Myth of Arrival

The Hierophant

… keeper of our sacred knowledge … go-between to the gods …

If the High Priestess was at one time La Papesse, the Female Pope, then the Hierophant is simply the male side of that equation, Le Pape. And as the head of the papal state, he represents our metaphysical discourse, our religious wisdom, our pantheistic teaching, stretching back from the dawn of consciousness to our modern age.

Unlike other cards in the Tarot that are cumbrous with cryptic symbolism, the Hierophant is rather simple. In the Rider Waite deck a red robed person sits on a gray throne. On his head rests a Papal Tiara, the Byzantine crown symbolizing his divine authority.

Two acolytes or disciples flank the priest, evoking the two black and white pillars of esoteric knowledge found on the High Priestess' card. Hermetic keys lay before the Hierophant's feet, not only signifying his wisdom in law and nation but, by curious coincidence, they are also the authoritative emblems of the Vatican City State.

The fact that many in the West mistrust our current religious leaders should not distract from the importance of this card. After all, corruption, depravity and misuse of authority are no more quintessential to religious power than they are to politics. What we should focus on, rather, is that at one time the Pope, like all other world religious leaders, was seen as the custodian of certain orthodox mysteries he used to help govern his people.

***

The Card

A Phoenician priest stands before one of the merchant vessels that helped make his empire one of the greatest maritime trading nations in the known world. Behind the ship are the two great eyes of Melqart, the god of sailors and navigation, staring out at the world.

The worship of the Phoenician god Melqart¹ spread across the Mediterranean during the first millennium BC as far away as the island of Thasos (Rawlinson, 103). His name means "King of the City," (Ribichini, 563) and as such he was ruler of all commerce the empire undertook.

Legend has it that since it was Melqart's desire to seduce the nymph Tyrus that he invented Tyrian wool dyeing from which the Phoenicians were famed for; having observed a dog eating murex sea shells one day. "Immediately the dog's mouth became deeply crimsoned and Tyrus, admiring the beautiful color, announced to Melqart that she would not accept him as her lover until he had provided her with a gown of the same hue." (Edey, 61) The rest, as they say, is history.

As the Phoenicians plied the waters up and down the length of the known world Melqart soon became god of not only travelers and sailors but of their navigators as well. Their priests were not only channels for mysterious knowledge, but being master sea traders of prestigious merchandise, commerce, market goods, they were also required to be the keepers of the sacred art of navigation that helped them steer and protect their vessels. Such knowledge came down directly from Melqart himself.

The Phoenicians for some centuries confined their navigation within the limits of the Mediterranean … But by the time of Solomon they had passed the Pillars of Hercules, and affronted the dangers of the Atlantic. Their frail and small vessels, scarcely bigger than modern fishing-smacks, proceeded southwards along the West African coast … while northwards they coasted along Spain … ventured across the mouth of the English Channel to Cassiterides (Rawlinson, 282) trading with every nation they came upon.

***

The Hierophant/ Priest of Melqart in a Reading

We are all keepers of knowledge, both spiritual and mundane. If the Priest of Melqart comes to you in a reading, ask yourself what do you do with the knowledge you possess? The god Melqart passed on this wisdom of navigation to his people so they could sail the world's waters safely. Where do you get your information? How do you integrate it in your own day to day life?

Since the Phoenicians were merchants and their trade depended upon their ability to navigate it was of utmost importance to keep favor with their god. What keeps you on your goals? Ask yourself, who teaches you the sacred things you know? Are you teaching others in the same way? Many see organized religion as oppressive, but remember that servitude to one's own spiritual task is not an unhealthful activity. It is only when the Priest of Melqart is reversed that we find weakness in our spiritual leaders. Then our Hierophants hoard power, information and wealth for the sake of hoarding and oppressing. If you find you are using your spiritual knowledge to advance your own social gains instead of serving your community as a whole, beware. Empires have crumbled and superpowers wasted away due to their leaders arrogance, hubris, pomposity. Do not act like our current religious leaders, making scapegoats out of certain of their minorities in order to keep their authoritarian sovereignty absolute; only by serving all your citizens can you help promote the survival of your people.

***

I stumbled upon a reference to Phoenicia I would like to share with you, since most of the tribes and nations I quote from in this sonnet are taken from it. In Ezekiel 27 there is a long list of everyone the Phoenicians traded with: Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Damascus, Judah, Asia Minor, Greece and Cyprus. Rawlinson makes a case that the Phoenicians even traded with the Armenians, "signified by 'the house of Togarmah' (verse 14)" (Rawlinson, 285 - 286, ff.2). While some of the imagery is taken directly form the verse (Lebanon cedar and Bashan oak, for example) other images are pure speculation on my part. I doubt I will ever really know whether the peoples of Lud were jolly or the peoples of Phut morose. What can I say? It made a good a rhyme.

Nothe-nothe-east: the cedars from Lebanon
made our masts. Bashan oaks our oars. Linens
of blue from Egypt were our sails. At dawn
we took the high princes of Greece, heathens
and their clan, for our rowers. Our legions
were loosed upon the waves, south sou'west, our
pilots prayed to Lord Melqart. The Persians
bought our grain. The glad Lud our spice. The dour
Phut our wool dyes. And our pilots prayed, hour
after hour, to you, O Melqart, Sea Lord,
"guide our boats home." The sea will devour
us all. "Guide us. Guide us." Out on the oared
blue, a lull, and then a great hissing fire
arose, filling the pilots with terror.

***

Works Cited

Coulter, Charles Russell and Patricia Turner. Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. (2000)

Edey, Maitland A.The Sea Traders New York: Time-Life Books. (1974)

Rawlinson, George. History of Phoenicia. London, New York: Longmans, Green. (1889)

Ribichini, Sergio. "Melqart." In Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Edited by K. van der Toorn et al., 563-55. 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill. (1999)

1. The various translations of his name differentiate, from Melcart, Melcarth, Melkart, Melkarth and Melquart. The Greeks were apparently fond of this god. "Some writers say the Greeks adopted [Melqart] and … later he became the sea god Palaemon" (Coulter, 316) and others "who identified Baal with Zeus, viewed [Melqart] with Heracles" (Rawlinson, 330) [back]

The Emperor

… the divine artisan combined … duende personified …

Few people seem to go beyond viewing the Emperor as some sort of Masculine Essence; an overwhelming male ego on two legs, the personification of an angry overlord in their life. Combine this with one view of the Empress as the Female Essence, a divine wet nurse, and conceptual speaking the Tarot seems not only inherently sexist but stuck back somewhere with poor Dr. Freud in the early Twentieth Century as well.

The Emperor is more than your disgruntled father. Like the Empress, at one time the card bore all the symbols of the Holy Roman Empire and thus could be read as the required responsibilities a ruler must have to control the (at least back then) mightest empire on earth. But today, in the Rider-Waite deck at least, we see an aged old man, white of beard and broad of shoulders, sitting on a throne with carved ram heads. One might think of Arthur of Britannia, except this man's crown looks more Byzantine than Celtic and his scepter seems to be on loan from the sun god Ra. Behind him looms a golden mountain range. This might tell us that the Emperor, like icebergs and mountains, is the personification of the rational, ordered, unchangeable earth. War, disagreement, chaos and confusion are what the Emperor must overcome in order to rule justly. Is this not the same for everyone?

What I think we can learn is this: it is from chaos that order must arise; so it is with this card. When the Emperor channels his aggressive anger into creativity energy then he finds he can achieve many amazing things. This is the same sort of state of consciousness that poets call upon the Muses to bring to them; what jazz musicians call "soul;" what Federico Garcia Lorca called "duende," and canto jondo, "black sounds." Garcia Lorca wrote, "all that has black sounds has duende … that mysterious power that everyone senses and no philosopher explains" (Garcia Lorca, 49). To look at the Emperor in this light conjures up not of an angry warlord but an artisan of a particular skill. Once we become master of our own skills and talents we find all the false posturing that the Emperor is traditional bestowed with quickly disappears. Once we have become a master at peace in his or her own element, our own black sounds, we will understand what this card is trying to tell us.

***

The Card

In the heart of a raging storm at sea a colossal figure strides through the waves, bending all the might of the ocean to his purpose. In one hand he carries a trident and on his head rests a nine-pointed crown. He is Poseidon, Zeus' younger brother and ruler of all the oceans. After the overthrow of Kronos, the father of universe, Poseidon, Hades and Zeus drew lots to see where they would rule. Hades was given the underworld, Zeus the heavens and Poseidon the seas. It was there that:

Poseidon built an underwater palace for himself near Aegae, in Euboea. In his stables he kept his white chariot horses with bronze hoofs and golden manes, and a golden chariot. Clad in robes of gold he rode the sea in this equipage, accompanied by sporting dolphins, tritons, and other sea creatures. At his approach storms were dispelled, waves flattened and the sea smiled. (Avery, 457)

Like Zeus, Poseidon had many lovers, both mortals and gods. One legend states that as a youth he fell in love with the goddess Halia, whose name literally translates into, "the sea goddess" (Cameron, 183). Other legends say says his only wife (in the matrimonial sense, at least) was Amphitrite, who he seduced with the help of a dolphin (Avery, 460). What Poseidon should be honored for is not the savage storms he can unleash, but his skills at letting our oceans flow their course. That he shapes and forms the waves and their actions in the same manner as a potter would to clay should not distract us from his accomplishments. The boundless tempest might be unstoppable to us, but it is not uncontrollable by the hands who created it.

***

The Emperor/ Poseidon in a Reading

If you discover you have drawn the Emperor in your reading, ask yourself how you deal with your own creativity? Does it come naturally or do you have to force it even to show up? Do you consider yourself skillful in your art? Federico Garcia Lorca talks of how duende rises up out of a person when they are synchronized with the universe. We can feel that when listening to a piece of music or poem that knocks the top of our heads off. Like a tsunami at sea, Poseidon's skills produce a sense of awe in the beholder.

Many of our frustrations that arise with our own creative process, however, come recognizing our latent talent but not being able to manage it. This in turn creates the rage and need for control the Emperor is traditionally associated with. Instead of fighting the tsunami, see if you can harness it for own ends. As Aphrodite was born from sea foam we too are created out of the very stuff that also fuels in our inspirations. Be ambitious in your creativity but be aware as well that too much ambition and too few skills are an atrocious mixture. The Emperor reversed is the same thing as a tyrant and bully, a soul frustrated at the barriers imposed by themselves and striking out at everything that moves. Instead of allowing frustration to consume you, ask yourself when was the last time you honored your own creativity? When was the last time you paid tribute to the god of the seas, thanking him for his assistance? It is not enough to recognize your own creativity; you must nurish it and keep it alive as well.

