Undine: Daughter of Calliope

And what of these nymphs?
Nereids lusting after
handsome and lonely travellers.
-- why beauty and charm
always lead to the spending
and bedazzling of
their victims: foolish men.

Taste of the semi-divine
flesh and ever-after
dissatisfied by the merely
terrestrial.
Living for a thousand years
or more, none can
escape the Sirens

& Aphrodite herself
tells her lover Anchises
that the mountain nymphs who mate
the sileni and Hermes
live as long as the oaks
and pines which spring up
at their birth

Poems and Sketches

Maelstrom:

Caught in the maelstrom

of scorn and ambivalence

in this river not forgotten;

drowning somewhat

amidst my own

'slipping away'.

Spiralling, twirling

dervishing down the drain

of infinite unknowing

disappearing, gagging

on humiliation and hubris

my love is a Scylla

burried in the tallest

cliff: enchanting and

monstrous, my mind

Charybdis.

Omphalos:

So what if we navel gaze?

Perhaps the navel we gaze at

is the very navel of the earth:

consciousness itself

in the empty hollow

of a luminous disc of Jade.

Perhaps it is the sky:

a portal to an

atemporal, aspatial

realm of infinite

synchronistic possibility?

A window into eternity?

Omphalos at Delphi;

the land that is nowhere.

A womb in the sky

Opening out into

the most magnificent

death.

Echidna:

What is repulsive and terrifying

yet attractive and necessary?

Echidna 'beautiful-cheeked

and bright-eyed.

Yet terrible and devouring

in her snake-like aspect.

Thrashing about in the hollows

far from the gods and men:

a dwelling of immortal design --

Arima they called it

in days of old:

the couch of Typhoeus

her husband.

No wings in sight

Echidna and Typhoeus 

begat Cerberos hounds

of the underworld 

and Orthos hounds 

who fathered in incest

the Sphinx. 

Echidna bore also

the Lion of Nemea,

the Hydra of Lerma and

the fire-spitting Chimaira:

Lion, goat and serpent

all in one.

Hundred-eyed Argos

killed her in her sleep

but she is yet an ageless

and immortal nymph.

Her brother Ladon

guarded the Tree with 

the Golden Apples in

The Garden of the Hesperides.

In the hollows of Night

west of Oceanus, Ladon

& the Daughters of Night:

Evening Star, Night that

harbours Golden fruit.

Vespertinal, luminous

Crimson springs

Soft-radiance,

star brilliant, 

health and order 

snatched in a 

gust of the wind

like a Harpy or

bright-voiced Siren

playing double flute at dusk,

enticing secret rites

from the Night

Everyone needs therapy: I love facebook

Passage from my Ph.D

Not persons then, but actual parts of our minds are what Jung finds symbolised in the figures of myth, and the development of the mythic hero from birth through to adolescence symbolises the development of ego-consciousness and the differentiation/individuation of oneself from the external world. The hero's adulthood and death then, would symbolise the emergence of the Self as a product of the ego's return to and reintegration with the unconscious. As a symbol of the unconscious, the hero (or demon) also symbolises the libido, which we must remember for Jung, is neutral energy and not only the exlusively (and obvious) sexual or aggressive libido of Freudian psychoanalysis. Jung says that the hero is typically a wanderer, and “wandering is a symbol of longing, of the restless urge which never finds its object, of nostalgia for the lost mother.” (Jung, 1956, CW 5, 'The Origin of the Hero', par. 299) The joys and sorrows of wandering heroes compare well to the wandering of the sun with its zenith and nadir, and from this connection [the Freudians] concluded that the myth of the hero is a solar myth. Leaving this astro-metereological symbolism behind, Jung's psychological interpretation sees the hero as “a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness...[which is] continually in danger of being led astray by its own light and of becoming a rootless will o' the wisp.” (Ibid.) The hero/libido longs for “the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms.” (Ibid.)

Mephisto: This lofty mystery I must now unfold.

