it can well be the case
that the spiritual contract between man and his beatitude
is contigent on the clause of celibacy;
is foreboding on the matter of lust and onanism
and is adamant on the aversion to material affluence;
if this is true, I will die a pig or a dog,
not worthy of Holy Mary's gentle grace
nor of any other blessing care or repose;
another lifeless, sinful, contaminated piece of flesh
I become
just throw me on the heaps after the world is done with me
here is no grace; here is no absolution;
the maggots burrowing their way through my gut
have more dignity than i ever had;
at least they do not know their filth;
i knew my filth, and i tolerated it.
when my moments came, i chose sin
and that is altogether the fruit
of my own doing
23 feb. 2021
ill say it - this is beautiful to me
13 feb. 2021
27 jan. 2021
Personal memory-note about the Tocharians
Taiysu pälskanoym sanai ṣaryompa śāyau karttse-śaulu-wärñai snai tserekwa snai nāte.
"Thus did I always think: "I will live well, the whole of my life, with one lover: no force, no deceit."
Excerpt from Tocharian love poem, ca ~500 AD. The Tocharians were something as unusual and counter-intuitive as a Indo-European, light-skinned, fair-haired, often blue-eyed people (i. e. "European" looks) living in western China in antiquity. Since early antiquity and before the Turko-Mongolian expansions of the first millenium AD, the great Eurasian steppe was to a large degree filled with various Indo-European ("Aryan") peoples, from the Scythes and the Sarmates of the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian all the way to these Tocharian peoples of north-eastern modern China. Nurtured by the ever-so-vibrant Silk Road, the steppe peoples saw great trade and were exceptional - historically unsurpassed by far - in the art of mounted (equestrian) warfare. This is a characteristic shared by all folk of the steppe, not just the Indo-Aryans; it is hard to imagine the Mongolian conquests without their outstanding mounted archery).
This Indo-European
expansion probably originated in the European parts of the Eurasian
steppe: the prevailing hypothesis describes the northern Black Sea coast
as a plausible urheimat. However, from the first
millenium AD, the ethnic-genetic make-up of the great Eurasian steppe
shifted into becoming predominated by Turkic and Mongolian peoples. The
Indo-european steppe peoples were conquered, assimilated or otherwise
neutralized by the successful campaigns of conquest by, among many
others, Huns, Oghuz Turks and, lastly, Mongols. After the Mongol empire
disintegrated in the 14th century and the Oghuz became the Ottomans and
settled permanently in Anatolia, no serious military threats have been
presented to neighboring nations of the steppe from within it, and the
age of the steppe empire is since then shrouded in mysterious history,
never to come back.
19 jan. 2021
13 jan. 2021
Operation Nostalgi 2020-2022
fas I: Sword of Angst (2020)
fas II: Slutet - Begynnelsen vinyl edition (2021)
fas III: Southern Spruce - Weird Moons over Uppsala LP (2021)
fas IV: Det stora owäsendet - en dikt i många delar (2021)
fas V: Southern Spruce - Train to Istanbul EP (2022)
fas VI: To Meditate on the Carcass of a Deer - My Meeting with... (2022)
fas VII: From Amsterdam to Ramallah (2022)
29 dec. 2020
a few ruminations on hiroshima, nagasaki and the empire of japan
"Would it not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?"
- Korechicka Anami, Japanese Minister of War, right after the Nagasaki atomic bombing, making clear his intention of wanting to sacrifice Japan and the Japanese people as such, instead of suffering national humiliation and disgrace through surrender.
In World War 2-era Japan, many senior officials and soldiers and ordinary civilian folk alike opined it was utterly unthinkable to surrender to any kind of enemy, be it a Chinese, a Soviet or an Anglo-American one. Until 1945, Japan had never, through its history thousands of years old, lost a war or even been successfully invaded. It was not to even to be bothered with, the idea of capitulation, many stressed. It was simply and soundly unjapanese; repugnant to the Japanese spirit. In the 1940's, military surrender was as Japanese as communism was American. It was considered an unspeakable abomination, and this idea was fully in accord with traditional Bushido ("Samurai") morality which had pervaded Japanese culture and society for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years already.