***

Homer offered up his boot to the grave
god of the sea. Then he sang a queer tune,
a slave's tune, that I'll sing for you; wave slave
that I am. Here is the air of the Moon
Shaker. The tune for Homer's Great Typhoon
Cleaver. Libations no one will perform
in this modern day. Poseidon, how soon
did your art of crafting wave, thunderstorm
and wind disappear to us? We still swarm
over the waves in sculls and boats, but who
sings your praise? Homer knew you could transform
the waves and rave. So he offered to you,
sea god, all he had; one sodden left boot.
Take my brine-burnt gift, too, my tribute.

***

Works Cited

Avery, Catherine B. (ed) The New Century Handbook of Greek Mythology and Legend. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. (1972)

Cameron, Norman (trans). The Gods of the Greeks. London, New York: Thames, and Hudson. (1951)

Garcia Lorca, Federico. In Search of Duende. Christopher Maurer (ed.) New York: New Directions. (1998)

The Empress

… the might of an empire … primal creativity … the combination of divine law and inspiration …

There are several ways of looking at this card. A popular view holds that she is the consort of the Emperor. Here she plays the role of the Other Half of the Male Principal and combined the two of them make up one Whole. Whereas the testosterone-driven Male (think Mars, Odin or Ares) is war-like and aggressive, the peaceful Female (Venus, the May Queen or Aphrodite) is fertile and creative. The downside to this approach is that the Empress cannot stand on her own as an individual. Furthermore she is rendered into some sort of passive über-baby machine, fit only for endless cycles of procreation. The Empress is not, I believe, a sexual workhorse shackled to a patriarchal slave master. We must think outside the box.

A different way of looking is to go back to what she once was before modern scholars and critics began to tinker with the symbolism of the card. Currently, in the Rider-Waite deck, a tall, blond woman sits in a field of grain by a flowing waterfall. In one hand she carries a scepter and the other a shield with the female emblem rooted on its front. On her head is a twelve-pointed crown. Like the High Priestess' slow transformation from a female pope into her current form, the Empress at one time bore the trappings of the head of the Holy Roman Empire and signified the inherent power of Female divine law. That those symbols no longer remain in the card's artwork, replaced instead by defused and obscure imagery (the field of wheat, the waterfall, etcetera, all pregnant depictions), is unfortunate. This simultaneously strips the card of any cultural and religious authority it might have once held and illustrates our petty understanding of what, exactly, is the role of the Mother in this day and age.

There is more to being an Universal Mother than simply bringing forth the next generation. The Empress is the archetype of the Matriarch. Matriarchy, I think, is a concept not fully understood in the West.¹ As the goddess's birthright, the riot grrl's call-to-arms, the Empress comes to eminence not passively but due to her prerogative. Those who tap into this authority must be self-possessed else they become consumed by the dark side of all power; vanity, corruption, greed. When the High Priestess returns with secrets untold, this is what she brings back from the shadow lands. As the once ruler of the mightiest empire on Earth, the Empress can show both savagery or benevolence, bring forth life or destroy it. It is our choice as how we will use that power that is important. That is the role of this card.

***

The Card

Far below the surface of a raging ocean, in the land of Adlivun where the drowned go, a shaman is combing the long hair of a terribly scarred woman. From the continual blood flowing from her severed hands all manner of sea creatures billow forth. Similar to Odin's role as the All-Father, this is Sedna, the Inuit All-Mother; the supreme deity.

Sedna is the goddess of all the oceans and the creatures in it. As the controller of destinies, she can curse her people with "sickness, bad weather and starvation if taboos are broken. If observed, animals are plentiful. As the ruler of Adlivum … she is [also] called Idliragijenget" (Leach, 394); as well as, "Ai-willi-ay-o, Arnaknagsak, Arnarquagssaq, Avilayog, Nerivik, Nerrivik" (Coulter, 417). There are two different stories as to how Sedna came to be. One depicts her as a ghoulish titan, gnawing on her parent's legs. They throw her into the ocean where she becomes the ill-tempered personification of winter storms. In another:

Sedna was a beautiful young girl who refused all suitors until Seabird came along. She went to live with him in his nest, but when her father came to visit he was horrified at the filth and took Sedna away. The bird people followed them and the sea began to rise and a storm overtook them. To calm the water, Sedna's father threw his daughter out of the kayak. She clung to the boat. Three times he chopped at his daughter's hands until she finally let go and sank to the ocean's bottom. The pieces of her hands became sea animals. (Ann, 386)

Within this particular motif there are many versions and departures. Some focus on Sedna's father. In one version it is the fear of drowning that prompts the sacrifice of his daughter. "And so terror made the father do what he thought he never could … She belonged to the sea — why would she not surrender? … Why, thought the father, couldn't she just go ahead and drown?" (Ferguson, 87 - 89). Other versions focus on the jilted Seabird Husband; he is Arctic Loon (Yolen, 106), Petrel (Ferguson, 87) Raven (Andrews, 175). Sometimes Sedna's husband calls on other gods for aide. Even though he keeps her with him against her will, the sea gods summon up a wild storm because "[they] were angry that Sedna had betrayed her husband" (Yolen, 106). Whatever the case, Sedna is cast into the ocean and her fingers cut from her. It is from her severed fingers we get seals, whales, sharks; in short, all marine life is attributed to her.

It is the role of the Inuit Shaman, or "angakok, to visit the Mother of the Sea Beasts … Only his spirit makes the journey; his physical body remains behind, bound with ropes to prevent it from disappearing, too … In her anguish over the wrongdoings of people, the Sea Mother has become dirty and unkempt and she has penned up the sea mammals … [the] angakok's task is to comb her hair while trying to persuade her to release the imprisoned creatures. When he succeeds, the spectators back on earth hear the animals moving out into the water and see the shaman 'surface' from the sea, gasping for breath" (Ferguson, 88).

***

The Empress/ Sedna in a Reading

If Sedna honors your reading, be aware of how you cultivate, nurture, attend to your world. "To mother" something or someone has taken on more than one meaning; however, we must move on beyond modern, dark cynicism and examine what it means to employ our endless ecstasy, joie de vivre, inspirations. It is not enough to be fertile, the Empress must know how to engage her divinity for her own uses and for others. All creativity is a form of power. How do you use yours? Regardless of your gender, what do you do with your riot grrl muscle? Stage a revolution? The Empress is both laureate and judge, mother superior and sovereign of her empire. What will you allow in yours? Whose energies are you willing to deal with? It is no small thing to find other people using your creativity for their own ends. However, when the Empress is reversed we find just that; a frivolous use of your power. Is someone playing on your self-serving interests? Are you indeed a passive baby-machine, expending power without thinking why or to what end? Do not use the verb "to mother" in its dark form; to extinguish, to silence, to smother. As Sedna has the responsibilities to care for all the sea creatures in her realm, be kind but but know your own soul. In other words, do no harm with your prerogative.

***

– Little man, work that comb. This lice shall vex
me. — My! Great Mother, your sea flows darkly
tonight. All I see are millions of specks
of far-flung suns, shimmering like algae
in your hair. — No, little man, my bloody
stumps flow and what you mistake as dark suns
are my seals, my sharks. I bleed up the sea!
I bleed eels and red kelp. I bleed dolphins
and, ouch! — O! Forgive me! You have dozens
of snags, Great Mother. — Sad, little man, did
you come to vex me or beg the ocean's
body made flesh? You know I forbid
you from my green darkness? — Mother, I know,
it is the source of our people's sorrow.

***

Works Cited

Andrews, Tamra. A Dictionary of Nature Myths. New York: Oxford University Press. (1998)

Ann, Martha and Dorothy Myers Imel. Goddesses in World Mythology. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. (1993)

Coulter, Charles Russell and Patricia Turner. Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. (2000)

Ferguson, Diana. Native American Myths. Consultant: Colin Taylor. London: Collins & Brown. (2001)

Leach, Marjorie. Guide to the Gods. Edited by Michael Owen Jones, Frances Cattermole-Tally. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. (1992)

Norman, Howard (ed.) Northern Tales: traditional stories of Eskimo and Indian peoples. New York: Pantheon Books. (1990)

Yolen, Jane (ed.) Favorite Folktales from Around the World. New York: Pantheon Books. (1988)

1. Matriarchy, like patriarchy, is simply a system and like all systems they have flaws and errors. If we all have the divine Fe/male inside ourselves, why is it in the West we do not respect both? Why is it that only one side is roughly honored while the other vilified? If you do believe in duality, then the Empress is our Female Principal, separated from the Whole forever. Really, who would want that? I find it one of the main problems with duality. [back]

The High Priestess

… the embodiment of gnosis … the combination of the human and divine … our own powers of intuition …

I agree with many critics of the Tarot who tend to attribute to this card in the Rider-Waite deck the concept that the High Priestess represents the extremity of human knowledge. In other words, if the Magician has the tools to connect with Spirit but not the experience, knowledge or discipline, then the High Priestess not only has gone through the shadow worlds to seek out that knowledge, but she has returned to tell us what she witnessed.

Depending on the deck and the reader of the Tarot, the High Priestess is either a hand maiden to the Goddess, or some sort of avatar to help guide human learning. Before she was changed into the current spectacle we know her as today, the card was called, "La Papesse," the Female Pope. Perhaps this was a more direct concept; she was not just a priestess among many, she was the ultimate source of spirituality, authority and knowledge among her people. In many ways, it is too bad we do not go back to the older version.

No matter. The current card shows a woman sitting passively in the temple of Solomon between two pillars of polar opposites. On her head she wears a diadem, a Christian cross rests upon her breast and in her lap she carries a scroll with the Judea word "Tora" written on it and at her feet lies a crescent half moon, symbol of Diana and Pagan religions. The diadem is an ancient crown signifying the supreme right of kings and popes. The Tora contains sacred Hebrew laws. Combine all of this with the Pagan moon and the Christian cross and the High Priestess represents all that is spiritual and occult. No longer the novice, she serves the divine and keeps its laws.

