DRINKING MOONSHINE

“The phoenix must burn to emerge renewed.” — Janet Fitch

The prompt from “Poets and Storytellers United” this week is to write something relating to “Celebration”.

One of the things we associate with celebrations in the Western tradition is to have a drink… People drink alcohol for a variety of reasons, including celebratory, social, personal, and even self-medication purposes.
Some common motivations include stress relief, social lubrication, enjoyment, and coping with mental health challenges.
Alcohol consumption can also be influenced by environmental factors, family history, and cultural norms.
For people who are not drinkers, a substitute may need to be used. Drinking the light of the shining moon perhaps?

Drinking Moonshine

Tonight the moon fell into my cup
Was drowned; and dissolved all up.
The stars fell down as golden rain
To assuage my loneness and the pain.

Tonight, I’ll drink the fallen moon
And sup on stars with silver spoon,
To make the blackest night less dark,
Less silent, as I try to clear your mark.

Tonight the clock seems stopped

As minutes drag, the hours dropped.

I drink the moonshine, swallow stars

In hope the potent mix will heal my scars.

Tonight, your absence all the more acute
My thoughts run after you in vain pursuit.
The drink burns more than any spirit neat,
In deep swallows it’s drunk, my pain to cheat.

Tonight is black; of moon, of stars bereft
As dregs of moonshine are in my cup left;
My sweet star-meal has a bitter aftertaste
My empty night has my soul embraced

Tonight I’ll stay awake, despite my drink
My mind too full of you to think;
My heart too empty, and my bed too cold,
Tonight I feel deserted, frozen, old…

This poem is set to music, and you can find all references to my music in my “Otidorchestre” channel, or listen to it on YouTube,  Spotify,  Amazon, Deezer, Flo, Pandora, and other music sharing sites.

POETS UNITED - MOON

“The moon is friend for the lonesome to talk to.” ― Carl Sandburg 

The poetic inspiration seems to hover like a will-o’-the-wisp, bright and distant, uncatchable if pursued. And yet if one stays put and tries not to catch it at all, it will approach and alight on one’s heart and the words will gush forth. In the past few weeks I’ve been busy with work, family, have had to overcome a swathe of problems. Writing was confined to things of science and things that were matter of fact.

Creativity it seems, thrives on misfortune, but it also thrives on the availability of time and inclination to follow a certain creative path. My creative path took me away to music, so the poet’s voice remained silent. Music sustained me, but poetry beckoned like that ignis fatuus, and I wisely chose to ignore it.  Last night the moon was blue and it was a great moon, which was eclipsed. A once in a century or two phenomenon. The poetic inspiration coincided with this week’s Poets’ United theme, which was: “Make a new poem  for the moon, using a perspective new to you.” Here is my poem: 

The Moon’s Answer 

I ask the silvery moon, as she shines white
High in the sky, making my garden bright: 
“Moon, why should I speak with you
And not with my Love? Pray, tell me, do…” 

She smiles and stays far, so wan and silent,
Her light now steely blue, and cutting – violent; 
“Oh, Moon, you see all, up on your argent throne
But you choose to stay hushed, wise, like a crone.” 

A cloud passes before her lovely face
To hide a tear perhaps, or frown efface? 
“Moon, you too are sad and make good company,
Come with me, and my lonely song accompany.” 

She winks, and off the cloud she shrugs, she smiles,
(Her ways are strange and her manner full of wiles)… 
“Speak, Moon, please answer me my earnest query:
Is my Love true to me, or is she with betrayal leery?” 

A shadow passes and moon’s countenance bloodies,
Her voice rings out and she, in now darkened night,
Replies: “Your Love’s untruth the waters muddies, 
She lies and mocks, and sows doubt and blight.”

“Oh, cruel Moon, why speak such spite incarnadine?
Your golden, uncertain silence, I preferred, ‘twas more benign…” 

The Moon eclipsed speaks hurtful truths, no dulcet lies;
But when she brightly shines, fills she with hope the velvet skies.

