"Wishing to gain Cassandra's favors, Apollo promised to teach her the art of prophecy; she learned the art but refused her favours; hence Apollo deprived her prophecy of power to persuade." Apollodorus, The Library, III.xii.5 (tr. J. G. Frazer) HOW CASSANDRA BECAME CLAIRVOYANT So. You are Apollo. Well, that's a new one. As good a [...]
"... he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom [...]
I will grow myself quiet leaves in the diffiicult silence of chastity. I will hide in the immense namelessness though each tree murmurs to him my name. I am the bed of leaves he can never scorch, not even with his eyes of fire. I am the naked face of the flower; a cross. He [...]
See how nothing keeps out of Pluto's gorge, silently drifts towards it, waits, sinks into the thickening dark, the unreflecting water, grave made of mud and stones: this way--to hide lizard shadows, here--to rob of flesh; though mercy's an unprofitable profession, save me from too much death.
Stone words hard to wield, smooth as the moon washed of night, shape me into a weapon no man can see except with the eyes of his bones. Words tight as skin in a fleshless space, worn thin in a cage of a promise, design fast the leap into the air no man can follow, [...]
Naked leaves sifted nightly, gathered, fondled, and stored in long sheets of black fire, nailed firm to stars, free of feelings' clatter, freed most of all from the earth whose fingertips touched fire, arms steeped in the sickness of its craving: the earth's love is persistence; rust; time spread over wide pastures; weeds perpetuate the [...]
Look inside the face traced with the world's moist stone into the mirror of every kindness gentle bones and a hundred glories could neither imitate nor efface; see the white mingle with gold, the gold with dusty tracings, the foundation become weathered red, and the stone remain, alone, a salvaged monument to the faith shared [...]
See how the black flock of quietly fallen birds stares, swallowing air, at the air staring down. Their minds become wings, their startled dreams of the sky insidiously sawed down to its very blueness-- the black flock falling, without a sound, into the soundless blades of grass: the alloy of the hundred-eyed earth and the [...]
He dreams his way up to being, quietly, with unhurried breath, as though breath were a blossomed staircase leading to a perfect sky where kind-eyed gods themselves with slow, sinuous movements, ancient skin and immaculate hands would greet him kindly: "Friend!" As though the net to catch human souls were masterfully spun of poetry, and [...]
To see faces of men, remote and deep, remote as in a listener singing without words, singing and seeing the processions of thousands waiting for the picture to drift and sing organize into prismatic perceptions the unkempt indifference of their wish. To see the wish grow ripe in the images darkly golden, darkly painted as [...]