Quarrel of the Rose

“it is always wise and noble to keep one’s secrets hidden, because there is perfidy everywhere.”– Christine de Pizan (1365-1429) 

The rooster tries to stay the course 

But must skip over embers hot 

And searing flesh will secrets part 

Exposing obscene sucking maw 

Rack and reason’s ruin now 

Slut and whore and meretrix 

And serpents tongue the venomed word 

Flash fried inside her treasure’s flame 

Flee! Flee! My God! 

From snakes that writhe in twisted grass. 

Not crowned in laurels but 

Buried in flames 

Lo 

Things finish in the end. 

Poetry Obscure

“to those who would appreciate poetry, and unwind its difficult involutions. You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark. For we are forbidden by divine command to give that which is holy to dogs, or to cast pearls before swine.””– Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)

Cavalier shrewdness not blind but unseeing

Of many Miss Understandings called forth

And what is acquired in trial and is kept

In care is ever the dearer to us

I will not rip up the veil and lay bare

The meaning which lies hidden deep in design.

I will shade them now from irreverent eye

That scorches by common and cheapening gaze.

Cavaliers and Poets

“Slender is my strength and my mind weak, but great is my expectation of help; borne up by such hope, I shall rush upon them with justice at my right hand.”– Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)

A useless craft, absurd,

Of no account, they say,

False, obscure, and lewd

Silly tales of pagan gods

Sweet with deadly sweetness,

Which fattens while The Worthy are consumed,

The zeal of God’s house hath eaten them up

(while, puffed up, they lay their sickles to the harvest of another)

poio, pois, fingo, fingis, poetes, exquisite lucutio

These triflers, they are ignorant,

And all they cast aside,

Is fervid, exquisite expression,

Invention of the mind.

Pure mental activity thus infused

With strange supernal inspiration.

A song in an age hitherto unpolished,

To render this discoursing  sonorous heard

That veil of fiction clothing naked truth

In garments fitting, laudable and fair.

Big Dog

“For the clarification of what I am going to say, then, it should be understood that there is not just a single sense in this work: it might rather be called polysemous, that is, having several senses.”– Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Six questions, of subject and form, of agent and end, of title and philosophy,

And most unanswered,

Still.

Departure of the soul sanctified

From bondage to earthly corruption

Into freedom eternal glorious

allegory, alleon

alienus – belonging to another

or

diversus – different

state of souls after death

man, his free will exercised, earns

Just rewards

And punishments.

comos oda

A village, a song

Comedy’s a rusty saw to cut

From goat song foul and tragic

Paradiso prosperous,

And leave the horror-reek of hell

Below

Il Convivio

“having set the sail of my reason to the breeze of my desire, I enter upon the open sea with the hope of a smooth voyage and a safe and praiseworthy port at the end of my feast.”– Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Pull up a chair at the banquet slab

The course waft arouses the four senses

Of interpretation

The literal, a fable, which penetrates no further

than the surface…

The allegorical, that truth which hides

beneath the fabulous cloak…

As Orpheus can tame the wilds with his lyre,

So the wise can bend the dull strings of the world to their tune…

The moral, wherein the teacher leads their pupil,

As Christ ascends the transfiguring summit,

With few but the very truest in tow…

And the anagogical, that which lies beyond the senses,

When the soul departs from sin it is made whole and free…

Still, the text is polysemous,

Its multitudes contained in a single pregnant act

And the inside has an outside has

The inside and an outside and an

Inside and an outside

Has an inside and

An outside and an inside and an

Outside and on and on and on…

On the Usefulness of Belief

“Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ.” – Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Describe a fact, reveal a mystery