POETS UNITED - DARK MOON, NEW MOON

“We are all like the bright moon, but we still have our dark side.” ― Kahlil Gibran 

In the Poets United site this week the Midweek Motif theme is Dark Moon, New Moon. My contribution is below:
  
Mistress Moon

Dark Mistress Moon,
You hide your face tonight,
(In shame?)
For mischief’s afoot
And all sorts of foul deeds need to be done… 

O, Moon, my Moon,
You of the radiant countenance
(So pure!)
You’re kind and gentle
When you shine and leaves with silver shower. 

Harsh, Moon, when you veil
Your beauty in dark crêpe,
(In mourning?)
You hide your sadness
And you let your anger, cruelty and vileness beget. 

O, Moon, my Moon,
Your gibbous fecund glow,
(In pregnancy…)
Generates blessings
When you touch with light caress all womankind. 

Dark Mistress Moon,
With sharpened sickle,
(So deadly!)
Tonight you’ll cut

The thread of life of those who dared offend you. 

O, Moon, my Moon,
Tomorrow night reborn,
(In innocence…)
You’ll smile and heal,
And give back hope and dignity to those wronged.

MYTHIC MONDAY - EGYPT 23, THOTH

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” - Anton Chekhov 

Thoth or Djehuti (from Greek Θώθ thṓth, from Egyptian ḏḥwty) was one of the deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat, and his wife was Ma’at. Thoth’s chief temple was located in the city of Khmun, later called Hermopolis Magna during the Greco-Roman era (in reference to him through the Greeks’ interpretation that he was the same as their god Hermes) and Shmounein in the Coptic rendering, and was partially destroyed in 1826 CE. In that city, he led the Ogdoad pantheon of eight principal deities.

He also had numerous shrines within the cities of Abydos, Hesert, Urit, Per-Ab, Rekhui, Ta-ur, Sep, Hat, Pselket, Talmsis, Antcha-Mutet, Bah, Amen-heri-ab, and Ta-kens. Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma’at) who stood on either side of Ra’s boat. In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead.

Thoth has been depicted in many ways depending on the era and on the aspect the artist wished to convey. Usually, he is depicted in his human form with the head of an ibis. In this form, he can be represented as the reckoner of times and seasons by a headdress of the lunar disk sitting on top of a crescent moon resting on his head.

When depicted as a form of Shu or Ankher, he was depicted to be wearing the respective god’s headdress. He also appears as a dog-faced baboon or a man with the head of a baboon when he is A’an, the god of equilibrium. In the form of A’ah-Djehuty he took a more human-looking form. These forms are all symbolic and are metaphors for Thoth’s attributes. The Egyptians did not believe these gods actually looked like humans with animal heads.

Thoth has played a prominent role in many of the Egyptian myths. Displaying his role as arbitrator, he had overseen the three epic battles between good and evil. All three battles are fundamentally the same and belong to different periods. The first battle took place between Ra and Apep, the second between Heru-Bekhutet and Set, and the third between Horus and Set . In each instance, the former god represented order while the latter represented chaos. If one god was seriously injured, Thoth would heal them to prevent either from overtaking the other.

Thoth was also prominent in the Osirian myth, being of great aid to Isis. After Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiris’ dismembered body, he gave her the words to resurrect him so she could be impregnated and bring forth Horus. After a battle between Horus and Set in which the latter plucked out Horus’ eye, Thoth’s counsel provided him the wisdom he needed to recover it.

Thoth was the god who always speaks the words that fulfil the wishes of Ra. This mythology also credits him with the creation of the 365-day calendar. Originally, according to the myth, the year was only 360 days long and Nut was sterile during these days, unable to bear children. Thoth gambled with the Moon for 1/72nd of its light (360/72 = 5), or 5 days, and won. During these 5 days, Nut and Geb gave birth to Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.

Thoth was originally a moon god. The moon not only provides light at night, allowing time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology/astronomy. The cycles of the moon also organised much of Egyptian society’s rituals and events, both civil and religious. Consequently, Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement and regulation of events and of time. He was thus said to be the secretary and counselor of the sun god Ra, and with Ma'at (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky.

Thoth became credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing, and was also considered to have been the scribe of the underworld; and the Moon became occasionally considered a separate entity, now that Thoth had less association with it and more with wisdom. For this reason Thoth was universally worshipped by ancient Egyptian scribes. Many scribes had a painting or a picture of Thoth in their “office”. Likewise, one of the symbols for scribes was that of the ibis.

