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Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.

I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the *****! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
Memes on Every Theme

To hell with thought! Bring on the memes —
"The highest art," or so it seems.
They cover every single theme —
A **** for feelings: cheap and lean.

Who needs the mind? Just feel instead!
Why think at all? The brain is dead.
Much easier to sit and scroll,
To bathe in lies, to numb the soul.

And if those memes are set to clips —
Behold the miracles of drips!
Raised on TV’s myth parade,
With pop as idol, sense decayed.

Then march in rows — a zombie troop —
Each meme a leash, each thought a dupe.
The world is dumb — hence meme’s loud roar,
Each one more brainless than before.

A meme’s a tool, like fear or lie,
To make the herd obey and die.
These generations rot in dust —
Once ruled by hype, then crushed by rust.

Dust to dust — their world will fall,
Its lies and filth will feed the crawl.
But now the memes explode and spurt —
Like melted cheese on news dessert.



---------------------



1.
Memes replace thought — obey, consume.
A smiling herd walks toward its doom.

2.
Scroll and drool — forget to think.
Truth is ash, and memes the stink.

3.
Memes are chains with GIF disguise —
They rot your mind and feed you lies.

4.
Mind is silenced. Lies are screamed.
And pop-star memes — the Devil’s dream.

5.
Memes are maggots in the brain —
Squirming joy in drooling pain.

6.
Click, obey — your soul gets *****.
Each meme a noose in candy-shaped.

7.
Your thoughts were sold for meme parade.
Now rot in gifs your masters made.

8.
Mindless scroll — the grave gets near.
Each meme injects a new veneer.

9.
Memes — the ***** of the dead,
Served in songs to dull your head.



---------------------



Bags of Waste


They feast on Hamlet-omelets still,
As if there’s nothing else to fill.
This world is packed with vacant eyes —
The thinking man just starves or dies.

He cannot chant the worn-out lies,
The myths drilled in through dull replies.
They pump in trash since early youth —
And rot begins by killing truth.

Not every brooding soul’s a sage —
Dostoevsky's just a bore on stage.
But once you're stuffed with every fake,
You lose the urge to see — or wake.

No thought remains that burns alone,
That fights, defends a mind its own.
They’re not alive — these bags of waste
Repeat what filth they’ve learned to taste.

It breeds in generations deep —
This art of drowning thought in sleep.
The filth, the lies — all hand-designed
By swine who seek to rot mankind.

No thoughts? Then pens are traded for pens.
The herd is fat — enclosed in dens.
Fed myths and laws that all obey —
To keep the thinking ones at bay.



---------------------



1.
No thoughts — just waste in human skin.
They feed on lies, and call it sin.

2.
Bags of garbage, taught to moo —
Truth was slain to comfort you.

3.
Once you ate the myth buffet —
Your soul began to rot that day.

4.
No mind, no fire — just passive meat.
The herd is groomed for sheer defeat.

5.
Fed on Dostoevsky's gloom and mold —
But never dared to break the hold.

6.
Truth's a toxin in this land —
So they eat lies, and think it grand.

7.
You're not a man — you're rotting code,
A host for lies in flesh and mode.

8.
Decayed inside, still dressed as thought —
Your brain's a bag the virus bought.

9.
They stuffed your skull with myth and pain —
Now all you do is spread the stain.

10.
A walking bin of pre-set lies —
That smiles while everything it dies.

11.
Infected meat with glazed-over eyes —
Programmed to graze, consume, despise.



---------------------



"TO THE BAGS OF WASTE"
(A Manifesto for the Thinking Dead)

You feast on Hamlet like it’s food,
Declare your boredom as a mood.
Yet when the truth knocks at your gate —
You blink, you scroll. You take the bait.

You chant the myths they drilled inside.
You smile while letting thought subside.
You speak in memes, obey and grin —
A corpse of culture, dressed in skin.

You are not men — you're rotting code,
A landfill set to mindless mode.
You carry lies like sacred blood,
And wade through life as passive mud.

You quote your "genius" from a screen,
But never saw what genius means.
Each myth you eat becomes your cage —
A soft, obedient, padded stage.

You are bags — not minds, not flames.
You are files with different names.
You are bins of pre-chewed pain —
And all you birth is more insane.

Your eyes are blind, your speech is staged,
Your "truths" are memes pre-soaked in rage.
You graze like beasts, well-fed and tamed —
Your slavery no longer shamed.

We see you.
We name you.
We burn the mold you came through.

From waste to fire — let the purge begin.
No virus thrives where Thought breaks in.



---------------------



New Tactics for the Fight


If you fight a lie with lying —
Even “for the greater good” —
You’re already dead, just trying
To look alive, as corpses would.

Lies are total. Only truth
Can reply with steady flame.
Hard, yes — but to mimic ruth-
less dark, is just the same.

This is war. A war for soul.
Demons lie — that’s all they do.
Crushing meaning, self, and goal —
Every word they speak untrue.

Don’t be fooled — they’re sly, not wise.
They boil the frog, they cloud the skies.
Lies infect entire lands —
Not with guns, but with commands.

Old tools fail — discard them fast!
New revolt must truly last.
They’ve refined soul-killing arts —
So strike where rot and ruin starts.

Seek the breakthrough. Change the form.
Find the weapon past the norm.
Rotting beasts infect the Earth —
Make them tremble at rebirth.



---------------------



MANIFESTO OF THE NEW FIGHT

To those who still see.

I. The Mask of Good
You said it was for peace.
You claimed it served the light.
But truth, once bent, is torn to pieces —
And so you’ve lost the fight.

To fight with lies, though “for the right,”
Is still to serve the very blight.
The war is not for land or gold —
It’s for the soul, the flame, the hold.


II. The Depth of War
This war is not with bombs and steel —
It claws at thought, it mocks what’s real.
Each word is twisted, meaning *****,
And even light gets reshaped.

The creatures lie — with savage pride.
They crush the truth, then call it “guide.”
They forge their facts, corrupt the air,
And smile inside your quiet despair.


III. The Boiled Nation
They boil the people slow, like frogs,
With laws, distractions, fame and fogs.
They’re not “wise” — they’re just diseased.
They feed on hearts like swarming fleas.

The lies are baked into the ground.
The truth is hunted, gagged and bound.
And all the “news” and "sacred rules"
Are weapons crafted just for fools.


IV. Break the Pattern
The old tools? Dead. They served the beast.
The “debates,” the “rights,” the “voting feast.”
They mock your efforts while you speak —
They gut your truth, then call you weak.

Don’t use their tongue. Don’t wear their skin.
The battle starts and ends within.
You want to win? Then burn their scripts.
Unlearn their myths. Reforge your grip.


V. New Weapons, New Will
New tactics rise where old ones fail.
Not to convince — but to derail.
Seek out the cracks, the open seams —
Strike through illusion, not through dreams.

Your target: beasts that rot the core,
That feed on souls and cry for more.
They are the ulcer of this land —
Make truth itself your rebel brand.


VI. Final Call
Truth is not soft — it’s fire and fight.
It does not bow to “greater right.”
So forge your mind into a blade,
And cut through every trap they’ve laid.

The war is now. The field is you.
There’s nothing safe, and nothing new —
Until the lie is scorched away,
And soul reclaims the light of day.

We are the Breakthrough.
We are not meat.
We are the Thought that won't retreat.

New fight. New fire. New form.
And this time — we are the storm.



---------------------



Insatiable Monster


The world’s a monster, always fed —
It drains your strength, it leaves you dead.
But soon you'll find, when all feels gone,
A pit where none but you hang on.

Drained and cold, yet in that grave
You'll spark again — you'll find the brave.
Outside the mob, the brainless crowd,
Where noise is cheap and dumb is loud.

You will regain the fire, the fight —
So burn, ignite your inner light.
Though fools may scream from every side,
Don’t waste your fire — let silence guide.

Whisper truths to kindred minds,
If such rare souls you ever find.
Or write in silence, store your gold —
This path won’t leave your spirit cold.

To seek, to think, to fight, to make —
That is the path the true must take.
To create — again, again! —
That is how the soul breaks chains.

All else? A mockery of breath —
A life that stinks of fear and death.
A trembling lie. A spirit’s wake.
A form that walks, but never wakes.



---------------------



MINI-MANIFESTO: IGNITE THE SOUL

The world’s a monster — draining might,
It steals your strength, devours the light.

But in the pit where all seem lost,
You find the flame — no matter cost.

Don’t roar with fools, don’t shout in vain —
Whisper truth and bear the strain.

Seek the rare, the minds that fight,
Create with fire — burn the night!

Think. Resist. Create. Repeat.
This is the path no foe can beat.

All else is death in empty breath,
A life that’s chained, a dance with death.

But you — ignite. Become the flame.
The world’s insatiable — tame the game.



---------------------



Don’t Play with “Positive”


Don’t chase “positivity” —
Dive deep into the NEGATIVE.
Forget the tale of “happy life” —
It’s darkness dressed as narrative.

The real story’s dark and grim,
Not just dirt, but foul and dim.
Once it was mere filth and waste,
Now fools heed lies with blind haste.

Even stars and sages read
The shadow’s truth — the hidden creed.
In light, some shades just disappear,
Grasp the dark — the truth is clear.

In this hellish maze of spite,
You’ll see how Darkness wields its might.
If you dwell in comfort’s cage,
You’re a fool locked in a stage.

No escape that way, no flight.
Work with intuition’s sight.
Let the Light become your care —
Or doom will settle everywhere.

In darkness, Light is sharp and pure —
“Positive” just blinds, obscure.
If you seek the Light above,
Fight the fiends — oppose, be tough.



---------------------



1.
Don’t drown in lies of “happy” light —
True power lives within the night.

2.
Positive blinds, but darkness shows —
Fight the fiends; oppose your foes!

3.
Comfort’s cage is fool’s domain —
Intuition breaks the chain.

4.
Light in darkness — sharp and cold,
Fake bright lies just dull and fold.

5.
Forget the “happy” scripted spiel —
In shadow’s truth, you’ll find what’s real.



---------------------



The Global Zoo-Circus


“Mumu” and courage never mix
When darkness clouds the mind’s own fix.
Around, dull stumps and hamsters hide
In burrows safe, nowhere to ride.

And packs of foolish dogs abound —
Not simple beasts, but Darkness’ hounds.
And all forget the solid base —
The core dissolved, erased, displaced.

Such broken souls will redefine
What “bold” means in their poisoned mind.
Forget “bravery” — when the crook
Attacks the wise with ***** look!

And “maturity” is just the act
Of swallowing all filth intact,
Dragging crumbs into your den —
Calling such habits “mind” again?

You’ll lose the last remains inside —
The very soul that once had pride.
The Spirit leads, the mind obeys —
Forget that truth, you’re but a slave.

A servant pig, a dog on lease,
No matter how they boast or “please.”
A cat is wiser than such swine —
At least its eyes still hold a sign.

And soon will come the fiery days —
That cleanse the world in cleansing blaze.
This dumb zoo-circus will be swept
By flames from High, through Sun’s adept.

Fifty years past, it was just “circ” —
Now brighter beams through windows work.



---------------------



THE GLOBAL ZOO-CIRCUS

“Mumu” and courage? Never twins
Where darkness thick and venom wins.
Around — dull stumps, blind hamsters hide,
In filthy holes, no will, no pride.

Packs of dogs — not pets, but fiends,
Darkness’ hounds with poisoned genes.
All forget the solid base —
The soul erased, replaced by disgrace.

“Bravery”? Joke! When fools attack
The wise — their minds they try to crack!
“Maturity”? Just rotting rot —
Swallowing ****, feeding the clot.

Call these habits “mind”? You’ll lose
Your last spark, your sacred fuse.
Spirit leads — the mind’s a tool.
Forget that truth — become their fool.

Servant pig, or dog on chain,
No pride, no fight, just dull refrain.
A cat’s more sharp, its eyes still glow —
While swine march blind to their own woe.

But soon the firestorm will rise —
Burning down this circus of lies.
Flames from Above, through Sun’s fierce light,
Will purge this dark and cursed blight.

Fifty years ago — mere circus cheap,
Now light breaks in — no lies to keep.



---------------------



ZOO-CIRCUS RIOT

No “Mumu,” no courage here —
Darkness rules, the end is near.
Stupid stumps and hamsters crawl,
Blind dogs bark — they serve the fall.

Bravery? Ha! Fools attack
Wise minds — they’ll crack your back!
“Maturity” is just decay —
Swallow **** and rot away.

Spirit leads — don’t be a slave!
Pig or dog, you dig your grave.
Cat’s eyes burn — but swine are blind,
Lost in darkness, crushed, confined.

Fire’s coming — scorch this mess,
Burn the circus — no more less!
From Above — the flames ignite,
Sun will cleanse the cursed night!



---------------------



Worse and Worse


Worse and worse —
The lies grow dense,
Deeper curses,
Thicker sense.

More poison
In filthy lies,
Sharper minds
In merciless cries

Of valley’s evil,
Where fear and gloom
Crush all will —
Sin’s dark tomb.

Once by whip,
Now by deceit.
The world’s a cage —
No escape fleet.

To soar above —
No wings to lend.
To reach through madness —
Hope’s thin bend.

Rising hard —
Foul stench climbs high.
Only choice —
Death or evil’s spy.

Poison’s sharper
In corruption’s grip,
But servile shame
Eases the trip.

And choice dissolves —
Death claims the theme,
Consuming all —
The final scream.



---------------------



Weariness Is Not Sarcoma


Weariness crawling deep in your bones?
Then spit it out — crush it, break the stones!
Nothing to lose — just shame and dust,
No dawn of reason, no hope or trust.

Fight your last battle, even alone,
To hell with the outcome, to hell what's known.
This world’s for dogs, all sold and broke —
Learn well how to die, that’s no joke.

The worm gnaws sharp — it’s fear in “good,”
That worm of worry, twisted and crude.
If you listen — you’re rabble, the dirt,
If you heed it — you’re wisdom’s worst flirt.

Reject all lies, or you’re long gone,
Dead before death, in decay drawn.
You’ve entered Hell — Mirrors so bent,
Selling misery as joy’s event.

To cast off lies — you must cut deep,
Cut yourself raw, no easy sleep.
No walking Hell with calm or ease,
If you’re serene — you’re just disease.

And you’ll be lonely all your days,
If truth is all that lights your ways.
Weariness will come in time’s stream —
Then spit it out, don’t lose that gleam.

Forget much else — forget it well,
Only truth in the soul will dwell.
But many here have lost their souls,
Hell’s delirium fully controls.

Be like a shrink for many minds —
Don’t waste your nerves on fools and grinds.
Wait for the crash, the world in pain,
Earth bleeding wounds, soaked in disdain.

