“But if any old Lady, Knight, Priest, or Physician,
   Should condemn me for printing a second edition;
   If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,
   May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?”

   Anstey’s ‘New Bath Guide’, p.69.


Candour compels me, BECHER! to commend
The verse, which blends the censor with the friend;
Your strong yet just reproof extorts applause
From me, the heedless and imprudent cause;
For this wild error, which pervades my strain,
I sue for pardon,—must I sue in vain?
The wise sometimes from Wisdom’s ways depart;
Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart?
Precepts of prudence curb, but can’t controul,
The fierce emotions of the flowing soul.
When Love’s delirium haunts the glowing mind,
Limping Decorum lingers far behind;
Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace,
Outstript and vanquish’d in the mental chase.
The young, the old, have worn the chains of love;
Let those, they ne’er confined, my lay reprove;
Let those, whose souls contemn the pleasing power,
Their censures on the hapless victim shower.
Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song,
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng,
Whose labour’d lines, in chilling numbers flow,
To paint a pang the author ne’er can know!
The artless Helicon, I boast, is youth;—
My Lyre, the Heart—my Muse, the simple Truth.
Far be’t from me the “******’s mind” to “taint:”
Seduction’s dread is here no slight restraint:
The maid whose ****** breast is void of guile,
Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile,
Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer,
Firm in her virtue’s strength, yet not severe;
She, whom a conscious grace shall thus refine,
Will ne’er be “tainted” by a strain of mine.
But, for the nymph whose premature desires
Torment her ***** with unholy fires,
No net to snare her willing heart is spread;
She would have fallen, though she ne’er had read.
For me, I fain would please the chosen few,
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true,
Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy
The light effusions of a heedless boy.
I seek not glory from the senseless crowd;
Of fancied laurels, I shall ne’er be proud;
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize,
Their sneers or censures, I alike despise.

I fret torpidly in my lair;
Your scent is around, but I've seen nobody.
'Tis sordid about me, with rolls of dutiful smoke—
and unleashed winds growling about unseen.
Beside me here stands a perfect mirror, a perfect glass,
But nothing seems imperative, nor talkative, nor patient;
Everything is just silent—what a robust fear—foolish impediment.
Ah, if only can I fast **** this petulant temperament—
do you think I shall feel better, or magnified?
I feel that myself is like a wind:
Thin, fragile, and constantly diving and swelling upwards.
Even my narrative is about to betray me;
Vehemently indeed—should this happen,
I might be able no more to write any poetry—
As my chest above there hysterically bellowed, I shall be pushed upwards—
Upwards, upwards, I am curling upwards—like we all naturally are,
Over the earth, along the oceans, and their sample images of Paradise;
Every single day, at noon, and against this midnight sky.
 
My darling has left, and thus I have but Him in my shabby hands;
With skin marred and scratched and dried by the rude winter;
Ah, say, but who says that winter is clever and polite?
Like my love perhaps is, she is but a relic—or even statue, of blunt disgrace—
She is neither merry nor cordial; she never is aromatic, and flaws us with its brutal haze.
 
I am alone, alone, alone, and totally alone—
O my love, my love, my love, where can I peruse
your felicity just once more?
I have but loved thee all along;
I love thee as magnificently and preciously
as I loved thee one year back and yesterday.
You are my purplish, reddish, greenish, but incompatible moon,
You are comparable still, to the joyous soul of this stained poem;
by whom my love has thrived, by whom I can always replenish.
I shall rise you again within my dreams;
I shall face myself within your sour vapour—but never let you fade.
I shall let you halt my paint, and brush dirt upon it;
I shall let you scatter your grossness over me, and acquire even your sins;
But as long as you are there, over me, I am not scared but keen;
I shall not be mesmerised, nor even heart be broken and pained.
May my heart break, so long as it has its consolation floating by.
 
Ah, and who, beside this breakable moon—can claim my erupt forth;
To comfort my sleep and give solace to my shrieking doors;
And throw unheeded calm into my quiet walkways;
While looking me in the eyes as we step sideways.
Who can ambush my chest along this hairy path;
With a charm far stronger than yon behind the grass;
Who can heal me, and who can heal me not,
Ah, have I but still the courage to make this right?
I shall look for you again amongst the city roars and rumblings;
I shall look for you again in the mornings—and amongst the bleakness of evenings.
 
