Who would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace
His costly canvas with each flattered face,
Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush,
Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his brush?
Or, should some limner join, for show or sale,
A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid’s tail?
Or low Dubost—as once the world has seen—
Degrade God’s creatures in his graphic spleen?
Not all that forced politeness, which defends
Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends.
Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems
The book which, sillier than a sick man’s dreams,
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete,
Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet.

  Poets and painters, as all artists know,
May shoot a little with a lengthened bow;
We claim this mutual mercy for our task,
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask;
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams—
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.

  A laboured, long Exordium, sometimes tends
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends;
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down,
As Pertness passes with a legal gown:
Thus many a Bard describes in pompous strain
The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain:
The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls,
King’s Coll-Cam’s stream-stained windows, and old walls:
Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims
To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames.

  You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine—
But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign;
You plan a vase—it dwindles to a ***;
Then glide down Grub-street—fasting and forgot:
Laughed into Lethe by some quaint Review,
Whose wit is never troublesome till—true.

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire,
Let it at least be simple and entire.

  The greater portion of the rhyming tribe
(Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe)
Are led astray by some peculiar lure.
I labour to be brief—become obscure;
One falls while following Elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with Bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to Satiety;
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves
Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves!

  Unless your care’s exact, your judgment nice,
The flight from Folly leads but into Vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.
For galligaskins Slowshears is your man
But coats must claim another artisan.
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan’s feet to bear Apollo’s frame;
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose
Black eyes, black ringlets, but—a bottle nose!

  Dear Authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you’re quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
But lucid Order, and Wit’s siren voice,
Await the Poet, skilful in his choice;
With native Eloquence he soars along,
Grace in his thoughts, and Music in his song.

  Let Judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line:
This shall the Author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select;
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not, if ’tis needful, to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As Pitt has furnished us a word or two,
Which Lexicographers declined to do;)
So you indeed, with care,—(but be content
To take this license rarely)—may invent.
New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase;
What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden’s or to Pope’s maturer Muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,
As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs,
Enriched our Island’s ill-united tongues;
’Tis then—and shall be—lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in Parliament.

  As forests shed their foliage by degrees,
So fade expressions which in season please;
And we and ours, alas! are due to Fate,
And works and words but dwindle to a date.
Though as a Monarch nods, and Commerce calls,
Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;
Though swamps subdued, and marshes drained, sustain
The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,
And rising ports along the busy shore
Protect the vessel from old Ocean’s roar,
All, all, must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of Letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive;
Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive,
As Custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey.

  The immortal wars which Gods and Angels wage,
Are they not shown in Milton’s sacred page?
His strain will teach what numbers best belong
To themes celestial told in Epic song.

  The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint
The Lover’s anguish, or the Friend’s complaint.
But which deserves the Laurel—Rhyme or Blank?
Which holds on Helicon the higher rank?
Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

  Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen.
You doubt—see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick’s Dean.
Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied
To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side.
Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden’s days,
No sing-song Hero rants in modern plays;
Whilst modest Comedy her verse foregoes
For jest and ‘pun’ in very middling prose.
Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse,
Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse.
But so Thalia pleases to appear,
Poor ******! ****** some twenty times a year!

Whate’er the scene, let this advice have weight:—
Adapt your language to your Hero’s state.
At times Melpomene forgets to groan,
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone;
Nor unregarded will the act pass by
Where angry Townly “lifts his voice on high.”
Again, our Shakespeare limits verse to Kings,
When common prose will serve for common things;
And lively Hal resigns heroic ire,—
To “hollaing Hotspur” and his sceptred sire.

  ’Tis not enough, ye Bards, with all your art,
To polish poems; they must touch the heart:
Where’er the scene be laid, whate’er the song,
Still let it bear the hearer’s soul along;
Command your audience or to smile or weep,
Whiche’er may please you—anything but sleep.
The Poet claims our tears; but, by his leave,
Before I shed them, let me see ‘him’ grieve.

  If banished Romeo feigned nor sigh nor tear,
Lulled by his languor, I could sleep or sneer.
Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face,
And men look angry in the proper place.
At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly,
And Sentiment prescribes a pensive eye;
For Nature formed at first the inward man,
And actors copy Nature—when they can.
She bids the beating heart with rapture bound,
Raised to the Stars, or levelled with the ground;
And for Expression’s aid, ’tis said, or sung,
She gave our mind’s interpreter—the tongue,
Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense
(At least in theatres) with common sense;
O’erwhelm with sound the Boxes, Gallery, Pit,
And raise a laugh with anything—but Wit.

  To skilful writers it will much import,
Whence spring their scenes, from common life or Court;
Whether they seek applause by smile or tear,
To draw a Lying Valet, or a Lear,
A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school,
A wandering Peregrine, or plain John Bull;
All persons please when Nature’s voice prevails,
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales.

  Or follow common fame, or forge a plot;
Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not!
One precept serves to regulate the scene:
Make it appear as if it might have been.

  If some Drawcansir you aspire to draw,
Present him raving, and above all law:
If female furies in your scheme are planned,
Macbeth’s fierce dame is ready to your hand;
For tears and treachery, for good and evil,
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil!
But if a new design you dare essay,
And freely wander from the beaten way,
True to your characters, till all be past,
Preserve consistency from first to last.

  Tis hard to venture where our betters fail,
Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale;
And yet, perchance,’tis wiser to prefer
A hackneyed plot, than choose a new, and err;
Yet copy not too closely, but record,
More justly, thought for thought than word for word;
Nor trace your Prototype through narrow ways,
But only follow where he merits praise.

  For you, young Bard! whom luckless fate may lead
To tremble on the nod of all who read,
Ere your first score of cantos Time unrolls,
Beware—for God’s sake, don’t begin like Bowles!
“Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”—
And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?—
He sinks to Southey’s level in a trice,
Whose Epic Mountains never fail in mice!
Not so of yore awoke your mighty Sire
The tempered warblings of his master-lyre;
Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute,
“Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit”
He speaks, but, as his subject swells along,
Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with the song.”
Still to the “midst of things” he hastens on,
As if we witnessed all already done;
Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean
To raise the subject, or adorn the scene;
Gives, as each page improves upon the sight,
Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness—light;
And truth and fiction with such art compounds,
We know not where to fix their several bounds.

