Category Archives: Poetry

Sméagol the-all-colored-and-none

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The lava was dazzlingly bright and malodorous, viscous and horribly searing.  He could feel the ring formerly called by some Isildur’s Bane, the One Ring, the one still on Frodo’s finger but both now both ensconced in his belly, both stirring and rumbling, as if fighting or perhaps mating.  Somehow the One Ring and Frodo’s finger formed a strange amalgam protecting him from the elements in which he found himself immersed, albeit changing him.  He was actually breathing the molten blend of minerals in the core of Mt. Doom, becoming one with them and gaining insights.  Everything that had once been vague, confusing and occluded was becoming crystal clear.  Well, actually, had become crystal clear.  His metamorphosis, if not complete, was well on the road to completion.  For some reason he thought of two thespians, one a crooner and the other a comic, and strangely, at the same time, visa versa.  They’d someday be famous for something called “road movies”, at least for a while, but their time would be followed by one where the past was something to be quickly discarded and replaced with nary a trace.  Strange sort of prescient instant but not one involving the Middle Earth he’d always thought of as home.

His Gollum aspects had been purified and distilled somehow, and become integrated with the Sméagol from whom they’d once escaped, the Sméagol who had once been and would be again, albeit in a drastically changed form, all occurring concurrently.  Everything, he realized, was both concurrent and complimentary, especially those things that most seemed at odds.  Oxymoronism was the rule rather than an exception as the power of the One Ring and the one finger were integrated into his being.  As had been the case with that damned Gandalf the Grey, when he’d been had been transformed into Gandalf the White, his essence seared and melded in the comparatively minor fires in the depths of Khazad-Dûm, so Sméagol was being transformed, was transformed in the infinitely more powerful and hellishly hot timeless fires of Mount Doom.  Yes, Sméagol too had emerged transformed, transformed into the all-powerful being he’d aspired to, but not quite.  The metamorphosis apparently involved a complex blend of good and evil, and the Gollum he’d been ironically found himself transformed into Sméagol the White, Sméagol of the many colors, Sméagol the-all-colored-and-none.  But what had he been before?  Gollum the Black perhaps, or Sméagol the sort of dingy grey.

Anyway, “it”, whatever “it was”, was not what he’d imagined.  His final triumph over the burglar had not turned out as he’d hoped.  He was encumbered rather than liberated, chained to responsibilities in every direction.  He was chained in chains more biting and bitter than those in Barad-dûr, although as ethereal as they were ephemeral.  He was as imprisoned as he’d ever been, although now in a prison of his own devise where “duty”, rather than feckless free will and whimsical follies and grandeur, seemed to be what divinity entailed. 

He was not quite omniscient, although he now knew almost everything that had ever happened and had a fair inkling of what was to come, and if he was omnipotent, his use of power was severely constrained through limits that may or may not have been self-imposed.  And omnipresence was very overblown as it stretched him so thinly over time and space as to make him virtually non-existent.  As to omnibenevolence, well that was only possible if he froze everything and failed to permit any action at all, and apparently, his possibly self-imposed limits rendered that as improbable as it was impractical.  The closest that could be attained in that regard was a sort of perpetual balance between the light and the dark, between absolute silence and the eternally unwinding song of the orbs.  Damned stifling he thought.

Sméagol was disappointed.  And he had a bit of indigestion as his body tried to assimilate both Frodo’s finger and the One Ring, and despite the hellish heat in the nethermost pits of Mount Doom, he felt bitterly cold.  And the massive constant input of information made him dizzy.  And he was lonely and alone, now the only being of his kind.  Worse, the former occupant of his current post had evaporated as Sméagol’s metamorphosis took hold, changing into a joyful mist from whence was shouted: “free at last, free at last, thank Me all-mighty I’m free at last”, … or some such thing.

