No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 1:53 PM UTC
Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.
Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.
The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 12:51 AM UTC
Anna,
the young lions won't want you
forever.
Eventually you are going to
get tired
of keeping it tight,
of batting your eyes,
of applying the gloss just right.
Anna,
what will you do when the invitation beds
come to an end?
Eventually the lions will settle,
while you gather cobweb and callus,
while you smoke cancer and wallow in cellulite.
Anna,
find a boy who makes you feel like the sun.
Ultimately,
he's the only one who can save your soul
from all the crimes you've done.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 12:12 AM UTC
Think not of it, sweet one, so;---
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any---anywhere.
Do not lool so sad, sweet one,---
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then,---it is gone---
O 'twas born to die!
Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.
Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.
Yet---as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses,
E'en let us too! but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
In my heart dwells an awkward entity
That drifts my mind and body separate.
What mitigates this dualist enmity?
An energy which I could never hate.
A stimulant that amplifies the soul
Forever feeds the hunger of the flesh
When eating means I must maintain my cool
my inner qi remains to be unrest
Yet there is one that manifests the bridge
A daredevil! (I’ve warned about the risks)
Descending from my isolated ridge
I greet with an unprecedented brisk.
For I had acted faster than I think
To love a girl (disaster!) in a blink.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 1:50 AM UTC
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 11:57 AM UTC
I grew up in a haunted house
Where walls were wet with blood.
Phantasmagoric phantoms of my mother
set the mood.
Cadavers roamed the rooms
Their choral moans in sync.
To die in such a residence,
Surviving on the brink.
The days were drowned in silence,
While night surfaced the screams
Of murdered men. I lived
inside a sea of make-believe.
And mirrors morphed
The monsters into mad reality
Insidious-their curses are
My sad normality
Today I am awake because
my horrors never sleep
The fictive fiends cry melodies
My mind cannot compete
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.
Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.
While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 1:19 AM UTC
The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned.
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war:
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 2:34 PM UTC
What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
The look of love alarms
Because ’tis fill’d with fire;
But the look of soft deceit
Shall Win the lover’s hire.
Soft Deceit & Idleness,
These are Beauty’s sweetest dress.
He who binds to himself a joy
Dot the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 9:58 PM UTC