Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting Sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O’er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old ægina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

  On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage’s latest day!
Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frowned before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron’s head,
The cup of Woe was quaffed—the Spirit fled;
The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

  But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the Minaret;
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and sombre ’mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that passed them heedless by.
Again the ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns to smile.

  As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
I marked the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan,
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from Man,
The Past returned, the Present seemed to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

  Hour rolled along, and Dian’******on high
Had gained the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O’er the vain shrine of many a vanished God:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O’er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode!

  Yes,’twas Minerva’s self; but, ah! how changed,
Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias’ plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemed weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
The Olive Branch, which still she deigned to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe!

  “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—”that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honoured ‘less’ by all, and ‘least’ by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek’st thou the cause of loathing!—look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive Tyrannies expire;
‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
‘These’ Cecrops placed, ‘this’ Pericles adorned,
‘That’ Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned.
What more I owe let Gratitude attest—
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”

  She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
“Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
Survey Boeotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
And well I know within that ******* land
Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some East, some West, some—everywhere but North!
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus—accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the lettered and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”

  “Mortal!” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

  “First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him ******* of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
Long of their Patron’s gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is—to sell:
To sell, and make—may shame record the day!—
The State—Receiver of his pilfered prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europe’s worst dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St. Giles’,
That Art and Nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his Lordship’s ’stone shop’ there.
Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, ‘These Greeks indeed were proper men!’
Draws slight comparisons of ‘these’ with ‘those’,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the dust,
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

  “So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar,
Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such counsels, from the faithless field
She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

“Look to the East, where Ganges’ swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish!—Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.

  “Look on your Spain!—she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat?

  “Look last at home—ye love not to look there
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
‘Blest paper credit;’ who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck’d each Premier by the ear,
Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for’——’; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ‘log.’
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a God.

  “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;
Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.
And Pirates barter all that’s left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the coming doom.
Then in the Senates of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

  “’Tis done, ’tis past—since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o’er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms.
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought;
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenched with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy ***** who deserves them most?
The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.”
Talia Oct 2020
You drag me in
past the point of
personal boundaries
Hands like hot plates
welded to my waist

Eyes undress me
with a penetrating stare
exposing me to everybody
Your kind lurk everywhere

I struggle away from
potent, *** ridden breath
that invades my air space
I try to breathe in
some respect
from anybody, anywhere?!
Hailey P Feb 2016
You don't know what it's like
To be violated
To be held against your will
And felt up
And leave bruises
By someone you trusted
By someone you thought cared about you

You don't know what it's like to be used just for your body
By someone you thought cared for more than just nudes
By someone who told you were cute and pretty

You don't know what it's like to tell the person who violated you
What they did to you
And how it made you feel

You don't know what it's like to receive a fake apology
One only to get you to shut up
But as you're telling him your point of view
And as he's pretending to apologize
You could just feel all the "I don't cares" and "will you shut up nows"

You don't know what its like to attempt to leave an uncomfortable situation
Only to be pulled back by the handle on your backpack
Unaware of what is going on
You thought you were leaving

You don't know what it's like to be held up against the body
Of a strong, tall male
Unable to push him away
Unable to squirm out of the situation

You don't know what it's like to be barely able to breathe
Because your face is pressed right up against his side

But of course you knew he was strong
He played hockey and baseball
But you didn't know he was that strong

You don't know what it's like to be violated by someone you thought you could trust, or thought they could protect you.

Let's not mention how you don't know what it's like
To be sitting in class, sharing your homework with another boy
Only to feel his hand on your leg

You don't know what it's like to sit in a room full of students
And have no one notice what is happening
And you've shot a look that says don't do it
Yet he takes that as a look to continue to go up further
Because he thought it would increase tension
But really he made your self-worth decrease

You don't know what it's like to have an unwanted hand go up your skirt
And you thought it was okay to wear a skirt that day
Just like you wore one every other day
Because the Kilt was part of your school uniform
But of course that made your visible legs vulnerable
And it's a good thing that someone else call for his attention
Because you wanted anything but his

And you don't know what it's like to make a scene
Or to tell someone
Because you're not sure if you parents will be more upset
About you talking to boys or that your got yourself into those situations

You don't know what it's like to stay silent
Because you don't want to make matters worse

But it's my body, why would someone think they have access to it?

Because you don't know what it's like to be sexually assaulted
and it's better that you don't know what it's like
so you won't have to live with how it made you feel
Blake Jul 2018
He had his tongue in my mouth
I was new to this and went along with it
He layed me down
I thought about my classmate in the front seat
He moved his hands up too high
I didn’t want to cause any drama
He put his hands under my shirt
I silently tried to push them away
He was stronger than me
I kept pushing his hands away
He felt me up anyways
I faked like I didn’t mind, while I smiled, tried to gently push him away,
He stopped and said “please”
I was silent
At one point he also tried to put his hand down my jeans
I pushed back harder than I’d done the first time.
The classmate in the front took a video
I looked like I was enjoying myself
I wasn’t
My friends saw it
I felt sick
People got mad at me for denying that I enjoyed it
I wanted to cry
My best friend didn’t believe me when I told him I was violated
I remembered when he said he’d protect me

Why didn’t you say no?
I was in shock
Why didn’t you get out of the car?
He was on top of me
He said “please” why didn’t you say No?
I was scared of making him mad.
Why didn’t you tell anyone?
I didn’t want them to know
Why didn’t you press charges?
I just wanted the whole thing to go away
Why did you pretend you were enjoying it if you weren’t?
I was scared, in shock, I wasn’t thinking clearly, maybe I thought it was safer than him doing it by force.

Why can’-
I don’t need to answer your questions
I was violated
I don’t care if you agree or not
Please
Stop making me relive it
He's Insidious
He didn't **** me
He just put his thoughts into me
He exploded all over my insides
The ones that matter
The thoughts I would have as I fall asleep
How I would view my body
He was ******
But only when it meant that he could further permeate my thinking
He sunk his teeth in
But only to venomize my thoughts
He washed my brain but it will never be clean of him
And this all sounds very poetic
But it's the only way I know how to express how violated I feel
A text turned Poem
Sanjna Manoj Apr 2017
I never got the chance,
To see the outside world,
Since I was sacrificed,
For the honor of my family.

I sleep on the floor,
Right next to dogs,
I eat from the floor,
Just like a dog,
But I work for, a very honorable family.

My mother-in-law is loving,
She wants the best for me,
A daughter as a child would be bad right?
Us, being a family with honor and pride.

I was violated,
But my life was complete,
I married him,
The honor of the family wasn't tarnished at-least.

I don't want to marry,
My heart lies among the paints and brushes,
I shall marry,
My mind knows unmarried girls bring taints and shushes.

My brother gets home by 3am,
Me, 10 hours earlier,
My dreams, my life, my need for freedom?
These don't bring honor to the family.

My aunt died,
I will too,
My husband passed away,
Awaiting me are flames that flare and sway.

