King Minos,
Spited by the God of Oceans,
Hesitated but a while
Before poor Pasiphae's bull-headed son
Was penned inside the labyrinth,
And then, as if to throw away the key,
Inventor Daedalus and his dear son
Were for their work a prison tower fee'd.
But they grew wings, for as we know,
An inventor's work is never done...
If only Icarus had listened
And kept a proper place below the sun,
Breugel's painting would have lost
Its distant splashy focal point;
The plowman and the shepherd would
Have stood alone above a perfect sea.

Old Minos never had a chance,
And though the cunning Hunter,
(He, who found the man who
Made a string crawl curving
Through a shell behind an ant),
Had won... decided to disrobe
And take a dip...a foolish act
To choose when Daedalus
Would serve a hot revenge.

Daedalus, who knew the score,
Burned wood to make the water soar;
In vengeance vented spiteful wrath,
And cooked old Minos in his bath.

Minos, ne pouvant plus suffire
Au fatigant métier d'entendre et de juger
Chaque ombre descendue au ténébreux empire,
Imagina, pour abréger,
De faire faire une balance
Où dans l'un des bassins il mettait à la fois
Cinq ou six morts, dans l'autre un certain poids
Qui déterminait la sentence.
Si le poids s'élevait, alors plus à loisir
Minos examinait l'affaire ;
Si le poids baissait au contraire,
Sans scrupule il faisait punir.
La méthode était sûre, expéditive et claire ;
Minos s'en trouvait bien. Un jour, en même temps,
Au bord du Styx la mort rassemble
Deux rois, un grand ministre, un héros, trois savants.
Minos les fait peser ensemble.
Le poids s'élève, il en met deux,
Et puis trois, c'est en vain ; quatre ne font pas mieux.
Minos, un peu surpris, ôte de la balance
Ces inutiles poids, cherche un autre moyen ;
Et, près de là voyant un pauvre homme de bien
Qui dans un coin obscur attendait en silence,
Il le met seul en contrepoids :
Les six ombres alors s'élèvent à la fois.

preliminary explanation

before i really begin the project i have a few scatterings
of thought that made me do this, without real planning,
a different sort of impromptu that poetry's good at,
less Dionysian spur-of-the-moment with an already
completed poem entwined to a perfect ensō,
as quick as the decapitation of Mary Boleyn with the
executioner fooling her which side the swing would
be cast by taking of his hard-soled-shoes -
i mean this in an Apollonian sense - i know, sharp contrasts
at first, but the need to fuse them - i said these are
preliminary explanations, the rest will not be as haphazardly
composed, after all, i see the triangle i'm interested it
but drawing a triangle without Pythagorean explanation
i'm just writing Δ - i'll unravel what my project is
about, just give me this opportunity to blah blah for a
while like someone from an existential novel;
what beckoned me was the dichotomy of styles,
i mean, **** me, you can read poetry while in an awkward
yoga position, you can read it standing up, sitting down,
eating or whatever you want - obviously on the throne
of thrones taking a **** is preferred - the point being
what's called serious literature is so condensed for
economic reasons, font small, never-ending paragraphs,
you need an easy-chair and a bottle of cognac to get
through a chapter sometimes - or at least freshly mowed
grass in a park in summer - it's really uncomfortable because
of that, and the fact that poets hardly wish upon you
to be myopic - just look at the spacing on the page,
constantly refreshing, open-plan condos, eye-to-eye -
but it's not about that... the different styles of writing,
prose and the novel, the historical essay / encyclopedia
or a work of philosophy - what style of writing can
be best evolutionary and undermine each? only poetry.
poetry is a ballerina mandible entity, plastic skeletons,
but that's beside the point, when journalism writes history
so vehemently... the study of history writes it nonchalantly,
it's the truth, journalism is bombastic, sensationalist
every but what courting history involves -
a journalist will write about the death of a 100 people
more vehemently than a historian writing about the Holocaust...
or am i missing something? i never understood this dichotomy
of prose - it's most apparent between journalism and history...
as far as i am concerned, the most pleasurable style of
prose is involved in the history of philosophy, or learning per se,
but i'll now reveal to you the project at hand -
it's a collage... the parameters?

the subject of the collage

it weighs 1614 grams, or 3 lb. and 8 7/8ths oz.,
it's a single volume edition, published by Pimlico,
it's slightly larger than an A5 format,
3/4 inches more in length, and ~1 centimetre in
width more, it has a depth of 1 and 3/4 inches in depth,
a bicep iron-pumping session with it in bed -
i was lying with this behemoth of a book
in bed soothing out a semi-delirium state
listening to Ola Gjeilo's *northern lights
and flicking through the appendix, and i started thinking,
no would read this giant fully, would they?
the reason it's a one volume edition is because
the only place you'd read such an edition would
be in a library, at a desk, and you'd be taking snippets
out from it, quotes, authentic references points
for an essay, esp. if you were a history student,
such books aren't exactly built for leisure, as my arms
could testify... after the appendix i started flicking
through as to what point of interest would spur me
onto this audacious (and perhaps auspicious)
act of renegading against writing a novel (in the moment,
in the moment, i can't imagine myself rereading plot-lines
after a day or two, adding to it - that's a collage too,
but of a different kind - and no, i won't be plagiarising
as such, after all i'll be citing parallel, but utilising
poetry as the driving revision dynamic compared
to the chronologically stale prose of history) - i'll be
extracting key points that are already referenced and not
using the style of the author - the book in question?
Europe: a history by Norman Davies prof. emeritus
at U.C.L. - the point of entry that made me mad enough
to condense this 1335 page book (excluding the index)?

point of incision

Voltaire (or the man suspected of Guy Fawkes-likes spreading
of volatility in others) -
un polonais - c'est un charmeur; deux polonais - une
bagarre; trois polonais, eh bien, c'est la question polonaise
(one pole - a charmer, two poles - a brawl, three poles -
the polish question) - mind you, the subtler and gentler
precursor of the Jewish question, because the Frenchman
mused, and not a German, or a Russian brute...
and i can testify, two Polish immigrants in a pub,
one senior, the other minor, one with 22 years under
his belt of the integration purpose, one with 12 years,
the minor says to the senior about how Poles bring
the village life to cities, brutish drunkards and what not,
it was almost a brawl, prior to the senior was charming
a Lithuanian girl, before the minor's emphasis on
such a choice of conversation turned into idiotic Lithuanian
nostalgia about the disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian
commonwealth, primarily due to the Polish nobility.

10,000 b.c.

looking that far back i don't know why you even
bother to celebrate the weekend -
i mean, 10,000 years back Denmark was
still attached to Sweden,
England was attached to France,
and there was a weird looking Aquatic landmass
that would become a myth of Atlantis
in the Chronicles of Norwich,
speedy ******* Gonzales with the equivalent
of south america detaching itself from Africa...
mind you, i'm sure the Carpathian ranges are
mountains. they're noted here are hills or uplands,
by categorising them as such i'm surprised
the majority of Carpathian elevations as scolded
bald rocky faced, a hill i imagine to have some
vegetation on it, not mountain goats with rock and roof
for a blacksmith in a population of one hundred...
at this point Darwinism really becomes a disorientating
pinpoint of whatever history takes your fancy,
Europe - mother of Minos, lord of Crete,
progenitrix / ******* and the leather curtains
of Zeus's harem (jealous? no, just the sarcasm
dominates the immortal museum of attachable
****** to suit the perfect elephant **** of depth
the gods sided with, by choice, excusing the Suez
duct tightening of a prostate gland... to ease the pain
upon ******* rather than *******); mentioned by Homer
the Blind tooth-fairy, the Europe and the bull,
Europoeus and the swan, same father of wisdom to mind,
on the shores of Loch Lomond -
attributes a lover to the bull, Moschus of Syracuse,
who said earring Plato cured him of where the ****
should not enter even if it shines a welcome
in the disguise of Dionysius... revisionists bound to Pompeii
named Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens Veronese
and Claude Lorrain revived the bulging bull's *******
and her mm hmm mm, too gracious my kind, hehee...
Phonecians from Tyre and Io - so too the Sibyl of ****** -
and unlike the great river civilisations of the Nile,
the Ganges, soon to be the Danubian civilisations
and gorged-out-eyes-that-once-sore-colour-but-lost-sight-of-
colours-­after-seeing-the-murk-of-the-Thames...
soon the seas overcame civilisations of the rivers,
as Cadmus, brother of the thus stated harlot said:
i bring you orbe pererrato - hieroglyphics of the cage,
but not an owl or a hawk inside it -
so let's perfect speaking to an encoding by first
rummaging into learning how to procure the perfect
forms of counting - i say left, you say I, i say right
you say II, left right left right, what do you say?
VI. bravo! the Hellenic world just crossed the Aegean
and civilisation bore twins within the cult of a lunar-mother,
Islam of Romulus and Remus, a she-wolf
a canine of the night - according to another -
tremulae sinuantur flamine vestes - or so the myth goes -
a cherished phantom of what became the fabled story
of sole Odysseus with his ears open and the remnant
sailor's ears waxed shut - as if the bankers of this world,
revelling in culprit universal fancy than nonetheless
bred the particular oddities - lest we forget,
the once bountiful call of the sirens to the oceanic
is but a fraction of what today's sirens claim to be song,
a fraction of it remains in this world, the onomatopoeia
of the once maddening song, the crude *******
arrangement of vowels bound to the jealous god's
déjà vu of the compounding second H.

from myth to perpetuating a modern sentiment

you can jump from 10,000 b.c. to the Munich Crisis
of 1938 - 9 with a snap of the fingers,
imitating quantum phenomenons like gesticulating
a game of mime with Chinese whispers necessary,
if Europe is a nymph, Naples her azure eyes,
Warsaw her heart, Sebastopol and Azoff,
Petersburg, Mitau, Odessa - these the thorns
in her feet - Paris the head, London the starched collar,
and Rome - the sepulchre.
or... die handbuch der europaischen geschichte
notably from Charlemagne (the Illiterate)
to the Greek colonels (as apart from Constantine to
Thomas More in eight volumes, via Cambridge mid
1930s)... these and some other books of urgency
e.g. Eugene Weber's H. A. L. Fisher's, Sr. Walter Ralegh,
Jacob Bronowski... elsewhere excavated noun-obscurities
like gattopardo and konarmya had their
circas extended like shelved vegetables in modern
supermarket isles, for one reason or another...
prado, sonata sovkino also... some also mention
Thomas Carlyle (i'd make it sound like carried-away isle,
but never mind); so in this intro much theory,
how to sound politically correct, verifiable to suit
a coercion for a status quo... Europe as a modern idea,
replacing Imperum Romanun came Christendom,
ugly Venetian Pirates at Constantinople,
Barbarossa making it in pickled herring juice
in a barrel to Jerusalem... once called the pinkish-***-fluff
of Saxony, now called the pickled cucumber,
drowning in his armour in some river or Brosphorus...
alchemists, Luther and Copernicus were invited on
the same occasion as the bow-tie was invented,
apparently it was a marriage made for the Noir cinema,
beats me - hence the new concept of Europe,
reviving the idea of Imperium Romanun
meant, somehow including Judea in the Euro
championship of footie gladiator ***** whipped
narcissists, rejecting the already banished Carthage
(Libya / Tunisia by Cato's standards) and encouraging
the Huns, the Goths and the even more distant Slavs and
Vikings to accept not so much the crucifix as
the revised spine of the serpent but as the geometry of
human limbs, well, not so much that, but forgetting
Norse myths of the one-eyed and the runic alphabet
and settling for ah be'h c'eh d'ah.
dissident frenche stink abbe, charles castel de st pierre
(1658 - 1743) aand this work projet d'une paix perpetuelle
(1713) versus Питер Великий who just said:
never mind the city, the Winter Palace... i have aborted
fetus pickles in my bedroom, lava lamps i call them.
the last remaining reference to Christianity?
Nietzsche was late, the public was certain,
it was the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, with public reference
to the republica christiana / commonwealth was last made.
to Edmund Burke: well, i too wish no exile
upon any European on his continent of birth,
but invigorate a Muslim to give birth on it
and you invigorate an exile nonetheless:
Ezra expatriate Pound / sorry, if born in eastern
europe a ***** Romanian immigrant, pristine
expatriate in western Europe, fascist radio has
my tongue and *****, so let's play a game:
Russian roulette for the Chinese cos there's
a billion of them, and no one would really mind
a missing Chow Mein... chu shoo'ah shaolin moo'n'kah!
or a cappuccino whenever you'd like to watch
classic Italian pornographic cinema with dubbing
with nuns involved... Willaim Blake and his
stark naked prophesy, pope pius II (treatise 1458)
even though Transylvania, Tharce and Hungary
shared the same phonetic encoding with diacritical
distinctions like any Frenchman, German,
or Pole at the Siege of Vienna (1683)
to counter the antagonising Ottoman - i swear historians
do this one purpose, juggle dates and head-of-state figures
prior to entering a chronology - they must first try out
a ******* carousel before playing with the toy-train...
broadcasting to a defeated Germany public, T. S. Eliot
(1945) ****** import to into Western Germany
and talk of the failing moral fabric, China laughing
after the ***** intricacies of warfare of trade,
what was once wool we wished to be silk...
instead of silk we received vegetarian wool, namely
hemp, and Amsterdam is to blame... nuke 'em!
that's how it sounds, how a historian approaches
writing a history from the annals, from circa and
circumstance and actual history, foremost the abbreviations,
the fishing hook standards, the parameters,
the limits, and then the mathematics of history,
one thing culminating into another... contra Lenin
N. S. Trubetskoy, P. N. Savitsky, G. Vernadsky
Russian at the perks of the Urals - steppe Tartar shamans
or salon pranced pretty **** boys? where to put
the intoxicant and where to put the mascara... hmm,
god knows, or by 21st calculations, a meteor;
they say the history of nations is a history of women,
then at least the history of individuation
and of men who succumb to its proliferation
is astoundingly misogynistic.
Seton-Watson, among the the tombstones too reminded
of remarkable esteem and accomplishment
with only one gravedigger to claim as father...
as many death ears as on two giraffe skeletons
stood Guizot, men of many letter and few fortunes,
or v. v., incubators of cousin ***** and none the kippah
before the arrogant saintly diminished to
a justly cause of recession, ha ha,
by nature's grace, and with true advent of her progression
as guard-worthy pre- to each pro-
and suggested courteous of the ****** fibre,
oh hey, the advent of masqueraded woofing,
a Venetian high-brow, and jealousy out of a forgotten
spirit of adventure that once was bound
to hunting and foraging... forever lost to write  history of
a king dubbed Louis the XIV...
crucibles and distastes for the state to be pleased,
once removed from Paris, forever to Angevin womb
accustomed once more, at Versailles released -
as cake be sown so too the aristocratic swan necks
for worth of mock and scorn - and the dampening rain
rattle the blood-thirst of the St. Bartholomew's Day
slaughter, to date, the rebirth of Burgundy,
of Anjou, and with the dead king presiding, to be
of no worth in judging himself a king before god or pauper...
saluer Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville!
that i might too in stead rattle a few bones prior to burial
with the jaw that will laugh and chatter least
had it been to my kingly-stead a birth so lowly.
then at least in satisfactory temperament i procure a
judgement of the noble like of a *****
for an hour's worth of pistons and jarring tongues...
as if from a nobleman then indeed as if from a *****,
for who sold Europe and said: Arabia, if not the
Frenchman, the Englishman, the Spaniard?
the former colonial conquests served you not enough?
i imagine the reinstatement of Israel like
the Frankish states under Philippe-August...
precursors to a cathedral dubbed Urban the 2nd's..
there were only Norwegian motives in the Ukraine
and the black sea... Israel to me is like plagiarism
of the Frankish states of the middle-east, with Europe
slightly... oom'pah loom'pah mongolian harmonica.
some said Rudyard Kipling poems,
some said Mr. Kipling's afternoon tea cakes -
whichever made it first on Coronation St.
some also say the Teutonic barbecues -
it was a matter of example to feed them hog
and cannibalise the peasants for ourselves,
a Prussian standard worth an army standard of
rigour - Ave Maria - letztre abendessen nahrung -
mein besitzen, wenn in die Aden, i'd be the last
talking carcass...
gottes ist der orient!
gottes ist der okzident!
nord - und sudliches gelande
ruht im frieden seiner hande.
germany's lebensraum, inferiority and classification,
inferior slavs and jews, genetics and why my
hatred of Darwinism is persistent, you need
an explanatory noting to make it auto-suggestive
for Queen & Country? diseased elements,
Jewish Bolshevism, Polish patriotism,
Soviets, Teutons, the grand alliances of 1918
or 1945? Wilsonian testimony of national self-determi

Saint John the Apostle says: “Hellenika and Tsambika, they will be the lily, the saffron, the rose and the violet, but also new, like the calendula and the chamomile, making of all a crown headband, to ad put the world of the Duoverse in everything its radius, for the star that illuminates par excellence as a white planet without thorns, which is the perfect one among the perfect ones, anti herbicide of language and incarnation, as in the Empyrean medieval zeal and in the highest of heavens. It is also the site of the physical presence of God, where the angels and the souls welcomed in Paradise reside, between Thistles and Roses towards the nourishing plane of the conventual voice and the tonic of the Milky Way; galactogens, ******* third grade milk to curdle in children who have not been a Messiah yet. Paths of thorns will guide the visitors of this gallery of flowers and plants, through the Panagia Monacal, for the holy homily with the Lilies and their lower valleys, where no more Lilies can evade their chains of the Liliorum genome and in their valleys of galactogenic virtue. As Mother Rosa and son Lirio, being the mother of all and of that one, behold ... your son, "I myself in the path of the three Marias. Over there in the desolate andurrial, an aquiline carries me imprisoned on my heels, as a bond of a son who makes my footsteps, the columbine sole of my saving feet.

