Earth's crammed with heaven[.]

There was this little prince with a magic crown. An evil warlock kidnapped him,
locked him in a cell in a huge tower and took away his voice. There was a window
made of bars. The prince would smash his head against the bars hoping that someone
would hear the sound and find him. The crown made the most beautiful sound that
anyone ever heard. You could hear the ringing for miles. It was so beautiful, that
people wanted to grab the air. They never found the prince. He never got out of the
room. But the sound he made filled everything up with beauty.

     ”You say it’s reciprocal! What if the Others don’t love back? That girl—she doesn’t know what you felt! She’ll never read your goddamn book!”

     ”Temper,” said Marx, “temper!” He smoked and thought for a moment. “If they didn’t, how vould you feel?”

     ”It would kill me.” Ezekiel’s voice had no body, no center as he spoke. “I would perceive them as beautiful, and I would obliterate myself to let be their beauty, which only I can do, but on their side they wouldn’t know I existed—denying me love, they would, strictly speaking, deny my life.”

     The Great Man pulled out his pocketwatch. Yawning, stripping down to his longjohns, he rubbed his stomach with both hands, then lay on the pallet we’d prepared for him.

     Ezekiel said, from the table:

     ”We haven’t finished!” Watching Marx’s eyelids lower, he asked, “What would you do?”

     Marx said, perhaps in a half-sleep, the thing Ezekiel was not prepared to hear:

     ”Rejoice.”

A Year’s Spinning

Love is the feedback cycle of longing, belonging, loss.

[ … ] 

Someone had failed someone else. Someone has messed with destiny.

Hear me sing.

A RAPTURE.             