Our lives are a necessary sacrifice,
Our families should live, with honor and pride.
Mean while the heinous and despiteful act
Of Satan, done in Paradise; and how
He, in the serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit,
Was known in Heaven; for what can ’scape the eye
Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart
Omniscient? who, in all things wise and just,
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind
Of Man, with strength entire and free will armed,
Complete to have discovered and repulsed
Whatever wiles of foe or seeming friend.
For still they knew, and ought to have still remembered,
The high injunction, not to taste that fruit,
Whoever tempted; which they not obeying,
(Incurred what could they less?) the penalty;
And, manifold in sin, deserved to fall.
Up into Heaven from Paradise in haste
The angelick guards ascended, mute, and sad,
For Man; for of his state by this they knew,
Much wondering how the subtle Fiend had stolen
Entrance unseen.  Soon as the unwelcome news
From Earth arrived at Heaven-gate, displeased
All were who heard; dim sadness did not spare
That time celestial visages, yet, mixed
With pity, violated not their bliss.
About the new-arrived, in multitudes
The ethereal people ran, to hear and know
How all befel:  They towards the throne supreme,
Accountable, made haste, to make appear,
With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance
And easily approved; when the Most High
Eternal Father, from his secret cloud,
Amidst in thunder uttered thus his voice.
Assembled Angels, and ye Powers returned
From unsuccessful charge; be not dismayed,
Nor troubled at these tidings from the earth,
Which your sincerest care could not prevent;
Foretold so lately what would come to pass,
When first this tempter crossed the gulf from Hell.
I told ye then he should prevail, and speed
On his bad errand; Man should be seduced,
And flattered out of all, believing lies
Against his Maker; no decree of mine
Concurring to necessitate his fall,
Or touch with lightest moment of impulse
His free will, to her own inclining left
In even scale.  But fallen he is; and now
What rests, but that the mortal sentence pass
On his transgression,—death denounced that day?
Which he presumes already vain and void,
Because not yet inflicted, as he feared,
By some immediate stroke; but soon shall find
Forbearance no acquittance, ere day end.
Justice shall not return as bounty scorned.
But whom send I to judge them? whom but thee,
Vicegerent Son?  To thee I have transferred
All judgement, whether in Heaven, or Earth, or Hell.
Easy it may be seen that I intend
Mercy colleague with justice, sending thee
Man’s friend, his Mediator, his designed
Both ransom and Redeemer voluntary,
And destined Man himself to judge Man fallen.
So spake the Father; and, unfolding bright
Toward the right hand his glory, on the Son
Blazed forth unclouded Deity: He full
Resplendent all his Father manifest
Expressed, and thus divinely answered mild.
Father Eternal, thine is to decree;
Mine, both in Heaven and Earth, to do thy will
Supreme; that thou in me, thy Son beloved,
Mayest ever rest well pleased.  I go to judge
On earth these thy transgressours; but thou knowest,
Whoever judged, the worst on me must light,
When time shall be; for so I undertook
Before thee; and, not repenting, this obtain
Of right, that I may mitigate their doom
On me derived; yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and thee appease.
Attendance none shall need, nor train, where none
Are to behold the judgement, but the judged,
Those two; the third best absent is condemned,
Convict by flight, and rebel to all law:
Conviction to the serpent none belongs.
Thus saying, from his radiant seat he rose
Of high collateral glory: Him Thrones, and Powers,
Princedoms, and Dominations ministrant,
Accompanied to Heaven-gate; from whence
Eden, and all the coast, in prospect lay.
Down he descended straight; the speed of Gods
Time counts not, though with swiftest minutes winged.
Now was the sun in western cadence low
From noon, and gentle airs, due at their hour,
To fan the earth now waked, and usher in
The evening cool; when he, from wrath more cool,
Came the mild Judge, and Intercessour both,
To sentence Man:  The voice of God they heard
Now walking in the garden, by soft winds
Brought to their ears, while day declined; they heard,
And from his presence hid themselves among
The thickest trees, both man and wife; till God,
Approaching, thus to Adam called aloud.
Where art thou, Adam, wont with joy to meet
My coming seen far off?  I miss thee here,
Not pleased, thus entertained with solitude,
Where obvious duty ere while appeared unsought:
Or come I less conspicuous, or what change
Absents thee, or what chance detains?—Come forth!
He came; and with him Eve, more loth, though first
To offend; discountenanced both, and discomposed;
Love was not in their looks, either to God,
Or to each other; but apparent guilt,
And shame, and perturbation, and despair,
Anger, and obstinacy, and hate, and guile.
Whence Adam, faltering long, thus answered brief.
I heard thee in the garden, and of thy voice
Afraid, being naked, hid myself.  To whom
The gracious Judge without revile replied.
My voice thou oft hast heard, and hast not feared,
But still rejoiced; how is it now become
So dreadful to thee?  That thou art naked, who
Hath told thee?  Hast thou eaten of the tree,
Whereof I gave thee charge thou shouldst not eat?
To whom thus Adam sore beset replied.
O Heaven! in evil strait this day I stand
Before my Judge; either to undergo
Myself the total crime, or to accuse
My other self, the partner of my life;
Whose failing, while her faith to me remains,
I should conceal, and not expose to blame
By my complaint: but strict necessity
Subdues me, and calamitous constraint;
Lest on my head both sin and punishment,
However insupportable, be all
Devolved; though should I hold my peace, yet thou
Wouldst easily detect what I conceal.—
This Woman, whom thou madest to be my help,
And gavest me as thy perfect gift, so good,
So fit, so acceptable, so divine,
That from her hand I could suspect no ill,
And what she did, whatever in itself,
Her doing seemed to justify the deed;
She gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
To whom the Sovran Presence thus replied.
Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey
Before his voice? or was she made thy guide,
Superiour, or but equal, that to her
Thou didst resign thy manhood, and the place
Wherein God set thee above her made of thee,
And for thee, whose perfection far excelled
Hers in all real dignity?  Adorned
She was indeed, and lovely, to attract
Thy love, not thy subjection; and her gifts
Were such, as under government well seemed;
Unseemly to bear rule; which was thy part
And person, hadst thou known thyself aright.
So having said, he thus to Eve in few.
Say, Woman, what is this which thou hast done?
To whom sad Eve, with shame nigh overwhelmed,
Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge
Bold or loquacious, thus abashed replied.
The Serpent me beguiled, and I did eat.
Which when the Lord God heard, without delay
To judgement he proceeded on the accused
Serpent, though brute; unable to transfer
The guilt on him, who made him instrument
Of mischief, and polluted from the end
Of his creation; justly then accursed,
As vitiated in nature:  More to know
Concerned not Man, (since he no further knew)
Nor altered his offence; yet God at last
To Satan first in sin his doom applied,
Though in mysterious terms, judged as then best:
And on the Serpent thus his curse let fall.
Because thou hast done this, thou art accursed
Above all cattle, each beast of the field;
Upon thy belly groveling thou shalt go,
And dust shalt eat all the days of thy life.
Between thee and the woman I will put
Enmity, and between thine and her seed;
Her seed shall bruise thy head, thou bruise his heel.
So spake this oracle, then verified
When Jesus, Son of Mary, second Eve,
Saw Satan fall, like lightning, down from Heaven,
Prince of the air; then, rising from his grave
Spoiled Principalities and Powers, triumphed
In open show; and, with ascension bright,
Captivity led captive through the air,
The realm itself of Satan, long usurped;
Whom he shall tread at last under our feet;
Even he, who now foretold his fatal bruise;
And to the Woman thus his sentence turned.
Thy sorrow I will greatly multiply
By thy conception; children thou shalt bring
In sorrow forth; and to thy husband’s will
Thine shall submit; he over thee shall rule.
On Adam last thus judgement he pronounced.
Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife,
And eaten of the tree, concerning which
I charged thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat thereof:
Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thou in sorrow
Shalt eat thereof, all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles it shall bring thee forth
Unbid; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
Till thou return unto the ground; for thou
Out of the ground wast taken, know thy birth,
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.
So judged he Man, both Judge and Saviour sent;
And the instant stroke of death, denounced that day,
Removed far off; then, pitying how they stood
Before him naked to the air, that now
Must suffer change, disdained not to begin
Thenceforth the form of servant to assume;
As when he washed his servants feet; so now,
As father of his family, he clad
Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain,
Or as the snake with youthful coat repaid;
And thought not much to clothe his enemies;
Nor he their outward only with the skins
Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more.
Opprobrious, with his robe of righteousness,
Arraying, covered from his Father’s sight.
To him with swift ascent he up returned,
Into his blissful ***** reassumed
In glory, as of old; to him appeased
All, though all-knowing, what had passed with Man
Recounted, mixing intercession sweet.
Mean while, ere thus was sinned and judged on Earth,
Within the gates of Hell sat Sin and Death,
In counterview within the gates, that now
Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame
Far into Chaos, since the Fiend passed through,
Sin opening; who thus now to Death began.
O Son, why sit we here each other viewing
Idly, while Satan, our great author, thrives
In other worlds, and happier seat provides
For us, his offspring dear?  It cannot be
But that success attends him; if mishap,
Ere this he had returned, with fury driven
By his avengers; since no place like this
Can fit his punishment, or their revenge.
Methinks I feel new strength within me rise,
Wings growing, and dominion given me large
Beyond this deep; whatever draws me on,
Or sympathy, or some connatural force,
Powerful at greatest distance to unite,
With secret amity, things of like kind,
By secretest conveyance.  Thou, my shade
Inseparable, must with me along;
For Death from Sin no power can separate.
But, lest the difficulty of passing back
Stay his return perhaps over this gulf
Impassable, impervious; let us try
Adventurous work, yet to thy power and mine
Not unagreeable, to found a path
Over this main from Hell to that new world,
Where Satan now prevails; a monument
Of merit high to all the infernal host,
Easing their passage hence, for *******,
Or transmigration, as their lot shall lead.
Nor can I miss the way, so strongly drawn
By this new-felt attraction and instinct.
Whom thus the meager Shadow answered soon.
Go, whither Fate, and inclination strong,
Leads thee; I shall not lag behind, nor err
The way, thou leading; such a scent I draw
Of carnage, prey innumerable, and taste
The savour of death from all things there that live:
Nor shall I to the work thou enterprisest
Be wanting, but afford thee equal aid.
So saying, with delight he snuffed the smell
Of mortal change on earth.  As when a flock
Of ravenous fowl, though many a league remote,
Against the day of battle, to a field,
Where armies lie encamped, come flying, lured
With scent of living carcasses designed
For death, the following day, in ****** fight:
So scented the grim Feature, and upturned
His nostril wide into the murky air;
Sagacious of his quarry from so far.
Then both from out Hell-gates, into the waste
Wide anarchy of Chaos, damp and dark,
Flew diverse; and with power (their power was great)
Hovering upon the waters, what they met
Solid or slimy, as in raging sea
Tost up and down, together crouded drove,
From each side shoaling towards the mouth of Hell;
As when two polar winds, blowing adverse
Upon the Cronian sea, together drive
Mountains of ice, that stop the imagined way
Beyond Petsora eastward, to the rich
Cathaian coast.  The aggregated soil
Death with his mace petrifick, cold and dry,
As with a trident, smote; and fixed as firm
As Delos, floating once; the rest his look
Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move;
And with Asphaltick slime, broad as the gate,
Deep to the roots of Hell the gathered beach
They fastened, and the mole immense wrought on
Over the foaming deep high-arched, a bridge
Of length prodigious, joining to the wall
Immoveable of this now fenceless world,
Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad,
Smooth, easy, inoffensive, down to Hell.
So, if great things to small may be compared,
Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke,
From Susa, his Memnonian palace high,
Came to the sea: and, over Hellespont
Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined,
And scourged with many a stroke the indignant waves.
Now had they brought the work by wonderous art
Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock,
Over the vexed abyss, following the track
Of Satan to the self-same place where he
First lighted from his wing, and landed safe
From out of Chaos, to the outside bare
Of this round world:  With pins of adamant
And chains they made all fast, too fast they made
And durable!  And now in little space
The confines met of empyrean Heaven,
And of this World; and, on the left hand, Hell
With long reach interposed; three several ways
In sight, to each of these three places led.
And now their way to Earth they had descried,
To Paradise first tending; when, behold!
Satan, in likeness of an Angel bright,
Betwixt the Centaur and the Scorpion steering
His zenith, while the sun in Aries rose:
Disguised he came; but those his children dear
Their parent soon discerned, though in disguise.
He, after Eve seduced, unminded slunk
Into the wood fast by; and, changing shape,
To observe the sequel, saw his guileful act
By Eve, though all unweeting, seconded
Upon her husband; saw their shame that sought
Vain covertures; but when he saw descend
The Son of God to judge them, terrified
He fled; not hoping to escape, but shun
The present; fearing, guilty, what his wrath
Might suddenly inflict; that past, returned
By night, and listening where the hapless pair
Sat in their sad discourse, and various plaint,
Thence gathered his own doom; which understood
Not instant, but of future time, with joy
And tidings fraught, to Hell he now returned;
And at the brink of Chaos, near the foot
Of this new wonderous pontifice, unhoped
Met, who to meet him came, his offspring dear.
Great joy was at their meeting, and at sight
Of that stupendious bridge his joy encreased.
Long he admiring stood, till Sin, his fair
Enchanting daughter, thus the silence broke.
O Parent, these are thy magnifick deeds,
Thy trophies! which thou viewest as not thine own;
Thou art their author, and prime architect:
For I no sooner in my heart divined,
My heart, which by a secret harmony
Still moves with thine, joined in connexion sweet,
That thou on earth hadst prospered, which thy looks
Now also evidence, but straight I felt,
Though distant from thee worlds between, yet felt,
That I must after thee, with this thy son;
Such fatal consequence unites us three!
Hell could no longer hold us in our bounds,
Nor this unvoyageable gulf obscure
Detain from following thy illustrious track.
Thou hast achieved our liberty, confined
Withi
imadeitallup May 2014
here's to the inappropriate bonds
the secrets that form between us
all of the nights spent hating all
of the things that we'll never admit
and the mornings spent regretting
all the stupid things that we did

you're an alien to me
here you come
with your false light
you come creeping in
the middle of the night
all I'm left with is lost time
I've been violated
in ways I can't explain
and no one believes me

here's to the unforseen devistation
that contact has cost us
all of the days spent as strangers
not to each other but to ourselves
and all of the mornings we wake up
wishing it was yesterday...

