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2 incantations for dm
(to be incanted and/or embroidered on hankies)

1

eiris sazun
idisi
sazun hera
duoder.
suma hapt
heptidun,
suma heri
lezidun,
suma
clubodun
umbi
cuoniouuidi:
insprinc
haptbandun,
inuar
uigandun.*

*once sat women,
they sat
here, then
there.
some
fastened
bonds,
some
impeded
an army,
some
unraveled
fetters:
escape the bonds,
flee the enemy!

(10th century/high german)










2

eat your greens, drink your nettle tea, pop the pills, 20 chinups a day, run with the dog, run through a farmfield yelling as loud as you can, tend to the seedlings, salve the wounds, situps, pushups, drink water, sweat, curse christianity, fast and pray, shake your fist at god, light a candle, shit shower and shave, sleep with the window open, make water to the north south east and west, take deep breaths, punch things, draw on yourself with magic markers, darn your socks, listen to "environments" record, write down your thoughts, burn things you don't want anymore, it'll cure what ails you.





(3/2/2011)

***content forthcoming
***update 4/2/2011: content no longer forthcoming

the walls were built like laying bricks.  the sods were cut about two feet long, were thirteen inches wide and four inches thick laid with grass side down.  we had one rough-made door about six feet high and 2-foot-6-inches wide which was difficult to fit into the sod walls.  the roof was lean-to type, there were three windows 2 feet by 2 feet with four lights in each.  being set in two foot wide walls not much light could come in, of course no storm windows.  many cold days in winter an inch or more frost would gather on the inside of the windows. 
inside, it was 12 feet wide and 22 feet long.  ten feet was curtained off for a bedroom, and the other 12 by 12 feet was used as a kitchen and living room./james rugg/1905
 

(skulls and bones in foreground)


the beginning of better things

lichens etc.

hunger will make us mean
it will make us be not goodlooking
any more and we will become stringy
we will live in trailers and tents
on brownfields in long grass
behind long high fences made
of linked chain and steelpoles
hunger will make us pick up
things and throw them at each
other and throw things at animals
and run through the long grass
where the windblown refuse blows
we will throw things at each other
and throw things into the river

at that time we will grow ratlike
we will wear our hair in the style of
other animals like for example
the rat and we will grow leggy and
wild and sleep under bridges
we will sit underneath concrete
and watch the river all night and
get wasted and play with lighters
and pick up things and throw them
and throw things into the river

cold that was the coldest ever recorded

cold that came in from the north like

cold wind off cold forged iron and steel, 

cold as ice twas, twas transparent pure

cold glass hoarfrost, windblown rime

cold sleet and cold wind turning into

cold snow and ice falling down from the

cold sky all night and continuing through

cold morning and several more days

cold nights and mornings and more

cold afternoons and evenings and nights

 

so they walked to keep warm

and when that was not enough

they ran to keep warm and when

that was not enough they hit themselves

with their fists and hit each other

and they drank til their faces were

numb and with bic lighters thawed
extremeties and lit their cigarettes
they sat in the coffee time and
they did not look like men or women
they drank liquor from coffee cups
and looked out the window listening to

q 107 classic rock all day and night

till the sun came up and the cashier

came from behind the counter

and told them all to go home and
that she had already called the cops

shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?
/lamentation (biblical)

thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation.
/wassail (biblical)

waes haeil!

land of iron
land of junk iron

land of that which is hinter

land of that which is not toronto

land of pieces of shit buildings

land of cars driving and parking

land of late winter grey snowbanks

land of what is seen from commuter bus window

land of grise or that which is grisly or greyed out

land of grottiness glimpsed through grit

land of grocery stores the size of cities

land of gritty parkinglots, ground glass, gravel rooftops of the

land of greatness, great size, greatly going, going through

land of all one can see from window of commuter bus

land of qew the long highway, the longest highway one has ever known

land of sitting in a seat and looking out the window of the commuter bus

land of that which has been covered in gravel, hoarfrost of salt, dirt, shit, urine,

land of sweatfrost and the various slowmoving body fluids which comprise this

land of internal organs, lakes and streams, fens, bloodways, bloody

land of scabs, frozen blood, blood on the arm, hot knives agains the body

land of people on qew the long highway and in the various great cities

 

