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I.

Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost
with quivering continual thighs invite
the thrilling rain the slender paramour
to toy with thy extraordinary lust,
(the sinuous rain which rising from thy bed
steals to his wife the sky and hour by hour
wholly renews her pale flesh with delight)
—immortally whence are the high gods fled?

Speak elm eloquent pandar with thy nod
significant to the ecstatic earth
in token of his coming whom her soul
burns to embrace—and didst thou know the god
from but the imprint of whose cloven feet
the shrieking dryad sought her leafy goal,
at the mere echo of whose shining mirth
the furious hearts of mountains ceased to beat?

Wind beautifully who wanderest
over smooth pages of forgotten joy
proving the peaceful theorems of the flowers
—didst e’er depart upon more exquisite quest?
and did thy fortunate fingers sometime dwell
(within a greener shadow of secret bowers)
among the curves of that delicious boy
whose serious grace one goddess loved too well?

Chryselephantine Zeus Olympian
sceptred colossus of the Pheidian soul
whose eagle frights creation,in whose palm
Nike presents the crown sweetest to man,
whose lilied robe the sun’s white hands emboss,
betwixt whose absolute feet anoint with calm
of intent stars circling the acerb pole
poises,smiling,the diadumenos

in whose young chiseled eyes the people saw
their once again victorious Pantarkes
(whose grace the prince of artists made him bold
to imitate between the feet of awe),
thunderer whose omnipotent brow showers
its curls of unendured eternal gold
over the infinite breast in bright degrees,
whose pillow is the graces and the hours,

father of gods and men whose subtle throne
twain sphinxes bear each with a writhing youth
caught to her brazen *******,whose foot-stool tells
how fought the looser of the warlike zone
of her that brought forth tall Hippolytus,
lord on whose pedestal the deep expels
(over Selene’s car closing uncouth)
of Helios the sweet wheels tremulous—

are there no kings in Argos,that the song
is silent,of the steep unspeaking tower
within whose brightening strictness Danae
saw the night severed and the glowing throng
descend,felt on her flesh the amorous strain
of gradual hands and yielding to that fee
her eager body’s unimmortal flower
knew in the darkness a more burning rain?

                    2.

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring
assembles beauty from forgetfulness
with the wild trump of April:witchery
of sound and odour drives the wingless thing
man forth in the bright air,for now the red
leaps in the maple’s cheek,and suddenly
by shining hordes in sweet unserious dress
ascends the golden crocus from the dead.

On dappled dawn forth rides the pungent sun
with hooded day preening upon his hand
followed by gay untimid final flowers
(which dressed in various tremulous armor stun
the eyes of ragged earth who sees them pass)
while hunted from his kingdom winter cowers,
seeing green armies steadily expand
hearing the spear-song of the marching grass.

A silver sudden parody of snow
tickles the air to golden tears,and hark!
the flicker’s laughing yet,while on the hills
the pines deepen to whispers primeval and throw
backward their foreheads to the barbarous bright
sky,and suddenly from the valley thrills
the unimaginable upward lark
and drowns the earth and passes into light

(slowly in life’s serene perpetual round
a pale world gathers comfort to her soul,
hope richly scattered by the abundant sun
invades the new mosaic of the ground
—let but the incurious curtaining dusk be drawn
surpassing nets are sedulously spun
to snare the brutal dew,—the authentic scroll
of fairie hands and vanishing with the dawn).

Spring,that omits no mention of desire
in every curved and curling thing,yet holds
continuous *******—through skies and trees
the lilac’s smoke the poppy’s pompous fire
the *****’s purple patience and the grave
frailty of daises—by what rare unease
revealed of teasingly transparent folds—
with man’s poor soul superlatively brave.

Surely from robes of particoloured peace
with mouth flower-faint and undiscovered eyes
and dim slow perfect body amorous
(whiter than lilies which are born and cease
for being whiter than this world)exhales
the hovering high perfume curious
of that one month for whom the whole years dies,
risen at length from palpitating veils.

