THEY walk / Just one / Alone on the cracked pavement / Toes dragging, head sagging / tripping over lines that aren’t there.
High tops / the likes of God himself /sanctified, glorified, / pearly white as the gates of heaven / Consumerism, cleverly disguised / as divine ascension, the righteous liberty of choice / the steering of your own destiny- / and yet / ... / those footprints in the dirt /  seem only to last as long  / as anyone cares to look.

THEY / THEIR / THEM / Words rarely respected / most often neglected / every conversation, a silent battle / for the right to exist as THEY see themselves / THEY are a complete deviance from / the suffocation of two / neither pink, nor blue. / THEIR body, our bodies / once beautiful in our youth and vigor / now condemned as destitute wastelands. / Reaped of any / dichotomized consumeristic value, / that the world instilled during our years of innocent persuasion. / We are dust now, society tells us / just ghosts of what the earth once bore;  / our place is nonexistent in this world. / Little choice but the next,  / a test with limited boxes to check. / Maybe they’ll listen when our cold, nighttime howls / are too loud to ignore. / Maybe one day, we’ll fill the ears with our voice / never to be quelled again. / But until then / existence becomes more a question than fact.


A red rover world; / it croons to us lovingly,  / as does the sun coax the flowers to bloom / come out! the world says / come out! / our wayward sons / come out! / our wandering daughters / come out, oh battered children of the world / let us cradle your broken hearts! / let us see your tears!  feel your anguish! / and maybe we will know you better for your suffering. / And so we came, and continue to come. / not all, but enough for the satisfaction of the status morale / Be different! the world challenges / And so THEY dare to live differently, / and by extension, dangerously. / We ascend, just like the logos told us we would- / only to be brutally thrown aside / because we’re all the wrong shoe size. / our punishment is most often internalized / we knew all along, our woes an offbeat cry / to the rest of the planets unwavering bass line.


Scrutiny badgers us, in the guise of necessity / when in reality, it is the / furtherment of our marginalization. / What’s in your pants? / What bathroom do you use? / How do you ****? / Liquidated words flow free like water, / but stay behind, slow and thick like hot tar; / it hurts just the same. / Has it occurred to you / that THEY might want to share with you / more than the anatomy of THEIR mortal shells? / THEIR minds, THEIR souls transcend ignorant thought. / Ask THEM something beautiful, because that is what THEY are. / Do THEY come together like a star, in a glorious explosion of light and motion? / Or is it more like a flower blossoming, fragile pulses beating under translucent skin?


The labels of today / the toxic expectations building up from within / like residual filth trapped under your fingernails / never gone, bound to return, nearly inescapable / and never directly addressed / for the sake of not / corroding. / The stars are within kaleidoscope eyes. / yes, dexterous hands have crafted this being / see the light, the mystique and wonder of / this stardust child, set to change the spin of things. / and THEIR heavenly shape is beautifully flawed / maybe marred by the solar winds of the sun / or glimmering with interstellar dust- / a lingering kiss of radiation  / from THEIR time among the asteroids. / This person of universal intent / THEY must be big, and THEY must be brave / for whilst joined under flag and name, THEY are still just one  / a lonely phantom wandering cracked, forgotten sidewalks / Where the lights flicker and the air is stagnant and thin. / THEY cast THEIR eyes skyward, searching for something / a twinkling like THEIR own, in the map of the vast unknown / A reflection of what THEY must become / to simply be.


In a way only the universe can, / it whispers back on the celestial winds / with an unnoticed correspondence. / One of those skidded toe marks / Has smudged the lines of / blue and pink / Hopscotch lines, much like unspoken, unbroken lines / that is where THEY reside. / the fray, the cusp, the precipice / THEY see THEIR world in the skidmarks / a grand spray of color, like the nebulas that THEY once knew / Not the line, but the divergence of what is known / into something new... / and a hopscotch hymnal, / a broken prayer on clumsy lips / not to the God with the high tops, / pearly and clean as heaven’s gate, / but to a vast and anonymous universe / is answered.

