Babylon has fallen! Aye; but Babylon endures
Wherever human wisdom shines or human folly lures;
Where lovers lingering walk beside, and happy children play,
Is Babylon! Babylon! for ever and for aye.
The plan is rudely fashioned, the dream is unfulfilled,
Yet all is in the archetype if but a builder willed;
And Babylon is calling us, the microcosm of men,
To range her walls in harmony and lift her spires again;
The sternest walls, the proudest spires, that ever sun shone on,
Halting a space his burning race to gaze on Babylon.


Babylon has fallen! Aye; but Babylon shall stand:
The mantle of her majesty is over sea and land.
Hers is the name of challenge flung, a watchword in the fight
To grapple grim eternities and gain the old delight;
And in the word the dream is hid, and in the dream the deed,
And in the deed the mastery for those who dare to lead.
Surely her day shall come again, surely her breed be born
To urge the hope of humankind and scale the peaks of morn --


To fight as they who fought till death their ****** field upon,
And kept the gate against the Fate frowning on Babylon.

Is a true hero one like Superman?
Name spread across the front page
Bold symbol blazoned across his chest
Or maybe a hero is like Batman
Operating in the shadows
Name barely dared whispered by evildoers
On the off chance he'll appear.
Perhaps a heroine is like Oracle
Helping from behind the scenes
Relaying crucial information
Maybe Daredevil is,
Defeating personal as well as social
Obsctacles, physical and mental
But no, I think a true hero is brave
Or kind or welcoming or even
Small-scale rebel or revolutionary
And needs no emblem shot into the skies
Needs no great ceremony of recognition
Or semblance of public thanks
Just a smile, or the thought that
A life has been changed for the better.

God closed his eyes that night,
but I don't blame him.
Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

At just seventeen,
Timmy never saw the truck that killed him.
Never saw the blood and ***** on the asphalt.
God closed his eyes that night,
but nobody blames him.
Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

A little girl was taken that night.
Beaten and *****.
Innocence stolen and beauty forgotten.
God closed his eyes that night,
but her parents don't blame him.
Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

Even God needs to sleep sometimes.

I come from a long line of make-or-breakers, and for that I am thankful.
When strangers say hello to me, I greet them back, just as my mother taught me.
When I try, I sometimes succeed, and
I sometimes fail, but I breathe an innocent breath,
Knowing that I did my best.
I have a thousand stories to tell, stories you may not believe.
I have standards. I have feelings.
I have emotions. I have a heart.
I can hurt.
When I sleep at night, I dream of the real and fantasy.
When I breathe, I do so thankfully.
When I laugh, I do so joyously.
I have a past. I have a future.
I have beliefs. I have morals.
I  have opinions, and I have rights, and
I understand that those two things are not always interchangeable.

I am a proud, intelligent woman.
I am a caring, understanding woman.
I am a wise, hopeful woman.

I know how to nurture, and how to be nurtured in return.
I am honest, my heart is as pure as possible.
I mean no harm.

I will die someday and let my epitaph be such: that if I ever hurt a soul on Earth, it was done so unknowingly, for if I had known, I’d have rather died a much sooner death.

I understand that love is the greatest universal power there is, and that is my religion.

Wait, go back
Go back!
It's not over yet!
It didn't end like this.
I know it. I know it.

I know this story,
I've read these lines.
Next you're supposed to say
"                           "
Or some other witty, beautiful words
that drown me in my guilt.
And I'll just stutter and stammer
and trip over my words like
that time in May
when you tripped on that root
on our hike in New Hampshire.

I hand you a lollipop.

What the ****! Why
would I hand her a lollipop?

I hand you a bleeding heart
and you examine it.
You **** it.
You write your name on it and
carefully - HAH! - horrendously you force it down my throat.
Swallow.

But after all of this,
I still know that in this twisted
***-backwards, convoluted world
I am still head over heels for you.
I'm still the same, perfectly sane, guy you knew before.

Ribbit.

I

meteor showers are not
very cleansing nor are
shooting stars much of
a threat

they pass over arms
raised and waving with
a hundred cries of
‘not yet’

by the time they
have passed the universe
might expand enough to
engulf Regret

and our arms will touch
our sides as we realise
the chances we may
have missed

and by then stars may
not exist and Never may
have already paid
its debt

and we’re left wondering
why we were left behind
and not chosen as hunks of
rock flew by

and though Ever After
has been stitched on
our minds dimensional
thread by thread

(and has with it what the
past cannot forget without
a vast sense of swoon)

Ever After will never
become Forever if it
speaks too late
or arrives too soon

II

if you were to ask Where when it would be
he would most definitely reply with ‘not now’

and if you were to ask Why exactly how
he would probably reply: ‘without me’

but if you were to question What with how it was
he would redirect you straight back to Why

so the last one to ask is the ever glum Was
(for he knows many things, most of all regret)

and Was also knows all you’ve done
and all you’ve done wrong he won’t let you forget

III

I’m about to begin work
on Forever but I don’t
know how long it will take

by the time I’m done
with Now who knows When
it will be

maybe by then North will
be South but true North
will be down somewhere
else

and clocks won’t have
numbers they’ll just
have words like ‘never’
and ‘too late’

it might take
a very long time

so it would be nice
to have someone here
just for having someone
here’s sake

it wouldn’t make Time
any less steady nor
pass it any quicker
or slower

but when the little hand
gets to ‘too late’ or
where ‘too late’ should
have been

I hope to have felt
and seen
everything

I remember when
I first read Bukowski
I thought he was a
joke

his poems weren’t even
poems
they were just a bunch
of lines
and sentences
strung about like flimsy
washing telling
mundane stories
about insipid things

who was he to venerate Cummings

(as if he had any of Edward’s
profundity)

and who was he to write
poems about poets not
writing poems

or his simple lines propping
up grossly defective and out of
date words

like jeroboams

or how he’d drink
(four-fifths a gallon of wine)
then write more derivative
lines

who was he to live so long
and write so much

drivel
and
claptrap

to other poets’ literary
athleticism
our darling Chuck was a
pedestrian

he was born a pensioner
but never received a
pension

his poems flow
like a river
to
no
where

and after reading them
the first time
I withdrew
my poetic concern

but then I read them again
and then
again

and I
realised

I was in his poem’s
stories

and that foolish girl I knew
that dense and brainless
denizen of triteville
was the heroine of
his ‘splashing’

and his love for classical
his love for wine
and even his love
for Edward
matched even mine

but most of all
and here
my rhetoric ends

the moment I sighed oh yes
when I read his poem
yes
you guessed it
‘oh, yes’

if not for his whimsical
words
or his misaligned wit
love him for his
grasp of regret
and the sheer sentiment
he can emit