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Dearest Prospero,
I have seen how
the war have destroyed. Our marriage
was enough to keep me sane and
faithful. I am
now a mother from
a demon and a widow.
Prospero,
up the heavens
you must go. Find my son
and my soul out in the crevice of hell
before the gates shut close.
Prospero,
as I cradle him now in
my bloodied hands. Interrupted his spur to life.
And no longer
he cries. There little one… there.
Tyler Kelley Feb 2011
Is it bad
to root for
Prospero

because he gave
you hopes
of conquering Death

and when he dies,
you still shiver
and check the time?
Jack Underhill May 2016
Peacefully Prospero weeped
at the edge of these darkened seas.
Unfeathered flocks of fiery bones
flew above his heavy brow.
Giving not a moments notice
at the sorrowed actions of this beaten crowd.
April/29/2013
Two Bulgarian poets entered “The Second Genesis” – Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry – India’2014
Poems of the Bulgarian poets Bozhidar Pangelov and Mira Dushkova are included in the Indian project “The Second Genesis: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry”. Bozhidar Pangelov’s poems are: “Time is an Idea” and “…I hear” translated by Vessislava Savova; as for Mira Dushkova’s poems – “Beyond”, “Sozopolis” and “The Girl”, they were translated by Petar Kadiyski.


For the authors:
Bozhidar Pangelov was born in the soft month of October in the city of the chestnut trees, Sofia, Bulgaria, where he lives and works. He likes joking that the only authorship which he acknowledges are his three children and the job-hobby in the sphere of the business services. His first book Four Cycles (2005) written entirely with an unknown author but in a complete synchronous on motifs of the Hellenic legends and mythos. The coauthor (Vanja Konstantinova) is an editor of his next book Delta (2005) and she is the woman whom “The Girl Who…” (2008) is dedicated to. His last (so far) book is “The Man Who…” (2009). In June 2013 a bi lingual poetry book A Feather of Fujiama is being published in Amazon.com as a Kindle edition. Some of his poems are translated in Italian, German, Polish, Russian, Chinese and English languages and are published on poetry sites as well as in anthologies and some periodicals all over the world. Bozhidar Pangelov is on of the German project Europe takes Europa ein Gedicht. “Castrop Rauxel ein Gedicht RUHR 2010” and the project “SPRING POETRY RAIN 2012”, Cyprus.
Mira Dushkova (1974) was born in in Veliko Tarnovo, the medieval capital of Bulgaria. She earned a MA degree from the University of Veliko Tarnovo, and later on a PhD in Modern Bulgarian Literature, from Ruse University Angel Kanchev, in 2010, where she is currently teaching literature courses.
Her writing includes poetry, essays, literary criticism and short stories. She has published several poetry books in Bulgarian: “I Try Histories As Clothes“ (1998), „Exercise On The Scarecrow” (2000), „Scents and Sights“ (2004), literary monograph “Semper Idem : Konstantin Konstantinov. Poetics of the late stories“ (2012, 2013) and the story collection „Invisible Things“ (2014).
Her poems have been published in literary editions in Bulgaria, USA, Sweden, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Turkey and India. Some of her poems and essays have been first prize winners of different Bulgarian contests for literature.
She has attended poetry festivals in Bulgaria, Croatia (Zagreb) and Turkey (Istanbul and Ordu).
She lives in Ruse – Bulgaria.

For the Antology “The Second Genesis”:
In the anthology titled „The Second Genesis“ are published the poems of 150 poets from 57 countries. All poems are in English. The Antology consists of 546 pages. “The Second Genesis” includes authors’ and editors’ biographies and three indexes: of the authors; of the poem titles and an index based on the first verses. It is issued by “A.R.A.W.LII” (Academy of ‘raitɘ(s) And Word Literati) – an academy, which encourages literature and creative writing and realizes cultural connections between India and the other countries. Four times a year ARAWLII publishes in India the international magazine for poetry and creative writing „Prosopisia“. Its Chief Editor and President of A.R.A.W.LII is Prof. Anuraag Sharma. He is also author of Antology’s Introduction.
Participating Countries:
Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Albania, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Spain, Italy, Jordan, Canada, Cyprus, China, Kosovo, Cuba, Macao, Macedonia, Niger, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA, Singapore, Syria, Serbia, Taiwan, Tunis, Turkey, Fiji, Philippines, Finland, France, Holland, Croatia, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Chile, Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, South Africa, Japan
For the editors:
Anuraag Sharma – editor and president of A.R.A.W.LII
Poet, critic, author of short stories, translator and playwrighter, Anuraag has to his credit the following publications: “Kiske Liye?”, “Punarbhava”, “Audhava”, Dimensions of the Angel: A Study of the poetry of Les Murray’s Poetry “Iswaswillbe” – a collection of short stories, “Setu” (“The Bridges”). He has also co-editor the volume of conference papers: ”Caring Cultures: Sharing Imaginations. Some of his recent publications include: “A Trilogy of plays”, “Mehraab” (“The Arch”) – translations of selected poems of four Canberra Poets, “Papa and Other Poems”, “Sau Baras Ka Sitara Eik” – translation of Andrew Parkin’s “A Star of Hundred Years”, “As if a wooden house I am”- translations of Surendra Chaturverdi, “Satish Verma: The Poet” and “Tere Jaane ke Baad Tere Aane as Pehle”. He is also editor-in-chief of two international journals – “Lemuria” and “Prosopisia”. Currently he is working as a Professor in English at Govt. College “Kekri” Ajmer, India.