  If you would please the Public, deign to hear
What soothes the many-headed monster’s ear:
If your heart triumph when the hands of all
Applaud in thunder at the curtain’s fall,
Deserve those plaudits—study Nature’s page,
And sketch the striking traits of every age;
While varying Man and varying years unfold
Life’s little tale, so oft, so vainly told;
Observe his simple childhood’s dawning days,
His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays:
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans,
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!

  Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan
O’er Virgil’s devilish verses and his own;
Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too abstruse,
He flies from Tavell’s frown to “Fordham’s Mews;”
(Unlucky Tavell! doomed to daily cares
By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,)
Fines, Tutors, tasks, Conventions threat in vain,
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket Plain.
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash,
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash;
Constant to nought—save hazard and a *****,
Yet cursing both—for both have made him sore:
Unread (unless since books beguile disease,
The P——x becomes his passage to Degrees);
Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his terms away,
And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.;
Master of Arts! as hells and clubs proclaim,
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!

  Launched into life, extinct his early fire,
He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire;
Marries for money, chooses friends for rank,
Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank;
Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir;
Sends him to Harrow—for himself was there.
Mute, though he votes, unless when called to cheer,
His son’s so sharp—he’ll see the dog a Peer!

  Manhood declines—Age palsies every limb;
He quits the scene—or else the scene quits him;
Scrapes wealth, o’er each departing penny grieves,
And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves;
Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets,
O’er hoards diminished by young Hopeful’s debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,
Complete in all life’s lessons—but to die;
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,
Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept—is buried—Let him rot!

  But from the Drama let me not digress,
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.
Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred,
When what is done is rather seen than heard,
Yet many deeds preserved in History’s page
Are better told than acted on the stage;
The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye,
And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy,
True Briton all beside, I here am French—
Bloodshed ’tis surely better to retrench:
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow
In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show;
We hate the carnage while we see the trick,
And find small sympathy in being sick.
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth
Appals an audience with a Monarch’s death;
To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur’s eyes, can ours or Nature bear?
A haltered heroine Johnson sought to slay—
We saved Irene, but half ****** the play,
And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times
Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes;
And Lewis’ self, with all his sprites, would quake
To change Earl Osmond’s ***** to a snake!
Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief,
We loathe the action which exceeds belief:
And yet, God knows! what may not authors do,
Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing “heroines blue”?

  Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can,
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man,
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.
Of all the monstrous things I’d fain forbid,
I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did;
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong,
Rage, love, and aught but moralise—in song.
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends,
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends!
Napoleon’s edicts no embargo lay
On ******—spies—singers—wisely shipped away.
Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread
Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread,
In all iniquity is grown so nice,
It scorns amusements which are not of price.
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear
Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore,
His anguish doubling by his own “encore;”
Squeezed in “Fop’s Alley,” jostled by the beaux,
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes;
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease,
Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release:
Why this, and more, he suffers—can ye guess?—
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!

  So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools;
Give us but fiddlers, and they’re sure of fools!
Ere scenes were played by many a reverend clerk,
(What harm, if David danced before the ark?)
In Christmas revels, simple country folks
Were pleased with morrice-mumm’ry and coarse jokes.
Improving years, with things no longer known,
Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan,
Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low,
’Tis strange Benvolio suffers such a show;
Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place,
Oaths, boxing, begging—all, save rout and race.

  Farce followed Comedy, and reached her prime,
In ever-laughing Foote’s fantastic time:
Mad wag! who pardoned none, nor spared the best,
And turned some very serious things to jest.
Nor Church nor State escaped his public sneers,
Arms nor the Gown—Priests—Lawyers—Volunteers:
“Alas, poor Yorick!” now for ever mute!
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

  We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes
Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and Queens,
When “Crononhotonthologos must die,”
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.

  Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit,
And smile at folly, if we can’t at wit;
Yes, Friend! for thee I’ll quit my cynic cell,
And bear Swift’s motto, “Vive la bagatelle!”
Which charmed our days in each ægean clime,
As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme.
Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past,
Soothe thy Life’s scenes, nor leave thee in the last;
But find in thine—like pagan Plato’s bed,
Some merry Manuscript of Mimes, when dead.

  Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes,
Where fettered by whig Walpole low she lies;
Corruption foiled her, for she feared her glance;
Decorum left her for an Opera dance!
Yet Chesterfield, whose polished pen inveighs
‘Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our Plays;
Unchecked by Megrims of patrician brains,
And damning Dulness of Lord Chamberlains.
Repeal that act! again let Humour roam
Wild o’er the stage—we’ve time for tears at home;
Let Archer plant the horns on Sullen’s brows,
And Estifania gull her “Copper” spouse;
The moral’s scant—but that may be excused,
Men go not to be lectured, but amused.
He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill
Must wear a head in want of Willis’ skill;
Aye, but Macheath’s examp

So nice to be praised like a
state honor
Giving your heart to a donor

"Broadcasting romance forecasting"

The brain the heart is the
everlasting mind control
"Outlasting getting the taste
of food* the best treatment to
the soul well behaved to
Her voice plays the webcasting"

   EvEr__LaSTing
Life of miracles

The strong will heart heroes
No time for fasting
  The contrasting the colors
Neverlasting beats
the story knows to heat
Pieces build the right parts

Minds of selfish needs
pulled together wishful
thinking
Bring me the seven wonders
of the fish family Trump towers

Like estate will who will?
Open book in progress
the leader
But reading behind the lines
Do we trust the believer
Book of love can be
a game of mystery meeting
the deceiver

Never wanting this to end
Around the bend
"Who is on first"
Or the oldest Estate someone
leaves a comment at last

Saying just stay no rest
Like the wary
Estate schedule feels
like a tightrope
We cannot cope became
an estate neverending line
Bird wire you're always
*Welcome
Rotary phones
The pain excruciating tones
Just tweet cat got your tongue
The will hat off yellow canary
How your pride had you
The sensitive side your tooth hurt
Still flying Angelic fairy dessert

The Messenger
Kick in the pants
unknown passenger
Signed and delivered
Cruel documents the
hell wheel so fevered
Emotions to remember
the utmost condition
Like something so new
never touched