you're an alien to me
here you come
with your false light
you come creeping in
the middle of the night
all I'm left with is lost time
I've been violated
in ways I can't explain
and no one believes me
fun little poem that I turned into a song.
Karijinbba Jul 2018
I STILL EXIST- I STILL EXIST
My pen writes
I still Exist

and an empty feeling engulfs me
I am painting a purple tree
I tell my family counselor
That the paint reminds me
Of arsenic Greek cheese dust
That a human predator
two faced fiancee
placed on my green salad in 1976
He said he would teach me how Greeks killed with love at sea
Then kindly offered
To bring
breakfast and lunch
for me in bed
(Ladden with poison)
While I ate it he danced Zorba the Greek!
His jealous raicist medeas mistresses knew his past crimes
I didn't I was very naive
his superstitious ignorant parents twelve people  asked him to Get rid of me baby and all

Overdosed with pitocin for a cow
giving birth was a torture
then blood thinners
were added to slowly
end my life
A hate crime because I a sub human born in Mexico not Greece
The poisons caused
a chest malformation of my daughter requiring surgery
later in life was mis-diagnosed
as pectus scavatum
but I knew better it was
attempted ******
a chilling secret I was so ashamed to reveal

I did escape my kids and me
we survived  the memory
of my true love's loving ways
In America saved me from certain death there I was 75 lbs
When I escaped Hell
Greece
But salads gave me
Nausea through the years
I could never recall why

Painting gets my mind
Off painful memories
resurficing examining my life understanding me and others

I have many regrets unwittingly
my loving innermost feelings
remained trapped inside
and I lost my true love
in my dead calm silence of pain
Foolish online Ink
One involuntary bad deed
In Veracruz
Two SAD songs

My shrink says I have a beautiful
Soul a relentles spirit
That I managed to do better then
Most despite hellish adversity
A childhood marred with
heartbreak a trail of
Graves tree stumps
Coffin and treassures
Spirit breath of life and death
  
My hybrid race was secret
Poverty lack of Rhogam
My father the Apocalyto
Hero killed by MEX Feds
Who stole my Land
We are indigenous
Purhepecha tribe
The enemy of the Aztecs
So me my father's little queen of the forest his STAR could
Fly high and zoar
He was the love of my life
My dad David

A few days of effexor RX can bring about amnesia to block old kidnapping memories of turture resurficing unsolicited
Effexor to stop tears
regulating serotonin disrupted
After a car accident with traumatic head injury concoussion brain swelling so much that falling asleep for three months was impossible

MD prescribed just a trial
few warp eight mind bending Effexsors serotonin reuptakers
For only fifteen days
Half of thirty seven mg
Tears stopped immediatly a calmnesss
self assured old me demeanor
re-emerged I remember the arsenic and blood thiner injections the faces of sadistic jealous women but it didn't hurt

But soon my heart began to speed up so fast I could hear it beating in my ears at lowest dose

so the higher dose was not allowed.
Side effects if used longer than six months could make the
face to twich! who needs that!

So therapy ended slowly redusing small to smallest dosages for fifteen days
treatment ended
Don't like messing with my brain

Today I enjoy simple pleasures
echos born like me in
In the atlantic mystery

family time my lifetime best
best lover best Mother
nest friend to me myself
Remembering those few
Souls
Who deared greatly
their wisdom and foresigh to bet
On my future my light myself!
my father's little
Queen of the forest tribute to
My Once Upon A Time
True love his love songs
His poems quickening me
Awaking me
He was the love
Of my life my true love JPC/RC

He showed me he loved me
But he never could "tell me"
He loved me all my fault
Thinking back not ever
any other man told me
he loved me one or two boys wanted something from me freely given or taken by force from me
I didn't want them at all
No person growing up
Ever
Told me they loved me and most showed me my life didn't matter
many of my civil rights were violated throughout my life by thugs hainas had more charm
Only my father David San chez
and later my adoptive Mother mommy dearest told me once she loved me showed me she cared.
My children tell me and show me
They love me
Sometimes they hate me too
sadly they are under the spell of deadly sterile drug user enemies who assassinate my character lie and slander me to my grown daughters and I have now become estranged until they figure all out on their own so they learn to fight woolves in sheeps clothing and understand treason
and ungratefulness towards their own mother
There was only one man I loved
The MOST on this whole wide world
His ink scripted love remained the good intermigled with evil
Forever a part of me
My Lord Shiva my first teacher
My sage my guru
My Lancelott
Me  first love my last love
my tree of life he was
The only man I ever loved
and lost
Looking back
I thank G** King Jesus
King Arthur
And few other men who
Traveled in and out my door
Only one had my lock's key
I am glad you came along
I sing this last song
In memory of all the good
The bad and very bad
The few nefarious vipers I kissed
I forgive you all forgive you me for NOT
Understanding you
For loving those fellowmen
Who didn't know how to love me back
I wave my last
Good bye
I
Will
In your light and my own
Pray for you and me

As for the love of my life
"You are like a prayer
In church to God"
"I remembet you,
as someone something
VERY DEAR and precious"
You were the Best
You touched my STAR
And my starry skies sparkle
With your light remember me
in the same light my love
Look me up with your telescope
When you watch the stars
From your sun roof
In your bedroom

Find my Aries Constelation
For there is
My home
Without
You
I've taken with me a piece
Of Veracruz
A Mothers Day surprise
at the Hilton
raised in your arms on a warm June at a  bar
Where i felt like a bride
your bride