going to hamilton

going to see the king

passing under king st and

wearing the yellow and the black

wearing it out and

wearing it back

passing the city hall and 

seeing the people

standing in the square

holding signs and

huddling in the wintertimes

seeing the people vs. u.s. steel

staying warm by the fires

firing up the steel drum

staying warm by the old cokefire

sitting down by the fireside bright

burning the home fires

stoking the coalfire

holding the hot iron

fucking cold out

camping out on mary st. or

going home in the dark

holding hands over the stove's

glowing elements

staying warm

heating up the can

eating from the can (you can)

getting all liquored up and

holding a hot knife

holding it against the body

having iron in the hand and

carrying iron around

carrying it in the coatpocket

keeping the iron warm with the hand

warming the iron up

hearing about u.s. steel

spending 55 million $/yr to be

heating an empty building

heating the steel walls of the

building on depew st. where the

parking lots are motherfucking empty

 

were it cold, boy? were it ever

i say, i say: it were the coldest on record.

boy it were a hard one, hard to do or make,

hard times, dang, harder than iron, iron lung.

i say, i say: king kong's dingdong

image depicting a
hamilton-themed hat of my own contrivance,
consisting chiefly of repurposed hockey legging,
subtly evocative of steeler logo, thus also incidentally continuant of said motif,
contrived by me this morning then worn by same
whilst walking to work in -27 degrees celsius (with windchill) conditions,
with snow, for 1 hr,
whilst simultaneously experiencing
onset of temporary and unplanned selective serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor discontinuation syndrome

If we have learned nothing else from the twentieth century, we should at least have grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences. Imperfect improvements upon unsatisfactory circumstances are the best that we can hope for, and probably all we should seek. Others have spent the last three decades methodically unraveling and destabilizing those same improvements: this should make us much angrier than we are./Tony Judt (1948-2010)/NYRB/Dec 17 2009


There is nothing mysterious about this process: it was well described by Edmund Burke in his critique of the French Revolution.  Any society, he wrote in Reflections on the Revolution in France, which destroys the fabric of its state, must soon be 'disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality'.  By eviscerating public services and reducing them to a network of farmed-out private providers, we have  begun to dismantle the fabric of the state.  As for the dust and powder of individuality: it resembles nothing so much as Hobbes's war of all against all, in which life for many people has once again become solitary, poor and more than a little nasty./Tony Judt (1948-2010)/Ill Fares the Land/2010

5 cathedral interiors and
1 exterior

handicraft

according to this dollar store thermometer
the floor level temperature inside my apartment
is 15 degrees celsius

token image continuant of steeler motif

mosefolket: jernalderens mennesker bevaret i 2000 år
(bog people: iron age man preserved for 2000 years)
/peter vilhelm glob (1911-1985)



>>>yet they were made of earth and fire as we,
>>>the selfsame forces set us in our mould:
>>>to life we woke from all that makes the past.
>>>we grow on death's tree as ephemeral flowers.

/thøger larsen (1875-1928)

this is no longer a website about kilju

henceforth it shall be a website about steeler

>>>it is my blood,
>>>thus mine to give.
>>>they will take and eat,
>>>if it in fullness cometh.
>>>we have come unkinned.

>>>wolf is on one isle,

>>>and i upon another.
>>>fast is isle
>>>with fen begirt,
>>>death-wild men
>>>upon it.
>>>they will take and eat,
>>>if it in fullness cometh.
>>>we have come unkinned.
>>>what wolf has taken,
>>>hopes hunt houndlike.

>>>when it was rainy weather
>>>and i wailing sat,

>>>and was in warstrong
>>>arms enwrapped,
>>>took i some joy,
>>>but took i sadness also.

>>>wolf, my wolf!
>>>my hope flies to thee.
>>>laid waste am i
>>>by thy seldom-coming,
>>>not want of meat,
>>>but by sorrowed heart.

