Limerick Louisville Kaintuck

2009-01-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

A Mostly-Somali Place Near Limerick

I ate in 'Somalia' this lunchtime. It was my first try at eating goat-flesh, and really I would have to define this as good, quite good eating with a salad and loose-side-wrap-pastas in a manner only faintly reminiscent of like Mexican cuisine. This was, really, a working-Somali-immigrant's place to eat, and not destined to become fast-food-ish. I was surrounded by men who were eating hearty and speaking to one another presumably in their Arabic while the cable-TV played 'football' (read 'soccer'); the-price was fine-- for essentially food that somewhere else would be considered international-cuisine-exotica.

In ways for which I had been partially prepared by rooming/sub-letting to Arabs about 16 years ago in the East End, a few Arabic expressions were what I used to be as nice as I could in simply not knowing much about the culture or 'how to do.' Everybody, yea the cook and waiter especially, were helpful in explaining what the proper etiquette would be in this sort of situation. One pointer I got: 'good manners' in eating-Somali means eating with one's fingers-- for which a proper sink-- from cleanliness traditions I seem to recall reading the Hadith/traditions-of-the-Prophet/canon-law-of-Islam. As a richly stimulating 'sense-saturating' place to eat I give high-esteem, must suppress the wordiness to which I am prone, stick to basic. Of course-- good eats and other-sensation-saturation aside one could in the existential-sense call this 'one of the better spots' and seemingly safe as a bank-vault-- plus I for stress repeat that for pauper-me the cost is do-able too-- for my wallet. I dread some xenophobe's grade though-- say from an elitist dining publication-- any number of S*T*A*R*S should include the obviousness that this is a statistical-outlier in a welter of Louisville eateries with the usual 'bell-curve' somewhere here jutting out with this wholly-different phenomenon. I don't exactly know what kind of grade to give this place-- but it is exactly the kind of place I want-- good tasting food in an exciting ambiance, with price good to my dwindling wallet [it is getting into the middle of the month, and the dreg-bitter-ends do come.]

This place in which I dined is located in the International Mall, on York Street west-terminus between 8th and 'Smilin' Irishman Alley' [ a real Louisville place-name.] I took a photo with my digital during this day of snow spits on the way out-- and here have pasted (or whatever the term is) above. In there one can find a great Somali-based 'supermarket'-- with African beans, and whole-grain-brown-rice 'from the foothills of Himalayas.' Specifically, I walked over to this store from other errands in order to check out the teas-- and got some nice Ceylonese loose brown for ~$4, so for that great price I got two tins; the again-friendly attendant pointed out that there were here some fine Kenyan teas for about the same price, but 'in bags.' These folks seem fond of tea-making: I got for just about $10 a copper-kettle that I immediately on use termed 'keeper-great' for its quick brew; there was a lip into which one could insert a tea-ball (you can get them over at Krogers) -- but the fit with the American ball seemed imperfect-- so I wired a hook that famously accommodates my tea-making.

So: on getting back from the ~ 9000 step trek including these first-time-eats, second-time-grocery-shopping, I made several potfuls of brisk loose tea with my pot-ball combination. As I did my 'biometrica' (glucose, galvanic-skin-response, TPPRs etc.) [I have excellent ways of preventing this ingest from really becoming an impediment to somnolence later tonight.] I felt myself happily situated between 'all the Ireland, all the Deutschland, all the 'Hispanica,' and now all the Somali-Africa I can process meaningfully.

Limerick is beginning to 'sprout' with such new-things-under-the-sun; this would seem to be the-return to an old Limerick tradition of hospitality and graciousness, now resurrecting from the wastes of recently-bygone-hell-fires. So: as the snow spits out my window, I can look on Limerick with an emergent neighborly pride.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
Time of Compline
Day of Ste. Kentigerna, Anchoress (Western Church)
Day of the Synaxis of John Baptist (Orthodoxy)

2009-01-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

How I-- a Phenotypically-Somewhat-Beige-Man
Did Do Kwanzaa

I lit a purple candle-- for penitance-- during this Kwanzaa season-- for the sins of my Fathers-- for whatever I have sinned overtly covertly against the dignity of the African, all all all the legacy of slavery, and of its vast illusions. This purple candle was indeed given to me by a woman-of-color-black-- to lift consciousness for a homeless man at a Drop-In center (who just may be black, given the usual rude-breaks of things.) There will never be enough penance from Whitey to undo completely this stain, but I have tried, I have tried, I have tried, in a slow epigenetic ontogeny from the motley 'beige-like' phylogeny from whence I germed...

And of these forbears motley, 'bleached' somewhat like me, 'unbleached black & mild' neighborly, my thoughts backward went into the well of time, seeking Truth much-prior to Reconciliation...

I am variously describable: in my forebears have been racists, in my direct lineage forbears I have reports from couisinage that I hail from certain Underground Railroad provenance-- said to be the work and protraction in life of "Red" Jim [there were two Jims-- twins maybe-- born to perhaps-humorous Francis Faulkner and Thomas Paine Stephens-- 'red-haired' so Red-- 'black-haired' so Black.] From early life onward, Red Jim was progressive in outlook, and shared not the apparent esteem of his father for the sin/status-symbol of professing ownership of others-- to wit what I mean!!! And so I am told that in the consortium of Nancy Ryle of the Maryland (I think perhaps Catholic) Ryles there was the movement to get black folk to Indiana-- which officially never had slavery at all-- and just as officially Red Jim had slaves-- just as unofficially he got them from his steal-away-to-Jesus-farm to (?House of?) Rising Sun, Indiana--- or so I was informed by another Nancy Ryle-- this a third cousin-- linked to Elbert Ryle genea-historian of their scionage-- on or about November 1965. 'Lige (Elijah) my paternal grandfather seemingly also rebelled against father-- a penchant known to Freudians-- and was racist Scottish Rite-- and my granny dying fingered him to be with the KKK-lynchers. My Dad ['Punk' Willard] rode-fence on this issue-- racist in young adulthood-- mellowed much out of that in later life.

And whether of rebellion along Freudian lines, or for the compelling reality of grim unfairness abiding Jim-Crow-Kaintuck-to-this-day (KY invented 'Jim Crow'-- Plessy v. Ferguson)-- and the Christian teaching sidelong of Miss June Brown, second-grade-teacher, or just getting all the gulley-washers of kiddy Reformed-Jewish-inspired/pitched electronic media from Cincinnati (Uncle Al, Stringbean, Skipper Ryle)-- I early on wanted to redress for the sins of 'Lige and Punk and Thomas Paine. With the tipping into the precursor social science training emerging from what would become (now) Northern Kentucky University-- I did a stint as 'go-fer' with the [black] Cincinnati Herald peddling ads to racist-whites, contributing some copy betimes-- joined (when I could afford the dues!) NAACP-- promoted Jesse Jackson for President, Shelby Lanier Jr. (here, Jefferson County) for sheriff, and of course vigorously Brother Barack. No sympathy-vote for me is with this expected nor asked this Kwanzaa however.

