Hymns for Brueghel
Review

a review of

Hymns for Brueghel: Brambles of Berries, Rants, and Poetic Orgies by (un)leash. Published by Ink and Scribe in coordination with Cafe Press, 2005. Contact: Primal Revival Press at wyrdwizard < a t >hotmail < d o t >com. Available from the Barn for $20.

“The Full Moon strips civilization from the landscape, and it becomes fully 1,000 years ancient. The sun and moon know how to make eternal. But once an area is colonized, it stays colonized for so very long. How long before these delusions evaporate for good? Will I live to see it? Will I live my whole life under the occupation? [...] Yet I would Los Angeles become a Homeland again, for beneath my feet, by sunset or moonlight, crickets chirp by the tule villages where campfires are cooking acorn stew.”

--from Hymns for Brueghel

Where the groundsquirrels used to play are now hideous houses. Witchcraft as defiant pagan anarchy. We live on the sharp edge of the moment. Beauty, or wages?

These are just a few of the pieces in Hymns for Brueghel, in which the author ranges widely over love, Germanic mythology, his own personal dilemmas and joys, and much more. Amidst “Jimson-weed Essays from the Dark Night” and “Maenadic Letters”, he also comments on the alchemy of lips, transformality, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. (un)leash is long into the process of loving honestly and contemplating the complexities involved. While living in a city, he gathers wild edibles. Rejecting the oppressive status quo, he reaches for the magic of place, poetry, human connection and the wonder of the senses, and his own heart-felt curiosity and desires.

Hymns for Brueghel is yet another title from micro-publisher Primal Revival Press. Other titles from this press are Live Your Madness: How to Become Sane by Going Crazy and Affirming Your Weirdness, and Wyrd Megan Thew, a commentary on Germanic and Norse mythology.

The author is a bit of Whitman, Ginsberg, Isiah, Rimbaud, and Blake, but he is mostly, uniquely (un)leash. His rants and essays moved me closer to my own voice and dreams.