An evening all aglow with summer light
And autumn colour—fairest of the year.

The wheat-fields, crowned with shocks of tawny gold,
All interspersed with rough sowthistle roots,
And interlaced with white convolvulus,
Lay, flecked with purple shadows, in the sun.
The shouts of little children, gleaning there
The scattered ears and wild blue-bottle flowers—
Mixed with the corn-crake's crying, and the song
Of lone wood birds whose mother-cares were o'er,
And with the whispering rustle of red leaves—
Scarce stirred the stillness. And the gossamer sheen
Was spread on upland meadows, silver bright
In low red sunshine and soft kissing wind—
Showing where angels in the night had trailed
Their garments on the turf. Tall arrow-heads,
With flag and rush and fringing grasses, dropped
Their seeds and blossoms in the sleepy pool.
The water-lily lay on her green leaf,
White, fair, and stately; while an amorous branch
Of silver willow, drooping in the stream,
Sent soft, low-babbling ripples towards her:
And oh, the woods!—erst haunted with the song
Of nightingales and tender coo of doves—
They stood all flushed and kindling 'neath the touch
Of death—kind death!—fair, fond, reluctant death!—
A dappled mass of glory!
Harvest-time;
With russet wood-fruit thick upon the ground,
'Mid crumpled ferns and delicate blue harebells.
The orchard-apples rolled in seedy grass—
Apples of gold, and violet-velvet plums;
And all the tangled hedgerows bore a crop
Of scarlet hips, blue sloes, and blackberries,
And orange clusters of the mountain ash.
The crimson fungus and soft mosses clung
To old decaying trunks; the summer bine
Drooped, shivering, in the glossy ivy's grasp.
By day the blue air bore upon its wings
Wide-wandering seeds, pale drifts of thistle-down;
By night the fog crept low upon the earth,
All white and cool, and calmed its feverishness,
And veiled it over with a veil of tears.

The curlew and the plover were come back
To still, bleak shores; the little summer birds
Were gone—to Persian gardens, and the groves
Of Greece and Italy, and the palmy lands.

A Norman tower, with moss and lichen clothed,
Wherein old bells, on old worm-eaten frames
And rusty wheels, had swung for centuries,
Chiming the same soft chime—the lullaby
Of cradled rooks and blinking bats and owls;
Setting the same sweet tune, from year to year,
For generations of true hearts to sing.
A wide churchyard, with grassy slopes and nooks,
And shady corners and meandering paths;
With glimpses of dim windows and grey walls
Just caught at here and there amongst the green
Of flowering shrubs and sweet lime-avenues.
An old house standing near—a parsonage-house—
With broad thatched roof and overhanging eaves,
O'errun with banksia roses,—a low house,
With ivied windows and a latticed porch,
Shut in a tiny Paradise, all sweet
With hum of bees and scent of mignonette.

We lay our lazy length upon the grass
In that same Paradise, my friend and I.
And, as we lay, we talked of college days—
Wild, racing, hunting, steeple-chasing days;
Of river reaches, fishing-grounds, and weirs,
Bats, gloves, debates, and in-humanities:
And then of boon-companions of those days,
How lost and scattered, married, changed, and dead;
Until he flung his arm across his face,
And feigned to slumber.
He was changed, my friend;
Not like the man—the leader of his set—
The favourite of the college—that I knew.
And more than time had changed him. He had been
“A little wild,” the Lady Alice said;
“A little gay, as all young men will be
At first, before they settle down to life—
While they have money, health, and no restraint,
Nor any work to do,” Ah, yes! But this
Was mystery unexplained—that he was sad
And still and thoughtful, like an aged man;
And scarcely thirty. With a winsome flash,
The old bright heart would shine out here and there;
But aye to be o'ershadowed and hushed down,

As he had hushed it now.
His dog lay near,
With long, sharp muzzle resting on his paws,
And wistful eyes, half shut,—but watching him;
A deerhound of illustrious race, all grey
And grizzled, with soft, wrinkled, velvet ears;
A gaunt, gigantic, wolfish-looking brute,
And worth his weight in gold.
“There, there,” said he,
And raised him on his elbow, “you have looked
Enough at me; now look at some one else.”

“You could not see him, surely, with your arm
Across your face?”
“No, but I felt his eyes;
They are such sharp, wise eyes—persistent eyes—
Perpetually reproachful. Look at them;
Had ever dog such eyes?”
“Oh yes,” I thought;
But, wondering, turned my talk upon his breed.
And was he of the famed Glengarry stock?
And in what season was he entered? Where,
Pray, did he pick him up?
He moved himself
At that last question, with a little writhe
Of sudden pain or restlessness; and sighed.
And then he slowly rose, pushed back the hair
From his broad brows; and, whistling softly, said,
“Come here, old dog, and we will tell him. Come.”

“On such a day, and such a time, as this,
Old Tom and I were stalking on the hills,
Near seven years ago. Bad luck was ours;
For we had searched up corrie, glen, and burn,
From earliest daybreak—wading to the waist
Peat-rift and purple heather—all in vain!
We struck a track nigh every hour, to lose
A noble quarry by ignoble chance—
The crowing of a grouse-****, or the flight
Of startled mallards from a reedy pool,
Or subtle, hair's breadth veering of the wind.
And now 'twas waning sunset—rosy soft

On far grey peaks, and the green valley spread
Beneath us. We had climbed a ridge, and lay
Debating in low whispers of our plans
For night and morning. Golden eagles sailed
Above our heads; the wild ducks swam about

Amid the reeds and rushes of the pools;
A lonely heron stood on one long leg
In shallow water, watching for a meal;
And there, to windward, couching in the grass
That fringed the blue edge of a sleeping loch—
Waiting for dusk to feed and drink—there lay
A herd of deer.
“And as we looked and planned,
A mountain storm of sweeping mist and rain
Came down upon us. It passed by, and left
The burnies swollen that we had to cross;
And left us barely light enough to see
The broad, black, branching antlers, clustering still
Amid the long grass in the valley.

“‘Sir,’
Said Tom, ‘there is a shealing down below,
To leeward. We might bivouac there to-night,
And come again at dawn.’
“And so we crept
Adown the glen, and stumbled in the dark
Against the doorway of the keeper's home,
And over two big deerhounds—ancestors
Of this our old companion. There was light
And warmth, a welcome and a heather bed,
At Colin's cottage; with a meal of eggs
And fresh trout, broiled by dainty little hands,
And sweetest milk and oatcake. There were songs
And Gaelic legends, and long talk of deer—
Mixt with a sweet, low laughter, and the whir
Of spinning-wheel.
“The dogs lay at her feet—
The feet of Colin's daughter—with their soft
Dark velvet ears pricked up for every sound
And movement that she made. Right royal brutes,
Whereon I gazed with envy.
“ ‘What,’ I asked,
‘Would Colin take for these?’
“ ‘Eh, sir,’ said he,
And shook his head, ‘I cannot sell the dogs.
They're priceless, they, and—Jeanie's favourites.
But there's a litter in the shed—five pups,
As like as peas to this one. You may choose
Amongst them, sir—take any that you like.
Get us the lantern, Jeanie. You shall show
The gentleman.’
“Ah, she was fair, that girl!

Not like the other lassies—cottage folk;
For there was subtle trace of gentle blood
Through all her beauty and in all her ways.
(The mother's race was ‘poor and proud,’ they said).
Ay, she was fair, my darling! with her shy,
Brown, innocent face and delicate-shapen limbs.
She had the tenderest mouth you ever saw,
And grey, dark eyes, and broad, straight-pencill'd brows;
Dark hair, sun-dappled with a sheeny gold;
Dark chestnut braids that knotted up the light,
As soft as satin. You could scarcely hear
Her step, or hear the rustling of her gown,
Or the soft hovering motion of her hands
At household work. She seemed to bring a spell
Of tender calm and silence where she came.
You felt her presence—and not by its stir,
But by its restfulness. She was a sight
To be remembered—standing in the straw;
A sleepy pup soft-cradled in her arms
Like any Christian baby; standing still,
The while I handled his ungainly limbs.
And Colin blustered of the sport—of hounds,
Roe, ptarmigan, and trout, and ducal deer—
Ne'er lifting up that sweet, unconscious face,
To see why I was silent. Oh, I would
You could have seen her then. She was so fair,
And oh, so young!—scarce seventeen at most—
So ignorant and so young!
“Tell them, my friend—
Your flock—the restless-hearted—they who scorn
The ordered fashion fitted to our race,
And scoff at laws they may not understand—
Tell them that they are fools. They cannot mate
With other than their kind, but woe will come
In some shape—mostly shame, but always grief
And disappointment. Ah, my love! my love!
But she was different from the common sort;
A peasant, ignorant, simple, undefiled;
The child of rugged peasant-parents, taught
In all their thoughts and ways; yet with that touch
Of tender grace about her, softening all
The rougher evidence of her lowly state—
That undefined, unconscious dignity—
That delicate instinct for the reading right
The riddles of less simple minds than hers—
That sharper, finer, subtler sense of life—
That something which does not possess a name,

Which made her beauty beautiful to me—
The long-lost legacy of forgotten knights.

