Saturated in steely blue clutches, sweating from the 75 degree Georgia night
strung up and washed out with a serpent woman that keeps bringing on the blight
Singing you a song of bliss and blinders.

A big brick red boot on your neck and a green collar that reads The Gardens *****
The Garden takes the taxes tightens up the lead and never relaxes
Hit ya where ya like, the pain is disguised, leather tastes like candy, The Gardens got ya hypnotized.
Your late night camping sight attracts the moon light parasite, that acolyte of appetite, Tonight your the Gardens Delight

You wanna run but she's got those hooks between your shoulder blades feeling like an inexorable **** of silk, smoke and skin.
She gives you every thing you need,
Fountain heads of intemperance and black out nights
Whole streets smelling like grease and charcoal charbroils
Men and women of dexterous lechery, feverous severance, and generous deference
Crystals for your cranium, high altitude dives and the lowest lows.
A cacophony of any entertainment you might want or need, just as long as its seedy.

The Garden keeps blinders on your head to make sure you can't see anything she doesn't want you to.
Try to remove em and the punishment is usually severe.
She might give you the greatest loves you've ever known and turn em to photographs, blot em with LSD and trip you out on memories.
And when you come back to what you think reality is she'll take those photographs and burn em up right in your face and leave you asking if any of it really happened while feeling like it was the realest thing that ever has.
She'll break you and build you up, build you up and break you worse. A cycle of bad things feeling real good.

The Garden will do everything in her power to keep you right here.

But if you can get all those straps and tight leather off, all those hooks and chains.. If you can escape her steely blue clutches,,

You'll finally see how wrong you've been done, and your still gonna want her back in some strange way..
but you might start to heal....
But know this.
No matter where you might run off to,
You'll still be hearing The Garden City call.
That siren song of bliss and blinders.

I'm terrified of not having at least one secret that only I know.
Saturn moves into capricorn
as  conqueror
rather than lover.

I keep drawing the tower card.

Space has no boundary.
Down is relative.
We know, then,
that it is entirely possible to
just
keep
falling.
Indefinitely.
Devils roam free in the sixth house.

I've been drawing the tower card.
I keep drawing the tower card.

The snake I am is not the snake I was.

Tower card. Tower card.

"Mama, some pieces are missing from this puzzle."
"Only the piece with the eyes printed on it, baby."

Drawing from memory, now.

Come on and touch
this broken husk
before it crumbles
away to dust, and
something different
is left sitting
at the foot of your bed.

Inevitability.

Might be
that there is no Heaven,
but
there are certainly heavens.

A picture of your mother
dull colors of a bygone era
a polaroid born faded
a memory bestowed upon you by another
a hearsay tale long lost in time
more far than you can count on fingers
she smiles
a smile reserved for the unburdened
you wonder when this woman is
she looks happy

A finger painting of your mother
all colors watered down
a reminder that you must
prioritize
some things carry more meaning
other need meaning poured onto them
cupped like water in both hands
presented to a lip-cracked child
some water saturate the soul
while keeping others thirsty
some colors are skin deep

Your mother, wrapped in blankets
in an almost vacant bed
her paint, dry and life-bleached
you sit with her
through all these final hours
watching as the outer coating
peels off and settles to the floor
solemnly, you sweep the flakes
an acolyte on hallow ground
choosing the most beautiful
pasting to a piece of paper
crafting the image of a woman
that once could have been
your mom

Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)

shapeshifter, son drunk
& changing skins.
he digs up skeletons of a spanish battalion
buried
by tigers on the garden key.

suncresent
spray of blood & oranges.
new-fangled sailors once soaked
in madness.
now just starvation.

the viking speaks:
in limericks of new world poise.
his antler woven mask,
set nicely upon the shore.

seod, turtle lord
of space & time, appears only once
every lunar eclipse. bound by treatise
to the jellyfish triumvirate.
his acolyte,
bolivar t. shagnasty,
wanders the mainland in search of water
or meat of trees.

kindness
of men turns to dust & belly worms.
forgotten, the plants mutate
into root-rich empires
of fish & figurine.
million year armistice.

dr. samuel mudd,
shackled years to tide-slab &
fort jefferson. he
purifies the island of its yellow
shivering death.
hospital key.

fastforward hundred plus years
through mudd lifeline:
battle weary sneakers,
spokes sung by strum of card, the bmx
stridden boy & his
teenage mutant ninja turtle mask.

***

I see thine image through my tears to-night,
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
Refer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s Amen.
Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,
As now these tears come—falling hot and real?

Let’s face it:
Vietnam was a purge.
An undeclared yet official
War on largely Black, Chicano,
Mostly urban, poor White-trash--
Any of that unlucky-cohort--
Coming of age, mid-60s America.
A purge yes, but 'Nam was also an
Intelligence Test:  them that went,
Particularly those who never returned,
Those scoring at least two standard deviations out,
Outside normal, therefore inferior genetic make-up,
Those the country could surely do without.
“Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough.”
www.genomicslawreport.com /.../three-generations-of-imbeciles-are-enough... So wrote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Buck v. Bell, a 1927 Supreme Court case upholding a Virginia law that authorized the state to...”
I couldn’t have said it better, Justice Holmes!
The Nam: those of us who did survive were
Nonetheless, mangled and traumatized,
In both body & spirit.
We knew right away we’d been duped,
Particularly those gun-friendly southern boys,
Hunting ***** for sport and Country, now contemplating
Remorseful acts of mass homicide 40 years ago.
The real poindexters of our generation, of course:
Got a medical deferment, or
Stayed in college, or
Went north to Canada, or
As I did, joined the Coast Guard, unfortunately,
In addition to my nightmare Indochine,
My personal Disneyland Jungle Cruise,
Based on Joseph Conrad’s
Congo Nightmare Novella--
Heart of Darkness.)
And Józef wrote it in English.
Which was for the native Pollack,
His third language after Polish & French,
Which is probably a good time to
Encourage each & every young punk
On the cellblock to make good use of their time:
Learn a foreign language., e.g.
Why not Spanish?
Given Obama’s farcical, unrestricted border policy.
Soon to be a pervasive lingua Esperanto.

My politics? Sign me up for a little T.A.D.,
Manning a 50-caliber machine gun on Donald’s Wall.
Donald Trump:  A Modern Hadrian?
Don’t get me started on politics.
Take a Spanish class.
Finally, you’ll know what those
Grease-ball Mexican landscapers are
Saying behind your back, right in front of you.

