A Leak In The Safe

When I was back there at Kenyon College the most famous student poet of the day was a guy named Wade “Woody” Newman . To hear the teachers and tastemakers talk you’d think he was poised to take up the Kenyon poet baton from Randall Jarrell and Robert Lowell, there at the resting place of John Crowe Ransom. Woody was a nice, pleasant chap and all, but I never thought there was that much actual substance to his poetry, even his sonnet cycle on the life of Christ. Subsequently he hasn’t made that much noise on the literary scene, but in our debased world what poet does? He was a good buddy of my late friend Greg Shell and wrote a pretty good letter that was read at the funeral detailing an incredible prophetic dream he had right before Greg’s death. I usually have dreams like that after someone I’m close to dies, but I haven’t, and have had to console myself with the weird appearance on the roof of the car that I drove to Greg’s funeral of a very large preying mantis with an attitude that reminded me of Greg’s. Although his day job is as a corporate headhunter (and god knows what we would have made of THAT in college) Woody’s still rhyming away, and the whole thing inspired me to pick up a book of Woody’s called Poisoned Apples from Pivot Press of Brooklyn, New York. This following couplet caught my eye at once and I got to tell you, Woody, I salute you but this has to go under the category of TOO MUCH INFORMATION:

These are the nipples that shrink from my tongue,

This is the orgasm that will not come.

This poem was inspired by Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg

Ember Days

There are women

Who during the Ember Days

Go out of their senses travel

On strange nocturnal journeys

Compelled to wander until

Their allotted time has elapsed

They congregate on Thursdays

Dreaming abandoning their bodies

Their spirits fly over the woods

In nocturnal cavalcades

The wild hunt shrieking

Through fields of pastured animals

To the briar patches of Mount Venus

The meadow of the Madonna

The circle in the swamp

Under the legendary walnut tree

There

They worship the Mistress of the Game

A certain woman called the Abbess

The Sorceress The Charmer seated

In majesty on the edge of the well

Filled with water reflecting

A multi formed female deity

Arboreal and vegetal goddess

Abundia Satia Diana Perchta

After they have knelt

The witches play other games

In this or that

Perhaps very distant place

Meeting their companions in

A riot of banquets and dances

Feasting and philandering

Indulging in leaping orgies to

Ensure the fertility of the fields

Come with me and

The witches to the dance

Come in spirit to the parade

Come and join the nuptials

Where we will eat sweets

Sport dishonestly dance

Feast love dissipating

In the center of the world

Hearing all the music

That can possibly be heard

Here’s another ancient bit of Wisdom (Sophia) literature UBUized for your protection:

Where I prayed, and understanding was given me:

I called and the spirit of Wisdom came unto me.

I preferred her before scepters and thrones, and

Esteemed riches nothing in comparison with her.

Neither did I compare her to any precious stone,

Because all gold is but a grain of sand compared to her,

And silver counted as clay.

I loved her above health and beauty,

And chose to have her instead of light,

For the light that emanates from her

Cannot be extinguished.

Now all good things came to me together with her,

And innumerable riches through her hands.

And I rejoiced in them all,

Because Wisdom went before me,

And she is the Mother of them all.

This I have learned without guile,

And communicate without envy.

I do not hide her riches for

She is a treasure without end!

And all such things that are hidden or manifest, them

I know, for Wisdom, the worker of all things, taught me.

Hers is the spirit of understanding: holy, unique, manifold,

Subtle, eloquent, lively, clear, undefiled, sure, sweet,

Loving that which is good, quick, unstoppable, beneficent,

Gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, intelligible and pure,

Overseeing all things and containing all spirits.

For Wisdom is more moving than any motion:

She passeth and goeth through all things

By reason of her purity.

For she is the brightness of eternal light

And the unspotted mirror of transcendence,

The image of goodness.

For she is more beautiful than the sun,

Above all the order of the stars,

And when compared to the light,

She will be found greater.

For after day cometh night, but

No darkness can overcome Wisdom.

— Wisdom of Solomon

Chance

Fine

You don’t want to answer

Don’t you know that

Any day anything

Can happen and

You won’t even have

The chance

I’m working on a Sophia (Wisdom) Quote bag.

In the meantime here’s my adaptation of a text from the second century BC:

Wisdom sings her own praises,

Before her people she proclaims her glory.

In the congregation of the Most High

She opens her mouth, in the presence

Of his hosts she declares her worth:

From the mouth of the Most High

I came forth and covered the earth

As a mist. I dwelt in high places,

My throne a cloudy pillar.

I alone compassed the vault of heaven,

And wandered through the deepest abyss.

Over the waves of the sea, over all the land,

Over every people and nation I held sway.

Among all these I sought a resting place;

In whose inheritance shall I abide?

I am the mother of fair love, and

Fear and knowledge, and holy hope:

I therefore, being eternal,

Am given to all my children.

Come to me, all you that yearn for me,

And be filled with my fruits;

My memory is sweeter than honey,

My inheritance better than the honeycomb.

They who eat of me will yet hunger still,

They that drink of me will thirst for more.

They who obey me will never be confounded

and they who serve me will never fail.

— Sirach Chapter 24