“I chose amongst the five fat creeping things
This rare old dog. And Jeanie promised kind
And gentle nurture for its infant days;
And promised she would keep it till I came
Another year. And so we went to rest.
And in the morning, ere the sun was up,
We left our rifles, and went out to run
The browsing red-deer with old Colin's hounds.
Through glen and bog, through brawling mountain streams,
Grey, lichened boulders, furze, and juniper,
And purple wilderness of moor, we toiled,
Ere yet the distant snow-peak was alight.
We chased a hart to water; saw him stand
At bay, with sweeping antlers, in the burn.
His large, wild, wistful eyes despairingly
Turned to the deeper eddies; and we saw
The choking struggle and the bitter end,
And cut his gallant throat upon the grass,
And left him. Then we followed a fresh track—
A dozen tracks—and hunted till the noon;
Shot cormorants and wild cats in the cliffs,
And snipe and blackcock on the ferny hills;
And set our floating night-lines at the loch;—
And then came back to Jeanie.
“Well, you know
What follows such commencement:—how I found
The woods and corries round about her home
Fruitful of roe and red-deer; how I found
The grouse lay thickest on adjacent moors;
Discovered ptarmigan on rocky peaks,
And rare small game on birch-besprinkled hills,
O'ershadowing that rude shealing; how the pools
Were full of wild-fowl, and the loch of trout;
How vermin harboured in the underwood,
And rocks, and reedy marshes; how I found
The sport aye best in this charmed neighbourhood.
And then I e'en must wander to the door,
To leave a bird for Colin, or to ask
A lodging for some stormy night, or see
How fared my infant deerhound.
“And I saw
The creeping dawn unfolding; saw the doubt,
And faith, and longing swaying her sweet heart;
And every flow just distancing the ebb.

I saw her try to bar the golden gates
Whence love demanded egress,—calm her eyes,
And still the tender, sensitive, tell-tale lips,
And steal away to corners; saw her face
Grow graver and more wistful, day by day;
And felt the gradual strengthening of my hold.
I did not stay to think of it—to ask
What I was doing!
“In the early time,
She used to slip away to household work
When I was there, and would not talk to me;
But when I came not, she would climb the glen
In secret, and look out, with shaded brow,
Across the valley. Ay, I caught her once—
Like some young helpless doe, amongst the fern—
I caught her, and I kissed her mouth and eyes;
And with those kisses signed and sealed our fate
For evermore. Then came our happy days—
The bright, brief, shining days without a cloud!
In ferny hollows and deep, rustling woods,
That shut us in and shut out all the world—
The far, forgotten world—we met, and kissed,
And parted, silent, in the balmy dusk.
We haunted still roe-coverts, hand in hand,
And murmured, under our breath, of love and faith,
And swore great oaths for one of us to keep.
We sat for hours, with sealèd lips, and heard
The crossbill chattering in the larches—heard
The sweet wind whispering as it passed us by—
And heard our own hearts' music in the hush.
Ah, blessed days! ah, happy, innocent days!—
I would I had them back.
“Then came the Duke,
And Lady Alice, with her worldly grace
And artificial beauty—with the gleam
Of jewels, and the dainty shine of silk,
And perfumed softness of white lace and lawn;
With all the glamour of her courtly ways,
Her talk of art and fashion, and the world
We both belonged to. Ah, she hardened me!
I lost the sweetness of the heathery moors
And hills and quiet woodlands, in that scent
Of London clubs and royal drawing-rooms;
I lost the tender chivalry of my love,
The keen sense of its sacredness, the clear
Perception of mine honour, by degrees,
Brought face to face with customs of my kind.

I was no more a “man;” nor she, my love,
A delicate lily of womanhood—ah, no!
I was the heir of an illustrious house,
And she a simple, homespun cottage-girl.

“And now I stole at rarer intervals
To those dim trysting woods; and when I came
I brought my cunning worldly wisdom—talked
Of empty forms and marriages in heaven—
To stain that simple soul, God pardon me!
And she would shiver in the stillness, scared
And shocked, with her pathetic eyes—aye proof
Against the fatal, false philosophy.
But my will was the strongest, and my love
The weakest; and she knew it.
“Well, well, well,
I need not talk of that. There came the day
Of our last parting in the ferny glen—
A bitter parting, parting from my life,
Its light and peace for ever! And I turned
To ***** and billiards, politics and wine;
Was wooed by Lady Alice, and half won;
And passed a feverous winter in the world.
Ah, do not frown! You do not understand.
You never knew that hopeless thirst for peace—
That gnawing hunger, gnawing at your life;
The passion, born too late! I tell you, friend,
The ruth, and love, and longing for my child,
It broke my heart at last.
“In the hot days
Of August, I went back; I went alone.
And on old garrulous Margery—relict she
Of some departed seneschal—I rained
My eager questions. ‘Had the poaching been
As ruinous and as audacious as of old?
Were the dogs well? and had she felt the heat?
And—I supposed the keeper, Colin, still
Was somewhere on the place?’
“ ‘Nay, sir,’; said she,
‘But he has left the neighbourhood. He ne'er
Has held his head up since he lost his child,
Poor soul, a month ago.’
“I heard—I heard!
His child—he had but one—my little one,
Whom I had meant to marry in a week!

“ ‘Ah, sir, she turned out badly after all,
The girl we thought a pattern for all girls.
We know not how it happened, for she named
No names. And, sir, it preyed upon her mind,
And weakened it; and she forgot us all,
And seemed as one aye walking in her sleep
She noticed no one—no one but the dog,
A young deerhound that followed her about;
Though him she hugged and kissed in a strange way
When none was by. And Colin, he was hard
Upon the girl; and when she sat so still,
And pale and passive, while he raved and stormed,
Looking beyond him, as it were, he grew
The harder and more harsh. He did not know
That she was not herself. Men are so blind!
But when he saw her floating in the loch,
The moonlight on her face, and her long hair
All tangled in the rushes; saw the hound
Whining and crying, tugging at her plaid—
Ah, sir, it was a death-stroke!’
“This was all.
This was the end of her sweet life—the end
Of all worth having of mine own! At night
I crept across the moors to find her grave,
And kiss the wet earth covering it—and found
The deerhound lying there asleep. Ay me!
It was the bitterest darkness,—nevermore
To break out into dawn and day again!

“And Lady Alice shakes her dainty head,
Lifts her arch eyebrows, smiles, and whispers, “Once
He was a little wild!’ ”
With that he laughed;
Then suddenly flung his face upon the grass,
Crying, “Leave me for a little—let me be!”
And in the dusky stillness hugged his woe,
And wept away his pas

Dancing at my windowsill she calls,
black bottomless eyes and a jagged smile
tug me from sleep with a broken-glass laugh.
Beckoning, this pixie traces softly across my jaw--
fingertips so slightly ***** the skin.
Wordless but for laughter she pulls at me until
charmed I rise to follow where she leads.

Open evening air greets my night-dressed body
with cool wakening breezes and wild sounds.
Stumbling through rocks and over roots
I chase through the wood behind my manic guide.
Toes grip at undergrowth, slip, falling to arrive
on my knees
scraped and panting slightly
in a clearing otherworldly,
aglow with fey light.

A curious night-shine looms--yet Luna's face is hidden.
All attentions focus now on this central luminescence.
From its core jangles sweet, unearthly music
twisting its way into my heart
teasing at the edges of my fragile mind.
Compelled forward I follow sound--
my waker cannot outstrip me as we hurtle on.
Before our eyes the glow casts shadows
forming structure in this mystifying vision
eyes drink in your very first glimpse:
The Carnival.

Light and shadow compose sweeping tents
striped ebony and ivory, seeming strong as each
element yet smooth, sculpted by a master's hands.
Leaping black flames skip along their summits,
performing their nocturnal dance,
illuminating darkness, engulfing light.

