#wilde
I sat beneath a withered tree,
A little swallow on the rock beside,
Eyes gloomy and wings ducked,
Whispered with a silent reflection,
I am not made for the world.
The swallow noticed me,
With a little effort said to me,
Hey, human you are so fragile,
So fragile, to avoid us,
Even the tree shed because of you.
Listen, dear swallow of sky,
Why do you rest here ?
Deepened in despair and grief,
What has happened?
Put off the weight your little wings carry.
I have seen the miseries, swallow said,
This earth curtains it,
With all the might but at last,
It is revealed after a hunt,
All the heartbroken gems and jewels.
The swallow continued in sorrow,
This globe is going in ruins,
You can even notice it,
All because of what you’ve done,
That only you can restore it.
Notice the nature, the seas,
The skies, the grounds,
The society, the energies you live in,
All will vanish one day,
Not now, but someday.
Tell me human,
Are you all black hearted ?
Or am I black eyed ?
All I have seen this far,
Coincidences or consequences?
I replied calmly and gently,
With all tears in my eyes,
Dear swallow, fly from here,
In all the years I have aged,
Is not even close to reply you,
Fly back to ‘The Happy Prince’,
He is ready to answer you.
Jan 18
Jan 18, 2026 at 1:02 PM UTC
One Christmas I was looking around for presents
I seen these imitation Oscars in a shop window
I thought that'd make a good present
Sure everybody would love to get an Oscar
So I bought a few, one for each person not wanting to leave anyone out
I even bought one for myself
I was very proud of my Oscar, my lovely shiny golden man (probably made of plastic)
One day a few months later my niece came around
She was always on at me to declutter my house
To get rid of things
I seen her looking around and then looking over at my Oscar
I jumped to my feet quick and grabbed my Oscar and said "You can take all the rest of the ***** but you ain't getting my Oscar"
Then I told her I wanted her to take a picture of me holding my Oscar
And that after I'd died
I wanted her to publish it as my memorial picture, me there holding my Oscar
People looking at it would say "Jaysus! Look! The ****** got an Oscar for his life's performance"
Dec 17, 2025
Dec 17, 2025 at 7:39 PM UTC
The day he walked in that door
was the day he was destined to die.
He lay his foot inside the door
and the other one concurrently came out.
He transposed his clothes
but they ceased to cover his body.
The scarlet coat was left hanging
in the closet with his soul.
Indicted with crimes
that he must not have been penalized for.
And bashed by society
with their spiteful words like arrows.
Met his lover
but was parted by the injudicious laws.
Left skint and lacerated
with the epithet of an outcast.
Alien tears fill for him
and outcasts pay their homages.
No statue of air was this man
yet hard labor was all he was given to build it out of stone.
His teacher later delineated him as a blot on their tutorship.
For he was but a tutor.
De Profundis
spoke of his anguished journey.
Victorian times
disagreed with his originality and frolic.
He told
platonic love was all he was guilty of.
Yet,
he was charged with crimes.
Drowned in cries of shame;
and incarcerated to rip him off his passion.
Something was dead in him,
and what was dead was hope.
Hope died first
and then gradually died the passion.
In exile,
his love for writing too deceased.
The daemon inside him
ceased to inspire.
God sent the lord of death
The lord of death
didn’t move around pompously like him.
But came announced,
for it had been accepted.
The wallpaper moaned
upon his untimely death.
For it desired to die
instead of the then mincing man.
He left the earthly plains
for the good have fewer days.
The good die young
as did the revered outcast.
Herodotus the father of history
unerringly expressed the good ones’ misery.
He repudiated to deny his soul
and lived nonchalantly.
He desired all the fruits of the world
so he lived.
Exile ruined him
and rent his ardor.
His meetings with his lover
were interdicted by his family.
He was pardoned
but a century too late.
Along with the outcasts
that lived in throbbing pain.
The outcast deceased when young
but lived indefinitely.
Infinite existence is promised
for the ***** was silver-tongued.
He died young
and roams the immortal planes.
Just like Alan Turing,
Bhagat Singh, JFK, and countless more.
God wanted them
for they wanted to augment their heavens.
Nov 3, 2020
Nov 3, 2020 at 11:38 AM UTC
Sure, she was
pretty.
Pretty as a doll.
Porcelain skin,
Stoic,
elegant.
Everyone said so;
therefore
everyone knew so.
But,
she was never beautiful.
