The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

Few eschew butcherous folly.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“View of the World from Fargo, Traditionalist Isolationist”

The Voice before the Void

Bring down half and fill full again

Your budding ombudsman will rend in twain

A gain

And about that

The wheatman will have some to say

But will have no say

Locked in step

And monuments to men who died in Belleau and Argonne

But no need for such to those who died on the farm

See the seachange tiding over

Flooding farms and fields of alfalfa clover

Backs broken in bygone ages

Breaking again in breakaway stages

Settled sundered rendered under

And forced forward by faraway thunder

Lest we then when we before

Filed and followed and thumped and harrumphed

But a contingent is not sufficient

Stampede from the stanchions

Into distinct districts of doggerel and lace

To hunker down afore destruction and disgrace

Bounded bitter boiling bright

Slight tinge of catatonic fright

Before binge of catastrophic fight

Falling from a fever dream at fever pitch

To die in a ditch

Behold the besotted bloody

Beyond the bastion bloated

Bombarded and bamboozled

Into last rites cries nights and fires

Flowing stolen barrels of blood by fireglint

Extend to the edge and over it

But dysentery and distemper do not remember

And influenza infusions

So in the seasons of our most sagacious graciousness

We best tend to rest at fearsome behest

For to forswear to neer arms again bear

For it forgotten is not

World War the First of the worst

German farmmen immigrant

Resistant to enlistment

But Wilson whistled War for end all war

And one hundred years on

And war is still not gone

Farmer soldier go no

For to foresee the finality

And have part of it no

To go farther no

But to fully

It all

Forgo

No one has ever understood. Except Melville.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the Twelfth Century”

Herman Melville

Found a family, build a state,

The pledged event is still the same:

Matter in end will never abate

His ancient brutal claim.

Indolence is heaven’s ally here,

And energy the child of hell:

The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear

But brims the poisoned well.

The Ides of March Special:

Making a martyr.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”

from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones:

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault;

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honorable men,—

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once,—not without cause:

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?—

O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason!—Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Caesar might

Have stood against the world: now lies he there,

And none so poor to do him reverence.

O masters, if I were disposed to stir

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,

Who, you all know, are honourable men:

I will not do them wrong; I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,

Than I will wrong such honourable men.

But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar,—

I found it in his closet,—’tis his will:

Let but the commons hear this testament,—

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,—

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds,

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

Unto their issue.

Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;

It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.

You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;

And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar,

It will inflame you, it will make you mad.

‘Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;

For if you should, O, what would come of it!

Will you be patient? will you stay awhile?

I have o’ershot myself to tell you of it:

I fear I wrong the honorable men

Whose daggers have stabb’d Caesar; I do fear it.

An extraordinary piece.

⁓The Voice before the Void

View other art and poetry by Susan Loone at sloonepoems.wordpress.com and at sloone.blogspot.com

“How many more times must we meet…”

Susan Loone

When I took you aside and told you we have met a thousand years ago, it was not meant to be a pick up line. It was meant to be a reunion of two old souls.

Eventually, it was only I who recognised you, while you have no inkling of who I am.

The day we met for the third time, you stopped and looked at me. I wanted to say, as I did so many years ago: It is you.

You’ve come to me before, in different time zones and different countries. Within the span of six years, you’ve come in different names, shapes and sizes. In different bodies and nationalities.

Yet, no matter in who you manifest your soul, I never fail to recognise you.

We always seem to be caught in a similar scene – like an old movie replaying itself – international conference, chance encounter at the coffee machine, asking for hot water or cream.

In Dhaka, you were young, playful, eager to love. In Kathmandu, you were restless, bold and hungry for sex. In Georgetown, you were beautiful, like an arch angle. A little aging, perhaps.

You seem to appear at different stages of your life, to affect me in different stages of my own.

Do you come to challenge me or to give me strength? Why do you come in my darkest, loneliest hour?

When I am on the brink of sadness or contemplating suicide? When I am drowning in my own sorrows as if there is no tomorrow?

In Dhaka, you swept me off my feet and I fell in love; in Nepal, I felt the urgency to flee; in Georgetown, the pain of parting with you was achingly real, torturous, leaving me with a shattered heart.

It tells me that we may never meet again. That this is our last moment, after countless encounters and chance meetings, after loving madly then bruising each other, lifetime after lifetime.

A part of me died when you walk away from me that day.

In Dhaka, it had felt that we were crossing the rubicon, that we would be eternal soul mates; and in Kathmandu, you had turned quite violently away from me.

In Georgetown, I felt we had a history. A history of passion and pain. A history that left me with unhealable scars, unforgetful memories, sad reflections that have marred my skins.

Is this why you have failed to recognise me now? Is this why you remain oblivious to my existence although you continue to trail me?