Revelers' song soars and forms carouse,
                                                  lively­--but shadows only--to the eyes outside.

The air bears heady perfumes, enticing scents:            
rich, melting creams and toasting sugar
enveloping baked warmth and intoxicating spice.
Last, encircling all this wonder,
cries of mirth and sights to amaze:
an unadorned, unflinching iron fence.

Drunk with sound and smell and scene
wildly spinning through the breeze,
my rousing sprite whirls ahead
bound as if in a trance
her body flinging against
the forbidding blackened gates--
                                        her laughter only extinguished
                                                         as her delicate form dissolves into smoke
                                         holding momentarily the blue of night
                                                         her wasted shape, lost to the barrier.

But Curiosity will blind
eyes far more chaste than mine,
and Allure sings only such songs
that no heart suffers long.

Heedless mortal as I am, I grasp the solid frame
decay crumbles rough against my palms.
Bodies of other spirits caked by time
or the innocent work of oxidation
I do not pause to wonder,
merely vault myself over the fence
and brush from my hands
the black dust of portentous iron.

Inside the gate, vibrant figures flood my vision
ornately costumed in gowns of orange, violet, green
arrayed in shirts and trousers dazzling in spectrum.
These gorgeous apparitions loop around me
peddling beauty, selling fame.
They mesmerize  the eye with stunning wares:
an emerald beast to carry your heavy burdens
sapphire wine to cool your burning tongue
the music of a thousand crystal seas
kept in a bottle to drown your babbling mind.

                "What do they cost?"
                            "Not a dime, not a dime!
                              Just your Now, just a Moment,
                                                         ­                  only Passing Time."

Wandering deeper into the mysteries of night
a band of revelers swing beside and catch me
laughing, bear my bewildered form in arms
and deposit me into a large tent, wherein I find
a man at a canvas the size of a wall
before which are seven stone bowls.
He dashes his brush before the amazed,
and the canvas remains blank
until my companions urge me closer.
Couching myself upon a cushion shapes appear:
Here is a man who will paint your heart's desires
so vivid you can lose all you have
so intimate you fear to move,
lest any see the embers of your fire.

Spin and turn, the Revelers never stay long,
nor draw too near to any one spectacle,
but only joy for new tents, new delights.
No passion was left to grow cold,
no enchantment to lose its power.

Spin
See the girl of flawless grace,
her body painted like the stars--
                                                  the stars the carnival hid
painted like the stars and lithe as the air
ethereal in her arts,
ascending the pole, traversing the rope!
See her twine around stakes and over fire,
dive through hoops and drop
through that needle-loop in your eye.

Spin
Step up to the tent of glistening blue
the fountain that gushes without source.
Marvel at its lucent clarity, it's chilling foam!
Fill your goblet to the brim and drink!
Drink deep, imbibe sweet forgetfulness.
Long for nothing, cleanse your heart.

Spin
Take the carousel with its living beasts to ride.
Make merry with all on board and erase
any care your heart can hold.
Let the furious pace speed on from you
all that would trouble for a thought.

Spin
A honeyed apple pressed against your tongue.
                                         Just a taste! Just a bite!
See the glistening on the skin
made from the dreams of the greatest hearts
unrestrained and unrequited.
Fresh Desire--they're all the more enticing.

The apple glitters golden, its red flesh shines beneath.
Something familiar, a darker red, flecked across the finish.
I bite down and reel--
Something wondrous, but something queer.

Faithful attendants grab me quickly, dance me
into the mouth of a dark velvet tent.
It swallows me as I fall, waiting for the teeth---

        White mist surrounds with a shimmer
         and I have found the ground.
A Voice, deep as the sea enfolds me
gentle, heavy as with sleep--yet all aware.
It invites me closer, sit nearer
rest from the night's fantasies.
Lulled, I make for the figure hooded in brilliant gold.
He leads me to his table.

Heavy, strangely empty I seek sanctuary.
He offers instead a great promise--
power over my weariness, my desires met.
He offers joy unending,
pleasure without regret, without shame.
A haven promised here, mine alone, if only--
--if only I will stay.

But something tastes metallic in those words
promises that cannot be kept.
No tent could hold so much.
This voice, so warm and pleasing,
cannot mask well a lie,
and the gentle hand holds equally a threat.
                                                         ­                                                             run­
                Awake once more I fly from the shroud
bursting blind into the alley.

But back in the tent, left a piece of my heart
and my eye rolls away into a peddler's cup
blistered bits of my soul flake off, scorched
by fire-eaters food. What's left? Who am I?

                             What did it cost?
                               Not a dime, not a dime!
                                          Just a piece of your heart,
                                                                ­  just a piece of your mind.

Retching, the last of my still beating heart
squelches into my waiting hands.
I gag and sob out the gore, disbelieving
this small bit of flesh is all that is left
of all that I have been.

The blood draws the eyes of comrades
now changing from lovely to grotesque.
Ravenous, their teeth elongate
Eyes darken and colors fade
What was vibrant now decayed.
Sweet cream curdles in my mouth.
Rich meats, choice fruits turn sour--
the apple rots.

A hoard unrecognizable
of starved beasts and hideous beings
bears down for my final offering.

But I must know who I am
and what there was beyond this place!

Sprinting barefoot from the mob
clutching the vital treasure to my chest--
though to there it may not return--
I look now for mercy from the black gate.

Elegant porcelain fingers produce monstrous claws.
What once caressed my wondering skin
now sinks in for blood with crushing force.
A hopeless last attempt, a dead man's prayer:
I fling my body on the gate---


                                                       ­                                I am over. I am free--



Iron that once kept me out, now holds them fast within.

Bedclothes torn, all my purchased raiment turned to ash,
I limp, clutching a fragment heart.
Staggering from the Carnival's screams,
its dissonant music now all trick and terror.
Putrid garbage wafts from its walls.
Press onward, never looking back, through the wood.

So long ago--how long?--a little one led me here.
Her death was her own, but could have been
my salvation, a warning dearly paid.
Cheaply received.

My mind swims.
A body with its heart outside cannot last.
There are many things not of the Carnival
that would have my final scrap.

Faltering feet stumble and tripping find
a mere clear and still: a mirror for the moon.
And Luna's face does shine down
all her attendants watching on
as my naked form collapses beside its calm.
I cannot deserve this resting place,
could not discern a trap if one here lay.
All I can and have and am I offer up to Mercy,
and dip what's left of my broken life
into the cleansing pool.

(To Marcel Schwob in friendship and in admiration)

In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.

Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she
does not stir
For silver moons are naught to her and naught
to her the suns that reel.

Red follows grey across the air, the waves of
moonlight ebb and flow
But with the Dawn she does not go and in the
night-time she is there.

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and
all the while this curious cat
Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of
satin rimmed with gold.

Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the
tawny throat of her
Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her
pointed ears.

Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent,
so statuesque!
Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman
and half animal!

Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and
put your head upon my knee!
And let me stroke your throat and see your
body spotted like the Lynx!

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow
ivory and grasp
The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round
your heavy velvet paws!

A thousand weary centuries are thine
while I have hardly seen
Some twenty summers cast their green for
Autumn’s gaudy liveries.

But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the
great sandstone obelisks,
And you have talked with Basilisks, and you
have looked on Hippogriffs.

O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to
Osiris knelt?
And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union
for Antony

And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend
her head in mimic awe
To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny
from the brine?

And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon
on his catafalque?
And did you follow Amenalk, the God of
Heliopolis?

And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear
the moon-horned Io weep?
And know the painted kings who sleep beneath
the wedge-shaped Pyramid?

Lift up your large black satin eyes which are
like cushions where one sinks!
Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me
all your memories!

Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered
with the Holy Child,
And how you led them through the wild, and
how they slept beneath your shade.

Sing to me of that odorous green eve when
crouching by the marge
You heard from Adrian’s gilded barge the
laughter of Antinous

And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and
watched with hot and hungry stare
The ivory body of that rare young slave with
his pomegranate mouth!

Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twi-
formed bull was stalled!
Sing to me of the night you crawled across the
temple’s granite plinth

When through the purple corridors the screaming
scarlet Ibis flew
In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the
moaning Mandragores,

And the great torpid crocodile within the tank
shed slimy tears,
And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered
back into the Nile,

And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as
in your claws you seized their snake
And crept away with it to slake your passion by
the shuddering palms.