I WILL enjoy thee now, my Celia, come, 
And fly with me to Love’s Elysium. 
The giant, Honour, that keeps cowards out, 
Is but a masquer, and the servile rout 
Of baser subjects only bend in vain                                      5 
To the vast idol ; whilst the nobler train 
Of valiant lovers daily sail between 
The huge Colossus’ legs, and pass unseen 
Unto the blissful shore.  Be bold and wise, 
And we shall enter : the grim Swiss denies                          10 
Only to tame fools a passage, that not know 
He is but form and only frights in show 
The duller eyes that look from far ; draw near 
And thou shalt scorn what we were wont to fear. 
We shall see how the stalking pageant goes                        15 
With borrow’d legs, a heavy load to those 
That made and bear him ; nor, as we once thought, 
The seed of gods, but a weak model wrought 
By greedy men, that seek to enclose the common, 
And within private arms empale free woman.                      20 
    Come, then, and mounted on the wings of Love 
We’ll cut the flitting air and soar above 
The monster’s head, and in the noblest seats 
Of those blest shades quench and renew our heats. 
There shall the queens of love and innocence,                     25 
Beauty and Nature, banish all offence 
From our close ivy-twines ; there I’ll behold 
Thy bared snow and thy unbraided gold ;  
There my enfranchised hand on every side 
Shall o’er thy naked polish’d ivory slide.                              30 
No curtain there, though of transparent lawn, 
Shall be before thy virgin-treasure drawn ; 
But the rich mine, to the enquiring eye 
Exposed, shall ready still for mintage lie, 
And we will coin young Cupids.  There a bed                     35 
Of roses and fresh myrtles shall be spread, 
Under the cooler shade of cypress groves ; 
Our pillows of the down of Venus’ doves, 
Whereon our panting limbs we’ll gently lay, 
In the faint respites of our active play :                                40 
That so our slumbers may in dreams have leisure 
To tell the nimble fancy our past pleasure, 
And so our souls, that cannot be embraced, 
Shall the embraces of our bodies taste. 
Meanwhile the bubbling stream shall court the shore,           45 
Th’ enamour’d chirping wood-choir shall adore 
In varied tunes the deity of love ; 
The gentle blasts of western winds shall move 
The trembling leaves, and through their close boughs breathe 
Still music, whilst we rest ourselves beneath                        50 
Their dancing shade ; till a soft murmur, sent 
From souls entranced in amorous languishment, 
Rouse us, and shoot into our veins fresh fire, 
Till we in their sweet ecstasy expire. 
    Then, as the empty bee that lately bore                           55 
Into the common treasure all her store, 
Flies ‘bout the painted field with nimble wing, 
Deflow’ring the fresh virgins of the spring, 
So will I rifle all the sweets that dwell 
In my delicious paradise, and swell                                     60 
My bag with honey, drawn forth by the power 
Of fervent kisses from each spicy flower. 
I’ll seize the rose-buds in their perfumed bed, 
The violet knots, like curious mazes spread 
O’er all the garden, taste the ripen’d cherry,                        65 
The warm firm apple, tipp’d with coral berry : 
Then will I visit with a wand’ring kiss 
The vale of lilies and the bower of bliss ; 
And where the beauteous region both divide 
Into two milky ways, my lips shall slide                               70 
Down those smooth alleys, wearing as they go 
A tract for lovers on the printed snow ; 
Thence climbing o’er the swelling Apennine, 
Retire into thy grove of eglantine, 
Where I will all those ravish’d sweets distil                          75 
Through Love’s alembic, and with chemic skill 
From the mix’d mass one sovereign balm derive, 
Then bring that great elixir to thy hive. 
    Now in more subtle wreaths I will entwine 
My sinewy thighs, my legs and arms with thine ;                  80 
Thou like a sea of milk shalt lie display’d, 
Whilst I the smooth calm ocean invade 
With such a tempest, as when Jove of old 
Fell down on Danaë in a storm of gold ; 
Yet my tall pine shall in the Cyprian strait                            85 
Ride safe at anchor and unlade her freight : 
My rudder with thy bold hand, like a tried 
And skilful pilot, thou shalt steer, and guide 
My bark into love’s channel, where it shall 
Dance, as the bounding waves do rise or fall.                      90 
Then shall thy circling arms embrace and clip 
My willing body, and thy balmy lip 
Bathe me in juice of kisses, whose perfume 
Like a religious incense shall consume, 
And send up holy vapours to those powers                         95 
That bless our loves and crown our sportful hours, 
That with such halcyon calmness fix our souls 
In steadfast peace, as no affright controls. 
There, no rude sounds shake us with sudden starts ; 
No jealous ears, when we unrip our hearts,                       100 
Suck our discourse in ; no observing spies 
This blush, that glance traduce ; no envious eyes 
Watch our close meetings ; nor are we betray’d  
To rivals by the bribed chambermaid. 
No wedlock bonds unwreathe our twisted loves,               105 
We seek no midnight arbour, no dark groves 
To hide our kisses : there, the hated name 
Of husband, wife, lust, modest, chaste or shame, 
Are vain and empty words, whose very sound 
Was never heard in the Elysian ground.                             110 
All things are lawful there, that may delight 
Nature or unrestrained appetite ; 
Like and enjoy, to will and act is one : 
We only sin when Love’s rites are not done. 
    The Roman Lucrece there reads the divine                    115 
Lectures of love’s great master, Aretine, 
And knows as well as Lais how to move 
Her pliant body in the act of love ; 
To quench the burning ravisher she hurls 
Her limbs into a thousand winding curls,                            120 
And studies artful postures, such as be 
Carved on the bark of every neighbouring tree 
By learned hands, that so adorn’d the rind 
Of those fair plants, which, as they lay entwined, 
Have fann’d their glowing fires.  The Grecian dame,           125 
That in her endless web toil’d for a name 
As fruitless as her work, doth there display 
Herself before the youth of Ithaca, 
And th’ amorous sport of gamesome nights prefer 
Before dull dreams of the lost traveller.                              130 
Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swift foot 
Which th’ angry gods had fasten’d with a root 
To the fix’d earth, doth now unfetter’d run 
To meet th’ embraces of the youthful Sun. 
She hangs upon him like his Delphic lyre ;                          135 
Her kisses blow the old, and breathe new fire ; 
Full of her god, she sings inspired lays, 
Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the bays, 
Which she herself was.  Next her, Laura lies 
In Petrarch’s learned arms, drying those eyes                     140 
That did in such sweet smooth-paced numbers flow, 
As made the world enamour’d of his woe. 
These, and ten thousand beauties more, that died 
Slave to the tyrant, now enlarged deride 
His cancell’d laws, and for their time mis-spent                  145 
Pay into Love’s exchequer double rent. 
    Come then, my Celia, we’ll no more forbear 
To taste our joys, struck with a panic fear, 
But will depose from his imperious sway 
This proud usurper, and walk as free as they,                    150 
With necks unyoked ; nor is it just that he 
Should fetter your soft sex with chastity, 
Whom Nature made unapt for abstinence ; 
When yet this false impostor can dispense 
With human justice and with sacred right,                          155 
And, maugre both their laws, command me fight 
With rivals or with emulous loves that dare 
Equal with thine their mistress’ eyes or hair. 
If thou complain of wrong, and call my sword 
To carve out thy revenge, upon that word                         160 
He bids me fight and kill ; or else he brands 
With marks of infamy my coward hands. 
And yet religion bids from blood-shed fly, 
And damns me for that act.  Then tell me why 
    This goblin Honour, which the world adores,                 165  
    Should make men atheists, and not women whores?  

XX. [ … ] To strip and dive and drown; [… ]

William Blake