After the Army, & after college on the G.I. Bill,
That’s when I joined the Coast Guard.
OCS in the 1970s was a difficult (read:
Lower Standards) recruiting time for
The Armed Forces of the United States,
Including the U.S. Coast Guard.
OCS: The Oklahoma Cook School we joked.
Officer Candidate School: graduating
Nautically savvy 90-Day Wonders,
Inculcated with conduct becoming &
Other archaic, chivalrous values,
Imprinted with Chain of Command obeisance,
Etched deep an acolyte’s primer on class-consciousness.
Blimey! What a difference after my previous
Two years stint as an Army grunt which leads me to
An overwhelming question: Why do Officers live
Better than enlisted pukes?
The Military: last refuge for scoundrels,
Escape artists & last bastion of medieval feudalism.
Officers! Welcome to the Aristocracy.
Mazel Tov,
Bienvenidos!
It's the Class Structure,
The dominant organizing principle for humanity,
Since the dawn of human history, perhaps longer,
Consider, if you will, “Alley Oop.”
“Alley Oop” Lyrics | MetroLyrics: (www.metrolyrics.com) “There's a man in the funny papers we all know . . . Eats nothin' but bearcat stew, A mean motor scooter & a bad go-getter . . . King of the jungle jive.”
Even longer if we go troglodyte era,
Some mean-mother, some swinging
Foucault’s pendulum set of *****,
Some club-wielding Duke of Earl—
Simply put: some Alpha Male,
Sticking it up whatever polygamous
Multiple Missus *** just happened to be
Bending over within my field of vision at
Any given moment.
I am the block’s biggest, baddest, meanest cat,
Made right by might: physical power &
Will to use it.

Then came Divine Right: Dieu et mon droit.
French for “God and my right.”
Conceived by the shrewd ones,
Those staying out of trouble,
Cringing in the corner of the cave, AKA
The inherently weak, concluding, at last, with
Marx: “The history of all hitherto existing
Society is the history of class struggles.”

Armed and rightly dangerous
religious and slightly pugnacious
on the sidewalk the talk's of the testament
the rent being due on a Sunday.

Molly, the soothsayer tells me
that heaven is mine if I could be
an acolyte of the almighty.

My fiance is the goddess I pray to
she's the light that I see
when the day's through and
the hope that I seek and
I cling to.

a confessional screen
chambered in opaques
                        the pearly gates would sport
checkers sovereignty with grime
between myself
               and the other side of this poem

another acolyte had founted
             from our species-widened narthex-maw
                              the answer to the test
                                    the answer i have tested since
despite the veto of a roshi's sleeve

while adults justify in frowns and threats
commandment-etched
i am a child still
           aghast at drawing lines in sand to mark the living
                                           from the soon to die

one i knew who drew such lines                                  
             for whom a line was drawn to mark himself as well
not just in votes and homeland hate-speech
you see
he crossed the line
                        no unadulterated childhood can cross

he shot  his  own  face
                              or at least his face was shot
                when he was found
who can read the final lonely moments of another
                                                 when mistakes are easier than ownmost acts ?

bombing bullies politicking death
                 can sanctify the safe
unpunctuated traps
                     dividing moods in swallows
pills
swilled with undigested fear
                                   of nozzled death
mercilessly sudden





.

An acolyte of White Chapel, I walk the streets at night,

I strut the dark to feed my lust, my mildly selfish plight.

Don’t mistake me for insane, my demonic thoughts are clear,

Come to me my little *****, I show you why I’m revered.

-

I walk behind, step by step,

As I stalk my little coquette

she leaves the brothel, all dressed up,

Awaiting young gentleman to sup,

I’ve chosen this one for my knife,

It calmly grins to end her life.

-

Her caller leaves with no tip to spare,

Her saddened face hidden by her hair,

I follow her back until an alley,

The hatred then shall take my lead.

-

Twenty feet there from the door,

I felt her heart drop to the floor,

As I choked the breath out of her lungs,

I saw the sadness from being so close to home.

-

Upon my shoulder, I take her back

To the venue of my attack

I sneak through the darkest paths,

Until my home, we reach at last.

-

And at this part in my confession

I warn of the graphic, due to depression.

-

Upon my medical table she lay,

My scalpel awaits the ****** flay,

A little anesthetic, here and there,

Keeps her awake but still and fair.

-

She cannot scream but her eyes do widen

Though to be fair, my form does frighten,

When I lay my other instruments out,

Of leaving alive, I see her doubt.

-

“To business then my dear, my dear.”

Out of one eye, I spy a tear.

-

Because of paralysis I need no restraints,

She remains still, her heart remains faint,

I start with the kneecaps, just in case,

She breaks free of the spell, so I needn’t chase.

-

I place them upon my “excess” table

And then her legs I begin to cradle,

I take then every one of her toes,

And place them in a neat little row.

-

I take my time stemming the blood,

So death doesn’t come misunderstood,

Also that she may not pass out,

She remains conscious and without clout.

-

“My Sweet,

I cherish the sorrow I see in you eyes,

I enshrine the abhorrence of love I’ve revised,

acrimonious am I, animosity guides me,

I’ll **** everything you’ve ever believed.”

-

I move up onto her thighs,

Upon the blade, the sanguine does shine,

I split each side to sew again,

Except the muscle taken from within.

-

I stitch her fingers there together,

I rip out the nails to put on a tether,

Her arms have no concern to me,

Lest I graze an artery.

-

And  my favourite, the chest cavity,

I’ll make it a shrine to my depravity

Now is the point where time is a factor,

As I do this, she will die faster.

-

I hammer away with the sternum-splitter,

It cracks and cracks, her heart does flutter,

I eagle the ribcage as she stares in horror,

The sound of my laughter begins to adore her.

-

Her organs gaze up at me in fright,

I begin extracting in delight,

She looks up, looks for her God,

But he is absent, he is a fraud.

-

I witness the beating grow faster,

She is in shock, this could be disaster,

A little more solution for the pain,

But just enough so that she remains.

-

I slowly take a needle and puncture the left lung

Her other grows violent when its marriage is undone,

I extract her spleen and then,

Her heart does pump, her blood thickens.

-

Involuntary muscles in her lips tighten,

I barely catch it with her lips stitched in,

Her eyes, how they wonder everywhere,

Searching for some thing somewhere.

-

I see in them, she questions me,

‘Why have you forsaken me?’

Darling, I think that is not the question

I did this of my own suggestion,

-

You may ask why I left her womanhood alone,

Her ******* and ***** no violence shown,

To that, I answer you now and simply,

Frivolous things such as *** do not concern me.

-

You may ask why and where she may be found,

But you won’t find her, though don’t let that cloud

Your idea of me or what lies inside,

Don’t worry however, I allowed her to die,

After I had taken her precious heart,

She likely could’ve lived half a minute to start,

But at about second “fifteen”,

I cut her throat ever so gently,

She gurgled so quietly, ever somber,

I’m sure she would’ve thanked me regardless,

But in the end I don’t feel I’ve robbed a father,

After all, what father has a ***** of a daughter?

