[NetBehaviour] Streams, Runes, Tree, Fragment

[Alan Sondheim]

Streams, Runes, Tree, Fragment

http://www.alansondheim.org/Yggsdrasill.jpg

*/thingness of words and sounds/*
*/poetry and annihilation/*
*/growth of poesis/*
*/withdrawal crucifixion anxiety/*
*/each letter language/*

Streams of translations:

I know that I hung on a windy tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run.

No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,
downwards I peered;
I took up the runes, screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

Nine mighty spells I learnt from the famous son
of Bolthor, Bestla's father,
and I got a drink of the precious mead,
poured from Odrerir.

Then I began to quicken and be wise,
and to grow and to prosper;
one word found another word for me,
one deed found another deed for me.

The runes you must find and the meaningful letter,
a very great letter,
a very powerful letter,
which the mighty sage stained
and the powerful gods made
and the runemaster of the gods carved out.

- From Havamal (Sayings of the wise one), The Poetic Edda,
translated Carolyne Larrington, stanzas 138-142.

A second:

I trow I hung on that windy Tree
nine whole days and nights,
stabbed with a spear, offered to Odin,
myself to mine own self given,
high on that Tree of which none hath heard
from what roots it rises to heaven.

None refreshed me ever with food or drink,
I peered right down in the deep;
crying aloud I lifted the Runes
then back I fell from thence.

Nine mighty songs I learned from the great
son of Bale-thorn, Bestla's sire;
I drank a measure of the wondrous Mead,
with the Soulstirrer's drops I was showered.

Ere long I bare fruit, and throve full well,
I grew and waxed in wisdom;
word following word, I found me words,
deed following deed, I wrought deeds.

Hidden Runes shalt thou seek and interpreted signs,
many symbols of might and power,
by the great Singer painted, by the high Powers fashioned,
graved by the Utterer of gods.

For gods graved Odin, for elves graved Dan,
Dvalin the Dallier for dwarfs,
All-wise for Jtuns, and I, of myself,
graved some for the sons of men.

- Translated by Olive Bray and edited by D. L. Ashliman

Note the _taking up_ of the runes, which were always already
there, the rune-things. The tree is Yggsdrasill, translated
as the World-Ash, "Steed of the Terrible One" who is Odin.

Note the runes are negative things, cut-into the stone,
sword-play and absolutist I Ching hexagram shimmering, power
displayed onto the other of metrics and chronicles.

Note the runemaster who cuts-into hir body, twists the
future to hir desires, hir body, his body, their body, the
rune-keepers, bearers of wisdom, scribes torn from the
illicit fabric of the cosmos.

Note one word forms the deed of one word, one deed forms
the word of one deed; note the fabric of the world is torn
apart by the name, by the keeper of the name.

Note what is created has always been, what has been has
never been created; what has been created has always been
present: streams of cells and particles, fields and
momentary stases, tissues and dissolutions, scattered and
implicit densities, annihilated histories to the limit:
vibration, emission, absorption.

Note the streams of translations, runes, interpretations,
theologies, misgivings, gifts, commentaries, diacritics,
deconstructions, premises, boundaries, diffusions,
abandonments, mythologies, universal inscriptions, mythos,
delineations, fractal assemblages and reassemblages.

Note the scholarships, productions, scholia, writerships,
writherships.

Note Odin has left the premises, without a sound the
rider comes riding, he's carrying the girl upon his black
stallion, she says father oh father they're gaining upon
us, father oh father, ride faster ride faster, without a
sound, the rider goes by, he's carrying the girl upon his
black stallion, father i love you, father they're gaining,
ride faster, i'm dying, without a sound, the rider rides
on, the rider is gone, he's carrying the girl upon his
black stallion, she's screaming and screaming and no one
can see her and no one can hear her, without a sound,
there's no rider, in the murmuring forest no rider, no
stallion, in the murmuring forest no father no daughter,
without a sound there's no horse and no rider, no song and