But something was there
and someone
else felt quite the experience
The feelings were overplayed
But the lover stayed eyes
Into her movie screen
King Estate pages from
her book unusual scene
Words she spoke delicately
pronounced but rushed

Not an ounce of gold
coming from the weight
of his belt like he vanished
Estate the beauty of the tree
everlasting from the root
Of his mind the greed got evil
Transcending "God" sending
We are the world blessings

The estate sale there were rules
Raised hands commending
Dinning like the Royal Queen
In her divine "Estate chair" hum
The whole entire spectrum
Predisposition in relation
Sum of all fears
His dark shirt with
suspender pants
That old Estate set two minds  
were perfectly set was not
a twinset or any bet

The everlasting kissing the
Sunset spiritual picnic
She's his peach everlasting
sunrises tic tac or nick nacks
And Plum's bunch of Irises
Those whispered promises
Estate lovebirds cage-free
Everlasting conclusion Oh! me
Eyes got blurry chipped white
picket fence
Last will everlasting dance
The state of mind ski *****

Her envelope got licked to elope
So tethered everlasting pearls
of Grandmas strings
Feeling her fingers
Rapunzel hair whispers the
harp tranquil bright tealight
Nine lives of a cat nap
Twin set laptop Estate house flip

Robin redbreast everlasting
Estate she sings South trip
She wakes up from her dream
She got the "Estate" in her hands
Everlasting Holylands

Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others’ action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it’s fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity
And virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing—
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing—
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can ****.

WRITTEN FOR HIS MOTHER

Dame du ciel, regents terrienne,
Emperiere des infemaux palus....

Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal
Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,—

I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
Albeit in nought I be commendable.

But all mine undeserving may not mar
Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;
Without the which (as true words testify)
No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.
Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,
And to me graceless make Him gracious.
Said Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,
Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theopbilus,
Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus
Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.
Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass
(Sweet ****** that shalt have no loss thereby!)
The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,
I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.
Within my parish-cloister I behold
A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,
And eke an Hell whose ****** folk seethe full sore:
One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.
That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be,—
Thou of whom all must ask it even as I;
And that which faith desires, that let it see.
For in this faith I choose to live and die.

O excellent ****** Princess! thou didst bear
King Jesus, the most excellent comforter,
Who even of this our weakness craved a share
And for our sake stooped to us from on high,
Offering to death His young life sweet and fair.
Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare,
And in this faith I choose to live and die.


Dante Gabriel Rossetti, trans.

and this is how i pick my bones apart.
every layer of skin begins to burn,
there's a bad taste on my tongue from choking back on your name.
i hear the tones drop in my chest, fully involved with my anger inside.

and i wish that roof collapsed.
when does the smoke clear up from the flashover we caused?
there's a tombstone above my bed commending you for killing what was left in me.
no light, no light, and you were trained to move without your vision.

there goes the flag, my final call.
to the monster you were, and he slayed, see you at the big one.

Hex Birthright in Hellenika

The Celestial Spirit of Vernarth began to walk through the Castellum del Horcodising, after the parapsychological regression in the conclusive auction and purge of him. He was looming at the Horcondising Keep; here all toilet modules, food, and medicines were well equipped, except for the inks and writing papers that were totally exhausted. Here you can see his mother Luccica, who was in a position to scribble and write on an upstairs deck, and in the other hand, she had a rosary of liberation, which anonymously appears before her purging in the presence of the protervative spellings that still wander through the cells and bedrooms of the Castellum del Horcondising. Her mother is seen twisted over the voices that polished the eight moons that she had designed for her son Vernarth from the very machicolations of the Castellum, but now with a rosary of liberation. It was clearly seen in the leaves written by her, which said that “My son abandoned his weapons, now in fluids of holy water, symbolizing real chimeras by the projections, to those who read his life verses in our Castellum, in Gaugamela and Patmos ”. Vernarth, mostly Hellenic, awaits to manifest healings for all creation, dumping water from moon storms on Rhodes, and lighting Matacan wall light at the door of the Messiah stand.

Vernart says: “my adolescent look, she has to be reborn with that of my father Bernardolipo; a whole Chamberlain, making himself free and a supporter of the baronies that were part of the servants of my servants…! Although now to climb his cabinet I have to raise my knees higher before his amplified step, calling us all and trying to be closer to a new bell to call us to dinner, as an entity of pride of architecture defined by his pen, ink, and white sheet that I mention. The mother I have to mention; My mother Luccica, rests not condemned or corrupted before her flesh, rather perfectly united to her spirit that envelops her free of sin, so that her company would be of complete solitude in our Castellum, we will continue to be in conformity with the spirit because our mansion is a beautiful spirit of vicissitudes, life, and peace, that our esplanade holds hunger and coldly indifferent to loneliness, cooling and pleasing the company of its own cold, rising from the first rays of the day, as well as rising from the first pinches of graduated ink, agreeing in the corrals where my father already lived according to his life among debtors, mortifying what he has not been able to mount on his steeds that inhabit his senses, leaving not so far to greet them in the mornings free of errors of not greeting, even When the minimum space is left to think of him as a joint-heir. Because the laments sob and others are born in the virginity of the light of the world with other lines Luccica can scarcely write, writing her co-age spirit, manifesting itself foolishly in suffering perfection; manifesting itself as everyone's delight, although ringing with anger at not freeing itself from glorious freedom. Not all sing to the tune of the disability of putting the strength of the grapheme of posterity, rather we blind ourselves by putting hope, but of patience that we arm ourselves by losing our courage to have it. Our will is of the magnitude of saints when doubt and fear entertain us, according to all the things and purposes that irreversibly will surprise us. I do not know where I have to walk here in this tower ?, because I know that myths of the unknown will fall according to the fact that I am his son, being the first-born of all men in the world, speaking of who among many intercede before tribulation or anguish, that strips me of all spirit still asking for it and justifying that I keep talking about them, but that I have been gone for a long time. For this reason, venerated mother, wake up from this frozen cell of the courtesy tower, because I am jealous and I believe that neither death nor life will fill the dead suspended in your room, which support more lives with their angels adorning their bindings and paragraphs, with principalities that are increasingly so distant more than imminent to come to please you. When your name is tried in real vices to increase, they are being stripped of the sons of the principality in which they shine from afar, but with our feet dancing on despotic brilliance, and not of the hollow that still does not fill my heart for you”

Emerging from the last lights of the Castellum del Horcondising, Vernarth bids farewell to his reign, leaving his mother Luccica in the company of three Angels who mined him with the amber mistletoe, of sallow light. However, she will remain frosted on her desk with ink at night and by day, so that when the day ceases, she will draw ink from the darkest night to continue writing that she can already be without Him! Near the Halleniká Necropolis in Rhodes, a statue of Peltasts stood, shielding the site where the “Vas Auric” Auric Medallion would sporadically rest, which came between the bilges, now inside the Eurydice. It came predestined with sacred amber garments alloyed, to make up for the between Peltast mediators who guarded them, to deliver it to its Commander Vernarth.

