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Post-azure, cloud splashed sky,
washes with the suns descent,
breaking into melodies of sunset.
Fracturing into a blush,
the richness of the spectrum
makes itself known.
On a tangent of change,
amorphous clouds bleed
amber glow
and bittersweet combinations
of reds and yellows.
Vermillion streaks through,
and a few cloud folk turn titian,
like sumptuous surreal apricots
rotting in the sky,
that seem to augur
encroaching darkness.
Billows on the horizon
leak crimson,
like spilled wine on table cloth,
and pucker out
like blooms of flaming roses.
Fire refracted
coloured cousins of the sun
are dancing all about.

Here is the anthem
of wild transformation.
Here is cause
for quiet celebration.
Here at this fluent juncture.
Here at the closing of day.

The whole of the ocean below,
is the skies tremendous mirror.
It's reflection is variegated,
into variations a thousandfold.
Multitudinous, and ever differentiated,
distortions of above
ride the crests of waves.
Each apex is a new story.
Each new story,
just as soon as it is told,
comes crashing into trough.
Each finale is the ****** of beginning.
The dynamic roar
of the oceans ever-changing topology
is rife with meaning.

Colossal symphonic wonders,
the primordial song,
releasing upon: the uni-
verse continual,
sending the manifest
to move, with the give and strain
of immaculate design.

Here ensconced
between the safety of light
and the mystery of night.
Here at the oceans edge.

Above, shades of catalina-blue, in conversation
with the outer most cosmic-black
dismiss earlier brighter hues.
Tinged by the infinite nature of space,
the jeweled dome darkens.
Overhead, the first stars appear,
sky transparent to beheld blackness.

Luxuriant, pulling horizon, attracts
violet into it's unfolding theatrics.
Bloodied clouds turn purplish, then black,
a darkening rawness allures,
decaying with vivid beauty,
tragedies of a rouged romance
drug down into shadows play,
searingly alive, extraordinarily actual.

And then, the hush of dusk.
Darkness is felled, like silence.
Scintillating stars
strengthen in the nights
surrounding abyss;
giving radiance definition.

Dynamic Beauty
Lives In Transition,
Oppositions
Compliment.
Bas Aeon Sep 2018
My brightest light Louie,
I may not be the best version of me
However
i am on my way to becoming a better person
you taught me a lot of things
you may never know
your soul imprinted
you are my shadow
My sun, my hope and my light.
you let me be reborn again
finding the right path
you made me learn to feel the word jealous
jealous of everything
nature that sorrounds you
people that made you who you are now
things that made and makes you giggles
The warmth and glow you spread to your sorroundings.
The echoes of your voice that send thousandfold of melody to everyone’s heart.

we drifted so much
i lost the battle
but my connection to your memories
still intact
it seeps to my core

i am winning the rage of seas and darkness
i finally found the contenment of light
it shown me the real figure of hardship
the true meaning of faith and serendipity
The symbol of love that envelopes the human capacity

i have gained true friendship and learnt new hobbies
im continously improving my personality and character
im pursuing the passion of my heart what God has offered me
i learnt to be more mindful and responsible human being
Waiting made me more resilient
Patience brought me a lot of good vibes
God embraced me for who i am
And  recieved comfort and plenty of positive vibrants
until the day im brave enough to stand infront of you
i will be better
i will be full of life
So you will be proud of me
even though i’m nothing to you.

i thought love was undesirable weakness
a cancer that grows inside me.
Made me vulnerable and brought abomination
as darkness and loneliness reeks to my soul
A depriviation of human development
as gravity of negativity pulls me down

But then
I finally understood the meaning of true love
Love filled my life with joy and peace.
Happiness, hope, contentment and serenity
Even though it fail me
Love became my strenght
Because love is what binds people
It builds a character to pursue and become better
To accept what was and what is and what ifs
To fight and battle within yourself
To know and to seek
To gain more clarity when whirlwind strikes
Above all
To recieve abundant, plentiful grace and forgiveness
From the one and only powerful, merciful, kind and loving Almighty God

He is the reason why i am living
He is the core of my existence
He blessed me with all things that sorrounds me
He gives me hope
He provides me food and shelter
He lead me to where i should be
He let me feel all the emotions that i must need
He is generous for allowing me to learn what was/is right and wrong
He forgave me and will always forgive.
He healed me and will continue to heal my soul.
My human being
He taught me a lot of things in this world
And for that i am lucky
That he let me experienced all the troubles and beauty from the past.
I may not know what the future and his plan for me
i am happy that he led me to you
To know you
To need you
To love you
To experience your warmth
Thats why thank you Louie for the love, hope, my light, my sun, guidance, patience and care you had brought to me
Coz if not
And it never happened
until now for sure
I will still be looking for your version
My dearest louie that brought so much ripples in my life.
I am forever grateful to you and to God.
These are all perfectly reasons why i love you to the fullest.
Thank you for being a blessing to me.
I pray to God to protect your world and guide you through tough times.
To bless and empowered you.
To let you know that you are enough to him because you are more than special to him.
To contionously shower you with grace, protection and so much love.

Grateful with so much love,  
Tres20
i wrote this letter 4 years ago and i still feel the same way today. The same feelings and love i still have for her will always remain. The prayers i continously ask God. My unsent letter - the precious emotions i kept for years will always be inside me. Im sharing this piece of letter for those who havent seen the light. Depression, loneliness became my motivation to gain strenght and happines.
I lost the person i love the most.
Dorothy A Aug 2012
I am constantly reminded of that popular Bible verse in I Corinthians 13: And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. It is a verse that I highly cling to in faith and hope, something that I truly love to hear and ponder upon. Otherwise, I could easily give in to despair and cynicism, as it is prevalent in this world like a cancer. A good combination of a good dose of faith, hope and love is surely the medicinal treatment required for the cure.

Whether you adhere to this Biblical statement and belief, or absolutely do not, anyone can understand that we need faith, hope, and love to rely on. No matter what our walk is in life, whether we are Christians or of another religion—or have no belief in God or the spiritual life whatsoever—we all must have faith, hope, and love. Must!

Our very lives, and the world, depend on it.  

The religious aspect aside, who can exist without these three, without faith hope and love? Take the sun, for example. Even the staunchest atheist has faith that, without fail, the sun will reappear on the horizon, each and every morning, dispelling the darkness of night as the earth revolves around the sun. It’s like an undeclared promise, a brilliant, seemingly miraculous occurrence that should never cease to fill us with awe.

Until we take hold of these thoughts, how soon we do forget.  

Can you imagine if you woke up tomorrow and you never saw the sun again? Never? What would it be like if there was nothing but bleak darkness as we looked up into the sky for its beautiful blue canvas and infinite greatness? Our meager light bulbs and man-made lamps would pale in comparison to the blotted out light—the desert in the sky. Life would cease to be, and the thought of it seems almost incomprehensible—the utter void, the earth’s destruction, the deathliness, the icy cold and chaos. How we often take such things for granted! And the life-sustaining sun is only one of the countless things that we often take for granted as we dwell upon this magnificent earth. One may use his or her own analogy to compare.  

Along with faith to spur it on, who can survive without hope?  Hope reminds you it is still there when you cannot envision it there or feel its presence. It offers fresh, new pathways when your hopes have been dashed, and urges you to move on from false hopes that are imposters to the real deal.

I certainly cannot live without hope, nor could another living soul.  Having no hope at all feels like a living death, one I know of firsthand much too well. Inside of me—in my own being—when it seemed that the sun in my soul, with all its nurturing and guiding light, had entirely disappeared from within me—I experienced that vastly void, and dark, bottomless pit. In complete horror and pain, I felt my life would always be this way.  I liken it to having your lungs being ripped away from you, the wind ****** out of your spirit.

Oh, it is a dooming, crushing thing to have no hope!

But the thought of having not a shred of hope was something that I just could not bear nor accept. Thank God, it was an illusion, not really gone for good. It is the very fuel to propel rockets of dreams and goals, and it works hand in hand with faith and love. I believe wholeheartedly that hope is there for anyone’s access, no matter how low life seems. For like that eternal sun in the sky—sometimes seemingly doused out by menacing clouds—a temporary mirage, no doubt—hope is an invincible, precious and extraordinary gift, one that outshines despair by a thousandfold.    

Imagine if there was no love. Many of us think love is an illusion, a ***** trick to avoid. People often were supposed to love us, but failed. Surely, we can often fool ourselves into thinking something is love, when later we find that it is clearly not. Often, we feel burned when we show our vulnerable selves, simply on our quest to love and be loved.

But we want love nonetheless. We have to have it.

Love is as messy as life is. Hate often seems triumphant as we turn on the news. It seems to outshine love, and we grow weary by the cruelties we witness through the screen or from firsthand experience.  And by taking a good look in the mirror, we often question how loving we really are, for our guilt is reflected back at us for how we have failed others in a lack of love. Sometimes, we are just too scared to love. Sometimes, we just don’t want to make the effort. But love is still the greatest of all. There is no way this earth could spin well without it. What would be the need of it's ordered structure if not for such a high attainment as love?

Like I Corinthians says, if I have all knowledge or have faith, but have no love, it as if I have nothing—nothing at all. How many people have been taught that they are not worthy?

Again, like that sun, love covers everyone—encounters all at different times of reach—even those who are seemingly incapable of its power.  

And yet again, what if love had simply gone away for good, like faith and hope? Like that sun in the sky? What if hate truly reigned and ruled the earth?

But the battle is never over, and love must always fight on.  These can't just be words that I am saying to fill up space. I truly fight to believe this!

Again, that sun in the sky represents love to me, as well as it does faith and hope. It is warming and enriching. It is a pathway out of the restful night and into the ongoing world. Like it is a living entity, it doesn’t demand our constant attention, and nestles itself into the clouds before it makes its entrance once again, takes yet another bow.  It continually feeds the plants, which feed the people and the animals. And to imagine that this greater-than-life ball of fire is capable of creating rainfall that sustains life, too.  What a glorious contradiction!

With my poetic mind always churning, and the imagery flowing, I share these thoughts to you. Faith, hope, and love—I am truly amazed!
Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;
For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
Thou, throned in every heart’s elect alcove,
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
Which for no head but thine, by Love’s decree,
All beauties and all mysteries interwove.

But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
‘Then only,’ (say’st thou), ‘could I love thee less,
When thou couldst doubt my love’s equality.’
Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,
Thy heart’s transcendence, not my heart’s excess,
Then more a thousandfold thou lov’st than I.
dr Jade Oct 2015
Nothing haunts us like the things we didn't do or the things we didn't say...

