The Poetry Of Illusion

Further Elaborations

[thepoetryofillusion]

Strolling through the fallen city

in the 60ies and 70ies I often said, with each return of Christmas : « Christmas is sad »… -I didn’t know why then…

Their Christmas-tree is not a Christmas-tree it’s not a Tree nothing to do with Christmas, either… Not a Tree of Life, of course in spite of the comings and goings the hustle-and-bustle, buying and selling and the food (is it food?…) and all… Think of the silence and immobility of a high snow-white mountain-top think of the star-studded darkness of a deep unfathomable forest… They love plastic trees or poor uprooted ones surviving for a short time… (the tree of good and evil is concealed by the tinsel, baubles, glittering wares… there is no choice)

A Friday was called « black » because it was a big sale the shopkeepers’ feast day a Thursday was called « black » in the papers, on the telly because it was a big strike… Strikers go shopping like anyone else, don’t they ? do shopkeepers by any chance ever go on strike ?… Christmas used to be the Winter Solstice a holy celebration of the Sun’s cosmic drama the cosmic Christ going its way through death to the resurrection The Celts, those sons of the East, our forefathers before the Greeks and Romans pushed in, used to celebrate the Winter Solstice : symbol of the mystical death of man or woman promised to a rebirth as truth-seeker and lover

of life and all living creatures… What do they celebrate today with their fake Christmas-trees ? Certainly not the Winter Solstice so, not Christmas either… What do they love ?… Yes ! … the family… (not the human one though…) yes, yes… the children , their presents (how long will they use them ?… how long keep them ?…) of course!... the childish grown-ups’ hearts coming alive (for how long?) the shining eyes, mirth, exhilaration, warm-heartedness, reunions and the jolly good meals, wine and champagne… Yes, yes… fine !… but… what is missing ?... what is redundant ? may be the right question : if there is redundancy, there is something missing… The gap is filled only for a short time. Nothing has changed since the 60ies and 70ies. Nothing changes... … except if YOU…

go look at the Sun rising, rise early to do that

take in the Light, Fire, Heat

kindle the flames of your Heart and Consciousness, keep them burning ever unearth your Memory, keep away from the « human » anthill go look at the Stars at night, don‘t go to bed too early

listen for the Music of the Spheres

climb up to the top of Mountains for that, the Mountain of your Soul too...

if it’s cloudy or rainy, love the Clouds and Rain listen for the Birds in the Trees and everywhere

dig into the luminous darkness of Forests, the Forest of your Soul too... when you’ve reached the Heart of the Forest, carry on digging... and when you’ve reached the top of the Mountain, carry on climbing…

whatever the labours, trials, ordeals and sufferings may be, it won‘t be sad...

René Agostini 2019

[thepoetryofillusion]

what is Poetry ?...

ask the Birds the Wind shaking the Trees the River singing when scratching the backs of pebbles...

...what is Poetry ?...

... ask the Sky and Clouds ask he Earth, the Stone the Sun, the Rain the strong Wine of Life throbbing everywhere...

I  did ask... :

it's a Voice, the one and only Voice which sometimes comes to whisper and resound in some voices who do not deliberately get in their chests that racing Wind which comes to quiver and radiate

that Music of the Wind dancing, bounding and rebounding from chest to chest, from head to head...

it's that Silence burning and simmering the vertigo of an uncommon drunkenness

there, in that rustling Void there, Poetry speaks

a Voice without a language a nomadic Voice

a Light dazzling you into a seer a Fire passing, a Flame enduring in eyes and hearts

a Fire passing and staying a reflection guiding leading the way

an echo saying : Love, Love with Love and go...

René Agostini 2019

[thepoetryofillusion]

(after listening to Bach’s Magnificat)

The passion of a tear

shed from the first Waters

through the Soul's Fire

Earth renewed

prolific, bountiful

infinitely generous

just the Wind of a Song

an Angel's voice

in human form and garb

the passion of a tear

Water from deep Fire

a moment's Ecstasy

the Joy overwhelming

Body and Soul quivering

and Spirit overpowering

in a second

one more step

up the hard stony Path

one more rung

up the steep Ladder

to Being...

René Agostini 2018

[thepoetryofillusion]

Things as they are

or things as they ought to be ?