Look, my love, how the rainbows have a turquoise face today;
So beautifully crafted and charted like the skies of yesterday;
I should fall asleep now, but still—I don't want to be lulled alone without you;
Even though you are faraway, I can still feel your breath and air.
Your absence, as I hope then, shall fast perish;
For I want to grow old not by the countenance of miseries.
I want to be injected into your space now—as maelstroms of sleeps greet me again,
And as the clouds of heaven start to feed on me;
I shall feel light again, and thereby not turn grey;
I shall feel that you have welcomed me back;
I shall feel your breath tingling by the sides of cheeks;
I shall feel my hairs anew—as they raise against the corners of my neck.
 
And there we shall play together against the sky;
Against its pedal who anew blooms in wan suspicion;
Ah, my love, I shall entangle you then—in my varied, and multiplied visions;
I shall tell you the funniest of one thousand lies.
I shall give you only the finest of kisses, and jokes;
I shall startle you by my poem and my beautiful black locks.
Ah, thee, to you whom I have written this poem, and shall always do;
To you whom I have loved, and have to this day admired;
To you for whom a forest of grace and salutations has been dreamed;
To you for whom my heartbeat grows, and fastens and slows,
To you for whom I woke up today, and open my eyes tomorrow;
 
To you whom I have loved in the name of Him;
To you for whom I lit the glitters of the sky;
To you for whom my heart was startled and passed justly by;
To you for whom my palms sweated and eyes started to cry;
 
To you for whom griefs disperse into brighter saturations;
To you for whom life continues, and gives birth to more immediate sparkles;
To you for whom I have celebrated my soul; and made one true promise;
To you by whom I have halved my heart, and without whom shall never 'come the same anew;
 
To you for whom all favours are spelled, and words dedicated;
To you for whose grins I shall wait again forever;
To you whose eyes are darker than the midnight river;
To you by whom my belief shall stay strong, and consciously devoted;
 
Ah, you, my love, so this remorse shall fall over me and back again,
With creases I curse, and remarks that my ruined chest censures;
Abhorred by the moon, and its very own celestial abode—
Which shakes and stretches along the crimson universe,
I have thrown my life into your horizontal, and longitudinal spectrums—
In both superficial and artificial ways, you have haunted me.
Ah, but still—cannot I erase your name from the fruit of every essentiality;
You are the sweet tyranny of my soul, and the leaves of my very gay sensibility;
You are the throne of my love; you are the specified satire—
though but funny and not—you are my destiny.
 
Like a vinyl birch tree that howls when stabbed, I have become your prey;
I shall wait for you at dawn and give my whole self to you at dusk.
I shall wait for you to claim my destined—and prescribed heart;
I shall wait for you to finish your abominable task,
As long as you can emerge for me—and listen to my poems and follow what I say.
 
And like a scar that stays for long in one's fair skin;
You are stubborn though things not go well;
Ah, let's now confess that your heart needs me;
But still—you are too proud, and far too docile, to admit your sin.
The question now is: how should we ever eradicate love?
Love is a prison, I know, and it is the most unforgiving jail;
It is merciless and painted by colours of abomination;
And nothing in it is plentiful—like Him in the shivering sky;
It is where tears crowd and gather—as I have perused;
It is where insolence and crudeness unite—even when not provoked.
 
Ah, my love, but have I fallen into this snare of love—whether or not I want it;
And your gaze is still the sole sweetness I hope to meet;
Never is my love sweeter—or petite, than a grain of wheat;
You are the foreverness for whom I shall sweat;
 
And in the loss of you lies my venomous assassination;
And I am wary now—and afraid of facing this everlasting trepidation;
Your shadows shall never go away, and for this I can be wronged;
For when I am dying—shall my mouth be falling asleep and recite your song.
 
My art has torn; it has been filthily murdered.
Its fervour was lost in, as you saw, just one wave of scenic mortality—
But still, the true essence might still be there, as it was once fertilised—
As by you, my Imagist, my Wilde, I was terrifically astonished by you.
You are my painting, my picture, and even the shared portrait of my self.
You share my veins, as how I supposedly hold some share of your blood.
Ah, and I remember now, how your warm blood did once touch my wrists—
So engagingly, so thrillingly, so brilliantly.
My heart, my head, my mind—all were brutally consumed by thee.
 