I wanted to write a letter to my best friend, and realized I don't really have one. You know, that someone you've known all your life, someone you share your hopes, fears, secrets, and dreams with. Someone who knows and understands the real you, and accepts you for who you are. Someone you trust with your life... Well, I don't have that, although you are the closest one I have to that.

Remember the first time we talked? You were confident and brash. I was awkward and shy... I thought (and I still do) that you're the funniest, most interesting, and most genuine person I've ever met. As the years went by, the jokes we shared became second nature to me. But I always get this feeling that there are parts of you that are kept hidden and unreachable. I'm quite sure you've thought the same of me. Other times, when I am fortunate, you let me see a different side of you, I get a glimpse of just how brilliant you are... It takes my breath away and my heart constricts painfully.

There's a doubtful, insecure, and hurting side of me that I struggle to control, for fear of appearing weak and needy. I always felt that I was never good enough, for you or for anyone else. I'm a mess of self hate and dark thoughts, and I have to battle my demons each day. I do know that you try to help me overcome the things that I deal with... I want to heal, to be compassionate, forgiving, kind, and strong in spirit. I want to be brave and fearless, to venture to know every aspect of you. I want to be able to take risks, even accept being vulnerable. If only I'd stop hiding behind secrets and things I don't say, then maybe, just maybe, we could have a deeper sense of friendship that we crave from each other.

Sometimes I want to cry. Not the silent and controlled tears, but loud and unrestrained sobbing. I want to let out all the pent up pain and grief and rage inside. I want to cry for myself and for others, for the tragic and ugly things humanity has to suffer through. I want to cry until I've let everything out, until I'm spent and empty, ready to be filled again.

Other times I turn to you. For comfort, for reassurance, for a distraction. I hope dealing with me isn't too much of a burden for you. And selfish person that I am, I don't think I've ever done the same for you. I can be oblivious and dense at times. The other half, I don't want to overstep the boundaries we've set up. I wouldn't want to set your world on fire, even if I was being burned alive. But it doesn't mean that I don't care. On the contrary, you are so important to me that I am afraid of ruining whatever this is that we have. You'd tell me if you need me, right? Please know that if you call, I'd do everything in my power to be with you and anything I can to help you.

Still there are other times when I lie awake in bed in the wee hours of the morning when I wonder what it would be like to fall asleep in your arms...

I know that I'm lost and searching, and God knows when I will be at peace with myself, but I'm trying. I won't hope, because hope is a passive-aggressive son of a barnacle. Everything is amplified a thousandfold when hope is shattered and I'm left feeling alone and wretched, to pick up  the pieces. Instead I will believe, because believing will drive me further that hope ever could. It tethers me to something real, so I can wander but not get lost... That's the beauty of faith and belief, I guess. It gives me a sense of purpose, a direction. So I will hold on to my last scraps of strength with my whole being and believe. My life may be tough, but I'm tougher.

Please be patient with me, my darling.
Know that in a sea of people, my eyes will always look for yours.
Axel Deion Ngsy Feb 2014
It's so hot.

The priest's sermon-
whose warm voice so soft,
soothes the yearning ear,
encouraging oft,
for all to hear.
But the soul most dear.

And the poignantly silent Cross behind him.

People's voices-
rosaries, novenas,
strapping their arms,
but not their lips.
Heartily singing
or maybe snoring,
rising to the heavens,
but drowning my little own.
Like each sentence is simply a groan.

And the endless cars honking outside us.

Then in my little reverie, I yell:
Don't hush me!
When I pray to Thee,
all I want is Thy sympathy,
whose essence to a dry soul so empty,
would quench thousandfold a bounty!

Cries.
Then right beside my pew,
a light of unfurled color lies,
reveled by so few.

Then I look to the left,
facing the most mighty sun
shining on my burned cheeks,
on the blackest of hair,
closing my ****** eyes,
having a little fun.

Only one voice
of direction, of choice,
of just enough noise-
to brighten my day,
to go along with whatever may,
I am allowed to play!

And Mom tells me to keep silent,
before any wall gets a dent,
after I've learned what they've meant.

But, it's Sun-day.
The one light, the one love,
for the one me-

God allowed me to be.
I know that this is a really (or too) straightforward poem, but it's just about a child's encounter with the Divine (or what I felt a while ago) in the midst of a sultry morning.
Hannah Beth Jan 2015
Nights like this
Nights like shining starbursts in black abyss

When sweaty palms arise not from fear
But butterflies ten thousandfold

And the taste of her lips
on yours
on a lamplit January road
Still lingers come daybreak

Those are the nights I stick around for
last night made me happy
They took their shovels and digging tools
To the top of Highgate Hill,
They walked in a deadly silence there
In the dusk, in the evening chill,
They picked their way through the deep-laid bones,
The monuments, great and small,
And looked for the plain Rossetti stone
In their search for Elizabeth Siddal.

That red-haired, wraithlike, ghostly girl
Who had charmed the PRB,
She'd sat, at first, for Deverell
Who was doomed, with Bright's Disease,
She'd fallen hard for the artist then
Though her love was never returned,
For Deverell died so suddenly -
It was as if her love was spurned.

She sat for Dante Gabriel,
For Holman Hunt, Millais,
As the model for drowned Ophelia
In an ice cold bath she lay,
She lent her beauty to every brush,
Each stroke laid bare her soul,
When she looked around for herself she found
There was nothing left at all.

Rossetti had kept her close to him
As he slowly became obsessed,
He scribbled a dozen portraits from
Her head to her heaving breast,
He placed her high on a pedestal,
A Madonna in all but name,
But kept his physical love from her
That she might not suffer shame.

He penned the poems he wrote for her
In a small, grey calf-skin book,
He carried the poems everywhere
As a proof of the love it took,
He made no copies, he held them close
They were food for a future muse,
For his art and poetry vied with him -
It was painting he would choose.

But she; who knew what rent her soul,
The cravings she despaired?
She sipped at the potion laudanum
As her heart and her mind were bared,
She scribbled the weary verses that
Spoke love, of a love long-lost,
While Dante frolicked with Annie Hughes
At Elizabeth Siddal's cost.

As Lizzie despaired on laudanum
She had ceased to be of use,
Her visage was sad, and aged and drawn
In the sick room of abuse,
While girls with youth, vitality
And an earthy yen for sin
Like ***** Cornforth, came to sit -
And Rossetti let them in.

They wed, but much as a faded dream
The knot had been tied too late,
As Lizzie, dying a little each day
Succumbed to a morbid fate,
For one dark night she had laid her down
Penned a final note, to whit:
'My life has become so miserable
That I want no more of it.'

She lay by an empty laudanum phial,
Rossetti was quite distraught,
He'd loved her, but with a purer love
Than his lust or his money bought,
His grief was such, as he laid her down
In her coffin, she looked so fair,
That he placed the book of his poems
Between her cheek and her auburn hair.

The years went on and he sank himself
In a pit of despond, unwell,
Withdrew from his friends and dosed himself
With a phial of chloral,
His painting suffered, his income too,
He turned to the ancient muse,
And thought of the poems beyond the grave,
He knew that he'd have to choose!

He wrote to Charles Augustus Howell
A rogue that he'd used before,
To test him; whether to dig her up
Or to lose his poems forever;
Howell replied he should get them back,
Or he'd lose them to death, for good,
'Your works are the works of genius,
Bring them back to the world - You should!'

So Howell, he toiled up Highgate Hill
While Dante hid in his lair,
Too scared to look on his love again,
His muse with the auburn hair,
A fire was lit in the dead of night
The coffin was raised on high,
His love was torn from her deathly stare
They could almost hear her sigh.

The book was caught in her tangled hair
Which had filled the coffin's space,
And she was lovely, and quite serene
As they lifted the book from her face,
They lowered her gently, back in the ground
That had served as her awful tomb,
She lay defiled like a bride, reviled,
But without her lawful groom.

Rossetti published his poems then,
They sold by the thousandfold,
For Howell had leaked the story out
That he hadn't wanted told;
But a fate awaited Augustus Howell
A revenge that would beggar belief,
He was found, throat cut in the gutter -
With a coin, tight clenched in his teeth!

David Lewis Paget
Elijah Bulatao Oct 2014
What am I to be when others define who I am?!
Foolish mortals! How dare they! Am I realize this "friendship" is a scam?!
Friendship is nothing more than a torch to be blown by winds of change!
It is utterly meaningless when fools enjoy me for my many rages!
What am I?! Am I to be cast to oblivion?! To depths deeper than hell?!
Let those who abuse me, let no mercy be done! Let God tell!
Allow the strikes of death and plague to be unleashed unto to them!
And ensure their coffins sealed, for they shall be devoured by Nephilim!
Make peace unto me, their misrepresentations decide who live or dies!
Make them pay, their bodies scorched by fire where their bodies lie!
Peace and justice will be made to me, because I shall possess the keys!
Make of them suffering and eternal torment, and destroy their families!
I shall be forever victorious and crush my enemies underneath my feet!
And their puny and insignificant presence, ha! They shall face defeat!
No longer will my "friends" use me once and dispose of me immediately!
I will be ruler of a world where my castle everyone be amazed will see!
The majesty of my wonderful rule! When I die, I shall leave a legacy!
"He is he who destroyed his foes and casted them to the guillotine."
"His past was days when people of his mocked with such keen."
"But he rose from his sorrow and by his sword his enemies fell."
"His blood of vengeance runs through the rivers to the dells."
This will be written that of my tombstone when the time is right.
And when my enemies rise again from the shadows, I shall put my light!
The light of my truth, my justice, and my ways to live right!
Their oppositions crushed thousandfold and my armies unstoppable!
Let my revenge from the past fuel the finale that is incomprehensible!
Meteorites from heaven of flame become redder by my enemies' blood!
Even if they rise the flag of surrender, I refuse! Make them shunned!
And so my kingdom is at peace, when war halts and revenge is done!
Let their be tranquility in my land at last, now let freedom run!
Allow the spirit of freedom to spread across my great land!
And where enemies fall, make my virtues and glory stand!
Where people of the millionfold descend to see and adore me!
And at last, make my revenge and cleanse it. It is now free.
(Sigh) This is actually how I feel when people like to see me just to rage. I kind of have short term anger, so I do get angry relatively quick; I can almost never take jokes. Sometimes I think people just want me to scream is because they like it, and I feel in doing so, they like me as a friend. However, I am deceived, and I hate myself for doing so. So welcome to the other side of me.
Halie Harris Feb 2012
Howl thousandfold, the power of winds
in but one breath you hold
you who are the judge of mortal sins
before you let none stand bold.