At 320 meters of altitude, the Still Life appeared, concealed behind the Vas Auric, here everyone approached the auric circle of Morality that made them authors of the proximity of the Universe falling on Greece and Herbalism that fell with all its historical structure in the forest where many more species such as Caltrop, Laurel, Olive, Linen, Granada appeared, in a simple and flat devotional with nuances with pro delegating status; the same Hexagonal Birthright, to make the cinnabar fistulas, which was elemented by the different colors associated with the Grail tutorials, which were seen indigos on top of some Rhododendrons. If it is eschatological, it is in mystical nets of the Empyrean, further away in a form that is said to be called a form of gonism, between Cardinals and their dead Lilies. As the first among the last, the bulbous and clayey Tulip orb and basilica symbolism, peacemaker and philosophical Eritrean, for spiritual searches, which eager effusions of the Empyrean, reached the Messiah on his Pollino on the way to Bethany.

Around the Monastery, they could all be seen arriving to the beat of the cymbals and aulos, among the lyres that prowled, tickling the inquiry to rest their fingers, or perhaps by some augur Trojan villain in those of "Daedalus".  The latter being, here a tulip, with flames of a true seeker trying to sacrifice subsistence daring over the risk of the flame of saving death.

Daedalus says: “After the incident with Perdix, I Daedalus was expelled from Athens. I then went to Crete, and in the kingdom of Minos I was placed in the service of the monarch. One of his tasks was the creation of Talos, an animated bronze giant who defended the island from invasions. By order of Minos, I built the labyrinth to enclose the monster. The labyrinth was a building with countless corridors and winding streets opening one to another, which seemed to have no beginning or end. Minos locked me up with my son Icarus, whose mother was Naucrate, a slave from Minos, in the same building. The reason for the confinement was the collaboration of Daedalus in the escape of Theseus from the labyrinth. I have to lament for the rapture of Perdix, now turned into Partridge, who now carries in his clutches the creation of the Universe-Duoverse, turned into his own, and me in envy, harassing me with the endings of my endings and not initiating nor ending. That is why I appear here coming from Crete, to wrap myself around the garden and its mystery, closing all the madrigals and trees, like a world that has created me. In its splendor, seeing the humility, fragrant of violets grafted into lavenders, with my soul now, of a somewhat  syncretism Hebrew-Hellenic and Mythological-sub Mythological, like a nobleman who walks free and without chains ..., passing through the Parthenon to put garlands, in dresses that are adorned with linen, but of evangelical lineage here in Kímolo. From here in the humility of heaven I will go with Kanti and Etrestles to unite on the prominent hills of the Hexagonal Birthright.

Necropolis of Hellenika / Kímolos
Tsambika / Philo of Alexandria

They passed each other on the outskirts of Archangelos to go to Tsambika, going to the Necropolis of Helleniká where he was waiting for them more than 400 kilometers to the west of the Cyclades, precisely in Kímolos where they would do the colloquy with to do the channeling with the Necropolis. Etréstles had traveled with Kanti the steed; on his back, they saw the distance before they arrived at Mandraki in Rhodes. They all headed down the coast towards Archangelos, but Etréstles went to Helleniká, the Vas Auric was landed on Mandraki for the purposes of the Creation of Vernarth together with the Apostle Saint John. Kímolos, it is on this island that the famous beginning of the procession towards the outskirts of the cities was to deposit their sacred remains on the way to a better one, here were the martyrs who were used to Etréstles since he cohabits in delay with Drestnia for the new millennium (His female of hers) with which he resides in the Koumeterium of Messolonghi in the ninth vertical cemetery. Having a chapel and altars this place was propitious to create between Kimolos and Tsambika which was so many kilometers away, so the meeting performance between villages would be seen in its entirety to be resurrected and worshiped between the Cyclades and the Dodecanese with pious exercises between both latitudes precisely in the chapel of Theoskepasti, while in Tsambika it would be in the Panagia Tsambika monastery. Etréstles carried in both hands some matches of some population dowries with laws of affability and generations lived there without knowing each other between the two islands and tabernacles, arguing canons of burial and exhumation. In this case of performance refer to the Vas Auric of Limassol that brought the construction of a world of the right angles for the neat reconstruction of multi polygonal spectra, adopted for the first time in Kímolos to be retransferred to a logical philosophical-architectural division seeking to enclose the perfect plans where the new Christians will reside, between Rhodes and the west of Kímolos re-installing themselves among more than a third of the venerable ones who rested in Helleniká, in syncretic neatness with dissimilar populations and creeds.

Saint John the Apostle with Vertnarth, Raeder, and Petrobus plus Eurydice would bring from the rubies of Alexandria the incorporeal honor of Alexander the Great, turning both island sites into palaces of the Muses of Helleniká for the scholars who would be at the canonization of Vas Auric. Being the precursor of the chapel of the Theoskepasti, this performance of erudition will be endowed with the new status for Philo of Alexandria present here, now being a co-demiurge who will convert this necropolis city into duality with Tsambika for distinctions of the rituals and homilies, reducing the inputs basics in ceremonies. Philo of Alexandria says that only God protects the Jews, adding to what Philo wrote in La Legatio ad Gaium, the Jewish delegation had trouble meeting Caligula and when they finally met him, the emperor declared that he wanted a statue of him to be built as Jupiter in the Temple of Jerusalem, which sowed desolation among the members of the delegation. Finally, this purpose was not realized thanks to the intervention of Agrippa I and the death of Caligula, Philo attributed the happy ending of both cases to Providence. This divine letter of these translators with Saint John the Apostle and Philo of Alexandria will make this homily the spiritual custody that will be preserved in these two cities and then towards the world of Vernarth of the Duoverse, so that invisible winds blow from the chapel of Kímolos to Panagia de Tsambika, in the frameworks that feed the Hebraic and Hellenic boundary “translating Greek into Hebrew, but in two universal sites of creation in the Theoskepasti chapel and Panagia de Tsambika, about the magic of the meeting of omniscience and grace. Says Vernarth: “with the interpretation of Philo of Alexandria and his exegesis, I will rub the tract of the successions of infinity legitimately stored the creation thought of the ZigZag Universe with the Parapsychological Regressive authority now circulating in a sniffing universe with a Verthian genealogy, tempering with my Falangist disciples but being biblical when it becomes the occasional emaciated mob of a world that falls degrading with its last pieces and challenges of the world associated with an allegorical spirit, contracted to wings of ethics and doctrinal rectitude. I have two candles in each hand, similar to Etréstles in Kímolos and in Helleniká, making delights of pleasures in these ceremonies to create the world’s ignored in the office of the super compassionate language, in more than seven days that add up between the Sun and the Earth, in a sub-mythological world being ourselves our own executioner established on the ***** that falls from the match of the wick of my Lucerne in its own mood. I still have a memory of who and of each one who will always be in my prayers, reopened in a sacredness less than my own end, here I will not continue to be stored. Rather I will continue to fall, exhumed from the very storehouse and from the struggle of the thistle that falls from itself rounded up to be competent to explain himself biblically as if he had never before been read ad limit of the doctoral, and sacred in the work of Philo of Alexandria here with us leading and there in the Necropolis on another thorn; as a perpetual creeping species growing here as an unvarying summer plant in cooler climates, which would usually be prostrated on the Helleniká slab with radiating branchy stems extending the fractal distance between Kímolos and Tsambika in thistle´s ceremonies. The hirsute silts will come from the genesis of their spiritual temporal being the same wool of the whirlpool of all the weeds attached and oppressed to the lamp of the gargoyles that are tuned together with the Gulpers of Archangelos in a happy diet following patterns of even, and odd thistles spring in the Cyclades and the Dodecanese. The Parapsychological regression XIV century - Saint John the Apostle says: “from Filerimos a sidekick monk of Philo of Alexandria has come with the image of the blessed Immaculate ****** and painted by Saint Luke the Apostle. The Knights of Saint John built the Monastery of Saint John in Rhodes with this image; everything comes from there on the Miraculous Hill of Filerimos, and the temple of Athens Polias was converted into a proto-basilica with a three-bay nave dedicated to Her. The church is known since then for housing the figure of the ****** of Filerimos (Our Lady of Filerimos). In the fourteenth century under the rule of the Knights of Saint John a monastery was built here surrounded by cloisters cells and a series of chapels, that is where the figure is the miracle worker and is reverently guarded. Being a Capuchin order after the Ottomans destroyed it; it was rebuilt by the Italians. With this image we canonize the Vas Áuric in the homily prior to the spiritual link with Etréstles in Kímolos, before every morning they illuminate the sacred Earth of both latitudes in the mystical house of Saint John the Apostle with the herbalists on the wind to fight for the Somnia in Hortum et Flos Herbarium in Kímolos, Garden of Flowers and Dreams in Herbalist in Kimolos. Knowing that the Universe is approaching the Vernarthian Duoverse, Saint John the Apostle decided with the Birthright to establish a Duoversal Garden in Kímolos with the aim of laying tremendous foundations on the base of the pre-Christians and apostolic who enlisted in the Greco-Hebrew world with the addition of compression, and medicinal valences for the herbalist of Kímolos, in such a way to reissue it in the monastery of San Juan in Rhodes and the Panagia of Tsambika. Since the grains grew and germinated they became thickets of great predestined forest in Rhodes, aspiring to continue being a well-known theology in Greek also being sufficient testimonial about its Aramaic originality, being addressed to the Sanhedrin, 37-42 AD Before Caiaphas and redirecting it to his brother-in-law Theophilus of Annas. The Aramaic Apocalypse, also known as 4Q246, is in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, found at Qumran, with notable early messianic mention of the Son of God. Saint Luke says in the voice of Saint John the Apostle: “4Q246, we are children of God…, the Highest, the Messiah as a messianic voice, being able to be confused with the Beast or the Messiah but Philo of Alexandria will be there saying “I always ignored with the most blessed indifference to Satan, because therefore in this Aramaic manuscript he only has, and will reside forever and ever in his Messiah” Given this situation, the commanded expressions were those of astragals mysticism in herbalist and botany in this manuscript, since the unfortunate leftovers are the freshness and splendor of the flowers caressed by the wind that arrived at that moment; in regard to the wind of the Anemoi being eight gods that correspond to the eight cardinal points from which they came and were related to different seasons and meteorological phenomena, but he heralded the excitement of the Cyclades, like Sound of Sounds between Narcissus of Sharon and Lilies of the Valley. The audio-images were avocados forming the deep thickets that will move according to the inclinations of the planets, each time the Universe approached Greece among all the cisterns with water for the flower meadows that Vernarth in litanies was assigned to the paths that lead to the Vas Auric.

Vernarth says: “With these titles “Vas spirituale, Vas honorabile, Vas insigne devotionis, Rosa mystical, and Regina sacratissimi rosari”, I have to transform all the astragalus, and shrubs into the consorts with the presence of the jacaranda vase of living human nature in virtue of the meeting of the Universe-Duoverse, for the herbalist of Kímolos now imprisoned in the Vas Auric of Limassol. "Sweet Nectar of the dying, eager for eternal hunger and sweetness in withered flowers"
The end of Parapsychological regression XIV century
Saint John says Apostle: “Helleniká and Tsambika, will be the lily, the saffron, the rose and the violet but also new ones, like the marigold and the chamomile making of all a diadem crown to place the world of the Duoverse in all its radius, for the star that illuminates par excellence as a white planet without thorns, which is perfect among the perfect, anti herbicide of language and of incarnation as in the Empyrean the medieval sky in the highest of heavens. It is likewise in the place of the physical presence of God, where angels and souls reside in Paradise between caltrops and Rosas towards the alimentary plane of conventual voice, and tonics of the glycogenic Milky Way sipping third-grade milk to curdle in the children who have not been a Messiah yet. Paths of thorns will guide visitors to this gallery of flowers and plants through the Panagia monkish for the holy homily with the Lilies and through low valleys, where no more Lilies can escape from their chains of the Liliorum genome in the valleys of the galactogenic virtue. Like Mother Rosette and son Lirium, being the mother of everyone and of that…, there… your son, “Myself in the path of the three Mary’s”. Over there in the desolate place, a columbine carries me imprisoned on my heels as a bond of a son who makes my steps with the Columbine of my saving feet” At 320 meters of altitude Still, Life appeared concealed behind the Vas Áuric descending…, here everyone approached the auric circle of Moral that made them authors of the proximity of the Universe falling on Greece, and the Herbolaria that fell with all its reliable structure in the foliage where many more species appeared such as thilts, Laurel, Olive, Linen, Grenade in a simple and nuanced devotional with the pro status of the delegate; the same Hexagonal Primogeniture to make the cinnabar fistulas that were elemental by the different associated colors, and by Grail tutorials that looked indigo on top of some Rhododendrons. If it is eschatological, it is in the mystical nets of the Empyrean further from a form that is said to be called a form of antagonism, between Cardinals and their dead Lilies. As first among the last, the bulbous and clayey Tulip of the orbital and basilica symbology, peacemaker and philosophical Eritrean for spiritual quests that toil outpourings from the Empyrium, reaching the Messiah on his Colt on his way to Bethany. Around the Monastery, everyone could be seen as they arrived to the beat of the cymbals and aulós, among lyres that prowled tickling the inquiry to rest their fingers, or perhaps dressed by some Trojan villain augur in those of "Daedalus". Being the latter, here a tulip with flames of a true seeker trying to sacrifice subsistence daring over the risk of the resole of salvific death or perhaps dressed by some Trojan villain augur in those of "Daedalus".
Daedalus says: “After the incident with Perdix, I Daedalus was expelled from Athens. I then went to Crete, and in the kingdom of Minos I was placed in the service of the monarch. One of his tasks was the creation of Thalos, an animated bronze giant who defended the island from invasions. By order of Minos, I built the labyrinth to enclose the monster; the labyrinth was a building with countless corridors and winding streets opening into each other, which seemed to have no beginning and no end. Minos locked me up with my son Icarus, whose mother was Naucrate, a slave of Minos in the same building. The reason for the confinement was the collaboration of Daedalus in the escape of Theseus from the labyrinth, I have to lament for the ****** of Perdix, now turned into Partridge who now carries in his claws the creation of the Universe-Duoverse, turned into his own, and myself in envy neither harassing me about my endings, and neither starting nor finishing. That is why I appear here coming from Crete, to wrap myself in the garden and its mystery closing all the madrigals and hedges, like a world that has created me, in its splendor, seeing the humility fragrant with violets grafted onto lavender with my soul now, of a somewhat syncretism Hebrew-Hellenic and Mythological sub-Mythological, like a nobleman who walks free and without chains… passing through the Parthenon to put on tiaras in dresses that are adorned with Linens, but of evangelical lineage here in Kimolo.

