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Read Absinthe Literary Review's writeup of Angelhaunt Volume II

The Books of Angelhaunt
Volume II

is now available from Amazon.com.

In the final four Angelhaunt books, Jason Stuart Ratcliff further develops the role of the artist as prophet.

482 pages
$23.95

There is no need to read Volume I first.

These final four Angelhaunt books are at once philosophy and works of art. Ratcliff has created in these four books both poetry and religion, both blasphemy and a completely original cosmology. Ratcliff has looked into himself, found both treasures and terrors, and made works only a madman could create.


Buy it now from Amazon

*There is no need to read Volume I first.*

Volume II includes:

Portraits
Ahab in Three Acts: an apocalypse
The Dream Project: a sequence
Legal Impossibility: a cosmology


*I am offering the full texts of all Books of Angelhaunt online right here. The copies for sale at Amazon and elsewhere are for those who wish to read them comfortably on a couch instead of on the computer.*


Here is the full text of

Ahab in Three Acts:
an apocalypse

Act One
Revelation to Ahab

Scene I

[The deck of the Pequod]   [We have entered death]   [This is your secret sacrifice]   [It is daylight upon the deck]   [Starbuck: A tolling bell!]   [Queequeg: I think I’m beginning]   [Starbuck: Here, let me]   [So this is your crazy testimonial]   [This is why your face is pale like milk]   [You have no powder in your guns]   [It starts to rain]   [Starbuck: I never thought]   [Queequeg: I thought he had smoke]   [Starbuck: What is this bee swarm?]   [You don’t understand anything]   [The thunderstorm is over]   [There were many pulleys and ropes]   [I thought I knew you]   [We are the terrible eggs]   [You are my sweet water]   [What are these two crowns?]   [This is my little time]   [Starbuck: I was reading a book]   [Queequeg: This is a magician]   [Starbuck: And now the iron circle is completed]   [The sharks swim and swim]  [Why did you catch me?]  [I was looking for pornographic films]  [So you find yourself alone]  [This is a history of the hermit]  [There was once a man]  [I am shaking]  [Starbuck: A dragon!]  [Queequeg: And the hours]  [Starbuck: Savages dancing]  [Queequeg: And now he’s in the grasp]  [Starbuck: It is the time of the pairing]  [You shall be drunk]  [This is your secret place]  [There are diseases]  [And the army went forth]  [Starbuck: I see the broken hymen]  [Queequeg: And he knows why]  [Starbuck: These bells are ringing]  [Queequeg: I am the knife]  [Starbuck: Where did you get all these weapons?]  [The rivers flowed]  [Before my birth]  [I know how hungry for knowledge you are]  [Starbuck: And now he’s become open]  [Queequeg: And the flames rushed through]  [Starbuck: I shall take a thousand men]  [Queequeg: My bones are rotten]  [Starbuck: And now we shall fix you]  [Queequeg: I think you shall have to]  [Starbuck: Those are eating machines]  [Queequeg: Who was this strange woman?]  [Starbuck: The atomic light!]  [Queequeg: There are nine gates]  [What water do you have?]  [These ships are warships]

Scene II

[Ahab’s quarters]  [Now his hair is balding]  [Ahab: Could it be?]  [Ahab continues going over his charts]  [What are all these faces?]  [Ahab: Will I wander forever?]  [Enter the Parsee]  [Here, let me listen to your heart]  [The Parsee: You have snapped the hemp]  [Ahab: What spirit grips your mind?]  [The Parsee: O I don’t understand you]  [Ahab: We are akin]  [The Parsee: I saw a war]  [Ahab: This is your holy ground]  [The Parsee opens up his belly]  [I stretched my hand out over the earth]  [I have stretched my hand]  [I am the yeast of you]  [I am the seed]  [Ahab: Three loaves of bread]  [The Parsee: I shall break your hands]  [Ahab: Is there any truth?]  [The Parsee: What was that great explosion?]  [Ahab: What are these eagle claws?]  [The Parsee: Come, let us count our coins]  [Exit the Parsee]

