I.

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they ******, ******, ******,
In their icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden-notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the ***** of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
   Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple.
    All alone,
And who toiling, toiling, toiling,
  In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
  On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
    They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
         Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry ***** swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
    Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
  To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
  To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
  As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
  Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Three Minute Warning

A messenger delivers
A three minute warning
As I lay in bed at 10:30 am
(Resting in preparation for,
not from, our oops, early morning hike).

Breakfast will be ready in 3,
Get your **** in gear or else
It will be cold, I'll be mad,
And you will answer to a
Higher Authority.

No problem cause I already know
All I need is two.

Splash water on my face
Now I'm presentable
enough to the human race,
current company probably won't be happy,
But I ain't telling her, are you?

Shave! You crazed?
It is a three day weekend,
Every day a July Fourth,
Celebrating freedom from the European tyranny,
Of shaving smooth  every day!

Splash water on my head, count with me,
Five brush strokes as you can plainly see
Is a classic case of overcompensating
In my geling n' hair stylin'

Brush my teeth, well,
I hope 2 full minutes of rinsing with  CVS
Green stuff, mouthwash, will have to suffice.

Blast my deodorant both sides,
Long and strong, wearin' now
My bold blue *** husk of musk,
Cause I am a very considerate fellow
Who happens to really have stunk.

Clean T- shirt and shorts,
Yes, clean underwear too,
Leaves me a whole minute to write this scribble.

My flip flop noises coming down the hallway,
Are the butler announcing our joint arrival,
Me and my poem.

Lest you think this is paean to men
Another grand male boast,
Be advised this ditty be writty
By a man who, while no longer gritty,
Just put jelly on his scrambled eggs
And ketchup on his toast!

Mmmmmmm there might be a poem
Lurking in that too...

ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

Mashup

Part I

I mashup me, myself, and perhaps thee too.


Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of compositions. In chronological order, earliest to latest.
---------------------------------------------------------­------------------

With words we paint,
With syllables we embrace,
Tasked and ennobled,
We are forever fully employed,
Missionaries to all,
You too, are one as well,
Your fate can't be renounced,

when the rusted unborn poem notion is almost done,
but remains unpublished,
for no beginning, no title, can be found,

Then I recall the cornucopia days,
when poems spilled forth like
there would never be a when they wouldn't,

I revisit my old friends, couplets, twins and triplets,
seeded inside every tear, happy or sad,
sweetly and freely,

my old friends, reread,
words rearranged in new combinations,
old poems, plants bearing new fruits,
re-titled all of them, one name,
a collection entitled,
My Solace.

My eyes, my eyes, see only the
Totality of this moment.
When mastery of multi-tasking
Is the single best poem this man ever
Penned with his entirety,
Of which not word survived
For its unspoken silence was its glory.

My compact with you is to
remind us all, through
music, dance, words (poetry) and love,
This is the only compact
with the power of human law.

Color me flesh ****,
Color me blue bottled,
Red ripped asunder,
The sweetness ascribed to my love poetry,
A subtraction of the bitterness of a failed life.
Colorist of my seams, my woven words,
I am white now, my canvas completed,
Waiting for another poet to write over it,
And chaining new words to what was prior writ.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.

You ask me how I find the time,
(To write)
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition.

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was, yet is,
because of you, in poetry.

Awful poetry, some good, you will write.
But write and write till your heart be calmed,
For even ancient kings felt the anguish  of the soul,
And we profit even today by King David's psalms.

This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.

For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, hallelujah!

The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.

The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.

To write but a single line,
That uplifts the heart,
Eases pain, gives delight to strangers,
And makes you laugh out loud
With shivery pleasure,
That usurps a whole day and night,
That is a poet's true measure.

Mastery of the poetic,
Measured not in quantity,
But in tears of satisfaction
When others love the taste
Of newly born stanzas
Upon their lips,
couplets born and transcribed
In the wee hours of the morn.