Never having that smile that soars across your face, reaching the rising heights of your cheeks,
heat flowing through the cracks of your skin made from memories passed.
Encircling your eyes, forcing the green leaves to wither,
facing the tight chill of another winter.
Eyes awaken, olives on the branch
Skin turning fiery now… it’s laughter!
A shuddering of skin
juddering and jiggling
Cracks are forming where sapphire squeezes out and down the mountainside, leaving its trail.
Youth is wasted on the young?
As if youth is something to be owned.
Oct 20, 2020
Oct 20, 2020 at 6:29 PM UTC
Excerpts from the Journal of Dorian Gray
by Michael R. Burch
It was not so much dream, as error;
I lay and felt the creeping terror
of what I had become take hold . . .
The moon watched, silent, palest gold;
the picture by the mantle watched;
the clock upon the mantle talked,
in halting voice, of minute things . . .
Twelve strokes like lashes and their stings
scored anthems to my loneliness,
but I have dreamed of what is best,
and I have promised to be good . . .
Dismembered limbs in vats of wood,
foul acids, and a strangled cry!
I did not care, I watched him die . . .
Each lovely rose has thorns we miss;
they ***** our lips, should we once kiss
their mangled limbs, or think to clasp
their violent beauty. Dream, aghast,
the flower of my loveliness,
this ageless face (for who could guess?),
and I will kiss you when I rise . . .
The patterns of our lives comprise
strange portraits. Mine, I fear,
proved dear indeed . . . Adieu!
The knife’s for you.
Keywords/Tags: Oscar Wilde, portrait, Dorian Gay, journal, ageless, face, youthful, unchanging, rose, thorns, ***** vat, acid, acids, dismembered limbs, violent beauty, knife
Apr 3, 2020
Apr 3, 2020 at 3:55 AM UTC
Epigrams IV
Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch
Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!
*** Hex
by Michael R. Burch
Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).
Saving Graces
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch
Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter
(wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter).
The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch
for and after Richard Moore
If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity
are the whole of it.
(Published by Shot Glass Journal, Brief Poems, AZquotes, IdleHearts, JarOfQuotes, QuoteFancy, QuoteMaster)
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch
Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition
Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch
Fascists of a feather
flock together.
Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch
Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.
Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.
If every witty thing that’s said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
—Michael R. Burch
Multiplication, Tabled
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch
“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”
Not Elves, Exactly
by Michael R. Burch
Something there is that likes a wall,
that likes it spiked and likes it tall,
that likes its pikes’ sharp rows of teeth
and doesn’t mind its victims’ grief
(wherever they come from, far or wide)
as long as they fall on the other side.
Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today’s genteel poets prefer modern ruts.
—Michael R. Burch
Long Division
by Kim Cherub
after Laura Riding Jackson
All things become one
Through death’s long division
And perfect precision.
Meal Deal
by Michael R. Burch
Love is a splendid ideal
(at least till it costs us a meal).
Vice Grip
by Michael R. Burch
There’s no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The cruelty of “civilization” suffices:
our ordinary vices.
Self-ish
by Kim Cherub
Let’s not pretend we “understand” other elves
As long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.
Piecemeal
by Kim Cherub
And so it begins—the ending.
The narrowing veins, the soft tissues rending.
Your final solution is pending.
Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch
Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.
Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare
@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)
A tweet
by any other name
would be as fleet.
Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare
@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)
Remember, doggonit,
heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet!
So if you intend to write a couplet,
please do it on the doublet!
The First Complete Musical Composition
Shine, while you live;
blaze beyond grief,
for life is brief
and Time, a thief.
—Michael R. Burch, after Seikilos of Euterpes
The so-called Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest known surviving complete musical composition which includes musical notation. It is believed to date to the first or second century AD. The epitaph appears to be signed “Seikilos of Euterpes” or dedicated “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Euterpe was the ancient Greek Muse of music.
Ars Brevis, Proofreading Longa
by Michael R. Burch
Poets may labor from sun to sun,
but their editor's work is never done.
15 Seconds
by Michael R. Burch
Our president’s *** life—atrocious!
Asian markets are all hocus-pocus.
Politics—a shell game.
My brief moment of fame
flashed by before Oprah could notice.
Death
by Michael R. Burch
Death is the ultimate finality
and banality
of reality.
Translations
Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!
Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch
The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows,
while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang.
—Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
An unbending tree
breaks easily.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Little sparks ignite great flames.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch
Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.
—Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.
—Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised.
—Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch
Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel,
or a house when it's time to change residences,
even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.
—Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch
Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty.
—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch
Fools call wisdom foolishness.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
Truths are more likely discovered by one man than by nations.
—Rene Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch
Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch
Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.
Native American Proverb
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.
Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Let us walk respectfully here
among earth's creatures, great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.
The Least of These...
What you
do
to
the refugee
you
do
unto
Me!
—Jesus Christ, translation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch
The Church Gets the Burch Rod
How can the Bible be "infallible" when from Genesis to Revelation slavery is commanded and condoned, but never condemned? —Michael R. Burch
If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
—Michael R. Burch
I have my doubts about your God and his "love":
If one screams below, what the hell is "Above"?
—Michael R. Burch
If God has the cattle on a thousand hills,
why does he need my tithes to pay his bills?
—Michael R. Burch
The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch
Hell hath no fury like a fundamentalist whose God condemned him for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch
Religion is the difficult process of choosing the least malevolent invisible friends.—Michael R. Burch
Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx
Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch
An ideal that cannot be realized is, in the end, just wishful thinking.—Michael R. Burch
God and his "profits" could never agree
on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea.
—Michael R. Burch
To fall an inch short of infinity is to fall infinitely short.—Michael R. Burch
Most Christians make God seem like the Devil. Atheists and agnostics at least give him the "benefit of the doubt."—Michael R. Burch
Hell has been hellishly overdone
since Jehovah and his prophets never mentioned it once.
—Michael R. Burch
(Bible scholars agree: the word "hell" has been removed from the Old Testaments of the more accurate modern Bible translations. And the few New Testament verses that mention "hell" are obvious mistranslations.)
If every witty thing that's said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
—Michael R. Burch
Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I love fresh country air?
You're not befouling it, mon frère.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
You’ll find good poems, but mostly poor and worse,
my peers being “diverse” in their verse.
2.
Some good poems here, but most not worth a curse:
such is the crapshoot of a book of verse.
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura
quae legis hic: aliter non fit, Auite, liber.
He undertook to be a doctor
but turned out to be an undertaker.
Chirurgus fuerat, nunc est uispillo Diaulus:
coepit quo poterat clinicus esse modo.
1.
The book you recite from, Fidentinus, was my own,
till your butchering made it yours alone.
2.
The book you recite from I once called my own,
but you read it so badly, it’s now yours alone.
3.
You read my book as if you wrote it,
but you read it so badly I’ve come to hate it.
Quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus:
sed male *** recitas, incipit esse tuus.
Recite my epigrams? I decline,
for then they’d be yours, not mine.
Ut recitem tibi nostra rogas epigrammata. Nolo:
non audire, Celer, sed recitare cupis.
I do not love you, but cannot say why.
I do not love you: no reason, no lie.
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare:
hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
You’re young and lovely, wealthy too,
but that changes nothing: you’re a shrew.
Bella es, nouimus, et puella, uerum est,
et diues, quis enim potest negare?
Sed *** te nimium, Fabulla, laudas,
nec diues neque bella nec puella es.
Feb 24, 2020
Feb 24, 2020 at 3:30 AM UTC
there is a vastness here
where a small breeze,
the size of a decaying sorrow
wakes the cold again
which may be all that’s left of me.
where a diamond pale haze of stars goes on eternal
like sound that has found a final silent shape
on a black sky where it means everything
It cannot speak off.
it’s empty out here, and cold.
cold enough to reconcile
the frozen cries, the kidnapped voices
and the silences that move
with certain cadaveric contractions
along the frozen emptiness
and In the morning when I look out
the previous evening remains
in its blank, cold, unforgiveness
even though I sang for them in
the eternal extensiveness of
the freezing cold, the stones
still cry with mouths opened wide
while the small icy wind and unsympathetic
moon subdue the apricot flowers,
Now the piercing cold day Is no longer enough
For all comprehension escapes me
suddenly jumps with fury hurling terrible hostilities to the sky,
as wandering ice spirits without homeland
begin to groan with a vast and vacant voice.
And frozen hearses, with muffled drums
and tragic music, slowly pass in my being
conquered, weeping, freezing
this atrocious iced and despotic place
plants its black flag in my soul
Now I do confess through boreal breath
I don’t think I will ever see the
Red Tulips again
Aug 25, 2019
Aug 25, 2019 at 3:36 PM UTC
A repost:
A Roman poem written before The birth of Christ, inspired the title Gone With The wind
with Scarlett and Rhett Butler
But here you see only old
confessions of a man's true love for his beloved who is all gone
-Or-
(Or a woman's true love for
her beloved runner wishing she could have chased.)
