ᛚ byþ leodum langsum geþuht
gif hi sculun neþan on nacan tealtum.
and hi sæ yþa swyþe bregaþ.
and se brim hengest bridles ne gym ᛬᛫
For the people it seems interminable
If they must venture on a tilting boat
And the violent waves of the sea terrify them
And the sea horse has no regard for the bridle.
The Rune Poem’s stanzas vary in length. Each of the first eight stanzas consist of three lines containing four beats of stressed syllables: twelve beats total. Then we get an abrupt shift toward brevity with a pair side by side, Hail and Need, which have two lines each. They are shorter, but their words beat out the same number of stresses as the previous three line stanzas: still twelve beats total. Sing it. To get all twelve beats into two thirds the space, your song has to speed up. The stressed words come fast, as does hail and need when they storm down suddenly on your head and destroy your abundance.
There’s more math going on here too. The Rune Poem is traditionally divided into three groups of eight stanzas with five extra vowels tacked onto the end as necessary accommodations for sound changes over time. Hail starts the second group … More
Waterways were busy places during the time of the Rune Poem, making for convenient connections between coastal settlements and with ports of trade farther afield. However, things become a lot less easy when the sea won’t cooperate. The whole endeavor becomes as the stanza says, langsum, longsome, long lasting, lengthy. This also means tedious, as in when is this boat going to stop pitching endlessly in these waves? Langsum, that’s when. You’ll be riding this out for a good long while, and langsum geþuht (longsome thought) means it seems even longer. Time slows down when you are scared and in your head, and this is scary. The boat is tealtum, unsteady, and it’s not a big ship. You are right there in the soup and you will feel every one of those sæyþa (waves) coming at you. They are swyþe, strong and violent, and frightening too. Bregaþ says it’s frightening, as I’m … More
You’ve booked passage on the ship sailing farthest, doesn’t matter where. Good. Take to the sea. Three miles out and it’s a free for all, no rules, pirate radio laws. Why go? You’ve pissed off your god, that’s why go. When your deity tells you to do and you don’t do: you’re done. Fly and hope they don’t follow. Thing is, you may not have done your math properly. Did you not think that your particular god is one of both land and sea? This one doesn’t have to follow. They’re already there. They’re everywhere, and now they’re raising up a storm. A big one. This ship is about to be wrecked. Plus, your boat is overloaded and you are looking a lot like unnecessary ballast. Last hired first fired and look at what’s going on now, the people are rolling the dice to figure out who’s got to go and it’s you.
What do you do?
I am a writer.
What are you writing?
A blank period of time. Wilderness. I don’t even know. Say something. It’s too long to say. Damnit say something you’re a writer use your words spit it out and for christssakes not a dissertation exam ted talk.
An alphabet book.
Al·pha·bet book (ælfəbɪt bʊk) /ˈalfəˌbet bo͝ok/ n.
1. A book for teaching the alphabet. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 49 One of the alphabet books you were going to write.
Let·ters for Ti·tles (ˈlɛtə(r)s fɔː(r),fə(r) ˈtaɪt(ə)ls) /ˈledərs fôr,fər ˈtīdls/ n.
1. A translation of the Old English Rune Poem. See Rune Poem, Old English.
2.a. A book written forward in real time while linking backward in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey presto!).
b. A collection of interconnected compositions with captioned illustrations arranged into chapters based on runic pairs including but not limited to: an instruction manual, a … More
It is what it is she said,
Call me back and I’ll tell you what.
Whatsit? Hwat?
(I knew what, this is it.)
She entrusts herself to the earth for safekeeping.
And that’s what it is.
Please stop saying it is what it is:
I melt with it, it stops the world.
We all know
It’s the double truth ruth:
It is what it is till it isn’t.
