With the flicker of your wrist, pen live at hand.
Academia once again applauds and stands
The ovation unawaited, unexpected, Unabated, unresisted,
As the world before your knees bends.

The gray shroud of insecurity is tormenting  you,
Coalescing with the muse that gives you life
You’re duality,
You are human and then monster,
Nothing more than rampant beauty in your lines.

Appreciated never were you while you could be,
Torrid romance brought you happiness and strife.
Yet, you never stopped for death although he kindly did for you,
And felt a funeral in your brain come back alive.

You tell the truth, although a bit slant,  to succeed,
Your life has stood - a loaded gun straight at your head
And though success is counted sweetest when you least have seen him come,
A man’s entitled to take pride in all he has.

You say your enemy is the demon in your head,
A restless pen and *** of pearly sheets,
The manuscript of a novel never read,
Instead you leave plastered your heart in poetry.

like fallen flowers, i am
weary under the subtle noise of a rushing, babbling brook;
a death, quietly scenic
as i go back to dust.
i left my body rotting in a prairie paradise,
here it decays to gray
under the bruised indigo sky.

a ghost writes her poem in silence, in small, made-up synapses,
and the wind sweeps it away.

Days folding neatly into weeks that eventually coalesce to months...

Did you miss me?
Did you think of me, seeing the gaping space between us, stretching ever tediously by miles of land and sea between us?
Did you miss the lack of it, where only the mere fabric of our clothes kept our warmth apart from one another?
Does it bother you, not being able to reach out and touch my warmth, being left with grasping yearningly onto thin air when overcome by nostalgia?
Do you take reverie trips when having my garments in your hands, smell my familiar scent to let loose the waves of emotions drown you?
Do you feel the emptiness around you haunt you menacingly and the cold of isolation, despite the warm sunrays bathing your room and kissing your skin?
Do you feel exasperated when hearing me but unable to touch me, feel me and just have me entirely?

I know you do, as do I.

The unpredictability of today and even more so of tomorrow makes the anxious more desperate for reunion, the many torn between inability to come together rave for some sliver of silver lining to get caught even accidentally by their convoluted fate.

Don’t worry, darling. The wait will be over. Soon. Until then, remember me and remember me often as I remember you so fiercely so I can come to you in your dreams, if not in reality, yet.

Hello, and welcome to writers FM!
Today I've got loads of gossip for you but first let's check out this new love song by "angelicface".

Story of my love that I could never explain

Rise and shine of words that no one could hear

One day a man from the heaven came
He hold my hands
Knelt down on his knees
Fixed his eyes deep into my gloomy eyes
Our souls got intertwined
He asked humbly, "will you mind if I make you the owner of my heart, life of my love, princess of my feelings and queen of my heaven?"

He asked modestly,
"Will you be my shelter
Will you be my home
Will you be my refuge
Will you be my soul?"


I replied, "I have overcome every obstacle
And dive down into oceans
Just to be with you
Because I belong to you
You are the ultimate reason why I got this life."

The grip of his hands was getting stronger
Tears were rolling down his cheeks
And heart was throbbing in a rhythm

He asked one more time,
"Will you be my shelter
Will you be my home
Will you be my refuge
Will you be my soul?"

I cried and smiled but I replied,
"How to say that I'm all alone
Sky full of magic, earth of stone
I shattered like crystals, heart to soul
Come on, take me home."

He blushed and smiled, stood up and embraced me in between his arms

And at that moment I realized
That soul companions do exist in this world ❤️❤️
©angelicface

No one wants to buy a poetry book
Of an unknown poetess
Who does she think she is?
Collecting words on pages
Words that are revealing white spaces
Pages that are meticulously numbered
No one wants to buy a poetry book
That appeared out of the blue
To claim its pages carries poems
Are they good enough?
Perhaps a line, or two...
No one wants to buy a poetry book
What would they find in it?
Dreams unfulfilled or pains that still bleed
No one wants to buy a poetry book
That grew like the freshest blade of grass
Fragile and hidden in the cruel moss
No one wants to buy...

wom·an
/ˈwo͝omən/

1. a woman’s issues of god-tier poetry cannot be treated by carving her into more aesthetic form of stanza as defined by an unconscious poet, nor can she be bent into a more intellectually acceptable shape by those who claim to be the sole bearers of poetry.  

(w) heartsick saints and sinners.
(o) a ballbuster and untarnished empress.
(m) black bouquets and red roses.
(a) bleeding screams and convivial memories.
(n) fixed and broken sanities.

2. angel's darling won't make a woman less than poetry, add and reduce nothing, hades will mixed heaven and hell for persephone and the latter will just smile while mixing your body and your coffin together.

3. warning!!!
"a woman is a dangerous poetry that can destroy your existence in any angle."

(w) 90 degrees to an inclined surface and that will make her ******* poison you.
(o) 160 degrees to a ***** surface and that will make her use your genital ***** as her pen.
(m) **** a+b raised to the power of 2 when a woman is powerful than any numbers written in math textbooks.
(a) let's set aside fuckery and solve the mystery of how queen elizabeth built an empire without a king.
(m) _____(let's leave this blank, for a woman is a mysterious poetry.)

4. a woman is a poetry, add or reduce her stanzas and she will still remain as poetry.

Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I)
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of my desire."

My rewards will be commensurate with your gifts
if only you give me the one that lifts
me laughing...

And though it costs you nothing,
still it is of immense value to me.

Your reward will be
not just to fly
but to soar, so high
that your joys vastly exceed your desires.

And my beauty, to which your heart aspires
and which you never tire of praising,
I will employ for the raising
of your spirits. Then, lying sweetly at your side,
I will shower you with all the delights of a bride,
which I have more expertly learned.

Then you who so fervently burned
will at last rest, fully content,
fallen even more deeply in love, spent
at my comfortable *****.

When I am in bed with a man I blossom,
becoming completely free
with the man who loves and enjoys me.

Here is a second, more formal version of the same poem, translated into rhymed couplets...

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (II)
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of my desire."

My rewards will match your gifts
If you give me the one that lifts
Me, laughing. If it comes free,
Still, it is of immense value to me.
Your reward will be—not just to fly,
But to soar—so incredibly high
That your joys eclipse your desires
(As my beauty, to which your heart aspires
And which you never tire of praising,
I employ for your spirit's raising) .
Afterwards, lying docile at your side,
I will grant you all the delights of a bride,
Which I have more expertly learned.
Then you, who so fervently burned,
Will at last rest, fully content,
Fallen even more deeply in love, spent
At my comfortable *****.
When I am in bed with a man I blossom,
Becoming completely free
With the man who freely enjoys me.

Franco published two books: "Terze rime" (a collection of poems) and "Lettere familiari a diversi" (a collection of letters and poems). She also collected the works of other writers into anthologies and founded a charity for courtesans and their children. And she was an early champion of women's rights, one of the first ardent, outspoken feminists that we know by name today. For example...

Capitolo 24
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(written by Franco to a man who had insulted a woman)

Please try to see with sensible eyes
how grotesque it is for you
to insult and abuse women!
Our unfortunate *** is always subject
to such unjust treatment, because we
are dominated, denied true freedom!
And certainly we are not at fault
because, while not as robust as men,
we have equal hearts, minds and intellects.
Nor does virtue originate in power,
but in the vigor of the heart, mind and soul:
the sources of understanding;
and I am certain that in these regards
women lack nothing,
but, rather, have demonstrated
superiority to men.
If you think us "inferior" to yourself,
perhaps it's because, being wise,
we outdo you in modesty.
And if you want to know the truth,
the wisest person is the most patient;
she squares herself with reason and with virtue;
while the madman thunders insolence.
The stone the wise man withdraws from the well
was flung there by a fool...

Life was not a bed of roses for Venetian courtesans. Although they enjoyed the good graces of their wealthy patrons, religious leaders and commoners saw them as symbols of vice. Once during a plague, Franco was banished from Venice as if her "sins" had helped cause it. When she returned in 1577, she faced the Inquisition and charges of "witchcraft." She defended herself in court and won her freedom, but lost all her material possessions. Eventually, Domenico Venier, her major patron, died in 1582 and left her with no support. Her tax declaration of that same year stated that she was living in a section of the city where many destitute prostitutes ended their lives. She may have died in poverty at the age of forty-five.

Hollywood produced a movie based on her life: "Dangerous Beauty."

When I bed a man
who—I sense—truly loves and enjoys me,
I become so sweet and so delicious
that the pleasure I bring him surpasses all delight,
till the tight
knot of love,
however slight
it may have seemed before,
is raveled to the core.
—Veronica Franco, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We danced a youthful jig through that fair city—
Venice, our paradise, so pompous and pretty.
We lived for love, for primal lust and beauty;
to please ourselves became our only duty.
Floating there in a fog between heaven and earth,
We grew drunk on excesses and wild mirth.
We thought ourselves immortal poets then,
Our glory endorsed by God's illustrious pen.
But paradise, we learned, is fraught with error,
and sooner or later love succumbs to terror.
—Veronica Franco, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In response to a friend urging Veronica Franco to help her daughter become a courtesan, Franco warns her that the profession can be devastating:

"Even if Fortune were only benign and favorable to you in this endeavor, this life is such that in any case it would always be wretched. It is such an unhappy thing, and so contrary to human nature, to subject one's body and activity to such slavery that one is frightened just by the thought of it: to let oneself be prey to many, running the risk of being stripped, robbed, killed, so that one day can take away from you what you have earned with many men in a long time, with so many other dangers of injury and horrible contagious disease: to eat with someone else's mouth, to sleep with someone else's eyes, to move according to someone else's whim, running always toward the inevitable shipwreck of one's faculties and life. Can there be greater misery than this? ... Believe me, among all the misfortunes that can befall a human being in the world, this life is the worst."

I confess I became a courtesan, traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one. I confess I embraced a *****'s freedom over a wife's obedience.—"Dangerous Beauty"

I wish it were not considered a sin
to have liked *******.
Women have yet to realize
the cowardice that presides.
And if they should ever decide
to fight the shallow,
I would be the first, setting an example for them to follow.
—Veronica Franco, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Veronica Franco, France, French, courtesan, translation, poetess, poetic expression, love, virtue, desire, lyric, lyrical, gifts, rewards, cost, costs, value, fly, soar, joy, joys, beauty, heart, spirit, spirits