The Apostle Saint John says: “The Sephardim like us in exile did not see reasons restored in our union and tradition, we resembled a diaspora that did not derive voluntarily, according to events that occurred in my case in Judah at the hands of the Romans. The Alexandrian Jews form on my part certain Israelites dispersed in my prayers, leaving us where the radiance of our faith makes sense and dispensed power to us. My economy is to create the furniture that will inhabit laborious houses in the Staurós histos, even among those Jews and mercenary soldiers, freeing themselves from prejudices and clothing that represented them alone and fragile, being sensible by the diaspora. The world separates itself from the matter cell, clinging to the consciousness of the unity of dispersed Mosaicism as a sacrificial cult, to cater to those who write history more distant than a synagogue without a Rabbi. When bad winds blew there, they often made the situation worse for those scattered in a foreign land. At the end of the Hellenistic era, we had Jews in Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Phenicia, Pontus, north of the Black Sea, Cappadocia, the rest of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Cyrenaica, Carthage, Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. Now I in Rhodes with the Vas Auric, to trace the true effigy of Judas Thaddeus, my co-religious in pursuit of an intellectual and theological religious activity of edifying centers of prayer and universal unification, here in the Necropolis of Hallenikka, where some Davidian Psalm will be in more regions of here documented in precession, and as a reciprocal religion to Hellenic situationism. Its religiosity is felt, it even remains open in proselytism that causes the indefiniteness of the half-convert and that implies a risk for the identity of the Jewish religion as the support of a people with not a little original conscience "

He sings The Delphic Sibyl: “He bears the crown of thorns of the Coronation of Jesus, which also happened in the Praetorium, and as in previous cases to the scene represented in the corresponding neutral. In Eritrea Stauros, rather Herophile, if chaste and Delphic clairvoyant and apologetic, her vernacular artery made her a native of Marpeso, Troyana-Troade. As in fantasies of being the daughter of a Nymph and a Shepherd. Her elegy was escorting her to the Duodecim Evangelii, from Samos she is docking towards Patmos at the foundations of the Megaron. With the same polygon of the Sistine Chapel, in the quattrocento, where Vernarth had assistance in the parapsychological Regression of the Quattrocento Duodecim Evangelii, announcing that Vernolatry would be part of his Apologetic life, inspiring prophecies with the Iaspis Parables, commending scholarship after the grave that He was in the forest of Apollo Smintheus, returning to his origins in a sinkhole in Mount Coric. The idiomatic cross was its interlaced fractal, with threads and kashmar pole, surrounding the crossed palisades with linen threads, and Koiné to display the cross in the hestion or towards the Staurós or cross, in the capital event of the material instrument of execution for the man who falls into no man's land "

All intellect is dissected
Through the tunnel visioned perspectives
Stretched thin
In a stream of feed
Producing the illusion of need
Projected from old men
Who grin
Below the suicidal idols
Of the rivals
And glutton in the maniacal sins
Commenced
By brain dead Americans
Painted in the amens of the dense
Commending the hymns
Of spent casings
Atop the blood of babies
And maybe
One day
It can be better
Than the clever endeavours
To sever the head of the predators
Washing our hands of their sedatives
And delivering the skulls to the slavers
But we are pay dirt
Shoveled into trucks to work
For a leafless tree
Ready and wanting to believe
In anything
That doesn't see our deeds
As we
Are manufactured with the greed
Of sleeved wisemen
With five of a kind
In the fight for life
Putting our souls
Upon our rites
We bet
Despite the path of right
Infringing on the height
Of success
In excess
Of the tests message
We are the blessing
Of a warning
Within a forgotten story
Historically denoting its anointing
We are the disappointment
Of the warrior
Defeated in a court
Of corrupted consorts
Sorting out the blueprints
For a new fort
Distorting the borders
Of moral disorders
With orders to ****
The hoarders of will
We are the shrill screech
Of a dying world
And we are alive
But dead
Born to ****
Batteries of a shield
Building hell
To sell heaven pills

A cabin den
paneled in knotty pine
slick with thick varnish
jellied in mid-ooze
& running down the grooves.
A festive group gathers
around an electric fireplace
talking up old work stories
in mid-December.
My dad sits dead center
for the camera
wearing the face he wore
when in the company of adults
his long sleeves rumpled
and his collar askew
one arm straight up,
a bottle of Blatz in hand
commending
the buzz.

It was written in the beginning, a beginning before Britain, before folklore, gore and war. A beginning then, when the lords created, decorated and separated the night and also the bright, bright light. Therefore, a delight! In the beginning, creating the seven ways of days and the rays. The birth of earth, the black ravens, the havens and the heavens. A beginning of clean slates, dreams, schemes and themes!

As I blink and wink, badly and sadly I think… An ending, with fate or an ending with no ascending or commending date? Let’s debate and negotiate! A beginning, of Pharaohs, their arrows and the sparrows. An ending of sorrow? A beginning, borrowed from our hour’s tomorrow? An ending, I deem, that forever bends, defends, depends, pretends and never, ever seems to end. The heavens specialties and

hell’s cruelties. Governments and their restraints! Negative and positive lengths and strengths. A beginning and an ending; betrayed and strayed, long before many of us were to play or say. Stories of cities, glories and their pities! Starving nations and Haitians! Expensive vacations and relations! The elapsed and relapsed! Perhaps, the mishaps and disruption of our corruption’s eruption and ending

destruction? Hey! I say, let’s turn a page past the basked, the masked and vast. A fold past the cages that enrage-rage, wage and old age.
The detained delights, the petty fights and plights. Why can’t we each reunite? Unite forever! Drop and stop this harm and fight. Fly into the night, together with our almighty arms and mighty charms. Primarily, in the beginning or ending, let us not negatively but too positively and ultimately amend! Children, men and women, amen.