And the Minister of war, Korechika Anami, was far from alone in this sentiment; most senior leadership insisted honor was the only thing able to save Japan, and they simply refused to surrender even as they themselves were absolutely positive they would lose the war. They were for the most part - mid-1944 onward - very unconfident about the war effort. The war was lost no doubt, and honor surely was not to be found in capitulation. Only sub-human races wilfully lose a war, it was said. The idea that a kind of "Japanese apocalypse" was the only reasonable way forward was widespread. As far as I know, and at the behest of my historical sources, there is not a single documented case of a surrendering Japanese soldier, although I find that extremely hard to believe; a bit sensationalist it sounds. What is nevertheless indeed true is that individual Japanese soldiers surrendering was practically unheard of, and unseen: an act of surrender would not only bring shame to the soldier, but to his family, his nation, his ancestors, his Emperor, and everything else that was Holy in the eyes of the Japanese.
Let us also note, for the sake of context and of historical anecdote, that the last Japanese warrior was honourably discharged by his commander in the Philippine rainforests in the mid-1970's; he had been actively continuing the war ever since 1945, killing many people in jungle before people understood what the fuck was going on. Japanese "hold-out cells" after the war was widespread, and many boldly defied their emperors' order of capitulation.
I think never in history has old-age fervour, fanaticism, extremism and patriotism concocted with new-age weaponry, industry, logistics and technology to such a rabid, intense degree. And that is extremely fucking fascinating... and for this reason, Japan between ca 1860 and ca 1950 is a unique phenomenon in world history, and it is with that backdrop one ought to think about the atomic bombs and the ever-relevant discussion of ethics surrounding them.
But we must understand that key figures within the Japanese military high command literally refused to stop even at the prospect of being effectively wiped off of the world map. They refused to stop even at the thought of their whole nation, their whole culture reduced to nothing but shards of history. Some of them opted to stop their ever-maddening imperial craze to no price. Literally to no price. Honor in victory or honor in death - nothing in between. Surely the atomic bomb is a cruel, heinous and diabolically destructive device but the Empire of Japan likewise was a cruel, heinous and diabolically destructive regime. The atom bomb was a very, very radical response to a very, very radical regime in a very, very radical time and it was, after all, in my view, an ethically justifiable military action, even though radical elements in the Japanese military high command still refused a surrender after the bombs.
Just a few thoughts.
22 dec. 2020
20 dec. 2020
heaven has deaf ears, almost always,
but not entirely
always
but never mine ears are deaf!
how i would love to hear all the great dialogues!
debaters and polemicists, poets and all the orators
journeying me through the words of words!
what said Eleleth to the daughter of Eve there in the darkness?
what spat his luminary tongue?
the very shape and sound of his angelic presence sure struck awe in the hearts of Norea's wrongdoers, whom fled;
but what said Eleleth to her, after saving her from these brute men?
yes! what words can banish even archons?
possess man transcendental powers?
possess man dormant depths of perspective?
every child has a golden age
wherein everything is spiritual
and adventurous
and for that sake alone
meaningful
the child loses her wreath of honors
the tiara in gold and jewel
as the child concedes her phenomenology
to the frames of reference
in dogm with their culture
as they must
or else
at last, the golden age ends,
mere frail memorial remnants
remain
down there
in the mind of her,
some fractal recollection
of paradise o paradise lost!
how could a childhood look
should we encourage the golden age?
is she to be driven to insanity?
to maddened suicide or some otherwise self-destruction?
should she explore properties within herself we today designate as parapsychology?
perhaps, in the best case scenario, she becomes very creative.
after all, is not art about the only form of transcendental activity
contemporary society has any tolerance for; encouragement of?