This cataclysm will cleanse the cold,
Soulless swept, the pure behold.
For global fascism’s guilt —
No hiding, no escape built.

Weariness is the least concern —
Shift your soul’s focus, learn to burn
With mighty effort, that true gem —
All else is dust and worthless stem.

This is Alchemy’s true course,
For fighters who deny fear’s force.
If not, then idiot you are —
And this whole world is dust so far.

Weariness, lizards, dust, and sticky fear —
Attributes of Hell that’s near.
The soul must know — or face the crash:
Devoured by Hell’s putrid lash.



---------------------



Weariness Ain’t No Cancer

Weariness creeps deep in your bones?
Spit it out — crush it to stones!
Nothing left — just **** and dust,
No dawn for minds, no hope or trust.

Fight your last fight — fight alone!
To hell with all outcomes known.
This world’s a kennel for dogs sold —
Learn to die fierce, fierce and bold.

The worm of fear, dressed as “good,”
Sows your mind with rotten wood.
You listen — you’re rabble, ****.
You heed it — you’re wisdom’s ***.

Cut off the lies, or you’re dead —
Dead before death, rotting, bled.
Hell’s Mirrors warped and foul —
Selling chains as happiness foul.

No soft steps through Hell’s domain,
Calm in Hell? You’re just its stain.
Lonely warrior, truth your sword —
Weariness? That’s your reward.

Forget the rest — just keep truth bright,
In soul’s dark depths, the only light.
Many soulless crawl in Hell,
Madness rings the devil’s bell.

Be psychiatrist, cold and sharp —
Don’t waste nerve on brainless carp.
Cataclysm’s coming, Earth will bleed,
Soulless swept by fire’s creed.

Fascism’s plague we all must pay —
No escape, no hideaway.

Weariness? The least you’ll feel —
Shift your soul, make strength real!
Fight! Fear’s dead weight you must shun —
Fail and this world turns to dust and gun.

Lizards, dust, fear’s sticky sting —
Hell’s own marks, the devil’s ring.
Know this, or face the crash —
Hell’s putrid maw will gnash and slash.



---------------------



Man’s Fate

From childhood, everyone is placed
Within the harsh, dumb scheme’s embrace —
To forge a soul without a spark,
Obedient, silent, cold and dark.

Stupidity and soullessness
Are goals the cattle-class possess,
Who hold the highest powers here,
Driving slaves to death and fear.

Death comes in forms, both gross and deep —
The spirit’s death is worse to keep.
The graveyard swells with lifeless throngs —
This world’s no home, but crypt of wrongs.

Laws exist for lifeless dead,
Rules made for fools to bow their head.
The air is stale, the chains grow tight,
Bonds forged in darkness, snuffing light.

Amidst this ruin, fragile blooms
Of wisdom rare, like sapphires’ rooms.
Yet chains are made, and fools are bred,
Betrayers, brutes, and hangmen fed,

Who guard their skins and heed the lies
Of brazen fiends with hollow eyes.
Lies bottomless, absurd, profane,
Deadly orders to **** the sane.

Armies march with tests and plagues,
To burn the land in fiery waves —
Better than ******’s cruel fire,
Their lies consume and never tire.

Only Spirit can break the cage,
And strengthen Mind to rage the rage.
These frames fit ***** and feeble drones —
Soon Darkness cracks the ancient stones.

Darkness destroyed by Sun’s fierce light —
Its blaze will burn the dark to blight.
Step out from shadows, choose your fight,
Become a blazing beam of light!

Burn the World’s disgrace away —
Let that be your defiant say.
Risk your life to stand and shout,
Find your tribe and band about.

Join the fight against the fascist curse,
Or be the dead, the doomed, the worse,
Bowed beneath a fatal fate —
Submit, and seal your endless state.



---------------------



Fight or rot — no in-between,
Break the chains or join the mean.
Rise as fire, burn the lies,
Or become one dead who dies!



---------------------



No mercy for the slave or fool,
Crush the Darkness, break the rule!
Burn their lies in blazing wrath —
Or rot forever in their path!



---------------------



Comparative Zoology

A tiny bird pecks grain,
While pigs just eat all plain.
What’s the difference here?
Pigs gorge without fear.

And what makes fools apart
From swine’s coarse heart?
They chew on tastier lies,
Feeding fear and despise.

Drunk on lies, far worse
Than pigs in their curse —
Captured by the BEAST, they fall,
Like flails that smash it all.

They wreck the last remains
Of reason in their brains,
Fighting battles doomed,
For pay alone consumed.

The BEASTS of fools know well
How to torment and quell.
The sums are clear as hell —
Life’s impossible to dwell.

The smart can’t bear this zoo,
Where LIES reign bold and true,
Breeding death’s approach —
Each lie a tightening noose.

The **** that schemes the camps,
Brews storms and global cramps.
Death, or Death’s harsh call —
A fascist world to fall.

It sweeps all in its path —
So sweep the world in wrath,
Or else in that dread camp
We’ll crawl, all of us stamped.



---------------------



Comparative Zoology

Tiny bird pecks seeds alone,
Pigs devour all — they own the throne.
What’s the **** difference, fool?
Pigs eat filth, you swallow drool.

******* hoard their spite and fear,
Feasting lies, they choke on smear.
Drunk on *******, worse than swine,
Trapped by BEASTS that crush the mind.

They smash the last spark of thought,
Fight pointless wars, for greed they’re bought.
BEASTS of fools know how to break,
Drive the herd, control the fake.

Smart minds choke on this zoo’s stink,
Lies spit venom, push to brink.
**** breeds death, camps in command,
Global fascists scorch the land.

They’ll burn it all — no mercy shown,
So burn it down or die alone.
Or crawl to camps in slavish rows —
The choice is yours, as darkness grows.



---------------------



Comparative Zoology

Tiny bird pecks its worthless grain,
Pigs gobble all—dumb, filthy, insane.
What’s the ******’ difference, you ***** slime?
Pigs eat ****, fools swallow grime.

Fools fatten on fear and hate,
Feed on lies, sealing their fate.
Drunk on ******* worse than swine,
Cursed by BEASTS that crush the mind.

They smash the last spark of reason’s light,
Waging useless fights for greed and spite.
BEASTS of fools, cruel puppeteers,
Drive the herd with venomous sneers.

Smart minds suffocate in this zoo’s stench,
Lies spit poison, life’s twisted wrench.
**** plots death, camps in control,
Global fascists burning the soul.

They’ll torch the world, no mercy given,
So fight or die, your fate is written.
Burn it all or crawl like slaves,
Darkness wins if courage caves.



---------------------



Comparative Zoology

Tiny bird pecks its ****-for-grain,
Pigs choke down filth and puke in pain.
What’s the ******’ difference, dumb-*** freak?
Pigs eat trash, fools lick the sleak.

Fools gorge on fear and bitter hate,
Swallow lies — that’s their deathly fate.
Drunk on *******, worse than swine,
Caught in BEASTS’ chains — a noose divine.

They smash the last flicker of reason’s fire,
Fuel pointless wars for greed’s desire.
BEASTS of fools, vile masters of pain,
Twist minds, drive herd, and spread the stain.

Smart ones suffocate in this cursed pit,
Lies drip poison, truth’s counterfeit.
**** schemes death in brutal camps,
Fascist fires burn Earth’s lamp.

They’ll raze the world without a shred,
Fight now or rot among the dead.
Burn it all or crawl like slaves,
Darkness reigns if courage caves.



---------------------



Comparative Zoology

Tiny bird scraps scraps like ****,
Pigs gorge on **** — they never quit.
What’s the difference, dumb *****? None!
Pigs eat crap, fools drool and run.

Fools feast on fear and rancid spite,
Swallow lies like death’s invite.
Drunk on *******, worse than swine,
Chained to BEASTS, fists made to grind.

They crush the last spark of reason’s flame,
Fueling pointless wars for filthy gain.
BEASTS of fools, sick masters of pain,
Bend minds, herd sheep, spread the stain.

The smart suffocate in this stinking pit,
Lies drip poison, truth’s counterfeit.
**** plots death in twisted camps,
Fascist blaze burns Earth’s lamp.

They’ll raze the world to ash and bone,
Fight now — or rot, broken and lone.
Burn it all or crawl as slaves,
Darkness wins if courage caves.



---------------------



Dust

“Shake off the dust of cities, shake the dust
Of strange tongues, of friendship and of hate,
The dust of grief, of love, and mortal fate.
O, free man choosing freedom’s gust!
You hold but desert winds and dust.”
— Ibn Said, The Demon Tablets


Like cotton wrapped in dust —
“Friendship,” “love” decay,
And sticky fear’s a toxin
Coursing in the veins.

No friendship lives, no love survives
When you’re a slave by will —
Only beasts get service,
Only scraps and filth to fill.

That filth is in the mind too:
Trash and petty waste — decay.
Beasts in savage frenzy
**** souls day by day.

More rotten with each moment —
Soul’s slashes grow severe.
Genocide more ruthless —
A filthy fool’s career.

This fool will be the end —
Subdued, wild, and blind.
Satan reigns a god here —
Most lost, insane, confined.

Shake it off — all this filth!
Step light and walk your way.
Mystics, poets — forward!
Leading out of decay.

On this cursed road,
Leaving Hell behind.
No more fragile victim —
Or you’ll rot confined.

Bravely dive inside —
Only there truth’s found.
Fight for light — or perish,
If you bow down.

This city is a desert,
But your path’s not lost —
If you fight: Hell vanishes —
All rotten chaos tossed.

No sorrow, no death —
Just cleansing desert wind.
Believe in that alone —
Strike lies dead, unpinned.

Rot’s salt and core is Hell,
Fascist slime’s domain.
World bowed down in terror —
Horror’s cold, dull chain.

If you’re trapped in “desert” —
No light left to take.
Now the cataclysm nears —
No more time to break.

It’ll sweep away all Hell —
All rotten, all betrayed.
Gone forever — vile and weak —
In dust, forever laid.

Only in Pure Spirit
Will life be born anew.
If bright, your path is clear —
The stench and slime won’t glue.

To Light they’ll not cling —
They’ll fall and quickly fade.
You’re not cast out —
Let beasts keep up their charade.

Time ticks on —
No place for liars’ games.
For traitors who have fallen —
No refuge, no names.

Shake off the city’s dust,
The dust of hate and love.
All space is torn apart —
Mirages die, above.

Mirages in the desert —
This pitiful world’s scorn.
Here in lies you’re trapped —
A frog, dumb, forlorn, and worn.



---------------------



Dust

Shake off the dust of cities, dust of lies,
Dust of fake friends and ****** goodbyes,
Dust of pain, of love turned into death —
You, free man? Just wind in desert breath.

Like cotton wrapped in dust and fear’s sick glue,
“Friendship,” “love” — impossible for you.
Slave to beasts, just scraps and filthy crumbs,
Brains rotted out, no hope that comes.

That filth’s inside your mind as well:
Trash and nonsense, a living hell.
Beasts in rage tear souls apart,
Slaughter hope and crush the heart.

Every day it gets more vile,
Soul’s butchered with a brutal smile.
Genocide’s the brutal score,
Fool’s plague killing evermore.

This fool’s the end —
Broken, tamed, unfit.
Satan’s god,
The insane, the spit.

Shake it off, you filth-drowned wretch!
Step light, get out the stench and stretch.
Mystics, poets — lead the fight,
Escape this endless, choking night.

On cursed paths, leave Hell behind.
Stop being weak, or rot confined.
Dive inside, find truth’s hot flame,
Fight for Light — or die in shame.

This city’s desert —
Your path is fire.
Fight and Hell burns down —
Rot’s funeral pyre.

No death, no grief —
Just cleansing dry wind.
Believe in this —
Strike lies, begin.

Hell’s salt and core is rotten lies,
Fascist slime beneath these skies.
World bowed down in terror’s clutch —
Horror’s grip — too **** much.

If trapped inside this desert shell,
No light to claim, no hope to sell,
The cataclysm’s close, it’s near —
Sweeping Hell away with fear.

Gone forever, rotten ****,
Betrayers fall, their time is done.
Only pure spirit rises bright,
Cuts through stench and wins the fight.

To Light they cling no more —
They fall, they drop, they rot and roar.
You’re not cast out —
Let beasts lie in their gore.

Time ticks down —
No place for lies,
For traitors broken,
No disguise.

Shake off city dust —
Hate and lies be crushed.
Space torn wide —
Mirages crushed.

Mirages in the desert —
This pitiful world’s curse.
Trapped in lies like slime and mud,
A dumb, forsaken frog, alone and cursed.



---------------------



Dust

Shake city dust —
Lies and friends, all dust and death.
Freedom? Ha —
Just wind in barren breath.

Friendship’s poison, love’s a lie,
Slave to beasts who watch you die.
Brains rotted, souls torn apart —
Hell’s plague choking every heart.

Every day the rot grows worse,
Genocide’s the curse.
Fool kneels, Satan’s throne,
Insane masses, all alone.

Shake it off — step through the fire,
Mystics lead, lift your ire.
Fight inside, or drown in shame —
Hell’s desert burns your name.

No grief, no death — just cleansing flame,
Strike the lies, destroy the game.
Fascist slime will drown and fall —
Cataclysm burns it all.

Only Spirit rises strong,
Cuts through filth, rights the wrong.
Mirages shatter, fade to black —
Fools sink, never come back.

Shake the dust —
Break the chain.
No lies remain,
Only pain.



---------------------



Fool

All is wasted under this cursed sky.
Joy is only for the fool who won’t ask why.
Then you stand like prey in a shooting range,
Targeted by another fool, sharp and strange,

Armed far better, aiming for your brain,
These cursed lands breed idiots, insane.
Where darkness reigns, not even a spark —
Only lies towering like Everest stark.

You live trapped in a zoo’s grim cage,
Half-beasts roaming, full of rage.
The fool breeds even in chains,
Joyful in his new-world pains.

He feels no soul’s sharp sting or grief,
Blind to fascist’s vile deceit.
The world destroyed “for his health’s sake,”
But if no blood flows, the fool will take

His feast, and think it’s all a game,
While wisdom guards against the shame.
Fools run the madhouse worldwide —
With liars, thugs standing side by side.

Fools cheer their masks — the muzzles bind
The dumbest slaves, deaf and blind.
If cops don’t wear helmets yet,
And graves aren’t filling just yet,

Then all is fine — let’s eat and breed,
Drink on, ignore the growing greed.
No need for truth to slaves so blind —
The fake virus will end mankind.



---------------------



FOOL

All’s wasted under this **** sky.
Only fools find joy — no need to try.
You’re target practice in a firing range,
Another idiot shoots you — cold and strange.

Better armed, they smash your mind,
This hell breeds idiots, deaf and blind.
No light, just lies piled Everest-high,
You live trapped in a beastmen’s lie.