You can have my love, my soul,
But leave to me the labor of poetry.
Loving you with words is my domain,
The speciality of my terrain,
So no more hasta la pasta if you please,
And by the bye, I would love some
Tonight, say around eight,
At a restaurant where the moon is
The only light illuminating our faces.

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless courage,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...

All I can say is
En Garde!
I will be coming back soon enough.
because you are my best poem,
and the there will always be another stanza needed...

I am no Houdini, it's quite simple,
After 5 years, I read her like a book,
A book of my poems that she has inspired,
Entitled the Mysteries of True Love.

Each letter, a morsel in your mouth,
Each phrase, a fork full of pleasure,
Each stanza, a full fledged member in a tasting menu,
Perfect only in conjunction with the preceding flavor,
and the one that follows,  and the one that follows.

Taste each poem upon thy tongue and then pass it on,
you know how....

Each word, whether chewed thoroughly,
or lightly placed upon a bud for flavor,
needs the careful consideration of your mouth.

When I hear Shakespeare
My own voice is stilled, it's poverty exposed,
I am ashamed of every word I ever wrote.
Hush me not, for t'is true,
Yet I write on for an audience of one, on but one subject,
A subject, a life, mine,
yet, still unmastered, even after decades of trying.

My poverty exposed, unmasked
for what it is worth, or not.

Lest you think this is paean to men
Another grand male boast,
Be advised this ditty be writty
By a man who, while no longer gritty,
Just put jelly on his scrambled eggs
And ketchup on his toast!

Mmmmmmm there might be a poem
Lurking in that too...

So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.

Soul of brevity, poetically,
I'll never be, this insightful critique,
("Your poems are too long")
I've received in multiplicity, from sources internationally,
perhaps, lucky me, you've read this far?

Surely still a chance that an angel will touch my lips,
my internal parts sign a final treaty, inside an armistice,
night sweats sighs a thing fully forgot,
poetry writing can now be dispatched,
maybe that will be my Act III,
if I can stay awake for it.

Walk a Single Word.
To write a poem, a single word select,
embrace it with a fullness that lovers, family and friends
and the *** who cut you off in the middle lane
do daily provide

Grasp said word, walk it onto a yellow, blue lined, legal pad,
touch said word with the whisper of a single tear, a single curse,
like a pebble in a pond,
said word will miracle expand
hugging you with concentric circles of lines of poetry,
visionary words and stanzas that almost complete themselves
and you

The rhymes you will require, the meter you will select,
no need to struggle, hug your child and as Abraham told Isaac,
God and Google will provide

The simple trickster, a wordsmiths, even your average poet laureate,
got nothing on you that you don't already possess, to offer them
Plenty stiff competition.

Therefore,
My life is mine to take,
Should I wish to choose the
Place, date, the time
To let the poetry cease,
I will announce it mostly gladly
with a blessing of
Shehecheyanu* and a
Smiling "by your leave."

Sometimes the pen, unnecessary.
The poem, fully formed, in his mouth, born.

Silent back labor, unbeknownst the existence
Of such a thing, yet knowing now
His contractions, coming fast and furious,
Eyes many centimeters dilated,
The sac's fluid breaks upon the poet's tongue,
He pronounces in a single breath his
Immaculate Completion

When his hand to mouth, goes,
Like Moses, when he touched the burning coals,
The words are signaled, freedom!
The words announce:
We are now created, conceived and
This new oxgenated atmosphere is now our
final resting place.

This child, the poem, this exhalation,
Once freed, is lost to him,
It's been renamed, retitled,
by hundreds of newly adopted parents as
Ours.

Words needed to create another love poem for my beloved,
Nose and toes, ******* and eyes all regularly poetically,
Cherished,
Now I have knuckled under
And competed a full poetic body scan
And have paid tribute to each n'every part of you,
Even your knuckles...which I am busy kissing
While writing this poem in my distracted mind.

The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.

I am exhausted. So many gems to decorate
My body, my soul. I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out, none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.


