Tuesday, March 17, 2020

From Manic Depression to Cosmic Rapture... (repost)

The Magickal Transmogrification
of Steven R. Schwarz
"Been there, done that: unemployed pantheist, provocative iconoclast, abusive solipsist, failed psychopath. I've stumbled on some knowledge the clever people forgot or lost or never knew." ~ Steven Schwarz

That's how Steven Randall Schwarz describes himself on his eclectic and always stimulating blog, Cosmic Rapture.

I don't recall how we first bumped into each other in Cyberspace - whether he stumbled on my blog first or vice versa - but it was love at first encounter. I instantly recognized him as a kindred spirit and thereafter we got into the habit of leaving encouraging comments on each other's blogposts.

Anyway, as though in confirmation of the soulular kinship I felt, Steven decided out of the blue in February 2012 to visit me - in the flesh, not astrally. He hadn't traveled in 15 years, he said, and was understandably nervous about the logistics of transferring the multidimensional bulk of his vast and unlimited being through what must have appeared to him like very minute apertures randomly scattered across the dull surface of what passes for 3D reality.

Nevertheless, he arrived safely through the frequency turnstiles that separate our bioregions (he lives in Sydney, I should add) - and chilled out at Magick River for close to two weeks. We spent hours sitting on my scenic veranda just drinking coffee and conversing about Life, the Universe and Everything. I wish Douglas Adams could have joined us. Perhaps he was eavesdropping from the astral, cleverly disguised as a green cicada or a cluster of cicaks.

From my perspective, it was an entirely historic (if not hysteric) encounter, indeed, an utterly cosmic reunion. Steven remembered me from the Big Bang and I recalled his role in the Lucifer Rebellion. You could say Steven Schwarz and I share quite a few mythic resonances. Steven's intrinsic seriousness (he's into quantum physics and Tibetan metaphysics) made me think of Sirius Black (a great wizard in the Harry Potter books) - why not? Schwarz means Black, after all. (Steven or Stephen, in case you're as interested in names as I am, means "crown" or "garland" which implies great accomplishment, glory or honor.)

Steven R. Schwarz, in any case, is undoubtedly one of the finest wizards I have encountered in recent lifetimes. His luminous intelligence and inventive spirit combine to produce a prodigious variety of artifacts - from quirky Edward Learish limericks and offbeat Ogden Nashian poems (labeled "vot could be verse") to darkly evocative abstracts in oil on canvas, vaguely reminiscent of Kandinsky. And, like Wassily Kandinsky, Steven Schwarz is also a gifted composer and musician.

Enough said! Hope you enjoy this delectable selection of lyrical, musical and visual offerings I found on Steven's fascinating blog...

Knights of Unrelenting Weirdness (now proudly displayed on my wall)
Palatable Nightmare of Varying Bluntness
one wonders why oneness

when the sum of the parts is more than the whole
and some of the parts want a starring role
one has a question, it's really quite small
for any who want to be One with the All
one wonders why oneness is set as a goal
one that one dies for, along with one's soul
a goal that's scored long after the game
when the self is forgotten along with the name
in trueness your youness is inside your head
and oneness and twoness is noneness: you're dead
for minus my myness my self can't be found
above in the sky or below in the ground
one and one's two, and one and two's three
I'll date myself before marrying me.
.......


DISCLAIMER: In writing the above, rhyming was a higher priority than revealing what I really think or believe.

the wolves that was

Once a month beneath the moon
their evil crimes recur
the wolves that was is incorrect
it is the wolves that were.

Not every wolf's a wary wolf
aware-wolf, as it were
but every wolf's a hairy wolf
with long and curly fur.

A werewolf's not a cat or dog
a mutt, a hound or cur.
He'll snarl and howl and growl a lot
but never bark or purr.

So if a werewolf lurks outside
be shaken but don't stir
everywhere where werewolves are
much bloodshed does occur.

That's why that we beware wolves
and few would not concur
it's bad to be where werewolves is
(wolves are if you prefer).

The wolves that was are wicked
with blood upon their fur
the wolves that was is incorrect
it is the wolves that were.

Shimmer in Dark Energy
Abodes of Foreboding
quack, quack, the frogs do bark

Facetious assassins deified
Insidious fedaheen exemplified
Qua?

Mutinous taxicabs glorified
Glutinous agglomerates gentrified
Quo?

Hellacious orthodontists stupefied
Stupendous dazzlement typified
Quid?

Dubious qualia emphasised
Golden marmadukes euthanized
Que?


Thanks to 'autotune' (vocoder) and a complete lack of singing ability, the so-called lyrics to the song confusingly entitled 'zombie bloodeater' are completely inaudible. Needless to say, when I wrote the words I was pissed out of my mind. So whether you want 'em or not, below please find the lyrics to 'drunken-hearted man'...

zombie bloodeater (drunkenhearted man)

Should be "drunken-minded man" but who cares
the main thing is no-one can even think of selling their wares
covered in vomit, sprawled pubes-up in a gutter
(and I don’t care what you mind about what I should or shouldn’t utter).

We all have our escapes, the question is from what?
Of course a drunken-hearted man cares not a lot
He's just some poor silly sod who's ripe for a fleecing
specially in an age of zero tolerance policing.

But what are we running from, I repeat my question
life, death, love, sex, success, what’s your suggestion?
Does it really matter? That’s another query
Though it's all the same to one who’s leery, teary, not to mention beery.

The fact is, there are many mansions in the third dimension
or the fourth, tenth, eleventh, twenty sixth, whatever your inclension.
(That should be inclination, and don’t I know it
but what do you expect from a legless drooling poet?)

So have another drink, tablet, joint, needle or snort
of whatever it is that’s your storm in any port
The creator doesn’t care if you lose a little grip
while your so-called awareness goes down with the ship.

(oh and BTW, just to confuse things still further, the lyrics as published here don't quite match up to the words as sung in the above video. Including the sequence of verses and lines within verses. The reasons are completely insignificant and insubstantial, not to mention boring. You don't want to know. But they do exist. There are reasons. And yes, they're pissweak. But still.)

Oh and here's a bit more: the description of the video in my YouTube channel:

Opens with 6 magi (not 3) attending the birth of a monster, the mother of whom is a very strange girl surrounded by singing eyes. Frightened by the magi, she takes her newborn to one of the two highest peaks in the land. From the vantage point of which she and hers enter a portal to forever and achieve immortality, mythologically speaking.


Oh and one more thing: I tried to get the YouTube caption/subtitle functionality to work but just could the fuck not.

Another Promethean Palimpsest
Ultramarine City
Voyage to Lemuria
Staring into the Abyss


[First posted 25 April 2012]