Heaven

I have lately revised a prose poem, whose first draft was written nine years ago, and blogged here shortly afterwards.  Am hoping that it will interest at least one reader, and perhaps even bring a measure of delight.


Humbly submitted for your consideration, here is "Heaven."

Sweet and tender hooligan

I must be the only person who wakes up thinking of people in the news who haven't been in the news in a quarter-century.


Mathias Rust, the German fellow who flew a single-passenger aircraft into Moscow's Red Square during the tail-end of the Soviet Communist days.  They charged him with something that in the English translation sounded almost comic to me: "rank hooliganism," or words to that effect.  Maybe "malicious hooliganism" or "hooliganism aforethought"!


Well, my thoughts elided from Herr Rust to this marvelous anthem by the Smiths, presented here for the delectation of those who are inclined to be ... delectated?

Just like the white-winged dove

I must have said this before, but listening to Stevie Nicks sing is a sensation not unlike that of kissing a Brillo pad.

Ban the Commedia?

Someone proposes banning Dante's magnum opus because, well, it's racistsexisthomophobicmisogynistic.  And viciousmeanspiritedintolerantinsensitive.


I prefer the Vita Nuova to the Comedy, but still -- this is rather absurd.

As kingfishers catch fire

Desert Wisdom

From Desert Wisdom: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. and illus. by Yushi Nomura, intro. and afterword by Henri Nouwen (Orbis Books, 2001):


Amma Synclectica said: It is good not to get angry.  But if it should happen, do not allow your day to go by affected by it.  For it is said: Do not let the sun go down.  Otherwise, the rest of your life may be affected by it. Why hate a person who hurts you, for it is not that person who is unjust, but the devil.  Hate the sickness, but not the sick person. [p 84]


Once some people came to an old man in Thebaid, bringing a person possessed by a demon, hoping that he might be cured by the old man.  Being asked persistently for quite some time, the old man finally said to the demon: Go out of God's creation.  And the demon replied: I will go out, but let me ask you just one thing.  Tell me, who are the goats and who are the sheep?  Then the old man said: A goat is someone such as I am, but as for the sheep, well, God only knows.  Hearing this, the demon cried out in a loud voice: Look, because of your humility I am going out!  And he went away that very moment. [pp 80-81]