HOLY ROLLER.
I was on the island of Malta when I realized
I was in a type-scene and the snakes
couldn’t hurt a holy roller.
A righteous man has a satisfied mind
and a protected existence—
whether or not the second part is true
the first is a lesson I learn and relearn.
Think, speak, and act
with reverence and loving-kindness.
In all things ask, “What does love require?”
Everything else will sort out,
sleep comes easy, joy is abundant
and the venom of a vitriolic
culture bears no ill effect.
ISHTAR.
After days of being driven in the desert sun
like livestock but with cruelty—
hook in nose, whip to back,
no falling behind
we arrive at our fabled destination
and I think no thoughts of my own.
I cannot…
because the gate is designed
to make up my mind.
She is blue like the sea
and squirming with monsters
she belongs to Ishtar, trampler of lions,
the warrior goddess
who does take prisoners
lots of them, lots of us,
our lot has been cast
to enter her house, her city, her keep
her womb—and be reborn in her image.
It looms tall and stands out
from the mud brick city
as a warning of hollowed, deathly hollows
to those who will not kiss her signet ring—
see the dragon, the lion, the bull,
and sense fertility, love, sex, war, frenzy.
Amalgamate! or seal your fate
as a suffering servant.
After days of being driven in the desert sun
like a way to make a dollar but with cruelty
billboard, web funnel,
attention traded for soul—
we arrive at our ancient lamentation
and I think no thoughts of my own.
I cannot…
because the gate is burned
in my mind across time.
I’ve seen her before,
step down from her lions’ back
and swallow a culture whole for a snack—
while blood drips
down her supermodel chin
she stares you dead in the soul and grins
at a people who long ago
lost the word “sin”
and crafted gods of ourselves
and cannot begin
to understand the danger of her city.
Ishtar… whispers her bed
is not far from the crowds
and when she takes you there,
she devours—
eats you alive and left
with glazed dead eyes
breathing but some other thing
lives inside your skin
and you are looking for
a next product or purchase.
Assimilate or feel
the full weight of empire’s
ability to bleed you out without pity.
And worse, this generation thinks
the flood is a myth
and Ishtar’s gate is full
of corporation and brands
or Amazon orders
you don’t remember placing.
all while tsunami bombs
fall on stretches of beach,
that would be picturesque
save for our overreach—
and we are still haunted
by ancient waters.
Because it’s no longer about a warrior’s code.
You claim your kleos
in an entirely different mode—
it’s the brand on your fleece,
it’s the new lease
barely afforded it
so that at Friday night lights
you’re in that car in plain sight—
it’s subtle. so we carry on
but it is a whole lot harder
to leave Babylon.
10TH MUSE.
Old Boeotia gave us nine Muses,
to inspire story, science, and art.
But the tenth Muse is Pain
and no one talks about the gain
that springs forth from a broken heart,
after the one essential ingredient
has been mixed in
with ambition and ability
and stirred around
with anxiety and fragility.
That’s right. The tenth Muse is Pain
and while Odysseus voyaged
she gave away his wife,
and before Achilles ran with he moon
she slayed Patroclus with a knife.
While Oedipus the King was blind
she gave the one-eyed
prophet sight
all to orchestrate the kind of sheer misery
that could give poets
their sacred right.
She lives on; past hero and Homeric verse
to slide Edger Allen
another drink at the bar
and remind him inevitable death is near
and to send thoughts to push Emily
to a heart that beats blood and fear.
Oh and she took Vincent’s ear,
because his art required worldly scorn—
she watched them all suffer
so that starry nights might be born.
But don’t think she ever held compassion
watching tragedy
overtake their passion—
that is up to the artist
to sense the presence
of the goddess,
the never-named
tenth Muse and use
her cruelties as clay,
her addictions as paint
her wicked ways as words on a page
and make beauty out of the rage.
ARENA.
What has the gladiator
to do with the commoner?
The one who
has never fought in the arena
cannot tell you one, single thing
about how to be a gladiator.
The criticism of the spectator
is one of many things underfoot,
as you contest with and embody
your great purpose in the world.
What has the artist to do with the critic?
The one who
has never painted colors unseen
or told stories never heard—
has nothing to say to a creator god.
