Wor(l)d Lyrics, Or Letters Written

This is the second collection of poetry the author has composed and taken from a handwritten original manuscript. The first one was called Lyrics / Flor & Blancheflor (published in 2010 on this "mythic poetry" site, and in 2013 / 2014 through Lulu). The cover of Wor(l)d Lyrics can be seen below. It was b(r)ought from Southern Turkey in May 2012, and the writing process began on Ascension Day the same year. Twelve poems or lyrics for spiritual "music of the spheres", and the last one called Letters Written in ten parts, numbered with unofficial titles. The fourth poem Swedenborg, Yeats & Rilke is divided in three, and if read as one, the collection could almost be named as Ten New Poems. Many themes from the mythological and the esoteric tradition(s) are still shaking the ground, or at least X.X.X.X. The Tree of Life has branches and leaves like the rest of them. It has been said there are ten official places or states of being, and one more to represent unofficially the Crown of the Highest, like inner peace could stand for the Truth that is beyond and above human realms. The author does not wish to speak too much of the Word (Logos).

A traditional book can be purchased through:

Lulu / Vaaka print on demand for World Poetry

The Book of Wor(l)d Lyrics:

I MAY / LETTER & POEMS 

(May 2014)

II NO MYSTIC LOVE SONGS 

(December 2013)

 

III MALTA ROMANCE ANNO DOMINI 

(September 2014)

 

IV SWEDENBORG, YEATS & RILKE I 

(June 2017)

 

V SWEDENBORG, YEATS & RILKE II 

(November 2016)

 

VI SWEDENBORG, YEATS & RILKE III 

(February 2017)

 

VII AUTUMN VERSES 

(OR, LETTERS OF AUTUMN)

(January 2016)

 

VIII MORE LEAVES OF... 

(July 2016)

 

IX SATURNIA – VULCANIA 

(October 2017)

 

X THE CRUSADER / THE PILGRIM 

(August 2015)

 

XI SONGS OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 

(March 2017)

 

XII LETTERS WRITTEN (I-X)

I ”With Letters Made of Light and Paper Again”

(April 2015)

&

 

II ”For the Young Who Slept” 

III ”The Palm Tree and a Windmill” 

IV ”Note in A Minor….” 

V ”English Teacher” 

VI ”Minne-song(s)” 

VII ”The Swans of Ainola” 

VIII”(Un)like the French Inferno” 

IX ”Therésienstadt” 

X ”Love, No Latin” 

(c. 2018-2019)

NOTES / REFERENCES 

DEDICATIONS & APOLOGIES

The author was on a boat trip near Mt. Athos in autumn 2009, enjoying the scenery, looking at the view, as the saying and the songs go. Inspired by these moments, after returning home from Northern Greece a book written by René Gothóni was loaned from the library of Helsinki University. Two years later the Finnish musician and priest Jukka Kuoppamäki held a lecture in Helsinki, quoting an unknown writer at the end. The quote found its way to the first page of Wor(l)d Lyrics. But no one seemed to know who was the writer. The collection of poetry was emerging slowly and painfully during the years, and it was almost ready when the cries of help were answered. After a series of heartfelt events the name and the quote came together. It was the book loaned. "Look at the ship from within the bottle..."

Many years ago, when I was having a difficult time in my life, and when the demon of despair had me in its grip, Father Theophilos encouraged me by giving me words of advice of an old Japanese samurai who had taught his pupil to prepare for the coming fight: 

If you think that you’re going to win, you’ve lost. If you are afraid of losing, you’ve lost. If you pay attention to the size of your enemy, you’ve lost. If you underestimate your enemy’s talent, you’ve lost. If you doubt your own abilities, you’ve lost. If you’re arrogant, you’ve lost. If you’re afraid, you’ve lost. 

What is left? You ask. 

The fight! Concentrate on that only! 

-René Gothóni / The Unknown Pilgrim

(On the way to / from Limnos, passing by Mount Athos, in September 2009. Photo by Antti Filppu)

So, in early February 2019 after having all the poems written down at last, in some form or the other, I went to Alexandria (the library of Helsinki University), and loaned The Unknown Pilgrim again (it may have even been the same copy I loaned a decade before). There it stood, the quote I wanted to find. I never thought it could be in that book, because I had read it, and didn't have any kind of recollection of the samurai or Father Theophilos, either. As I sat down at the library cafe table, to have my coffee and the Runebergian cake, professor Gothóni walked by. Trembling, I ran to him and mumbled something about the book and the quote. He didn't understand me at first, for I was not really making sense, trying to tell him the whole story in a few lines. There is nothing too special about any of this, but even the boat was called Theophilos. It is worth noting also, that the words in that quote were not Gothóni's own. It was a Greek man, who told him what Father Theophilos had said.