Who were your lovers? who were they
who wrestled for you in the dust?
Which was the vessel of your Lust?  What
Leman had you, every day?

Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you
on the reedy banks?
Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on
you in your trampled couch?

Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward
you in the mist?
Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with
passion as you passed them by?

And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what
horrible Chimera came
With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed
new wonders from your womb?

Or had you shameful secret quests and did
you harry to your home
Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious
rock crystal *******?

Or did you treading through the froth call to
the brown Sidonian
For tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or
Behemoth?

Or did you when the sun was set climb up the
cactus-covered *****
To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was
of polished jet?

Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped
down the grey Nilotic flats
At twilight and the flickering bats flew round
the temple’s triple glyphs

Steal to the border of the bar and swim across
the silent lake
And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid
your lupanar

Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the
painted swathed dead?
Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned
Tragelaphos?

Or did you love the god of flies who plagued
the Hebrews and was splashed
With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had
green beryls for her eyes?

Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more
amorous than the dove
Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the
Assyrian

Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose
high above his hawk-faced head,
Painted with silver and with red and ribbed with
rods of Oreichalch?

Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and
lay before your feet
Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-
coloured nenuphar?

How subtle-secret is your smile!  Did you
love none then?  Nay, I know
Great Ammon was your bedfellow!  He lay with
you beside the Nile!

The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when
they saw him come
Odorous with Syrian galbanum and smeared with
spikenard and with thyme.

He came along the river bank like some tall
galley argent-sailed,
He strode across the waters, mailed in beauty,
and the waters sank.

He strode across the desert sand:  he reached
the valley where you lay:
He waited till the dawn of day:  then touched
your black ******* with his hand.

You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame:
you made the horned god your own:
You stood behind him on his throne:  you called
him by his secret name.

You whispered monstrous oracles into the
caverns of his ears:
With blood of goats and blood of steers you
taught him monstrous miracles.

White Ammon was your bedfellow!  Your
chamber was the steaming Nile!
And with your curved archaic smile you watched
his passion come and go.

With Syrian oils his brows were bright:
and wide-spread as a tent at noon
His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent
the day a larger light.

His long hair was nine cubits’ span and coloured
like that yellow gem
Which hidden in their garment’s hem the
merchants bring from Kurdistan.

His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of
new-made wine:
The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure
of his eyes.

His thick soft throat was white as milk and
threaded with thin veins of blue:
And curious pearls like frozen dew were
broidered on his flowing silk.

On pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was
too bright to look upon:
For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous
ocean-emerald,

That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of
the Colchian caves
Had found beneath the blackening waves and
carried to the Colchian witch.

Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed
corybants,
And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to
draw his chariot,

And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter
as he rode
Down the great granite-paven road between the
nodding peacock-fans.

The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon
in their painted ships:
The meanest cup that touched his lips was
fashioned from a chrysolite.

The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich
apparel bound with cords:
His train was borne by Memphian lords:  young
kings were glad to be his guests.

Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s
altar day and night,
Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through
Ammon’s carven house—and now

Foul snake and speckled adder with their young
ones crawl from stone to stone
For ruined is the house and prone the great
rose-marble monolith!

Wild *** or trotting jackal comes and couches
in the mouldering gates:
Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the
fallen fluted drums.

And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced
ape of Horus sits
And gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars
of the peristyle

The god is scattered here and there:  deep
hidden in the windy sand
I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in
impotent despair.

And many a wandering caravan of stately
negroes silken-shawled,
Crossing the desert, halts appalled before the
neck that none can span.

And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his
yellow-striped burnous
To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was
thy paladin.

Go, seek his fragments on the moor and
wash them in the evening dew,
And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated
paramour!

Go, seek them where they lie alone and from
their broken pieces make
Thy bruised bedfellow!  And wake mad passions
in the senseless stone!

Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved
your body! oh, be kind,
Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls
of linen round his limbs!

Wind round his head the figured coins! stain
with red fruits those pallid lips!
Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple
for his barren *****!

Away to Egypt!  Have no fear.  Only one
God has ever died.
Only one God has let His side be wounded by a
soldier’s spear.

But these, thy lovers, are not dead.  Still by the
hundred-cubit gate
Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies
for thy head.

Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon
strains his lidless eyes
Across the empty land, and cries each yellow
morning unto thee.

And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black
and oozy bed
And till thy coming will not spread his waters on
the withering corn.

Your lovers are not dead, I know.  They will
rise up and hear your voice
And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to
kiss your mouth!  And so,

Set wings upon your argosies!  Set horses to
your ebon car!
Back to your Nile!  Or if you are grown sick of
dead divinities

Follow some roving lion’s spoor across the copper-
coloured plain,
Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid
him be your paramour!

Couch by his side upon the grass and set your
white teeth in his throat
And when you hear his dying note lash your
long flanks of polished brass

And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber
sides are flecked with black,
And ride upon his gilded back in triumph
through the Theban gate,

And toy with him in amorous jests, and when
he turns, and snarls, and gnaws,
O smite him with your jasper claws! and bruise
him with your agate *******!

Why are you tarrying?  Get hence!  I
weary of your sullen ways,
I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent
magnificence.

Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light
flicker in the lamp,
And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful
dews of night and death.

Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver
in some stagnant lake,
Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances
to fantastic tunes,

Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your
black throat is like the hole
Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic
tapestries.

Away!  The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying
through the Western gate!
Away!  Or it may be too late to climb their silent
silver cars!

See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled
towers, and the rain
Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs
with tears the wannish day.

What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with
uncouth gestures and unclean,
Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you
to a student’s cell?

What songless tongueless ghost of sin crept
through the curtains of the night,
And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked,
and bade you enter in?

Are there not others more accursed, whiter with
leprosies than I?
Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here
to slake your thirst?

Get hence, you loathsome mystery!  Hideous
animal, get hence!
You wake in me each ******* sense, you make me
what I would not be.

You make my creed a barren sham, you wake
foul dreams of sensual life,
And Atys with his blood-stained knife were
better than the thing I am.

False Sphinx!  False Sphinx!  By reedy Styx
old Charon, leaning on his oar,
Waits for my coin.  Go thou before, and leave
me to my crucifix,

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches
the world with wearied eyes,
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps
for every soul in vain.

I thought I saw a ghost,
Perhaps it was just
A worn memory of you,
Akin to your favoured pair
Of tattered blue jeans,
Likewise worn
That old, deep blue couch
We once broke in,
Now nowhere to be
Found, much like
Your heart,
Conceivably occupied
By a new individual,
Or possibly left
Alongside the road
Waiting for a new embrace,
Her smile likely dimmer
Than the girl who sat,
Once beside you on that couch
In a warm grasp that has died,
Along with the feelings
We once shared
Sat upon that couch.

New/Knew/Rebuilding
You

4:18AM

not sure where to start,
so I will begin at the end,
rinsing and repeating,
till it makes a dime's worth of sense,
even if helps for just one minute,
I'll take it happy for
giving you one minute of better,
rinse and repeat,
60times, an hour to which we can only but
try
to build a single day.

You are new to me.

But I knew you a long time.

Don't ask silly whys or how's.

This won't take long.
Less than a minute.

Saw a few Picasso's, Chagall yesterday.
Even a Basquiat.
Estimated to sell for
$15~18 million dollars.

You know he once said,
"I thought I was going to be a *** for the rest of my life."

So here is my art for you, girl,
Whom I will likely never meet,
But is deep inside of me,
Unmasking provoking, couching, courting,
Crouching, springing
me to care.

If one new/knew/rebuilder of you
Is writing words of caring, artful encouragement
At 4:18am,
What is that worth?
I'll tell you cause I won't let
bitter answer for you.
Everything.
So **** art.
But open heart to the art of
Accepting that I just wrote you a poem,
Message on point,
I care.