***

The Card

On a calm, deep night a dark haired woman stands off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, waves lapping at her chest. In back of her a crescent moon hints at esoteric mysteries. On her naked flesh a large, tribal tattoo depicting a shark is just visible. Behind her, on the shore, she is flanked by the silhouettes of two ancient totem poles, each representing her house's spirituality and wisdom. This is Qqaaxhadajaat, the Dogfish Woman. Having returned to the human world from under the sea all forms of knowledge, both studious and native, are open to her.

The Haida are a people inhabiting the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada, as well as Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. "K'aaxada awga" is the Haida word for the dogfish (Squalus acanthias), a small variety of shark that inhabits the waters of the Pacific North Coast. The dogfish, as well as a variety of other mythical sea creatures, appears in a variety Haida art¹ especially as a figurehead in totem pole carvings. This particular crest is recognized by its half-moon gill slits, its crescent shaped mouth turned down at corners and filled with pointy teeth (Keithahn, 723) The folklore around Dogfish Woman tells that, having insulted the gods, Qqaaxhadajaat finds herself transformed from a mortal woman into one of them:

A woman went traveling with her husband. She used to make fun of the dogfish. They went to visit a small rock in the sea. When they were out there, the dogfish, whose home it was, came and took the woman down into the sea. There she discovered that the dogfish were really people. They had taken off their dogfish blankets. After she had stayed in the house for some time, fins began to grow upon her arms, her legs and her back. Her husband was searching for her everywhere … After a number of years he found her … Ever since that time her family have used the dogfish crest and their house is called Dogfish House. (Bringhurst, 139 - 141)

Unlike her counterpart in the Rider-Waite deck, the High Priestess Qqaaxhadajaat is devoid of any Western trappings usually associated with "the pursuit of wisdom." Gone are the robes, the crown, the cross. Whereas the seated female in the Rider-Waite deck holds a scroll with certain holy texts written down on it, Haida wisdom and knowledge is all recounted orally, passed down through the generations. Only the large, complex tattoo that symbolizes her abilities to move between worlds proclaims her as a laureate of secrets. Qqaaxhadajaat is not only a divine being but she is also the repository of all her people's traditions, mythologies, customs. In other words, she is what an avatar should be; the female divine, the intrinsic guise of Spirit made flesh, the union of the mortal and immortal.

***

The High Priestess/ Qqaaxhadajaat in a Reading

When the High Priestess calls your name, attend to what she has to say. She calls on you to trust your suspicions, intuitions, hunches. We live in a highly categorical society, everything must have its place. But suspicions and intuitions are still a tool at our disposal. What is stopping you from using them? What is preventing you from connecting yourself with Spirit? If you are not gathering knowledge to help understand your dreams and desires better, what are you gathering knowledge for? But know that the pursuit of wisdom comes at a price. Will you be like Qqaaxhadajaat and arrive through the darkness of the ocean transformed and wiser? Or will you be the mother in this little poem?

Mother in the ocean
did not see the big wave.
Now she is lost in the kelp. (Swann, 33)

Blinded by her own pursuits she could not see the dangers right in front of her. A word of caution if the High Priestess is reversed in the spread. A search for other people's wisdom can create vanity, conceit, bluster in a person. What are you searching? What are your goals? Beware of the person with only surface knowledge and no life experience to back it up.

***

Note: Most of my poetry I have been writing for this Tarot deck needs little or no introduction. I try to reflect the elements of a particular card in the sonnet with greater or lesser success. However, I use two Haida words in this poem. I start out the poem with 'wáayaat, which translates simply as, "now;" a way of getting the listener's attention. The poem ends with háw'aa, which is a form of "thank you." The Haida language is a highly fascinating one; however, since there are only a couple of dozen people who fluently speak it anymore and of those the average age is 70, it is a language that is also on the verge of becoming extinct. If you have the time the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska, is offering language courses. I highly suggest you attend.

Wáayaat. First it was dark. Cold
I can deal with. But dark? They took my face,
my name, my mink skinned gloves, all that I hold
dear, they took. My husband searched for a trace
of me. The Dogfish are a secret race,
good at hiding; so my husband never
found me. Now I accept so much. Embrace
it all, I say. Every truth about water
is mine. I'll tell you the ocean's pleasure
and the sea's whimsy. Now that I've returned
to you with my new name, my new fur
gloves, my new body. All that I have learned
I will tell you. The Whale Law, the Seal Law,
the Dogfish Law, I will say. Háw'aa.

***

Works Cited:

Bierhorst, John. The Sacred Path: spells, prayers, & power songs of the American Indians. New York: Morrow (1983)

Bringhurst, Robert. A Story As Sharp As a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre (1999)

Keithahn, Edward L. Monuments in Cedar. Seattle, Washington: Superior Publishing Co. (1963)

Swann, Brian. Wearing the Morning Star: Native American song-poems. New York: Random House (1996)

Swanton, John R. Haida texts and myths, Skidegate dialect. Washington, Govt. print. off (1905)

1. Haida folklore is full of stories, legends, motifs connecting its people to the ocean. There is the story of Wa'sg.o, the water monster with the head and body of a wolf and the fins of a killer whale (Swanton, 193, 207 n. 13); one myth concerning Sea Otter Woman (ibid., 236) and another of how a man became the first seagull (ibid. 264 - 68). The Haida shamans were said to be able to talk to sea lions (ibid., 282 - 85) and furthermore there are many myths relating how humans and spirit sea creatures often married each other. Two such noted stories worth research are The Man Who Married a Killer Whale Woman (ibid., 286 - 287) and He Who Married the Daughter of the Devilfish Chief (ibid., 292 - 93). J.R. Swanson recorded a shaman's song placating a god in charge of storms at sea with the following chant:

   Ocean Spirit
   calm the waves for me
   get close to me, my power
   my heart is tired
   make the sea like milk for me
   yeho
   yeholo (Bierhorst, 99) [back]

1 — Magician

…. humility and skill in the face of the gods …

It is said that the veil between the worlds, that is this world of the organic and material and that world of the otherworldly and spiritual, is thin in certain places and for certain people. These people act as radio transmitters; having the ability to "tune in" to the world of Spirit at certain times, usually through the aide of meditation or prayer (for many, it seems, they are one and the same). These people can act as channels, go-betweens, conduits, leaving their bodies behind to travel to transcendental lands. At other times they can focus their energies to let Spirit work through them for a period of time. These individuals have played intricate roles in their community, being both highly respected and vilified in many cultures around the world. The name they are most commonly referred to as is that of Shaman … except in the Tarot universe, where they are called Magician.

I find it curious that the word "shaman" is understood by both the scientific and religious communities as to be a conduit for the Spirit world, whereas the term "magician" has more similarity in this day and age with over-priced Las Vegas slight of hand tricksters. But we must look beyond that. If the Fool is starting out on his or her journey in a state of Zen-like nothingness, then, in the Rider-Waite deck at least, the Magician possesses the essential tools to continue that journey. They are laid out in front of him on the table, corresponding to both the four suits of the Minor Arcana and the four elements the Tarot works off of. They are the Disks (earth), the Wands (fire), the Cups (water) and the Swords (air). Or, to look at it from a more psychological approach, if the Fool is the embodiment of our youthful curiosity then the Magician is our ego and our struggle with the total surrender of the self we find we must make when confronted with Spirit.

Not everyone can, or indeed, wants do this. It implies not only a belief in Spirit but a willingness to listen to what it has to say. The more we attempt to assert ourselves and our will in these matters the farther we find ourselves shut off from that source of communication. When people talk to me about their inability to believe in Spirit (usually expressed by saying that they have had no first hand experience, have not heard anything), what I think many of them are trying to say is that they are disinclined, unable or unwilling to open themselves up in order to begin to listen. To open ourselves up is to be defenseless, vulnerable, powerless in the face of things bigger than our concept of ourselves and our egos. This is the job of the shaman and the magician.

***
The Card

On a hilltop overlooking a shoreline, a young girl in a long-sleeved white top and red skirt sweeps leaves in front of a Japanese shrine for Umugai-hine, the goddess of clams, low tides and clam diggers. While humble in appearance the girl is actually a sanctisoned shaman, beginning her life-long career in service to Umugai-hine. She is a Miko.

While the world of shamanism is wide and broad and there were many different types to choose from, shamans who deal with the sea and waters are few and far between. To complicate matters, the Magician, as I interpret the card, is a child in the world of spiritual matters. They may have the tools to communicate, but they have just started out on their Hero's Journey into the dark.¹ That is why a Japanese shrine maiden, a Miko, seemed the best choice for this card. A Miko is "[a] virgin who is assigned to the lifelong service of a Japanese deity. These maidens are chosen from specific traditional families. The kamiko ('child of the deity') girls have to assist the Shinto priests with certain rituals." (Knappert, 188)

In Shinto belief, Umugai-hine² is the "Clam Princess" (Ann, 134). Those who work the beaches at low tide to gather clams pray to her for safety and abundance. Behind the girl the temple to the goddess stands, representing the customs and laws her people must obey to insure a good harvest come low tide (Swords) and in her hand she holds a broom (Wands) symbolizing her ability to control the energies around her and use them to her advantage. Umugai-hine herself is represented on a little banner at the gate of the shrine (Cups) tied off with a shimenawa or sacred rope. Behind the Miko lies the beaches her people work at for a livelihood (Disks). When seen altogether, the Miko becomes an intricate part of her community. However, even though she is a conduit to the divine, she must also remain humble; for even shrine maidens need to eat and when she is not taking care of her goddess and her shrine she is down at the beach with her community, digging clams.

Magician/ Miko no Umugai-hine in a Reading

Your skills and self-confidence are needed if the Miko appears in your reading. Put your ego aside not only to allow you to access the world of Spirit but so you can help your community as well, for that is the role of the Magician. You must trust your own creativity and judgment. With all the elements of the Tarot and the world at your disposal, why do you fall back on conceit, bravado, vanity? Vanity is, of course, a form of self-doubt, and since the Miko is master of her craft, there is no need for such dramatics. Humility is your aide and success is measured not in terms of money or power but in how easy you can access your inner world, the world of Spirit. Be like the Miko, disciplined in your training, yet unpretentious in your goals.

