Book Illustration of Medieval Scriptorium
tallow tapers flicker weakly
midnight manuscripts laid down
on parchments and scrolls
libraries of dim inspiration
From my book Bohemian Scents
Enlightenment
All posts tagged Enlightenment
“Oil Lamp” by Pierre Bonnard
the lie
enjoys root
in the cold
unlit heart
lives and
grows in
the chilly
dim mind
all it takes
for the truth
to be seen
warm and
real is to
consciously
turn on
the light
* * *
“Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.” – St Paul
“Light is the symbol of truth.” – James Russell Lowell
Scriptorium
tallow tapers flicker weakly
midnight manuscripts laid down
on parchments and scrolls
libraries of dim inspiration
“The Inner Path” by Catherine Husenau
place my bier on a plinth
aromatic combustible
settle me into transformative
grasp of historical fire
allow me a passage sublime
unto cinders and smoke
all the best worst and last
of me carried aloft by the
winds of a dissipate memory
recondite ritual somber
and sad not for me but for
those who preceded me
apt intellectual ancestors
models and mentors who
lent me their minds and their
mettle accepting me into
their philosophe clan
even knowing that I had
ideas of my own faithful
principles rooted but
not grown in clone of
enlightenment canons
alas I have died soon away
from this world the last
unblooded heir to a
diligent rational rigor and thus
has my tribe gone extinct
“Blind Wizard”
Sketch by MlleBienvenu
From ellenmilliongraphics.com
only the blind
hold their bearings
in darkness
remember the routes
between now and again
travel time with
success making
progress on
dismal terrain
as for we
vaunted sighted
what good
after all
is the eye
without light
not so much as a
flickering match head
no trickle of stardust
we stumble and
bump along
circular reasoning
dead of direction
a convolute world
we ourselves
worked to blacken
extinguished its points
of enlightenment
only the blind
understand how to
use special sight
rediscover the
peace and prosperity
hidden within
misused histories
ready to remake the
bright broken mind
only the blind
have the courage
to lift us from
deep in delirium
refill the vacancies
left in our learning
philosopher cowards
who nearly destroyed
our own species
Poesy plus Polemics 