I can only say the fire is real. This is no fairy tale. As my friend CC says, they are all walking around like they are holding four aces. I'm trying to pull something out of my sleeve, but I don't know if it will be enough. There is no benefit to wounding the King, as they say, only peril. Slow fucking motion peril. I cannot afford a wounding. The faint of heart are on the run. Sometimes now, it feels as if this cold wind is blowing through me hard. That is where that hollow, empty sound is coming from. But as the Australians say, it's time for Big Balls in Cowtown. I think that's what they say. I've got a pair of BBC shorts from the old days. Too bad it is so cold.
Oh, and I was supposed to be leaving for India on Friday. Now I'm not. I don't know. I don't know. My head's too often in my hands. These stories are more fun to read than to live sometimes. How long can you stand to be "Cool Hand Luke"?
Well that was all really Dylanesque. I liked it. Should I be sorry?
ReplyDeleteIf it's about losing a job -- I'm sorry but you'll survive. Oh I know it seems like you won't but you will. If it is about an illness -- and I sure hope not -- hang in there, I'm told over and over US has the best healthcare in the world -- if one can afford it.
Despite what we think -- we can take a huge amount of wounding and still go on. I'm not sure sometimes how -- reading the stories that I do but we do.
I read this poem this morning -- which was a reminder about the pain of that living stuff we tend to do:
My apologies to your gentle readers it isn't quite uplifting.
The Olive Stump
1.
When hearing the name of Turnus,
Aeneas leapt the high walls of the citadel
and took the field, the crimsoned warring soldiers
might've marveled, might've set aside their shields
and dropped their battering rams, but they couldn't
have been surprised. The open ground was cleared.
2.
An old wild olive surviving shipwrecked
seamen had for centuries fixed with offerings to
a sheltering god was cut down with the rest and left
a stump. The gods overlook a lot of things, but not
a slight. Aeneas's launched spearhead buried itself
in that tough wood and the hero could not rearm.
3.
At least until a siding spirit intervened and broke
the bite. The hero weighed his heavy weapon
and towered up again. We're not told if
the olive bled, or if it wept. Like the man
who clung to the lead pipe a Hutu soldier used
to beat his wife and son, it was beside the point.
4.
Meanwhile, the upper hand was hammered out
by the powers that be. The scales were lifted,
balanced, trued. The fight's outcome was settled on.
Who knows what happened to the olive stump,
or to the family of the man the Hutu soldier
dragged outdoors, doused with kerosene and burned.
Sherod Santos
Sometimes, I'm just an awful cheerleader it is a wonder I ever made the team.
You are loved CS and remember, I repeat it over and over:
"What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross ... "
Ezra Pound
I agree with Lisa that we can take a lot of wounding and still survive. You are indeed loved...wishing you the best!
ReplyDeleteHell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker.
Loved in some quarters, reviled in others. There is a queerness to it all.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the world, newborn. :-)
ReplyDeleteoh also -- i bet the very things that cause you to be loved here are the things that cause you to be reviled there.
ReplyDeletejust a hunch. :)
Perhaps a trip to Constantinople might do you good, especially since you are considering cards:
ReplyDeleteLast love in Constantinople: A Tarot novel for divination by Milorad Pavic.
Run With The Hunted.
ReplyDeleteL, don't you know it.
ReplyDeleteGrasswire, Yes, yes, I will consider Constantinople. The old one, no, from days of yore? Or is it still as exotic? Tell me more.
Q, Over the Hills Like Wild Horses