R.M. Engelhardt's Blog: Burn Brightly, page 14

Sundays

“A smoke, a book, a cup of coffee. 

“

These are the little things that get us through this sometimes weary world and all the rainy days.””






 

~ 
R.M. Engelhardt

Mysticism

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.

The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also.

”

~  
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy,1908))

 

PHAROAH

So here we go again. I had to bail him out of jail in a place that you probably never heard of near Thebes. You see, back in those days he was kind of like one of your celebrities. The first “bad boy” on the scene before all your Colin Farrell’s & Sean Penn’s, Billy The Kids or Genghis Khans, before the setting sun ever came. Back then bad ass wore a scarab necklace, black eye mascara and a headdress. Fought the 12 snakes and the 12 arrows of the dead and got regularly fucked up like every other weekend. And the last time I saw him we were hanging out at a club called “The Underworld” doing shots with some girls off their navels. I don’t remember the names of the two girls I fucked but I do remember my buddy Set hooking up with some chick from outta town named Kali & immediately they hit it off like they were meant for each other or something and way too much alike. It was like heaven in the 9th sky where the indestructibles liked to hang. It was like climbing the pyramid, a resurrection machine and coming back to life time after time after time. It was a rush, it was a high like no other that you could ever experience. Screw your ecstasy & your science fiction. Thiswas the shit. Long before all of your myths & legends we made your wild nights, necromancers & satanic worshippers look like a Christian book club and a kindergarten class on Halloween. And for awhile, Set & Kali went out on the town and raised hell. Had some fun, caused death, mass destruction and chaos. Broke some hearts and ruined some livespermanently. And then one night, it happened. Kali met some other guy, a local Hindu deity and Set and this boy got into a fight and the night sky blazed with bolts of lightning and thunder. Vedic boy lost and got his ass kicked”dead”. And anyone will tell you that there is nothing more useless than a dead god. Kali freaked and attacked Set and he got arrested by the advanced ones and that’s where I came in. Babysitting the Pharaoh & saving his assagain. So you see? Here we go again. Repeating history and time, repeating all the mistakes of the past. And where’s the lesson you ask? The lesson, is this. Stay away from the angry & insane and all of the vindictive people in this life and step off of the ego trip. Kill the drama and stop killing yourself and get rid of all of your long undead & overdue hate and outgrow your angry adolescence. Because after all, do you think that you’re immortal? A rock star or maybe even a president? Do you think that you’re a pharaoh or a god? Because even after just 100,000 years you like everything else will be forgotten, nothing but dust and sand and a useless footnote between the man-made histories of time. And no one, I say no one will ever give a fucking damn. So what do you want? A gravestone that says that you lived or a legacy that says you’re alive? Or how about just living your life for a change

“Instead”

 

 

 R.M. Engelhardt 2006

Is Paxman right? Or Should Poetry Just Follow its Natural Course

Originally posted on Fox Chase Review:

-g emil reutter 

Jerry Paxman, a judge for Britain’s Forward Prize for poetry said in a recent article at the Guardian “I think poetry has really rather connived at its own irrelevance and that shouldn’t happen, because it’s the most delightful thing,”  Paxman continued, “It seems to me very often that poets now seem to be talking to other poets and that is not talking to people as a whole.”  The full article appears here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/01/jeremy-paxman-poets-engage-ordinary-people-forward-prize

There has been much said and much written over the last two centuries about the relevance of poetry, yet it remains. Poets are the great observers of the world around us and while many don’t read poetry or attend poetry readings on a regular basis, most folks like to know there are poets around. While the Guardian article is Britain specific I believe it could apply to any nation. It seems to me…

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“Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of...

 

 

“Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of those aforesaid little rambling, poky secondhand bookshops always seem slightly unearthly is that many of them really are, having strayed into this world after taking a wrong turning in their own bookshops in worlds where it is considered commendable business practice to wear carpet slippers all the time and open your shop only when you feel like it.”

~  Guards! Guards! – Terry Pratchett 

Heaven

Bones Beneath

Flesh

Machine

The Heart

Still Lost

Somewhere

In-between

A Dream & The Reflected

Light.

A Memory

A Movement

A Moment

In The Dark

Which Remains,

Like Some Celestial

Eternal

Sonnet

Thoughts, Minds

Bodies Connected

And Breathing

Her Hair

Sweeping

Across Your Face.

A Fragment

Another Time

And Another Place.

Years Later?

An Old Man

In The Fall

Sits Alone

On A Bench

In The Park.

One Breath

Breathing

‘Exhales’

‘This Is What Heaven Looks Like’

 

 

R.M. Engelhardt

MEMENTO

Better to feel

(Than be)

Blood rushes thru veins

And the heart beats,

Only one-day to complete it’s duty

While eventually earth and gods shall all come crashing down

And kingdoms & civilizations fade.

And so please, I ask you only this;

That when I leave to let me take these

Few things with me;

The moon, the sun and the stars,

And the small traces of light which

Once reflected in your eyes

That I can no longer see

 

 

___________________

 

R.M. Engelhardt

Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, ...

Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, rather than mob merriment, noise and thousands of nodding acquaintances.

~ William Powell

“There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys th...

“There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.”

~ Raymond Chandler

Maya.

All poets may come and go but it’s the words that forever remain.

It is not of the body but of that which comes from the soul which touches others.

 

~ R.M. Engelhardt

RIP  Maya Angelou :

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/us/maya-angelou-obit