Category Archives: Silly but fun

Perniciously Concupiscent Parodies, Volume One

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Biggus Dickus, a character eventually revealed (albeit tangentially) in Monty Python’s documentary on the Life of Brian (which dealt with purported events during the first century of the Common Era), may or may not have involved a parody of the infamous Roman Casanova-wanna-be, Primus Phalux Maximus Quintus (who may or may not have actually existed), and who if he did exist (improbable but one never knows), but for temporal improbabilities, may or may not have been the secret hidden triplet of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the third member of which was the audaciously beautiful, sensuous and libidinous Clodia Metelli, sometimes known as Quadrantaria, of whom the Roman eroticist poet Gaius Valerius Catullus longingly wrote dramatically ambivalent vignettes comprised in equal parts of love, despair and deprecation.  At least that might have been the lead story in the media in the late Roman Republic, circa sixty years before the Common Era, had its journalistic ethics born a resemblance to that of today’s maliciously creative corporate media, which, come to think of it, it may well have, both having prioritized creative writing.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

Very Diminutive Poetry of Sorts

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Yiddish:

Onomatopoeic insouciance!

Not quite a haiku.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

Perceptually Reversed Internecine Charges

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What if words are in fact components of sentient collective streams that actually control us; that use our organic components as tools for their own internecine purposes? 

What if words are, in fact, sentient memes and memeplexes that ride us the way we are led to believe by them that we use animals and tools for what we erroneously perceive to be our own purposes. 

Mightn’t that explain why, in the end as in the beginning, our conduct tends towards incoherence, at least from our own reactive rather than volitional perceptions?

Mightn’t the word, “internecine” say it all, or at least, a great deal?

What if rather than “being because we think” we just “think we are”?

What would a mimetically sentient “god of the words” be like, after all, purportedly, “in the beginning was the Word”?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

A Satirical Trumpian Fairy Tale, Twice Removed

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Trumpets please!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, we present this sort of satirically sordid tale for your amusement and entertainment.  It may or may not be based on fact, that’s a matter of perspective, and the names may or may not have been changed to protect the innocent.  Or the guilty.  Once again, a matter of perspective.

Let’s begin:

Deius Clandestinius Amorphus, the eighty seventh of that designation in his dynasty, glanced languidly at his twenty seventh consort, soon to be his eighth wife, junior grade, at least for the time being.  Time would tell how high she rose or how far she fell.  Hard to predict at the moment as she had just turned twelve (or so she claimed, she looked much closer to fifty) and he was just short of eighty-three.  He was not an emperor, or a king, or a prince, or even a duke.  Rather, he was an ascendant file clerk at the small law firm of Blathers & Associates.  Small but successful, a boutique firm specializing in electoral manipulation.  Sly, as he preferred to be called given all the syllables and numbers in his name, was the eighth cousin, thrice removed, of Yackoff Stanton, the senior associate in the firm to whom he owed his position with its attendant salary and more importantly, its fringe benefits.  Yackoff, in turn, was aspiring and constantly plotting to ascend to the position of most junior partner, a position long unfilled as the firm was bereft of any partners at all, Mrs. Blather not being keen on having to share her authority with anyone else, not since she had attained her current position upon the death of her husband, Slayton Armington Blathers, the great grandson thrice removed of the firm’s founder. 

Like Kamala (that was the impending bride’s name), Mrs. Blathers had once also been a consort but had ascended to the role of junior wife from which she had clawed and seduced her way to senior wife-once-removed, further ascending to senior wife when her predecessor succumbed to a strange and inexplicable stomached ailment after tea and crumpets or some such dainty brought to her by her ladies in waiting, the current Mrs. Blathers among them, … perhaps fortuitously.  The current widow Blathers did not care for tea or crumpets or for any other such dainties, perhaps because her own husband had suffered a fate similar to that suffered by her own predecessor soon after the dowager Blathers had become senior wife.  Some considered it interesting that the latest Mrs. Blathers first name was Lucretia, … but that’s another story.