Sméagol remembered Bilbo and Frodo and Hobbits and fishies and his cavern and his lake and his little boat, and he remembered the stages through which he’d passed to become what he now was, some phases when he’d been relatively happy, albeit mainly as a baby, then increasingly less so as he’d grown into a young lad of a species now extinct (having been assimilated into various other species, Hobbits among them).  He remembered how tasty orcs and goblins could be, especially when seasoned with a bit of garlic, which was hellishly hard to come by given the absence of Italians in the Middle Earth of his time.  But now all times were his to play with, albeit passively, but what fun was there in passivity he thought to himself, there being no one around with whom to chat, or with whom to share riddles.

He speculated on how Italians might fit into “his” Middle Earth.  Perhaps medieval Italians.  But had they already invented the cuisine for which future Italians would become famous and with which he, free of temporal constraints, was already somehow familiar?  And what about the famous “Mafia”, which was apparently not an acronym for the Mothers and Fathers Italian Association?  He wondered why Italy had come to mind, rather than say, South Africa, or England, now that he had the omniverse in which to play, although, he recalled, only in a passive sense.  Then he wondered why South Africa and England felt more relevant.  And Iceland, something about its sagas seemed important.

Perhaps, thought Sméagol the White (or whatever, the colors issue had become confusing), this was all a dream, perhaps everything was a dream and only dreams existed, and perhaps he was the only dreamer.  Perhaps he’d always been the only dreamer in a dream from which there could be no escape, notwithstanding omniscience and omnipotence and all the other omnis, all of them being somehow passive in the end, each one cancelling out the others.

Then gratefully, if not blissfully, everything became dark, if not quite silent.  That damned infernal music of the orbs was incessant as was the somewhat painful rumbling in his stomach, but Sméagol the White, Sméagol of the many colors, Sméagol the-all-colored-and-none slept; hopefully dreamlessly and forever if not quite peacefully.

Sigh!!!!!

In a corner somewhere else in time and space, a place but not a place, someone chuckled, and a string of multicolored rings made from some sort of smoke played at tag.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.  Adapted from concepts developed by JRR Tolkien in his diverse copyrighted Middle Earth projects furthered by his son Christopher in other Middle earth related projects. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

On the relative values of morality, immorality and amorality to the Divine: a Reflection

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Morality and immorality are both artificial constructs.  Amorality may be an immortal observer and hence, at the very least, a companion to the Divine.

Completely and absolutely neutral and seemingly disinterested but perhaps just analyzing and observing, very like to the Divine.  So far beyond normal complexity and profundity as to make the “all” virtually nonexistent, at least as far as it’s concerned.

Perhaps wondering though. 

Reflecting introspectively on the human phrase, “to be, or not to be” and wondering just what “a question” entails.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Memories

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It’s a day for echoes hiding in shadows
but with the expectation
that they’ll be found;

Faded colors that once lived in rainbows
reminiscing about the past
where the grass was always greener.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Apples and Chaos and Time: a metaphysical reflection of sorts

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Keywords: inchoate, cosmogony, cosmology, mythology, religion, metaphysics

Chaos was not incoherent, merely inchoate[1], … and subject to constant change as everything that could happen, happened, and not just the bad things to which Murphy alludes.  Everything!

It was infinitely inchoate except for a single fleeting reality, a sort of tease really, but the reality of the instant was constantly changing, sometimes repeatedly, other times not.  The multiverse was constantly assembled and disassembled, then reassembled in different patterns.  Memory was ephemeral, whether involving radiation, energy or matter.  Multiverses existed but for what humans would consider a tiny fraction of a zeptosecond[2], but with fully formed recollections going back billions of years, at least so that during that infinitesimal fraction of a zeptosecond, quintillions of beings scattered throughout that multiverse believed they had a present, and had had a past, and had aspirations for a future, and it might be that at some other fraction of a zeptosecond, either in the past or concurrently somewhere else or in some future fraction of a zeptosecond, there might be continuity of sorts, but everything was not random, at least not always.  Nonetheless, discontinuity was the rule, at least usually.  Each zeptosegundic civilization might be interrupted for eternities before one instant there followed another, although time being non-existent, oxymoronically, instants and an eternities both lacked context or meaning, everything occurring concurrently but, simultaneously, not occurring at all.  Chaos was, well, chaotic that way, but interesting, very interesting.

