Ishtar Terra is the high mountainous area in the north of Venus (Ishtar is a Babylonian goddess with some not very nice tendencies); Aphrodite Terra is the flatter area south of Venus's equator.
The true Roman Missal - not the milksop post-Vatican II apology - says of St Tarcisius that he was an acolyte who was, in the ages of persecution, "entrusted with the bearing of the Blessed Sacrament to those of the faithful who were imprisoned for the Faith. Set upon by a pagan mob, he gave his life rather than suffer the Sacred Host to be profaned." He was martyred in AD 255 possibly as young as 12.
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Rising at three in Cumaean darkness for
The old fox’s toe-knocked shamble to the klo:
Ah, such tiresome pensioned grief! –
Did Achilles blooding heads on the death-fumed plain of Troy,
Bare-toothed epitome of the self-willing skirmisher
Shredding his foeman to leaf;
Or Aeneas, jilling off the low-hilled coast,
Sizing up Latium as compost and seed
Of an itinerant’s home,
At last to be matrona of a clamoured sun-stained res,
Wringing group to state and scorning the volupt’s yawn that acts
Become greatness: plangent Rome! –
Did either play host to the body’s vexed ways?
Glancing from my window whilst tribute was made
I saw Venus resplendent,
Its peephole of white light outglowing all things bar the moon,
Able, incroyable, to cast shadow on a sheet on earth
From a hand proffered pendent.
Double-known planet: Lucifer first, in chill
Morning mist, bright polisher of fake promise,
Tempting men with cheerful dawns
Which crash to betrayal in trade or love with brusque handshakes,
A beelzebub self’s-autonomy, delighting and cruel,
Leaving love notes torn up on lawns.
Then Hesperus, white-golden at sun’s demise,
Doyenne of Hera’s orchard where the maidens
Prune with companionate song,
Bonded in collegial tasks which fruit as choice and duty,
Apples, rightly used, which grant what length a domus can hope,
Making pattern of a throng.
Venus is metaphor: should man plant a foot
He’d find breathing was daggers, heat like hell-flames,
Pressure in pitiless tons,
But work would be done in his brow’s melt, ingathering truth,
Pricked by urgings of right, of lust, for through him natural law
Inhabits planets and suns.
Right action cannot be fudged: tall in the north
Ishtar Terra lauds blatancies which buttress
The king with gods’ condign power,
Whilst crouched in the south, Aphrodite Terra hymns the gods’
Amour propre, trouncing good sense; to man, though, it falls
Not to build tombs, but a tower.
In transit, Venus on the sun’s rougey cheek
Portends beauty spot artifice, hale but rotten,
Ungiving like Narcissus;
Think rather of a scooting boy, proud-tasked in the backstreets,
Hugging the Gifts which will do good and require his dropt blood –
Faith-purposed Tarcisius.
But how pointless to brandish the Pentagram
Of Venus, that New Age bromide which swizzles
Egos on beds of laurel;
Sans denial and penance none knows himself, and muddled nous
Of peevish mantras is teeth-edging, like righteous children
At play, itching to quarrel.
No, best to spill wine to Venus Obsequens,
Goddess of gardens, the formal, the market;
Might man’s wit one day embrace
Planet Venus with gardens, unstrifed as first-bloomed Eden?
Truth, he’d amaze if that were curated on earth, without fuss
Of thundering into space.
====================
© June/July 2017
---------------------
Rising at three in Cumaean darkness for
The old fox’s toe-knocked shamble to the klo:
Ah, such tiresome pensioned grief! –
Did Achilles blooding heads on the death-fumed plain of Troy,
Bare-toothed epitome of the self-willing skirmisher
Shredding his foeman to leaf;
Or Aeneas, jilling off the low-hilled coast,
Sizing up Latium as compost and seed
Of an itinerant’s home,
At last to be matrona of a clamoured sun-stained res,
Wringing group to state and scorning the volupt’s yawn that acts
Become greatness: plangent Rome! –
Did either play host to the body’s vexed ways?
Glancing from my window whilst tribute was made
I saw Venus resplendent,
Its peephole of white light outglowing all things bar the moon,
Able, incroyable, to cast shadow on a sheet on earth
From a hand proffered pendent.
Double-known planet: Lucifer first, in chill
Morning mist, bright polisher of fake promise,
Tempting men with cheerful dawns
Which crash to betrayal in trade or love with brusque handshakes,
A beelzebub self’s-autonomy, delighting and cruel,
Leaving love notes torn up on lawns.
Then Hesperus, white-golden at sun’s demise,
Doyenne of Hera’s orchard where the maidens
Prune with companionate song,
Bonded in collegial tasks which fruit as choice and duty,
Apples, rightly used, which grant what length a domus can hope,
Making pattern of a throng.
Venus is metaphor: should man plant a foot
He’d find breathing was daggers, heat like hell-flames,
Pressure in pitiless tons,
But work would be done in his brow’s melt, ingathering truth,
Pricked by urgings of right, of lust, for through him natural law
Inhabits planets and suns.
Right action cannot be fudged: tall in the north
Ishtar Terra lauds blatancies which buttress
The king with gods’ condign power,
Whilst crouched in the south, Aphrodite Terra hymns the gods’
Amour propre, trouncing good sense; to man, though, it falls
Not to build tombs, but a tower.
In transit, Venus on the sun’s rougey cheek
Portends beauty spot artifice, hale but rotten,
Ungiving like Narcissus;
Think rather of a scooting boy, proud-tasked in the backstreets,
Hugging the Gifts which will do good and require his dropt blood –
Faith-purposed Tarcisius.
But how pointless to brandish the Pentagram
Of Venus, that New Age bromide which swizzles
Egos on beds of laurel;
Sans denial and penance none knows himself, and muddled nous
Of peevish mantras is teeth-edging, like righteous children
At play, itching to quarrel.
No, best to spill wine to Venus Obsequens,
Goddess of gardens, the formal, the market;
Might man’s wit one day embrace
Planet Venus with gardens, unstrifed as first-bloomed Eden?
Truth, he’d amaze if that were curated on earth, without fuss
Of thundering into space.
====================
© June/July 2017