Is this too bold or too much
to claim inspiration and sacred writ?
All I know is most people
settle for bread and circus
while gladiators win tripods and freedom
and artists re-create the House of the World.
ONLY DREAMERS DREAM.
They will envy your coat
and spurn your visions,
throw you in a pit
and tell everyone you’re dead,
sell you into slavery to Egypt or Enron,
and tell the entire world
that yours is a tragic story.
Alright.
They will accuse you
of things you never did,
dissappear you into prison
because of your low social station,
forget you even after
you have bandaged their soul,
and leave you even longer still
in the dank and dark…
But only dreamers dream.
Only dreamers dream,
and the colors you see
they cannot and never will.
You are a wizard
in a muggle world
and your art will save your soul
and heal the broken
whether you are in the coat or in the pit,
whether you are enslaved or free,
whether you stand accused or on trial,
whether you work
in just a beam of prison light:
your story is not tragic.
It is actually one of few
that really matter.
And only dreamers dream.
AMOR FATI.
“Love the hand that fate deals you,
and play it as your own.”
How often do we try to rewrite stars
or attempt to claim a different zone?
The philosopher King explains
a Stoic notion of Amor Fati.
You should love fate;
make friends with destiny.
The big idea is this: Do not be remiss
when things do not seem to turn your way,
instead call upon the inner wisdom to say,
“this is the path written for me to walk.
Be it rising to emperor or outlined in chalk,
I will be a lover of my lives
and a person who strives
and who does not fear ekpyrosis.”
This does not mean we fail to write stars.
Not for a second do we cease to strive.
The fabric our lives are cosmically woven
And so in an age drinking magical potion,
Aurelius has a more powerful gnosis:
Trust that all is for the best.
For we carry our fate with us—
and it carries us.
Your stars will do the rest.
Wherever you find them, traveller.
TRIPPLE RIPPLE.
If you study or speak
of gods and humankind
with one of the old world faiths in mind
the driving conception
of reality is triple-ripple:
heaven on top, earth in the middle,
nether-gloom below. And we’re on a yo-yo.
And so, the gods come down
and go back up,
we go down if we are bad
and up if we’re up to snuff.
The cosmology is three-tiered,
and to be feared
if you find yourself needing
to get a deity to come down,
your sick child
keeps getting the divine thumbs-down,
if you want to know your maker
but cannot pierce the veil
or can’t get an honest prayer
through ceiling mail,
or even worse,
find yourself cursed to head below
to Sheol, Hades, Tarturus, or it just follows
you are probably not going up
once in the ground…
Here’s what I have found
in my seeking: When speaking
of God as a modern,
triple ripple is no longer
my favorite flavor
of cosmic ice cream.
Too vanilla—no thrilla.
Because we’ve been to space in rockets.
There are no beings
going up and down ladders,
or pockets of space like the heavens,
just matter elegantly exploded
and deep-space precision
with many more
divinely made layers than three,
and many more luminaries to see,
so my decision
has been to name God
better, bigger, and wilder
with no fear of up or down,
and with milder levels of determinacy.
Between you and me,
a sacred text can show you
how people named divinity in history,
but it cannot see how
nomenclature necessarily
will adjust as mystery unfolds
with nature and so let it be—
The entire universe is evolving—
so is your holy language.
Ready or not,
I am naming a God of the galaxies now
and yet I am pretty sure
that being is somehow…
with me and in me and for me
and adores me
and made this entire firework celebration
stretched eternally
outside of the third-rock station
because she
loves kids and wonders if we
could grow up
into something more elegant
and brilliant and composite
of the stardust in our veins
and the dirt from the ground
that resembles the largest
prowess and goodness
matched with an ought to
and a should-ness
that would make
a good and wise parent so proud.
So be wary of divine conceptions
stuck. in. time.
and make sure to look at reality
with a spine… and it’s best
that you always tell the truth,
and say it with your chest.
ATREYU.
Your assertion of ultimate meaninglessness
and materialism is a cold, dark vacuum—
believe me I’ve felt it…
gripping me like Atreyu,
creeping across Fantastica,
drowning my horse.
I loved that goddamned horse.
Of course.