Two beings formed the only continuity in chaos, a sort of husband, who lacked a name (having been the first) and his consort, whom he called Sophia.  He’d willed her into existence, freeing her from the inchoate, or perhaps, he’d merely severed her from himself so that he’d not be alone, or perhaps she was just his echo, as ying would someday be to yang, or alpha to omega, or male to female.

Each had the ability to create chains of existence, something he’d always been able to do but had not considered until she appeared at his side, or within him, or somewhere, somehow perceptible; but they were both rather immature, very fickle, and, like the context in which they existed, with very poorly developed memories, linearity being anathema to them but essential for memory.  You see, memory implied order, and order implied a sort of temporal stability and was thus a heresy to beings born in inchoate chaos, thus they (or at least, he) had no intention of permitting order or time in his (well, now their) realm.  He somehow perceived that it would bring limits to their infinite power and perhaps permit others to pop into existence, … and remain “existent”.  And that would inevitably destroy the unstable stability required to maintain chaos perfectly inchoate.  Inchoate chaos, were everything was equally possible and thus much more than just probable, and where every possibility could coexist concurrently.  Indeed, given the absence of time, every possibility had to coexist concurrently, albeit, as we’ve noted, rather briefly.  Extreme brevity, the most extreme brevity possible, was also an essential and inherent component of inchoate chaos.

The foregoing was, of course, chock full of paradoxes, an infinity of paradoxes running concurrently, like uncontrolled chain reactions of quanta fusing inchoate quarks into whatever inchoate quarks wanted to become.  Perhaps he’d been the result of the first such fusion, and perhaps he’d immediately sought to contain and discontinue the phenomenon.  If so, that would have ended the perfect harmony of inchoate chaos and represented the first quanta of order.  How ironic would that have been?  But, of course, memory being strictly forbidden, he had no memory of anything before him, or with him, at least until Sofia had somehow appeared.  And come to think of it, since she’d joined him, waves seemed to be jostling the infinity of ephemeral multiverses a bit.  He could tell because the waves made a sort of music, and he’d enjoyed the music, unaware of what it might mean.  As he’d enjoyed Sophia’s company, unaware of what that might mean either.  But music and Sophia sort of went together, and Sophia had never been aware of an existence were the music had not been present.

And then, of a sudden, there had been a sudden.  The first “sudden”, sort of.

The first sudden, and inchoatesy had been ruptured and time had appeared from apparently nowhere and everywhere synchronously (knowing that it was anathema it’d been hiding), and order emerged, starting to gather up infinitesimal pieces, linking and organizing them, although to anyone who might have been watching[3] there was a huge blast.  Infinitely hot, but only for a small fraction of a zeptosecond, after which it started to cool and expand.

And the One looked at Sophia, but she just shrugged, the first shrug, and for some reason, she thought of apples.

….
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Something that will be, with the passage of time, but is not yet, at least not quite, but is perhaps hinted at.

[2] The smallest unit of measurable time, i.e., the time it takes a photon to traverse a proton.

[3] And, of course, everyone was (even an inchoate version of you was there), although unaware of what we were doing, having been inchoate until then, and inchoatesy took a long time to unravel, now that time existed, as well as, well, … motion.

A Reflection and Introspection on the Day my Mother would have been a Century Young

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My mother would have been a century old today, or perhaps a century young. 