Yet at the same time I was operating under some testable illusions, which now seem rather emphatically discredited. I here implicated Red Jim I think falsely as I heard he'd been [drafted-into 'Lige said] the Confederate Army ~ 1862-- but now piecing altogether with the Verstehenanalyse instructed to me by soc sci I think likeliest this was more like abduction of hot-hot-one by the Rebs to points-safely-South. {By that I mean that the before-during-and-after of Red Jim's life-- and his consent to 1st Nancy's begetting of Mandy and Sauny-- by a Freedman during internment-- with Mandy and Sauny freed on Emancipation but by all accounts returning for reasons now understood to Boone County thence--during internment-- according to my Grandmother [!!! disapproving this !!!] Grace Anderson Stephens on or about December 1961 after 'Lige demised.} The 'after' for Red Jim and Nancy also included such anti-racist affiliations as promotion of the Populists, Progressivism, the Cooperative Movement, scientific agriculture (like raising now-ubiquitous soybeans 'steada' pigs), and of course the non-racist Oddfellows. In the light of the slim but evidenced written account of Red Jim by 'Lige-- and by all the corroborating evidence from 2nd Nancy Ryle & Nanny Grace-- I have to say the balance now falls on letting-Red-Jim-pass, 'well done, good and faithful servant!'

I so want to look up the scionage of relatives Sauny and Mandy, bid Hello Howdy to the real-time, as I think surely 1st Nancy Ryle and Jim-hers did-- fie on the aversion 'Lige may have had that Nancy's love went to Mandy and Sauny [as much at least] as he. Fie on me, an unfinished terminating project. In my heart, these longed-loved-ones with Mandy and Sauny forever will be 'young gifted and black, and when I look back, I see you... standing there' ['Negro National Anthem.'] No forgiveness can be given for the outrages my pinky people did to you, but perhaps in this Genesis Country, busy-being-born, some new creature Kindness can civilly address redress me with my purple candle, for my sorrows as Chief-Sinner, Ass Braying in This Desert... at Kwanzaa dimming.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
Time of Compline Late
Day of St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzus

2008-12-31T20:23:00.000-08:00

Limerick Louisville Kaintuck
Under-Lying the Lie of Evolution
(Erosively)

Here 'tis: the Coptic/Pharaonic/Egyptian fine day Kioak 22 (New Year's Eve, 2008)-- and I shall get to the bearing and import of such factuality momentarily...

This night I thought of what Biblers Blasphemous (to counter the spirit of 2 Corinthians 3:6) call so oft THE LIE OF EVOLUTION so as 'twas a clear ice night, I went out to the cold for a brisk micro-micro-micro-trek-- as far as the irony-iced mud where the Desert's parking lot and the waste-place is (@ 721 Oldham N y'know.) LO AND BEHOLD TO THE ASTONISHMENT OF THE FLAT EARTH I spied-me the known rise (~3 inches ~76.2 mm); there was a silt of soil and vege and chemo stuff also frozen, but at a depth of ~7 mm on the concrete driveway abutting the asphalt; KNOWN accurately but not with precision/exactitude is the dictum in earth-science that soil in general erodes at a rate betwixt .4 and 1 mm-- so by this standard this silt atop rock-hard concrete ages to be accurately (not precisely) within the range 7-17.5 years; from the very and quite-cultural look of The Desert this would seem to be a Post-WWII through Begin-Cold-War architecture, and this natural fill atop such construct appears to be about-right-- but with the certitude that nothing cruel-and-unusual/signatory-nor-wondrous happened to let be this in the dense sense, but in the Wonder Which Awes, there are indeed some Miracles (yea !Quantum Miracles! too) and will expand, will explain.

There would seem to be hardly anything difficult to believe that the erosions which I impute are real, and of the God of Natural Law's True History. But live-WE (you vicariously through musing me) in The Desert (I repeat) Limerick Louisville Kaintuck... the fond (French-Voyageur-argot- the Rene-Robert-LaSalle word here-- 'bottom-land, lowest-point') being contiguous with the Falls of the Ohio shell-bed 129 meters (423.22 feet) and biggest hilltop around at Dodge Hill 253.59 meters (832 feet) (with Limerick approximately at 163.06 meters-- 535 feet.) The 'delta'/subtrasand of this would be 124.59 meters or 124590 mm (! YOU wise-guys cipher the footsies!)

Given then the generous and accurate standard we are provided therefore from sphere-earth-disciplines this dry-ice night, merrily Happy New Yearing on Koiak 22 (a repeat of a 'plant' from above titling) we accurately-- albeit not precisely admittedly-- calculate the age of Geo Louisville from these good guesstimates-- which seem to jibe with the anthropo-geo-history here Desertly -- as aged between 124 590 and 311 475 years-- with the fair assumption that while we Whiteys have plowed/gutted/pre-eroded-quick for about 300 years here not more-- in this vaster span of time-- so we are erosion minimal-maximalists but small in The God's Eye. Mind you, I am doing these calculations by the stuff at my hands and feet here now-- not ready-referencing to what The Experts (flat-earth and sphere-earth) have to contribute to this here now Limerick Louisville Kaintuck New Years Koiak 22 subject.

Does Jahweh-- She-Who-IS-That-She-IS -- have a problem of this estimate?? I know no more than Immanuel Kant in this Transcendental Judgment-- believed as posited but upon which The Veil is cast to me, Ignoramus. YET there are the Bibler Blasphemers who hold to letter-not-spirit in all every Firstness. For these, there is the literal Bibling way of saying that once in a 24X7 Jah Yes made Makings-- and by the arithmetic of Bible-reads-conscientious--

~Venerable Bede ('saint,' theologue, scientist), Earth Began = 3952 BC
~James Ussher ([Anglican] bishop, theologue), Earth Began =4004 BC
~Johann Kepler (astrologer, theologue, astronomer), Earth Began = 3992 BC
~Isaac Newton (sometime alchemist/mystic, chemist, mathematician), Earth Began =4000 BC
...With arithmetic mean therefore of 3987 BC; with ~ standard-deviation therefore of 23.86 years, (+/-) 95% CI = ~ 3939-4034 BC.

Anybody say 'but a thousand years is a Day and a Day is a thousand years?' -- the 1st line of defense-- it always seems a matter with these Bibler Blasphemers of proving-something more than living[for]-something-- in the usual hackeyed crustacea of argumentation-- Well this would give us NOT the equivalent with 3987 +2009 X 1000 = the putative estimate of the REAL Big Bang some 9-6 000 000 000 years prior-- of minimalist 124590 X 365.25 days indexed hereupon-- or whatever astrology one wants to use, permuting all the days and thousands I mean do not make a chronograph that keeps time.

And what pray-tell is all this New Year's reference to the Pharaonic Calendar?? Well, using the best (and conscientiously with zero mystique by able scholars-- who cannot but include Newton and Kepler and yea Bede and yea Ussher) the Bible-Liter-ed 3987 BC stuff falls about 1000 years short of the beginning of the first-known human calendars in Egypt-- continued unto this day by the Coptic Church (!certainly! Orthodox)... for this Egyptian use dates from ~ 5000 BC.

How IRREVERENT is this turn/treatment/interpretation/hermeneutic I give to geo-anthropo-history? To this I turn to the lulluby of Genesis 1st stuff-- with Leonine/internal rhymes, external/ending rhymes, and exactly metered anapestic [ - - ' ]. WHAT IS THIS IF NOT EXACTLY A VERY GOOD POEM TO HEAR IN HEBREW AS READ IN 'THE NATIVE' BY OMER FRENKEL ABOUT EVOLUTION-- THE CHANGE OF THE SEASONS WITH 'THE TIME AND PURPOSE UNDER HEAVEN.' It from the first 2 chapters is a dead-ringer-poetic of the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man using Darwin's metaphors... Frankly I cannot see what 'the fundamentals' mean but what linguists tell us 'the message is' I mean = meter + meaning = the-poetic.