I May / Letter & Poems

I MAY / LETTER & POEMS

(Or, Minne-Songs)

”This beautiful May I have beheld, 
In this beautiful May I have beheld...” 
The only vision of my fallen youth 
And whom I have served with arms 
Long ago I received a letter from her 
And I was made aware of this May 
We had to come from the heights 
”And Plato's love will be enough for us” 
But it's hard for a man who could not get it 
Hard, in troubled times everyone will fall 
If I hadn't been a poet, if I hadn't been a poet 
I would not have survived with these ties 

And I hope you have forgiven me 
That I failed to be a knight, and I failed 
I failed to love you like a man should 
This beautiful May I have beheld, 
In this beautiful May I have beheld 
What I tried to own and if I swore 
”Thank God you were never mine 
And I have never been yours” 
We were (not) meant to be like that 
For you've been a guiding light 
In the night of my inversion 

”And let no earthly thing ever take it from us, 
Let no thing of this world come between”

 

There'll be a May, fair and young 
For all those who could not be 
Like men for the ones they loved 
And who had, who had fallen again 
Lord, all troubled times are such 
No one will be saved from.... 
And I kept on clinging to her Minne 
The kind of love that can't be harmed 
By the black surrounding the earth 
The black sphere and today's world 

This beautiful May I have beheld, 
In this beautiful May I have beheld 
Why there is a poet, in other wor(l)ds 
”It has been quite romantic after all” 
And with this letter I'm writing for you 
My first love, real as that faith is real 
In the higher spheres it will be safe 
Cared by the Divine Spirit of Poetry 
The Heavenly Rose and white light 
If our love is like Plato's (τὸ ὄν) 
”….It had to be purified first” 
May the Highest, the Holy One 
Forever bless you with grace 

Written on the Ascension Day 

29th of May 2014

For my first love M.T. 

Who sent me a letter in May 1995

II No Mystic Love Songs

II NO MYSTIC LOVE SONGS 

(December 2013) 

The cry, the wilderness and the desert 
Like a mystic love song to be (un)known 
For those who wander on this earth 
And in spirit, with Enoch around Ethiopia 
There's another priest of the Most High 
When Muslims and Christians meet 
At the same corner table, drinking 
The same coffee magic for both halves 
Referring to a cup divinely blessed 
Where fraternity ends, and the holy month 
God, what I've seen in these lines 
Of darkness and life, I couldn't repeat 

Chorus: 
And if the men were 

Black, if they were white 

Had their magic been 

Black or had it been white 

If there would be no whores, 

No mystic love songs 
In this unknown world 

For the good or the ill 
Who wander among 

The shadows of earth 
And in the light of Spirit, 

Whose age is a mystery

I'd still have to write for them all over again 

And the cup would be empty, too

Send letters to a Muslim brother 

Who has been loved and even feared 
Before, who is and who's not like a saint 
Or a man of piety, so what makes 
A liar or an honest man 
With a conscience that is clear 
And a friend who loves you 
I'm not the one who will judge 
But don't ever compromise 
For all of us know, for all of us know 
That it's been a long walk 

Chorus:

And if the men were 

black, if they were white 

Had their magic been 

black or had it been white 

If there would be no whores, 

No mystic love songs 
In this unknown world 

For the good or the ill 
Who wander among 

The shadows of earth 
And in the light of Spirit, 

Whose age is a mystery 

I'd still have to write for them all over again 
And the cup would be empty, too 

In memory of Nelson Mandela and to his heritage in spirit,
And for my African friend and Muslim brother

People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished. 

-Nelson Mandela / Long Walk to Freedom

III Malta Romance Anno Domini

III MALTA ROMANCE ANNO DOMINI 

A servant of the poor and sick (Our Lords) 
With all of one's being wounded, uncertain 
In the most humble city built by gentlemen 
For gentlemen, the umbrella is like a sword 

The cloak of purity and innocence to wear 
And the Beatitudes in a necklace hanging 
On hope when it is hopeless, dry and barren 
Ground to stand even against the odd(s) 
Where thoughts are falling to pieces 
Amidst the limestone and sand 

At the square of my namesake 
No shelter from the bombs raining 
Hundreds of thousands, the great sieges 
Or another traitor with a forged letter 
”Now lies at anchor under the guns of...” 
The island will receive them 

