CALIBAN’S REDEMPTION
By David Parry
Published by Finatran Ltd. at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Finatran Ltd.
Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all of those who have helped to make this book manifest, in particular Mr. Richard Rudgley, Dr. Bernard Hoose, Dr. Brian Clack and the late Mr. Christopher Johnson who taught me to fully appreciate the dark light of critical analysis.
Also I would like to thank the innumerable students of literature who have discussed the material with me. I am especially grateful to Simon Powley, who in addition to typing this manuscript, has been a continual source of support with his diligent reading of the text and numerous helpful suggestions.
Lastly, it is my privilege to dedicate this book to Konrad Szalopski whose redemptive heart allowed Caliban to see the Sun and all the Stars.
MIDNIGHT’S MONK
Caliban, the dark but not damned, who was a shadow within his own twilight, had waited eleven years in the town of Faram for his caravan that was to return and bear him back to the primeval forests of his birth.
And in the eleventh year, on the thirty-first of October, the month of spirits, he climbed the high hill outside the town walls and looked towards the icy distance; and he saw his caravan arriving with the night.
Yet as he descended the hill, a vengeance came upon him and he thought in his spleen: how can I go in silence from my prison? Not without a moment’s thunder can my anger leave this place. Long were the nights of solitude that I have spent in its streets and longer still were the days of bitter poverty. Am I so weak as to depart from my poison without a single incantation?
No! Far too many fragments of my heart have been scattered in these unfeeling streets and endless seem the children of my desire that walk in destitution amongst those hills. Therefore, I cannot withdraw from Faram without the sensation of blood and fire.
It is not a past that I cast away this evening, but a failure that I tear with the strength of my own hands. Nor is it a memory that I leave behind me, but a nightmare made sour with thirst and hunger.
But I cannot wait much longer
The blood that calls its people back to a secret homeland also calls to me, and I must depart.
Spirited away. For to stay as the
hours pale into the day is to forgive in weakness and dissolve into a
shapeless torpor. Rather would I leave all that is here and regain my
shape. But how shall I?
My screams cannot remove the pain of experience that gave them birth. Unaided must they seek expression.
Truth alone, and without exception, shall bring my solitude into the form of survival.
And truth is my greatest weapon.
Now, when Caliban reached the foot of the hill he turned towards the dazzling night and he saw his caravan approaching the outer limits of the town, and upon their huge horses the gigantic men of his own land.
And his heart cried out to them, and he whispered:
Sons of my sacred father, you who ride the winds of an ancient destiny, how often have you ridden into my desires? And now you come with the nocturnal dreams of a deeper awakening.
Too long have I been ready to leave, and my eagerness breaks into a gallop.
Only another star is needed in the sky to set me free, only another demon in his infernal place. And then I shall stand with you as a man amongst magicians.
Then the road that leads towards my home will become a living vehicle revealing the quickest way to Hell.
Only another moment will this moon take. Only another minute to reach her space.
And then I shall return to you, a prodigal son at last forgiven.
However, as he walked he saw afar both men and women leaving their houses and their pleasures and hastening towards the town centre.
And he heard their voices murmuring his name from tavern to tower and telling one another of the coming of his caravan.
And he sneered to himself: shall the night of tempest also be the night of sovereignty?
And shall it be said that parting was in truth my power?
What indeed shall I say to him who has left his brothel with an unfulfilled delight or to him who has left a glass of fresh and frothy ale?
Should my bowels become a bakery from which wafers of excrement are served as a Eucharistic meal to the fool and his senile fathers?
And shall my urine flow like a fountain of wine that I may ever fill their unsuspecting chalice?
Am I a drum that the hand of mighty powers may play to make men march into war and woe, or a pipe that will call these people into pain?
A seeker of subtleties am I, and the power I have found in their pursuit I will not cast before an ignorant herd.
If this is my night of saving, then the seeds I spread shall be an everlasting curse, and my personal darkness will be the light to nurture tares in a season of dreadful storms.
If this is indeed the moment in which I lift up my torch, it is not my secret that shall burn
therein.
Firm and furious shall I raise my wand, and the bright spirit of the Northern star shall enter into it with prophecies and vision.
These things he said in silence. But much in his stomach boiled with the need for self-expression. For he himself had a hankering to put his fury into raging words.
When he entered the courtyard of the town all the people came to greet him, and they were weeping with the fears of death and execution.
And the elders of the town stood forth and said with one voice:
Go quickly and in peace.
An eclipse have you been in the summer of our dreams and your leaving has given us hopes to hope.
A stranger you remain amongst us, and an unwanted guest, whose presence is to us blind terror.
Let our eyes no longer see you and our ears no longer hear your magic.
Let the distance of our countries now separate us for ever, and the time you have spent with us fade in nature's memory.
You have walked among us a dwarf with words of cyclopean fire which scorched our faces and your bile has blistered our frail bodies.
Much have we despised you. But speak to us of abomination that all sides may learn to forget. Even now we would be ignorant and stand with disregard before you.