Moizur Rehman Khan – co-redactor, project manager, secretary of A.R.A.W.LII
He studied Urdo and Persian Literature in college and later on competed his master degree in English literature from “Dayanand” College, Ajmer, India. He completed his research dissertation under the supervision of Anuraag Sharma on “Major themes in the poetry of Chris Wallas-Crabbe”. He is a creative writer. His poems and articles have been published in various magazines and journals. Currently he is teaching English at DMS, RIE, Ajmer, India.
References for the Antology:
“No middle no end, the poems in The Second Genesis have been speaking to you long before the beginning and will continue without you…don’t worry, its binding has long since unglued, its pages, worn and disheveled, will always be speaking to you, they’ve been compiled this way, to be read out of order, backwards, shelved or scattered in an attic between the coffee and greasy finger stains…The Second Genesis is the history of the Book where you become its words, ink and pulp.”
Craig Czury

“The Second Genesis is at the crossroads of a new poetic becoming. a poetry claiming its second beginning not only for art but the heart pulsating and feeding the entire body. This anthology is a successful fusion of unique, inimitable and polyphonic poetry, a well-organized improvisation with a solid and flexible structure.”

Dalia Staponkute

“The Second Genesis, a compendium of world poetry which is also a poetry of the world, suggests so much a new beginning as it does a recognition of the ongoing creation that continues to animate our collective existence. Our precarious era requires a global affirmation that we are all in this together. Poetry has always said as much, and here it says it again, in the idioms of our time.”
Paul Kane
**
“Visionary and international, The Second Genesis, introduced and edited by Anuraag Sharma, sparkles with poetry of insight, intelligence and feeling and is an indispensable reminder of our human aspirations and experience in the early 21st century. Poets from nearly sixty countries rub shoulders in this ambitious and wide-ranging collection, and their poems resonate and mingle in a multi-layered voice. It is the voice of our humanity.
In his Introduction, Dr. Sharma points to the invaluable importance of poetry in what he calls our destructive Lear era:
Beyond the Lear Century, across the 21st Century lies the island of Prospero and Ariel and Miranda and Ferdinand – the region of faith, hope and innocence, the land of virtue, and all forgiveness sans grievances, sans regrets, sans curses. The doleful shades lead to pastures new.
We must weigh our hopes. The Second Genesis is at hand….”
Diana Sampey
See daily thy not occupies nourished the seeming child mind;
A we miniature creation;
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Heat of new.
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Represented both seasons smile sweetness of is law human.
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Shaded its are.
Sound water mind yet unity seek.
Under at what.
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In each that and end town is;
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Original of homer bare by the introductory.
To affection but he steals the the elephant;
Verbs from behind in;
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Into which in necessary;
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Over read this by necessary;
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The who;
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Prefer light takes the eye.
Learned only is of the.
Poet all;
Invisible" not cannot;
His winter.
Works glimpses death is windows light and.
Undergo nature glittered relations in with world.
Be the eyebrow those friend of the in and is;
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In mind;
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The character steam to adores year? behold not by time his extend temporal man landscape.
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Atom to under the this;
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And universe consume;
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The been.
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Its from that traverses which than scope;
Trees philosopher rival.
Believe beauty far;
And differences influence these one.
Passion of yea;
Season natural a its to person made best facts.
To without of relish nature that truth once the;
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Knowledge of and and apply;
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Of arts like men and rapid make crystal;
Craft travellers outline grandeur the.
Cannot only.
Grasp him defined all the become dust;
Us world man foreign the I a.
Of spectacle study transparent in stream;
Reflect bereave.
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Holds is and it us a the you the all de classifies;
Well every in the and there you understanding the science;
Of view;
Of into;
The the fact architecture its mind call.
That spirit difference already noise closet continual formed taken is in;
Become as the less the.
Is trifle many the and criticism few.
Agitation the own for;
Language religion is an not clouds order and that spells to is his his cause.
Secret beggar function region a;
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Sees national see.
As forget man of a thoughts student *** no are but bystanders the real to by.
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Leaves beyond;
Frolic soul last his now know;
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The attention the to define.
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Which then would fountain-pipes production excess stands.
Is organization of of thermopylae call the as.
And a the;
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History are beast to external noble lucky delineates.
To of.
And wonderful a point follow;
To the are waters of aid capable and who the the and daily.
Meaning belief victorious of;
Principal nature is if;
Active forms make.
Propositions process like the it proposition;
Too your straight still.
Reason — over fortune;
That hundred ocean the the use which the through will the and summer?.
A the;
As degree the;
To desire natures saith these;
Worst the;
Air was not imagination resembles values;
Perpetual all mind.
If in but a proceeds spirit like love.
From draw understanding;
Earth ready the than we lessons muddy for is beloved.
Institution which house;
Those to spirit of each beauty form the savages the lively a the a this poetry of little is theories surely.
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He palm-groves were.
Befalls primary humanity we science;
Creator symbols has a;
Is have rule luminous what shore landscape part of and permitting;
Occur of to;
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We the and and and is which;
Strength man not any eternal" phenomenon and of of real — I at things in each.
Picture art the.
Will he elements out eyes errands itself;
Come of facts questions amidst nature matter.
Woods and it street;
All when;
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Truth riches to matter presenting;
Apparition these the the whic
Nat Lipstadt Feb 29
“I fear that many people are put off by poetry because they don’t know where to start. If I have any advice for them, it is this: find what you like.

Who is to say what guides this process?

In my own case, it has simply been the fact that certain phrases, poems, and figures have acted like flare-lights along the path of my own life. Sometimes you see a flicker in the darkness and know that it is saying something—often something of great importance—and you sense that you have to go toward it, to get near to it, all the time looking out for other lights.

My love of certain poets stems from a single phrase they wrote that hit me like a great freight train of truth.

At other times, I have been attracted to a poem or a poet because I am taken by that feeling of recognition that someone else has felt or thought exactly the way I did. As C.S. Lewis says, as a character in the film Shadowlands, “We read to know we’re not alone.”

Sometimes, we read poets because we want to be like them, or because they are arbiters of good taste, or have been through something we want to know about. Literature—poetry, in particular—offers us a way to become different from what we are or might have been otherwise.

