I read a book of stars.

The sky was like a liquid light,

And I ate bonbons made of photons.

Astrophysics was the easiest class,

And I collected carbon protons.

Relative theory was the golden rule,

And evolution happened in nursery school.

Last night the moon was in my room,

And I read a book of stars.

2010-09-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

5 September 2010

“He gains everyone's approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.”

-Horace

"When I told the truth, everyone thought that I was crazy. Now that I tell an occasional lie, people think that I am normal." -Christie Elise Jones

It is said that one cannot please everyone all of the time. And, who would want to do that anyway? Supplicating a crowd by mixing the pleasant with the useful is almost always obsequious in nature. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. ’Tis sweet and fitting to die for one’s country, or so say the soldiers. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, sed dulcius pro patria vivere, et dulcissimum pro patria bibere. Ergo, bibamus pro salute patriae. ‘Tis sweet and right to die for the homeland, but ‘tis sweeter to live for the homeland, and the sweetest to drink for it. Therefore, let us drink to the health of the homeland, or so say the students, missing the drafts.

What is sweet? Is it sweet to be obsequious? Those who would tell others this are usually exploitative of such dulcet labors.

Someone whom I know said, mocking Marie Antoinette, “Let them take pills!” Psychiatrists and preachers administer pills and communion to the outcasts of society, who are unemployable due to ailments or an untamable mind. Compliance with treatment supposedly is a part of recovering. Even so, recovery is usually reached in the afterlife, following a premature demise and a life of poverty.

NATIONAL ASYLUM:

ROLELESS REJECTS

APPLY WITHIN

To change the subject and be sweeter….

“The fact that I have spent my life in a mental health care system, and the loss of my life that I could have had otherwise….my potential, socially and economically….must be for an oh so sweet cause,” said the mendicant.

Alexander the Great offered the beggar his palace while he stood in the lane, casting a shadow onto the man in a barrel of refuse. “No thanks, Alexander,” said he, “Instead of that, please step away so that the sun may shine on my face.” Living in the shadows of a great nation.

Fresh Air for Fresh Prayer

Novel clichés.

Muddy waters run brackish.

Break the bread before you bow your head.

Check your luggage for claims.

Someone else just might be claiming the bag that is your heaviness.

Take a quantum leap before you look twice.

Can’t see the rest for the forest.

The sky is blue because God misses you.

Dive deeply to find sunken dreams.

Vatican City, state your national emergency.

Oh well, you only die once.

Beggar's Question

2010-09-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

The difference between a memory and a dream,

The disparity of what is and what seems:

To lack or to attack, to achieve or to grieve;

To be knowing or ignorant, to be naïve;

To trust or to lust, to doubt or to believe;

Mendicants can’t choose hot or cold soup.

Even fools know how to dupe.

Mendacity or veracity, a transient smile,

Clock strokes four a’while.

Colliding Cultures: Aryans and Dravidians

2010-09-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

When two cultures collide, the resulting conflicts for political, social, and material wealth are contingent upon a mutually recognized value system. Religion and spirituality, through organization and literature, espouse doctrines of social norms, deviations, and taboos. The meeting of the Aryans and the Dravidians in India was one such clash that resulted in a legacy of literature, legend, and myth. In the integration of the two peoples, The Upanishads, a sacred text, explains morality as the meaning of reality in sacred parables that upheld the secular social order of Indian society.

With the emergence of any social order, certain factors combine to create a new way of organizing family and community structures. The caste system of India developed as a result of the convergence of Aryans and Dravidians. Initially stratified racially, the caste system evolved into a quite rigid order, and four major classifications (or varnas) prevailed by approximately 1000 B.C.E. (Bentley 96). The sacred religious text that resulted from the blending, intermingling, and intermarriage of Aryans and Dravidians is The Upanishads. This work of literature attempts to reconcile the physical world of phenomena with the transcendental world of higher truth (Bentley 104). The transcendental idea of karma was made literal in the interpretation of physical phenomena, both human and animal, by the assertion of reincarnation as a natural physical law of spiritual order. This idea of reincarnation would make caste organization stronger, as it explains by a transcendental value system an otherwise inexplicable heredity of advantage and/or disadvantage that is apparently out of the scope of the gross physical world.

According to the historical value system of India that is evidenced in The Upanishads, morality is not only the way of life, but it is also the meaning of existence. The Brahmins, or priests, presided over the pageantry of this oscillating pantheon of pathos as religious leaders, who by merit of their station have transcended the social order that their teachings perpetuated. The fact that the Brahmins were exclusively male further stabilized a patriarchal society by the exclusion of females from the highest attainable station and incarnation (Bentley 98).

In the selection from The Upanishads on Brahman and Atman, the reconciliation of abstract spiritual existence and concrete physical life is explained repeatedly in parables. Nothing and everything are united, and the ego, or atman, is a finite phenomena that is sustained and projected from Brahman, “’[a]n invisible and subtle essence…the Spirit of the whole universe…Reality…Truth…’” (“Chandogya Upanishad” 96). In immaterializing the ego‘s ultimate reality, yet maintaining the same ego in morality, the sense of obligation to perform an inherited role in Indian society is enormous, and, in many ways, ultimately futile. Through the sense of ultimate futility, the foundation for subjugation is laid. The fact that females and untouchables could not climb the hierarchy of this social order only solidified the place of such members of the caste system as the objects of pity and subtle or blatant scorn.

Works Cited

Bentley, Jerry H. and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. Vol. 1. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008.

“Chandogya Upanishad,” in The Upanishads. Trans. Juan Mascaro. Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader. Vol. 1. Ed. Kevin Reilly. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 93-96.