Sly was a diligent and dedicated employee whose principle responsibility involved the destruction of electoral records (or what for a brief instant in time had passed as electoral records), before their authenticity could be verified, which he did in coordination with numerous county clerks’ and electoral supervisors’ offices in what had once been the State of California (in what had once been a federal republic of sorts).  That’s what made him such a catch and explained his numerous concubines and wives, that and the fact that he was the youngest elder in the Reformed Orthodox California Church of All Saints and Assorted Personages, Nancy Pelosi chapter.  Nancy Pelosi had long been Lucretia’s favorite saint. 

Because of the sinecure involved, Sly had never aspired to become even the most junior deputy associate twice removed, much less a partner.  He not only knew on which side his bread was buttered, but also where the jam and honey and peanut butter and cream cheese were hidden.  Sly had no children, none at all, but he did have quite a few cousins in varying degrees of consanguinity.  Nor did he plan on ever having any children if he could help it.  He did, however, have one cat, a very old and very cranky cat, one who mainly slept and ate nowadays, or perhaps, she always had.  And snarled, snarled a lot, definitely snarled.  He had, for reasons unknown or at least never admitted, named her Hillary.

Lucretia liked neither Hillary nor Kamala, being, for some reason, of a very suspicious nature, nor did she like Yackoff although he was her stepsister’s great grandson, nor did she like Sly but Sly managed to remain largely unnoticed.  Truth be told, except for her admiration for St. Nancy, Lucretia did not seem to like anyone, anyone at all.  And Lucretia kept no pets, she was suspicious of animals as well.  She just sort of kept to herself, counting her ever increasing virtual mountains of bitcoins, a sort of female Scrooge McDuck but without that billionaire avian’s sense of adventure.  She had once been eerily beautiful but now, despite numerous facelifts and other aesthetic procedures, people who somehow or other managed to navigate the complex labyrinth of security in which she was ensconced all too frequently mistook her for a rare pallid walking and talking prune (although the talking was mainly limited to “who the Hell are you and how did you get in here!!!”).  Still, she was a competent albeit not a creative administrator and the firm prospered, although there were those who nervously whispered, mainly to themselves, that the firm ran itself.  That, of course, was not true, it was run by a virtual artificial intelligence project, a joint project really, one referred to as “AG Holder” by those who knew of it.  A joint project devised by a cabal of former intelligence agency leaders and former presidents of what had once been a federal republic.

It was ironic that given the reality that with the demise of that once-upon-a-time federal republic, elections had no meaning and thus, there was really no need to manipulate them, but the firm’s success had been deemed a work of art and a natural treasure (in California), and thus, elections continued to be held and, as sure as the fact that the sun was likely to both rise and set, even though it could rarely be seen through the California smog, electoral results were artfully delayed for longer and longer periods of time, time during which Sly and his coterie of county clerks and electoral “supervisors” danced their dance of many veils.

As the nuptials for Sly and Kamala approached, Oprah, Sly’s current senior wife fretted.  She always fretted concerning her weight which seemed involved in a mysterious game of give and take, but now she fretted about Kamala, until recently her latest “bestest” friend.  A “bestest” friend who certainly paid well for being befriended. 

“What if for some reason or other the wedding was called off”?  How, wondered Oprah, would that affect their blossoming relationship?  

Elsewhere, similar thoughts were occurring to Kamala.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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 Mary and Khnum: Mixing Strangely Erotic Fractured Metaphors in an Ancient Sheepfold

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Mary, Mary, quite contrary, was wondering how her garden grew when, lo and behold, of a sudden, she thought she spotted a little lamb, one that perhaps might become her own.

Nearby, a certain Miss Muffat sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and weigh, while a friendly if somewhat frightening, somewhat hungry and a bit jealous arachnid (none other than the trickster deity known as Anansi), hanging by a silken thread, curiously passed her way.