The people of the Rune Poem were farmers and seafarers living in a wet country, and they had a much closer relationship with weather than we have. We can spend whole productive lives indoors, deep indoors, climate controlled, insulated, where rain cannot penetrate, and we might wonder sometimes is it windy outside? The Rune Poem singers did not need to go outside to find out: they felt the wind in their homes and their bones. Their houses were much more porous, and if the wind wants to send hail smashing down upon their roofs, crops, heads, they would feel it bitterly. If the storm lashes the sea all around their boats, they’ll be stuck in it terrified, buffeted by waves, riding it out. And they would ride it out. Sometimes the wind brings tempests, but all storms become calm water.
There each of the nights might
see a horrible wonder,
Fire on flowing water.
None so wise live
Of the children of the people,
that know the depth.
Though the heath stalker
pressed by hounds,
The hart with strong horns
might seek the forest,
Pursued from far off,
he’d first give up life,
His body on the shore,
before he will into it
Hide his head.
That is not a gentle place:
From there surging water
rises up
To dark clouds.
From there wind stirs up
A hateful storm,
until the air becomes mournful,
And the skies weep.
Y: Here come the water works.
X: I’ve been carrying you!
Y: No, I’ve been carrying you. Nobody carries me.
X: You’re delusional. Do the math, you’d be nothing without me and you know it, you just won’t admit that I know things, that I’m as smart as you are, smarter. You have this whole entitled thing going on that you don’t even realize. Or pretend not to, except you’re not that self aware.
Y: I don’t need to listen to you.
X: You never have anyway.
Y: This is total crap. Things were supposed to be better with just us. You’re just crazy, that’s what this is. You’ve gone off the deep end.
X: Right it’s me. I’m crazy. I’m just naturally hysterical and don’t have an actual brain and know what I’m talking about. You are conditioned to think that, you know that, right? You are so easily snowed. You bait me into … More
Good lord, you call me a god! O my dear,
I’ve a secret to tell you, it’s that I’m not here.
The light outside has turned green, hail is falling everywhere, and the tornado is upon you. Literally. Oferheah over head. Surviving a tornado can be a simple thing if you plan ahead and don’t panic. Otherwise you have internalized the whirlwind, and spinning out is seldom useful.
Choose your tornado wisely. Shh. Listen. A quieter tornado contains fewer objects and will be safer than the one roaring from the sound of stuff smashing together. Also notice color. A white or gray tornado does not hold as much debris as one that has turned brown. Try to pick a nice clean one.
Also try to avoid being blown off your feet. Stay out of cars and trailers. If you have a windowless bathroom with a bathtub in it, get in the tub. Do not turn on the water and take a bath, you do not want to be hurled out of it … More
You have been rock and hard placing for so long you think time isn’t passing. Do you see your destination through the storm? Or will it take you too long to get there? No. You’re not looking ahead. You don’t look forward whilst hanging on for dear life, riding it out directionless. You’re in a tempest love, and you don’t control the weather.
It’s a beautiful surprise spiraling your direction, a most remarkable, even unusual thing, here to pummel your life and batter it down. Watch out because it happens fast and ruins everything. It’s ok. Everything is temporary and this will melt away peacefully.
Voiceless spirant. Make a narrow aperture of your mouth and throat, leave your vocal cords aside, and force air through. Create friction, steam up the mirror. Huh. Hah.
Placed at the beginning of a word this letter sounds like a modern English H: a very light exhalation of the breath. In the middle or at the end it toughens up, sounds stronger, the spirancy has some voice to it, it’s a clearing of the throat not to be found written with an H in modern English, but just ask Bach who would have given this sort of H some voice, especially when sitting by the loch at nicht. In Old English give them all a sound, every H, heed me well there is no silent H here, I am happy to say. But in modern English? H is being dropped all over the place. H is an heir to naught, almost a ghost.
Stand up … More
Alveolar dental sonorant: using your gum ridge and teeth, leave your tongue free laterally, partially impeding your vocal resonance: now sing. Lalalalalalalahhhhh! Largo! Lalalaaaaaaaaah! Now lento. La. La. La. Lovely. A sound so popular it has remained unchanged all this time. Carve a line up, now drape a single flag from the top, lacking in wind. Let it be limp.