-

You will never catch me, I have no motive,

Other than sport, and a mind supported,

With thoughts of these wretched street walkers,

May they all be mindful they’ve gained a stalker,

Perhaps one day you may of me learn,

A clean city and plain interest, is all I yearn.

i hear the whistle of a mockingjay 
play every time someone says your name.
a rebel girl in a patriarchal world 
defying the absurd iterations of hyper-masculine 
oppression that manifest themselves in solipsistic
displays of impotent aggression.
how do you muster the compassion 
to forgive seventy times seven?
i want to learn to love like you.

the white noise fades away
when you and i fly
down the interstate.  
the breeze teases 
your hair, the sun
kisses your face
the way i'd like to.

i hope you hear my voice
every time one of our favorite songs
gets stuck inside your head,
singing in time to the rhythms of love requited. 
have faith in me.

and i'm trying hard—
real hard—every day
not to lose my temper 
with these circumstantial quandaries 
that leave us wondering whether or not 
we should press pause.

instead i'll climb the mountains 
of your vertebrae so i might find
a resting place in the holiest of holies. 
if only i could shrink myself down,
dance between the synaptic gaps of your brain cells, 
i could see reality through your eyes— 
twirling like twin nebulae,
galaxies inviting me to endless epiphanies.
i want to lose myself in your universe.

your courage is infectious.
when i hold your hand,
i summon the strength to smash the State 
and all the arbitrary authorities  
trying to dictate the limits of liberty,
that instigate injustice and propagate malice.
it all just falls away until it's you and me,
forever us against them all.

you're like Hermione,
time-turner included,
feeding the homeless, 
leading a women's health group,
acting for a short film, 
directing a play, 
writing a novel, 
all in a day's work. 

and you breathe white-hot fire 
when you fight for the disenfranchised 
recognizing that those who are neutral 
in situations of injustice have chosen
the side of the oppressor and it's quite 
impressive how you stand-up for
the little guy or invite the social acolyte over
to your table to have a bite of whatever 
vegetarian dish you cooked up last night.

i see you on the silver screen,
in each new book i read ,
in every single note i sing,
latent remnants in recited rhymes 
of poetry from the one and only Bukowski:

i found what i love 
and i want it to **** me.

Under the sepulchre where my heart beats slowly,

There lies a necropolis where the dead lay glowing.

-

The undercroft beneath my ribs inhales frailty.

The tombstones of the truth here reminisce of failing.

-

An Acolyte to the corpse of Babylon,

The basilica spire, lies thereon,

A whisper of what had there been,

Before the Plague, the demise of Men.

-

A Monk to the infected Abbott,

The cathedral drowning in the cab’net:

The darkening secrets, too much to let go,

The flowing blood, too much for the snow.

-

A Coquette to the blistering Brothel

The modern meretricious hostel,

Lays Her cradled head down to rest,

The false hopes of a Prince, there infest.

-

The memory of a malignant massacre,

The Cancer spread like fungus on cadavers,

He tried to scream with no chords to make

The sounds emitted to keep the worms away

-

A Father of a Failure, afraid of the mirror,

As well as his own damnable creator.

The dissolution thereafter commences,

Although none change his recompenses.

-

The Leader of a glorious tribe there fallen

Rotting, decaying, like the rest of the solemn

With all respect, I know not His name

Forgotten in time, as was His fame

-

A “Friend” to a Martyr turned to a Betrayer,

Betrayer embroiled terms of the conveyor.

Martyr’s eyes and entrails are now long gone,

Though not with time, his head absent along.

-

A Dread-Worker to His mortuary,

His concept of death one day did vary,

Found were His diaries of a necrophiliac,

The town had him drawn, and quartered at that.

-

A Navigator of the salted sea,

He lays here now, bereft of memory;

It took His ship, the rocky cove,

His body here, His soul with Jones.

-

A Prophet of a fictional God,

He said he’d save the sacred sod,

And yet no miracle ever made He

His followers putrid now, festering.

-

The Violinist to His melody,

Forgot to eat, His mortal form craving,

Developing the perfect serenade,

He fell starving ‘fore having writ the last grade.

-

There is no judgement among the dead,

Except for what we give unto them,

They sleep soundly, forever eternal

Caring not who lay next to them, fraternal

Are they, and with silent kindness

Accept those also sharing their blindness.

-

The piercing shallow eyes,

At least for those who still have them,

Lack vision of the sky,

Or of the flowers who up to it stem.

-

Under the sepulchre where my heart beats slowly,

I feel a chill inside my spine that takes advantage fully,

The necropolis has inner bliss

It lies under ground and in our midst.

Parable Ad Libitum Ex Varna: “In the lower and higher, a certain anti-demonological air carried a Keri towards the sails of the Procorus rituals, extending the Eurydice ship that came from Rhodes. He had on the floor of his cell some branches of Tamarisks, like Tarayes that vanished due to their quality when they expired in his own monk's feet and became perennial in his Oikodomeo, to raise with the Taray the re-transformation essences of the lexeme of greenness conventional in Patmos, being very deflowered in periods with high tempers, only with some secretions in which Procorus felt adventitious of its reflowering, from there and then in the anemophilous advantages of the winds released from the belly in sedimentary veins of Rhodes. In its alchemical anemophilia or movement of the inseminating winds, the subtle soil vanished with the force of the Lion of Sulfur that derived from the Cinnabar, and with the Anemoi wind that was impregnated in the capsules of the Tamarisk, under the feet of the acolyte. In the aquifer of the groundwater phreatic layer on Patmos, remnants were scattered so that in Pro Nobis they lay their demonologies, sponsoring Persian magics of the Post-Gaugamela Lid, I get in the Ex Varna with re-transfigured iridescence on Mount Tabor.

Procorus says: “This Tamarix or Tamarisk, has poured the limits of our Oikodomeo, to retain the surface plate and reuse it in absorbing the fire under my feet, compelling them to readjust under the igneous soil concentrated in the cinnabar residue, carrying the dermal prototype towards the saturated bottom of the salt larvae, which imposed themselves on the bruised beam of their skill, in some bundles of Tamarisks, showing themselves innocuous in the cloister imagination and right here asphyxiated by some Chaldean tribes, who felt themselves from the stand of illusionism of the Ex Varna ”.

