Clawmarks in the Blade of Chronos' Scythe

The latest poem in my Story Thyme video series is now available. 

I’m rather proud of this one; please leave comments below the video. 

In other news, thanks to some very generous support we should have a laptop we can use to make Coyote Learns videos again soon. 

Which means, for instance, that when I say I’m looking at recording chapters from my favorite Oz book, and possibly some children’s bedtime stories as well... 

...I mean it’ll be in addition to my traditional shenanigans, not in place of. 

With entropy taking its grim toll on computers and other devices, it’s been a challenging time. But it looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel, as they say. And I think it's an exit, not another train. 

And in the meantime...

Story Thyme videos
All the Coyote Learns videos
Everything Else

Sometime again, everyone, and thanks for all your support!

Special thanks to Beanystergates at deviantart.com for the image of Chronos the Titan.

 

Backwards.

Hey, everyone!

Today’s Story Thyme is dedicated to a magnificent lady who also happens to be a dear friend of mine. 

As always: please like, comment, subscribe… and keep sharing the links!

Sonnet

Count Basie and His Orchestra the fun’ral service play

Let cats cut rugs as flappers kipple till the break of day

Let vodka and tequila flow with whiskey through the crowd

And every thought be spoken and each speech be laughed aloud

Release the clowns!  The dancing bears!  Have Nero play his lyre

Confetti streets and motorcades and factories on fire

Shall light the way for mourners come with sparklers and balloons

No thorny walls, no teardrop falls, save for in old cartoons

I am not a dying gate, Porphyria yet lives

The maelstrom is a thing for fools who ledger as they give

And shout demands with silent looks, and club with flowers, cards and books

I can yet travel by the day and cross the running brooks

Be damned to rivers!  Tributaries never brought me joy

In anything!  Cast down the ocean!  The kraken is a toy

For old Greek ghosts who kill their hosts and sieve for water at the coasts

Those who go outside and live are those who ‘member me the most

Seal me in and face me down, dry wood and broken bone

If I am to be interred, best if I go alone

Illuminati

 

There are one hundred and eight beads in a Buddhist’s mala.

I am told there are no coincidences. I am told this as proof of the Reptilians, and of their plans for world domination as revealed by the writings of that old prophet, Robert E. Howard.

I am Illuminatus.

This is the Law of Threes. My sensei tells me that there are one hundred and eight pressure points in the human body. So far, I have found only nine: the square of the third prime number. Nine is a potent number, but not completion. One hundred and eight reduces numerologically to nine.

In German, nine is a negation. Buddha had a hundred and eight statements of negation, and Jesus had twelve disciples. Jesus was a Buddha. Nine times twelve is a hundred and eight, so I know it is true.

I am told there are no coincidences.

This is the Law of Fives. There are seven letters in the name Axl Rose. Axl Rose is an anagram for Oral Sex. That means sixteen-year-old Sharon E. looked down on him and thought of cunnilingus. Sixteen reduces numerologically to seven, the fifth prime number. 

Sixteen is also the square of four… which, times forty-five, is a hundred and eight. Forty-five is nine times five. Robert E. Howard was first published at the age of twenty-three, which reduces numerologically to five.

I am told there are no coincidences.

There are one hundred and eight cards in the ancient Greek card game, Uno. This is because all the ancient Greeks were Buddhists. Penelope had one hundred and eight suitors, until the day that Odysseus returned and reduced them numerologically to zero. If we had only stuck to cunnilingus, we wouldn’t be in the boat we’re in now, and we would all be illuminated.

 

She

She walks with the grace of ten thousand suns
The shadows fall in behind her
Her eyes are the tales of bittersweet risk
Her lips a goblet of silverlost wine

She is the Maiden whenever she wishes
She gasps with surprise as her legs lock behind
The Mother in her heart as she guides their steps
The Crone in her hands as she washes the dead

She stares at the light and beckons it forth
And follows its course to extinction
She calls to the darkness and echoes its howl
And wears midnight rain as her vestments

She gathers the green where there is only stone
And leaves her footprints in the dust
She is a creature of infinite worth
And it has been an honour to know her

--Coyote






(Pic is courtesy of judgybitch.com, all rights reserved by the original artist.)

In Defence of the Study of History

When I was a child, I knew a man

His name was Mister Forgetful.

And he lived in a hotel in upstate New York

In the second-best suite that they had.

Nobody knew where the money came from,

But his bills were always paid

And the staff always took good care of him;

He could only remember back three days.

We made it a point to have dinner every night

So that we could have a history together,

And I wouldn’t be just some kid

That he’d treated once to a meal.

Speaking with Mister Forgetful . . .