Not unlike the George Cross 
Along the movements of this wheel 
Of the sun, the cardinal points and virtues 
Will Providence be the seafarer's guide 

And the knights were (s)ailing
The broken-hearted carrack St. Anne
The Hospitaller flagship came to Malta
And saw fishing boats with the eye

Sacra Infermeria 
In the arms of his brethren, 
Almost without any sickness 
Blessed Gérard fell and died 
How arms were meant for men 
Like the Grand Master La Valette 
Who fought back against the wall 
There in the Unconquered, Conspicuous 
And the Victorious, the three cities 
And witheld, to last one more time 
”For the beheading of St. John the Baptist” 

Safe Haven Garden and vedette 
Byron's farewell becoming a salute 
In the flows of time from and to this day 
With the shipwrecked who brought 
The Icon of Our Lady of Mellieħa 
And the sacred convoy arriving 

In the weakest hour, the weakest moment 
The most humble city built by gentlemen 
For gentlemen, the umbrella as my sword 
And with my back against the wall 
Terrified I stood there, losing sanity 
When thoughts fall to pieces, vulnerable 
Hope when it is hopeless (Ecce A. D.) 
Near St. Lawrence and Fort St. Angelo 
”And witheld, to last once again” 
Courage in Malta 

September 8th 2014, the Victory Day

For Lavra, Saint Lawrence and Blessed Gérard, 

To the Island Fortress and Republic of Malta

I go – but God knows when, or why, 
To smoky towns and cloudy sky, 
To things (the honest truth to say) 
As bad – but in a different way. 

-Lord Byron / Farewell to Malta

IV-VI Swedenborg, Yeats & Rilke (Parts I-III)

IV SWEDENBORG, YEATS & RILKE (PART I)

Buddha of the North 
You were kind, you were a kind man 
Drinking coffee black with sugar all the time 
At your Summer House, taking influences 
To give others, and learn from everyone 
Foreseeing the fire(s), angelic brightness 
Or demonic embers, in holy Erik’s land 
But then stoking the flame of approval 
With knowledge, a sign for men of Truth 
And faith in Light and Warmth divine 
”When someone else had been here, 
When something else had been thought” 
Researching and studying the Revelation 

The principle of the Soul’s kingdom 
Never lost in sorrow, in the House of Nobles 
While serving the crown (Ulrika Eleonora) 
With your name, oh your name changed 
And no regal mining company found this 
For our teacher, what should be said 
Of the Spiritual World’s Sun 

Where is the seat of the soul 
The question of consciousness 
For these men who are as they think 
(Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Kant etc) 
To come and go, travelling with journals 
Dreams and spirits, for you to tell them 
Of the meaning(s) hidden in the Script. 
And of marriage, a quest for lovers

The Magus of Stockholm 

You were kind, you were a kind man 
Of Renaissance in the age of Enlightenment 
Good like the coffee, unlike the damned times 
Forgotten to mention your name in this…. 
All those who read your books and could not 
Appreciate enough the work before them 
”How they will take the world coming” 

The mission (in 1744-5), London Bridge 
Alchemy, an insight near the crossroads 
Where the scientific and the religious meet 
Reason and knowledge would rely on faith 
With sincere feeling, the (in)finite comes 

An Emanation of the Divine 
Breathing and praying to medi(t)ate 
Even young Goethe had praised you, 
Though anonymously, unnaming 

On the cover of a book 
The Gardener has been taking care 
Of things, pouring water from a vase 
With temperantia, grids of algebra 
The series of degrees corresponding 
Strange methods, quite attractive 
Corridors and paths on the estate 
And a house of mirrors, too

Compassion, porn in the eyes watching you

”Our Great Chain of Being and Man” 
The reason in this era would be irony 
If charity's gone, repetition after another 
No state for im mater I al righteousness

The art of conjugial love, the spouses 
Meet in Heaven and are joined together 
Those who were meant to be, the union of two 
In selfish or unselfish way to serve no less 
For the difference between Heaven and Hell 

Written somewhere around 

30th of June, 2017 

There is just as much warmth and light in the spiritual world as there is in the physical world, but the warmth there is spiritual and so is the light. Spiritual warmth is the good that thoughtfulness does and spiritual light is the truth that faith perceives. Now, since the only possible source of warmth and light is a sun, it stands to reason that there is a different sun in the spiritual world than there is in the physical world. It also stands to reason that because of the essential nature of the spiritual world's sun, spiritual warmth and light can come forth from it, while because of the essential nature of the physical world's sun, physical warmth [and light] can come forth from it. The only possible source of anything spiritual - that is, anything that has to do with what is good and true - is divine love and wisdom. Everything good is a result of love and everything true is a result of wisdom. Any wise individual can see that this is their only possible source. People have not realized before that there is another sun besides the sun of our physical world. This is because our spiritual nature has become so deeply involved in our physical nature that people do not know what the word "spiritual" means. 