Fools breed behind cold bars,
Happy slaves to their new scars.
No pain, no truth inside their head,
Blind to fascists — death and dread.

They “protect” your health by killing this world,
No blood? Then fools feast, flags unfurled.
Wisdom fights — fools run the show,
With liars, thugs in sick combo.

Masks choke dumb slaves, no hope in sight,
Cops without helmets, graves not quite right.
So all is fine — keep eating, breed,
Drown in lies, ignore the need.

Truth is poison to the dumb,
Fake virus wipes out some.
The fool’s last laugh — a final breath,
Doomed to march to silent death.



---------------------



FOOL'S WAR CRY

Fools feast while the world decays,
Brains are targets in the haze.
Masks choke slaves, cops lie and cheat —
Wake or rot beneath their feet!

**** the lies, burn the fools,
Break the chains, smash their rules!
No mercy for the dumb and blind —
Fight with fire, free your mind!



---------------------



FOOL'S WAR SCREAM

Fools breed plague, a choking blight,
Brains get blasted — no respite.
Masks on slaves, cops choke and lie,
Truth gets crushed, let ******* die!

Burn the fools, no mercy shown,
Crush their lies, break every bone!
No pity for the dumb and weak —
Rage, revolt, the strong don’t speak!

Chains will snap beneath our boots,
Crush the **** and rotten suits!
Wake the fire, strike with hate —
Fools are fodder for the fate!



---------------------



SHADOWS OF THE FOOL

Fools crawl blind in endless night,
Feeding lies that **** the light.
Masks suffocate, chains grow tight —
Death awaits the weak, the blind, the trite.

No salvation, no reprieve,
Only blood that fools conceive.
Rot and filth beneath their skin,
This is where the darkness wins.

Crush the plague, the human ****,
Break their bones — no hope will come.
Silent screams and shattered bones,
The fools will rot in hell alone.

Rise, the fire burns so cold,
Truth forgotten, lies unfold.
In the shadows, fury waits —
Fools will drown in twisted fates.



---------------------



SHROUDED IN FOOL'S DARKNESS

Fools drag chains through endless night,
Breathing poison, killing light.
Blindly crawling in their hell,
Souls enslaved in cursed shell.

Masks choke tight — no air, no hope,
In this pit, no chance to cope.
Filth and rot beneath cracked skin,
Sins of mind, the plague within.

Madness rules, the world decays,
Truth consumed by lies’ malaise.
Silent screams behind the veil,
Broken wills that always fail.

Burn them down — the pestilence,
Crush the spawn of impotence.
Let the shadows swallow all,
Fools shall drown beneath their fall.

No salvation waits for those
Whose minds rot where darkness grows.
Hell’s own puppets, lost and blind —
Wretched fools of cursed kind.

Rise the fire, cold and grim,
Light’s last breath grows faint and dim.
But in ashes, fury wakes —
Vengeance born when darkness breaks.



---------------------



FOOL'S WRATH — NO MERCY GIVEN

Fools drag chains through ****-stained night,
Choking lies that **** the light.
Blinded, cursed, and dragged to hell,
Souls crushed hard inside their shell.

Masks suffocate, no breath, no hope,
In this *******, no way to cope.
Rotting guts and filthy skin,
Mindless plague — the devil’s sin.

Madness rules — the world’s decayed,
Truth’s been ripped and torn away.
Silent screams beneath the veil,
Broken wills that always fail.

Burn the vermin, purge the ****,
Crush their lies till all is numb.
Let the shadows drown them deep,
Fools deserve the grave they keep.

No salvation for the blind,
Rotting filth that eats the mind.
Hell’s own puppets, slaves in chains —
Pathetic fools, the world’s remains.

Raise the fire, cold and grim,
Light’s last breath flickers and dims.
From the ash, a fury wakes —
Vengeance born as darkness breaks.



---------------------



FOOL’S WRATH

Fools rot, blind slaves in chains,
Breeding lies, disease remains.
Rotting brains and broken souls —
Hell’s own dogs with filthy goals.

Masks choke, silence screams,
Lost in lies, crushed dreams.
Burn the ****, purge the pain —
Only ashes will remain.

No hope for stupid fools,
Wretched slaves, broken rules.
Fire rises — darkness falls,
Vengeance shouts — the final call.

Truth is weapon, lies decay,
Fools will rot — no other way.
Hell’s plague on this ****** earth,
Time to burn the fool’s false worth.



---------------------



Scab

Those pulling strings won’t blow their cover—
Invisible behind the show.
Clowns act out the ****’s script, no other,
Whip lies slashing, beating low.

The puppetmaster lurks in shadows,
Dreams to bind all strings for life.
Fools groan, curse clowns with bitter echoes,
But truth’s denied amid the strife.

To **** all thought—that’s ruling’s purpose,
Success lies in dumbing down the crowd.
From age to age, the mind grows worthless,
Idiocy reigns fierce and loud.

For most are fools, a pliant herd,
Easy to steer through clownish acts.
The **** got bold—now plans are stirred
To build death camps for killing facts.

And CowID showed the brutal truth:
How simple it is to enslave—
A global camp for fools uncouth,
A world infected by the scab of knaves.



---------------------



The Scab

The ones who pull the strings won’t die —
They hide unseen behind the freakshow.
Clowns obey the filthy lie,
Whipping truth with every blow.

The puppetmaster basks in shade,
Dreams of binding all the strings.
Fools moan, curse clowns, but truth’s betrayed —
No honor in the puppets’ kings.

To **** all thought — the ruler’s goal,
Success in dumbing down the breed.
Generation dull, a blackened hole,
Idiots spawned like rotting ****.

The herd of fools is all they need,
So easy to control the mob.
The **** got brazen, plotting greed —
Death camps built for easier job.

CowID proved how **** simple,
To cage the world in hellish bars.
A plague of scabs, dumb and crippled,
Ruled by freaks with empty scars.



---------------------



Tragic Themes

Tragic themes, best left alone,
By fools too dull to hear or see,
It’s easier in Hell to rot
When dumb and mute — a misery.

Dumb is he whose mind and soul
Turn deaf to tragedy’s call,
Madness is the heir they sow —
Into ranks of Satan’s thrall.

Satan’s servants, blind and numb,
Fed with false hope, thick and lame,
Mind’s a slurry, mush, and sludge —
Fascism’s seed is sown in shame.

Dull fools always march to fascism,
Chewing up the last of honor,
Those with conscience face the end,
Cut down silent, no defender.

Not just bullets end their days —
Crushed in silence, left to drown,
In poverty, forgotten deep,
No one hears them ’midst the clown.

All media’s chained to devils —
CowID proved the puppets’ role.
With new devils come new lies,
Fascism’s face takes darker toll.

****** now by lies alone —
Darkness’ chief and cruelest art,
Reducing humans to mere beasts —
Hell’s chaos tearing hearts apart.



---------------------



Propaganda

Propaganda’s like Uganda —
Level of “progress” is crap.
Run by **** who feed on Satan,
Spewing ashes, poison sap.

Dumbheads get it dumped on top —
People bear it, brains decay,
This foul *******’s cruelty
Rips their minds and burns away.

**** pulls strings, the clown’s a puppet,
Dancing dumb on TV’s stage,
“Politician” triples lies,
Cash his only real wage.

Goebbels spins in Hell’s own vat,
Wild beasts trust his crap with zeal,
Worship dung with sick devotion —
Filth that’s forced on us to feel.

Half-baked Fuhrer hits the box,
Blabbering lies to all who hear,
“King’s not real” — spit it out,
Trample truth without a tear.

Two-faced Fuhrer rules the scene,
Propaganda’s worth the price.
Beasts in war, unseen but deadly,
Destroy souls in silent ice.

Stupid world with open ears,
Forgot how to think and see,
War’s real trophy is the souls,
Who let beasts inside their plea.



---------------------



Storm Within

There’s no such thing as "happiness"
For slaves so weak and small.
Only storms and darkness reign —
If your mind begins to fall.

You must rebuild from inside,
Learn this truth and keep it true:
Spirit’s fire alone can break
The hell that’s crushing you.

This hell drives souls to death,
Not just the flesh, but deep —
A worthy man becomes a worm,
Lost in shadows steep.

Trust nothing but yourself,
These gates lead to the end.
Deception cuts like knives on paths
That never seem to bend.

Your soul is torn to shreds —
Heal yourself or die.
Sooner or later it will break,
No matter how you try.

Seek no teacher’s hollow words —
Chase the shadows out.
Your mind’s a cesspool — filled with crap,
Fighting without doubt.

The stench won’t just fade away —
Drive that filth from sight,
Or hell will reign within your mind,
Darkening all your light.

Strength and wisdom live inside,
Cleanse your thoughts, uproot lies,
Weeds of falsehood sprout like vines,
Sown for many days gone by.

Sharpen your critical blade —
Cut through the ****** deceit.
To hell with fake politeness —
Burn lies in scorching heat.

Engage in work creative,
Love the process, not the prize.
The sprouts you grow will feed your soul,
And make your spirit rise.

You are your judge and reward,
Joy returns through the night,
Amid the nightmare called existence —
When you reclaim your light.

Stay clear from blind sheep’s herd —
Guard your strength with care.
Their animal "prana" poisons —
Run fast from that snare!

Turn your gaze from the masses,
Focus deep on the known:
The path of true awakening,
Where lies get overthrown.

Concentrate on "other worlds,"
Not this prison of dread,
For in obsession, madness dwells —
And fear will cloud your head.

These "other worlds" are spirit’s flight,
A higher realm to own.
Cast off rotten crutches — dead weight,
And leave them all alone.

This hellish world is all crutches —
Built on idols vile.
Tear down these false gods, cleanse your soul —
Heed only lyre’s wild.

For in harsh poetry,
Worlds beyond break through the gloom —
Sharp as blades when poets speak,
Their truths cut through the tomb.

There’s much more yet to say —
Lyre’s burden is deep,
But this tale must wait for now —
More secrets you shall keep.



---------------------



Storm Within

No joy exists for wretched slaves,
Just storms that rip your mind apart.
When spirit’s weak, you walk the graves —
A broken soul, a shattered heart.

Rebuild yourself from deep inside,
Learn this hard truth — your inner flame
Alone can burn the hellworld’s lies,
Destroy the shackles, break the chain.

This hell drives souls toward decay,
Turns worthy men to crawling filth.
The devil’s slaves obey, obey —
Consumed by darkness, drowned in guilt.

Trust no one — only yourself,
These gates lead straight to death’s domain.
Deception slashes like a blade,
Your soul’s blood spilled in bitter pain.

Your heart’s a battlefield, all torn —
Heal now or die beneath the weight.
The poison’s deep; the night is worn —
You face the endless hand of fate.

Forget the teachers, fools, and liars —
Expel the shadows from your mind.
Your thoughts are cesspools, rotted pyres,
Where toxic filth is intertwined.

The stench won’t fade; you must uproot
This plague or hell will reign inside.
Your consciousness, the only root —
Clear lies before they crush your pride.

Strength and wisdom dwell within,
Purge your thoughts, uproot the weeds.
Falsehood’s seeds breed endless sin —
They feed on pain and darkest deeds.

Sharpen your sword of clarity —
Slice lies with ruthless, deadly force.
Forget the mask of “politeness” —
Burn deceit without remorse.

Create with passion, fight with love,
The process is the only prize.
The sprouts you nurture rise above
The poison and the hateful lies.

You are your judge, your only prize,
Joy can return despite the night.
In this hellscape called "existence,"
You wrest your soul back into light.

Avoid the sheep — their dumbed-down herd,
Their “animal breath” will poison you.
Run far, escape their stinking herd,
Before their plague infects you too.

Divert your gaze from empty crowds,
Focus sharp on truth’s own path.
Seek out the worlds beyond the clouds —
Beyond the rage, beyond the wrath.

Fixate on other realms, not here —
This prison built on fear and hate.
Obsession breeds the madman’s sneer,
And fear enslaves the human state.

Those “other worlds” — the spirit’s flight,
A higher place beyond decay.
Cast off the rotten crutches, blight —
Discard false idols, burn away.

This world’s a cage of crutches, lies,
Built on foul idols, dead and cold.
Tear down these shrines with fire in eyes,
Cleanse your soul, be fierce and bold.

For poetry can cut like knives,
Revealing worlds beyond the night.
The harshest words are battle cries,
Truth’s razor piercing dark with light.

There’s more to say — the lyre knows —
But secrets wait in shadowed folds.
The story deep inside still grows,
More truths remain to be told.



---------------------



Storm Within

No joy for slaves who crawl and rot,
Just endless storms inside the brain.
When spirit’s crushed, you’re what you’re not —
A hollow shell consumed by pain.

Reforge your soul from ash and flame,
Embrace the fury deep within.
Only fire can burn this shame,
And break the chains of flesh and sin.

This hell drives souls into the pit,
Turns proud men into crawling waste.
The devil’s dogs obey and sit,
Their honor lost, their will disgraced.

Believe no one — just trust your blood,
The gates to death swing wide and black.
Deception’s knives drip poisoned flood,
And drag your spirit’s life off track.

Your soul’s a battlefield of scars,
Heal fast or drown beneath the weight.
The poison sinks, the night is mars,
You stand before your final fate.

Forget the fools, the liars’ lies —
Purge shadows from your mental core.
Your mind’s a swamp where darkness lies,
A cesspool breeding endless gore.

The stench won’t fade — root out the plague,
Or hell will claim your very breath.
Your consciousness must fight and rage,
Destroy deceit, defy your death.

Inside you dwell the strength and light,
Clear out the weeds, uproot the rot.
Falsehood’s seeds breed endless blight —
They feed on all that’s good and fought.

Sharpen your blade — relentless, sharp,
Slice lies to ashes, burn their veil.
Forget the mask, the fake “sharpsharp” —
The truth will carve and never fail.

Create with fire, fight with hate,
Love every stroke, embrace the strife.
Your growing shoots will dominate
The sickness choking all your life.

You are the judge, the warrior’s prize,
Joy can return from darkest hell.
In this nightmare called "existence,"
You wrest your soul from death’s cold spell.

Avoid the sheep, the dumbed-down horde,
Their stench will poison flesh and mind.
Run fast, escape their cursed sword,
Before their plague enslaves mankind.

Turn eyes away from empty herds,
Fix gaze on realms beyond the cage.
Seek worlds where spirit flies like birds —
Beyond the fury, fear, and rage.

Focus sharp on other planes,
This world’s a cage of fear and lies.
Madness grows where darkness reigns,
And fear is law beneath these skies.

Those “other worlds” — the spirit’s fire,
A realm beyond decay and death.
Cast off the crutches, false desire —
Burn idols cold with final breath.