This is neither history nor theology;
this is Romance:

                                       A Liturgy for the Emperor

In memory of
Patrick Joseph Donovan,
Stratiotis

Processional

How, then, will we find death?  With rifle in hand,
Perhaps, or flowing with the warm, worn prayers
That slip with beads through one's fingers and soul.
Rifle or Rosary, either will do.
One's death might rise in the boldness of youth,
Or in the wearied wisdom of old age,
In wild combat against ancient evils,
Or softly, while planting a red-apple tree
For grandchildren to summer-celebrate,
In wild red martyrdom, or obscure white.

The nights still whisper how the Emperor fell,
Fell with a faithful few upon the walls,
The old land walls of Constantinople.
But we are not to speak of martyrs whose
Transcendent beauty reproaches our times,
Our drifting dark age, drab, dreary, and dim
Our tomb-like lives cluttered with small darkness,
Our talk all common, colourless, and cold:
The thoughts assigned programmed into our souls,
Daymares programmed into us for our good,
Pitiful, pattering, prosthetic prose,
Cacophonies of casual cruelties --
No brave iambic lines for golden dreams.

But dare we also whisper truths, and speak
Of what a wind-wild people once we were,
And we will want our syllables to sing
In honour of the Martyr-Emperor
And those who followed him into his death,
And in this knowing of him we can live
Among those souls who are forever young.

Introit

In Nomine Partis, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti

We will go to the Altar of God
To God, Who gives joy to our youth
We will go to the Altar of God
We will go to Byzantium

Kyrie

Lord have mercy -- when the shadows surround us
Christ have mercy -- when we forget the Three Romes
Lord have mercy -- when we forget You

Gloria

Glory to God in the highest
And peace to His Byzantine people
And all His peoples
Lord God, Heavenly King
who once blessed us with Emperors
Send us another
Send Your waiting people their Emperor

The First Reading

As Constantine his walls he watched, he wept,
Lost in the Gethsemane of his soul
His tears they fell upon the ancient bricks
Warm with centuries of sun, saintliness,
And the passions of a glorious race

The City!  Long reigning on the Golden Horn
The Summer Country of our childhood dreams
There playing, praying, working, selling, and,
Yes, sinning too.  Passionate *Romanoi --
What a magnificent people we were.

(fast)

When armies marched to the Byzantine beat
Sophia ruled from her Byzantine seat  
When Byzantine sails sheltered Odysseus' sea
The wave-roads of trade were open and free  
When Romanoi feasted, blood mixed with wine
Daggers drawn over a dancing concubine
A newer Helen who provoked desire,
She seared men's eyes with her own Greek Fire
When Blues and Greens howled in the Hippodrome --
Such rowdy citizens in Second Rome! --
Then even Emperors in purple shoes
Feared stoning by Greens or hanging by Blues
The rough, loud democracy of the street --
Mobs also marched to the Byzantine beat

The Second Reading

(slowly)

But –

Above all rose Justinian's gem
The holy place where God called us to Him
The Mother Church of dawn-lit Christendom
Sophia -- the Queen of Byzantium
Where Patriarch, patrician, people, and priest
Gave worship.  Then the greatest and the least
Abandoned sin to hear the sweet bells ring,
Stood penitent before our God, our King:
In consecrated hands, through wine and bread

Christos Pantocrater fed us Himself

And then all hearts were cleansed, all souls were fed

(Very slowly)

But centuries passed, and this City of God
Heart of the Empire, became the Empire,
As lands and peoples were lost forever
to the creeping new age.  When Constantine,
The last Constantine, was called to the Throne,
All that was left was The City herself,
The Morea, and islands, and memories.
The fleet whose sails had shaded the Inner Sea
Was but a few hopeless hulks in the Horn

From the dust, dark shadows metastasized,
Shadows who stole and slew their way to power
And swept the land bare of free folk and fields
And more and more the shadows grasped and held,
A dead world of slaves whose backs were bloodied
Beneath the whips of masters, slaves whose eyes
Were cast carefully, cautiously to the ground
Lest demeanour manly and bearing proud
Attract the executioners' busy blades.

Finally, after devouring lands and souls,
The shadows coveted Constantinople,
The Red-Apple Tree where continents meet,
The City they could never build for themselves
And nothing stood between them and their lust
But one bold man: Constantine Dragases.
The faithful few who stood the walls with him,
Gathered around proud, stubborn Constantine:
Workers and monks and nuns, beggars, merchants,
Proud, arrogant Byzantines, and the few
Wild Latins From the barbarian West
Whose Greek was in their hearts, not on their lips,
Who gave their loyalty late to their liege lord,
The Emperor, who could have safely lain
A shadow's golden-caged slave, obedient,
Well-fed, well-bedded from the shadows'
Catalogues of pretty girls and prettier boys,
A memory of what had been a man.

But Constantine stood proudly on his walls,
Defiantly, bravely, sadly there on
His crumbling ancient walls, and gave his faith
To God and the City, to his people,
Even to the faithless ones, even to his death.

And others came, From Rome and Spain and France,
From Germany, and even from the Turks,
Brave, lonely men with reasons of their own
For ending their lives there on the Land Walls.

But they were not enough.  And late that night,
After the last Mass in Hagia Sophia,
The Emperor knew that his was the blood,
The blood of sacrifice that would be shed
In remembrance of ****** Golgotha,
For the people he was given to rule,
For the people for whom he chose to die,
Sheltering, protecting, until his end.


