Prologue
In the end, the bitter end, he who orders
the death and destruction of another nation
shall, himself, sleep the sleep of the vanquished.
I
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh
And call out feebly in the midst of night
Calling, fearsome as their bleak wanton cry
And frighting, as the unthinkable fright
Until the dark of their plight passes by.
II
For, cold are the eyes that slumber in fear
And cold is the heart of the soul that sleeps
And sour is the taste of the sleeper's tear
And dire are the many secrets he keeps
For, wild is the scream that seeps in his ear.
III
The ruler of tracts o'er the eastern lands
Where red is the sky and black are the days
And burned are the souls the ruler commands
As flaming night comes and flaming night stays
So, then a nation betrays at his hands.
IV
Nothing is priceless or free of its cost
And value is learned when payment is due
For, battles are won though, wars can be lost,
(Battles are many yet, victories few)
And dead mouths sound as a new dream is tossed.
Epilogue
Sleep heavy and sleep long as you are,
at last, held to account for your sins.
Payment shall be heavy and long
and shall last for eternity.
Aug 26, 2022
Aug 26, 2022 at 11:27 AM UTC
Grandfather's house, knocked to the ground - to dust:
The windows wept when the bulldozer came
Timeworn and ***** and wheezing black smoke,
Just like the drab mills where grandfather moiled.
Children play in the intriguing debris
Where, once, children played on the garden path,
Where grandfather told stories of past things
And the children listened wide eyed, in awe.
The door remains standing, creaking, ajar,
As it yawns in the twilight of the gloom
And the children knock though no one answers
So, they run away for, why should they stay?
Abandoned now, no one, near here, comes by
Except myself in the patience of night
As I tap on the door, though softly now,
Grandfather answers and dolefully smiles.
Aug 15, 2022
Aug 15, 2022 at 3:20 AM UTC
When sun on Taormina sinks
Its lull will paint the evening still
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.
Far yonder star, in silence, winks
So well aware the air will chill
When sun on Taormina sinks.
The boundless vista slowly shrinks
With twilight tints at nighttide's will
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.
And, all at sea, the ocean drinks
The gentle rain from off the hill
When sun on Taormina sinks.
The solar sage above re-thinks
And yields a sundown-coloured spill
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.
The light of dawn here interlinks
With dark of dusk, the day to ****
When sun on Taormina sinks
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.
Jul 20, 2022
Jul 20, 2022 at 2:51 AM UTC
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep
Where dreams are blown out of the shallow hills
And I, in my solitude, do rejoice
As I take my comfort within their voice
Which visits me as the cool evening stills
And is rinsed by raindrops that mildly weep.
Gone is the rainbow and tincture of day
Lost in the clouds as they swim in the air
And I, in my quietness, drift afar
By merely the light of a silver'd star
Where only the souls of the sleeping dare
Seek a place that is distant - far away.
In the deepest of night, the dead of dark,
When the silent shadows hide from the light
For, shadows are secrets mellowed by age
And, ages are timeless, robbed of their rage,
And rage is bewildered, lost in the night
Yet, still sighs its echo deafingly stark.
Where is the morning to dazzle and glow ?
Where are the sunbeams to fever the heart ?
Yes! morning will come, as sure as the winds,
When the grey of the dusk slowly rescinds
And the fields of sleep will fleetly depart
And the dreams of the hills aimlessly go.
Jun 22, 2022
Jun 22, 2022 at 9:27 AM UTC
Beyond the moor and mountain crest
In valleys green and still
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all about the idle hill.
When first my way to fair I took
Beneath the blue of day
For willows in the icy brook
In valleys miles away.
When in the moon the long road lies
And down the sighing wind in vain
Spent in star-defeated sighs
And what's to show for all my pain?
Oh, when I was in love with you
To-morrow I shall miss you less
The knot that makes one flesh of two
For a faith the world confessed.
Jun 13, 2022
Jun 13, 2022 at 4:15 AM UTC
Velvet paper tinctured pink,
A red rose at its crest;
The whittled feather, bathed in ink,
Set to bare its best.
A lambent candle close at hand
With dancing, flitting flare;
Where evening translates its command
And nothing stirs the air.
Words are authored, truly writ,
Where, from the soul they flow;
As on the page they snugly sit,
Affection to bestow.
Filling out each careful line,
Each one a work of art,
Hand and mind, with pen, entwine
Concerted to the heart.
And when the tender prose she'll read
And tastes the chaste romance.
