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None on earth can
Ever use up--no man--
A phial of Christ's grace
And mercy.
A teaspoon enough is
For any diseased soul
To make its sickness
Completely whole.
ANCIEN REGIME

I

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

II

He is with her; and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here.

III

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder,—I am not in haste!
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King’s.

IV

That in the mortar—you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison too?

V

Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree-basket!

VI

Soon, at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give,
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!
But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head,
And her breast, and her arms, and her hands, should drop dead!

VII

Quick—is it finished? The colour’s too grim!
Why not soft like the phial’s, enticing and dim?
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!

VIII

What a drop! She’s not little, no minion like me—
That’s why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those strong, great eyes,—say, “No!”
To that pulse’s magnificent come-and-go.

IX

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought
Could I keep them one-half minute fixed, she would fall,
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!

X

Not that I bid you spare her the pain!
Let death be felt and the proof remain;
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—
He is sure to remember her dying face!

XI

Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose,
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close:
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune’s fee—
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?

XII

Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings
Ere I know it—next moment I dance at the King’s!
Thousand minstrels woke within me,
"Our music's in the hills; "—
Gayest pictures rose to win me,
Leopard-colored rills.
Up!—If thou knew'st who calls
To twilight parks of beech and pine,
High over the river intervals,
Above the ploughman's highest line,
Over the owner's farthest walls;—
Up!—where the airy citadel
O'erlooks the purging landscape's swell.
Let not unto the stones the day
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display;
Read the celestial sign!
Lo! the South answers to the North;
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;
A greater Spirit bids thee forth,
Than the gray dreams which thee detain.

Mark how the climbing Oreads
Beckon thee to their arcades;
Youth, for a moment free as they,
Teach thy feet to feel the ground,
Ere yet arrive the wintry day
When Time thy feet has bound.
Accept the bounty of thy birth;
Taste the lordship of the earth.

I heard and I obeyed,
Assured that he who pressed the claim,
Well-known, but loving not a name,
Was not to be gainsaid.

Ere yet the summoning voice was still,
I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed
Like ample banner flung abroad
Round about, a hundred miles,
With invitation to the sea, and to the bordering isles.

In his own loom's garment drest,
By his own bounty blest,
Fast abides this constant giver,
Pouring many a cheerful river;
To far eyes, an aërial isle,
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile,
Which morn and crimson evening paint
For bard, for lover, and for saint;
The country's core,
Inspirer, prophet evermore,
Pillar which God aloft had set
So that men might it not forget,
It should be their life's ornament,
And mix itself with each event;
Their calendar and dial,
Barometer, and chemic phial,
Garden of berries, perch of birds,
Pasture of pool-haunting herds,
Graced by each change of sum untold,
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.

The Titan minds his sky-affairs,
Rich rents and wide alliance shares;
Mysteries of color daily laid
By the great sun in light and shade,
And, sweet varieties of chance,
And the mystic seasons' dance,
And thief-like step of liberal hours
Which thawed the snow-drift into flowers.
O wondrous craft of plant and stone
By eldest science done and shown!
Happy, I said, whose home is here,
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!
Boon nature to his poorest shed
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.
Intent I searched the region round,
And in low hut my monarch found.
He was no eagle and no earl,
Alas! my foundling was a churl,
With heart of cat, and eyes of bug,
Dull victim of his pipe and mug;
Woe is me for my hopes' downfall!
Lord! is yon squalid peasant all
That this proud nursery could breed
For God's vicegerency and stead?
Time out of mind this forge of ores,
Quarry of spars in mountain pores,
Old cradle, hunting ground, and bier
Of wolf and otter, bear, and deer;
Well-built abode of many a race;
Tower of observance searching space;
Factory of river, and of rain;
Link in the alps' globe-girding chain;
By million changes skilled to tell
What in the Eternal standeth well,
And what obedient nature can,—
Is this colossal talisman
Kindly to creature, blood, and kind,
And speechless to the master's mind?

I thought to find the patriots
In whom the stock of freedom roots.
To myself I oft recount
Tales of many a famous mount.—
Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells,
Roys, and Scanderbegs, and Tells.
Here now shall nature crowd her powers,
Her music, and her meteors,
And, lifting man to the blue deep
Where stars their perfect courses keep,
Like wise preceptor lure his eye
To sound the science of the sky,
And carry learning to its height
Of untried power and sane delight;
The Indian cheer, the frosty skies
Breed purer wits, inventive eyes,
Eyes that frame cities where none be,
And hands that stablish what these see:
And, by the moral of his place,
Hint summits of heroic grace;
Man in these crags a fastness find
To fight pollution of the mind;
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
Adhere like this foundation strong,
The insanity of towns to stem
With simpleness for stratagem.
But if the brave old mould is broke,
And end in clowns the mountain-folk,
In tavern cheer and tavern joke,—
Sink, O mountain! in the swamp,
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lap!
Perish like leaves the highland breed!
No sire survive, no son succeed!

