Ruah Ra'a

Another picture for my Anomalies project.

Wizard (Call Up the Spirits of the Dead)

An illustration for another of my Anomalies 

Deber

An illustration for one of my Anomalies: Deber

Principalities

An Illustration for one of my Anomalies: Principalities

More Anomalies A – Z: Ophanim

Ezekiel saw the wheel
way up in the middle of the air…

They do not turn aside;
they do not flinch,
alert and ever watchful,
the wheel a’whirlin’
with eyes and eyes
way up in the middle of the air.

Rivulets of fire trail behind
the spirits of many colored splendor.
I see him, I see him there,
the Ancient of Days
in wind and rain
and his wheels of burning fire.

Read the rest of the anomalies here.

More Anomalies A - Z: Night

The final sunlit hours were fading
as we made one final dash
from the farm house
under a fusillade of poisoned rays,
the lively light of our bright star
dying from view.

Darkness rose up from the soil, and our souls
like a theological anomaly, a satanic infection,
a pustulant pestilence from beyond the Earth.

The Vicar was dead; they were all dead,
millions and millions in the night.
A silver disk held aloft in the sky
by means of a magnetic flux
like invisible legs, the moon
rose over the low and tired horizon.

We gathered in our toppled churches,
under shattering stained-glass windows
while a Roman solder tossed dice on the stairs.
Outside, night had come; midnight
tumbled the stones and bricks
of our miserable defenses.

Anomalies A – Z: Nachash

The first serpent, animated sibilant,
subtle seducer with fire and with flame,
lies in the garden and deceives sorcerers.

The Nachash waits in the desert
to bite and to strike
at exposed heels and dirty feet.

This is the serpent
and thus does it shine. 

You may read the other Anomalies here.

Anomalies A – Z: Mot

You need not worship me; I am not a god.  Not yet.

I am Mot.  I am death, King of the Underworld, prince of the nether-lands, lord beneath the mountain, ruler of the wastelands beyond and below.  And I am hungry, so very hungry.  The bones of ten thousand men are scattered at my door and before the day is out I will have consumed ten thousand more.  My mouth is wide, my teeth are strong.  A lip to the earth and a lip to the heavens, I tongue the stars and lick the sky.

Ba’al has gone down into my stomach.  Asherah too.  I have eaten my way through the pantheon of the Canaanites and the mythology of the Greeks.  Marduk is in my gullet.  Mithras, Isis, Ahura-Mazda… I have eaten them all.  I have crushed them between my teeth and swallowed them up.

But I am still hungry.

I will climb in through your window, enter unseen into your palaces.  I will devour your children as they play.  I will consume your young people in the public square, and the elderly as they sleep in their beds.

I am Mot and I am hungry.  Though you need not worship me, I will accept your sacrifices.  But I will not be satiated.  I will eat and eat, and eat, until there is no more.  Then I will be god of all.

Anomalies A- Z: The Lamb that Was Slain

A heavenly grotesque in the sky
a divine chimera above the earth
part roaring lion like a desert wind in the night
causing pregnant women to miscarry
and the walls of Rome to collapse
part slaughtered lamb
its throat slashed, blood encrusted
wound still gaping wide
Seven keratinous horns sprouting from its head
bony spurs to stab and pierce
the kings of the earth
and eyes, and eyes
oh God! so many eyes
it sees me wherever I go
I cannot escape.




Read the other anomalies here:

Anomalies A – Z: Kima

Can you tie cords to Kima,
or undo the reigns of Kesil?
Job 38:31

It is Kima that is doing this to me – the headaches, the chills, the unfounded accusations of disloyalty. 

Kima, the Family, the One Hundred, is arrayed like shock troops in tight formation, armed and ready for battle.  Kima is an alignment of rattlesnakes in the heavens.   Kima brings accidents, and blindness.  Kima brings violence.  When the Almighty, blessed be He, wanted to destroy the earth in a flood, he removed two stars from Kima and brought the waters upon the world.

The paths of the heavens are clear for those who will but look.  Were it not for the heat of Kesil the world would not survive the cold of Kima, but the cosmic bands of gravity that held that ancient hunter have been loosed and space is wearing thin. 

The intra-atomic energies that bind particular particle to particle have been dissolved by men with small minds and large egos. And Kima acts without restraint, stings like a scorpion with unfocused malice.

The complete list of Anomalies A - Z (so far) is here:

Anomalies A – Z: Ishmael

Who has loosed the wild ass,
put away the leather quirt?
The same who freed the swift ass
and who gave him the desert,

the place of salt, as a home,
a vast wilderness to roam.
And though he does wrestle
he’ll forever be nestled

with his descendants and kin,
blessed, and blessed, and blessed again.
Harken to this, hear it well,
the Lord has blessed Ishmael.

Anomalies A – Z: The Hawk

The following you shall abominate among the birds – they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination:  the Eagle, the Vulture, the Black-Vulture, the Kite and… every kind of Hawk. Leviticus 11: 13 - 16

A cast of circling malevolence
wheeling across the sky,
hawks of every variety

the Falcon, the Kestrel,
the Hobby, the Harrier,
flat headed, hook beaked royalty

with an eye upon the sparrow,
an eye upon the hare,
his talon snares all he does behold.

The One who is Above screeches
long and loud as he hunts;
the Distant One spreads his wings for the south.