IF there are Preachers who try to blackmail me with any suggestion that this is somehow Un-Christian, I would suggest he (as 'twould almost for-sure be a 'manly' one) get into reads of the Roman Catholic priests Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (evolutionary bio) and Georges Lemaitre (patriarchal Big Bang theorist); then he may latterly get into the work Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? by Disciple Michael Ruse. Actually, the message to honest-Baptist-toddler I was came home a few days after Nursery Sunday School to see the [anthropoid] apes-- gorillas chimps baboons-- in the Cincinnati Zoo-- and then thereafter I knew the Oral-Torah/credal-allegory which parables [Hu-]man and all his stumbling falling thrownnesses.

So now I think I will try hearing an MP3 of Frenkel's Bereshith-1/Genesis-1st. You blackmailers will just have to get Right with The God-- the One who makes crustacea Celesta channelings Chronology...

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Ass, Sinner
Time of Midnight (Coptic Office)
Vigil of Feast of Mary-Mother-of-God/Theotokos (Roman Church)

2008-12-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

Still-Birthing:
Beating-Boozing-in-Biosphere
Thoughts at Christmastide

What I am now, reiteratively, is known to God alone. But I shall now in celebrating Birthing at Solstice, the Holy Nativity, may-be that I think there is a monastic (Greek: 'solitary one') who shuns all visage of Sin, and there is one who places himself in the very Evil-eye-ogle. Whatever I am, however in contrast, there can be no glances away from the fact that I obtain as a sinful example of an unbalanced kind/species which misses mark (Greek: amartia) by always that Evil-eye bulls-eye on imbalance, what will not float, will sink in the ocean Chaos.

Limerick drinks now by night. By day, there is some hint of the Serene Sacramental Silence where God meeteth hu-man haplessly drunken dastardly. Somewhere (where? I pray) virginal (She, looking around, finds it in the Cleft Crevice Cervix Somewhere) pregnant Mother takes her beating, and homeless sans Holiday Inn (r) there Fleshes, always a miracle, always with some travail and flogging. And the ilk of Adam drinks on. Kill everyone who pisseth against the Wall (1 Kings 16:11 KJV--and who but the dangle-down-drippers might that be?)

'Sin hath left a Crimson stain.' A solitary one needs to see and hear-- at least with Mind's Eye anticipating this God's Eye-- all the vexed vulgarity we ARE-- not to turn away-- but ever to turn over and over and over (as the pattern of we-Drunks is to go off-wagon-for-a-12-Step-bender) to a Wholiness and Holiness which sounds only like a Punchline to a joke in this Abortion Factory-- but possible impossibility what we may-be if we shall see (the pounding fist on the Mother's Birthday belly) Strange Fruits of Christmas.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Sinner, Ass
Time of None
Nativity of Our Lord

2008-12-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

A Moving Sister, Wanting to Move In

I hope it is OK to say this... I hope there will be no hard feelings that erupt volcanically as hot liquid dolomite... One never knows, these days here...

A Sister knocked on my door approximately two days ago, from the [by residents of The Desert considered the-most-dangerous] stairwell side. What do you want, I ask after hearing the unrecognized woman:name. I want to move in. I says, I am very sorry. There is hardly any room in here but for me. You cannot move in. She: I mean I want to use your telephone, so's I can call ___ to make arrangements; let me use your telephone. Me: There is a pay phone on the corner at 8th & Oldham; there's a pay phone at the Konvenient at 7th & Oak; use one of those; do you have the coinage? She: I got the money; let me use your telephone. Me: I don't like this Sister-- I shall have to close the door to you.

For in such a way in The Desert great mischief has been wrought historically... mostly brutal and unpublishable here, of which I know only a convulsively disturbing iceberg-tip-tidbit. In my way of this sort of problemsolving, I may have prayed in the walkabout I do-- strongly resembling a [Wolfgang] Kohler monkey trying for the Banana-Grail-- of vexed walkabout and talkabout [to some who live not alone a 'crazy habit'] until I latched from an old mantra-- Macbethian Shakespearean -- THE TIMES ARE OUT OF JOINT--

To which I can corroborate with the recall that about sunset midst the singlets snowflakes I saw a rifleshot from here a posterboard majikmarked sign I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY TODAY HARD CASH FOR YOUR HOUSE NOW [so call this number, immediately inferred to be a puky sign of these hard times, with Sister {did she live purely as a nun to traject to my door with her moving question?} being one with this signing demise.]

The sense was: if one lives for something, then with nothing-- all I have essentially known in life and love-- now one can live, live well. I know not about the value-survival of Sister at my door moving in, or of the ones who need spot cash from Mr. Sharkey-- just this one time of course-- the the going down, devolution, dying of the Gilded Age and its wastrels. To the degree that I have-been/am wastrel I too shall go down-- all-have-sinned-will-die-- there are no saints in slain Sodom. The best we can do, Prodigals, Us-Wastrels, is now play the best hand until we crap out. Just don't whine about it, and as there is none other way, go with God Allah Jahweh.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Sinner
Terce Time
Day of Ste. Lucy (Western Church)
Day of St. Herman of Alaska, American, Wonderworker (Orthodoxy)

2008-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

[Photo of Someone from Wikipedia-- under GNU Free License-- Will Donate to Wiki ASAP]

Something Like Exactly March 16, 1966: A Faithful Dialectic

{Perhaps for the weather or the whether this fine day in The Desert, Limerick, Louisville, KY I do now/then compose-me to-say:}

He [on seeing Me with this handwrit: Father Louis—Please tell me—where on Earth is there an Holy Place?] Come in.

Me. I don’t need to bother you. I have written my notes so’s not to violate your Silence.

He. Oh… Come in…we could gesticulate out here in the open, but you would not understand…Out of the principle of Charity, I can talk to you as a man. [On being-seated in his cinderblock—smaller than mine in Desert now] One thing needs to be clarified immediately before we go any further at all: IF you are a homosexual, I shall have NOTHING to do with you, and this will be the utter end of this conversation.

Me [in sense totally OK but inferential]. Oh! Father I am NOT a homosexual, have had nothing but trouble in churches and out of churches with homosexuals. But I would say Father that from the listening I have done to the little prisses who brother retreats here for the high-schoolers—saying that it is un-Catholic to ever ever ever go to Protestant worship—I’d say this makes me wonder about the homosexuality of these guys a little.

He [a gentle nod].

