Emerged from the underworld
I am different
I once touched the mythologies of centuries
I now know nothing
What was extraordinary
Is now ordinary
Red earth under my finger nails
The sky tingles in my bones
I sleep without memory
I await dreams
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Journey Home
CHRISTMAS, 2008
I stand before the sea
Where fish, pregnant with eggs,
Spawn a new epoch.
My breast presses on the ground of kings
Bringing
Strength to my knees
I stand upon the mesa,
Body sweating the salt of queens
I am ready
My memories spring
From desert stones
Singing
Where fish, pregnant with eggs,
Spawn a new epoch.
My breast presses on the ground of kings
Bringing
Strength to my knees
I stand upon the mesa,
Body sweating the salt of queens
I am ready
My memories spring
From desert stones
Singing
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Poet Speaks
CHRISTMAS EVE, 2008
Turtle Back Mountain
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NM
All I want for Christmas
Is my muse
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Marianne speaks
I have had my refurbishing. The world we are living in is changing rapidly. I don't have much more to say. I guess at the end of it, some will cultivate their gardens. I will sweep the floor.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
I am Marianne
Having been found in an abandoned garden last month (I was exposed to the elements for 7 years), I am now being cleaned up and refurbished. It feels good to be home. I feel like singing from La Chanson.
I am! Marianne du Lac, then and now
And within this shimmering spectrum of our circle,
This roundbodied forum, I preside.
Here!
We celebrate the first of our catharses
That began in the crèche of La Calmette
Now!
We feel the release, the hope that
As the Age doth change, we shall be heard.
In that relief our eyes do merge
As One;
One eye panning the wide skies
From this cervical window, sparkling.
Look!
The heavens are crackling with stars pure and new,
Sunrises of one thousand blues,
Watercolored prisms of yellows and golds
That hold, at last, our firmament by day,
I say:
I am filled with a beginner's awe
From all this other world that is our temple
And our home.
I say:
From here I help the priestesses, my sisters,
Find the humanfriend companions of their own
Who, like Pamé are struggling on that aching globe –
O beauteous Earth!
O lost and helpless paradise!
Your children of living flesh and feelings
Are fearful as the Age doth change.
O reckless, quaking time!
O mournful hearts! O apocalyptic orb!
Spitting out the fumes of greed and hate;
Splitting ground, choking atmosphere, Dear MotherGod!
Tell us it is not too late...
As some of these - your children –
Live only to survive
Another test of consciousness
Searching for the something –
For You
For Him
For the Holybreath
To suffuse them with a reason for existence.
O Love!
We are the Guides!
Love!
This is our mission!
Dear human friends, remember us,
Remember and receive us
Through your softening volition.
And within this shimmering spectrum of our circle,
This roundbodied forum, I preside.
Here!
We celebrate the first of our catharses
That began in the crèche of La Calmette
Now!
We feel the release, the hope that
As the Age doth change, we shall be heard.
In that relief our eyes do merge
As One;
One eye panning the wide skies
From this cervical window, sparkling.
Look!
The heavens are crackling with stars pure and new,
Sunrises of one thousand blues,
Watercolored prisms of yellows and golds
That hold, at last, our firmament by day,
I say:
I am filled with a beginner's awe
From all this other world that is our temple
And our home.
I say:
From here I help the priestesses, my sisters,
Find the humanfriend companions of their own
Who, like Pamé are struggling on that aching globe –
O beauteous Earth!
O lost and helpless paradise!
Your children of living flesh and feelings
Are fearful as the Age doth change.
O reckless, quaking time!
O mournful hearts! O apocalyptic orb!
Spitting out the fumes of greed and hate;
Splitting ground, choking atmosphere, Dear MotherGod!
Tell us it is not too late...
As some of these - your children –
Live only to survive
Another test of consciousness
Searching for the something –
For You
For Him
For the Holybreath
To suffuse them with a reason for existence.
O Love!
We are the Guides!
Love!
This is our mission!
Dear human friends, remember us,
Remember and receive us
Through your softening volition.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Marianne Commentaries
Endings are upon us. A young woman dearly loved died October 8. A cavehouse in the Pyrenees began demolition today. The angry poodle next door, after 14 years of relentless yapping, is dying. Twelve false apostles and their leader emerged from the woods. The Earth has lost her virginity. Sources of income are ruined by the fall of the moneygods.