This world’s a prison made of lies,
Built on idols foul and dead.
Tear down those shrines, watch falsehood die,
Cleanse your soul — rise from the dead.

Poetry’s a sword that cuts,
Revealing realms beyond the dark.
Harsh words ignite, fierce thunderstruts,
Truth’s blade ignites the faintest spark.

There’s more to say — the lyre screams —
But secrets wait beyond the veil.
The story’s deep — a flood of dreams,
More truths await beyond the pale.



---------------------



Storm Within

No joy for slaves who rot and crawl,
Only storms that drag you down.
When spirit’s crushed — you’re nothing at all —
A crawling beast beneath the crown.

Reforge your soul in blazing hell,
Embrace the wrath that burns inside.
Only fire can break this spell —
And shred the chains of flesh and pride.

This pit of hell drives souls to sludge,
Turns kings to vermin, fit to die.
The devil’s dogs bark loud and judge,
Their honor dead, beneath the sky.

Trust no ****** — trust your blood,
The gates to death swing wide and black.
The lies will stab you like a flood,
Dragging your soul down a broken track.

Your mind’s a swamp of poison and ****,
A cesspool breeding endless death.
The stench won’t leave, you must commit
To purge the rot with iron breath.

Within you burns the primal light,
Rip out the weeds, crush every lie.
The seeds of poison choke your sight —
A graveyard ‘neath a toxic sky.

Sharpen the blade, relentless steel,
Slice through the plague and burn the veil.
No tact, no mercy — lies must kneel,
Their carcasses feed the hellish gale.

Create with rage, destroy with fire,
Love every scar that marks the fight.
Your wrath will rise, it won’t expire —
The darkness cowers at your light.

You’re judge, executioner, and flame,
Joy’s return from Hell’s cold grip.
In nightmare’s depths, reclaim your name —
Rip life from Death’s corrupting slip.

Avoid the sheep, the herd of fools,
Their stench will poison all they touch.
Run fast, escape their fatal rules,
Their poisoned breath kills much too much.

Turn your gaze from empty herds,
Fix on realms beyond this cage.
Seek worlds where freedom breaks the words,
Beyond the fear, the rage, the rage.

Focus sharp on spirit’s plane,
This world’s a cage of fear and lies.
Madness rules where darkness reigns,
And Death commands beneath these skies.

Other worlds — the fire of soul,
Realms beyond decay and death.
Cast away the crutches’ role —
Burn false idols with your breath.

This world’s a prison built on lies,
Idols foul and long since dead.
Tear their temples down — watch truth rise,
Cleanse your soul — resurrect the dead.

Poetry’s a blade that cuts,
Reveals the realms beyond the night.
Harsh words like thunder — deafening ruts —
Truth’s blade ignites the final fight.

More to say — the lyre screams —
Secrets wait beyond the veil.
A flood of wrath, a stream of dreams,
More truth awaits beyond the pale.



---------------------



Inner Storm

No joy for slaves in hell’s decay,
Only storms that drag you down.
When spirit dies — you’re just the prey,
A filthy beast beneath the crown.

Reforge yourself inside the flame,
Embrace the wrath that burns your core.
Only fire can break the chain,
And drag you back from death’s dark door.

This pit of poison breeds the ******,
Turns kings to filth, their honor sold.
The devil’s puppets grip the land,
Their lies like chains, their hearts are cold.

Trust no **** — trust only blood,
The gates to death swing wide and black.
Lies tear your soul like poisoned flood,
Dragging you down a shattered track.

Your mind’s a sewer filled with rot,
A cesspool boiling with disease.
The stench won’t leave — you must fight lot,
And purge the slime with iron breeze.

Inside you burns the primal spark,
Rip out the weeds, destroy the blight.
The poison seeds choke out the dark —
A graveyard crawling in the night.

Sharpen the blade — unflinching steel,
Cut through the plague, burn every lie.
No mercy now — make demons kneel,
Their carcasses feed hell’s black sky.

Create with fury, forge with pain,
Love every scar that marks the war.
Your wrath will rise and never wane —
Darkness will cower, flee, and roar.

Judge, executioner, and flame,
Joy reborn from Hell’s cold grip.
In nightmare’s depths reclaim your name —
Rip life from Death’s corrupting slip.

Avoid the sheep, the dumb, the blind,
Their stench will poison all they touch.
Run fast, escape their fatal bind,
Their poisoned breath kills far too much.

Turn your gaze from empty herds,
Fix on realms beyond this cage.
Seek worlds where freedom breaks the words,
Beyond the fear, the rage, the rage.

Focus sharp on spirit’s plane,
This world’s a cage of fear and lies.
Madness rules where darkness reigns,
And Death commands beneath these skies.

Other worlds — the soul’s fierce fire,
Realms beyond the decay and death.
Cast away crutches — false desire —
Burn idols down with righteous breath.

This world’s a prison built on lies,
Idols foul and long since dead.
Tear their temples down — truth will rise,
Cleanse your soul — resurrect the dead.

Poetry’s a blade that cuts,
Revealing realms beyond the night.
Harsh words like thunder — deafening ruts —
Truth’s blade ignites the final fight.

More awaits — the lyre screams loud —
Secrets lie beyond the veil.
Wrath floods forth — a storm, a cloud —
Truth’s fire will shatter the pale.



---------------------



Ragequake

No bliss for slaves beneath the sun —
Only storms that break and burn.
When spirit’s crushed, the end’s begun,
You’re just a beast with no return.

Rebuild inside, ignite your core,
Let fury blast the chains away.
Only wrath can settle score,
And drag you screaming from decay.

This hell breeds fiends that wear a crown,
Kings turned to vermin, sold to lies.
Devil’s pawns, they drag us down,
Their venom poisoning the skies.

Trust nothing but your blood and bone,
Death’s gates swing wide for all who fall.
Lies rip the soul and grind to stone,
A shattered mind in hell’s black hall.

Your mind’s a sewer, foul and thick,
A rotten pit that stinks of doom.
The stench won’t fade — it claws and sticks,
Purge the slime or face your tomb.

Inside you burns a savage flame,
Tear out the weeds that choke your breath.
Poison seeds born in your name,
Feed the worms of creeping death.

Sharpen sharp your ruthless sword —
Cut lies to ash, burn every mask.
No mercy now, strike the horde,
Feed hell’s fire — complete the task.

Create in fury, build in pain,
Love each scar earned in this fight.
Your wrath is pure, it breaks the chain —
Darkness flees before your light.

Judge, executioner, flame —
Joy reborn from hellish grip.
In nightmares fierce reclaim your name —
Drag life back from death’s cold slip.

Flee the flock, the blind, the fools,
Their stench will poison all they touch.
Escape the deathly sheepfold rules,
Their breath’s a plague that kills too much.

Turn your eyes to realms beyond,
Fix your soul on distant planes.
Seek worlds where truth is found,
Beyond fear’s chains and madness’ chains.

Focus sharp on spirit’s flame —
This world’s a cage of lies and dread.
Madness rules and death proclaims —
Dark shadows linger where we tread.

Other worlds — soul’s raging fire,
Realms beyond this rotten death.
Throw down crutches, false desire —
Burn idols with your righteous breath.

This world’s a prison built on lies,
Temples shattered, idols dead.
Tear it down, let truth arise —
Cleanse your soul, raise from the dead.

Poetry is the razor’s edge,
Cutting through the darkest night.
Words that roar, the prophet’s pledge —
Truth’s fire sets the final fight.

More awaits beyond the veil,
Lyre’s scream breaks the silence tight.
Wrath ignites a thunderous gale —
Truth’s storm will shatter endless night.



---------------------



Pyrrhic Victory

The media brazenly lies,
Wiping minds, dimming eyes,
And we obey the Dark’s commands,
Marching blind to no-man’s lands.

The world soaked in total lies,
Like an ocean mad and wide,
A victory for beasts deranged—
Conformist sheep, forever chained.

No country left to call its own,
The fire of death in Hell is sown.
The Earth itself—Hell’s twisted throne,
Where traitors thrive, corrupt, alone.

Only one thing wakes the dead—
The sharp command: “Attack!” it said.
Fascism rules where minds have died,
In lies and fear we all abide.

False CowID exposed the game,
Then madness warred without a name.
Before that, AIDS had dulled the throng—
Now needles lead the blind along,

Turning sheep to wicked cattle,
Obedient to evil’s battle.

The whole world’s gripped by dark control,
A madman leads the captive soul
To camps anew—this vile disgrace.
If we allowed this evil place,

Then we must bear the blame and cost,
For letting all humanity be lost.

A Pyrrhic win against the foe—
Burning slaves with evil’s glow,
To clear the field for cruel experiments,
Where darkness breeds new torments.



---------------------



The Luciferian System

No matter what problems rise,
No matter what barriers stand—
Once you bow to System’s lies,
You’re no more than a dog, a hand

Ready to obey on scraps,
“Attack!” you’ll do with slavish zeal.
For fake safety, empty snacks,
You’ll crush freedom’s fragile feel.

Prepare to face the slaughterhouse—
Betrayers get disposed with speed.
Younger dogs will take your vows,
It’s all numbers here they heed.

No matter what problems come,
Save your soul through all the lies.
Though this truth is old and numb,
Mirages cloud your weary eyes.

The System’s base is darkest haze,
Its weapon—lies that cut like knives.
We live in these declining days—
Don’t count money, count your life.

From the global kennel’s cage,
If your soul is light and free,
You’ll set sail for Spirit’s stage—
But the trained dog falls to the deep.



---------------------



The Luciferian System

No matter what walls block your way,
No matter what hellscape you face—
Once you bow to the System’s sway,
You’re just a beast, a bred disgrace.

Ready to snap at the crumb,
“Attack!” they command with cold sneer.
For fake safety, junk to numb,
You’ll **** the freedom you hold dear.

Brace yourself for the killing floor—
Traitors get crushed without a thought.
Younger hounds will race for more,
Just numbers in this brutal plot.

No matter what chaos breaks loose,
Save your soul amidst the lies.
This old truth’s a fatal noose,
Mirages blind the wise.

The System thrives on thickest smoke,
Its weapon is pure filthy lies.
We’re drowning in the final choke—
Count not your coins, but your cries.

From the worldwide dog pound’s hell,
If your soul’s still sharp and clean,
You’ll break free from this cursed shell—
While trained dogs drown in the obscene.



---------------------



The Luciferian System

No matter what **** walls arise,
No matter how the darkness bleeds—
If you bow down, betray the skies,
You’re nothing but a slave who feeds.

A savage hound, a mindless beast,
Snapping for your pitiful crumbs.
“Attack!” they howl—the cruel feast
Of broken souls, the silence drums.

Welcome to the slaughterhouse,
Where traitors bleed and rot in chains.
Young wolves sharpen sharpened jaws,
Counting only flesh and gains.

No hope remains—just twisted lies,
A fog that chokes the breathing light.
Your soul’s a corpse beneath the skies,
Drowned deep in endless, soulless night.

The System’s plague is darkest blight,
Its weapon forged from poison breath.
We march into eternal night—
Not coin, but spirit meets its death.

From global kennels, reeking hell,
If your soul’s not cracked or sold,
You’ll break these ****** chains of spell—
While trained dogs drown in filth and cold.

Bow not to Lucifer’s cold grin—
Or fall into the black abyss.
Where screams are swallowed deep within,
And light is but a dying kiss.



---------------------



Luciferian System

No matter how the chaos screams,
No matter how the darkness swells—
Submit yourself, become their fiend,
A dog condemned to endless hell.

A beast enslaved, mind torn to shreds,
Snarling for your scraps of lies.
“Attack!” commands the puppeteers,
While freedom in your spirit dies.

Welcome to the slaughter pit,
Where traitors choke on bitter chains.
Young wolves prowl, teeth sharpened sharp—
Counting only blood and gains.

No light escapes this poisoned veil,
No hope beyond the blackened breath.
Your soul a carcass, crushed and frail,
Drowning in eternal death.

The System’s core—deception’s maw,
Its venom seeps through every vein.
We walk the path of final law—
Where spirit bleeds and breaks in pain.

From kennels vast and world consumed,
If you’re not cracked, if still you fight,
You’ll break the spell, resist the doom—
While trained dogs fade into night.

Bow to Lucifer? Be ******.
Fall into the void below,
Where screams are swallowed by the ******,
And light’s last ember flickers low.

There is no mercy in this tomb,
No salvation for the weak—
Only endless, yawning gloom,
Where darkness reigns and hope is bleak.

Fight or fall in shadow’s grip,
The abyss waits with open jaws—
But to kneel is your soul’s death trip,
In Lucifer’s cruel claws.



---------------------



Luciferian System — Descent into the Abyss

No matter what hell haunts your mind,
No matter what walls close you in—
Submit yourself, become their kind,
A hound bred for eternal sin.

A slave to shadows, stripped of will,
Snarling, broken, licking lies.
“Attack!” the masters coldly shrill,
While your last freedom slowly dies.

Into the slaughterhouse of souls,
Where traitors bleed without a sound,
Young wolves hunt, control the roles,
Counting corpses, cold and drowned.

No light escapes this cursed cage,
No hope survives the poisoned breath.
Your spirit crushed beneath the rage—
A carcass fed to endless death.

The System’s heart is lies and plague,
Its venom floods your every vein.
We live the age of final plague—
Where only agony remains.

From global kennels, vast and grim,
If soul is light enough to flee,
Break through the darkness, tear the rim—
Or drown with dogs in misery.

Bow down to Lucifer’s cruel throne?
Fall deep into the endless pit—
Where screams are crushed and all alone,
Hope’s dying embers barely lit.

No mercy waits beyond this door,
No grace for those too weak to fight—
Just endless night, a brutal war,
Where darkness smothers every light.

Resist or perish in its grip,
The abyss yawns with savage jaws—
To kneel is death, a poisoned sip,
Held tight within the devil’s claws.



---------------------



Revolt Against the Abyss

Break the chains — no time for fear,
This System’s venom rules too long!
Their lies are swords, their grip severe,
But we rise fierce, defy the wrong.

No slave to puppets’ vile commands,
No leash to bite, no throat to choke.
We burn their lies with open hands,
And crush their fake, accursed yoke.

The Devil’s dogs shall drown in screams,
Their Kennels cracked by rebel fire.
We shatter all their twisted schemes,
Their hollow gods—consume, expire!

The darkness grins, but we bring light,
A blaze of wrath, a flood of truth.
No fake salvation, no false right—
Just iron will, the sword of proof.

This war is ours—no place for lies,
No mercy for the blind and weak.
We’ll strike the venom where it lies,
Expose the frauds, the snakes who speak.

Rise up, your spirit cannot die,
Though hell surrounds with ruthless claws.
From ashes, flames will pierce the sky—
We are the storm that breaks their laws.