If the Magician/ Miko appears reversed in your reading, ask yourself what you are doing to hinder your ability to communicate? Do you feel humility is a form of disgrace? If so, why? The Miko is unified to the higher power she serves. What is preventing you from this unity? What is stopping you from serving your community?

***

Look at that woeful ocean! My Lady
does not like such ghastliness, she adores
the joys of a chambered shell. A carefree
kingdom hidden a foot under the shores'
sand. Her few worshipers are not sailors,
children of sailors, weeping and wailing
for their souls. No, a clam digger implores
only for long, low tides. A good digging
stick and perhaps a deep bucket. Climbing
the hill to this hilltop shrine, they crave. My
Lady likes cravings. It is humbling
yet rapt all at once. So do not ask why
a Clam Princess? A Shore Princess? A Wave
Princess? Is it enough to pray to crave?

***

Works Cited

Ann, Martha and Dorothy Imel. Goddesses in World Mythology. Santa Barbara, CA.: ABC-CLIO. (1993)

Campbell, Joseph. The Way of the Animal Powers. London: Times. (1984)

Knappert, Jan. Pacific Mythology. Hammersmith, London: Diamond Books (1995)

1. Many scholars and readers liken the progression of each card in the deck, one building off the one before it, to Joseph Campbell's concept of the Hero's Journey, discussed in The Way of the Animal Powers. The book deals with the myths of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, focusing on their shamanism and animal totem beliefs. As the child-Hero progresses through each stage of his or her dark Journey, growing, developing, maturing, they finally emerge into the light as full fledged adults. I like that idea; the leap from an emotional quest to a spiritual one is small. [back]
2. I have also found the spelling as Umugaihime, depending on the translation. [back]

0 - The Fool

… at the End, at the Center, at the Beginning, so we begin … again

Traditional Tarot decks picture the Fool as the mystic, the wanderer or traveler, the dreamer inside all of us. A Tarot deck contains, normally, 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana ones. We begin with number Zero for the Fool because the number zero has represented nothing, void, emptiness for different cultures around the world and it is that state of nothingness that the Fool finds him or herself each time; beginning on a new journey, a new turn in the cycle, a new way of looking at the world.

In the Rider-Waite deck, the Fool is seen as a slapdash, happy youth about to step off a cliff and into an abyss. At his heels a little dog yaps, attempting to warn the youth of the dangers ahead. When I examine the card, the first thing I notice is a sense of joy, happiness, euphoria; the wild abandonment, the carefree humor that infuses the drawing. It's a good day; the sun is shining, the sky is blue, the youth is beginning something new. Here we have unbeaten curiosity at its most basic. The words that come to mind when contemplating the Fool are optimistic, guileless, child-like wonder and a fearless passion. Tradition says the two words carved on Apollo's temple for The Oracle at Delphi, Greece, are: "Know Thyself." This is quest that the Fool sets out to do every time it comes up in a reading.

***

The Card

In this very rough sketch I have chosen Baby Maui taking his first step into the ocean as the Fool for this deck. Waiting for him off shore is his spirit guide, an irresistible shark.

The Great Maui is a Maori myth, though variations have been found throughout the Polynesian Pacific. Every adventure begins with the Fool taking his or her first big step into the unknown. Here we begin with the mythic infant, the embodiment of innocence and curiosity, taking his first steps away from dry land and into the water. As the abyss or void in the Rider-Waite Deck represents the unknown, the puzzling, esoteric, unrevealed part of our unconsciousness that we've yet to discover, here the ocean personifies the same and more. We turn to the ocean for the source of all life on this planet and marvel at its strength. The word oceanic brings forth images of terrible power; waves of such size that nothing can stop them. As Dante's narrator wakes one morning to find, "I had strayed from the path," so the ocean blows us as it wills, far off our chosen journey.

Since the ocean is the beginning and thus a leap for us into the unknown, we see it is formlessness, the unfathomable, in other words, primal chaos. Maui, the Polynesian Ulysses, was born from his mother, Taranga, in such a state of chaos, formless and incomplete:

One day Taranga was walking along the seashore when suddenly Maui was born prematurely, an unformed child. She took some of her hair, wrapped the body in it and put the bundle in the waves. The sea-fairies found the child and cared for him. (Knappert, 185)

Tama-Rangi, "Son of Heaven," discovers Maui and teaches him the songs and tales of his people. However, before he can gain this knowledge Maui must step away from his natal comfort, all the safety and ease he has surrounded himself with and go into the unknown. The ancient Chinese classic, The Tao, says: "the journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step." The Fool's path of "knowing thyself" begins with the same step.

Once Maui steps into the sacred, physical world, in this case the ocean, he sees his guide, a ghost-shark, waiting for him. We all need guides in one form or another, someone who will help us on our journey. While in the Rider-Waite deck the Fool takes with him a little, yapping dog, symbolizing the ego and our desire to control the forces around us. Here, in whatever this deck will end-up being called, Maui's guide is a protector, a mentor, a teacher, not inner stress, a nuisance, our own exasperation with ourselves. I have never been happy that the dog chases after the Fool, warning him of the danger ahead, so here the spirit-guide waits for Maui to join her so they can travel together.

***

The Fool/ Baby Maui in a Reading

The first thing to know about Tarot is there is no hard and fast signification, definition or meaning for any reading. A question can be asked. The cards drawn from the deck are placed in a spread, that is, laying the cards out in a certain pattern that will help the reader with the question. The answer and the strength of Tarot comes in the reader's ability to interpret, translate, decode the cards as to the question being asked. And since there are a thousand different ways to look at a reading, it all depends on the flavor of the reader.

For example, to take a page from Jungian psychology, The Fool/ Baby Maui, might represents "the archetype of the Divine Child (the myth of the deity sending an infant to enlighten human kind)" (Louis, 46) while the ocean would be our "collective unconsciousness" (Sterling, 10). To complicate all this is the fact that the reader must take into consideration all the other cards' impact where that card is in the spread.

While Maui of The Thousand Names is seen in many cultures as a trickster, here he is a newborn filled with amazement, a risk-taker spellbound at each new thing that he comes upon. The world amazes him, everything is miraculous, wonderful, phenomenal. He knows nothing of the cynical world; for him innocence can never be truly lost since his curiosity keeps it alive. And what better way to explore the world than with two? A friend and guide waits for him to over come his initial hesitation in stepping away from the shore. "The water is safe," the shark sings to him, "adventure awaits us, come!" If Baby Maui shows up in your reading, consider the spontaneous aspects of your life. What is stopping you from being as carefree as you want to be? Joyful excitement is our right, yet how many of us are still fascinated with the world by the time we reach adulthood?

Now, as to the issue of finding Baby Maui reversed in your reading; my opinion of reversed cards is that I read them more or less as the opposite of what the card normally world be. In the case of Maui, our fascination turns into rattlebrained, foolish behavior. We place blind trust in people that could lead to grief; and while it is true life is full of many lessons we have already become jaded to the splendor of the world. We must follow Maui into the ocean to rediscover our long-forgotten childhood awe with life.

***

I love all this sand. Then I saw you, finned,
ghostly, outlined briefly in the whitecaps.
You are better than sand! Songs on the wind
to greet me. I love the wind, too. Perhaps
before I was formed, wrapped in kelp scraps
and tossed to the waves, before I was named
Maui The Last Born, Maui Who Kidnaps
the Sun, Maui Topknot; before I tamed
the sky, you and I went jaunting? Marred, maimed
me? It's a song; I love jaunty songs! You
sang for me! As we started out, you claimed
the waves would not hurt. I love the waves, too.
I love all of me, marred Maui, tadpole.
I love all of you, O shark of my soul.

***

Works Cited

Knappert, Jan. Pacific Mythology. Hammersmith, London: Diamond Books (1995)

Louis, Anthony. Tarot: Plain and Simple. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn (2001)

Sterling, Stephen Walter. Tarot Awareness. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn (2000)

"Your way was through the sea; your paths through the great waters. Your footsteps were not known." — Psalm 77:19, World English Bible.

You would think with a reference like that found in Psalms Christians would put more fuss and importance about our destruction of these "sweetwater seas." After all, it is not everyone who lives at the shores of the world's biggest set of fresh water lakes and Michigan is, curiously, made up mostly of Judea-Christian stock.

I am not sure where I first heard the term "sweetwater sea," as reference to the Great Lakes. Perhaps it was something the early Jesuits called it. It sounds like something Father Baraga might have written back home about, as he hiked up and down the coast of Lake Superior, debasing the local populous. Regardless, he is gone but the name remains. It's too bad Judea-Christian belief does not honor all this sweetwater the way they honor the manifestation of the divine in human form. It's a shame that our monolithic sky-father religions do not hold water dear, especially since they came from the arid, desert parts of the world where water is scarce. Other peoples do:

Water, essential to life on earth, has occupied a preeminent place in religious thought and imagery, together with the land and sky. In many cultures it is considered procreative, a source of forms and of creative energy. The life giving property of water has been projected in its almost universal perception as fons et origo, "spring and origin," the element that preceeds solid form and is the support of all earthly creation. In this context, from remote times to the present, among peoples who have perceived the world in terms of sacred and profane phenomena, springs, ponds and lakes have figured importantly in the realm of water symbolism. In many regions of the world where lakes are major geographic features, they often have been the setting of cosmogonic myths and have been invested with many meanings, historical associations and ritual functions. (Townsend, 429)

I say it is a shame that our modern religions do not deify water. Not just these sweetwaters but any body of water since without some sense of piety to a deity we will continue to pollute and destroy our last sources of fresh water.

Yesterday I mused on Shintoism, the Japanese nature religion and the idea of finding the kami in Lake Michigan. That is, the god-like essence of the lake, both in the lake itself and the spirits that might still reside in it. One thing that bothered me about some of the supporters of Shinto was the insistence that it was a belief impossible to grasp by non-Japanese people. However, the veneration of nature is a common thread found around the world. The Inca People of southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia hold a similar theological belief:

In Andean religion the border between the notion of deities and the phenomena of nature was entirely open, with emphasis placed on direct communication with the elements of nature. The worship of huacas and major nature deities was a basic theme of Andean religion. A huaca was an object or phenomenon that was perceived to have unusual presence or power beyond the range of everyday life, where the sacred may have been manifested or where the memory of some past momentous event resided … This belief system was closely tied to the formation of sacred geographies and formed part of a cosmological religion with an array of gods associated with natural epiphanies. (Townsend, 430)

Is the concept of huaca so different than that of kami? With this nature ethos the Inca could personify the angry storm waters that covered their mountain lake of Titicaca into Copacti, a jealous lake goddess that would not tolerate the worship of other deities by her people; "she was known to have toppled temples or submerged them under the waters of Lake Titicaca." (Coulter, 132) But this current culture that holds sway over the fate of the Great Lakes has no such beliefs. To pollute the lakes is just that, a little more industrial run-off, a little more PCPs; and it shows as the level of pesticides, pollutants, poisons in the lake waters rises each year. Now it is no longer safe to eat fish from our lakes. We have made the home of these huaca foul and corrupt.