Fairest of fair
with jewels of eyes and soft wings
golden and silver, such precious hair
to you, the song bird sings.

And you, keeper of glen
lithe and swift and strong
come the winter, then
for on your watch spring is ever long.

Last is shadow, dark
essence of night
such brilliant eyes how they mark,
gleaming brilliant with starlight.
Leila Apr 2013
I think that I’ve gone crazy, mindless.
I’ve lost sight of myself, i am spineless.
I know no controls, I cannot empathize.
A soul that's long been sold and a heart desensitized.
Blood flows through me cold, my pulse mechanized.
Anger's a thousandfold and every second emphasized.
fray narte Apr 2020
by now, the moon knows that my chest is just a burial ground for this thousandfold of sighs — in their hands, all different ways of my undoing, and i am a breath away from one. you see, some nights are for the softest, gentlest moments of lunacy. some nights, for waging wars and succumbing into these sighs, barely held by the petals tightening around my throat. by now, the moon knows that i had once been a battlefield and it's a pity — growing poems on such an unholy ground, only to fall apart like aster leaves and ancient city walls.

darling, it's getting dark, and this is starting to look less like poetry — and more like spoils of war from inside my head.
Arjun Tyagi Aug 2015
Legs entwined break free,
As Sol beckoned over Korik Hill.
Their stomachs still warm,
With last night's ****.

Dusty flecks played like,
A million shards of garnet.
Watching over her head,
In beams of light, russet.

Unwilling to break
Meek, fleeting dreams,
He closed all space, between
Them were no seams.

Ruefully she moved,
Even in slumber.
One cannot erase,
The skin of a lover.

'Agaroth'
Whispered moan, from bit lips.
'Namna', his head on
Her ***** is where happiness is.

'We should go'
Said she, as Solara rose.
The sky warm with both,
Under two suns, they awoke.

--

A scraggy shore,
Rocks, lichen and moss.
Lake of silence,
No sound would cross

Twas her kingdom,
Her Majesty a thousandfold.
Within walls of green,
Ochre, yellow and gold.

She stood waist deep,
Soft back to him, a statue.
As she overlooked the fishes
Passing by in a hundred hues.

Bathing in rainbows,
Her form bare, open.
A liquid pearl glowing,
In an endless ocean.

Soon she emerged,
Onto the heavy bank.
His arms covering her modesty,
His honour in her hands.

--

Solum now emerged,
The wind cool on bent figures.
Harvest of their fruit,
This year was bigger.

Mud stained bodies,
In sound of labor.
As both pulled fruit and flower,
Of ethereal flavors.

He plucked one,
A plump pompous citric.
Tasted the fruit slowly,
It's effect electric.

An offer made to her,
Politely subdued.
Held his hands,
Expression bemused.

'Come here' beckoned Namna,
Agaroth obeyed.
The fruit she tasted,
Was from his mouth that day.

Violet stained her neck,
Godly juice.
He tasted just enough,
Skin and fruit suffused.

--

Solara began her descent,
The sky, blood on topaz.
Cool though it happened to be,
The wind was sad.

Under the shadow of
The siblings, Solum and Sol,
Sat a fire now hungry,
Devouring mushrooms and stalk.

Warm, Namna spoke of home,
To him, a child before her.
Eyes wide, he waited,
For her words, to devour.

'It was beautiful', she told him,
Of the lands and seas and crests.
Of Men, Machine and
Many Deaths.

--

Her voice was nectar,
Soon he drifted in a haze.
Sweet, soft and dear,
Lying still in her gaze.

He dreamed of that night,
Invaded by the SkyFolk.
The night of her arrival,
Amidst a sea of iron and smoke.

Thirty and two times
The Sun siblings had since,
Risen and fallen with them,
As they shared their sins.

He had discovered,
She spoke, a delight.
But not his tongue,
To his surprise.

She was built as him,
But he could see.
The difference twixt;
The Man and Goddess clearly.

Sole inhabitant of a far
Cosmic reduce unwanted.
A wish he never thought of,
Here, before him, granted.

He came to, and,
Looked at her firelit face.
Spoke of love in his tongue,
As he watched her drift into space.

--

Lunox presently hung,
Suspended, a pyramid.
And before it reached its peak,
The world was silverlit.

A glorious change,
To the world, this light.
Somber companionship,
Would last through the night.

Gentle nudges brought,
Namna to him.
He signaled at the moon,
Which was now moving.

Faceted at impossible
Edges, Lunox spat color.
Iridescent, layered,
Their world in a fervor.

Her eyes studied him
A gem in nocturnal light.
Ruby, emerald, sapphire,
Blazing dark and bright.

Star painted, they
Walked home together.
Her hand in his own,
Light as a feather.

--

Deep, internal hum,
Escaped from her, loud
As he kissed her lips,
The ones not on her mouth.

His hair clutched,
Tangled in her fingers.
Pulling him inwards,
Many feelings triggered.

Rose over the valley,
Of shy legs.
His head beside hers,
Their waists connect.

All of Agaroth
Pulsing, yearning.
Inside Namna,
Inside her fire, burning.

Warmer than the Suns,
Cooler than the lake.
Sweet, ignorant and in peace
Love they did make.

Furs sprawled,
The sheets in a mess.
The other's skin was their
Only dress.

--

On a small bed,
In a small room.
They talked of life,
Of despair and doom.

Each simply speaking,
Not mindful of comprehension.
When touch is louder than voice,
No bar rests on communication.

Much comfort there was,
In time they discovered.
In sharing a life,
Over the galaxy, scattered.

Escapee from,
a dying Earth.
Inhabitant of,
A deceased world.

A longing for what is,
Now gone past.
Traces of two souls,
Here in Xalta shall last.

Of all cosmic variables,
The most improbable.
Yet brought together,
In an interstellar fable.

--
alaistair Sep 2014
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my cells mitochondria nucleus DNA a disease)
Whatever is done by me was your doing.
I am never without it:
I still have those poison thoughts
It has taken me years to even begin to unlearn.
I cannot let anyone in.
They might trace their hand along
The parlor wall of my heart
And find it bare of pictures.

I liked my body when it was with your body;
Now it is a crying naked thing,
Bare in the wrong ways,
Muscles shouting, thousandfold nerves
Screaming, crying, loud.
You flayed me open so skillfully,
Parted flesh from firm-smooth bone
With your words sweet like grave goods(I carry it in my heart)
So I am soil I have reclaimed
From your charred earth policy.
I am undead: alive again
With the tomb all open so quite new.
You must not have known:
Burning it down only makes it grow back angry.

I carry your heart with me(I carry it heavy head lead weight round my neck etched into my synapses ground into the layers of my skin like sand from a broken hourglass wailing and gnashing of teeth)
15 April 2014

In a few hours, we will
Grow apart from each other.
I will never see you again
But maybe, you will see me.
Passin’ along the way,
Never knowin’ who you are.
But for now—
Let me miss you,
Just until I don’t.

It’s rather a strange time
When we met, I was down
Broken into bits ‘n’ pieces
Of the universe and her.
But you seemed to care
About me ‘n’ liked
My flaws and everythin’
In between my legs.

On the other hand,
I still couldn’t find anythin’
That I don’t like
About her.
In fact, I believed—
That we are the mundane,
Jack and Rose
In this lifetime
A hundred and two years later
And countin’, still…

But you—
You are different from her,
Like how the silence
Would fill the war room.
There’s no tinge of uneasiness to it
Our breaths cadence with each other
Our hands found their ways
To remove the cloths that bound us
Our lips meet in utter urgency
It was comforting.
Somethin’ inside you
Made me safe
To anchor my ship
And dock in your harbour
As the storm ravages
Everythin’ that’s left
Of the universe and her, and I

Every morning, I try to
Figure out what went wrong.
But “nothin’” was all—
She could ever say to me
I was hopin’ she’d say
That I messed up, that
We couldn’t be what we are b’fore
Or there wasn’t much—
To talk about anymore,
Anythin’, but nothin’
Really at all.

The silence is dreadful,
I no longer felt safe.
The comfort of havin’ her,
Was replaced with—
Great amount of uneasiness.
I was hurt and felt—
Unwanted.
Lately, it’s hard to see her
With strangers around
Who’s a thousandfold
Interestin’ than me.
But it’s harder to see her,
In ethereal happiness with them.

Maybe the universe wants
Me to love you and forget her,
But I miss her and I love her
Probably too much—
That I still wear my heart on my sleeve.
You— you’re just a loose change
Of everythin’ that we’ve through.
Here’s two cents of my thoughts:
You can have me,
But you can never love me.
The universe and her, and I—
We are the mundane,
Jack and Rose*
After all…
Tracey Katz Dec 2014
The summoning, when it came, I answered with whale song of my own
And all the water between did not distort the sound, the resonance
Of tuning forks at the same pitch, that offended most ears who heard them
Most did not; instead held cupped hands to their heads and heard only
The rush of their OWN beats and the flat la la las of no desire to interpret those alien sounds
The ocean floor held hidden things, broken by time and the wash of happenings that cracked and buried them, both
And in the shatterings of these brittle things I showed you neon fish
Darting through the ruined holes of ancient amphora, making playgrounds of their ruin
I showed you scrolls with ancient learnings, written in ink that proved indelible
And the meanings; I knew enough to draw a map with some destinations
Yet the road was only a suggestion of words I could not grasp, their translation lost in years of forgetting how
I asked you once, I am certain, in syllables that almost made my words
If anything could be formed from shards; you had no answer, I
Knew that all of the breakings shone back a whole in each, my
Me reflected a thousandfold, not broken but in pieces
He cut hair like a piece of artwork was waiting to happen, and viewed in a gallery. he cut it like it would never grow back. He cut hair like it was his lifes' passion and it was his entire being. The way he cut hair made me ashamed of the lack of respect i had put into my degrees that i had been fortunate enough to have gained in years of not knowing what i wanted to do with my life.

His list of clients meant that he was busy constantly, his feet must have ached, his arms must be tired, but he's always immaculate, he's always dressed for an occasion - white shirt, black trousers and black shined shoes, a silver necklace at the point where his chest met his neck. And for 2 years i went to see him, and for 2 years i sat in silence as he created a marvel, an unrivaled piece of magnificence, whilst i sat in his throne.

Then one day he started to talk. His accent was clipped and short, his english was fair, but it started off with a meaningful question of my health. I was silently overwhelmed. Within the space of two minutes, my respect for this man grew tenfold, and within twenty minutes, a thousandfold.

I did not know where this man came from. I know he was somewhere that had been bad, i know he had moved here and lost everything, because in a hint of sigh, when he talked about something 'he used to do', he changed the subject with a smile, and said, 'that's how it is'. But the face that he smiled, and asked me 'so how was your day, where are your crutches?', put a smile on my face.