~~~
CYNAR*A.
~~~~~
Last night yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! Thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! Gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! The night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
~~~~~~~
By:Ernest Dowson
For:RhettlvScarlet.
to honor Karijinbba
in her great loss and healing
of her memory chip.
~~~~~~
Copy Rights.
~~~~
Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) died of alcoholism at the age of 32. His downward spiral began at age 23 when he fell for an 11 year old girl who would spurn him at 14 when he proposed marriage.
The following year, in 1894 his father died from an overdose. Dowson's mother
hanged herself within a year of her husband's death.
Soon after this dual tragedy Dowson left for France before returning back to England in 1897. Curiously he lived with the family of his unrequited love. Penniless, heartbroken and filling the empty voids in his life with alcohol, Dowson would spend the last six weeks of his life in the cottage of the Oscar Wilde biographer Robert Sherard who had found him
drunk in a bar.
Speaking of Oscar Wilde, he wrote after Dowson's death of a,"Poor wounded wonderful fellow that he was, a tragic reproduction of all tragic poetry, like a symbol, or a scene.
I hope bay leaves will be laid on his tomb and rue and myrtle too for he knew what true love
unrequieted love was."
~~~~~
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 12:44 AM UTC
Be yourself
There is no one else
Be who you are
and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter,
and those who matter don't mind
And I don’t mind
I guess I Shouldn’t
cry because it's over,
But smile because it happened
It might overcome the sadness,
But i never quite escape the nostalgia…
How do you live,
With these broken memories in your head,
And happy feelings in your heart?
No one ever listens
How do I move on with the weight of my past on my back,
The comfort so welcoming
I always cry
Over the things that don’t matter
Hiding the hurt,
hiding the pain,
Hiding the tears that fell like rain…
So long ago, and yet,
Time is weird in my head
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
Trying to feel all at once
I ended up
Feeling nothing
At all
Jan 13, 2018
Jan 13, 2018 at 8:35 AM UTC
Gazing through the looking glass, and attempting to reminisce, he lets go, relieves, and perceives.Colossi of raindrops subtly fall through sky’s shadows , violently battling the grey in great amounts, failing to come anywhere near the threshold of one’s most sensitive ear. Nature’s children appear to tremble as dark forebodings of a dreary future pervade the air. The danger and annoyances of such rarities is always given priority and significance. He misunderstands it; he believes in its false infinity.
Unable to stabilize, unable to achieve a desired normality. From every pitter, he regrets; from every patter he forgets. Forcefully drudging through the thick swamp of his mind, struggling to understand what and why, diminishing his hopes of any change, any desire. Suddenly, several elements collide against his one-way mirror in his cell and revitalize his consciousness. Looking through the droplet, his face pressed against, his mentality momentarily produces quick successions of thoughts and random impulses of recovering memory.
Every snowflake understands its place as sui generis; every raindrop understands its place as trite. The beauty of a snowflake with death, the dullness of rain with life. It’s uniformity and strict nature are necessary to sustain life, but somehow it places a bittersweet piece of an unusual feeling inside him. Its unexplainable transparency, disguising itself as invisible, but not untouchable, stimulates a sense of deep nostalgic hopelessness within him. As he discovers the profound pulchritude, and simultaneous incomprehensibility, of the paradoxical elements of natural and artificial state cooperating to achieve more of the same, he realizes more in this moment. The monotonous, repetitive beat of rain seems to harmonize in an odd manner with some contrasting presence.
A new rhythm to this sound, a new color to this sight. A particular emotion of gradually diminishing despair comes about as he observes little rain boots composing a sort of rhythmic song with the catchy beat of the rain’s clashing, the continuous flow of the tree’s trembling, the back-up percussion of the thunder’s loud suddenness, the sight of lightning's exciting flash, and the cheerful singing from their voices.Upon this feat, he accepts the shadow’s tears; no longer must he endure the pain of the past’s ********** of the future, now he begins to savor the varied colors of newfound harmony.
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 5:50 AM UTC
I dreamed I stood upon a little hill,
And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed
Like a waste garden, flowering at its will
With buds and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed
Black and unruffled; there were white lilies
A few, and crocuses, and violets
Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries
Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets
Blue eyes of shy peryenche winked in the sun.