Me … And what is more, coming from where I have grown—the Southern Baptist Church—which teaches nothing but hatred for Catholics—even my Pastor [Bob Couch] at Florence Baptist made the whole congregation against Catholic kids being bussed to St. Paul’s. To come down here and hear the mirror-reversal of this teaching by Catholics by these prisses makes me just want to go home, and do worship without any kind of church. But your Catholicism is interesting to me—is mysterious—I want to know it here because I guess it is the best Catholic stuff going. But mostly, I am tired of RELIGIOUS HATRED… all I ever knew in Baptist-stuff, and all I seem to be getting here. Nothing seems to be sacred—at the University of Kentucky the Youth for Christ—I think they’re with the Church of Christ or something—anyhow they brought in a magician to do what Protestants call ‘witnessing’—this means hard-selling you on religion Father—you may be less familiar with this than I—but in this particular case back last fall at UK in 1965 Youth For Christ witnessed with this magician; what he did was have a box—and proved the Resurrection of Jesus by putting a toy into the box—closing the box—and then opening it to prove that now Jesus was not in the grave—a cheap magic trick. Father, I know it is proper to believe in the Resurrection, so forgive me if I suggest that if I had doubts ever about the Resurrection of Jesus—it would be a sheer Act of God—not a magic trick. Nothing is holy if this can be witnessed for truth.

He [bushy eyebrows raised—like I have now-- but shave]. Just a minute. This is interesting. I hope you would not mind if I wrote about this…and maybe talked about it with others.

Me [lifting spiritedly]. Sure. I’m flattered. Anyway though what I am trying to say Father is that no place I can detect is Holy—by which I mean devoted-to-The-Other/God/Jahweh.

He [seemingly puzzling too]. But what about the Holy Land, Israel? [After a moment of silence, not too uncomfortable] No, I see what you mean. Israel right now is not a very holy place either.

Me. I had my hopes up about this place. But it looks like you’ve got some problems, too. For one thing, this looks a whole lot like a cheese factory, with a store outlet where you can buy trinkets too.

He. That charge has a familiar ring to me. Yet, as I said, everything that humankind does is an affront to God, Lad, what you do and certainly what I do cannot match the perfect holiness appropriate to God.

Me. Do you think I should be less judgmental? I fret about that—I know I am quick to judge.

He [smiling]. That COULD be. This place is just a part of the human condition, like everything else.

Me. What would you suggest I do Father?

He. Well, maybe start by counting your blessings.

Me. Blessings? I am broke as a joke, and really struggling in just about every other way. Girls seem to jilt me for fun and games. I get booped out of a lot of stuff for reasons nobody ever explains—just mark it up they do to the-breaks. What blessings?

He. Well, you’re from Kentucky.

Me [genuinely astonished and perplexed]. Kentucky? I hate everything about this Negro-hating hot Fundamentalist hole. What blessings about being in Kentucky?-—A place I have simply happened and cannot get out of for the life of me…

He. No Kentucky is a wonderful state, a wonderful place…

Me. It’s hot with Baptists, though, Ohio to Tennessee, Virginia to Missouri. Baptists in the country are almost alright—you know they go about calling one another Brother—vote in the same way that monks do to get things done—and when they are in the country you can see their wee white churches that are almost OK—in fact if Baptists were not so hardshell about this Bible and Negro thing they would almost be OK—something like a religious order where you can get married.

He [silent nod].

Me. … But in the Big City with the Brick Edifices and the we-don’t-believe-really cosmopolitans Baptist is just the phoniest baloney on Christianity and I do want out…I am shopping around at the Newman Center and places—for the place where holiness is a possibility. I am hoping.But this is frustrating. I CERTAINLY would like to be in a religious order—but only one where marriage is a possibility. What you got here is almost something OK but BOY I do not want to take a vow not to have sex—I am reading Freud and know that there-just-isn’t-anything-like-a-sexless-life. The libido applies to everything human and mammal. What you got down here just seems rife for every kind of mischief and pollution—which you call an affront to God—some of which you seemed to be talking about when I just arrived here today.

He [silence…not at all a Trappist silence, I inferred].

Me. Father. To me marriage is the Sacrament that is open to me—priests get the priesthood and that is Holy Office—but marriage replicates the Holy Family—Mary Joseph Jesus—and should not be shunned in a healthy community.

He [after a moment] It was God who sent you here. [Then, with another silence following, presumably with thought]. Tell me about yourself. How do you stand on the Vietnam War?...

Me. I think it’s evil. I’m having problems with the render-to-Caesar thing, and could never kill folks who look like what I think Lao Tze would look like. But: I am a fighter, will throw a punch [subsequently disavowed, about 40 years later] now and again, but Man this war is evil. Nothing but white people killing little yellow people who look like Lao Tze to me.

He. Think about Conscientious Objection. This is open to you, and you should consider it. The War IS evil—another affront to God. ALL war is evil. It needs to be resisted at every turn.

Me. What about my throw-a-punch-sometimes tendencies?

He. Pray about it. God will show you The Way. God can correct our affronts and imperfections.

…And so for awhile longer, the conversation went on; then this-Me left to go back to the Retreat House place….On my taking leave, he asked that I pray for him about the operation he was soon to receive, on his back, in a Louisville hospital at the end of this particular month [March, 1966.]

{RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED
TO THE MEMORY OF ST. THOMAS MERTON

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
M.S.S.W.
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44}

2008-12-08T11:53:00.000-08:00

My Fascinating, Fun-Filled Not-Prophetic Dream
[Just Now: During my Power-Nap]

Dreams are just static electricity in your head, in that death-close-phasing of sleepy-pie. But I did think I would tell all of you about the REM-state-great I just happened in my power nap just moments ago, in the cold room [may-be 38 F] in which I winter Birthing Jesus.

I dreamed that the BIG RED HEAD COP PWEEESEMANZ (Barasha at Like's ~3rd&Ky. said his moniker was H) who would do those EMS calls for invol psych on me at DimitrovvMolitovvCocktail Rooming-- the one who always had his blackflashlight or billie (y'know why) and handcuffing me for nutwalk would kick me to the floor for a beatin [this you see was then my disorderly conduct disturbing the peace of p'lice]--- THAT COP--

--Sure did get laid off in these Glorious CUTS by Po-Lice Abram-Sohnz-Squad and failing to get help failing to get unemployment [as was always the case when I tried] and failing to get into Humanity Hospital for MH -- goes down to McAlpin and after some beatings by goons and some robbings and zero Good Samaritans pitches himself under a passerby barge, and the Cappy thinking it to be a pitched bargehand he had then not to pay, cared less than I do, pragmatically speaking, and went on went on went on AS THE WORLD TURNS the soap opera is---

Friends who go to Church: it is not Christian to have such a dream, it is sin not to love old Red as I love myself somewhat. So assuming this is Diabolic [the Bible says several places that dreams kin lie], I bid it and all cruel entitities just to DEEP-SIX for GOD IS LOVE--

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W.

2008-12-08T03:27:00.000-08:00

Fond & Loving Memories of Ste. Almaah
Hispanica Nursie Invol Psychiatrie
@ University Invol-- For Which I Paid in Full
All My Debts to That Society

In youngest September 2001 I was naked in bed at Universality H-- involed there I think because I be-wondered my c m to be a gay-- and I told him to gas himself if he had AIDS.

Anyway, with fond love I remember then on admission (~Labor Day) after the BIG cop brought me in handcuffed --I think because I insinuated [I say reiteratively] that my c m was gay inter alia and that they need gas themselves--

One of the questions the cruel lookin social person asked me: what are your alcohol& drug habits??? O cruel sw, I stipulated testimonially, I do only the drugs which are prescribed NOT anythiing illegal-- and that while I do not hold myself out tea-totler there are times when per accident only I ingest vanilla extract, and some vinegar as a condiment-- but HATE alcoholism in all its aspects because of what it did to boozer friends [pickled Korsakoff's Jane and Wernike Steven]... Absolute ethanol ingest, lifetime use, ~ 1 liter, I exacted to cruel sw admitting...