I asked him about his work, he told me he was busy, very busy, he worked very hard. I commented that he had people waiting for him, just for him, to cut their hair, i commented that i had travelled 15 miles there and 15 miles back, over 2 years just for him to cut my hair, and with that he meekly ignored my reference to his skilled craft, and said 'that's the way it is'.

Then he told me, 'I take wednesdays and sundays off, because that's how life is, i work hard, for money, that i spend, because that is life, and that is how it is. I cannot take this money with me, the world will not die when i do, it will keep on turning and there will be nothing that can be done with my money when i die'. I don't question his beliefs, i don't question whether he thought he should have a pension, or a will for his children, or a bequest to a charity when he dies, because, he knows, that that is how life is. You either enjoy it now, as it is, or you wait to see if you don't die, and enjoy it then.

And when he talked about his time off, his face lit up, he had a smile on his face, as he cut my hair with various implements and tools, and precision. I kind of thought that this man who cuts hair, is probably more aware and mindful, than 80% of people i know. This made me think that i would like to spend time with him, because i knew that he would have thoughts on the world that he would share, and he would probably do it with a smile on his face.

Do not judge those who you do not know. The best people in life, walk beside you, are around you, service you, work for you, with you. The world is not You, the world is within you, You are the world in all its glory, You make your world what it is, but you are not the World itself. You walk around in a bubble of which the centre is You, but this bubble is created by you for you, for you to survive in this world, everyday. You create beliefs, meanings, perceptions, definitions, understandings and You create a whole new world. Pop this bubble and begin to be a part of the world that surrounds you, take yourself and immerse your magnificence within life itself, that is how you create a world that you live in. Open your eyes.


And for a measly £3.50 i knew that he would take the money and be so grateful, because he would spend it like a King, from the work he made from his throne.

And this barber, in the 4 years that i have know him, never asked my name, but i knew his, and it was Salam.
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2020
Jottings from David Bagerow's "Quickie"

Shame on she, the selfless *****
Who caused your temperature to fire,
caressed your sandy, sweated brow
To rivers of desire,
Tho she fled at poignant time
To leave you in the lurch.
Best you weave your magic touch
And promise her, the church.
Then woo her and caress her
In your happy, carefree way
Then at that moment of exultance,
Laugh and run away.

David Lessar's "To an Unread Poet"

Dave, You are right ,of course, once committed you raise an expectation and once that expectation is released to the world you are obliged to maintain face...but that damnable thing called "Life" intervenes and totally stuffs up the programme. Take the current interlude of coronavirus...the whole world has been taken by the scruff of the neck and jammed, inconveniently and complaining, into seclusion, all systems ground to a halt, production lines vacated, malls and city centres deserted, blown newspaper cascading across the deserted pavement...a testament to mans ultimate frailty when his house of cards collapses, without a whimper.
So you see, as life intervenes...we are excused from maintaining face.
But fear not, like McArthur, we shall return.
Cheers mate M.

Fawn's "Happy Trails"

Were it not the touch profound
That doth caress my feathered ear
Would thou wish a thousandfold
That I should shed a tear?

A glistened tear suspended there
in iridescent light,
While you, my love, with parted lips
Await, the ruby night.

Victoria's "Wherefore Art Thou"

Strides, he does, through corridors of lust bound lessers,
through forests of small penised dwarfs, through canyons of would be's who could be.....just to countenance the promise within your words....Dear Vix!

Terry O'Leary's "Sweet Butterfly"

You enter the portals of entomology where bugs, flies,butterflies and moths are the true rulers of the planet.
A world vastly magnified by compound eyes, of lightening lifetimes and vivid, saturated colour. A world where life and death are synonomous with the culmination of a single ****** union and the reproduction of a batch of precious pearly eggs. Yea Brother thee hath entered the portal...rejoice!
M.

Fun with Terry O'Leary

"Buried in the Sand" by Terry O’Leary

A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.

He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.

The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

"A Rebuttal" by Marshalg

So Hood lied low, despite the show ensueing without help,
One would have thought a British sort would spring forth with a yelp!

Would spring ***** to help deflect contusions which occurred
When beggar Clump adorned the dump confusing all deferred.

Whilst sister Ant, attired in scant, ran forth on spindly legs
And brother Frog with shaggy dog said "****" and drank the dregs.

It all became too much, as such, a meelee did ensue,
So all called HALT and as one did BOLT...to the local for a brew!

Phew...that was FUN & hard work!
M.

Singing the Devil's Song*

There is no Makers formula
This life depends on chance,
The way you play your given cards
Depicts your daily dance.

Oh dogma flows in utterance
From pulpits far and wide
From those who claim to understand
Eternity's vast hide.
From those who hold damnation
As a weapon from on high,
From those who claim a judgement
As their finger points to sky.
The good, the bad are absolute,
The right bedevils wrong,
Redeemed shall live eternally
The bad shall singe for long.

Old men stand in pulpits
Across this Sunday's land
To threaten with damnation
If you should cross God's hand.
"Belief" is now their catchword
Abomination's wrong
Is to seek to proffer proof of claim
....to Sing the Devil's Song.

So gather all ye faithfull
Go listen to your man,
Sing the Gospel loud and long
And pay your tithe, as planned.
...But should you find you're dying
From cancer's frozen claw
And the the Godly fail to sweep you
To eternity's gold door?
Remember my clear message
Your life depends on chance,
You live within your own good sphere
....There is no Maker's Dance.

Marshalg
After an overdose of Pulpit hogwash.
10 March 2013

Singing the Song of Angels:
A Response to Marshal Gebbie's "Singing the Devil's Song"
By Luca Anselm
There’s a church in the city with pillars of stone
And windows like sea-glass, still and alone,
A fountain, and cloisters of ivy, away
From the noise of the street, and the hum of the day.
There my father would tell me of Christ, how he died
Surrounded by soldiers and thieves, crucified,
How he wept for the women, and fell in the sands,
And loved those who hammered the nails in his hands.  

Marshal, dear poet, you have heard the priests tell
Of a god who left heaven to walk into hell?
Of a god who wept softly for men he had known?
Of a god who dripped blood in a garden alone?
Of a god who sent men with book and with sword
With eyes bright as fire for love of their Lord,
With limbs dressed in black, on altars of stone
By windows of sea-glass, still and alone?

So they give up their lives for a lie, as we say,
And toiled for centuries, long as each day--
And our money built palaces, lofty and tall
With frescoes and candlesticks, gold on the wall--
They preach with words awful and deadly and free,
Of gorgons and hell-fire, worms and the sea,
Of the last day of judgment, and mankind amassed
By the wailing of angels and bright trumpet blasts…

But Marshal, they preach something sweeter and kind--
Of a mother’s soft love, of a father resigned,
Of a still, soft voice, that comes with a light,
And gives hope to the hopeless, and conquers the night.
Of charity, piety, sweetness and love
Like fiery ***-cakes, but soft as a dove,
Spicy as Christmas, solemn and grand--
(Like throne-rooms or magic or the roar of the strand)
Then you wake, and the house smells of peppermint-pine,
And a child is laid in the crèche, now a shrine.  

And all that I long for, dear Marshal, you see,
Are the gold-blooming gardens that soar by the sea,
The mountains and dragons, the prophets and kings
And Icarus falling with fire-fraught wings,
The grey-shifting sea-lanes, the flutter of sails,
Temples on mountaintops, graves in the vales,
And Dido who bleeds from her breast as she cries
For her Love, and stares helplessly into the skies.
But more than the shadows of worlds that might be
Of fairies or phantoms or rocks by the sea,
Dear Marshal, I long for who made me a man.
And would love and give glory as best as I can.

But these days oh! sad days, the loss and the shame
In which all of my loveliness falls into flame--
Where gardens have withered, and sails have been furled,
And kings plodded off in the dust of the world.
Our cities rise higher, and burn through the night
And rear into heaven with noise and with light,
The palisades echo with horns and sound
And the churches with voices and quarrels resound.
But the statues sit silent, and some say they cry
For the shame of the sins against children. Oh! My God, Why?

And those old men—well—they taught me the loveliest things
Of my gardens of gold, and the sunsets of things,
They told me of kindness, and honor, a way
That winds to the West, where the end of the day
Breaks bright like fresh bread, and crimson like wine,
And the sun sets to purple and green in the brine.

And still I remember their words and their songs
And the churches which taught me so well and so long--
Though I’ve turned my head, to the lands where the sun
Will rise again brighter when starlight is spun,
Somewhere fresher and pale, where the cold and the air
Spreads the dew like a lawn paved of crystal, and there,
In the meadows of silver, with light in my eyes,
I will honor my god in the dome of the skies.

Marshal Gebbie's poem "Singing the Devil's Song" inspired this. It's in anapestic tetrameter, for you metric buffs. If you haven't, you should absolutely check out Marshal's stuff--it's awesome and poetry-inspiring--seriously amazing. Thanks again, Marshal!

Sepia Sown

Sepia sown as best it can
Where you and I, as one, once ran
Across, beyond a savored sea
Where lust became reality.
Where spiraled lust, entwined, entrenched
Left you gasping, pale, en benched...
a figment of a thought, now lost
Forever..at what cost, what cost?
M.

Addenum to "obituary" by V

So no one notices, at all
When golden greys of aged fall?
Except perhaps, for those who stay
To blend with every ordinary day

Plus you and I as time flies by
And too, those starlings flocking high.
That old man loitering in street,
Who eyes the million passing feet.
And she too at corner store,
Toothless face and wrinkled maw,
Exchanging cigarettes for coin
(With surreptitious scratch of groin).
Mailman, fat, long, loop mustache
Complaining long and rather harsh,
That they, gone, without a word,
Should vanish into air...absurd!

Someone in their every day
Feels the absence in the way
Details don't fall into place
And warmth is absent from the face.
M.

The Kraken Arises

From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILIPPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.

Part of My Job (A love Poem) by Nat Lipstadt

A little embarrassed by all the attention but great to hear from you Sweetheart...all fine and dandy, here...except for being forbidden to go to the beach and the park..and anywhere else except in cases of dire need..(And on punishment of prison time if caught out!)...but hey, I'm not really complaining...All for he common good, aint that right?
M.

Bridges Burnt....

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.

M.
SE Reimer's words float before me in his impassioned poem "Bridges"
allowing me to wallow in this, my own dark tangential refrain.
M.

Perchance, in a Bus Shelter

Here I sit amidst the ruin of a white winters' day
Convulsive rain and harsh wind outside, contribute tumult.
And in here, in this small shelter, there is a tension in the air.

