THE NAMELESS ONES

                                           

"Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill"

                                                                   -Robert Louis Stevenson "Requiem"

"Is it justice to make evil, and then punish for it?"

                                                                    - James Fenimore Cooper

                                                                       The Last of The Mohicans

"My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer

ever over my shoulder."

                                                                     - William Golding   Freefall

"I incline to Cain's heresy...I let my brother go to the Devil in his own way."

                                                                      - Robert Louis Stevenson

                                                                         Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

THE DIRTY SOUTH

               

 

"Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

                                                                            -Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

"A small town is automatically a world of pretense. Since everyone knows everyone elses

business, it becomes the job of the populace to act as if they don't know what is going on

instead of it's being their job to find out...in a world like this, news is not welcome..."

                                                                            - Jeanne Basinger,  A Woman's view; How

                                                            Hollywood spoke to Women, 1930-1960

"The blood-dimmed tide loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned...

                                                                            - W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"

" Yonder come little David

    with his rock and sling

     I don't wanna meet him,

     He's a dangerous man.

                                                                         - "Sit Down Servant"  (Traditional)

"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for the murderers, the sexually

  immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that

  burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

                                                                           - Revelation 21:8

                                                                             

A BOOK OF BONES

Waneth the watch, but
the world holdeth.
                            -Anonymous, "The Seafarer"



Dawn-sniffing revenant
plodder through midnight
rain, question me again.
                                -Seamus Heaney, "Casualty


Trackway and camp and city
lost, salt marsh where is corn; old wars, old
peace, old arts that cease,
and so was England born...
                              -Rudyard Kipling, "Puck of Pook's Hill


The thing from the churchyard
that was found with it's
hand missing
in the excavation
undertook on the north side called
Several times
wanted converse
about your assumptions.
                            -Bill Griffiths,
                           "Decorating & Insurance Factors"


This oratory looks evil.
With herbs overgrown it
fits well that fellow 
transformed into Green to
follow here his devotions
in the Devils fashion.
                         -Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
                          (trans. JRR Tolkien)

It is not what they built.
It is not what they knocked down.
It is not the houses.
It is the spaces between the houses.
It is not the streets that no longer exist.
It is not your memories which haunt you.
                         - James Fenton, "German Requiem


Out of the Ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
                   -Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus


Dire portents appeared over 
Northumbria and sorely
Frightened the people.
                    -Anonymous, "Anglo Saxon Chronicles


Besides I find this tree
hath never been
like other fruit trees, walled
or hedged in,
but in the highway standing
many a year,
It never yet was robbed, as
I could hear.
The reason apparent to our eyes,
that what it bears, are dead
commodities...
                      -John Taylor, "Description of Tyburn


I kill wher I please
because it is all mine
There is no sophistry in
my body:
My manners are tearing off heads-
                        -Ted Hughes, "Hawk Roasting"


Lo! Thy dread Empire chaos!
is restor'd;
Light hand great Anarch!
Lets the curtain fall;
And Universal darkness
Buries all.
                       -Alexander Pope, "The Dunciad"


Deflores: Yes, and the
while I coupled with your mate
At barley-break; Now we are
left in hell.
Vermandero: We are all there; It circumscribes us here.
                         -Thomas Middleton, "The Changling"

There are other places
which also are the worlds end,
some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city-
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.
                      -T.S. Eiot, "Little Gidding from four Quartets"

         

THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS

"And I will restore you to the years that the locust hath eaten..."
                                                                                  Joel 2:25



The only ghost, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead young
mothers, returned to see how their children fare.
                                                                                  J.M. Barrie - The Little White Bird



Thomas: Who shall have it?
Tempter: He who will come.
Thomas: What shall be the month?
Tempter: The last from the first.
Thomas:  What shall we give for it?
Tempter:  Pretence of priestly power.
Thomas:  Why should we give it?
Tempter:  For the power and the glory.
                                                                              T.S. Eliot- Murder In the Cathedral