Who Knew It? (A one act play)

2010-09-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

A short, athletic, extremely attractive man, RAPHAEL, appearing younger than he really is drops two kali swords to the beige carpet of his bedroom. A statue of Aphrodite and drawings of and by Leonardo DaVinci are in prominent view, and the floor is almost bare, except for a frameless futon mattress, metal chair, filing cabinet, and many books. Interrupted from his private kung-fu workout, he faces a woman, PYTHIA, much younger, taller, and stouter than he, clad in an ivory corset embellished with black lace and black yoga pants, wearing a top hat.

Raphael:

I’m sorry, I didn’t see you coming in. I did not hear the front door open. I have not seen you in months, and I just cannot take it anymore. The only women who hit on me now turn my stomach, even though they fit the profile for models. Short, skinny, childish women. Empty stomachs and empty minds. All that I can do to forget you is to focus on my martial arts. Even then, I find my mind replaying our foreplay of chivalry. I cannot erase you from my mind. I know that you have life goals and that our trajectories may be two galaxies apart already. My ex-wife would kill me if she saw me with you. My daughter does not know that you exist. And, as for myself, I cannot sleep anymore. I think only of you: your full figured beauty and that waist that just drops off when I view your rear shot. And, you are wearing that corset! Is this a dream? Am I sleeping in some far away chamber on a spaceship? I cannot bear your absence with such fondness of heart. I cannot be at peace without you in my bed. I lie awake for sleepless nights, and if I am not mourning my failed marriage and fifteen years of paying child support without any parental rights of visitation, then I am fantasizing about you. In fact, moments before you showed up, I had a vision of you and I making love in broad daylight on a lawn chair at the pool. I don’t know if anyone saw us. If they did, then it was in a dream. And now, here you are. And, you are wearing that corset!

Pythia (laughing):

I could feign that we are in a soap opera, if it would please you.

Raphael (smiling):

This does not have to be a soap opera.

Pythia produces a selenite wand from her hat, with seductive gestures.

Pythia (raising an eyebrow):

Do you remember this?

Raphael:

Oh, no I didn’t!

Pythia (tossing the wand aside):

This does not have to be your typical low-budget porn.

Raphael:

Where is the camera?

Pythia:

This court case is in camera, and I am a Judge Advocate General. You have the right to call me Miranda, and anything that you say can and will be held against enemy fire. God, you are sexy!

Raphael:

And you are a Goddess!

Pythia:

Let’s do the Nuit and keep this G-rated.

Raphael:

That’s code for you’re on top!

Pythia:

And fully clothed!

Raphael lies on the black mattress, laughing, with his hands behind his head. Pythia removes the top hat and pulls out a box.

Pythia:

This is a Buddhist attitude towards marriage. (opens the box, bending on one knee beside the mattress) With this ring, I do set thee free, as free will makes the truest monogamy!

Raphael (accepting the ring and examining it closely):

What does the ring say on it?

Pythia:

Om mani padme hum.

Raphael:

What does that mean?

Pythia:

It contains the emptiness of all speech. I heard that chanting this mantra 100,000 times will release one from this world. Even if one mispronounces it.

Raphael:

And from all bonds to it as well?

Pythia:

As above, so below. From within the flame is sated; from without the lack abated. As below, so above. Do as thy will, and will to love.

Raphael:

Now for the Nuit!

Pythia:

You knew it!

Raphael:

No, you are Nuit!

Pythia arches her body over Raphael, face-to-face.

Pythia:

The Egyptian goddess Nuit had a brother. He could not sleep, much like you. She covered him with her arched body and became the night sky to give rest to him.

Raphael:

But, you are my lover, not my sister.

Pythia (finger to mouth, shushing):

As you know, it is of no consequence. The Egyptians wedded brothers and sisters. Now, sleep with the stars. Sleep with the stars.

Raphael drifts into sleep as Pythia sings to the tune of “Greensleeves“:

O Come with me across the sea
To the land of Tir-na-nog,
Where maidens play all the day
In mirth and lively song.

Tales Beyond Vatican Palace

2010-08-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Silent light surrounds Fedora Palace
As trust and lust conjure drab dusk;
A banquet closes with cloying liqueur,
And the Belle of the Ball is ever sure
That to be demure is quite de jour.

Massive trees, indescribable by tongues,
With vines that climb like ladder rungs,
Cloak the vain blush of crimson savoy
Of the bouquet to be laid and unmade
At the command of the backroom boy.

Contrary to common misconception,
The realm hosts more than this,
And fantasy so fair and bragging
Affords a lifespan so unflagging,
As silent light of palatial peace
Quiets the heart of the Emperice.

Plaisir

2010-08-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

Considering a mirror-glass,

Ciphering rest mass,

Stay tuned for the broadcast:

A resemblance to Rimbaud

In the current tableau

Explains why the truth

Rhymes with the proof

In a literal measure

Of French pleasure.

Scrybing With Water

2010-08-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

Peering into scrying waters,
An orb appears, blazing with
Passions from lore and yore.
Trickles of Venus quench
A wavering worldview window,
Seeking a viewer in darkness
As a vision of beyond.
This portal divides dreams
And divinations of destiny,
The reflex of effects
From the causality of reality.

Touch my hand, oh watery world,
Reach for my grasping mind,
For you appear to me
As a drowning sea.

The Spell of Dwelling

2010-08-10T17:28:00.001-07:00

Under the shadows of the oak,
Pools of coolness sink and soak.
Little girls giggle below the tree
In a ceremony of afternoon tea.

