Lacexleaves - New Beginnings

Queen of hearts, bows to the fools parade, insanity is a strange thing to take comfort in. ‘Mere blood and bone’ will lure you to depths of life/hell which human hand (only) must (only) touch. Vega of the lyre and bellatrix of the Orion in a dance of lights and life, bitterness sings a frayed melody to the hearthstone, listen to her woebegone voice in the soft refrain, fold away your letters and give away your life, for its not sadness but despair that requests it. Believe in phantoms, and one as old as yourself wants to touch your windows and watch its fragile hands pass through the glass. 

The limitations of language - sounds and symbols that encapsulate that which is fundamentally incommunicable - perception, first hand experience

Ink blue skies smudge warmly the glow of the crescent moon,

Alone and hungry I haunt the night, revelling

in the Presence of an ever growing

Darkness, without and within.

The trees whispered approval in unison, as I watched

Wood pixies weave their ephemeral lace

to throw over the red carnation that stands

frozen in a ray of thwarted sunshine. Tell me, darling,

Will you not step out of the lane etched in stone?

Footfalls, wearied and cautious, along pathways treaded

by spectres once under the delusion of eternity,

A flaming hand reaches out to gently catch hold of your errant spirit,

In the daze of the ember’s flicker, stumbling I walk

Into the depths of nature’s winding heart.

what is your favourite fairy tale or myth ?

I've mostly read the short stories of the Grimm Brothers when it comes to fairy tales, so there are too many to choose or differentiate from I think. But for mythology, I really love the story of the bones stolen by Quetzalcoatl, of which here is a short excerpt:

Quetzalcoatl was instrumental in creating people to populate the fifth age. In order to do this, Quetzalcoatl had to sneak into the underworld of Mictlan and trick Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, the Lord and Lady of Death, into giving him the bones they guarded. Mictlantecuhtli would only give the bones to Quetzalcoatl if he could create a sound by blowing into a conch shell with no holes in it. Quetzalcoatl managed to complete this challenge through clever trickery. He had worms drill a hole in the conch, then filled the shell with bees. Quetzalcoatl’s actions successfully tricked Mictlantecuhtli into giving him the bones. But this was not enough for Quetzalcoatl. In an effort to further trick Mictlantecuhtli, Quetzalcoatl told him that he would leave Mictlan without the bones.

Before Quetzalcoatl could escape from Mictlan, however, his deception was discovered by Mictlanecuhtli. A deep pit appeared before Quetzalcoatl, preventing his escape. As he fell into the the pit, Quetzalcoatl was knocked unconscious and mixed up the bones he was carrying. After his eventual escape, Quetzalcoatl combined the now slightly shuffled bones with his blood and corn to create the first humans of the fifth age. The Aztecs used this allegory to explain why people came in all different heights.

(It's interesting how there are parallels in almost every mythology, for example in the Greek myth, Daedalus was lured by a similar puzzle set by King Minos where the contenders would have to thread a delicate conch shell by not doing any damage to it. Daedalus made a small hole at one end and smeared honey over it as well. Then he threaded a string to an ant and pushed it into the shell, and so it clawed through a neat hole without damaging the shell at all) (and also, Prometheus was somewhat of a Quetzalcoatl figure in most myths, aiding humanity with fire as Quetzalcoatl did with life and knowledge)

The wind calls, a worn tale

twisted with the wry smiles of damsels

bemused and the blossoms of enchantment a-plenty

in the hands of knights exalted.

A puzzling air settled about the spectacle,

as the child sought eternity’s ill traveled lane.

Elusive youth caught in vain at her fly-away ardor

And laid bare her fragmented joy.

The silence of the day startled her,

Frivolous and temporal. Of what poisoned lake of

transcendence had she drunk?

Morose and frightened the child grew,

Farther and farther he strayed after a wayward fancy.

Impermanence was the derisive echo of decadence

from the hearth of the abyss and

the nightfall of the heavens.

.

.

.

Eternity and impermanence are interchangeable in the verse.

The Flowers (Learning to Love Again)

The human effigy leaves my brain Unfazed these days.

I have detached my self From its very nature Seeking inner quietude; an escape From the ever gnawing.

So did I become passionless, Desireless; void Of corporeal aching; Mechanical in visual interpretations.

Muscles, tendons, fat, flesh Bone structures, imaginarily Dissected; Witnessed apathetic; Unsignified, their radiation electromagnetic Reflected on photoreceptors.

Eyes Fill not with wonder, Solely perceive functionalistically.

Yet the only tragedy here Is that I’m not allowed to forget The existence of my own effigy.

This vessel, Requiring maintenance, Demanding Its own existence So pressingly I cannot withstand.

Basic wants, and basic needs Will so lead to desire’s revival.

I await its corruption Uneager And fatalistic.

For now, I cherish This unadulterated predisposition As I am the world’s Witness.

I will love the flowers instead.

Experiencing the enrapturement Of true beauty In all its innocence.

— 11-5-2021, M.A. Tempels ©

October is my empire. Terror is part of me. 一 Tamura Ryūichi

1. Alfonsina Storni, 2. Cy Twombly, 3. William Stanley Merwin, 4. Cy Twombly, 5. Virginia Woolf, 6. Jorge Albericio, 7. Gala Mukomolova, 8. Andrei Tarkovsky, 9. Czesław Miłosz, 10. Andrei Tarkovsky, 11. Thomas Wolfe, 12. Andrei Tarkovsky, 13. Louise Glück

Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.

Matt Kahn