Golgotha
by
Skadi meic Beorgh
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Punkin House, LLC
www.punkinhouse.com
Golgotha
Copyright © 2011 Skadi meic Beorgh
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Golgotha
Skadi meic Beorh
for Amberlynn,
who looks curiously and faithfully in
And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is to be put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that your land be not defiled.
Deuteronomy 21
Golgotha. A hill near Jerusalem where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, from gulgalta, the Aramaic word for skull.
Golgotha. A heretical collection of insights resonating with students of William Blake, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Thomas J. J. Altizer, Jim Morrison, Oswald Chambers, Friedrich Nietzsche and any number of other heterodox, anarchists, existentialists, and apocalyptics.
You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
~ T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”
Nowhere is nihilism more clearly or more decisively enacted than in the Madman’s proclamation of the death of God in Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, a Madman who in proclaiming that all of us are the murderers of God, unveils us as plunging continually in all directions, no longer is there a distinction between up and down, as we are straying through an infinite nothing, and feeling the breath of empty space, and night and more night is coming on all the while.
Thomas J. J. Altizer, from “An Absolutely New Space” (2008)
The Gay Science, Section 125: The Madman
Friedrich Nietzsche
translated by Walter Kaufmann
The madman. --Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”–As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?–Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him–you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us–for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars–and yet they have done it themselves.”
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”
Reach between the sacred limbs.
Tell me if you see a sign.
Tell me if you feel the Blood
running by divine design.
No doubt you shall be horrified
upon your entry here.
But thus has ever been response
to the mystery lair.
Longinus’ Prayer While Tossing His Spear
What Nietzsche Wrote in Kindergarten
Philomphusteering the Hermisteer
Von Stance Da Prance Da Solstice Dance
Paulus Tarsus Muses Upon His Vision
Lines to the King & His Courtiers