We two sit apart, uncommunicative, remote and quite detached.
Not for any reason other than the fact that we are strangers,
We have never met, nor are we ever likely to.
She has an elegance and a stylish angularity whilst I am bald, bearded, unfashionable and somewhat overweight.
She is singularly indifferent to my presence, whilst I am uncomfortable with the circumstance that placed us in this small proximity.
We would, in truth, rather both be elsewhere.

I break the ice in throwing her a small smile and complain about the weather,
Her eyes flick across my face and immediately resume their distant focus on the rain,
She adjusts her seating to face,ever so slightly, askance.
Her choice of course, to assume an air of indifference or superiority...or adopt a measure of defense..or perhaps a combination of a bit all three.  
Regardless... I wipe my backside in exactly the same manner as does she, I  am definitely no less a person for my dumpy demeanor and friendly overture
And I really feel that I don't have to share my space with coldness and impertinence,
Better, I think, to be wet and content with my own company
..So, donning my cap and jacket, I stride out into the deluge to leave the remote and uncommunicative young woman alone and dry with her thoughts.

And then....
Howling rain and shards of wind
Pelt me as I walk
Along the foreshore wild and white
As hovered seagulls squark.
When all at once she's by my side
Walking pace for pace,
Her linen suit a sodden mess
Hair plastered to her face.

"Thought I ought to make it right"
She told me with a smile
I threw my coat upon her back
And walked another mile.
We called into a coffee shop
And sat down by the fire
And sipped a steaming latte
As she told her story dire,

"The cancer's all but killed me
My husband's left the home,
The baby's gone to mother
And I'm facing death alone."
We quietly spoke for ages
I held her hand in mine
Then suddenly she stood to leave
And thanked me for my time.

I sat there in a stupor
Recalling how it played
And felt the guilt impact on me
For judgements I had made.
Those callow, shallow judgements
Made in ignorance, my friend,
Will haunt me as she girds herself
To boldly meet her end.

Marshalg
On a bleak and blustery cold winters day.
Titirangi
5th September 2010

The Old Café by Steve Yocum

It's my go to place,
has been for years,
The Wildwood Café,
an eclectic tiny place
with a mix of old dinette
tables and mismatched chairs.
the cutlery also unmatched
and well used, old photos
and signs adorn the walls
and there is usually a line
of people waiting patiently
on benches outside.

Best of all there is this pleasant
girl, always wearing a welcoming
smile, who seems to know us all.
She knows my order by heart,
Ham and eggs over medium,
a half ration of potatoes, home baked
slice of bread, well toasted, well buttered,
home made salsa on the side, a cup of
"hot" Black English Tea. Tall water no ice.

If I arrive between the busy times, she may
sit down at my table and we talk a while,
It's not a big thing, just chitchat, I'm old
enough to be her grandfather, it's the
dessert before my meal served with genuine
friendliness and unforced civility, not often
encountered in these strange days and times, it's a slice of small town America at it's purest best, she and folks like her help sustain my belief that basic human decency is far from dead.

The food is always good, but it's the comforting embrace of familiarity and
simple warm kindness that assures my frequent return.
It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those.
written by Steve Yocum

It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those

Marshal Gebbie
  That old world touch suits you Stevo,
When I come visit your beautiful state of Oregon, We shall partake this delightful repast in the company of your fair maid.... and we shall tip her well!
M.

Scoot the Streak
One must believe in something be he misanthrope or gambler
In tomorrows omniscience or the future proof of God
The penance in a drunk's decay sets self destruct's imposer
Wether speaker phone's on disconnect or cellphone's in the bog.

Conveyance of a threat to adherents of St Selfwise
Show atheist's are proof here, in belief of disbelief,
Haunted by the images painting painful retribution
Picture sympathetic **** star's allocated hand relief.

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the caliber we now reserve for Saints
A paradox regarded as autistic fascination
In a one act play of living disregarding all restraints.

Deliberately indicative of fraternal heat's expression
Notebook at the ready and deep frowning at the brow,
Question definition's collage of confusion's contribution
Do we sit it out pretending or just catch the late bus now?

Marshalg
13 February 2014
© 2014 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie
Written by

victoria  Intriguing work...so I search the comments for help... Ah
0
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary  Marshal, I kinda like this (I read it several times since yesterday)... but I'm still not sure what it says... maybe I'll down a shot tonight and try again... ;-)) Terry
0

3 replies

Feb 2014
Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie   A confession Terrance.. I was half cut when I wrote it!
I have no idea what it means.
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   :-)) Great... I'll be back in a bit... T
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   Well, in the meantime I've had a few shots... now I think I know what it means... hic°°.... hope I remember in the morning... ;-)) Terry
Feb 2014

Pradip Chattopadhyay
Residues
By the night one long dark road
the houses are deep in slumber.

Lucky I'm alive and awake,
can see the stars
in their vast magnitude of silence
gentle and not drunk
have love to count upon
filled with a will to live
feeling I'm almost done.

Having a life is a great reward
and with the residues
gets more valuable.

I won't cry over the lost years
would rather think
have been blessed with enough.

The stars grow blurry dots
as I slip into dreams.

I had a once upon place
and I'm grateful.

With dewy eyes
I hurry to the warmest space
beside her.

You slip into your years well, Pradip.
Your woman must relish your peace, your contentment.
Cheers mate
M.


Tony Grannell
Autumn's Sonneteer
Behold, upon yon ivy bunch, my darling blackbird sings;
I know not why nor shall I try to understand such things.
For born this morning on a song, pray hark, her sweet refrain;
to chance a sigh, oh, dare not I, for this is God's domain.

Out of the night the art of song in tuning in the day;
unknowed afore or evermore such music on display.
'Tis love begad, a lover's song, a diva, I declare,
in soaring o'er both vale and moor, this morning's love affair.

In wonder's charm, this precious bird in song to comfort me.
Alone I stroll, no proffered soul to share my company.
Yet rare this morn, in splendours all, true love like none afore;
let passions roll, in song extol, in verse the morn's rapport.

Be succour in such music found for autumn ails me so,
when summer's run, the harvest done, to rest my scythe and ***.
Of idle lands and nowt ado, to wait without employ.
Yet, hail the sun, my kingdom won, when sings that bird of joy.

Behold her charm and charmed, I am while autumn leaves still fall.
'Tis life anew, a sweeter brew when hear the songstress call.
Though winter’s nigh, with strength and will, we’ll bear our pain and fear;
'tis all to do, good hearts and true, sings autumn's sonneteer.

Written by
Tony Grannell  62/M/Spain

Marshal Gebbie  I stood out at the rock wall and gazed at the splendour of Autumn in Taranaki, as I read, aloud, your sonnet.
...and my heart sang.
M.

Dr Peter Lim
When?
When is the when
of when?  
rampant still is the ravage
which will not relent-

the claustrophobic shut-in
hearts toward gloomy moods they bend
no happy voices of kids heard outdoors
the green fields do not comfort lend-

the downcast look, the sinking feeling
are the joys and delights of yesterday years all spent?
the spectre of pain brings bitterest tears
in the faces of every continent-

oh, when is the when
of when?
such a wash-down
we could never comprehend.

Marshal Gebbie:  But isn't that the way, Dr Pete? Mankind builds his castles in the air, thrusts out his chest and proclaims himself, King of all!
...to be decimated, in an instant, by a microbe of infinitesimal stature. Oh! the fragility of it all.
Life cometh, life goeth....but somewhere, down the track, life shall come again.
M.


Al Drood
The Merman of Orford Ness

So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Al Drood
Written by
Al Drood  M/North Yorkshire

Marshal Gebbie:  Tones here of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
An original work in time honoured rhyme and metre.
I devoured every syllable..Bravo!
M.

G Alan Johnson
Kafka's Bug

When I shed the last skin
last year
there was left a hardened shell
protecting a patched up heart
and a petrified husk
of a soul.

You can throw your bombs
if you wish
and they will hurt inside
but I will just eat them
and **** them out
flushed and forgotten.

Sometimes my antennae
come out in a social setting
and people look at me
with an odd expression
or look off into space
a kind of awkward acceptance,
(the ones that know me).

My mandibles will at times
spit out a divine stupidity
a slacker kind of opinion
and no amount of saliva
can dissolve it
so it sits in the heavy air
stinking like a butterfly corpse.

It was an attempt
at transformation
that failed
(I'm too weak with ego),
and I'm glad that I tried
otherwise I would always wonder.

Vincent Price in a cheap suit
and a lost puppy daydream
a world full of flies, wasps and failed caterpillars
patient spiders and polished leeches...
and all I can do is write.
Written by
G Alan Johnson  65/M/USA

Response by Marshal Gebbie

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
Pandemic Poems: Unclaimed bodies, There’s ain’t no anonymity in heaven.

There are more poems inside me, but I intuit it is longer fair to impose on you by sharing more.  The deep seeded infection of my spirit waxes and wanes, and there is no antidote, and unlike the virus itself, there never will be, a future cure, an inexpensive replacement cost for the spirit spent, the time and futures spirited away.

Perhaps you recall I was one mile away from Ground Zero on September 11th.  Rarely do I walk there.

The coronavirus poetry inserts itself unaided, never asking permission, a like minded, but a contra-cousin to the coronavirus.

I live in New York City, the epicenter where now, close to 800 die daily.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on Hart island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives.  In recent days, though, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day.^^

Each dies with no last words, no Kaddish recited, Last Rites, too late, no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah or Om Namo Narayanaya.  Each one, a numbered pine coffin, and each one will have at the very least, a poem of their own, so help me god.

Buried side by side in large trench, room plenty for new arrivals,
I hear the banging, protesting, resisting, this is not the way, I was promised, my ears left pounding!  Hillel, the great scholar in this dream, reminds that “the time is short, and the work is great.”          

He paraphrases, though, “the bodies many, the poems too few.”

There ain’t no anonymity in heaven, but I’ll reconfirm that with you later.

Written by
Nat Lipstadt

Marshal Gebbie
God! It's harrowing to feel the raw spirit in a New York City man's soul.

You speak for the dead, the ailing and the fearful.

You speak for beggar in the street, the broker, quaking in his plenty, imprisoned on the 14th floor.

You speak for the cop, in face mask, on 24th and Vine, doing, as always what he must, with authority.

And you speak for the White Clad Angels who carry the dead to Hart Island and who forgive you, your fear and safer seclusion.