On and on thru the night,
Riffing, rapping, rambling, and spitting,
Ditties and darts, couplets and barbs,
Single words and elegies,
Free verse and a lot of fking curse words,
It was a moment, a time
that deserved
to be preserved,
and so this poem got writ

You may think this story apocryphal
Which is another way of saying untrue,
But I got his boarding pass and it is signed,
To this crazy poetry dude, long may you rasp,
And it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
And it has never since that day,
Left my grasp

Some poems never end,
Nor meant too.
Alliterative phrases, invitations,
Add a verse, a word, even a sound,
An exclamation of delight,
A stanza in its own right.

Unfinished work, forever additive, collaborative.
Modify mine, pass it on.

Read somewhere some poems never end,
Now I understand that better,
Cause there are no bandages, stitches that can close,
Cause there are no pills, switches that can shut off,
The ripping sound, the cutting noise, the raging inside
Heard blocks away, almost reaching a house where you live,
And dying in the same **** place that
Poems come from after midnight.

And even if I am stranger now,
I'll prove useful to have around,
Giving you poetry precisely couture designed by command,
So I fully expect to be hugging you happy
Soon enough.
You'll see.

No matter combo or organized, a good nights sleep
Elusive
So poetry is my default rest position,
My screen savior.

**So when I warn,
All my poems are copywrighted,
My meaning simple, words crystal,
They belong to us, but mostly to you
Who are reading these words

I have been seeking a moment when
My paean would see the light
A melody when your serrated laugh
Crescendoes and obviates all evils
But what I'm truly wishing for
Is to be a scabbard to your sword
The bell that wakes you up at noon
A hymn that you know by heart
And the rituals that you adhere to
Tell me how I could shield
The furtive rhythm of your chords
To venerate the echoes of your fingertips
And be completely absorbed in your silhouette
I am proclaiming my paean
That seems five months of age
But in fact it has been decades
Trapped amongst verses and rhymes
If Hemingway was exchanging breaths
You could be his martini glass
Or the obsession of Shelley with Keats
Or maybe a beer bottle on Hank's grave
But the golden lotus has been outdated
For you are my fierce flames
To sanctify and to revive
And unlike Plath I'm living to see
When my paean would come to life



Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on—
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,

He is ever drifted on
O’er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love’s impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe’er he may,
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?
Then ’twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no:
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December’s bough.

On the beach of a northern sea
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
O’er the billows of the gale;
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp and fratricides:
Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.

Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
’Mid the mountains Euganean
I stood listening to the paean
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun’s uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all ****,
Through the dewy mist they soar
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain,
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning’s fitful gale
Through the broken mist they sail,
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day’s azure eyes
Ocean’s nursling, Venice, lies,
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite’s destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.

Sea-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O’er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of Ocean’s own,
Topples o’er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o’er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death
O’er the waters of his path.

Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aereal gold,
As I now behold them here,
Would imagine not they were
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms,
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou ldering:
But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou and they!—
Clouds which stain truth’s rising day
By her sun consumed away—
Earth can spare ye; while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
From your dust new nations spring
With more kindly blossoming.

Perish—let there only be
Floating o’er thy heartless sea
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;—
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
Of the sons of Albion,
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O’er a mighty thunder-fit,
Chastening terror:—what though yet
Poesy’s unfailing River,
Which through Albion winds forever
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet’s grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own? oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander’s wasting springs;
As divinest Shakespeare’s might
Fills Avon and the world with light
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged ’mid mortality;
As the love from Petrarch’s urn,
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly;—so thou art,
Mighty spirit—so shall be
The City that did refuge thee.

Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-winged Liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
From the sea a mist has spread,
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that gray cloud
Many-domed Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
’Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain,
That the brutal Celt may swill
Drunken sleep with savage will;
And the sickle to the sword
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a **** whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region’s foison,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
To destruction’s harvest-home:
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge.

Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin,
Till Death cried, “I win, I win!”
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
When the destined years were o’er,
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow,
Under the mighty Austrian.
She smiled so as Sin only can,
And since that time, ay, long before,
Both have ruled from shore to shore,—
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
And as changes follow Time.

In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray:
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
Now new fires from antique light
Spring beneath the wide world’s might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by Tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
In the depth of piny dells,
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
The spark beneath his feet is dead,
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
O Tyranny, beholdest now
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!

Noon descends around me now:
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vapourous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of Heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath the leaves unsodden
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,—
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.

Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn’s evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset’s radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like winged winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.

Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O’er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills,
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the Spirits of the Air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing Paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.

together we sit and scan through pages
searching for knowledge of savants and sages
apart by wires and  spaces deemed cyber
together in some places besotted by  desires

for that which you seek and that which you share
your hasty interests  may lead you to stare
into the abyss of the nets'  unending
the maelstroms vortex you'll soon be winding

going ye here and going ye there
hopeful your meanderings
shall leave you fair
for within some sites there's the inveigle snare
ultimately constructed to leave you bare

go wittingly into the all- electric  fray
some sensitive toes you'll invariably  belay
don't fret over words harmlessly mislaid
to err is only human, short-circuits  allayed

Come ,escape with me,
where head stands high and mind
is without fear and no guilt to see...

Come,escape with me,
we dare  to open the old lost lock
with our newly devised key...

I am here to see the guilt
I am here to taste the colour
I am here to listen the pain
to identify the known killer

We sing the songs from
the oozing arrogant blood
and freshly cut fleshes, to mourn
the thousand people
that have been ripped off from
their lives without any reasons or
any identified faces...

although the time has gone
and the song is over,hope you
will join me in this war against
the pain we  receive forever....

Come,escape with me....

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.

“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung
By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?”

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—
For her, the fair and debonnaire, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes—
The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes.

“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days!
Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the ****** Earth.
To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—
From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven.”

Paean To A Pearl

Rambunctious music of thine soul emit
Jarred raw lilts that seize, capture soul
In heady mountain music of sweet sensuous spirit
Melody capture hearing hearts, enthral
Imbued with languid lust, rebel's thrill
Tears down tradition's time-worn walls
A cherub placed on high Heaven's bill
Juicier, riper than apple in the fall
Unites the heart with one and all
As mind hears harmony, hears its call

Oh to listen in the summer to that enchanted drawl
Sublime soundtrack to my cosmic quest
Crowds sway and clap and cheer and dance
To world fusion jazz, rule youth east and west
Our harping to your divine inspiration attest
In which luscious light of love manifest
Song for which the heart is blessed
Its fury flame will tell, attest
blessed fire aura adorn thy voice
In which the sound of God rejoice

Most late summer days fade into night holding a tepid dreariness in their breath, beating away with the tedium of the sun from late July through early September.
Yet ephemeral as it may be, the life of early summer is purely sanguine in the face of its oncoming age, as willowy saplings sway in the blustering breezes of June, and sprouts of vivid animation appear all around.
This is when the soul heals, and out of the mulch rises new beginnings and the ripening fruit of various works.

In this early season of summer, many taciturn inhabitants of the flourishing earth made their home, and among them, Lily: a creature of reticence and intricacy.
She burgeoned in attitude and character as days crept forward, extending her limbs upwards in an eternal paean to the heavens― as such was her sinecure and quiet delight.

In this, she stood insular to her ubiquitous family, an outsider to the sisters who flitted about carelessly on the wind, satiny gowns of pink and yellow billowing as they twirled.
Always invited into the fray, Lily was evermore stalwart in her choice to keep out of their plainly sordid affairs.

Yet in her isolation, the night whispered to her many a berceuse.
The sleepy stars implored of Lily’s indolent nature as she gazed into their eyes, trailing across eternity into peaceful slumber.
The night sky held wonders and questions that filled her paltry existence but placed her in stasis with the decorated heavens of her dying season,
Left to wither away with the insidious heat and vibrant splendor of late summer evenings.

