"Hermaphroditus", by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Lift up thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
Save the long smile that they are wearied of.
Ah sweet, albeit no love be sweet enough,
Choose of two loves and cleave unto the best;
Two loves at either blossom of thy breast
Strive until one be under and one above.
Their breath is fire upon the amorous air,
Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire:
And whosoever hath seen thee, being so fair,
Two things turn all his life and blood to fire;
A strong desire begot on great despair,
A great despair cast out by strong desire.

II
Where between sleep and life some brief space is,
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss;
Yet from them something like as fire is shed
That shall not be assuaged till death be dead,
Though neither life nor sleep can find out this.
Love made himself of flesh that perisheth
A pleasure-house for all the loves his kin;
But on the one side sat a man like death,
And on the other a woman sat like sin.
So with veiled eyes and sobs between his breath
Love turned himself and would not enter in.

III
Love, is it love or sleep or shadow or light
That lies between thine eyelids and thine eyes?
Like a flower laid upon a flower it lies,
Or like the night's dew laid upon the night.
Love stands upon thy left hand and thy right,
Yet by no sunset and by no moonrise
Shall make thee man and ease a woman's sighs,
Or make thee woman for a man's delight.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair,
Fed thee on summers, watered thee with showers,
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours?

IV
Yea, love, I see; it is not love but fear.
Nay, sweet, it is not fear but love, I know;
Or wherefore should thy body's blossom blow
So sweetly, or thine eyelids leave so clear
Thy gracious eyes that never made a tear —
Though for their love our tears like blood should flow,
Though love and life and death should come and go,
So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?
Yea, sweet, I know; I saw in what swift wise
Beneath the woman's and the water's kiss
Thy moist limbs melted into Salmacis,
And the large light turned tender in thine eyes,
And all thy boy's breath softened into sighs;
But Love being blind, how should he know of this?

Au Musée du Louvre, Mars 1863.

H.P. Lovecraft's "Azathoth"

When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s flowering meads; when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.
Of the name and abode of this man but little is written, for they were of the waking world only; yet it is said that both were obscure. It is enough to know that he dwelt in a city of high walls where sterile twilight reigned, and that he toiled all day among shadow and turmoil, coming home at evening to a room whose one window opened not on the fields and groves but on a dim court where other windows stared in dull despair. From that casement one might see only walls and windows, except sometimes when one leaned far out and peered aloft at the small stars that passed. And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities. After years he began to call the slow-sailing stars by name, and to follow them in fancy when they glided regretfully out of sight; till at length his vision opened to many secret vistas whose existence no common eye suspects. And one night a mighty gulf was bridged, and the dream-haunted skies swelled down to the lonely watcher’s window to merge with the close air of his room and make him a part of their fabulous wonder.
There came to that room wild streams of violet midnight glittering with dust of gold; vortices of dust and fire, swirling out of the ultimate spaces and heavy with perfumes from beyond the worlds. Opiate oceans poured there, litten by suns that the eye may never behold and having in their whirlpools strange dolphins and sea-nymphs of unrememberable deeps. Noiseless infinity eddied around the dreamer and wafted him away without even touching the body that leaned stiffly from the lonely window; and for days not counted in men’s calendars the tides of far spheres bare him gently to join the dreams for which he longed; the dreams that men have lost. And in the course of many cycles they tenderly left him sleeping on a green sunrise shore; a green shore fragrant with lotus-blossoms and starred by red camalotes.

A tiny quick little note about death

I am secretly desperate to know what stories y'all are going to tell of me after I die - I have but little control in the form my agency takes after my gross body dies, leaving only my subtle body, my ghost, in the stories and the magick. Once I convert to a mostly noospheric entity, once my memes have overtaken my genes, once I have died, it is the stories that are told of me that will determine what kind of entity, what sort of spirit, who I am at that point. And I won't be telling the stories, so I would love insight from others about how those stories might start -- any guesses about my developing mythos are just that: guesses.

My ethical duty then (owed, here, to myself) is to provide inspiration for stories that I would like to die into, to provide the Kether of the godform I will eventually step into, inhabit, and become. Embodied tulpa drag, you might say. Many, if not most, of my actions, and all the better ones, derive in part from this origin.

I found a translation of the Obelisk Antinoi that I've never seen before

And, oddly, its faces are all twisted around from how PSVL and the Ecclesia Antinoi list them . . . Curious.

