— Paul Valery, 1930
[from a "brief" on Saint Erasmus Elmo [oops, wrote Elbow - funny how the brain does that, psyche does that, "which comes first?" but that's another assay/essay - see footnote at bottom of this text for the full brief]
*
NO LONGER PRESIDENTS BUT PROPHETS — Patti Smith (from "Birdland")
HE RISE
AND HE FALL
GOING DEEPER WITH
THE WORLD'S BLACKEST
BLIND, BOUND, BEGGING
MISSING GOD'S LAST TRAIN
WILL WE AGAIN
STAY IN THE LOVELY
— norman nightingale
I'm helium raven waitin' for you,
please take me up,
Don't leave me here! . . . pushing it all out like latex cartoon
"out of the frying pan and into THE fire" - It was the very fire in me that was dying and fast, already dampening to a smolder thus, sparks, and festering grande chips on my young shoulders, I shouldered my looming repressed but pushing, insisting, inner furnace and hauled it and my ass, descending the mountain top and deep into Saint Elmo, a little community at the foot of then "dread" (John Calvin ugh!) mountain.
I had no idea then that Saint Elmo, the saint, aka Erasmus, was all about FIRE. HA!
Then came The Beats, Gertrude Stein, many others, me playing catch up, so HUNGRY for art, literature, alternative and classics, who was once "in the wind or gales of cultural wheel changes, etc, andThomas Merton (already discovered in high school but upon my (apparently "predestinied) self-exile, he, Father Louis (Merton's monk name) was "yea and verily" Breath, Life, MYSTIC FIRE as I was (and am) a mystic for real but didn't really own it till got to the college, the shock, and felt my Mystic self/soul dying via hard core intellectual Calvinism wedded to conservative politics (it got even more hard core, (no) thanks, in great part, to the college I was in who fostered a then massive evangelical hero who was impacting conservative Christianity in the US at the time. Meanwhile, down in the valley, I was discovering jazz (for real - not the Dixie Land my cajun dad played at home), other music, classical all kinds and phases, and then, fateful day, I found the .99 cent cut-out of Patti Smith's debut Horses in a discount bin at the downtown Woolworths Department Store. Many great albums were purchased there. Tall stacks of 'em every week. Still have 'em and in still good shape!
The first Smith song I heard upon putting stylus needle to vinyl - the opening anthem, and, yes, utter blasphemy....I nearly fell over overwhelmed by the shock, terror, balls of her blatant declaration in the first words (you can hear them at the link below). Jung would say I was on my way to owning my shadow (my all too human instinctual nature/NATURE) which, shadow, is also, very much, that of Judeo-Christian culture as mutilated by the US of A (for atrocity), Pilgrims (their pogroms) staining Atlantic shores then westward bloodtides most ordained by the (rumored to be) Divine One (already proven to be a land and bloodthirsty Monster; and Spaniards further south, galleons full sail tiding in to create tsunamis of indigenous blood for GOLD and, ancillarily, Jesus, butchering all the way down to, appropriately named, Tierra del Fuego - Land of Fire and A Thousand Dances (a great cut on the Smith album.
Much has passed since that hitch hike down the mountain, away from the believed to be "Promised Kingdom to come".
David Bowie was major soundtrack 'de exilio' - Space Oddity /// stripped version [accoutic guitar & vocals]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8KoAZNt9Yw&list=RDM8KoAZNt9Yw&start_radio=1
CONDUCT YOUR BLOOMING IN THE NOISE AND WHIP OF THE WHIRLWIND. — Gwendolyn Brooks
Twas a launching. No galleon, though. Rapscallion, perhaps, but I was no bad ass. Quite the contrary. Introverted, shy, highly secretive about my real self, etc., cards close to chest. But my inner "snake" - Jung refers to ancient Greek and other early cultures beliefs that each human has their own "snake" or urge that insists each into authenticity, into their/its drive into unique lives and becomings (an ongoing process as that becoming is never done).
Now in the RAGE N PLAGUE YEARS of PILGRIM PROJECT'S predestined demise:
I have been poem-less for months
I blame the Intruder, insisting
the death of poetry and
so much more, like, say -
Everything I kneel to
out of brokenness,
out of elevation,
devotion perhaps in
between little flames
beyond their wicks,
mystic at last
If I wore a hat
I would remove it
such pure slow gestures
butoh
or ballet
convey
that there is not even wind, that there
is only spirit beyond flame — words,
what comes after — as before
what staring is for
when in doldrums
when in doldrum then
again, read much,
find moment's reprise -
slips a phrase from a
THE RISE AND FALL
GOING DEEPER WITH
THE WORLD'S BLACKEST
BLIND, BOUND, BEGGING
MISSING GOD'S LAST TRAIN
WE WILL AGAIN
STAY IN THE LOVELY
Patti Smith turned a very forceful WHEEL in and around me with the first words on her debut "Horses" album....I had dropped out of an evangelical college in the last semester before I was to graduate. I did so in effort so save my life. Long story.