The storms have stopped, though the waves are never
still. In our wake an oily path shimmers
just like footprints across a sweetwater
sea. A few large clouds over the schooner's
two masts; somewhere near shore turkey vultures
spin, turn. That is the closest the divine
will show itself on these choppy waters.
There is nothing here malign or benign,
evil or good. The waves on this shoreline
just are. Like you just are, this boat, these storm
clouds. And though the little waves make a whine
in your ears, you cannot read them. Gnats swarm
over your face; and your oily boat's wake
hides the footprints that crisscrosses the lake.

Works Cited:

Coulter, Charles Russell and Patricia Turner. Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities. London: McFarland & Co. (2000)

Townsend, Richard F. "Lakes." The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 8. Editor in chief Mircea Eliade. New York, N.Y.: Macmillan. (1987)

Having pneumonia is a strange thing. It attacks the lungs and fills them with fluid. You'd thing someone as interested in the mythic qualities of water as I am would welcome flood-like lungs, but no. I lay in bed with a fever and then chills. Everything aches. I have a hard time concentrating on anything. So I have been reading a bit on Shinto belief while being ill. I am looking for people who worship lakes. It passes the time.

I must state right off I do not think there is a lot of lake worshiping going on in Shintoism. True, there are sacred lakes in Japan; at the foot of Mt. Fuji there are five — Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, Lake Sai, Lake Shoji, and Lake Motosu. But they are not deified the way Mt. Fuji is deified in Shinto belief; or at least as far as I can tell from my current research.

But, you might ask, what is Shintoism? In a nut shell, a form of Japanese animism; that is, the worship of the spirit world found in the natural world all around us. Shintoism involves the worship of kami, meaning an object or entity that has, "divine, sacred, spiritual … quality or energy [to it] … virtually any object, place or creature may embody or possess the quality or characteristic quality of kami." (Bocking, 84) Thus, in Shinto belief, a mountain like Fuji would not only possess kami-like qualities, but have a kami-spirit that resides in it. Or, to put it slightly differently:

Kami is often translated as "deity," but in fact it designates an extremely wide range of spirit-beings together with a host of mysterious and supernatural forces and "essences." In the Kojiki … it is said that there are eight million kami … these include countless vaguely defined tutelary divinities of clans, villages and neighborhoods (ujigami); "spirits of place" — the essences of prominent geographic features, including mountains, rivers and waterfalls; and other natural phenomena … (Littleton, 24)

This interests me because I am going to be moving closer to the shores of Lake Michigan, one of the five largest bodies of fresh water in the whole world and everyone I know treats it as just that — a resource at best, a play or dumping grounds at worst. It is hard for me to understand people who can be in the presence of such splendor and still claim there is nothing sacred about Lake Michigan.

In short, even if I do not call it by that particular name, I want to find the kami of Lake Michigan.

But is that possible? Several critics have stated in no uncertain terms that Shinto "is a racial religion. It is inextricably interwoven with the fabric of Japanese customs and ways of thinking. It is impossible to separate it from communal and national life of the people … Although non-Japanese may pay great respect to the Emperor Meiji, for example, it is inconceivable that they should ever regard him as a kami in the same sense as do the Japanese. Therefore, this phase of the kami-faith is not suitable for dissemination abroad." (Ono, 111)

I wonder about that, that whole inconceivable stance, that such a thing as "race" can define a religion. In the year 2006 I find it strange to think of people claiming that it is unimaginable or impossible for non-Japanese people to worship kami. And this whole nonsense of "racial religion"? Is that like saying anyone not born Italian cannot be Catholic? It is this type of thinly disguised fascism that gives religion a bad name. I believe the human power of belief is much stronger than that but who am I, really?

What I hope to find is not just any kami, but the Suijin of Lake Michigan. That is, Mizugami or water-kami; "[who] recieve frequent worship under various names, particularily from women in agriculture communities and often at a small shrine set up near the water-source. The main water-kami found in large shrines and widely worshipped is Mizuhanome." (Bocking, 189) As is the case with my understanding of the world of kami, deities such as Mizuhanome no kami, Mizugami, Suijinsama are all water spirits but attached to different bodies of water. Who, then, is the kami that looks over Lake Michigan?

Who here submits to a thing? Our nature
cannot see still water as anything
other than this: a body of water
to swim, piss and play in. Not puzzling
then how there are no lake shrines, no praying
to the spirits that remain in the lake.
What sort of nature does not pray? doubting
if the lake has any spirit to make
things right. Take this bread, go to the shore. Break
it, now throw it in and say: "I'm ashamed
of all the harm we do." Do not forsake
this still water, the spirits that remained
to the very end. Feel the call, admit
it in. This lake spirit calls, now submit.

Works Cited:

Bocking, Brain. A Popular Dictionary of Shinto. Lincolnwood, Ill.: NTC Publishing Group. (1997)

Littleton, C. Scott. Shinto: origins, rituals, festivals, spirits, sacred places. Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press. (2002)

Ono, Sokyo. Shinto: the Kami Way. In collaboration with William P. Woodard; sketches by Sadao Sakamoto. Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co. (1962)

This will be my last entry for a week or so. I am bound on a hyperborean wind, off to Canada. Toronto waits somewhere near where the sun rises in the morning fog, if only the udder-heavy rain clouds did not obscure the sun so much. But what am I complaining about? At least it is not snowing!

When I return from my holiday I will quit my job as a nurse. Partly because after two years of drudgery I feel I have done enough and partly because my body cannot take the abuse any longer. Lack of sleep, depression, that constant chronic pain; the life of minimum wage servitude is not all it is cracked up to be (my boss was quick to point out I get paid more than minimum wage, but even so, a life slightly below living wage is no way to go week by week). Of course, the problem with changing "careers" once again is the constant happenstance, uncertainty, insubstantiality of what to do.¹ Perhaps the stress of never having had an adult career other than poet is what is constituting to my depression, lack of sleep, nervousness? Perhaps. I drink far too much coffee, too. Still, poverty sucks.

Because at thirty-six I still had not
a clue what to do with Life I checked out
a book, "Your Wastrel Life: Get A Clue What
To Do" for help. It had a big foldout
map of odd head lumps, which left little doubt
to what sort of drudge I'd be best suited
at. "Male Trollop in a Pirate Hideout,"
"Car Hop for Our Lady of the Sacred
Poisoners," "Stilton Cheese Monger." Rancid
jobs, all. But still, my classical "squishy"
head? my odd pitched brow? I've always needed
you to tell me what to do. Poverty
still sucks. There is no end for this but tears
and blood. My wastrel life, my stupid fears.

1. I am not exactly sure what I will do with myself when I return. I gave my last day as May 31, a Wednesday. When I was younger I thought I'd be dead at 27, maybe from some heroic demise fighting the Fascists in Spain. But I missed that by eighty years. The Japanese have a term for a person who "death overlooked." It was coined after World War II when many young men felt at loose ends simply by living, survivor's guilt. They were expected to have died in some grotesque manner for the Emperor like so many of their friends and simply by surviving left them paralyzed with indecision. After all, if you do not give yourself to a Great Cause, what is this life worth anyway?

   I identify with that very strongly. The cultural heroes I respect all had Great Causes to live and die for. Perhaps what I suffer from is not so much survivor's guilt as due to war, but a sense of indecision with my life; a sense I have wasted so much of it through procrastination, inactivity, waiting. In a way, there is a great irony to my adult life. I am surrounded by people, friends and family, who love me deeply and want me to be happy, but because I seem to be seen as a person who cannot make up his mind what to do I have thus been encouraged throughout my life to pursue anything I want, provided I stay close at hand and do nothing dangerous, risky or foolish. Ten years ago it would not occur to me to be dangerous but the paradox now is that is all I really want to do. That ugly voice in my head screaming, quit your whining and DO something, loser! countered by the calm voice that says, now, now, you've never has a career, remained sober, been in a successful long term relationship; these are noble ventures as well … And thus I do nothing as these forces pull me in one direction and then the other.

   It is sort of like the chicken and egg syndrome; I have no idea anymore which came first anymore; my desire for adventure or my willingness to attempt a "normal" life in not seeking that same adventure, which causes the desire to swell to paralyzing proportions inside me. Then there is the question as to whatever "normal" is? The more I try to head to it the farther it seems to flee away.

   So I drift through this adult life, working jobs barely above poverty level, writing my sonnets, translating, thinking, and much of the time wondering when this anxiety, joylessness, dread will end. [back]

For Mother's Day we went to the Detroit Institute of the Arts and viewed the traveling Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art. One sculpture that stopped me and I have gone back to numerous time in my memory was Chicago artist Richard Hunt's bronze Model for Middle Passage Monument (1987). That we have no monument in America recognizing the Middle Passage speaks just as loudly as the fact I do not recall being taught anything about this large section of American history in the East Lansing public school system:

Middle Passage: the leg of the Atlantic slave trade that transported slaves from Africa to slave markets in North America, South America and the Caribbean. It was called the Middle Passage because the slave trade was a form of Triangular trade; ships left Europe with goods for African markets, sailed to Africa where the goods were sold or traded for slaves in the African slave markets, then sailed to the Americas and Caribbean (West Indies) where the slaves were sold or traded for goods for European markets, and then returned to Europe.

The most we have in memorial is Mr. Hunt's model, showing the front half of a wooden ship hull, representing the boats that carried men, women and children to the Americas. And while these are not the same schooners I have been romanticizing my entire life, it gave me pause to think the same boats I have seen as symbols of escape and bounty and youthful liberty were also capable of horrific deeds. And while my slim family tree had no hand in the Atlantic slave trade (as far as I can gather my father's side was living quiet Jewish lives in the Ukraine as clock makers, while my mother's side came to Georgia as itinerant Italians; both around the turn of the last century) it affects me just as it affects you.