Beyond the mossy stonewall tall,
Kite tail ribbons rise and fall.
Little boys shout a mock war cry,
Racing each other, hastening to fly.

When Old Man Winter reigns with snow,
Mother rocks babies to and fro,
While Father's eyes glint in the gloam
To spark the fireside Rosetta Stone.

In the Throes of a New Moon

2010-08-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

A magus bows low in limbo,
Beneath the wand of Hermes,
As I chant my lover's name:
Once for each bashful lotus.

Nightshade goes into parade
Like a pageant in the sky;
Erect mountain tops swoon
As the first mating season
Arrives in a world where
Only my love may grow...

Fresh flowers in glacial snow
Raise the sky into a halo
Of an everlasting moonbow,
As truly shown as love unknown.

Boo Who?

2010-08-08T13:59:00.000-07:00

Daddy calls me Boo, and Saint Peter does, too. I’m a lot bigger now, and I don’t have many toys to play with anymore. Not many people play with toys when they grow up, but I sure as hell do. I like to play with dolls still, and I also like to do cartwheels.

One time, I did a cartwheel for Bruce Lee. I told him that I was sorry about what happened to his son. He is a really nice man, and I am not afraid of ghosts. Maybe that is why they call me Boo. Some people who see me acting silly think that I must be mentally challenged, but I am not. In fact, I have aced several IQ tests. Especially the one that I took at Vanderbilt University. They study me there in a lab, and they pay me twenty dollars an hour to take tests. I also like to read books. Daddy taught me how to read books by the time that I had turned two. He told me that I was conceived in Vanderbilt library, and that is why I am so smart.

I wonder where I came from sometimes. When I was seven years old, Daddy told me that I am an angel. He even gave me a sky blue T-shirt that said: “Daddy thinks that I’m an angel. Does that mean that I can fly?” I wore it to school on picture day. I smiled really big and giggled. I won a school wide contest that year. I was only in the second grade, and I competed against even the sixth graders in a poetry contest. I had been writing poetry since I was five years old. At first, I just spelled phonetically. When I won the contest, they took a picture of me for the newspaper. I wrote a great poem, and I got it published in an anthology, too. Here it is:

My Sunshine

The sun pours onto the earth
Like a cup of wine
I have some sunshine
That is only, only mine
It fills my yard
Like a giant guard
I like the sunshine in my yard.

Daddy taught me all about philosophy when I was young, too. I really like Friedrich Nietzsche’s maxims. I think that it is sad that Nietzsche was really depressed most of the time. I also read Immanuel Kant early for my age. He is so technical, like he is doing surgery on God’s brain. I wrote a children’s story for Kant. It has really big words in it because he is a baby genius. Here it is:

Consciousness is the alchemical combination of the living waters of equal parts of fluid knowledge and liquid ignorance, which, when mixed, create the philosopher’s stone, or the abstract made concrete. Inspiration arises from the wishing well of my perspired past, manifesting my patent present. Essentially, my life is composed of the waking dreams of my sleeping soul. In the flux of creation, change is the only constant, and experience is the only variable. The outcome of my worldly desires is like the toss of change into the fountain of Trevy. One coin to return; two to get married; and three to divorce. This time, I threw in two. From any single moment, my future begins, and my slumbering soul remains an oracle to my dreams. From this vast source of imagination, I came to be and to live.

Daddy does not like war. His Ford Escort had a lot of hippie bumper stickers on it. One of them had a picture of a nuclear bomb’s mushroom cloud on it, and it said, “War is the Real Enemy.” He got that car while he worked really hard at the phone company so that I could have a childhood.

When I was old enough to drive, he gave the hippie car to me. I put a Jesus Christ air freshener on the rearview mirror with a pink ribbon from my Cabbage Patch doll. That car is where I had my first kiss with a wrestler that went to high school with me. After he came to see me act in a Pinocchio play, he stole a French kiss from me. I had just started my car, and all of the sudden, the door opened. He stuck his tongue into my mouth and wiggled it around, but I barely moved mine because I was so surprised. It felt really good, and I turned my radio on. The song “Strawberry Wine” came on, and I beat the steering wheel with my hands as I drove home because I was so happy. I was afraid that I might die before I got a real kiss. He had a bunch of muscles, and I thought that he was really handsome.

My friend Twitter was a skinhead for a few years. She even joined the Nazi party on the internet. I thought that she was really stupid to take their side. One time Twitter took me and a few other friends to a place where a lot of people like her who think that being a Nazi makes you cool all hung out. I wore my Star of David Anne Frank flair that I begged Mommy for at the Holocaust exhibit at Vanderbilt University. I also was in hippie clothes: a tie-dyed T-shirt and bell bottoms. A girl with a shaved head walked up to my friend Delia, who was not a Nazi, and said “Fuck you.” Delia said “No thank you.” The skinhead girl kept on, and someone pulled her away. I thought about what Anne Frank would like to do in this situation, and I frogged her hard as goddamn hell on the back as she walked away, as kind of like her bruised badge of idiocy. That night, Twitter told me what to say to a skinhead if they said “Eight words” to me. She said to say “We must preserve white heritage for our children.” None of them said that to me. My Anne Frank badge probably said everything.

Well, Twitter started to get attacked by demons in her room before she quit the Nazi party. The demons yanked out clumps of her hair. I remember when Twitter’s dog died. She called me and said that she needed me to build a cross. So, I built a four-foot tall cross out of two planks of wood and three gold nails. We buried her dog in a hole by the interstate, and we put the cross up and painted it white. I gave the dog a eulogy, as incense burned. I pulled out a bell from Greece, and as I rang it, I said: “Every time a bell chimes, a puppy gets its wings.” Twitter started laughing and crying at the same time. She loved that dog a lot, and she used to give it shotguns of pot sometimes.

