Misericordia

T.J. Gillespie

The hardest lesson literature ever offered me
Is that we must never pity the damned.
I remember thinking about what little godliness
We have in our miserable hearts
When I read of Dante crossing the Styx,
His shaky boat rocked and tussled
By the angry hands of a filthy,
Muck-encrusted Filippo Argenti
Rising from the fen’s black and fetid mire.
In a circle of hell dedicated to the wrathful,
How surprising is it to hear the pilgrim say a prayer
Petitioning to see a man pickled in swill
and mangled by mud people?
How strange to hear that such a vengeful desire is right
And such suffering described as fitting?
So the poet sings a paean of thanksgiving
At the sight of a man, an enemy,
Biting his own body
And I suppress the incorrect desire to see
The end of permanent impenitence
And hard hearts soften.

Mercy is no virtue, says Aristotle,
Seconded by teaching, for the mind cannot see
When the heart stands in the way.
Mercy’s aim is not toward God, but Man;
It impedes reason and wanders from justice.
Still, I count your hurt as my hurt,
Your pain as mine own.
I weep for your sorrow,
And I mourn for your loss.
If that is my weakness, so be it.
If that is my sin, may I be forgiven.
And all I can ask is that if you see me—
In this world or next—cold or hungry,
Wet and alone, cast-out, broken hearted,
Disgraced and disconsolate or
Sinking in stygian muck
You’ll intercede on my behalf
With a whispered prayer and a kind word
Or a thin bladed dagger
Pressed quickly to my throat,
A mercy stroke for your adversary
To end the pain.

Ancient of Shapes

by Nargis McKinley

By Nargis McKinley


From the volume, Original Lectures on Ancient Greek Philosophy Adapted for the Modern Scholar, (c) 1944
J.T. George "Muncie" Llewellyn, M.A.
University of the South

This here beauty is the most ancient vessel of meaning in all of pagandom. She is the Grand Puba of Euclidean idolatry, I say I say.... the veritable Holy Grail of mathematical witchcraft. The true Grail contains in its golden shapely contours the very Blood of God. Well, this here Abominable Vessel contains in her Grecian abstract forms the very pinnacle of wickedness. I'm calling it powers of darkness. I'm calling it the devil's blood, I'm calling it. Watch me now.

This shape was known in antique Hellas as the metrios hagios. M-e-t-r-i-os. H-a-g-i-o-s. You should write that down because that's going to be on the quiz.

We know that name from the writings of the best Athenian minds, darkened though they were by sin, Plato including. In modern lango, we'd translate that to be "Ancient of Shapes." Ye olde Aristotle believed it to be the ikon eudaimonion--- the window of heaven --- thinking it the means by which the Unmoved Mover motivated the Sons of Men to all manner of good deeds and noble cogitations. Even the angels and messenger spirits knew about it, but since they didn't have to answer to no one --- strange loophole --- they didn't bother with it too much. But for mortals, it was a big To-Do. In the writings of Hera-clitus the mystic-seer, we learn that Ancient of Shapes was darn just about the only thing that could shield mere mortals from the arrows of wickedness and anger that ole' Zeus was forever throwing at everybody. Praise the Lord Jesus we don't have to deal with none of that no more!

Before the battle of Platea, the Spartans put this very moniker on their shields, allowing 'em to avenge justice with greater fury 'n power than has ever been seen on the field of battle. 'Cepting the way old Tommy Stonewall and the rabels done whupped the Yankee Boys at the first Battle of Manassass. Now that was some'n.

Even our regenerate Christian minds can appreciate some of the power and beauty, the glory and wonder, of this form. Just look at her. I wonder sometimes if Ancient of Shapes isn't actually some kind of a god. You can see the four circles. They represent the Four Wheels of Heaven, the Four Continents of the Earth, the Four Months of the original Hebrew year, and the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You see the two triangles. They show us that there are always two ways of looking at something, even if we don't even want to hear the other guys' opinion. Which I don't. Never did, never will, and right now I don't do. But those two triangles are inscribed, as you can see, in a single square, showing that no matter what anybody thinks is gonna happen, there's only one way the whole thing is gonna' play out.

I thank you good people for listening to my lecture. If you want to read further, there's this fine book on the topic by Lucien Galletiere. Same book I read in order to gain the knowledge that I had to give this here lecture. Only problem is that you have to read French to understand it like I do. So I'd have to translate it for ya. But I'd be happy to do so.

The Little Voice Inside My Head Grows Suspicious of the Overweight Bank Lady Helping Me with a Money Order

Doris Powers, behold the very face of evil. A magistra of destruction--- a voice that betokened propriety and prudent account management. Inside her heart, a den of thieves. She hides her iniquity carefully, yea diabolically, the pinnacle of evil cloaked behind a pile of cash requisitions, new account applications, and change of address forms. Doris Powers' kingdom is a dying kingdom. From the fiery depths of cavernous Hades she ascended. And where? --- into the slithery world of retail banking. Beneath a poker face thick with rouge and dollar store lipstick, the devil rages. Yes. The devil rages because she knows her time is short.