Thoth was inserted in many tales as the wise counselor and persuader, and his association with learning and measurement led him to be connected with Seshat, the earlier deification of wisdom, who was said to be his daughter, or variably his wife. Thoth’s qualities also led to him being identified by the Greeks with their closest matching god Hermes, with whom Thoth was eventually combined as Hermes Trismegistus, also leading to the Greeks naming Thoth’s cult centre as Hermopolis, meaning city of Hermes.

MYTHIC MONDAY - EGYPT 20, IAH

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.” - Carl Sandburg 

Iah ( Egyptian: Jˁḥ, transliterated as Yah, Jah, Jah(w), Joh or Aah) is a lunar deity in ancient Egyptian religion. His name simply means “Moon”. By the New Kingdom, he was less prominent than other gods with lunar connections, Thoth and Khonsu. As a result of the functional connection between them he could be identified with either of those deities. He was sometimes considered an adult form of Khonsu and was increasingly absorbed by him.

Iah continued to appear in amulets and occasional other representations, similar to Khonsu in appearance, with the same lunar symbols on his head and occasionally the same tight garments. He differed in usually wearing a full wig instead of a child’s sidelock, and sometimes the Atef topped by another symbol.

As time went on, Iah also became Iah-Djuhty, meaning “god of the new moon”. Iah was also assimilated with Osiris, god of the dead, perhaps because, in its monthly cycle, the moon appears to renew itself. Iah also seems to have assumed the lunar aspect of Thoth, god of knowledge, writing and calculation; the segments of the moon were used as fractional symbols in writing.

POETS UNITED - ACCEPTANCE

“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.” - Michael J. Fox

This week, Poets United is looking at the theme of “Acceptance”. Acceptance is when we accept what is offered to us, even if we know how bad that thing or situation may be; we accept an idea or a belief, even if we may not agree with it; we accept a difficult situation and we learn to live with it. We accept something if we live with it and we change our life accordingly so as to make it better, despite the differences that we have to cope with, the transformations that we go through, despite the rebuilding and reshaping. Adaptation forces us to evolve and evolution can make us better human beings.

Acceptance

The Moon!

How it has changed of late;

Still white and bright,

Shining clear and pure so high,

But cold and sterile,

So empty of meaning

Devoid of its mystique of old...

The Moon!

How I have changed, so gradually;

Less willing to believe,

Still hopeful and attentive,

But resigned to the facts

And able to accept

The Moon’s uncompromising frigidity...

ART SUNDAY - KNUD BAADE

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” -  Oscar Wilde

Knud Andreassen Baade (28 March 1808 - 24 November 1879) was a Norwegian painter, mostly of portraits and landscapes. He was particularly known for his moonlight paintings which are characterised by strong and dramatic contrasts between light and shadow.

Baade was born in Skjold, a former municipality now in Vindafjord in Rogaland county, Norway. While still a boy he moved to Bergen with his family. He began his artistic education at the age of fifteen, under the Danish-Swedish painter, Carl Peter Lehmann (1794-1876). In 1827 he went to Copenhagen, where he studied at the Academy for about three years, until financial difficulties forced him to move to Christiania (now Oslo) and take up portrait-painting.

When his father became a magistrate in Sogn, he followed his family to the parish of Solvorn in Luster. The mountains, fjords and rocky bays offered ample subjects for his work. He also travelled northward to Trondheim and as far north as Bodø in search of material for his pictures. In 1836 he was persuaded by the well-known landscape painter, Dahl, to go to Dresden, where he studied for three years. There that he met Caspar David Friedrich and was strongly influenced by him.

He returned to Norway in 1839 due of a disease in his eyes. In 1846 he moved to Munich, where he soon earned a reputation as a landscape painter, producing views of his native country and the scenes around its coasts, mostly depicted with moonlight effects. Though but an invalid, he worked at Munich continually until his death there in 1879.