No more slaves! No quiet despair!
No lies, no chains, no false consent!
We tear the mask, reveal the snare—
And claim the night with fierce intent.

Fight on, the abyss will crack and fall—
When madness meets the warrior’s roar.



---------------------



Step into the Abyss

No turning back — just step ahead,
Break chains and shatter frozen dread!
Your gaze a blade, your heart is steel,
Burn down your fear, ignite the zeal.

In this hell where darkness reigns,
Light tears the veils, the falsehood wanes!
Enemies quake, their masks will crack,
Their lies will shatter — no turning back.

You’re no slave, no puppet weak,
Rebellion’s pulse runs wild and sleek!
Soul’s fire — fearless, sharp as swords,
Let false worlds drown in mocking hordes.

Though hell still crushes fragile earth,
You’re the fracture, lightning’s birth!
Break the system, cast off chains,
A rebel’s roar will burn the plains.

Your spirit — lightning, thunder’s strike,
Where fears turn dust, lies fold like pike.
Rise, fighter, shout into the night —
Let liars fall in blazing light!



---------------------



No Mercy for the Puppeteers

Chains will snap, and heads will roll,
No mercy for the puppeteers’ control.
Their rotten lies, their toxic breath,
We'll drag them screaming down to death.

False gods crumble, masks will burn,
The tides of rage begin to turn.
No place for traitors, liars, snakes —
Their hollow empire splits and breaks.

The weak obey, the strong revolt,
With sharpened minds and no remorse.
This world’s a cage, but hell awaits,
For those who serve the hands of fate.

So raise the fist, embrace the pain,
In ashes’ storm, we rise again.
No compromise, no silent truce,
Destroy the liars — end abuse.



---------------------



Horror of Non-Being

Worse than worse — your life decays,
Clear as day — no light betrays.
Not a moment, not a breath,
Free from thoughts of hell and death.

The whole world’s ripped, the whole world’s lost,
Plunging deep, the final cost.
The ninth great wave of lies and pain,
Drowning souls in ceaseless rain.

Rotten lies have claimed it all,
Wounds that bleed, the endless crawl.
They just whine — weak fight, no grit,
Idiots howl, their fate is writ.

Enough’s enough — this hell must break!
For kin’s disgrace, the fascists quake.
They built a camp, a deathly tomb,
A cesspit’s stink, eternal doom.

Only Sun can burn this Bedlam,
Scorch to bottom, break the dam.
Tremble now, you foul disgrace,
For betraying Mind and Grace.

Vile creatures face their doom,
Mad hordes accounted soon.
You’ll rise again if spirit’s tough,
Return to those who wait above.

They wait for brave who kept their pride,
Die with skill, no place to hide.
The time has come — embrace the dark,
The final reckoning will spark.



---------------------



Horror of Non-Being

Worse than hell, your wasted life,
Clear as glass — no end to strife.
Not a second, not a breath,
Free from shadows cast by death.

World torn open, torn to shreds,
Falling fast to endless dregs.
Ninth wave crashing, lies ablaze,
Drowning all in toxic haze.

Rot and filth have crushed it all,
Bleeding wounds, the final fall.
Whiners whimper, fight is lost,
Idiots howl — the world’s their cost.

Break this Hell, it’s time to burn!
Shame on kin who won’t return.
Fascist **** built camps of pain,
Stinking cesspools drenched in shame.

Only Sun can scorch this pit,
Burn it down, the hate must split.
Tremble, worm, you sold your soul,
Betrayed the Mind, betrayed the Whole.

Filthy beasts will face the fire,
Mad mobs crushed beneath the pyre.
Rise again if spirit’s steel,
Back to those who dare to feel.

They await the brave and true,
Those who kept their honor due.
Die with purpose, die with hate,
Now’s the time to seal your fate.



---------------------



Rotten Core

******* ain't no **** coupons —
They shear us, hoarding MARAZM.
Fools block all our way — these monsters
Build their traps to feed the chasm.

No leader’s worse than the rabble
Who blindly worship their lies.
Culture’s fight is now a shamble —
No more nations, just ash skies.

An ******* can sometimes wake,
Grasp a shred, refuse to bend,
But he chose to chew and breed —
Chose the evil in the end.

Selling out for filthy pay,
Feeding greed that only grows,
Gnawing fast to ****** the prize,
Diving deep in putrid throes.

**** like these—no longer human—
Satan reigns their freakish god,
And this curse has lasted ages,
Centuries of devil’s fraud.

No way back—history’s twisted,
All is falsehood, all is dark,
Blindly stumbling through the shadows,
Wandering without a spark.

Fake science rules the present,
Crafting lies with polished skill,
CowID’s proof of madness,
Feeding chaos, breaking will.

******* are our stumbling blocks,
The Führer just a clown of Night.
No peace left, just pens and fences,
For beasts and cages tight.

Reason’s few are fading fast,
Doomed to vanish day by day,
Everything is lost, consumed—
Only fire burns decay.

The Sun brings blazing justice—
Will scorch this mad, corrupted world.
But sheep can’t see the coming blaze,
The endless feast of lies unfurled.

If you trust these filthy fiends,
Blindly follow their commands,
The more the hate and treachery—
The faster death consumes these lands.

Sun and Earth are Reason’s forces,
Fake science gets its checkmate move.
When madness rules the many,
All falls down in final groove.

They don’t need these *******,
Darkness, traitors, filthy spawn,
Ruling with their tons of lies—
Rotten core before the dawn.



---------------------



****

All this **** — hopeless, rotten,
Pathetic and a joke.
Monsters lie with mouths wide open —
But **** devours every hoax.

This ****** world’s corrupt and rotten,
Betrayal’s their **** trade.
If you’re smart and brave, you’re dead men—
They die, fade, and degrade.

Drowning deep in ***** and sorrow,
Crawling out just for a flash.
Cities, towns—all pens of *******—
Madness bound to crash.

And the broken—“normal,” hailed,
Only fools create the rage.
Gluttony, *****, and burning pits—
The crown of this bleak stage.

Development and dreams?
Three quarters of the sheep.
Are they human? No—just slaughter—
Goats for demons’ keep.



---------------------



****

This world’s pure **** — no hope, no light,
Lies feed the pigs who lost the fight.
Brains rot, guts choke on bitter bile,
Sheep march blind, no will, no guile.

Smart die fast, weak breed the plague,
Madness rules — the truth’s a vague.
Cities burn in mental chains,
Screams drown out the dying brains.

Eat the lies, choke on the grime,
**** devours all sense and time.
Goat-men sold to devil’s game,
Slaughtered sheep with cursed names.



---------------------



To the Heights...

A tropical night in Moldova’s land,
By day, the sun scorches, fierce and grand.
Its molten chains may melt away —
For minds too sharp, no place to stay.

The Spirit’s caught in endless traps,
A battle for the soul unwraps.
Traitors fire like guns on sight,
Lies and fear cut like a knife.

Soulless armies breed in war,
The world’s a stench, a hellish core.
In Gorky’s play, we sink so low —
At bottom lies the crushing woe.

Long ago, Tsvetaeva knew,
This place’s price — pure hellish glue.
The noose became her grim release —
Only fools find here their peace.

Tropical nights, the Alps aflame,
The Sun burns down the cursed game.
Hell’s black dust will scatter wide —
With it, the horrors, fear, and pride.

The path to Heights beyond this pain
Runs through the Spirit’s cleansing flame.
Only few will leave that Hell —
Those who refuse the darkness’ sell.



---------------------



To the Heights...

Tropical nights in Moldova’s hell,
By day, the sun’s a scorching spell.
It melts the chains of frozen minds —
No place for souls, just death it finds.

Spirit trapped in vicious snares,
The fight for souls — soaked in despairs.
Traitors blast with venomed lies,
Fear sticky, choking, cold disguise.

Soulless beasts breed in this war,
The world’s a stench, a rotting core.
Gorky’s stage — the pit of pain,
Where only madness will remain.

Tsvetaeva saw it clear —
This hell’s no place for hope or fear.
Her noose became the final door —
Only fools endure this gore.

Tropical nights, the Alps ablaze,
The sun burns down the cursed maze.
Hell’s black ashes sweep the land,
Tearing down this cursed brand.

The road to Heights cuts through the fire,
Through Spirit’s wrath and fierce desire.
Few will rise from this abyss —
Those who won’t betray the kiss.



---------------------



Manipulating Minds

Manipulating minds —
The cruelest trade on Earth.
From childhood’s earliest finds,
They **** your Reason’s birth.

All school programs shape
To grind you into dust.
The loudest brutes escape,
Inside — the Void and rust.

But few will keep their brains,
While others fall like prey,
Trapped in different chains,
Their souls just fade away.

“Culture” and the box of lies
Will finish off us all.
Here Hell itself defies —
Inhuman triumph’s call.

Work’s a chain, enslaving,
Rest’s a total blank,
The foulest depraving —
Stop whining, stop the prank.

You must discern the snare,
Unmask each cunning trick.
This massive, toxic lair
Is vast and growing thick.

Huge funds have been poured
Into these crafted lies,
Not simple fibs, but war,
A science to disguise.

For years they study how
To blind us, tighten grips,
And every moment now
They sharpen poison-tips.

The art of weaving shame,
Bold, filthy, blatant fraud —
“Science” spins the game,
And fools applaud the fraud.

They’ll worship chains as wings,
Declare dull minds as wise,
And cruelty will bring
The fascist’s new disguise.

They need the stupid brute —
The perfect slave, controlled.
Thus floods the lies acute,
Each stream corrupts the soul.

In this vast flow, we drown,
All snared within the net.
Instead of thirst for truth —
A cesspool full of sweat.

Mindless trivia kills
The Spirit, Reason’s light —
The endless muck that spills
Feeds swarms that crawl at night.

You’ve turned a dung-born fly —
Your Spirit’s flame is dim.
While lies grow wild and high —
The source of every sin.

Yet freedom’s path remains —
Build worlds apart, alone.
Escape this Hell’s domains,
Create your own new throne.



---------------------



Center Your Soul

Center on Spirit deep,
And mute your noisy mind —
Then all the chains and lies
Will fade, no more to bind.

See with an open gaze,
Straight into core and truth.
The world’s a fascist maze,
A monster’s cruel booth.

That fiendish breed is “merry,”
Made madhouse here to stay.
And soon that madhouse turns
To *****’s endless fray.

Destroying Spirit’s light —
The core device of Hell.
To turn you dung-born fly,
They push you down to hell.

With poison and with lies,
They twist the minds of men.
Madness spreads like wildfire —
Especially with children.

They dumb the minds with care,
Programming the weak.
The soul and reason fade,
As darkened futures leak.

Under the pressure, fog
Crushes fragile youth.
Into a slave-mind fog,
Stupid, blind to truth.

A twisted, broken breed,
Emerges from this fray.
The herd turns dumb and blind —
To beasts that roam astray.

So easy to degrade,
With poverty and scorn,
No urge to seek the Source —
The Spirit dead, forlorn.

In the end, it kills
The last bright sparks of soul.
Reason rots away —
Humans no more, but lice, the whole.

They storm the “arena” —
That brutal ***** pit.
Pay dearly every time
To leave this lunatic.

The price is Spirit’s strain,
The last fierce fight to rise.
You’ll find your cleansing fire —
If you don’t shake or hide.

When you become as one
With yearning toward the Light,
You’ll never be a beast,
You’ll claim your answer’s right.

That answer burns within —
No gifts will come from them.
Soon all will forget
That only Spirit’s gem

Is worth the highest cost.
Ignite! Burn fierce and bright!
You’ll see then clear at last —
It’s not some “heaven’s” blight,

Nor dull oblivion’s sleep,
But Spirit’s fight to keep.
Nameless  Apr 2016
Weariness
Nameless Apr 2016
I'm weary, I hear myself say
My eyes closing as I walk on my way
The day just beginning when all I wish it to do is go away
Weary of the day ahead, what's gone and what's yet to come
This weariness draining my heart through my noisy head

The chill of the breeze my weary heart wanting to cease
And then the loving sun shinning her rays upon me, come closer I beg of thee
Take me to another place
Do not disappear near that cloud I say
wash away my weariness today
Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter
Three years ago today Muhammad Bouazizi set himself on fire igniting the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia sparking the Arab Spring Uprisings of 2011.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed
To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which
are

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,
That morning star which does not dread the sun,
And budding marjoram which but to kiss
Would sweeten Cytheraea’s lips and make
Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take

Yon curving spray of purple clematis
Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,
But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering
gold.

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
In these still haunts, where never foot of man
Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,
And why the hapless nightingale forbears
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

And I will sing how sad Proserpina
Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
We may behold Her face who long ago
Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea,
And whose sad house with pillaged portico
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
Is better than a thousand victories,
Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being; I at least
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
The woods of white Colonos are not here,
On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
Whose very name should be a memory
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play
The lute of Adonais:  with his lips Song passed away.

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is,—He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon
That they have spied on beauty; what if we
Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles!  Can it assuage
One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out:  I did not note
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
Which ‘gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

Come let us go, against the pallid shield
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,
The corncrake nested in the unmown field
Answers its mate, across the misty stream
On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass,
In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
Hung in the burning east:  see, the red rim
O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,—
Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight
Than could be tested in a crucible!—
But the air freshens, let us go, why soon
The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!
zebra Oct 2017
Here is a primer on the history of poetry

Features of Modernism

To varying extents, writing of the Modernist period exhibits these features:

1. experimentation

belief that previous writing was stereotyped and inadequate
ceaseless technical innovation, sometimes for its own sake
originality: deviation from the norm, or from usual reader expectations
ruthless rejection of the past, even iconoclasm

2. anti-realism

sacralisation of art, which must represent itself, not something beyond preference for allusion (often private) rather than description
world seen through the artist's inner feelings and mental states
themes and vantage points chosen to question the conventional view
use of myth and unconscious forces rather than motivations of conventional plot

3. individualism

promotion of the artist's viewpoint, at the expense of the communal
cultivation of an individual consciousness, which alone is the final arbiter
estrangement from religion, nature, science, economy or social mechanisms
maintenance of a wary intellectual independence
artists and not society should judge the arts: extreme self-consciousness
search for the primary image, devoid of comment: stream of consciousness
exclusiveness, an aristocracy of the avant-garde

4. intellectualism

writing more cerebral than emotional
work is tentative, analytical and fragmentary, more posing questions more than answering them
cool observation: viewpoints and characters detached and depersonalized
open-ended work, not finished, nor aiming at formal perfection
involuted: the subject is often act of writing itself and not the ostensible referent

............
Expressionism

Expressionism was a phase of twentieth-century writing that rejected naturalism and romanticism to express important inner truths. The style was generally declamatory or even apocalyptic, endeavoring to awaken the fears and aspirations that belong to all men, and which European civilization had rendered effete or inauthentic. The movement drew on Rimbaud and Nietzsche, and was best represented by German poetry of the 1910-20 period. Benn, Becher, Heym, Lasker-Schüler, Stadler, Stramm, Schnack and Werfel are its characteristic proponents, {1} though Trakl is the best known to English readers. {2} {3}

Like most movements, there was little of a manifesto, or consensus of beliefs and programmes. Many German poets were distrustful of contemporary society — particularly its commercial and capitalist attitudes — though others again saw technology as the escape from a perceived "crisis in the old order". Expressionism was very heterogeneous, touching base with Imagism, Vorticism, Futurism, Dadaism and early Surrealism, many of which crop up in English, French, Russian and Italian poetry of the period. Political attitudes tended to the revolutionary, and technique was overtly experimental. Nonetheless, for all the images of death and destruction, sometimes mixed with messianic utopianism, there was also a tone of resignation, a sadness of "the evening lands" as Spengler called them.