I almost asked you then and there to throw a big party
for you and me
But the monastery's dead silence
Growing up isolated
Silenced the spontaniety
Of thought you required of me
yet again!You regressed me you
tried in so many ways for me to
tell you  "I love you I am sorry
I'll marry you!"
All over again
I adored you remember this
Always.
Look me up with your telescope I AM
in The Aries Constelation I am Aprils daisy Aries diamond a
Yelow Self Existing Star says the Tzolkin Star Seed
Galactic seed always flowering....Enter me
Yours Always.
~~~~~~~
Revised 11-29th-2018
Excerpt from my memoir
auto biography
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Poetic T Nov 2014
Red balloons* litter the floor,
Out numbering the pure ones before,
What once was *white
now
Discoloured
Violated
Shrouded
Float from view
Each a moment of life
As the balloons once white
Now no more,
For all is stained red
Crimson,
Droplets,
Dried
Upon white like a tear,
It slides down marking
Before greeting the floor,
Expelled air, ruptured by the
Violence,
Anger,
Death
Still lingers, an after image
Of the life that was here before,
Red balloons float leaving their imprint
Splatter effect upon floor & wall
Cold eyes stare seeing both
White
&
Red
Balloons
Clinging around this fallen life,
Where white once was now all
That floats is the stench of death
Red balloons huddle around,
Each carrying a moment with them
When life became death &
White was scarred by crimson,
Life is static, still, for death  now floats above the floor
Poetic T Jun 2015
Wake up pleasured, I feel it as you lick my
Stiffness awoken from sleep,
"ARRR,
Your tongue feels rough, but I like it woken
Pleasured from my sleep.

I open my eyes turn my head to the side
There you are still asleep, panic on a face,
As what is under the sheets still pleasuring
Me more, just one more minute, NO....

Under the sheets I do look woken by pleasure
But  not any more.

There are two *****'s I see as I look under the
Sheets, one shaved, one hairy and its the hairy
One licking while looking at me.

I am pleasured, but animal style, this cat is out
The door. Violated am I, never to tell the woman
I love, that another ***** has pleasured me nearly
Releasing the milk that would have made it purr.
Ellen Joyce Jun 2013
And Ovid said "she asked for it"
she turned Tereus to lust on sight and caused him to **** her
over and over and over
the only control remaining to speak the truth.
a tongue turned phallus
that was to be cut off, castrated
to silence, make powerless -
Philomela subjugated
beneath the vile grunts of the patriarchal chorus
mumbling grumbling over the rumbling
of a revolution of women rising to dance, to shout, to sing
to bring Philomela from Hades to cascading waters of womanhood
extinguising the flames of the hell that is here.

Here in the he said - she said
in the legal loop holes
in the seems like
in the ridiculous pondering of legitimate ****
as if when Tess, at pitchfork, took off her clothes before Alec
that it could be consider seduction, romance.
The threat of violence - silence.

Here where we remember world cup victories but forget Nanking
hundreds, thousand of women violated and broken for sport
because **** is a weapon of war
because Lord knows bombs and bullet aint enough
Soldiers photographing rapes like snapshots to take home as souvenirs.
- the sadistic ******* who sexually assaulted, mutilated and murdered
daughter, sister, mother, grandmother
and then headed home to the ***** of the matriarch,
to hold their own teenage daughters in the arms that turned screams to silence.

Voices silenced.  
Vocabularly lost.
Women have come to fight silence with art
to speak in a language without words because there are not words
to tell of a hell that ------------------------

But when Toni Morrison told the truth
the truth in all its gorey graphic raw ugliness
the people tried to stick together the pages
to conceal the painful truth,
to build up pyres of life stories and watch them burn
The pen stamped underfoot into silence.

And Pa simply said "shut up and *** used to it"
and those words still echo now across the world
and there was noone to tell
nothing to be said - just the colour purple
and silence.

Silence is being broken
across this world women rise to tell, to share, to voice, to shout, to say, to sing

We've had enough, enough of being treated like dirt,
we've had enough enough of putting up with the hurt,
we've had enough enough of getting trashed from above,
us women have had enough -

we've had enough they say
of this vile hierarchial structure of **** that almost always favours the male
of arseholes like Galloway and Akin putting forth their perverse poisonous perceptions
of one in three women being ***** or beaten
of one in three women having to pick up the pieces and find a way to live
of one in three women feeling the weight of the silence

As the monologues echo in theatre stalls
as ***** taken to the streets both female and male
as men declare themselves feminists and walk the walk
the spirit of Philomela unites with her tongue,
the silence created by the threat of violence is cracked
the us and them mentality that allows us to hurt the other challenged
the once burned books have gone mass market
and we as a human race will no longer be told "to shut up and *** used to it"

We are standing as one
for the sake of the one
the every one in three women
one will billion rise
Inspired by Slutwalk movement and One Billion Rise.
Loyalty is something that is earned. Loyalty is built on trust.
We each must be loyal to our own beliefs and our own selves,
   before we can be loyal to someone else.
To be loyal to someone means that they have not violated your personal values
They must earn support by being there when needed.
Loyalty cannot violate a person’s choice between right & wrong.
Asking me to lie violates my ethics; do not put me in this position.
If someone is doing drugs, I am being a loyal friend when getting you help.
A loyal friend does what is right, even when others feel it is disloyal.
If I meet you today I cannot be loyal because I do not know you.
If I have known you all of your life, I may not be loyal to you because of past interactions.
Overall a combination of time and actions affect loyalty
To separate these two does not work, for true loyalty resides in a combination of both.
Lina Nov 2020
I can't sell this house
That you forcefully entered.
I have to live in it...
The scene of your crime.
I can't drive away
When memories are too vivid.
Because it is my body,
My home, that you violated.

I'm reminded of you
When I look down and see
A body that does not
Seem to belong to me.
When I sit down, I remember  
How the warm, sticky blood
Felt between my legs
As you scraped in and out.

Car keys in my ignition...
The same ones you took from me.
My purple dress...
The one I begged to keep on.
A friend's apartment I can't go to
Because it's in the same complex.
The skirt I never wore again
Because you said I was "asking for it."

Dream catchers, night lights,
Melatonin, medication...
None of them have stopped
The nightmares of you.
How can I explain to a lover
Why I cry in my sleep?
Or that it's not his fault
I cringe from his touch?

No, this crime...
I can never escape from.
And no soap or scrub
Can wash away the film
You left on my body.
A film so thin, it's invisible
To everyone.
But me.
I wrote this in January 2017 about being *****.
Alaina Moore Jul 2018
[Hashtag]MeToo
Here it goes again,
trending on Insta and Facebook.
Where real awareness stems.
Mind the sarcasm,
social media’s a powerful tool
not knockin’ that.
I wonder though,
does the mind of the follower
understand the context of the hash?
Do they get it should be a call to action?
Not necessarily at the keyboard.
More like on the couch with their children,
Giving the conversation of consent.  
Most people do not even understand it by definition .
The meaning of yes and no convoluted by scenario.  
Bias boils over like milk and water over full flame.
The posts bubble out and stick to the side of the pan,
quickly drying; leaving their mark.
Until the soap and warm water flows over them,
and the steam evaporates the confessions.
Until they are again whispers we all hear and know.
It’s whispers from the alley ways,
and from married couples bedroom doors.
The woman is the property,  
the man is the proprietor.  
We refuse to address the real problems,
the failures of our up-bringers.
We point fingers and slay names
yet the statistics provide the truth.  
One in four for females, one in sixteen for males.
We all have been violated, slandered, and forced to say
[Hashtag]MeToo
Not going to say I did not share it,
I know the touch of unwanted hands,
the invasive *******.
All for the sake of the insanity,  
in repeating a useless gesture.
The only difference is
My hashtag went to my Senator.
Just found this, needs editing and punctuation but I liked it so I figured I would share it even as a draft.
Patricia Tsouros Sep 2013
Crazy passion fast deep soul kiss warnings word breathe reckless love devastated desk art struggle pinstripe attempts drunk ghost lost wind beauty hunger soul smile elegance latte knowing containment bond ink shallow identity measure chaos stumbling darling life dance frenzy sweat hole paper haunted only dreams ****** vandalized scars Achilles proceedings bare deep still pain inside lied courts darkness wind step empty rocky soul whisper eyes alone wrapped inside Athens love smile abuse truth lies time mind  bungalow knowing liar violated Pandora’s entanglement flashbacks ****** self-preservation private suit weakness baklava hide lips ******* played deserve hold earth destruction haunted coffin judgment dreams hands eternity sleep  sunset lips hidden kissed desire champagne stars taint lovers fallen what **** PR glistening intense echoes seeing taste depth care finally beach rolling salt binding heat lost quietly resumed park come believe myself arms world you skin love stranger now
Thanks to  Eliot York for his inspiration to tell my story in words from my Poems Love & Deception.
Amitav Radiance Sep 2014
All that we know maybe distorted
Or a methodical manipulation
Where truth is obfuscated by few
Which spreads like an epidemic
Words used with vested interest
For us to play a role given to us
Memorizing the scripts, to deliver
Speeches with someone else’s ideas
Thoughts and feelings engineered
To suit the machinations of few
With sinister ideas to play with the mind
A conscious and intelligent manipulation
Bereft of the tools of our own judgment
Our perception is not even ours
For the mind has been violated
With the scheming and methodical manipulations
Marcus Lane Mar 2011
Sunshine,
Birdsong
And children drunk on
Lemonade
And laughter.

That Welsh picnic
Has lasted forty years
And will last forty more
In daydream

And nightmare.

The stream babbled
Over pebbles,
Fern fronds
Brushed our sun-browned shins

Till the dead sheep
Slugged us in the guts.

Bloated and bulbous,
The body dammed the stream,
Its lifeless eyes
Crawling with life.

Those pearly marbles were
A child’s looking glass into death.

The rocks we hurled at it
In reckless revulsion
Were the screams
Of violated youth,

And those empty dead sheep thuds
The dawning of our mortality.
© Marcus Lane 2010
Y Rada Oct 2015
It is difficult to be a man,
For I am not a typical one.
It is hard for me to go on,
There’s a secret that pulls me.

I loathe when my memories strike,
They hit emotionally with might.
I struggle so much to survive,
In a world so deaf towards my cries.

I look at a He and my heart convulses,
For I recall a He who gave me kisses.
I was young, forced and naïve,
I fought but He was much stronger.

Society might tell that I’m gay,
For I let a man violated me in a way.
But I’m not a ***** and I’m sure,
I play a role for which others envy.

When I was a teen I met her,
I admired her even if she’s older.
I was then shy and very timid,
With mental and emotional scars.

I thought of her as a dear friend,
Then she turned to be my worst fiend.
One instance she forced herself on me,
And used things that hurt me so.

A girl’s tactics differ from the stronger ***,
Tears she used first and blackmail next.
She was cunning, sly and very clever,
She stole my pride and my dignity.

My fears now mixed with anger,
My determinations got bolder.
I still cry and sometimes get lonely,
Like any other victim I want to fight.

I can not shout to the whole nations,
For societies will scorn at my declamation.
Both sexes forgot that I have feelings too,
I am also made of flesh, bones and spirit.

I am not proud of what I become,
Within me clouding reasons try to calm.
My desire is to win this battle to the end,
I am capable of vulnerability like any human.

But where does my right begin?
This universe has compassion for women.
The likes of me are expected to be steel made,
Yet I have feelings too for I am just a man.
Dedicated to all abused males by other men and to the men abused by females. A simple shout out to the world that I care…that I have heard your cries… and that you are still loved.
K Balachandran Dec 2012
A woman walking past,
                      grunting in pain, alone
dragging her feet, as if
                        it's her ****** past.
On  immaculate white
                            marble floor,
a big blob of blood
               *
                  *
                        splatter
          ­                             *
                                                   *
                                                

                                  a mutilated hibiscus.
                          Two eyes look on stunned
Raymond Johnson Jan 2015
the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right

in the supposedly post-racial united states of america

the only thing this society seems to be is post humanity.