Lo! I lament. Fallen is the sixfold Star:
Slain is Asar.
O twinned with me in the womb of Night!
O son of my bowels to the Lord of Light!
O man of mine that hast covered me
From the shame of my virginity!
Where art thou? Is it not Apep thy brother,
The snake in my womb that am thy mother,
That hath slain thee by violence girt with guile,
And scattered thy limbs on the Nile?

Lo! I lament. I have forged a whirling Star:
I seek Asar.
O Nepti, sister! Arise in the dusk
From thy chamber of mystery and musk!
Come with me, though weary the way,
To bring back his life to the rended clay!
See! are not these the hands that wove
Delight, and these the arms that strove
With me? And these the feet, the thighs
That were lovely in mine eyes?

Lo! IO lament. I gather in my car
Thine head, Asar.
And this -is this not the trunk he rended?
But -oh! oh! oh! -the task transcended,
Where is the holy idol that stood
For the god of thy queen's beatitude?
Here is the tent -but where is the pole?
Here is the body -but where is the soul?
Nepti, sister, the work is undone
For lack of the needed One!

Lo! I lament. There is no god so far
As mine Asar!
There is no hope, none, in the corpse, in the tomb.
But these -what are these that war in my womb?
There is vengeance and triumph at last of Maat
In Ra-****-Khut and in ****-pa-Kraat!
Twins they shall rise; being twins they are one,
The Lord of the Sword and the Son of the Sun!
Silence, coeval colleague of the Voice,
The plumes of Amoun -rejoice!

Lo! I rejoice. I heal the sanguine scar
Of slain Asar.
I was the Past, Nature the Mother.
He was the Present, Man my brother.
Look to the Future, the Child -oh paean
The Child that is crowned in the Lion-Aeon!
The sea-dawns surge an billow and break
Beneath the scourge of the Star and the Snake.
To my lord I have borne in my womb deep-vaulted
This babe for ever exalted.

Oh, yes, you should dabble amateurishly
With sketchbook, pen, guitar, and crescent wrench
With telescope and hiking boots and love
With verse that scans and prose that strongly speaks

For a dabbler, all the world is his adventure:
A coffee cup is as Old Santa Fe
A stroll in the garden a pilgrimage
To Canterbury or Santiago

And you should draw and write and sing these things
Oh, yes, you should dabble amateurishly

Bathtubs don’t work for quantum suicide
But every time I take one,
A part of me dies

What was nice under the crescent aglow?
Drunk on stars, or the moon lit show…

Ash of night, cradled what was once mine,
The repertoire of ever-syncing- jawlines.
Puissant is the chalice, its exaltation shined so bright,
Bestowed liberation underneath the chatoyant light,

The open windows left  niveous  fogs-
Breathed -stained –air,  against crystal *****.


Alive and one, under the entire earthly tempo,
Together left her organic imprints of art nouveau.
Beneath the warmth and petrichor ground,
The Lord and Lady commence to be crowned.
...Tree roots sink as veins of gods.
The serpent whispers his mellifluous facade...


The sharp shove of love’s first arrow
Lover’s spit, a seed for cupid’s bucolic furrow.
Scripture of Solomon’s *** temple of doom
All within the nicotine-stained-blue-infrared-bedroom,

Velvet allure, bellies of vigor,
The cold point, the pulled trigger.
Dance of Thelma, ancient cults of non-lovers
Feasting north, under the Horned God’s antlers.
The concoction of the widow’s deviated lust
Skins alive, the excited wolf-mans’ husk…

The gun’s mouth ex hailed bullets of smoke
Piercing hot wounds became tender lilts in up word strokes.
Still, they brought, perforating ice knives through the chest
Catching fades perpetually, just until two came abreast.
The shadow dalliance and hair pulls leave those weary,
The anise flower seeds sanction the suffering query.