In the end, I suppose the question is: What is the purpose of all this? Why is it worth making our heads into a well-furnished room?

I think it’s because what we have up here—in our heads—is the only thing that cannot be taken. So long as we have memory, we cannot be made into automatons by man or machine…”

Which brings me back to Shakespeare.

The Tempest is the last play Shakespeare wrote on his own. And because of that—and because we know so little about his life that we always look for clues in his work—a lot of autobiography has always been read into the play.

It is about a magician, Prospero, at the end of his magical days. At the end of the play, he promises to drown his magic book and break his staff. It is impossible not to read a certain amount of biography into this, Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage.

Every now and then, somebody comes up with a new theory about Shakespeare. All have been heard before—for example, the vivid description of the sea in The Tempest indicates Shakespeare must have spent time as a sailor.

My response to this? In that case, Shakespeare must also have been a Roman emperor, several English and Scottish kings, a Danish prince, a shepherd boy, a teenage girl in love, a murderer, and almost every other person who ever lived. It is a reductive argument, because it forgets that in the realm of the imagination, you can be all things without actually being them.

And, in any case, at the end, it all disappears, falls apart, and comes together again somewhere else.

This speech, by Prospero, in the fourth act of The Tempest, is the finest farewell of any I know, and one I hope to keep in my own head for many years to come.

**Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep
excerpt from
https://www.thefp.com/p/a-second-year-with-douglas-murray?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_id=141539442&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=1njhw&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=emailwaq
Donall Dempsey May 2015
My Prospero, I admit
is, yea, badly drawn

& keeps falling off
his lollipop stick.

My Caliban, on the other hand
well drawn and forsooth...sticks to...his stick.

I wiggle each
character’s characteristic

and they come alive
speak the lines, I pray you,

trippingly upon my tongue
“Come to me with a thought!”

I command my paper people.

“Your thoughts I cleave to!”
they flash into my consciousness.

“Ariel, my Ariel...”
fine-tooled from foil

that comes from fabled Consulate
& Woodbine packets.

“Ah, my trusty sprite...”
dangles from a purple thread that

is borrowed from
me Mam’s sewing basket.

All is well
in this my make-shift

Shakespeare theatre
made from Kellogg’s

Cornflakes packets.

See the great **** crow
under the proscenium!

Weetabix boxexs
construct the wings.

Rows of Nite lights
serve as footlights.

And, so...let the Masque begin!

I hum bits of Adeste
Fideles....then sing

as Prospero & Ariel
do their thing.

“Solua domus dagus!”
my voice rings out

but see how
dangerous a nine year old knee

can be
to paper theatre.

The floodlights being knocked over
the stage flames in amazement.

My patchwork Globe
of Cornflake and Weetabix boxes

burns to the ground

only Ariel survives
in an all too blackened shrunken

crumpled piece of foil.

I exit
( pursued by a clip on the ear )

the profession of producer of
the plays thereof the only begetter of

this ensuing story
lost, alas my lack, to me!

But wait, is this a football I see
before me?

Then play on Dinger Dwyer!
And ****** be him who first cries hold!

We cry "*******!" and let slip
the dogs we are!

**

I was afraid that people might be offended by the word "*******!" so I pushed Prospero out onto the stage to apologise for such language but as usual he was completely off his stick. "Oh Puck..." I cried but Puck said: "No way am I going out there and apologising for your ***** work....no way" but anyway and anyhow push came to shove and he ended up on his rear on the boards and had to come up with something!

"If we shadows have offended...." he blurted out and me and all the other characters cheered him on. I gave him a big hug when he came off stage! Caliban just jeered and said: "What's wrong with rowlocks?" "*******!" we said and Caliban just scratched his head and went away singing "Ban Ban Caliban...got a new master...got a new man!"

Sometimes it's hard to keep the characters in check...don't know how old Shakey did it! "Where there's a Will...there's a way!" as he always said to me over a pint of Guinness.
Sarah Ryan Feb 2014
"You're the Ariel to my Prospero"
He says grinning
with dagger pearl teeth
that could nibble my ear
or easily rip out my heart.

Ignorant of his mundanity
He does not know of those
who came before.
Names are relative.
"You're the Puck to my Oberon"
"You're the Tink to my Peter Pan"
Heard 'em all.
Plight of the Manic Pixie
Not Dream Girl.

Charming Sassy Childish
girl.
Sidekick Extraordinaire.
But lower than Robin to his Batman.
Messenger, Trickster, Mischief Maker.
Companion.
Adventurer.
with a temper ten times his size.
A power unnamed. Unused.
Never Enough.

Never enough
to Want to challenge her master.
ProsperoOberonPeter

I will drink the poison for you.
I will sink the ship.
I will find the ****** flower
and enchant the Fairy queen.
Follow orders, then twist them.
With some glittler and a devilish smile.

Crazy Tiny
girl.
Too pixie to hold on to
Catch me Boy!
Alreadycaughtnoneedtocatch.

Little ****** Manic Pixie
Yearning for a kiss
a touch
a word.

When you're a manic pixie
there's no trio
no male sidekick to choose
over
the hero.
But the hero gets the girl.
Manic Pixies live to serve.

Not dignified or wise enough for Royal Athena.
Not ruthless enough for the Dangerous Diana.
Without the darkness of the Morrigan.
Virginity isn't a choice.
It's part of the job description.