A Gospel

No angel appeared to the Emperor,
No voice of God from a burning bush
He parted himself from his followers
And for a few minutes grieved alone

And this was given Constantine to know:

The eternal Constantinople is
Never to be lost, never defeated --
In every Christian flows Dragases' blood
Every village is the Holy City
Every church is Hagia Sophia
Every prayer is a Mass for the Emperor
Every children's foot-race the Hippodrome
Every poor family's poor supper
A banquet under the Red-Apple Tree.
Constantinople will live forever.
Know that, and, laughing, give your last earth-hour,
And your joyful eternity, to God.

Credo

We believe in God's holy empire too,
Byzantium, eternally golden
The Red-Apple Tree in the eastern sun
The City that echoes with laughing light
Through memory and history and beyond.
We believe in God and His Emperor,
And we believe that in the absence of
The Emperor, even then we must be
The Emperor's subjects, stubborn and true,
Wherever God has chosen to send us.
We then must rule our passions and our hearts,
Tend our gardens as if they were Eden --
Because they are -- and care for our children
As if angels were visiting tonight,
Until our God restores our Emperor,
Restores His City where the Earth-halves meet,
And finally, some day, some happy day,
Returns Himself to sit and rule enthroned
In His Three Romes, and in Jerusalem.


Communion

Constantine shook himself, and gave commands,
Commending all to duty and to God.
Above him the dome of Hagia Sophia
Glowed eerily on that last, wild night
While lightning slashed among the sliding clouds
Byzantium rose again for one glorious hour
And the world marveled that such things could be,
That Christ and Rome and Constantinople
Could be found in one man at the end of an age.

Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
The glory is that there is no glory.
Chaos.  Horror.  Stench.  Sweat.  Pain.  *****.  Death.
Hi­s -- His -- body broken again for us.

On that dark morning of a dark new age,
Constantine turned and faced its slithering shadows
With a Byzantine end to his ruler's art,
With the peace of Christ and a hero's heart.

DISMISSAL

The Mass is ended.  Byzantium is ended.  
Escape, if you can -- make Byzantium live.
Escape to live in some peace, if you can.
Escape in peace to love and serve in exile.
Escape in peace to love and serve the Lord.

"O Lord save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance;
And to Thy Faithful king grant victory over the barbarians.
And by the power of Thy Cross, protect all those who follow  
          Thee"1

Not an End at All

1Troparion for the Sunday of the Elevation of the Cross, Divine Prayers and Serves of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Christ, copyright 1938.

Many thanks to Mr. Tod Mixson and others of St. Michael's Orthodox Church for assistance at many points, both liturgical and artistic, to Dr. Dan Bailey, of happy memory, and Dr. John Dahmus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

One by one they stagger in

And one by one
They are stabbed again

And there is not a single thing
That you or I can do for them

As they are they
And we are we

And we
We are Americans

All us worldly citizens

And we
We will do it all again

But

Bigger better
Smarter harder

Bigger bombs
Bigger bonds
Better arms
And better cons

Smarter teams
Smarter dreams
Harder fiends
With harder clings

To speculative seams

Sinking into the dreams
Meaninglessness

Free will
A cress

Made in the finesse of last laughs

Trapped in a maze
Amazed in lapsed..

Pain
The same as sympathy

Empathy fills me
But not you

Who the **** are you
Feel me feeling you

I am the impossible
Possibly hostile

Martyr to a better place
From carvers of the human face

Disgraced

Plucked and pruned
Fallen from space
****** imprudent
Shielded in hate

Grace is made this way

I can
I will
I am

And we can
All relate

From sculpted slates
We can blame the genetic traits

I stand
I ****
I am

Still me

But a who the **** are you
Is still a who the **** am I

And I am merely me
Marrying myself to the breeze

Flowing dis-compassionately

The woe only in I
Same goes for you

What’s mine is yours
And what’s yours
Is mine too

And you
You are
So ******* beautiful
To me

For me..

Waiting patiently
For us to meet

As this
This ******* dream

Is disintegrating

In graying hair
And brittled teeth

Right before me

Between my fingers
Secreting my completeness

The sheen that lingers
Of what may beat this

You are Less and less
Amiss and drifting through an abyss
Of timelessness
Or *******

Lighting the nothingness
With the something’s we have lit

Crumpling the summoning
Under running concepts

I flip it
Loop it
Re-repeat it
Speak it
And there it is

Until it's all there is

To be convinced
Of it ever being

It is what it is
It is what you make of it

But it
It is non-existent
Despite the coherence
Of the zing

It's still *******

However you paint it
Manipulative and complacent

I still sing

And once you get it
The pit still sits

Right where you left it
And you still aint ****

Merely being

We Just ride it
Until the end

Slowly declining in its decent
Commending the contempt
And spending our worth

To vent and purge
The splurging words
While observing the swerves
Of our naked nerves
In the sunlight

I writhe in light
Like in the warm shower insights
To my life
Lost when I dry

I'll be alright
When our eyes
Lock on the same night
On the same starry skies
Hypnotizing our lies
Into drive
As we drive
Off the same cliff

It's candle lit
Convalescence
To our testaments
To love and hate the love
In the wretched lessons
Lessened by the blessings
From the others projecting
Our chances of living
On our setting sons

Till the dawn of war drums
Strum with our fathers guns
On the gumption
Of the stun
As it fades away
As the faces deteriorate
From pictures framed of mind

Despite the rewinding
To the reeling back
Of everything that happened
In the snap back

Unto impact
It is the rubber band that snapped

That held it all together

Facts are still facts
Or perhaps
A map
To what happened
And trapped it
To one singular act
Of submission

The intuition
A mere vision
Made to action
Seeing is believing

The deceiving traction

Mashing the imagination
In its station for supremacy

Satisfaction

A ration
Of the disbelief
Molding into my souly retreat
Where I shall lovingly
Accept defeat
And fall upon my knees
Unto your love for me

Seeing you reflecting
Your similar beliefs

Once unbeknownst in the grief

Simply beautiful

I see us disappearing in the seas
In pulling tides
And swirling cities

Where we complete
Upon meeting
As we sink

If only I were a painting,
indestructible and charming.
Then, and only then,
would my fairness be untiring.

For Beauty, on the surface,
is oh-so-overrated-
for what does Beauty value
but mirrors, silver-plated?

As proven with so many souls,
Beauty is skin deep:
hollow eyes and empty smiles,
no substance for one’s keep.

