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Permission granted by author for anyone to distribute this
writing free of charge (including translation into any
language)...under condition that no profit is made therefrom,
and that it remain intact and complete, including title and 
credit to the original author.

Ezekiel J. Krahlin
http://www.gay-bible.org
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SAMHAIN GREETINGS 2007
(a parable for the 21st century)

© 2007 by Ezekiel J. Krahlin






THE MEAING OF MY SAMHAIN POEM

As one who often performs "automatic writing" in my stories, essays, letters, and poems, I do NOT understand some or even MOST of the hidden meaning in my works. I believe that is because it is up to select OTHERS to do the interpretation. However, being so analytically JUNGIAN at heart, I can sometimes DISCOVER these meanings on my own...at least in part. Take my Samhain poem:

At first, I just used the word "pumpkin", then decided on Jack o' Lantern, as it would be more colorful and POETIC (duh). Then I thought maybe there's ANOTHER word for pumpkin that I could use, so looked it up on the web. Came across "Friar's Lanthern" and "Ignis Fatuus", to learn this:

--from factmonster.com:

Ignis Fatuus

means strictly a fatuous fire it is also called “Jack o' Lantern,” “Spunkie,” “Walking Fire,” “Will o' the Wisp,” and “Fair Maid of Ireland”. Milton calls it "Friar's Lanthern," and Sir Walter Scott "Friar Rush with a lantern." Morally speaking, a Utopian scheme, no more reducible to practice than the meteor so called can be turned to any useful end.

--end of quote

Being a zealously dedicated activist for gay liberation, one could say that I am chasing the Will o' the Wisp...the impossible dream. I just didn't realize that "jack o' lantern" came from that. But I can see how: it resembles from a distance, an elusive light floating in the mist. How appropriate for Halloween!

(I also did NOT see the adherence of a pumpkin on my crotch as nothing more than a joke. Only after reading it over a number of times, did the hidden meaning dawn on me.)

Now, since gay rights is an issue of sexuality, I have a genital metaphor for that: "a huge orange wick". IOW, I get a "boner" over gay rights. And I am so DEDICATED, that at this point, NOTHING will extinguish or "damp" that fervor...even if I have to die for my beliefs, unfulfilled.

But it is only when one REACHES that point of ABSOLUTE devotion, does the REAL magic kick in! All MUST seem hopeless for a time, in order to test one's METTLE.

So the orange wick is TRANSFORMED from a sexual symbol, to one of enlightenment, represented by a flame, suggested by the Jack o' Lantern "aglow"...and the color orange. Very Kundalini (rechanneling sexual urges into selfless ones), AND alchemical (transforming base desires into lofty ones).

This will o' the wisp, this friar's lanthern, is now permanently GLUED to my crotch (my dedication to gay liberation). NOTHING can thwart me now, for I remain PERMANENTLY erect with pride, burning with the orange flame of enlightenment. (Orange is the color of spiritual achievement in most Asian beliefs.)

This also ties in with certain medieval mystics who claimed to experience intensely EROTIC communion with our creator. I've certainly dinked a lot of angels (and other mythical creatures) in my dreams. Even been arrested once or twice by the Astral Police for lewd behavior in a mixed cloud.

There is also the HUMOR of the Great Spirit to consider here: what a funny image of me, walking around with a glowing pumpkin stuck in my crotch. Not to mention (but whoops I'm going to anyway) that I presently have a SWOLLEN left testicle, due to an injury incurred by slipping off a chair and landing HARD on the floor...my right leg pressing DOWN on the fambly jewels.

Now if ONLY I could have such big balls ALL THE TIME, without the pain! No doubt this occurred to serve yet ANOTHER spiritual purpose (besides the obvious metaphor of having "big balls"): some of my most dangerous enemies are part of a black magic cult, originating BTW as "Disciples of the Zodiac Killer", which members advanced up the ladder of gay leadership in the Harvey Milk era, and now run MOST gay venues in SF, but most especially the bars and sex clubs/bathhouses. IOW: orginally run by the mafia (years and years ago), now replaced by the gay equivalent.

If you haven't heard of them, it's because that's the way they want it: they are very surreptitious, sneaky, back-stabbing and manipulative. And excel at avoiding the public or media eye...mostly because they control some of that, too, as well as a portion of our police and sheriff departments. Anywayz, as part of their Black Artz, they stick pins in voodoo doll effigies of those they seek to malign.

No doubt a pin or two has been pierced through my surrogate balls, and so seeing me limp down Market Street will lead them to believe that their magic really DOES work. I don't mind, I'll play the game (savvy psychic detective that I am)...even when I'm THRUST into an awkward or scary situation against my WILL or WISH...be it that GODDESS'S WILL always comes first in MY book! Just gotta keep on my toes, figure out the latest game plan, the latest assignment ASAP.

I'm the Bad Boy of Avalon, the Bodhisattva of Bawdy, the Lounge Lizard of Jehovah's Many Mansions, the Trick in Your Treat and the Spice in Your Meat, the Cream in Your Ersatz and the Egg in Your Beat...

better stop now while I'm still a talking head...'cause once decapitated, no more gift o' gab! (Though I understand that Aztec myth describes a deity in the form of a female skull that speaks incessantly, and the only way to regain SILENCE is to bury it back in the ground, deep.)

Gawd I need my coffee.

Good day.

- Zeke Krahlin
(the Paul Harvey of Tawdry Queer Revelations)