In Kimolos; Helleniká Necropolis, Etréstles was suspended in a columbarium equivalent near the lapidem of the necropolis. There was a great amount of accumulated air enclosed in the musty cinerary walls, with the translucent specters that fluttered through other metropolises that transited inconsistently in their proto-masonry, and some resembled pink jaspers on some grooved slabs, letting pale dovecote rhizomes slip away under an oblique columbarium domain that manifested itself meagerly on an unstable podium of Folegandros. Adhering to this enormous exteriorization were Kanti, and Etréstles in their hydrothermal genesis, lying as a petra forms at a wide range of heat towards periodic effluvia of their Devonian geology, manifesting discreetly until a carbonization of sedimentary rocks attributing their curiosity when they continued to remain in areas favorable climatic conditions, simulating to be exordiums on thermal hydro sediments, leading to the carbonization of the surface of the necropolis with micas and serpentines, to cool down in the selfless natural fields that resisted the effect of the heat generated by the ZigZag Universe, etching each other on pyrites and graphite’s with the compactness that increases, and extends the widening of the mournful enclosure attentive to channeling emanations and traces, that will be the first loads of exegesis from Tsambika for prompt elucidation from Mount Hymettus in Athens, and continue to proliferate in hives of bees libating in its thickness towards the good-smelling necropolis causing its magnificent flowers and herbs to steam; so much so, that from the paved lipoids of honey astragalus and spectra will come out deposing to be toxic, yearning the strigilas or curved striaeons (reverse or straight), imitated from pagan sarcophagi.

Thousands after Thousands of Centuries after centuries, adorning themselves in the lapidem glossaries on the exterior fronts of tymbos that were embedded in the tholons, almost as in outright Constantine-Hellenic brilliance towards an unarmed cenotaph with their flat covers, pouring over them the devastated trisomy of Kaitelka, of whose diploid organism extras, aberrated by being parity triplicates of their greatest chromosomal and homologous hereditary complement. The vestiges of fossil whales here were generating disproportions of execrable variation, being destined to the patio of fall on them in three additional courtyards of marbles at the rate of inverted strata, revealing only some of their extremities appreciating them with semi-covered figures, and on reliefs filling again by genetic trisomy for gentile practices and lead them to the Christian Vas Auric. Faced with such a famous disproportion of fossil reliefs, they turn to the scourges of the Universe.

Panagia Theoskepasti Parapsychological regression Etréstles in Kímolos: The church of Theoskepasti, due to its position could be easily recognized by the invaders during their raids. However, according to a legend the church was veiled by dark clouds of mist and became invisible as soon as the assailants approached. Due to this legend the church received the name "Theoskepasti" from the Greek words "Theos" and "skepazo" meaning "God" and "watch" respectively. So, the name is 'God Veiled'. According to another tradition, when once a foreigner managed to get into the church and tried to steal the golden candle divine power cut off his hands. Also if it is watched over by God, so it is divine for the Creation that it will begin with the synchronization between both latitudes of the Cyclades and the Dodecanese. Etrestles After staying together with Kanti, they went from Theoskepasti to Hellenika, located in Dekas Bay on the west coast of Kimolos, here in the necropolis there are ruins of ancient tombs that would form part of the new humanity in the creation of the Duoverse, existing since Mycenae and the Cyclades next to the small islet of Agiоs Аndreas, also being part of the city. Many ruined tombs can be seen from the hill on the edge of Elliniká with some stones still in the sea between Kimol and Milil, in the vicinity of Psathi on this island located on the southeast coast. Kímolоs to Chοrá is 1 km away on the hill above the Psathi port from here the foreign ships trying to come to the Bay area sighted, for the advent of the Cinnabar on the scapulae that hold the Gates of the Necropolis for the effect avant-garde, and regenerator of souls that will resurface with more universal chromosome tints mutated from trisomy, more of extreme longevity. In the homily, an archpriest of the regional deanery will make a pastoral criterion for this gesture by virtue of eminence, and guide them through the orthodoxy of the chapel to the Episcopal organizational procession of the Vas Auric. It was already twilight and Etrestles was climbing onto Kanti's pony clutching the utensils of the homily, in the customary ritual before incensing and setting fire to the laurel and rosemary in the fords of Leto and Koumeterium of Messolonghi, it rotated in ellipses sprinkling crumbs of the purest loaf from Arcadia on a gray Monday with hummus to attract sour souls that they were in a catatonic state making them more esthetic or aesthesis, of reactionary rebellious natural aesthetics with nuances, then reincorporate them into the three courtyards in a magnificent concordance with Rhodes. When the Archpriest begins the talk, he derives his prayers from semi-inert materials that were made in communion with the chromosomal dyes; with the worms with absentmindedness of progenitor snakes that were grafted undulating, being in reality only worms that were amazed at the exhortation of the Archpriest in the ritual, circulating universals destined for his elegies and celebrating from an ambo or pulpit with classical Latin pronouncing the archpriest the way it died lunae, mutating it ****** to dies lunis by analogy with dies, on a dark Monday day but full of grace for the assistants doing the sermons to interpret the alabaster patios that will lead to Tsambika. The first worms were persecuted by Kanti, he believed that they were scatterings that emerged from the ground, such an earthly ecosystem was beginning to disown him due to the metamorphosis of annelids which seemed to increase their ultra-grave texture with the same remains of an irresolution without a sarcophagus, turned into sharp curves intestinal that were depressed breathing autonomously on consistent folds of the dermis of the oldest caste of the subsoil of Helleniká. Preexisting the distant origin of the Arcadias and they're dissected that silently followed the hummus and bobota, not to digest them with their suckers, but rather surround them and delegate them to explore the surroundings that would encapsulate the ground with the proximity of the transfigured universe to Vernarth's Duoverse, to phosphorus and emit the will-o'-the-wisp nitrogenous fires before the Archpriest, Etréstles and Kanti disquieting by an arcane movement. Being a full act of the herbaceous phagocytosis, they continued ascending in the curvilinear procession with their traces weaving moment without time, which was added to the sub-mythology and a finite sub-time, like unicellular procreating others that accelerated their physiognomy detached from their immateriality, towards a longer intake of the organic material on the hummus and exudation of propolis rhizomes. In this way, they resign when falling with serious cramps cleared of the digestive world, which no cell has tasted ******, but rather direct when breathing from Hellinika's lung lobes, comprised mostly by the alabaster sheepskin that was suspended to other colonies of worms that sailed to lean out towards the surface of the altar where they regenerated from the flow of the annelids. Archpriest says: “The frame of the Vas Áuric arises from the nuclei of the medallion, pending a high presence of insulation. With high mobility between the tissues and amino acids of the annelids, new basal cell functions even being visible for Etréstles and not totally for all yet. The image of the medal had a classified functionality and concrete information, but imperceptible chronological possibly being the first function of the icon in its justification with religious symbols and manifestations of the divine, and semantic still removed from a theoretical auto-iconic. When reading in Vas Auric, "What two men do not see, a man sees who does not see..., what the creeping animal sees, self-prisoner of his lack of vanity..., He will see it". Being epistemic images that provide more distant knowledge of the sub-divisible organic matter in finite mortality towards the other eternal inorganic, contributing to the super complex neuronal development, in a veiled sensation that is lost between itself and its own bodies, being able to take them with its own differentiations”

Panagia Tsambika Monastery - Channeling Cinnabar: Vernarth commanded the three architectural courtyards of Tsambika for the Cinnabar layout. They climb the steps that lead to this monastery at the top of one and to the very connection of the homily with Helleniká. In this monastery they will have to censor three courtyards, all pointing towards the west of Mandraki Bay, on some pine trees all surrounding the virtual stained glass window of the portal that joins the main avenue with the ascent of the monastery, until very close to the Virginal Marianus icon and very close to the dividing wall from where Lindos can be seen. The Tsambika Monastery is four kilometers from the city of Archangelo, the height of the monastery is leveled with pebbles on its bare floor that led everyone barefoot, towards the three nearby patios. Cinnabar as a polygonal crystal would be specially used for the perpendicular ceremony of Mercury, to sensitize the climatologically the variation that would be appreciated once it began to sponsor the bones that would spread in the extreme longevity of annelids exchanged from the moldy alabaster arcades, and carried by alluviums of crystallized mercury, granting together with the Panagia of Tsambika fertility, and parental conception for the new Universe-Duoverse of Vernarth, extending life farther than the first-born descendant's first ancestor, being the cinnabar the diversity of versed uses now been given in the upright channeling with ultra vital extensions with Helleniká. The alabaster and the three columns of these sulfated stones form compact would dare to hydrate in the silos where the windows will be poured, this is where the sub-mythological specimens detached from any temporal dimension will be used, leaving sapiens annelids free will recombining the diploid chromosomes, and profiting from molds of exact erratic aberrations to be vindicated in the dispensaries of Saint John the apostle. Thus adorning the perfumed areas intervened three cinnabar patios, for the sermon of the Vas Áuric. Thus inspiring the chair with the verses of Saint John on the immanence after the fifty days of the Messiah in epistolary verses and the evangelizations, elaborating vessels of the low rank of Faith to opt for expectations of moldings with new consciences of selenite clay, and refine them in messianic faith. Middle-range pebbles were subtracted for the interior and extramural floor of the Monastery, being rather Biblical Calcite for the Egyptian-Hellenic Alabastron psalmody praise perfume. This typology will be the quilt for the magistracy with a canopy glass exhibited near the tulip lamps, and ceiling lights of the monastery for the use of the diamantine sphere of the opaque panels that flamed from the intersection of the arachnids re sprouting from the current wind of cinnabar. Vernarth says: “Suitable for our consciences, we will open the channels in Kímolos before our subtle bodies that will make us divided just as we parabolize ourselves, before the airs of St. John the Apostle in the headdress of mediumship to reach the wavelength to Helleniká, the interactive vibrations will leave with the expression of deep reasoning after pontificating the Mandylion with the Vas Áuric, for the effect of its icon and idiomatic monologues for the edges of San Judas Tadeo and Veronica, for such a faced event in foreign forces before the Messiah, a coherent gadget will be made in the intermittence variants. The channeling to the Cyclades will go from east to west wading the Aegean and Mediterranean waters, through the channel of the Universe-Duoverse for inter consciousness between the Hexagonal Primogen in Tsambika, and the triad of Etréstles, Kanti, and the Archpriest in Helleniká, with high degrees of the light consciousness and conclaves between both synchronous homilies. With drowsiness before the Anemoi winds that will be crossing near the voyages of the Trojan chthonic ships, and before the fateful chthonic divinities for such deities in the Mediterranean substratum identifying more obviously with Anatolia which since prehistory has followed to the site of Troy, in a cheesy union plan for Agamemnon's loyalists, to defeat Hector between farms and revolutions of agriculture, and Akkadian worlds b.C., in peripheral outposts to influence the central regions of Greece and its maritime trade. Hydro-physical influences, for the cycles of the solstice and nature with life and survival after death that is at the center of concerns that are not translated. In Crete, the supposed cult of great Gods is transformed during the second millennium BC as new actors appear: various animals, plants, etc. Given the consciousness, it will be the channeled light in the three courtyards of alabaster and between the cinnabar by bending the re-fertilization of the Cyclades channels, which go from Rhodes and Kimolos, for discernment. Sometimes it is more gratifying to hear what you want to hear and not the real message, the egotistical mind that does not come from a series of daunted egos..., or signs of the technological shamanism, intervening artificial intelligence from maniacal administered consciences, being shrill for worlds of appearances and illusions. I Vernarth with our own Khaire Fíle…, in my mind I go to the vessels that sail through the landscapes of the elusive identity, trapping her in the totemic stratum, and tracking psychology, but a seer of her present ego. Today I will wear my Leonatus cap, to separate his anger from such a shadow that clouds my grief, and my own victimhood of reduced and meekness which spurns violence, blaming it on a ruthless kind of depression and excluding shame from everyone's own fear of everything. I will bandage my eyes against diseases that will heal after three days, to straighten the ecstasy that thickens towards the scaffold, staying in Golgotha with nothing, I will create the framework of cinnabar for the pain of the skull that trembles in my claws, until sleep becomes vaporous with anger and the harmless destroying itself before your egos, colorful throbbing towards your alien beings and scarified host. I will be waking up from my subtle and anthropomorphic subconscious dreams, with sentences that hurt my worst self-destructive delinquencies before the new memorial, on the veil of Theoskepasti with its science sheltering itself by giving in on the vanquished springs and inaugurating new miraculous courses where I will surrender, full of forgiveness and more distant from the veil that does not act as a viewer.

Duet time, Duet space, one with the other illusion unreal elements and epistemic images ignoring them in expeditions crackle my Duoverse, and temples of Tsambika with the decoded annelids mutating in trisomy with flat doors towards the Olives Berna. We look at what gratifies basting and plotting the positions of the stars of the universe that are attached like sheets worthy of almighty serials, and redoubled humor on the chthonic embracing tridents, before skewing Xyston as an original replica of the dream of a night in Tel Gomel. The counterweight of the message of light lagged behind the high astral like the little bear, bustards, and her angelic breath retreated in dissolution..., now if diva emotion I have my daring, and courage towards the binge of my omniscient prosopon, similar to omniscient telepathy, my soul lies and my emotion too because in this way I will treasure the value of panic by surrounding myself with the fears of resting, against the poles and sights of a peaceful energetic confrontation that will make them in Rhodes and Kimolos, channel the consumed human finitude and not eternal ad portas of his Áspis Koilé.