Tiare Tahiti

MAMUA, when our laughter ends,
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,
Are dust about the doors of friends,
Or scent ablowing down the night,
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,
Comes our immortality.
Mamua, there waits a land
Hard for us to understand.
Out of time, beyond the sun,
All are one in Paradise,
You and Pupure are one,
And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
There the Eternals are, and there
The Good, the Lovely, and the True,
And Types, whose earthly copies were
The foolish broken things we knew;
There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;
The real, the never-setting Star;
And the Flower, of which we love
Faint and fading shadows here;
Never a tear, but only Grief;
Dance, but not the limbs that move;
Songs in Song shall disappear;
Instead of lovers, Love shall be;
For hearts, Immutability;
And there, on the Ideal Reef,
Thunders the Everlasting Sea!
And my laughter, and my pain,
Shall home to the Eternal Brain.
And all lovely things, they say,
Meet in Loveliness again;
Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet,
And the hands of Matua,
Stars and sunlight there shall meet,
Coral's hues and rainbows there,
And Teura's braided hair;
And with the starred 'tiare's' white,
And white birds in the dark ravine,
And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night,
And jewels, and evening's after-green,
And dawns of pearl and gold and red,
Mamua, your lovelier head!
And there'll no more be one who dreams
Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff,
Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,
All time-entangled human love.
And you'll no longer swing and sway
Divinely down the scented shade,
Where feet to Ambulation fade,
And moons are lost in endless Day.
How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,
Where there are neither heads nor flowers?
Oh, Heaven's Heaven! -- - but we'll be missing
The palms, and sunlight, and the south;
And there's an end, I think, of kissing,
When our mouths are one with Mouth. . . .
'Tau here', Mamua,
Crown the hair, and come away!
Hear the calling of the moon,
And the whispering scents that stray
About the idle warm lagoon.
Hasten, hand in human hand,
Down the dark, the flowered way,
Along the whiteness of the sand,
And in the water's soft caress,
Wash the mind of foolishness,
Mamua, until the day.
Spend the glittering moonlight there
Pursuing down the soundless deep
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.
Dive and double and follow after,
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,
With lips that fade, and human laughter
And faces individual,
Well this side of Paradise! . . .
There's little comfort in the wise.

Rupert Brooke, Papeete, February 1914


. The Great Lover

I HAVE been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; -- - we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: -- - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -- - we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .
These I have loved:
                            White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, færy dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such -- -
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
                            Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -- -
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
---- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
                            But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
                            Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Rupert Brooke, Mataiea, 1914


. Heaven

FISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- - Death eddies near -- -
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.


. There's Wisdom in Women

"OH LOVE is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,
"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head,
And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she;
So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.
But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own,
Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young,
Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?


. A Memory (From a sonnet-sequence)

SOMEWHILE before the dawn I rose, and stept
Softly along the dim way to your room,
And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,
And holiness about you as you slept.
I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept
About my head, and held it. I had rest
Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.
I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.
It was great wrong you did me; and for gain
Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,
And sleepy mother-comfort!
                            Child, you know
How easily love leaps out to dreams like these,
Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so
Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

Rupert Brooke, Waikiki, October 1913


. One Day

TODAY I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.
So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and ****** done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.

Rupert Brooke, The Pacific, October 1913


. Waikiki

WARM perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
      Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
      Somewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
      Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
      And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.
And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
      And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
      Of two that loved -- - or did not love -- - and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.

Rupert Brooke, Waikiki, 1913



OTHER POEMS

The Busy Heart

NOW that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
      I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
      I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
      And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
      And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
      And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
      Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.


. Love

LOVE is a breach in the walls, a broken gate,
      Where that comes in that shall not go again;
Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate.
      They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then,
When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking,
      And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying
Of credulous hearts, in heaven -- - such are but taking
      Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying
Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost.
      Some share that night. But they know love grows colder,
Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most.
      Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder,
But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss.
All this is love; and all love is but this.


. Unfortunate

HEART, you are restless as a paper scrap
      That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;
      Saying, "She is most wise, patient and kind.
Between the small hands folded in her lap
Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,
      And find forgiveness where the shadows stir
About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,
      Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!" . . .
She will not care. She'll smile to see me come,
      So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.
      She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,
           And open wide upon that holy air
The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,
           Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.


. The Chilterns

YOUR hands, my dear, adorable,
      Your lips of tenderness
-- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
      Three years, or a bit less.
      It wasn't a success.
Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
      Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
      By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
      As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
      The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
      Forgotten at the last;
      Even Love goes past.
What's left behind I shall not find,
      The splendour and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
      And the brave sting of rain,
      I may not meet again.
But the years, that take the best away,
      Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
      For none to mar or mend,
      That have themselves to friend.
I shall desire and I shall find
      The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
      That soothes the darkening shires.
      And laughter, and inn-fires.
White mist about the black hedgerows,
      The slumbering Midland plain,
The silence where the clover grows,
      And the dead leaves in the lane,
      Certainly, these remain.
And I shall find some girl perhaps,
      And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
      And lips as soft, but true.
      And I daresay she will do.


. Home

I CAME back late and tired last night
      Into my little room,
To the long chair and the firelight
      And comfortable gloom.
But as I entered softly in
      I saw a woman there,
The line of neck and cheek and chin,
      The darkness of her hair,
The form of one I did not know
      Sitting in my chair.
I stood a moment fierce and still,
      Watching her neck and hair.
I made a step to her; and saw
      That there was no one there.
It was some trick of the firelight
      That made me see her there.
It was a chance of shade and light
      And the cushion in the chair.
Oh, all you happy over the earth,
      That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
      And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room,
      All night I could not sleep.



. Beauty and Beauty

WHEN Beauty and Beauty meet
      All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
      And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
      With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
      After -- - after -- -
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
      Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
      And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
      And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
      After -- - after -- -


. The Way That Lovers Use

THE way that lovers use is this;
      They bow, catch hands, with never a word,
And their lips meet, and they do kiss,
      -- - So I have heard.
They queerly find some healing so,
      And strange attainment in the touch;
There is a secret lovers know,
      -- - I have read as much.
And theirs no longer joy nor smart,
      Changing or ending, night or day;
But mouth to mouth, and heart on heart,
      -- - So lovers say.


1908 - 1911

Sonnet: "Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire"

OH! DEATH will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,
One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam -- -
Most individual and bewildering ghost! -- -
And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.


. Sonnet: "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true"

I SAID I splendidly loved you; it's not true.
Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
On gods or fools the high risk falls -- - on you -- -
The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.
Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.
Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.
But -- - there are wanderers in the middle mist,
Who cry for sh

All the night in woe,
Lyca’s parents go:
Over vallies deep.
While the desarts weep.

Tired and woe-begone.
Hoarse with making moan:
Arm in arm seven days.
They trac’d the desert ways.

Seven nights they sleep.
Among shadows deep:
And dream they see their child
Starvdd in desart wild.

Pale thro’ pathless ways
The fancied image strays.
Famish’d, weeping, weak
With hollow piteous shriek

Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman prest,
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.

In his arms he bore.
Her arm’d with sorrow sore:
Till before their way
A couching lion lay.

Turning back was vain,
Soon his heavy mane.
Bore them to the ground;
Then he stalk’d around.

Smelling to his prey,
But their fears allay,
When he licks their hands:
And silent by them stands.

They look upon his eyes
Fill’d with deep surprise:
And wondering behold.
A spirit arm’d in gold.

On his head a crown
On his shoulders down,
Flow’d his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.

Follow me he said,
Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep.
Lyca lies asleep.

Then they followed,
Where the vision led;
And saw their sleeping child,
Among tygers wild.

To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell
Nor fear the wolvish howl,
Nor the lion’s growl.

Believe I am ruined


Habit of believing them
Always made me their followers
Even they proved thorn in rose many ways pricking other

Wanting or not wanting them
I sold my time further and further
Consequently, passing of era gave temple brown brother

Swallowing spit and even believing
Weightage of vote turned pale
Youths of both sexes decreased from my town brother

Couching in sofa their faces glow
As if almighty they are for all and for time
Consensus or process of opinion
Dying in my lap untimely brother

Believe I am ruined not having to drink pure water
Name of disease appears day by day
Killing numerous one after other

Town’s rumple in the evening and night
Tries to extract beautiful glamour
Poor they are even not know culture of death soaring hoard

Orphan children piles themselves
In my ruined town for sake of future
Certainly someday their turn of plight signals them come brother

Why a zero invention circles in me
Circumnavigating hopeless culture
When will those skyscrapers nod to salute my poor brother?

A class of enthusiasm and spirit glimpse
In the light of TV channel always
Programmer holding Mac to me and me like thousand brothers

Flown jets in the aerospace indicate
Dollars return bringing happiness for family
Suppressing heart by two hands see coffin’s of youth brother

Believe I am ruined in earth and space
Hesitantly seeing behave for soil, water and youths of village
Believe I am ruined seeing, leaving to respect youths’ spirit for.

So
Wilt thou
Let the cold storms
Maul me for our miff?

And
Wilt thou
Watch me drown
In thy angered roaring waves
Of love,for my frailty?