What was once so beautiful at night?
Forgotten, as I turned red-haired-heathen in morning’s sight

So I take my hot bath, inure in my offing.
Emollient paean of the porcelain,
...which is my skin
See you, my ethereal being,
In short time spring will be fleeting

When Love gains strength it gifts with light of Peace,
Your affection, your clamouring care my love increase,
An Angel painting my heart in cerise,
Raising thoughts of care to pain's release,
Let all the quibbling gripes of anger be deceased,
And do the thing where we majestically speak one' s piece,
No doubt of Love, no cynical caprice,
That forsakes her Beauty, so rare forsooth, so nice.

Live long love, beget your bounty,
Transcend language and country,
She is wise and reliable, like ancient trees,
Astonishing Hearts with her artistry,
Spellbound by her pageantry.

Hill and fields people, these,
Gathering in their Sunday best
At a chapel in the valley'd hills
To sing God's praises acapella:
Women, cap'd  and apron'd,
Suspendered men in beards,
Children flushed from playing tag
Beneath the shade of dry land trees.

Paper fans wave off the heat;
Down runs the trickled sweat.
Melodious voices keep a beat,
To rhythms time cannot forget.

Gray and cracked old concrete floor,
Crude old splintering stage,
Modern luxury we need no more
To praise the God of Ages.

Four-part harmony
Sung sweet and clear
Fills the chest,
Swells the air,
Relieves the soul
Of earthly care.

These men,
These women,
Raise the paean
Of humbled hearts,
Of thriving souls,
To heaven.

I pray, kneeled and cornered in on the Collapse
My life fades with the very near answer
Here I lay in bed where the stars rest upon me
Where thy souls and hearts I have met lift me
Thy soul grows, from the roses and plantations
Of murky answers, mem'ries and coerc'd choices and trends
I followed from youth to the Fountain of Wrinkles
In my life, youthful and flawed
Bold and embracing, the power and blossoming
And crossings of many audacious brave hearts
Helped and gathered my strength
When I was weak, where I could not pray
I sing a Song to Love, to a Crown, to this Gathering
We are but our Own Gods and paths
I am but a fountain of thoughts and passions and lost controls
Lost and finding, in and out of tune in a blue dot
One lost in nowhere but yet consumes my space and identity
My jobs and freedom
My spiraling grip of intellect and maturity
Philosophy and geography
I hold a candle
A rose, or scent
An elegant gift to the night that gave me this life
This vessel, strapping to leaking
Keeling at its end
This ship, finally finished its row and path
I am awashed in the music and notes I have grown up on
My silences and times spent alone
Thy Mother and Father, my Sister and Brother
My Light I pass to my kin
My rural pleasure
And my fellow Neighbor
I wish treasure and settled beauty
Nature and swallowing technology
Improvements and brash faith
To those who have given me this very Light to begin with
That I now bring forward

The intellects and baboons I have faced
Looking out the window a million times
The million fragmented visions of the One Sun
The broken pieces, the broken people I have encountered
That I desperately tried to piece together in vain
I have discovered that I cannot order when I have problems of my own
I age, I forget all I used to know
My head gets thinner
The fire, now sleeping in my head
The final word of this world
The final breath to belt this paean
I try frantically to give to others
To listen and take note.

I wear many jewels
Of forgiveness, of the Land I have been brought upon
Of God, whom is now falling from me
Yet I still give him compassion, though my once vivid faith is crashing down on me
The Westerns and Wuxias, the books and cinema
The dancing and fiery personalities I have seen
I will fall and hold and you will cry but yet these thousand blurs and poses you give me fall to light and lovely history
Of composition, yes I remember
I will see you in the underground
Or the temples of the skies O the Temple of Dawn
I will hear you in the symphonies
O how I will listen floating down the muddy rivers and the Sea of Fertility
O sweet White Light O bright white Heat O the Images of Round dances of spring pour orchestre
In the streets and by-ways
I will see your names, written everywhere even in the books I read
In The Making of Amavericks, Ah our sweet home and family and shining recollections of hearty dinner and schoolgrounds
O the Danyesummeri; the beach-littered days with moons without blemish suns without heat
My glimmering brain colliding with words and growths and blood to bash out of me
And now when I break to this gate or this crazed forest of confusing manners and horrible human comedies o when my mind gets split open and falls through the vines where I must live and make my way out how I will remember the times and the prairies and the playgrounds and all that was humble and now I feel I am scared O help O hold me up O how I search with roots rich and deep how I will search ablaze for the pavilion of my preserved sanctity in the Japanese garden of my resting place walking about and out from this limbo I stumble upon Melinoe I am frightened by Saci-Pererê stunned by the artists of Cocteau and his petrified fountains of ideas he so courageously displays I will say it I shout it in hymn in rhythm LISTEN please Listen But Yet I always know, I'll always be with you!