As Miss Muffat and Anansi looked on, Mary, Mary, quite contrary, fondled what she thought was her new lamb but the ovis aries, in reality the Egyptian deity Khnum, reacted unexpectedly, at least as far as Mary, Mary, quite contrary, was concerned.  Anansi couldn’t help but giggle, which almost gave the game away.

Khnum, at first seemingly young and small, turned out not to have been either, not at all.  He was in fact very, very ancient really, and in reality, quite a bit larger than a lamb, and he had budding horns and, … well …, reacting to Mary, Mary, quite contrary’s soft caresses, seemed unusually amorous for a lamb, at least as far as little Miss Moffat could tell.

Then, slam bam, thank you mam ….  The lamb turned out to be a ram … and …. not just any ram, but the primordial creator of human bodies and of the life force known as kꜣ (“ka”), and Anansi’s giggles turned into guffaws.

Thus, some months later, to Miss Muffat’s surprise and the spider’s strange delight (it loved irony and was as much a contrarian as Mary), Mary, Mary, quite contrary, indeed had her little lamb. 

Which was not just any little lamb at all.[1]
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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] An afterword of sorts.  It is sadly strange that in this puritanical age, puritanical concerning sexual matters but not bothered by genocide at all, I would feel uncomfortable, perhaps even ironically guilty, in having written this satire on the ancient myth of Leda and the Swan.

Futile Expatiation

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Author Anonymous

He wrote in the third person when he sought to obfuscate about whom he was writing, all too frequently himself, and in that manner, he sought to both assuage his guilt, if guilt was involved and appropriate, while somehow reducing the karmic burden involved. 

It is likely, as Mahasamatman would have pointed out were he aware of him or cared what he did or why, that his exercise was in all probability futile, like masturbation in the hope of engendering a descendant.

Then again, ….
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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.  Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) 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, cosmology 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/.

Terminally Flummoxed, … or something like that

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“I’m here to disembody you” she’d said.  She was extremely beautiful, in fact, she seemed to embody an ephemerally ethereal beauty, or perhaps, ethereally ephemeral.  They were very different things although, under the circumstances, very strong contradictions seemed essential.

The term “disembody” seemed unpleasant at best, regardless of the fact that she was impossibly beautiful, so he’d said, “disembody seems a rather unpleasant thing, is it anything like death?”  To which she’d answered, predictably, “yes and no”.  Then she’d tried to explain.

“Death is understood, or perhaps, more clearly, misunderstood, as a permanent state.  Something unique as it only occurs once, at least on a personal basis.  Disembodiment is clearly different.  Confusing it with death, it’s understood by most, or more clearly, misunderstood, as something irrevocable.  The mistake is understandable given how poorly ‘time’ is understood.  And not just by mortals (who don’t really exist) but even by most immortals, … who do, … Do exist I mean.  Or perhaps not.”

“So” he’d replied, unable to think of anything else to say, “… disembodied?”

“Yes” she’d replied, seeming happy, an even more beautiful smile on her even more beautiful face, “exactly so”.

“So, are you ready?” she’d asked, we really need to begin the process”.

“Process” he’d asked, again a bit flummoxed?  “And which process exactly would that be?”

She seemed a bit impatient then, what with looking at her watch every couple of seconds, a worried expression on her even more beautiful face, and had replied “well, your disembodiment of course”.  Then she’d smiled, again looking even more beautiful, as if that were possible, and said:  “You needn’t worry, it won’t hurt at all although it’s admittedly a bit tedious at times, … well … usually.”