that's 3 weeks without a keyboard,
that's 3 weeks on a dual-detox -
         that's that: roughly: antagonism
of: once upon a time...
           there can only be one Hans Andersen,
and as the story goes: ol' granny
   passed on the tales, without which:
no talk of posterity, and seances at
the theatre; alternatively: what if Kierkegård
opted for opera, rather than theatre?
    well: horrid is the task of dropping names,
as if being a village idiot, in that
capacity: giving directions... no such thing!
  nonetheless: a horrid task...
3 weeks... without this horrid world-entanglement...
amphetamines in the wild west,
                   and yet... everything slows down...
that's 3 weeks without such ''luxury''...
    and would you believe it?
3 weeks went by: in a blink of an eye.
             strange, or what 21st century writers
fail to recognise: the ******* canvas has changed!
any-single-one-of-them bothered to scrutinise
this new canvas? anyone?
     ah yes, it's still in its adolescence -
it's still: Dostoyevsky, scuttering in the grand
dungeon: that's the Moscow underground.
             the canvas! the canvas!
                             and indeed, if this be some
bellowing horn, from the depths of some forsaken
place... i'll go into the street, and sabotage
civilisation with graffiti...
                     then again: i have the least
expectations, such that capitalism works...
poetry... and what investment have you made?
nil, or almost nil... evidently: zilch!
      ah, but to have invested in canvases,
a studio, paints, brushes... see... no one sees
investment in poetry: primarily because the poet
has done the minimal...
            unless of course it turns out to ****
with a hot poker something once resembling
nations... which now resides in the insane asylum
(even though those, have been abolished)
                           , nation - ooh! what a ***** word!
the left irksome sometimes uses it:
in theory: the nation-state...
                        and then there's the resurgence of
ancient Greece... in a sing-along:
maybe 'cos i'm a Londoner... brother! brother!
Athenian! Athenian!
                                       but we are born into
a Spartan wedlock... no one really bothers to
**** our gob with Shakespeare...
    then again that is the schizophrenia (alias
dualism) in humanity... thus, to be frank,
psychiatry can be congratulated, it has provided
one useful term... and i will use it, over and over again,
in a non-symptomatic way, because, i find,
it stands, as if the Olympic Graeae (Zeus, Poseidon
and Hades) eating the carcass of some inhabitant
of Tartarus...
                               evidently: tartar steak...
doubly evident: tartars, or the remnants of mongols,
settled in crimea, and elsewhere in the Ukraine...
   tartar                      tra-ta-ta-ta... ku ku ryku!
a ja fu! krecha! a ja znow... fu!       radowitą
uprzejmość... skłaniam...  
    or what i call: rising spontaneously from the depths...
polymaths applauded, the tribunal resides in
bilingualism... trenches... history... perspectives
and current affairs... wicker man media...
                        so... an example of pedantry?
ó....               that's an orthographic dignitary -
        an aesthetic muddle... as is
c-ha                               contending with samo-ha...
     ch                            came from antagonism of
cz                                   which was later antagonised
by č               in česka.... say that: hen party
bound to Prague... in the Czech republic...
                                          ch      k..­.
i am, quiet frankly... standing at the feet of the tower
of babel... and i'm looking up, and i see
correlations, and i see decimal marks,
which, when given enough geography,
can seem like England and the isles,
       and central Europe...
    Iberia? phantom of Seneca...
  eureka! let's begin, once again...
  why is there a continuum beginning with
Plato and Aristotle?
                                           we could become
reasonable people... told to deal with madmen...
we could claim beginnings with Seneca...
and Cicero...
                      and why? the Romans loved poetry...
the Greeks antagonised Homer...
            the Romans loved Horace, Virgil,
                           Ovid... perhaps we should really forget
beginning with Plato and Aristotle...
       the former has become a church,
the latter a dentist's assistant (minus the ancients'
concept of a joke).
                      evidently i have to finish off reading
Seneca... his educational letters to Lucilius....
      moralising ******* that he was, thus, perhaps
a nibble at Cicero? but i must say:
                           it has to begin somewhere,
so not necessarily in stale-bread Athens...
                      and having such perspectives helps
in claiming casual conversation?
   assuredly - if it doesn't involve talking about