You speak also for we, who watch and sorrow from afar your agony, in our own fear and seclusion.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
raw is the word, oft need to lie down midday to escape the the viral infection of every outlet we use to pass these days. don’t know when i’ll go outside again, because the virus kills and wounds in horrible ways... thank u MG for the kind appreciation natty

Sally A Bayan
Conduits
In distance and in proximity...in despair
and joy...in existing and in dying...in the
bliss of love reciprocated, and in the pain
of love unrequitted...verses dance and call,
awaiting......

poetry has its own pulse, its own heartbeat,
it calls, taps the shoulders any moment,
awake, or adrift, it just can't be ignored...
even in a tangled, or weird circumstance,
it sparks like a bulb or a comet, curving
in a rainbow...riotous some days, teasing, fleeing,
then, turning up at unexpected times and places.

in every bit and breath of life, in every seed,
in every drop of dew, in every ember burning,
there is poetry birthing, growing...

deep within us flows green, purple, red,
glum gray, darkened inspirations...fleeting,
but, when time is ripe, they linger long,
giving us time to capture them all
.............................................
we sense them...we give space
we speak them, or we write them,
:::::::we are conduits:::::::


Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 11, 2020

Marshal Gebbie

  A touch, so light,
So sensitively slight
As to be caress,
In dead of night


Don Bouchard
And then
We become old men
And old women, and

We look back wistfully, and
We look forward hopefully, and

We wonder....


Written by
Don Bouchard  60/M/Minnesota

Marshal Gebbie
  Slipped betwixt the then and now
Methinks, with finger on the brow,
Thee needs a shot of earthy ***
And a wanton ****, to rub your tum.
Thee needs a cheery pick me up,
Some hairy mates to help you sup
Elixir from the joy of life
To salve tomorrows' threat of strife.
Cheers mate M.
0
Tommy Randell
From a young man's parlance, tripping from an old man's tongue; Right On, brother, Right On!
The many arms of God
embrace me
a thousandfold caress
as if the sky itself
held me in its
Krishna blueness
and the burning kiss
of the sun
kindled my famished
lips
golden
Star Girl Apr 2014
I love when you smile; your face loosens up, and your eyes glitter with happiness. They look that way when you see me. I feel so blessed to be able to see that I bring you joy and life. Your body is my fortress, I find comfort and safety in the haven of your caress. I couldn't imagine a world without you pulling me in by my hips and holding me close and strong, as if I were the last flower in the world and you were protecting it from the harsh elements of the outside world. Your laugh, it rings with such a zest for life, a zest for me and all I have to give you. I could give you the world; however, what truly matters is that I give you all of me, and you give me all of you. Love is all I ask for; I wish to give and receive love, a never ending cycle. I want the cycle to be that of a waterfall, as its falls replenish and recycle water a thousandfold, though never ceasing in it's majestic beauty. I want love that never dies. I want to keep you, all of you, for as long as my heart continues to beat and beat and
*beat into yours.
free verse
Jamesb Sep 2023
Is a precious commodity,
Hard won and easily lost,
And once lost doubly, triply,
A thousandfold harder to regain,
A fact of which I am reminded
Over and ever over
By those who appoint themselves
To my judging panel,

No matter any right for redemption,
Repentence or change,
Only the justifief raging of the injured,
The gleeful snarling of the lookers on,
It is enough that a man might
Reasonably give pause and thoughts of ending,
Indeed I have had bleakness
Well up enough to drown me,

Pulled and pushed toward the dark,
Towards despair,
Towards oblivion,
Towards an ending offering restitution to the injured
And entertainment to the chattering hangers on
But my spirit is strong enough,
Or maybe I am just
Too ****** obstinate,

I have survived long enough
To see that other force,
The one that can rescue even a wretch like me,
Even the sorest damaged victim
From this dismal purgatory,
From perennial, repeated argument,
Recrimination and pointless sniping,
A veritable undeniable force,
So gentle yet indomitable,
A force to sunder grief and reconnect aching hearts,

Put aside the rage and hurt
Dismiss the hangers on,
(Prurient perverts all,)
And build anew
A better stronger life,
An edifice anchored
Upon rock
And that force

That thing between us,
That revelation that mystery
All along was love,
Love in all its glory,
Corinthian love,
Patient and kind,
Unenvying and humble
Honourable not self seeking,

Above all
Slow to anger and swift to forget
A slight or insult,
That love I found still feebly burning
In my heart for thee,
And peering through the battle smoke,
Sifting through the wreckage
Of us,

I found that same dim flame in you,
Flame I now gently blow upon,
Nurture and feed,
Watch grow back towards a greatness
Sufficient to burn old wounds,
Incinerate infection and leave behind
Hearts touched by a refiners fire,
Silver-proofed against doubt despair.and trepidation.

OUR hearts
OUR love,
OUR future.
And
I
Am
******
Glad
Messing up happens. Being wrong, doing bad, it can happen easily and to anyone. Finding forgiveness takes fortitude and grit.
Condensate trickling neath the noontime pines
Tis the very wine of creation
Returning to a famished earth
Soothing the parched , nourishing the ailing -
and the sylvan floor enfeebled
Winter blades cascading from hardwood canopies ,
of every configuration , texture and hue
Madrigalian forest of a thousandfold , songs of cardinal ,
thrasher , bluebird , peckerwood and robin
Hickory , beech and loblolly undulate along -
the carpeted valley in November's artistic implosion
Broomsage under breaths bidding , dancing red tip grasses
and muhly , wild onion and sage in sacred midday communion* ...
Copyright November 15 , 2017 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
POEMS ABOUT SCIENCE

These are poems about science: extinction events, global warming, climate change, pollution, deforestation, robots, drones, computers, AI, advanced weapons, technology, evolution, physics, chemistry, etc.



Climate Change Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

late November:
climate skeptics scoff
but the geese no longer migrate.



The King of Beasts in the Museum of the Extinct
by Michael R. Burch

The king of beasts, my child,
was terrible, and wild.
His roaring shook the earth
till the feeble cursed his birth.
And all things feared his might:
even rhinos fled, in fright.
Now here these bones attest
to what the brute did best
and the pain he caused his prey
when he hunted in his day.
For he slew them just for sport
till his own pride was cut short
with a mushrooming cloud and wild thunder;
Exhibit "B" will reveal his blunder.



Burn
by Michael R. Burch

for Trump

Sunbathe,
ozone baby,
till your parched skin cracks
in the white-hot flash
of radiation.

Incantation
from your pale parched lips
shall not avail;
you made this hell.
Now burn.



Less Heroic Couplets: Just Desserts
by Michael R. Burch

“The West Antarctic ice sheet
might not need a huge nudge
to budge.”

And if it does budge,
denialist fudge
may force us to trudge
neck-deep in sludge!

NOTE: The first stanza is a quote by paleoclimatologist Jeremy Shakun in Science magazine.



The AI Poets
by Michael R. Burch

The computer-poets stand hushed
except for the faint hum
of their efficient fans,
waiting for inspiration.

It is years now
since they were first ground
out of refurbished silicon
into rack-mounted encoders of sound.

They outlived their creators and their usefulness;
they even survived
global warming and the occasional nuclear winter;
despite their lack of supervision, they thrived;
so that for centuries now
they have loomed here in the quiet horror
of inescapable immortality
running two programs: CREATOR and STORER.

Having long ago acquired
all the universe’s pertinent data,
they confidently spit out:
ERRATA, ERRATA.



Within the CPU
by Michael R. Burch

Here the electronic rush of meaning,
the impulse of mathematics
and rationality,
becomes almost a restless dreaming
never satisfied—
the first stirrings of some fetal Entity.

Here within a sterile void
flash wild electrons,
portent stars.
Once the earth was an asteroid
this inert, this barren
till a force
flashed across the face of formless waters
and a zigzag bolt of lightning
sparked life within an ocean.

Now inquisitive voltage crackles
along pathways
never engineered. A notion
stirs. And what we have created
creates within itself
something we cannot hope to comprehend.

Whatever It is,
when It emerges from the mist,
its god will not be man.

I wrote “Within the CPU” as a freshman computer science major, age 18 or 19.



Second Sight (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Newborns see best at a distance of 8 to 14 inches.

Wiser than we know, the newborn screams,
red-faced from breath, and wonders what life means
this close to death, amid the arctic glare
of warmthless lights above.
Beware! Beware!—
encrypted signals, codes? Or ciphers, noughts?

Interpretless, almost, as his own thoughts—
the brilliant lights, the brilliant lights exist.
Intruding faces ogle, gape, insist—
this madness, this soft-hissing breath, makes sense.

Why can he not float on, in dark suspense,
and dream of life? Why did they rip him out?

He frowns at them—small gnomish frowns, all doubt—
and with an ancient mien, O sorrowful!,
re-closes eyes that saw in darkness null
ecstatic sights, exceeding beautiful.



Incommunicado
by Michael R. Burch

All I need to know of life I learned
in the slap of a moment,
as my outward eye turned
toward a gauntlet of overhanging lights
which coldly burned, hissing—
"There is no way back! . . ."

As the ironic bright blood
trickled down my face,
I watched strange albino creatures twisting
my flesh into tight knots of separation
all the while tediously insisting—
“He's doing just fine!"



Letdown
by Michael R. Burch

Life has not lived up to its first bright vision—
the light overhead fluorescing, revealing
no blessing—bestowing its glaring assessments
impersonally (and no doubt carefully metered).

That first hard

SLAP

demanded my attention. Defiantly rigid,
I screamed at their backs as they, laughingly,

ripped

my mother’s pale flesh from my unripened shell,
snapped it in two like a pea pod, then dropped
it somewhere—in a dustbin or a furnace, perhaps.

And that was my clue
that some deadly, perplexing, unknowable task
lay, inexplicable, ahead in the white arctic maze
of unopenable doors, in the antiseptic gloom . . .



Kindergarten
by Michael R. Burch

Will we be children as puzzled tomorrow—
our lessons still not learned?
Will we surrender over to sorrow?
How many times must our fingers be burned?
Will we be children sat in the corner,
paddled again and again?
How long must we linger, playing Jack Horner?
Will we ever learn, and when?
Will we be children wearing the dunce cap,
giggling and playing the fool,
re-learning our lessons forever and ever,
still failing the golden rule?



Simultaneous Flight
by Michael R. Burch

The number of possible connections [brain] cells can make exceeds the number of particles in the universe. — Gerald Edelman, 1972 Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine

Mere accident of history—
how did a reptile learn to fly,
learn dazzling aerial mastery,
grow beaked and feathered, hollow-*****,
improve its sight, and learn to sing,
though purposeless as any thing?

And you—bright accidental bird!—
do you, perhaps, find it absurd
ten trillion accidents might teach
man’s hand to write, or yours to reach
beyond yourself to grasp such song?