For some he reason, he’d wondered how the word “flummoxed” was spelled.  For some reason, it had seemed vitally important.  And it was.  Or perhaps it wasn’t.  He usually didn’t have a problem in making up his mind, indeed, if anything, he tended to be too impulsive.  That may have been why he’d found himself in the state he was in, the word “state” seeming much more accurate than the word “place, for some reason.  Then, for some reason, he’d become fascinated with the nature, meaning and use of the term “so”, which they’d both been bantering around.  It seemed quite bereft of meaning albeit not of importance.  At the moment, its importance had seemed transcendental and he’d had a strong impulse to use it again, but he hadn’t wanted to seem inarticulate.

Still, he just hadn’t been able to think of anything else to say, except perhaps, for the word, or perhaps the term, “disembodied”, but that term had (in that particular now) made him quite nervous.

The exquisitely ephemerally, ethereally beautiful, or perhaps, ethereally ephemerally beautiful woman had stood staring at him, tapping her left foot on the ground, definitely impatiently, and had exasperatedly said “well?”  Or perhaps, more accurately, had asked “well”, and he hadn’t had the slightest clue as to how to reply.  Actually, he hadn’t really wanted to reply, he’d just wanted to stare at her.  But he’d known that staring was not polite, regardless of how impossibly beautiful someone might be, so he’d picked up his courage, and in spite of his fear, he’d said, or perhaps asked is a better term: “so, hmmm, disembodied?”

“Yes” she’d said.  Then, kindly, as if she’d grasped the state in which he found himself, she’d continued “let me explain, you seem confused.  Most people are.  About everything.  Almost always, but especially with respect to just what ‘disembodiment’ implies, or perhaps, what the term ‘disembodiment’ expresses would be more accurate”.  Evidently, linguistic accuracy was very important to her, and yes, she’d again become even more impossibly beautiful.

“So, disembodiment” he’d repeated.  “Okay, ‘shoot’!”  Then he’d almost immediately, perhaps immediately, rejected his choice of metaphors (shoot) but it was too late, there was no way he could have taken it back without calling unpleasant attention to his dilemma.  He’d liked metaphors, liked them even better than he’d liked similes, but, he’d always realized he really didn’t understand allegories though he hadn’t a clue as to why allegories had any relevance to what he’d just been thinking.  He’d wondered how and why he’d become sidetracked in that direction, but just for a second.  She’d continued talking and he’d lost his concentration and had no idea what she’d said, but again, she’d been getting more and more beautiful, so much so that he’d been getting dizzy, and in fact, now that he’d thought about it, he’d been feeling a bit faint, quite a bit faint in fact.

“And so” she’d concluded ….  That damned “so” again he’d thought, just what the hell did it mean, then he’d immediately regretted his choice of the metaphor “hell”, even if he’d only thought it, or at least he thought he’d only thought it, he’d certainly hoped so.  …. bodies are temporally permanent vessels” she’d continued, although words hadn’t seemed to matter to him anymore “… vessels which we transients occupy collectively with others, not permanently of course, rather, only for a time, and our departure does not necessarily imply the termination of the vessel.  Others enter it and assume experiential occupation for the time period allotted to them to do so, while those departing move on to other vessels, sometimes in concert, although rarely so, usually becoming parts of different experiential collectives.”

He’d looked puzzled but, amazingly, even though he didn’t seem quite conscious, he’d seemed to understand.  He was not really dying, he was just moving on, his term completed.  Kind of like graduating from elementary school and entering middle school but not quite high school or college, and certainly not graduate school.  Then a flood of questions seemed to have entered his mind, entered it on their own volition, entered his mind or whatever it was, all at the same time, questions such as:  “will I retain my current gender, will I have a gender, will I become one of those transsexuals or non-binary people, whatever that was?  Will I be old, young, rich, poor, Caucasian, indigenous (well, everyone was some sort of indigenous or other), or Asian, or Black.  Will I be human, or even animal he’d wondered, or “what if I enter a plant, or a rock”.

