Meditative fly
sits in a lizard's bull's eye,
deceptive calm reigns.

They ‘pressed me on His Majesty’s frigate
The H.M.S. Carew,
It only took me a day to find
I was lodged with the Devils’s crew,
The Captain, ‘Black Jack’ Hawkins
Was a gentleman by name,
But on the ship he used the whip
To his undying shame.

I slipped and fell from the foremast arm
When I caught my foot in a stay,
And though a net kept me safe from harm
That wasn’t the Captain’s way,
He said I’d swim for my mortal sin
Told the crew to rope me through,
Then dragged me over the side and said,
‘We’re going to keel-haul you.’

The barnacles on the Carew’s hull
Nearly tore my back to shreds,
My lungs were so close to bursting that
I thought that I was dead.
They hauled me over the side again
The deck was red from my back,
At least I knew I was safe again
From a sudden shark attack.

They rubbed raw salt in my many wounds
Till I thought I was in hell,
While some of the crew had mocked and jeered
The Devil’s own cartel,
They wore tattoos of the skull and bones
It was strange for a Royal crew,
But they themselves had been Impressed
So they hated Hawkins too.

He used to stand on the quarter-deck
Quite close to the starboard rail,
Where he could see any slacking off
While we were under sail,
He’d tie the men to the nearest mast
And would whip, before the crew,
Till every man was inflamed and raw
And would plot what they would do.

It fell to me to devise a plan
That everyone agreed,
We had to get rid of this Devil man
It became our only creed,
So I took a rope when I climbed the mast
That was fixed above his head,
Then swung and booted him over the rail
So we thought that he was dead.

The crew then dashed to the starboard side
And they all looked down and cursed,
For Hawkins floated upon the tide,'
It couldn’t be much worse,
He shouted up, ‘This is mutiny!
I’ll flay that man to the bone.’
But all he got were the jeers of the crew
As the Captain sank like a stone.

David Lewis Paget

The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian . . .
Perhaps if summer ever came to rest
And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed
Through days like oceans in obsidian

Horizons, full of night's midsummer blaze;
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

In thee, I fondly hop’d to clasp
  A friend, whom death alone could sever;
Till envy, with malignant grasp,
  Detach’d thee from my breast for ever.


True, she has forc’d thee from my breast,
  Yet, in my heart, thou keep’st thy seat;
There, there, thine image still must rest,
  Until that heart shall cease to beat.

And, when the grave restores her dead,
  When life again to dust is given,
On thy dear breast I’ll lay my head—
  Without thee! where would be my Heaven?

I get drunk to forget myself
And for a little while, pretend I am someone else
Tortured souls feel the most
And me myself and I, don't mean to boast
But I've seen all the coasts

Swallowing me up whole
Pretty words don't mean much when I constantly drink in the ugly
I used to think alone was better
That if I was the one to hurt me
It would feel better than leave myself open for someone to scar me

But the winter winds are blowing from the skies
And this autumn jacket lining is frail and thin

Sipping on bottles of reoccurring notions
Soaring through broken promises

Don't leave me lonely
One foot, another day
Once more, the hallowing wind

\



Your beautiful heart has a tiny little hole
Goin’ b’bap-bim-boom boom-bap...b’bap
The mitral-valve-prolapsed leaky little hole
It goes ba-***-bap, bitty-bap, rat-ta tat tat

Instead of the traditional ba-dum, ba-dum
And aside from the fact that I like the beat
There’s another reason, baby, I like you, (yum)
Why I lay myself down at your ivory feet

It’s not because your heart sound like a drum
Or the fact your soul shines bright and true
It’s not just the *** tuh-tum tum tum
...It’s because I have a hole in my heart too