St. Peter loved me so much that he gave me real cigarettes. I smoked a lot of them in a hospital with him before he disappeared and the nurses grabbed me. I told him my knock-knock joke:

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Boo.
Boo who?
Boo who made you cry. Please don’t cry.

Melville's Moby Dick

2010-07-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Romantic period literature is distinguished by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263). In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the narrator Ishmael's long tangents of rhetorical, comical philosophy are outpourings of unconstrained emotion, making Melville a masterful writer of Romantic period literature, a movement that originated in Europe as a response to industrialization. Melville employs a minimalist plot, using symbols to convey the enormity of deicide. The white whale represents everything and nothing. The giant sea creature is everywhere and nowhere, much like the god of industrialism. The white whale is a memorable and fitting abstraction of the totality of the problems in the 19th century fleecing of nature. Melville's minimalism conveys the bleakness of the rise of the machines.

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. London: Oxford U.P., 1967, 263. Print.

The Holy Grail by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Deja Who?

2010-07-29T21:52:00.001-07:00

From this perspective

The sausage finger floats:

An optical illusion?

No, I am touching God

On the Sistine ceiling,

Slowly, pulling away,

Pulling apart like mitosis,

Oneness at last,

The two-sided finger,

Floating, directing me

To everywhere and nowhere,

Left and right...

And somewhere in the center,

I am seated in a red Union suit

After choking up

A bitter pill,

Waiting for Christmas

And Hanukkah

On a summer midnight.

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

2010-07-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" is a post-Revolutionary American masterpiece. Upon first reading this work at the age of seventeen, I felt a surge of immortality, a thrill of ecstasy, and an ineffable kinship to Whitman himself. Literature is like the body of frozen hymns that are distilled and animated afresh with each encounter with a reader. Literature is like a love letter or, at times, a bitter plea for assistance, that reaches across both time and distance, delivering the souls of a world, or, specifically, of a nation. Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" is a time capsule of early Americana, and his "barbaric yawp" does not fall upon deaf ears (1332). American readers, poets, and students, (and I fall into all three categories), continue to yell back at Whitman across the great divide, encountering the timeless topics of his verse, especially of mortality, in a chorus of defining voices of America.

As a sixteen year old reader, I discovered Whitman's "Song of Myself" in a book at my stepmother's house. I sank into the lush world of its lines, emerging with shouts of freedom, and finally understanding what it means to be a living American to me. To Whitman, America is a taste of immortality, a cycle of the undying ages, and an empire of maternal, paternal, fraternal and sororal freedom. Whitman reverberates: "Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, \ My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it" (1162-3). Whitman, who hoped to be the voice of America, is discovered by American readers like myself again and again, a testimony to the immutability of his sonorous song.

As a college student, I again discovered Whitman's song. At Volunteer State Community College, my classmates and I are writing essays on "Song of Myself." The poem itself is a motif of my life and my education, and Whitman's Transcendentalism rises above his own and others' myopia of mortality. As a theme of American education, he is a conductor of the symphony of the American canon. His verse impresses the psyche, brings unity to the rift of generational gaps, and celebrates American life and life itself.

As a poet, I felt the necessity of communicating across the divide with Whitman. His yawp is answered by my own works. The imagery of his poem is vivid in my mind's eye, and I meet his form in visions of his bared soul. Through his bareness, he is a bard, warbling words of wisdom. The American soul is evident and immortalized by his serenade of serenity, a composure of canonical proportions. As a poet, I yell back in a published poem dedicated to him:

O rogue spirit, by divine birthright,
This transient earth is not your home.
You rebel against your fleshy prison.
You damn your mortal bones.

Freedom is found in a timeless flight,
Past the vast graveyard of stars;
Ashen claws of an insatiable death,
Upon your soul can leave no scars.

You are a beacon in this dark world,
Shining, burning with livid light.
When angels’ voices start to fade,
You roar and rage with immortal might.

O rogue spirit, by divine birthright,
This transient earth is not your home.
You rebel against your fleshy prison.
You damn your mortal bones (Jones, 185).

The spirit of Walt Whitman is powerful, playful, and obviously poetic. I hope to join him in the roll call of the dead poets of America: a class of fierce spirits with undying hope, words, faith, and love.

Poets, students, and readers celebrate and communicate Whitman's "Song of Myself" in transcendental unison.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, \
I laugh at what you call dissolution, \
And I know the amplitude of time (419-21).

Perhaps when the granite veil is lifted, poets, students, and readers may all laugh in fields covered with "leaves of grass." Whitman's legacy is bold and brazen, a banner of American gusto
and soul.

Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 1820-1865. 7th ed. Eds. Nina Baym et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007,2210-54. Print.

Jones, Christie Elise. My Sunshine. Nashville: Self-published, 2010, 185. Print.

Benjamin Franklin's "The Way to Wealth"

2010-07-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Franklin's twenty-fifth anniversary of his Almanac opened with an essay titled The Way to Wealth. In the pithy proverbial statements of "Poor Richard," one may clearly gather wisdom about wealth. One of the major points made is that through frugality, one may avoid scarcity. One may explore the dyad of prosperity and poverty as a theme of economy, resulting from the choice between industry and inferiority. The aims of industry are competence and solvency, which are the inherent prerequisites for both the workman's yoke and the storyteller's yarn, and inferiority has no educational or knowledge-based aims, according to Franklin. Given the relationship of industry and inferiority as two contrasting statuses, Franklin generalizes about wealth via the platform of educated, literate introspection necessary for deliberate activity, and these generalizations present an intelligent standard by which one may assess both industry and inferiority in terms of knowledge.