Scene III

[Stubb and Flask on deck]  [This is how we live in death]  [I see only disaster]  [Flask: The womb of the sea]  [Stubb: And you were in Mexico]  [Flask: He’s got a brightly flushed face]  [Stubb: I shall have to take]  [Flask: You have been stripped]  [The waters of the heavens]  [But what is this maze?]  [The sleepwalking mob]  [Enter Tashtego]  [Tashtego: This is your fast horse]  [Stubb: This is the hunger I feel]  [Tashtego: Why did you go to that poor old man’s house?]  [Flask: Bring me all sweetness]  [Tashtego: This is my emptiness]  [Enter Ahab]  [Open yourself to yourself]  [Ahab: And now there is nothing]  [Tashtego: If medicine finally admits that it cannot eradicate death]  [Ahab: Broken bone!]  [Stubb: Your body encompasses the wilderness entire]  [Stubb pulls out a bottle of whiskey]  [Flask: What are all these gunships?]  [Ahab: I used to go on walks]  [Flask: Do you know what it is?]  [Ahab: These are my green flames]  [Stubb: I’m white with fear]  [Tashtego: What are all these small creatures?]  [Flask: I was impregnated by that hairy dragon]  [Ahab: And now everything is turning]  [Tashtego: And now he’s grown old]  [Flask: Everything issues indirectly from him]  [Flask: I think I’ve lost my balance]  [Everyone begins to laugh]  [He opens up his mouth]  [What can you say?]  [We go in secret]  [Tashtego: You are no longer an innocent]  [Ahab: And my heart is shining]  [Stubb: There is a deep darkness]  [Flask: So you were trying to swim to the bookstore]  [Tashtego: I’ll tell you the origin of the ants]  [Flask: I was quite alarmed]  [Ahab: So you’ve seen the darkest light]  [Now the dance of ecstasy comes]  [Where did you get your powerful arms?]

Scene IV

[Ahab in his quarters alone]  [Ahab: I have broken her down]  [This is why men have said of these things]  [We have tried to walk]  [Ahab: I have no understanding of anything]  [We shall go out to the rivers]  [It was for this reason]  [Ahab: I see you]  [My geometry]  [What are all these maids dressed in white?]  [There is nothing that does not flow]  [And now you see yourself reflected]  [Blood!]  [Ahab: It is the blood of your fathers]  [And now I try to breathe blood]  [I seek what is beyond]  [Ahab: This water is gentle]  [O Ahab, I am frightened]  [Ahab: My child]  [It’s funny you should talk of ambition]  [I was speaking to a blind man]  [Ahab: I’m sorry]  [I am your small spirit]  [Ahab: And they went forth]  [The deepest dreams]  [When the leaves of the cornstalk reach out]  [Ahab: There I was, in Saudi Arabia]  [Why do these spirits constantly ask me my name?]  [Ahab: Here he comes galloping]  [These are the arms of the sun]  [Ahab: His name is Hours]  [There is a path]  [Ahab: This is your bright innocence]  [O tell me tales]  [Ahab: There was once a dying man]  [I was just sitting in my kitchen]  [Ahab: You found yourself walking]  [It reaches out from the center]  [Ahab: We are the ones]  [There are lunatics who look out]  [Ahab: The broad road calls me]

Act Two
The Recital

Scene I

[Ahab: In autumn here]   [Starbuck: I was just looking at your paintings]   [Ahab: I like these overcast days]   [Starbuck: This is to defend the thesis Kant proposed]   [Someone is growing corn]   [Starbuck: I overheard]   [Ahab: And so they studied the holy books]   [Starbuck: I hear voices]   [Queequeg: He's still reading]   [Tashtego: I thought]   [Ahab: This is the Museum of Change]   [Queequeg: So we've opened the doors]   [Tashtego: Come along with me]   [Ahab: What could you say to the crowds?]   [Stubb: The file was created]   [Ahab: The Arabs believe]   [Stubb: And so it was begun]   [Stubb: Certainly that day will come]   [Ahab: That's why the Arabs make the world into a circle]   [Starbuck: I am sad]   [Queequeg: And now the sheet is rent]   [Tashtego: The parts of the machine]   [Flask: I thought I was in Arabia]   [Stubb: His skin is slick]   [Flask: There is nothing at your core]   [Ahab: That's one point]   [Queequeg: What can I say?]   [Tashtego: As the potted plant]   [Queequeg: I thought I was beginning to know myself]   [Tashtego: I will open the books]

