A party going on with dead souls
The owner of the Manor who died long ago
You are invited to the party so let’s follow the flow
Now remember we are all alive
Just try taking this in your strive
Back in 1896 Christopher Honey was a very wealthy man, and he is the same owner of Hushtone Manor
But there was a creed in Hushtone, “Silent being the lips and harmony being the tone”
But there’s more
The living will be cursed if the creed wasn’t followed
The citizens be came outspoken and hollow
They became a shadow among themselves
So eternity becoming death among anyone’s breath
There souls were all they had left
So Christopher Honey and the undeserving celebrated in walking anguish among the living flesh
This was the colonial way in their confess
But was it more like a contest
The name Hushtone Manor, the place of dead flesh and living souls with plenty of beholds
The gates of Hushtone Manor
A welcome if you come in
Perhaps a different life that positively could begin
The moon has turned black and the lightening has flashed
No time to run or swiftly dash
The moment has arrived and all you have is understanding in an uncertain strive.

This is a prose tale about the great superhero, SNOGGO
(as told in the first person by SNOGGO to his amanuensis, Edna)

*'You can't have "Jew",' I said.
'Why not? It's a perfectly good word. Are you anti-semitic or something?'
'Jew has a capital J,' I said.
'Not necessarily. I've used it before.'
'Not with me you haven't. There's the dictionary. Look it up.'

Jumbo grudgingly picked up the Shorter Oxford and looked up "Jew". He sniffed loudly, slammed the dictionary shut and removed the tiles from the board. His replacement word was a sodding disaster.

'That's twenty-four points you've cost me with your nit-picking, you *******,' he said through gritted yellow teeth, his flabby body shaking with rage. 'The J was on a triple letter score.'

I sneered derisively and laughed long and loud, making Jumbo froth at his ugly fat nostrils with anger.

'Watch this and weep, Jumbo,' I said, playing out all seven of my tiles onto the board to create a stunning word: UNZIPPED. 'The Z's on a double letter score and it's all on a triple word score, so that's 90, plus 50 for playing all my tiles, 140 in total and the end of the game,' I declared in triumph. Jumbo was caught with 14 in his hand (remember: he still had the J) and thus I, the great SNOGGO, became Greenwich Scrabble Champion for the 25th year running. Not only that: but 25 consecutive defeats in the final for Jumbo.

Jumbo roared in frustration as he saw his hopes of taking the coveted 24ct gold "Queen Anne" cup away from me, SNOGGO, dashed to the ground yet again. And, by centuries old tradition, 25 consecutive victories meant the priceless cup was now mine to keep for ever. Jumbo's scream of uncontrollable, incandescent rage could have been heard as far away as the Vanbrugh Hill Municipal Waste Disposal Centre.

'******* you for all ******* eternity,' he bellowed unsportingly as he waddled out of the cheering hall. In so doing he flouted the gentlemen's convention of always staying to take part in the closing ceremony. He missed seeing me, the great SNOGGO, receive the shining gold cup from the gnarled hands of the Lady Mayoress, the Hon. Mrs Snotte-Wragge, who whispered in my ear 'Fancy a quick **** later, back at the mayoral parlour, SNOGGO dear?' For the fifth year in a row I told her to go and get stuffed as I didn't go for ugly old bats with arses on them like a double-decker bus.

Later that evening, as I sat in the splendid Georgian surroundings of Snoggo Manor, cradling the gold cup and admiring the row of 25 Championship certificates on the walls of my elegant dining room, finishing off my second bottle of Bollinger Grand Cru '89 and stuffing my 18th oyster down my happy throat, I heard a knock on the door. Who could that possibly be at nearly midnight?

It was Jumbo, my fat defeated foe. He looked downcast. 'SNOGGO,' he said, 'I've come to offer my apologies for my inappropriate behaviour earlier. You deserved to win, you are the finest scrabbler in all of Greenwich. I have come to offer you the hand of friendship and to invite you to my humble home for a midnight snack to celebrate your stirring victory.'