black americans are routinely treated with barely a shred of human decency.

stripped of our agency under the iron fist of white supremacy

post the cold blooded murders of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Ezell Ford, Eric Garner, Kimane Gray, John Crawford, and countless others-

these are the strange fruits that hang from our nation’s poplar trees.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right. or is it nineteen sixty four? many a time I have opened the morning paper to see headlines that would not be out of place in that era of bloodshed.

more care given to a cotton cloth flag than to the black bodies that lie battered and broken in the streets.

"think of the businesses!" they scream, mouths afroth.

but won't anyone think of the black children murdered for carrying BB Guns? won't anyone think of the fathers? the mothers? the sons and daughters whose lives are cut short by those who are supposed to 'protect and serve?'

I will stop "making this about race" when the police stop giving me reason to fear for my life simply for existing. it is not enough to be peaceful and innocent anymore.

does this conversation upset you? can you not cope with these atrocities that go on every day in your precious land of the free?

In a sick way it almost makes sense

that in a nation built from nothing upon the backs of the enslaved

that it would take a bit longer than a hundred and fifty years to stop feeling the pain.

the whips and chains that once bound us were not broken, but merely transformed.

our shackles are now student loans;

plantations were exchanged for privatized prisons and lynch mobs now wear blue uniforms.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right.

maybe it’s got something to do with the way that all people seem to care about nowadays is iggy azalea’s new hit single but not the way that white rappers want to be black so badly up until it’s time to fight for us. to march with us. to die with us.

miley cyrus can prance around onstage fetishizing black bodies like modern day hottentot venuses but when black bodies are being violated by the police she’s strangely silent.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right.


but there is a light that shines through this darkness. that light is within me, and you, and within the hearts of every single man and woman of all colors and creeds who raises their fists and says "No more."  

our fight is not over. the road will be long. it is very possible that more will die along the way.  but their deaths will not be in vain.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right. but it will not be this way forever.

and and fourteen and something isn't right

in the supposedly post-racial united states of america

the only thing this society seems to be is post humanity.

black americans are routinely treated with barely a shred of human decency.

stripped of our agency under the iron fist of white supremacy

post the cold blooded murders of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Ezell Ford, Eric Garner, Kimane Gray, John Crawford, and countless others-

these are the strange fruits that hang from our nation’s poplar trees.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right. or is it nineteen sixty four? many a time I have opened the morning paper to see headlines that would not be out of place in that era of bloodshed.

more care given to a cotton cloth flag than to the black bodies that lie battered and broken in the streets.

"think of the businesses!" they scream, mouths afroth.

but won't anyone think of the black children murdered for carrying BB Guns? won't anyone think of the fathers? the mothers? the sons and daughters whose lives are cut short by those who are supposed to 'protect and serve?'

I will stop "making this about race" when the police stop giving me reason to fear for my life simply for existing. it is not enough to be peaceful and innocent anymore.

does this conversation upset you? can you not cope with these atrocities that go on every day in your precious land of the free?

In a sick way it almost makes sense

that in a nation built from nothing upon the backs of the enslaved

that it would take a bit longer than a hundred and fifty years to stop feeling the pain.

the whips and chains that once bound us were not broken, but merely transformed.

our shackles are now student loans;

plantations were exchanged for privatized prisons and lynch mobs now wear blue uniforms.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right.

maybe it’s got something to do with the way that all people seem to care about nowadays is iggy azalea’s new hit single but not the way that white rappers want to be black so badly up until it’s time to fight for us. to march with us. to die with us.

miley cyrus can prance around onstage fetishizing black bodies like modern day hottentot venuses but when black bodies are being violated by the police she’s strangely silent.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right.


but there is a light that shines through this darkness. that light is within me, and you, and within the hearts of every single man and woman of all colors and creeds who raises their fists and says "No more."  

our fight is not over. the road will be long. it is very possible that more will die along the way.  but their deaths will not be in vain.

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right. but it will not be this way forever.
Kaori Dec 2012
Singular  collection    
          individuality
         invites cutting
high strung and stressed out
        beliefs
            images
                 words
          tainted with the
            personality
                       and fad
        of what we believe
          Now forgotten…
       And I see that I hear
        a violated form of
                silent
          communication
Written early-mid 1999. Composed using the cut up method with bits of magazines/news publications.
LittleFreeBird Oct 2014
Hands where
They are not welcome
Against flesh too young
And too willing to please
Pushing to break the last barrier
That separates
Innocence
From exploitation
Lips parting what should be closed
Taking what is not theirs
And can never be given back
A body demands
As the other yields
Bending to its will
And calling it "love"
Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, --
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.
zeolite Mar 2015
Seething,
erupting,
violated by a corrupt thing.

See thing,
sea thing,
from violent birth to teething.
So spake the Son of God; and Satan stood
A while as mute, confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;
At length, collecting all his serpent wiles,
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:—
  “I see thou know’st what is of use to know,
What best to say canst say, to do canst do;
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart            
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape.
Should kings and nations from thy mouth consult,
Thy counsel would be as the oracle
Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems
On Aaron’s breast, or tongue of Seers old
Infallible; or, wert thou sought to deeds
That might require the array of war, thy skill
Of conduct would be such that all the world
Could not sustain thy prowess, or subsist
In battle, though against thy few in arms.                  
These godlike virtues wherefore dost thou hide?
Affecting private life, or more obscure
In savage wilderness, wherefore deprive
All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself
The fame and glory—glory, the reward
That sole excites to high attempts the flame
Of most erected spirits, most tempered pure
AEthereal, who all pleasures else despise,
All treasures and all gain esteem as dross,
And dignities and powers, all but the highest?              
Thy years are ripe, and over-ripe.  The son
Of Macedonian Philip had ere these
Won Asia, and the throne of Cyrus held
At his dispose; young Scipio had brought down
The Carthaginian pride; young Pompey quelled
The Pontic king, and in triumph had rode.
Yet years, and to ripe years judgment mature,
Quench not the thirst of glory, but augment.
Great Julius, whom now all the world admires,
The more he grew in years, the more inflamed                
With glory, wept that he had lived so long
Ingloroious.  But thou yet art not too late.”
  To whom our Saviour calmly thus replied:—
“Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth
For empire’s sake, nor empire to affect
For glory’s sake, by all thy argument.
For what is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people’s praise, if always praise unmixed?
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol                          
Things ******, and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise?
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extolled,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk?
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise—
His lot who dares be singularly good.
The intelligent among them and the wise
Are few, and glory scarce of few is raised.
This is true glory and renown—when God,                    
Looking on the Earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through Heaven
To all his Angels, who with true applause
Recount his praises.  Thus he did to Job,
When, to extend his fame through Heaven and Earth,
As thou to thy reproach may’st well remember,
He asked thee, ‘Hast thou seen my servant Job?’
Famous he was in Heaven; on Earth less known,
Where glory is false glory, attributed
To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame.            
They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to overrun
Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault.  What do these worthies
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe’er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy;            
Then swell with pride, and must be titled Gods,
Great benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,
Worshipped with temple, priest, and sacrifice?
One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other;
Till conqueror Death discover them scarce men,
Rowling in brutish vices, and deformed,
Violent or shameful death their due reward.
But, if there be in glory aught of good;
It may be means far different be attained,
Without ambition, war, or violence—                        
By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,
By patience, temperance.  I mention still
Him whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne,
Made famous in a land and times obscure;
Who names not now with honour patient Job?
Poor Socrates, (who next more memorable?)
By what he taught and suffered for so doing,
For truth’s sake suffering death unjust, lives now
Equal in fame to proudest conquerors.
Yet, if for fame and glory aught be done,                  
Aught suffered—if young African for fame
His wasted country freed from Punic rage—
The deed becomes unpraised, the man at least,
And loses, though but verbal, his reward.
Shall I seek glory, then, as vain men seek,
Oft not deserved?  I seek not mine, but His
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.”
  To whom the Tempter, murmuring, thus replied:—
“Think not so slight of glory, therein least
Resembling thy great Father.  He seeks glory,              
And for his glory all things made, all things
Orders and governs; nor content in Heaven,
By all his Angels glorified, requires
Glory from men, from all men, good or bad,
Wise or unwise, no difference, no exemption.
Above all sacrifice, or hallowed gift,
Glory he requires, and glory he receives,
Promiscuous from all nations, Jew, or Greek,
Or Barbarous, nor exception hath declared;
From us, his foes pronounced, glory he exacts.”            
  To whom our Saviour fervently replied:
“And reason; since his Word all things produced,
Though chiefly not for glory as prime end,
But to shew forth his goodness, and impart
His good communicable to every soul
Freely; of whom what could He less expect
Than glory and benediction—that is, thanks—
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense
From them who could return him nothing else,
And, not returning that, would likeliest render            
Contempt instead, dishonour, obloquy?
Hard recompense, unsuitable return
For so much good, so much beneficience!
But why should man seek glory, who of his own
Hath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs
But condemnation, ignominy, and shame—
Who, for so many benefits received,
Turned recreant to God, ingrate and false,
And so of all true good himself despoiled;
Yet, sacrilegious, to himself would take                    
That which to God alone of right belongs?
Yet so much bounty is in God, such grace,
That who advances his glory, not their own,
Them he himself to glory will advance.”
  So spake the Son of God; and here again
Satan had not to answer, but stood struck
With guilt of his own sin—for he himself,
Insatiable of glory, had lost all;
Yet of another plea bethought him soon:—
  “Of glory, as thou wilt,” said he, “so deem;              
Worth or not worth the seeking, let it pass.
But to a Kingdom thou art born—ordained
To sit upon thy father David’s throne,
By mother’s side thy father, though thy right
Be now in powerful hands, that will not part
Easily from possession won with arms.
Judaea now and all the Promised Land,
Reduced a province under Roman yoke,
Obeys Tiberius, nor is always ruled
With temperate sway: oft have they violated                
The Temple, oft the Law, with foul affronts,
Abominations rather, as did once
Antiochus.  And think’st thou to regain
Thy right by sitting still, or thus retiring?
So did not Machabeus.  He indeed
Retired unto the Desert, but with arms;
And o’er a mighty king so oft prevailed