O still miraculous May!O shining girl
of time untarnished!O small intimate
gently primeval hands,frivolous feet
divine!O singular and breathless pearl!
O indefinable frail ultimate pose!
O visible beatitude sweet sweet
intolerable!silence immaculate
of god’s evasive audible great rose!

                    3.

Lover,lead forth thy love unto that bed
prepared by whitest hands of waiting years,
curtained with wordless worship absolute,
unto the certain altar at whose head
stands that clear candle whose expecting breath
exults upon the tongue of flame half-mute,
(haste ere some thrush with silver several tears
complete the perfumed paraphrase of death).

Now is the time when all occasional things
close into silence,only one tree,one
svelte translation of eternity
unto the pale meaning of heaven clings,
(whose million leaves in winsome indolence
simmer upon thinking twilight momently)
as down the oblivious west’s numerous dun
magnificence conquers magnificence.

In heaven’s intolerable athanor
inimitably tortured the base day
utters at length her soft intrinsic hour,
and from those tenuous fires which more and more
sink and are lost the divine alchemist,
the magus of creation,lifts a flower—
whence is the world’s insufferable clay
clothed with incognizable amethyst.

Lady at whose imperishable smile
the amazed doves flicker upon sunny wings
as if in terror of eternity,
(or seeming that they would mistrust a while
the moving of beauteous dead mouths throughout
that very proud transparent company
of quivering ghosts-of-love which scarcely sings
drifting in slow diaphanous faint rout),

queen in the inconceivable embrace
of whose tremendous hair that blossom stands
whereof is most desire,yet less than those
twain perfect roses whose ambrosial grace,
goddess,thy crippled thunder-forging groom
or the loud lord of skipping maenads knows,—
having Discordia’s apple in thy hands,
which the scared shepherd gave thee for his doom—

O thou within the chancel of whose charms
the tall boy god of everlasting war
received the shuddering sacrament of sleep,
betwixt whose cool incorrigible arms
impaled upon delicious mystery,
with gaunt limbs reeking of the whispered deep,
deliberate groping ocean fondled o’er
the warm long flower of unchastity,

imperial Cytherea,from frail foam
sprung with irrevocable nakedness
to strike the young world into smoking song—
as the first star perfects the sensual dome
of darkness,and the sweet strong final bird
transcends the sight,O thou to whom belong
th ehearts of lovers!—I beseech thee bless
thy suppliant singer and his wandering word.
jane taylor May 2016
precious innocent soul
skipping rocks
on cobblestone roads
vulnerable untarnished pure
no residue of earthly soil

return me to that naiveté
unburdened by layers
of fake masks
and perfect capped teeth
in narcissistic societies

but I shan’t grasp
at ethereal edges
of nebulousness
and ephemeral
innocence

i shall endure
what I abhor
a master’s soul
cannot be forged
in paradise

wisdom’s essence
‘tis not pristine white
hints of ivory
tinge the effervescence
of the sage’s breath

©2016janetaylor
Third Eye Candy Oct 2012
In your vision you are the only thing with bloodshot eyes.
You always wear a robe
that speaks seven languages... and a bank of fog is at your feet
nipping at your naked heel.
In your vision you remember how your arms feel in sunshine.
It is intense.

Your can-opener is hissing an etude
that alludes to wise men...
who bathe in miracles
and roam the world,
untarnished in Poverty.
Your can-opener whispers in hush tones
about barbarians at the gate. And they say
' they've come for the Linen ! '

You are not deceived.

In your vision you are the only thing that can backward engineer
a Universe.

On your way back to the homeland of your algebra
you hesitate. “ you may have left your keys in your Other Robe...”
The Robe that hallucinates constantly~ Carrying on about
' The dire consequences of leaving terrycloth alone with the keys '
and, afflicted with Prophesy Tourettes
the piteous tide of doom ' sayeth the robe '
you must suffer.