I find it curious that so few modern poets who did not have direct family experience with the Middle Passage have written so little on the subject. Why is that? It is still part of our collected history, even if it is a shameful part. Perhaps it is because if many of us begin to scratch the surface we shall find our forefathers were intricately bound up with the Middle Passage in ways that will be far from flattering? Perhaps. Or, more likely, today's poets are far more comfortable creating book after book of word salad that never challenges anything, never means anything, never risks anything. We live, after all, in the great postmodern age, where things like lyrics, apologizes and narrative flow are terrible banalities. As if we were above banality. As if we had the prerogative, privilege, divine right to be above all of this. As if.

There lies the dockyard, creak of rig, jib, boom;
their masts puffing out sail. There whisper blue
peppered foam, scag glittering crests. There gloom
the dark broad seas. The seas I love and you
fear and all who furrowed through, all who flew
over fallowed blue waves, all of us, all
of us now speak this language. Who came? Who
went off on that middle passage? Those tall
masted ships hold words I do not recall
being taught in school but my ignorance
is as wide as these wide seas and these small
hulls hold more stories of human grievance
than I'll ever know but it's a passage
we all speak of, this language, this knowledge.

Last night at work as I was reading a back issue of the New York Times, I came upon an article by Sarah Lyall, Aid Workers Are Said to Abuse Girls. I reprint it here:

LONDON, May 8 — Liberian girls as young as 8 are being sexually exploited by United Nations peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers in return for food, small favors and even rides in trucks, according to a new report from Save the Children U.K.

The report said the problem was widespread throughout Liberia, a small country struggling to get back on its feet after a long and bloody civil war.

Save the Children based its findings on interviews with more than 300 people in camps for displaced people and in neighborhoods whose residents have returned after being driven away by war. They said men in positions of authority — aid workers and soldiers, government employees and officials in the camps — were abusing girls.

"All of the respondents clearly stated that the scale of the problem affected over half of the girls in their locations," the report said. "The girls reportedly ranged in age from 8 to 18 years, with girls of 12 years and upward described as being regularly involved in 'selling sex,' commonly referred to as 'man business.' "

In a statement from Liberia, the United Nations said that eight cases of sexual abuse and exploitation involving its workers had been reported since the beginning of the year and that one staff member had been suspended, Reuters reported.

"It's unacceptable behavior," Jordan Ryan, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, said in an interview with BBC radio from Monrovia, the Liberian capital.

Save the Children said Liberia and the United Nations should set up an office to investigate cases of the sexual exploitation and to work to ensure that the behavior stops, prosecuting the offenders, among other steps.

It also said United Nations workers accused of sexual exploitation should "go through judicial proceedings," and if found guilty, should not be sent elsewhere as peacekeepers.

If being witness to the evils of the world is one of the jobs of the poet, or at least one of the jobs I wish our modern poets would take up, then I call upon Athena to guide us in these dark times.

We all hold delusions, illusions, wishful thinking that desperately need shattering. I, for example, hoped that the very Peace Keepers we sent in to help victims of genocide would be better than the thugs and soldiers who committed the original crimes. That the men we bring in to help would … help.

That is, apparently, my own delusion. But I need wisdom as well as rage, as do we all, when contemplating terrible actions. That is why I call on Athena, the Greek goddess of war, as well as the intellect, the arts, industry, justice and skill. The child of Zeus, Athena balances both justice and wisdom to rage and action, something I have seen very little of this century, perhaps ever. Ryan Tuccinardi writes:

In fear that Athena's mother, Metis, would bear a child mightier than himself Zeus swallowed Athena. Metis began to make a robe and helmet for her daughter. The hammering of the helmet caused Zeus great pain in the form of headaches and he cried out in agony. Skilled Hephaestus ran to his father and split his skull open and from it emerged Athena, fully grown and wearing her mother's robe and helmet, armed for battle.

I have been thinking far too much of late. There will come a time, as there always does, when thinking will lead in circles and some sort of action will be called for. The Japanese writer Yukio Mishima based an entire philosophy on that, his frustrations that his writing led to non-actions, that words somehow failed, when what was needed was nimbleness, quickness, savvy activity. But I also know that even as all the world seems to turn permanent red I have yet to act. That is the sorrow and irony I am dealing with. Hurry, hurry, Zachary, I am calling to myself, hurry, hurry.

This is urgent. Here is the first bullet
concealed in the long gun's long chamber.
There are more. Here in the past the poet
has not made the good Peace Keeper, soldier,
legionary, swashbuckler. After
the war, we write how terrible that war
was. And after the rape, pastoral anger
vilifies the man. We know rapists are
not like you, or you, or me … or us. The star
of blood fire Athena is not our fire.
But it should be; let her be our fire, our
star. War goddess, guide us in these dire
times. Will we be like the poets, silent
to this? Pick up the gun. This is urgent.

Conceit: n 1: feelings of flamboyant pride [syn: egotism, narcissism, pretension, pride, self-love, self-worship, smugness] 2: the trait of being a complete bastard.

Yesterday I received in the mail a letter from The Academy of American Poets asking for money. I believe that is what you call irony. Yes, it turns out that I too could be part of this little old boy's club (well, not as a poet) if only I could give out, spend, afford it. Give out, indeed. I am giving out. Falling down. I, too, am exhausted from my poverty, from other's consumption.

This has nothing to do with having been raised on a healthy diet of being the last of the famous international playboys; last of the glamorous bright young things. After all, we have so many resources. I hope that perhaps the next poetry book Tupelo Press, Copper Canyon or Nupress releases will change the world, impact someone, somewhere … perhaps they will. Does it matter? Perhaps for a moment after 9/11 poets were timely, relevant, spoke about what was happening in this nation, this world. For a moment. Perhaps. Now this month's National Geographic shouts out: The Selling Of Alaska. Destruction of the Oceans. Unending Consumption. Where is our Lorax? Who speaks for the trees, for the trees have no tongues?

Here, Academy, I would send your letter back empty if I had 39 cents. Regardless, here is one more crack I will gladly fall through …

The odd thing about being poor is that the rich always seem to romanticize it. But they have health insurance and postmodernism and clubs that turn the rest of us away at the door.

Mnemosyne, about a week ago,
wandered out behind the clay breakwater
to build an elephantine whale. I know
you have all seen whales, sort of rubber
swimming joy, but Mnemosyne? Mother
of the Muses and Inventor of Words?
Think of a girl, but more so. Inventor
of words crafts into craft what the bastards
of this world destroy. We love to chase herds
off cliffs, net even the last, let clubs kill.
There might be magic in the seas, orchards,
valleys, but you will never know. I will
never know. To consume all, our human
gift. That's our gift, not words, but extinction.

The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin
That pines for man shall awaken her womb to enormous joys
In the secret shadows of her chamber: the youth shut up from
The lustful joy shall forget to generate, and create an amorous image
In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow …

This passionate cry comes from Oothoon, a character from Daughters of Albion, a poem by London maniac William Blake. Like so much of his "prophetic" poems, it is less lyrical poetry (in the way we traditionally see sonnets and odes and even epics) and more a long series of arguments and conversations by various archetypes and antitypes. Thus, you might have fifty pages of conversation between the Spirit of Liberty and Napoleon on the corrupt nature of the British Church or in this case, Oothoon, a Daughter of Albion (Eden, or in Blake's case, pre-Revolutionary America) and a tyrannical son of Urizen, Theotormon.¹ For Blake, Urizen, "Father of Jealousy," "mistaken Demon of heaven," is the physical perversity of the Church's teachings. Accordingly, Urizen binds the Daughters of Albion to amoral and unjust laws, causing them to be little better than prostitutes in the marriage bed.

The Daughters of Albion has been called many things: rambling, Blake's declaration for women's emancipation, a revelation. The point is, I think, that Blake brought up issues two hundred years ago that we in our "enlightened" age still have issues with. Our double-standards when it comes to sexual freedom, say. Kareleen Middleton Murphy (among others) have pointed out that Blake's possible call for free-love in Oothoon's lines "Take thy bliss, O Man!/ And sweet shall be thy taste, & sweet thy infant joys renew" as well as [let me] "catch for thee girls of mild silver or of furious gold;/ I'll lie beside thee on a bank and view their wanton play/ In lovely copulation, bliss on bliss with Theotormon …" simply illustrates the irony of the poem in this modern age.

I have never been comfortable with the callowness, simplicity, narcissism found with many advocates of free-love. If my Women Studies classes taught me one thing, "free love" is rarely love and never free. And yet … yet, I must constantly throw my lot in with our highly problematic sexual liberation since the alternative is the frightening history of rape, violence and ignorance that Theotormon represents; his constant doubt over Oothoon's desires.

So most of the time my energies and desires, all that I show the world in my poetry and writings, are those "amorous" fantasies this youth finds "in the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow." It might be a flawed, unsatisfactory, crude use of my time on many levels, turning night into day and making desire confused at times; however it also does not hurt a single other person and thus is an innocent action. I wonder if the vast number of other people who have felt desire (if they have felt anything at all) can say the same thing?

Clothes tossed to the floor. You throb — throb — with your
left hand you grab the sheets, cry, bite your right
to kill your cry. How these abused bones, poor
old skin, tries to sing! The coo of delight,
hum of the body at play. Once I might
have thought it a cry of pain or anger.
Perhaps … once. Now I make it too. Tonight.
Because no one else is here; no eager
Urizen son; no willing Albion daughter.
Because you are not here to hear me tease
awake my uprooted root; this splendor
that still slumbers. Does this small act displease?
Friend, there is nothing small about this act.
It turns night day, God godless, love abstract.

1. Theotormon is a name, Victor Paananen suggests, which might mean "'God -tormented,' one tortured by holding the mistaken vision of God the law -giver rather of the Jesus who preaches 'mutual forgiveness of sins' …" (Twayne Publishers, 1996, page 68) [back]

Again I wonder how the origins of a poem arrive? A Paris torch singer, Dee Dee Bridgewater singing with her Flint, Michigan accent, croons out: "la mer qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs … la mer des reflets changeants sous la pluie," which I slowly translate as the sea which we see dancing along the clear gulfs … the sea with its reflections changing under the rain. It is true, my French is shameful.