We all wonder about purpose
and about Source,
Many friends I love can find no recourse.
And so—I hear what you’re saying,
believe me I feel ya,
but Listen.
Xenophon says in his Memorabilia:
The soul is that which in us
participates in the divine
and that which in us rules.
X marks the spot on
two key points he espouses:
One. We have a means
to join the divine
in the ongoing creation
of the House of the world—
you rhyme your Maker
when you create
what is טוב מאוד.
And two.
Your house is an abode
that matches an essence
beyond space and time;
and holds awareness
of day to day and the Milky Way—
it’s the soul that the the body houses.
Do not give up
when the black void thunders,
the beginning of divine knowledge
is wonder.
ATLANTIS.
When I first started time traveling
no one even knew.
I would pick up a book at the TSU
library and dive scary deep into ancient ruins.
I was searching for Atlantis. …Classic.
Something grew in
me that desired ancient answers
to modern catastrophe,
or at least a comparison
to the 21st century atrophy
that I saw all around me:
everyone was a drunk astronaut.
“Houston, we’ve lost the wonder
of floating through space.”
Just send us
all the supernova pictures you’ve got
and shots of the big five
African land animals in case
they are extinct
and we can no longer observe
in fifty years or so,
since we are disinterested to curve
our consumption assumption
and seem on a mission
to laugh in the face
of our goldilocks condition—
we turned up the marketing
and turned down the magic.
We are just close enough
and far enough away from a star
where a more humble Icarus
could actually fly on par
with gods and way above mortals,
but he’s too close
and we are too verbose
to read literary parallels
or worry that hell
is not an afterlife;
it is what we create
when we prize
profit over people and making sales
over majestic whales
and short term shine over time.
I was time traveling
to learn something that could save us
and Atlantis was just one place
to start to frame us
because she was
a lost, ruined civilization
of mythic greatness—
she flew above her station
only to have her opulence
swallowed by the sea.
Even by the time of Plato
she was so buried beneath the waves
and the myth and the wearied
remembrances of her lore.
Because it was just too tragic. Do you know what we could actually create here?
I am one of the few
still focused on my creator. It’s clear
to me our primary purpose is be mini-makers
who keep the House of the World beautiful.
Any takers?
The slow growth
from garden to divine metropolis
isn’t a metaphor and it is.
As are primeval floodwaters, so
there’s at least a ghost
of a chance of another rainbow.
“Houston, we’ve lost the nobility
of the human race.”
We can be so evil
that coasts displace continents
and we reach towards
silent but starry firmament…
because the gods watched
from their mountain
when she was overtaken,
and were content when
screams went up from the punishment,
of overreach
and now Atlantis gold
might wash up on the beach…
but you will not find many students
of the Classics.
SPACE THEY CANNOT TOUCH.
Within you is a weak part of the soul
that can be bought for a price
and a strong part of the soul
that can never be bribed or compromised.
The strong part of your soul is defiant
but needs to be resilient
if you want to know yourself
(and like yourself) out of genuine integrity.
Buy the more expensive grain for the camel
who needs to caravan a long ways.
Invest in time, meditation, and nourishment
for the virtuous soul who needs
to live a long and virtuous life.
This is the space they cannot touch
with ads, or interest rates, or promises
of how you will look wearing this or driving that
or living here or traveling there.
It is the higher soul,
that touches the face of God
and it has been within you all along.
ON MY WAY TO HELL.
I was taught to grow up
and save the world,
but I can’t save myself
from where the world is headed.
Call up my therapist,
tell him I’ve got the gist,
what’s under the hood—
I finally said it.
The reduce, reuse, recycle
band-aid on my heart
cannot stop the blood flow of a gash
clear across a chamber
and if I were to start
turning in every bottle,
they would just stash
them all on a boat
to China on the sneak
and smoke them into the sky
as they watch the field burn
or shove them into the ground
in an undoable soil-churn
or toss them into the smog-dark sea,
with no plan to rescue me…
or any of you.
Monsters snatch without even a peak
at consequences long term,
a desire vampire draining your blood blue,
just so long as Captain Crusader,
Corporate at Vanguard
saw shares remain steady,
listening to Regulators.
