The Rubyiat of Omar Khayyam

Persia has existed many times from the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) to the ill-fated Pahlavi Dynasty in the 20th Century. Its rulers and people reveled in knowledge and beauty. While perusing through my grandmother's attic in Westbrook, Maine I found THE RUBYIAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM and THE PRINCE OF ISFAHAN.

Two weekends ago in the Hamptons the dinner conversation revolved around the pros and coms of the Iran Nuclear Treaty. Many of the guests were against the pact and I listened to the dinner table disparage the Persians as 'dirty sheepherders'.

I waited for a break in the host's harangue and recited this immortal quatrain,

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness - And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

"Do you know those verses?"

My host shook his head, but knowing me answered, "Probably some ayatollah."

"No, Omar Khayyam wrote than in the 11th Century. He was a mathematician and an astronomer as well as a Sufi poet plus was reputed to have been an assassin."

"Another terrorist." Billy liked simple terms in basic black and white. He was Irish like me.

"Maybe, but he also wrote this."

“Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”

Billy lifted his glass to his wife and his friends.

"Wise words."

Indeed."

My host stood. We were old friends. Everyone else raised their glasses.

"This moment is your life."

I drank my glass empty. There was another bottle on the table. Then another and another.

It is always good to be alive and all poetry is mathematics.

The pluses and the minuses.

ps the photo is from the Hollywood movie OMAR KHAYYAM starring Cornel Wilde as Omar and Debbie Pa

The Dearth of Wealth

No one in the USA will rebel until they surrender their dream of instant wealth.

There are only three ways of becoming rich.

1.) birth
2.) marriage
3.) theft

And theft is only acceptable amongst the rich

For a poor man to steal a loaf of bread is a felony.

To launder millions for a corporation was a movie fantasy for the middle class aspiring to be a Palm Beach heir or heiress.

It is time for people everywhere to reject the illusion of wealth.

Fast cars, beautiful women, and big houses are a hoax.

The car needs a mechanic.

For every beautiful woman there is a man down the street who is tired of fucking her and vice versa even more so.

Big houses are too much work without help and who can get good help in the days of no slavery.

Time to think of a more simple existence.

A loaf of bread and a bottle of wine beneath the bough of a tree. Paradise anow - Omar Khayyam

That works for me.

I have an illustrated copy of Khayyam's Rubaiyat.

Jannah is the Sufi assassin hashish paradise.

"One day in paradise is considered equal to a thousand days on earth. Palaces are made from bricks of gold, silver, pearls, among other things. Traditions also note the presence of horses and camels of "dazzling whiteness", along with other creatures. Large trees are described, mountains made of musk, between which rivers flow in valleys of pearl and ruby."

According to the Koran and there will be wine served by immortal youth.

The quaffs will not grant drunkenness or incited fighting.

Obviously we Irish will not be going to Jannah.

Our home for eternity is Avalon.

Beer and whiskey forever.