#YouAreBeautiful in my mind's eye when you are not before me;
shimmering like sunlit leaves after rain; your name is the breath of a mantra

#YouAreBeautiful I say; let no-one deny or despute it;
for those lips like the petals of roses and eyes all of langour and love

#YouAreBeautiful ; and all those who never will hold you
can simply behold you, with eyes deep in love.

Passiflora Petals flank my pillow,
Valerian's the pollen on my brow,
My thought flies where night clouds rise and billow,
and dream-ships sail with angels at the bow.

Marigold has deepened into nightshade,
twilight falls where nothing moves or sings,
twisted shadows flicker on the light shade,
Sleep Angel comes, on poppy-tinted wings.

Running water changes into voices,
stairs yield to the footfalls of the dead,
helpless sleep is running out of choices,
Sleep Angel wraps her wings around the bed.

Curtains stare with eyes that once were flowers
till their colours deepened into grey;
restless visions haunt the starlit hours,
Sleep Angel will chase them all away.

All the glitter and the baubles and the fake razzamataz,
Forced jollity and bonhomie berating me by turns;
The jostling and shoving in the shops and all that jazz,
The same unwanted present where the giver never learns;

And I will dream of summer, tidal ripples in the sand
An evening's float of thistledown adrift in hazy sky
The small face of a daisy, lying cool against my hand
The vast coastal horizon, where the seagulls swoop and fly.

You can keep your holly wreaths mourning your lack of taste
You can keep Sir Clifford, all the mistletoe and wine
You can stuff the turkey, lay the hangover to waste,
You can keep your sentimental dreams, leave me to mine...

Just let me dream of summer, how I miss its warming light;
The soothing breath of lavender, the grass beneath my feet;
The bright palette of verdant greens,  the shorter hours of night;
I'll deck the halls with roses, daffodils and meadowsweet.

By Sara L Russell
00:58, 7/11/11

                         1

I was a priestess once, inviolate;
With hair like Aphrodite's; soft spun gold;
Blissfully unaware of future fate, 
With all the happiness a heart might hold.

Great artists came from many miles around
To make my portrait while I stood in prayer;
I wore brocaded gowns that skimmed the ground
And garlands of white lilies in my hair.

Oh blameless life, sweet vision of the past!
Oh hapless bovine state of womanhood!
Oh unjust, cruel curse holding me fast;
How I would flee away, if I but could!

For I did nothing wrong, no harm was meant,
To be stricken with such a punishment...

                              2

One summer's day, thinking of keeping cool,
I was disrobing on a quiet bay
Behind some rocks, beside a limpid pool,
As amber fire marked the fading day.

There came a sudden parting of the sea,
The waves came open, like a corridor,
Poseidon and his henchmen came to me,
With lustful gaze, across the ocean floor.

Then all at once, his henchmen held me tight,
I felt Poseidon's rank breath in my face,
His breath like bladderwrack, deathly as night,
Embrace of scaly arms, touch of disgrace.

I struggled fiercely but he ravished me,
Turned my virtue into a travesty.


                             3

When at last Poseidon had his fill
He left me all alone to face my shame
Ah, how I burned with shame! I feel it still
And wondered if somehow I was to blame.

I curled up, in self-comfort, on my side,
Naked and weeping, as he swam away
And all at once, the heavens opened wide
Goddess Athena had something to say.

"And didst thou tempt my dearest love from me?"
She shouted, as I lay sprawled at her feet.
"I'll turn thy beauty to monstrosity!"
She added, ere I could flee or retreat.

No sooner spoken, than the change began;
Though foolishly, I rose back up and ran.


                                     4

I fled for what seemed all eternity
Until I found a rock pool near a cave
To study my reflection, fearfully
To see what evil gifts Athena gave.

I sank to kneel in abject, dark despair,
Thinking, surely the pool's reflection lies!
Green serpents now replaced my golden hair,
Red pupils graced my staring, lidless eyes

My lips, once subject of admirer's praise
Were drawn up in a deathly, mirthless grin;
My tongue flicked out, before my helpless gaze,
To snare a fly that landed on my chin.

This face is mine, and I must live alone;
For every man who sees it turns to stone.

29/9/11 00:01am

Come cease thy journey, come to us
Odysseus, Odysseus,
Come silently away;
We'll kiss thee all and everywhere, beneath the ocean's spray.

Oh we are warm and finely made
We yearn for thee, be not afraid
Come close to us this night,
We'll make thee tremble with desire, like beating wings in flight

I dreamed I lightly kissed thy hair
Odysseus, tis true I swear,
Then kisses to thy chest;
Which swiftly ventured lower, at thy shivering behest.

Discard thy garments, yield to us
Odysseus, Odysseus,
Come to our warm caress;
We'll make thee sing the notes coherent words cannot express.

Dark shadows swirl their way into Cabrini Boulevard,
The pigeons rise to scatter as they slowly pass along,
The pretzel seller finds his eyes are misted, caught off-guard.
A subway busker starts to play a doleful Elvis song.

East-Eighty-Third is humming with a thousand urban dreams,
Cold fantasies unfold within the petals of the night;
September ghosts are set adrift on ectoplasmic streams,
With hosts of angels following, in garlands of white light.

Sleep soundly now, New York, let bitterness be washed away,
let sleep's dark poppies dissipate all agonies of mind.
Sentinel wings will guide your mourning dreams towards the day
when sanity will reign over the ways of humankind.

Gazing into the bright dome of the sky
Through veils and drifting continents of cloud
Suspended lost dimensions travel by
I hear the universe dreaming aloud.

Infinity reflected in a lake
Deep mirror to the heavens far above,
Where reeling kestrels fly for flying's sake
Where breezes sigh like whispered words of love

Love lead me to infinities of blue
With endless depths of cloudscapes on all sides
To ride with kestrels; oversee the view
Which hitherto I'd seen with earthbound eyes.

For always with us, high above the crowds,
They glide; shape-shifting monuments of clouds.