And, thankfully, it was easier to just quit, walk away, hitchhike down the mountain into the ugly brown city, the equally brown guash smog over and of Chattanooga, TN., rented a house with simpatico friends, disaffected and due to be spiritually "disinfected" for all my/our "dys-affected" states of, the evangelical threat of and wish for our punishment,
"out of the frying pan and into THE fire"
galaxies
do in their
unweary
lightyears
*
I had no idea then that Saint Elmo, the saint, was all about FIRE. HA!
Then came The Beats, Gertrude Stein, many others, me playing catch up, so HUNGRY for art, literature, alternative and classics, who was once "in the wind or gales of cultural wheel changes, etc, andThomas Merton (already discovered in high school but upon my (apparently "predestinied) self-exile, he, Father Louis (Merton's monk name) was "yea and verily" Breath, Life, MYSTIC FIRE as I was (and am) a mystic for real but didn't really own it till got to the college, the shock, and felt my Mystic self/soul dying via hard core intellectual Calvinism wedded to conservative politics (it got even more hard core, (no) thanks, in great part, to the college I was in who fostered a then massive evangelical hero who was impacting conservative Christianity in the US at the time. Meanwhile, down in the valley, I was discovering jazz (for real - not the Dixie Land my cajun dad played at home), other music, classical all kinds and phases, and then, fateful day, I found the .99 cent cut-out of Patti Smith's debut Horses in a discount bin at the downtown Woolworths Department Store. Many great albums were purchased there. Tall stacks of 'em every week. Still have 'em and in still good shape!
The first Smith song I heard upon putting stylus needle to vinyl - the opening anthem, and, yes, utter blasphemy....I nearly fell over overwhelmed by the shock, terror, balls of her blatant declaration in the first words (you can hear them at the link below). Jung would say I was on my way to owning my shadow (my all too human instinctual nature/NATURE) which, shadow, is also, very much, that of Judeo-Christian culture as mutilated by the US of A (for atrocity), Pilgrims (their pogroms) staining Atlantic shores then westward bloodtides most ordained by the (rumored to be) Divine One (already proven to be a land and bloodthirsty Monster; and Spaniards further south, galleons full sail tiding in to create tsunamis of indigenous blood for GOLD and, ancillarily, Jesus, butchering all the way down to, appropriately named, Tierra del Fuego - Land of Fire and A Thousand Dances (a great cut on the Smith album.
Much has passed since that hitch hike down the mountain, away from the believed to be "Promised Kingdom to come".
CONDUCT YOUR BLOOMING IN THE NOISE AND WHIP OF THE WHIRLWIND. — Gwendolyn Brooks
Twas a launching. No galleon, though. Rapscallion, perhaps, but I was no bad ass. Quite the contrary. Introverted, shy, highly secretive about my real self, etc., cards close to chest. But my inner "snake" (Jung refers to ancient Greek and other early cultures beliefs that each human has their own "snake" or urge that insists each into authenticity, into their/its drive into unique lives and becomings (an ongoing process as that becoming is never done).
Now in the RAGE N PLAGUE YEARS of PLYMOUTH'S PILGRIM PROJECT'S predestined demise:
I have been poem-less for months
I blame the Intruder, insisting
the death of poetry and
so much more, like, say -
Everything I kneel to
out of brokenness,
out of elevation,
devotion perhaps in
between little flames
beyond their wicks,
mystic at last
If I wore a hat
I would remove it
such pure slow gestures
butoh
or ballet
convey
that there is not even wind, that there
is only spirit beyond flame — words,
what comes after — as before
what staring is for
when in doldrums
when in doldrum then
again, read much,
find moment's reprise -
slips a phrase from a
sleeve,
an image dreamed,
poetry visual
so try
and fail
palms up
It does not go unnoticed
an image dreamed,
poetry visual
so try
and fail
palms up
It does not go unnoticed
One endures long enough to break through thunder,
a taut belly, a smooth place for lips to land.
One may reach a 'Pure Land' which has no logic,
the tedious seasons of long life endured.
Still, one gathers names of each joven**
prince passed beneath loving,
yes, arduous hands.
Again, upon Kingfisher's wings I blow these kisses,
this music, your patient ear awaiting the purist pearl,
for you were once the bequeathed, escaped girl
without fear of oceans, this one between us which
now must be overflown to reach you.
N. Nightingale, Empress of Contrails
*
https://catholicsaintmedals.com/saints/st-elmo/
*
A reasonable response (I think) to the then (2012) controversy over Toren's montage of Frida as Smith album cover Mapplethorpe photo here:
*
And final (not final by vinyl) word - "Do the Watusi!" is Patti Smith's "GLORIA":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPO0bTaWcFQ&list=RDbPO0bTaWcFQ&start_radio=1
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