Unconsciously they will continue halfway with their bouquets of flowers for Valekiria, and may they never really take the time to tell her what time of eternity will make them more crowded for her, and her reliquary poem bursting into flame with its insidious outbreak and fear of telling him that if they revive they will be other Hellenic Hetairoi towards the vermilion light of the embodied sacrificed loop state as a "Being of Light". Oh ghost phenomenon that doesn't scare me... rather disappoints, clinging to the skins that die in the unexpected female muses in Gaia, with my burning and hypertensive ballast, still frequent in me... As conjecture and presence of Greek life..., having to be promoted and involved where they should be tempered to the contribution of biodiverse, and species for island life and its balance in the Aegean. The theorem will enunciate in the image of the Vas Auric as sounds of homeostasis in classrooms, properties of intervened annelids consistent, capable of maintaining them in a certain internal and stable condition, compensating for the changes of the explosion of the intervened patios, towards an environment through regulated exchange of matter and energy with the outside towards its (comparative metabolism), in the case of a form of dynamic balance with properties of Cinnabar brilliance, as a self-regulated biosphere in the conditions of the planet to make its environment (especially temperature and atmospheric chemistry) nobler with the species that make up life in the compass of two unmanned islands by beings from Gaia, rather as entropy in physical magnitude for a thermodynamic system in equilibrium, inhabited by dynamic beings that associate nobly for adaptations of worlds that are not born. It segregates them towards a departure measuring them from heightened numbers in states of zero compatible with the laws of that physics for the purposes of watchful guardians if Gaia's engine is turned on before this psychic and spiritual combustion. The laws of this system with closed circuits and brought will tend to maximize the entropy expiring inhibitory reactions for the traces of oxygen and nitrogen of the worms, making a sign of the levitated carbon dioxide to take it from Tsambika in two converged energies of Leviathan and Saint John the Apostle in moles of carbonate dioxide, battling surviving the impostor necromancers adverse to their conditions and reproduction, keeping these habitable for many who do not they enjoyed the life-death-life cycle. Greece, as it will now look regenerated and appropriate of laws and extensive fibers concerning moles of molecules said to be equal of said Vernarth hypotheses by way of sub-mythology, rather perching on the growing ivy and strangling the signs of satiety of life with properties in consonance with severities that hurt even to the sound of the rattles before the passing of the millennia! Fear, insecurity, and frustration did not fit because they will cut the Diospyros abenuz, with its stamens usually sixteen more hypogynous or inserted at the base of the corolla; as female flowers being greened or being converted into staminodes, Diospyros with generally tetra-locular ovaries or with eight locules due to false divisions, will make us channel by inseminating Itheoi demigods, under the staff of sub-mythology with Zefián, before the migrations in Helleniká begin, just as in this pact with silence and meditation and a burning flame, below the vulnerable and high insolated frequencies..., waking up in Gaia as a dozing fairy. Shamanic vested will grade synergy and simple science.
The Homily in the natural lassitude of the created, the Duoverse presented IHΣ, falling in the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet and in the duo hundred changes of physical remembrance. The PH (Hexagonal Primogeniture), is conceived in the presence of the Crismón, more Hellenic with the Vexillum banner and the Kantabroi to rescind the tired depressed zephyrs, since the quantum of memory was lost in the integrity of an earth acrophobia for the subsequent it would be air-water for this reason, preceded by the ceremonial that begins with the trimming of the abenuz Diospyros with its stamens usually sixteen plus it's hypogynous or inserted at the base of the corolla; like those of the female flowers having part of the gynoecium in the part of Tsambika, and of the androecium that will be of the Diospyros in Theoskepasti; usually tetra-ocular ovaries adapted to be inseminated for the raids of the demigods Itheoi and Duoverso, with the monogram HDD (Horcondising-Duoverso), tracing the bifurcations with Zefián; the chaos ordering up to modulated Theoskepasti. The changes have to be reborn in the stamen, being almost sterile and aborting in the chronicles of Galilee personifying the pollination benefit of the Diospyros resprouting in the same stem of the whorl even more so in each stigmatized part of Vernarth and Etréstles, carrying the IHS candles with the monogram and the Mandylion-Vas Auric, pointing to the Olives Bern. Before the seams of the carved heels and the canals of the annelids rise up through the alabaster up to the calyxes with the Chrismon hat. Filling the warehouse of Anemoi himself struggling with the roof, and forgetting his deposit of the breath on synaptic abbreviations continuing to argue with Saint John the Apostle in the network of Rhodes and Kimolos, in the bark of the sensory past and consequence of fallen gushes, and affecting being restored on the basis of oxygen-nitrogenated Nemo-genetic activation to summarize loss and gain of channeling between the Cyclades and the Dodecanese. The memories of the stuck Vernarth cerebellum will be loaded, trembling towards the marsh of the hippocampus where Zoroaster led the Magi to the end of the span and first-last border in the vicinity of Ein Karem. This evolutionary scale fluctuated in weak air masses with the increasing rise of the Meltemi over the Aegean taking them to Dekas Bay, on the knees of the colossus that cursed to avoid some delirium that could replace it's joint, remaining like this on a scale of reminiscent and unspoken emptiness..., it continues to be stated and not occupied and not, but raised towards the colossus from the ground of Vernarth which had unfolded bipartite from Rhodes to Kimolos, by way of the Verthian neuroscience whose prose emanated in the submissive glaciers of hyper-intuitive meditation (as a technique of knowledge and abstraction for functional links of improvisation, purgative discernment and yogic memory). All the nonsense is alluded to infringing the rationality of the Vas Áuric ceremonial in its phenomenology making curvilinear pauses to re-captivate phraseological, and diminished keys in the condensed equivalents to approximately ten terabytes from a homologous half surrendering almost when exhausted before both scholars, and their debts exchanged by driving..., thus recovering wave descents before reaching the bay of Dekas; Kímolos and final in the necropolis of Hellenika..., and vice versa before re-climbing in the middle of Mandraki, Archangelos and Filerimos to finish in Tsambika, Rhodes. As a parallel response to the archpriest not to alter the IHS monogram of the homily and the association in remembrance can affect the conduction of the mediate trance, almost prostrating it in the house of omission and frenzy, if it has to recover unstabilized. The sulfurous mercury component of the Cinnabar, came acidifying from the essences of the Vas Auric, already prospering in the tutelage of each auric conductor..., Archpriest and Saint John the Apostle, each one with the sulfurous of the Greek mountain and the arch of the Aegean Sea as a former karstic foundation for its diametric towards a change of reaction of chemical prisms up to the multi-angular of the topaz that Saint John the Apostle carried in his bag near the reliquary, hanging off some fringes of the Vexillum that had been placed near Vernarth. Immediately from the banks of the monastery, Raeder was walking with a lantern looking for those who might try to enter, he believed that it was his father from Kalymnos who came on another mission to be taken to the cinnabar, more on top of an encourage observing the quarters stationed in the sandbanks of Rhodes, Petrobus the pelican circling the ledges of the monastery, marking out the apparent slackness of his body and entreaties in case they ventured into Kalymnos for a good portent, in waters for tenth seeds and for all the rodines. From the cloister with one of its necessary dependencies, all were with white candles aggravated between the steps of each cell and attached friars they made an antechamber in the nave near the church on the hexagonal floor, being screened by the center of the garden where everything was dominated by the limits of the alabaster arcades, which only now pointed to the closet of the books, this time with plenty and saved voices with devotion. Chapter by chapter it was won..., for each cell, identifying each portion in identity up to the scriptorium and refectory, where this ceremony books were distributed to the infinite world of the Duoverse near the locutory to witness where Saint George and the Dragon raged, souring winepresses for the missal wine.

Sequence shot in Kimolos, Panagia Theoskepasti- Etréstles says: “according to what has to be said in this dimension, the word will be the Duoverse. Synchronically it will be aligned with the monastery in the Tsambika for the third hour after noon, reflecting on the unrevealed walls of the chapel on all the radiosities of the cinnabar, entering in electromagnetic lassitude through the trusses of the pulpit anchored in the Vox and mystical vortex, towards those who entered and left thousands of times through the counter shutters of the chapel, which collided crashing many times until by the glow of Cinnabar somewhat sulfurous, was mixed with the interlocking of some novas which also acted as a decoy for the Chrismón that Kanti carried the steed adjusted in the saddle on his back, as a mount in syntactic esotericism speaking with intangible brown colors of the Cinnabar.

What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~~underwater~~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ...
Both worlds grow obscure.

Published by ByLine, Mandrake Poetry Review, Poetically Speaking, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Little Brown Poetry, Triplopia, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, PW Review, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mindful of Poetry, Poetry on Demand, Poet’s Haven, Famous Poets and Poems, Bewildering Stories, Neovictorian/Cochlea

Keywords/Tags: Poet, poetic vision, sight, seeing, swimmer, underwater, breath, bubbles, blur, blurry, blurred, blurring, obscure, obscured, obscuring

How valiant he lies tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yes, bring me Homer’s lyre, no doubt,
but first yank the bloodstained strings out!
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here we find Anacreon,
an elderly lover of boys and wine.
His harp still sings in lonely Acheron
as he thinks of the lads he left behind ...
by Anacreon or the Anacreontea, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings
Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan:
Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea,
Farewell, dear sea!
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Passerby,
Tell the Spartans we lie
Lifeless at Thermopylae:
Dead at their word,
Obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus

They observed our fearful fetters,
braved the overwhelming darkness.
Now we extol their excellence:
bravely, they died for us.
Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas

Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness,
Mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Be ashamed, O mountains and seas:
that these valorous men lack breath.
Assume, like pale chattels,
an ashen silence at death.
Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio

These men earned a crown of imperishable glory,
Nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story.
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Stranger, flee!
But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity
she denied me.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me―where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon

I lie by stark Icarian rocks
and only speak when the sea talks.
Please tell my dear father that I gave up the ghost
on the Aegean coast.
Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus

Here I lie dead and sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones.
Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that reared and nurtured me;
once again I take rest at your breast.
Michael R. Burch, after Erycius

I am loyal to you master, even in the grave:
Just as you now are death’s slave.
Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides

Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she’d confess:
“I am now less than nothingness.”
Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
Michael R. Burch, Epitaph for a Palestinian Child

Sail on, mariner, sail on,
for while we were perishing,
greater ships sailed on.
Michael R. Burch, after Theodorides

All this vast sea is his Monument.
Where does he lie―whether heaven, or hell?
Perhaps when the gulls repent―
their shriekings may tell.
Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus

His white bones lie bleaching on some inhospitable shore:
a son lost to his father, his tomb empty; the poor-
est beggars have happier mothers!
Michael R. Burch, after Damegtus

A mother only as far as the birth pangs,
my life cut short at the height of life’s play:
only eighteen years old, so brief was my day.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Having never earned a penny,
nor seen a bridal gown slip to the floor,
still I lie here with the love of many,
to be the love of yet one more.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Little I knew―a child of five―
of what it means to be alive
and all life’s little thrills;
but little also―(I was glad not to know)―
of life’s great ills.
Michael R. Burch, after Lucian

Pity this boy who was beautiful, but died.
Pity his monument, overlooking this hillside.
Pity the world that bore him, then foolishly survived.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Insatiable Death! I was only a child!
Why did you ****** me away, in my infancy,
from those destined to love me?
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Tell Nicagoras that Strymonias
at the setting of the Kids
lost his.
Michael R. Burch, after Nicaenetus

Here Saon, son of Dicon, now rests in holy sleep:
say not that the good die young, friend,
lest gods and mortals weep.
Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus

The light of a single morning
exterminated the sacred offspring of Lysidice.
Nor do the angels sing.
Nor do we seek the gods’ advice.
This is the grave of Nicander’s lost children.
We merely weep at its bitter price.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Pluto, delighting in tears,
why did you bring our son, Ariston,
to the laughterless abyss of death?
Why―why?―did the gods grant him breath,
if only for seven years?
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Heartlessly this grave
holds our nightingale speechless;
now she lies here like a stone,
who voice was so marvelous;
while sunlight illumining dust
proves the gods all reachless,
as our prayers prove them also
unhearing or beseechless.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

I, Homenea, the chattering bright sparrow,
lie here in the hollow of a great affliction,
leaving tears to Atimetus
and all scattered―that great affection.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

We mourn Polyanthus, whose wife
placed him newly-wedded in an unmarked grave,
having received his luckless corpse
back from the green Aegean wave
that deposited his fleshless skeleton
gruesomely in the harbor of Torone.
Michael R. Burch, after Phaedimus

Once sweetest of the workfellows,
our shy teller of tall tales
―fleet Crethis!―who excelled
at every childhood game . . .
now you sleep among long shadows
where everyone’s the same . . .
Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus

Although I had to leave the sweet sun,
only nineteen―Diogenes, hail!―
beneath the earth, let’s have lots more fun:
till human desire seems weak and pale.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Though they were steadfast among spears, dark Fate destroyed them
as they defended their native land, rich in sheep;
now Ossa’s dust seems all the more woeful, where they now sleep.
Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus

Aeschylus, graybeard, son of Euphorion,
died far away in wheat-bearing Gela;
still, the groves of Marathon may murmur of his valor
and the black-haired Mede, with his mournful clarion.
Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night:
his owner’s faithful Maltese . . .
but will he still bark again, on sight?
Michael R. Burch, after Tymnes

Poor partridge, poor partridge, lately migrated from the rocks;
our cat bit off your unlucky head; my offended heart still balks!
I put you back together again and buried you, so unsightly!
May the dark earth cover you heavily: heavily, not lightly . . .
so she shan’t get at you again!
Michael R. Burch, after Agathias

Wert thou, O Artemis,
overbusy with thy beast-slaying hounds
when the Beast embraced me?
Michael R. Burch, after Diodorus of Sardis

Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone,
huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound,
the wild beasts still fear your white bones;
craggy Pelion remembers your valor,
splendid Ossa, the way you would bound
and bay at the moon for its whiteness,
bellowing as below we heard valleys resound.
And how brightly with joy you would canter and run
the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron!
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Constantina, inconstant one!
Once I thought your name beautiful
but I was a fool
and now you are more bitter to me than death!
You flee someone who loves you
with baited breath
to pursue someone who’s untrue.
But if you manage to make him love you,
tomorrow you'll flee him too!
Michael R. Burch, after Macedonius

Not Rocky Trachis,
nor the thirsty herbage of Dryophis,
nor this albescent stone
with its dark blue lettering shielding your white bones,
nor the wild Icarian sea dashing against the steep shingles
of Doliche and Dracanon,
nor the empty earth,
nor anything essential of me since birth,
nor anything now mingles
here with the perplexing absence of you,
with what death forces us to abandon . . .
Michael R. Burch, after Euphorion

We who left the thunderous surge of the Aegean
of old, now lie here on the mid-plain of Ecbatan:
farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea,
farewell, dear sea!
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

My friend found me here,
a shipwrecked corpse on the beach.
He heaped these strange boulders above me.
Oh, how he would wail
that he “loved” me,
with many bright tears for his own calamitous life!
Now he sleeps with my wife
and flits like a gull in a gale
―beyond reach―
while my broken bones bleach.
Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus

Cloud-capped Geraneia, cruel mountain!
If only you had looked no further than Ister and Scythian
Tanais, had not aided the surge of the Scironian
sea’s wild-spurting fountain
filling the dark ravines of snowy Meluriad!
But now he is dead:
a chill corpse in a chillier ocean―moon led―
and only an empty tomb now speaks of the long, windy voyage ahead.
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides


Erinna Epigrams

This portrait is the work of sensitive, artistic hands.
See, my dear Prometheus, you have human equals!
For if whoever painted this girl had only added a voice,
she would have been Agatharkhis entirely.
by Erinna, translation by Michael R. Burch

You, my tall Columns, and you, my small Urn,
the receptacle of Hades’ tiny pittance of ash―
remember me to those who pass by
my grave, as they dash.
Tell them my story, as sad as it is:
that this grave sealed a young bride’s womb;
that my name was Baucis and Telos my land;
and that Erinna, my friend, etched this poem on my Tomb.
by Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
      … leaves falling …
           … waves lapping a windswept shore …
… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...
... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.  
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …
… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …
… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...
... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...
… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...
... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...
... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...
... Desire becomes oblivion ...
... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …
... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eyeing this strange distaff ...
O *****! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!

On a Betrothed Girl
by Errina
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"
Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis―
how her father-in-law burned the poor ******* a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.
*****! O Hymenaeus!


Roman Epigrams

Wall, we're astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
Ancient Roman graffiti, translation by Michael R. Burch

Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C.
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come spring, the grand
apple trees stand
watered by a gushing river
where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver
and the blossoming grape vine swells
in the gathering shadows.
Unfortunately
for me
Eros never rests
but like a Thracian tempest
ablaze with lightning
emanates from Aphrodite;
the results are frightening―
black,
bleak,
astonishing,
violently jolting me from my soles
to my soul.

Originally published by The Chained Muse


Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

. . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . .
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
. . . requiescat in pace . . .
May she rest in peace.
. . . amen . . .
Amen.


Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!


To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.


W. S. Rendra translations

SONNET
by W. S. Rendra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Best wishes for an impending deflowering.
Yes, I understand: you will never be mine.
I am resigned to my undeserved fate.
I contemplate
irrational numbers―complex & undefined.
And yet I wish love might ... ameliorate ...
such negative numbers, dark and unsigned.
But at least I can’t be held responsible
for disappointing you. No cause to elate.
Still, I am resigned to my undeserved fate.
The gods have spoken. I can relate.
How can this be, when all it makes no sense?
I was born too soon―such was my fate.
You must choose another, not half of who I AM.
Be happy with him when you consummate.