I want to die by thee, but you pierced my heart—
and in brief, made my spine grow dead tears;
Everything grew worse and I was manifested into your bitter triangle;
I was your lonesome moon who got forgotten soon;
Ah, it seems that yon French lady is better than I am—
With her curly hair and tittering oceanic eyes,
She was the filter of your noons, the storms
And devilish desires of your nights.
She was as gusty and spooky as the windblown thorn;
poisonous were her words, but still, you carried yourself to her.
I fretted and screamed and my blood gurgled—
but I guess I was fortunate still;
for I had the chance to keep myself pure and chaste
while you unstoppably sinned and defiled yourself.
So you were disgraced.
 
And you were enduringly consumed by your own fires;
The fires to which you confined yourself;
Not the calming, sooting, leafy bonfires we use in winter;
but ones you will also greet in the earth after.
Ah, thee, I felt but disgust towards your molested heart and deeds;
You grew for yourself, instead good ones—sick, avoidable seeds.
At that time, I swore to never ever share any more of my blood with you;
I would looked for one more honest, playful; one decorated with more virtues.
 
But still—as I said before,
I have again decided to sit and pray for you.
While my love for the other is not true;
It has faded and you are irreplaceable still;
You are congested, invalid, and not new;
But should you come back again to me;
I shall receive you with open hands
And one seal of heartfelt goodwill.
Ah, my love, look at the smiling heavens above—
As night deepens and snowfalls come low,
I shall think and think again about our postponed love—
Which, perhaps—though happens not amongst the jumble of this juvenile night,
Shall come again when dusk is cleared, and the first bud of spring leaps into sight.

ah yeah
beautiful ladies
stretching up to the sun
what a gift
this little ****

see uh I been a grower
for some time now
grow that types a ****
make ya mind bow
gettin lower
on that cheeba
no not cheva
this is a killa weeda
so many strains
make ya heads spin
you like to stay up late
or get all locked in
see it don’t matter
which way ya wanna go
indica or sativa
I treat ya right, bro
see here in Oregon
we do things different
work a barter system
help each other pay rent
call me a socialist
like a give a ****
you be at my door
when ya havin hard luck
I’m a medical grower –

Son, I grow medicine
stopping censures
killin cancer
out my freezer
alcohol extracts
make all ya'll relax
no mo heart attacks
rushin like the train tracks
I grow medicine –

I grow out door
like that plant was meant to be
no chemicals
let that ***** grow free
feed em organic
lots a guano
watch the buds rippin
from the back po
see I’m a real farmer
have a long patient list
always lookin to add names
get the money makers ******
so I don’t charge much
just cost no overhead
I aint in this to get rich
that’s why I got this rap bread
I’m a medical grower –

Son, I grow medicine
stopping censures
killin cancer
out my freezer
alcohol extracts
make all ya'll relax
no mo heart attacks
rushin like the train tracks
I grow medicine –