And so, my dear admirer,
please keep this thought in mind:
I value Wit and Character
In lieu of polished shine.

While I thank for your kind words,
If, in truth, you are commending:
keep in mind, I’m but a surface.
Please, don’t touch the painting.

Run away to a foreign country, one with plush yellow green pastures. The grasses hiss soothingly as the breeze brushes them down this way and that. My home, a simple one room shelter built atop a broad and wise dark leafed tree who has welcomed me to its strong open arms. The skirt of my plain brown dress tickles the tops of my feet as I step down onto the soft soily earth.

There are no people here but I am not alone. The wind is here to lift the overflow of thoughts from my ever questioning mind and the water is here to soothe me and commiserate like an old companion purified from the complications of humanity. The dirt is my mother and my father, providing for me. Nurtures me with its succulent plants and cups its hands so that I might take a few small fish from them now and then.

A spotted sun perch hangs behind me as I perambulate meditatively. I see a few delicate vibrant blossoms on the side of my arborous home. They chime a brilliant tune that I will later compose onto a clay canvas. The afternoon is spent cleaning the small token and then toasting it over fire. I tend the patches of nearly wild vegetables and fruits. The most desirable ones plucked for my plate.

Guardian stars begin to dot the serenity of a dazzling dusk that demands my awe. I am aware of my tiny existence and its grand insignificance yet at the same moment I feel as though I was specially chosen by the cosmos to witness this perfect event. An intoxicating shiver grips me suddenly as a gust flits up my spine and through the back of my hair. Slowly it falls and the lulling chirps of a million violinists begin to play to one another. An admiring amphibian adrift the pond lilies relinquishes some commending croaks.

As the dark begins to settle in I climb to my aerial cottage to lie down. The rustling of my nest-bed reminds my neighbor owl of the time and she hoots appreciatively before flying off to begin her hunts. The splendid nocturnal symphony soon sends me to my dreams.

Another day passes,
amounting to wishes forever gone,
moderation commending  self control
Down tools for the Sandman, in sympathy,
if he could at least meet his Golden Stranger
and orchestrate Kites for Dreamers,
he'd steer us all, assuredly.
But every year is in the same league
uncertain before it's began.
The highs and lows just worn
to create  pools of impassiveness.

With Closed eyes and a grim face
Imposed lies paint a dim place
Dark and hollow with nothing around
Go ahead and scream you'll never be found
Keep going further down to your dismay
This ***** just beginning for sure it's just may
Etch up a symbol a portrait of hope
Catch up be nimble, forget about the *****
Hear the voices screaming in the night
Wake up you're dreaming, but everything's not alright
Blur out her memory one drink should do
Slur down what went wrong better yet make it two
Dig deeper into a false sense of relief
Tell yourself it didn't happen, I mean it's your own belief
Go on another liquor drenched ******
Talking to shadows, trying not to remember
You said you loved her, when was that? December.
4 years is a long time to be near
4 beers is a song, a chime to be clear
A melody to sooth and erase
But still you find yourself leading this chase?
**** if only you could forget her face
Close your eyes and drift off into sadness
Hearing the voices call in the madness
Still you'll sit just all alone
This darkness now is your "humble abode"
With no way out you soon decide
Contemplating the thought of suicide
The reality of all that was lost
All comes clear but at what cost
Now all thoughts and ambitions are tossed
Trapped in the dim dark place you come to know
You'll never get out you'll never just go
To forget her would be the key
To forget her is the lesson you see
There's no fixing or mending
No wishing or commending
It's just you and your thoughts in the dim to be

Two coffee shops, one left one right, ancient
History of modern Rome, post-war families saving
Ethiopian delights, surviving selling beans rebuilding
The Eternal City, bringing back normality by drugging

Insanity. I knew them both since I was a child, holding
My father’s hand while he drank, the elixir and I
Ate my tramezzino looking up at his smile. Contagiously
Spreading the good vibes as he joked, with young

Bartenders sons, of local bar owners serving
Residents. Went to each yesterday, one for cigarettes
The other, for corretto, another way to gulp a drop
Of spirit disguising, in the tiny cup, of a dark mask.

Young tapsters have grown old yet remain, brewing
In solitude, relatives absent some departed.
At the cashier two Chinese ladies discovered, to be
The wives of new owners, foreigners employing

Italians, weird products of migration, for ambitious
Populations conquering integration, as their kids
Go to the same school as mine and locals mock
The change, living in the glory of the past, when

National espresso only charged, seven hundred lire
European currency exchanged, in ninety cents for those
Who don’t know, triple its original price. My bank
Stuck in the middle of the two has also changed

In twenty years, my first account at eighteen
Transformed, me into the witness of many comes
And goes, directors and vice, bankers and services
Evolving to reward, my loyalty with fraud.

Two nights ago it shamelessly stole, fifty euros of me
Claiming, inexistent liabilities on a contract that had none.
Peanuts to unconscious holders, asking explanations
To hear clerks remark, they have no idea and will

Eventually know in ten days time, when the statement
Will sentence the crime, as legal commending me to shut
Up, accept the theft, give thanks. Going tomorrow to grab
A coffee and close, twenty years of history, mine.

Feeling the "Earthquake" not really knowing who your lover
really is. All spies like a Jupiter Ascending
love ammunition how it got you there is no pretending

          X
        Flex
         Trix
          Mix
    Boo Botox
     Net Flix
Does the letter
           X
Solve our problems
       On a Fix

My X bigger bridges
Brooklyn hug sorry
(The Braggart)
hurry
Mr. Humphrey
Home of Ophrey
Supermarket X-play
game
Spoiled to
the very flame

life "X"  sport betting
X-Files hurt-playing
The book
**** and Jane
SPOT
pooping and
cleaning up
Keep talking
to never
shut up

Marks the spot
X-Men cup
Where's your other
X husband?
Did he get bruised
Tossed
Nutcracker
So wounded by
another lover

Tight B-fit
Treasure chest
packer
The pinch cheeker
Tried to heal him
I heartfelt his
wound
Drummer beat
me to it
band-aid

Computer Bugs
Ladybugs of aids
Teddy hugs maids

Judy red  Grape
ruby slippers
Her Garlands
Singing to the bank
Man-Tipper
Disney-land
Epcot
The farmland
Dot .   .   .   .   .
Are you down
on your

