Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: creative writing

  • Thereby lies the Devil’s Bible

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    The Codex Gigas, courtesy of google

    A monk to be welled up alive

    After breaking his sacred vows

    Bet his life on a magnum opus

    In one night with all the knowledge

    Deep and wide of heaven and earth

    to appease the communal fury

    in the glory of the holy community

    Forever famed in an earthly shrine.

    So, the monk made a special prayer

    To Lucifer, Prince of Darkness fallen

    From heaven in exchange for his soul

    For helping him complete the opus.

    The Devil answered the prayer thus

    And possessed the monk with feats

    of supernatural erudition and swiftness.

    The monk then paid his dues in twofold:

    The portrait of his satanic master in the opus

    And the offering of his life to Lord of Hell

    In the likeness of the life of one Dr. Faustus

    According to the gospel of Marlowe.

    Thereby lies the Codex Gigas immortal

    Author’s Note: This poem is based on my reading of an article about “The Devil’s Bible” that survived the infernal fire in a Swedish castle. It’s arguably the largest medieval manuscript in the world originated in 13th century Bohemia. The scribe who penned this formidable book is said to have made a Faustian pact with the devil for completion thereof in just one day. What’s more, the book escaped the inferno by being defenestrated outside the window despite its being of 8.7 inches thick and 75 kilograms (approximately 165 pounds). The story is so remarkable that it has been registered in my mind’s book since I read it. The Devil’s Bible is now preserved at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.

  • the milky way

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    The stars in the Milky Way

    Bright in the cold night sky

    Twinkle in her diamond eyes

    Dwell in her garden of senses

    To unravel the universal mystery.

    Author’s Note: Last night’s sky was studded with beautiful stars imbuing me with a new kind of hope and comfort that life is not such a formidable juggernaut to deal with. The beauty of nature did me good indeed. This is my mind’s imprint of the beauty. 

  • vertigo – chapter eleven

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    “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh

    It is the star above her that governs her conditions. Iris knows that the fault is not entirely in herself but mostly in the lucky star that does not seem to know where to find its beneficiary. The star was born when Libra and Capricorn were met in the house of Aquarius on the nineteenth hour of a blustery snowy wintry night. The star hangs on the vault of nightly celestial ballroom among the other stars twinkling merrily and boldly but alone in a corner of the limitless dome, twinkling ruefully and dutifully as if it were trying to signify its insignificant presence on the nocturnal cosmic stage. For this lone star has not found its beneficiary, the ascribed terrestrial hair of its power, and without it, the star cannot become a lucky star. Which is a tragedy for both Iris and her star.

    In fact, Iris’s existential frustration or noogenic neurosis agrees to what Shakespeare was suspected of harboring in all his life. Surely, the Bard was a very successful playwright and poet who marched in a parade of famed hits in his time, but he was wrestling with a doubt whether it was Fate or Freedom of Will that governed human lives as conveyed in his works, such as “Julius Caesar”, “Othello”, and “Hamlet”. The characters of these plays fight for their causes as masters of their fates, but the consequences are not entirely fortuitous in bliss. That’s why the Greek soldier and historian Thucydides regarded vain hope imbued with a paroxysm of flattering confidence and blind devotion to the law of attraction as a dangerous hubris to one’s philosophy of life.

    Hope plays its role as a morale booster when one sees it as a card of chance in awareness of odds in one’s favor. In this manner, one does not have to think about it but can fight with every hope of winning. This also relates to a principle of Logotheraphy: the less one cares, the more one can without stress for success. But alas, my dear reader, to pour lead into the wound, all the aforesaid needs luck as the Bard chips in thus: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” A tide of the deep wide ocean of Life that arises from the heart of the ocean to surge in bounty of fortune to a weary wayfarer on the land is what Iris has been waiting for till now.

    All this thought, all this doubt about her so-called life – the existential frustration- are vexing her mind and crippling her faculties of the mind like vermin, so much that she feels utterly disoriented and deserted in the crossroads of life. The faith she has begun to lose with reasons justifiable only to herself, meaning of life she still hasn’t found, Iris finds herself lost in the Labyrinth where the Minotaur is roaming around to find his prey. And she does not have the hero Theseus nor Ariadne for help. Iris must find the way out anyhow for her dear life. But one thing is certain my dear reader; that although fortune’s malice or absence might conspire to overthrow her state, her feisty and recalcitrant mind will eventually exceed the compass of her will of fortune with a triumphant laugh.

  • farewell to the feast

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    A light spirit with a merry heart

    Flitting in the Arcade of Elan

    Hears the chime at the morn,

    Loses alacrity in a heartbeat

    With her lithe gait drooped fast

    And sighs for the end of the feast.

    Author’s Note: Today ends the dreamful 4-day Thanksgiving holiday, and I wanted to commemorate it with this poem of mine. To me, it was truly the most cherished holiday because I could have all those time to myself doing what I liked in the comfort of my room without having to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to take a 2-hour trip to work. Time is indeed a fashionable host that changes his attitude toward the coming and going guests. What’s more, “Nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense.” – Shakespeare 

  • The Untamed Sea

    It speaks in roars of gushing beads all wither,

    the spirits incarnate on the mighty crest of waves:

    The Joy, the Fury, the Beast, the Beauty

    All riding on the crest of the impetuous waves

    and casting a spell on the eyes of the lady

    bewitching her in its net of wonder, evermore. 

  • Cabinet of Curiosities

    ff76df2297dfacf05d029d5abb4988d3Scrolls of ancient sagas

    Pictures of strange faces

    Folios of collected letters

    Sealed in the misty wonders

    of the antemundane treasures

    awoke her delight in the senses

    in phantasmagorical displays

    of the cabinet of curiosities.

    Author’s Note: Looking at our family album suddenly brought me back to the time when my father opened an old cabinet in his library where the interesting artifacts from our ancestors were kept and explained to me what they were; At the tender age of childhood, it was a sight to behold in awes and wows engraved in my memory shrine. For it was truly a Cabinet of Curiosities.