>>>hearest thou watchman?
>>>our wretched whelp

>>>a wolf beareth
>>>to woodland.
>>>with ease one splitteth
>>>what was never seamed.
>>>our song together.


shook things up a little with this version
minimalized it
dropped a lot of syllables
abandoned several literal translations of certain words/phrases
(where it seemed acceptable to do so)
in favour of ones that made better sense
eg. changing "sick" to "laid waste"
to better reflect "want of meat"
also, "hope flies to thee" etc.
and most jarringly perhaps
the whole "my blood/they will eat if it in fullness cometh" thing
a more figurative/suggestive way of evoking the sacrifice-element
note that "threat" becomes "fullness"
ie. "spate" or "flood"
ie. her blood goes to them in spate
ie. they will accept it if it comes in sufficient quantity
yes i am really grasping here
 



also, went with the alternate line-break scheme 
thought that short lines/clipped rhythms better conveyed starkness of original
a certain rawness

but now
after thinking about it and consulting nb at great length
discussing it with him in person and via email
i am having another change of heart

nb takes issue with the "luxury of the pause"
created by the short lines
he feels that it "reduces the action"
he is drawn to the "cadence and movement" of version 1
and "where the breath is taken"
he feels, for this and other reasons,
version 2 does not hit as deep


after looking at it while considering nb's input
i feel very strongly that he is correct
i begin to realize
the "disorienting grief" is not expressed as fully here
for any number of possible reasons
but most likely: attempting to move the poem away from its indigenous ambiguity
is in effect to emotionally neutralize it
also, importantly:
the wildness/farflungness is definitely better suited to longer lines
the elegiac quality, esp in the last 4 lines
"hearest thou watchman?" (the despair thereof) needs a full long breath like a crying-out or a howl
that is the "rēotugu", the wailing
"þonne hit wæs rēnig weder ond ic rēotugu sæt"


 (when it was rainy weather and i wailing sat)

i think there are some elements of version 2 that i will want to carry on
but ultimately version 1 may be a better template
at least in terms of cadence/breath

nb: "i think you do well to trust your gut
when bridging those loose grammatical lines or not bridging them.
holy shit, i just realized how clear it is that the poem provides its own key
for us would-be exegetes and translators:
with ease we split what was never seamed / our song together.
you create difficulty when you try to mend the world."



more to follow

more re wolf and edie:

5 problem lines/phrases/words

and possible solutions/interpretations:

1

lēodum is mīnum swylce him mon lāc gife
(persons is mine should they one offering/game give)

this, the first line, remains most problematic for me personally

even after reading and rereading several times 

and thinking about it constantly for several days consecutively

the original is frustratingly unclear

there seem to be 2 distinct ideas: "my people" and "a sacrifice is required"

but nothing to suggest how or why the 2 ideas are connected

or even if they are at all 

the translator is left to his own devices here 

i have arrived at this, provisionally:

"it is my blood, thus mine to give"

it reflects my first impression of the line's meaning upon first gloss

ie. she had a people (or a blood/bloodline/heritage/kin)

but she would give them up if she had to,

pain of loss notwithstanding

this interpretation diverges radically from the others i have seen

but really you could go in any direction with this line, i think

fortunately i don't know enough about anglo saxon grammar to stop myself

her people ask for a sacrifice?

her people are the sacrifice?

both?

etc

2

āþecgan

(accept)

this word is usually translated as either accept or kill

two words which seem to be in direct contradiction in this context

until one thinks of acceptance in terms of "taking" or "taking in" or "eating"

then one realizes that to accept could also be to kill

also one becomes aware of additional sexual connotations of the word "take"

and possible intersections of sex/killing concepts

or sex/eating

3

on þrēat cymeð
(in threat cometh)

þrēat is translated variously as threat/clan/crowd

on could mean in, or into

so he could be "coming in threat" ie threateningly

or he could be "coming into a threat" ie into danger

or he could be "coming in a crowd/throng"

or he could be "coming into a crowd/throng/clan"

again i think you could go in any direction with this one

4

ungelīce is ūs

(unlike/unalike is us)

maybe the most annoying line in the poem

so clipped and blunt

half-line, "odd line out"

and so hard to understand or appreciate

un=un

gelic/lic=alike/like

but then i discover that lic can also mean body

as in corpse/corpus/corporeal/incorporated

this opens out into ideas of family/blood/kin/kind

and changes my understanding of the word like

and it becomes the concept "likeness"

with its suggestion of family and lineage and kin concepts

as in "we are unlikenessed" or

"we are unkinned"

or "unkind"?

(a "kind" being a likeness, a type, a related group, a category

thus unkind could mean "unalike" or not-related)

thus: "we have come unkinned"?