Home, hearth, community are evaporating. Clutching fear hardens the human heart. Grasping fear reaches for a disintegrating politics. Dreams dissolve. Prophecies— powerless and unredeeming—cease.
Behind a curtain unknown,
Invisible, unready,
A beginning waits.
Home, hearth, community are evaporating. Clutching fear hardens the human heart. Grasping fear reaches for a disintegrating politics. Dreams dissolve. Prophecies— powerless and unredeeming—cease.
Behind a curtain unknown,
Invisible, unready,
A beginning waits.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Second Dialogue with Publisher
AUTUMN EQUINOX
Questioner: Thanks for meeting with me again.
Marianne: My pleasure.
Q: Rumor has it you performed a ritual in the woods September 22, the autumn equinox? And it had something to do with the novel, Peasants and Poets?
M: Yes, The idea of burying the story of 2000 years of metempsychosis in a hidden hamlet in the Pyrenees was born years ago when reading the first pages of I Claudius. It was the reason we returned to the forests of the Pyrenees.
Q: Do you mean to say you buried a book?
M: Yes, with the hope, albeit a metaphor, that the story might be unearthed in another 2000 years.
Q: This may return us to your bizarre conceptions of publishing.
M: Of course! Burying the legend of the last peasants and poets in the circle of stones in the woods—the central motif of the novel—for a readership in the distant future, is the way of targeting our market.
Q: Uhh…target-marketing projecting 2000 years from now?
M: Because in that time, and perhaps it might be unearthed 300 years from now, or 1000 years from now, we foresee a historic value in the story of the last death pangs of the European peasant culture. We also believe at that time there will be a genuine curiosity about how and by whom the first poem was written. We consider this a revelation—that the poetic impulse began in the forest-universities of ancient Ireland.
Q: I can see why there is not a collective interest in these themes at present.
M: Well, we sincerely hope that the soul of posterity shall have a need for mythmaking, scholarship, and reflection on the vast philosophical, mythological, and poetical memory. As it applies to Self, I might add. That is to say, no matter how our current technological culture may avoid it, the history of civilization exists within each individual and, therefore, the collective unconscious. So yes, of course, we published an edition of one for posterity yesterday. All for one, one for all!
Q: May I ask what your packaging techniques were?
M: We shrouded the book with many layers of materials – contemporary bubble wrap, then aluminum foil; all this swathed in an ancient cloth, then into an antique tin box sealed with super glue. We buried it deeply between the roots, rocks and the decomposing bones of the forest creatures. It is up to the earth now how well the packaging works.
Questioner: Thanks for meeting with me again.
Marianne: My pleasure.
Q: Rumor has it you performed a ritual in the woods September 22, the autumn equinox? And it had something to do with the novel, Peasants and Poets?
M: Yes, The idea of burying the story of 2000 years of metempsychosis in a hidden hamlet in the Pyrenees was born years ago when reading the first pages of I Claudius. It was the reason we returned to the forests of the Pyrenees.
Q: Do you mean to say you buried a book?
M: Yes, with the hope, albeit a metaphor, that the story might be unearthed in another 2000 years.
Q: This may return us to your bizarre conceptions of publishing.
M: Of course! Burying the legend of the last peasants and poets in the circle of stones in the woods—the central motif of the novel—for a readership in the distant future, is the way of targeting our market.
Q: Uhh…target-marketing projecting 2000 years from now?
M: Because in that time, and perhaps it might be unearthed 300 years from now, or 1000 years from now, we foresee a historic value in the story of the last death pangs of the European peasant culture. We also believe at that time there will be a genuine curiosity about how and by whom the first poem was written. We consider this a revelation—that the poetic impulse began in the forest-universities of ancient Ireland.
Q: I can see why there is not a collective interest in these themes at present.
M: Well, we sincerely hope that the soul of posterity shall have a need for mythmaking, scholarship, and reflection on the vast philosophical, mythological, and poetical memory. As it applies to Self, I might add. That is to say, no matter how our current technological culture may avoid it, the history of civilization exists within each individual and, therefore, the collective unconscious. So yes, of course, we published an edition of one for posterity yesterday. All for one, one for all!
Q: May I ask what your packaging techniques were?
M: We shrouded the book with many layers of materials – contemporary bubble wrap, then aluminum foil; all this swathed in an ancient cloth, then into an antique tin box sealed with super glue. We buried it deeply between the roots, rocks and the decomposing bones of the forest creatures. It is up to the earth now how well the packaging works.
Q: I have to say, coming from the perspective of an intensely savvy technological world, this seems, well…weird.