In the compaction of this epic hyper fantasy in that instant, the dedication of the Gift was born to interpret the subtlety of two-dimensional variety that would seem until now, under the layers that were contaminated out of nowhere, by the mere fact of the whim of the augur momentum, which is finally restricted in the morphism of the Katapausis and the chamber of San Juan Apostle, being finally supported by layers and shawls of subterranean aqueous filters, towards a restructuring of the Euclidean plane and towards the vicinity of the plantar pedestrian zones of Procorus that were three-dimensional already in the construction of the Oikodomeo, for the foundation of the Náos or temple, which would be triggered when the Hexagonal Progeny arrived to build the Vernarthian temple with gifts of multi-purgatory construction, for the Oikos in Abode of the social unit of Aquarian spirits or Aqua that is terminated at the end of Capricorn dehorned. In mutual edifying peace and between both zodiacal proximities of the Oikodom, here every day spectra purged and rubbed each other in the archetype of the Megaron, which was intended to give in oblations and votive connections in the massages that the spirits of the Vernarthian universe gave them in their spiritual mortar, reconverted in their eternal fight to live in friction and in the brown partitions of the Megaron bloodless to inaugurate it as a solid bulwark, in the weak regions of the Hetairoi that cellularly snatches vitality co-energized in their extremities, of total imbalance and of bumpy patrons maneuvered on their feet crawling towards the karmic Saetas of Velos Toxeumas and Dorus unscathed. But feverish and threatening their integrity, when they fell and stepped on the Euclidean edge, opening from the designs of the Hellenic palfrey, becoming parametric in the paranasal of Kanti and their neighborhood spatiality in the Parthenon of Fidas, with Ikríomas or scaffolding that made them collapse of its coordinates with Mamdilaria and Agiogitiko wine baths on the Vernarthian body between the columnar of its Sabines and of the Greek colonies of Lacedaemonians of the 4th century BC. C., already entering into borders of synchronicity from the Erechtheion, falling from the Caelum, near all his teachers who helped him install the final tiles of the temple, next to them drunk with Nepenthe, by nozzles of intense rain of vine in the silent afternoon of the Inter-Cosmos of Athena, Handing them the poison of Velos Toxeumas, a priori... and before attacking any skin that wants to revive itself in the inoculated Vernarthian dreams.

(Procorus, manifested himself solidly in his solitude when he saw that Lacedaemonians and beings of the night accompanied him, in contrast to the dark light that allowed him with a single chandelier to expand more inaccessible in the semiglyphs and in the grooves of the Megaron, which glowed synarchically. in the plans of the new Monastery of Saint John the Theologian)

Long ginger muzzle
eyes burning
through the copse, fixed upon
the snuffling vole eating
grubs in the moonlight,fangs
like stunted darning needles
revealed in its widening jaw.
hunching in the grass
it crawled cautiously forward
and pounced
like a god on an acolyte
quenching blood-lust-
the fox ate again that night.

Do not look sadly
at days gone by
days below days
like a river
running under stars

do not listen to priests, the blues
or that bitter veteran fool
of some past war claiming to miss
a piece of his soul, his only disease
is the rotting of an *******

the poet that forgets
in remembrance of you
is a lunatic's left hand man
a gun in the hands of a fool

on Sundays he is the acolyte
of the moon, night following
other nights, the eyes of the blind
the stranger who  lusts after wives

his tool the bitter root of a persimmon tree
and every time he draws his pen
like a knife and drawls his soliloquy
I say forget him, let us drink again

for poets do not cut their fingers
at cheap joints like ******
toasting one another's death

they do not eat the cheese or hoard
the rich black bread of their poetry;
the true poet gives it kindly to the poor.

By: Cedric McClester

Lindsey Graham should be ashamed
For saying Trump’s unfairly blamed
In this inquiry, as he’s claimed
Though to him it’s all the same
Lindsey’s Trump’s favorite acolyte
Pretending everything’s alright
But what’s done in the dark of night
Will come out in the daylight

Linsey Graham’s now full of stuffing
See these days he doesn’t stand for nothing
When he criticized Trump, was he bluffing?
Like your average ragamuffin
Lindsey Graham once had some pride
Now he doesn’t, but you decide
Should he be reelected or denied
When good judgement is applied

Graham’s not who he used to be
And that’s plain enough to see
So if he’d get up off his knee
Maybe then he would be free
But Lindsey does like his golf
Ask Guiliani, as in Rudolph
Who has bitten more than he can chew off
So now we view him as *****-off

Lindsey Graham has gone crackers
Just the same as most Trump backers
And I guess that directly factors
In the thoughts of his detractors
He’s clearly not the senator
That he used to be before
An idiosyncrasy we can’t ignore
Let me stop now, although there's more


             Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2019.  All rights reserved.

Flowing like a river does,
Straight into the ocean,
I embrace my inner self
With a calm devotion.

Winding roads and rolling fields,
Them I see aplenty.
Lethe is my acolyte,
Them I have a twenty.

I’m the current and the brine,
Nourishing and ageless.
Slipping through your hands like time,
Cleansing bitter rages.

Sifting through the memories,
Finding those of merit…
Love me like a river does -
Light is there to share it.

Acolyte of ancient kings,
Student of the primal scribe,
Sacred bird that ever sings,
Words no man can now describe.

Offspring of this fledgling realm,
Sailor of the modern way,
Faceless masters at the helm,
Shaping out this brand new day.

Seeker of the inner truth,
Writer of the dark within,
Chronicles back to my youth,
Memoirs for my future kin.

Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!



Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.



Sappho, fragment 47
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.



Sappho, fragment 50
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.



Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Sappho, fragment 118
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sing, my sacred tortoiseshell lyre;
come, let my words
accompany your voice.



Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.



Sappho, fragment 90
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother, how can I weave,
so overwhelmed by love?



Sappho, fragment 35
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
With my two small arms, how can I
hope to encircle the sky?

2.
With my two small arms, how can I
think to encircle the sky?



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!



Sappho, unnumbered fragment
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be swept
........................................ aside
must be wept.



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent,
yet here I lie, alone.



Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?



Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!



Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!



Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
-"yes, let it last forever! -
as long as you sleep in my sight.



Sappho, fragment 34
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are,
of all the unapproachable stars,
by far
the fairest,
the brightest―
possessing the Moon's splendor.



Sappho, fragment 34
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the Moon's splendor,
the stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.



Sappho, fragment 39
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're merely mortal women,
it's true;
the Goddesses have no rivals
but You.



Sappho, fragment 5
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're eclipsed here by your presence―
you outshine all the ladies of Lydia
as the bright-haloed moon outsplendors the stars.



Sappho, fragment 31
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... at the sight of you,
words fail me...



Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaving your heavenly summit,
I submit
to the mountain,
then plummet.



Sappho, fragment 129
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You forget me
or you love another more!
It's over.



Sappho, fragment 24
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... don't you remember, in days bygone...
how we, too, did such things, being young?