That by strong hand his family obtained,
Though priests, the crown, and David’s throne usurped,
With Modin and her suburbs once content.                    
If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal
And duty—zeal and duty are not slow,
But on Occasion’s forelock watchful wait:
They themselves rather are occasion best—
Zeal of thy Father’s house, duty to free
Thy country from her heathen servitude.
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify,
The Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign—
The happier reign the sooner it begins.
Rein then; what canst thou better do the while?”            
  To whom our Saviour answer thus returned:—
“All things are best fulfilled in their due time;
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said.
If of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told
That it shall never end, so, when begin
The Father in his purpose hath decreed—
He in whose hand all times and seasons rowl.
What if he hath decreed that I shall first
Be tried in humble state, and things adverse,
By tribulations, injuries, insults,                        
Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence,
Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting
Without distrust or doubt, that He may know
What I can suffer, how obey?  Who best
Can suffer best can do, best reign who first
Well hath obeyed—just trial ere I merit
My exaltation without change or end.
But what concerns it thee when I begin
My everlasting Kingdom?  Why art thou
Solicitous?  What moves thy inquisition?                    
Know’st thou not that my rising is thy fall,
And my promotion will be thy destruction?”
  To whom the Tempter, inly racked, replied:—
“Let that come when it comes.  All hope is lost
Of my reception into grace; what worse?
For where no hope is left is left no fear.
If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me than the feeling can.
I would be at the worst; worst is my port,
My harbour, and my ultimate repose,                        
The end I would attain, my final good.
My error was my error, and my crime
My crime; whatever, for itself condemned,
And will alike be punished, whether thou
Reign or reign not—though to that gentle brow
Willingly I could fly, and hope thy reign,
From that placid aspect and meek regard,
Rather than aggravate my evil state,
Would stand between me and thy Father’s ire
(Whose ire I dread more than the fire of Hell)              
A shelter and a kind of shading cool
Interposition, as a summer’s cloud.
If I, then, to the worst that can be haste,
Why move thy feet so slow to what is best?
Happiest, both to thyself and all the world,
That thou, who worthiest art, shouldst be their King!
Perhaps thou linger’st in deep thoughts detained
Of the enterprise so hazardous and high!
No wonder; for, though in thee be united
What of perfection can in Man be found,                    
Or human nature can receive, consider
Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent
At home, scarce viewed the Galilean towns,
And once a year Jerusalem, few days’
Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe?
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts—
Best school of best experience, quickest in sight
In all things that to greatest actions lead.
The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever                    
Timorous, and loth, with novice modesty
(As he who, seeking *****, found a kingdom)
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventrous.
But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit
Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes
The monarchies of the Earth, their pomp and state—
Sufficient introduction to inform
Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts,
And regal mysteries; that thou may’st know
How best their opposition to withstand.”                    
  With that (such power was given him then), he took
The Son of God up to a mountain high.
It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
The one winding, the other straight, and left between
Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
Fertil of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;    
Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
The prospect was that here and there was room
For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought
Our Saviour, and new train of words began:—
  “Well have we speeded, and o’er hill and dale,
Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,
Cut shorter many a league.  Here thou behold’st
Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds,                  
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
Israel in long captivity still mourns;
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,                  
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
Judah and all thy father David’s house
Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
Ecbatana her structure vast there shews,
And Hecatompylos her hunderd gates;
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,                    
The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
Turning with easy eye, thou may’st behold.
All these the Parthian (now some ages past
By great Arsaces led, who founded first
That empire) under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
And just in time thou com’st to have a view
Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host                    
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
He marches now in haste.  See, though from far,
His thousands, in what martial e
CATERPILLAR recognize me

BUTTERFLY (turning away glances over shoulder) excuse me

CATERPILLAR i’m you before you transformed

BUTTERFLY get away you ****** worm

CATERPILLAR you can’t be serious look at me i’m you

BUTTERFLY look at you? euwwwh you’re a sticky slug with too many legs (pause) i’m exquisite fluttering colorful poetry a celebrity with huge fan base wherever i fly people recognize admire me

CATERPILLAR (creases brow) what happened to you did you forget your past where you come from

BUTTERFLY my past is fiction i’ve always been this lovely luminary (turns profile to audience in exaggerated manner) can’t you see i’m busy go away please leave

CATERPILLAR (bluntly) you’re consumed in vanity drunk on yourself spectacle without substance you make me question my own growing will i become like you

BUTTERFLY stop talking i’m calling 911

CATERPILLAR (sharply) you’re a sickening disappointment another Paris Hilton spin-off i hope to die in the cocoon and be spared the sham of you

BUTTERFLY (speaking into cell phone) yes operator i’m being accosted violated attack in progress please dispatch police immediately

CATERPILLAR you’re pitiful over-reactionary spineless decadent

BUTTERFLY i have nothing more to say law enforcement will be here soon

CATERPILLAR quit fretting i’m out of here i need to find and warn other caterpillars this meeting is a bleak awakening

BUTTERFLY think what you like greasy maggot i’m late for a performance and need to skirt paparazzi

caterpillar trudges off stage left as butterfly ascends over audience
Destiny C Sep 2021
SA Trigger Warning*

I can still remember the couch.
The way I cried in my friend's arms when I thought of that couch.
Pinned down.
Abused.
Forcefully used.
On the couch.

Couch.

I still remember going into my apartment alone after.
The way my body shaked for nights spent crying in my bed after.
At my friend's apartment after.
In the hospital after.
Years after.

After.

They say the mind can forget sometimes,
but what always remembers the trauma is the body.
The one that kicked and fought off the body.
The one that layed under the body.
The violated body.
The tortured body.
The unsafe body.

The Body

After

The Couch...

was never the same.
Not for me to blame.

I know that now.
If you or someone you know has been subjected to ****** assault. Please be aware that you can contact the ****** Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673 (US).
Jonny Bolduc Jan 2013
Friends of Friends

A cup of ocean, steaming like an elixir-
boiling empty water like a primordial sauna.
We drink to the thought of a flawed philosophy.
Cheers.
Cuttting all the corners as we skate around our grey garden.

We are friends. We are the friends of friends. We drink thoughts, slurp insight-
trip on _ to Plotinus, dig to Polycarp, copulate
in the stretched shadow of a specter, a long
skeleton Marxist,
beard coated in Ketchup-
Butcher entrails. **** the saintly each other.
Never stop. Ingesting. Breathing in. Spitting out.
Friendly manifestos, heartfelt wine grinning slipping spitting
blood forever-

You’re a fat cherub. Coated, winking, grinning, sleeping, *******-
you are not special.

On the average day,
Laziness takes a grip and forces you back into the bed.
The blankets have a magnetic pull-
Head pounds. Throbbing like a siren, in and out.
You are-
You’re slushy, like a spring day. Lethargic. Sleepy. Reading.

The day soon transforms-
the restless night comes catcalling-
The slurred voice, indiscernible- indescribable
an existing ode, folklore describing the lonely confines of an empty savior.

Not a hymn, but a dirge. A lonely gysm.
A struggling complex-
a grimy,  violated existence of crust. A damp home, a purlieu,
a place to occupy, a dug tunnel dug bed-rest, burrowing in filth like a worm-

Eyelids drooping. Socks wet. Keep them on-
you’ll get sick, but that’s alright.
Bled out from the scrapes and cuts.
Doing nothing ever ever sure does drain the life outta you.

There’s a little stick in your finger where a pin pushed through.
Bood peeked out like little specks,
like crimson blotchy roses- you smeared, painted
the front of an empty milk carton,
turning the white cardboard
red.
It’ll get infected. You should- no, you won’t, because-
you are a tiny splinter. An infection. A tapeworm.
Eating, feeding, relentless, biting-
the cold draining storm. The white fleck
landing on a bushy eyebrow and sticking-
drinking. For the warmth. For the cold. For the love of nothing,
Whiskey. *****. Sprite, Sprite and Whiskey, Sprite and *****, Salt Lime And Tequila, Gin Tonic *** Coke, endless libations to only gods you know-
an existence, expansive in scope,
covers the ****** of every friend of friend, every sick sad joke-
acquaintance, take it- cadence, leave it-

call a cab with a friend
or a friend of a friend on a lonesome morning,
stumble and fall and ***** perhaps.
Stick the head in the endless *** and
call the bray of the donkey an ******* shrill.
It's not a fib. It's not a lie.
It's an exaggeration.
Blast the mix-tape-
Dig to Hobbes- shuffle out the door while
some Neoplatonist ******* you feign to
understand loops around twists stabs maliciously inside
the skull of the your own Neanderthal
head-
Logan Robertson Jul 2018
Behind the eight ball
she sits.
Resigned.
From her ****'s
leash,
she's lead.
Deadweight, she feels
his ways and ills,
like cattle, that's branded.
Best she hustles,
or be backhanded.
Once molded,
she learns to light up
Big Daddy's cigar
and bring him his pie loaded.
More cabbage to fill his gold baggage.
Sometimes he spares a small leaf for her.
Though times she short, his fist takes sport.
And every night
she plays for the band
of her john's,
singing their song,
while a thousand ****** of light
inches along all wrong.
The nameless, faceless and most relentless
getting their fill.
A flower in her wails loves not fear.
However, Big Daddy's eyes are always near.
She knows better than to run
past the pasture gates
onto verdant fields,
free as a bird,
without a home, money or vocation
and ever so fearful of Big Daddy's gun.
A flower in her wails loves not fears.
As she remembers those first tears.
A Big Daddy's indoctrination.
It started off on social media,
a whim
a fantasy went wrong.
Three nights her body violated,
Big Daddy's cavalry,
descending on her picnic,
wax and whips,
a thousand ****** of might,
and the scream of the night.
Coldcocked.
Say hello to the new ******* the block.
A flower in her wails loves not fears.
Her youth robbed as the days morph into years.
Like a blur.
The guise, the lure, the drugs, the fear.
The trap.
Eighteen young became twenty-four old.
A lost puppy to her folks back home.
And every lost night
she struts her Prada dress a little higher
Big Daddy has a buyer.

Logan Robertson

7/27/2018
To Desiree sixx  phoenix I read your poem, 304, regarding pimps. What strikes me are the 8.9k views and not one acknowledgment. How odd is that? I see shortly after, you quit writing here. I don't blame you.
TS Feb 2020
Trigger warning : aggressive ****** encounters, ****, violence

Walking down an empty street in London, I‌ was drawn to a crumbling, empty church. It's as if ‘decay’ was written on the walls. A sight unseen, I‌ just had to explore. It looks as though no one has been there for years, decades, or maybe even centuries. Wooden trim adorned the boarded up windows and an altar like a hidden stage lay in the very front. Layers of dust coated the floor. Two balconies towered over either side of the altar and what was left of the chairs sat facing the front of the church. The room was almost a half circle, drawing the attention to the front altar. The ceilings seemed to rise for miles and the windows cast haunted shadows on the floor. Everything is dingy and dull in color, as if it was a forgotten coloring book page that has faded overtime. As I tiptoed across the floor, I inspected each little thing almost in search of a lost treasure.