the weather...
                                which is always a great mystery
   if it's given enough aurora.
   onto the mystery of dialectics,
as discovered by Alfred Jarry in his Faustroll
Pataphysics contraband...
                                                nag­ging agreement...
nodding without approval... (chapter 10) -
beginning with αληθη λεγεις εφη
        (you speak the truth, he replies) -
   and ending with ως δoκεì
                              (how true that seems)...
and then some dub-step...
        know nothing dROP! boom! jiggy jiggy,
get the rhythm.
   as i always find it hard to look at
    diacritical arithmetic...
                                  given the following
represent a prolonging: hangman:
       å, ā and ä...
                             esp. in Finnish -
stratum: hedningarna täss on nainen.
                        rolling yarn, plateau, two dips;
and i will never say something profound...
i'll just say something no one else has said,
benefit of the doubt? somewhere, someone,
                                      kneels at the same altar.
  such are the distinction - invaders from the
north, and invaders from the south...
                                           even with
crusading Golgotha mann -
the times? many bats, supers, spiders,
but not enough readings of thomas mann...
                              easily befallen into prune-nosed
high-airs... it comes with the diet of literature...
   unfortunately.
                              and with yet another book:
i have burried yet another living person
i could have had a beer with, and conversed.
it always happens, every time i read a book
i have to attend a funeral... by reading a book
i have burried someone alive...
                          shame, in all frankness...
    i will sit in a congested train, touch a breathing
body, and consecrate the touch with
a warring genuflect - harbringer of a Teutonic
passion for initiation: a komtur's slap across the cheek.
   chequers played with passions...
           and some have to be approached like
caged animals, their vocabulary as cages,
                and the whole world before them:
cageless!
             some have indeed become so encrusted in
their daily: routine, that it would take a zoologist
(thrice oh, begs some sort of diacritical marking)
rather than a psychologist to understand them...
    like the darting dupes they are, enshrined in
20% gratis! smile! have a nice day! boxing day sales!
all but pleasantries, fathoming the grave.
   stiff vocab and all other kinds of perfume...
                           a king and his charlatan knights,
who are merely ditto-heads.
                  and not of this world, afresh -
among the nimble hands prior to birth -
surely there is: more grandeour in birth
   that entry via a ******...
                            the greatest pain of ****...
and when the ancient treaty was signed
under the name: Augustus Cesarean - or
recommended for a need of aristocracy -
    it was, for a time, the mana magnetism:
and such was the rule of poetry:
rather than a crown, donned the laurel leaves...
donned the laurel leaves...
    and such was the covenant from ancient
foes when trying to assimilate the Jew...
three kings from Babylon,
                         the child in Egypt...
          no good tides from Nazareth...
         a crown of myrrh - later overshadowed
by dogmatic sprechen, simpler: thorns...
yella things... or rzepak, Essex is filled with it...
rzepak... so why bother adding a dot above
the z, when you get capricious and use rz to
denote the same?! thus a science:
voiced retroflex fricative... Stalingrad!
                       can you really stomach this kind
of jargon? if it wasn't for science fiction:
science would be twice removed from gott ist tot,
*******' worth of pondering, given the close
proximity rhyme... nothing that rhymes should
ever be taken seriously, it should be hymnal!
                         Horatio! mein lyre!
   mein Guinness leier! rabbi krähe -
     and they deem that ****** white when talking:
thinking? i'd prefer Cezanne in real life -
   maggot wriggling and all...
                                          as much eroticism
as bound to a dog slobbering its testicles:
which means ****-all in an almighty stance
   for a dollop of halleluyah in Nepal.
well: pretty talk, pretty pretty pretty: i feel pretty,
oh so butter-fly-e.
                                    2 week stance,
***** in autumn... but so many Swiss hues
coming from the same concentration of decay!
shweet!  zeit-ser!        and that's me talking
kindergarten german: innovation begins with
a fork and a spoon, should the tongue come to it...
            i see a poem,
i see something worth bugging... c.i.a.,
f.b.i., hannibal's lecture in Florence, Venice for
the rats... bugging... shoving...
  shovelling... necro grounding, rattling...
    windy via north... Icelandic...
drums along incisors of abstract gallop:
violins... fringes of the mustang... airy airy...
all regresses toward the Vulgate...
         like ****, like said, and the only pristine
stress comes with vanilla ice-cream,
or a medium-rare beef ****! hmph!
                         fa fa fa excesses with that hurling
puff...
                      and i did finish Kant's
critique of pure reason... minus two calendars...
but, so help me god, the 2nd volume was hiding
under some corner...
                           thus, from transcendental methodology
came plump apricots, plums and pears...
             sweet decay fruit baron...
              and it's called sugars in the intricacy of pulp...
lazily grown, dangling on that caricature of
a formerly known: full crop of wheat-crude fringe.
    2 years... honest to god!
         but so many books in between...
i was given a recommendation...
i cited it already... kraszewski's magnum opus...
29 books...
                       although that's history fictionalised...
but nonetheless, it really was about
     the cossack uprising in the 17th century...
   and it was, as i once said, something i can forgive
sienkiewicz - the film version,
as in: i will not read a book once it has been adapted
to a movie... it's self-evident that too many
people have read a piece of work and are gagging
for a conversation... but where's the playground?
           ******* cherades!
  chinese whispers and a Manchurian candidate!
  i thought as much.
                          and whenever it's not a preplaned
escapade, what becomes of the day?
     was it always about a stance for carpe diem?
  syllables: di                em.
                            carpe is said with more lubricant.
corpus diem. well, that's an alternative, however
you care to think about it.
                and whenever you care to think about,
the proof is there: mishandling misnomers:
poets as tattoo artists... although no one sees the ink,
signatures on a reader's brian (purposively altered,
toward a Michael Jackon he-he, and other:
albino castratos the church venerates!)...
   that's 3 weeks in a catholic country...
  3 weeks... if only the football was better,
      i'd be called Juan Sanchez...
               but, evidently, the football is bad...
     so it's catholicism on par with a sleeping inquisition...
no one really expected Monty Python to conjure
that one... because it never really took place,
not until a trans-generational exodus
postscript 2004... once western brothels were exhausted,
and the Arab started ******* a hippo...
              then it was all about lakes and rivers
and Las Vegas 2.0 in Dubai!
                     you say quack... i say:
                                                    easy target.
and they did receive a blessing from Allah...
enough ink to write out Dante's revision of the Koran,
and some Al-Sha'ke'pir to write a play called:
the Merchant of Mecca.
  last time i heard, when the reformation was
plauging Christendom, no one invited the Arabs...
these days i think the little Lutherans of Islam
watched too many historical movies...
me? pick up a crucifix and march to Jerusalem?
  and is that going to translate into:
   blame the populists! blame the nationalists!
it's like watching a circus... why is the Islamic
reformation asking for third party associates?
                  i was happy listening to
the klinik... albums: eat your heart out...
time + plague...
                             once again: the world narrative
gags for enough people to conjure up
     a placebo solipsism... and that's placebo
with a squiggly prefix (meaning? how far
that ambiguity will take you) - ~placebo...
well: since existentialists were bores...
it's about time to head for Scandinavia
   and ask: is that " ''                 for passing on
an inheritance, or better still: ripe for
acknowledging ambiguity?
                          and if you can shove this
  into your daily narrative... you better be
a connaisseur of chinese antiques...
                frailty... then again, theres: ******;
well hell yeah *****'h, it's a murky underwold
after all.
                     and yes: that's called a petting word...
some say hombre, and we'll all be amigos
and muskateers at the end of the story.
                                    finally... i feel like i'm writing
a poem that i'll never end...
              why? it was supposed to be about
how John Casimir of Sweden championed
  the crown away from his brother Prince Charles
(volume 1)...
                      the bishop of Breslau...
a recluse... couldn't ride a horse...
    then again: nothing worthy imitation...
beginning with a donkey...
                               the transfiguration of palms
into whips... 2000 years later
talk of Hercules is madness... that other bit?
complete sanity.
                              well... if that be the case...
the book is there... i signed it, 2nd volume of
Kant's critique...
  