Sappho, fragment 16
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some say these are the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say―
the one I desire.

And this makes sense
because she who so vastly surpassed all mortals in beauty
―Helen―
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
set sail for distant Troy,
abandoning her celebrated husband,
leaving behind her parents and child!

Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsemen and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or all their infantry parading in flashing armor.



Sappho, fragment 37
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I'm undecided.
My mind? Divided.



Sappho, fragment 37
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unsure as a babe new-born,
My mind is divided, torn.



Sappho, fragment 37
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I don't know what to do:
My mind is divided, two.



Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the bride comes
let her train rejoice!



Sappho, fragment 90
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bridegroom,
was there ever a maid
so like a lovely heirloom?



Sappho, fragment 19
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anoint yourself
with the most exquisite perfume.



Sappho, fragment 120
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I'm no resenter;
I have a childlike heart...



Sappho, fragment 80
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May your head rest
on the breast
of the tenderest guest.



Sappho, fragment 80
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Is my real desire for maidenhood?



Sappho, fragment 80
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Is there any synergy
in virginity?



Sappho, fragment 75
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dica! Do not enter the presence of Goddesses ungarlanded!
First weave sprigs of dill with those delicate hands, if you desire their favor!



Sappho, fragment 79
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I cherish extravagance,
intoxicated by Love's celestial splendor.



Sappho, fragment 79
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun's ecstatic brilliance.



Sappho, fragment 81
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Assemble now, Muses, leaving golden landscapes!



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' acceptance.



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Look me in the face,
smile,
reveal your eyes' grace...



Sappho, fragment 4
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon shone, full
as the virgins ringed Love's altar...



Sappho, fragment 11
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You inflame me!



Sappho, fragment 11
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



You ignite and inflame me...
You melt me.



Sappho, fragment 12
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am an acolyte
of wile-weaving
Aphrodite.



Sappho, fragment 14
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros
descends from heaven,
discarding his imperial purple mantle.



Sappho, fragment 35
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Although you are very dear to me
you must marry a younger filly:
for I'm by far too old for you,
and this old mare's just not that **** silly.



Sappho, after Anacreon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once more I dive into this fathomless sea,
intoxicated by lust.



Sappho, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was the first ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon...
but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.



Sappho, fragment 3
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.

The sound of your voice roils my heart!
Your laughter? ―bright water, dislodging pebbles

in a chaotic vortex. You **** up my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.

My ******* glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.

I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,

despite my poverty.



Sappho, fragment 93
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You're the sweetest apple reddening on the highest bough,
which the harvesters missed, or forgot―somehow―

or perhaps they just couldn't reach you, then or now.



Sappho, fragment 145
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Prometheus the Fire-Bearer
robbed the Gods of their power, and so
brought mankind and himself to woe...
must you repeat his error?



Sappho, fragment 159
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May I lead?
Will you follow?
Foolish man!

Ears so hollow,
minds so shallow,
never can!



Sappho, fragments 122 & 123
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice―
a sweeter liar
than the lyre,
more dearly sold
and bought, than gold.



Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She wrapped herself then in
most delicate linen.



Sappho, fragment 70
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That rustic girl bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking the hem of her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!



Sappho, fragment 94
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Shepherds trample the larkspur
whose petals empurple the heath,
foreshadowing shepherds' grief.



Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The softest pallors grace
her lovely face.



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I yearn for―I burn for―the one I desire!



Sappho, fragment 30
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Maidens, keeping vigil all night long,
go make a lovely song,
someday, out of desires you abide
for the violet-petalled bride.

Or better yet―arise, regale!
Go entice the eligible bachelors
so that we shocked elders
can sleep less than love-plagued nightingales!



Sappho, fragment 121
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A tender maiden plucking flowers
persuades the knave
to heroically brave
the world's untender hours.



Sappho, fragment 68
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady,
soon you'll lie dead, disregarded;
then imagine how quickly your reputation fades...
you who never gathered the roses of Pieria
must assume your place among the obscure,
uncelebrated shades.



Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is evil;
the Gods all agree;
for, had death been good,
the Gods would be mortal
like me.



Sappho, fragment 43
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, dear ones,
let us cease our singing:
morning dawns.



Sappho, fragment 14
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Today
may
buffeting winds bear
my distress and care
away.



Sappho, fragment 15
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Just now I was called,
enthralled,
by the golden-sandalled
dawn...



Sappho, fragment 69
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Into the soft arms of the girl I once spurned,
I gladly returned.

2.
Into the warm arms of the girl I once spurned,
I gladly returned.



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since my paps are dry and my barren womb rests,
let me praise lively girls with violet-sweet *******.



Sappho, fragment 1
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beautiful swift sparrows
rising on whirring wings
flee the dark earth for the sun-bright air...



Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The girls of the ripening maidenhead wore garlands.



Sappho, fragment 94 & 98
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Listen, my dear;
by the Goddess I swear
that I, too,
(like you)
had to renounce my false frigidity
and surrender my virginity.
My wedding night was not so bad;
you too have nothing to fear, so be glad!
(But then why do I still sometimes think with dread
of my lost maidenhead?)



Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bridegroom, rest
on the tender breast
of the maid you love best.



Sappho, fragment 103
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Maidenhead! Maidenhead!
So swiftly departed!
Why have you left us
forever brokenhearted?



Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch, after Sappho and Tennyson

I sip the cup of costly death;
I lose my color; I catch my breath
whenever I contemplate your presence,
or absence.



Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I compete with that ****** man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his "eloquence, "
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you...



Sappho, fragments 73 & 74
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They have been very generous with me,
the violet-strewing Muses;
thanks to their gifts
I have become famous.



Sappho, fragment 3
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stars ringing the lovely moon
pale to insignificance
when she illuminates the earth
with her magnificence.



Sappho, fragment 49
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have returned!
You did well to not depart
because I pined for you.
Now you have re-lit the torch
I bear for you in my heart,
this flare of Love.
I bless you and bless you and bless you
because we're no longer apart.



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday,
you came to my house
to sing for me.

Today,
I come to you
to return the favor.

Talk to me. Do.
Sweet talk,
I love the flavor!

Please send away your maids
and let us share a private heaven-
haven.



Sappho, fragment 19
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.



Sappho, fragment 20
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... shot through
with innumerable hues...



Sappho, fragment 38
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I flutter
after you
like a chick after its mother...



Sappho, fragment 30
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stay!
I will lay
out a cushion for you
with plushest pillows...



Sappho, fragment 50
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My body descends
and my comfort depends
on your welcoming cushions!



Sappho, fragment 133
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Of all the stars the fairest,
Hesperus,
Lead the maiden straight to the bridegroom's bed,
honoring Hera, the goddess of marriage.