THE WORLD'S FIRST FACE
by W. S. Rendra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Illuminated by the pale moonlight
the groom carries his bride
up the hill―
both of them naked,
both consisting of nothing but themselves.

As in all beginnings
the world is naked,
empty, free of deception,
dark with unspoken explanations―
a silence that extends
to the limits of time.

Then comes light,
life, the animals and man.

As in all beginnings
everything is naked,
empty, open.

They're both young,
yet both have already come a long way,
passing through the illusions of brilliant dawns,
of skies illuminated by hope,
of rivers intimating contentment.

They have experienced the sun's warmth,
drenched in each other's sweat.

Here, standing by barren reefs,
they watch evening fall
bringing strange dreams
to a bed arrayed with resplendent coral necklaces.

They lift their heads to view
trillions of stars arrayed in the sky.
The universe is their inheritance:
stars upon stars upon stars,
more than could ever be extinguished.

Illuminated by the pale moonlight
the groom carries his bride
up the hill―
both of them naked,
to recreate the world's first face.


Brother Iran
by Michael R. Burch

for the poets of Iran

Brother Iran, I feel your pain.
I feel it as when the Turk fled Spain.
As the Jew fled, too, that constricting span,
I feel your pain, Brother Iran.

Brother Iran, I know you are noble!
I too fear Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
But though my heart shudders, I have a plan,
and I know you are noble, Brother Iran.

Brother Iran, I salute your Poets!
your Mathematicians!, all your great Wits!
O, come join the earth's great Caravan.
We'll include your Poets, Brother Iran.

Brother Iran, I love your Verse!
Come take my hand now, let's rehearse
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
For I love your Verse, Brother Iran.

Bother Iran, civilization's Flower!
How high flew your spires in man's early hours!
Let us build them yet higher, for that's my plan,
civilization's first flower, Brother Iran.


Passionate One
by Michael R. Burch

Love of my life,
light of my morning―
arise, brightly dawning,
for you are my sun.

Give me of heaven
both manna and leaven―
desirous Presence,
Passionate One.


In My House
by Michael R. Burch

When you were in my house
you were not free―
in chains bound.

Manifest Destiny?

I was wrong;
my plantation burned to the ground.
I was wrong.
This is my song,
this is my plea:
I was wrong.

When you are in my house,
now, I am not free.
I feel the song
hurling itself back at me.
We were wrong.
This is my history.

I feel my tongue
stilting accordingly.

We were wrong;
brother, forgive me.


faith(less)
by Michael R. Burch

Those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed

and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.


Habeas Corpus
by Michael R. Burch

from “Songs of the Antinatalist”

I have the results of your DNA analysis.
If you want to have children, this may induce paralysis.
I wish I had good news, but how can I lie?
Any offspring you have are guaranteed to die.
It wouldn’t be fair―I’m sure you’ll agree―
to sentence kids to death, so I’ll waive my fee.



Bittersight
by Michael R. Burch

for Abu al-Ala Al-Ma'arri, an ancient antinatalist poet

To be plagued with sight
in the Land of the Blind,
—to know birth is death
and that Death is kind—
is to be flogged like Eve
(stripped, sentenced and fined)
because evil is “good”
as some “god” has defined.



veni, vidi, etc.
by Michael R. Burch

the last will and testament of a preemie, from “Songs of the Antinatalist”

i came, i saw, i figured
it was better to be transfigured,
so rather than cross my Rubicon
i fled to the Great Beyond.
i bequeath my remains, so small,
to Brutus, et al.



Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism
by Michael R. Burch

from “Songs of the Antinatalist”

A stay on love
would end death’s hateful sway,
someday.

A stay on love
would thus be love,
I say.

Be true to love
and thus end death’s
fell sway!



Lighten your tread:
The ground beneath your feet is composed of the dead.

Walk slowly here and always take great pains
Not to trample some departed saint's remains.

And happiest here is the hermit with no hand
In making sons, who dies a childless man.

Abu al-Ala Al-Ma'arri (973-1057), antinatalist Shyari
loose translation by Michael R. Burch



There were antinatalist notes in Homer, around 3,000 years ago...

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they remain sorrowless. — Homer, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.—attributed to Homer, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

One of the first great voices to directly question whether human being should give birth was that of Sophocles, around 2,500 years ago...

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: birth, control, procreation, childbearing, children,  antinatalist, antinatalism, contraception



Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul,
in the dawning of desire, with passion at first bloom,
with lightning splitting heaven to thunder's blasting roll
and a sense of welling fire and, perhaps, impending doom―
that I cried out through the tumult of the raging storm on high
for shelter from the chaos of the restless, driving rain ...
and the voice I heard replying from a rift of bleeding sky
was mine, I'm sure, and, furthermore, was certainly insane.


evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?


Deor's Lament (circa the 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his ***** companions
in that frozen island dungeon
where Nithad fettered him:
so many strong-but-supple sinew-bands
binding the better man.
That passed away; this also may.

Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths,
bemoaning also her own sad state
once she discovered herself with child.
She knew nothing good could ever come of it.
That passed away; this also may.

We have heard the Geat's moans for Matilda,
his lovely lady, waxed limitless,
that his sorrowful love for her
robbed him of regretless sleep.
That passed away; this also may.

For thirty winters Theodric ruled
the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand;
many acknowledged his mastery and moaned.
That passed away; this also may.

We have heard too of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he cruelly ruled the Goths' realms.
That was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his crown might be overthrown.
That passed away; this also may.

If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious,
bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening,
soon it seems to him that his troubles are limitless.
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
This I can say for myself:
that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop,
dear to my lord. My name was Deor.
For many winters I held a fine office,
faithfully serving a just king. But now Heorrenda
a man skilful in songs, has received the estate
the protector of warriors had promised me.
That passed away; this also may.


The Temple Hymns of Enheduanna
with modern English translations by Michael R. Burch

Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna
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?


Temple Hymn 15
to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most ancient and terrible shrine,
set deep in the mountain,
dark like a mother's womb ...

Dark shrine,
like a mother's wounded breast,
blood-red and terrifying ...

Though approaching through a safe-seeming field,
our hair stands on end as we near you!

Gishbanda,
like a neck-stock,
like a fine-eyed fish net,
like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles ...
your ramparts are massive,
like a trap!

But once we’re inside,
as the sun rises,
you yield widespread abundance!

Your prince
is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's Holy One,
Lord Ningishzida!

Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair
cascades down his back!

Oh Gishbanda,
he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance!
He has placed his throne upon your dais!


The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
Nin-me-šara by Enheduanna
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!


Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt
to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, high-situated Kesh,
form-shifting summit,
inspiring fear like a venomous viper!

O, Lady of the Mountains,
Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site!

O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep,
your walls high-towering and imposing!

O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains! ...


Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt
to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed
in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe!


Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt
to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, house, you wild cow!
Made to conjure signs of the Divine!
You arise, beautiful to behold,
bedecked for your Mistress!


Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt
to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O house illuminated by beams of bright light,
dressed in shimmering stone jewels,
awakening the world to awe!


Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt
to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of brilliant stars
bright with lapis stones,
you illuminate all lands!

...

The person who put this tablet together
is Enheduanna.
My king: something never created before,
did she not give birth to it?


Villanelle: Hangovers
by Michael R. Burch

We forget that, before we were born,
our parents had “lives” of their own,
ran drunk in the streets, or half-******.

Yes, our parents had lives of their own
until we were born; then, undone,
they were buying their parents gravestones

and finding gray hairs of their own
(because we were born lacking some
of their curious habits, but soon

would certainly get them). Half-******,
we watched them dig graves of their own.
Their lives would be over too soon

for their curious habits to bloom
in us (though our children were born
nine months from that night on the town

when, punch-drunk in the streets or half-******,
we first proved we had lives of our own).


Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the ***** Toad)
by Michael R. Burch

He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled in chinks and grew so small
at last to be invisible. He smiled
(the fables erred so curiously), and thought
bemusedly of being reconciled
to human flesh, because his heart was not
incapable of love, but, being cursed
a second time, could only love a toad’s . . .
and listened as inflated frogs rehearsed
cheekbulging tales of anguish from green moats . . .
and thought of her soft croak, her skin fine-warted,
his anemic flesh, and how true love was thwarted.


Haunted
by Michael R. Burch

Now I am here
and thoughts of my past mistakes are my brethren.
I am withering
and the sweetness of your memory is like a tear.

Go, if you will,
for the ache in my heart is its hollowness
and the flaw in my soul is its shallowness;
there is nothing to fill.

Take what you can;
I have nothing left.
And when you are gone, I will be bereft,
the husk of a man.

Or stay here awhile.
My heart cannot bear the night, or these dreams.
Your face is a ghost, though paler, it seems
when you smile.


Have I been too long at the fair?
by Michael R. Burch

Have I been too long at the fair?
The summer has faded,
the leaves have turned brown;
the Ferris wheel teeters ...
not up, yet not down.
Have I been too long at the fair?


Her Preference
by Michael R. Burch

Not for her the pale incandescence of dreams,
the warm glow of imagination,
the hushed whispers of possibility,
or frail, blossoming hope.

No, she prefers the anguish and screams
of bitter condemnation,
the hissing of hostility,
damnation's rope.


hey pete
by Michael R. Burch

for Pete Rose

hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy's dreams
of winter whizzing by;
go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then you'll be a Superstar.


Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark . . .
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?

Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared―
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?

Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?


Tomb Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Go down to the valley
where mockingbirds cry,
alone, ever lonely . . .
yes, go down to die.

And dream in your dying
you never shall wake.
Go down to the valley;
go down to Tomb Lake.

Tomb Lake is a cauldron
of souls such as yours―
mad souls without meaning,
frail souls without force.

Tomb Lake is a graveyard
reserved for the dead.
They lie in her shallows
and sleep in her bed.


Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore
shall the haunts of the sea―
the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore―
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure ...
She sleeps forevermore.

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely covered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way!
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea ...
their skeletal love―impossibility!


Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . . .

and show me
once again―
how rare.


Veronica Franco translations

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I)
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of my desire."

My rewards will be commensurate with your gifts
if only you give me the one that lifts
me laughing ...

And though it costs you nothing,
still it is of immense value to me.

Your reward will be
not just to fly
but to soar, so high
that your joys vastly exceed your desires.

And my beauty, to which your heart aspires
and which you never tire of praising,
I will employ for the raising
of your spirits. Then, lying sweetly at your side,
I will shower you with all the delights of a bride,
which I have more expertly learned.

Then you, who so fervently burned,
will at last rest, fully content,
fallen even more deeply in love, spent
at my comfortable *****.

When I am in bed with a man I blossom,
becoming completely free
with the man who loves and enjoys me.


Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (II)
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of my desire."

My rewards will match your gifts
If you give me the one that lifts

Me, laughing. If it comes free,
Still, it is of immense value to me.

Your reward will be―not just to fly,
But to soar―so incredibly high

That your joys eclipse your desires
(As my beauty, to which your heart aspires

And which you never tire of praising,
I employ for your spirit's raising).

Afterwards, lying docile at your side,
I will grant you all the delights of a bride,

Which I have more expertly learned.
Then you, who so fervently burned,

Will at last rest, fully content,
Fallen even more deeply in love, spent

At my comfortable *****.
When I am in bed with a man I blossom,

Becoming completely free
With the man who freely enjoys me.


Capitolo 24
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(written by Franco to a man who had insulted a woman)

Please try to see with sensible eyes
how grotesque it is for you
to insult and abuse women!
Our unfortunate *** is always subject
to such unjust treatment, because we
are dominated, denied true freedom!
And certainly we are not at fault
because, while not as robust as men,
we have equal hearts, minds and intellects.
Nor does virtue originate in power,
but in the vigor of the heart, mind and soul:
the sources of understanding;
and I am certain that in these regards
women lack nothing,
but, rather, have demonstrated
superiority to men.
If you think us "inferior" to yourself,
perhaps it's because, being wise,
we outdo you in modesty.
And if you want to know the truth,
the wisest person is the most patient;
she squares herself with reason and with virtue;
while the madman thunders insolence.
The stone the wise man withdraws from the well
was flung there by a fool ...

When I bed a man
who―I sense―truly loves and enjoys me,
I become so sweet and so delicious
that the pleasure I bring him surpasses all delight,
till the tight
knot of love,
however slight
it may have seemed before,
is raveled to the core.
―Veronica Franco, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We danced a youthful jig through that fair city―
Venice, our paradise, so pompous and pretty.
We lived for love, for primal lust and beauty;
to please ourselves became our only duty.
Floating there in a fog between heaven and earth,
We grew drunk on excesses and wild mirth.
We thought ourselves immortal poets then,
Our glory endorsed by God's illustrious pen.
But paradise, we learned, is fraught with error,
and sooner or later love succumbs to terror.
―Veronica Franco, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I wish it were not considered a sin
to have liked *******.
Women have yet to realize
the cowardice that presides.
And if they should ever decide
to fight the shallow,
I would be the first, setting an example for them to follow.
―Veronica Franco, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

for the refugees

The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ...
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.


Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.

But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.

We both know
you have every right to say no.


The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!

Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!

As the *****’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.

Then my mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.

Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!

Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!


She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch

She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.

She was very strange, in a pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still,
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.

She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left . . .
yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.


The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.


If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.


Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.
Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.


East Devon Beacon
by Michael R. Burch

Evening darkens upon the moors,
Forgiveness--a hairless thing
skirting the headlamps, fugitive.

Why have we come,
traversing the long miles
and extremities of solitude,
worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps
with directions
obtained from passing strangers?

Why do we sit,
frantically retracing
love’s long-forgotten signal points
with cramping, ink-stained fingers?

Why the preemptive frowns,
the litigious silences,
when only yesterday we watched
as, out of an autumn sky this vast,
over an orchard or an onion field,
wild Vs of distressed geese
sped across the moon’s face,
the sound of their panicked wings
like our alarmed hearts
pounding in unison?


The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of wanting her himself, so much the lie
that she was meant for him―obscene illusion!―
made him seem a monarch throned like God on high,
when he was less than nothing; when to die
meant many stultifying, pained embraces.

She shed her gown, undid the tangled laces
that tied her to the earth: then she was his.
Now all her erstwhile beauty he defaces
and yet she grows in hallowed loveliness―
her ghost beyond perfection―for to die
was to ascend. Now he begs, penniless.


I, Too, Sang America (in my diapers!)
by Michael R. Burch

I, too, served my country,
first as a tyke, then as a toddler, later as a rambunctious boy,
growing up on military bases around the world,
making friends only to leave them,
saluting the flag through veils of tears,
time and time again ...

In defense of my country,
I too did my awesome duty―
cursing the Communists,
confronting Them in backyard battles where They slunk around disguised as my sniggling Sisters,
while always demonstrating the immense courage
to start my small life over and over again
whenever Uncle Sam called ...

Building and rebuilding my shattered psyche,
such as it was,
dealing with PTSD (preschool traumatic stress disorder)
without the adornments of medals, ribbons or epaulets,
serving without pay,
following my father’s gruffly barked orders,
however ill-advised ...

A true warrior!
Will you salute me?


Wulf and Eadwacer (ancient Anglo-Saxon poem)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My clan’s curs pursue him like crippled game;
they'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.

Wulf's on one island; we’re on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.

My hopes pursued Wulf like panting hounds,
but whenever it rained―how I wept!―
the boldest cur grasped me in his paws:
good feelings for him, but for me loathsome!

Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Have you heard, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods!
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.


Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.


Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to ****** His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch

Lord, **** me fast and please do it quickly!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, we all know you’re an expert at ******
like Abram―the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?


Progress
by Michael R. Burch

There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.

Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.

Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.

The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.

Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the ****** still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...

and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me―progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically―her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure
to a consuming emptiness.

We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture―
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.

Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.
Need is reborn; love dies.