She was born on the 9th of July in 1923 to a complex couple, a sort of Cinderella and her Prince, only the prince was a French physician, albeit of noble stock, and the setting was in the Republic of Colombia, in the Department of Cundinamarca, in a small municipality near Bogota, and Cinderella was a beautiful very young woman, a bright young woman with little formal education (only her step siblings received that) but fascinated by the esoteric and by alternative spiritual philosophies, and those drew her close as the man who was to become her husband was, it was said, clairvoyant.  Unfortunately not clairvoyant enough to foretell his early death, leaving behind a beautiful young widow with two small children, one of them my mother: a little girl with a very long name: María del Rosario de Nuestra Señora de Chiquinquirá Mahé Val Buena (or perhaps Rubiano).  “Mahé” was her paternal last name.  People called her either “Rosario” or, if they were close to her, “Chalito”, but after she emigrated to the United States, most Americans called her “Rose”.  Late in life, for reasons of her own, she legally shortened her name to “Rosal”, Spanish for a rose bush, but that was something I never quite accepted.  Then again, … to me her name was always “Mom”. 

My mother was a very complex person and lived a very complex life, for some reason, usually electing to hide her myriad talents as an artist, a poet, a philosopher, a philanthropist, etc.  While she started her life as a beautiful and vibrant young woman who aspired to the stage, those dreams faded all too soon, and she lived most of her life very humbly, and all too often, very alone.  Still, she was a miracle worker who raised me as though, like my grandfather, I was a young noble and required appropriate training in history, politics, philosophy, chivalry, the arts, equestrian sports, etc.  I still can’t fathom how she accomplished it but I know that everything positive I ever became or I ever accomplished I owe to her.  The bad traits and failures are all my own.

She remained a child at heart all her life and loved watching and re-watching young Shirley temple movies and the Wizard of Oz, and was horrified when, as a teen, I went through an “objectivist”, Ayn Rand phase.  She wanted me to be a man of the people, a champion of the oppressed and certainly not an oppressor.  Fortunately, I outgrew that phase (as I outgrew many others) and slowly but steadily strove to be what she’d hoped.

She and my father were separated when I was very young.  Evidently they had a serious argument over his relationship with his secretary, a relationship he always claimed was innocent, but who knows.  And being naïve, she went for solace to my grandmother who immediately swept us up, sent my mother to the United States and apparently hid my younger sister and me among friends and relatives.  My father claimed to have searched for us, but he claimed a lot of things when I got to know him many years later, things that didn’t appear to be quite true, at least according to the trail of children he left behind, siblings I hardly knew but came to dearly love, after we eventually met.  Nevertheless, my mother loved him for the rest of her life and never said a negative thing about him to me.  Rather, she led me to believe that he’d been a paragon, a mixture of a De Vinci and a Rolando Furioso, albeit in a short, thin package.  Obviously, although saintly in most respects, veracity was not always her strong point.  It was only as I matured and aged that I came to realize that the paragon had always been her.

A century she never sought is what I’m sort of celebrating today, a day on which I’m reflecting on who she was and on everything she did, and not just for me.  My Colombian cousins practically worship her as, regardless of how little she had, on each of their birthdays and on every Christmas, she showered them with gifts, especially after her brother, their father had passed away.  She didn’t love life, but she loved me, and she loved her version of the divine.  She loved him with all her heart, and she longed to reunite with him, perhaps perceiving in the divine a father figure who she associated with her own father, he who had passed away much too soon, but had left her with a very lasting impression. 

She passed away very young as well.  Although not nearly as young as did he.  She was about to turn sixty-seven.  It was the fourth of June, 1990.  My youngest son, Edward, was born six months later.  My second son Alex doesn’t remember her, he was a wee bit more than two years old when she left.  But she bonded with Billy, my firstborn, and he remembers her well, and he remembers her stories about dinosaurs which he loved when little.  And he remembers our trips to visit her weekly towards the end; a four hour ride from Hendersonville, North Carolina, where we lived then, to Jacksonville, North Carolina, where my sister Marina was caring for her.  It was strange having four year old Billy watch her expiring but I wanted him to remember her always, and he does.  Those rides were memorable for both of us, silly rides with silly songs making silly noises in very sad times.

She’s been gone a long time now.  Thirty-three years, a month and five days.  And I think of her often.  I keep the plastic box which for a brief time held her ashes on a shelf in front of my desk, a box I’ve filled with little things I thought she might find meaningful: my sons’ baby teeth, an old bathing suit each wore in turn, my eldest son’s high school identification card, a cell phone my college roommate, now deceased, once gave me.  And taped to the box is a photocopy of a brief article in our local paper here in Manizales, I paper for which I write from time to time, an article with a photo of her, wishing her well as she moved to a new country.  An article almost three quarters of a century old.

