{"id":1786,"date":"2011-09-02T21:41:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T21:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/wordpress\/?p=1786"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:21:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:21:19","slug":"greetings-from-mt-olympus-available-on-createspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/greetings-from-mt-olympus-available-on-createspace\/","title":{"rendered":"Greetings from Mt. Olympus by Gregg Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\n\t\t\t\tList Price:
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Authored by
\n Gregg G Brown<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tCollected poems of Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]<\/p>\n

Questioning Is Questing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Western civilization is in a cul-de-sac. At the end of that cul-de-sac is a guillotine. Beside that guillotine stands the hulking executioner in his greasy black hood. Through that hood peer two red, maddened eyes. Below those eyes, as through a lazy tear, shows a long, slavering wolf-thin grin. Lightning stitches knots in the dead, leaden skies. Thunder interrupts the prayers for the dead. Doom. DOOM.<\/em> DOOM.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even so, my life is filled with primroses and wishes. I sit here–or lie, rather, languid as an American Oblamov rolled in his snoozy comforter– building my empire of words.<\/p>\n

I’ve spent long, sad years loving people I never could come to know. Strangers whose alien minds lived other lives, pattering after petty pursuits I never really could come to understand. Now I fear that my own kindness and lack of company has led me, in an easy dream of desperation, to see Helen in every barmaid’s face.<\/p>\n

Cold are the coals I have gathered, betrayed by a generous impulse that led me to love first and question second. Over evil rapids I have roved, slouching to the salt dissolution of the sea, who should have been climbing heavenward with Manfred–my eye upon some solitary cloud-wracked peak where every subtle shifting shape suggests a new, unborn greatness (or an old noble greatness renewed) to the seeker’s keen and lonely imagination. Instead, I have sunk my mind among warm elbows at a crowded table, seeking fellowship in banal company and dissipating what genius drifts to me in shrunken rounds of tavern talk. Few have been the companions time has tested true. I recall my Mom, downed in her home hospital bed and not the bed of her marriage, pointing at my nose with a red, imperious finger, demanding first and foremost (loved son or no) that I “tell it true.”<\/p>\n

To that improbable pipsqueak queen, crippled yet proud as the devil in her flowered hospital gown–and to her regal charge–I keep my pledge.<\/p>\n

I do not condemn others for my misjudgments, but, looking at the litter of years, I begin to perceive that there was something of method in my mismeasure. Questioning is questing. Leaving a question open encourages all comers to the query to have the experience of exploration; each hypothesis is happy to go unconfirmed, as long as the hypotenuse is mutually traveled by writer and reader in the coracle of a quatrain. There is something of Emerson in this energy of questioning, but none of his faith in God’s final ground, the rock of reality.<\/p>\n

May such dubious wisdom as my pain has gathered serve me well henceforward. May the narrowing of possibilities sharpen my focus, as when a saltine’s pinhole, brought close to the eye, removes the blur of distant things, clarifying every tiny difference and shutting out peripheral static.<\/p>\n

It is only now, as this labor of years surrounds me on every desktop, that I am coming to feel that the best strength of my youth has been wasted elaborating a maze of quizzes instead of attempting to soar, however falteringly, into the omniscient sun. Was it a deficit of pride that had me prefer puzzles to plumage? Or some more insidious hidden desire to be touted and touched instead of respected and feared? Well, here I am again, ending each sentence with my shepherd’s crook (?) instead of the thunder god’s triumphant stab and pang! So much of our humanity is mist and mystery; so many of our hours slide by in incapable ignorance. But what makes our lives worth the sinning that created them is the moment the mirror comes clear, as if in a revelation, and every face confronts the tragedy of its character.<\/p>\n

Kindle Edition on Amazon ($0.99).<\/a><\/p>\n

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Publication Date:<\/dt>\n
Sep 02 2011<\/dd>\n
ISBN\/EAN13:<\/dt>\n
1466275731 \/ 9781466275737<\/dd>\n
Page Count:<\/dt>\n
766<\/dd>\n
Binding Type:<\/dt>\n
US Trade Paper<\/dd>\n
Trim Size:<\/dt>\n
6″ x 9″<\/dd>\n
Language:<\/dt>\n
English<\/dd>\n
Color:<\/dt>\n
Black and White with Bleed<\/dd>\n
Related Categories:<\/dt>\n
Poetry \/ American \/ General<\/dd>\n<\/dl><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

List Price: $16.75 Add to Cart Authored by Gregg G Brown Collected poems of Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown] Questioning Is Questing Western civilization is in a cul-de-sac. At the end of that cul-de-sac is a guillotine. Beside that guillotine stands the hulking executioner in his greasy black hood. Through that hood peer two red, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":6346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[403],"tags":[777,778,775,779,409,780,774,776,614,789],"class_list":["post-1786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blast-press","tag-alien-minds","tag-cul-de-sac","tag-doom-doom","tag-empire-of-words","tag-g-brown","tag-leaden-skies","tag-mt-olympus","tag-solitary-cloud","tag-those-eyes","tag-western-civilization","category-403-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7958,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions\/7958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}