’Twas now the noon of night, and all was still,
Except a hapless Rhymer and his quill.
In vain he calls each Muse in order down,
Like other females, these will sometimes frown;
He frets, be fumes, and ceasing to invoke
The Nine, in anguish’d accents thus he spoke:
Ah what avails it thus to waste my time,
To roll in Epic, or to rave in Rhyme?
What worth is some few partial readers’ praise.
If ancient Virgins croaking ‘censures’ raise?
Where few attend, ’tis useless to indite;
Where few can read, ’tis folly sure to write;
Where none but girls and striplings dare admire,
And Critics rise in every country Squire—
But yet this last my candid Muse admits,
When Peers are Poets, Squires may well be Wits;
When schoolboys vent their amorous flames in verse,
Matrons may sure their characters asperse;
And if a little parson joins the train,
And echos back his Patron’s voice again—
Though not delighted, yet I must forgive,
Parsons as well as other folks must live:—
From rage he rails not, rather say from dread,
He does not speak for Virtue, but for bread;
And this we know is in his Patron’s giving,
For Parsons cannot eat without a ‘Living’.
The Matron knows I love the *** too well,
Even unprovoked aggression to repel.
What though from private pique her anger grew,
And bade her blast a heart she never knew?
What though, she said, for one light heedless line,
That Wilmot’s verse was far more pure than mine!
In wars like these, I neither fight nor fly,
When ‘dames’ accuse ’tis bootless to deny;
Her’s be the harvest of the martial field,
I can’t attack, where Beauty forms the shield.
But when a pert Physician loudly cries,
Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by lies,
A walking register of daily news,
Train’d to invent, and skilful to abuse—
For arts like these at bounteous tables fed,
When S——condemns a book he never read.
Declaring with a coxcomb’s native air,
The ‘moral’s’ shocking, though the ‘rhymes’ are fair.
Ah! must he rise unpunish’d from the feast,
Nor lash’d by vengeance into truth at least?
Such lenity were more than Man’s indeed!
Those who condemn, should surely deign to read.
Yet must I spare—nor thus my pen degrade,
I quite forgot that scandal was his trade.
For food and raiment thus the coxcomb rails,
For those who fear his physic, like his tales.
Why should his harmless censure seem offence?
Still let him eat, although at my expense,
And join the herd to Sense and Truth unknown,
Who dare not call their very thoughts their own,
And share with these applause, a godlike bribe,
In short, do anything, except prescribe:—
For though in garb of Galen he appears,
His practice is not equal to his years.
Without improvement since he first began,
A young Physician, though an ancient Man—
Now let me cease—Physician, Parson, Dame,
Still urge your task, and if you can, defame.
The humble offerings of my Muse destroy,
And crush, oh! noble conquest! crush a Boy.
What though some silly girls have lov’d the strain,
And kindly bade me tune my Lyre again;
What though some feeling, or some partial few,
Nay, Men of Taste and Reputation too,
Have deign’d to praise the firstlings of my Muse—
If you your sanction to the theme refuse,
If you your great protection still withdraw,
Whose Praise is Glory, and whose Voice is law!
Soon must I fall an unresisting foe,
A hapless victim yielding to the blow.—
Thus Pope by Curl and Dennis was destroyed,
Thus Gray and Mason yield to furious Lloyd;
From Dryden, Milbourne tears the palm away,
And thus I fall, though meaner far than they.
As in the field of combat, side by side,
A Fabius and some noble Roman died.

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s “no.”
How can it? O, how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view;
The sun it self sees not, ’till heaven clears.
    O cunning love, with tears thou keep’st me blind,
    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

If neoliberalism has taught me anything
It’s that Love is a close, slow, and cold war
Of poisoned wells, proxy wars, and intel—
Know thy enemy, keep them closer than allies.
So close this necessary rivalry
That no olive branch can pass between
That, even in times of peace,
The light-bearing serpents
Post guard near the vaults of one’s purity
Unsure whether grain or gold
Actually lines the walls of ones coffers,
And the thousand envious myrmidons
Kept along the edges of their body’s territory
And skirt the embassy within.
Is there room in the hearth
For pacifists like me?
Or are all the rooms quartered by troops?
It’s sad to say, only the words of the cynic
Could truck and barter
Their way through the bronze gates,
What small inlets there may be,
As master seeking the slave
And slave, the master’s whips
Is a true sign of loyalty to Monogamy’s crown.
What Love couldn’t be said to be
The sadomasochism of
The corporate merger,
Or annexation
Or competitive market of ideas?
***, in the time of Smith or Hobbes,
Is exactly what we need—
Egoism allwheres,
Like so much embroidery
The love of ones life
Veils *******, a swallowing, a utility
And undoes the altruism,
Anything but all-true-ism,
In favor of the fetishism of control,
Flashed like semaphores in storm-beaten nights
To any ship passing
Seeking port and safe passage,
Exchange fire, those shapes and pleas,
Turned warnings to threats,
Sinking, sinking deeper
Into each other’s arms.
In all their plotting, do they hear
Andres-Salome, Ree, and Nietzsche
Laughing about in unburdened skin
Laughing to let the summer in,
On cart-drawn pleasures
And rustic, old-world habits
That rub dirt in the wound
Of the flesh’s censures
By the cruel absence of the lash
And the ostracon.