That being said, let me return again to me in the bed naked as born at U H just s.p. Labor Day one eve. I was there thinking of the folly of mankind, and of the depilation that is required of the Nazarite-- under which vow I was then to the Body of Christ-- how I had shaven-- and how silly it was to be so naked and involed for such gay reasons I guess--

And fondly I recall Ste. Almaah Hispanica come into this cushy room-- telling me Meester Stephens NOW you have to go to AA-- I sed: But why? I am not an alcoholic, and I hate everything about alcoholism-- It is in your RECORD Meester Stephens that you are an alcoholic-- But: I sed: I have body modesty and am naked: could please you exit this room-- Lady-named-soul-- I would like to dress for this occasion in privacy-- NO Meester Stephens you must now get out of bed and treat your alcohol problem-- So: naked and shaven in the Nazarite way: I got outa bed somewhat exhibitionistically. That she seemed Nazi was apparent-- but she wanted to know what I was mumbling in this regard-- and seeing the grinner security guard (may have played football or footsies in HS) with his clean brutal latex gloves flexing the puncher as he laughed-- I desisted muchly-- I went to AA in a somewhat peeved mood...

But: the kind AA guy in the midst of all those insincere folk who just wanted a bender-- DID tell me that doctors-orders runs UH-- fun I knew and acceded-- but with my long and passionate hatred of all forms of boozing and substance abuse it could not be avoided that I said I did use vinegar and vanilla as seasonings-- absolute ingest of ethanol ~ 1 liter-- and LOATHED EVERYTHING ABOUT ALCOHOLISM FOR WHAT IT DID TO FRIENDS [Pickled Jane, Pickled Steven]-- SO AFTER ALL THAT I SUPPOSE THAT BY ONE STANDARD-- A BRUTAL STANDARD I WOULD ESTEEM IT-- I AM AN ALCOHOLIC-- THOUGH WITH NO BRUTALITY I HATE YOUR ALCOHOL, AM TRYING HARD NOT TO HATE THE ALCOHOLIC... To which the mentor-niceguy said: OK-- I am going to see if I can get you out of this-- there are no guarantees in this life-- but we'll see--

Ste. Almaah did-too ask me s.p., I believe that next day: Meester Stephens how did you like AA??? Hated it, I said, because I find it invalid to claim me alcoholic, or have a drinking problem. But Meester Stephens you driiink vinegar and vanilla-- that is veery bad Meester Stephens-- you need to quit driiinking such things-- you need to quit driiiinking Meester Stephens.

So 'tis that U H has it there on-record maybe: Vernon Lynn Stephens did say 1X that he's an alcoholic-- great reason to put'm into AA next time (because of the State&City's love for me, there will almost certainly be NEXT TIME-- the more-brutal because I have now spilled-beans); so knowing this kind and usual love that Louisville shows me, I am going to play some good caution...Even though with utmost rarity do I STILL (Still??? Still driiinking vanilla and vinegar Meester Stephens? Shame on you!!! Shame!) have no option but to use vanilla and vinegar.

Saints abound at U H. Ste. Almaah said she means 'soul'-- and this is much-confirmed contextually in San Juan de la Cruz' Subida del Monte Carmela-- so may the much-flogged Juan love Almaah-- and so too the Jesus with Nails & Stigmata-- but as for me, the stigma of mental illness-- and all interviewer bias pertient-- and my response bias in stipulating this testament-- suffice for all my wounding and healing.

With Love to Almaah & U H Invol Psych
[I guess I'll go to Jail Next-- Where all Nuts Now Go]
--Vernon Lynn Stephens
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W.

2008-12-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

God Loves Everybody! God Loves Sinners!

With joy I noted that the Police did not seem to note or wait-engines-running this Sunday in Advent hereabouts re my singing

Christus Vincit!!
Christus Regnat!!
Christus Imperat!!!

[Sacred to the Memory of the Vatican]

@ None-- which has come to mean to me ~ 2p-- when Jesus died doublecrossed.

Perhaps now with the cuts-- good surgeries!!!-- I can do Anglican Compline at retiring to bed. Oh the City of Louisville WAS so diligent about my mental health in coming to my domicile 16th&Market in the hot summer of 1998, asking WHAT KIND OF SINGING IS THAT WHAT CHURCH DO YOU GO TO-- but OK firemen and pweeesemens I am an Anglican, but lapsed because this Church seems to think that homosexuality is a virtue, not a sin-- Oh!!! The loving memories of the Police and Firemen beckoning with index fingers to come out into the hall of this DemitrovvvvvvMolitovvvvCocktail place so that I could for prayer Compline go I suppose to 6E University Hospital Involuntary Mental Place-- or that is to Jail for such worship as I did at that rooming house in 1998.

It is certainly pleasure, now that we have no Law (Dys-)Enforcement, to be able to relax, to be kind, to worship God Jahweh Allah as Natural Law-- not the constituted law of fictions-- endorses.

At such quiet and safe times now, I can with more pleasing response register that God loves everyone-- even the Security Guard who funnned a spear into Jesus outen bleeds&water, and finding him gooden dead, pronounced TRULY THIS WAS THE SON OF GOD. 'What Wonderous love is Law, Oh My Soul Oh My Soul,' sing I possibly onward.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W.

2008-12-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Cut Back! Cut Back!
[The Fun Spirited Way to Null the Established Social Order]

The Mayor of Louisville-- said to be 'Mayor for Life' in Lousyville-- has promised us locals the-most-humane fiscal cuts in law enforcement and governance generally! I think that means: MILLIONS-MINUS THAT WILL HURT-- BUT MOST KIND&USUALLY TREATED-- even more than usual, the Natural Law of God will only prevail in Limerick-- certainly with little meddling or incompetence from the Long Arm of the Law [or: should I say-- Only-Do-Law-Avoidance-unless-'Disorderly/Disturbing'-Wee-Wee?] Accordingly in a sprite of naturally-lawful and civil and solitary fun/play-- I CUT BACK!!!!

So HERE IS HOW I have cut-back: On the morrow of 12/5/2008-- I plainsonged Anglicanly 'Cast not your Pearls: Before Swine! Cast not your Pearls: Before Swine!' [Matthew 7:6]-- meaning that one should NOT give what is Holy to Dogs-- and knowing this to mean that all Churches and all Human Condition with which I am aware is 'doggy'-- I went into my john and toward sunshine and God RENOUNCED my vow of Culdee/Nazarite/Sannyasi. IF the social entities to which/whom I committed myself on May 21, 1994 at sunset were GOOD (dubious premise from outset) then a vow before these would be OK. But as in all ways that I have ever determined social organization is constituted with fictions professing goodness, not practicing goodness-- I feel that God Jahweh needs to judge these with most harshness, and I for one-- before God and Only Before God-- need to shun such Fathers-of-Lies [a happy whimsy riff from John 8:44 applying precisely to all Homo sapiens in-sapiens and all fictionalizers] forever as un-Christian, un-Jewish, un-Good [Goodness/Wholesomeness = the sole survival value] in every way.