__
  $
  $
   $
X's_
She's highlands
Over the rainbow
  Oz only
Spellbound in
your sleep

Z   zzz  Z  zzz

Buzz-zzz Beeee
Mover trucker
Hoarder Fed Ex
So Wed-Dexter
X-Her
Did you see the
yellow
tape of
surveillance
The French
waitress
The *******
Raise her mattress
Don't hock my
X design
She is wanted
X-signs
Upgraded
Up Up and away
Need an update
Her calender Girls
Bikini X=style cups

Those braggarts
Bring on nuggets
** -
Xylophone
II
The bragger
Smartphone
The true lover

Bulleye
He darts me
Twin Tigers eye
Lined and framed
X-Spy
Valentines Day xoxo
Laying hearts on
the line
He's playing darts

He circled me
tic tack toe
Smartypants

XOxOxO  X0XO
Zany Zorro
1 0  0 0 $ Extra
Mantra
  ** The Taxman  
Oh! Why Y Y

down to
Zero Conman
  Singing the blues
Holiday Miss Billie
Let one X be my hero
Just X me 4-A
appointment
tomorrow

Of Spies per day
The Wolfine
Another X boyfriend
Time machine

Love conquers all
Another try

The old testament
The new Xtra
dividends
To be speared
The spearmint
Jupiter Ascending
in the future

Black magic or the
Goldmine
Told her X its time

Bloodline getting
approval
More enemies
of your rival
The good
versus evil


Halftime marked
No time adjusted
The real-time
everyone's birth
Arrested
Crying movie
Xtra needing
one bad

Pinch cheek warm
Looper fine Cooper
Halfheartedly
Spies coming to me
X   X   X   X
Snooper

The love forever
But not willingly
Oh!   0  0   0

Like you were both
Marked to die

Organic minerals
Meeting X-men
Generals
Good time of currency
love potency
Highland to my fancy

The even exchange

He's X I am $

What would you prefer?


More TimeSquare
Love me not

Last City token fare

The math equation
         X
Likewise silver teaspoon

Lovers measurable swoon
X men on the lagoon

Of the lord

The human state
X
Do you mind

Losing some stripes

Oh! Yikes making amends

People on the inside

Flattered by the energy
    X boast_
Heavenly encounter above
Name of a title 2 for X

Foremost another
Spy of
a toast
((To Be)) the most
Mark me and I promise
You will see
Jupiter Ascending
Her Floppy disk
In Gods love
commending

The future we may never know

But all the love in the world

"Love Is The letter"
If your happy and
you know it
Clap your X- hands
No pretending just
move to
your destinationHome

In the garden she danced
Hair flowing ebony
Flitting and fleeting from one flower to the next
Inhaling their beauty
Admiring their depth
My delighted eyes entranced
Locked on that sight
As I watched her

She climbed the trees
And rested among the branches
Counting the leaves and the creatures
Marvelling at their magnificence
Commending the creator
My enraptured eyes fixated
Silently
As I watched her

The sun grew taller
And the heat grew unbearable
A splendid combination of her passion
And the peak of summer's glory
She was restless
In perpetual adventure
All in the confines
Of our small slice of nature

She grabbed me by the wrist
That grip she held on the branches moments earlier
Pulled me to the grass and we lay
We laughed
We dreamed
Of summers days to come
Her excitement and vigour
Breathtaking

Finally at peace in the silence
Next to that ebony hair
And hazel stare
We lay until the sun dipped into the horizon
And left nothing but a pastel glow
Inhaling the scent of the evening
Admiring the softness of the clouds
She was locked on that sight

Yet,
I watched just her.

I yearn for the days
of me sighing at the spider
way up on the ceiling,
and you commending his skill.

“Look how high he got!” you’d say,
big old grin on your face, soft hair in my hands,
with kind eyes locked on the spiders’ hair
that dangled boldly from the ceiling.  

We’d play a game.
Armed with cup and blank paper,
evenly matched—
in the race to catch the beast.

I’d watch you win each race.
The satisfying sound of the cup slapping drywall,
it still rings in my ears.
How tenderly you’d speak goodbyes on our porch.

Where the hell is my goodbye.

I'm always taken aback by the word 'intellectual'--indeed it unsettles and scares me.  No doubt, this is a favourite word with academicians,  thinkers, the intelligent and smart as well as those who regard themselves as being qualified to be among such. Then they are those who, despite their limited e∂ucation,  have made millions in business (whether legitimately or by devious or illegal means) who pride themselves as 'business wizards', a categorisation that makes them even more distinguished than the 'intellectuals'.

The word sets them apart from the common run of mankind--they want to think of themselves as being superior to all others. It's their obsession, trade-mark and their fetish---they are what their ego makes them.  So sad, they know not that they live in delusion,  for the true intellectual doesn't boast of being one, less commending himself in indulgence that he is such.

I have seen this often in real life and thus am not speaking in speculation.

I am no psychologist but I consider these people not only as puerile, immature, insecure and lacking emotional intelligence but also as socially unpleasant and odious. I remember an Oxford-trained scientist over dinner who talked endlessly about his achievements in chemistry, buttressed further by his proud and talkative wife--a most boring meal!

Intelligence exists everywhere--look at the skilful works of the carpenter, gardener, teacher, nurse, mechanic, electrician, plumber,
iron-monger, singer, dancer, musician, the entertainer and clown, the baker and chef...the list is an endless one.  To crown all this, think of the wisdom of your own mother!

Let me be then, just a common man.  I know this defines me perfectly
and makes me immensely happy!

I gave her the moon
And every single star
As a token of my adoration
And she gave me
In return
The one freckle
On her nose
That I always stated at
And admired

As a thank you for the blazing center of the sun
And my charred skin
She gave me the eyelash
I swept off of her cheek

In reply
To my manny sonnets and songs
Commending her on her beauty
She gave me the single
Glistening year
Soft and dewy as it cascading down the curvature of her porcelain skin
And settled on her lips

The ones I will kiss one last time
Before they are kept six feet away from
Underneath my toes

The toes that still twitch in pain at the memory of the hot coals I walked on when she was busy kissing him.