Sappho, fragment 134
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Selene came to Endymion in the cave,
made love to him as he slept,
then crept away before the sun could prove
its light and warmth the more adept.



Sappho, fragment 4
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Honestly, I just want to die! "
So she said,
crying heartfelt tears,
inconsolably sad
to leave me.

And she said,
"How deeply we have loved,
we two,
Sappho!
Oh,
I really don't want to go! "

I answered her thus:
"Go, and be happy,
remembering me,
for you know how much I cared for you.
And if you don't remember,
please let me remind you
of all the lovely emotions we felt
as with many wreathes of violets,
roses and crocuses
you sat beside me
adorning your delicate neck.

Once garlands had been fashioned of many woven flowers,
with much expensive myrrh
we anointed our bodies like royalty
on soft couches,
then your tender caresses
fulfilled your desire..."



Sappho's Rose
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose is...
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.


Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!


Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
The Pleiades are gone;
Now half the night is spent,
Yet here I lie ... alone.



Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2 / Voigt 2)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, Cypris, from Crete
to meet me at this holy temple
where a lovely grove of apple awaits our presence
bowering altars
  fuming with frankincense.

Here brisk waters babble beneath apple branches,
the grounds are overshadowed by roses,
and through the flickering leaves
  enchantments shimmer.

Here the horses will nibble flowers
as we gorge on apples
and the breezes blow
  honey-sweet with nectar ...

Here, Cypris, we will gather up garlands,
pour the nectar gracefully into golden cups
and with gladness
  commence our festivities.


Sappho, fragment 58 (Lobel-Page 58)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Virgins, be zealous for the violet-scented Muses' lovely gifts
and those of the melodious lyre ...
but my once-supple skin sags now;
my arthritic bones creak;
my ravenblack hair's turned white;
my lighthearted heart's grown heavy;
my knees buckle;
my feet, once fleet as fawns, fail the dance.
I often bemoan my fate ... but what's the use?
Not to grow old is, of course, not an option.

I am reminded of Tithonus, adored by Dawn with her arms full of roses,
who, overwhelmed by love, carried him off beyond death's dark dominion.
Handsome for a day, but soon withered with age,
he became an object of pity to his ageless wife.



Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely ******.

2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …

It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.



Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131)
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...

2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...



Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your ******* and abuse them!



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?


Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.



... a sweet-voiced maiden ...
—Sappho, fragment 153, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have the most childlike heart ...
—Sappho, fragment 120, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s ecstatic brilliance.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s splendor.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anointed yourself
with most exquisite perfume.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 138, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
           smile,
reveal your eyes' grace ...

4.
Turn to me,
favor me
with your eyes’ indulgence

Those I most charm
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Those I charm the most
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight.
The hours drone on
as I moan here, alone.
—Sappho, fragment 52, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once again I dive into this fathomless ocean,
intoxicated by lust.
—Sappho, after Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did this epigram perhaps inspire the legend that Sappho leapt into the sea to her doom, over her despair for her love for the ferryman Phaon? See the following poem ...

The Legend of Sappho and Phaon, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was an ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks of Leukas
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon ...

but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.

In Menander's play The Leukadia he refers to a legend that Sappho flung herself from the White Rock of Leukas in pursuit of Phaon. We owe the preservation of those verses to Strabo, who cited them. Phaon appears in works by Ovid, Lucian and Aelian. He is also mentioned by Plautus in Miles Gloriosus as being one of only two men in the whole world, who "ever had the luck to be so passionately loved by a woman."

Sappho, fragment 24, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1a.
Dear, don't you remember how, in days long gone,
we did such things, being young?

1b.
Dear, don't you remember, in days long gone,
how we did such things, being young?

2.
Don't you remember, in days bygone,
how we did such things, being young?

3.
Remember? In our youth
we too did such reckless things.

Sappho, fragment 154, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
The moon rose and we women
thronged it like an altar.

2.
Maidens throng
at the altar of Love
all night long.


Even as their hearts froze,
their feathers molted.
—Sappho, fragment 42, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice beguiles me.
Your laughter lifts my heart’s wings.
If I listen to you, even for a moment, I am left speechless.
—Sappho, fragment 31, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Sappho, ******, Greek, translation, epigram, epigrams, love, ***, desire, passion, lust

let me tell you now just how i saw you:
you wooed the world with your sublime figure
accentuated by that supreme  walk of art in life
that became you so well in love without strife
i saw and felt the beauty reposed in you
but how futile and hapless now
this belated lyric to you
you must have come from a constellation of stars
your name should have been stella or estelle
queen of the skies who made earth her chosen abode
and walked upon it like a storybook queen
you spoke like a fabulous heartthrob
and had us transfixed like pilgrims in worship
your enigmatic gaze was magnetic
wafting but unseen incense oozed from your nostrils
as milk and honey danced upon your lips
later to nourish my thoughts and limbs
in the solitude of early evening as venus began to rise
in truth you were a goddess on sabbatical
and your fabled home is in the cosmic mists of time
where i hunger to be a devoted acolyte in your service
forever chanting the treasured words: it is well

The morning dew adorns her body
as her charm begin to unfold
a vibrant bloom of intoxicating proportions
makes an impression dare and bold.

dressed in a shade of the majestic ocean
her grace softens the hardest of heart
but her thorns absorb all the pain
when her world's ripped apart.

she captures an artist's mind
when the canvas comes alive with her glory
she 's a faithful acolyte of Nature
In the morning breeze,she writes her story.

Someone, anyone?
Are you out there? Are you near?
I have lost so much and I behold so much fear.

Even though I have found a beautiful hope and I have been shown true love,
There is still so much I fall short of...
...and still doubt thereof.

Have I not forgotten and given up all the bad and all the evil?
Or is there still something within me that intrigues the Devil?
Why is it still so that I mourn and suffer from the fangs and claws of the wolves and the mock of the crows?
Why is it so that I haven’t found my repose?
Wouldst one be freed from the wicked and far from all those whom have opposed?

Please; someone, anyone, please tell me why the "Prophet" and his "Acolyte" still look to attract, take, and keep me for himself?
Please, please, tell me why the false one never gives up, and why he never tires!
Is it because of his endless and conspiring desires?
Or is there something deeper that I have yet to transpire?

Can anyone hear me? Or have I been silenced by this wicked man long enough for those to forget that I am here?
Is anyone out there, can you hear my plea?
Or has he taken them all away from me?
Is there someone out there who still holds the love and sympathy I once known? Or has he deceived them too to leave me on my own?