-Emanuel Swedenborg / 

Sapientia angelica de divino amore 
(English translation by George F. Dole) 

V SWEDENBORG, YEATS & RILKE (PART II)

(November 2016) 

Abbey Theatre hall in a distant eerie land 
So relatively close to ours, a national version 
Of Leda, and the other wild ones at Coole 
With living memories, (un)conscious 
And still unique, how to shoot the swan 
At last not least to see Lucifer and Adam 
Both forgiven, guilt and redemption 

Sailing to Ireland 
No, I’ve never been there 
But I have seen Byzantium 
The dreams and unreality 
Or what’s left of them 
In the history today 

Thoor Ballylee, tower 
Like the creed of Yeats 
Another place to visit, rent 
The museum has been closed 
No winding stairs, due to flooding 
The museum is still closed 
For the savings of God-Man 
Would someone open it again 
Rooms just for you, to let….

Chorus:

Now there is an actor singing off stage 
”With the religious play the part of a devil 
And with the devils, when lost among them, 
Please act like a man, like a man of faith” 

With old song titles to express human being 
Travel to Italy, there’ll be mosaics to admire 
Byzantine artworks and the (in)significance 
Of a responsible poet, to brood upon

 

And now, what is the human form 
When everything in the world is a part 
Of ourselves, and if there is nothing 
That could not be expressed 
Through this being of (wo)man 
What it takes to embody truth, 
Or to know it, angry and disappointed 
Hearts would be broken again 

Near the island of Poseidon, the golden city 

More best of Celtic tales 

And stories of the flood

 

If these hearts were not broken, 

How they should be, how they should be, 

Who were angry and disappointed 

Without these hearts broken already, 
Without the hearts broken again (in this) 
How they would be, how they would be 

Chorus: 
Now there is an actor singing off stage 
”With the religious play the part of a devil
And with the devils, when lost among them, 
Please act like a man, like a man of faith” 

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; 
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold 
And bid them wander obeying your will, 
Flame under flame, till Time be no more; 
Have you not heard that our hearts are old, 
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, 
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? 
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still. 

-William Butler Yeats / The Everlasting Voices 

VI SWEDENBORG, YEATS & RILKE (PART III)
(February 2017) 

By the Adriatic sea, the castle Duino 
Near the city of Trieste, with fine rhythm 
You could still weave sonnets and elegies 
But times changed, they’ve changed a lot 
Since then, mails became reserved electrically 
And posting has derailed in a terrible way 
Completely different from the calendar(s) 
Used by pen pals talking to each other 

The Intelligence of the Sun 
Where is the beginning of beauty 
How to translate, and not to miss 
The point, or something else 
Like the face and the scales 
Oh not to become a traitor 
In English or in Finnish [ ┬ ] 
No, see the boat and the healing 
A tradition, our working men ready 
For the higher waves to come 
”And every angel is terrific” 
Why the fear went in / on 
With the wings of a bird 

I missed the bus, dear friend(s) 
And laid with my open-letter-wife 
I would go with our little girl baby 
To heed the Word, forgetting lyrics 
If it was ”not so good, not so well” 
Forgive me, that I didn’t make it 
To your tower full of angels…. 
Instead, I went to the bar and cried 
Feeling sorry for not getting it done 
And there, beyond the veil of tears 
From all the(se) times I’ve lost yeah 
So it is, a message came through 

If the wine is red and magic white 
Like their wine is red, their magic white 
”For the wine is red and magic white…” 
Your wine is red, and your magic white 

And if every angel is terrific 
Like a mosaic on the church wall 
And their whole life is praising 
And their thinking not discursive 
Seeing everything, to look or touch 
Then real humility is like a bridge 
Over the abyss and troubled water 
”And real humility is like a bridge 
Over the abyss and troubled water”

For my friend, teacher R.W. (1929-2018)

He sang Origins in depth 
And spells in order 
How by their Creator’s leave 
At the Almighty’s command 
Of itself the sky was born 
From the sky water parted 
From the water land stretched forth 
On the land all growing things; 
He sang of the moon’s shaping 
The sun’s placing, the fixing 
Of the sky’s pillars 
Heaven being filled with stars. 