In your vision, you are the only one
looking for the keys.
CK Baker Apr 2017
i had a dream
i was flying
in the arms
of this grande old kite
and we drifted through canyons
and across flowered fields
over endless pastures
and restless seas

i looked down
somewhere near
the haldimand half-point
and saw friends
and patrons
smiling
while the busy keepers
of oasis
were singing
and loosening their vowels

familiar faces
were everywhere
and it was warm
and serene
they were charting courses
and building dreams
laying praise
untarnished by imposing views
and as much as i tried
i couldn’t express my gratitude

when i woke
i was lying
with an angel
at my back
whose eyes
were wide
and blue
and her words came crystal clear;
kindness will not be sold

and as i turned
to reach her hand
the rain had gathered
and washed away
a stain
For Jack and May
CA Smith  Apr 2018
Captivated
CA Smith Apr 2018
Captivated...
My thoughts,
you take hold of them.
I replay every moment we spend in my head.
In my mind you become that film from childhood,
filled with nostalgia and comfort.

Captivated...
My words,
if only I could find them,
I would save the sweetest for you.

Liberated...
My soul,
flowing like a brook in the summer,
you dip your toes in the stream.
I feel your presence,
and it fills me with vigor.

Liberated...
My feelings
They are now free,
free to run,
free to fly away,
to find new pastures,
Yet instead they lie next to you,
slumbering, entranced in your peace.

Forgotten...
My past,
a torn apart ship drowned in the ocean,
suddenly becomes forgotten.
Ancient hurts and ancient pains,
the wounds become fresh again,
and they become healed.

My doubts,
tearing, fighting, screaming at me.
They demand my attention.
Now their voice is lost.
Yours I hear instead,
and it calls me,
reminding me of a future,
cemented in trust.

Loved
It's a feeling,
a thought,
an emotion,
untanglible,
untarnished and true.
And now, at last,
I've found it in you.
An intimate poem for someone very close to me. I don't always share poetry that I write like this, but a friend of mine encouraged me to make it public, so I hope you enjoy it.
Brett Flavell Mar 2014
Are you misunderstod?
You are misunderstood!
Are you misunderstood?
You are spiritually touched, in tune with oneself,
yours roots are solid for which you still call.
Are you misunderstood by others, by many, not all?
Why then hide behind a persona as she walks before you?
Hurry up, catch up...
becoming closer to within, almost connected, an old friend, soon to be whole, a reunited soul.
Are you misunderstood?
You are very powerful, more powerful perhaps than even you may realise,
restrained slightly by anquish, may civil unrest be put to sleep, may the cracks reside.
You are misunderstood?
Though as you have seen, tainted through life your heart is pure,
untarnished as it always has been but there,
like an invisible curse,
for it is just your mind ie, other peoples minds in which your aura walks first.
Are you misunderstood?
You are only now becoming who you are, who you already are,
who you have always been, who you were always meant to be,
dont you see, free, free of tense,
free from any external force bearing influence.
For right now, you are not misunderstood!
For right now, you are the most important woman in the world,
yet in the same breath you are irrelevant and not the most important woman in the world
Your desires and aspirations now second, instinctively, to your child and your world.
They are now your universe, the flower in your palm,
May you blossom together, forever, as one.
Broken Arpeggio Jul 2017
Unknown memories
Keep invading my mind
A buried time capsule
With an arsenal decimated by time

Wrestling with the muddled thinking
Accompanied by a paralyzing fear
Happens when undeniable flashbacks
Become all too uncomfortably clear

A pain ignites and starts to dig
Burning all the way to my core
Breathing only fans the flames
Incinerating all I've ever adored

Sifting through the ashes
Of a war that's raged within
Still finding untarnished pieces of self
Longing to be whole again
There's an untarnished piece of "true self" deep within us all...One just needs to look for that unwavering spark!
Mariya Timkovsky Jun 2012
A Few lines etched where no words give weight.

Good riddance say the veterans
Of a nation gone sour with grief
Like a lemon slice evaporating onto the tongue of the sick.
But when the young yearn for White Nights,
The old claim they are blinding lights to the cold sugary substance
That supplants an easy path.
The bullithole rush of renewal and loneliness and progress thwarted and abandoned,
Inertia seeping through
Into a cold summer's day.