Whichever it may be, please give me answers, please let me see. I want the truth and not a seducing lie, I no longer want to live crying, I no longer want to fear, all I want is someone to hear.
Not the voice of demons, not the sight of spirits. I don’t want the company of a single man, and I don’t want to live anymore under his commands.  

Please hear me; please understand, he can take away everything with even the slightest motion of his hand.
Dear ones, friends and yes, you! The reader in whom I may never know, please do not mistake a ''shadow show'' for the dances of the angels. I warn you, yes please be smart, that this form of trickery this unlawful act is no beautiful art.

I am a slave to my fear, and I am imprisoned by things left unsaid, because I was careless and gullible and in time misled.
I wanted something out of greed so I let my heart decide, I let it blind me and let it misguide.
I fell for the wrong person, and I awakened the wrong intentions, and now I know what many speak of “sweet impressions.”

So you see and so you have been told, do not be deceived and do not fall for the unknown, for it will be something worth a large bemoan.
Beware the man who dresses as a Shepard but behind him falls the shadow of a wolf, take caution of he that hides his hands covered in blood.
He is no sheep, and he is no goat, but a ravenous wolf that loves to misquote. This ravenous wolf he will not hesitate to throw you to his pack and the rest of the black ravens, for in looking to find something wondrous and grand, you will find no such relations.

I am guilty and I am regretful for the mark on my hand, which leaves me to believe I will forever be banned. I live in my own mistakes day after day, all just because I wanted to hear what he had to say. The scars and the wounds placed upon me from this tormentor have made me no one special anymore.
The only thing I have known is to find what I need through him, and that is it, for he says: “Where else where there be a place that truly cares for you to fit? I am here and I love you, this is the truth not those whom you have looked to!”

It’s ever so painful, ever so hard to depart from the prophet who stabbed me in my heart.
Why does it hurt so much?
Why do I still bleed at such a thought?

I will be free and I will be happy! Yes I will finally be able to see.

Yet, he knows me and what I want to do, he knows just about everything and what I have been through.
He can read anything and he can see it all, but the one thing he does not want is any wailing call.
He fears he will be defeated and he fears one day I will win, so he will do everything he can to make me fall back down in his arms again.

Someone, anyone?

Oh if you please, won’t you help me?
Help me to be more at ease?
Won’t you show to me the light and not that of the dark?
Will you help me to be freed from him and make him depart?

Please oh please, I will not forget you, I promise to do the same, the same that you do. By this promise I swear that I can repay you with good things, ones filled with benefit, love and blessings!

I can teach to you what I know, and I will help you to understand, all because you were there for me to help me take a stand.
I just need to know that there is someone out there, other than the "Prophet" with unreasonable care.

❥

Change happens at all times in all places
and you dear child change too
even, especially when you feel most keen
that nothing is happening at all.

Crimson cloud devoid of light,
Drifting shadow in the night,
Sacred soldier of the right,
Heart and blade prepared to fight.

Carmine ripples in the flight,
Darkness fueled by noble plight,
Saved the grief of pain or fright,
One less remnant of this blight.

Scarlet rain on fields of white,
Painted canvas glowing bright,
Ascending through this ancient rite,
No more a simple acolyte.

What am I trying to hide?
Am I a freak?
Or do I just perform the freak
These masks reflect slivers of me
A differing defense that protects the darkest parts of me
By shielding it in light
One never sees the monster
Hiding in the open
No one ever suspects that I am hiding someone
When they are staring it in the face

What part of me do each of these reflect?
Who am I?
The man who performs shards of his character,
But never the full act.

I am the Anonymous Ally
Taste me
With all the colors if the rainbow
I am not gay, straight, bi, or trans
I am just the idea
That we are all human

I am called the Goth suit
I am not a character as much as I’m armor
A suit using my darker side to shield my vulnerable core
By usurping the fashion of a subculture already too diluted
The flames crawl from the ground
Feeding on my poisoned heart
Subliming into scarlet remorse leaking from my eyes

I am Broken Promises
Wrapped in the discarded and forgotten relics of lovers past
Much like they discarded and forgot me
The heart never forgets
It just scars over
And now I’ve created this character I can’t get away from

I am the Leprechaun
A caricature of a culture I do not participate in
But am suspiciously genetically a part of
I am American, diluted Irish sprinkled with Scottish and German
And I don’t even know that
Pass me another drink
****, I hate beer
I’ll be sleeping it off in the tent
Then disappear

I am the Clark Kent mask
Call them hipster glasses if you will
I came to them on my own as a way to soften the blow of my intensity to the public. These glasses hide a super man.
Or maybe, just a bizarro.
I look where others are blind
I perceive what goes unnoticed
Appearances deceive
And I’ve tricked you into seeing into the real man’s eyes

I, I am the Chaos Lantern
Chaos is the natural state of the universe.
There are no rules,
No laws that were not meant to be broken.
Change and flux are the lifeblood of the universe
I, I will restore it to its former glory.
Anything is possible at any time for no reason

I am Mirrors and Gears
I am the human mind wearing the man
Reflections of energy
Moved by an ancient machine
Shattered by each new branching neuron
Pushed ever forward into a pointless oblivion
A spider web of pieces that eventually consume themselves
I am a paradox.
I see the world as color and feeling, fire and ice, machine and nature, reflections and shards, darkness and light.

I am the Manic Hammer
The moment you put a barrier on something
Is the moment you create an obsession to break it
This is my tangible fight for control over the anger
By succumbing to it
I am the rage given form
The unjustified hammer of indignity
And pure primal power

I will violently and passionately take revenge on the world for the sin of my birth
I will give so much of myself to the quest that nothing of the man will be left
In the end, the man will become the journey
I am full of all of the evils in the world
Just waiting to see how many people open me

I am The DestructiKing
The ultimate evolution
When the hammer falls
Into regal splendor
And Rage gives way to hope

I am just a man appropriating another culture
A name does not exist for me yet
My process is like a quilt
I fabricate each part piece by piece
Then painstakingly (painfully) stitch them together
For now I am just a collection of past fashion faux-pauxs
A remake of a shell I used to be

I am the Box Man
A walking, blank picket sign
For a protest with no purpose
Righteous indignation and class warfare
A rebel without a cause
And plenty of cause for alarm

I am Anonymous America
I’m not fully me
I am a merging of several different people
Conflicting ideas and injustices merged into a formless identity
The American Dream
Merged with the Nightmare
Neither, not sure of what they mean

I am Blue Collar
***** jeans and Blue name tag
Swearing my way through tedious, 10 hour shifts
Earning my right to drink like a man

I am White Collar
A silk noose around my neck
A keyboard eroding my fingertips
Earning my right to Caucasian entitlement

