Honey in the rock and the sugar don't stop

[sovay]

I did not sleep last night. The sore throat I've been sick with since Friday turned into the kind of cough that does its best to prevent that. I had a doctor's appointment in Medford at nine o'clock, however, so at seven o'clock I crawled out of bed, drank half a carton of orange juice, stood for way too long in the grey cold to catch a bus, made my appointment exactly on time, stood for way too long in the bright cold to catch a bus, read another chapter of Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead (2012), crawled back into bed and promptly passed out: and managed to stay that way until a little before three o'clock, when I think I might have coughed my way awake again. I am not running a fever, however, and so I am still attending the rescheduled Burns Supper tonight with derspatchel and many other fine musical people. I don't know if I'll be able to sing, but there'll be whisky and I can listen. In the meantime, I'm drinking a lot of hot goat's milk and honey and tea.

I'm not sure if it was a nightmare or just the final image of a weird story: I dreamed of Dionysos after the sparagmos, put back together wrong. His skin was stitched together with ivy tendrils, suckers spidering across the fawn-colored jagged flesh; the chewed gaps of the Titans' teeth had been spackled with grape-crushings, pine-tarry staunchings of dry needles and cone-scales pushed into the holes at flank or throat or forearm. There was no blood; it had dried long ago, in grape-juice tricklings. His head was a panther's, pollen-gold and dappled, set sleek on his boy's shoulders, but its eyes were the brown and white glass of a bronze statue. It turned and saw me, blinking softly furred lids. I knew something in there lived and was divine, but I wasn't sure what it was anymore. Breaker of chains, Dionysos who rends the ordinary from the day like the skin from the skull: I hoped I hadn't prayed for him. I had been reading a book, but I can't remember if he was its last page.

In other stories—

1. Three different people sent me the news last night: two new poems of Sappho have been recovered.

2. The testimony of Pete Seeger before the House Committee on Un-American Affairs, August 18, 1955. His life was a contribution.

3. Calling all nineweaving: the complete Ben Jonson is now online.

The dead keep singing, out of rivers, out of deserts, out of long-dry ink and just-stilled strings. I am glad of them.

Comments

[phi]

I thought of you when I saw the article about the new Sappho poems, but refrained from sending them to you because you'd already commented on Alex's facebook post on the matter.

That dream sounds eerie.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

O my. That dream is shiversome.

The dead keep singing, out of rivers, out of deserts, out of long-dry ink and just-stilled strings.

This.

Nine

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Who had done the putting-back-together?

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

re: 1. I, of course, hope for Sovay translations of these at some point!

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I wish you sleep and healing. I'm glad you're not running a fever, and I hope you have a good time at the Burns Supper, whether or not you can sing.

That dream is intense and fascinating. Thank you for writing about it.

Thanks for the links as well.

The dead keep singing, out of rivers, out of deserts, out of long-dry ink and just-stilled strings. I am glad of them.

Very well said. I agree.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Breaker of chains, Dionysos who rends the ordinary from the day like the skin from the skull

gorgeous--if you write or dream it, are you surprised he comes?'

The dead keep singing, out of rivers, out of deserts, out of long-dry ink and just-stilled strings. I am glad of them.

--"Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing. It sounds an echo in my soul-- how can I keep from singing?"

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

I'm far more inclined to wish *you* well rather than Dionysos, but that dream: wow. Glad you made it to Burns Night.

May the dead keep singing, may we keep listening.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

"two new poems of Sappho have been recovered."

Awesome! Maybe that'll help push back a bit of the depression I feel whenever I think about how many thousands of mummies and their possibly poetic wrappings became fuel for British trains.