  Druid speaking :

 « Imagine

vast open spaces

of earth and sky

  harsh open spaces

threats and dangers do nothing to beauty

  a short life with rare intensities

a short and long life above life

a life beyond life

  a kingdom of heart and consciousness

everything just, as are just the air, the water and the fire

everything just, as are just the heavens and the trees, the flowers and the birds

  justice and mercy, a perfect balance

  love, the law of justice and mercy

the blood through the veins, the air through the lungs

  love, the only real food

the only path for truth and freedom

  love, the grace of life and death and life

the universal language and order

 ----------

 stone gods

establish communication

between earth, the underworld and the heavens

  shrines and temples everywhere

in the middle of nowhere

  the music and dance of elements

elect a few choice messengers above

who elect a few choice messengers below

all of them converse

with sun and moon and stars and beyond

  the great spirit, the sun of suns

the soul of souls, the spirit of spirits

 ----------

 the « government »

is that of love and wisdom, wisdom and love

another name for justice and mercy

  what « governs » can only be

such spirit of brotherhood and equality

as puts out of court any division or separation

  there is no « I », no « me » or « self »

no « mine », no « yours »

only the Heart and Consciousness common

to all hearts and consciousnesses

whatever wealth is given to whoever

is shared justly, equally

 ----------

 there are more duties than rights

the community prevails over « individuals »

I mean divided, dividable « persons »

that is « dividuals »

  the only consistent individual

in the truest sense

is the heart, is the consciousness

two bowls in one

for the messages from above

two bowls upright, heavenwards

----------

 so much for things as they ought to be

forming and informing and structuring

life at large, all ages, all levels

each and every place and corner of planet earth

 ----------

 of course, there are obscure forces

evil forces, the war shall never end

evil may carry the day, evil does carry the day

no-one has to give up the fight

the tough struggle, inside and outside

  evil’s victory is never final

it is a mere stage in a very long and recurring story

of battles, the story of a war which always ends

with the victory of good, thus opening

the first cycle in an eternal series

of four cycles, the three following after the first

being invariably a gradual, irresistible, imperceptible

descent into the pit and pitfalls of evil

 ----------

 WHY such a perfect cosmic movement and determination is what

we, the suffering, hard-working few

we, tirelessly questing and querying

we, not always happy but obstinately joyful

and lovingly ready to help, even sacrifice ourselves

are here to discover…

  with perseverance and patience…

  first inside and then outside…

  warring and loving

loving and warring… »

  Best disciple answering : « I understand things as they are are as they have to be... »

  Druid « Quite so ! »...

 to Ann

from René

 June 21st 2018

22h48

René Agostini

[thepoetryofillusion]

-IV-

 I am the desert and the life

I am the sand and the wind

I am the storm and the spirit

I am the root and the path

the desert wants me dead

I say NO

and then say my name

so we become Life

  the desert is a page

the wind draws

paints and writes on it

with the ink of transparency

  you calligraphing wind

you great wind of patient metamorphoses

all over the desert’s page

so vast a page rising, shifting and swaying, with that groundswell beneath...

  nothing but sand everywhere

nothing but wind everywhere

the desert is a raging sea...

  but the nomad is the desert and the desert is the nomad

their roots grow heavenwards

and farther and farther up, beyond the deep heavens...

  the Wind is a surveyor

an earth-surveyor

the Wind is the Architect

  never does He lower Himself

to the pettiness

of landscape-gardening…

  the sharp nail of the Wind

traces mysterious signs

for all of us to read

  the forgotten secrets

of man and the desert

-the desert of all men

  Three deserts accompany us tonight : the north of Burkina-Faso, the south of Morocco and the southern Algeria of my childhood. For people with sensibilities not too blunt or weakened, any desert leaves an indelible mark. There are the memories of course, but the imagination does all the rest… : the imagination of Mystics, that which alone can allow you to see the Real…

René Agostini

[thepoetryofillusion]

-II-

an artist’s residence

 it was my first night in the forest

I didn’t sleep

I could see the stars above the tree-tops

hear the wind’s water rushing through the trees’ clothing

the brook singing past further down

the water’s strong rubbing against the pebbles

  a nightingale began singing

there were things moving all around me

I could sense some presences

friendly presences…

the nightingale sang throughout the night

when the sun rose, there was silence punctuated by wrens and robins

and I fell asleep...

 since then, I’ve worked hard to stay awake in this Universe where everything is possible

everything except identifying with anything or anybody on this Earth

not even with ourselves, all that we do and love doing and do very well -so-called passions… :

 so many curtains of smoke over the Real… (even without a fire...)

 our Being is everywhere, goes everywhere, inhabits all places

our Being navigates between Earth and Sky

navigates between the world and the desert

(from Instant poems)

René Agostini

[thepoetryofillusion]

Love of Rarest Vintage

 It was a perfect

Love, that had no beginning

And therefore, no end.

 It was a divine

Love, which never had the least

Need, to be sorry.

 It was a happy

Love, which did not ask to be

Known, by the other.

 It was of itself

Pure, a wonderful story

Of a life’s longing.

 Something out-of-reach

Far beyond the everyday

Full of its own speech.

 It spent lingering

Hours, gazing at an image

Full of wise wisdom.

 It passed half a life

Walking with the other, down

Perfumed country lanes.

 Only in the night’s

Dream, did it dare eat a peach

Of rarest vintage !