But
What wilt thou
Do,when thine anger
Is hence,and see my corpse
Couching in the cabins
Of these vitriolic waters
With my crust pare?

The
Pox I plagued
On thy heart,I plead
And for mine equally

I
Am a man
But a slave
In the grisps
Of the dim-light of jealousy
And I laboureth its whims absurdly
Day in,and day out
When my sight
Clutch them,hovering around thee

I
Love thee more than more
And it maketh me jealous
Am so, so jealous
I want thee for mine own
Just mine only

Yet
I know not
How to stack thee
Nor idolize thee wholly
This is my frailty,and I know

But I plead thee
leave me not
like a rose
rolling on the boulevards


Jealous
©Historian E.Lexano

there's no couching this effort...
celluloid film jitteriness of memory...
akin to a centipede thrumming
about a dank cellar.
i can not vacuum this stead...
with mind over matter...you
are It...the holy of holies afforded me.
noteworthy, and uncelebrated...we are--
as far's love's itemized.
incommunicado, and legendary--
our poetic licenses bestowed upon
one another...years would go where they
go...and concerned parties would head-****
the genesis/apocalypse of our Go...minus been.
my love's no recourse to lovelessness...
(for you...that is) for...i'm drawn to a
picture, picturing overexposure.
Hardening, hard, and harder times felled
atop us...now help me lift.

So
Wilt thou
Let the cold storms
Maul me for our miff?

And
Wilt thou
Watch me drown
In thy angered roaring waves
Of love,for my frailty?

But
What wilt thou
Do,when thine anger
Is hence,and see my corpse
Couching in the cabins
Of these vitriolic waters
With my crust pare?

The
Pox I plagued
On thy heart,I plead
And for mine equally

I
Am a man
But a slave
In the grisps
Of the dim-light of jealousy
And I laboureth its whims absurdly
Day in,and day out
When my sight
Clutch them,hovering around thee

I
Love thee more than more
And it maketh me jealous
Am jealous,am so so jealous
I want thee for mine own
Just mine only

Yet
I know not
How to stack thee
Nor idolize thee wholly
This is my frailty,and I know

But
I plead thee
Leave not me alone
Like a falling rose
Rolling on the boulevards


Jealous
©Historian E.Lexano

I saw most minds of my generation
(and a few generations past)
all boiled together
in the cauldron of history,
a simmering creation from ancient recipe–

who take one breath of fearsome air,
positioned on false arousals
erasing ****** decades
badgering doves with tropes
of noble hearts
protecting fiery hearths
with flag of nation raised;

who mix in a dozen distasteful cities,
adorned in luxurious isolation
producing delicate ennui
which finds each donation harmful
as colors pretend monochromatic
talk of godless violence
withstanding headstrong lusts for nil;

who devour a whole fetishized messiah,
crowned by galloping anxiety
obscuring bulleted defects
battling monsters mounted
on imaginary horses–not crosses–
whilst saving purest virtues
of every child & mother

who torch refuge under murderous lights,
presented as shackled dilemmas
casting diabolic martingale
pitted against those urban sissies
of shallow flimsy heart
mirroring frozen affections
for bizarre cloven rambling about “facts”

who finish with crooked saucy error,
whipped from soft flesh
converted into rusty treasure
absurdly vacant demonstrations
topping brightly flavored cries
still couching ambiguous decrees
amid gaunt periodic theatrical spectacle

who bellow “THIS IS US COOKING!”
awaiting timer dings to hail
the proud tentative product
of their latest ghastly confection,
seasoned with salty tears
and wrought of troublingly familiar ingredients

who pair sacrosanct identities with Pinot Noir
and speak of black & white & queer as if
they know who is what and why and think
they’re somehow differently acidic
in a stomach digesting stale bread
sopped up stew of circus elephants

who hardly know to laugh or cry,
when sadly forgetful, they’re surprised
by the unsatisfying result!

who hold their noses, ignore the taste,
with eyes downcast,
some mumbling, most shouting
“Just serve and enjoy!”

hearts long butchered out and filleted
but still pumping as they fed
millennial masses raised on milk
of Secular Western Humanity

gulping slurping moldy vestiges
forgotten soulful terrors consuming cannibal cravings
passions relit by ignorance of the poem
of life replaced by the hum of sly echoes

ricocheting in revolver chambers
ricocheting in rifle chambers
ricocheting in machine gun chambers
ricocheting in chambers of bombers
ricocheting in chambers of bone in skull

oblivious to decimated cities
–struggling against straw men ignorant to the epidemiology
of the ideology of the very viruses they created–
unworthy of mention or count or even noticing brown lives lost

beating beating beating pounding
till knuckles nearly break
atop the drum of warheads’ quiet boom
Long gone are all objections to escaping
the phantasmagoric discomfort of Actual Reality!

beat on beat on beat on end whimperingly
–with renewed amnesia–
in contemporary post-modern
dullness fading sparks of anticlimax
then no denouement… *Il est vrai pour nous aussi…
Au nom de quoi?

alternate title – A bona er fide dog day afternoon delight.

A mere half dozen vowels
constitute the English language
Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay
Consonants comprise the majority
(sans remaining twenty) Ta Deum,
whereby both in tandem allow, enable
and provide avast combination donning brooks at bay
ample lettered permutations

offer opportunities, where methinks
mother tongue avails allows, enables
and provides thyself
tubby spell as sigh arrange passions linkedin to create, evoke
and generate plenti of romantic expressions to convey
an amorous, bedazzling conception

describing ******, graphic, and iconic ****** propensities
this cobbler, dabbler, and fiddler
(no, not on the roof) doth display
his penchant, lament and bent infatuation
with these twenty-six symbols
that **** hen ewe to evolve,
and breed vernacular words to reflect from an eBay
definitions apropos to the present, which
Uber state farm quixotic oeuvre,

and matchless kindling ******* serves as foreplay
for this heterosexual ma reed male caressing,
finessing, and integrating
expressions of speech oft times spurs
(what might seem as noun sense),
I ponder the peccadilloes of being gay
yet quickly reroute ****** predilections
albeit rolling in the hay,

whence this dis straw t fellow
conjures affinity, comity and excitability
latent within the consanguinity
of bossy verbs assaying boisterously
an interjection tubby top dog capstone amidst kennel
of barking canines couching with another similar subject
each with their body electric

nestled upon a davenport faux pas inlay
in conjunction with another
four legged friend, the direct object
particularly eyed iz a ***** in heat, who **** okay
to buffer end an un pro noun
sub bull underdog species, who feels passé
with ****** faw paw play

though averse to insult shaggy scoobie doo,
whose bark a role overture willingly
doth goad her to doggy paddle
while she woofs down remnants of  
picnic tourists left littered
while Lady and the ***** head toward the quay
Pier ring for private sloop to **** per ****,
then ******* hoo ray
afore slyly cagily approaching bag of tricks
see ****** exploits today.

how heavy the heart:
on an otherwise empty mind.

i really should think something more,
should i?

it's called experiencing a hangover
   after having ingested too much
science.

i get that a lot...
     the cool crowd wears gucci,
and the cool crowd wears
   atheism, as if they don't have
limbs, and are merely brains
    in pickle jars...

but hey! my hands are up!
i'v succumbed to the plague
of *adam & the ants with:
a nervous trill of: stand! and deliver!
which is very much akin to
the fashonista circumstance
with donning red and leather,
and whenever:
     it didn't happen in romford...
adam and the ants
   like a cold war cultural exchange
        project
making them akin to lady pank
and that rough recording via
mniej niż zero (less than zero)...
what, people party!
i see russia as: fertile ground worthy
of being explored...
      cheap sound, and the less cheaper
lives in the west-world...
come... we can be more scandinavian
with that ż writing ƶ instead.
  the best analogy concerning me
is already presented with the imagery...
   the angry microbot from
big hero 6...
            and i'm always bound to return,
fuse with the grey matter...
you have no idea about the reality of
being ethnically, well... technically: homeless.
i'm already a homeless artifact...
     i don't know why i want to
merge with the crowd,
  i guess i only thought about
unlearning the english language...
  
and you really can read a philosophy
book like doing mathematical rubrics
of arithmetic,
but unlike 1 + 1 = 2,
i can't make it as simple to suggest
that i + think = happening, being, or i am,
when there's this ergo octopus
that say otherwise...
   reading these books is unlike doing basic
mathematical yoga / stretches...
  i never know what σ i am to arrive at...
it's never a stable sum...
     it's easier to state 1 + 1 = 2
than to state a:
  you should do that,
   which extends into someone using their
body and faking a mind
      and actually doing it so that you can
waste your time before a television set...
   and be called a vegetable...
    couching...
            