Warren G and Buffet alike are heady,
neither needs a calculator,
to do the math, that the plan’s marred
with layers of problems
and capitalist killers
somehow overhunting the population
that has an overpopulation problem.
Christ.
…would look at this mess,
and look into my eyes
full of grace and truth.
Grace: You did what you could
and I know you
wanted to save the world kid.
Truth: This is a mission impossible bid
for greedy men
who don’t want it to be saved.
They want to crucify it, string it up
in front of every poor person
in the street to say, “What’s up?”
So they only meet
people without hope who pay.
They want what they
have marketed to the younger
generation more than a world
without hunger and potable water,
and so, sorry my son,
I know how this story looks when its done,
and without repentance
there’s no redemption,
at least in the holy book
where I’m coming from.
And so Jesus and I drink a cold one
and stare off into the setting sun
of everyone who ever found themselves
stuck in spaghetti-western-shit-show
that ends in tragedy.
Just him and me,
and ever so quietly,
it saved me,
to have such a true friend
on my way to hell.
ZIGGURAT.
Ziggurat?
No thanks I’m trying to quit.
Are you sure?
It’s a massive achievement
of ancient architecture—
and you could fill a four hour lecture
with the ingenuity
and improbability that Sir Wooley
uncovered when he brought a team
from Britain to fully
excavate this great monument
to the goddess of the moon.
He extrapolates
some 720,000 bricks
arranged in a tower
you could see from the sticks,
and at the tippy top a temple,
just for making Nanna swoon.
Old Babylon.
One of the first empires in the chain
that shackled human imagination,
and her tower gained fame
of biblical proportions,
almost to heaven in Genesis eleven.
Cigarette?
No thanks I’m trying to quit?
Are you sure?
It’s the perfect relaxer
outside the architecture
or lack there of,
nothing rises above one level
—a perplex-er—
to bedevil space-alien archaeologists
in ten-thousand years
when by all rights
every dig square appears
to yield a tragic testament
to creative atrophy
when in 30 years
coast to coast strip malls
leveled intellectually
the landscape
and quality of human life,
trading art for logistics
and diversity for neo-globalized,
market applied statistics
that were sure to make us
forget luminary deities
and the story of foreign colonies,
to keep us on our knees
competing with neighbors
for who has the shiniest golf-cart.
Make a bet?
No thanks I’m over it.
Sometimes towers of power are tall,
sometimes they are flat,
but in retrospect,
it’s going to be clear that
every dig square excavated
tells a story of how we were fated
the entire time we debated
economy and keys to prosperity,
we were cashing consumption checks
mother earth and moon goddess
could not afford
and so in some year of our Lord,
not much was left,
and the left and the right, fell silent.
They were bereft
that paradise was paved over
and hoping on a Mars rover.
Is there some way to turn back the clock
and save face?
For me, it means
I need to stop building to the heavens
and remember my place—
I am here to take care
of the lowliest of beasts
and the poorest of people.
And the highest
I need to build
is lower than your steeple.
CORPORATE FUTURE.
I hold dreams like a cistern
never losing a drop,
and like a light beam across the dungeon
where they try to put us all away—
you restore my soul
and I am defiantly hopeful again.
Imagine trying to sell a Galilean healer
on silly slogans, quick fixes,
and “friendliness meetings”
when he feels the heartbeat
of the earth in his feet
and each of her children as close as family.
How is that for a company identity?
All your diviners are cutting themselves,
haunted by the ghost of corporate future.
I smile through glassy eyed chaos
and tread water
with every space age polar bear;
the great wind down ensues,
or ekpyrosis begins, and no matter,
because I know
they will feel exactly the same.
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TEXT AND ROCK is Mark Shaffer and Eric Madison. I’m (this is Mark) a doctoral student in Near Eastern and Classical Literature, a writer and podcast producer, a part-time punk rocker, and a full-time coffee snob. I also work part-time at T-Mobile. Don’t come see me there.
Eric is a musician, podcaster, rhythm instructor, and dragon enthusiast. Yes. Dragon enthusiast is a thing… We love to see people grow in life and virtue and we hope our poetry helps! Contact us and tell us how you liked the show at info@textandrock.com. Fist bump.