I always say, I feel nothing.
I always say, I'm not empathic.
I try to hide the reality,
That my heart is broken, severely.
I can see the morning sun,
Yet I cannot feel the light.
I sit in an empty room,
Yet I feel welcomed;
Welcomed by those not welcomed by others,
Welcomed by those who haunt my evening slumbers,
Welcomed, by those monstrosities in my head.
They speak in my tongue,
They move in my paces,
They think of my thoughts,
They are in my shoes.
They are my comfort,
They are my fears,
That one day, they'd make waterfall out of my tears.
I am damaged by words,
I am bruised by anticipation,
That the worst is always to happen,
As it was—no, in, my life.
They hold the strings to my body,
They fit my broken pieces to shape.
They stretch my mouth to form a smile,
They deafen my ears to the sound of joy,
They make me caged, wherever I go,
They follow my every stroll.
My demons are not my enemies,
Nor are they my saviors.
It is those around me, that feed them anger,
That my heart is painted black and horrid,
That my eyes are clouded in fogs of sadness.
Censures around me speak all of: "Cheer up!"
They could not understand!
How would they know what I feel?!
Know of the pain I suffer everyday;
Know of the wounds that bleed in my thoughts;
Know of the knives that stab me in my wake,
Knives that cut deeper than my body, my soul;
Know of the love I would never feel;
Know of the scars that will never heal;
Know of the eyes too exhausted to cry;
Know of the will to weak to even try;
Try to fight for justice he sought?
I know, I'm an attention *****.
I know, I say, what you say is *******.
I can't think of anything else that I can do,
Nor think of the hands I can reach out to.
I write in rambles, I speak in some, too.
None can really see, my faith is few.
I can never go back to what once I was,
**You trashed it long ago.

I wish I'd just fly away,

Lead astray by the skies;

Soaring higher and higher until I just explode.

I wish I'd get tied to make me grounded:

Soft enough to sway,

But strong enough to stay;

Moving to the whims of the breeze until I just explode.

But instead I'm just filled with emptiness.

Unable to speak my censures.

But I float.

Drown me, but I'll float;

And float—

And float,

Until I get swept away.

I wish I'd just explode.

Everyone expects a clear explanation
Just cause they don't see the scars
Nor the pain that burns in my throat
Or how bitter everything tastes in my mouth

Everyone thinks I make it up
Just cause I can stand
I wish I could just lay down and give up
But I won't, because you still won't believe.

Everyone thinks I am a liar
But if I drank the whole bottle
How would you feel?
If I fell limp and lifeless?

Everyone says my words are empty
Just cause they can't carry the weights
Why pretend to care?
What gain will you have from it?

Everyone says I'm wrong.
But none of them know I know.
Everyone wants to knock some sense into me.
But none of them know I have more of it than them.

Everyone thinks of me differently now
Everyone thinks of me, deranged;
Everyone thinks so since I continue to live;
I wonder if I grew languid.

Everyone has their words to say.
Everyone has their censures to tell.
How cowardly of me to hide in these words,
Without a voice, without a resolve.

I wonder if you knew what burden I bear
I wonder if you felt how ugly is the ugly
I wonder if you felt sympathy without a hidden agenda
I wonder if I—

Solitude is such a wonderful society
Where no one nitpicks and censures us;
Only peace lingers on...

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign

Worsening fires,
More dire censures
From poor mother Nature;
Storm winds and torrents
Since last tempest Florence
Hit North Carolinas;
Coastlines more flooded,
And still those who doubt it.
Like President Trump,
Dumping the evidence,
Still in denial.
Shunning the evidence…
What about Pence?
The climate thing vile.

Yesterday’s hurricanes,
Quickening winds and the rains with no drains…
Roofs blown off, trees blown down;
All of it happening all over town,
And all of it shown on TV.

We are living in times without equal.
With sequel statistical  flooding next door.
Storms know no borders,
And people are urged to be hoarders -
For crises like this are but chains,
And the rains have no enemies.
(maybe the sun - but that’s only one,
And nature’s not done with us -
That is for sure.

I’d bet my Schwinn bike
That Michael is far
From ‘taking a hike’
And happy to hear
That there’s not been one like it
Since records began.


This entire ramble
Is merely a gamble:
A figure of speech
For the breach in the wall
Of political wailings
And also their failings.

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign 10.12.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Once I will leave my own home.
I'll rush towards exciting adventures.
Open a new world outside the window.
Leave behind failure and censures.

I'll grab the shabby coat off the hook.
Behind my back, I'll leave the door wide open.
I'll win in cards man's shirt and book.
Keep looking for the things that broken.

I overhear the secrets of the fairies.
And sneak a look at how they dance.
I might make laugh moody demons.
And put the time itself in a trance.

I will try to plunge into the ocean.
Through icy water look at sparkling stars.
And show the mermaids meaning of emotions.
Then we will drink together in the bar.

Perhaps suddenly someday I'll have to go back.
Go down to earth, live life like were always.
Again see dull faces, that started to crack,
And have no desire to notice the new days.

In the middle of the night, sometimes in the mornings,
Look out the window and search for a sense.
Look for a miracle avoiding the warnings.
And holding a cup of hot tea in the hands.