'Jumbo,' I replied, 'that's uncommon civil of you, old man. And your timing is excellent, as I've just finished my apéritif and was on the verge of kicking Mrs SNOGGO, my new 17-year old Thai mail order wife, out of her hammock to make my supper. So what's on the menu, squire?'

'Well,' said Jumbo, 'I was thinking of pâte de foie gras - naturally made by Mrs Jumbo using our own force-fed geese, with a bottle of Château d'Yquem '78 to start with. Then perhaps a kilo of blood-red filet mignon avec pommes frites, washed down with a rather good magnum of Brouilly '99. Then there's Mrs Jumbo's famed cheeseboard with a tumbler full of vintage port, followed by a dozen crêpes suzettes, a few petits cafés, a monster Armagnac and a giant Havana each.'

I considered the proposed menu carefully before replying. 'Sounds quite good to me, Jumbo,' I declared, glancing over his shoulder at the Bentley waiting outside. I could just see the peaked chauffeur's cap of the diminutive Mrs Jumbo peering myopically over the leather-covered steering wheel.

And so, having told Mrs Snoggo to tidy up a bit whilst I was out, I went off to dinner with Jumbo. In all our 25 years of Scrabble rivalry I had never once set foot into his house, so I was eager to check out what sort of lifestyle he enjoyed. Once inside Jumbo Villa, I cast my eyes over the luxurious furnishings with an expert eye, evaluating their immense worth and rarity with incredible perspicacity and knowledge.

'Not a bad pad you've got here, Jumbo,' I conceded. 'Not in the same class as Snoggo Manor, of course, but still ****** impressive.' He was visibly flattered by my compliment.

'A glass of sherry while we wait for Mrs Jumbo to serve us?' queried Jumbo jovially. I sniffed at the huge portion of delicious amber nectar appreciatively. 'Lustau Amoroso Bodega Marquès de Mierda '42?' I guessed instinctively. Jumbo nodded. '******* spot on, SNOGGO,' he admitted in stunned amazement.

I took an enormous gulp and felt the alcohol hit me like a slam in the abdomen from Cassius Clay's butcher and more vicious brother. The room spun and I closed my eyes in resigned delight.

When I came to I found myself hanging unclothed in chains on the wall of a dank cellar. My head was pounding and I felt distinctly below par. I looked over my shoulder and beheld Jumbo standing there with a sjambok in his hand. He was stark ******* naked, naked as the day he was born, and I have never seen anything so repulsive in all my life (with the sole exception of that incredible day when, as a child, I caught my paternal grandparents bonking on the Persian rug in the Great Hall at Snoggo Manor on Christmas Eve). Jumbo’s huge pendulous ******* sagged over his bloated fat belly, which itself hung so low his genitals were mercifully hidden from my view. He was a ******* monstrosity.

The tiny Mrs Jumbo stood to the rear of the cellar, also naked, pallid and with her public hair died a shocking pink. She was a skinny freak, a vision of *** Hell. I noticed the tattoo on her belly. It showed a depiction of the crucifixion which I felt was in dubious taste, especially with Jesus sporting an enormous *******.

What I, the wonderful SNOGGO, suffered in the next few hours was truly indescribable, so I will only summarise it. After a seemingly endless whipping from Jumbo (assisted by Mrs Jumbo, but her puny lash strokes were almost pleasurable), accompanied by their combined frenzied cries of demented hatred and loathing, I was forced to suffer the supreme humiliation. Jumbo mounted a set of fine Regency library steps, positioned his Hellish lumpen body behind me and unceremoniously inserted his tiny ***** into my outraged ****. Oh the shame! Oh the shame!

‘O Jesus Christ help me!’ I yelled in rain and pain. And suddenly a voice spoke unto me. 'O great SNOGGO,' it intoned, 'thou needst not suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune so needlessly. Only have faith in me, the great loving Jesus, and I shall give thee strength to deal with thy ******* awful tribulations.'

It was a miracle! SNOGGO could and would be saved! Quickly I mumbled a couple of Ave Marias remembered from my youth as a leading mutual masturbator in the chapel choir, and I silently promised a quick twenty thousand quid to the local faggotty priest ******* fund, and my chains fell to the floor with a blast of heavenly thunder. Halle-*******-luliah!

