Chess problem

REED MAT

Husks of cicadas, limestone shells.

These layers, a palimpsest

of leopard skins (East/

West).  Serpentine spells

(Alph to Yezidi).  In graven

hieroglyphs of human

dream – Solomon

& Shulamith (Ferrarese garden

bond).  A Mendelssohn mandala-

afterlife, of local

equilibria... after all

the Pharaohs have their sway (selah).

Battle of shade & pictograph

resolved by wind.  Cool

breeze, troubling pool

of sunken barge (regal riff-raff).

Vernacular archaic culture

architecture – simple

transmission of ample

gratitude for being.  Pressure

on the king (of everything).

Grey humming bird

omen signals absurd

sacrifice (pawn for nothing)...

his baby steps (Gypsy to Jew)

toward one wooden

nature morte (amen,

amen).  Reed mat, sheik.  Me & you.

1.23.16

(from: The Egyptians, however, never reduced their writing to an alphabet by discarding the multiconsonant signs; rather, they retained clearly the form of the original words. When doubts occurred, as in the case of the three signs for the frequent consonant series m + r (the hoe, , the chisel, , and the pyramid, ), the plurality was used to make clear distinctions between words: all derivations from the stem mr "to love" were written with the hoe; those from the stem mr "to be ill," with the chisel; and those words related to pyramids with the sign for pyramid.)

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. . . If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.