Check out the rest of the Anomalies:

Anomalies A – Z: Gibborim

There are few among us who can still recall the exploits of the Gibborim, David’s Mighty men.  It is already largely forgotten that it Ehanan who killed Goliath, the Giant of Gath, not the upstart Bethlehemite, David.  And who today remembers Eleazer, the Son of Dodo, who once wrestled a bear that had stolen his mead?  Or Beniah, he who killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day, and attacked and killed Ahmose the Egyptian, who stood seven and one half feet tall?  Who among this generation can recite the tale of Bani the Gadite?  His name was sung from Dan to Beersheba and rightly so; who else has encountered the satyrs of the desert and survived? 

David is remembered but his men languish in obscurity.  They fought giants and ghouls.  They crossed vast wildernesses seeking danger and treasure and glory. But who remembers them now?  The dangers are subdued, the treasure is spent, and their glory has faded.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Anomalies:

Anomalies A – Z: The Fear of Isaac

Had not the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac been with me, you would have sent me away empty handed.  Genesis 31: 42

Feel the electrostatic changes in the air
that signal the presence of the one we cannot see;
feel the fine hair rising on your neck and arms.

Heart rate increasing, skin pimpling,
your muscles tense, ready to fight or to flee.

Swear, and swear true
by the God of our Father Abraham;
Swear by that numinous terror that comes at night,
the Fear of Isaac.

Let him stand between us, you and me.

Anomalies A – Z: Enoch

Forgoing death, he walked away
after a year for every day around the sun.
Enoch walked away and was no more
into the sky, into the sun
where temperatures reach millions of degrees,
yet he did not die.

Tell me, guiding angel, what are these things you are showing me?
Can the photographs and news reports be trusted?
How can conspiracy theories be disproved?

Is this European Superstate the home of giants?
Why was Charlemagne immortalized on European coins?

The element of fire will devour these unions,
dissolve their bonds – yes, this is to be expected.
Enoch will stand in the streets of Jerusalem
holding back the rain while the fires burn unchecked.

But see the iron plated beast rising up
like a wide faced woman on the back of an ox
to murder the witness.

Oh, guiding angel, must I see such things as this?

Anomalies A – Z: The Destroyer

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.”
Exodus 12: 12

I am awakened by the sound of the city screaming,
startled from my bed into a tangle of sheets on the floor.
Sirens are blaring, the building shakes -
an explosion somewhere near.

When I finally find my feet I rush to the window
and look out on the city burning.
It is hell, nor am I out of it.

And then I see you in an apophatic sort of vision,
seeing only the places where you haven’t yet passed.
My vision blurs and darkens, but I will not faint.

I am determined to stare into that void.
I will see your face!

But resolve alone is no strength against you.
Your sword, if it is a sword, cuts through another city block.
Sparks fly upward as power-lines
and humans lives are cut down.

“Enough!” I shout, “Stay your hand!
Enough, enough!”

And through the oily, lolling smoke
I see your face
and it is the face of God.

Anomalies A – Z: Cherubim

Motion in any direction,

                dashing and flashing, ever turning,
Erupting in a blaze of winged light.

“Return, turn, turn back or die!”
Kinetic creatures are transformed

                into holy swords of fire

And I am stopped upon the path.

                I can go no further, the way is guarded by
Beasts fifteen feet tall with wings and arms outstretched.

Angels or monsters? There is no difference;
Heaven’s mercy seat and tree of life

                are guarded by the Cherubim.

Anomalies A – Z: Basilisk

Super aspidem et basiliscum calabis conculabis leonem et draconem.
Psalm 91: 13

Not more, the historians say,
not more than twelve fingers long
rising from the dust and dirt,
rearing up with hooded crowns

Little kings, spitting death,
fiery serpents beloved of alchemists
hatched from a cold, cold egg
their ashes turn silver to gold.

But the weasel, the weasel!
of all of God’s creatures,
the weasel will bite their tails
and crush their heads.

This is my fourth pass through the alphabet with these anomalies.  To read the previous anomalies:

Anomalies A – Z: Archons

We were here before you whimpering humans.
While your species was still wetting itself
on the African plains – frightened by the hyena’s bark -
we had already ascended into the heavens.

Now wanderers among the stars
we do and go as we please,
manipulating equations and bending cosmic rays
because this universe belongs to us.

And if we continue to visit this little earth
it is because we are spiritual brothers,
transcendental sisters.
Let us show you how to rise into the radiation.


This is the beginning of my fourth pass through the alphabet with these anomalies.  To read the previous ones...

More Anomalies A – Z: Zamzummim

That too was considered a land of the Rephaim, who used to live there; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummim.  They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakim. The Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place. – Deuteronomy 2: 20 – 21

This land was inhabited by giants
once, long ago, near the beginning,
from Arabella to Aqaba.

Excavators occasionally bring their bones to the surface;
grossly oversized in limb and length,
how they must have towered over the land,

straddling the geological rift
and shaking the earth with their strides.

They were bold and strong.

But that was long ago,
before the waters came
and they were destroyed.

Four hundred and nine thousand all,
drowned, or crushed in the crash of waves
against stone peaks.
Tall as they were, they were not tall enough.

The giants are gone,
but their enfeebled spirits linger -
those few who escaped the chains of Tartarus;
you can hear them buzzing in the heat
of long summer nights,

the last mummers of their dying speech.

This is my third completed pass through the alphabet with these anomalies.  You can read through them all here, if you like.