-Kalevala 
(English translation by Keith Bosley)

VII Autumn Verses (Or, Letters of Autumn)

VII AUTUMN VERSES 

(OR, LETTERS OF AUTUMN)

(January 2016)

Ave Maria, Gardel and Bach
When early or late September falls on us
The rain everywhere, seen from the window
Of a moving tram, it's getting to my nerves

Confidence in melancholic 

And beautiful thinking

”It would be so easy to drown in this city”
I'm a loser, beloved, and a wishful man
Too bad, as a heretic and an archist
I never knew them, well, enough (to have)
The flower girls from the street, 

Holding asters for those who write 

”Infernal and inferior poetry”

What happens when you tried too much 

And failed in a poem or a place of hope, 

If the light is good and the staff 

Like a serpent, we're having our talks

”While the raindrops kept on 

Fooling my head.....”

For another man, another one lost in thoughts
(Un)certain of many things, no ghost writing
The old word called honesty, how is it
Ever so difficult to attain and keep

What and where have I written

How I've been afraid of things
That may come, lo, the demon of lust
And afraid of lies, that it's not real
For every other verse printed
All the things I've gone through
Weak and with hope(lessness)
”And there is porn for everyone”
(You who have suffered for us
Have mercy on us, amen)
Save us from these cares

Underground lines in the night
Of soul, what if I'm not a good man
Like them (the Manicheans and the Gnostics)
And you were not [t]here to heal my wounds
The verses of autumn had to come in March

Who ever thought 

There could be no more clichés

”I would try no more, having failed in all”
Whenever rain appears it's only angels' tears

And you are with me 

And every day is a good day

Pouring coffee to the ground, 

What else could there be
When the night is young, 

The night is young to spell

”With these letters of autumn, come again”

And sometimes when the night is slow,

The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A thousand kisses deep.
-L.C. (1934-2016)

Nobody-y- knows the trouble I've seen

Or my sorrow, and it's getting emptier
”How my cup will be overflowing.....”
Who never had a bad day in their lives
Who were terribly poor and pain ridden
Between the Devil and death itself
The boots were made of black leather
It's a long way back from the shadow
To what you are, but I forgot it, almost
In the never-emptying confluence

And I would write for a friend of mine
Who had called me, [into SAAL] long ago
After having found me from that park
Who gave me a helping hand, kindly
For I was near the edge of no return
”Autumn dying ends, it has an end
With all the lyrics that came in July”
How we shared a few things to recall
When autumn died again, this part would be
Crossing through, cross over the summer
To thank once more, [for YIW] an other chance

He guides me in right paths as befits 

His name. Though I walk through 

A valley of deepest darkness, 

I fear no harm, for You are with me

-Psalm 23 (translated from the Hebrew 

original text by Jewish Publication Society)

Every day is a good day and you are with me

Every day is a good day, 

But (why) are you with me

And what a relief it is after all

To realize that I don't have to know
”If the letters of autumn come again...”
Still, it's getting to my nerves, baby
For there is night, and there's night
They have almost nothing in common

And the crazy nights were elsewhere

I'm listening to the older music now
From a thousand Marys to Mathilda
Lord, I (don't) try, oh (not) to try again
”And there is porn for all of us”
The copper leaf will remind me
Gleaming red, yellow and golden
I’d let all dancing souls of December
Merge with those drops, like circles
They would become one with the rain
”It has been so easy to drown in this city”
The sad or happier tears brought by the wind
Yes, don't worry, they have to be kept
Falling to the piece of their master
To bless the remains of that place
A world in two floors, to cast (no more)
Autumnal verses for a romance in the night
The ground floor, by the window

The verse from SAAL into YIW for M.V. 

Old friend and band mate / OG 2000-2006 

And the Summer of Nineteen Ninety Nine

VIII More Leaves of....

VIII MORE LEAVES OF...

Hurry, love, they are withering away
And our thin line is dead, it has gone viral
The shadows are longer and ancient dark
It will come, for black covers all notes

Leaves of the tree
For the healing, the place of light
In-between defined, not defined
Enoch has walked with God
Among the trees of the garden
Under the light in the park
We were taken to Hesperia
”The illness of youth spent
And gone away, to come back again”
For years I tried to have it, somehow it was
Almost there for us, but I’ve been too ill
To have it like them, and we could see
The feelings of worthlessness
Visiting the dreamlike atmospheres
Of Aurora and giving up

Baby, I could not sleep at all
I couldn't sleep because of the pain
May the living or dead Masters help

Still at the Night Café
And the more hearts are streaming
The more these cups will turn over
”You've been in a lot of trouble,
And nothing or no one could...”

