Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 19.3

One’s folly, own, ruin, pays him in exchange,
yet ‘gainst the LORD is how his heart will rage.

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 18.24

If your friends are ones, unreliable,
to ruin you soon will come that’s terrible,
there is a friend who, indefat’gable,
is closer than a brother, actual.

A Compliment

From the ventriloquist, a compliment,
he’s on the corner, 6th and San Jacint’,
on Christmas Eve, alone, he said: “Content”.

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 17.1

With peace and quiet, stale bread is preferred
to feasting in a house, by strife, disturbed.

Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry: An Expressive Transliteration, by Donald Magnuson Thompson, Jr.

No hunger fed, no thirst was ever slaked,
to say what love was like which came too late.

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 16

The heart, its plans, to humans, they belong,
the LORD, the proper answer of the tongue.

To them, all of a person’s ways seem pure,
but from the LORD, their motives ne’er obscured.

Whate’er you do, unto the LORD, commit,
establishing your plans, what he remits.

Their proper end, all things, the LORD will work
disaster’s day for wicked men, e’er lurks.

The LORD detests all those, the proud of heart.
Be certain, punishment is soon to start.

Through love and faithfulness, sin is atoned
for; through the fear of him, the LORD, we know,
avoiding matters that are evil-prone.

The LORD takes pleasure in somebody’s way,
then makes their enemies, peace, with them, make.

A little wealth and righteousness combined,
preferred to gain if justice, it maligns.

Their hearts, where humans planning out their course,
their steps established, all them by the LORD.

An oracle, the way the king’s lips speak,
betraying justice, his mouth never seeks.

The LORD, those honest balances and scales,
to him belong, the weights all ones he made.

Wrongdoing, that is what the kings detest,
a throne established through its righteousness.

In honest lips, kings take their pleasure in,
the one who’s speaking right, they value him.

A king’s wrath is a messenger of death,
but they, the wise, appeasement, they’ll express.

A king’s face, brightened, means that there is life;
his favor like spring clouds, with rain, they’re rife.

It’s better, wisdom, than, to gold, obtain,
not silver, but for insight, I will strain!

The upright’s highway, evil, will avoid;
their lives preserved, their ways, all them, they guard.

Before destruction, pride will e’er precede,
before a fall, a haughty spirit leads.

It’s better to be, in your spirit, low
with the oppressed, than plunder, you would know
from sharing it with prideful men who stole.

He prospers when instruction, what he heeds,
blessed man trusts that the LORD will always lead.

The wise in heart are called ones who discern,
promote instruction with their graceful words.

Their prudence is, of life, to prudent men,
a fount, to fools, their folly, punishment.

Those wise hearts’ mouths, to prudence, they devote,
instruction are what their lips will promote.

Compared to gracious words, a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

There is a way appearing to be right,
but in the end it leads to death’s dark night.

The worker’s hunger motivates their hands,
the laborers’, work, appetites demand.

A scoundrel, evil, what he plots, conspires,
and on their lips, it’s like a scorching fire.

Perverse, that person, conflict, motivates,
close friends are what a gossip separates.

Their neighbor, will, a person, violent,
entice, and lead down paths of bad intent.

Perversity, winks with their eyes, they plot,
whoe’er might purse their lips, on evil, bent.

A crown of splendor is that, hair that’s gray,
the way of righteousness, how it’s attained.

A patient person, he is better than
a warrior, one who can control his hands
than him, who will, the city’s gates, demand.

Into the lap, the place the lot is cast,
but each decision, from the LORD, expressed.

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 12

Whoe’er loves discipline loves knowledge too,
he’s stupid if, correction, he eschews.

The LORD, good people get their favor, from,
but those men who’re devising wicked schemes,
are they whom he for certain will condemn.

No one, through wickedness, is made secure,
ne’er be uprooted, those who’re right, adjured.

A wife of noble character, her husband’s crown,
a wife, disgraceful, like decay, his bones’.

The righteous’ plans are always justice-filled,
deceitful is advice the wicked tell.

The wicked’s words, they lie, for blood, in wait,
but them, it rescues: speech of the upright.

The wicked are no more, they’re overthrown.
but it stands firm, the house the righteous own.

A person, ‘ccording to his prudence, praised,
the one whose mind is warped, he is despised.

It’s better that I am unrecognized,
yet servants, have, than live contrariwise:
in pretense, hunger still unsatisfied.

The righteous care for animals, their needs,
the wicked’s kindnesses, all cruelties.

Those working their own land, abundant food,
but they’ve no sense, if they, themselves, delude.

Wick’d men, the evildoer’s stronghold, want,
but it endures, the righteous’ source, their root.

The evildoe’rs, by sinful talk, they’re trapped,
and trouble, thus, the innocent escape.