Baade was painter to the Court of Sweden, and a member of the Academy of Arts at Stockholm. He painted some fine portraits, especially in younger years, including portraits of his parents (1836). In addition to several trips to Sogn and Hardanger, Baade travelled widely in Germany. He also painted landscape scenes from Bavaria, Saxony, Tyrol and Switzerland. He is represented in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design with 52 paintings.

The painting above is “Coastal Landscape in Moonlight”, painted in 1852. The work is typical of Baade’s oeuvre and shows his affinity with Friedrich’s canvases. The darkness of night and effects of moonlight on both sea and land have been rendered painstakingly and would appeal to the Romantic ideals of Baade’s time.

POETS UNITED - TEACHERS

“Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” - Sir Winston Churchill

Poets United this week celebrates World Teachers’ Day, held annually on October 5 since 1994. Its aim is to mobilize support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers. The challenge is to: “Bring a great teacher memory to life in a new poem. Or, if you don’t have one, use learning as your motif…”

Having been a teacher in my professional life, I can surely appreciate the benefits of good teaching when it generates deep and active learning. However, I have also seen some very bad teaching, which unfortunately can have the opposite result from what it intends to do. Education can happen in the most unexpected and delightful ways – a good teacher can facilitate this process of discovery and learning. A poor teacher shovels education into students as though they were empty vessels to be filled with facts, figures, dates and minutiae to be memorised and recalled parrot fashion. What use is to me to know how far away from the earth the moon is and what its precise diameter is, if I cannot appreciate a poem about the magic of moonlight?



Encounter

When we shall meet again

Let’s close our eyes, imagining

The moon as it used to be –

Distant, mysterious, full of hidden promises.

Let us forget bitter realities

Taught to us by our experience,

Throw to the winds the empty facts,

Taught to us by our zealous, short-sighted teachers.

Once more let us believe that

All is possible, all may happen;

Let us regain that most precious of things

That we have lost – Moonlight...

POETS UNITED - HEALING

“The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.” - Hubert H. Humphrey

The theme for this week’s Poets United poetical challenge is “Healing”. To heal is the desired outcome of much treatment, but often nowadays modern medicine is cure-focussed and the patient may suffer much during the attempts at the restoration of health. I remember when at University and later in hospitals, we were told that “to care is the primary objective of the healer, to cure a secondary one.” This I think is often forgotten in modern medicine, which seeks magic bullets, efficacious remedies, wonderful cure-alls and powerful panaceas that cure all ills. Such fantastic treatments may have dire side-effects and often the cure they bring about may exact a terrible price on the patient’s health – one disease cured, but its place taken by another, caused by the medication…

Sterile Moonlight

The moon tonight, stronger than absinthe,

Sharper than broken glass,

Softer than mossy ground;

More powerful an aphrodisiac than ripe figs,

Intoxicating, like new wine,

More tantalising than wild strawberries.

The moon at midnight both a lover and a rapist,

A tender paramour and a loathsome abuser,

Caresses, titillates, empowers – cuts, lashes, lacerates;

Engages more violently than a barbaric conqueror,

Touches more tenderly than a mother’s kiss,

Feels and strikes, wounds and heals concurrently.

The moon last night, an elixir of paramount efficacy,

Honey and poison mingled into a potent potion, a panacea –

It cures, it kills, and saps my spirit.

Fertile, like a newly rained-upon ploughed field,

My body gathers moonbeams to weave into cloth

Covering my fecund, protuberant belly.

The moon some night watches the agony of my birth pangs,

It gently assists like an experienced midwife,

The joy of motherhood a remedy exquisite.

Mooncloth of moonbeam woven, turns from raiment into shroud:

My newborn snatched by the moon’s fury,

And in its place, a lifeless changeling by my side.

MUSIC SATURDAY - RUSALKA

“But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.” - Arthur Rimbaud

“Rusalka”, Op. 114, is an opera (‘lyric fairy tale’) by Antonín Dvořák. A Rusalka is a water sprite from Slavic mythology, usually inhabiting a lake or river. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil (1868–1950) based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses. Rusalka was the ninth opera Dvořák composed.