The romance novels. Piles of them. Most in English. Some in a Slavic language which none but the most profound and erudite bachelor-pervert would recognize. Or did it never cross your mind, the thought that a man would learn Croatian simply to slavishly appease a demented appetite for Dracula plots? And who else would go to such lengths? None but Doris Powers, literary harlot of the latter-days. The greatest book-hooker in forty zip codes. The woman herself. Ecce femina. Dominatrix and emcee of a weekly lust-symposium (book discussion) in the local library's dank and terrible basement. This alone is not sufficient evidence to convict Mz. Powers of high evil. But let no more doubt persist in your feeble mind, why so many women enjoy the "romance novel."

It does not stop there. Carjacking is a killer's sport. But car burglary is the game of champions. Champions of evil, that is. For Doris Powers, an open window was a standing invitation. A cracked window was a rare moment of opportunity. A moment to be seized upon with a handy wire hanger, stray broken broom handle, or convenient back-scratcher. An opportunity which Doris, the biggest car burglar in the Northeast Corridor, never passed up. And if the hour was late and the coast was clear, the sound of shattering glass was her signature. Beneath the moonlight, the slow, skulking waddle of an obese bank associate with a verbal porn addiction and a thirst for thrill and crime could be seen.

"Oh," Doris seemed to say beneath her hideous nylon work clothes, "pay me no mind, officer. It's just little old me."

But we are onto you, Doris. The citizens of the world will no longer stand for your criminal secrecy. Your sideways glances.... your obvious mediocrity ... your far-from-obvious tyrant's heart .... your getaway car, a Ford Focus, which I know must be strewn on the inside with Taco Bell wrappers, Eastern European romance novels, stolen CDs, and dirty underwear.... We're not looking on the surface anymore, Doris. We're looking past the facade.

The Birth of Venus

summer
and the leaves of heaven
thick with green and breathing.

and she is all garden, all breeze,
all sunset---

vista spreading over the vast desert ---
the backyard of a house you've never been to--
all smile
yellow and shining,
a moment held in vision.

you leave at twilight,
your head shaking,
your heart staggered
gait slow and savored.
Something in the face.
A knowing-that-she-knows.

You've spoken to her five times,
but you'll remember her forever.

A Symposium on Paranoia in the Age of Television

I think television is like an exquisite painting.
But Marsha says that television is a bunch of damn robots
talking to each other all the time.
What Stacy wants to know is,
if TV is nothing but robots,
how did they get to be so beautiful?
Lucas thinks we're all a bunch of idiots.
He says that television is just another person
like any other person, and that we're all people,
and everyone should be treated the same.
Marcel does not disagree with Lucas at any level.
"That is so true. So true."
But he is convinced that television was put there by the government
to cost us money and time and to make us pay taxes to the devil.
I maintain that television is best compared
to the finest paintings of Vincent Van Gogh--- filled with electricity
and useful advertisements, swirling with secret messages
and the alien colors which Christopher Columbus invented
when he visited outer-space in 1487 as the first Papal astronaut.
When I tell her this, Marsha just covers her ears and cries.
But Marsha is fragile because she takes the secret medicines,
the ones that they can't tell you about on television
unless you turn the volume way down
and let the evil Master whisper his secrets to you.

Some Thoughts Regarding Batman's Cold Atlantic Heart

cruel beast
Batman!
what an asshole!
the crime-drenched corridors of Gotham
wallow in their ungodly misery.
but we'd rather be the prey of criminals
than the recipients
of your godless self-serving pity.

go back to the Cape, rich boy.
eat shit and drink martinis.

everyone knows that no god-fearing American
can countenance the arrogance
of your White-Man's Burden
noblesse oblige
orphaned crybaby millionaire
pretentious frat-boy
"I'm Hear to Save You Poor Fuckers"
hero Drag Queen sob-story crusade.

you couldn't make up this shit if you tried,
you scion-vigilante, you benighted beneficiary
of a corrupt fortune, you rich stupid
lawless motherf**ker.

In Small Part, Another Attempt at Praising America (Live / Take 15)

America, forever being born.
Now is imperfect.
What's coming is better.
We the People, like your shiftless uncle
eternally figuring things out,
the dilapidated but getting-it-together
civilization.

I swim in the Absolute,
ancient and new,
modernity notwithstanding.
America is not opposed to God.
We simply have little use for him
during business hours.
Or so it is said.

On the rails of eternity
run the train cars of progress
with huge vats of milk, beer, oil
in which our hope resides--
sort of
but not exactly.

The Bible says that the stones
would cry out if the prophets didn't speak.
But next to the soot-tarnished smoke stacks
the bricks of the old mill stand quiet.
Here in America, the flowers sigh.
And the dreams of poor children
a world away
grow ever more beautiful
in the lazy garden.