And there were curious flowers, before unknown,
Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades
Of Nature's wilful moods; and here a one
That had drunk in the transitory tone
Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades
Of grass that in an hundred springs had been
Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars,
And watered with the scented dew long cupped
In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen
Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars
The luminous air of Heaven. Beyond, abrupt,
A grey stone wall, o'ergrown with velvet moss
Uprose; and gazing I stood long, all mazed
To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair.
And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across
The garden came a youth; one hand he raised
To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair
Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore
A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes
Were clear as crystal, naked all was he,
White as the snow on pathless mountains frore,
Red were his lips as red wine-spilith that dyes
A marble floor, his brow chalcedony.
And he came near me, with his lips uncurled
And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth,
And gave me grapes to eat, and said, 'Sweet friend,
Come I will show thee shadows of the world
And images of life. See from the South
Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end.'
And lo! within the garden of my dream
I saw two walking on a shining plain
Of golden light. The one did joyous seem
And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain
Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids
And joyous love of comely girl and boy,
His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades
Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy;
And in his hand he held an ivory lute
With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair,
And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute,
And round his neck three chains of roses were.
But he that was his comrade walked aside;
He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes
Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide
With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs
That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white
Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red
Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight,
And yet again unclenched, and his head
Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death.
A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold
With the device of a great snake, whose breath
Was fiery flame: which when I did behold
I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth,
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove
These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the Love that dare not speak its name.'
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 10:34 AM UTC
Some people write, but rarely read,
That seems to me most strange indeed,
They've read less than a hundred books,
Yet think they imitate the looks,
Of Sassoon, Cummings, Keats and Pound,
Or think they imitate the sound,
Of Lennon, Dylan, or Shakur,
And sometimes think they've offered more,
Than Chaucer, Wilde or Shakespeare could,
And claim they're more misunderstood,
Than even Salman Rushdie was,
Which really ticks me off because,
After having read such wondrous works,
A sense of failure always lurks,
Inside me whenever I write,
Yet they think they've done well tonight!
I hate them all! That's it - I've said it!
But they won't know until they've read it,
Which is quite doubtful, I'd attest,
Who'd read my work and skip the best?
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 1:55 AM UTC
Oscar Wilde, where do you get your inspiration?
Tell me, do your muses dance on the stars,
can they be heard by the sea?
Poetic and tragically romantic,
words strung together on the dewey webs of little black widows,
poisoning me with a cracked rosy vision .
What visions dance to create such imagery?
What do you see, in your time, to create vivid color?
O, Oscar Wilde,
the question haunts me.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 9:50 PM UTC
( July 16th 01:10am)
Dear boy! The love that dare not speak it's name
which caused you suffering, expounds these days;
no golden sphynxes fold their wings in shame,
there's pride in gaiety and all it's ways.
To think that tiny window on the sky
was all you had, to show the world was real!
For bigotry and hate will always try
to break a butterfly upon a wheel.
Bereft and broken, still by love possessed,
you were vanquished by prejudicial law;
and yet, with trusting candour, you confessed
to all the passion you were fighting for.
From Paradise to gutter, behind bars,
Oscar was always looking at the stars.
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 8:11 PM UTC
Her Voice by Oscar Wilde
THE wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 12:51 AM UTC
if my hands reflect
the hurt they cause, maybe i
wouldn't hurt again.
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 12:29 PM UTC
As I sigh, I pat my pockets
And search for an old friend.
Seeking comfort and consolation
In someone I know all too well.
A pure white cigarette with a cotton filter.
I place it in my mouth and light the end.
A familiar greeting. A firm handshake.
Then we begin our conversation.
I take a long drag from my dear old friend.
He pats me on the back.
He tells me that I will be okay.
He gives me the strength that I lack.
Another long puff with a cough at the end.
Five minutes of my life that I'll never get back.
Five minutes of life taken from me,
In exchange for a glimmer of solace.
Holding my friend, I take a deep breath.
Inhaling the oxygen I need.
Then I fill my lungs with smoke.
As I feel the comfort slipping away.
My friend is gone; my friend is done.
I flick his remains away.
Although he is gone, he will soon return.
Helping my body decay.
My solace has disappeared.
I'm back to the way that I felt before.
My former feelings, now magnified.
Leaving me unsatisfied.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 5:01 AM UTC