Between the cursing slant of sleek paved roadstrips,
And the burning briars that thresh the border's haunt,
What is picture postcard emerald
Is in that same instance soviet architect gray.

These are the sleepers bereft of the dream
whose twenty-five stories high
or ghost estates
are domes to cast out the howling banshees, those suffrage of the real
to be re-thought as mere props which surround the haloed glowing screen.

So sheen the Motherland glows in untarnished eyes
Familiar solely with glass behemoths parading with their reflections
In grey water-drizzled streets,
Only to be replaced by iridescent rainbows that foster a hope.
A hope that was packaged and sold two decades back
Since it was not worth carrying into the New World.

The water-trough falls to where the electric line banishes, connects a spike,
"rejuvenate the breakfast table"-some far-off God reports, Hades still waiting,
Intel-chip Blue, epiphany at the gates.
This poem is a collaboration between Russian-American poet Mariya Timkovsky and Irish poet Westley Barnes, reflecting their respective cultural landscapes and cultural antagonisms. Each writer contributed lines in response to each other's work using their own individual style. The result is a collage of both approaches to their subject matter.
Christina S  Jul 2019
Untarnished
Christina S Jul 2019
In a field of wildflowers
I feel touched by God
As if heaven descended
upon this forgotten earth

The sky is a perfect blue
Well, you know the kind
This place untarnished
Awarded to no person

Time crawls by here
As I take in the aroma
And the bounty of color
I leave them, wild and free
Trying my hand at writing free style. I think it would have been easier to rhyme....LOL
Westley Barnes Jun 2012
A Few lines etched where no words give weight.

Good riddance say the veterans
Of a nation gone sour with grief
Like a lemon slice evaporating onto the tongue of the sick.
But when the young yearn for White Nights,
The old claim they are blinding lights to the cold sugary substance
That supplants an easy path.
The bullithole rush of renewal and lonliness and progress thwarted and abandoned,
Inertia seeping through
Into a cold summer's day.

Between the cursing slant of sleek paved roadstrips,
And the burning briars that thresh the border's haunt,
What is picture postcard emerald
Is in that same instance soviet architect gray.

These are the sleepers bereft of the dream
whose twenty-five stories high
or ghost estates
are domes to cast out the howling banshees,those suffrage of the real
to be re-thought as mere props which surround the haloed glowing screen.

So sheen the Motherland glows in untarnished eyes
Familiar solely with glass behemoths parading with their reflections
In grey water-drizzled streets,
Only to be replaced by iridescent rainbows that foster a hope.
A hope that was packaged and sold two decades back
Since it was not worth carrying into the New World.

The water-trough delving where the electric line banishes,connects a spike,
"rejuvenate the breakfast table"-some far-off God reports, Hades still waiting,
Intel-chip Blue, epiphany at the gates.
This poem is a collaboration between Russian-American poet Mariya Timovskey and Irish poet Westley Barnes,reflecting their respective cultural landsacpes and cultural antagonisms.Each writer contributed lies in response to each other's work using their own individual style.The result is a collage of both appraoches to their subject matter.
Kelly McCarthy  May 2014
Planets
Kelly McCarthy May 2014
Across
mountain
peaks
like
the
spikes
of your
hair
my fingers
brush,
careening off
glaciers
and sliding
down hidden
slopes.
Curved and
crossed
as the bones
in your spine,
smooth
and
strong
like
the
gliding
wings
of
a hawk.
The tawny-colored
feathers
echoed
in each
iris.
A look,
haunting.
Chills
and
weightlessness
invade
my body
curled
next
to yours
in perfect
sync
to your
heartbeat.
Where
waterfalls
overflow
our emotions
capsizing
our lonely
individual
vessels
amid galaxies
colliding
each
other
on a
spiraling
journey
of
passion.
The heat.
Bronzer
than the
sun in
Summer.
My love.
My moon
and
my stars.
My one
and
only.
Just
two
out-there
planets
together
forever.
Undiscovered,
untarnished,
undefiled
by humanity.