Take a leave of abs(tin)ence
The whole year with no porn
A week with no coffee-like-script
Written on a painted landscape
For the Spirit in man, the higher worlds
Of poetry and sounds (A,B,C...)

The letters on a leaf, the plant
Green and brownish, or even grey
The branches are still there
It's a fallen world for a falling man
Read the mystical book of Adam
(To Enoch and Abraham)

Rest under this tree
The patriarch said to the guests
With friends like them, who know(s)
The shadow of your self, the nightside
And the Night Man (in holier poems)
”If the spirit is willing, or the flesh”
Every chalice of the Wrath of God
Waiting for this world in the end
Let the cups of our hearts be filled

Three seeds were given to the third son

And it grew on the father's grave
Flaming with words, and the Cherub
Or the archangel guarding 

There, at the frontier

Heavenly rings and a bridge, the rod changing
To the gates, Royal Cavalry will be needed...
The same wood on the cross of your burdens
There is great wisdom in making a fool [of etc]
No mistake, it usually is quite something else
Than what we expected, moving on within out
Where leaves withered untitled and unofficial

”And who kept your thoughts 

Lined with the streets”

Even after all this yearning, 

Praying to be a watcher
One had to see them fall to places 

That are not healthy
”How the Old French words were 

Innocent and pure”
Who has taken the writers, 

Given them a chance, a reading
All of these flowers, from the Medieval 

Good (flor) to the Modern evil (fleur), 

Known the real state of things

It's a miracle that we're still here, being
And what we hope for, who will get it
Not us, but the ones after us
God, I tried to have it

No VII dreams would ever wait [7] in purple
And many of the songs were not redeemed
For the nights to come, the years

”But the pain has been with me too long;
Please, take this pain away, I have to ask”
Remind me of the water in our shoes again
How to see ourselves in the mirror of thinking
If memories have been melted, 

It's not just a walk in the city, 

Through the park, and my old street
Riverlike, a hundred flows reflecting
Pictures and things like our houses
The Light within, the Name(s)

X.X.X.X. / Der Angstweg

Written on the 29th - 31st of July, 2016

To the garden the world anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, 

Meaning and being, curious here behold 

My resurrection after slumber,
The revolving cycles in their wide sweep
Having brought me again,
Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, 

All wondrous, my limbs and the quivering 

Fire that ever plays through them,
For reasons, most wondrous,
Existing I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present, content with the past,
By my side or back of me Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

-Walt Whitman / To the Garden the World

IX Saturnia - Vulcania

IX SATURNIA – VULCANIA 

(Crisis of October, 2017) 

It was, of course, a Greek man 
Who told the story, fiction or not 
The good world poets of old times 
How they went to London, in secret 
Then sailed back again (to Lisbon) 
Before anyone, anyone would know 
And for how long they had wanted so 
To see North America, the crisis of spirit 
With nobody, no one ever knowing it 

Who went under many guises and names 
A sad well-dressed man with large eyes 
Who spoke and moved slowly, another 
One in various dis-guises or (un)masked 
Constantine Cavafy and Fernando Pessoa 
The wine god and all the rest(less) 

New Amsterdam, New York 
Who had been there, the navel 
With the dancing, waltzing poet 
Lorca in Nueva York (in 1929) 
Our beloved poets and their cities 
The one that would never sleep, 
And the city of Light and Reason 
Oh they would never meet there 
And they would never see again 
From the oldest to the late….. 

Saturnia the wanderer in Greek 
Weathered by time, this one-liner 
Tickets to cross the Atlantic ocean 
Their gay voyage on a steamship

Collapsing Nueva York, 

The fall of cities again 
Seen from a Wall Street bench 

(Aus der Neuen Welt) 
Where the broker dealt 

A blow of death to literature and dollar, 

To all cents and papers, gold coins 

If the world oikonomia (economy) is like then

 
Who forgave our debts 

And loans, more trading 

Something to aim 

In the hand of Eucatastrophe 

When depression is too great, and their place 
No longer there, no exchange for the gifts 
But we were not forced to keep them 

Without zero longitude (meridian) 
How to navigate and measure the distance 
Using old equipment, astrolabes and quadrants

 
Keeping the same course 

With the shadow of Jacob 
And if its length changes, 

Where is our location 

”Oh scavengers to be wrecked in plastic” 