Franklin's meditations point to an internal awareness of the need for intelligent industrious activity. Franklin writes: "want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge" (453). Care, or industry involved in maintaining working order, is the base for any higher functioning. An individual who cannot meet the basic needs for survival cannot benefit from scholarship. Need is ongoing because survival is on a continuum. Progress towards studious pursuits is made in tiers of opportunities for knowledge, and, at the most basic tier of sustenance, the plowman who toils the fields may not be able to cultivate the wealth of academia. Even so, this does not assign a negative value to the agrarian man's wealth. Franklin espouses a theory of interdependent labor and equal opportunity, rather than a theory of an elitist class versus an uneducated class. From the lens of this theory, Franklin shows that there is a need for individuals to be both laborer and scholar in order to accumulate wealth. Franklin's expresses his view of education and knowledge as utilitarian, ordered, and appropriate preparations for applied self-reliance. Furthermore, Franklin asserts that fools who are lazy cannot achieve concomitance in both labor and scholarship, and so they are inferior to those who are industrious due to their own lack of volition and effort.

Regarding the choice between industry and inferiority, Franklin writes that "a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things" (453). An illuminated man may live a life of leisure, whilst a member of the Illiterati may live a life of laziness. Supposedly, Franklin was a member of the Illuminati, although accurate confirmation of this claim would require one's own membership in the clandestine organization. Industry for an illuminated man is not only a form of labor, but at the same time it is a form of leisure. Leisure and laziness are synonymous for fools. The fool cannot bear the weight of the master's own yoke, and the fool will receive instruction only through entertainment and foolhardy experience. Fools, or those at a value of placeholder, have a need for illumination under the guiding light of one who has mastered his own ignorance. Fortunately, educational opportunity is based upon need and merit.

Furthermore, leisure and laziness are both based on need and merit. Wealth and its attendant leisure come in many forms: educational degrees, intellectual property, social influence, and personal satisfaction. Wisdom is a wealth of applicable knowledge. This knowledge is available in books, oral traditions, and first-hand experiences. A great fortune is the acquisition of assets both tangible and untouchable.

Early in the acquisition of wealth, as in the process of reaching adulthood, great efforts must be made if one is to become wealthy. Once one understands what a commodity is in the commonwealth, one may acquire the skills and status that are essential for trade of any kind. Without a base of industrious efforts of deliberate activity, one may not have the resources to risk. Initially, risk and effort may seem to be a dichotomy; however, with a wealth of wisdom, the two are harmonious. Franklin states that "[g]reat estates may venture more, but little boats should keep near shore" (455).

Franklin muses about wealth, presenting a proverbial stock by which one may assess both work and indolence in terms of wisdom. "Father Abraham" quotes the character "Poor Richard" in Franklin's Almanac, illuminating the reader with twenty-five years of proverbs that are compiled into one explosively edifying essay. The adages are tools for the conscious mind to attain competence and solvency, and Franklin is one of America's most industrious and illuminated figures.

Works Cited

Baym, Nina et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Beginnings to 1820. 7th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Way to Wealth: Preface to Poor Richard Improved. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Beginnings to 1820. 7th ed. Eds. Nina Baym et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007, 451-6.

Frederick Douglass' Narrative

2010-07-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, Frederick Douglass embodies the credibility of a former slave and describes his life as a slave in autobiographical prose. Douglass has a purpose for his autobiographical work, and it is to encourage Northern Whites to become sympathetic to the plight of slaves and to support abolition. Jones writes, "Some of the most effective anti-slavery propagandists were escaped slaves like William Wells Brown, William and Ellen Craft, and Frederick Douglass, whose narratives brought home to Northern audiences the realities of slavery" (173). As a work of anti-slavery propaganda, Douglass explains without polemics the damages to family values, the horrors of cruelty, and references to biblical scripture to convince his readers to support abolition.

Andrews writes, "In addition to teaching him anti-slavery arguments, this volume [The Columbian Orator] may well have pointed Douglass in the direction of oratory as his mode, and polemics as his sphere, of public expression" (592). While Douglass clearly expresses many well-reasoned points against slavery in the narrative, he is not so much polemical, perhaps because oratory was not the primary mode for the delivery of the narrative.

Douglass writes that masters frequently separated slave mothers from their children born into slavery, and he expresses that this denies and hinders "the development of the child's affection toward its mother" (2072). Because the relationship between mother and child is central to the development of a free family, it is quite clear that this is the strongest argument bolstering the inhumanity of slavery. Douglass further explains, "Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor" (2072).

While Douglass seems to be forthright in his generalization about the frequent severing of the mother-child relationship, he does specify the contrary when describing the horrors of cruelty. Douglass writes, "Mr. Severe was rightly named: he was a cruel man. I have seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for their mother's release" (2076). Regardless of whether or not this affects Douglass's generalization about mother-child separation, it displays the horrors of cruelty. Furthermore, Douglass personalizes this horror in details of his Aunt Hester's brutal torture: "The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest" (2074).

Douglass also describes the nourishment conditions as less-than-humane to contribute to the narrative of the horrors of slavery. He doubly employs the literary use of simile to describe that "the children were called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush..." which was usually in a large wooden tray or trough (2083).

