Proverbs of Hell

By RG Gregory

poems provoked by some of the proverbs of hell listed in the marriage of heaven and hell by William Blake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burgage Books
• Release date: May 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910493052

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Proverbs of Hell

PROVERBS OF HELL

Copyright © 2015 by RG Gregory.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

RG Gregory is hereby identified as the author of this work in accordance with the section 77 copyright, designs and  patents Act 1988.

First Printing: 2015

ISBN: 978-1-910493-05-2

Publisher: Burgage Books

The Burgage, Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 1EQ

Website: www.rggregory.co.uk

Poems provoked by some of the proverbs of hell listed in the marriage of heaven and hell by William Blake.

RG GREGORY

1971

(revised 2014)

A Memorable Fancy

As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted

with the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look

like torment and insanity, I collected some of their

Proverbs, thinking that as the sayings used in a nation mark their character, so the Proverbs of Hell

shew the nature of infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments

When I came home, on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present

world, I saw a mighty devil folded in black clouds hovering on the sides of the rock; with corroding

fires he wrote the following sentence now perceived

by the minds of men, & read by them on earth.

how do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

william blake the marriage of heaven and hell

Proverbs of Hell

Note

the poems in this book test the propositions implicit in blake's proverbs sometimes by accepting the proposition's truth from the start and exploring within its intentions sometimes by challenging the proposition taking it to an extreme (or absurd) edge and treating it almost disrespectfully

overall though the book sets out from blake's proverbs through a hell of its own and arrives at a statement that is everything to do with its own day and may or may not have that relevance to blake's time and ideas that first provoked the investigation of these proverbs

1: The cut worm forgives the plough

i

at first hell

murder bloodshed the purplest patches of revenge screaming enough to tear the guts out of a girl by the fence - language honed on hatred desires oozing like pus out of caves back back into the dark of stinking forebears corrupting the stolid contemporary hunk of placid granite

the world assumes me

ii

who sent the knife to scrape corroding sun from my eyes

who the right to decide my cosy ribs should be turned out of doors and have to reaffirm their function in the wake

of the plangent air

who said to my  genitals part and become crusaders - both sides of the mirror which to date has been the cell destroying you

who neatly parted my feet and cried walk both ways into the dawn and dusk for only thus can you release love accept suffering and (by moving amongst mixed blood) encompass man's struggle out of the egg into

his stuttering dreams

iii

when the axe fell between the lovers and sliced them apart at the point of co-respondence they fatalistically lay ready to bleed to death but then she deduced that he alone  was dying arose  carefully removing the rigid useless

part (her eiffel  tower) and happily washing herself of its sweet memories sang for her freedom

all the way to a less

demanding address

he didn't die either losing one talent he discovered another - bereft of his manhood his voice had an interesting pitch and within three years had made his fortune as a counter-tenor

iv

i am miserable said the orphans - given a pack and a crust of bread and told  to bugger off into the void they cried for each other nightly

and hated their mother

until they woke up one morning and felt warm in the sun i know who i am they simultaneously cried (half world apart) scooped up a handful of new dirt and threw it at each other (a symbolic gesture only)

wiping the salt-grime from their eyes they then put their noses towards the lush earth and went about seeing

for the first time

v

i walked the earth and found a path that led me back

to my other half

hullo i said his face was cubed and out of his arm

grew a pitchfork

he shrank from me his mouth screwed up why balloons

where your ears were

for his heart he had a packet of players one of his legs spun topwise

you've got cotton reels in the place of balls he spat at me