Somewhere in an ancient part of the oldest European forest extending its quiet wilderness between the Eastern border of Poland into deep deep Belarus the Earth Pig, White Owl and Marilyn Monroe descended onto a narrow path covered in a layer of fresh snow. At first no one knew about their arrival but quickly happy go lucky, brave and easygoing Earth Pig, together with wise, and visionary White Owl, made an ice chamber featuring a triple-queen-size-ice-bed to celebrate Marilyn’s Lunar Return aka her Aquarius MoonDay, which called the attention of the fiery-tongued dragon known to the locals as Jupiter.
Once he learned such dignitaries appeared on their land, he hearkened all the forest animals to greet them.
And when they all gathered around Marilyn’s triple-queen-size-ice-bed, the guest of honour, New Moon in Aquarius, descended from the nightly sky peering into the chamber.
At which point Marilyn commenced her speech:
“In astrology, New Moons symbolise a new lunar cycle. This New Moon in 15 degree of future-oriented Aquarius occurring in early February brings us a chance to start visionary projects. With the conjunction of the Sun, Moon, and Mercury, the intellectual energies are running high, further augmented by the sextile with Jupiter – she then winked at the dragon – in his own sign of Sagittarius opening the gates to the higher realms of thinking, philosophy, religion, and ethics.”
Glittering moonlight filled the chamber with mercurial sparkles, fiery-tongued dragon Jupiter offered Marilyn, who in all honestly seemed to look like the most refined version of the Ice Queen, a collective gift from the forest animals: portable-crystal-ball-laptop with its own satellite Urania. Marilyn clapped her hands; she was delighted how modern this device felt compared to her black rotary telephone that suddenly felt so XX century and which used to limit her to one on one conversations.
Overflowing with the inspiration she said:
“I was the feminine icon of the 20th century but so few knew I was also a poet!”
She looked at the White Owl who was her spirit animal, as well as a psychic confidante capable of translating her deepest emotional states into fluent verse. Even more, she was able to dive into the collective subconscious or the underworld, gathering sacred knowledge that could transform pain into ecstasy.
Suddenly, without warning, The White Owl swooped over the crowd, landed on Marilyn’s shoulder and read their recent collaborative poem, inspired by shadowy eclipses of January, and all the pain caused by Plutonian urges. Marilyn nodded, giving the bird a sign to start while looking far away into the past and possibly seeing her own death caused by the conjunction of her progressive Sun and the natal Pluto. And so The White Owl recited:
she is
living out the consequences
of decisions she forgot
then comes a trigger point
& a man too rigidly convinced of nothingness
becomes her distraction
letting him drift apart from inner and outer
blindly pursuing
everything he is not
to feel
we play
like all spirits that go too far inside
so he faced the truth of meaningless suffering
turned it into hope
into dream
into something greater than reason
turned it then into a maddening passion
sweetness and fullness
transfigured sensuality
annihilating his face
in the first-ever selfie, murmuring
“mirror mirror of the soul
who is? and who suffers most?”
into nights, and the portrait becomes misery
caught in a frozen shard of ice.
It was Nietzsche who whispered
“the shadows of emotional excess
suit you best” and the mirror replied
just like this.
the truth melted the shadow
the truth being unreasonable
& from that moment
the man abandoned the impersonal and the universal
ridiculed knowledge
and wooed an aesthetic
which was all ecstasy
and was her
All the animals fell silent, feeling perhaps slightly unsettled, with expectations for more of a party than a reading, but then the Earth Pig jumped on Marilyn’s triple-queen-size-ice-bed, and everyone noticed a sudden shift in emotions on Marilyn’s face; a couple of tears running down her cheeks, freezing and transforming into pearls, which she then picked up to fed the Earth Pig.
“Ah thank you, thank you my dear animals – her voice resonating within the dank forest canopy, and sounding pure and exalted – we are here to announce our new project! A poetry collection that all of you female-identifying animals are invited to submit to!”
Her new portable-crystal-ball-laptop with its own satellite Urania lit up and in an ai-processed voice announced:
“Open Submission:
Women who turn the dusty philosophical volumes into verses, knowledge into magic, hermeneutic prose into sharp as a thorn poetica. Neptunian sirens, Pallas Athenas, those unruly intellects of the Aquarian Moon who master the thoughts systems pouring their wisdom into the collective… We are calling upon you to write and submit your philosophy-inspired poetry to be published in a collection henceforth known to all worlds as “White Owl”.
Please send your submission and a short bio to:
redtemplepress@gmail.com
Closing date:
1st June 2019
Marilyn’s new portable-crystal-ball-laptop with its own satellite Urania added:
“White Owl is edited by Marilyn Monroe channeled through the astro-seance by Jana Astanov, and with philosophical insights, and at times even support, of Richard Marshall and EJ Spode. The editors will choose 20-30 of what they consider to be the best submissions for publication.”
After she stopped her transmission, the fiery-tongued dragon Jupiter, whose family run their own publishing house, as well as their own organic seaweed farm, raised a toast to the new venture, and the animals sipped on the New Moon elixir made of melted snow and Slavic Goddesses ambrosia. Marilyn then proceeded to walk around chattering and chirping and gifting away her chapbooks.
Well past midnight the Earth Pig said “oink, oink” and the ice chamber departed on an around the world literary tour, throwing cut-up poetry confetti made of farmed seaweed waffles, whenever they would go go!
Image “Ganymede’s Reverie” by DocR0cketArt