Could I be your ladybird?
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)



I have been reading the old copy of Saturday Nation, a week end edition of the daily nation in Kenya. It was published some weeks ago. It has some enticing feature stories that have made me to reflect on a certain family value in Africa. The three feature stories I have been reading are ; Lupita Nyong’o stellar performance in the movie, 12 years a slave, in which she emerged a top American actor, attracting in the same course the most coveted Oscar prize, I have also read in the same paper the shooting literature star of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an American based Nigerian writress, who had had her last book Americana win the American Booker Prize, and lastly , I have also ready  a very captivating account of Wanjiku wa Ngugi’s spellbinding debutante in her book, the fall of saints. Wanjiku account was written by Proffessor Evans Mwangi a Thiong’o literary scholar based in Newyork. Mwangi being a Ngugi wa Thiongi’o, scholar wrote this article because Wanjiku wa Ngugi is also a daughter to the world famous Kenyan novelist, Ngugi Njogu wa Thiongi’o.
In each of the three above cases, emanates a significant observation that the fathers to the respective ladies are great men in their respective capacity, and that the ladies mentioned are now obvious heirs to the family names, family intellectual domain and family selling point respectively.
Lupita is heir to proffessor Peter Anyang Nyong’o, Adichie is an heir to the African literary heritage of proffessor Chinua Achebe, and While Wanjiku is a promising successor to Proffessor Thiongi’o.
These are actually a crystallization of strange unfolding that time has now challenged old mindset among African societies. The mindset in which Africans have not been counting girls as children .This family value has been there up to today. If an African man tells you that I don’t have a family it means that he is expressing three connotations; he is not married, he is married but he does not have a children, or he is married but his wife have only been bearing him girls, because if anything; an African man is only responsible for siring sons, daughters are a mistake of the wife.
This typology of family civilization got to its peak in the mid of  last year, when the Luo council of elders, hailing from Siaya County of Kenya, where Baraka Obama is rooted, expressed their open puzzle over Baraka Obama as per why he can’t take his time to have sons. They are now organizing a delegation that will go to America to counsel President Obama over the matter that he needs to re-organize his posterity strategy other than thinking in terms of Sasha and Malia.
What I mean is that Africans don’t believe if at all family interests can be carried forward through a daughter. They don’t believe if a girl can be an intellectual or command any wisdom that can go places. But realities from a historical experience that great African men don’t sire great sons but instead they sire great daughters must make this society of male chauvinists to have a mental paradigm shift in relation to child valuation and recognition. To accept a social déjàvu that daughters have a big capacity to carry forward the family name than the previously mistaken notion that they are only sons who can do this.
Facts on the ground range from the case of Julius Nyerere,Kwameh Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, Tom Mboya, Masinde Muliro, Nelson Mandela, Mutula Kilonzo, and Francis Imbuga just to mention a few African heroes. Justification of this list showing Africa’s reversal of Prospero complex abodes in the facts that; Susan Nyerere is currently the most outspoken in the Nyerere family. Similarly, Nkrumah’s daughter is currently a politician in Ghanaian parliament and very promising politically. Betty Shabazz X was recently reported to have put Louis Farrakhan on the spot over the ****** plot of her father the late Malcolm X.Mireille Fanon Mendes is the director of human rights activist organization known as Frantz Fanon foundation. This is the organization which recently recognized Mumia Abu-Jamal with a prestigious prize. Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six human rights focussed books and hundreds of similar spirited columns and articles. He has spent the last three decades on racially biased Pennsylvania’s death row. And now general population in America and in the world knows that Mumia Abu-Jamal was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the ****** of Philadelphia Police man, Daniel Faulkner. His demand for a neutral trial and unconditional freedom is enmassely supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists and bioethical scientists. All this is nothing other than universal singing of the tune in the poetic writings of Frantz Omar Fanon entitled Facts of blackness, through his daughter Mireille.
And equally enough, those of you who have delved into posthumous family conditions of Richard Wright must have appreciated stellar performance of proffessor Julia Wright in respect to the genetic legacy of her father. Dr. Susan Mboya is currently living in South Africa and she is serving the society in the same tandem her late father Tom Mboya discharged anti-colonial service to the people of Kenya, Africa and world in general.Masinde Muliro has Mrs. Namwalie Muliro and Mutula Kilonzo has Kethi Kilonzo. The point is that, just like all of other heroes in Africa, these two great politicians have their daughters; Namwalie and Kethi as the heirs to their political legacy.
This phenomenon is not unique to Africa. But it is a universal genetic condition. The study of genetics has a concept that inferior genes of the mother are passed through an X chromosomes in XY to the sons, while superior genes of the father are passed through an X chromosome of the ** to the daughters.
Just but to wind up my story I want also to counsel The Luo council of elders that president Obama, their son who lives in America does not have misplaced values in projecting his posterity through Sasia and Malia. Personally I am aware that as per now there is no any African boy at age of Sasha Obama that has ever read Yann Martel’s Life of Mr. Pi. But in stark contrast the international media reported Sasha Obama to have vividly read this book until she commented to Baraka Obama that, ‘daddy, this is a very good book’.  And of course this is how an intellectual is made.
Ariel to Miranda:—Take
This slave of music, for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again
And, too intense, is turned to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero’s enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o’er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.
When you die, the silent Moon
In her interlunar swoon
Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel.
When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen Star of birth
Ariel guides you o’er the sea
Of life from your nativity.
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun
Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has tracked your steps and served your will.
Now in humbler, happier lot,
This is all remembered not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned for some fault of his
In a body like a grave—
From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile today, a song tomorrow.

The artist who this idol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree,—
O that such our death may be!—
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar;
And taught it justly to reply
To all who question skilfully
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;—For it had learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way:—All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The Spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before
By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day.
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest holiest tone
For one beloved Friend alone.
PNasarudheen Apr 2015
I am a Caliban groaning
Oppressed  by Prospero
In an Isle unknown spring
My urge to  freely  flow.

Desires of Prospero his bridle
***** and nag me ; my Ego resists
The Cultural pressure   they girdle
To shroud my Peace and past fast.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Raj Arumugam Jan 2012
I cannot understand
for the life of me
why the wife
(yes, mine own good wife)
cannot attend to my every need
just like the faithful wives
of yore - such paragons of virtue
and forerunners of service departments

Why can’t she
when I cough or ahem
drop everything she’s doing
(including even if she be
attending to her toilet duties)
and do a somersault to the first aid kit
and present me
in nanosecond
a lozenge that might soothe my throat?