Soft! let not the offended muse
Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse.
Many hamlets sought I then,
Many farms of mountain men;—
Found I not a minstrel seed,
But men of bone, and good at need.
Rallying round a parish steeple
Nestle warm the highland people,
Coarse and boisterous, yet mild,
Strong as giant, slow as child,
Smoking in a squalid room,
Where yet the westland breezes come.
Close hid in those rough guises lurk
Western magians, here they work;
Sweat and season are their arts,
Their talismans are ploughs and carts;
And well the youngest can command
Honey from the frozen land,
With sweet hay the swamp adorn,
Change the running sand to corn,
For wolves and foxes, lowing herds,
And for cold mosses, cream and curds;
Weave wood to canisters and mats,
Drain sweet maple-juice in vats.
No bird is safe that cuts the air,
From their rifle or their snare;
No fish in river or in lake,
But their long hands it thence will take;
And the country's iron face
Like wax their fashioning skill betrays,
To fill the hollows, sink the hills,
Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills,
And fit the bleak and howling place
For gardens of a finer race,
The world-soul knows his own affair,
Fore-looking when his hands prepare
For the next ages men of mould,
Well embodied, well ensouled,
He cools the present's fiery glow,
Sets the life pulse strong, but slow.
Bitter winds and fasts austere.
His quarantines and grottos, where
He slowly cures decrepit flesh,
And brings it infantile and fresh.
These exercises are the toys
And games with which he breathes his boys.
They bide their time, and well can prove,
If need were, their line from Jove,
Of the same stuff, and so allayed,
As that whereof the sun is made;
And of that fibre quick and strong
Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song.
Now in sordid weeds they sleep,
Their secret now in dulness keep.
Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,
These the masters who can teach,
Fourscore or a hundred words
All their vocal muse affords,
These they turn in other fashion
Than the writer or the parson.
I can spare the college-bell,
And the learned lecture well.
Spare the clergy and libraries,
Institutes and dictionaries,
For the hardy English root
Thrives here unvalued underfoot.
Rude poets of the tavern hearth,
Squandering your unquoted mirth,
Which keeps the ground and never soars,
While Jake retorts and Reuben roars,
Tough and screaming as birch-bark,
Goes like bullet to its mark,
While the solid curse and jeer
Never balk the waiting ear:
To student ears keen-relished jokes
On truck, and stock, and farming-folks,—
Nought the mountain yields thereof
But savage health and sinews tough.

On the summit as I stood,
O'er the wide floor of plain and flood,
Seemed to me the towering hill
Was not altogether still,
But a quiet sense conveyed;
If I err not, thus it said:

Many feet in summer seek
Betimes my far-appearing peak;
In the dreaded winter-time,
None save dappling shadows climb
Under clouds my lonely head,
Old as the sun, old almost as the shade.
And comest thou
To see strange forests and new snow,
And tread uplifted land?
And leavest thou thy lowland race,
Here amid clouds to stand,
And would'st be my companion,
Where I gaze
And shall gaze
When forests fall, and man is gone,
Over tribes and over times
As the burning Lyre
Nearing me,
With its stars of northern fire,
In many a thousand years.

Ah! welcome, if thou bring
My secret in thy brain;
To mountain-top may muse's wing
With good allowance strain.
Gentle pilgrim, if thou know
The gamut old of Pan,
And how the hills began,
The frank blessings of the hill
Fall on thee, as fall they will.
'Tis the law of bush and stone—
Each can only take his own.
Let him heed who can and will,—
Enchantment fixed me here
To stand the hurts of time, until
In mightier chant I disappear.
If thou trowest
How the chemic eddies play
Pole to pole, and what they say,
And that these gray crags
Not on crags are hung,
But beads are of a rosary
On prayer and music strung;
And, credulous, through the granite seeming
Seest the smile of Reason beaming;
Can thy style-discerning eye
The hidden-working Builder spy,
Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din,
With hammer soft as snow-flake's flight;
Knowest thou this?
O pilgrim, wandering not amiss!
Already my rocks lie light,
And soon my cone will spin.
For the world was built in order,
And the atoms march in tune,
Rhyme the pipe, and time the warder,
Cannot forget the sun, the moon.
Orb and atom forth they prance,
When they hear from far the rune,
None so backward in the troop,
When the music and the dance
Reach his place and circumstance,
But knows the sun-creating sound,
And, though a pyramid, will bound.

Monadnoc is a mountain strong,
Tall and good my kind among,
But well I know, no mountain can
Measure with a perfect man;
For it is on Zodiack's writ,
Adamant is soft to wit;
And when the greater comes again,
With my music in his brain,
I shall pass as glides my shadow
Daily over hill and meadow.

Through all time
I hear the approaching feet
Along the flinty pathway beat
Of him that cometh, and shall come,—
Of him who shall as lightly bear
My daily load of woods and streams,
As now the round sky-cleaving boat
Which never strains its rocky beams,
Whose timbers, as they silent float,
Alps and Caucasus uprear,
And the long Alleghanies here,
And all town-sprinkled lands that be,
Sailing through stars with all their history.

