Monday, September 29, 2003

Grendel the Axe Grinder:  On Angels   The original meaning of Angel or angelos in Koine Greek was simply "messenger."  I personally dislike the conception of angels as merely benevolent invisible care bears with wings.  If, like Rilke, I asked: "Who if I cried, would hear me among the dominions of angels," and was answered by Micheal Landon or Della Reese or the simulacrum thereof, I would be appalled.  Angels as metaphorical engines have great transitive power, which the angels of fad trivialize.  And of course a lot of people commit the fundamental spiritual error of believing in the stuff our dreams are made on, and make a muddle or even murder of their metaphors, whether their engine is Elvis or the Holy Trinity.  I suppose it is a matter of style.  I prefer my angels as austere, awesome, both beautiful and terrible, great invisible powers whose actions are beyond our moral conceptions and who can with a single whispered syllable utterly transform a human being, for good or ill.  And I don't make the mistake of believing in them, tho' I have seen them.  If you direct your attention by use of such metaphorical engines, say you write a poem on angels, or pray to god, you properly do so not because god and the angels give a hoot, or because you can affect them in any way—they don't and you can't—you pray because it affects you, because the act effects a transformation in your own soul. Or the simulacrum thereof. 11:24:55 PM    comment []

Note to Pilgrims: Singing in the Lithium Chorus   I got a whiff of my usual autumnal depression. Taking all my pills, including Wellbutrin and Omega-3 aka cod liver oil, getting to and getting through work ok.  The feeling comes in like the tide, and black despair sweeps over me, like seawater over a clam.  I've become rather detached about it, I observe it like a beachcomber watches storm waves crash into a beach, but still when the tide comes in, I feel that I am experiencing the truth of human existence; that our lives are hopeless and meaningless, and that even killing oneself is an inadequate response, a futile fuck you to an indifferent cosmos.  This is why I am not a suicide, tho' manic depressives are at high risk for suicide; it is the last useless act, pathetic and paltry, tho' you make of yourself a human torch, like fellow poet and manic David Bainum.  I experienced this truth the first time I held a loaded and cocked revolver to my head.  So I reject the truth and live by my fictions, large and small, mundane and esoteric, as do all.  And I take drugs to alleviate the effect of the truth written into the biochemistry of my brain.  And am glad to do so.  Because I am not done yet with human fiction.    Three philosophers came together to taste vinegar, the Chinese symbol for the spirit of life.  First Confucius drank of it.  "It is sour," he said.  Next Buddha drank.  He pronounced the vinegar bitter. Then Lao-tzu tasted it.  He exclaimed, "It is fresh!" 1:23:02 PM    comment []

PoD 55:  Glass Junkie 1:11:33 PM    comment []