Much of the strength of the abolition movement came from religious arguments against slavery. To support this assertion, Douglass delivered the following message in Britain:

I have been asked if I supposed the slavery of the United States would ever be abolished? It might as well be asked of me if God sat on his throne in heaven...so sure must slavery of every form in every land become extinct. (Douglass 215)

In the narrative, Douglass, references biblical scripture regarding the wealth of the owner of the plantation of his former slavery, "To describe the wealth of Colonel Lloyd would be almost equal to describing the riches of Job" (2079). To many dwelling in less than such wealthy conditions in the North, this might engender some level of anger at wealth disparities among themselves, the slaves, and the masters. Furthermore, Douglass humbles himself to divine Providence to justify his current abilities and favorable freedom (2085).

Frederick Douglass use biblical references to Job and to Providence to convince Northern readers to side with abolition. Douglass also describes discipline and nourishment conditions as substandard and inhumane to persuade his audience against slavery. Douglass begins the narrative with an emphasis on the fact that slavery frequently denies slaves the most fundamental mother-child relationship. Finally, Douglass delivers this persuasive narrative as written autobiographical prose, avoiding the polemics of oratory. In effect, Douglass uses his narrative as a work of anti-slavery propaganda to explain without polemics the damages to family values, the horrors of cruelty, and references to biblical scripture to convince his readers to support abolition.

Works Cited

Andrews, William L. "Frederick Douglass, Preacher". American Literature. 54. 4. (1982): 592-597.

Blassingame, John (et al, eds.). The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One--Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Vol. I, p. 215. 18 July 2010.

Douglass, Frederick. "British Influence on the Abolition Movement in America: An Address Delivered in Paisley, Scotland, on April 17, 1846." Renfrewshire Advertiser, April 25, 1846.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 1820-1865. 7th ed. Eds. Nina Baym et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007, 2064-2129.

Jones, Maldwyn A. The Limits of Liberty American History 1607-1992. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Intimate Relationship Advice from an Adolescent: Awen

2010-07-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

As I ponder my relationships that I have engaged myself in so far to my folly, I reflect upon my original intent as an adolescent. My original intent was to form a union that is so complete that the otherness factor is not a part of the equation. True union is to become of one flesh. The nature of my original intent contradicts what both nature and nurture has prepared for my experiences. I find myself now, on the eve of my birthday, an individual so divided from marriage and mating, as was my original state. The purification process of my procreatory urge results not in a union of marriage, rather in my solitude, in which I contemplate my sacred nature that is profaned by the carnal sexuality of this world. I find myself, on the eve of my birthday, single, childless, and whole. In this wholeness I find what is so holy about celibacy and sexual continence. I celebrate my unique claim upon my self-hood. I cast the suitors cautiously, reverently, back into the gene pool to swim with the lascivious nymphs of archetypal lust. I triumph and arch my back in kundelini innocence. The sanctified scepter, my spinal column, where the division of Hermes Trismegistus' caduceus repairs its refraction into a single coil, is my wand, my staff, and my stake. I stake a claim upon myself. I consecrate myself unto my own divinity. I restore the grace of my selfhood by isolating the problem of karma within the frame of my personal dharma. I annihilate falsehoods with self-referencing genuflection, a bow that raises me. I am whole. I am one. I am single. I am sufficient. I restoreth my soul. I am.

Whore's Divorce (hors d'œuvre)

2010-05-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

May this love be ever constant

And these words assure liberty

As this bard's tune, so transportant,

Sweet music to any detainee:

She held you under spell and key

With an impelling hell of misery.

If charms could set you free,

Ending a biennial cycle of blues,

As a canterbury bell attests to

The twice bolted bedroom door;

With waste and lack, a barren floor,

A door ajar, in the face of a whore.

Make haste to the outlying hills,

And carry with you eagle quills;

Fly swiftly from her poison nest

To take your lone bed, O your rest.

Like a huntress stalking in a wood,

She met her match: Miss-understood.

If a woman who babbles a battle cry

Remarks on hearts, then men must die.

O do not rest in spider webs,

Though they look like silk:

A whore's spilled cries

Are rancid, deadly milk.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: The Ancient Greek Warrior

2010-05-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

Homer (8th century B.C.E.), a Greek poet, is author of two extremely influential epics about the Heroic Greek Age (c. 1500-1100 B.C.E.). Both of these works continue to be exemplars of Western epic poetry (Davis et al. 277). The audience of Homer's epics continues to increase and vary culturally, and his works are the "basis for [Ancient Greek] religious ceremony as well as public education" (Davis et al. 278). Intended as instruction and entertainment, the poet, after invoking the muse, descants, accompanied by a lyre in reproductions via oral traditions (Davis et al. 280). Homer's Iliad and Odyssey present three major examples of the Greek warrior: Hector, Achilles, and Odysseus. Representative of Greek cultural values of military conquest, especially of physical skill and, in some canonical interpretations, of mental ability, the stories of these Greek warriors illustrate religious and moral ideals, simultaneously entertaining the reader or listener.

Hector, the model Trojan warrior, ideally inspires the original Greek reader to aspire to meet this establishment of a heroic standard. Hector embodies civil sensitivity balanced with militarism, and "[by] modern standards...represents the whole man" (Davis et al. 281). He piously honors the gods of Troy, directing his fellow citizens to supplicate the deities at temples and to pray for victory (Iliad 6.147-89). With passionate and engaging speech, religious observance, and examined motives, Hector's leadership skills preserve morals and dogma. Peers and progeny reward such a warrior with praise and honored memory, and through his elevation, he provides a platform for group belief and patriotism. The story of Hector's adventures are instrumental in educating the public and in preserving religious tenets.