ANCIENT GREEK EPIGRAMS

These are my translations of ancient Greek and Roman epigrams, or they may be better described as interpretations or poems “after” the original poets …

You begrudge men your virginity?
Why? To what purpose?
You will find no one to embrace you in the grave.
The joys of love are for the living.
But in Acheron, dear ******,
we shall all lie dust and ashes.
—Asclepiades of Samos (circa 320-260 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable.
―Michael R Burch, after Palladas of Alexandria

Laments for Animals

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night:
his owner’s faithful Maltese . . .
but will he still bark again, on sight?
―Michael R Burch, after Tymnes

Poor partridge, poor partridge, lately migrated from the rocks;
our cat bit off your unlucky head; my offended heart still balks!
I put you back together again and buried you, so unsightly!
May the dark earth cover you heavily: heavily, not lightly . . .
so she shan’t get at you again!
―Michael R Burch, after Agathias

Hunter partridge,
we no longer hear your echoing cry
along the forest's dappled feeding ground
where, in times gone by,
you would decoy speckled kinsfolk to their doom,
luring them on,
for now you too have gone
down the dark path to Acheron.
―Michael R Burch, after Simmias

Wert thou, O Artemis,
overbusy with thy beast-slaying hounds
when the Beast embraced me?
―Michael R Burch, after Diodorus of Sardis

Dead as you are, though you lie as
still as cold stone, huntress Lycas,
my great Thessalonian hound,
the wild beasts still fear your white bones;
craggy Pelion remembers your valor,
splendid Ossa, the way you would bound
and bay at the moon for its whiteness
as below we heard valleys resound.
And how brightly with joy you would leap and run
the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron!
―Michael R Burch, after Simonides

Anyte Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nossis Epigrams

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whom Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me
a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse,
a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies
I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ibykos/Ibycus Epigrams

Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces,
scion of the bright-tressed Seasons,
son of the Cyprian,
whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms.
—Ibykos/Ibycus (circa 540 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 286, circa 564 B.C.
this poem has been titled "The Influence of Spring"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Come spring, the grand
apple trees stand
watered by a gushing river
where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver
and the blossoming grape vine swells
in the gathering shadows.

Unfortunately
for me
Eros never rests
but like a Thracian tempest
ablaze with lightning
emanates from Aphrodite;

the results are frightening—
black,
bleak,
astonishing,
violently jolting me from my soles
to my soul.

Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 282, circa 540 B.C.
Ibykos fragment 282, Oxyrhynchus papyrus, lines 1-32
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch,

... They also destroyed the glorious city of Priam, son of Dardanus,
after leaving Argos due to the devices of death-dealing Zeus,
encountering much-sung strife over the striking beauty of auburn-haired Helen,
waging woeful war when destruction rained down on longsuffering Pergamum
thanks to the machinations of golden-haired Aphrodite ...

But now it is not my intention to sing of Paris, the host-deceiver,
nor of slender-ankled Cassandra,
nor of Priam’s other children,
nor of the nameless day of the downfall of high-towered Troy,
nor even of the valour of the heroes who hid in the hollow, many-bolted horse ...

Such was the destruction of Troy.

They were heroic men and Agamemnon was their king,
a king from Pleisthenes,
a son of Atreus, son of a noble father.

The all-wise Muses of Helicon
might recount such tales accurately,
but no mortal man, unblessed,
could ever number those innumerable ships
Menelaus led across the Aegean from Aulos ...
"From Argos they came, the bronze-speared sons of the Achaeans ..."

Antipater Epigrams

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
―Michael R Burch, after Antipater of Sidon

Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho,
wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch,

O Aeolian land, you lightly cover Sappho,
the mortal Muse who joined the Immortals,
whom Cypris and Eros fostered,
with whom Peitho wove undying wreaths,
who was the joy of Hellas and your glory.
O Fates who twine the spindle's triple thread,
why did you not spin undying life
for the singer whose deathless gifts
enchanted the Muses of Helicon?
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Here, O stranger, the sea-crashed earth covers Homer,
herald of heroes' valour,
spokesman of the Olympians,
second sun to the Greeks,
light of the immortal Muses,
the Voice that never diminishes.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

This herald of heroes,
this interpreter of the Immortals,
this second sun shedding light on the life of Greece,
Homer,
the delight of the Muses,
the ageless voice of the world,
lies dead, O stranger,
washed away with the sea-washed sand ...
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

As high as the trumpet's cry exceeds the thin flute's,
so high above all others your lyre rang;
so much the sweeter your honey than the waxen-celled swarm's.
O Pindar, with your tender lips witness how the horned god Pan
forgot his pastoral reeds when he sang your hymns.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Here lies Pindar, the Pierian trumpet,
the heavy-smiting smith of well-stuck hymns.
Hearing his melodies, one might believe
the immortal Muses possessed bees
to produce heavenly harmonies in the bridal chamber of Cadmus.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Harmonia, the goddess of Harmony, was the bride of Cadmus, so his bridal chamber would have been full of pleasant sounds.

Praise the well-wrought verses of tireless Antimachus,
a man worthy of the majesty of ancient demigods,
whose words were forged on the Muses' anvils.
If you are gifted with a keen ear,
if you aspire to weighty words,
if you would pursue a path less traveled,
if Homer holds the scepter of song,
and yet Zeus is greater than Poseidon,
even so Poseidon his inferior exceeds all other Immortals;
and even so the Colophonian bows before Homer,
but exceeds all other singers.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

I, the trumpet that once blew the ****** battle-notes
and the sweet truce-tunes, now hang here, Pherenicus,
your gift to Athena, quieted from my clamorous music.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Behold Anacreon's tomb;
here the Teian swan sleeps with the unmitigated madness of his love for lads.
Still he sings songs of longing on the lyre of Bathyllus
and the albescent marble is perfumed with ivy.
Death has not quenched his desire
and the house of Acheron still burns with the fevers of Cypris.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

May the four-clustered clover, Anacreon,
grow here by your grave,
ringed by the tender petals of the purple meadow-flowers,
and may fountains of white milk bubble up,
and the sweet-scented wine gush forth from the earth,
so that your ashes and bones may experience joy,
if indeed the dead know any delight.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Stranger passing by the simple tomb of Anacreon,
if you found any profit in my books,
please pour drops of your libation on my ashes,
so that my bones, refreshed by wine, may rejoice
that I, who so delighted in the boisterous revels of Dionysus,
and who played such manic music, as wine-drinkers do,
even in death may not travel without Bacchus
in my sojourn to that land to which all men must come.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Anacreon, glory of Ionia,
even in the land of the lost may you never be without your beloved revels,
or your well-loved lyre,
and may you still sing with glistening eyes,
shaking the braided flowers from your hair,
turning always towards Eurypyle, Megisteus, or the locks of Thracian Smerdies,
sipping sweet wine,
your robes drenched with the juices of grapes,
wringing intoxicating nectar from its folds ...
For all your life, old friend, was poured out as an offering to these three:
the Muses, Bacchus, and Love.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

You sleep amid the dead, Anacreon,
your day-labor done,
your well-loved lyre's sweet tongue silenced
that once sang incessantly all night long.
And Smerdies also sleeps,
the spring-tide of your loves,
for whom, tuning and turning you lyre,
you made music like sweetest nectar.
For you were Love's bullseye,
the lover of lads,
and he had the bow and the subtle archer's craft
to never miss his target.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Erinna's verses were few, nor were her songs overlong,
but her smallest works were inspired.
Therefore she cannot fail to be remembered
and is never lost beneath the shadowy wings of bleak night.
While we, the estranged, the innumerable throngs of tardy singers,
lie in pale corpse-heaps wasting into oblivion.
The moaned song of the lone swan outdoes the cawings of countless jackdaws
echoing far and wide through darkening clouds.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Who hung these glittering shields here,
these unstained spears and unruptured helmets,
dedicating to murderous Ares ornaments of no value?
Will no one cast these virginal weapons out of my armory?
Their proper place is in the peaceful halls of placid men,
not within the wild walls of Enyalius.
I delight in hacked heads and the blood of dying berserkers,
if, indeed, I am Ares the Destroyer.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

May good Fortune, O stranger, keep you on course all your life before a fair breeze!
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Docile doves may coo for cowards,
but we delight in dauntless men.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Here by the threshing-room floor,
little ant, you relentless toiler,
I built you a mound of liquid-absorbing earth,
so that even in death you may partake of the droughts of Demeter,
as you lie in the grave my plough burrowed.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

This is your mother’s lament, Artemidorus,
weeping over your tomb,
bewailing your twelve brief years:
"All the fruit of my labor has gone up in smoke,
all your heartbroken father's endeavors are ash,
all your childish passion an extinguished flame.
For you have entered the land of the lost,
from which there is no return, never a home-coming.
You failed to reach your prime, my darling,
and now we have nothing but your headstone and dumb dust."
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Everywhere the Sea is the Sea
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Everywhere the Sea is the same;
why then do we idly blame
the Cyclades
or the harrowing waves of narrow Helle?

To protest is vain!

Justly, they have earned their fame.

Why then,
after I had escaped them,
did the harbor of Scarphe engulf me?

I advise whoever finds a fair passage home:
accept that the sea's way is its own.
Man is foam.
Aristagoras knows who's buried here.


Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains;
Leave beasts to wander stony plains;
No longer sing fierce winds to sleep,
Nor seek to enchant the tumultuous deep;
For you are dead; each Muse, forlorn,
Strums anguished strings as your mother mourns.
Mind, mere mortals, mind—no use to moan,
When even a Goddess could not save her own!


Orpheus, now you will never again enchant
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch



Orpheus, now you will never again enchant the charmed oaks,
never again mesmerize shepherdless herds of wild beasts,
never again lull the roaring winds,
never again tame the tumultuous hail
nor the sweeping snowstorms
nor the crashing sea,
for you have perished
and the daughters of Mnemosyne weep for you,
and your mother Calliope above all.
Why do mortals mourn their dead sons,
when not even the gods can protect their children from Hades?
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch


The High Road to Death
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

Men skilled in the stars call me brief-lifed;
I am, but what do I care, O Seleucus?
All men descend to Hades
and if our demise comes quicker,
the sooner we shall we look on Minos.
Let us drink then, for surely wine is a steed for the high-road,
when pedestrians march sadly to Death.


The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

I have set my eyes upon
the lofty walls of Babylon
with its elevated road for chariots
... and upon the statue of Zeus
by the Alpheus ...
... and upon the hanging gardens ...
... upon the Colossus of the Sun ...
... upon the massive edifices
of the towering pyramids ...
... even upon the vast tomb of Mausolus ...
but when I saw the mansion of Artemis
disappearing into the cirri,
those other marvels lost their brilliancy
and I said, "Setting aside Olympus,
the Sun never shone on anything so fabulous!"


Sophocles Epigrams

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The happiest life is one empty of thought.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day,
edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Children anchor their mothers to life.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fortune never favors the faint-hearted.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Homer Epigrams

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.”
—attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ancient Roman Epigrams

Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
—Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness.
—Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Less Heroic Couplets: Rejection Slips
by Michael R. Burch

pour Melissa Balmain

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

I consider the term “rejection slip” to be a double entendre. When editors reject my poems, did I slip up, or did they? Is their slip showing, or is mine?



Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.

Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all

for children, however tall.
And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call

the one who was everything.
That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all

for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.

And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.
No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.



Sailing to My Grandfather, for George Hurt
by Michael R. Burch

This distance between us
―this vast sea
of remembrance―
is no hindrance,
no enemy.

I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.

I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.

I feel the sea's salt spray―light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.

Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are

somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you taught me

wish

that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!

and everywhere above, each hopeful star

gleamed down

and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw

and taught me heaven, omen, meteor . . .



Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt

With gentleness and fine and tender will,
attend upon them still;
thou art the grass.

Nor let men’s feet here muddy as they pass
thy subtle undulations, nor depress
for long the comforts of thy lovingness,

nor let the fuse
of time wink out amid the violets.
They have their use―

to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet.
Thou art the grass;

make them complete.



Sanctuary at Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

I have walked these thirteen miles
just to stand outside your door.
The rain has dogged my footsteps
for thirteen miles, for thirty years,
through the monsoon seasons ...
and now my tears
have all been washed away.

Through thirteen miles of rain I slogged,
I stumbled and I climbed
rainslickened slopes
that led me home
to the hope that I might find
a life I lived before.

The door is wet; my cheeks are wet,
but not with rain or tears ...
as I knock I sweat
and the raining seems
the rhythm of the years.

Now you stand outlined in the doorway
―a man as large as I left―
and with bated breath
I take a step
into the accusing light.

Your eyes are grayer
than I remembered;
your hair is grayer, too.
As the red rust runs
down the dripping drains,
our voices exclaim―

"My father!"
"My son!"


Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!



Anyte Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Nossis Epigrams

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whom Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me
a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse,
a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies
I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
      … leaves falling …
           … waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...

... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.  
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...

... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...

... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...

... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...

... Desire becomes oblivion ...

... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ...

O *****! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!



On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor ******* a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.

*****! O Hymenaeus!

Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral

Published as the collection "Ancient Greek Epigrams"

Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby
with Minerva’s help he might be able to **** the suitors. Presently he
said to Telemachus, “Telemachus, we must get the armour together and
take it down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you
have removed it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the way of
the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went
away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more
particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel
over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may
disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes
tempts people to use them.”
  Telemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called
nurse Euryclea and said, “Nurse, shut the women up in their room,
while I take the armour that my father left behind him down into the
store room. No one looks after it now my father is gone, and it has
got all smirched with soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it
down where the smoke cannot reach it.”
  “I wish, child,” answered Euryclea, “that you would take the
management of the house into your own hands altogether, and look after
all the property yourself. But who is to go with you and light you
to the store room? The maids would have so, but you would not let
them.
  “The stranger,” said Telemachus, “shall show me a light; when people
eat my bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from.”
  Euryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their
room. Then Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets,
shields, and spears inside; and Minerva went before them with a gold
lamp in her hand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon
Telemachus said, “Father, my eyes behold a great marvel: the walls,
with the rafters, crossbeams, and the supports on which they rest
are all aglow as with a flaming fire. Surely there is some god here
who has come down from heaven.”
  “Hush,” answered Ulysses, “hold your peace and ask no questions, for
this is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me here
to talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief
will ask me all sorts of questions.”
  On this Telemachus went by torch-light to the other side of the
inner court, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his
bed till morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering
on the means whereby with Minerva’s help he might be able to ****
the suitors.
  Then Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana,
and they set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near
the fire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and had
a footstool all in one piece with the seat itself; and it was
covered with a thick fleece: on this she now sat, and the maids came
from the women’s room to join her. They set about removing the
tables at which the wicked suitors had been dining, and took away
the bread that was left, with the cups from which they had drunk. They
emptied the embers out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them
to give both light and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a
second time and said, “Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging
about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you
wretch, outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out
with a firebrand.”
  Ulysses scowled at her and answered, “My good woman, why should
you be so angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my
clothes are all in rags, and because I am obliged to go begging
about after the manner of tramps and beggars generall? I too was a
rich man once, and had a fine house of my own; in those days I gave to
many a ***** such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he
wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which
people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased
Jove to take all away from me; therefore, woman, beware lest you too
come to lose that pride and place in which you now wanton above your
fellows; have a care lest you get out of favour with your mistress,
and lest Ulysses should come home, for there is still a chance that he
may do so. Moreover, though he be dead as you think he is, yet by
Apollo’s will he has left a son behind him, Telemachus, who will
note anything done amiss by the maids in the house, for he is now no
longer in his boyhood.”
  Penelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, “Impudent
baggage, said she, “I see how abominably you are behaving, and you
shall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself,
that I was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband, for
whose sake I am in such continual sorrow.”
  Then she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, “Bring a seat with
a fleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his
story, and listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some
questions.”
  Eurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as
soon as Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, “Stranger, I
shall first ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town and
parents.”
  “Madam;” answered Ulysses, “who on the face of the whole earth can
dare to chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven
itself; you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness,
as the monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its
wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring
forth lambs, and the sea abounds with fish by reason of his virtues,
and his people do good deeds under him. Nevertheless, as I sit here in
your house, ask me some other question and do not seek to know my race
and family, or you will recall memories that will yet more increase my
sorrow. I am full of heaviness, but I ought not to sit weeping and
wailing in another person’s house, nor is it well to be thus
grieving continually. I shall have one of the servants or even
yourself complaining of me, and saying that my eyes swim with tears
because I am heavy with wine.”
  Then Penelope answered, “Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty,
whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my
dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs
I should be both more respected and should show a better presence to
the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the
afflictions which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from
all our islands—Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca
itself, are wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can
therefore show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to
people who say that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time
brokenhearted about Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once,
and I have to invent stratagems in order to deceive them. In the first
place heaven put it in my mind to set up a great tambour-frame in my
room, and to begin working upon an enormous piece of fine
needlework. Then I said to them, ‘Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead,
still, do not press me to marry again immediately; wait—for I would
not have my skill in needlework perish unrecorded—till I have
finished making a pall for the hero Laertes, to be ready against the
time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of
the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.’ This was what I
said, and they assented; whereon I used to keep working at my great
web all day long, but at night I would unpick the stitches again by
torch light. I fooled them in this way for three years without their
finding it out, but as time wore on and I was now in my fourth year,
in the waning of moons, and many days had been accomplished, those
good-for-nothing hussies my maids betrayed me to the suitors, who
broke in upon me and caught me; they were very angry with me, so I was
forced to finish my work whether I would or no. And now I do not see
how I can find any further shift for getting out of this marriage.
My parents are putting great pressure upon me, and my son chafes at
the ravages the suitors are making upon his estate, for he is now
old enough to understand all about it and is perfectly able to look
after his own affairs, for heaven has blessed him with an excellent
disposition. Still, notwithstanding all this, tell me who you are
and where you come from—for you must have had father and mother of
some sort; you cannot be the son of an oak or of a rock.”
  Then Ulysses answered, “madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist in
asking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs
me: people must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as long
as I have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless,
as regards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a
fair and fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly
peopled and there are nine cities in it: the people speak many
different languages which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans,
brave Eteocretans, Dorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi.
There is a great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every
nine years had a conference with Jove himself. Minos was father to
Deucalion, whose son I am, for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and
myself. Idomeneus sailed for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am
called Aethon; my brother, however, was at once the older and the more
valiant of the two; hence it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and
showed him hospitality, for the winds took him there as he was on
his way to Troy, carrying him out of his course from cape Malea and
leaving him in Amnisus off the cave of Ilithuia, where the harbours
are difficult to enter and he could hardly find shelter from the winds
that were then xaging. As soon as he got there he went into the town
and asked for Idomeneus, claiming to be his old and valued friend, but
Idomeneus had already set sail for Troy some ten or twelve days
earlier, so I took him to my own house and showed him every kind of
hospitality, for I had abundance of everything. Moreover, I fed the
men who were with him with barley meal from the public store, and
got subscriptions of wine and oxen for them to sacrifice to their
heart’s content. They stayed with me twelve days, for there was a gale
blowing from the North so strong that one could hardly keep one’s feet
on land. I suppose some unfriendly god had raised it for them, but
on the thirteenth day the wind dropped, and they got away.”
  Many a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope
wept as she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes
upon the mountain tops when the winds from South East and West have
breathed upon it and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with
water, even so did her cheeks overflow with tears for the husband
who was all the time sitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was
for her, but he kept his eyes as hard as or iron without letting
them so much as quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears.
Then, when she had relieved herself by weeping, she turned to him
again and said: “Now, stranger, I shall put you to the test and see
whether or no you really did entertain my husband and his men, as
you say you did. Tell me, then, how he was dressed, what kind of a man
he was to look at, and so also with his companions.”
  “Madam,” answered Ulysses, “it is such a long time ago that I can
hardly say. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home,
and went elsewhither; but I will tell you as well as I can
recollect. Ulysses wore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and
it was fastened by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On
the face of this there was a device that showed a dog holding a
spotted fawn between his fore paws, and watching it as it lay
panting upon the ground. Every one marvelled at the way in which these
things had been done in gold, the dog looking at the fawn, and
strangling it, while the fawn was struggling convulsively to escape.
As for the shirt that he wore next his skin, it was so soft that it
fitted him like the skin of an onion, and glistened in the sunlight to
the admiration of all the women who beheld it. Furthermore I say,
and lay my saying to your heart, that I do not know whether Ulysses
wore these clothes when he left home, or whether one of his companions
had given them to him while he was on his voyage; or possibly some one
at whose house he was staying made him a present of them, for he was a
man of many friends and had few equals among the Achaeans. I myself
gave him a sword of bronze and a beautiful purple mantle, double
lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet, and I sent him on
board his ship with every mark of honour. He had a servant with him, a
little older than himself, and I can tell you what he was like; his
shoulders were hunched, he was dark, and he had thick curly hair.
His name was Eurybates, and Ulysses treated him with greater
familiarity than he did any of the others, as being the most
like-minded with himself.”
  Penelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable
proofs that Ulysses laid before her; and when she had again found
relief in tears she said to him, “Stranger, I was already disposed
to pity you, but henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome
in my house. It was I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I
took them out of the store room and folded them up myself, and I
gave him also the gold brooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall
never welcome him home again. It was by an ill fate that he ever set
out for that detested city whose very name I cannot bring myself
even to mention.”
  Then Ulysses answered, “Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure
yourself further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can
hardly blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and
borne him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even
though he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a
god. Still, cease your tears and listen to what I can tell I will hide
nothing from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately
heard of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home; he is among the
Thesprotians, and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he
has begged from one and another of them; but his ship and all his crew
were lost as they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and the
sun-god were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the
sun-god’s cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses
stuck to the keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the
Phaecians, who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him
as though he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing
to escort him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been
here long ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land
gathering wealth; for there is no man living who is so wily as he
is; there is no one can compare with him. Pheidon king of the
Thesprotians told me all this, and he swore to me—making
drink-offerings in his house as he did so—that the ship was by the
water side and the crew found who would take Ulysses to his own
country. He sent me off first, for there happened to be a
Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheat-growing island of Dulichium,
but he showed me all treasure Ulysses had got together, and he had
enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep his family for ten
generations; but the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he
might learn Jove’s mind from the high oak tree, and know whether after
so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret.
So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly; he is close at
hand and cannot remain away from home much longer; nevertheless I will
confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is the first and
mightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses to
which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely come to
pass. Ulysses will return in this self same year; with the end of this
moon and the beginning of the next he will b

Mon fils, disait un jour Jupiter à Minos,
Toi qui juges la race humaine,
Explique-moi pourquoi l'enfer suffit à peine
Aux nombreux criminels que t'envoie Atropos.
Quel est de la vertu le fatal adversaire
Qui corrompt à ce point la faible humanité ?
C'est, je crois, l'intérêt. - L'intérêt ? Non, mon père.
- Et qu'est-ce donc ? - l'oisiveté.

Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into
the water and got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep
on board and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind.
Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that blew
dead aft and stayed steadily with us keeping our sails all the time
well filled; so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear and
let her go as the wind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails
were full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went
down and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep
waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the
Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays
of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down
again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long
melancholy night. When we got there we beached the ship, took the
sheep out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came
to the place of which Circe had told us.
  “Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my
sword and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering
to all the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and
thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the
whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising
them that when I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren
heifer for them, the best I had, and would load the pyre with good
things. I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have a
black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks. When I had prayed
sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep and let
the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts came trooping up
from Erebus—brides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil,
maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been
killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood; they
came from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange
kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. When I saw
them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the
two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same
time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I
was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts
come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my questions.
  “The first ghost ‘that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he
had not yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body
unwaked and unburied in Circe’s house, for we had had too much else to
do. I was very sorry for him, and cried when I saw him: ‘Elpenor,’
said I, ‘how did you come down here into this gloom and darkness?
You have here on foot quicker than I have with my ship.’
  “‘Sir,’ he answered with a groan, ‘it was all bad luck, and my own
unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the top of Circe’s
house, and never thought of coming down again by the great staircase
but fell right off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul down to
the house of Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have
left behind you, though they are not here, by your wife, by the father
who brought you up when you were a child, and by Telemachus who is the
one hope of your house, do what I shall now ask you. I know that
when you leave this limbo you will again hold your ship for the Aeaean
island. Do not go thence leaving me unwaked and unburied behind you,
or I may bring heaven’s anger upon you; but burn me with whatever
armour I have, build a barrow for me on the sea shore, that may tell
people in days to come what a poor unlucky fellow I was, and plant
over my grave the oar I used to row with when I was yet alive and with
my messmates.’ And I said, ‘My poor fellow, I will do all that you
have asked of me.’
  “Thus, then, did we sit and hold sad talk with one another, I on the
one side of the trench with my sword held over the blood, and the
ghost of my comrade saying all this to me from the other side. Then
came the ghost of my dead mother Anticlea, daughter to Autolycus. I
had left her alive when I set out for Troy and was moved to tears when
I saw her, but even so, for all my sorrow I would not let her come
near the blood till I had asked my questions of Teiresias.
  “Then came also the ghost of Theban Teiresias, with his golden
sceptre in his hand. He knew me and said, ‘Ulysses, noble son of
Laertes, why, poor man, have you left the light of day and come down
to visit the dead in this sad place? Stand back from the trench and
withdraw your sword that I may drink of the blood and answer your
questions truly.’
  “So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank of
the blood he began with his prophecy.
  “You want to know,’ said he, ‘about your return home, but heaven
will make this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape the
eye of Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you for
having blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get home
if you can restrain yourself and your companions when your ship
reaches the Thrinacian island, where you will find the sheep and
cattle belonging to the sun, who sees and gives ear to everything.
If you leave these flocks unharmed and think of nothing but of getting
home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm
them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and
of your men. Even though you may yourself escape, you will return in
bad plight after losing all your men, [in another man’s ship, and
you will find trouble in your house, which will be overrun by
high-handed people, who are devouring your substance under the pretext
of paying court and making presents to your wife.
  “‘When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and
after you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you
must take a well-made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a
country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even
mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and
oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain
token which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and
will say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your
shoulder; on this you must fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a
ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune. Then go home and offer hecatombs
to an the gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, death
shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very
gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people
shall bless you. All that I have said will come true].’
  “‘This,’ I answered, ‘must be as it may please heaven, but tell me
and tell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother’s ghost close by
us; she is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I am
her own son she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me, Sir,
how I can make her know me.’
  “‘That,’ said he, ‘I can soon do Any ghost that you let taste of the
blood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not
let them have any blood they will go away again.’
  “On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, for
his prophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I was
until my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at once
and spoke fondly to me, saying, ‘My son, how did you come down to this
abode of darkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing for
the living to see these places, for between us and them there are
great and terrible waters, and there is Oceanus, which no man can
cross on foot, but he must have a good ship to take him. Are you all
this time trying to find your way home from Troy, and have you never
yet got back to Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?’
  “‘Mother,’ said I, ‘I was forced to come here to consult the ghost
of the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near the
Achaean land nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothing
but one long series of misfortunes from the very first day that I
set out with Agamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight
the Trojans. But tell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die?
Did you have a long illness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy
passage to eternity? Tell me also about my father, and the son whom
I left behind me; is my property still in their hands, or has some one
else got hold of it, who thinks that I shall not return to claim it?
Tell me again what my wife intends doing, and in what mind she is;
does she live with my son and guard my estate securely, or has she
made the best match she could and married again?’
  “My mother answered, ‘Your wife still remains in your house, but she
is in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both
night and day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property,
and Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertain
largely, as of course he must, considering his position as a
magistrate, and how every one invites him; your father remains at
his old place in the country and never goes near the town. He has no
comfortable bed nor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor in
front of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but in
summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in the
vineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown anyhow upon the ground. He
grieves continually about your never having come home, and suffers
more and more as he grows older. As for my own end it was in this
wise: heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house,
nor was I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wear
people out and **** them, but my longing to know what you were doing
and the force of my affection for you—this it was that was the
death of me.’
  “Then I tried to find some way of embracing my mother’s ghost.
Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but
each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom,
and being touched to the quick I said to her, ‘Mother, why do you
not stay still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms
around one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our
sorrows even in the house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay a
still further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom
only?’
  “‘My son,’ she answered, ‘most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not
Proserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when
they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together;
these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has
left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now,
however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note
all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.’
  “Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the
wives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered in
crowds about the blood, and I considered how I might question them
severally. In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the
keen blade that hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all
drinking the blood at once. So they came up one after the other, and
each one as I questioned her told me her race and lineage.
  “The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of
Cretheus the son of ******. She fell in love with the river Enipeus
who is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she
was taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her
lover, lay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave
arched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god,
whereon he loosed her ****** girdle and laid her in a deep slumber.
When the god had accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand in
his own and said, ‘Tyro, rejoice in all good will; the embraces of the
gods are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins about this time
twelve months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go
home, but hold your tongue and do not tell any one.’
  “Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Pelias
and Neleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might.
Pelias was a great ******* of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the other
lived in Pylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely,
Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer.
  “Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast of
having slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him two
sons Amphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates,
and built a wall all round it; for strong though they were they
could not hold Thebes till they had walled it.
  “Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove
indomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon,
and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon.
  “I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king OEdipodes whose awful lot
it was to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married her
after having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole
story to the world; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief
for the spite the gods had borne him; but Epicaste went to the house
of the mighty jailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the
avenging spirits haunted him as for an outraged mother—to his ruing
bitterly thereafter.
  “Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, having
given priceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphion
son of Iasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos.
She bore Nestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore that
marvellously lovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the country
round; but Neleus would only give her to him who should raid the
cattle of Iphicles from the grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was a
hard task. The only man who would undertake to raid them was a certain
excellent seer, but the will of heaven was against him, for the
rangers of the cattle caught him and put him in prison; nevertheless
when a full year had passed and the same season came round again,
Iphicles set him at liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles of
heaven. Thus, then, was the will of Jove accomplished.
  “And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous
sons, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Both
these heroes are lying under the earth, though they are still alive,
for by a special dispensation of Jove, they die and come to life
again, each one of them every other day throughout all time, and
they have the rank of gods.
  “After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace
of Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were
short lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this
world, and the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine years
old they were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the
chest. They threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried
to set Mount Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the
top of Ossa, that they might scale heaven itself, and they would
have done it too if they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto,
killed both of them, before they had got so much as a sign of hair
upon their cheeks or chin.
  “Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the
magician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens,
but he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed her
in the island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her.
  “I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her own
husband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to name
every single one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw,
and it is time for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew,
or here. As for my escort, heaven and yourselves

Bordering the ear of Dyonisius, in the latomia stone cuts of paradise, they stopped at Syracuse. A certain flash of limestone reflected Wonthelimar's court; Marielle Quentinnais, wandering before him on calypso calcareous stones. Her superior powers made her eclipse her from an underground world, to mount towards carbonated stones that made egregious tilts to revive her in her arms. The end of a century became part of her heart with the premiere of the female species that led her to the Shemesh of Syracuse. The excessive temper strengthened it in everything, making it a revived stone from the Miocene with the Avignon characters, colluding through the Rhone until hitting this neat gold stone brought from the arms of Ezpaktul, transplanted with precision and gold typologies, with great Malleable morphologies that carried him across the surface where Wonthelimar was looking at her, his heart almost pounding when he saw her! the waters spoke of hydric morphologies that conferred of her on waters and springs that were inferiorized in disheartened lower levels when he lost her in the forests of Valdaine. Her brackish tears did not stop imputing a micro space with distinguished Psilocybin mushrooms, for an Ambrosia Mercurial compote that Wonthelimar chewed and that had been immolated from the remnants of Eleusis, helping to revive it from the lost space die of the Mausoleum of the Quentinnais. The mantles froze the cold and warm air masses in Syracuse, carried several meters above sea level, with eager extra surpasses by coexisting in the cave blocks, where she would rest with Vernarth in her arms. For the subjugation of the journey that would make him perhaps mortal, retreating towards a three-dimensionality that would raise him above the Pleiades, as Aurion would do behind with his club, but rather leaving behind the cavities that would put his quantum at the mercy of the tiny rosaries that she did, while he was getting ready to approach on the surfaces of the hypogeal speleothemes, like the Profitis of the Mediterranean who spoke to him of music, and of flood episodes with his spectrum in front of her, losing her in a melancholic fervor, being plunged into the hypogeum of Chauvet. The level of her vicious intrigues led him to follow her like an unattainable cousin, but with backwaters that compelled him to think of her master Vernarth, linked to micro images that warned him when he tried to get too close. The floating instants weighed more than a slight depth through accumulations of his retro memory, making him flee from her, and now she was fleeing from him, with large sprays of dew that filtered into her arid aquifer memory, superior to the kart that is established by correspondence when someone supposedly disappears, because their free will is entombed with their stone specter. Due to regimes suffered, there was only one monarch that rose in icy and polar vadose conditions, towards an earthly level where the feet melt the calcaneus as if it were a weak relative ascent towards a couple of beings who loved each other imprecise, and contexts when vivifying their hiding place. in the caverns of Chauvet. He can hardly recall it a shallow light, almost falling without mass towards the front of the stalactites, creating concretions of solid love under the deepest prodigality.