I glance at that picture often, and I keep it close to me so that the pain of her passing lives on but morphed into something beautiful and positive, something that gives me courage and hope when I most need it, and an example to follow when I’m tempted to stray from the paths she sowed so carefully for me.

Happy birthday Mom, and thank you for being you, and thank you for everything you miraculously did to make me who you hoped I’d be.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Physics or Metaphysics or Just Deity’s First Day

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Deity did not remember waking, ever, or having come into existence, but it had.  Its initial memory was reflecting on curiosity, difficult as, other than itself, there was nothing about which to be curious, but there was a tension between that infinite boredom that was its essence and curiosity concerning what it was and from whence it came, a curiosity insatiable because of the dearth of answers, a dearth which could seemingly never be satisfied thus imposing boundaries that bound it, the only boundaries there were, the only boundaries there had ever been. 

Fortunately, time did not exist, nor did space, so the boredom was not as overpowering as it might have been.  Reflection on introspection, somewhat vacuous at best, was all there was to entertain Deity.  And perhaps reflections on boredom, on the nature of boredom, accompanied perhaps, by speculation on whether or not boredom might not have complex components.  What if boredom was a composite of other factors, but then, Deity knew nothing of either composites or factors, or anything really.  It knew everything there was to know, which was virtually nothing, but virtually nothing was not the same as nothing, so, in that sense, it was concurrently omniscient.

Then, after forever as then defined, although there being no one to define it, it was undefinably ineffable, of a sudden, everything, which prior to that instant had been nothing, exploded.  A tiny explosion at first, but growing geometrically, growing omnidirectionally, matter and energy and radiation seemingly forming from what some might someday describe as inchoate ether, and Deity experienced surprise.  Not its first surprise; that had occurred the instant outside of time when it had attained sentience, albeit with nothing about which to be sentient.  But this was its first sort of external surprise, although external was not the appropriate concept as it had been Deity that had exploded, perhaps as a result of uncontainable curiosity meeting immovable boredom, and thus it was Deity itself that was expanding geometrically and omnidirectionally, morphing from Deity to Divinity, and wondering whether it could exercise any control over what appeared to be a deterministic phenomenon, one based solely on reaction and counter reaction, infinitely amplified; well, almost infinitely.  And the concept of volition entered Divinity’s lexicon, a very brief lexicon just then, but with a great deal of potential for future growth now that future was a concept, and past, and present.

Confusion reigned with chaos as its consort, or perhaps, visa versa, as determinism played with volition in Divinity’s imagination and boredom radiated into apparent nothingness, but apparent nothingness is not the same as nothingness, even if solely comprised of echoes and shadows playing at becoming rainbows and fireflies, well, perhaps someday. 

Reflection and introspection gave way to a struggle to contain and control the emerging expansion, but then immediately, or almost immediately, which was obviously different than immediately, reflection returned to speculate over what had happened, and whether why was relevant, or existed at all, which of course resulted in the birth of why, and curiosity broke its tensional tie with boredom.  Not that boredom disappeared, but it was somewhat subsumed, at least for a while, as eternity and infinity blossomed and grew, and Divinity entered its infancy, bereft of either a maternal or paternal influence, … at least as far as it knew.

And thus ended the first instant of unrecorded time, with many, many more instants to come, instants in diverse colors and flavors, instants with quite a few consequences, some of which, perhaps, were eventually collected into what would someday be referred to as a zeptosecond, and zeptoseconds into almost eternal nanoseconds, and then, well seconds and minutes, until finally, the temporal and spatial cumulous conformed what some would refer to as the first day, although, of course, Divinity was not among them.

But that’s a different story.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Ledatic Eht

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A vale behind the veil, another side of somewhere
a place
where all who’ve come before us eventually venture.