Everything he said was new,

And I learned more of simplicity from him

Than a lifetime of Tao meditations.

But he spent his life on a lonely rock

That was only three days wide

Surrounded by an abyss of I can’t know

With not even a name to sustain him.

Then, one night, he got a package;

A gift-wrapped box with a fine silk bow.

Here, was proof someone knew who he was.

Here, was proof someone cared.

His hands shook a little as he pulled loose the bow

He unwrapped his package in wonder

And when at last he’d folded the parchment away

The present was cold-wrought iron.

He opened the lid

Looked in

Blinked

And I waited, what clue was he seeing?

As he reached in, and pulled out

An old .45, with a scope

An address

A man’s photo

And a silencer.

I said, “Forgetful, don’t do it.”

He said, “This is all that I know!

And besides: in three days, I’ll forget.”

 “Well, that’s true, Mister Forgetful.

But if you do this

In three days you’ll be eating alone.”

 

Sometime Again,

--Coyote.

Nighttime Chastisements

Softly, children, what would Sluagh think?
Those silent shade-people of Slavic lands
Who moved with spider's mystery,
Stealing bad children from their beds?
The nighttime is a special time
Of secret things and special beginnings,
When the night enfolds you in her cloak
To find the dream paths seldom trod.

Oh, children, do not shake our house
Running like knights through castle halls;
Horses do not charge through kitchens
No matter who is king!
The nighttime is a special time
Of the sound between Nature's breaths,
Of the bonds 'twixt Earth and Underhill,
Of foot-drums, and of silver wine.

Ah my children, ah my children.
I know better than to command the wind.
You pretend you are being secret,
and I'll pretend you are being quiet.
For I know well that in your own time
You will find and keep your mysteries,
And those few you choose to share with me
Shall make me ache with wonder.


--Coyote.








(Dragon-and-faery pic by Randal Spangler, (c) him in all respects; Nevermore is courtesy of gotireland.com - I don't know who took or created that beautiful picture but they might.  All rights reserved by those who rightfully reserve them.)

In Fond Memory

And now, for no particular reason, I'd like to honor my grandmother, Trudy Limric.

Her body actually died some time ago, but she seems to be doing fine.  Could be anywhere, really.  She was a fine old woman.  Since I wasn't raised by her, I can say that cheerfully.  We never had to breathe each other's air for longer than was healthy, we just hung out every few years or so, and it worked out well for us both.

She was a partner to a small antique china shop in San Juan Bautista, CA... right on the San Andreas fault line.  She seemed to have entered life content with a simple goal: keeping from being bored.  And in this she succeeded beautifully.

She also told magnificent stories, many of which I have passed on to her great-grandchildren. Ultimately, she was one of Bradbury's kind of people: earthbound, yet ready to fly.

As my gift to you all, I will share with you today one of the few pieces of her writings to survive.


REFLECTION

He leaned against the neighbor's fence
Beneath the only tree in the back yard
And thought about the twelve trees
That lined the lane on the farm
Six black walnut trees on each side.

His grandfather planted them and
Named them after the Apostles.
How he laughed when Dad came
In one morning and said
"Peter lost a limb last night."

He always thought he would be the one
To buy back the farm.

The house on the hill
The bunkhouse with the ice house below
It was lined with cedar pilings
There was a carved tunnel at the back.
Do the present owners know it's there?
They said it was part of the under ground railroad.

Have they remodeled the kitchen?
Did they wonder about the piece of marble
Set in the counter to roll pastry on?
It is really a tombstone
That came down the river one spring.
How scary as a child to take out the pots and pans
Crawl in the space and feel the upside letters and wonder
"Where did you come from?"

Do fireflies still dance in the orchard?
Does the scent of locust trees hang heavy in the air,
While cicadas fill the dusk with song?
Does the river still flood the south forty every seven years?
Do the deer still drift through the cornfields in the snow?

Has anyone found the floorboard in the upstairs bedroom?
His father had hinged it to open. 
It held his treasures.
He could put his finger in the small knothole and open it.
It held his arrowheads, his first poetry,
And three hand moulded bullets he found by the river.
Was it still there after fifty years?

He looked at his small back yard.
The neat flower beds, the bird bath
The honeysuckle on the trellis
And the iron bench beneath the one tree
I didn't intend to get so old
He rubbed his arthritic knee
"I really intended to buy back the farm."

--Trudy Limric



Sometime Again,

--Coyote.

(Tree picture courtesy of scenicreflections.com, all rights reserved.)

Eulogy

It was an interesting week for me last week.  Over the course of seven days the Peacock's dog, Cass, died; the Tigress' cat, Loki, died; I was given three literature assignments, all of them revolving around death; my literature paper revolved around the repercussions of a death; and after a few other omens of foul repute my psychology professor gave the week's assignment: to write my own eulogy.