'Right, Jumbo you fat ****,' I snapped, 'you have ******* had it.'

And with one mighty blow of my right arm I smashed him against the wall. His huge hideous body crumpled as he slid to the floor, blood oozing from his fat gob. I gave him a ****** good kicking in the face and in the heart region and shortly he went to meet his maker, with a sickening grunt and expulsion of *****.

Then I turned to the horrified naked ugly skinny tattooed Mrs Jumbo and said: 'OK, *******, where's my ******* supper?'

She shrugged and headed upstairs to prepare the meal I had been promised by Jumbo earlier, as I was seriously hungry by this stage. Little did she know I would be obliged to put her out of her misery later. Or if she were lucky, I might offer her a position as unpaid toilet cleanser chez moi.

Yes, it was yet another stunning victory for the fabulous SNOGGO, thanks to timely divine intervention for which I am very much obliged.

And don't forget my luscious 17-year old Thai mail bride would be waiting to give me a really good ******* once I got back to Snoggo Manor. Either that or I would give her a good belting and send her back to her grotty poverty-stricken village with a demand for a full refund, chop chop.

I am a manor
with two masters
I am a house divided
a soul in duress.

Half of me
sweet, happy, carefree.
Half of me
wants to dress up
to find  love,
to be neat.
Half of me
wants peace,
wants happiness.

The remainder,
is an *******.
cold, hardened, bitter.
The remainder
has lost hope
lost love.
The remainder
is tough and strong
never needing anyone.
The remainder
wants anarchy
thrives in chaos.

I am a house divided,
a manor with two master,
a soul in duress.

I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens,
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens,
In numerous leafage bosomed close;
Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer,
Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere
On cloudy archipelagos.

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion,
Their unimagined shapes accord:
Under their waves at intervals flame a pale levin through,
As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew
A sudden elemental sword.

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold;
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold,
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance;
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze;
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze,
Great moveless meres of radiance.

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track,
Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back,
A triple row of pointed teeth?
Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide,
The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds in tenebrous side
With scales of golden mail ensheathe.

Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees.
Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice
Ruins immense in mounded wrack;
Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone
Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown
When the earthquake heaves its hugy back.

These vapors, with their leaden, golden, iron, bronzèd glows,
Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose,
Muttering hoarse dreams of destined harms,--
'Tis God who hangs their multitude amid the skiey deep,
As a warrior that suspendeth from the roof-tree of his keep
His dreadful and resounding arms!

All vanishes! The Sun, from topmost heaven precipitated,
Like a globe of iron which is tossed back fiery red
Into the furnace stirred to fume,
Shocking the cloudy surges, plashed from its impetuous ire,
Even to the zenith spattereth in a flecking scud of fire
The vaporous and inflamèd spaume.

O contemplate the heavens! Whenas the vein-drawn day dies pale,
In every season, every place, gaze through their every veil?
With love that has not speech for need!
Beneath their solemn beauty is a mystery infinite:
If winter hue them like a pall, or if the summer night
Fantasy them starre brede.

Welcome to poetfreak manor
everyone's welcomed here
as long as you never speak
about your anger or fear

please keep down the noise
we like it nice and quiet
please do not speak too loud
you just might cause a riot

we like to talk about flowers
or talk about the lord
we don't care if you're different
we don't care if you're bored

====================================================

Welc­ome to our poet's humble haven
you may hang your hat on the door
but first, is your soul worth savin?
first, what exactly are you here for?

we are intolerant to other's belief
we bow to only one holy grace
likewise thinkers are such a relief
anything else is way off base

please join us in our holy crusade
and do not show an individual voice
your opinion is far out-weighed
this is our site, this is our choice

This is a series i am doing about people at a tiny site, that sit there and condemn others all day long. Since i am an activist, i am trying to change it. I am not talking about all religious people, just the bad ones as i see them. After all, couldn't a non-christian see them more clearly than they see themselves?