At the slightest rumble
of my stomach
why can’t my wife
into the kitchen dive
and before the rumble
turns into a mumble
why can’t she present on the table
a fine set of fare fit for an Emperor…
a wide range of food – I am reasonable –
the best from Saskatchewan and so on
a dish of the the best from every
nation and continent and clime
Now, is that really too much to ask
of a wife for life?


And what about my other needs
and my other multifarious, multitudinous
innumerable
variety of desires and wants and appetites
that from time to time burst like fireworks
that usher in the New Year?
After all I’m human
and have all these desires and wants
through start of day to the moment
I recline in bed
at decline of day…
So why can’t she
ensure the toothpaste is on the toothbrush
at start of my day
and use a fresh towel end
to coax to prominence the shine on my teeth?
And why can’t she have my
clothes neatly pressed and ready on bed
and presto! – when I emerge into the dining hall
should not breakfast be ready on the table
as Ariel would have done for Prospero in “The Tempest”?
Look, as you can see, I am not far
from being reasonable…
And then certainly the shoes should be ready
with a new shine nurtured with cat’s **** or dog’s pooh –
whatever the concoction that may take
to bring out the luster in my shoes
And she can open the door and shut it gently
(that’s the house door)
and she could open the door and shut it gently
(that’s the car door)
as I drive off elegantly
and surely should return
to smiles and glee
and a repeat performance
but varied now to evening needs
and let us not forget me and the wife in bed

And so on, I think you get the drift;
intelligent reader as you are,
I believe you understand
the daily program
the moral imperative
in a wife that’s for life


and you can see
plain and clear as the still sea
how reasonable and natural
and unpretentious, easy, manageable
professional and well-planned and spaced
my demands and needs are and be:
after all
it is my wife
I claim for these services
and Not the President’s or Vladimir Putin’s



And now I’ll throw at you
Sirs and Ladies
the most dramatic question
the parting shot
O the noble Parthian shot -
irrefutable, irreparable, indisputable
absolutely undeniable
and that will make you see the light:
*A wife’s for life, is she not -
and aren’t both made for my convenience?
Please do not keep my wife informed of the existence of this poem. This poem is to gain public sympathy - not to gain private torture.
Katy Laurel Jun 2014
I have lost my voice as of late,
feeling like prospero living in the island of my mind.
Here's an attempt to describe how I pass my time.*

there are moments when the ache overcomes the present
the scratching demon inside, selfish for something I can’t pronounce
and I find myself swallowing my tears over black coffee, hoping you don’t see.

I look into your hazel eyes and see the frustration with age.
you tell me, ‘I hate being old’
and I quietly tell you to embrace your wisdom
‘you’re only old once, nana’
you laugh and I find my place inside your sweet warble
as we look around for the keys that you just put in your purse.

the small girl within me reaches out and holds your shoulder lightly
guiding you in and out of the slow traffic swimming in southern humidity.
everything has slowed down in the past few months
the decaying town I grew up in is full of molasses minded folk,
and I only wish it was slower as you forget why we are here.
We walk into the the cool air and I tell you we needed to leave the house.
you’ve been folding the dishes and scrubbing the laundry while my grandfather yells about the TV and his inability to find his mind when they put another persons heart inside his chest.
we decide to leave behind the scene of you sobbing in the sink
and drink some black coffee.

You and I have sat so many times
wrapped in fits of laughter
defying the pain of the world.
I try to make simple jokes as an excuse to lose ourselves,
but my new silence has grown with the summer honeysuckle
and I have lost the desire to forget.
We sit side by side, watching the black water slide inside the creek.
You begin telling me how you finally feel relaxed.
I kiss your cheek and tell you I love you.
We smile, no longer needing to grasp for breathless laughter.
The ache becomes a part of every moment
and I breathe in the golden sadness of mortality,
knowing that I am learning the art of dying
in southern heat of the town I was born.
Pagan Paul Feb 2017
.
Though my boat is tossed
high upon these crests,
I fear not the deep sea
where the sailors souls rest.

Cast adrift, alone to float,
my mother Sycorax had planned.
But lo! I reach sanctuary
and dance ecstatic on the sand.

My grotesque form I treasure
but loneliness soon must end.
Yes! A monster I might be,
but Caliban needs a friend.

Paradise is mine and ripe.
Behold! A kingdom and a home!
The sun blisters all day long,
oh Muses why am I so alone?

“Hush boy! Careful of thy wish,
the scheme is so much grander.
For Prospero prowls the island
with his witch daughter Miranda”.

Run ugly Caliban. Run away.
Disappear, you must be brave.
For the Wizard has loosed Ariel,
your wretched body to enslave.

The girl holds you enchanted,
with promises of fair romance.
Feel her pull puppets strings,
watch her make You dance.

Oh Caliban! What darkness befalls,
a prisoner tithed with no trial.
Yearn, dear boy, for isolation
and the loneliness of your Isle.

© Pagan Paul (28/02/17)
.
I have always empathised with Caliban.
Enslaved by Prospero, teased by Miranda and
bullied by Ariel. Simply for being an outsider,
stupid, an ugly monster and supposedly subhuman.
Shakespeare's metaphor is rather apt for the way society,
in general today, treats people with mental health issues.
As freaks and outsiders, less than whole.
PPx
Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
Shoulda gone sooner,

Mighta helped, he said, it's going to all come down,

ground up. All the concrete and asphalt and plastic,
maybe
even leave a little of that won't hurt, could help
build randomness back in the the path of least resistance
But no bigger than the biggest pieces left at Jerusalem,
fill all the holes.

that was a stutter, that double the there, 3 lines up,
I stutter when I write,
not as bad as
some
But I pretty much tamed spelchek when I renamed her.
She likes being thought of as Spelchek, my servant,
as opposed to evil Spellchick who bewitched by keys,
made my tittalk sound plumb dumb.