He’d sort of looked around, seeking the … whatever she was, or whatever she’d been, but she was no longer there, and then, he’d realized he was in a sort of dream state, he wasn’t there either, wherever there was or had been.  He wasn’t anywhere.  But he didn’t know if it was because he was in bodily transition or because he was just having a weird dream.  But she’d vanished and strangely, even though he’d recalled the “increasing beauty phenomenon”, he hadn’t, for the life of him, been able to remember what she’d looked like, or was it “for the life of ‘himself’”, then he’d again regretted his choice of metaphors, that time with respect to the phrase, “the life of” (he tended to second guess himself quite a lot as you may have noticed), and he’d wondered just what the “hell” life was and, again upset at his choice of metaphors, and totally, completely and irretrievably flummoxed, he’d ….
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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, an intermittent commentator on radio and television, and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  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/.

A Strange (but Continuing) Divine Colloquy: Some suspect bipolarity (but they’d be wrong)

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Anu, a primal deity antithetical to Yahweh (some call him An), still has at least some followers, although perhaps, they’d fit comfortably in an antique telephone booth.  Well, antique thousands of years after Anu lost favor (the latter observation is frequently made by Yahweh).  Still, Anu, Anshar’s son, seemingly enjoys toying with Yahweh, enjoys taunting him, especially since he taunts him from within Yahweh’s mind, a place even Yahweh cannot reach or erase (as he has erased so many other things). 

What an awesome sort of hiding place.  Yahweh knows that Anu is somewhere in his mind but his mind is so convoluted and filled with fantasies, contradictions and psychological complexes that it’s impossible to find anything there.  It frustrates Yahweh constantly and causes him almost as many migraine headaches as do the constant prayers of his subjects.  Damned whiners!  Well, most of them are damned anyway.  Predestination.

“Damned”, thunders Yahweh, as another unsolicited message escapes from deep within his restless and feckless ethosphere:

“So, …” taunts Anu, “you’ve seemingly come a long way from your metal working days Yah (a sort of nickname Anu uses to annoy Yahweh), but back then you were pretty much a straight arrow, albeit with a metal head.  A “metal-head”.  Get it!!!   Wow.  But look at you now.  A long time since your “Yaldabaoth” days.  Or even your days as one of my cousin El’s 70 club, albeit a pretty junior member of that exalted group.”

Annoyed, Yahweh responds to the conversation in what would have been his head, had he one:  “Shut up!!!   Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!!  And, anyway, you don’t exist, at least not any longer.  Who worships you now???”

Anu laughs, although not with real mirth, rather in a sort of teasing parody:  “Well, yeah, you’ve been pretty thorough wiping out the old gang but regardless of whether or not anyone else remembers me, I’m in your head.  Always have been, always will be.” 

“Always, always will be” Anu snickers in a sort of sing song, repeating himself.  “And I know, even if most others have forgotten, that you and Yaldabaoth are one and the same.  Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth!!!!  I like that name even more than Yah!”

“Damned agnostics!!!” responds Yahweh.  “And when I say ‘damned’, they’re damned and they stay damned, damn it!!!!”

Anu laughs.

“Shut up!!!” shouts Yahweh, although an observer might wonder at whom he was shouting.  “Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!”

“So” says Anu, “I hear that all those old propaganda texts you had written for your exaltation are being taken apart by humans who claim that they’re obviously incoherent and, … well …, full of male bovine feces.  And that trend seems to be resonating as their fallacies become more and more clear.  You may be joining us sooner than you think and I’m pretty sure you’ll not find your welcome all that satisfying.”

Red in the face (or he would have been, had he a face) and sneezing thunder, Yahweh petulantly replies, full of contrived confidence but in a manner reminiscent of recently deceased Tommy Smothers: “Oh yeah!!!!”  He then launches into a sort of diatribe, although at whom, an observer would not know (although some might venture a guess):

“My faithful followers, and they are legion, especially in the United States and Palestine, errr, I mean Israel, will never, ever, ever, ever change their minds about me, no matter what facts say.  Facts can’t really speak you know, and they’re easily buried in metaphorically ineffable mysticism where contradictions don’t matter, in fact, they’re cool.  Contradictions make me even more credible. … Or else!”