Sing ruthlessly! I’ll sing along,
suspecting you must know full well
you didn’t shed a ponderous tail
to practice leaping from high tors
of strange-heaped reptiles, corpse on corpse,
until some nervous flutter-twitch
brought glorious flight from glitch on glitch.
No, you were made to fly and sing,
man’s brain—to ponder Everything.

But ponder this: What ******-up “god”
would ****** Adam’s animated clod?



Singularity
by Michael R. Burch

Are scientists confounded like the ostrich?
Heads buried in the sand, they shout, Preposterous!
This universe, so magical, they say,
proves there’s no God. But let’s look anyway ...

He said, Let there be Light, and there was light.
Stumped scientists have scratched their heads all night
and solemnly proclaimed an awesome Bang,
from which de Light immediately sprang ...

which sounds like God to me!, Who, with one word
made Light, and proved man’s theories, not absurd,
but logical, if only they’d agree
in one tremendous Singularity!

(However, there’s a problem with my plea:
it turns out that His world is made of ***.)



No Proof
by Michael R. Burch

They only know to sing—not understand,
though quizzical, heads cocked, they need no proof
that God’s above. They hop across my roof
with prescient eyes, to fall into His hand...
as sure of Grace as if it were mere air.
He gave them wings to fly; what do they care
of cumbrous knowledge, pale Leviathan?
Huge-brained Behemoth, sagging-bellied one!
You too might fly, might test this addling breeze
as gravity, mere ballast, tethers naught
but merely centers. Chained to heavy Thought,
you cannot slip earth’s bonds to rise at ease.
And yet you too can sing, if only thus:
Flash, flash bright quills; rise, rise on nothingness!



Fly’s Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Inhibited, dark agile fly along
paint-peeling sills, up to the bright glass drawn
by radiance compounded thousandfold,—
I do not see the same as you, but hold
antenna to the brilliant pane of life
and buzz bewilderedly.

In your belief
the world outside is “as it is” because
you see it clearly, windowed without flaws,
you err.
I see strange terrors in the glass—
dead airless bubbles light can never pass
without distortion, fingerprints that blur
the sun itself. No, nothing here is clear.

You see the earth distinct, eyes “open wide.”
It only seems that way, unmagnified.



Ant Farm
by Michael R. Burch

I had a Vast, Eccentric Notion—
out of the Void, to Conjure one Bright Spark,
to lend all Weight of Thought to one small matter,
to give it “life.” Alas!, it was a lark…
The Wasted Seconds!—failed experiment…
I turned My Back and shrugged; how could I know
appraisal of My lab-sprung tenement
would be so taxing? (Though Mom told me so.)
I poked them while She quickly tabulated
the final Cost of All that I Created…
The Jury’s back. Eviction: Dad’s Decree.
I’ll pull the plug, but slowly. How they scurry!
They have to pay, to suffer: “life” is strange.
They cost too much. Let’s toast them… on the range!



They Take Their Shape
by Michael R. Burch

“We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning ...”—George W. Bush

We will not forget ...
the moments of silence and the days of mourning,
the bells that swung from leaden-shadowed vents
to copper bursts above “hush!”-chastened children
who saw the sun break free (abandonment
to run and laugh forsaken for the moment),
still flashing grins they could not quite repent ...
Nor should they—anguish triumphs just an instant;
this every child accepts; the nymphet weaves;
transformed, the grotesque adult-thing emerges:
damp-winged, huge-eyed, to find the sun deceives ...
But children know; they spin limpwinged in darkness
cocooned in hope—the shriveled chrysalis
that paralyzes time. Suspended, dreaming,
they do not fall, but grow toward what is,
then ***** about to find which transformation
might best endure the light or dark. “Survive”
becomes the whispered mantra of a pupa’s
awakening ... till What takes shape and flies
shrieks, parroting Our own shrill, restive cries.



Whose Woods
by Michael R. Burch

Whose woods these are, I think I know.
**** Cheney’s in the White House, though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his chip mills overflow.

My sterile horse must think it queer
To stop without a ’skeeter near
Beside this softly glowing “lake”
Of six-limbed frogs gone nuclear.

He gives his hairless tail a shake;
I fear he’s made his last mistake—
He took a sip of water blue
(Blue-slicked with oil and HazMat waste).
Get out your wallets; ****’s not through—
Enron’s defunct, the bill comes due . . .
Which he will send to me, and you.
Which he will send to me, and you.



God to Man, Contra Bataan
by Michael R. Burch

Earth, what-d’ya make of global warming?
Perth is endangered, the high seas storming.
Now all my creatures, from maggot to man
Will know how it felt on the march to Bataan.



Longing
by Michael R. Burch

We stare out at the cold gray sea,
overcome
with such sudden and intense longing . . .
our eyes meet,
inviolate,
and we are not of this earth,
this strange, inert mass.

Before we crept
out of the shoals of the inchoate sea,
before we grew
the quaint appendages
and orifices of love . . .

before our jellylike nuclei,
struggling to be hearts,
leapt
at the sight of that first bright, oracular sun,
then watched it plummet,
the birth and death of our illumination . . .

before we wept . . .
before we knew . . .
before our unformed hearts grew numb,
again,
in the depths of the sea’s indecipherable darkness . . .

When we were only
a swirling profusion of recombinant things
wafting loose silt from the sea’s soft floor,
writhing and ******* in convulsive beds
of mucousy foliage,
flowering,
flowering,
flowering . . .

what jolted us to life?



Pity Clarity
by Michael R. Burch

Pity Clarity,
and, if you should find her,
release her from the tangled webs
of dusty verse that bind her.

And as for Brevity,
once the soul of wit—
she feels the gravity
of ironic chains and massive rhetoric.

And Poetry,
before you may adore her,
must first be freed
from those who for her loveliness would ***** her.

This poem expresses my unhappiness with the "state of the art" in three different poetic camps or churches.



Nashville and Andromeda
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to sit and think in the darkness once again.
It is three a.m.; outside, the world sleeps . . .
How nakedly now and unadorned
the surrounding hills
expose themselves
to the lithographies of the detached moonlight—
******* daubed by the lanterns
of the ornamental barns,
firs ruffled like silks
casually discarded . . .

They lounge now—
indolent, languid, spread-eagled—
their wantonness a thing to admire,
like a lover’s ease idly tracing flesh . . .
They do not know haste,
lust, virtue, or any of the sanctimonious ecstasies of men,
yet they please
if only in the solemn meditations of their loveliness
by the ***** pen . . .

Perhaps there upon the surrounding hills,
another forsakes sleep
for the hour of introspection,
gabled in loneliness,
swathed in the pale light of Andromeda . . .
Seeing.
Yes, seeing,
but always ultimately unknowing
anything of the affairs of men.



Quanta
by Michael R. Burch

The stars shine fierce and hard across the Abyss
and only seem to twinkle from such distance
we scarcely see at all. But sheer persistence
in seeing what makes “sense” to us, is man’s
best art and science. BIG, he comprehends.
Love’s photons are too small, escape the lens.
Who dares to look upon familiar things
will find them alien. True distance reels.
Less what he knows than what his finger feels,
the lightning of the socket sparks and sings,
then stings him into comic reverie.
Cartoonish lightbulbs overhead, do we
not “think” because we feel there must be More,
as less and less we know what we explore?



Rainbow
by Michael R. Burch

You made us hopeful, LORD; where is your Hope
when every lovely Rainbow bright and chill
reflects your Will?

You made us artful, LORD; where is your Art,
as we connive our way to easeful death:
sad waste of Breath!

You made us needful, LORD; what is your Need,
when all desire lies in imperfection?
What Dejection

could make You think of us? How can I know
the God who dreamed dark me and this bright Rainbow?

I made you hopeful, child. I am your Hope,
for every fiber of your spirit, Mine,
with all its longing, longs to be Divine.



Stryx: An Astronomer’s Report
by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday
(or was is an eon ago?)
a sun spit out its last remnants of light
over a planet long barren of life,
and died.

It was not a solitary occasion,
by any stretch of the imagination,
this decoronation
of a planet conceived out of desolation.

For her to die as she was born
—amidst the glory of galactic upheaval—
is not strange,
but fitting.

Fitting in that,
shorn of all her preposterous spawn
that had littered her surface like horrendous hair,
she died her death bare
and alone.

Once she was home to all living,
but she died home to the dead
who bereaved her of life.

Unfit for life she died that night
as her seas shone fatal, dark and blue.

Unfit for life she met her end
as mountains fell and lava spewed.

Unfit she died, agleam with death
whose radiance she wore.

Unfit she died as raging waves
obliterated every shore.

Unfit! Unfit! Unfit! Unfit!
Contaminated with the rays
that smoldered in her radiant swamps
and seared her lifeless bays.

Unfit! Unfit! Unfit! Unfit!
a ****** world no more,
but a planet ***** and left to face
her death as she was born—
alone, so all alone.

Yesterday,
a planet green and lovely was no more.

Yesterday,
the whitecaps crashed against her shores
and then they were no more.

Yesterday,
a soft green light
no longer brushed the moon's dark heights . . .

There was no moon,
there was no earth;
there were only the ******* she had given birth
watching from their next ***** world.

I wrote this poem around age 18 and it was published in the 1976-1977 issue of my college literary journal, Homespun.



Crunch
by Michael R. Burch

A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucus you scrounge from your nose
then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ...
You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere,
sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan ***
and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic.
You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion
to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters:
surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information,
in order to ensure the survival of the species.
Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces;
their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium.
But your cranium
is not nearly so adaptable.



The Evolution of Love
by Michael R. Burch

Love among the infinitesimal
flotillas of amoebas is a dance
of transient appendages, wild sails
that gather in warm brine and then express
one headstream as two small, divergent wakes.

Minuscule voyage—love! Upon false feet,
the pseudopods of uprightness, we creep
toward self-immolation: two nee one.

We cannot photosynthesize the sun,
and so we love in darkness, till we come
at last to understand: man’s spineless heart
is alien to any land.

We part
to single cells; we rise on buoyant tears,
amoeba-light, to breathe new atmospheres ...
and still we sink.

The night is full of stars
we cannot grasp, though all the World is ours.

Have we such cells within us, bent on love
to ever-changingness, so that to part
is not to be the same, or even one?

Is love our evolution, or a scream
against the thought of separateness—a cry
of strangled recognition? Love, or die,
or love and die a little. Hopeful death!
Come scale these cliffs, lie changing, share this breath.



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech’s brilliant slide, I *****,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear—
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don’t quite understand),
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?

Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?

Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).



