Süleyman, I cannot be expected to keep track of which dude in your harem is currently greenlit or not, so listen – why don’t you write me a list explaining who is currently good and who is bad?
“I Iove you!” he said.
1. What you desire, you resolve to pursue; according to your resolve, so is your deed; and according to your deed, so you reap.
I said nothing for a moment, then turned with icy politeness. “Forgive my asking, but what exactly is the source of your love?”
2. I’m trying to understand things which are really hard to understand.
“It’s you, of course, you are the source of my love!”
“Me?” I said, trying to sound surprised.
“Yes, you!” he cried out, and looked at me wistfully, like a child asking for something it knows quite well it won’t get. My heart began to beat with pity and dismay, and so I was forced to act out a charade so diabolically improbable that it would seem out of place in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
3. As many animals serve a man, so does each man serve God. Without His sanction not even a blade of grass can move.
27. I’ll pass on, I’ll make triumph on the way.
85. One should deliberate serious matters first completely possessed by Dionysus, then sober.
“Sure, I love you too,” I said, hoping to be done with it, go home and get some redeeming sleep. Looking into his desperate eyes, I should have guessed what I had set in motion. Even the most ignorant catch, like dogs, the scent of thunder. A tumultuous wave lifted me onto its crest and carried me away, incessant and demanding. The storm raged on and on, for days, months – a year passed by. All prior knowledge shatters if you forget who you are, but I remembered, and lived to see the end of it. Leaving behind the wicker gate of the Garden of Evil, my heart quickened and my brothers took me in their arms and poured me a delicious wine.
4. Brothers attended the place where I arrived. From where were they born? By what do they subsist? On what are they founded? By who regulated, can they drink so much, ye wise men?
Your wine is too strong, my brothers, to drink of it often. Still, I will come back for more. Remember, my brothers, hiccups like that are winged prayers, they can be heard even at Baalbek.
There will always be men like him, or perhaps I should say, boys like him, who take their own measures against what’s great in you, and hate it not for what it is, but for what they themselves are, or aren’t.
5. When I’m received among the Angels, at what times will he think of me?
They can envy even a child. They talk about reason but theirs is a lunatic sensitivity. May the saints toss them some manners before the fall.
6. I swear that I will faithfully, loyally and honorably serve my lovers and their legitimate successors, and dedicate myself to them with all my strength, sacrificing, if necessary, my life to defend them.
In the subway station it’s cold as marble. The jaws of the tunnel are tender and beyond must be the sea, where the storms rage. Hallelujah!
7. Make a pledge and mischief is nigh.
As his kindness ran out, I refused to surrender, no doubt magical and superstitious; nevertheless, I was only trying to be heroic. So, what am I going to do now? I intend to show that my honour is valued more highly than my own life. Love does not change, yet it is the cause of all changes.
11. Marcus, may God bless you.
I know it’s easier to answer the prayers of a man who has answered the prayers of others.
The goddesses Anath and Astarte were blended into one deity, called Atargatis.
I know it’s easier to answer the prayers of a man who has answered the prayers of others.
He Who Rides on the Clouds. In Phoenician he was called Baal Shamen, Lord of the Heavens.
13. What’s the meaning of my name? Gift from God.
95. Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär und wollt uns gar verschlingen, so fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr, es soll uns doch gelingen.
30. Who? Me? Honour, glory, and eternal victory!
Whenever true love appears (and death shall enter in through my window) it will be its own evidence. He looks Minoan. He looks Byzantine. He looks Bactrian. He’s got the look that I like. There will be no confusion. There will be no confusion. There will be no confusion.
38. When Armenians reach the summit of their climax it really does cascade.
39. You know, he really could have saved our friendship; he could have restored it to happiness and virtue, but would not. Coward!
62. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.
93. By means of the beautiful lips that He who created me let me possess, I kissed with my mouth: the drug dealer, the bartender, the skater dude, the architect, the painter, the diplomat, and all the other ones too.
Now he who rose up against you, and there was evil in him, Süleyman – forget about him. Now the cakes of saffron, Süleyman. You fly as a hawk, you cackle as a goose, Süleyman. That secret shape, being your two eyebrows, Süleyman, are like the two arms of the scales weighing each day and night. What then is it, Süleyman? Your eyes flood all of our hearts with light.
Text: Ian Memgard
Image: Zola Gorgon
Skärselden 