For our next round, write a poem using as your point of departure one of the following five “Proverbs of Hell” by William Blake (pictured left).. Your poem may, by anecdotal means, illustrate or confute the infernal axiom you have chosen. It need not quote the Blake line you chose; you can let your readers guess. Limit 15 lines. Or write a cogent one-paragraph discussion, elucidation, and analysis that brilliantly addresses (or argues with) the line. {Limit 15 lines for the paragraph as well?}
- Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
- Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
- The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
- The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
- Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
For the latest column, with a review of the outstanding entries written in response to last monthh's prompt, click here.
https://theamericanscholar.org/muse-circe-reclaims-her-lucre/
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom... If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern." Poem below based on this thought from Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell".
The Middle Path Beyond Perception
The clinging mind creates its prison walls,
Through narrow chinks the fettered spirit calls.
Not excess nor restraint—the middle way
Dissolves the cavern where illusions play.
Attachment to the form of good and ill
Is but the karmic wheel that turns us still.
When doors of perception are cleansed by light,
The emptiness beyond reveals its might.
All suffering stems from craving's endless thirst,
In seeking heaven, man creates hell first.
The palace of true wisdom stands between—
Neither indulgence nor denial's scene.
Enlightenment awaits beyond the veil
Where dualities of virtue fail;
The infinite and finite are but one.
Posted by: Kyril Alexander Calsoyas | March 01, 2025 at 12:55 PM