The Georgian Manor in Ripon Town
Had seen far better days,
The chimney pots had fallen down
And the windows, scarred and crazed,
The paint had peeled from the cedar door
And the ivy climbed untamed,
From the days of the aristocracy
The house was re-arranged.

There were flats and a communal kitchen
But no carpets on the floor,
The walls were damp and the paper peeled
In strips, from the old décor,
When Jennifer took an upstairs flat
She shuddered, ‘It won’t be long.’
But things in her life had taken a turn
With everything going wrong.

She lay on the iron poster bed
And she cried herself to sleep,
Ever since her engagement went
All she could do was weep,
The future, bleak and forbidding now
Held nothing but fear and tears,
It yawned ahead in her misery,
An aeon of wasted years.

At night, the gloom would descend, a pall
Would settle upon her room,
She’d lie awake to the mutterings
That seemed to come from the tomb,
The manor had once been bright and gay
With Lords and Earls, and Dames
Plucking at hammered dulcimers
While playing their wooing games.

And standing off in the corner was
A wardrobe, made of teak,
The doors were locked, there wasn’t a key
It was just some old antique,
Or that was what she had thought at first
‘Til her interest fired her mind,
And she levered open the doors one night
To see what there was to find.

She found there what was a treasure trove
Of gowns and hoods and capes,
Of silken skirts with their bustles,
Party masques for their escapades,
Muslin dresses and bodices
That Jennifer gaped to see,
That ladies wore all those years before,
And whalebone corsetry.

She felt a hidden excitement while
Surveying the gorgeous past,
And then an ineffable sadness that
Such grandeur didn’t last,
The woman that wore these party gowns
Was laid in an ancient grave,
Along with her beaus and suitors all,
The clothes alone were saved.

One night she weakened, and tried them on,
They seemed like a perfect fit,
Over the laced up corsets when
She donned a satin slip,
She chose a gown with a turquoise hue
With a bustle of ribbon and lace,
While the gas lamp that had never worked
Lit up, to reflect her face.

Then music wafted under her door
From a dulcimer and lute,
A wistful song from an old spinette
And a Love song from a flute,
She thrilled to enter the passage where
The gas lamps, in a row,
Played their light on the central stair
And the dancing, down below.

She floated to the head of the stair
As her gown trailed on behind,
And wondered as she descended what
Enchantment she would find,
The dancers stopped, and they looked at her
As she joined them on the floor,
And one said, ‘Here is the Faery Queene,
We’d best make fast the door.’

A fine young man in a tailcoat came
And he bent to kiss her hand,
From white cravat to his doeskin boots
He was quickly in command,
He whirled her breathless, into the throng
As the dancers wheeled and spun,
Risen up for this one enchant
That her dressing had begun.

But after one in the morning she
Began to fear and doubt,
The tapers happened to flicker and
The gas lamps all went out,
The dancers started to fade away
To return to where they came,
‘Til only she and the young man stood
In the glare of a single flame.

‘They’re happy now that you brought them back
Though the hours were swiftly spent,
They sleep again in their graves where they
Have aeons to repent.’
‘But what of you, must you join them there,’
As she clung to him the more,
‘Not I,’ he said, ‘for I’m not yet dead,
I live in the flat next door!’

David Lewis Paget

homesick for the little things-
a hello, for instance
-how was your day

can i just say-
small kisses
would go a long way
towards improving
the manor

i remember when-

i remember
small kisses
in a friendly manner-

granted
and planted-
and love mattered.

r ~ 9/24/14

dirt clods, actually
there were few stones
in the creek that separated
their apartments from ours

a creek, and income gap even we,
barely double digits old, could see
as clearly as the stream
between our worlds

in our battles, I missed
on purpose, as did most
of the Manor marines--never
did a clod hit me

our general, Rex, connected often
inviting obscenities from our opponents
but never did they cross the creek

if they had, it would have been
for naught, for we had won the war
before the skirmishes began

our pool, tennis courts, and club
were the arsenals that gave us the edge
and the Stuart Manor soldiers knew this
but chunked the dirt valiantly
all the same