Further insight into Greek mores is provided in the tales of the warrior Achilles. A great lesson is communicated when Odysseus and Achilles converse in Hades. The encounter of Odysseus with the shade of Achilles places the life of the warrior in perspective (Davis et al. 284), with Odysseus gaining "...foresight \ such as Teiresias alone could give..." from the hindsight of Achilles (Iliad 11.565). Achilles' ire and lust for revenge against Agamemnon are the forces that drive The Iliad's plot. The hero is impassioned, stubborn, and meets a tragic end at the hands of Paris. Achilles is recognized and lauded for his brute strength and fiery rage, as anger is a necessary catalyst for war and brutality a means to its end. However, Achilles finds "the luxury of tears and pain," and laments his father and Patrochlus (Iliad 24.618). Even this hero possesses a degree of civil sensitivity, although his storm of heart results in profane words. Achilles speaks to Priam:

Sting my sore heart again, and even here, \ under my own roof, suppliant though you are, \ I may not spare you, sir, but trample on \ the express command of Zeus!" (Iliad 24.680-3).

As a moral lesson, the hero Achilles' deified status in the underworld is bittersweet, as Odysseus regales him, in the afterthoughts of Hades' afterlife (Iliad 11.562-96).

Odysseus may be viewed as the wise warrior, as wisdom is imparted to him from characters such as the shade of Achilles. "Odysseus represents a more complicated, thoughtful warrior who will be honored by cultures that value mental as well as physical prowess" (Davis et al. 285). Odysseus travels a psychological journey, and the war games of bloodshed and heartache have a quenching denouement. The goddess Athena, in the guise of Mentor, arbitrates peace, saying: "Break off this bitter skirmish; \ end your bloodshed, Ithacans, and make peace" (The Odyssey 24.593-4). Through divine wisdom, peace is established and maintained. The tale of Odysseus illustrates the religious ideal of honoring deity, morally defines true civility, and satisfies the reader or listener's need for diversion from the mundane.

These supernatural stories haunt audiences throughout the ages with words that still entertain, educate, and provoke. The Greek hero lives through literature, a perpetual afterthought. In the afterworld of Ancient Greece, the legacy of religious, political, and moral challenge and opportunity continues as a foresight for nations and peoples of every clime.

Works Cited

Davis, Paul et al., Eds. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, Beginnings-100 C.E. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.

Homer. The Iliad. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, Beginnings-100 C.E. Eds. Paul Davis et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004, 288-420.

Homer. The Odyssey. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Ancient World, Beginnings-100 C.E. Eds. Paul Davis et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004, 421-768.

Flower Ball Tea

2010-05-07T21:19:00.001-07:00

Your sword, became without this aim
From which my hand ever refrains,
Of winning this exhibition game,
Yet my heart sighs only your name.

In orthography, channeling sense
In passages of deliberate defense;
A war game in continuous tense
With love proclaiming any expense.

I think of you, a matching sword,
That Kali wields, that love has torn;
I reach for you in truth so deep,
Waking from my sleep to speak:

This love, inscrutable, amazing,
It reaches the highest degree,
As we correspond the pageantry
Of this samurai flower ball tea.

Comely Lately

2010-05-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

Vetiver pouch in a cigar box

Beneath a chenille throw;

The bald scent of three knocks

Against a bloody nose:

What may I offer as just reward

To a damsel as fair as thee?

Aye, lay down my only sword

To fend off thy injury.

Corsets dislodged from shipment

Across centuries and hazy seas,

Red light at night after high tea

Beckons this bow to prowlery:

What may I offer as just reward

To a damsel as fair as thee?

Aye, spill kind words never heard

To magistrate for thy majesty.

Hills and Halls for the Small

2010-04-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Alas, the divine hall of fame

Boasts monogamy as end game.

Pillars erect, foundation firm

What one man rejects,

Another one must earn;

Degree and gradient converge,

As the factorials exclaim concern.

By day the world does turn;

By night the soul returns.

Oh, sleep my sons of peace.

Oh, rest my daughters of ease.

My steadfast loyalty shall keep

Your innocence as your release.

Love naught what passes in shade

For the jewels of the masquerade.

Set your sights upon the course

Of Avalon's oak beside the shore

Where I bathed each one of you,

Drowning tears in morning dew.

To the Artist as a Young Man

2009-08-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

When fantasy feels real,
And destiny is a dream,
And life becomes surreal--

What may be is what may seem.

Druids picking tulips

Beneath a sky of years,

Fairies lifting cowslips
From forest floors of fears--

If hope were a paper sailboat
And you its captain child
Frolicking in a castle moat,
Then forever is a sun dial.

Time slips into the shade
On a starry, starry night
When the moon was made
For a sleepy sailor's light.

Showers of Danae

2009-07-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Where halos die in thunder,
Dimmed in desperation,
Let the waxing wonder
Be a virgin generation.

She laved in isolation
In a lonesome daydream,
Offering sweet salvation,
Fantasy wet with gleam.

When bloodthirsty dishonesty
Robs gods of patrimony,
Let paladins of human majesty
Raise the rugged dynasty.

She laved in isolation
In a lonesome daydream,
Offering sweet salvation,
Fantasy wet with gleam.

Inventing God

2009-07-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. --Voltaire

Proverbs 14:13--Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.

The God That I Would Invent

Rather than a parasitic creative relationship, my god would be in an inescapable, satisfying, glorifying symbiotic relationship with a creation that was conceived in the highest form of narcissistic love. My god would be egotistical beyond ego. Like a holy masturbation, creation would be ejaculated in excited utterances of "Oh, my God!"