Expressionism also applies to painting, and here the characteristics are more illuminating. The label refers to painting that uses visual gestures to transmit emotions and emotionally charged messages. In the expressive work of Michelangelo and El Greco, for example, the content remains of first importance, but content is overshadowed by technique in such later artists as van Gogh, Ensor and Munch. By the mid twentieth-century even this attenuated content had been replaced by abstract painterly qualities — by the sheer scale and dimensions of the work, by colour and shape, by the verve of the brushwork and other effects.

Expressionism often coincided with rapid social change. Germany, after suffering the horrors of the First World War, and ineffectual governments afterwards, fragmented into violently opposed political movements, each with their antagonistic coteries and milieu. The painting of these groups was very variable, but often showed a mixture of aggression and naivety. Understandably unpopular with the establishment  — denounced as degenerate by the Nazis — the style also met with mixed reactions from the picture-buying public. It seemed to question what the middle classes stood for: convention, decency, professional expertise. A great sobbing child had been let loose in the artist's studio, and the results seemed elementally challenging. Perhaps German painting was returning to its Nordic roots, to small communities, apocalyptic visions, monotone starkness and anguished introspection.

What could poetry achieve in its turn? Could it use some equivalent to visual gestures, i.e. concentrate on aspects of the craft of poetry, and to the exclusion of content? Poetry can never be wholly abstract, a pure poetry bereft of content. But clearly there would be a rejection of naturalism. To represent anything faithfully requires considerable skill, and such skill was what the Expressionists were determined to avoid. That would call on traditions that were not Nordic, and that were not sufficiently opposed to bourgeois values for the writer's individuality to escape subversion. Raw power had to tap something deeper and more universal.

Hence the turn inward to private torments. Poets became the judges of poetry, since only they knew the value of originating emotions. Intensity was essential.  Artists had to believe passionately in their responses, and find ways of purifying and deepening those responses — through working practices, lifestyles, and philosophies. Freud was becoming popular, and his investigations into dreams, hallucinations and paranoia offered a rich field of exploration. Artists would have to glory in their isolation, moreover, and turn their anger and frustration at being overlooked into a belief in their own genius. Finally, there would be a need to pull down and start afresh, even though that contributed to a gradual breakdown in the social fabric and the apocalypse of the Second World War.

Expressionism is still with us. Commerce has invaded bohemia, and created an elaborate body of theory to justify, support and overtake what might otherwise appear infantile and irrational. And if traditional art cannot be pure emotional expression, then a new art would have to be forged. Such poetry would not be an intoxication of life (Nietzsche's phrase) and still less its sanctification.  Great strains on the creative process were inevitable, moreover, as they were in Georg Trakl's case, who committed suicide shortly after writing the haunting and beautiful piece given below

................
SYMBOLIST POETS
symbolism in poetry

Symbolism in literature was a complex movement that deliberately extended the evocative power of words to express the feelings, sensations and states of mind that lie beyond everyday awareness. The open-ended symbols created by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) brought the invisible into being through the visible, and linked the invisible through other sensory perceptions, notably smell and sound. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-98), the high priest of the French movement, theorized that symbols were of two types. One was created by the projection of inner feelings onto the world outside. The other existed as nascent words that slowly permeated the consciousness and expressed a state of mind initially unknown to their originator.

None of this came about without cultivation, and indeed dedication. Poets focused on the inner life. They explored strange cults and countries. They wrote in allusive, enigmatic, musical and ambiguous styles. Rimbaud deranged his senses and declared "Je est un autre". Von Hofmannstahl created his own language. Valéry retired from the world as a private secretary, before returning to a mastery of traditional French verse. Rilke renounced wife and human society to be attentive to the message when it came.

Not all were great theoreticians or technicians, but the two interests tended to go together, in Mallarmé most of all. He painstakingly developed his art of suggestion, what he called his "fictions". Rare words were introduced, syntactical intricacies, private associations and baffling images. Metonymy replaced metaphor as symbol, and was in turn replaced by single words which opened in imagination to multiple levels of signification. Time was suspended, and the usual supports of plot and narrative removed. Even the implied poet faded away, and there were then only objects, enigmatically introduced but somehow made right and necessary by verse skill. Music indeed was the condition to which poetry aspired, and Verlaine, Jimenez and Valéry were among many who concentrated efforts to that end.

So appeared a dichotomy between the inner and outer lives. In actuality, poets led humdrum existences, but what they described was rich and often illicit: the festering beauties of courtesans and dance-hall entertainers; far away countries and their native peoples; a world-weariness that came with drugs, isolation, alcohol and bought ***. Much was mixed up in this movement — decadence, aestheticism, romanticism, and the occult — but its isms had a rational purpose, which is still pertinent. In what way are these poets different from our own sixties generation? Or from the young today: clubbing, experimenting with relationships and drugs, backpacking to distant parts? And was the mixing of sensory perceptions so very novel or irrational? Synaesthesia was used by the Greek poets, and indeed has a properly documented basis in brain physiology.

What of the intellectual bases, which are not commonly presented as matters that should engage the contemporary mind, still less the writing poet? Symbolism was built on nebulous and somewhat dubious notions: it inspired beautiful and historically important work: it is now dead: that might be the blunt summary. But Symbolist poetry was not empty of content, indeed expressed matters of great interest to continental philosophers, then and now. The contents of consciousness were the concern of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), and he developed a terminology later employed by Heidegger (1889-1976), the Existentialists and hermeneutics. Current theories on metaphor and brain functioning extend these concepts, and offer a rapprochement between impersonal science and irrational literary theory.

So why has the Symbolism legacy dwindled into its current narrow concepts? Denied influence in the everyday world, poets turned inward, to private thoughts, associations and the unconscious. Like good Marxist intellectuals they policed the area they arrogated to themselves, and sought to correct and purify the language that would evoke its powers. Syntax was rearranged by Mallarmé. Rhythm, rhyme and stanza patterning were loosened or rejected. Words were purged of past associations (Modernism), of non-visual associations (Imagism), of histories of usage (Futurism), of social restraint (Dadaism) and of practical purpose (Surrealism). By a sort of belated Romanticism, poetry was returned to the exploration of the inner lands of the irrational. Even Postmodernism, with its bric-a-brac of received media images and current vulgarisms, ensures that gaps are left for the emerging unconscious to engage our interest

......................

.
IMAGIST POETRY
imagist poetry

Even by twentieth-century standards, Imagism was soon over. In 1912 Ezra Pound published the Complete Poetical Works of its founder, T.E. Hulme (five short poems) and by 1917 the movement, then overseen by Amy Lowell, had run its course. {1} {2} {3} {4} {5} The output in all amounted to a few score poems, and none of these captured the public's heart. Why the importance?

First there are the personalities involved — notably Ezra Pound, James Joyce, William Carlos Williams {6} {7} {8} {9} — who became famous later. If ever the (continuing) importance to poets of networking, of being involved in movements from their inception, is attested, it is in these early days of post-Victorian revolt.

Then there are the manifestos of the movement, which became the cornerstones of Modernism, responsible for a much taught in universities until recently, and for the difficulties poets still find themselves in. The Imagists stressed clarity, exactness and concreteness of detail. Their aims, briefly set out, were that:

1. Content should be presented directly, through specific images where possible.
2. Every word should be functional, with nothing included that was not essential to the effect intended.
3. Rhythm should be composed by the musical phrase rather than the metronome.

Also understood — if not spelled out, or perhaps fully recognized at the time — was the hope that poems could intensify a sense of objective reality through the immediacy of images.

Imagism itself gave rise to fairly negligible lines like:

You crash over the trees,
You crack the live branch…  (Storm by H.D.)

Nonetheless, the reliance on images provided poets with these types of freedom:

1. Poems could dispense with classical rhetoric, emotion being generated much more directly through what Eliot called an objective correlate: "The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an 'objective correlative'; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked." {10}

2. By being shorn of context or supporting argument, images could appear with fresh interest and power.

3. Thoughts could be treated as images, i.e. as non-discursive elements that added emotional colouring without issues of truth or relevance intruding too mu
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PROSE BASED POETRY
prose based poetry

When free verse lacks rhythmic patterning, appearing as a lineated prose stripped of unnecessary ornament and rhetoric, it becomes the staple of much contemporary work. The focus is on what the words are being used to say, and their authenticity. The language is not heightened, and the poem differs from prose only by being more self-aware, innovative and/or cogent in its exposition.

Nonetheless, what looks normal at first becomes challenging on closer reading — thwarting expectations, and turning back on itself to make us think more deeply about the seemingly innocuous words used. And from there we are compelled to look at the world with sharper eyes, unprotected by commonplace phrases or easy assumptions. Often an awkward and fighting poetry, therefore, not indulging in ceremony or outmoded traditions.
What is Prose?

If we say that contemporary free verse is often built from what was once regarded as mere prose, then we shall have to distinguish prose from poetry, which is not so easy now. Prose was once the lesser vehicle, the medium of everyday thought and conversation, what we used to express facts, opinions, humour, arguments, feelings and the like. And while the better writers developed individual styles, and styles varied according to their purpose and social occasion, prose of some sort could be written by anyone. Beauty was not a requirement, and prose articles could be rephrased without great loss in meaning or effectiveness.

Poetry, though, had grander aims. William Lyon Phelps on Thomas Hardy's work: {1}

"The greatest poetry always transports us, and although I read and reread the Wessex poet with never-lagging attention — I find even the drawings in "Wessex Poems" so fascinating that I wish he had illustrated all his books — I am always conscious of the time and the place. I never get the unmistakable spinal chill. He has too thorough a command of his thoughts; they never possess him, and they never soar away with him. Prose may be controlled, but poetry is a possession. Mr. Hardy is too keenly aware of what he is about. In spite of the fact that he has written verse all his life, he seldom writes unwrinkled song. He is, in the last analysis, a master of prose who has learned the technique of verse, and who now chooses to express his thoughts and his observations in rime and rhythm."

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OPEN FORMS IN POETRY
open forms in poetry

Poets who write in open forms usually insist on the form growing out of the writing process, i.e. the poems follow what the words and phrase suggest during the composition
BOOK I

S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. "Why do you wind no horn?' she said
"And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
"We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

"My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

"What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
"I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

"Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

"I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
"And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

"O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, "It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
"Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

"Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
"A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
"O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
"Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

"Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, "God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  "Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  "You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick. Tell On.

Oisin. Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, "His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds



























































­

























Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

"An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, ""Unjust, unjust';
And ""My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

#######
BOOK II
#######

NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names
And then away, away, like whirling flames;
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound;
"Gaze no more on the phantoms,' Niamh said,
And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head
And her bright body, sang of faery and man
Before God was or my old line began;
Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;
And how those lovers
Kate Eddy Jun 2019
The blaze took the house with great speed,
Those inside at once had fleed,
But all was not as it appeared,
For when at last the smoke had cleared,
Among the husk of the home
The children discovered they were alone.

They dashed about at a frantic pace,
Looking around for the smallest trace,
Fearing the worst was yet to pass,
One last glance the children cast,
It was then they noticed her cloth of blue,
And the fate of their mother they finally knew.

Running to where their mother laid,
They knew a farewell they'd have to bade,
Knowing that they couldn't stay
For their only relative live far away,
When their mother was put to rest at last
Julie knew she had to push them past.

Leaving the ashes of their past behind,
Hoping a new home they would find,
Julie did for her sisters all she could,
Knowing that reliving the past would do no good.
And so at last Julie and sisters journey began
To reach their home was the only plan.

When the sky turned black as night,
Julie knew something was not quite right,
Stopping their ride Julie and Linda can tell
That something must not be going well,
As they returned they were alarmed to see
Their sister Clotild drowning in the sea.

Julie at once knew what to do,
Into the water at once she flew,
Clotild's head went slowly down below,
The fate of her sister Linda afraid to know,
But when Julie came to the surface at last
Seeing Clotild, Linda knew the danger had passed.

"Clotild, what were you thinking?" they wished to know,
Clotild answered simply saying she was hot and wished to go,
To cool her feet with the fresh feel of the sea
At the time not seeing where the fault could be,
Please don't do that again, they'd scold,
For had they not known, a different story would of been told.

Racing to where the smoke had led,
Each took in the scene with dread,
As flames spread across the little town
Chaos had evidently ensued all around,
Julie looked about the destroyed land,
Knowing what it was like to see the damage firsthand.

What Julie saw then made her blood go cold,
For upon a burning threshold
A girl lay unconscious in need of aid,
Julie knew if she stayed
Or if she delayed-
A heavy price the girl would of paid.

Julie ran as fast as she ever had before,
Diving last minute towards the floor,
Dragging the girl safely away,
The girl opened her eyes as if to say,
She felt she was going to be okay,
Julie couldn't imagine how she'd come to be alone,
Thankfully, evidence of life had clearly shown.

Many had seen what had transpired,
The courage of Julie they had all admired,
But when asked why she put herself in harm's way,
She said, I couldn't very well let her stay,
Julie then took her to where Linda and Clotild stood
Knowing that she'd done all that she could.

It was clear that the girl had no home,
As tattered clothes had clearly shown,
Julie realized that there was one thing she could do,
Knowing that the girl's options were few,
She decided to offer her a chance to restart,
For with them she'd always be a part.

Frightened she was when she finally awoke,
Noticing in gentle tones the sisters spoke,
What happened? They wished to know,
Tears at once began to flow,
They listened to the tale she wished to be told,
As the story of Chloe began to unfold.

I'm an only child, I only had my mom and dad,
In fact they were the only family that I had,
I had to do homeschooling for we were too poor,
Yet, even with that I'd been happy as none before,
Then today fire took my home and the next I'd known
I was fighting for life on my own.

Julie didn't know what to say,
Yet she noticed even now Chloe seemed to be okay,
As if she'd accepted what had passed,
Hoping her parents would feel peace at last,
Linda and Clotild felt like they could relate,
It seemed as if tragedy was the common trait.