Goddesses throned in solitude, sublime,

Set in no place, still less in any time, [atemporal, a spatial]

At the mere thought of them my blood runs cold.

They are the Mothers!

…

Goddesses, unknown to mortal mind,

And named indeed with dread among our kind.

To reach them you must plumb earth's deepest vault; [unconscious]

That we have need of them is your fault. [man]

Faust: Where leads the way?

Mephisto: There's none! To the untrodden,

Untreadable regions – the unforgotten [repressed]

And unforgettable—for which prepare!

There are no bolts, no hatches to be lifted,

Through endless solitudes you shall be drifted.

Can you imagine Nothing everywhere?

…

Supposing you had swum across the ocean

And gazed upon the immensity of space,

Still you would see wave after wave in motion,

And even though you feared the world should cease,

You'd still see something—in the limpid green

Of the calm deep are gliding dolphins seen,

The flying clouds above, sun, moon, star.

But blank is that eternal Void afar.

You do not hear your footfall, and you meet

No solid ground on which to set your feet.

…

Here, take this key.

…

The key will smell the right place from all others:

Follow it down, it leads you to the Mother.

…

The to the depths!--I could as well say height:

Its all the same. From the Existent fleeing,

Take the free world of forms for your delight,

Rejoice in things that long have ceased from being.

The busy brood will weave like coiling cloud,

But swing your key to keep away the crowd!

…

A fiery tripod warns you to beware,

This is the nethermost place where now you are.

You shall behold the Mothers by its light,

Some of them sit, some walk, some stand upright,

Just as they please. Formation, transformation,

Eternal blind's eternal recreation.

Thronged round with images of things to be,

They see you not, shadows are all they see.

They pluck up heart, the danger here is great,

Approach the tripod, do not hesitate,

And touch it with the key. 

[trans. MacNeice, pp. 175Ff, & Wayne, part II, pp. 76ff)

A Strew of Poems

I

Angry at myself
but angrier
at the one
I blame
for being
angry at myself!

The charade
of owning
your feelings
never seems
to be quite
convincing

At least not
to oneself --
Although even
that is not
a certainty
for everybody

II

I suppose I have Ginsberg to thank
for my 'poetic' freedom
but 'Howl' is not my poetry
& it wasn't his either.
It was poetry
and it had definite
literary value
(over and above
all the celebrity worship
of sycophants
wetting themselves
at the thought
of being part of history)

But what history?
Not even their own.
T'was published
thus it joined the ranks of
this corpus we call
literature.
Whether I like it;
all of it
or just small
genius portions of it
is really neither
here nor there
I simply object to the claim

that winning a court case
bestows more value
upon a work
than it necessarily
would have had
otherwise.
To me value
is not synonymous
with notoriety
or the size of one's fan base:
Value is something
that only history
can tell.

III

"I need pain for my art
thus I create my pain.
Times I need complete destruction
utter oblivion
enmity."

...then I think I've gone too far
in my manner of speech:
Can -- utter banality
total emptiness
& a desperate
all-consuming
lust for novelty;
for longing
& in some ways
for rejection
humiliation
not to mention
those 'bitter pangs
of despised love'
as Hamlet woes;
and not least
the humbling
effects of embarrassment --
really lead to this
devastation I am seeking?
This 'oblivion'?
This enmity?

Is it really so annihilating?

If not, is there any in seeking it?

IV

The secret remedy
to all life's woes
is far to splendid
as it goes,
to speak of as if
one thinks one knows


...there is a bower
of restful sleep
that delimits the wolfs
from the sheep,
the treasure here
is yours to keep


should you promise
you'll take this risk
of discovering joy
in the woe and the bliss
you are the carrier of evil
and God gave you fists


So fight for your freedom
& self-determination
Give in to your impulses:
"pas sans considération
pour la chaîne de la prétention 
démesurée qui hantera 
votre individu-malédiction


and please don't think me
a religious man;
just a poet, one that's
lost his wings
who wants to fly
where no-one else can.

">