In short order then, to deprive the fallen world of anything that IT would esteem 'religious' from me (God knows! God knows who I am-- to whom my Real Presence IS]-- I deleted in a spirit of play my religious poetry Web-log/blog "The River Raver: Lays from a Lollard in Louisville," as well as my spiritual journal "To Wrestle with Angels," and then eliminated problematically religious writs from Google Base [meaning that IF someone could manufacture an 'angle' from these readings-- for blackmail or otherwise social fiction-- then opportunity-forever-gone.] I simply DO NOT CARE AT ALL if someone outside this door considers this seeming-to-be-somewhat-- Good/Bad/Indifferent or so-- I shall only abide with as little outside intervention on my 'pearls/holiness' as humanly and Godly possible.

IF THEREFORE I venerate St. Thomas Merton of Gethsemani OR Ste. Dorothy Day of Manhattan OR Ste. Catherine Spalding of Nazareth to be what they are SAINTS-- then the world may have little or no notice of this. God Jahweh DOES know I trow. If I say anything like these pearls/holies-- it would be despite the blackmail and social fiction of world and churches and governance-- which for anyone sincere never worked, was always ever a systematic of Lies and Rumors-of-Lies in order to force success and submission.

Yes, Mayor [Latin: 'Major-One']-- CUT BACKS NOW!!! Goodbye government of Louisville, goodbye visible phoninesses of all pious-mouthed kinds, I have no need for you: I want you out of my life because you only interfere with my law-abiding conduct and civility-- and mostly-- my sense of Awe before that Wholly-Other Holy God Jahweh-- She-WHO-IS-What-She-IS.

I love these cuts. They are proper for the Natural Order-- the Absolute Reign of God Sheria with no deceits from the social organizing powers that they-are-really-up-to-something-kind/good.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W.

2008-11-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

Re-Turn and Turn-ing Gratefully Rightward-Sharp:
Thanksgiving Day @ Limerick Quietly Beneath The ManHole Cover

I have been greeting HappyThanksgiving to neighbors I see for the past few days. Not a few-- of the lucky few lucky to have jobs in SkidsTime now-- have had to work, but sometimes these folk will say-- it ain't bad-- laid back-- relaxed-- and those who work restaurants will say that 'there's lots of turkey and dressing to-be-had.'

On holidays, like warm weekends, motorcyclists will come in from somewhere to just west of Limerick-- will I guess fast fast fast undetected by detection speed through over there among the factories and warehouses. So it was today, all lighted day into the darkened colding night. Their sound somehow fitly meshes with the other sonic ambiance of Holiday:Limerick, occasional Har:Har:Laffs less:occasional:soul/rap/Gospel on some stereo distantly but heard thoughout the Desert, now quiet with day-off happy intensity.

Today, I smelt no turkey-cooking-- perhaps a trace of the Times, somewhat out-of-joint but perhaps to the better there-for. And actually I have given up on fixing more than simplest fare here, at holidays like this say some fish, some red-yeast-rice; in the morrow after plain-singing the 'Christ with me... ... ... Christ in the poop' of St. Paddy on the veranda, I fixt me hoe-cakes (whole-wheaten-flour, salt, H2O -> fried pancakely) and sat me down to eat-- and better to digest the wondrous feed I get from UC Berkeley-- a course this on epidemiology-- and then after several series of lectures-this, I napped, then left-overed-the-main-course rice again (one of whose great perks is that the yeast makes the whole-rice ~ as-rich-as-meat-with-protein.)

As I am trying to teach Kitty about death-- perhaps with the 'success' that she has switched from previously-delectable-fish-flesh to no-flesh-at-all, seemed 'thankful' enow with dangles of butcher-twine from which baubles were hung-- and played/preyed-upon 'therapeutically' and recapitulatively.

What then meaneth THANKSGIVING to me??? I can say that WHEN I learned that the New Testament word for 'thanks-giving' = Eucharistia -> the SAME word as 'holy-communion/Eucharist,' I gained another tool that would help me 'open' this place to Something-Real-- that Spiritedness to find balance and center-of-gravity just anywhere, even in this The Desert, cast-off, set-apart, pariah-like, 'wasten' [Anglo-Saxon term] -> -> -> I have thence come to know that as All-Wheres Center the Universe-- this Center and Kindly Nest are building the Matrex. I have turned Right on the Right-Turn @ Oldham-- onto 8th-- and Everything.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
Thanksgiving Day
Liberated in Limerick, Lullaby

2008-11-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

Your Stuff? Cost-Efficient t Buy from Good-Will[s]--
Most-Cost-Efficient t Rob-Dumpsters!!!
...The Existential Pleasures of Living-Scavenger
In Limerick Louisville Kaintuck

I do KNOW-- but neighborly and public proprieties forbid me to say this outside these blest [with best Blessings ' Jahweh I beckon] 4-walls 2-doors-- that the folk here tend to live-hard alright, but also tend to waste-much. One can get almost everything hand-down from the Rich out there in suburbia in the generically termed 'Good-Will[s]' [of which of course Goodwill-Ind = 1]-- but HEREABOUTS GO FOR GARBAGE-- A FREE:STEAL-- in the way of furniture, and lumbers, and steels, and wires, and microwaves, and carpeting, and radios and [I do admit of frequency-real] good clothing shoes gears-- BUT EXACTLY I DRAW-THE-LINE-AT-FOOD {some 'cop' [take] eats from the trash here, so I know it is possible-- but close I have come to survival peril & actual homelessness in Lousyville I ain't been yet a garbage-eater!!!!}

One of the earliest and most-useful 'cops' [takes] one can make here is of the abundant red-and-concrete-brick-- I know thence that the archeology of Limerick is deep into brickhouse as well as the shotgun frame house-- occasionally still making presence emerge from old-times and Irish-telling. I have used these brick for the gravity-based hold-downs needed in this place-- they are great bookends, they are great to position into catproofed standing columns, they make great separators to keep-things-off-the-ground-drier.

I have mentioned book-keep here [via the bookends yet more, to tell]: of the shelf-grade boards and initially of the bricking local to Limerick, I began to house my science books, my Aramaic and Arabic and [New Testament] Greek Books, and the Obras de San Juan de la Cruz [Works of St. John of the Cross, from which Doctor I have made strides in reading-Spanish and communicating with the glorious new wave of Hispanics in Louisville, on the TARC-bus, in social-service, at-work-cheaply-for-The-Man, in ecclesia-worshipping.] I have grown slowly and by cunning steps/saltations in a clearly evolutionarily satisfying&satisfactory way {assuming Metro cops [police] of some kind do not bother me} a NEST which effects JOY QUIET COMPLETE-NESS SHALOM EIRENE PAX PEACE in no small small from garbage, from what the Wasteful [including folk like me] pitch-out, dis-pose, re-ject.

It may seem tangential here, but not-so really: my favorite reading is Ecclesiastes [Bible: in Hebrew 'Koheleth'-- 'The Collector'] from whom I make reference to the beginning-and-end in Jah Yes Jahweh Allah God that THE THING THAT HATH BEEN, IT IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE: AND THAT WHICH IS DONE IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE DONE: AND THERE IS NO NEW THING UNDER THE SUN [KJV Ecclesiastes 1:9.] I KNOW what I think this-Jew-Collector is-about, as a man, and as a man like me: BUY WHEN FOLKS ARE SELLING, SELL WHEN FOLKS BUY, AND ROB-DUMPSTERS-EVER-ALWAYS AND THERE WILL BE SHALOM/COMFORT FOR YOU-- AND FOR YOUR HOSTAGEs [e.g. my Kitty.]

