My Ship of Death
I’m reading “A Ship for the Death of Phillip Medhurst” on Scribd. Check it out: https://www.scribd.com/doc/20161188
Phillip Medhurst
Phillip Medhurst
Wisdom from a Gnostic Sage
Month: Feb, 2016
Feb 20, 2016
The “Great Compassion” Dharani
I’m reciting “A Meaningful Buddhist Mantra” on Scribd. Check it out: https://www.scribd.com/doc/249137688
Phillip Medhurst
Feb 20, 2016
Aquero (Lourdes)
Within this cave I heard “That Thing”
Disclosing how our prayers
Could kindle light, transfiguring
Those crippled by their cares.
And thus re-made, a sluggish flow
Could spring to healing spate.
Old bones could pave the way to show
Changed flesh, immaculate.
Illumined by the moon, the night
Revealed to preternatural sight
An azure cincture round the earth
As clay, by grace, brought Hope to birth.
Feb 20, 2016
Teresa of Avila
A cherub pressed me to my knees:
He held a flaming spear.
He struck again, and then again:
As much as I could bear.
I soon abandoned all desire
For this sweet pain to cease.
No other bliss compares to this
Felicitous disease.
I greet this torment willingly.
I fondly hug the wound.
Love’s quarry, breathless, flees no more,
For she is run to ground.
Feb 20, 2016
Noel
Incandescent lamp-posts glow
Brightly through the shower of snow.
The tombstones, wet,
Reflect a flash
Of fake resuscitation.
The pale scene vaunts
Beauty unmarred,
Unstained by obscene flesh.
How perfect and pristine! –
Unspoilt by bestial notions
Of God dropped in the hay,
And livestock’s smoky breath
Set to thaw Death.
Feb 18, 2016
Samson
Sam found a little knife
While wand’ring in the ward.
When nurses tried to truss
The old man to a chair,
He cut their knotted tape
And made good his escape.
But is he strong enough
To grab with steady hand
The starched lapel of Life-
In-Death’s white coat and crash
That cranium’s empty dome?
That way, he might get home.
Feb 18, 2016
Noli Me Tangere (to Mary Magdalene)
To me it seemed a comforting idea,
Too welcome, too sublime to be untrue
That love and meaning could thus rendez-vous:
Be gazed upon, and touched.
But doubts persist that I imagined Him.
When He did not appear I then assumed
A love that God in fact was loath to show
Unto The Crucified.
Yet can there be conclusion to my grief
If I can never cling to one who walks
Within the graveyard of my dreams, with voice
Unsilenced by his pain?
And does my vision promise me too much?
Does Christ Himself recoil from ill-placed trust,
Compelled to say, “Noli me tangere” –
That flesh can never tarry.
Feb 18, 2016
Exodus
O Christ, thy crown is broke in two pieces:
Give half to me, O give half to me.
O Christ thy cloak is riven in pieces:
Give some to me, O give some to me.
And I will mould a smaller crown,
And patch a cloak for me.
And I shall go down, down,
Down unto the sea.
And the sea shall part for me.
Feb 17, 2016
THE LAST ENEMY
This is a photo of De Loutherbourg’s original drawing pasted into the Bowyer Bible, a grangerized version of the Macklin Bible.
Bowyer Bible 43.6063/6064. Tail-piece to the first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, vignette with sword slicing through a skull with snake in mouth. See 1 Corinthians 15:26. The print: letterpress in two columns above and on verso. 1800. Inscriptions: Lettered below image with production detail: “P J de Loutherbourg RA inv et del”, “J. Heath direx” and publication line: “Published by T Macklin June 17 1800”. Print made by James Heath. Dimensions: Height: 487 millimetres; width: 390 millimetres.
From a collection of photographs of the Bowyer Bible in Bolton Museum, England curated by Phillip Medhurst.
Phillip Medhurst
Feb 16, 2016
He Descended into Hell
He Descended into Hell
Phillip Medhurst
Phillip Medhurst 