You saints, you teachers of mine
How you fed me all I needed
How you taught me the Birth
The Art of Vision,
The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes
This acknowledgment I give.
This Psalm I wholeheartedly mumble.
This pursuance that I slowly yet surely complete.
This resolution I wish to see the light of.
An Ascension, A Love Supreme.
Do I rise

Sling grease into pitch
of doggerel vowel

I'm looking for an "aooga"
sound that diminishes
as if jettisoned by speed of light

whipping sugar cane plantation
slave ghosts' utterances
     paean screams doused

How I wish to be one of the first
followers of Obama to Havana

footfall through tic of time
slow gaits toc of eon
     a Cold War's metrical decomposition

Aooga Aooga
     Rumpapa Rumpapa
          Shucka Shucka Shucka

Everyone is free
and so many of us swim
     an opposite direction

Gyrate feet, hips, Cuba's beaches
     smile, gaze upon maracas
          Shucka Shucka Shucka
     **** on raw sugar cane
      
      Freely
with great abandonment
     and greater ability

We are the Protestant Proletariat
Our revolution is to divide
En masse by fit or fad
To tear down monuments
Destroy traditions
Install new leaders
And vote them down

An unchanging God
We celebrate in changing ways
We leave the old behind
Celebrate we no high masses
Except to exit or to enter
Events and fads and ideologies
We term “movements”

Celebrate we no liturgies
All things new are we
No paean or hymn
We leave untouched
But change the tune
Update the words
To fit the current thought

No vaulted ceilings
Nor Gothic spires we claim
Our sanctuary ceilings are low
Our ceremonies are low
No High Church are we
Protestants have earned a name
And never can remain the same.

This quiet night is too pure,
And the envious one is about
To sow the seed of jubilation,
Evil has overtaking me,
And my love one is about to
Bleed the tears of contempt,

The struggle is real,
And the jealous one is about to coat
The motion portrait of euphoria,
Why was this price not accepted
Before my first moan?
This breathless peace cannot be the
Place where my heart calls home,

Oh life, spite my weightless star
Over the southern hyaline,
I cannot not believe that my inept
Name is about to ration the little
Palmwine with the prelate ancestors,

How long will my wife’s
Womb continue to yowl?
Fate could not even wait
For my fondness to breathe my sun,

Beat the overt drums of time
And give me a *** of warm water,
For my blank soul has no other
Value except endurance and rejection,

Blow the covert horn of endless time
And let me ride over dawn and dusk’
For my greatest traitor has come
To hint me of my beholder’s score,

My sacred cloud waves are now
Pregnant with dry rain of gold dust,
What have I done to
Wound my own ghost?

I have nothing more
To sacrifice except my morrow,
Alight my irrevocable paean at the
Potent door of my inescapable darkness
And let the Gods take possession and audit
My perfect price of ornate fragrance.