Perhaps, in my haste to enter this world, in my rush to fulfill my destiny, I have forgotten to drink from the water of forgetfulness.

How many more times must we meet before your memory returns? Let me not wait another thousand years…

http://sloone.blogspot.com/2012/02/can-one-soul-live-in-three-bodies.html

International Women’s Day Special:

Sublime sentiment distilled.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“A Red, Red Rose”

Robert Burns

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June:

O my Luve’s like the melodie

That’s sweetly play’d in tune!

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I:

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

Ash Wednesday Special:

Lovers of darkness can find much to appreciate in the art and imagery of a billion-strong death cult that fetishizes an executed criminal agitator; few can celebrate morbidity as avidly.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Ash Wednesday”

Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni

Of votive lights there were only seven,

And each burned a prayer to the God in heaven.

Five candles were blue, one green, and one red,

Six burned for the living, and one for the dead.

The belfry was old and the church was bare.

Only the voice of the wind and the rain was there.

“I can snuff the candles,” said the voice of the rain

As downward it drifted through a cracked window pane,

“I can snuff the candles!” said the wind in the eaves,

“Who cares for a hope, or a heart that grieves?”

And the blue lights flickered, and the green one died

Before the bowed head of the meek Crucified.

But the last to flicker was the one bright red–

The candle that burned for the lonely dead.

A memorable encounter, and the climax of a voyage of discovery.

⁓The Voice before the Void

The Last American

John Ames Mitchell

part 6

3d July

We see ahead of us the ruins of a great dome, also a very high shaft. Probably they belong to the city we seek.

4th July

A date we shall not forget!

Little did I realize this morning when we left the Zlotuhb in such hilarious mood what dire events awaited us. I landed about noon, accompanied by Nofuhl, El-Hedyd, Ja-khaz, El-pate, Kuzundam the first mate, L-palyt the cook, Fattan, and two sailors. Our march had scarce begun when a startling discovery caused great commotion in our minds. We had halted at Nofuhl’s request, to decipher the inscription upon a stone, when El-Hedyd, who had started on, stopped short with a sudden exclamation. We hastened to him, and there, in the soft earth, was the imprint of human feet!

I cannot describe our surprise. We decided to follow the footprints, and soon found they were leading us toward the great dome more directly than we could have gone ourselves. Our excitement was beyond words. Those of us who had weapons carried them in readiness. The path was little used, but clearly marked. It wound about among fallen fragments and crumbling statues, and took us along a wide avenue between buildings of vast size and solidity, far superior to any we had seen in Nhu-Yok. It seemed a city of monuments.

As we ascended the hill to the great temple and saw it through the trees rising high above us, we were much impressed by its vast size and beauty. Our eyes wandered in admiration over the massive columns, each hewn from a single block, still white and fresh as if newly quarried. The path took us under one of the lower arches of the building, and we emerged upon the other side. This front we found even more beautiful than the one facing the city. At the centre was a flight of steps of magnificent proportions, now falling asunder and overgrown in many places with grass and flowers.

These steps we ascended. As I climbed silently up, the others following, I saw two human feet, the soles toward us, resting upon the balustrade above. With a gesture I directed Nofuhl’s attention to them, and the old man’s eyes twinkled with delight. Was it a Mehrikan? I confess to a lively excitement at the prospect of meeting one. How many were they? And how would they treat us?

Looking down upon my little band to see that all were there, I boldly marched up the remaining steps and stood before him.

He was reclining upon a curious little four-legged seat, with his feet upon the balustrade, about on a level with his head. Clad in skins and rough cloth he looked much like a hunter, and he gazed quietly upon me, as though a Persian noble were a daily guest. Such a reception was not gratifying, especially as he remained in the same position, not even withdrawing his feet. He nodded his curious head down once and up again, deeming it apparently a sufficient salutation.

The maintenance of my own dignity before my followers forbade my standing thus before a seated barbarian, and I made a gesture for him to rise. This he answered in an unseemly manner by ejecting from his mouth a brownish fluid, projecting it over and beyond the balustrade in front of him. Then looking upon me as if about to laugh, and yet with a grave face, he uttered something in an unmusical voice which I failed to understand.

Upon this Nofuhl, who had caught the meaning of one or two words, stepped hastily forward and addressed him in his own language. But the barbarian understood with difficulty and they had much trouble in conversing, chiefly from reason of Nofuhl’s pronunciation. He afterward told me that this man’s language differed but little from that of the Mehrikans, as they wrote it eleven centuries ago.

When he finally arose in talking with Nofuhl I could better observe him....

The story of a naval battle.

⁓The Voice before the Void

The Last American

John Ames Mitchell

part 5

20th May

An icy wind from the northeast with a violent rain. Yesterday we gasped with the hot air. To-day we are shivering in winter clothing.