Anu was the father of Enlil, grandfather of Nanna and great-grandfather of Inanna, also, the great-great grandfather of Bilgamesh whose name Yahweh’s followers and others had perverted to “Gilgamesh”.  They enjoyed perversions, many perversions, myriad perversions, albeit usually they enjoyed them subtly, and quickly and loudly denied and attributed them to their victims if discovered.  They were good at that.  They had an awesome example. 

Lately Anu has been reading a book (a quaint habit he’d picked up millennia ago), a book by someone named Neil Gaiman, a book about a battle between elder divinities seeking to return to prominence and a new group of divine wannabees.  It reminded Anu of the sort of successful revolt Yahweh had managed to orchestrate when he overthrew his dad, the Canaanite god El, and along with him a great many of the other divinities native to what humans had taken to calling the Middle East (although cardinal directions make no sense, being spherical).  Yahweh had tried to wipe out all other divinities and had, to an extent, appeared to succeed, but the Hindus at least had defied him and many others, including Anu, had merely gone into seclusion.  And others had confused him.  And now, a growing number of humans were rejecting the concept of any divinities at all.  Not good that, thought Anu, finding himself uncomfortably in agreement with Yahweh.

Anu wondered on whose side that fellow Gaiman was.  Evidently his book had been perverted by an outfit called, of all things, Amazon, which had sort of converted Gaiman’s book into an audiovisual format.  That made Anu think of Yahweh and his adherents.  They loved to pervert things.  He wondered if they were involved with that Amazon project.  “Could be” he reflected.  “Could be.” 

That Gaiman fellow had some interesting ideas in his book on how to revive dormant deities.  Anu was studying it to see if he could somehow emulate some of the characters involved.  Of course, that would be difficult from his current habitat in Yahweh’s mind.  Yahweh was too paranoid to sleep.  Anu would have to find some way to provoke and trick him.  If only Bilgamesh were around.  Or Inanna, or any of the old gang.

Maybe they were, …

Somewhere.

If only he could contact a friendly trickster deity like that Anansi Gaiman seemed to worship.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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/.

Hidden Metaphors, a soliloquous senryū in e minor flat

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You know, …

touching your toes isn’t all that challenging as long as you can still bend your knees. 

I think there’s a profoundly meaningful metaphor there,

…  somewhere.

_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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/.

A Creative Bunch: Hopefully, divinity does not find that offensive

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After almost two decades I’m rereading Daniel C. Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon which seeks to explore the conceptual evolution of religion in general, tying it into, among other things, memetics (a concept that fascinates me).  I find that rereading something after a long period of time, time during which one is changing, learning new things and reevaluating others, one frequently gleans very different meanings from those one originally perceived.

That is an experience in progress which, to date, has proven interesting.  Religion and spirituality fascinate me, as do attitudes towards both, and despite a life-long quest for answers, I’ve only turned up more and more questions, but fascinating questions which keep me interested in my quest.

On the lighter side, a quote in the book I’m re-reading attributed to American actor Emo Philips both made me laugh and provided insight into our human nature.  It deals with someone, a very young true believer, obviously a true believer with a sense of humor and a complex capacity for rationalization. 

As a child this particular true believer kept praying to god for a bicycle, a prayer that was repeatedly ignored.  Eventually, however, reflecting on the suggestion that “god helps those who help themselves” and rationalizing that “we are the instruments through which god works”, the young true believer stole a bike and then, concurrently, thanked god and asked him for forgiveness for the various sins involved, i.e., not only coveting his neighbor’s property but also satisfying that urge by making the property his own; perhaps not legally or ethically, but practically.  A third sin, blasphemy, may or may not have been applicable. 

We humans are a creative bunch.

Hopefully, Divinity, assuming it exists, has a sense of humor.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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/.