M: No weirder than the changes we have observed in this hamlet—microcosmic of the world, needless to say. It is all in the book. We didn’t think we would be returning, but we knew the ritual had to be performed. An epilogue, per se.
Q: I noticed that the novel ends at summer solstice, 2007— and that there is no epilogue to the story.
M: The last eight months here has been the living epilogue to Peasants and Poets, consummated by the Equinox ritual.
Q: So what did you experience during this 8-month Epilogue?
M: It is still in progress. We only performed the ritual a few days ago, more will be revealed in the next few months. I will say, however, that the peasants have sold all their properties now. I counted 13 cars in the square this weekend. In fact, the ritual yesterday was a sad one.
Q: What do you mean by that?
M: It consummated the end of one way of life here and symbolized the surrender of that life into the earth. I mean, while digging the burial pit, one felt that the ruination of the old ways and the land had come, even to paradise. And it is sad to find ones self in the reality of a ruin.
Q: I guess that brings us full circle to the photo of the location of Marianne Press?
M: Yes, and we will press forward from the ruin. We have come to learn that life is paradox – light comes from darkness. Dark and light must exist together to be alive. So, though a ruin may signify death by marauders, siege, or fire--or even the cruelty of Nature’s erosion--the end is really a beginning. Light will emerge from darkness. There is a poem contained in Gospel of the Cells that we believe expresses the nature of change–its grief and its hope.
Q: I am curious to your allusions of we. Who are the others?
M: I am afraid we will have to reserve that answer for another interview.
Q: Then, may I ask, who is the poet of your very small press?
M: The answer to that lives in the written words, though she receives inspiration from me.
Q: I don’t understand…
M: I’d like to leave it at that. Or this:
M: No weirder than the changes we have observed in this hamlet—microcosmic of the world, needless to say. It is all in the book. We didn’t think we would be returning, but we knew the ritual had to be performed. An epilogue, per se.
Q: I noticed that the novel ends at summer solstice, 2007— and that there is no epilogue to the story.
M: The last eight months here has been the living epilogue to Peasants and Poets, consummated by the Equinox ritual.
Q: So what did you experience during this 8-month Epilogue?
M: It is still in progress. We only performed the ritual a few days ago, more will be revealed in the next few months. I will say, however, that the peasants have sold all their properties now. I counted 13 cars in the square this weekend. In fact, the ritual yesterday was a sad one.
Q: What do you mean by that?
M: It consummated the end of one way of life here and symbolized the surrender of that life into the earth. I mean, while digging the burial pit, one felt that the ruination of the old ways and the land had come, even to paradise. And it is sad to find ones self in the reality of a ruin.
Q: I guess that brings us full circle to the photo of the location of Marianne Press?
M: Yes, and we will press forward from the ruin. We have come to learn that life is paradox – light comes from darkness. Dark and light must exist together to be alive. So, though a ruin may signify death by marauders, siege, or fire--or even the cruelty of Nature’s erosion--the end is really a beginning. Light will emerge from darkness. There is a poem contained in Gospel of the Cells that we believe expresses the nature of change–its grief and its hope.
Q: I am curious to your allusions of we. Who are the others?
M: I am afraid we will have to reserve that answer for another interview.
Q: Then, may I ask, who is the poet of your very small press?
M: The answer to that lives in the written words, though she receives inspiration from me.
Q: I don’t understand…
M: I’d like to leave it at that. Or this:
From Gospel of the Cells, page 97
De Profundis
1
Burning temples
Blackened sky
Windless channels cauterized
Smoked out churches
Leaden sea
Clouds of tarnished filigree
Molten organs
Chilled to dust
Broken heart
Dried to rust
What aftermath of losing trust?
2
The goddesses have wrung their hands
In endless grief upon old shores
And weep adieu to goddesslands
That harbored once their holy core
Fallen lungs and swollen eyes
When all the senses realize
That Death will hear no ifs or buts
While tearing down her holy hut
3
A woman tried to find her way
But only found her feet of clay
The journey left her mute and blind
As all she sought she could not find
The guides called to her sooted cells
They tried to reach her stagnant well
And all the signs they threw her way
Were lost between the pendulum’s sway
A single theme once to her sent
Upon the storms of discontent
But hunger bent its sharpened tool
And never fed the holy fool
The sea is lead
The harbor’s dead
The sky into the gray is jailed
And stillness rang: you failed.
What is madness
But inverted fate?
