RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,148
(words were never enough)
The 'myth' of mythology had
always led me along - to
believing that I'd see griffins,
two-headed monsters, dragons
that breathed fire, and flighty
wood-nymphs too. None of it
ever happened, of course, but
I still believed. For a normal,
hetero-sexual guy (and I say
normal' because, yes, sorry
to say, I believe that to be the
right and natural way; all you
same-sexers can talk this over
amongst yourselves. Sorry), the
deliverance from any of that
mythology stuff always seemed,
for me, to be the liberation of
the female body, or form. There
was never anything better for me,
so I ran with that as the best of
all mythology, the feminine-form
divine. (Hey! Maybe then that
makes ME a lesbian? Does that
get a capital 'L' yet, by the way?).
-
In its prideful notations to the
modern day, modern Humankind
rebuffs all those 'mythological'
beasts and beings, relegating them
all to some subterranean ante-room
of the older-world's imaginings.
Gods on Mount Olympus, for
instance, being the most-simple
version. I've always been partial
to those accounts of half-man,
half-beast creatures; the failed
experiments of a coaxial 'God'
attempting the materialization
of 'God ideas.' Pretty remarkable
stuff and, certainly, the things
by which cosmic-externals are
elevated : the vast and great
Human memories of archetypes
and phantasmagorias which we
only now relegate to dreams and
nightmares. But it used to be
real. No two ways about it. All
that old consciousness was once
our world.
-
I could sense all that too, in walking
around; a sort of eyes-wide-shut
weirdness on the sluggish streets
of an older NYC. It may have been
1967 when I began my time there,
but it wasn't that at all. I was reading
signposts and traveling in another
time, almost another place. I return
there now, helpless, trying again to
see all that, but the remnants of
everything are gone : Torn, tattered,
debunked. The atmospheres back
then were all different : tattered
colonial clothes of horse-trails
and small paths, huddled Dutch-style
topped buildings,close to the dirt
lanes and streets. A jagged commerce,
bits and pieces : porcelain, clay,
pipes, tubes, raw lumber. Incredibly,
that too was the 'modern day' then.
As analogous to a dream versus a
nightmare, that old era, ancient
and pre-historic, of strange creatures
and flying forms and biblical tales
and stories - all of them were a
poor, poor reach for what really
went on. The self-recognitions and
initiated rites of Man and civilization,
the pre-language 'describe-the-world
you see' aspects of cave paintings
and etched rocks and walls of stone
proclaimed Humankind's sense of
selfhood only slowly a'borning.
Words were not enough, ever.
-
All those stories of Gods and the
miracles of time and space by which
'Reality' was constructed were somehow
yet present and meshed together in
some weird NYC world that didn't
know itself and had never (known
itself) : Teeming hordes of the lost
and the listless; and all the accidentals
of Nature and Man combined. Two
fronted horses, the half-men, half-lions
of a singular dreams; forever and ever,
rolling over upon itself as Time and
as Energy, as Story and as Myth.
Just waiting for a writer to give
it justice and being. Again, words
were not enough, ever.
-
I think our thoughts were always
meant to be mobile: Not tied down
to concepts or ideologies so much
as wandering, restless, always on
the move. I think that's where ife's
divine creativity lies - the divine
creative 'feminine' I may have
mentioned earlier. I am nowhere
else but lost.
-
'I think it's often assumed that
the role of poetry is to comfort,
but for me, poetry is the great
unsettler. It questions the
established order of the mind.
It is radical, by which I don't
mean it is either leftwing or
rightwing, but that it works
at the roots of thinking.'
-
I think our thoughts were always
meant to be mobile: Not tied down
to concepts or ideologies so much
as wandering, restless, always on
the move. I think that's where ife's
divine creativity lies - the divine
creative 'feminine' I may have
mentioned earlier. I am nowhere
else but lost.
-
'I think it's often assumed that
the role of poetry is to comfort,
but for me, poetry is the great
unsettler. It questions the
established order of the mind.
It is radical, by which I don't
mean it is either leftwing or
rightwing, but that it works
at the roots of thinking.'
No comments:
Post a Comment