I am Gray collar
Busting my *** one minute
Sitting on it the next
Being told what to do
While barking out commands to others
***** jeans
Over a starched polo
Earning my right to an identity crisis

I am a student
In an academic stupor hangover
Cramming facts and figures
Crunching deadlines
And lamenting the pains as my mind expands
Forced against the bubble of its previous limiting confinement

I am an Acolyte of the Covenant of Primus
I am more than meets the eye
A real person in disguise
Watch me transform into something beautiful
I am trying on religion
With the only thing I’ve ever worshipped
The fantasies of childhood

I am the Jesus of the Junk
Garbage comes to me and through me is redeemed and reborn
I feed off our throwaway society
Your trash is not only treasure
It’s my sustenance
You may see garbage
I see endless possibilities
I walk on the fetid waters of our decadence

I am the AntiFather
A contradiction in terms
A childish babble
It is not my job to be the God Father
I will not remake you in my image
I will wear, and shape, and polish, and break you
Into a man better than this false idol
The Father is fallible, mortal, and full of sin

I am the Phoenix
I am fire, passion, energy, color, light, warmth, and volatility.
It started with a broken heart.
Through the crack seeped liquid fire.
Burned away all that I was.
Purified me
Boiled me down
And rebuilt me.
From the ashes rose a better, broken man.

I am Ryan and Lisa
Two hearts merged into one
All twisted into each other
Until only the twist is left
When they eventually unravel
Neither could ever be called whole again

I am the Jail Baby
A helpless coincidence of accidents
Born incarcerated
Forever trying to be free
A double helix chain, shackling me to a broken past,
Keeps me tied to my bars

We are the Amalgams
The point in which the flux of personal identity converges
Different pieces of each mask,
Fragmented, devastated, shattered, stitched, traumatized, and melded
We merge, we flow, and flux
Always the river
Never the same river twice

I am a schizophrenic collection of ideas given form
Some halfway
Others still growing
I am one that exists as many
An imagined multiverse constantly crashing into each other
The broken mirror reflecting all the possibilities
Perceived through incoherent, skewed symbolism
A lens of light, color, and cyphers
It’s my mind that fractures
And births my many selves
I am an amalgam of brilliant and idiotic moments in constant flux

Art is the process of Destruction
Take it apart
Distill the remnants to their core essence
Then remake them in your own image

I am my layers.
We are all one
Each a piece of the other
We are Ryan

Death dresses well,turning heads looking swell and the service bell rings in the cloisters at three,
These priests are the last of the Eastern brigade who wait for salvation,and the army that was, that created a nation of sorrowful sinners,with the notion of harnessing souls with prayers for forgiveness and bible belt dinners has gone.
Each to his own and each dog gets a bone but the church stands alone forgotten,
but behind every door
something is rotten to the core and what colour you paint it ain't going to hide what's inside.
Death looking slick picks the lock and does not care what's in there,that's a shock,
but pock marked,double parked with a trailer full of bones comes Jimmy Jones the acolyte
who in this shadow world of night lights one more funeral pyre.

Underneath a palm tree that bears no fruit, a male voice choir boots out another tune and Jimmy Jones does one more circuit of the moon and there is the feeling that very soon
everything will end.
In the refectory unaware of this the priests open the directory, hoping to find that place full of love and bliss, to bring their brand of goodness to those sinners, who know but never do and to those who don't but wish they did,
who bid for auction lots,more funeral plots for Jimmy Jones to bury bones.

I defy convention
death is just another state that shows up late and not to mention stinks as well.
The bell still rings at three.

His favorite protégée
Mentors her day by day
You are his curious delight
You're always affable
And so unflappable
Yes you're his favorite acolyte

Though your aura's sacred chic
Radiating cool mystique
Your life story does bespeak
Constant fight

His patronage for your art
Remains for you're his dear heart
Shine favorite protégée shine
Rejoice that your lives intertwine

I got used to a fantasy world
I knew I’d wise up one day.
Give up a dream I was making.
So tired of living in someday.
When it started I was younger
Not quite as bright as today.
Settled for crumbs of your love.
So tired of living in someday.

I tolerated each of your myths
And lived with being miserable
Hoping things would get better
Always waiting for the miracle.

I gave in so easily to the idea
That it was all about just you.
I did it all without questioning
Whatever you wanted to do.
It was dreamwork those days
All made of mirrors and smoke
And felt like the kind of high
You get from illegal tokes.

I exaggerated on your myths
And lived like an acolyte
Like your personal Cleopatra
Waiting for the snake to bite.

I told myself I would win
If I held on to you some way.
So, I gathered all my assets
And invested them in someday.
I can’t say your habit was
That you treated me like dirt.
But, I also can’t say to you
That your treatment didn’t hurt.

I am through with your myths
And living feeling so miserable.
I know things won’t get better;
I won’t ever see a miracle.
When it started I was younger
Not quite as bright as today.
Settled for crumbs of your love.
So tired of living in someday.

The furrows are drying
in a woodlouse summer.
Each quiet year proves
they were inexpertly dug.

Empty eye sockets
the flowerbeds shrivel
and each tulip bulb is just
a useless *******.

Earthworks crumble into riverbanks,
the defective rock
dances bed-ward.
The clay browns the water.

In the dusty corridors of sunlight
we are the balled up
little hedgehog
late for the earthworm

and the screen-saver, bouncing
but never touching the corner.
I’ve sat dumb and still as
words dwindle on a screen.

Somewhere else hands delve
into crowns of sticky, soaked poppy.
Wet and soft they stink
of sugar.

Liberated calves with
liberated hoofs gambol in mud
and rough tongues
curl on apple picking fingers.

Slugs glisten
With fairy-tale arrogance.
Happy and fat in a giant’s
vegetable patch.

Somewhere else the smell of low-tide
isn’t a crusting of salt,
seagulls, ******* and
a reminder of torpid shallows

but profound ovulation.
Nesting puffins, shearwaters,
an ocean view cottage.
Shepard’s peachy sky.

Summer is willing. Keep calm.
Count her freckles.
I’ve walked through the forest
seen hearts in trees.

Bark grows, gold stars roll
and the guileless acolyte,
not hungry but dry
bends over a keyboard

and counts an orchard’s
wealth in slushy apples.
Mud and sand on the carpet.
Eyes sticky and red. Not black.

Only for you I push myself
only you gave me hope and belief
to this desperate dyslexic kid

Only for you who saved me
I have become your acolyte
and forever with banner fight

Only for you, in the name of you
for you I am your poetic tool
your sweet jester and fool

My flag is the tip of the iceberg
I do now reveal my capabilities
I kneel to you, only for you
sweet glory to you
my love is only for you

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

By NeonSolaris

© 2013 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)