5

wulfes ic mīnes wīdlāstum wēnum dogode
(wolf i mine wide-walking/wide-tracking hope dog-like)

wulfes is possessive, meaning: what wolf has/what wolf has taken/that which is wolf's
wēnum is plural of hope

her hopes "dog" the runaway wolf like a pack of hunting hounds, as in a fox hunt?
note: dogode is disputed by scholars

it is commonly emended to to hogode

due to dogode being otherwise completely unattested in the anglo saxon canon

hogode means: thought (past 1st person singular)

i for one accept dogode as it appears in the ms. 

preferring to believe that whoever wrote it down

knew how to spell 

how about: "that which is wolf's" i [with] mine far-flung hopes "hunt houndlike"

why not eh

i know eh

more to follow

"behold, the noise of the bruit is come,
and a great commotion out of the north country."

/lamentation (biblical)

another one from the codex exoniensis
commonly called "wolf and eadwacer"

this was my first gloss:

>>>lēodum is mīnum swylce him mon lāc gife
>>>persons is mine should they one offering/game give

>>>willað hȳ hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð
>>>willeth they he accept/take/eat if he in threat cometh

>>>ungelīc is ūs
>>>unlike is us

>>>wulf is on īege, ic on ōþerre
>>>wolf is on isle, i on other

>>>fæst is þæt ēglond, fenne biworpen
>>>fast is that island fen be-woven/surrounded

>>>sindon wælrēowe weras þǣr on īge
>>>be death-wild/deadly men there on isle

>>>willað hȳ hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð
>>>willeth they he accept/take/eat if he in threat cometh

>>>ungelīce is ūs
>>>unlike is me

>>>wulfes ic mīnes wīdlāstum wēnum dogode
>>>wolf i mine wide-walking/wide-tracking hope dog-like

>>>þonne hit wæs rēnig weder ond ic rēotugu sæt
>>>then it was rainy weather and i wailing sat

>>>þonne mec se beaducāfa bōgum bilegde
>>>then i those battlebrave/battlestrong arms surrounded

>>>wæs mē wyn tō þon, wæs mē hwæþre ēac lāð
>>>was me joy to that, was me however also loth

>>>wulf, mīn wulf! wēna mē þīne
>>>wolf, mine wolf! hope me thine

>>>sēoce gedydon þīne seldcymas
>>>sick did thine seldom-coming

>>>murnende mōd nales metelīste
>>>uneasy mind not meatlessness/meat-lack

>>>gehȳrest þū, eadwacer? uncerne earme hwelp
>>>hearest thou, wealth-watcher? our wretched whelp

>>>bireð wulf tō wuda
>>>beareth wolf to wood

>>>Þæt mon ēaþe tōslīteð þætte nǣfre gesomnad wæs
>>>that one easily slitteth, that never seamed was

>>>uncer giedd geador
>>>our song together

and my first attempt at interpretation:

>>>my people demand an offering.
>>>willeth they to eat him if he in threat cometh.
>>>we are not alike.

>>>wolf is on one isle, i am on another.
>>>fast is that island with fen begirded,
>>>it is an isle of death-wild men.
>>>willeth they to eat him if he in threat cometh.
>>>we are not alike.

>>>the wolf my far-wandering hope tracks hound-like.

>>>when it was rainy weather and i wailing sat,

>>>i was by war-strong arms enwrapped.

>>>it was a joy to me, loth however also was i.

>>>wolf, my wolf! my hope goes after thee.
>>>i am made sick by thine seldom-coming,

>>>by troubled mind, not by want of meat.

>>>hearest thou, watchman? our wretched whelp
>>>the wolf beareth to woodland.

>>>with ease one splitteth what was never seamed.

>>>our song together.

it's hard to sort through all the interpretations

is wolf a man's name or is it an actual wolf?

is eadwacer a man's name or merely a generic term for watchman?

i would like to see a translation that preserves as much of the ambiguity as possible

nevertheless i am beginning to think it is impossible to render it in modern english

at least without at least a few leaps

certainly the narrator is a female, that is accepted

woman + man + infant?

woman + 2 men + infant?

what of the idea that all the characters are non-human?

as in animals + a deity, (deity in this case being eadwacer)
this lends "hearest thou watchman?" a strongly confrontational tone

as in a "god my god why hast thou forsaken me?" kind of thing

and the poem as a whole a certain feral aspect

as if it weren't woolly enough to begin with

what with suggestions of human sacrifice

and/or cannabalism and

pain and loneliness

etc  

more to follow