Historical or literal

Etiological, analogical

And even parabolical

That signification whereby

Things signified

By words

Have too themselves

Spiritual significance

Allegorical

From the old things

To the new

Keep me travelling

Along with you

Tropological

Signifying Christ

In things we ought to do

Anagogical

End of days

Eschatological

Eternal Glory

One word in holy writ should have

Several senses

Endless endless

Summa Theologia

“we shall endeavour, confiding in the Divine assistance, to treat of these things that pertain to sacred doctrine with brevity and clearness, in so far as the subject to be treated will permit.” – Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Of Faith and Reason

Born in father’s castle

Educated by the monks

Friars Dominican

Kidnapped by Brothers and

Locked in a tower and

Street Seduction from

Daddy’s purse paid

To dissuade

Still I screamed until the light would bleed away

Bellowing resounding like a

Shot heard round the world..

Yes or no?

Whether holy scripture should use metaphors?

No

Of this the lowest science

They that explain me

Shall have work everlasting

Should they try in vain to build their representations

From nadir depths to the highest heights

Yes

I have multiplied visions

For we cannot be enlightened by the divine rays

except they be hidden within the covering

of many sacred veils

No no, Yes Yes!

Defend against the

Ridicule of the impious

Give not that which is holy

To curs and mongrels and dogs

Humble yourself in the oceans within

That garble all mortal tongues

And drown all vanities.

Guide of the Perplexed

“You should not think that these great secrets are fully and completely known to anyone among us. They are not. But sometimes truth flashes out to us so that we think that it is day, and then matter and habit in their various forms conceal it so that we find ourselves again in an obscure night, almost as we were at first. We are like someone in a very dark night over whom lightning flashes time and time again. Among us there is one for whom the lightning flashes time and time again, so that he is always, as it were, in unceasing light. Thus night appears to him as day…” — Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)

Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk,
For unto Thee have I lifted my soul.

Unto you, O men, I call,
And my voice is to the sons of men.

Incline thy ear, and hear the words of the wise,
And apply thy heart unto my knowledge.

Seven causes of contradiction

Nameless speakers in the din of Babel
Caterpillar and Butterfly
Contradictory parables
The king is dead, long live the king.
Zone of Proximal Development
Midrashim
Haggadah.

Perplexity is equivocal, derivative, amphibolous:
Burn the words that their light may guide you to
The lost pearls.

Her feet abide not in her house
And lieth in wait at every corner
And kissed him, and with impudent face she said unto him
This day have I paid my vows
Diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee,
My bed, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt
With myrrh, aloes and cinnamon
Until the morning; let us solace ourselves with loves:
He is gone a long journey
He has taken with him, and will
Come home at the full moon

And when these gates are opened

And these places are entered into,

The souls will find rest therein,

The eyes will be delighted,

And the bodies will be eased

Of their toil and of their labour.

Lucus

“It is, then, a miserable kind of spiritual slavery to interpret signs as things, and to be incapable of raising the mind’s eye above the physical creation so as to absorb the eternal light.” — Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

The letter kills but the spirit gives life

Anything in the divine discourse that cannot be related

Either to good morals or to the true faith,

To love or understanding,

Should be taken as figurative

Grammata, allegory, enigma, parable,

So may you flourish and float

Inside the piscina

Catachresis

The mouse that clicks but does not squeak

Irony and antiphrasis

In the darkest grove there is no light

And we are scrambling shadows in the

Shiver of a match flame

Signa Data

“…they signify. For a sign is a thing which of itself makes some other thing come to mind, besides the impression that it presents to the senses. So when we see a footprint we think that the animal whose footprint it is has passed by.” — Augustine of Hippo (354-430) 

But smoke does not signify fire because it wishes to do so. 

It is us, it is us, it is us. 

Visible words 

Presented to the eyes, not in themselves,  

but by certain signs peculiar to them. 

Unshared by every nation for the sin of rancour 

And the will to dominate.  

Thus, behold, 

The famous tower raised towards heaven, 

At the time when wicked men became 

In just receipt of incompatible languages 

To match their incompatible minds 

Amen 

Alleluia 

Raca 

Hosanna.