2lst May

The same as yesterday. Most of us are ill. My teeth chatter and my body is both hot and cold. A storm more wicked never wailed about a ship. El-Hedyd calls it the shrieking voices of the hundred millions of Mehrikans who must have perished in similar weather.

16th June

It is many days since I have touched this journal. A hateful sickness has been upon me, destroying all energy and courage. A sort of fever, and yet my limbs were cold. I could not describe it if I would.

Nofuhl came into the cabin this evening with some of his metal plates and discoursed upon them. He has no respect for the intellects of the early Mehrikans. I thought for a moment I had caught him in a contradiction, but he was right as usual. It was thus:

Nofuhl: They were great readers.

Khan-li: You have told us they had no literature. Were they great readers of nothing?

Nofuhl: Verily, thou hast said it! Vast sheets of paper were published daily in which all crimes were recorded in detail. The more revolting the deed, the more minute the description. Horrors were their chief delight. Scandals were drunk in with thirstful eyes. These chronicles of crime and filth were issued by hundreds of thousands. There was hardly a family in the land but had one.

Khan-li: And did this take the place of literature?

Nofuhl: Even so.

20th June

Once more we are on the sea; two days from Nhu-Yok. Our decision was a sudden one. Nofuhl, in an evil moment, found among those accursed plates a map of the country, and thereupon was seized with an unreasoning desire to visit a town called “Washington.” I wavered and at last consented, foolishly I believe, for the crew are loud for Persia. And this town is inland on a river. He says it was their finest city, the seat of Government, the capital of the country. Til-lah swears he can find it if the map is truthful. Ja-khaz still eats by himself.

This afternoon we reclined upon the deck, the Zlotuhb drifting gently in a southerly direction. Land could be seen on the starboard bow, a faint strip along the western horizon.

It was about the middle of the afternoon, while passing the ruins of a gigantic tower—perhaps a lighthouse—that Nofuhl, of a sudden, clambered hastily to his feet and looked about him. Then he called to Til-lah, asking how many leagues we were from the harbor of Nhu-Yok. Til-lah’s reply I forget, but it filled the old man with a gentle excitement. I observed an unwonted sparkle in his eyes, also a quivering of the fingers as he pointed to the ocean around about, and exclaimed: “Beneath us, the bottom of the sea is covered with iron ships—the wrecks of stupendous navies—the mightiest of all human history!”

At once we all became interested.

“What navies?” I inquired. “And what compassed their destruction? Was it a battle?”

Nofuhl: A battle of whose magnitude no Persian has conception; a conflict in which the sea was tossed and the heavens rent by thunderings of iron monsters. Any one of them would have blown to atoms a fleet of Zlotuhbs.

El-pate: Verily! A tale easier told than believed. But I would readily venture my head in the Zlotuhb against any of these nursery-tale wonders.

Nofuhl: And with wisdom. For the loss of thy brain, El-pate, could not affect the nature of thy speech.

Whereupon there was laughter, and El-pate held his peace.

Khan-li: But tell us of this battle, O Nofuhl. I remember now to have read about it at college. These details of ancient history I am prone to forget. How came it about?

The wonders of wandering a lost city… And apocalyptic portent of wealth disparity.

⁓The Voice before the Void

The Last American

John Ames Mitchell

part 4

17th May

To-day a scorching heat that burns the lungs. We started in the morning prepared to spend the night ashore, and explore the northern end of the city. It was a pleasant walk through the soft grass of the shady streets, but in those places unsheltered from the sun we were as fish upon a frying-pan. Other dwellings we saw, even larger and more imposing than the one we entered yesterday. We were tempted to explore them, but El-Hedyd wisely dissuaded us, saying the day was waxing hotter each hour and it could be done on our return.

In the northern part of the town are many religious temples, with their tall towers like slender pyramids, tapering to a point. They are curious things, and surprisingly well preserved. The interiors of these temples are uninteresting. Nofuhl says the religious rites of the Mehrikans were devoid of character. There were many religious beliefs, all complicated and insignificant variations one from another, each sect having its own temples and refusing to believe as the others. This is amusing to a Persian, but mayhap was a serious matter with them. One day in each week they assembled, the priests reading long moral lectures written by themselves, with music by hired singers. They then separated, taking no thought of temple or priest for another seven days. Nofuhl says they were not a religious people. That the temples were filled mostly with women.

In the afternoon we found it necessary to traverse a vast pleasure-ground, now a wild forest, but with traces still visible of broad promenades and winding drive-ways. (Baldeh thinks this must be the Centralpahk sometimes alluded to in Mehrikan literature.) There remains an avenue of bronze statues, most of them yet upright and in good condition, but very comic. El-Hedyd and I still think them caricatures, but Nofuhl is positive they were serious efforts, and says the Mehrikans were easily pleased in matters of art.