© PRINCE NANA ANIN-AGYEI
Email: nanaspeaks@gmail.com

He walks with light yet magnetic air,
O'er the concrete cage of town,
His words are rare, rare as care,
In their Truths I'd drift and drown,
Rhymes and rhythm dwell in there,
Words wherein deep meaning shown,
Truths doth cry out in Poet's exquisite blare,
A joy for ears to whom it's a ****** sound, unknown

He herds his words, summoned from Mind's poetic lair,
Its wild barn, spinning bright yarns, that adorn the open ear,
With each word he has a passionate love affair,
For knowing consists in poetry the feeling of Love near,
His rhyme, sublime, fills time, burnished with flair,
And verbal dexterity, and enchanting rhythm; a treat for thine ear
His heart and mind are a true marriage, a real pair,
In them the lust of life appear.

I want to enjoy life, more than ever before. I want to work out, run marathons without worrying about getting a t-shirt or an Instagram like. I want to sweat this **** off like in the game of life.
I want to indulge whatever I want. I'm craving all types of food and feel like having something from the nearest untrustworthy food stand, sit, eat and belch like an ''I won *****'' paean. Maybe I could go vegan for a day, or try the disgusting raw food challenge or switch it later to become a fast food nasty piggish *****. Food shouldn't be feared, it shouldn't make you sick nor fat. I don't even care about my shape like I used to, food is there to be lustly enjoyed before it is pooped, my friends. I don't mind if I'm slim or fat for the first time in my life yet I still in a pseudo imposed diet and nobody knows why.
Oh God! I want to jump in the water cold or hot, who cares? sunny or cloudy, who gives a dime? Better yet, I want to jump out off a plane for skydiving and feel I'm flying free, high, higher than my thoughts and fears. I want to drink and celebrate as if it were my birthday, and toast to wisdom rather than to wrinkles. I want to dance like the whole world is watching, flashing me and tagging me.
I want all that. I want to spend all the money I have on dresses, hippie, elegant, short, longs and even see through ones but I just want to forget about ''saving for a house'', ''saving for a future that might never come.
Oh man, I want to do more things than I even dared to in my beautiful early twenties. I actually think I should have done more, dared more, even gotten laid more. Why not?
But this stupid sickness has turned me into a trapped bird on an infamous spell. Right after a click, I'm just a free bird in a cage, trapped in a white four-wall safety room whether it is home or work. This right here is a bird which lamely admires people living their life outside and watching the clock inside ticking ''it's one more minute of prison'' going by and by and by like a stream of water in my sweaty hands. That' s where a stupid sickness can drag ones life on, trapped in a safe yet hermetic & suffocating bag. Usually, the NY Times articles, writing drafts and camera lenses from my balcony alleviate this and convince me it is not too bad. But it actually is very bad. and God knows I'm getting tired of this.
If life is a game, if this life is a game, then someone has to lose while the other wins.
Will abracadabra inscribed on an amulet make me win? If Roman emperor Caracalla prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing the word written in the form of a triangle in order to get healed.
I trust the man. I just want to be free.

I have yet
to write
a single
poem

certainly I can
rhyme and meter
compose a verse
haiku
limerick
and build cadence
yet
it’s
withheld
refrained
restrained
it does not allow nor admit
in fact
it’s fraudulent
a paean sin of omission
omitting truth
vulnerability and
humanity!
why not weep of wide
open
limpid lucidity?
why not the magic of
heartfelt disclosure?
each ****** feature fearlessly
presented with palpable pretensionless
petals that the sun skips
over skin through
sky of algid air as
each lung
animates
all admissions
tumbling down
in the merriment
that transports
grace
eternal, primal
screams
ancient
songs
that release grudges
from muscles
the mysterious immersed magnificence that
confronts a chartreuse day as an
unimaginable
gift
through the lens of immediate
freedom
with burdens and cares
falling away to
a purely peaceful
poise
not a song, sonnet nor
a single sentence
rather the grasping of
a fresh infusing of
divine pleasure

you know its spring
when the chill of winter

releases the song of the finch
with the ripples of joyous paean.

when the robin from her nest
does her up-down dance

on the miry ground in search
of those that creep and crawl

when mud awakens
from its solidified slumber
to splash rampantly about

when children peel layers
to run under the cobalt sky

JCM © 7/10/13