She feels a shivered chill, indeed,
Deep in her breast ~ per chance?
And as the fondest words engage,
Seen through her moistened eyes:
A teardrop falls to blot the page
And stays and never dries.
May 30, 2022
May 30, 2022 at 3:12 AM UTC
The chestnut tree within the glade,
One half-a-mile past Windy Lea,
There in the cool, refreshing shade.
A friend, indeed, in her I made,
She stood upright, aloft was she ~
The chestnut tree within the glade.
Out in the breeze she gently swayed,
To-ing, fro-ing, so wildly free
There in the cool, refreshing shade.
Her spreading, leafy, boughs cascade,
She, open limbed to welcome me;
The chestnut tree within the glade.
Round and about, where squirrels played
And romped a happy, joyful spree
There in the cool, refreshing shade.
Yet youthful brightness starts to fade,
My eyes grow old, I barely see
The chestnut tree within the glade
There in the cool, refreshing shade.
May 16, 2022
May 16, 2022 at 8:48 AM UTC
It rained all day, it came to pass,
As I looked to the sky.
The droplets fell, like tears of glass,
Assailing from on high.
The heavy clouds were charged and full
They, laden to the brim.
The hazy day was dead and dull,
The air was dun and dim.
I marched along and braved the force
Of thunder on my head;
I might have skulked indoors, of course ~
I could have stayed a-bed.
But through the deluge, heaven sent,
My path I splished and splashed,
Forward through the flood I went
As on and on I crashed.
At journey's end I dried my face,
I'd gad the extra mile;
I dabbed away the rain to place
Upon my lips a smile.
It rained all day, it came to pass,
I see it all the more;
I fear not of the rain, alas,
It's rained all day before.
May 3, 2022
May 3, 2022 at 4:09 PM UTC
I sing the gentle villanelle,
A villenesque so slightly said,
Howbeit the nighttide casts her spell.
And now the rune I know so well
Remains, remembered, in my head;
I sing the gentle villanelle.
As evening leaves and shadows dwell
The golden brightness all but fled,
Howbeit the nighttide casts her spell.
The flowing verse, her tale to tell,
Inhibitions adrift and shed,
I sing the gentle villanelle.
And owls resound about the fell,
The day replaced with night's instead,
Howbeit the nighttide casts her spell.
Yet me, contented, in my shell
Warmly, snugged and safe a-bed;
I sing the gentle villanelle
Howbeit the nighttide casts her spell.
Apr 17, 2022
Apr 17, 2022 at 10:57 AM UTC
There's a jolly little cafe where a chestnut tree once grew,
They serve hot bubbling tea and buttered toast,
Where the waiter wears a waistcoat which is buttoned up askew
And the waitress glides along much like a ghost.
The chestnut in the glade has now fallen to the blade
Many years have passed since lovers neath it met
And there below its shade, fickle promises were made,
But promises are easy to forget.
For there, or so they say, on one January day
A maiden took her life beneath the tree
And lifeless, then, she lay, the maid who lost her way,
Who pleaded for her spirit to be free.
Yet, the glade remembers well, when the dusk appears anew,
And the customers have all gone home to bed
And the jolly little cafe where a chestnut tree once grew
Conceals the secret of the forlorn dead.
Where, in the winter snow she was jilted by her beau
Beside the latent chestnut over there
And twenty years ago, when the northern wind would blow
The sorrow must have been too much to bear.
So, the waitress, serving on, in the cafe called 'The Swan'
Never, ever speaks or smiles or lifts her eyes
And when the day is gone then, almost everyone
Imagines and their minds romanticise.
They think of teenage lovers hand in hand and in the spring
Where bounty of the blazing brightness brims
And think of summer swallows and all the song they bring,
Of trueloves meeting neath the chestnut limbs.
The waiter, by the door, paces proudly round the floor
Taking orders from the ladies who call by
And some twenty years or more he has been this way before
Where he deserted a poor maiden young and shy.
Though, if you ask 'Excuse me sir, the waitress, what of her?'
When the cafe waiter passes near
He'll peer at you with a stir and answer, as it were,
'We've had no waitress ever working here'.
There's a jolly little cafe where a chestnut tree once grew
They serve hot bubbling tea and buttered toast
Where the waiter wears a waistcoat which is buttoned up askew
And the waitress glides along much like a ghost
Apr 10, 2022
Apr 10, 2022 at 6:50 AM UTC