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | Y| | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

        an oak... in a forest of pine...
an oak in pine wood...

then onto the wood of sighs:

aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
aH aH aH aH aH aH aH aH
          (somehow the surd escapes,
and later morphs into, but prior to)

a short script: variation on MW...

      pears' worth of blunting runes:
opulance s and ᛋ - versus z,
    congregation minor: the interchange, ß,
buttocks and *****, minus phantoms of erotica.
yet, taking into account trigonometry...
sine (genesis 0), and cosine (genesis 1),
or            M                                   W
(no Jew would dare believe the Latins have
the second 'alf of the proof: that loophole of all
things qab-cannibal-mystic - cravat donning
mystique - a flit's worth of sharpening,
or dental grit... flappy tongue,
flabby oyster, lazing for a crab's palette)...
so?

1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

of course there's an

You're alone again...
another daylight epiphany, detached, taxed, viewing traffic through the misty window
as the sun inflates and coffee warms
your gentle bones.
I'm in a rainbow hotel with a black cat, singing truisms
down the hallway when nobody is around
(and I can slam the doors OPEN AND CLOSED)
just to make it seem like there's more going on in here than there actually is.
Some would call that insanity, I don't know what I would call it.
You're a stranger again, slowly aligned by one's entire life to a
parking lot blacktop,
faces passing like curtains, and you're blue
I'm blue too.
I require an anthem to get myself up at sunrise,
I require a great staircase limelight triumph signaling the (future) snow-capped mountains
to watch my great decay.
Oh it continues and will never cease...
my matter recollecting into life and then death again.

The whole world is lonely,
ceasing it's communal conversation to heal by
fire flower bloomed
and the whistle of
a kettle hymnal
you're alive and for now everything is all right.
I understand..
I don't understand
.....
you can't expect me to know any better as someone
who's endured the last four years in a storage unit
fenced by archaic wigs
and cockroaches who throw model parties
in the overcast shadow I can't illuminate
as it is all darkness there.
I could listen to cars travel by the locked door
and I could see the faint glow of a headlight when the sun goes down but I lacked the strength to pull that door open or to leave.
The only thing allowing me to escape was companionship,
“Will your own reality”
there's some situations in life that are simply inevitable
such as love
and lacklove
the searing pain in one's gut when they recognize another night in solitary confinement (a punishment of circumstance)
Or an internal circus in witness of the amaranth figure standing by my doorway and it's incandescent approach
and you (I) don't even have to plead.
That black cat likes to hide up in the lobby chandelier purring thoughts
......
To itself?
or to nobody
to the cat it doesn't seem to matter.
I named it Franz
(guess why)

In public, I have found there's always qualities you can appreciate in someone's smile,
they have a way of seeming so distant and yet all part of the same face,
crying without shedding a tear,
whispering for help without saying a word,
ready and willing to try with one another.
But instead it's the songs on a bus or silence.
I decide which
and so do the other passengers.
(subjectivity)
Your voices are beautiful I wish
you could really understand that,
when I wade by in a night
enclosed to a single room
in a single house
on an island in
it's own wet corner of the world,
only music.



Out
                          there                    ­      making
what I CAN of living
            with
                                  myself
­      and
s o m e t i m e s
(if I'm so lucky)

Others

sweetly           spinning
          
      coinless
                   and
              covered in heartbreak
on
   the
       way
             to
                a
                  shrine
                   ­        to
                              be
                             ­     kissed
                                            by
      ­                                          possibility.

there is a song inside of my chest it
begs to be born from my naked breast
it comes to me in lullabies and keeps me from rest i find the goddess of earth in my dreams
a quest of solitude that only the soil can give me i feel
unraveled at the spine and
crave the blessing of death not for
the fear of life but merely the romance of the unknown
i speak words of love to all who
cross me i whisper intimacy
to my familiars all those whom are
dear to me are my soulmates
i was made
to love to be crucified
for sharing my body
*** is a gift
my body is communion
my divinity comes at the expense
of knowing myself
the sacred earth whispers to me words of mourning i cry for its
plants
body
and sacristy
and share myself to sacrifice
for the land which built me

My water tower in the sun, my pillar in the dark.
Rust on a warehouse door, **** anatomy of a shark.
A hidden, naked cartoon, vulnerable and hurt.
The afternoon rays of light, exposing my empire of dirt.

Squid in a dark room, forgotten seat for you to ****.
Discovering rotten apples, the fruitless empty pits.
Far on the *****, the eye is negligent to mankind.
No on has *****, yet "American ****" isn't hard to find.

From this floor to the next, watch out for the holes.
Stalactites are forming, between the rods and the poles.
The gang is all here, each with a gat.
Questioning Detroit, wondering "where da party at."

A symphonic silence, from abandoned piano keys.
For the love of the city, the birds and the bees.
A ladder to assist you, in anything but a climb.
Wasting away the day, when all you have is time.

Where they once opted elevators, they now offer only stairs.
Peacefully residing, in the asbestos, grime, and the glares.
The walls they're all puking, a paint chip epidemic.
No chalk at the chalkboard, a failed academic.

Some sign walls in scribble, some bless us with art.
Beautiful light fixtures hang, while sanctuaries fall apart.
The debris and the rubble, wooden frames and the splinters.
A back road in the city, in the dead cold of winter.

An altar to stand at, with no sermon or expectation.
A pew a sinner can rest, with only God's examination.
A wall devoted to an *****, hymnal at hand.
Stained glass more exaggerated, with shards in the plan.