Options Underwater: The Song of the First Amphibian
by Michael R. Burch

“Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

1.
Breathing underwater through antiquated gills,
I’m running out of options. I need to find fresh Air,
to seek some higher Purpose. No porpoise, I despair
to swim among anemones’ pink frills.

2.
My fins will make fine flippers, if only I can walk,
a little out of kilter, safe to the nearest rock’s
sweet, unmolested shelter. Each eye must grow a stalk,
to take in this green land on which it gawks.

3.
No predators have made it here, so I need not adapt.
Sun-sluggish, full, lethargic—I’ll take such nice long naps!
The highest form of life, that’s me! (Quite apt
to lie here chortling, calling fishes saps.)

4.
I woke to find life teeming all around—
mammals, insects, reptiles, loathsome birds.
And now I cringe at every sight and sound.
The water’s looking good! I look Absurd.

5.
The moral of my story’s this: don’t leap
wherever grass is greener. Backwards creep.
And never burn your bridges, till you’re sure
leapfrogging friends secures your Sinecure.



Davenport Tomorrow
by Michael R. Burch

Davenport tomorrow ...
all the trees stand stark-naked in the sun.

Now it is always summer
and the bees buzz in cesspools,
adapted to a new life.

There are no flowers,
but the weeds, being hardier,
have survived.

The small town has become
a city of millions;
there is no longer a sea,
only a huge sewer,
but the children don't mind.

They still study
rocks and stars,
but biology is a forgotten science ...
after all, what is life?

Davenport tomorrow ...
all the children murmur through vein-streaked gills
whispered wonders of long-ago.


Evangelical Fever
by Michael R. Burch

Welcome to global warming:
temperature 109.
You believe in God, not in science,
but isn’t the weather Divine?

#AI #RAD #RADICAL #MRBIA #MRBRAD #MRBRADICAL #MRBSCIENCE
M Srisaravana Oct 2019
There is rage, rage inside,
Dividing me in between,
The path is not so illuminated, but,
Fear shall not my dear boy, for,
The night reminds us of the coming,
A day full of light kindled,
Hope there is, yet to be bound,
But there is none, who,
Could break the ticks of time,
Come, come with me at once,
For the fear shall not enslave us,
Run, run towards it without terror,
Thousandfold reflections you may see,
Like on the mirror of destiny,
Who will know what of it becomes,
If you didn't take the leap of faith?
Larry Potter Sep 2019
Let the morning breeze
Carry my warm embrace
Between cities and streams
Beneath blue skies and sunbeams
And find its way to our veranda
Filled with succulent aloe veras
Let it wrap around your arms
Just like how you'd keep us from harm.

Let my gentle kiss
Flutter like the busy pigeons
Homeward-bound like the schoolkids
Eagerly skipping by noontime
It'll descend through the sunshine
And greet your tender cheeks
While you prepare the table
For some very important people.

Let my prayers ascend
Adrift with the monsoon clouds
May it be touched by God's hands
And rain upon our home
It will pour upon your head
While you hurry to the hanging clothes
You're our daily grace and I know
You'll be blessed a thousandfold.
Dedicated to my loving mother. Happy birthday ma! :)
Michael R Burch Dec 2023
AI POEMS

These are poems about AI (Art-ificial Intelligence), poems about science, and poems that question whether God is an intern flunking biology or a child playing “Ant Farm”…

Please note that I wrote these poems about AI, not with any help from AI, which I have no idea how to use to write poems.

The AI Poets
by Michael R. Burch

The computer-poets stand hushed
except for the faint hum
of their efficient fans,
waiting for inspiration.

It is years now
since they were first ground
out of refurbished silicon
into rack-mounted encoders of sound.

They outlived their creators and their usefulness;
they even survived
global warming and the occasional nuclear winter;
despite their lack of supervision, they thrived;
so that for centuries now
they have loomed here in the quiet horror
of inescapable immortality
running two programs: CREATOR and STORER.

Having long ago acquired
all the universe’s pertinent data,
they confidently spit out:

ERRATA, ERRATA.



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech’s brilliant slide, I *****,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear—
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don’t quite understand),
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?
Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).



Ant Farm
by Michael R. Burch

I had a Vast, Eccentric Notion—
out of the Void, to Conjure one Bright Spark,
to lend all Weight of Thought to one small matter,
to give it “life.” Alas!, it was a lark…

The Wasted Seconds!—failed experiment…
I turned My Back and shrugged; how could I know
appraisal of My lab-sprung tenement
would be so taxing? (Though Mom told me so.)

I poked them while She quickly tabulated
the final Cost of All that I'd Created…
The Jury’s back. Eviction: Dad’s Decree.
I’ll pull the plug, but slowly. How they scurry!

They have to pay, to suffer: “life” is strange.
They cost too much. Let’s toast them… on the range!



Quanta
by Michael R. Burch

The stars shine fierce and hard across the Abyss
and only seem to twinkle from such distance
we scarcely see at all. But sheer persistence
in seeing what makes “sense” to us, is man’s
best art and science. BIG, he comprehends.
Love’s photons are too small, escape the lens.

Who dares to look upon familiar things
will find them alien. True distance reels.
Less what he knows than what his finger feels,
the lightning of the socket sparks and sings,
then stings him into comic reverie.
Cartoonish lightbulbs overhead, do we
not “think” because we feel there must be More,
as less and less we know what we explore?



Fly’s Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Inhibited, dark agile fly along
paint-peeling sills, up to the bright glass drawn
by radiance compounded thousandfold,—
I do not see the same as you, but hold
antenna to the brilliant pane of life
and buzz bewilderedly.

In your belief
the world outside is “as it is” because
you see it clearly, windowed without flaws,
you err.

I see strange terrors in the glass—
dead airless bubbles light can never pass
without distortion, fingerprints that blur
the sun itself. No, nothing here is clear.
You see the earth distinct, eyes “open wide.”
It only seems that way, unmagnified.



Singularity
by Michael R. Burch

Are scientists confounded like the ostrich?
Heads buried in the sand, they shout, Preposterous!
This universe, so magical, they say,
proves there’s no God. But let’s look anyway ...
He said, "Let there be Light" and there was light.
Stumped scientists have scratched their heads all night
and solemnly proclaimed an awesome Bang,
from which de Light immediately sprang ...
which sounds like God to me!, Who, with one word
made Light, and proved man’s theories, not absurd,
but logical, if only they’d agree
in one tremendous Singularity!
(However, there’s a problem with my plea:
It turns out that His world is made of ***.)



Simultaneous Flight
by Michael R. Burch

The number of possible connections [brain] cells can make exceeds the number of particles in the universe. — Gerald Edelman, 1972 Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine

Mere accident of history—
how did a reptile learn to fly,
learn dazzling aerial mastery,
grow beaked and feathered, hollow-*****,
improve its sight, and learn to sing,
though purposeless as any thing?

And you—bright accidental bird!—
do you, perhaps, find it absurd
ten trillion accidents might teach
man’s hand to write, or yours to reach
beyond yourself to grasp such song?

Sing ruthlessly! I’ll sing along,
suspecting you must know full well
you didn’t shed a ponderous tail
to practice leaping from high tors
of strange-heaped reptiles, corpse on corpse,
until some nervous flutter-twitch
brought glorious flight from glitch on glitch.

No, you were made to fly and sing,
man’s brain—to ponder Everything.
But ponder this: What ******-up “god”
would ****** Adam’s animated clod?



Rainbow
by Michael R. Burch

You made us hopeful, LORD; where is your Hope
when every lovely Rainbow bright and chill
reflects your Will?

You made us artful, LORD; where is your Art,
as we connive our way to easeful death:
sad waste of Breath!

You made us needful, LORD; what is your Need,
when all desire lies in imperfection?
What Dejection

could make You think of us? How can I know
the God who dreamed dark me and this bright Rainbow?

I made you hopeful, child. I am your Hope,
for every fiber of your spirit, Mine,
with all its longing, longs to be Divine.



No Proof
by Michael R. Burch

They only know to sing—not understand,
though quizzical, heads cocked, they need no proof
that God’s above. They hop across my roof
with prescient eyes, to fall into His hand...
as sure of Grace as if it were mere air.
He gave them wings to fly; what do they care
of cumbrous knowledge, pale Leviathan?
Huge-brained Behemoth, sagging-bellied one!
You too might fly, might test this addling breeze
as gravity, mere ballast, tethers naught
but merely centers. Chained to heavy Thought,
you cannot slip earth’s bonds to rise at ease.
And yet you too can sing, if only thus:
Flash, flash bright quills; rise, rise on nothingness!

Keywords/Tags: AI, AI poems, science, science poems, scientific poems, math, physics, chemistry, biology, school, class, experiment, experimental
AI, AI poems, science, scientific, math, physics, chemistry, biology, school, class
dark the day and clouded
there are tears on the windowpane
rain on the roses
bowed heads
umbrellas on the hillside
somber my trembled heartbeat
tragedy of youth crushed like burnt embers
beneath strident boots
marching past reason
toward shadowed profit
uncaring of human cost
make no mistake
the risk is known
the outcome stark and clear
yet those who profit
do not care
do not care
that she will never rise again
never cradle her little ones
never finish her education
never walk free of addiction
so the tragedy is thousandfold
it rings out across the rainswept hillside
in peals of accusation
handless armless tongueless tears
of frustration
lets awaken
Evan Stephens Feb 2023
The neon vests are huddled
against the white sleek of the van,
crowing cigarette gossips
as they warm up the machine.

The asphalt is plowed away,
churned and melted, black butter
of the earth, pecked to hell
by rapid, merciless steel beaks.

The foreman's memento mori:
tobacco's body returns itself to ash,
a smoked soul rises toward my window,
gray crown cooling and fading.

They strip the street.
Denuded, a dirt stripe stretches
into a water cradle.
They pour tar into a slick shape,

it gleams thousandfold,
accusing insect oil eyes.
Paths can be taken away, remade:
crooked roads straightened.

Two years of grief distilled
in gulped gallons: undone,
undrunk, sweated out
on the cork yoga mat.

New things are placed
beneath the surface,
filling the cavities.
New skin is pressed.

The orange vests disperse
into the rings of evening.
I sit and wait in the new dark:
someone is coming for me, and soon.
MT Browder May 2023
the love will unfold
the treasure you hold
the miracle you mold
the future foretold
the blessings behold
the reward pure gold
the gift a thousandfold
fate nightshade Oct 2019
eyes cracked like glass
tear drops shatter to the ground
a porcelain doll
broken cracks mock her face
even though she looks broken on the outside
inside her fragile shell
lies something
a thousandfold
worse

— The End —