...In other words, in other words, it will for long be-honest to take what folk-throw-away-- assuming you can store and use it: AGAINST SUCH TIME AS WHAT-HATH-BEEN WILL-BE THE CURRENCY, THE DIAMANT/DIAMOND:GELT/GOLD:SILBER/SILVER. And the One who reads reverently Ecclesiastes Koheleth Collector Wise-as-Solomon to build-nest will not need to do so in economies that frequently out-rage, non-plus, not-compute. And thus with plentiful-supply copia plena and judicious judgment and essentially no-cash-spendin-money one can get-by, prosper, prosper, prosper in Places like This-Here. This I proffer Limerick is thus a perfect Place to abide-rise-fall-with-Tide-- governed by God, by Good-that-IS-Good, only to 'rob' what others have thrown-away, want-not-- SO I WASTE NOT!!!!

[This is most-nearly a crucial lesson of Life: what I now teach from Limerick means Labyrinths in Louisville and All Land-Wards-- that there is but/only/insignificantly imaginary distance betwixt to-save and salvation. Heed!]

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee, Nazarite
[Here I mention that Rab Chester Diamond Approved, Noted
And Provided a Cup ' MatzoFlour for the 5/21/94 Vow]
Day I Photo-ed Tom Merton Sq for That-Saint's 12/9 Birthing

2008-11-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

How 8th & Oldham Got to Be Street-Quiet/Safe
For Big and Little Children to Effect Some Play

8th & Oldham and vicinity used to be a traffic-vehicle-dangerous place-- as I recall it one-way longer ago perhaps into the 1970s when I first dwelt in Louisville. As a thoroughfare, 8th was the main sub-artery to get to the 'bend' at Oak Street, shortly thereafter to come to the railroad overpass, one of the local 'Heaven's Gates' then [the other remains at 9th & Magnolia] for railroading. The heavenly part of this would imply that truckers then should know this overpass to be semi-truck risky, as being so low [then-- the new 'pass is fine big accomodating to the near Industrial Park] that the average semi might not be able to fit-under, and there I have seen what but-for-seat-belts-and-safe-trucking would have been disaster when 'the top of the rig caught the overpass' at ~ 9th & Oak.

And: so trafficked was 8th Street that it could be at times a danger even to cross at Oldham-- although this was walked and jaywalked by many, I confess even me, in the risk-fraught time between 3:30p and 6p. I have seen of the wild doggies a roadkill or so on 8th Street from that time, as well as a squashed bunny squirrel birdie or so-- only with peril up to about 2002 did one make habitat and negotiate this streetfare!

But: the coming of the 9th Street through-way about the turn of this century-- and millenium-- had a number of impacts. The resultant most observable was that this 8th Street dead-ended just before Oak Street, and having sometime gone two-way, I trow that this street is immensely safe for children-at-play even, yea even big-kids like me who enjoy the new/now beauteous quiet, near-country-living-best of this neighborhood. The woods which had grown up prior to the through-way construct did have-to-go of course (for the most part), and that was a wee wee sad to me. I did go out just before the bulldozers and concreting and tell the trees apologies, that I wanted to cut-off/'amputate' a some of their branch-arms-- but that DEATH was certainly coming anyway-- and that if it would be okay-- THANK YOU THANK YOU TREES -- I could take these branchy amputations into my Desert to create furniture-- and this was done-- yea even the Louisville Courier Journal photo-portrayed for you around the turn of March, 2006 (I think) showing the fine catwalk for Kitty that I have constructed of these-- in memoriam the gone forestry, in thanksgiving Limerick's new peace, in jubilation Kitty (name of Tifla.)

Some continuities of Limerick yet abide. In photographing the street-sign etc. this day to effect hobby showing of this ambiance of Limerick on the Web, a fine black lady who appeared church-dressed in car blue big stopped within seconds of this enterprise and asked: Why-are-you-taking-pictures??? The context could really have been damaging to me: I think it is believed that the only people who take pictures hereat are the-police, meddlers, those who would aspire to be 'narcs' or something badly of that nature. Thus/therefore, I said: I-am-a-photographer It-is-my-hobby-to-take-pictures I-truly-mean-no-harm If-this-is-objectionable-please-say Then-I-won't-do-it. To which church-looking-lady replied: No-God-is-Good; It-is-okay and off she drove, leaving me in a blessed, careful sense of the wild gentleness to which anyone/everyone must practice to get from point-A-to-point-B-here, counting not at all on the Governance of Cops or City Hall-- with more importances than I-- to do business.

And so in this the Peace of God this Sunday Lord's Day I think I have told you of my wild neighborhood's developing peace, now a safe place for little-and-big-kids [in whom I am censused] to sometimes politely play.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens
Time of Vespers Somewhat Early
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Pentecost
Christ-King Sunday (Roman&Western Church)
Ninth Sunday of Luke (Orthodoxy)

2008-11-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

Feral Kitties, Wild Dogs:
More Wilderness News from Unlaced Limerick

This side of Limerick, the emptier side let's call it, can be a place where one sees the pets of Louisville dropped off-- for independent living after some dependence with substantive Metro families-- unwilling to effect the 'legal thing' of deposit with Animal Control-- doggies and kitties who have then gone about living on the land here. Biologically-- in the part of biology dealing with animal behavior called ethology-- this creates experimentally a phenomenon of considerable interest: the condition of ferality-- 'tame' animals returning to primeval conditions untame.

The dogs who went feral in these unlaced parts of Limerick were really more abundant prior to the 9th Street extension project, for prior to that intervention there was here an expanse of waste-place, where illegally there was dumping and then vermin-- rats and mice also oppossums-- which can be good-eating for ratting/mousing/'possum-hunting canines. When I first moved here in the late 1990s, there were times when I would go out at night and hear a sound I had not heard since coon-hunting days in my Boone County rural youth-- dogs baying with the-hunt-- and the very wilderness experientiality of it was an overwhelming and nostalgic sensation, with strong suggestion that at last I had found a home-away-from-Home.

The construction project which makes a semi-superhighway between the railroad and the Desert has seemingly effected the demise of a population of wild dogs-- not at all bad because I as one who know dogs always felt that these wild-ones were no longer house Fidos but just might if hungry enough try to get eats from [hu-]manflesh. I do not know if the hobos then who camped by the tracks there in hobo-towns (maybe to avoid the mission culture) were ever attacked by these dogs: it certainly seems plausible, and I wonder how much the police or animal-control folk would have concerned themselves with the plight of these miserables happening homeless humanity.

The wild/feral cats have abided beyond the advent of the 9th Street passway, have in effect always abided in a totally feline survival which to me seems utterly existential and catty. Actually too I cannot really tell how many of the wild kitties eventually report to some place with milk-dish left out or plates back-doors of Purina Cat Chow. But the kitties who mouse here seem to perform a useful ecological function for Metro Louisville, do seem intent on keeping-down the rodent population. I have seen a wild she-cat go unsuccessfully for a mourning-dove, to my psychic hurt, and I do guess atop the mousies the birdies are also ingested/preyed-upon, with the bad and good that seems all a part of Nature and its predations (intrinsic with the evil necessity of animals eating.)