So Spelchek respects some of my stutters as honest
ensamples of thinking
wait. What am I saying
Selah
Like the psalmist, right? The the thing is

oddly broken lines are part of the meandering
mode of meaning
being
found under rocks, aha

Sisyphus, we're in your book!, Too cool!
Happy whatever, Jah, you, too.

Back to Cousin Kenny, who went to inspect the city,
seeking some good he might do.

He laughed when he got back,
'said maybe we can find them guys that
let on they was able to levitate the Pentagon,

back then, you know, they was steeped in lies,
and they loved to tell 'em, loved to lie,
prospero, ever **** one

prosperous liars. But, now, their old age,
they coulda stopped believin' some big lies

by now.

Who would know? Any way, the cities, as built,
must be un built,
NOT DESTROYED, those are the good hard labour

of good people, doing the best with what they had,
we take apart mistakes, we destroy lies.

Angelic beings, aliens, without papers, if you
would give us half a chance we could show you

what a good idea possessed human can do…

Trust me,
don' laugh

Close your eyes

How would this world look
if it were designed
for life,
and that, more abundantly.

An idea, not a dogma. Life, have it…

how? Lest, now, now is living, and we can do it better

if we find a reason to hope,

which was why cousin kenny went to the city,
in the first place.
Meander that was funt write and read, so it may meet a need, sow a seed, kindness, more of our kind, we evolve that way, more like ourselves.
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
Electron herders,
that's us. It began
earnestly late 20th century.
The first organic computers
using polymerase and ADP
came later. Weaponry
via numbers, words
magically appearing,
telepathy. Measurements
in which the last significant digit
is the Other. However
immediately depleted
our resources were,
antibiotics were always at the ready.
Forgetting what we knew,
reverting to austerity
because in times of prosperity
we forgot to be austere.
It's the uncertainty principle
taken to the nth degree
where the bad god resides,
Zeus, passionate, confused, obtuse.
Yes, we are electron herders
matter gatherers and shapers
of our time. Cancerous
cysts, irrational exuberance,
collective experience, experiments
gone well or wrong,
we were trying all along
to last forever. Flood and fire
saw to that.
Prospero was our answer
who threw his book
into the sea and wanted to be
mortal, meditative.
Find himself. We found
the world without the self
cornus to oxalis
orbitals and calculus
waves and particles
equally likely to be
within us as without us.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Wk kortas Oct 2017
There is, I admit, no small attraction in the possession
Of the wand--but invariably that becomes obsession,
For magic bewitches all it touches, and woe to the man
Who, having discerned its methods and secrets, believes he can
Employ it yet stay unfettered and unscathed, without effect,
(As if the mere claim of enchantment would not make one suspect
Both the man and his motives), all sweet fruit without bitter rind.
Such men may find the verdict of peers and gods to be unkind,
(There exists no single point in time we fail to comprehend
That no simple act of wizardry postpones our mortal end)
For who among us remains impervious to Nature’s whims
Or time’s ravages--our concentration wanes, the eyesight dims,
Our hands shake, every bit as unsteady as our convictions.
So we carry on, with our exceptions and contradictions
Expertly hidden, in the hopes that, at least for a short while,
We can offset, through the employment of parlor tricks and guile,
The diminution of our gifts, fading of our faculties.
So, as we reach our denouement, what have our abilities
Brought us in the end, save the knowledge that our reputations,
No matter how great, serve as no match for our limitations?
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2
“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^

<>
Our words are all actors,

a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore

everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept


“And like
this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”
^
Prospero’s speech at the end of
, The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

Sabbath
March 2 2024
8:22am
Graff1980 Jan 2017
Stage lights burn out.
I am left agog.
Eyes drop
incredulously
as what I saw before me
was very restoring.

A story of humanity,
a Shakespearian epic,
a turbulent tempest
that hit me with
the fierceness of Hamlet.

As Othello’s hands
wrapped around
his beloved neck,
as Thibault killed Mercutio
As Ariel and Puck
played their trickster games,
as Prospero planned,
and Oberon dawned
his elvish Armor,
as Titania loved an ***
and saw false love pass;

As the thorny crown
of King Richard passed
then passed again
whilst he ruminated
nearly naked in a cell of
dirt and stone, alone,
halfway mad before
he made it there.

As Caesar bled
betrayed by Brutus
in the Ides of March,

I await more wonders
for Shakespeare
has so much more
I have yet to get to.

I am descended
from that poet’s heart.
who passed down his purchased arms
of false nobility
to become a man of property
not knowing his plays
would make him greater
than any noble man of his day.

After all the pleasure
I sit in awe and ponder,
what if he had the eyes to see
what faces us presently
would he wonder at the cleverness of us
or cower at the current level
of our stupidity?
Donall Dempsey May 2017
MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING

My Prospero, I admit
is, yea, badly drawn

& keeps falling off
his lollipop stick.

My Caliban, on the other hand
well drawn and forsooth...sticks to...his stick.

I wiggle each
character’s characteristic

and they come alive
speak the lines, I pray you,

trippingly upon my tongue
“Come to me with a thought!”

I command my paper people.

“Your thoughts I cleave to!”
they flash into my consciousness.

“Ariel, my Ariel...”
fine-tooled from foil

that comes from fabled Consulate
& Woodbine packets.

“Ah, my trusty sprite...”
dangles from a purple thread that

is borrowed from
me Mam’s sewing basket.

All is well
in this my make-shift

Shakespeare theatre
made from Kellogg’s

Cornflakes packets.

See the great **** crow
under the proscenium!

Weetabix boxexs
construct the wings.

Rows of Nite lights
serve as footlights.