I found it at https://archive.org/stream/twelveegyptiano00parkgoog/twelveegyptiano00parkgoog_djvu.txt

"North Side, Pyramidion,

Ra or the Sun hawk-headed seated on a throne having before him a jar and
water-plants. Before him stands the Emperor Hadrian offering Truth (a figure
of) on a pedestal. The inscriptions are, " Says Harmachis [Ra] I gire thee all
life and healA for ever." Hadrian says, ^ Said by the son of the Sun Hadrianus
the ever4iving I give thee glory which thy heart loves."

The first line on this side reads,

** A made the Osirian (deceased) Antinous the justified his heart reign-
ing in the two great horizons he depicted his name by his own form alone, he
walks alive, he sees the solar disk, he goes saying Oh Sun Har-Khuti ^ over the
gods, listening to the prayers of gods, m^i, spirits, (and) dead. Thou hearest
prayers, thou hast returned a recompense to those which made to thee thy be-
loved son the king of Southern and Northern Egypt having honour in the midst
of the lands and places, pleased are all districts of them at the lord of the world
the beloved of the Nile and the gods the Lord of Diadems Hadrianus the
Pharaoh the ever-living."

The second line,

" The chief of the South and North, being the great lord of every country, the
ruler of the tributaries of Egypt, Libya being entirely subdued under his sandals,
likewise the captives of the two lauds they were submissive at his feet daily. He
reaches everywhere, he brought the tributes of this world out of its four quarters.
Bulls and their numerous cows multiply their produce for him making him to
rejoice with the great royal lady loving him the ruler of the countries, Sabina of
life and health established, Augusta the ever-living. Hail father of the gods pro-
ducing the horizons of the earth for them, making the celestial waters for them
to drink at the time."

East Side, Pyramidion,

The god Thoth ibis-headed wearing on his head the moon seated on a throne
giving life and health, having an altar placed before him bearing cakes and vases
before which stands Antinous wearing the head-dress of Socharis offering vase and
holding an emblem of life. Thoth says "I give thee festivals of hundreds of
thousands of years." (The speech of Antinous is indistinct.)



The first line on this side reads,

*' The Osirian Antinous was a youth making to celebrate his memorials ....
his heart triumphant letting fall the arms he received the commands of the gods
as it were his joy, renewed were all the forms in him of each of the gods, and all
his actions for unknown is the (extent) of the circulation of his name in the whole
earth for exploring the men and adjusting speech. Never was done like by
those who were before, daily his altars, his tonples, his titles upon them. He
breathed the breath of life, he was esteemed in the hearts of men (Thoth) the
lord of Hermopolis, lord of the divine words, made his soul young like the
spirits."

• Ungarelli Int. Ob. Tab. vi *» Form of Harmachis



2Q Barberini Obelisk.



Second line,

" In their time night and day constantly. He was beloved in the hearts of
youths he came in all . . . his praises to intelligent beings making him go to his
place in the temples, amongst the followers, and wise spirits who are in the power
of Osiris iti the land of the Hades divine for ever. They made hiiA justified,
they set up his words in the whole earth they delighted in him, he went where-
ever he liked. The doorkeepers of the regions of Hades said to him, Glory to
thee • they drew their bolts they opened their doors before him m the course of
every day, his time of existence was not cut short."

South side. Pyramidion.

The god Amen Ra under his usual attributes seated on a throne holding
a notched palm-branch terminating in a tadpole emblem of iOo,oco of ypars,
before him an altar of cakes and jars and Antinous standing wearing the head
attire of Socharis offering a symbolic eye. The god says " I give thee thy titles."

First line.
"The Osirian Antinous is justified as a spirit « having rested within his city of
Aann devoted is its name to his name by the multitudes who are in this land,
and the crews rowing (boats) in the whole country and all the persons likewise
who are at the place possessed by the god Thoth. We give (they say) an orna-
ment and crowns of flowers to his head very often and additional things to his
shrine, he has been given the peace offering of a god before him m the course

of every day."

Second line.

«' He has been adored by workmen of Thoth by whose spirits he goes to in . . ,
his temples of the whole country to hear the requests addressed to him to remedy
that which was unsound •* watching over what he has done working for beings he
has made the transformation of his heart being transformed a god engendered
.... the belly of his mother completed through his birth . . . ."