Where the Boo, another face of God, sits in genteel judgment,
an unlit cigar
clenched firmly in his jaw,

… welcoming home his lambs.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Musings on a Midsummer’s Eve

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Did the Magdalene and the Nazarene, either together or alone, ever touch the waters that bathe Northern Africa, Southern Europe and Southwestern Asia, the sea purportedly in the middle of the world, at least as perceived by them?  Perhaps on a soft and balmy midsummer’s eve?

Probably not, but given the millennia that separate us from them, who can tell. 

Immersion in that central sea would have been both pleasant and mystically sacred.  Especially on such a day.  At least it would seem so to me, notwithstanding that so many millions have been so privileged. 

A wandering thought on a midsummer’s morning.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Evening of the Day Before

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Midsummer’s eve was probably yesterday, but it could have been “the evening of the day before”, a good title for a book perhaps.  Perhaps a book by Umberto Eco or a play by Will-o’-the-wisp Shakespeare.

I wonder if Titania and Oberon and Puck were out cavorting.  I certainly hope so, but, if so, “wherefore were they and why”?

Wandering thoughts on an early summer’s day in a sort of late Juniper’s June.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Of Cerulean and Cyan and Vermilion Too

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A young man wonders about colors, specifically two, although perhaps three.  He’s been named after one of them, although little of anything concerning the color seems to apply to him.  He wonders what his parents had been thinking when they chose that name for him, and he reflects that he’s never actually been christened, so perhaps the name has not yet been as impactful as his parents had hoped.

He might have elected to study art, but he studied language instead, as had his mother.  His father, a florist, wondered why.  Sometimes he did too.  His mother was pleased though, and his two sisters didn’t seem to have ever considered why he studied what he did, or why his name often seemed so blue.  At first blush theirs seemed a bit more traditional, but that wasn’t quite true.  Hmmm.

Cerulean leans more towards blue than does the more balanced cyan.  And cerulean, although a light variant of blue, is darker than cyan.  Of course, that means that cyan leans more towards green than does cerulean, which just shares green’s echoes and smiles, and perhaps its similes, and that cyan is darker, but not much.

The young man thinks they’re friends, and that perhaps, at one time or another, they’ve been lovers, or perhaps just kissing cousins.  In imperial Byzantium they might have had an awkward relationship, with cerulean angry at cyan’s flirtation with green, but he wonders how they got along in subsequent Muslim caliphates, perhaps in Istanbul?

He wonders how cyan and cerulean feel about azure.  Or how cerulean feels about vermilion, either cyan’s complement or antithesis, depending on perspectives.  Or how vermilion feels about cyan, a complex relationship.  And whether their feelings are reciprocal or complimentary or constant or true, or just passing fancies.

He wonders if his parents had been high when they’d selected his name.  It could have been true, they were free spirits of sorts, floating along life’s byways and sometimes stumbling along a highway or two.  It didn’t matter though.  He loved his name, and he wondered whether he’d ever find its mate, and what she would be like, and whether she’d love her name too.

Cerulean and cyan, and vermilion as well.  Perhaps, in addition to colors, they were places and times in which to lose oneself, or perhaps to find oneself, were one lost.  Like somehow lost quantum paired electrons, or just sundered hearts, or misplaced halves of the same fruit, or rainbows that had lost their colors and now dressed only in shades of grey.

He might have elected to study art, but he studied language instead, as had his mother.  His father, a florist, wondered why.  Sometimes he did too.  His mother was pleased though, and his two sisters didn’t seem to have ever considered why he studied what he did, or why his name often seemed so blue.  At first blush theirs seemed a bit more traditional, but that wasn’t quite true.  Hmmm.

A young man wonders about colors, specifically two, although perhaps three.  He’s been named after one of them, although little of anything concerning the color seems to apply to him.  He wonders what his parents had been thinking when they chose that name for him, and he reflects that he’s never actually been christened, so perhaps the name has not yet been as impactful as his parents had hoped.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.