Dancing on floorboards in rafters, climbing up to rooftops.
Wandering and trespassing, trying to avoid cops.
Panda bears, pillar ****, and playing in the snow.
In the shadows and the blackest rooms, I really like to go.

Pussycats in hallways and the golden lightning kitty.
Posing seductively in vacancy is where I feel pretty.
I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel, I've found King David.
Interrogated with the whys and don'ts, though I wish they'd save it.

Picasso in the projects, Sloth and Marilyn Manson.
Fairmont Creamery Company, a view held for ransom.
Some window panes are for looking out, some for looking in.
Struggle Buggy Snow White still sleeps, forever strugglin'.

I've seen them ask for me, "Warriors come out to play."
Detroit is to me, what night is to day.
I caught Pikachu and have seen a **** elephant.
In the frost of the Fisher, I found a heart that was spent.

But the cardio made of brick, spoke with such sass.
Resting bones at the Packard, in an armchair that's trash.
Patriots are nosey and robots attack.
Never putting an hour on when I'll get back.

On top of the world, or looking up from the bottom.
Abandoned buildings, schools, churches, there's something about them.
Where a tree has a better chance of rooting and planting.
When a society suddenly seems a bit slanting.

Color a flower on a wall that's been broken and charred.
Breathe life into a battlefield, encourage the scarred.
Take away ego and vanity, glance into a filthy mirror.
Don't just listen to a person, actually hear.

Sure maybe at times I may seem a bit morbid.
And my words can be harsh and approach kind of forward.
But when you're standing alone, in a hallways that's dead.
Whose last bell has been rung and last book has been read.

Then you hear footsteps from the floor up above.
It's in that uncanny awareness.
And fear...
I find love.

black-eyed child of the morning
sings blue-eyed hymns in the afternoon,
chokes on black water at night
pouring from the ceiling
depression waterboarding her small cheeks.

black-eyed child of the morning
paints red smiles on her thighs
running down her knees
heaven on her mind
looking for the tormentor in the ceiling.

blue-eyed child in the afternoon
lets sunshine soak up her irises
turning the light rose-colored
laughs drunkenly just under the
feedback
lies in bed and finds worlds in her mind
stroking their edges
closing her eyes

black-armed child of the night
resurfacing at last
shaking on the mattress
talking
screaming
to her thoughts
telling them to stop
trembling under the black water ceiling
crying because she's suffocating
begging because there is no choice

black-eyed child,
blue-eyed sometimes...
beggars can't be choosers

My heartbeat sending up an erratic hymnal to the hand tightening around my neck: The same hand that grabbed my thigh under the table. Only God saw. The mouth that asked forgiveness on Sundays is on my collarbones in the park after sundown. It still gives me a stomach ache to think about you. Your fingers wrapped carefully around my throat wasn't the reason I couldn't breathe. I miss it already even though in the moment I wished I was anywhere else; my world was closing in again and I felt trapped. It happened on the same bench where I sat alone in grade school and wrote haikus about birds and waterfalls. Something must be wrong with me for thinking you were a blessing that I deserved.

The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance!

Beloved Lady of An and Uraš!
Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled!
Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess!

Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers!
My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the seven divine powers!
You hold the divine powers in your hand!
You have gathered together the seven divine powers!
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!

You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper;
all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur!
You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys!
When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you!

Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna!

You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil!
The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers!

Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause!
Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind!
Men cower before you in their anguished implications,
raising their pitiful outcries,
weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations!

But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen!

My Queen,
You are all-conquering, all-devouring!
You continue Your attacks like relentless storms!
You howl louder than the howling storms!
You thunder louder than Iškur!
You moan louder than the mournful winds!
Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies!
You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations!

My Queen,
all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods,
fled before Your approach like fluttering bats!
They could not stand in Your awesome Presence
nor behold Your awesome Visage!

Who can soothe Your infuriated heart?
Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed!

Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin,
O Majestic Queen, greater than An,
who has ever paid You enough homage?

O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers,
Inanna the Exalted!

Merciful, Live-Giving Mother!
Inanna, the Radiant of Heart!
I have exalted You in accordance with Your power!
I have bowed before You in my holy garb,
I the En, I Enheduanna!

Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ...

But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary.
The sun rose and scorched me.
Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me.
My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident.
My joy became dust.

O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate!