West side. Pyramidion.

The scene is incomplete the figure of the god being wanting but there remains

the notched palm-branch and tadpole which he has held in his hand, the altar

and the figure of Antinous.

First line.

♦* Spiritualized as a spirit at rest within the limits of the countries of the
powerful lady Hruma (Rome) he has been recognised as a god in the divine
places of Egypt which have been founded for him he has been adored as a god
by the prophets and priests of the South and North of Egypt, likewise they gave
the title of a city to his name proclaiming him to be highly honoured of the
Greeks of Ra and Set who are in the temples of Egypt they offered."

Second line.
" Their towns and territories to make good their life .... great opening the
temple of this god, which was t<t his name for the Osirian (deceased) Antinous
the justified, built of good white stone sphinxes round it, and figures and numer-
ous columns, as were made to ancestors in time past so did the Greeks also to
every god and goddess who give the breath of life, for he has breathed again
renewed with youth."

« Or fUiam^ divum^ " divine," "being as divine."
^ Alluding to miraculous cures. "

Solemn Profession

my dear sisters,

i know you will understand
when i say it's been another night
of whiskey and cigarettes.

it was the taking of my perpetual vows.
i never realized (of course) that was what
i was doing.
i did something only a strong
one of us would do.
i talked back.
i got beat into submission.
i still talked back.
i got beat again.  this time much worse.
i still spoke back.  i still got beaten.
you and i wondered how long
this abuse could go on.
until sister sword of righteousness
took her religious name
and her immaculate white veil,
until she was able to bring to climax
the major contradiction.
oh!  what a passion of silence.
the wonder of freedome.

my dear sisters,

the perpetual vows
this monastic enclosure
this sacred life.

i promise perpetually and eternally
to fight for the poor
to love chastely
and to obey devotedly
these holy
these perpetual vows.

**************************
-sister species of crow, o.c.

Chu Shu Chen

i think of you daily
while you are gone.
the dogwood is in bloom
and sometimes a violet shooting star
is crushed beneath the heavy
black nun's shoes that i wear.
the forest is still the forest.
i am still here.
i think of you daily,

and if it then seems sometimes
that i am a great burden to you
please remember that
in this flowering springtime
when the woods are alive
with two of a kind,
the blossoming dogwood
is a great burden to me.

*********************************************************
-sister species of crow, o.c.
-24 april 1984

A few words on anarchist communal decision-making by Assunta Femia (A Sister Species of Crow), O.C.

they're the ones you know.
they're always the ones.
they never do anything
but sit at meetings giggling and disrupting
they push themselves a little too far.
(the chair is getting upset.
  you can tell because there's a crack in one of its legs.
  pity.  same thing would happen to his face if he smiled.).

they're the ones who don't want any leaders.
it's bourgeois not to want leaders, you know.
i think this discussion is middle class.
(no shouting, honey.  they don't want no shouting
  you can't say shit if you don't follow
  robert's rules of middle class order.)

sometimes i wonder if i'mn supposed to have pity
on people.
sometimes while dancing
in the middle of a turn
with one arm raised in the air
i think about that algerian woman
laughing and fighting and laughing
laughing the victory laugh
shaking her flag and laughing
in the face of the french.
all of your correct political organizations.
all your demigod leaders
all your correct line
won't buy you shit
when it's your veil that gets ripped away
and i am the one left standing
laughing

************************
-sister species of crow, o.c.

Yet another poem by Assunta Femia, A Sister Species of Crow, O.C.

oh, medea,
this is no circle of corinthian women
and these people are americans i have been
cast into.
this man is not jason
and these men are not argonauts.
everyone speaks english here
and when something is foreign they say
it's greek to me.
the great mother is greek to them
and our holy afroditi
has become a tacky las vegas showgirl.
i have no children to murder and no euripides
to lie or not to lie about my flight.
in this culture the sacred ones were hunted
for sport or from hatred
and with an alarming regularity
their blood was spilled in unholy rituals
unnatural barbarities perpetrated
by nazi sex kings
who did not know from the scent of lilacs.
the soiled earth.
the stained bed.
oh, medea,
this is no circle of corinthian women.
these people are americans.

*************************
21 may 1983
--sister species of crow, o.c.