Patrick L. Lysons
Description
What is a "mythos"?: a "story, speech, or song" that celebrates a sacred narrative. A mythos can be a play, a film, an opera, a narrative within a nar
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rative; above all, a mythopoeic vehicle. A musical coda. A mythologem. A poem. A song that won't go away you hum on your way to somewhere else. Or simply a dream narrative where certain sacred themes repeat themselves throughout human history. The poems in this first book of the Elohoic trilogy verses were written during a ten year period (1989-99)in rural areas throughout the American Southwest. The narrative begins with an invitation, an invocation, to step into "poetic light" and concludes with the seeming death of the poetic/philosopher persona; along the way, the persona encounters the character of Jesus and his opposite: the Maker of the World-Iaoldaboath-but the poetic character in the mythos haunts certain mystic types: the Lost Pilgrim "still stuck on Eckhart's prayer" encountering Dante in Purgatory; a lover, friend, priest, and shaman. In an enigmatic style, the brevity is as sharp as a Zen master's silence where existence is seen as a poetic experiment in negation, a mimetic deconstruction--thus,in the facing of death an acceptance of death; the stirring of another kind of experience and Being in heart and mind. The poems at times elevate a prophetic and hortatory Voice-its language firmly grounded in an ancient and sacred poetic tradition. But the poetry itself, as poetry, remains informed by an Other; inspired by Kierkegaard's essay "The God as Teacher and Savior" (from which the excerpt is quoted)the poems proceed in a loose narrative form. It tells the story of a poetic risk-taker who is near death from a mountain climbing accident. He is remembering a dream he dreamt at a point from which his life has already ended. That essential material--the emptying of the contents of the dream--becomes the "mythos" of the poetry.
Humphrey Bogart (as Sam Spade) best addresses the mysterious nature of the mythos in the last lines of the film "The Maltese Falcon". When asked "What is it?" Spade responds: "It's the stuff dreams are made of."
Note: The name "Elohim" honors the Elohoic tradition of poetry and songs found in the Bible whose Hebrew name took the form El-o-him (as one of the Names for God) in the Psalms, for example, and in Ecclesiastes, among 9 other books classified as "The Writings", including Proverbs. For a list of literary sources alluded to in this book, please E-mail the author.
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