I have noted one thing-- a kind of semi-naturalist observation that jibes with association with all kitties known to me: the wild cats will almost always stop, turn and listen intently to a human who seems/is 'talking to them.' Cats of course have none of the vocal equipment to make much like speech, but veritably to a one (unless for the rare-- and likely deaf-- white male cat) stop look listen to such human address, obviously an interruption from the busy survival necessities of mousing.

There are other animals that wild here-- unlaced in this bare side of Limerick. Bunnies sometimes show. I see oppossums as I say sometimes, with a bit less frequency than the rodents. Squirrels seem to eat the meager fare-- in addition to the oaken eats elsewhere here-- locust pods and even human detritis/garbage.

The flying creatures seem pretty ordinary-urban in this place. I am not 'good' at birding-- but have betimes been a Beckham Bird Club member, contacts now very old and I suppose in eclipse for active consultive queries. But I have seen bats jerking about at night, not I think the big river-bats (the moniker of our ball-team here in town) but squirts who seem to like summering moths to gobble. I love the crows, and used to 'talk' to them with what may have been convincing crow-call for these would often 'answer' me-- sometimes not too happily 'lobbing' and I would from politeness desist this intrusion. However, I am told that West Nile Virus hit the city crows hard, and this jibes with my observation that there was a period of sharp decline in their abundance in this neighborhood, only now to have some visibility/presence/crow-demographics. The crows are quite bright birds, and for this and for their obvious kind society, I count them as pets and siblings-- let go here in unlaced Limerick to do what God telleth via Nature.

The wildness of this environs has always given me an affinity for this place-- so close to City Governance-- so far humanly and inhumanly from the kind of governance to which those in Harrod's Creek, Anchorage, or even the Okalonas and Fairdales of Metro would demand. I feel as I have for long here that the Natural Rule of God would certainly suffice for whatever Limerick lacks in municipality and service considered 'normal' elsewhere. If one is polite, civil, no-piker-freeloader-moocher in the populace human or animal, all will be well balanced sustainable. Only imbalance comes with pushing unkindness forcefulness. We-- the critters and cosmopolitans here-- do pretty well taking care as we must-- in a semi-semi-semi-ecological balance I have yet to find in many locales in Louisville, yea in all the several-Kentuckys in which I have dwelt.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
Time of Compline
Day of the First SnowTrace of Wintering

2008-11-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

Proposal from the Unlaced Universe @ Limerick:Louisville:Kaintuck
[ A Prose & Poem in What I Call-Me Crippledy-Metrics]

I am not Irish: I am Anglo (of the English Isle genotypically, with phenotype strongly suggestive of Brythonic Kelt back-there): the audacity of my Anglic intrusion on this Gentle Gentile Irish:place must come with consternation to some of old-school-old-sod. Mea Culpa!!! Mea Culpa!!! Mea Culpa!! I repent-me for the sin of the sinners of Bloody Monday (1855-- down at the-old St. Paddy's in Portland-- of Prentice's Know-Nothins demogogery-- I and mine never ever claimed them-- nor the statue [now some brothers hammered-off 'iz fingertips-- Good for the Old Man!] at the Main Free Public Library 4th&York)--

BUT: I am of the scionage of Stephens'-- Populists of Boone County KAINTUCK-- kin to the Ryles who seem to have been provenentially Maryland Catholics-- sacred naming Stephen's from the Proper Englished 'Stevens' to honor the First Martyr of Christendom [Acts 7]--

AND I am here just to drop you a line from the Underground (Railroad) under the Overground UPS-plane flight:path that we have come to a Blow Biggern the Hurricane [Ike] who happend here just this September [14th, the Triumph ' Cross Sunday, 24th in Ordinary Time]-- the LoanSharks in Economy-- the LawFullHouse {pertaining but to Jahweh, I say!}-- broken banking on IOUs-- dishonest dealins-- dupery doings-- AND NOW WELFARE FOR THE-WEALTHY TIME, HANDOUTS FOR THE RICH:VERY-RICH WHO PAWNED THIS PIONEER AMERIKA ON THE HIRE OF FLAG, AND BIBLE, AND THE SACRED:NAME ' JESUS-- ALL WITH A WINK, ALL WITH THE CROSSING-FINGERS-BEHIND-THE-BACK--

SO expect nothin from The Man The System The Safety Net [which never was real unless you Wealthed Weal in this Commonweal]-- and god:ferbid there never was Welfare [the General Welfare Clause of US Const by Justice's just definition= not-Welfare-ever]-- or Sin!!! to even say it-- Welfare State-- where the Weal of Land = Folk = US in U.S.

ERGO Propter: Limerick is about Natural Law, the Love [Violent!! Utterly Self-Denying Getting-Crucifying!!!], the Lawless City, The Reign [in Absolute Monarchy] of God: in these hard times, LIVE AWHILE THEN DIE DEATH if you rob-dumpsters (and only garbage I mean) and keep a good supply copia plena on hand and document everything for when the Cops-- including the pink little Nurses that come around from Departmented Welfare-- for their handout-- hireling-- of locking you up in Charity in Kind&UsualTreatments-- in Mindless MentalHealth-- and the PolicePowerPsychiatric of K.R.S. 202A.041 -- just Forgive them Father-- they're KnowNothinsToo-- of the latter:day:denomination these-Kind...

SUCH THAT the law of God will prevail over human-nature's puny StatuteBooks in this Lawful Lawless Limerick-- unprotected by Metro Metropolis here-- protected by that Immense Protection-- to Love-God-and-Do-What-Thou-Willest [saith Augustine, saint, and one who meant-it!] GOD'S GOOD LAW: DON'T GO TO ANY CHURCH THAT EFFECTS THE-LAW-BOOK CALL-SECURITY ON YA-- OR ANY ECCLESIA ECCLESIASTIC WHO BLACKMAILS IN THE NAME OF SOME LOVE LUV AGAPE AFFECT TO SAY HERE YOU SAY ONE THING AND SINFULLY MEAN ANOTHER-- AND ALL THE SINS THAT A CHURCH IN TYPICALITY IS-- WITH LIES AND RUMORS OF LIES PER OMNIA SAECULA SAECULORUM ABOUT A PROFESSED GOODNESS WHICH IS NOT 'THERE'-- TO NAIL AND CRUCIFY YOU AND RUMORS OF YOU IF YOU ASPIRE BUT TO CARRY THE CROSS FROM OAK-ST. TO ST-CATH'S ON 7TH--

i SAY THEN: Live as good a life as you can-- in Church if at all possible-- but run like Abram&Lot from Sodomic-Gomoric-Lies-Rumors [what-meaning-really-unspecified-unknown-- but like good-Art-know-when-ya-see-It.]

Here then in The Desert [as Coply and Commonly this Place is be-called] I stand: I can not other: so help me God.

And this is by no means the end of this Matter: My Controversy: My Case Is Not Closed, in either Sodom-Gomorrah or Lilts in Limerick Louisville Kaintuck.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
Time of Compline Early
Day of Ste. Ermenburga, Abess (Western Church)
Day of St. Obadiah, Prophet (Orthodoxy)