Dvořák had played viola for many years in pit orchestras in Prague (Estates Theatre from 1857 until 1859 while a student, then from 1862 until 1871 at the Provisional Theatre). He thus had direct experience of a wide range of operas by Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Lortzing, Verdi, Wagner and Smetana. For many years unfamiliarity with Dvořák’s operas outside Czechoslovakia helped reinforce a perception that composition of operas was a marginal activity, and that despite the beauty of its melodies and orchestral timbres Rusalka was not a central part of his output or of international lyric theatre. In recent years it has been performed more regularly by major opera companies.

In the five seasons from 2008 to 2013 it was performed by opera companies worldwide far more than all of Dvořák’s other operas combined. The most popular excerpt from Rusalka is the “Song to the Moon” (‘Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém’) from Act 1 which is often performed in concert and recorded separately. It has also been arranged for violin and used on film sound tracks. It begins at 21 minutes into the video, which is subtitled in Italian.

Song to the Moon

Silver moon upon the deep dark sky,

Through the vast night send your rays.

This sleeping world you wander by,

Smiling on men’s homes and ways.

Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me,

Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?

Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me

Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?

Tell him, oh tell him, my silver moon,

Mine are the arms that shall hold him,

That between waking and sleeping he may

Think of the love that enfolds him,

May between waking and sleeping

Think of the love that enfolds him.

Light his path far away, light his path,

Tell him, oh tell him who does for him stay!

Human soul, should it dream of me,

Let my memory wakened be.

Moon, moon, oh do not wane, do not wane,

Moon, oh moon, do not wane....

Jaroslav Kvapil

Here is the whole opera performed in the National Theatre in Prague, with Rusalka: Eva Jenišov; Prince: Vladimir Hrisko; Water King: Peter Nicholas; Witch: Marta Beňačková; Foreign Princess: Anda-Louise Bogza; conductor Jiri Belohlavek.

POETRY JAM - INSIDE LOOKING OUT

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.” - Carl Sandburg

Poetry Jam’s prompt this week is “Inside Looking Out” (or vice-versa!) and participants can treat this in a poem literally or figuratively. Here is my contribution. The reference to Sappho is from a surviving fragment of her poetry (Diehl 94 / Voigt 168b / Cox 48):

“Well, the moon has set, and the Pleiades.
It is the middle of the night.
And the hours pass by,
But I sleep alone…”
Sappho (≈630/612 BCE to ≈570 BCE)

Couvre-feu

Moonlight streams into my room
(Ill luck would have me
Forget to draw the curtain tonight).

Outside, the garden
(Cold, frosty,
Silent and forsaken).
Tree branches
(bare, harsh, rapacious)
Clutch at illumined, star-strewn sky.
A sole night bird calls.
The chill, dark air is calm,
The sky so far away,
I know I’ll never reach it.

(Time passes;
The firmament rotates,
Sleep eludes me).

Cold, bright, impassive,
All-knowing moon looks in;
And on my desk Sappho remarks
That by my side
The bed is empty.

POETRY JAM - THE ORDINARY

“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.” - John Lennon

Poetry Jam this week is all about the ordinary made into the extraordinary: “This week I want you to choose one of the ordinary things around you and write about it. Look at this ordinary thing or scene in detail and notice what is there. Is there some unexpected beauty in its design or the way it fits in with its surroundings? Perhaps by doing this you can make it something extraordinary.”

Here is my offering, an ordinary moment made extraordinary when friends finally become lovers…

A Flower in the Moonlight

We started playing with words again tonight,
While the singer articulated softly our innermost desires,
And our hearts vocalised dumbly our sweetest bitter dreams.
The room so small, the light so dim,
The night so deep, the short space between us,
So immense it could in light years be measured...

We’ve played this scene so many times before,
Two actors on the stage fumbling with props
Struggling with our lines, trying inarticulately to improvise
Forgotten speeches that we would not dare to speak
Even if we had remembered them;
Your eyes avoid mine while a flower blooms in your hand.

Above us the air’s a prism, while a hundred light-bulb stars shine on a celluloid sky:
A room with walls of music, the pasteboard moon for a ceiling.
If we could only bridge the gap between us, dissolve the ice
If you could touch me now, think of what would be gained!

You stretch your hand, as years of silence crumble
A thousand nights, dead, are resurrected
And at last, this time on cue, you offer me
A flower in the moonlight…