Alexandria found again 
The library and the lighthouse 
”The city of wisdom and beauty, 
Where monks rage on the streets” 
Clement and Cyril, Athanasios against 
Areios, not against Dionysos the Areiopagite

Roman or Hebrew, 

Christian and Greek cult(ure)s 
How little we’ve learned, 

Have we learned so little 

Their Jewish community was 

The largest in Antique

Who were tolerant, 

Where Euclid and Eratosthenes 
Worked by the sea and desert, the waste lands 

”The High Priestess would be untouched” 

Philo and Septuagint (all the versions) 
And even Archimedes well in the circles 
Lo, Saint John the Almsgiver, the Merciful 
”Cry out from the depths of your soul, 
And from the darkness of this earth” 
Saint Anthony would be around, too 
Having a meeting with Saint Paul the Hermit 
”For God knows and God sees everything” 
The raven brought two loaves that day

On the Mayflower’s journey 
From England to the ends of West 
The Dutch pilgrims came to build 
The first congregation on those shores 
English Puritans and refugees from Holland 
With their fleet remnant, they went across 
The raging sea, no monks left raging 
Lady Fortune, the wheel(s) and the Rudder 
Altar and the choir, the ship of church 
The evolution of this image created once 
The hours and XXIV Elders, the man 
Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon 
Whatever moving like the world clock 
”To the forge of the smith of gods, 
Oh this barren-fertile island of Lemnos” 
And when the planets began to move, 
So time began, in the Saturnian phase 
And the journey will end on Vulcan(ia)

You said: 
”I’ll go to another country, go to another shore. 
Find another city better than this one. 
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong 
And my heart lies buried as though it were 

Something dead. How long can I let my mind 

Moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, 

Wherever I happen to look, I see the black 

Ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent 

So many years, wasted them, 

Destroyed them totally.” 
You won’t find a new country, 

Won’t find another shore. 
This city will always pursue you. 

You will walk the same streets, 
Grow old in the same neighborhoods, 
Will turn gray in these same houses. 
You will always end up in this city. 
Don’t hope for things elsewhere: 
There is no ship for you, there is no road. 
As you’ve wasted your life here, 

In this small corner, you’ve destroyed it 

Everywhere else in the world. 

-Constantine Cavafy / The City 
(English translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard) 

X The Crusader / The Pilgrim

X THE CRUSADER / THE PILGRIM

(Or, The Pilgrim / The Crusader part II)


Xenia Oecumenica 
The crusader has returned home 
”And no city will ever be lost like Rhodes” 

The pilgrim sang of the new Heavenly cube 
Glowing in peace, both Hebrew and Arabic 
And the crusaders have returned home 

Isle of roses, Isle of the sun 
With Mercury in the evening 
Between silence and the azure blue sea 

The icon of the archangel Raphael 
Beside us, a souvenir healing 
(”...that it could guide horses”) 
Where all knights rode in pairs

 
The safest harbour in the Levant 
No city has been lost like Rhodes 
No city has been lost like Rhodes 
Timber and the ships, the men sank 
What they were made of 

Nightfall at the Convent 
Divided into seven langues 
Each under a grand priory 
And with its own auberge 
Could I have lived like them 
Old monastic life, nursing 
With medicine plant or stone 
Carved in the weary hall of residence

Moccamaster and Margarita 

And darkness over Jerusalem 
A chalice full of scorpions

 
Honey, both of us know 
The fifth procurator of Judea, the shells 
”They really worked a number on....” 
The knight fell head over heels

And brought before commission 
Who broke through the lines 
(Not) a different thing, altogether

 
”For the love of God and as you 
Hope for salvation, judge us 
As you will be judged before God” 

And when there's no differánce 
The Grand Master admitting guilt 
With a letter of confession 
But the Order was innocent 

Elsewhere it was the same 
And there was no mercy 

The poor knights were burned 
Like manuscripts, on a slow 
Charcoal fire, but the pilgrim sang 
For the angels to come and protect

To the city of Constantine (in hoc signo vinces) 

The other side of the threshold seen at last 
It could have been theirs, had they known 
The neighbour, and the changing borders 
”What gods or goddesses were worshipped 
In this place, they flow together eventually”

 
And to be found it has been given already 
Not from this world, not from this world

The Prophet saved a theme, under the moon 

What other miracles love has worked 
If it's the highest, all else below it 
I beg you even more to search the path 
That leads home, and take you to choose 
(Un)like the rider, with sapphire and ruby 
They'll continue when they meet again

”As brothers and sisters, together 
We'll go there, or not at all” 
When there are no sides like... 