The worlds that jetted forth from the hot, moist, honeyed tongue of my creator would be inhabited by archetypes of the psyche of this god. This god would be in a state of bliss, thrilled infinitely by the sense of otherness that she found within herself. The division of these vessels of selfhood would be ordered by the division of the labor of love, ever lusting to touch the original form. The original form is god, and this form, when used as a self-referencing template, gives a causal relativity to an organized temporal nature. Time would be capricious, floating like a holy cloud of everlasting motion, permeating, extending, and contracting.

God would ejaculate: "Do not follow me. I am not coming back. What I cannot share cannot appear. Like a cloud, dizzy with dews, my reign is merely an act of self-control."

Self-containment

In an occlusive lilt of language,
The conversation reaches a crescendo;
At the height of intellect's attainment,
Stultiloquence bellows from below.
What one cannot clearly speak,
One cannot clearly know,
Except for what only experience
May transparently show.
However, word precedes action,
And thought precedes speech;
Creation is a perfect reaction
Within self-referencing reach.
The god of all creation
Is the image of oneself
That precedes the imagination,
Revealing no one else.
From what knowledge cannot contain,
It must absolutely abstain:

Alas, one is but a vessel
And never touches the heart
Of the careful potter's chest,
Filled with liquid art.

Divine Motivation

2009-07-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

You are in training for a competition. Your competitors are from all social, political, temporal, and spiritual climes. You are participating in the Olympics of the universe. Will you take up your torch? What makes you burn? What lights your fire? Carry only your purest and most raging desires to the games. The spectators are in the Coliseum, lining the Via Apia, tugging at your clothes, flanking you on all sides of history.

To master your skills, you must start at the start. The start is wherever you are right at this very moment. The stakes are very high: life and death. Your individual life is at stake, and so is the life of your culture, your country, your world, your gods, and your entire finite reality. Luck, or undeserved fortune, has no place in these games. The man who becomes king of a nation has cycled through lifetimes of servitude. The undying God of a world has cycled through lifetimes of violent death and harsh obscurity. If you feel blessed, then thank not your God, but your self. To some, that may sound evil. Evil is a word used to describe the totality of fear. Fear can be a powerful motivating force, but it is one of avoidance, one of shirking responsibility. To take up your torch, you must accept full responsibility for your own karma. The difference between dependence and independence is the difference between losing yourself to your competitors and gaining, or claiming, your freedom. Your competitors are only those who play out your fears, manipulating you into subjection to their power.

Your teammates, on the other hand, have established a common bond of either love or fear. A strong team is one that is held together by love. A weak team is one that is held together by fear. The strong team is playing towards the ultimate goal of a shared freedom. The weak team is held together like prisoners in a chain gang. Choose your team wisely.

However, once you advance further in these games, you will have acquired the skill, strength and freedom that will make you an independent player. You will no longer need a tribe in the forest to give you a sense of safety or identity. You will be a wandering sage, making your bed along the random trail of the wilderness of pure freedom.

The test of fitness for the sage is the dark night of the soul. The play of the shadows in the woods will force you to face the totality of your fears that you experienced under the delusion of mortality. To extinguish these fears, you must light your own fire, rather than returning to the hearth of your tribe. The inner truths that you have made will sparkle like flaming diamonds, formed from the coals of primitive thoughts and beliefs. Will you take up your torch? What makes you burn? What lights your fire?

Kundalini Bliss

2009-07-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today, I broke a barrier of some sort that had encapsulated my ego for an incalculable duration of time. A novice to kundalini yoga in this incarnation, I entered a blissful trance that was pleasurable beyond any physical rapture that I have experienced. My third eye pulsated, and throbs of mental ecstasy reeled me into a higher consciousness. I had visions of reality warping, rippling, flexing, folding, and dancing. I released so much negativity that was like a filthy residue on my soul, and I felt truly aware, truly alive. Life spiraled out of the confines of my mortal coil, and I realized that this cannot have been the first time that I have reached this state of being. No, I have immersed myself in a cloak of ignorance, so that through darkness, my eye may be a pupil. I am a student of the light.

After returning to my “normal” state, I reflected on forgiveness. In Western thought systems, atonement is a process of rectification of an imperfect condition of being before the Highest Being. I do not wear garbs of shame to approach the majesty of divinity. Rather, I dress regally. I wear the crown of my chakra system for a coronation, not a crucifixion. Sure, I have lived in the delusion of maya as a pauper begging for alms, supplicating an anonymous deity. Like awakening from a dark night of the soul, I realize that there never was a Higher Being, only a higher calling.

To Encompass Wind

2009-07-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

My hollow heart needs transfusion;
O, defend my deaf words.

Without this vacuous embrace,
I would rush headlong into
A chamber of mental torture,
Although my arms feel barren
As I hold you in the rain
With the lust-tinged tears mixing
Like salty specks of solitude,
Drowning the desert of
My fragmented faith,
Shattered into sands,
Into the deathly desolation
That transformed you
Into a phantom gallant.

Without this vacuous embrace,
I would cease all belief
In the existence of an other
Who can share this
Empty desire, unfulfilled,
A hunger pang exceeding
The threshold of composition,
A seductive malnutrition.

Aeonian Lecture

2009-07-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Fashion a still-life boat
And an oar of stolen feathers
From the flight of infinity
That lifts on the horizon,
Chasing the sun--
Only to land on the moon.
Dip into my ink well,
Jet black blots of visions,
As ebony as the eye's student
Who braces in dark ignorance,
Instructed by experience
And supple words of lust--
Gravid with identity.

Desire to be so distinct--
To be set apart like a deity
From the violent landscape.
Oh, venerated profanity!
An ego unnamed, flashing
In the fury of oblivion:
Everlasting bastard of divinity!