So, yeah, I was careful crossing the street for a while.



Now that the flitting souls have finally tired of whispering that Faustus is damned and that my sons shall be king, though I be none . . . I thought I would share my eulogy with you.  Odds are it'll be the only one you ever need to read.  It takes place, as one would expect, many years in the future . . . for those of you who know me, of course, there will be no surprises.

IN MEMORIAM

Before we begin, I would like to thank all of you for being here, especially those of you who had to come by ship.  These have been hard times for us all, with the war just behind us and the wounds from it still fresh.  I’m glad to see that even now we can come together, even if it’s for an occasion as solemn as this.

I never personally met the decedent, though I’m told Coyote always hated funerals.  He saw them as generally pointless exercises in morbidity and flagellation.  However, since as with all subjects of a funeral he is not here to protest, we are free to carry on.  Moreover, as a member of the clergy, I am completely comfortable with telling his closest friends and family all about him.

Coyote was born at a very young age.  He liked to say it was a very traumatic experience for him: naked in front of a roomful of masked strangers, he was held upside-down and spanked.  Born somewhere in New York – he was never quite sure where – and raised on Long Island, Coyote had a fascination with self-mastery and the martial arts from about the age of six.  He was also a writer, author of a variety of works and co-author of the famous O4S series, along with his writing partner and friend of many years, best-selling author Lauren Scharhag.

Coyote was never publicly compared to such historic geniuses as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Asimov, Benjamin Franklin, or Nikola Tesla.  However, he was known to compare such men favorably to himself from time to time, and that ought to count for something. 

He also loved laughter.

            

            In the course of his life, he wrote a variety of books on subjects ranging from metaphysical theory to science fiction and fantasy, from psychology to martial arts training.  He wrote fifteen children’s books and seven poetry anthologies.  Several of his children’s books won Newberry Awards, and his work on the impacts of societal symbolism on human development simultaneously won him his Nobel Peace Prize and his first Pulitzer Prize.  

             When the book series he and Lauren wrote together was finally made into a cable series, The Order of the Four Sons not only won a staggering thirteen Emmys over the course of eight seasons, but inspired several anime-style spin-offs from further books he and Lauren had written in the same universe.  Added to this was the Hugo Award for Best Novel the two of them got for Book III of the series: Where Flap the Tatters of the King.  Coyote did voice work for several of the characters in the animated series, as well as all the audio books, and many of the novels that Lauren wrote on her own. 

Through it all, he continued to meditate, study, and teach martial arts.  Many people credit him with contributing more to proper martial arts training than anyone since Bruce Lee.

While Coyote never attracted a following such as those enjoyed by Jesus, Mohammed, or the Buddha, he was always ready to point out that he was more sexually attractive than all three combined.  Point of fact, some of you may recall that was part of his acceptance speech for his Nobel.  He never said whether he did that because he thought it was true, or just because he thought it would be funny.  Probably a little of each.   

Coyote is survived by friends, his children and grandchildren, and he always enjoyed alternating entertaining and terrifying the kids with stories he would tell them before bed.  I see some of you nodding.  You can probably remember some of them, and if any of you would like to share them later I’m sure he would be pleased.

Most people don’t know the work he did, small things here and there, towards securing freedom of speech and press to those countries where it was least tolerated.  His arrest in China made the news, though.  Some of you may remember that, when he was caught harboring political fugitives from the Cyber-Papacy back in 2045. 

Less publicized was his arrest in Washington.  Even though the place is now a museum, apparently it is still illegal to measure the Pentagon in hopes of arranging an exorcism.  However, Coyote later went on to portray Abbie Hoffman on stage in a one-man-show that local critics heralded as nothing short of brilliant.

An eccentric anarchist, Coyote had become something of a national treasure even before the revolution that gave New Hong Kong our independence.  He was respected not for fighting in the revolution – which he never did – but for helping people keep to their own values when things were at their worst, and for helping negotiate the final peace between ourselves and the UN.

But most of all, Coyote was himself.  He enjoyed doing what he wanted, and encouraging others to do likewise.  He enjoyed being the center of attention, and he enjoyed being recognized wherever he went.  But he also treasured his solitude and was fiercely protective of not only his own but of others’.  When asked about his religion, he often said that while he distrusted any label or organization, he did enjoy wearing Emperor Norton’s old clothes from time to time.  He lived, loved, and laughed, treasuring not only his own freedom but that of others.  He always urged others to build themselves up, never to tear each other down.  And it was in that spirit that he helped us make this place what it is today.