As they continued on their way,
Julie and her sister's story they relay,
Finishing with when they had met,
There was something Chloe couldn't forget,
She looked at Julie asking,"Why help me?"
For the reasoning she did not see.

Julie looked at her kindly and without hesitation said,
If I didn't move I knew you'd be dead,
I knew I couldn't leave you there to die
Hopeless though it seemed at the time I had to try,
I took a emergency class a few weeks ago you see,
And the first thing I was taught was never to flee.

The spell of silence was suddenly shattered,
When Julie noticed a girl pale and battered,
Who suddenly collapsed in a heap
As if she'd fallen fast asleep,
Julie went at once to her side,
Sweat thick on her brow she spied.

They knew something had to be done,
Already the setting of the sun had begun,
Julie drove as fast as she could,
And into view a little town stood,
Spotting a doctor's office the girls go,
Hoping the illness the doctor will know.

Slowly the girl began to groan,
Opening her eyes confusion shown,
Seeing her awake Chloe asked her name,
Instead of an answer a blank look came,
The doctor took the girl into another room
Returning a few moments later with a look of gloom.

"Please, she said gesturing to some seats,
With a critical look she asked,"How'd you meet?"
We were driving along when we saw her in the road,
The girls said as their concern clearly showed,
The girl sat in quiet destress as the doctor stressed
This poor child's memory is quite a mess.

"What could you possibly mean?" Julie asked at last,
The doctor answered as a pitiful glance she cast,
She doesn't know who she is or where she's from,
Linda asked," Then for her.....what is to come?"
She will have to go into foster care I'm afraid,
Yet as she said that the girl had swayed.  

Julie was at her side rather quickly,
As the girl appeared even more sickly,
Against Julie the girl then went,
As if to show her energy was clearly spent,
Julie and Linda laid her in a bed,
Knowing she heard all that was said.

The next day when the first ray of sun appeared,
The girl's condition seemed to have cleared,
She said to the doctor as if to get her to see,
I think those girls are my only family,
Julie heard what she said wondering where this would lead
For it appeared as if she planted a seed.

The doctor went to the girls asking if this was true,
"Yes, was the answer that Julie threw,
As the doctor could not prove them wrong,
The girl was allowed to come along,
Leaving the little town behind,
All appeared to have recent events on mind.

Finally Julie asked the girl as she wished to understand,
What was it that made it so she lied to change the plan,
The girl said at last, I felt a bit safer with you,
And I'm not saying that the doctor wouldn't know what to do,
But you helped me , even though you didn't know me at all,
I didn't want to be alone, she said appearing small .

They looked at the girl in a kind way,
At first not knowing what to say,
Finally, Linda asked if she remembered her name,
The girl responded with much disdain,
I'm afraid no name comes to mind,
And I want to leave my past behind.

It's time I start again she proclaimed,
As things can never be the same,
I think we should start with who I am,
So you can call me and all can understand,
How do you like Lucy as a name?
I think that will do nicely as it is simple and plain.

And Lucy was what the girl was to be known,
As if to show how she felt, relief was what had shown,
Lucy then listened to their adventure,
Ending with when they'd met her,
Lucy looked at Julie in a new light,
Saying, "now I know my decision was right."

When the day had come to an end ,
A night under the stars the girls did spend,
Do you ever think about that day ? Asked Clotild
Her voice was sadness filled,
Julie and Linda glanced at her and with pity said,
Clotild we've got to move ahead.

Clotild said nothing and proceeded to bed,
As if to shut out her sister's presence instead,
The next day away from her sisters Clotild did stay,
And not one word did she say,
They came at last to a city to see,
And angry mob corner a girl while she looked back defiantly.

The girls went at once to the scene,
So the situation they could glean,
Linda asked what they were doing,
The mob answered saying, a thief is who we're pursuing,
Linda got in front of the girl asking, "what has she stolen?"
A shop owner pointed saying, it's in the bag she's pullin.

Linda took the bag and looked inside,
In which many foods did reside,
The group glanced at the girl asking the cost,
Paying for the items they had lost,
As the mob slowly trickled away –
the girls asked why she didn't pay .

The girl hung her head Shamed,
you can't blame me she claimed,
at first they had not caught on,
it was then that a girl came along ,
she doesn't have any Home,
she's with me and we're on our own.

My name is Nancy and this is Carol she said,
saying this as if on thin Ice they did tread,
Julie stepped forward and said then,
We won't hurt you, we are friends,
Linda went to them with the bag
knowing that it was all they had.

Once the bag was in their possession,
Nancy said as her weariness began to lessen,
"Thank you for all that you did,"
and with that the farewell they bid
later that night where the girls stayed,
an unexpected visit Nancy and Carol paid.

Hey , Chloe said is everything okay?
Carol answered saying we decided not to stay,
the girls looked at each other asking where they go,
as all of them now wish to know ,
Nancy looked at the girls with hopeful pleasure,
Hoping to find a life that was better.

We were wondering if we could join you guys
and find out where our future lies,
Come and join us, Lucy said to them,
for now they only saw friends,
it was then their story they began to tell,
and at once silence fell.

We are sisters you see,
For so long we'd no where to be,
Believe it or not we had a home,
Better than any have ever known,
For a minute not a word was said,
Carol continued with a look of dread.

"We were well off because of our parents occupations,
The girls listened with much anticipation,
My mom was a doctor and dad was a lawyer you see,
That's why we were such a wealthy family,
One day, said Nancy picking up the story, that changed
Dad came and with mom words were exchanged.

Apparently, dad was being sued,
For as far as his client viewed,
Dad hadn't done all that he could,
Therefore to his client he was no good,
I don't know how much they took,
But the nerves of our parents it clearly shook.

Soon word spread throughout our town,
And eventually people stopped coming to him all around,
Soon mom had to pay for all of bills on her own,
And the stress of it had clearly shown,
One day our parents argued whether or not to send us away,
Carol and I didn't bother to stay.

The girls looked at them with dismay,
Wishing there was something they could say,
Nancy continued saying, the next day we packed our bags,
As she said this  her shoulders sagged,
We knew then that we'd never see our home again,
I thought Carol and I eventually mend.

We ran away from every place we were sent,
Even though no unkindness any family meant,
Since that time we've been alone with nowhere to go,
Sighing, Nancy said, now our story you know,
Julie put her hand reassuringly on Nancy's shoulder,
Thanks for letting us know, she had told her.

What about you? The two sisters wish to be told ,
So to the sisters the story did unfold,
Nancy and Carol stared at Julie with the look of awe,
As if realizing only now who it was that they saw,
Is this really true? They asked as if yet to believe,
It's true, they said as if to show they didn't deceive.

"We've heard of you! Carol said suddenly,
As if the memories of those events surfaced finally,
You were on the news a few days ago,
She looked at Nancy as if she'd know,
Yes, Nancy slowly said as if the story began to return,
Julie was surprised at what the news people had learned.

I just helped those who I thought I could,
Just like I think anyone should,
Carol and Nancy smiled at Julie as if happy to know,
To a new home with Julie they would go,
Several weeks had passed since their journey began,
And out of Europe they were as they planned.

Six days later in New York they came,
And though tired they were happy to be on land all the same,
Through the vast city the girls drove,
Right down New York's main roads,
Throughout the day many had noticed the girls go,
As recognition slowly began to grow.

Comments circled about them regularly,
"Can't we be left alone!", Clotild said sullenly,
Linda and Julie glanced at Clotild momentarily,
She was worse then they thought, they noticed worryingly,
They went to a park and set up camp for the night,
Somewhere that was out of sight.

The glow of the moon lit up their camp in soft light,
Julie and Linda had a feeling that Clotild wasn't alright,
She hardly paid them any heed,
And when they approached she'd recede,
They wished they could make her feel better,
But she was just too bitter.

The next day the girls went through  to Nebraska's state,
Clotild what's wrong? Chloe asked seeing a look of hate,
"I'm fine!" Clotild said violently,
The girls stared at her silently,
It was then that Linda and Chloe swapped,
As the others continued to look at Clotild shocked.

A village came out of the blue,
Those in the village had looked at them as if the girls they knew,
As they set up camp villagers watched in awe
Not believing who it was that they saw,
A girl said, " mommy it's the girl from tv,
The mother glanced in their direction saying-it is indeed.

Looking in their direction Julie sees,
Sheltered in the shade of the shops a girl looked on miserably,
Julie went at once to her to see what was wrong,
All at once had withdrawn,
As the girl noticed and began to retreat, Julie shouted wait!
Catching up Julie noticed that she was pale and under weight.

Are you okay? Lucy asked then,
As a cut Julie did tend,
Linda went and got her food and drink,
And looking at the girl Julie began to think,
Looking at the girl seeing the bleeding,
Julie asked her what was wrong and she said," I was fleeing."

Julie glanced at the others with concern,
Trouble at once they began to discern,
Julie took the girl into her tent,
The other girls to guard the tent they went,
An hour later Julie came out at last,
How bad is it? They asked noticing the look she cast.

Her name is Rose and she's frightened and has good reason,
Julie said this her voice began to lessen,
Last night her parents were robbed and killed,
She witnessed it Julie said her voice with concern filled,
After a minute she continued, apparently the robber knew,
She ran because she didn't know what to do.

She's still in shock unfortunately,
Since no one's caught him he's still at large you see,
She no longer has a home,
She's afraid and she's on her own,
We can't leave her alone with that man on the run,
Okay we'll leave tomorrow at the rising of the sun.

The next day at first light the girls left the village behind,
Each one with the thought of home on their mind,
The sky was crystal clear the air crisp and sweet,
For a minute a pair of eyes Julie did meet,
It was a figure of a boy her age she saw then,
She did not see him again.

For the rest of the day Julie's attention seemed to stray,
To that boy that didn't stay,
Who was it who she had seen?
Was it an illusion or a dream?
As she watched the smoke from their fire burn into the night,
Something went across Julie's sight in flight.

Julie got up and said,"whose out there?"
As this reaction seemed quite fair,
It was then a boy had appeared as a silhouette in the night,
Julie went up to him before he went out of sight,
Why are you following us? she asked her voice tight,
Looking at him Julie can tell something's not right.

Hello Julie, I've come to warn you,
So when the time comes you'll know what to do,
There is one among you you call your friend,
That person you'll lose in the end,
Julie glaring said, " What do you mean then?"
The boy said," the one you call a friend will betray you in the end

Beware he said on and on,
Then as suddenly as he appeared he was gone,
Julie looked at the place where the girls laid,
Suddenly feeling very afraid,
She didn't know why for she thought it couldn't be true,
So to bed she went and thoughts of that night flew.

The next day into Colorado they appeared,
For all the girls weariness at last had cleared,
As each knew their journey was about to end,
And soon all of them would have a home again,
Keeping that in mind, the girls look until a clearing they find
Where a cabin lay with trees behind.

The group went to work setting up camp,
As the air turned cool and damp,
The girls sat to eat dinner at 6:00 that night,
Finishing they feel tired and Julie knows something isn't right,
Because try as they did to stay awake,
Julie knew a drug was placed in something they ate or drank.

As Julie was the last to go down,
The closing of a door was her last sound,
When she woke at last around a room a glance was thrown,
As this room she had not known,
Wondering where you are? Asked Clotild in a mocking tone,
Julie looked at her as confusion shown.

Clotild what.....Julie stopped as understanding grew,
Julie felt as if she'd been hit in the face as she said,"It's you!"
"Why? Julie asked, what have any of us done to deserve this?"
Looking at the others who she originally missed,
Clotild glared as she said, " you don't care or know
To hear Julie this and Julie that wherever you go.

Yet even with that- before any of this began,
Instead of taking command,
You left mom in that fire to die,
And you didn't even bother to try!
So yes Julie, it was me
Because I had every right to be.

"Clotild, how could I have known this would of occurred?"
Yet even as she said this, she knew she wasn't heard,
Goodbye Julie, said Clotild as she stood,
"Clotild, Julie said realizing it'd do no good,
Julie tried to stand only to find her hands and feet tied,
Clotild ran out the door as the binds she tried.

When Julie freed herself to the door she went,
Without luck opening the door her energy she spent,
The others finally woke with a groan,
All went to Julie as she sat alone,
Linda came to her asking, Where are we?
And where is Clotild? For it was her they didn't see.

As they looked at Julie they knew something was wrong,
For she had an expression that didn't belong,
Julie told what happened and the girls began to dispute,
"It's true, said Julie at last , an answer they couldn't refute,
"What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?
The answer of which nobody knew.

The door was locked from the outside,
And yet no matter how hard they tried,
The door had stayed in it's place,
It seemed like too much for the girls to face,
When all seemed lost and hopeless then,
The door opened revealing only a friend.

The boy Julie had met came at once to her side,
As a look of depression on her face he spied,
"Who are you? asked Rose suspicion clear in her voice,
I'm a friend and I'm here to help, he said by choice,
"How did you find us?" asked Julie her annoyance plain,
"I followed your sister as she took you away", he claimed.

We might as well leave as there is no reason to stay,
"Be wary, your sister intends to make you pay,
What on earth could you mean? asked Linda upset,
Wondering how much worse things could possibly get,
But again as suddenly as he had come to their aid,
He vanished as if to show they were too much delayed.

Their journey home they still went,
To each other their strength they lent,
Not one word had anyone said,
For due to recent events their hearts were filled with lead,
Finally a town came into sight,
As they came they noticed a girl in flight.

From trouble the girl ran,
Behind her as she went she scanned,
Glancing to where her eyes lead,
The group at once to guard the girl they sped,
For a few thieves at once took chase,
Stop! Julie said intent on putting them in their place.

They stopped asking, And why would we listen to you?
At once a fist Julie threw and away they flew,
At last the girl the group had found,
Julie went to her saying, "they're gone, no one's around."
The girl glanced shyly about,
Sure it was now safe she then came out.

"Why bother to help me when you didn't know me at all?"
With them after me, I don't see why on you responsibility'd fall,
They had no right to take from you,
And I knew there was something I could do,
The girl said, I don't even have a home,
I was going to try and  find a life of my own.

Would you like to come with us? asked Rose,
Really...yes please the girl said as the door on her past closed,
What is your name? asked Rose facing their new friend,
Sky, said the girl as a note of confidence she did send,
Where you heading? asked Sky as they left the town behind
Linda said, we're hoping our dad we'll find.

Sky asked confused, what could you mean?
So the girls explained how their journey came into being,
Sky was so amazed that for a minute she could only say,
Julie there's no way
They looked at her and Lucy said, it's true,
And her admiration of Julie quickly grew.