A friend writes asking how my studies are getting along? An earlier draft of this sonnet (earlier as in 20 minutes ago) read it is pointless to study/ French verbs in this ex-factory city/ no one speaks … which sounded callous, dull, sluggish to my ears when I re-read it. All the poetry you see, every sonnet I post here, was composed in one go, twenty minutes and I publish it. At most I will spend a couple of hours sitting slack-jawed, lost and forgetful but rarely are they revisited, revised, revived. It is meditative exercise. One fluid movement and the poem is over and done. Unlike my sleeping desire, that rarely bubbles to the surface of late. Unlike my command of French, which simply frustrates. Perhaps a beautiful pea-green boat will take me away for a year and a day to Haiti, Guadeloupe or Martinique? Perhaps. Then I can walk the streets and listen to the French I want to hear. Instead of the gobbledygook of rain on this window. A gibberish of water.

You know rain. Some times we dance in it. Some
times we hide from it. It brings so much; stench
of this and that. Smells of sloth and boredom.
We know of this water that tries to drench
all that, the way water drenches. My French
is poor but I know "la pluie" means the rain.
It is good to talk about downpours, wrench
meaning from rain, smell the mud once again
in these devout verbs. I love verbs. A sane
verb is like a little nun, but better,
since verbs can be naked but nuns? Explain
to me why I've been such a poor father
to my lust? Lust-like rain on little nuns
I am destined to bear only orphans.

The origins of a poem arrive at many different levels. For example, I have in my possession a stash of naked photos of myself and erotic poetry I have written over the years. I have toyed with the idea of printing them into a booklet of a sort, make a hundred copies to send to my friends. But the people I suggest this to see it as problematic. That is not the purpose of poetry, I am told. Do not write smut.

You see, I work at a nursing home with teenagers who fully embrace the lyrics of violence that are sold to them by corporate America but see nudity and erotica as censurable, sinful, pornographic. We live in a culture that embraces violence, not sexuality. Death Row Records, corporate punk, buffoonery, anarchy; it's all the same really. How can we take serious any "desperado," "outlaw," "miscreant" backed by the Time/Warner juggernaut as legit?¹ That isn't to say there aren't righteous artists speaking out against violence or brutality, who are trying to embrace a healthy sexuality, but you are not going to buy them at Tower Records. I wonder how many other people are tired of the mantra of "pimps and hos"? The manta that it's sex that is problematic and that violence is a natural consequence?²

Thus I am coming to see to be subversive in this modern world you need to be the naked one; not the one waving a gun around. Not the one who claims it's hard to be a pimp out there but the one who actually is living out the creed "all you need is love" … if indeed love is what we need.

Why not? Anything else seems like a perversity …

… who knows? Maybe someone will write to me and say they want one of my booklets? Maybe they will have a booklet for me? It is hard to know; we live in a world that turns the divine into corruption so easily. But for those who wish a different ending than what is sold to them, I call you friend. This poem, this photo, is for you.

It will. It will. It will happen. You know
it will happen. We do not know the end.
Not when. Carry this poem, this photo
on your body. Your body shall twist, bend,
fall. It will. It will. So carry your friend
with you. This nude photo. This rude poem.
I give them to you. How can lust offend?
Let lust thrive when there are cop and hoodlum
alike who will not leave you alive. Numb
to this bliss. Do not be dumb to my kiss.
It is. It is. My kiss to you. Welcome
our kiss. And more. More than this poem, this
photo. More places for your last heartbeat
than on death row or gunned down in the street.

1. The last couplet comes from a dimmly recalled line from The Guns of Brixton, a Clash song: When the law break in/ How you gonna go?/ Shot down on the pavement/ Or waiting on death row? Or something along those lines. Like I say, it's The Clash, it doesn't really matter. [back]
2. Perhaps I am being too hard on my teenage co-workers? They are, like you and me, simply products of their culture. After all it is not as if we have had role models in this culture promoting a healthy view of the erotic world. Far from it, when the topic comes up the Left tends to talk of some distant utopia apparently not connected to this world where Confederate flags, Bible studies, bigoted drama queens like Katherine McKinnon and Ann Coulter are simply ignored. No wonder our civil liberties in this country are in such dire straits! [back]

Paul Hanson — bassoon, clarinet
Daniel Hoffman — violin
Kevin Mummey — dumbeg, zarb
Moses Sedler — cello

These are the members of the band Davka. I became interested in the group because the jazz bassoon is one instrument I am trying to enjoy of late. Davka successfully uses a jazz bassoon in its music and released a CD a while ago, one that I keep going back to, Der Golem. It is a modern soundtrack to the silent 1920 German film of the same name directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese.

Though the legend of the golem comes from Kabbalistic sources, I have never really been interested in religion; spirituality, however, endlessly fascinates me. To put it slightly differently, it is not the new structures people throw together at a given notice I am drawn to, but the ancient earth that the structures sit on. I am not even talking about the difference between old gods and new, rather the chemical elements the myths are drawn from.

What about this myth interests me? I have been reading about MSF, Medecins sans Frontieres, Doctors Without Borders, lately. Their goals are simple: Feel the suffering with our own hands. Witness everything as you bring food, water, latrines and medicine. From witnessing humanitarian disaster comes the urge to assist, to help, to lend aide. So it is when I have time enough to let my mind wander that I turn to these ancient building blocks for some sort of rescue.

Perhaps I need rescuing at times, just like everyone? I am fatalistic about my future. Like the short life of the golem, pulled into existance only to carry out a mission and then be released, I found in Psalm 139:16 the following:

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

I like the predestination of that sentence. All the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. My unformed substance. The river clay Rabbi Loew, the Lion of Prague, used to craft the golem. I like the idea of creating something, some thing, that will be used as a shield against the harsh nature of this world. The harsh truth that there are others who wish us ill; that because of your size or shape or skin color or the placement of certain bodily organs, because of nothing more than the way you pronounce words, men will kill you in the most brutal ways imaginable.

Is it not surprising that we imagine alternatives to such practices? We imagine new myths to fight against such horrors. Jorge Luis Borges wrote:

… the Golem legends are in no way absurd but rather part of a doctrine that is worthy of attention: that there is in each of us a particle of the Divine.

It is from that particle I now draw. I have shaped the river clay into a form, I have placed the stone with the Hebrew word for life into the form's mouth, I have spoken the words of power to activate the form.

I call this form Na'arah. It is important to know what you say when you name something. Names hold power. I am sick to the soul of cultures that constrain others, that are so controlling that the mere name itself defines the enslavement. However, under the right conditions, the masters claim, they have their use. Take the word na'arah, in Hebrew:

[It] means "young woman" or "girl." It … implies not so much age (before or after puberty) or sexual status such as "virgin" but social status, i.e., "unmarried." Like its masculine likeness Na'ar, it refers to a servant (for examples see: Gen 24:61; Ex 2:5; 1 Sam 25:42; Pr 9:3 etc.)

So here I am in my own words, committing the same sin by subjugating the female golem, the girl of clay, Na'arah. Here I am naming her as servant. It is an interesting contradiction, paradox, irony, one that is not lost on me. The question is not am I doing this for noble reasons, all causes seem noble to someone, somewhere. No. The question I cannot answer is will I have the wisdom to stop once I begin uttering these terrible words?

I am a slave to words, I hear bizarre
noises and turn them to meaning. Listen:
you are like her, you pray to a savior
that winks at fiends, too. All evil; klansmen,
cops, thugs, pray to your god too, the human
need for self-pity. But what if we had
acted? Molded the river clay, spoken
the old Hebrew, commanded the unclad
puppet to life? A girl golem? A tad
freakish, perhaps, a tad rude, but ready
to stand between us and madmen, that mad
blood lust that possesses men. What mighty
words moved her? None. No, one. O no one, O
Na'arah. O lump, now move, O now go …

Last night at work I walked about with a limp, bent almost double in pain. It is curious, pain simply is. It takes over our bodies much the same way the shamans of the far North allow spirits into theirs; an overwhelming experience where the ego is driven away, where there is nothing left of the soul but a blinding light. But, instead of divine conversations between the worlds, I was finding myself unable to stand due to a pulled muscle. A hazard of my work. Having bent in an odd way to help transfer a resident from bed to wheelchair my back gave out. It is odd to me that when we are healthy and far away from pain we make such a fuss over different types. Birthing pains, gun shot wounds, self-inflicted; as if any of it mattered.

This morning Eli (my brother and lead singer of the band The Monolators) sent me news that one of my favorite bands, Emm't Swank, was going to be coming together one last time for a benefit show. Like Eli, they are based in L.A. and it is with some sorrow that I cannot attend the party. Of the few times I visited my brother and Mary (my sister -in -law, drummer of the band and voice of Belle) and helped carry their amps for various shows (the gig at Mr. T's sticks in my mind) I had a blast and wish that somehow the distance between California and Michigan could be bridged a little more easier so I could see more of their shows … or any of their shows. I love The Monolators so very much.

Still, while time might be easily debated over beers we've yet to bend space and geography as easily (even with the help of Jack Daniels) so I must simply suggest to you all to check out these bands' up -coming tour dates and tell me how their shows went. I will on my back, heating pad up to 9 and listening to the soothing sounds of my lungs gurgling wetly. It sounds almost like a song.

From the back of the throat, phlegm or poem,
what we cough up is the same. Something hard
we find we cannot choke down. Hard, irksome
pain, you have become much like a barnyard
squeal, skin flick groan, slaughterhouse yap; the marred
bit of the song we skip over in haste.
Anything than to listen to those scarred
voices sing. Better to escape shame faced,
guts a pitapat, than to stay debased
by the things we have no control over.
Here is my throat, my O of mouth, the taste
of wind rising up, filling the puncture
wound of my chest; gun shot like doors, a new
doorway hole that the dark wind whispers through.

I.
How do you find yourself in ghost stories?
Unwelcome love, the sea eats the milk-pearls
you placed on your breasts. Gobbles your gypsies'
sea-skirt; your shark-tooth necklace; your blue swirls
tattooed on your back. It chews it up, hurls
about, lets you tremble. Unwelcome love,
you are a ghost to me take your sea-girl's
skin out upon the waves, sing, float above
the dark form that flits in the soft olive,
aquamarine, milk blue. This is a ghost
story. Unwelcome love, now you sing of
blame, you sing of terrible blame, almost
like love, you sing of the shark, the dreadful
maw that will gut you, mouthful by mouthful.

