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.”

Rhyming Revelations: Chapter 3.19-20

Those whom I love, I discipline, rebuke
as well. Be earnest and repent. I knock,
yes, here I am! I’m standing at your door.
If anyone who’s list’ning hears my voice,
and opens up the door, I, entering,
and, with that person, dine, and they with me.

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 9

Her house, has wisdom built it; put in place,
she has, its seven pillars. She prepared
her meat and also mixed her wine; it’s laid,
her table. Servants, she has sent from there,
and she calls from the city’s highest point,
“Let all who’re simple, to my house, come in!”
To those who have no sense, this, she enjoins
“Come, eat my food and drink the wine I’ve mixed.
Leave all your simple ways, you’ll come alive;
now, in the way of insight, you should walk.”

Whoe’er corrects a mocker will invite
such insults; whoe’er, wicked men, rebukes
incurs abuse. Rebuke those mockers, don’t,
or they will hate you; just rebuke the wise
and they will love you. Wiser still they’ll grow,
because of your instruction; you’ll inspire
the righteous, to their learning, they will add.

Of wisdom, its beginning, is the fear,
that of the LORD, of him, such knowledge had,
the Holy One, is understanding, sure.
For through it, wisdom, many are your days,
and to your life will years be added on.
From wisdom, if you’re wise, rewards will gain;
if you’re a mocker, suff’ring, you alone.

Unruly woman, folly, designates;
she is both simple and is ignorant.
That of her house, its door, where she will sit,
upon a seat, the city’s highest point,
to those who pass by, calling out is she,
“Let simple ones come to my house for treats!”
To those who have no sense she says, “It’s sweet,
is stolen water; that, the food we eat
in secret is delicious!” Do they know,
but little, that, the place the dead will go,
her guests, deep in the deads’ realm that’s below.

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Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 2

My son, if you accept my words and store
up my commands within you, turning your
ear unto wisdom, and your heart apply
to understanding–if for it, you’d cry,
call out for insight, and would cry aloud
for understanding, as, for silver, would
you look for it, as something you would find
for hidden treasure, then you’ll understand,
fear of the LORD, of God, some knowledge, found.
For he, the LORD, gives wisdom; from his mouth
come knowledge, understanding. He will hold
success in store for blameless ones, upright,
a shield to those who walk in blamelessness
for he guards that, the course the just would find,
his faithful ones, the way of those, protects.

Then you will understand what is both right
and just and fair–each path that’s good. It, deep,
will wisdom enter there within your heart,
and knowledge, pleasant, to your soul, will seem.
Discretion will protect, and it will guard,
your understanding. Wicked men, their ways,

from them will wisdom save you, those whose words,
perverse, those men who’ve left the paths are straight,
to walk in dark ways, who, in this, delight,
in doing wrong, and in this, they’ll rejoice:
perverseness, evil’s, their paths, they will find,
are crooked, devious, their ways employed.

Will wisdom from the ‘dult’rous woman, save,
the wayward woman, that is their intent:
seductive words, who, up, her partner, gave,
he from her youth, ignored the covenant
before God, what she made. Leads down to death,
is surely where her house leads, and her ways
unto the spirits of the dead. None who’ve been wed
to her, return, the paths of life, attain.

Thus you will walk, those ways the good will drive,
and keep the paths the righteous will maintain.
For they, the upright, in the land, will live,
the blameless, there, the place where they’ll remain;
but they, the wicked, from the land, they’re cleaved,
unfaithful ones will be torn from it, clean.

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 1

Of Solomon, the proverbs, David’s son,
he’s Israel’s king, with them is wisdom won,
to gain instruction, and of insight, words,
for understanding; its receipt, that for,
instruction in behavior, prudency,
for doing right and justice, equity;
for giving prudence to those simple ones,
both knowledge and discretion to the young–
Let them, the wise, hear close, and let them add
onto their learning, those discerning ones,
let them get guidance–so they’d understand
both proverbs, parables, those of the wise,
their riddles, sayings. Where true knowledge starts:
fear of the LORD, but then, what fools despise,
both wisdom and instruction, disregard.

Now listen, son, unto your father’s words,
to his instruction, and do not forsake
your mother’s teaching. They, to grace your head,
just like a garland, neck’s adorning chains.

My son, if sinful men, they’d you, entice,
do not give in to them. If they’d cajole:

“Along with us, now come; in wait, we’ll lie
for blood that’s innocent, some harmless soul,
let’s ambush them; let’s swallow them alive,
just like the grave, and like those, whole,
who go down to the pit; the val’uable things
that we will get, with loot, our houses, stored;
cast lots with us; we’ll share the plundering”–

my son, do not, along with them, then go,
your foot not with their vile meanderings,
for into evil, where their feet have sped,
and blood is what it is they’re swift to shed.
How useless that it is to spread a net
where every bird can see it! Their own blood,
ambushing selves, these men will lie in wait!
Such are the paths of all of those who would
(it robs their life) pursue ill-gotten gain;
from those who, it is what they would obtain.
Out in the open wisdom calls out loud,
her voice, she raises, in the public square;
upon the wall, it’s top, where she cries out,
the city gate, she makes her speech, it’s there:

“How long, the gullible, will love their ways,
those ways are simple? How long they delight,
will mockers gladden in their mockery
and fools, all knowledge, that is what they hate?
Repent at my rebuke! Then, pleasantly,
my thoughts, I’ll pour out to you, knowledge, make
of all my teachings. But since you refuse
to listen when I call and no one pays
attention to my gifts that I renew,
since you, all my advice, you disregard
and my rebuke, with that, your enmity,
when it strikes you, my laughter will be hard,
disaster; I’ll mock you, calamity,
when it o’ertakes you like a raging storm,
when, like a whirlwind, it will sweep you o’er,
disaster, when distress and trouble, you,
by both of them, completely are subsumed.

“Then they’ll call to me, I will not respond,
they’ll look for me, but, me, they will not find
since knowledge, what they hated, and did not,
the LORD, choose, him, to fear. Since they denied,
rejected all of my advice, rebuke,
they spurned, they’ll eat of all the fruit expressed,
their ways, and all that fruit, they will consume,
of those, their schemes. The simple’s waywardness,
for that’s what kills them, their complacency,
the fools’, is that, what will destroy them sure;
but whosoe’er will hear my words I speak
will live in safety, and will be at ease,
forever lacking, that, of harm, its fear.”

Rhyming Proverbs: Chapter 1.1-7

Of Solomon, the proverbs, David’s son,
he’s Israel’s king, with them is wisdom won,
to gain instruction, and of insight, words,
for understanding; its receipt, that for,
instruction in behavior, prudency,
for doing right and justice, equity;
for giving prudence to those simple ones,
both knowledge and discretion to the young–
Let them, the wise, hear close, and let them add
onto their learning, those discerning ones,
let them get guidance–so they’d understand
both proverbs, parables, those of the wise,
their riddles, sayings. Where true knowledge starts:
fear of the LORD, but then, what fools despise,
both wisdom and instruction, disregard.