I've been interested in astrology and numerology for several years, also the Tarot and the I Ching... I was wondering if anyone has seen any examples of, or written, numerology into poem?
"Forever shall the Wolf in me... desire the sheep in you."
Kinetic poem no.2
with love
give me your hand
some stranger
is fiction than truth
without love
I'm justa has
been away
too long in the tooth.
Roger McGough
The sun is shinny abd the rays are bright
The moon seems to make the sun shine theough the night
When the moon is full the night the moon ray is light
It reflects the sun from around the worlds day light
If you hold opals in the sunshine the color comes out bright
The sun is just another star right
the stars come out and shine at night
They shine with the moon to make the night light
The sun is another star in the sky and makes the world light
Ebon,
Try this one, I think you'll like it.
[www.authorsden.com] />
john
count syllables in anything I've posted
Edmund Spenser structured the Fairie Queene according to Pythagorean principles of numerology he got from the syncretisitic and Hermetic traditions passed down through the neoplatonists throuigh Ficino and the French playwrights (as well as Philip Sidney) contemporary with himself. I looked into this when I was studying Spenser in the late 1970's.
Peter
Post Edited (02-01-05 01:09)
Gematria (sp) , by Jerome Rothenberg, makes use of the Kaballah and Jewish Nuerology.
Post Edited (02-10-05 13:44)
Thanks for the replies and the examples.
It seems to me that various sources have different symbolism attached to numbers. I suppose this could have to do with individual interpretations. I prefer the symbols attached to the houses of the zodiac... incorporating Chaldean cosmology… and its alphabet based on the constellations, which the Hebrew alphabet and Gematria seem associated.
I'm thinking about writing a poem using zodiac numerology as the theme.
BTW, I found this to be a very interesting website: [www.numerologyforlife.us] />
"Forever shall the Wolf in me... desire the sheep in you."
Watch
The thunder begins to roll in and the people watch
For there is something different in the wind.
The wind blows in a pushing motion of great force
Though nothing is harmed in its path.
The trees, animals, homes and that of man's creation sit silent
There is great awe for no one seems to understand
What kind of storm was this, the people ask
Where has it come from and will it come again?
The thunder is blue rather than white with streaks of red
The rolling thunder's sound shakes the soul
Change has happened, for this thunder is a warning
The shift has begun. Do you see it, do you feel it...
Blackhawk
Okay... here it is...
-12-
by Ebon lupus
1. The self quests for light
Desire act of careless haste
Youthful flames dance so bright
Matures observing folly's waste
2. The earth yearns for gain
Traditions held by the heart
Grasping hold of every pain
Throughout luxury and art
3. Memories of yesterday
Communicate 'cross the wind
Teachers teach, students play
Relationships that transcend
4. Nurturing our youth
Water them with purity
Protect them from the truth
Shelter insecurity
5. Talents ripen late
Courage of them that might die
Romance, the bane of hate
Artful flames ignite the sky
6. Ambitions make toil
Honest work will grant one wealth
Deceive, the self you'll foil
Serving earth grants vital health
7. Good judgment all
Partners 'til the end of time
We share the social call
Winds sing an eternal rhyme
8. Don't fear the reaper
Tears of loss and sorrow flow
Once sex tempted creeper
In rebirth your soul you'll know
9. Philosophical
Travel and explore the flame
Dogmatic ice-cycle
Unbelievers are to blame
10. You're responsible
Duty and reputation
Discipline-capable
The earth's in this equation
11. Friendship's goal
Socially dedicated
No clean air, burning coal
Selfishly masturbated
12. Karma turns and turns
The soul is a mystery
Confined my free will burns
Death's collected history
"Forever shall the Wolf in me... desire the sheep in you."
The rain sprinkles light
The rain showers
The water is in sight
The water trikles for hours
The sleet slushes down
the snow flakes from the sky
The hail comes with sound
The commits fall and people die
The night is light with shooting stars
The stars are glowing florcent
The orgasmic ora of a birth of stars
The repeating shooting galixsys carressing
The lightest brightest hottest nova
The most colorful red planet
The universe and the planets oval
The galixy and worlds init
The death and the blackness of stars and explosions
The everlasting galixy of great feelings of stars being born
The fire in stars burning gasses is a notion
The universe of galixys and bright stars are orgasmic oras
Clearly, such poems are ruled by Uranus.
Hugh,
Did you mean Edmund Spenser and Jerome Rothenberg?
Peter
I saw your note, but I did not follow the drift. Can you expound at more length, Peter?
Post Edited (02-10-05 13:43)
See below.
Peter
Post Edited (02-10-05 13:43)
Hugh,
Well, Rothenberg, who I consider a sometimes remarkable poet, uses a version of Kabala to select words from the Talmud to be arranged with haiku-like precision (but not at all like haiku form) a sequence of intuitively challenging poems in one of his books.
Spenser is a very different tale. The assertion of his use of numerology to structure a single aspect of 'The Fairie Queene' is solely my own. It is based on a phrase, 'to measure out a meane' in the poem which a fifty page paper I wrote attempts to use as a spring board to find the bower of bliss later in the poem. The placement of the bower in the poem has, supposedly, never been accounted for adequately by Spenser scholarship.
The idea I had was that Spenser's techniques are so subtle and intricate at times, that if he were immersed in the hermetic and syncretistic traditions, he could have drawn on the divine proportion -- also used in painting, architecture, nature -- to advantage in his poem's structure. I made the perhaps hair-brained leap to actually count the lines in the section of the poem under consideration and lay out a diagram of proportions from the bower back to the line mentioning 'to measure out a mean. Section lines to bower line are to bower line to 'meane' line. I also plot a total of five other sites in the golden section which turn out to have strong significances by successively reapplying the golden section to the poem five times (the maximum possible).
The final version of this paper, unfortunately reads like a rough draft, even though I revised it five times and cited everything from Ficino to Iamblicus and Spenser's French contemporaries, never amounted to much more than a good rough draft. I am not a very good prose writer.
Anyway, I have a life long interest in numbers and their beauty which precedes my interest in poetry, so the marriage of numerology and poetics seemed a natural to me.
Peter
Aha, gotcha, thanks. I may not have a lot of faith in numerology as a 'science', but the idea of the Fibonacci 'golden section' (golden rectangle, chambered nautilus, sunflower pattern) is well established, the structure of the sonnet being a well-known close (8+6) approximation.
Hugh,
It's interesting that people into "science" scoff at metaphysics and the occult... considering the very men who developed scientific principle were philosophers of metaphysics and the occult. Numerology represents a rough model of something far too complex for the human mind to entirely grasp. Rather like quantum physics is a mathematical paradigm they keep revising every few years because it's too complicated for the mind to fully grasp. Thus it continually evolves and things like chaos theory and the uncertainty principle enter the equations. It was apparent things were happening that the model wasn't answering - so we needed approved gray areas. chuckles Numerology is the basis of modern day mathematics... were it not for ancient scholars trying to unlock the secret of God found in numbers and their relationships to each other, we would not have the math through which we developed technology. Whether you have faith in numerology is of little consequence… that ancient masters did, is.
Peter,
I would like to exchange thoughts with you on things you've studied. Maybe via email, as I doubt this is really the right place for it.
Post Edited (02-10-05 20:09)
"Forever shall the Wolf in me... desire the sheep in you."
I love corresponding with interesting people about common ground and about tangents as well. I tend to be somewhat speculative and even inexact, but it gets me through.
Peter
Post Edited (02-10-05 20:23)
it unfolds
what?
johanna