II.
Press your mouth up to mine. These words displease
but its all we got. I am salt, blue mists
covering dune grass. Dunes are the junkie's
eyelashes. You are drunk. Our kiss consists
of your tongue in my mouth. Fat tongue that twists
in the wet air. Your mouth is a squandered
coast, a lone girl walking toward us. This tryst
is odd, you would never allow a third
to join us, another voice that yammered
your name. Yammering. Once I kissed the ghost
of a drowned girl. You are not her. No word
or kiss can bring her back. You, a bone coast
and I? Something simple you will forget,
like tar fog's chill or a love dog's regret.

III.
How do you find yourself in ghost song?
Listen to all of this, every ghastly
detail. How you rose to that refrain, long
wet hair dragging behind you. Your grisly
wound, large pieces missing. How your ghostly
song sings; there are the three men, how they lug
you, all thrashing of arms, legs, the ugly
O of your mouth, over the side. Their smug
laughter. Their fingers bent, their long knives dug
into your skin dark pink lines. Now you stare,
dripping. Your blue lips part, a kiss. You shrug
as if we're not bound to our past, despair
by it. Our lips touch, your girl shark claws, thin
fingers, press deep, searching, pass through my skin.

IV.
It is not this kiss that binds them here. Not
their lost bodies, you see, that is crucial
to keep them; to say, if I had known what
it's like … No kiss can fill them with lustful
warmth. I ran my tongue along each dreadful
gill. Kissed where the skin webbed the hand into
fin. Her breath gave off a girl-curd, carnal
stench. I licked right where the shark teeth bit through
her side. Where ta'awah, the old Hebrew
word for lust, was cut before they threw her
overboard. It's not this kiss they want, you
see, but the breath that came with the rapture
when you said, if I'd known what it's like, dear,
I'd have let you take me right now, right here.

V.
How do you find yourself in ghost stories?
When a lover is faithless let the kiss
change, as deep seas change as distant bodies
pass through them. When the lover is remiss
or does nothing let the winds stir, the hiss
of wave grow loud, sky dark. Somewhere out there
Sa'me, the shark, turns. The soprano, Miss
Shoujyo, in white face, sings the prayer
for the dead. Her gown torn, her long black hair
sticky with sweat, she calls Sa'me to her.
This is the ghost story. Roughly, the air
changes, the waves, the song. My false lover,
you have betrayed me … she turns on the stage,
naked with nothing but her teenage rage.

VI.
A plea heard, cut off, like mad. Guttural
distress in the fog. Some depraved rapture.
Raving. Someone in the grizzle-drizzle.
Some thing out there yowling out her vulgar
garbled mouthfuls. Ghost girl. Still, I shiver
each time you touch me. Passing through me
like ice. The way the dead always shudder
when they embrace us with blue lips milky
with lust. They say death turns lust nakedly
urgent. Who still cries like that? Your mouth swung
open. The coast swung shut. Who would blindly
follow to the root of your throat? My tongue
lost in the mist. Someone gives a cry, distress.
Cuts off, cries, cut off, cries. This is endless.

When is too much too much? How long should a story go until the audience cries "enough!" and stomps their feet? Wagner never knew when to stop and so most people find his long, dull bits long … and dull. Wagner!The opera you hate most,/ the worst music ever invented, Philip Levine cries in What Work Is. Bless the French for coming up with a word used only to indicate the pain and torture of having to sit through long, boring bits of opera music, waiting for the good stuff to occur.

I write seven sonnets and wonder if I am committing the same sin? Is it better to say what you need to once and stop, or create a refrain and spiral your song into layers? If this were a dance remix then each sonnet would be a slightly different version of the same, creating a psychedelic whole you could dance to. But it isn't a dance song, it is seven sonnets written over the last three or four days. Where are my DJs? Where is the laser light show? Who will wear the thigh-high go-go boots and dance all night? Where should we go from here?

I
How do you find yourself in ghost stories?
Unwelcome love, the sea eats the milk-pearls
you placed on your breasts. Gobbles your gypsies'
sea-skirt; your shark-tooth necklace; your blue swirls
tattooed on your back. It chews it up, hurls
about, lets you tremble. Unwelcome love,
you are a ghost to me take your sea-girl's
skin out upon the waves, sing, float above
the dark form that flits in the soft olive,
aquamarine, milk blue. This is a ghost
story. Unwelcome love, now you sing of
blame, you sing of terrible blame, almost
like love, you sing of the shark, the dreadful
maw that will gut you, mouthful by mouthful.

II.
Press your mouth up to mine. These words displease
but its all we got. I am salt, blue mists
covering dune grass. Dunes are the junkie's
eyelashes. You are drunk. Our kiss consists
of your tongue in my mouth. Fat tongue that twists
in the wet air. Your mouth is a squandered
coast, a lone girl walking toward us. This tryst
is odd, you would never allow a third
to join us, another voice that yammered
your name. Yammering. Once I kissed the ghost
of a drowned girl. You are not her. No word
or kiss can bring her back. You, a bone coast
and I? Something simple you will forget,
like tar fog's chill or a love dog's regret.

III.
It is not this kiss that binds them here. Not
their lost bodies, you see, that is crucial
to keep them; to say, if I had known what
it's like … No kiss can fill them with lustful
warmth. I ran my tongue along each dreadful
gill. Kissed where the skin webbed the hand into
fin. Her breath gave off a girl-curd, carnal
stench. I licked right where the shark teeth bit through
her side. Where ta'awah, the old Hebrew
word for lust, was cut before they threw her
overboard. It's not this kiss they want, you
see, but the breath that came with the rapture
when you said, if I'd known what it's like, dear,
I'd have let you take me right now, right here.

IV.
How do you find yourself in ghost stories?
When a lover is faithless let the kiss
change, as deep seas change as distant bodies
pass through them. When the lover is remiss
or does nothing let the winds stir, the hiss
of wave grow loud, sky dark. Somewhere out there
Sa'me, the shark, turns. The soprano, Miss
Shoujyo, in white face, sings the prayer
for the dead. Her gown torn, her long black hair
sticky with sweat, she calls Sa'me to her.
This is the ghost story. Roughly, the air
changes, the waves, the song. My false lover,
you have betrayed me … she turns on the stage,
naked with nothing but her teenage rage.

V.
This shall be our song, it will tell every
ghastly detail. Everything. How I sat
in the room, gas making the air heavy
with grave melody. How you rose to that
refrain, dripping, pieces missing, your flat
dark eyes taking this all in. How you crooned,
filling in all the missing pieces, at
once both dreadful and … no, the gaping wound
said it all. How you stood on stage, festooned
only in skin and shark teeth. The photo
I have of you affirms that. Your voice, tuned
in as if from the grave, your soprano
grave, flush of your cheeks, trying, unwelcome
lover, your sea has made me dim, dull, numb.

VI.
You talk about hating this photograph.
I see that. It's a blur. My stove filling
the room with gas, making every damn laugh
high, odd, terse. The camera's laughter flooding
my head, the men, the body struggling.
Here is the old camera. Here is the tug
boat, ropes, laughing as they lug you, thrashing
legs, arms, O of mouth, overboard. Their smug
grins. They took photographs. The camera dug
into you, cut into your skin dark pink
lines, held you, let you drop. Now you just shrug
as if we are not bound to our past, stink
with it. Gas stinks, fire works. You run shark claws
here, there. We kiss but none of this can pause.

VII.
A plea heard, cut off, like mad. Guttural
distress in the fog. Some depraved rapture.
Raving. Someone in the grizzle-drizzle.
Some thing out there yowling out her vulgar
garbled mouthfuls. Ghost girl. Still, I shiver
each time she touches me. Passing through me
like ice. The way the dead always shudder
when they embrace us with blue lips milky
with lust. They say death turns lust nakedly
urgent. Who still cries like that? Her mouth swung
open. The coast swung shut. Who would blindly
follow to the root of her throat? My tongue
lost in the mist. Someone gives a cry, distress.
Cuts off, cries, cut off, cries. This is endless.

I.
Press your mouth up to mine. These words displease
but its all we got. I am salt, blue mists
covering dune grass. Dunes are the junkie's
eyelashes. You are drunk. Our kiss consists
of your tongue in my mouth. Fat tongue that twists
in the wet air. Your mouth is a squandered
coast, a lone girl walking toward us. This tryst
is odd, you would never allow a third
to join us, another voice that yammered
your name. Yammering. Once I kissed the ghost
of a drowned girl. You are not her. No word
or kiss can bring her back. You, a bone coast
and I? Something simple you will forget,
like tar fog's chill or a love dog's regret.

II.
It is not this kiss that binds them here. Not
their lost bodies, you see, that is crucial
to keep them; to say, "if I had known what
it's like …" No kiss can fill them with lustful
warmth. I ran my tongue along each dreadful
gill. Kissed where the skin webbed the hand into
fin. Her breath gave off a girl-curd, carnal
stench. I licked right where the shark teeth bit through
her side. Where "ta'awah," the old Hebrew
word for lust, was cut before they threw her
overboard. It's not this kiss they want, you
see, but the breath that came with the rapture
when you said, "if I'd known what it's like, dear,
I'd have let you take me right now, right here."

III.
You talk about hating this photograph.
I see that. It's a blur. My stove filling
the room with gas, making every damn laugh
high, odd, terse. The camera's laughter flooding
my head, the men, the body struggling.
Here is the old camera. Here is the tug
boat, ropes, laughing as they lug you, thrashing
legs, arms, O of mouth, overboard. Their smug
grins. They took photographs. The camera dug
into you, cut into your skin dark pink
lines, held you, let you drop. Now you just shrug
as if we are not bound to our past, stink
with it. Gas stinks, fireworks. You run shark claws
here, there. We kiss but does the photo pause?

IV.
A plea heard, cut off, like mad. Guttural
distress in the fog. Some depraved rapture.
Raving. Someone in the grizzle-drizzle.
Some thing out there yowling out her vulgar
garbled mouthfuls. Ghost girl. Still, I shiver
each time she touches me. Passing through me
like ice. The way the dead always shudder
when they embrace us with