But who haven't understood yet 
The themes of Return, the City 
Or the Temple(s), with key and seal

Written on the 15th - 17th of August, 2015

One must never underestimate the spiritual force of the brethren’s vocation, to be, as the Hospitaller rite of profession put it: ’A servant of the gentlemen that are poor and sick and a person devoted to the defence of the Catholic faith’. The brethren were emulators of the Good Samaritan, including the Poor Knights. The minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach visited Outremer during this period and was so overcome by admiration that in ’Parsifal’ he compared the Templars to Knights of the Holy Grail. 

-Desmond Seward / The Monks of War

XI Songs of Love and Friendship

XI SONGS OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 

Let all f(r)iends be loved 
The same river in us, the whirling 
Cup and reference to have unclaimed 
”What a black man said, white…..” 
But none could tell how old you are 
If we’ve been crazy, who haven’t been 
And I have kept your belongings waiting 
The reminiscence, if you need them, 

I’ll be here wondering how 

Estonians have so good spirits 

And Omar was named after the Persian poet 
While keeping the guest room for himself 
Omar let you sleep in his own bed 
In the name of fatherly love 

Go tell your friends, I’ll write for them thrice 
And to this reader, now let fiends be blessed

”How often a thing has been 

All-too-inhuman, damn those 

Who tried to take our Florist away” 

For the good star that sent you, 

In the beginning 

To wander like gypsies, a pain coming home 

Like the half-brother in black and white 

Even at the Patriarchs’ Ponds 
When I have (not) listened to you, 
I have (not) listened to the radio waves 
That move below the waters of life 
And who told me, and who told me

If there’s a decent path(os) at all

To make it up for you, God willing 
Let us hope it was already settled 
What happened then, to each of us 
To become free from those chains

Liberti(n)es and equality, the Saviour 
With a prostitute and a line in the water 
Who have not sinned, who have not sinned 
Under this black empyrean, without rulers 
No heir to the throne, Your Highness 
Byzantine or Holy Roman

Chorus:

Still I walk with the Apostles 
The Word of Knight in my hand 
Throwing nets in the sign of Pisces 
Playing Songs of Love and Friendship 

And oil from the lamp….. 
While singing a nocturnal piece 
Of everyday life, with real borders 
And laurel wreaths in the middle 
If our love is Aristotelian in form 
"And it had to be purified first" 
Greek heart and Finnish blood 
And three lessons in loving [III] 
Baby, I haven’t been a gentle man 
”Estonian gypsy or some Italian 
Sailor, almost a f(l)ight now” 

Fraters, if you were broken 
We were broken, too, and lost 
Where tongues are a-bleeding 
Tearfulness it comes through again 
For the broken souls we’ve been

Who were showing papers and wounds 
Flowery on the march, not complaining

Even if our friends have become too blind 
For all that it’s worth, irritating, not calm 
To be in contentment, who have not heard 
While reading something, when listening

Gardens or windows of light and spirit 

A room where no one will tease you 
In someone’s house that was dreamt up 
With another collection of used books 
To cultivate a land of men killing the soil

The brethren who marched in the abyss 

Oh their bleeding souls and poems 
We all know where the word’s broken 
The pangs of heartfelt love (as it was written) 
And who poured the olden salt, so very thirsty 
To those wounds bleeding, the wound 

Chorus:
Still I walk with the Apostles 
The Word of Knight in my hand 
Throwing nets in the sign of Pisces 
Playing Songs of Love and Friendship

Written and composed near 

29th – 31st of March, 2017

For B.D. and the Estonian D I Y Masters, 

For L.V. my betrothed and companion (or "open-letter-wife"), 

To all the brethren who marched in the abyss with or without me

I respect all creeds, and that is in fact my crime in everyone’s eyes. The Christians do not listen to the good which I speak of the Nazarene, but reproach me for not speaking ill of the Jews and of Zoroaster. The magi do not listen to me when I praise their prophet, but want to hear me curse the Christ and the Buddha. For, when they assemble the flock of the faithful, it is not around love but around hatred; it is only in confrontation with others that they show their solidarity. They recognize themselves as brothers only by prohibitions and anathemas. And I, Mani, far from being the friend of all, shall soon find myself the enemy of all. My crime is wishing to reconcile. I shall pay for it. They will unite to condemn me. 

-Amin Maalouf / Les Jardins de Lumière 
(English translation by Dorothy S. Blair)