Saint Augustine

                            sometimes that cat gets on a roll an theres no stopping him

I like him tho                                           

                       he consistently makes cameos in my head  pushes the tip of my ballpoint pen across scores an scores of unlined pages

 

I cant shake him

he laid this beaut on me down from 415 CE(I know CE would twist his panties hes AD if ever AD was inscribed during the Fifth Century I dont know if the people then recognised BC BCE AD CE E-I-E-I-O hey)

The danger . . . exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man

in the bounds of hell

I gotta admit I gasped had to take a breath

  

I was troubled

 

didnt sound like him

found it cited in a book Upright Thinkers

I stole some encouragement however the translation had the devil begin with a little d spirit s man m and hell came around the bend riding the tail of the caboose sporting a little h

because it was attributed to Augustine I was without any choice but to dig down hit the books not dare take the quote at face value I had to be convinced skeptic that I am that Augustine had written it when so many things he wrote I took solace refuge among an if he wrote something as stupid as what I read I had to utterly see for myself

libraries can inspire or deject
the Chicago Public Library on Michigan is maniacal an I needed a playmate as obsessed as I

several hours in defying niggling librarians who wanted to assist me who were likely the staid spawns of efficiency an catalogues  which I was not  I prefer the choke of settled dust paper mites the aromatic musk of aged long unopened books    because I am sensual I guess

I found a thin article by Catholic mathematician an scholar Jack Perry  he preceded me an was agog as I

he wrote that he found in the text De Genesi ad Litteran II, xvii, 37, Augustines original Latin: Quapropter bono christiano sive mathematici, sive quilibet impie divinantium, maxime dicentes vera, cavendi sunt, ne consortio daemoniorum animan deceptam, pacto quodam societatis irretiant.

which thank gawd he translated: For this reason, the good Christian should beware not only of numerologists, but all those who make impious divinations, above all when they tell the truth. Otherwise, they may deceive the soul, and ensnare her in a pact of friendship with demons(I did not know soul was a she).

Perry decried the use of the Latin mathematici to mean mathematician when it had meant numerologist and defended his translation the passage had to be read in its entirety read in context of the preceding text which specifically aligned the flagrant trolled bullet point or bumper sticker call it what one may with the occult and with astrologers

somewhere someone had swung a corked bat

they slipped in transliteration for translation

an while the Upright Thinkers author may have been neglect or too pummeled to precipitate their authorial due diligence or perhaps wasnt a fan(or devotee) of Augustine by either honest error or cheating the ball had to be pulled back over the fences edge an reclaimed    its homer run an any RBIs disallowed

I have to admit I was relieved

I sat back on my blondewood chair before its stout blondewood table in the dimming preternatural hall a bit prior to the overhead electrical lighting fixtures coming up slipped a flask from my coat pocket an took a sip 

 

I believe I whispered aahh an sipped again

 

I must also admit the nagging I was wont as a kid returned to my bones

the modern high school I attended didnt offer Latin per its curriculum as a foreign language it insisted Latin was dead the sharp volleys that ensued nearly had me dismissed rather bluntly encouraged to attend a Catholic high school in the city which catered to students bent on religion Assholes I inveighed Vulgar Latin and Romantic languages are at the heart of our English language our neoAmerican braying an spittle an slang

                                                                                                                             our thought cherry exceptionalism

      often I wonder what CE Fifth Century Augustine would have said

   

     

0100,  Thursday, 3  12. 15

1302,  Thursday,  3  12. 15

Yaknow  Im not going to defend it other than saying Im circumspect about my health and Ive gathered hints  insights through it  So its fine for me   For me 

 

You

Obviously youre on your own

Im on my own

 

Of course Im on my own

  

I think youre nuts frankly   a bit disturbed

Disturbed  Disturbed

 

Youre not even going to offer me   eccentric

No  Most eccentric things  Are disturbing

And theres nothing about you thats eccentric

Ohno not now theres not a fucking thing Id share with you I dont need to get beat over the head because you feel insulted

Lemme correct you

You havent insulted me

Only you think

youve insulted me

JeezusChrist youre a testy muthafucker

Testy  I cant tell you how much that amuses me

Because on the heels of testy (he interrupted his leaning in  held up his hand  a finger pointing upward) just a moment please (he leaned back  shifted onto his heels) thank you  As I was saying

 

On testys heels usually comes the other objection tendered me  Im a belligerent muthafucker

Im testy belligerent for no other reason than asking deliberate questions

Your deliberate asking seems an assaultIts not your voice not your voice the way you say it no  No  Its your manner posture  Its almost as if youre drawing a secreted blade to use on me

Which is your perception  Not my action

Ive no straight razor   do I

he laughed uncomfortably

                                          Not that I see  But I havent frisked you either

You havent frisked me  Youre hilarious

I really think this conversation is overboard when you consider the point of departure an innocuous admission that troubles you makes you ill by its perhaps rude conjecture

You vehemently disagree

I have no disagreement with you

You dont think it  distasteful    or untoward

I dont think of it whatsoever

It is process to me Ive been doing beyond memory of first doing it 

It made sense to me when I was boy

he cleared his throat  obviously distressed

   

he had nothing to offer or suggest  but he certainly wasnt going to withdraw

Many in your immediate family growing up

No  Im an only child

That could suggest our difference

Difference

Difference yes 

 

They were fourteen in the house I grew up in five adults three generations little separate alone time slept three boys in a bed the uncles slept together the only person who had a bedroom slept alone was my grandmother if one of the kids didnt sneak in to sleep with her

Apparently knowledge conscious or unconsciously osmosis sifted through the house

I knew things I had no idea I learned

Conversations weaved around and through each other Old World tongue broken English my grandmother and an uncle were born overseas old traditions adopted modern American traditions mishmash

Out of the mishmash the privacy exclusive to the watercloset to toiletry when you were old enough to wipe your own ass without being doublechecked in that somewhere I examined what passed out of me into the toilet bowl and whether urine feces I could divine shy of haruspex my health by staring in the face what stared up at me

It didnt flinching

Why would I

A difference  Yes

Good

 

You know Stevens

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter  the listener  nothing himself  beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is

              

1503,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  2 12. 15

0004,  Thursday,  3 12. 15

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.