The energy is strange, almost as if it had been frozen in a paradox of time. Everything was left as if they fled in a hurry, untouched by the passing of years. What was it about this place that I was drawn to? What community used to worship here? What happened to them that left this church in this state. I‌ wasn’t sure I would find out the answer to any of these questions until I‌ spotted a dusty old book on a table by the door. Inside was a language I‌ did not know and notes scrawled on the page margins in pencil. “Gratias agimus tibi propter Princeps tenebris, princeps infernum.” it read. Was this latin? That might make sense as many of the Christian religions’ texts derived from the latin language. Since google is a thing now and we have an infinite access to so much information, I decided to give it a go.

‘We worship thee prince of the darkness, ruler of hell.’

I don’t think this was a Christian church…

As I‌ read these words aloud, a whisper seemed to escape from the walls around me. Carefully, I continued to explore, making sure to not disturb anything. Toward the back of the room was a wall trimmed in wainscoting dusted in a faded brown stain. A large hole was torn through a space on the bottom and a faint light flickered from inside. Was I not the only one here?

Next thing I‌ knew, I‌ was on my hands and knees, crawling through this hole. Why am I not able to control myself? I‌ should have left the instant I‌ read the inscription.‌ Something tells me that someone wants me to be here. Through cobwebs and rodent dung, I‌ reached an opening and stood up. It was a room with dirt walls and floor. There was a single oil lamp lit on a desk across the room. The furniture was skewed about and a questionable, almost luminescent red powder on the floor across the room. When I‌ got closer, I‌ also noticed the shards of glass spread on the ground around the powder. I reached down to touch the powder. I‌n the blink of an eye, I‌ was across the room, wondering what had happened. Before I‌ could even form a full thought, there was movement from the hole in the wall I‌ had just climbed through. A‌ little boy appeared, no older than 8, dressed in ***** wool trousers and a half tucked in, stained linen shirt. He wore a newsboy hat on his head that had certainly seen better days. On his shoulder was a worn bag which looked to be carrying something heavy.

“Hi there. My name is Anna. Are you lost?”

He walked by me as if I‌ were a ghost.

He was looking around, almost searching for something.

“Wh-what are you looking for?”

He made his way to the desk in the corner with the oil lamp and laid his bag down on the chair. He looked under and around with a near disappointed look. What was he trying to find? His eyes suddenly widened and he darted toward a nearby bookshelf, pulling down a crystal decanter from the top shelf. It was full of that same ghastly powder I saw before!‌ I‌ turned to look at that spot on the floor, only to find it clear and no broken glass scattered. To my surprise, the decanter came hurdling across the room, right passed my head, and smashed into the wall. I‌ turn quickly to see the little boy and he was gone. I blink and again am across the room where I‌ was before. I‌ shake my head and rub my eyes. What just happened? I‌ should really get out of here - I don’t think its safe to be here.

I‌ turned to leave but caught a glimpse of the little boy’s bag on the chair. Why was this still here? Why wouldn’t he take it with him? I‌ had to see what was inside. I picked up the bag and pulled each item out; a rock-hard loaf of bread nearly mummified, a small black book on elementary mathematics, a very old key, and sort of spherical item wrapped in a brown cloth.

I‌ removed the cloth to reveal a black clouded crystal ball. As soon as my hands touched its surface, I blinked and I‌ was out in the main room of the church with at least 30 people lingering around their chairs talking. I was no longer holding the ball, and everything had a bit brighter of a color to it. The room was still dark but the windows were not boarded up. There still lie some rubble on the ground but much less than before.

“Uhm, hello? Who are you? What is happening?”

I reached out to one of the people and they said nothing - they didn’t even acknowledge my existence. Everyone was dressed in very old clothing. Corsets, bustles, and shiny leather shoes. It was as if I stepped into a chapter of a victorian era book.
Despite the demeanor of the patrons, their clothes were still a little worn, torn, *****, and drab. Everyone carried on their conversations in a reasonable tone until a bell rang - everyone found a seat.

A lanky gentleman appeared at the altar in black clothing and spoke to the crowd.

“My fellow followers of Lucifer, I‌ beseech thee to bow down in worship to our almighty prince. He hath lead us to the depths of the fire and bestowed on us the power to destroy life itself.”

Each person knelt down and faced the ground in what I‌ would assume is reverence.

“For over a thousand years, this temple has held a dark mass for our dark lord, in which we show our dedication to his unholiness in the form of a sacrifice. Who among you has brought a gift to Satan himself?”

A petite, young, beautiful woman rose and approached the altar. Her head bowed in reverence and a veil over her head, she held out her arms. The man took a small item wrapped in a brown cloth from her and set it on the altar. They continued their ritual by spreading what I imagine was blood along the edge of the altar in a circle. As the man worked, the crowd of people mumbled in unison like a prayer. I watched from the side, trying to understand why I‌ was here and why no one would speak with me.

“Ma’am, what is this place?” I‌ asked a nearby worshiper. She said nothing.
“Excuse me,” I‌ nudge a young man to her left, “what is everyone doing?” He did not even look at me.

The mass continued in latin and I‌ watched quietly in confusion.

Nearly an hour passed and the mass seemed over. The people start chatting away as they had before and the gentleman at the front makes his way to the back wall where the hole was before. The young woman stopped him and asked to speak. I follow them to the back of the church. The gentleman quietly opens a door hidden in the wall right where the hole was and they walk in. I sneak in with them as the gentleman closes the door.

“Elizabeth, I am glad you came today. I was starting to worry that your faith was wavering. You haven’t seemed yourself lately since that human left.” the gentleman addressed the young woman as she sat in the chair by the desk. Everything was neater now and the furniture was placed in a purposeful way, much like a room in a house.

“Jonathan was the love of my life, Cain. I miss him every day. I don’t wish to go on in this world any longer.” Elizabeth squawked back with tears in her eyes.

Cain goes to comfort her, sits with her, and holds her in his arms as she sobs gently. He offers her his handkerchief and she accepts gracefully.
“Darling, you have so much more to give here. Lucifer needs your fortitude and dedication. But most of all, I need you.” He says, wiping a tear from her cheek.

As she rests her head on his shoulder, I look around the room. The powder is no longer on the floor and the decanter is on the table. I turn my attention back to the couple and I‌ see him kiss her softly. She turns away,
“Cain, please…” she whimpers, “I am not ready for this yet.” Cain nods and stands up. He walks across the room to a metal bowl with a pitcher and pours a glass of water.

“You should leave, Elizabeth.” he states without making eye contact. “You have no business being here if you will continue to cohort with humans. You have been given a dark gift that you are wasting away. You have been made beautiful to be a glorious gift to our community and you have disgraced us by your unfaithfulness.”

Shocked, Elizabeth stands and walks toward him with more tears in her eyes, “Cain, you know I‌ love you. I‌ want to stay with the community, to contribute and prove my worth. Please give me a chance.” she sobs.

He takes her in his arms and calmly says, “Elizabeth, you know what you must do. You know your purpose. You are the source of intimacy in this coven. You are our only hope to offer what we have to Lucifer.”

Elizabeth sighs and softly agrees. She looks defeated, tired, sad. I just want to wrap my arms around her and tell her it will be okay. I‌ blink back tears from my eyes. As I open them, I‌ am back in the main room surrounded by people. Cain is standing at the altar beside Elizabeth who is dressed in a beautiful black lace gown and veil. Cain lifts the veil from her face and kisses her neck. Her expression unchanged, still flooded with defeat. Cain starts to unbutton her gown. What is happening? Why are all these people watching this? She doesn’t look happy… why is no one stopping this? Cain starts to aggressively remove her clothing until she is standing bare and vulnerable in front of the crowd.

“What are you doing?!” I‌ scream.
“Leave her alone!” I‌ run to the front to try and stop them but I‌ am invisible.

As Cain removes his trousers, Elizabeth stands there calmly but with deep sadness in her eyes. He motions to the altar and Elizabeth lays down. Cain climbs on top of her and starts to penetrate. He begins aggressively … well there is no other word for it besides ****. He is ****** her. Her eyes fill with tears but she blinks them back. He gains speed until he finally ******* inside her. She blankly stares at the ceiling and a single tear rolls down the side of her face, landing in her now unkempt hair.
Why? Why did this happen? What is going on? Why did no one stop this?
A man in the crowd stands up and walks to the front. When he reaches the altar, he begins to undress.

No.

Not again. There is no way. Why would they be doing this? Why is no one stopping this?!

Man after man after man violates Elizabeth while she lays silently on the stone altar. I am sobbing now. Why am I‌ powerless? Why can’t I‌ stop this? Why is this happening?

What seems like hours pass of this horror and Elizabeth finally stands up. She puts her gown back on and replaces her veil. Cain stands beside her and grabs her hand. He recites something in latin then repeats in English, “The marriage of the many.” They begin a ceremony similar to a wedding but instead of a groom, on the altar lies the decanter of powder.
The ceremony continues and I can hear Elizabeth faintly sobbing, “Jonathan…” she whispers. She blinks back her tears and looks up. She sees him standing by the door, tears off her veil and runs to him. He was not there. Men from the crowd drag her back to the altar. She is screaming, “I‌ won’t marry him! Jonathan has my heart. I‌ would rather die than give myself over to Lucifer!” Cain hits her across the face leaving a throbbing red mark.

She cradles her face from the pain as Cain yells,
“Don’t you dare disgrace us! You are the ultimate sacrifice to our king and you must obey!”

Cain drags her back to the altar and chains her down. He pulls a knife from his belt and lifts it in the air yelling, “To thee I‌ offer, oh king of hell, this sacrifice of violated innocence. Come forth and bestow your gifts upon us as we offer her to you.” I‌ lunge forward to try and stop him. Just as he is about to plunge the knife in her chest, the decanter on the altar opens and the powder bursts into the air. A loud voice bellows through the church,

“You dare disgrace this innocence. An offer of such little worth hath no result for a coven such as yours.” A strong gust of wind throws Cain against the wall. The blow kills him instantly. The crowd bursts into chaos. Elizabeth, still chained to the altar, is hysterically sobbing and trying to break free. From the cloud of wind, a man walks toward her. He is tall with dark features. He has deep black eyes and a chiseled jaw line and body. He walks to her. Elizabeth looks up and is speechless. The man crouches down to unchain her and kindly helps her up.
“They hath defiled you, oh innocence. For this they shall burn.” He speaks in a deep voice. He extends his hand and half of the crowd turns to ash. He looks into her eyes and kisses her neck.

Elizabeth looks to the ceiling with tears in her eyes and mutters, “Please don’t hurt me…”
“Why would I hurt the most purest gifts my father has given the world?” He says as he holds her face. “I have removed the human from your life to clear your path to glory. In my father’s spite, we will be betrothed tonight. You shall rule hell beside me and bear my children.”
She sobs, “You … you killed him? I loved him!”
“Girl, you know nothing of love.” He says flatly. She looks at him in surprise, tears still falling down her cheeks. Chaos is still roaring around them as the crowd tried to escape the hellfire. “These filthy creatures are not worthy of your power. You belong to me now.” She tries to break free of his grip but he is far too strong for her. He lifts her up and lays her on the altar and begins to overtake her as she cries.
I stand to the side helplessly. Sobbing with her. I close my eyes and wish it over. I‌ want to leave now. I can’t take this.
Silence. I open my eyes to the sudden stillness and there sits a pregnant Elizabeth in a dark, empty church. Tears are gently running down her face and I realize that I‌ have not yet seen her with a smile on her face. Lucifer appears to her and holds her in his arms. I can’t hear anything. They are speaking but there is no sound. He lays her down and she yells - she is in labor. A small bundle wrapped in a cloth is delivered and the dark lord holds it in his hands and looks down calmly. Elizabeth stands up behind him with anger in her eyes. She pulls a knife from her cloak and plunges it in his neck. He drops the child but Elizabeth reaches to catch it just in time. She runs to the door with the cloth in her arms and slams the door behind her. A furious Satan rips the knife from his neck and runs to the door. He slams on it with his fists and yells. I‌ still cannot hear.