Scene II

[Ahab: The traffic starts to build]   [Stubb: I've been blinded by your dreams]   [Ahab: You say all this]   [Starbuck: There is something terrible beginning]   [Ahab: There was once an old man]   [The Parsee: I finally got a job]   [Ahab: I stand upon the mountain]   [The Parsee: So you've rent the clouds]   [Flask: Just as there is a secret power]   [The Parsee: The fresh wood is snapped]   [Ahab: There are secret powers]   [The Parsee: I have made a thorough investigation]

Scene III

[Ahab: We blossom in the light]   [The Parsee: But much logic is much vexation]   [Ahab: Often this time of year it rains]   [Queequeg: Of course we shall open this door]   [Ahab: This is how you see it]   [The Parsee: These are our gunships]   [Ahab: I am cold]   [Tashtego: A crack, reaching up a wall]   [Ahab: I return from my reverie]

Act Three
In the Gardens in the Stars,
With Rivers Flowing Across the Stars

Scene I

[We have come a long way together]   [I pull against you]   [There is, somewhere in the world]   [Ahab: Very well]   [O Ahab, I am troubled]   [Ahab: We are the iron men]   [You were in your dead grandfather's house]   [Ahab: Into Los Angeles come the recently resurrected]   [O Ahab]   [Ahab: I tell you a secret and a mystery]   [He is the one made of brambles and thorns]   [Ahab: He toys with the universe]   [There is trouble]   [Ahab: The sands moved in]   [The devil came]   [This hotel]   [Ahab: I died in a dream]   [This is the hotel]

Scene II

[Ahab: I reach out and grasp at pleasures]   [I pour out everything foul]   [Ahab: This is why we have taken such care]   [You are the dreaming man]   [Ahab: I was weaving a giant dream]   [Who is this phantom?]   [Ahab: I have made my way by winding roads]   [O Ahab, what am I doing here?]

Scene III

[The jinn come]   [Ahab: He thought about stealing that compass]   [I see you hanging by your neck]   [Ahab: I think I've been to this place before]   [O Ahab, your journey has been long]   [Ahab: Let me tell you a story]

Scene IV

[The body is split in three parts]   [In the bright heavens]   [I buried the red-boned god]   [The Pequod is the haunt of ghosts]   [The rains and storms came]   [They live in the mind]   [I took the bones of the red-boned god]   [These are your dry times]   [When we read something]   [These are the things that conceal]   [I had begun to explain]   [The closing of the shops]   [He simply had to be broken open]   [There are several guidelines]   [This path leads on up to the sun]   [The star-dials are blocked out]   [Every time I get one of my seizures]   [But enough of this]   [This is the place where everything coils]   [Now, when Jesus saw the armies]   [He's been stripped of his clothes]   [Have you anything?]   [I shall open my mouth]   [The fundamental point]   [He told you he would build you a house anew]   [There is a certain peculiarity]   [I am naked]   [I see you there]   [I broke open your skull]   [The feet were stomping]   [The Jews don't put yeast in the dough]   [This is why devils are made whole]   [So you see]   [I had a dream]   [We went out]   [The angels came]   [Something has jolted me]   [The tree spirits spoke to me]   [The spirits came]   [I try to analyze my experience]   [I am nothing but a pattern]   [He comes along like a great hobbling goat]   [The waves roll in]   [The white worms came]   [I have strange tentacles]   [There is a boat]   [I can almost hear your breathing]   [I have lain you out]   [You shifted all your life]