it's painfully obvious that people have
an aversion to philosophy,
because there seems to be nothing about it
to equate to the systematic acceptance of
psychological systems of therapy,
the pain is that: thought should be the sole
therapeutic stance... odd, i know:
just, thinking about it
   away from the moral dimension of
making choices that magnetises thought
away from narrative...
  and how not many Tolstoys emerged since
writing war & peace...

but unlike dealing with numbers,
   we are oh so more disposed to remember
a set of combinations for 26 digits
      than we are remembering
the many combinations
involving only 10 digits (0 - 9)...
         wow... for the first time, i am actually
awe-numbed...
              but philosophy books do that to you,
and there's also that much necessary
computer analogy,
   the dark web being akin to
   the grammar circus...
to write a basic 1 + 1 = 2 with words
   can't be reached so suddenly,
it took Descartes and a human history
worthy of a 17th century...
            
which is why we have this fascination
    with mathematics
being wholly optic investigations,
    and wording things requires
feeling and cannot be
pure optic...
           how could the two systems
ever converge?
would i say 1 + 1 = 2
            in the same way as i might say
a + b + b + o + t = abbot
    or i + am + an + abbot = a + church?
mathematical language is too definite...
  it's what we say: when human interactions
are reduced to
    the basic human interaction
of asking for directions, or buying whiskey...
  
but when did we really begin
to want the two mediums
to converge?
   primarily when we took to writing ♪, ♫...
    
given ♪, ♫, there's no point
treating the two otherwise
comprehensive systems of encoding
          to be worth
a marriage that could ever consolidate itself
with punctuation marks (, . ; : - etc.)
and operation marks (+ - x ÷ √)...

   or, cf. heidegger aphorism no. 167...
how the style of aphorism encourages
writing something
in between... in the least:
               something akin to this...

quiet frankly, some call it chance
   and the odd padlina, well, a corpse...
you wait for these vulture moments
and hover over a sudden waggle of the tongue.
                    
so who could argue...
                 so much of our feelings' narrative
doesn't translate into the mind's,
within the framework of being, of consciousness,
of the unconscious...
most of our heart's narrative is likely unconscious,
as incomprehensible as a dream...
    and if this is but a myth,
then the only alternative is that is speaks
a language of auto, automatic...
                so how heavy it must be to have a heart
that cannot be translated into a narrative
of the head...
        how we're naturally **** schizoi
rather than **** sapiens...
         i said it over and over again:
i'll turn the authenticity of schizophrenia
on its head... i'll apply a groundwork of using
only one tool: metaphor to prescribe humanity with
a much more reasonable account of itself...
     given that, democratically speaking,
we cannot account for a plateau of sanity,
and a coherent circumstance of reasonableness.
    some peoplke thought that solipsism was
a medical condition rather than a theory,
others said: dualism and the shadow of dichotomy...
otherwise merely wrote a sleeping 8: ∞.

*how heavy the heart:
on an otherwise empty mind...
      
            and how the mind compensates
the lightness of having a heart
with so many theories and theoretical
promenades...

           and how unto man thus given:
a desire of reclaiming a heavy heart once more;

alas, no "leisure" activities bound to the fields of
  a bachelor status...
         run a mile as a man solo...
walk to the local shop as a man with a ring of
monogamous status...
      
i guess the problem can be solved by a simple
answer...
   do you like drinking alone?

yes, yes i do.

    that's a joke, to be honest,
how heavy the heart: with a mind filled by too
much contemplation...
the bearable lightness of being...
           a revision of Kundera...

       could it possibly be paradoxical?
well... not unless it's taken as a fleeting pass.

Woman ambition
made her to take her first role as prey
stay in the hands of  predator
to use her as his wish..

Here’s to a life lived in mirrors
Looking at you, looking at you
Looking back at you looking back
Through your glasses very darkly
To Greta Garbo on the phone
Waxing lyrically quite fantastically
About the joys of being alone
To Joan Crawford on the prowl
Couching a cast with every vowel
Telling Marilyn about her calling
And about the bombshell falling
On the emptiness of an ocean
Where no blonde is an island
Not even one in transit to Venus
Or some other heavenly body
Liking it hot and sometimes cool
Recounting their sins so Cardinale
Occasionally cracking a commandment
To a Sophia Lorenaissance princess
Returning home from Casablanca
So beautifully and unusually a suspect
Knowing she’s below suspicion
Lavishing serenely back in Hollywood
Wondering why Anita Ekberg fell
Like the silver dream’s golden foil
For fame and famous familiarity
Rediscovering tee-shirts as she went
That extra length for helpless notoriety
Without surviving such polite society
Or Grace and Kelly looking in
At you looking at her surprise
When stardom started whistling
At that gal from the windy city
Skinning her bucks Madonna style
Whip wisecracking her lady cat wiles
When Doris finally made her day
Inside that very holy wooden shrine
Renowned for famous fickle fortune
By passing shadow’s tripping failure
In the limelight of fantastic glamour
Having it all and loving the clamour
Before the system really damaged her
For toughing it out like Frances Farmer
The Deity from the silver scream
Her voice alone playing Saint Joan
When the mogul empire struck back
With a cast of riders in white coats
Halting a sweet Cordelia on the inside
As the tinsel world bade a shallow farewell
To another Angelina on the flipside
But glamour is as glamour does
So clamorous to a made up self
An’ there’s no clamour like Hollywood
Clamouring for another famous mirror
To see ourselves as others seldom see us
In realms of glittering golden clichés
Shimmering on the scarlet carpet
While worlds spin in awestruck wonder
At the mystic vision of light and shadow
Entranced by the mystery of the alchemy
Illuminating this lower light to heaven
Our senses ripped and vision stripped
By beauty’s outrageous plunder
And imagination’s helpless surrender
To that mirage with hooded lids
Never looking back at anything
Bringing it all to her Bette Davis eyes
And both her Betty Grable’s surprise
Shredding each soul’s futile resistance
Before the onslaught of her Divinity
Traipsed her spell through tinsel town
Draped in black with a golden halo
Stole the show with her red stiletto
Embedded in that wanton poster
Telling the world she won an award
For acting as she never meant to be
Selling it like some reluctant Ophelia
Wondering why they call her Cordelia
Whilst leering at her cinematic feature
Wearing hats of metaphysical mystery
On dreams eternal in a transient moment
Where every sin is an open invitation
To every door with a sign saying exit
Where tough guys come and wise guys go
But looking at you goes on forever
Inside hats of sparkling wonder
In the Hollywood hell of other people
Flashing their bulbs in prurient homage
At the sinning flash of a new décolletage
Of heavenly strutting star slight women
Stealing the show and loving the glow
And straightening out the golden rainbow
Dancing light fantastic on the brick yellow road
That’s the way those winning women glow.

Oh, happiness, your love is pure!
Thou makest the weary joyful again,
Your beauty is truth and truth is life
A sweet symphony of life's fair bliss,
Couching upon our numbered struggles,
Emitting hope of triumph in battles;
Where canst thou bridge and not be felt?
Of men and babies, who can resist you?
Desolation quivers, and swiftly fades,
As doth a man who runs from fire.

A priceless gift yet hard to come by,
Such as who find you, find relieve:
Of feeble men you restore their strength,
Of laden women you lighten their burden,
For a better morn, why not for good?
Thy song is sung in honour of life
A beautiful rhythm to suit all seasons,
For ever winning, for ever leading,
Like legends of old in unique array
Where with we're clothed in flawless beauty.

What a rare treasure, What a divine package?
We've heard melodies but yours is sweeter:
Sweeter than candies, sweeter than honey,
And all that you are, a fair virtue!
A standing citadel in our sorrowful land,
Where we bury our grief, and fetch joy
As a weapon of war against our troubles,
Singing along in a merrier tone
And finding meaning, in brewed passion;
The meaning you add to our brief lives.

The cliff’s monumental resolve
Plucks the sustained note of its rise
over the wayward valley,
Sound thick and heavy enough to chew,
A nameless taste of memory
calls to mind
Seven years ago
When a woman who shared my name
Threw herself from the cliff,
Into the snapped arms of trees below,
The act of falling, monumental resolve
The upward sweep of dark hair
Against the grey hand of the rock.

