Poseidon And the days of Poseidon began as I exhumed a band of sunrays and to the chickadee I gave the chirp ancient brutes clashed in my mind clarity squabbled opposite riddles over my thoughts light against the secret darkness that dwelled in the battle of attrition: one winner the desert monolith was all I inherited, may my linage be blessed, for the pain and pleasure I tasted in my early days the absolute and inexplicable the desirable and the repulsive one thread one pair of scissors two fingers and Poseidon dictated all my moves seven wonders of the world before my eyes and the seven plagues that were to commence later my first concept was my love always vague and irrelevant while my concept of hatred always definite and controlling
To Orpheus This summer, under the constellation of the Lyre, we remain sceptical. What was the use of enchanting Hades and Persephone with your song and they returned Eurydice to you? You, doubting your powers, turned back to re-assure yourself and she vanished again into the kingdom of shadows under the poplars. Then, stooped by the powers of the impossible, you taught the ultimate solitude of truth to the Lyre. For this neither men nor Gods forgave you. The Maenads tore your body to pieces by the banks of Hebros. Only your Lyre and your head, swept by the currents, reached Lesbos. What then is the justification of your song? Perhaps the momentary mixing (a false image the least) of light and darkness? Or perhaps that the Muses hang your Lyre at the exact center of the stars? Under this constellation, in the summer of this year, we remain sceptical.
For I must concentrate—I am making a strong black record for eternity. Lucas will know it, one day soon. It is my legacy.My uttermost Will. This time I must get it right. So I sleep with the black notebooks as my pillow. It isn’t easy to reconstruct my Holy Lore. I need the resources of the British Museum Reading Room, the Bodliean Library, whatever. But the Oakhill doctors think that mad people prefer Readers Digest. I have rely on my hand copied archives; my dictations and visions from the Inner Plane; or memories of memories. I’ve been starting all over again for years. For Poll Pottage dispersed the treasures of the Lore. So shall she burn by aeonic fire and be crushed by thunderstones in the End-Times! That woman has caused me so much extra work, it’s worn out my astral body. It’s not just the scriptorial battle fatigue, an ague in my old claws. No, this channeling is hard and bitter work. But today the woodentops must have under-dosed me. I’m still functioning. Herewith a taster, a private view, just one sample of my wares drafted from the black notebooks, a typical Nicholas Oscar Beardsley production. My methods are multifarious. Last night I got up to no good underneath my smelly blankets. This sample of the Teachings happens to take the form of an unusual radiophonic transmission from the dead. I do this trick as follows: take one transistor radio—the British-made “Roberts Rambler” is probably the best, because of its plywood chassis, good for natural vibrations—and hide it under your pillow. Press your ear very close to the speaker. Tune close to BBC World Service on long wave, but allow the signal to drift on the edge of intelligibility. Keep the volume to the minimum of audibility. Listen for the radio years. Soon, beyond the urgent twaddle of world events, the stratospheric squeal of lost souls, the muezzin wailing from their burning mosques, all the rest of the global anthem, you will hear, filtered through hiss and static, a voice. It is clipped, brisk, extremely British,military, dry as sherry, so very reassuring . . . it is getting louder already . . . “. . . in 1910, I made the acquaintance of a military attache, posted to Central Asia in the service of one of the great European powers. Despite our inevitable differences, we shared the comradeship of bearing arms, and a common interest in arcane matters. I was intrigued by his knowledge of esoteric Tibetan beliefs and practices, especially when he told me that at a ‘gompa’ or spiritual college north of Lhasa there was a ‘gyud pas’ or ‘high teacher’ who had the gift of astral disembodiment.
ENGINE FRED DROPPED, cleared the gondola car in stride and came to a stop 30 yards beyond his pack and bedroll. Not bad form for an old man, he thought. He acknowledged the brakeman’s wave as the caboose passed and turned to find himself in front of the jungle he had not seen for 15 years. Beyond were sagebrush and bunch grass where he remembered orchard. A chimney rose above the farmhouse’s tumble of charcoal debris. The outbuildings were falling down. The only intact structure in sight was a pickers cabin with a few apple trees around it. Among the rocks and bushes of the jungle, Fred found the ashes of a bonfire, a can with evidence of beans, a six-month-old Saturday Evening Post and a lean-to of scrap lumber and flattened cans. Darkness was falling. He retrieved his pack and set about gathering wood. Poodie sat in the doorway of his cabin with his back against the frame and watched the moon begin to float up, big and white as a dish pan, behind the plateau east of the river. Look at my apples. He liked the thought. My apples. The moonlight is washing over my apples. In the field that had been the orchard, a cat prowled, crouched rigid as stone, sprang, held a mouse between its paws and began to worry it. Nighthawks made their final sorties of the evening. Ripples on the river ran silvery with moonlight. Poodie wondered what the sounds were and was glad to be without them. Tonight, what I see is enough. He closed his eyes, suspended in …
Manolis Aligizakis 