Mark Ulyseas – Editorial – Custodians of Fate

Profile Mark Ulyseas Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 8th Anniversary December 2017

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Custodians of Fate, editorial by Mark Ulyseas

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
– William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Many years ago when one was shackled to a wooden desk with its surface mutilated by successive students, year in and year out, I came across a tome of Rudyard Kipling’s poems. It was, for a time, a refuge from the gruelling studies that nearly extinguished the free spirit within. In later years it was replaced by Tagore, Blake, the local poets and writers… some who were trapped in an existential time warp while feasting on the self.

And when my first love came along I discovered Shelley and Byron, whom I christened custodians of fate.

Now having spent more than a decade on the road confabulating with the spirits, talking to poets and writers, listening to them and moving to the rhythm of the metre, it becomes evident to one that this world, bleeding from its gums, with beauty lurking beneath festering scowls, with cruelty displayed like the dance of a peacock in mating season, with the ecstasy of witnessing sudden violence erupt is, in a manner of speaking, muted by the lyricism of the poets… a hope that is generated between the cry of a new born and the death rattle, a breath of fresh air amidst the unimaginable pollution of humanity in its conceited throes of self-indulgences.

The custodians of fate are, for me, not just Shelley and Byron anymore. They are the preservers of life, some featured in this magazine, who work tirelessly with words…conjuring, crafting and composing filigreed utterances transformed into an incense that intoxicates those that inhale its fragrance. And from this intoxication another dimension is formed into which the intoxicated can retreat to rejuvenate the soul.

And I am not talking about propaganda.

Poets and writers are custodians of fate who delve into the ebb and flow of life, pondering over the fertility and futility of mind and action, rescuing even the blasé from hara-kiri of the tongue. And they are often condemned to penury, living on the refuse of others’ whims. Beauty resides within and reminds them constantly of the heavy burden they must bear for being custodians of fate, for salvaging, nurturing and resurrecting the soul of humanity through their creations of finely engraved thought. Perhaps they are fallen angels redeeming themselves within the confines of blood and bone.

Live Encounters Poetry & Writing was created to give free rein to the lyricists from every by lane in the world, those standing on the side lines crying hoarse their thoughts. This magazine is for the custodians of fate to be seen, heard and read…their words seeping into the great wide net and nestling in minds contaminated by vulgarity and despair. One yearns that all such minds are cleansed by hope and rejuvenated by words of wisdom emanating from the custodians of fate.

Live Encounters Poetry & Writing is a mirror in which to see our faces…

a constant reminder of how beautiful and fragile we all are…

and yet pathologically self-destructive.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om


© Mark Ulyseas