To An, I declared: An will deliver me!
I declared it to An: He will deliver me!

But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna,
at Whose feet the floodplains lie.

Inanna the Exalted,
who has made me tremble together with all Ur!

Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications!
I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna,
my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants!
Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna,
I will greet Her in peace ...

O My Queen, I have exalted You,
Who alone are worthy to be exalted!
O My Queen, Beloved of An,
I have laid out Your daises,
set fire to the coals,
conducted the rites,
prepared Your nuptial chamber.
Now may Your heart embrace me!

These are my innovations,
O Mighty Queen, that I made for You!
What I composed for You by the dark of night,
The cantor will chant by day.

Now Inanna’s heart has been restored,
and the day became favorable to Her.
Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy,
she carried herself like the elegant moonlight.

Now to the Noble Hierodule,
to the Wrecker of foreign lands
presented by An with the seven divine powers,
and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ...

O Inanna, praise!



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines, an Excerpt
Nin-me-šara
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers,
Lady of the all-resplendent light,
Righteous Lady clothed in heavenly radiance,
Beloved Lady of An and Uraš,
Mistress of heaven with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her high priestess,
Powerful Mistress who has seized all seven divine powers,
My lady, you are the guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the divine powers,
You hold the divine powers in your hand,
You have gathered up the divine powers,
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!
Like a dragon you have spewed venom on foreign lands that know you not!
When you roar like Iškur at the earth, nothing can withstand you!
Like a flood descending on alien lands, O Powerful One of heaven and earth, you will teach them to fear Inanna!

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. She was the entu (high priestess) of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite) and the moon god Nanna (Sin) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Enheduanna's composition Nin-me-šara ("The Exaltation of Inanna") details her expulsion from Ur, located in southern Iraq, along with her prayerful request to the goddess for reinstatement. Enheduanna also composed 42 liturgical hymns addressed to temples across Sumer and Akkad. And she was the first editor of a poetry anthology, hymnal or songbook. Now known as the Sumerian Temple Hymns, this was the first collection of its kind; indeed, Enheduanna so claimed at the end of the final hymn: "My king, something has been created that no one had created before." And poems and songs are still being assembled today via the model she established over 4,000 years ago! Enheduanna may also have been the first feminist, as she made Inanna the supreme deity. Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, translation, Akkad, Sumer, Nanna, Inanna, Ur, Sumerian temple hymns

They say the devil
quotes scripture
in his red velvet
bathrobe, as he haunts
his own hallways,
with a voice that poisons
orchids and entices
the masses.

I plead with a gray space
Pray to a slanted shadow, touch starved and pitying
Because there’s really no fooling
a self-delusion that shape shifts daily
It walks with me, a debonair escort that overtakes me by stride
Lines and angles made longer, magnified
Especially in the times I get turned around,
dizzy and disoriented with my back towards a setting sun
But here I find a circumstantial ally
A scorpion pacing figure eights on my back as I tread water
Saying “trust me for infinity, one way or the other”
How do you resist this temptation, the one of being known - of being leveled
It’s something like love if love were knowledge and prediction
And so when reason doesn’t work, reverence does
I gather the strength to acquiesce, already swept into a swirling current and soon spat out
At the feet of something larger and well fed
Prodigal I return, knees finding familiar furrows to sink into
Hands clasped firmly, aching and white
I praise “Thank You and Forgive Me and I Know” over and over
Calling out from within the stomach of a great dark fog

Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy our land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like tempests,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down mountainsides.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

******* of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.

Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you impose our fates.

You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,
why you carry on so?

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. She was the entu (high priestess) of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite) and the moon god Nanna (Sin) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Enheduanna's composition Nin-me-šara ("The Exaltation of Inanna") details her expulsion from Ur, located in southern Iraq, along with her prayerful request to the goddess for reinstatement. Enheduanna also composed 42 liturgical hymns addressed to temples across Sumer and Akkad. And she was the first editor of a poetry anthology, hymnal or songbook. Now known as the Sumerian Temple Hymns, this was the first collection of its kind; indeed, Enheduanna so claimed at the end of the final hymn: "My king, something has been created that no one had created before." And poems and songs are still being assembled today via the model she established over 4,000 years ago! Enheduanna may also have been the first feminist, as she made Inanna the supreme deity. Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, translation, Akkad, Sumer, Nanna, Inanna, Ur, Sumerian temple hymns