A secret whisper
from
the
nebulas…

*I
   love
            you….
I've never been more in love.
Petal pie Mar 2014
Untarnished snowflake
resting gently upon my knee
Symmetrical, unique
Floated gently there, as if
Aware of its transience.
Rangzeb Hussain Nov 2010
The walking dead slumber with deadly aim
and let sleeping dogs die,
Mongrels
heat anger in forges of spiteful flame,
Corpses see and hear more
than these walking sightless, tongueless, earless
lifeless poor,
When shall these sleepers awake?

The Bonfire had been piled high,
Almost reaching the cold abode of Mars,
The fear to light it was replaced by
recklessness as the season rolled on.

The stage was set and the audience of
Porcupines and hawks were eager, impatient
for the peaceful Overture to expire
and the deadly Act to commence.

Young Spring was delivered from the womb
and cried for nourishment
when,
Suddenly,
The last bars of the Overture faded into obscurity
and
“The Unholy Holy Crusade”
was ignited upon the starry stage.

The embers of Autumn burst into lashings of blame’s flames
and into forgetful numb snow did the show go.

The porcupines raised high their itchy spikes
to cast their vote of united damnation
while the crowds outside the theatre
cheered the unseen and unheard.

Earth herself
trembled beneath the raw fury of the
Satanic Play,
The volcanic eruption of unnatural hatred threatened
to torch the outer reaches of Mars.

This Bonfire of passionate poison
showered upon the naked body of Truth,
First it gagged and then it bagged Dad,
Mum’s screaming lungs were ****** out,
Her ears were drummed
while her lovely eyes sprouted wings
and flew out from their socket cages,
Her seductive legs snapped away
from the weight of her body
and waltzed headlong into the vaporised night,
Her faithful Left arm stayed to comfort her
but the Right one was yanked away and eloped with a
hot man-made
mushroom cloud that blotted the heavens,
The people were hugging loved ones tightly as they scattered
in the winds of bombastic devastation.

Moonlight dripping from the eyes of a restless red Moon,
Lone witness to the uncivilised crime.

The stork brought a newly born Life
wrapped in the soft garments of innocence,
He held the precious Life in his beak carefully,
caringly, lovingly,
On Bonfire Night he delivered the package to
a young ****** bride,
When the present was unwrapped
warm flames kissed the young baby inside,
A newly born Life arrived,
She was wrapped in soft and sinless rags,
She was carefully caressed,
Lovingly fed,
On Bonfire Night was this desert princess born
to a young untarnished bride,
Three storm soldiers arrived bearing candy,
When the sweet was unwrapped
warm flames burst out to kiss the young baby’s insides,

“Aargh!”

“Aargh!”

Silence...

Death plucks another trophy from the garden of Life.

The broken, charred fingers of the child
clutch the peeled hand of the unborn mother,
The earth of the child has shattered,
Her globe is no more,
Her remains are strewn across the industrial carnage
of the cold Spring.

An act of war against Mars,
“O, sacrilege!
Man, thou dost concoct evil.
Vagabond, thinkest thou superior?
I shalt shackle thee yet
to the accursed gates of Hades!”


The first Act ends,
The safety curtains drawn
and the theatre of blood explodes with applause,
The hawks shout out at the top of their wheezy lungs,
“*******,
it was like the Fourth of July celebrations!
Wow, man!
The sky was full of stars!
Stars, our stars!”


There is a lull between the next Act,
The walking dead gather up the sticks
for the next Bonfire Night,
Windows on the world continue to
drivel and stir the steaming early evening news,
Invisible men pick at the brains
of the sleeping,
This race is the supreme master of
exchanging insanity for black diamonds.

Beware you guy,
They are sipping the priceless grey treasure
that is your birthright,
It will be
with the theft of your precious
jewel that will finance
another glorious victorious production of
The Bonfire Night,
This time, perhaps, in
stunning Summer.

Remember,
Remember,
Don’t you ever forget
the
Filth
of
November.




©Rangzeb Hussain

— The End —