 Panmelys 2016

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Panmelys - Imprints Of The Mind

The extraordinary poet, visionary artist and muse of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, Panmelys, with a poem brim full of mystical wonder.

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Panmelys - Ode To A Bookshop

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Lex Paulson - The End Of Memory

The ever engaging Professor of Rhetoric and Human Rights at Sciences Po, Paris, Lex Paulson, with an extraordinary framing of the nexus between writing and memory.

[thepoetryofillusion]

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[thepoetryofillusion]

  James Joyce -1882-1941- by Panmelys

(Ages Repeating)

 So much written: yet so much unsaid,

Of a man’s colossal inside visions,

His outside physic quite ordinary,

With moral practices unusual

Of epoch: eroded superstitions,

Where sin, sex, and bodily functions, locked

As skeletons, boxed in dark confessions,

Genius, was his eye’s clicking camera!

 Celtic heritage and mythic knowledge,

Birthed gift, combines learned scholarship; invades

Privacy and catholic baloney;

Pervasive irony surrounds, invokes,

Provokes, reader’s curiosity; plays

Musical scenarios of life’s many acts:

Hide and go seek games, weaves a web, to catch

Flies : mysterious spool unwinds genius in art !

 Born and died same years as Virginia Woolf,

Where one feels an internal dialogue,

Coursed between two genius’:  subconscious

Minds give off odor of like dimensions,

Subversive and sublime: pathos and decline:

Verbal galaxy of new inventions,

Though Virginia luckier with printing press,

Than Joyce, who himself endorsed, final dot !

  Joyce wrote, weighed down by numerous complaints,

Failing eyesight, family sicknesses,

Especially daughter’s madness, which caused

Many printed faults, due to rush and stress,

No doubt, causing his own discomfiture ,

Though Sylvia Beech’s generous handouts,

Often used and abused by Joyce, treating,

Hoards of friends to expensive restaurants !

 Peggy Guggenheim says she met Beckett

At Fouquet’s,*  invited by James Joyce, so,

We may add ‘spendthrift’ as character trait,

 Alongside genius, voyeur, dreamer: his

Horror of violence, injustice, church

Dogmatism, cruelty, which appear

Within each line he wrote: here I quote, Woolf:

” every secret of a writer’s soul. . .

 Every experience of his life, every

Quality of his mind, is written large,

In his works,” Joyce never reveals outright

Own identity, though many faces,

Disguised, exude the author’s atmosphere.

Love symbol, strongest, in all its many

Dimensions; illusions of soul, body,

Mind, of  life’s agonies and ecstasies !

 There can be no final full stop, to what

Ulysses, of both ancient Greece, and now,

Depicts as eternal, human fervor:

Life’s continuous adventure, creates,

Homer’s Odyssey & Iliad: Dante’s great

Comedy, with choice of Virgil as guide,

Leading way to Light:  Sappho’s sparse music,

Weaves philosophy:  Proust bequeaths lost muse !

 Critics descry Joyce’s hidden secret,

As being love:  yet own poetic verve

Absorbed thru senses: feel the message left

Was of the feminine, in all its grandeur,

Splendor, displaying, future prophesy,

Corroborating poet Rimbaud’s words:

“And her language will be strange!” All great art,

Bows before another’s flame: eternal !

 This then, open page of an intimate

Love story with life:  an objective aim,

Which may, or may not appear as worthy

Of being called, philosophic literature?

Re-telling strange invisible plots, links,

Off all loves lost: metamorphosed features,

Living within these pages, symbolic,

Of modern Presence of a Light, Incarnate!

  Surely some will say: “How dare she suppose

Herself as being same kernel as Joyce?”

To dare, with hands bare, will always surprise:

Stirring hearts of men, more mysteriously,*

Than fame, fortune, even academy ?

Intelligence is innate, born of grains

And cultures, of many genetic breeds,

Includes a female poet’s flame of fury !

 All ages repeat their own inside beat,

Joyce’s bold bell boomed its outside anger,

Away from roots of inbred racist ‘knells’!

Brilliant mind, escaped, to better understand

Rhetoric chimes of Celtic imagery,

Far beyond, above, modern symphony -

Ironic voices of those ‘Dubliners’,

Surpassing ‘the man in the street’ of Dickens.

 Bringing the inside, outside; with true eyes,

Similar desires to stamp their cities,

With their pens, leaving lifelong legacies,

Of unmatched language-tools, with which to cry:

“Welcome, oh life.” said at end of ‘Portrait:

“yes I said  yes I will  Yes:” ends Ulysses .

Molly’s words sending its sublime message:

Linked with Stephen’s cry: unites both sexes !

 * famous expensive Paris restaurant – still active.

* words of André Malraux – French philosopher: politician.

Panmelys  

[thepoetryofillusion]

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(The Poetry of Illusion)