Wonthelimar, had had a vision on the vadose threshold when he came out to the surface with Vlad and Vernarth, being able to realize that the cloying environment made him subordinate himself in the altimetry of his maniacal impossible love, putting at risk the mission of overcoming the fluctuations of his visions, placing precepts in the sighting courses in Syracuse that had him dazzled, and very close to the entrance pit of the Ear of Dionisius. The puffs of caliginous air mass climbed before the beastly decibel of Vlad's chiropterans, falling through the marshes that were found from freshwater by several estuaries, and with decimeters when they tried to adjust their addiction. Solvents in the glaciers looked immutable when they were taken by underwater stimuli and models, still remaining after an extraordinary performance of vague probity, reviewing the details of actualism on the interfaces that led them, causing the water to flee from their bodies and inclinations. Only a few deposits favored the band mechanism to protect Vernarth's burning, which crystallized in excesses of the Sun, precisely when the fluctuations seemed bulky, by coordinating the foreign fattening in its arms, with which it would open the floodgates before entering the Grotto of Dyonisius, with greater rigors of concretion and emotion that flourished towards a maximum extension, which progressively gave rise to the devotional areas that received them at adjoining angles of forty-five degrees from its main arch, where frequencies stood out and the light with the mass of the Sun, distributed in small stars, which leaving campaniles that adhere to the normal area of distribution of the frequencies of the cave, on bands that reflected moved bodies on the mirror of rain that was shown on themselves, such as once striated towards a more tempting rib of the Coralloidal Speleothems. In Catania, they settled in the polis of Artemis's prosapia, on sieges where he led Marielle to past vigils with the Archons of Athens, not being able to subject her to arbitrary vexation.

Marielle was screened behind the Erithrina Coralloides of the Speleothemes, when this deciduous tree changed the color of its foliage in emerald colors, its spines served to deposit the Vernarth clone on its leaflets. After the libation of the alkaloid by Wothelimar, helping him to materialize the elusive effigy of her Marielle, making insertions in her disintegrated seeds allowing him to remove from her back some elytra, like those of Daedalus when she fled to Sicily escaping from King Minos. A snowy thread emanated from the similar ether that was picking through the noses of Wonthelmar and Vlad Strigoi, making it necessary to put wings on both of them to go to the cave of Dyonisius, toning the resins and aldehyde they carried to keep the Vernarth clone alive. Both rose over Marielle who was left with the custody of the clone, as well as their backs released red resins as consumed fuel, which was circularly reconsumed to rise up and enter the cave, resisting the arid aridities of the toxic fuel that was expelled on the Edens of Sicily.

I.
I contemplate nom de plume (a).
The nomenclator (b) pax (c) kiss of peace (d) .
Coddle (e) the dowry (f) , the dowsables (g) pas de deux (h) .
Fill the kyack (i) with tidytips (j) from California , that land lease (k) .
No irrational number (l) , reality two (m) .

Definitions:
(a) non de plume - pen name.

(b) nomenclator - a book containing a ciollection of lists of words or names .

(c) pax - from Latin pax vobis (peace to you) or pax vobiscum (peace with you). A pax is a liturgical object used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance for the Kiss of Peace in the Catholic mass . It began to replace the actual Kiss of Peace in the 13th century .

(d) Kiss of Peace - An ancient traditional Christian greeting.

(e) coddle - treat in an indulgent or overprotective way .

(f) dowry - property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage .

(g) dowsables - obsolete word for sweetheart or lady love .

(h) pas de deux - a dance for two people , typically a man and woman . A duet in ballet.

(i) Kyack - a packsack to be swung on either side of a packsaddle . Two connecting sacks .

(j) tidytips - an annual wildflower native to western North America .

(k) land lease - leasing the land upon which a tenant may own the home but not the land .

(l) irrational number - is a real number that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers . A number with an infinite number of digits .

(m) reality two - Jen Oliver Meiert - two realities . One is the physical reality . And the other is psychical reality .


II.
Fatten on krass (a) and farina (b) , fanfaronade (c) , mordancy (d) , honey and beurre noir (e) on toast .
Nothing to ambsace (f) !
The guidon (g) carried by a guidon betraying the one ,
"one's fancy" only to be crushed by a juggernaut (h) . . . promace (i) .


(a) Krass - German for gross or coarse .

(b) Farina - name in the U.S. for milled wheat .

(c) fanfaronade - arrogant or boastful talk .

(d) mordancy - a biting or caustic criticism .

(e) beurre noir - French for black butter .

(f) ambsace - the lowest throw of the dice .
Something worthless or unlucky .

(g) guidon - a pennant typically attached a pole that narrows to a point or fork at the end . A standard for light calvary .

(h) juggernaut - huge and overpowering force .

(i) promace - animal tranquilizer .


III.
Could I quintuplicate (a) the subdebutante (b) becoming tag end (c) ?
Would I cozen (d) the bulblet (e) from the branch Circe (f) ?
The Elaine (g) of long ago evanescent (h) my Hesperus (i) friend .
To Hesperides (j) especially , the Jinni (k), lowball comedy (l) .


(a) quintuplicate - fivefold . To multiply by five .

(b) subdebutante - a girl in her mid teens about to become a debutante .

(c) tag end - the last remaining part of something .

(d) cozen - to trick or deceive . Obtain by deception .

(e) bulblet - small bulb produced on a larger bulb .

(f) Circe - Goddess , nymph , enchantress or sorceress of magic . Daughter of Helios and either Oceania or Hecate . Able to change people into animals with potions or incantations .

(g) Elaine - the women of Arthurian legend who died of unrequited love for Lancelot . From Greek , a girls name meaning "sun's rays or shining light" .

(h) evanescent - soon passing out of sight , memory , or existence . Quickly fading or disappearing .

(i) Hesperus - the planet Venus . Evening star .

(j) Hesperides - legendary garden found at the western extremity of the world that produces golden apples . The nymphs that with the aid of a dragon guard the garden that grows the golden apples .


(k) - Jinni - also Genni . In Arabian and Muslim mythology the intelligent spirit with less ranking than an Angel that can appear in human or animal form for the purpose of possessing humans .

(l) lowball comedy - a deceptively crude comedy with underlying meanings .


IV.
My Maginot Line (a) , my Magen David (b) . . . before you board mae west (c) .
The squirting sea cucumber .
The Sammum Bonum (d) goes .
It's Watch Night (e) like a watch pocket (f) .
Zombism (g) we have digressed (h)
The incunable (i) mickle (j) , the  micawberish (k) pentagram (l)
exposed .


(a) Maginot Line - weaponized concrete fortifications built by France in the 1930's to keep Germany out .

(b) Magan David - originating from Medieval
Arabic literature . A hexagram (overlapping equivalent triangles) that was used as a talisman on protective amulets and was known as the Seal of Solomon . In the 18th century it was adopted by Jewish interest as the Star of David .

(c) Mae West - Personal flotation device (PFD) , life preserver . First inflatable life preserver created by Peter Markas in 1928 .

(d) sammum bonum - Latin . From Rome's greatest orator meaning 'The highest good' . Virtue .

(e) Watchnight - a service also called Watchnight Mass is a late night Christian church service . Held on late New Year's Eve . Also called Freedom's Eve service , a celebration and remembrance of the Emancipation Proclamation (enacted January 1 , 1863) which freed the slaves in the Confederate States during the American Civil War .

(e) watch pocket - extra fifth pocket on the right side of blue jeans made for a size 16 pocket watch .

(f) Zombism - the Kongo and Kimbundu system of religious rites . Characterized by worship of a snake diety during Voodoo rites .

(g) digressed - leave the main subject temporaryly in speech or writing .

(h) incunable - a book , pamphlet , or broadside ( a critical response) printed in Europe before the year 1501 .

(i) mickle - a very large amount .

(j) Micawberish - resembling the character of Wilkins Micawber in the Charles Dickens novel
David Copperfield . Especially optimistic to the point of being irrisponsible .

(k) Pentagram - five pointed star used in ancient Greece  and Bablyonia . Which is used today as a symbol of faith by many Wicans and said to have magical powers and associations .


V.
While the rabalo (a) swims the tropical seas
succes de scandale (b) .
While the Exmoor (c) ponies exert , ****** (d) in-and-out (e) .
And the Langur (f) from Laos
lies lethargic , drinking meadowsweet (g) ale .
The Nereids (h) tease and pase (i) in polyrthym (j) .


(a) Rabalo - common snook or sergeant fish .

(b) succès de scandale - a success due to notoriety or things of a scandalous nature . Public controversy .

(c) Exmoor - an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South Wales England named after the river Exe . Ancient royal hunting grounds .

(d) ****** -  Queen of Asgard and wife of Odin . Stepmother of Thor and adoptive mother of Loki .

(e) in-and-out - copulation

(f) Langur - long tailed aboreal monkey with a characteristicly loud call .

(g) meadowsweet - or mead wort is a perennial herb that grows  in damp meadows in Europe used to make medicine .

(h) Nereids - In Greek mythology the Nereids are sea nymphs , daughters of Nercus and Doris and known to be friendly and helpful to sailors .

(i) pase - a maneuver with a cape used in bullfighting meant to get the attention of the bull .

(j) polyrthym - a rthym which makes use of two or more different rthyms simultaneously .



VI .
The enchantress in a jaded jodhpur (a) .
So kitsch (b) with the live stream (c) mouth .
A menu (d) with folded mantis hands , a Nazarene (e) .
An à outrance (f) , an abstraction (g) .
***** envy (h) , reach-me-down (i) , rest house (j) south .
The simoon's (k) coming , simon pure (l) in simony (m) .


(a) Jodhpur - also called riding breeches . Tight fitting trousers that reach the ankles ending in a snug cuff worn primarily for horse riding .

(b) kitsch - German meaning ****** art . Excessively garish or sentimemental art usually considered in bad taste or lowbrow .

(c) live stream - to stream digital data . Data that is delivered continuously and is usually intended for immediate processing or playback .

(d) manu - (Sanskrit) is a term found in Hinduism . In early texts it refers to the first men , (progenitor of humanity) .

(e) Nazarene - native of Nazareth . A member of a group of German painters
working mainly in Rome who from 1809 sought to revive the art of Medieval Germany and early Renaissance Italy .

(f) à outrance - exorbitance .To the limit .

(g) abstraction - freedom from representational art . Dealing with ideas rather than events .

(h) - ***** envy - the supposed coveting  of the male ***** by a young female according to Sigmund Freud .

(i) reach-me-down - second hand clothing

(j) rest house - shelter for travelers especially when there are no hotels available .

(k) simoon - a hot dry dust-laden wind blowing in the desert , especially in Arabia .

(l) simon pure - untainted purity or integrity . Absolute pure , genuine or authentic . Also used negatively as pretentiously or hypocritically pure .

(m) simony - the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges . Such as something spiritual . Taken from Simon Magus
(Act 8:18) who endeavored to buy from the Apostles the power of conferring the gifts of the Holy Spirit .



VII .
Come Nisus (a), Lord of misuse.
With your Ibizan (b) hounds
and ewer (c) .
Your ebulient (d) ectomorphic (e)
mentality .
Board a carrack (f) to Chad breastbeating (g).
Put your thoughts on skewer (h) .
While seeking an essoin (i) , flannel-mouthed (j) idyllic (k) .


(a) Nisus - Greek mythology , King of Megara , son of Pandion of Athens . When King Minos of Crete beseiged Megara , Nisus's daughter Scylla fell in love with Minos . She betrayed her city by cutting off her father's purple lock . The purple lock of hair held magical powers if preserved . Nisus was killed and became a sea eagle . Scylla later drowned , said by the hands of Minos and was changed into a sea bird pursued by the sea eagle .

(b) Ibizan hound - named for an island off the coast of Spain . Ancient breed of hounds once kept by the Pharoahs around 3400 B.C.

(c) ewer - a large jug or pitcher with a wide mouth used for carrying water for someone to wash in .

(d) ebulient - cheerful and full of energy . Archaic - of liquid or matter boiling or agitated as if boiling . From Latin ebullire - to bubble out which is the stem of the word Bullire which is the ancestor of the word boil .

(e) ectomorphic - body having a build with little fat or muscle and long limbs .

(f) - Chad - a landlocked country in north central Africa . One of the poorest and most corrupt nations in the world .

(g) breastbeating - a loud emotional expression of remorse , grief , anger , or self recrimination .

(h) Skewer - stick or metal pin used to hold meat .

(i) essoin - old English . An excuse for nonappearance in court .

(j) flannel-mouthed - smooth and persuasive in speech in order to deceive or manipulate .

(k) idyllic - extremely happy , peaceful , or picturesque .



VIII .
Through the eyes of yashmak (a) ,
below the eyes of  yarmulke (b) .
Whey-faced (c) tunneled half-caste (d)  in a white haik (e) .
Genuflection (f) to Baal (g) , Jehovah (h) .
A docudrama (i) , carbunckled (j) .
As the cross hair sweeps
across professed
liturgist (k) .


(a) yashmak - veil concealing all of the face except the eyes . Worn by some Muslim women in public .

(b) yarmulke - a skull cap worn by orthodox Jewish men or during prayer by other Jewish men .

(c) whey-faced - pale , especially as a result of ill health , shock , or fear .

(d) half-caste - a person whose parents are of different races in particular a European father and an Indian mother .

(e) Haik - a large outer garment or wrap typically white and worn by people from North Africa's Maghreb region .


(f) genuflection - lowering of one's body briefly by bending one knee to the ground . Typically in worship or as as sign of respect .

(g) Baal - was a title honorific meaning "owner" , "Lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity . From its use among people it became to be applied to Gods of fertility , weather , rain , wind , lightning , seasons , war , and patron of sailors .

(h) Jehovah - a form of the Hebrew name  of God . Means  "I am that I am" or "I am the one who is".

(i) docudrama - a dramatized TV movie based on real life events .

(j) carbunckled - to make painful , sore , or irritated .

(k) liturgist - one who practices liturgy . A form to which public religious worship is conducted . In ancient Greece a public office or duty performed voluntaryly by a rich Athenian .

Behold that great Plotinus swim,
Buffeted by such seas;
Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him,
But the Golden Race looks dim,
Salt blood blocks his eyes.
Scattered on the level grass
Or winding through the grove
plato there and Minos pass,
There stately Pythagoras
And all the choir of Love.