Sky then said, I am sorry that your sister lost her way,
For the wound was still fresh and twas a heavy price to pay,
Thank you, Julie said to break the ice,
For silence had latched on as a vice,
At long last to their father's house they came,
Realizing to each girl life wouldn't be the same.

Knocking on the door as anticipation did build,
Throughout Julie's being fear had filled,
For Clotild's eyes Julie had met,
A look Clotild sent as if to say Julie's actions she'd regret,
At once Clotild took flight-
Quickly vanishing from Julie's sight.

"We need to get inside now, Julie said urgently,
The girls glanced at Julie not seeing what the trouble could be,
Julie? Asked Linda with growing concern,
Seeing what she could learn,
She's here, was all Julie had said,
The girls heard and looked around with dread.

The door opened to show a man with a serious look,
Asking angrily," where is the money that you took?
Your money was stolen? Was it by a girl with blond hair?
The man looked annoyed saying yes as if he'd despaired,
We'll get it back, Julie said taking off with speed,
To the place where Clotild had fleed.

Clotild was hiding in a group of trees in view of all,
"Clotild, Julie's voice did call,
Don't make this harder than it needs to be,
Julie ran into the area as the threat she didn't see,
Running at Julie blind with rage a knife she drew,
Yet as the knife was ****** in Julie it didn't go to.

For right as it came it was Rose who took the blow,
And slowly to the ground she did go,
Dropping the knife Clotild ran,
As she noticed the failure of her plan,
"Rose, Julie said as she sank into her arms weakly,
Her breath came rather futility.

Rose weakly noticed all the girls had gathered around,
They watched shocked and no one made a sound,
Julie asked her voice sad "Why did you jump in front of me?"
Rose smiling said, Julie you taught us all what we should be,
Wincing she said, I didn't want my friend to die,
So futile though it appeared at the time, I knew I had to try.

Rose had tears in her eyes,You gave more than I ever dream of,
Julie cried as Rose went to be with the ones she loved,
After everything Rose had been through,
Julie felt peace for she knew
At last her wish came true,
At once Clotild Julie went to pursue.  

But Julie didn't have to go long,
Seeing Clotild's hands tied Julie's eyes were drawn,
For next her a boy stood tall,
Seeing Julie a serious look did fall,
The money taken to their dad they returned,
Julie then to her dad she turned.

Do I know you? Her dad asked looking at her hard,
Suddenly appearing on guard,
"Dad, It's me Julie, she said as her voice cracked,
"Julie, is it really you? Her dad said as to react,
Why are you here? And why are these girls with you?
So introducing the girls, Julie explained what they'd been through.

For a while, Joe hung his head in shame,
Your mother's dead? As if he was to blame,
"It's not your fault!"Julie said with conviction,
"Yes it is, he said looking stricken,
I was a cop and I promised our plan wouldn't change,
For a time it worked until...as he said this he aged.

What? Julie said wanting to understand,
Joe didn't meet her eyes, my job kinda took command,
I missed our anniversary and your birthday,
After a time your mother said she couldn't stay,
That was the last I'd heard from her unfortunately,
For years you girls were all I wanted to see.

"Dad,  we can be a family again,
Linda said jumping in hoping strength she'd lend,
Joe looked up with a sad look in his eyes,
But why would Clotild blame us for your mother's demise?
Julie said, She's broken and just looking for someone to blame,
I'm sad to say, she is not at all happy we came.

Joe looked at his girls and said, you truly wish to live with me?
Wondering where the reasoning could be,
Yes, said Julie I promised these girls a chance to restart,
I told them with us they'd always be a part,
Then yes, you can come and live with me here,
Hearing the girls did cheer.

Turning to the boy Julie smiled back,
You like me, she said as if it were fact,
What makes you think that? the boy asked in a mocking tone,
Looking up Julie noticed a smile had shown,
So why then did you come to our aid?
Because to the those girls survival a huge part you played.

So who are you? Julie asked then,
A tone of curiosity she did send,
My name is john if you really wish to know,
And as of now I don't intend to ever go,
Leading John into her home
A happy ending the girls at last had known.

Until we meet again  -
I have 2 words and they're The End
This is the first epic poem I've ever written. It's based on a story I wrote as a kid.
ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little
PART I

’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
And the owls have awakened the crowing ****;
Tu-whit!—Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing ****,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff, which
From her kennel beneath the rock
Maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
‘T is a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.
The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that’s far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest mistletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly,
The lovely lady, Christabel!
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is she cannot tell.—
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.
The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady’s cheek—
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,
Dressed in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandaled were;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, ‘t was frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly!

‘Mary mother, save me now!’
Said Christabel, ‘and who art thou?’

The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet:—
‘Have pity on my sore distress,
I scarce can speak for weariness:
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!’
Said Christabel, ‘How camest thou here?’
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,
Did thus pursue her answer meet:—
‘My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
They spurred amain, their steeds were white:
And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced, I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey’s back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some muttered words his comrades spoke:
He placed me underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell—
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand,’ thus ended she,
‘And help a wretched maid to flee.’

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,
And comforted fair Geraldine:
‘O well, bright dame, may you command
The service of Sir Leoline;
And gladly our stout chivalry
Will he send forth, and friends withal,
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father’s hall.’

She rose: and forth with steps they passed
That strove to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious stars the lady blest,
And thus spake on sweet Christabel:
‘All our household are at rest,
The hall is silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth;
And I beseech your courtesy,
This night, to share your couch with me.’

They crossed the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;
A little door she opened straight,
All in the middle of the gate;
The gate that was ironed within and without,
Where an army in battle array had marched out.
The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,
And moved, as she were not in pain.

So, free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.
And Christabel devoutly cried
To the Lady by her side;
‘Praise we the ****** all divine,
Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!’
‘Alas, alas!’ said Geraldine,
‘I cannot speak for weariness.’
So, free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.

Outside her kennel the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan did make.
And what can ail the mastiff *****?
Never till now she uttered yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet’s scritch:
For what can aid the mastiff *****?

They passed the hall, that echoes still,
Pass as lightly as you will.
The brands were flat, the brands were dying,
Amid their own white ashes lying;
But when the lady passed, there came
A tongue of light, a fit of flame;
And Christabel saw the lady’s eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby,
Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,
Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.
‘O softly tread,’ said Christabel,
‘My father seldom sleepeth well.’
Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,
And, jealous of the listening air,
They steal their way from stair to stair,
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,
And now they pass the Baron’s room,
As still as death, with stifled breath!
And now have reached her chamber door;
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.

The moon shines dim in the open air,
And not a moonbeam enters here.
But they without its light can see
The chamber carved so curiously,
Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver’s brain,
For a lady’s chamber meet:
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fastened to an angel’s feet.
The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.
‘O weary lady, Geraldine,
I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers.’

‘And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?’
Christabel answered—’Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the gray-haired friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!’
‘I would,’ said Geraldine, ’she were!’

But soon, with altered voice, said she—
‘Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee.’
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she,
‘Off, woman, off! this hour is mine—
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman. off! ‘t is given to me.’

Then Christabel knelt by the lady’s side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue—
‘Alas!’ said she, ‘this ghastly ride—
Dear lady! it hath wildered you!’
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, ‘’T is over now!’
Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes ‘gan glitter bright,
And from the floor, whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree.

And thus the lofty lady spake—
‘All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake,
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.’

Quoth Christabel, ‘So let it be!’
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain, of weal and woe,
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline.
To look at the lady Geraldine.
Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropped to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her ***** and half her side—
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs:
Ah! what a stricken look was hers!
Deep from within she seems half-way
To lift some weight with sick assay,
And eyes the maid and seeks delay;
Then suddenly, as one defied,
Collects herself in scorn and pride,
And lay down by the maiden’s side!—
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah, well-a-day!
And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say:

‘In the touch of this ***** there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heard’st a low moaning,
And found’st a bright lady, surpassingly fair:
And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.’

It was a lovely sight to see
The lady Christabel, when she
Was praying at the old oak tree.
Amid the jagged shadows
Of mossy leafless boughs,
Kneeling in the moonlight,
To make her gentle vows;
Her slender palms together prest,
Heaving sometimes on her breast;
Her face resigned to bliss or bale—
Her face, oh, call it fair not pale,
And both blue eyes more bright than clear.
Each about to have a tear.
With open eyes (ah, woe is me!)
Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,
Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis,
Dreaming that alone, which is—
O sorrow and shame! Can this be she,
The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?
And lo! the worker of these harms,
That holds the maiden in her arms,
Seems to slumber still and mild,
As a mother with her child.

A star hath set, a star hath risen,
O Geraldine! since arms of thine
Have been the lovely lady’s prison.
O Geraldine! one hour was thine—
Thou’st had thy will! By tarn and rill,
The night-birds all that hour were still.
But now they are jubilant anew,
From cliff and tower, tu-whoo! tu-whoo!
Tu-whoo! tu-whoo! from wood and fell!

And see! the lady Christabel
Gathers herself from out her trance;
Her limbs relax, her countenance
Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids
Close o’er her eyes; and tears she sheds—
Large tears that leave the lashes bright!
And oft the while she seems to smile
As infants at a sudden light!
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,
Like a youthful hermitess,
Beauteous in a wilderness,
Who, praying always, prays in sleep.
And, if she move unquietly,
Perchance, ‘t is but the blood so free
Comes back and tingles in her feet.
No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.
What if her guardian spirit ‘t were,
What if she knew her mother near?
But this she knows, in joys and woes,
That saints will aid if men will call:
For the blue sky bends over all.

PART II

Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
These words Sir Leoline first said,
When he rose and found his lady dead:
These words Sir Leoline will say
Many a morn to his dying day!

And hence the custom and law began
That still at dawn the sacristan,
Who duly pulls the heavy bell,
Five and forty beads must tell
Between each stroke—a warning knell,
Which not a soul can choose but hear
From Bratha Head to Wyndermere.
Saith Bracy the bard, ‘So let it knell!
And let the drowsy sacristan
Still count as slowly as he can!’
There is no lack of such, I ween,
As well fill up the space between.
In Langdale Pike and Witch’s Lair,
And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent,
With ropes of rock and bells of air
Three sinful sextons’ ghosts are pent,
Who all give back, one after t’ other,
The death-note to their living brother;
And oft too, by the knell offended,
Just as their one! two! three! is ended,
The devil mocks the doleful tale
With a merry peal from Borrowdale.

The air is still! through mist and cloud
That merry peal comes ringing loud;
And Geraldine shakes off her dread,
And rises lightly from the bed;
Puts on her silken vestments white,
And tricks her hair in lovely plight,
And nothing doubting of her spell
Awakens the lady Christabel.
‘Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel?
I trust that you have rested well.’

And Christabel awoke and spied
The same who lay down by her side—
O rather say, the same whom she
Raised up beneath the old oak tree!
Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!
For she belike hath drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep!
And while she spake, her looks, her air,
Such gentle thankfulness declare,
That (so it seemed) her girded vests
Grew tight beneath her heaving *******.
‘Sure I have sinned!’ said Christabel,
‘Now heaven be praised if all be well!’
And in low faltering tones, yet sweet,
Did she the lofty lady greet
With such perplexity of mind
As dreams too lively leave behind.

So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed
Her maiden limbs, and having prayed
That He, who on the cross did groan,
Might wash away her sins unknown,
She forthwith led fair Geraldine
To meet her sire, Sir Leoline.
The lovely maid and the lady tall
Are pacing both into the hall,
And pacing on through page and groom,
Enter the Baron’s presence-room.

The Baron rose, and while he prest
His gentle daughter to his breast,
With cheerful wonder in his eyes
The lady Geraldine espies,
And gave such welcome to the same,
As might beseem so bright a dame!

But when he heard the lady’s tale,
And when she told her father’s name,
Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,
Murmuring o’er the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine?
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart’s best brother:
They parted—ne’er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining—
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between.
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
Sir Leoline, a moment’s space,
Stood gazing on the damsel’s face:
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine
Came back upon his heart again.

O then the Baron forgot his age,
His noble heart swelled high with rage;
He swore by the wounds in Jesu’s side
He would proclaim it far and wide,
With trump and solemn heraldry,
That they, who thus had wronged the dame
Were base as spotted infamy!
‘And if they dare deny the same,
My herald shall appoint a week,
And let the recreant traitors seek
My tourney court—that there and then
I may dislodge their reptile souls
From the bodies and forms of men!’
He spake: his eye in lightning rolls!
For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned
In the beautiful lady the child of his friend!

And now the tears were on his face,
And fondly in his arms he took
Fair Geraldine who met the embrace,
Prolonging it with joyous look.
Which when she viewed, a vision fell
Upon the soul of Christabel,
The vision of fear, the touch and pain!
She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again—
(Ah, woe is me! Was it for thee,
Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?)
Again she saw that ***** old,
Again she felt that ***** cold,
And drew in her breath with a hissing sound:
Whereat the Knight turned wildly round,
And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid
With eyes upraised, as one that prayed.

The touch, the sight, had passed away,
And in its stead that vision blest,
Which comfort
Ralph Akintan Feb 2019
Whirlpool of whirling quaint
Inequality brewing in the
Winepress of smithereens
Fragile polity.
Voices of weariness cried
Out from the wasteyard of
Waste for succour,
Pointing fingers of
Recrimination towards
The abyss of drouth ,
Entangled in conflicts
Of interest.

Winds of improvised emblem
Bearing hunchback of
Woes,
Raising hands from the
Drowning deep sea
For rescue like
A dejected beautiful
Vigaro in a
Turbulent ocean of quarrel
With her spouse.

Whereas reddish fluids of life
Runs across the same veins
And arteries of haves
And haves-not but
Cottage of interests
Hoisting avalanche of
Rainbow-coloured flags
Standing aloof on the
Pole of misrule,
Demarcating their interests.

No accommodation for wants
In the corridor of affluence.
Wants on a trade mission
With wealthy but caged in
The confinement of wealth.

Winds of inequality blew
Whirler of wants into
The marrow of the
Haves-not.
Rains of inequality passing
Through a lockage of lack
Into the improvised,
Doling-out poverty to
Gain the control of
Wealth.

Alas! Blindness sees inner
Vision of darkness from
The households of political
      lamia.
Alas! Deafness hears
Discordant vague voices
Of failure from the forest
      of frustration.
Alas! Dumbness speaks
Language of gnomes out
Of the vale of forgotten
      treasures.
Alas! A four year tenancy
      turning into decades
      of challenges.

But we shall revive our hope
      and raise our voices
            tomorrow.
S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

'My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

'What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
'I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

'Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

'I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
'And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

'O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
'Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

'Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
'A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
'O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
'Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

'Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, 'God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  'Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  'You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick.      Tell on.

Oisin.                 Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, 'His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds
Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, "Unjust, unjust";
And "My speed is a weariness," falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

— The End —