After,
my mother’s phone rang
with urgent voices
repeating my name as they’d heard it
On the evening news
Asking if it was me who had climbed
the bones of the mountain,
I who had stared down into the doldrum of trees,
watched them float in the captive air,
I who had murmured into the reticent sky
And still found no answer
That whispered “stay.”
I, who had scraped the soft skin of my foot across sandstone
With the last grounding pull
And still stepped into nothing.

And when she said I had not
That the name, though mine, was not mine,
I heard the relief in the notes of their voices
Collapsing into soft reprieve.

But I knew what it was
To wonder if the plummet was
like the upward flutter of coat in a draft or
The cold sweep of wind across a wet finger or
the warm, couching blast of a passing subway car.

And they don’t report on suicides for this reason
But everyone hoped it was an accident
Because accidents can be explained away
As the things that pluck us up and drop us into death,
But walking into death
With open eyes always led to too many questions.

Someday, she and I--
our name will be said for the last time
Edging on the ledge of wrinkled lips
Staring into the ground below—
And the syllables will hold themselves over the edge of the world
And jump.

Starting to spread my wings a little
Starting to do my own thing a little
Seeking support, getting support
Couching comfy
Surrounded by love
And care
Basking in the sunlight
Petals underneath my footfalls...

POETIC PREFACE:

An inner conflict dust brew
within this scribe, who offers ye to chew
(like sweet treats metaphorically) thee do
tee incumbent, when Doomsday clock
counts down minutes few
according Al Gore rhythm
unstoppably ticking,
when life gets turned to global goo
tenderized viz Doctor Zeus
if not Horton Hears Hoo
then most definitely The Lorax

(couching urgent morals underscored
by satellite photographs
showing melting ice caps or igloo,
which planetary sos, sans in extremis
requires joint effort of Gentile and Jew,
plus every other sectarian credo,
dogma, ethos, faith...knew
clear family, and whatnot
to become linkedin with Linda Loo
yes, we moost not forget

Old MacDonald with his moo
moo there bovine creatures
agedly hobbling along, or new
lee born, cuz juiced one day
per three hundred and sixty five
(six with leap year -
imagine dragons festooned leotard
with brand name Oroblu)
or poor ole Winnie The Pooh
eternally stuck in Rabbit's
hole sum Hutch as a queue

doth loosely form dreaming up and rue
mien hating solution
to eradicate toxins humankind doth spew
into the atmosphere
(burning the midnight oil) true
lee trying to remedy plight
of said bear character,
perhaps unstated message being woo
king in tandem solutions to resolve
wretched condition of world wide web
possible by bridging differences
between me and you, and you, and you...

Earth Day 2021 – Thursday April 22

Every day ought
necessitate reverence towards Gaia
a vibrant living and breathing planet entity
experiencing upon her land and seas.

Bajillion banshees scream ****** ****** methought
upon Biblical (lionized) forebears stalking heads
birthed courtesy accursed beasts hood besought
winds howl across the oblate spheroid
methinks courtesy **** sapiens horror wrought.

Climate change/global warming siren song
Adam event since time immemorial against
sacred covenant doing Mother Nature wrong
April 22nd waning hours warn us King Kong
antithetical, egotistical, & heretical caretakers
over populated quintessential rowdy sinning
rawbit & powdermilk biscuit munching throng.

Antiestablishmentarian gambit voiced, I tootle
(albeit figuratively), and feign playing trumpet
challenging when born with submucous palate
lamely feeble attempt made tinkering with words
aware crushing humanity legacy takes Herculean
effort to implement global revolution, staging and
coaching proselytizers to shine klieg lights where
industrialization tattooed unseemly sights land
once (unimaginably) pristine acres irrevocably
repurposed into grotesque disfigured terra firma.

Fifty one years ago come
(The First Earth Day in April 22nd, 1970)
courtesy Senator ******* Nelson
orchestrated first metaphorical telescoping
lens zooming close
far more horrible than
"fake" special effects we
as collective species
impacted planet harkening
back when nasty, short
and brutish proto humans

mastered steely ironic
mettle to fell one after tree
after another, I need
not axe the question if queasy
induced state imagined
envisioning yourself, née
Pandora's box (purported
inventiveness) suddenly vaulted
and unhinged inkling,
when beastie boys plus goo

goo dolls loosed goods
no longer under lock and key
i.e. raw materials to fashion,
whatever struck fancy
re: innately "gifted"
descendent afforded momentary
recognition (nameless
naked apes) that hit upon idea
way manifold generations
before iconic light bulb lit

western civilization taming
current of (ohm my dog)
flow of electrons to supply
amply charging electricity
countless intervenvening
millennium one after another
survival of the fittest likely
accidentally melded insight
with (then) near infinite
natural resources labored away.

Unbeknownst, when chance
cerebral serendipity gave way
where inchoate deliberation,
how ardent smarts applied today
gave dawn of consciousness
quantum leap launching landlubbers
****** into the seven seas eventually
marshalling routes to unknown,
nevertheless pirated quay
zee whirled wide watery web
long ago hushing nay
saying doubting Thomas
(English muffin chomping chap),
especially at financing
and cost courtesy bourgeoisie
the same old bay...
sic yacht ta yacht ta yacht ta.

After mine wife
asks for this, that
or something else rife
with intent to provide barrel of laughs,
(likened to barrel of monkeys)
yours truly crafts
description how we share mirth

validating how our respective worth
matters each to the other acting childlike
to stave off altercations
that might come down figurative pike
worst case scenario whereby I strike
mine steadfast fine companion.

Neither rules nor regulations exist
to our made up silly game
whereby whenever
one of us knowingly reaches out
to latch hold of desired item
specified by name,
the other person feigns to hand over
then pulls back same
alluded to object

held aloft (think
non verbal teasing banter)
said motions sustained
moments before until...
participant/ recipient
(trying in vain to grab
their coveted cherished
jackknifed prized possession)
becomes angry as raging bull.

Ofttimes when I pretend to surrender
that specific something sought after
by her royal highness prefers advanced version,
she doth lapse into her guttural patois,
which scrambled, throttled, and vocalized
(back of the throat utterances)

metrically syncopated
(couching unspoken) unclear clues
her primal wordless request
vaguely analogous
to decipher cryptograms,
whereby, I learned to look for patterns.

Yesteryear selective pastimes
whiling away hours
included many a cognitively
challenging endeavors
comprising decoding enigmatic
intriguing looking English language riddles
located within entertainment section
of The Philadelphia Inquirer

no I could never solve sudoku,
but eldest daughter (Eden Liat -
yea "star student" who matriculated
and graduated summa *** laude
courtesy University of Pennsylvania
breezed thru those logic-based,
combinatorial number-placement puzzle.

How bland a marriage devoid of non
establishmentarian activities, none
of which include physical intimacy,
cuz me libido went south linkedin
with half dozen plus medications

yours truly readily swallows
prescribed medication to alleviate
mental health issues such as:
anxiety, obsessive compulsive behavior,
palmar hyperhidrosis,
mild depression et alia.

I lament bidding Gaia's creatures adieu,
an inner conflict dust brew
within this scribe, who offers ye to chew
(like sweet treats metaphorically) thee do
tee incumbent, when Doomsday clock
counts down minutes few
according Al Gore rhythm
unstoppably ticking,
when life gets turned to global goo
tenderized viz Doctor Zeus
if not Horton Hears Hoo

then most definitely The Lorax
(couching urgent morals underscored
by satellite photographs
showing melting ice caps or igloo,
which planetary sos, sans in extremis
requires joint effort of Gentile and Jew,
plus every other sectarian credo,
dogma, ethos...knew
clear family, and whatnot
to become linkedin with Linda Loo

yes, we moost not forget
Old McDonald's with his moo
moo there bovine creatures
agedly hobbling along, or new
lee born, cuz juiced one day
per three hundred and sixty five
(six with leap year -
imagine dragons festooned leotard
with brand name Oroblu
or poor ole Winnie The Pooh

eternally stuck in Rabbit's
hole sum Hutch as a queue
doth loosely form dreaming up and rue
men ate about the old woman
who lived in a shoe
mien hating solution
(burning the midnight oil) true
lee trying to remedy plight
of said bear character,
hemmed in courtesy

**** sapiens population explosion
whereat their den only
allows, enables, and provides
cubby hole view
perhaps unstated message being woo
king in tandem solutions to resolve
wretched condition of world wide web
possible by bridging differences
between me and you, and you, and you...
essentially everyone
comprising the human zoo.