That Deliciously Damned Spirit of Play

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ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)">tree of life</a>. One could argue it represents the darker, more terrible aspect of creation.</li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hod_(Kabbalah)"><b>Hod</b></a> means majesty in Hebrew, and is the eighth sephirah in the tree of life. It is associated with prayer, yielding, or evoking through language. I use it in this poem in the sense of brooding as it seeks to piece together the broken fragments from <b>Din’s</b> (or Gevurah’s) explosive anger.</li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malkuth"><b>Malkuth</b></a> means kingdom in Hebrew and represents the world and sits at the bottom of the tree of life. It is associated with earth, or God’s clay feet, and has even been thought of as a sort of filter for waste elimination.</li></ul><p id="0285">I won’t say anything more about the Kabbalah here. But two good introductions are Harold Bloom’s <i>Kabbalah and Criticism, </i>and Gershom Scholem’s <i>On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism.</i></p><p id="8943">I wrote the skeleton for this poem in a cafe in Assisi (Italy) on a cold winter night during my travels in 2019. I only now attempted to turn it into something for public consumption.</p><p id="d24c"><b>© Carlo Zeno 2022</b></p><p id="4e4e">_____________________________</p><p id="c78d">Thank you for reading. If you like this piece and would like to support me you can consider <a href="https://ko-fi.com/carlozeno7575"><b>buying me a coffee</b></a>, and check out the pieces below.</p><div id="db2e" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/mayas-spider-web-29a9a2e3dd29"> <div> <div> <h2>Maya’s Spider Web</h2> <div><h3>A poem on language</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style=

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Poem on the Kabbalah while wandering

Photo taken by author in Assisi

The Curve of Distinction has come down like forked lightning — impatient, exact — unique scar where the vessel cracked. Shadow of God’s overbearing unity, proud curved finger of Din

In the winding streets of Assisi, combing through this Kabbalah, Justice and Judgment flicker with lightning precision while the blue Hod of Dread broods downward

Hearing something like a hum in the distant Invisible, who is the Fool in all this? Is he the errant seeker of words, weaving meaning from misery and serendipity?

Does he veer his vendettas opportunistically into happy fables and delicious fairy tales? Part Nabokov, part Machiavelli, in all the innocence of a Hawthornian waif?

Fool with a Zero above his head, chuckling in the colorful shades of Hades, holding up the tail end of this great game, completing God’s Name from head to foot

Call me Devil, call me Fool, lacking wholeness, needing restoration, wanting the Balm of Unity to soothe Malkuth’s great war

______________________________

Din means law or judgement in Hebrew, and is often associated with Gevurah, the fifth sephirah in the kabbalistic tree of life. One could argue it represents the darker, more terrible aspect of creation.

Hod means majesty in Hebrew, and is the eighth sephirah in the tree of life. It is associated with prayer, yielding, or evoking through language. I use it in this poem in the sense of brooding as it seeks to piece together the broken fragments from Din’s (or Gevurah’s) explosive anger.

Malkuth means kingdom in Hebrew and represents the world and sits at the bottom of the tree of life. It is associated with earth, or God’s clay feet, and has even been thought of as a sort of filter for waste elimination.

I won’t say anything more about the Kabbalah here. But two good introductions are Harold Bloom’s Kabbalah and Criticism, and Gershom Scholem’s On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism.

I wrote the skeleton for this poem in a cafe in Assisi (Italy) on a cold winter night during my travels in 2019. I only now attempted to turn it into something for public consumption.

_____________________________

Thank you for reading. If you like this piece and would like to support me you can consider buying me a coffee, and check out the pieces below.