I blink and see Elizabeth on the steps of a church, crying softly. She gently lays the bundle on the door step and runs away. A woman appears at the door and picks it up, cradling it in her arms.
I‌ blink and see Elizabeth back in the church, holding the decanter and stealthy creeping around the corners. She turns around and Lucifer is standing there.
“You have betrayed me. All freedoms have been stripped from you. You will no longer sit beside me and rule hell. You will be caged and retained for only reproduction. You WILL bear my children and I‌ shall take them from you, never to be seen again. This will continue until I‌ have used the last of you and then you will be destroyed.” He exclaims angrily.
Elizabeth stands straight up, holds the decanter in her hand and yells, “I‌ banish thee, Satan, to the confines of this prison. You shall never again walk the face of this earth.”‌ As she opens the lid, the dark lord plunges the knife she used on him into her chest. A gust of wind engulfs him into the decanter. Elizabeth drops to the floor. A‌ knife in her chest, she struggles to put the top on the decanter. She crawls to the wall where the door once was. She begins to peel away the pieces of the wall weakly. She works in pain for what seems like hours until she makes it into the room. She drags herself over to the bookshelf and hoists herself up. She places the decanter up as far up as she can and tries to cover it with a cloth. As she reaches, she falls. Upon hitting the ground, she fades into dust.
I‌ stood there silently, shocked. This woman. I feel like I‌ know her. She is so strong and brave. I‌ am in awe and also in tears. I‌ collapse to the ground in the dust she left behind. I‌ mourn her, her hardships, her life. She deserved so much more.
I open my eyes and I‌ see a little girl, maybe 5 or 6 years old enter the room. She looks around. I yell, “Leave!‌ This place is dangerous!‌”
Bewildered by the things around her, she wanders to the bookshelf. She looks so much like Elizabeth. Could this be? Could it be her daughter? She is holding a small bag. She sits down at the desk and opens it. Its her lunch. She begins to eat and continue looking around. She sees the light from the oil lamp gleam off the crystal decanter. Excited, she pushes the chair up against the bookcase and climbs up. On her tippy toes, she manages to reach the decanter. She sits back down and twirls it around, moving the powder from one side to the other. A small amount of powder escapes in a puff. You can hear a whisper, “Victoria…” I‌ hear. She hears it too.
“Hello? Who’s there?” she squeaks. She puts the decanter down and walks around. She turns around to return to her lunch and is greeted by Lucifer himself, though she doesn’t know this. He is weak. The remainder of his strength lies in the decanter. He can’t speak. He grabs her and yells - she screams and breaks away from his grasp. She takes off in the other direction and crawls back through the hole. She looks behind her then darts toward the door. He is standing there in front of the door. He waves his hand and the large metal door bolts shut. She stops dead in her tracks, stares at him for a moment, then takes off.
Frantically running through the church, Victoria is trying to find any means of escape. Tears in her eyes, she evades Lucifer’s grasp several times. The windows are boarded up, the doors are bolted, and it seems there is no way out. Suddenly a little gleam of light comes from above. The balcony. She starts toward the wall and begins to climb up the trim as quickly as she can. Lucifer is close behind, yelling but unable to speak words to her. She reaches for the balcony and pulls herself up.
Suddenly I‌ am outside on the balcony and Victoria is reaching for the railing. She is reaching for the light. She is reaching for me. She looks into my eyes and yells, “Help me! Please!” and extends her hand. Surprised that she can see me, I reach out to grasp her hand but before I‌ can get her, she is pulled screaming back into the church. I‌ lunge forward to pull her back but land on the floor of the back hidden room breathing heavily. I stand up and dust myself off. I am in the middle of the powder and glass that was on the floor. I grab the book I‌ found and start to run for the door. I‌ can’t get caught by him, he will **** me. A thousand things are running through my mind. I crawl through the hole and head toward the door. Something compels me to look back as I pull open the door.
There he stood.
Staring at me.
“Daughter, fear not. I will find you and we will rule together with your sister.” He says.
Daughter? Sister? Who am I?
Trigger warning : aggressive ****** encounter, ****, violence
Poetic T Sep 2014
You felt like a
Slug,
Upon my naked skin,
Leaving a
Trail,
Wanting to wash you
Off my
Pores,
Flesh,
Skin,
But I cant you seeped within,
"Violated"
The stench of you permeates me,
I ***** uncontrolled,
You are that which I despise
You
Are
Me  
This isn't the way I was meant to
Feel,
Violated,
By the sight and touch of me.
Eirene Jan 2014
You're not worthless.
But your actions exude it, worthlessness...
For anyone that could take the gentle, pristine heart, and make it spew purple-black hazes of vengeance, betrayal and loss is unworthy, unhappy, hateful and unwise.
But he still is not worthless.
I am finer, I am greater, I am better.
For you I will not lose my worth.
I have forgiven every last of your evils.
You violated me. You embarrassed me. You used me. You scared me.
And because of the many you's, I am learning my worth.
Hopefully someday you'll learn too.
That even you, with your heartless, lying, deceiving and scheming low self esteem, you o lost and ignorant soul, you are not worthless.
Patricia Tsouros May 2013
Now you realize what you did, 

you took it too far, 
this time it was to deep, 
to raw,
now its going to be hard for us both.  
I asked for your help
' Its never ending, I again want to die.
Please tell me why?
Be my Soul Mate now just talk to me
help me find my life again.
Not with you, just my life. '

I couldn't get your abuse out of my system
you repeated
"You need to do the leaving"
"Let's die rather then not be together"
I said
"Only with You".
The ongoing flashbacks
of pressurizing
demanding
me to do what you wanted
heightened in Athens.
Questioning all that happened
what did it mean
just
******* my soul and body
So abused
I couldn't disentangle from it
So violated

And you continued it
with your talk and talk.
Your lies of reflection and regret
Your abuse of my love and belief

Then my desperate wish was granted
You made contact via a third party
On reflection
to address the end, to answer my questions,
to give us some meaning, to help us move on with our lives
you cared about my life, to be honest.

the day, the place, the time, the third party all set
then you renegade last minute, no explanation, once again shut me out
without a thought for my life, you willful behavior, ongoing abuse.

So finally now I know you are a pathological liar.
I don't  give a **** about you anymore.
Its like I have woken from a nightmare
I have no more energy for you
I am not afraid of the fall out of exposing you
I will no longer protect the secret.
The legal proceedings will tell the truth
And you will have to face your demons.
I will move on with my life
which is so much bigger than yours.
I will fight on to free myself from
your abuse.
My life no longer tenuous.
This is the end of my series of poems - love and deception.
The courts will be my voice.
Reem Luna Apr 2015
I never could quite imagine the day
When a creature quite as wry and presumptuous
Would break so serendipitously.

She lay ruptured in the desultory plantation
The Stygian colour of her fur rebelled against the sage of the contiguous earth
And her eyes mimicked nothing but the pain that consumed her current thoughts.

Her body was transfixed in an inert trance
The fur on her hunched spine quavered in a subdued zephyr
Quiet insecurities were hid well in her tranquil pained state.

The moon intently watched me
Waiting for me to alleviate the agonized entity
But solicitousness was blank in my frozen psyche.

The moonlight pierced the fox with intimacy
I grimaced in the realization I had failed the universe
With my perennial void mind broken in vain.

The fox gathered some stoicism
The blessing of the moon granted requital
As the fox proceeded to maul my perception.

I accepted my retribution with ratification
As I was the soul who violated the creature
A skirmish that clung to grandeur.
I hurt somebody today, I wish I could have shown more affection x
K G Aug 2015
They said they knew the others
they knew our names
But they were acting like stoners, pretending to have a disease
She came storming in like a lizard in a blizzard, Hollering about who attacked her
They told her to sit down and wait
They faked working and played games
Sent sat there with the same look on her face
After their shift was over they left with a vigorous blur
She went home terrified as I recall, as for all
She went to sleep with her eyelids up
Everyday
And it won't stop
No no no
She go's to her hideaway
She cries for help
Because she's the violated girl
She cries for not being alone
Because she's the lonely girl
Yes I go, yes go to seek a Great Apocalypse

One that will unravel the complex elaboration of difference

To articulate a perpetual aesthetic with violated codes

Of the experience of illusions of temporal stimulus

That are beyond all compass and soothe a fragmentation

Oh Great Apocalypse of beauty whose deception finds strategies

For youthful prodigality and binds me to your inarticulation

An embodiment of beleaguered and charmed fictions

Whose artifice is the governance of generous impulses

As such sway about me with a harmony of moral disquiet

Inadequate in description of the qualities of their oppression

Yet oh great apocalypse there is a plausible generosity

In these pale assumptions of impatience which carry

The obligations of a universally shared human existence

Compelling a projection of charged issues on competing claims

For the enigmatic logic of life

Yes Great Apocalypse now I understand all thought

From Everywhere and for Always
Canaan Massie Jan 2013
We are protected from so much pain. For example: graves.
The earth’s roots and brown-black blood are busy
covering the soft, violated bodies of our loves.
Death is a secret, and the rain with its many hands

washes off the streets to the gutters death’s thick surprise.
The automatic shutter of the eye never fails,

the courtesies of the tongue. What goes on in the rooms of houses
is guarded from us by the hardwood doors,

the carefully closed windows. Whatever was said or done,
night will come, eagerly, to clean up.

And death will shield us, in time,
from the sun’s megalithic promise:

Tomorrow, the same day.
Tomorrow, the same day.

For example: A flower
is the most beautiful lie.
Arkaye Kierulf - ”For Example, A Flower”
I stumbled across this today and decided you guys needed to read this, so I posted it. lol
WickedHope Nov 2014
You're thirteen, sorry fourteen this week
You think you know the world, have it figured out
You think you know yourself, without a doubt
Let me tell you some things I learned when I was about your age
I learned how to go from popular ***** to no good freak show
Nothing but an ipod every day at lunch, no friends, no food
I learned that I had addictions that I didn't know even existed
I learned how badly I wanted attention from his hands, his mouth
I learned what it like to be violated in the worse most degrading way
I learned how to get high
I learned that the intentional pain I'd always caused could be
A harnessed tool to cope by
I learned that if I stopped eating altogether no one cared
I learned what it was like to think you loved someone
I learned that I liked girls
I learned what girls could taste like, feel like -- what I could feel like
I learned that I didn't like girls
I learned what it's like to have people spread rumors about you
I learned what it's like to try to drown yourself then feel guilt
Guilt about your little brother who would have no idea why
You little *******, it wasn't long after that the violence between us started
You're big enough, strong enough to do damage on the family pet
I'm the family pet, you think you know but you don't
You've been calling me names for years
But you don't know how true they are
You think you love her -- you don't know love until you're nothing
When you're nothing and this skinny little kid everyone hates saves you
This annoying as hell kid who shows you that
The world isn't as dark as you thought it was
This kid who loves you not for ***, not for bragging rights, but because
He sees this skinny little bird who lost her feathers and her wings
And is waiting to die and he thinks she could be beautiful
She thought she knew who she was before but he helped her find it
Soon you'll be fifteen
When I was fifteen I couldn't find my skinny little kid, he'd changed
Not for the worse but away from me
I fell into old habits
And new ones
Deadly ones
I changed back into the addict, not eating, not sleeping, sniffing, watching, cutting, stabbing, nothing
I covered myself in laughter, hysterical and crazy
I became quiet
I fell apart more because of guys, complete ******* guys
Like you're turning out to be
Don't think you know everything, that you're an angel
Because I was ****** up at six because of what they did
You were ****** up at four because of him
Both were accidents, but as you can see in me from six to seven
To nine to eleven
To when I was your age, all that happened was
I got ruined because of the secrets
The ones no one can know
The ones that when crossing paths with the world **** you inside
You can't see that yet
You aren't aware that you're broken
Now you're **** well old enough to
Wake Up
I hate breathing.
Happy Birthday, ****.
Francesca Mar 2015
If you must know , I'm embarrassed of what I did.

— The End —