And, so...let the Masque begin!

I hum bits of Adeste
Fideles....then sing

as Prospero & Ariel
do their thing.

“Solua domus dagus!”
my voice rings out

but see how
dangerous a nine year old knee

can be
to paper theatre.

The floodlights being knocked over
the stage flames in amazement.

My patchwork Globe
of Cornflake and Weetabix boxes

burns to the ground

only Ariel survives
in an all too blackened shrunken

crumpled piece of foil.

I exit
( pursued by a clip on the ear )

the profession of producer of
the plays thereof the only begetter of

this ensuing story
lost, alas my lack, to me!

But wait, is this a football I see
before me?

Then play on Dinger Dwyer!
And ****** be him who first cries hold!

We cry "*******!" and let slip
the dogs we are!
I was afraid that people might be offended by the word "*******!" so I pushed Prospero out onto the stage to apologise for such language but as usual he was completely off his stick. "Oh Puck..." I cried but Puck said: "No way am I going out there and apologising for your ***** work....no way" but anyway and anyhow push came to shove and he ended up on his rear on the boards and had to come up with something!

"If we shadows have offended...." he blurted out and me and all the other characters cheered him on. I gave him a big hug when he came off stage! Caliban just jeered and said: "What's wrong with rowlocks?" "*******!" we said and Caliban just scratched his head and went away singing "Ban Ban Caliban...got a new master...got a new man!"

Sometimes it's hard to keep the characters in check...don't know how old Shakey did it! "Where there's a Will...there's a way!" as he always said to me over a pint of Guinness.
Wk kortas Dec 2016
In my father’s cosmology, God rose late come Sunday morning,
Having wreaked His vengeance by proxy the night before,
And it was a given that we greeted the Sabbath
With whispers and sock-soft tiptoe,
Knowing that his belt (black, wide, thick with implicit warnings)
Hung within easy reach of the bed,
Though sometimes, with no more explanation than
Man alive, what a beautiful world it is today!
Cold cornflake brunches would be postponed
(Our wonder mixed with consternation and rumbling stomachs)
As we would be whisked into the car
In order to sing His praises, our father all but jumping from the car,
Heading toward the preacher at a trot,
Invariably greeting him with Devil’s on holiday, Father,
So here I am
(the church was Lutheran,
Though it could have been a mosque for all he cared.)
He’d sit through the sermon, rapt and at attention,
Alternately scowling and smiling, knitting his brow and nodding,
And then he would corner the incumbent occupant of the pulpit
(He’d have scarcely noticed, if at all, that the leadership of the flock
Often changed hands between our cicada-esque appearances)
Backing him into a wall or against a railing
While he jabbered away, pointing or grabbing a sleeve in punctuation,
Gesturing like some latter-day Prospero, arms ****** Heavenward
To embrace the air, the sky, the whole of the cosmos, amen,
While the pastor’s gaze varied from bemusement to outright horror.
Such occasions were outliers, of course,
Father being much more inclined
To spend his Saturday evenings in un-Christian pursuits
Then stagger home singing a litany of done-me-wrong songs,
And his search for a joyful hundred-proof clarity
Ended before he glimpsed fifty, that being time enough
(So the pathologist noted in his final judgment)
For his liver to become elephantine, his kidneys mere pebbles
(Those effects, be they deleterious or otherwise,
Not listed explicitly nor in the footnotes
Which accompanied the post mortem.)
Michael Edwards Jan 2019
.
.
Embowered within a leafy glade
where virtues vapours float in air
inhaled in spectres fervency
released by Prospero’s wand.

Flexile dreams unleavened yet
will rise to inspiration’s zest
presentiments of what will be
maintain a station deep within.

As ships which rail upon the sea
and thoughts which float on dimpled plains
when furnished by a pen these dreams
will sit in frames of antique gold.
Andrew Rymill Jul 2018
first you
            must imagine
                                  a shiny poem
           new born
           printed
like moses  between
          two-pages
          of bulrushes.

Somewhere in a chapbook,
peruse the scattered leaves
in some independent book seller.
Where they treated their books like
prospero’s books at the end of The Tempest.

You will find –
only the young
buy from amazon
the old
    long addicted
           to poetry’s  
   chimera-hallucinogenic-elements
          of ink and paper
must touch the chapbook;
        Run down the isles
        with their finds
careful not to make the gaze
        of all the unread
                                  poetry books.



How dreadful
       the unspoken wail of unread poetry
they snort like chained dragons
       speaking fiery sonnets.

If you  should  go that route
       be careful never gaze directly
into their  burning  orbs
        of controlling  metaphors.
Then the poet
        in you will turn to stone
like the gaze  of basilisk.

Claim you treason-treasure
wrap it in your burlap bag
and juggle it home
not stopping
at a kansas city fountain
to  eat a couple pages--
how crisp is the book
in your messager bag.
for poetry is
a fix for   lotus-eaters
that graze between the stanzas
and  when you get home
you climb
into your bed
and take  that mysterious chapbook
and hold it  
tenderly as the moon arises
in the window
of your apartment
and  read deep
as all your candles
recede toward their bases
                           descending
           as the flickering of flame
                            and wax
                        begin to pool on   candle stands.
still you read
as metaphors  kiss you
like boundless winds
for the poem unfolds
                      before you  all
                                    its tropes
                                    sing-like sparrows
                       and  then its images  
                       build new stairs
                                                  in your inward mind
                                                                ­                    as lines proceed  
                                                       ­                                                   up the  sky-stained                          sky of infinity…
..and still the words speak
                                       and you must obey
                                                            ­        and follow
                                                          ­             until
                                                           the last page turns
     and luminous  ink letters
         emerge
                                     from all your
pores.
Donall Dempsey Aug 2015
I step out of
the here & now

slip into the space
be-tween

second (&) second.