As ever has it been that banishment knows not its own depth until the hour of departure.
And others came also and begged for peace. Yet Caliban answered them not. He only bent his head and smiled; and those who stood near him saw the glint of razor sharp teeth.
And he and the people proceeded towards the entrance of the great square and its church. And there came out of the presbytery an old man whose name was Meekan. And he was a priest.
And Meekan hailed him, saying:
Prophet of the benighted, in quest of the forbidden, long have you spied the distances for your caravan.
And now your caravan has come to us, and you must needs go away.
Deep is your longing for the land of your demons and the dwelling place of your greatest devils; but our fear would not bind you, nor our blindness hold you. However, this we ask of you before you leave us, that you speak to us and give us your blessing.
And we will tell our children that they are safe in their beds, and they will in turn tell their children not to fear the night.
In your aloneness you have prowled our night and in your endarkenment you have overheard the weeping and lamentations of our sleep.
Now therefore leave us in peace to ourselves and tell us nothing of your wisdom which hides a blade in its skull.
And Caliban answered:
People of Faram, of what can I speak save that which you shun in your own souls?
Then said Meekan, speak to us of hate and the venomous limits of its dominion. Tell us how to avoid its evil.
And Caliban raised his head in authority, and fixed the people with the force of his stare, and there fell a stillness upon them as in a shock of imminent danger.
And with a voice like sulphur he said:
When hate follows you, embrace him, though his ways are hard to fathom.
And when his vampire wings enfold you, learn to yield your unprotected veins.
Although the teeth he bears may bite you.
Then your voice will speak with the power of his tongue and shatter the boundaries of his endless promises as the gale sweeps upon a sacred wasteland.
For even as hate fells you, so shall he empower you. Even as he is a hunger, so is he a chance to feed. Even as he descends to your essence and promises your body enough strength to fly. so shall he ascend in arrogance to your brow and cloak sweating muscles with their victory.
Like a lover he gathers you to his chest.
He wrestles with you in his nakedness.
He holds you to the floor with ease.
He bleeds you to a whiteness.
He kills you to a former life.
And then he raises you to a spiritual perfection where death itself has finally been overcome.
All these things shall hate do to transform you from an eternal victim into an immortal hunter with the rest of the time as your personal prey.
But if in your fear you would seek only escape from the protection of hate and hate's kingdom, then it is better for you to end your pallid life in suicide than prolong the bitter and empty years ahead.
Entering into a world of anaemic shades where no-one can laugh, or sing, nor weep the tears of a tragic beauty.
Hate gives itself unreservedly and takes nothing except the weakness of a child.
For hate is the virility of the strong.
When you hate you should not say 'I have the strength of a giant', but rather 'I am a giant amongst the strong’.
And think not that hate will overwhelm your mind, for hate, if he finds you worthy, will grant you cunning of a million years.
Hate has no other desire than to succeed.
But if you hate and succeed in your hatred, let the eloquence of success then proceed to extreme actions.
To melt the face of a sinless baby and use its running fat as an offering towards the infinite night.
To know the rhapsody of a rapist.
To wound and kill the saints and patrons who aid you in ill-health.
And to bleed willingly in the fight.
To wake at dusk with the voice of a thousand screeching demons and to give thanks for another deadly evening.
To rest as a monk at midnight in the murderous meditation of hate's ecstasy.
To return home at dawn in exhausted satisfaction.
And then to sleep with a litany of praises to the power in your arms and the purpose of your spirit.
*
I laid a black lotus
Upon the endarkened alter of Setibos
In order to bind your heart
To mine
*
i
ii
I
ii
i
ii
i
i
Miranda
I love you holy virgin,
with the soul that you have moulded,
lovely as a rosebud,
to the silver moon unfolded.
I love you holy virgin.
I love you Queen of Heaven,
with the body you have fashioned,
twisted in your service,
by sacred sighs of divine passion.
I love you Queen of Heaven.
I love you aged mother,
with the mind that you have hardened,
deep as dark obsidian,
reflecting black thoughts yet unpardoned,
I love you aged mother.
I love you,
I praise you.
I abase myself before you,
and with golden songs adore you.
my holy whore of heaven.
*
The violence
In our ambitions
Is always a sign
Of similar spirits.
*
*
Even demons
Benighting the deepest hell
Still need to believe
In love.
*
*
Your tender cup
Of youthful longing
Thrills to the salted taste
Swallowed with my love.