We all know that books burn - yet we have the greater knowledge that
books cannot be killed by fire.... 
People die, but books never die...
in this war, we know, books are weapons.
                                                                              Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

A GAME OF GHOSTS

       

   Indeed, as things stand for the present, the land of Spirits
   is a kind of America...filled up with Mountains, Seas and
   Monsters.
                   - Joseph Glanville  "A Blow at Modern Sadducism (1668)




  Yesterday, upon the stair,
   I met a man who wasn't there.
   He wasn't there again today,
   I wish, I wish he'd go away.
                -  William Hughes Mearns,  "Antigonish"



   Perhaps other souls than human
   are sometimes born into the World
   and clothed in Human flesh.
               - Joseph Sheridan Le fanu  "Uncle Silas" (1864)



    Quis est iste venit
     What is this who is coming
               - After M.R. James,  "Oh, Whistle, and I'll come
                                                      to you, my Lord"



     A man is a very small thing, and the night
     is very large and full of wonders.
                - Lord Dunsany


     It is terrifying to see, but it is the movement of
     shadows, only shadows.
     Curses and ghosts, the evil spirits that have cast
     entire cities into sleep
                 - Maxim Gorky  "On a visit to the Kingdom
                                                 of Shadows"  (1896)



     To the house wherein the dwellers are bereft of
     light, where dust is their fare and clay their food,
     where they see no light, residing in darkness, where
     they are clothed like birds, with wings for garments,
     and where over door and bolt is spread dust.
                     -"Istar's Descent to the Underworld"
                         Ancient Near Eastern Texts (1950)
      
     

A TIME OF TORMENT

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.
                          - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) "Locksley Hall"




Oh! How many torments lie in the
small circles of a wedding ring!
                           - Colley Cibbes  (1671-1757) "The Double Gallant)



Take to my side
And we'll walk on
to where the frost of the Dead King
Weigh heavy on the vine
                          - Espers  "The Dead King"


And ye shall overthrow their altars,
and break their pillars, and burn their
groves with fire; and ye shall hew
down the graven images of their Gods,
and destroy the names of them out of
that place
                          - Deuteronomy 12: 3



It should be noted that children at play 
are not merely playing;  their games
should be seen as their most serious
actions.
                          - Michel de Montaigne (1533-1597)  Essays 1,23

A SONG OF SHADOWS

What would your good do if evil
didn't exist, and what would the 
Earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared?
                              - Mikhail Bulgakov
                                 The Master and Margarita



She had confronted Barbie during the pretrial proceedings-
What the French call  I'nstruction-  and when he was asked
if he recognized her, he said "When you have been in prison
for seven months it's always agreeable to see a desirable woman.'
When Simone Lagrange said that remark insulted her, he said; "The
trouble with you is you can't take a joke,"
                                   - Former Gestapo Chief Klaus Barbe
                                                                   "The Butcher of Lyons"



There is no reason why good cannot triumph
over Evil.  The triumph of anything is a matter
of organization.  If there are such things as Angels,
I hope that they are organized along the lines of
the Mafia.
                            - Kurt Vonnegut,  "The Sirens of Titan"



Had I turned into a Soulless person,
a wicked man,  a murderer? I went on plying
my conscience with questions.  Had I done anything in the War
but my duty and my obligations?  Had I done anything but
remain loyal to my Oath and obedient to my Orders?
And my conscience answered me reassuringly. NO, nothing
else.  Had I killed defenseless people, or order them to be
killed? NO, NO, NO. What in the Devil's name did they
want of me?
                           -Extract Memoirs of Adolf Eichmann
                            architect of the final Solution
                            published in "The People" Newspaper, 1961



[We] will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the Earth
and will deliver them to their accusers in order that
Justice may be done.
                                -From concerning Responsibility of
                                " Hitlerites for Committed Atrocities"
                                 October 30th, 1943, signed by Roosevelt, Churchill &Stalin