From their lips’ fruit, good things, the people, fill,
reward is what their working hands instill.

The way of fools will seem as right to them,
but to advice, the wise are listening.

It’s instant, the annoyance shown by fools,
but prudent men will, insults, overlook.

An honest witness, truth, will testify,
but all the witness, false, will tell are lies.

The words of reckless men will pierce like swords,
but healing, what the wise man’s tongue affords.

Eternally-enduring, truthful lips,
the lying tongue, just momentary, is.

Inside the hearts of those who, evil, plot:
deceit, but joyful, those who, peace, promote.

No harm, the righteous, e’er will overtake,
the wicked’s are all full of trouble, days.

The LORD detests all lips that utter lies,
trustworthy people, holds them in delight.

The prudent keep their knowledge well-conserved,
but folly, outwards, from a fool’s heart, blurts.

Hands, diligent, will rule, but laziness
ends in forced labor, effort without rest.

Anxiety will downwards weigh the heart,
a word that’s kind, some cheering, will impart.

The righteous choose their friends most carefully,
the wicked’s way will always lead astray.

The lazy ne’er roast any game, the hunt,
its riches feed the diligent their lunch.

Life’s found, the way that righteousness proceeds;
along that path is immortality.

The Method

How is it, I forgive my enemies?
Their actions that they took in ignorance,
then just like Jesus hanging on the cross,
I won’t attribute to maliciousness.

 

The Life and Times of T.H. Chalm, by Roland Wiederaenders

Many people ask me about T. H. Chalm, namely, who this person was and how I came to know him? His life intersected with mine geographically at a very well-known and frequently-visited spring-fed pool located here in Austin, of course, where I have resided practically all of my 47 years.

There are many different types of people that you meet at Barton Springs, but one type certainly are those wounded souls who have been naturally-drawn to the healing powers of its magical waters. Chalm, as I, was one of those. In 2012 during my divorce, I tortured myself with 2-mile swims in the icy waters of the springs, literally swimming through all of the pain generated by that separation. Chalm was a salamander biologist pursuing his obscure and highly dubious theory that, millions of years ago, the Barton Springs blind salamander lived (geographically amidst Gondwanaland/Pangea) in a symbiotic relationship with the endangered deaf fire salamanders now found only in remote subterranean caves of Languedoc-Roussillon, France: the blind warned the deaf of predators that only could be heard, and the deaf warned the blind of those that only could be seen.

I never understood the pain that Chalm possessed, but the enormity of it drove his poetry to exquisite heights. Those precipices are now the goal of QuetzalHiloco Publishing, and over the next years, we commit to bring you more and more of the previously-unpublished poetry that Chalm left to me (at his death in 2015) in trust for posthumous publication.

How I felt about him, and the deeply-significant role that this man played in my life can only be truly and fully expressed in poetry.

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD” (Chalm’s Rhyming Isaiah: Chapter 6)

It was the year that King Uzziah died,
upon a throne the LORD was lifted high.
I saw him in his robe, the temple filled.
Six-wingèd seraphim. My spirit stilled.
Above him, flew. Two wings for covering
their faces, feet; with two, were hovering.
Unto each other, this is what they called:
“Thrice Holy is the LORD, Almighty God.
His glory fills the earth entirely.”
The doorposts, thresholds shook destructively.
Their thunderous voices, temple filled with smoke.
“My ruin, now,” what I cried. “To me is woe.
“Of unclean lips, I am most certainly.
Of unclean lips as well, my cit’zenry,
and now my eyes the LORD Almighty saw.”
One seraphim snatched from the altar fire.
A coal in hand and towards me then he flew.
With it he touched my mouth. These words ensued:
“See, this has touched your lips; your guilt, away
is taken. No more fear of judgment day.”
I heard his voice then calling out to all.
The LORD asked: “Who will answer now my call?
“Whom shall I send? And who, for us, will go?”
I said, “LORD, here am I. To them below:
send me!” He said, “Go tell them of these things:
these words of God born on angelic wings.
“‘Be ever hearing, but don’t comprehend;
be ever seeing, but can’t apprehend.’
Their hardened hearts are full of callousing.
Their ears are dulled, eyes closed to everything.
Unless their eyes would open, ears would hear,
with understanding, heal their hearts with cheer.’”
I asked the LORD: “How long, this deadening?”
“Until their cities wrecked, as reckoning,
without inhabitant.” This, what he said.
His fatal words, my heart was filled with dread.
“Deserted houses, fields both ruined and bare.
An empty place where no one ever dares.
Until the LORD sends all them far away,
and then the land is utterly forsaked.
And though a tenth of them might yet have stayed,
the land again unto its waste be laid.
But as some tree stumps somehow still withstand,
my holy seed remains here in this land.”