*
The Green Christ
A shamanic cure is based on an ancient teaching, a genetic knowledge about an unknowable will deep within our bodies that slowly grew into awareness along with the human race. We heard it in the music of our drums; we saw it in the light of our fires and we felt its strength in the power of our incantations. Shamen explored this perennial understanding of existence long before the Stone Age. We experimented and learned the terrifying truth about nature until eventually the overflowing of our wisdom became faith to the believer or philosophy in a more sceptical mind, but these speculations held no interest for us because they lacked the living experience of cosmogonic consciousness. Assuredly, shamen were, and always are, in reverent awe of the omnipotent will that hides behind the surfaces of reality. We have a sacred symbol to depict this driving energy. It is the foliate mask or Jack-in-the-Green; an image often found amongst the Gothic mythographs of medieval cathedrals. He usually appears as a smiling head formed from the leaves and branches of an architectural bush, although a more interesting instance is that of a man’s horrified face with vines growing wildly from his screaming mouth (this is more accurate since fear is a human beings instinctive response to the numinous). Jack is our emerald Christ, or natures Spirit, expressing itself though invincible signs and libidinal dreams. That is why a shamen ritualises. Our ceremonies are primordial acts of worship to placate this relentless power; an attempt to channel potent forces away from the unhallowed gore accompanying the irreligious neglect of our duties. Yet external obligations conceal subconscious compulsions. To ignore the latter is only to detract from the former. So a robust Cantona rejects the Green Knights severed head with his boot as it rolls towards him during the stylized battle of a football match. Or perhaps he may enlighten his darkness with a game of urban archery in the local pub after training. But on the pitch or at the bar civilised people living in their besieged suburban villages may sometimes still discover the meaning behind our antediluvian findings. Consider the Eucharist, where worshippers partake of a gods flesh and blood as spiritual food. Only the highly initiated are ready to taste him when he is taken down from the torture stake.
*
Drenched and dripping
With salted sweat
Our hands strangle
Each other's neck
In mutual love-making.
*
*
Damnation and desire
Reflect the black night of the numinous.
*
*
In a world of shadows the ideal may always become the actual.
*
He has betrayed me.
Now I know the truth. At last I can guess his hidden schemes. Our relationship is already a thing of the past. Matthew has gone. The man who was an object of anxious desires to my best friend, while other men tried to fight for him in vain. A bastard that uneasy memories call up at sunset without ever revealing their treacherous origin and to which our temporary companions attributed in the imagination a wild lifestyle both perverse and attractive. Call him cunt, tease, or vampire and why shouldn't I? He is the final manifestation of all my amorous anger. A sorcerer, manipulating subconscious sexual fears.
Endarkened by his sudden departure I can understand the nature of Matthew's influence. Freud almost managed to guess it and in the last decade I have heard skilled therapists discuss these overwhelming forces like careless adolescents, wilfully oblivious to the emotional destruction they were about to unleash. Man's kingdom is to fall before the rising power of an ignorant promiscuity itself controlled by dangerous spirits. Darkness is gathering. Evil is about to be reborn from the rushing chaos of modern introspection.
Listen.
He has gone, but I can still hear him screaming incantations in my dreams. Matthew has gone. He has left me and I am afraid.
*
There is as much truth in joy as there is in pain.
*
Instances of Initiation
Homosexuals are shamen. It is not our fault or failure, because we are what the Gods have made us. So if straight society needs to attribute blame for its inability to understand us, let them condemn their false deity or nature herself. Suffering and desire have awoken our souls. They are moments of intense personal insight. Perhaps this is why a deeply felt sense of awe is the most significant experience for a modern shaman. Indeed, it is astonishment felt to the point of transcendence that stimulates our essences into a more abstract and sophisticated relationship with the environment. Instances when the history of mankind or the moral reactions of a stranger almost seem to initiate individual consciousness into a more unified mentation. A shaman always becomes such as the result of an inherited perplexity.
So what distinguishes a true shaman from a simple humanist is that this amazement comes to the former from the world itself, whereas to the latter, merely from questioning traditional values. However, most human beings experience this sensation of wonderment no more than fleetingly, an unfortunate fact which effectively isolates nearly all shamen from their fellows. One could say that the more insensitive a man or a woman becomes, the less frightening and mysterious existence is for them. On the contrary, everything seems to be a matter of course. But in fact, the attribute at issue is not only one of intuition. There are plenty of intelligent people who lack this miraculous outlook. Many, if not most of them, are middle class academics; lawyers; doctors, clergymen and the rest. Now, insofar as they are intelligent, and some of them undoubtedly are, they have little qualitative awareness. To such as these the world is like their sexual relationships: undemanding and anxious. They are neither fully conscious nor self aware within them. Such people are: for that reason, incapable of apprehending the world as illusive, still less enigmatic, except possibly in rare moments. Otherwise they restrict what limited sense of awe they have into an hour every weekend. Therefore, it may not seem a shocking or even a divine task to demand from the dispossessed and the downtrodden enough strength to reject conventional wisdom. In one sense there is no choice: either we all embrace the liberating power of Jean Jacques Rousseau's spiritual example or we lose our protection against the anger of an injured Earth. Yes, our religious expectations must raise themselves to a practical level whereby everyone's basic needs have been satisfied and we can all search for the sustenance of personal dignity. Then, each of our lives will prove why profane morality has failed to deliver us into the promised land of cultural perfection. Shamanism alone testifies that there is no salvific requirement for poverty in any sense, since the actual heaven of hot food in the real hell of damp, makeshift shelter bleeds a man dry to the marrow.