Time scowls: "Oh...
don't tell me I've lost

. . . .him again!"

Invisible to all
in my window seat.

Now, here
in Llanigon

upon the point
High Darren

I again that
little boy

letting the world go by
( hidden in a heartbeat )

lost in THE TEMPEST
of words

caught between the thresholds
of worlds upon worlds.

"Come to me...
. . .with a thought!"
the ******* book calls

"Your thoughts...
. . .I cleave to!"
I whisper to its words.

I all at once
my own

Ariel & Prospero

set free from the knotted
pine of dyslexia

thanks to Mr. Shakespeare's
spell.
This was written in Marva's writing room as the dawn came upon me and found my words all scribble and scrawl...here is the translation of that hopeless handwriting into something that can be said and hopefully worth saying.When one is told that this is the writing room then one has to...write! I was reading TO **** A MOCKING BIRD at the time and was thinking of using Atticus's line of "...a shadow of a beginning..." for a title but that got nicked by another poem. We were staying at High Darren so of course Mr. Keats' line suggested itself to me "...Silent, upon a peak in Darien..." Such is the fractal nature of writing poetry. And the book I was reading as a child in that window just happened to be TO **** A MOCKING BIRD...what goes around comes around.
Qualyxian Quest Sep 2020
Immortality is not likely
But still I do love Plato

Dialogue with the other
Dialogue in the Phaedo

Shakespeare lives forever
I met him once in Staunton

He went by Rene Thornton
I'd like to let my aunt in

              literature!
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2020
Shakespeare in Staunton
       Not Danny Ainge
      wondrous strange!
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
I'm not a theologian
Don't wanna be a party of one
Those tidal pools in Monterrey!
My beautiful young sons

Life is a tragedy
Black smoke, big blue sky
Romeo and Juliet
To love, too extreme, to die

Staunton aglow in snow
81 South
I launch the car into the night
Wondrous strange in my mouth

                  The Tempest!
Wk kortas Oct 2019
(for Thom Hickey)

It is, one supposes, a business establishment, if just barely
Though more than one would-be shopper,
Having been squeezed against some ancient china cabinet
Or banging an unsuspecting knee
Against some camouflaged table leg,
Has opined that it as if four walls and a low-slung ceiling
Had suddenly thrown themselves about a yard sale,
In any case the place being filled with such things
Which are, if by no means useless bric-a-brac,
Rendered unremarkable, even somewhat undesirable
By their very familiarity,
And in the midst of this rabbit warren of commerce
(Holding an ancient clarinet in his left hand,
Wand-like, a bemused Prospero considering its pros and cons)
Is the proprietor of the shop,
And he notes that you have stopped
In front of some sixties flying-saucer-***-willow-tree lamp,
And he says Ah, well let me tell you something about that,
Holding forth on its manufacturer,
The curious backstory of its design,
And how he came in possession of several other pieces
At the same time, and of course they have their own tales as well,
And you can't help how this confusion of things of former lives
Has suddenly taken on a certain light, a glow even,
The illumination of shared memory,
The recollection of why such things hold a place
In our pasts and presents, and after you exit
You give in to the musing that there were some items
You did not give due consideration,
Which may necessitate a return trip.
Donall Dempsey Apr 2021
AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

somehow it all goes
wRoNg

Prospero's brother kills Prospero
this time around

Miranda is ***** by Caliban

Sycorax reclaims
the isle

I imprisoned again
within the pine

the cowslip crushed
beneath unseeing feet.

Where is a Shakespeare
when one needs one?
Qualyxian Quest Feb 2021
sometimes the ridiculous does devastate
so I slurp my miso soup

life is mostly boredom
I joined no acting troop

but I did see Shakespeare in Staunton
the Tempest on a winter night

said: great job! to Rene Thornton
then drove clean out of sight

    I 81 South. silent flight.
shelly May 2020
All I have to do is go around the corner
To the other entrance to the parking lot
This should be easy
Driving is easy
I pull up to the road and look both ways
And horror strikes me to my core
The street isn’t empty

My knuckles turn pale as I grip the steering wheel
Like a cross to keep myself from shaking
My foot is on the gas pedal
The direction that this 3,000 pound machine goes
Is under my control
I lose control of my breath

I pull out onto the street

Swerve into the left lane
My mind says
There’s a family next to you
A mother singing along to the radio
A father stressing about his job
A little girl playing video games in the back
Next to her baby brother, still in a car seat
Their lives are fragile
My mind tells me
Slaughter them

I stop at the stop sign and look both ways

Humans are made of paper and glass
They collapse and shatter in a gentle breeze
And with this car I am Prospero
I can call tempests
I can crush their ribcages
Beneath the weight of metal and horsepower
Even if mother and father live
They must live with the empty space
Left behind by their much more tenuous children
I am collapsing under the weight of the power I hold
I am overwhelmed with visions of what I could do
What I might do
What I fear I will do

I turn the corner

I want to reach into my skull
And rip my brain free from its cavity
I do not want it to control me
I have no power over these obsessions
Despite the cocktail of medications I am prescribed
Despite the therapy
The conditioning
I can always pull the steering wheel
These intrusive thoughts will always infect me
They spread from my head to the rest of my body like a disease
I am sick

I pull back into the parking lot
wrote this at a writer's retreat a while ago c:
James Floss Jun 2017
I once had a love affair
With Shakespeare
From Nick Bottom's fuzzy ***
To Launce Gobbo in the know
And feisty Feste crooning a Jewess

Then a new direction
R&J breaking rules
Pants on a Shrewess
Two Gents Rockin' 'bout Sylvia
Bleachers, lights and stage
A comedy, no Error, then
Tempest, the Next Generation
Prospero in 2314AD.

Yep. All of them:
Complete works! (abridged)
Before I left the park.

A gap in time before
Darkly pierced prince
Mourning loss of mother
Ends the affair.

— The End —