And what wordless sorrow
When the child is born too late?
Hecuba mourns her infant’s death
The Goddess rents her bleeding breast
The golden city is no more
Devoured in the flames war
But
Swallowed gardens
Will digest
For Paradise
To manifest.
De Profundis
1
Burning temples
Blackened sky
Windless channels cauterized
Smoked out churches
Leaden sea
Clouds of tarnished filigree
Molten organs
Chilled to dust
Broken heart
Dried to rust
What aftermath of losing trust?
2
The goddesses have wrung their hands
In endless grief upon old shores
And weep adieu to goddesslands
That harbored once their holy core
Fallen lungs and swollen eyes
When all the senses realize
That Death will hear no ifs or buts
While tearing down her holy hut
3
A woman tried to find her way
But only found her feet of clay
The journey left her mute and blind
As all she sought she could not find
The guides called to her sooted cells
They tried to reach her stagnant well
And all the signs they threw her way
Were lost between the pendulum’s sway
A single theme once to her sent
Upon the storms of discontent
But hunger bent its sharpened tool
And never fed the holy fool
The sea is lead
The harbor’s dead
The sky into the gray is jailed
And stillness rang: you failed.
What is madness
But inverted fate?
And what wordless sorrow
When the child is born too late?
Hecuba mourns her infant’s death
The Goddess rents her bleeding breast
The golden city is no more
Devoured in the flames war
But
Swallowed gardens
Will digest
For Paradise
To manifest.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
From LA CHANSON DE PAMÉ LA CALMETTE, pp 97-99
Postscript
September 11, 2001
Old man OneEye said,
“The wars have come.”
And they have come.
The world’s towers fell
Hell
Useless Retaliation;
NoWin, NoDefeat.
Incinerating human flesh,
HorrificDemonTerrorist.
The world will never be the same
Our innerworlds
Will never be
The same.
And grief beheld the world’s remains
Compressed to the core.Human missiles struck the towers.
Then,
Blazing pyres.
O say did you see
Showering souls
Ascending?
O say did you hear
The Soul’s refrain,
Reminding us to remember?
I remember
The seed.
I remember
The acorn.
I remember
The planting
At the DeerSeer’s command
In the altar-in-the-woods
Within the mossy sphere of stones
In our ancestral land;
In what is now the Dream
Of the goddesslands.
And
The Tree
Stands.
Old man OneEye said,
“The wars have come.”
And they have come.
The world’s towers fell
Hell
Useless Retaliation;
NoWin, NoDefeat.
Incinerating human flesh,
HorrificDemonTerrorist.
The world will never be the same
Our innerworlds
Will never be
The same.
And grief beheld the world’s remains
Compressed to the core.Human missiles struck the towers.
Then,
Blazing pyres.
O say did you see
Showering souls
Ascending?
O say did you hear
The Soul’s refrain,
Reminding us to remember?
I remember
The seed.
I remember
The acorn.
I remember
The planting
At the DeerSeer’s command
In the altar-in-the-woods
Within the mossy sphere of stones
In our ancestral land;
In what is now the Dream
Of the goddesslands.
And
The Tree
Stands.
He is NewMan
Born from dust
Rising from rubble zero.
Do you know something of HisTower
Golden sunspun
Reaching to HerWomb?
Beyond
Born from dust
Rising from rubble zero.
Do you know something of HisTower
Golden sunspun
Reaching to HerWomb?
Beyond
The seven gates
Eternity
Yields the key.
Eternity
Yields the key.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Dialogue with the Publisher
Questioner: What exactly do you mean by your slogan?
Marianne: We mean to gather individual voices who are excavating their riches from the past and present, who are forging their individual images that will take us into a new story.
Q: Your headline implies you are a press for publications?
M: We have published a few very small editions.
Q: With a small readership?
M: Very small.
Q: Why So?
M: The market for what we have to say does not yet exist. We are not commercially viable. We predict a wider readership in 25-1500 years.
Q: You are kidding…
M: No, our predictions point to a renaissance in poetry and mythological quest coming out of the ruins. But this will require a great change in the world.
Q: Does this have something to do with your location?
M: Yes. Here is the castle ruin where 250 creative heretics were burned at the stake 750 years ago.
Q: Do you consider Marianne Press heretical?
M. If that means breaking away from convention and pressing into a whole new way of creative imagining, into a new living myth, then, yes. Our location is a metaphor.
Q: A ruin?
M: This is where it begins.
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