Coyote has been missing for over six months now, and has been ever since the regulator accident.  Here on Mars, any colonist can tell you that everything is as safe as we can get it, but no more than that.  New Hong Kong is no exception.  When the east bank of terraformers went, it took a lot of section nine with it.  Seventy-three people are still missing, and forty-seven of the bodies could not be positively identified.  So, probably Coyote has moved on at last.  Only two percent of those in the area survived, and of those only two percent were relatively unharmed.

Still, it is worth noting that he had been nominated for Governor last month.  Earlier, I overheard some of you who knew him best, saying that if anything might drive him to fake his own death, being threatened with a government position just might do it.  He once said, “A bad politician is a burden on everyone, himself included; a good politician has power over the lives of others and none over his own.  I don’t care to be either.”  So, maybe, just maybe, he’s still out there somewhere.  I like to think he’s waiting for the fuss to die down, or perhaps just enjoying the quiet and the solitude that only the still beauty of our red world can offer.  And I like to think that if he has died, well, he’s probably doing much the same.

So, after the service today, this casket – and the Life-Model Decoy within it – will be treated as he had wished his remains to be treated in event of his death.  They will be cremated, then scattered in a park somewhere where children play.  This is a hard time for a lot of us, so I will leave you with one of his earlier poems.  Under the circumstances it seems appropriate.  It is entitled simply, Sonnet:

Count Basie and His Orchestra the fun’ral service play

Let cats cut rugs as flappers kipple till the break of day

Let vodka and tequila flow with whiskey through the crowd

And every thought be spoken and each speech be laughed aloud

Release the clowns!  The dancing bears!  Have Nero play his lyre

Confetti streets and motorcades and factories on fire

Shall light the way for mourners come with sparklers and balloons

No thorny walls, no teardrop falls, save for in old cartoons

I am not a dying gate, Porphyria yet lives

The maelstrom is a thing for fools who ledger as they give

And shout demands with silent looks, and club with flowers, cards and books

I can yet travel by the day and cross the running brooks

Be damned to rivers!  Tributaries never brought me joy

In anything!  Cast down the ocean!  The kraken is a toy

For old Greek ghosts who kill their hosts and sieve for water at the coasts

Those who go outside and live are those who ‘member me the most

Seal me in and face me down, dry wood and broken bone

If I am to be interred, best if I go alone

Sometime Again,

--Coyote.

(Funeral pic courtesy of bbc.com, and the characters within are (c) Paramount Pictures; lightsabre-toting beatles are courtesy of djgreedyg.proboards.com.  All rights reserved by those who rightfully reserve them.)

A Brief Gazette

Somebody please help me knock this thing out

I don’t have any heroes

Valiant and bold

I’m not riddled with self-loathing

And hostility is old

I’m not wired for self destruction

I’ve never been to jail

I’m not in love with innocence

I’m not convinced I’ll fail

I’m not recovering from addiction

Assault, illness, or abuse

I’m not depressed or hating life

I’ve never paid my dues

I’m not obsessed with pain

Or from the tough part of town

No one’s died near me lately

And I’ve never yet found God

Somebody please help me knock this thing out

As you probably noticed, there was no post last week.  I was otherwise occupied with the intricate details of my school life.

Well, all right, it wasn't that bad.  But ye gods it wasn't good.

A few weeks ago I ended up taking ill enough that I missed most of my studying time for my Body Parts and Functions Class.  For those of you who have never taken such a class, allow me to summarize: this is Hot Death.

I showed up for the exam, though I felt like a three-week-old tuna sandwich, figuring that any points were better than no points.  The Prof was cool, surprisingly cool.  He took me into his office and made me an offer: take the exams a week late (one week to study, plus the few days I'd already spent), and then take the next one on time (one week to study, no saving throw).  After that, I'd have two weeks per exam for study as usual.  Not having a brain made completely of tapioca, I said yes.

I got good grades on everything except the lab exams, which allows me to keep my "B" in BP&F.  But that was a two-week cram that I can assure you I am not keen on repeating.  Then I got all the rest of my classes caught up, took my Head Shrinking 101 exam (100%, say thank ye), got home, and collapsed in a smoking ruin.

I've been at the books, and trying to unsnarl the SNAFU of my degree-seeking aspirations, ever since.  More on that later.  For now I must withdraw: there is work to do and throats to cut.  Even if it turns out, as it seems currently, that the classes I am taking now will benefit me none at all - anything worth doing is worth doing beautifully.

See you next week.

--Coyote.

(Migraine pic courtesy of myhousecallmd.com; Bullwinkle is owned by Viacom these days, I think; tapioca bowl pic courtesy of 2footalligator.blogspot.com; smoking ruin pic courtesy of smh.com.  All rights reserved by those who reserve them.)