We lost our way in this park, having nothing to guide us as in the streets of the city. This was most happy, as otherwise we should have missed a surprising discovery.

It occurred in this wise.

Being somewhat overcome by the heat we halted upon a little hill to rest ourselves. While reclining beneath the trees I noticed unusual carvings upon a huge block against which El-Hedyd was supporting his back. They were unlike any we had seen, and yet they were not unfamiliar. As I lay there gazing idly at them it flashed upon me they were Egyptian. We at once fell to examining the block, and found to our amazement an obelisk of Egyptian granite, covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics of an antiquity exceeding by thousands of years the most ancient monuments of the country!

Verily, we were puzzled!

“When did the Egyptians invade Mehrika?” quoth Ja-khaz, with a solemn look, as if trying to recall a date.

“No Egyptian ever heard of Mehrika,” said Nofuhl. “This obelisk was finished twenty centuries before the first Mehrikan was weaned. In all probability it was brought here as a curiosity, just as we take to Persia the bronze head of George-wash-yn-tun.”

We spent much time over the monument, and I think Nofuhl was disappointed that he could not bring it away with him. Also while in this park we came to a high tower, standing by itself, and climbed to the top, where we enjoyed a wide-spreading view.

The extent of the city is astounding.

Miles away in the river lay the Zlotuhb, a white speck on the water. All about us in every direction as far as sight can reach were ruins, and ruins, and ruins. Never was a more melancholy sight. The blue sky, the bright sunshine, the sweet-scented air with the gay flowers and singing birds only made it sadder.

Ghosts!

(Plus: 125-year-old criticism of American culture by an American writer sounds curiously familiar.)

⁓The Voice before the Void

The Last American

John Ames Mitchell

part 3

14th May

Hotter than yesterday.

In the afternoon we were rowed up the river and landed for a short walk. It is unsafe to brave the sun.

The more I learn of these Mehrikans the less interesting they become. Nofuhl is of much the same mind, judging from our conversation to-day, as we walked along together. It was in this wise:

Khan-li: How alike the houses! How monotonous!

Nofuhl: So, also, were the occupants. They thought alike, worked alike, ate, dressed and conversed alike. They read the same books; they fashioned their garments as directed, with no regard for the size or figure of the individual, and copied to a stitch the fashions of Europeans.

Khan-li: But the close-fitting apparel of the European must have been sadly uncomfortable in the heat of a Mehrikan summer.

Nofuhl: So probably it was. Stiff boxes of varying patterns adorned the heads of men. Curious jackets with tight sleeves compressed the body. The feet throbbed and burned in close-fitting casings of un-yielding leather, and linen made stiff by artificial means was drawn tightly about the neck.

Khan-li: Allah! What idiots!

Nofuhl: Even so are they considered.

Khan-Ii: To what quality of their minds do you attribute such love of needless suffering?

Nofuhl: It was their desire to be like others. A natural feeling in a vulgar people.

15th May

A fair wind from the West to-day. We weighed anchor and sailed up the Eastern side of the city. I did this as Nofuhl finds the upper portion of the town much richer in relics than the lower, which seems to have been given up to commercial purposes. We sailed close under one of the great monuments in the river, and are at a loss to divine its meaning. Many iron rods still dangle from the tops of each of the structures. As they are in a line, one with the other, we thought at first they might have been once connected and served as a bridge, but we soon saw they were too far apart.

Came to anchor about three miles from the old mooring. Up the river and down, North, South, East, and West, the ruins stretch away indefinitely, seemingly without end.

Am anxious about El-Hedyd. He went ashore and has not returned. It is now after midnight.

16th May

Praise Allah! My dear comrade is alive! This morning we landed early and began our search for him. As we passed before the building which bears the inscription

. . . DORF ASTORIA

upon its front, we heard his voice from within in answer to our calls. We entered, and after climbing the ruined stairway found him seated upon the floor above. He had a swollen leg from an ugly sprain, and various bruises were also his. While our friends were constructing a litter on which to bear him hence we conversed together. The walls about us bore traces of having once enclosed a hall of some beauty. In idling about I pulled open the decaying door of an old closet and saw upon the rotting shelves many pieces of glass and earthenware of fine workmanship. Taking one in my hand, a small wine-cup of glass, I approached my comrade calling his attention to its slender stem and curious form. As his eyes fell upon it they opened wide in amazement. I also observed a trembling of his hand as he reached forth to touch it. He then recounted to me his marvellous adventure of the night before, but saying before he began: “Thou knowest, O Prince, I am no believer in visions, and I should never tell the tale but for thy discovery of this cup. I drank from such an one last night, proffered by a ghostly hand.”

I would have smiled, but he was much in earnest. As I made a movement to sit beside him, he said: “Taste first, O my master,