Dionysos Throws in the Towel

εὐαἵ, εὐοἱ

IO ! IO !

The god of wine and mystic forest-mountain trances slides off his donkey with a thud, narrowly missing a holy pard, who growls when Dionysos grabs its tail.

His maenads begin to cry, casting their thyrsi in a despondent heap, rending their leopard skins amidst wails and sobbing as angels collect the pinecone tips and burn them. The angels now gather the dismembered wildcats and forest creature limbs, along with the bloody deerskins, into a separate pile.

Tambourines are confiscated next, numbered and assigned the initials of their respective Bacchante owner before being bagged as evidence.

The leaf-crowned god writhes in convulsions before the Pantokrator, babbling, begging for a bottle of Mad Dog and moaning piteously as he rips the grape-vines and ivy from his brow.

It’s all over, forget it, Dionysus sobs.
My maenads are murderous bitches anyway. . .

Don’t take it too hard, buddy says Pantokrator Christos.
Court will probably send you to a 16-week outpatient program, maybe prescribe some meds till you can get on your feet again. Would you like some support from a counselor, O Dithyrambos, white bull roarer of forest shadow, leaf-crowned youth of Nysa, great Bakcheios, panther-faced fawn-render—

But Bacchus cuts Him off:

Come ON man, don’t rub it in. Forget all those bullshit divine titles.
It’s over. I don’t even care any more…

His weary eyelids close and he grimaces. But suddenly a new and desperate hope surges in his wine-soaked brain as his eyes flash open:

Wait—if I do the program will they reduce my charges?

Anti-Convulsive Therapy

Nov19

Beauty will be convulsive
or will not be at all.

André Breton, Nadja

While some ephemeral forms of art may be so, true poetry is neither convulsive nor spasmodic. Sneezing is spasmodic. Epilepsy is convulsive. Orgasms are convulsive and spasmodic. Birth and Death are often spasmodic and convulsive. But poetry, REAL poetry must never be considered such.

How can mere protoplasmic/organic shuddering be mistaken for poetry.? How can linguistic implosions and semantic expulsions be confused with well-ordered and considerately-crafted coherence? Apollo shines a light by which huntresses kill prey—while Dionysos falls off his donkey and vomits. Can impulsive voidings of incoherent language be entertained as creative writing with any actual value? Is an involuntary regurgitation of verbiage to be as seriously considered as a well-structured utterance? If so, then an adolescent doodle in the margin is as worthy of celebration as the Mona Lisa. Pinball is Poetry and abrasive noise is Music. It logically follows that all things are as valuable (and as worthless) as all other things in a nihilistic universe.

If readers become accustomed to convulsive vomitings in the name of poetry, coherent writing will finally appear alien and unworthy of note.

Is spasmodic frenzy inherently holy (in an artistic context) or is it nothing more than glorified twitching of the autonomic nervous system? Much modernist and most post-modernist poetry is not only dull, but destined to failure, while traditional conservative coherence represents the current counterculture and will endure the test of time.

Confessions of a Failed Anarchist

Apr24

Dull Dionysiac, ex-Nihilist,

musing on my poorly-played roles now past,

my acts sincere and earnest—but half-assed,

I raved, an irrelevant dramatist.

Misguided former friends and I the cast;

We took our bow, Life stirred, woke up and hissed.

Such hallucinogenic scenes: not missed;

our play a farce, the curtain came down fast.

Recalling useless states I once achieved,

hampered by those intensities once known,

remembering what was beheld, believed,

the trip came to an end; I woke alone.

Frenzy is unsustainable. One learns

to be wary of realms where vision burns.

Haiku, Lo-fi ku:
Western beat, Japanese time.
Make the damn thing rhyme

Dionysos Manifests

Jun28

Hail, Dionysos

Dudley Randall (1914 – 2000)

Hail, Dionysos
god of frenzy and release, of trance and visions,
hail to the manifestations of your might,
thanks for admitting me to your ritual.

Inspirer of divine speech:
da da da da da da da da da:
releaser of subterranean energies:
a man lies snoring on the sofa;
giver of fierce grace:
a girl staggers among chairs, reels against the wall;
endower with new sensations and powers:
a man vomits on the rug – an aromatic painting,
and a girl, a lovely creature,
wets her panties.

Hail, Dionysos
god of frenzy and release, of trance and visions.

I see them recede,
handsome men, beautiful women,
brains clever and bright, spirits gay and daring,
see eyes turn glassy, tongues grow thick,
limbs tremble and shake,
caught in your divine power,
carried away on the stream of your might,
Dionysos.