The Western Gate

Creativity, and its rise is best elicited in the first few hours of waking, better still, exactly on waking. The mind is still in reverie of dream, the logistical and mechanics of the mind still gearing into their normal function.
On first awakening I recall dreams that I have had, or songs that I heard in dream, and sometimes ridiculous poetry comes to the fore, meaningless, sometimes. and also, prose or ideas full of rhetorical wisdom and hidden messages, other times those lucid dreams recalled, meetings with fascinating persons or entities.
…..This isn’t that. This is a ridiculous poem. meaningless. The trickster is rampant when the shackles of the mind are unbound.

‘Binge’ was far the fatter
Whilst ‘Bile’ was often seen
of the two more oft than not
the one who’s far too lean

Now ‘Binge’ would often suffer
And suffer evermore
to fill his gut with cake and nuts
and other food deplored

Bile such, too suffered
and ate more oft’ just air
and if his gut was drummed upon
you’d hear there’s nothing there

If only they would half’en
and eat as equal share
then each to each, the compromise
would make them health aware¹

But Binge? That was its nature
and Bile, self the same
so let’s not pity party
or root the cause of blame.

Addendum
^1/Now admittedly this line,viz~would make them health aware, was substituted by me, i.e. in a conscious effort and thought, it was not written down alike the others as a free flowing and non-engaging manner, the actual line was relayed as, what I thought was jabberwocky or some words that rolled out as if it was meant to be a muddled deliberate parody of language. What I had wrote down on my notepad was, tan ratsan satya setnah ? I recognised Satya as being Sanskrit for truth, but did not recognise the other words. However on research afterwards looking at possible Sanskrit meanings…, take this phrase;- तान् रक्षन्तु स्वास्थ्यचेतनाः This translated as~ tān rakṣantu svāsthya-cetanāḥ, when I played this through a translation to speech format it sounded very similar phonetically to the line I had ‘imagined‘ and assumed was just gibberish or ‘spoonerism‘
Remarkably, this phrase means~ May health-conscious minds protect them!
It is obvious, to me, on re-reading the poetry that my added line simply does not follow the same meander as the rest of the poem, as if it was in hindsight bolted on, which is of course true.

The poem itself reminds me of a cruel joke, and us British are masters at cruel jokes, perhaps this is inbuilt in our psyche to laugh at our fears and protect our fragile ego. The joke concerned Mama Cass from 60’s psych band Mamas and the Papas who died from complications of being overweight and also of Karen carpenter, singer and also fantastic drummer, with the Carpenters who died of complications resulting from anorexia. If only, went the cruel surmise, Mama gave some food to Karen ?

The nature of the two characters also sparks memories of the tale of the scorpion and the frog.;-
One day, a scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion will sting it. But the scorpion argues, “If I sting you, we’ll both drown.” Convinced by this logic, the frog agrees.
Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. As they both begin to sink, the dying frog asks, “Why? Now we’ll both die!”
The scorpion replies, “I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.”

Header Artwork taken from:-The Dream of Ossian — Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1813)