Every morn I lift my head,
Gaze o'er New England underspread
South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,
From Katshill east to the sea-bound.
Anchored fast for many an age,
I await the bard and sage,
Who in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed,
Shall string Monadnoc like a bead.
Comes that cheerful troubadour,
This mound shall throb his face before,
As when with inward fires and pain
It rose a bubble from the plain.
When he cometh, I shall shed
From this well-spring in my head
Fountain drop of spicier worth
Than all vintage of the earth.
There's fruit upon my barren soil
Costlier far than wine or oil;
There's a berry blue and gold,—
Autumn-ripe its juices hold,
Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart,
Asia's rancor, Athens' art,
Slowsure Britain's secular might,
And the German's inward sight;
I will give my son to eat
Best of Pan's immortal meat,
Bread to eat and juice to drink,
So the thoughts that he shall think
Shall not be forms of stars, but stars,
Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars.

He comes, but not of that race bred
Who daily climb my specular head.
Oft as morning wreathes my scarf,
Fled the last plumule of the dark,
Pants up hither the spruce clerk
From South-Cove and City-wharf;
I take him up my rugged sides,
Half-repentant, scant of breath,—
Bead-eyes my granite chaos show,
And my midsummer snow;
Open the daunting map beneath,—
All his county, sea and land,
Dwarfed to measure of his hand;
His day's ride is a furlong space,
His city tops a glimmering haze:
I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding;—
See there the grim gray rounding
Of the bullet of the earth
Whereon ye sail,
Tumbling steep
In the uncontinented deep;—
He looks on that, and he turns pale:
'Tis even so, this treacherous kite,
Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,
Thoughtless of its anxious freight,
Plunges eyeless on for ever,
And he, poor parasite,—
Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,
Who is the captain he knows not,
Port or pilot trows not,—
Risk or ruin he must share.
I scowl on him with my cloud,
With my north wind chill his blood,
I lame him clattering down the rocks,
And to live he is in fear.
Then, at last, I let him down
Once more into his dapper town,
To chatter frightened to his clan,
And forget me, if he can.
As in the old poetic fame
The gods are blind and lame,
And the simular despite
Betrays the more abounding might,
So call not waste that barren cone
Above the floral zone,
Where forests starve:
It is pure use;
What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind,
Of a celestial Ceres, and the Muse?

Ages are thy days,
Thou grand expressor of the present tense,
And type of permanence,
Firm ensign of the fatal Being,
Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief
That will not bide the seeing.
Hither we bring
Our insect miseries to the rocks,
And the whole flight with pestering wing
Vanish and end their murmuring,
Vanish beside these dedicated blocks,
Which, who can tell what mason laid?
Spoils of a front none need restore,
Replacing frieze and architrave;
Yet flowers each stone rosette and metope brave,
Still is the haughty pile *****
Of the old building Intellect.
Complement of human kind,
Having us at vantage still,
Our sumptuous indigence,
O barren mound! thy plenties fill.
We fool and prate,—
Thou art silent and sedate.
To million kinds and times one sense
The constant mountain doth dispense,
Shedding on all its snows and leaves,
One joy it joys, one grief it grieves.
Thou seest, O watchman tall!
Our towns and races grow and fall,
And imagest the stable Good
For which we all our lifetime *****,
In shifting form the formless mind;
And though the substance us elude,
We in thee the shadow find.
Thou in our astronomy
An opaker star,
Seen, haply, from afar,
Above the horizon's hoop.
A moment by the railway troop,
As o'er some bolder height they speed,—
By circumspect ambition,
By errant Gain,
By feasters, and the frivolous,—
Recallest us,
And makest sane.
Mute orator! well-skilled to plead,
And send conviction without phrase,
Thou dost supply
The shortness of our days,
And promise, on thy Founder's truth,
Long morrow to this mortal youth.
JP Goss Apr 2014
“Take it, take it,” to an ocean I beseech
A phial of hungry glass
“To some distant beach”
Holding within it
All the air from my lungs,
Every heart beat,
Baby teeth and hair
All the domestic days in the Delaware creek
And spare
Time
Rolling in the waves, frothing jaws
Now have the empty bottle
I pause, I curse
That some child of me will
Coddle
In the ever-ceaseless body
Full and empty
As the phial, this thing of matter
Sublime in depth
But empty in purpose
Containing all life
But with heartless curses,
Instilled of placidity
But throbbing with surge
Until, it too, the phial will purge
—Had I known its fate of woe
( A monument! And I let it go!)
—I would have weathered the inevitable
( A monument! And I let it go!)
—Then, at least, there’d be something to show
( A monument! And I let it go!)
murari sinha Sep 2010
( while taking a tour through those poems readers are requested to keep in their hands,  a feather from the pea-****’s tail )

Volga - 1

there might have been some provocation
on the part of the  rat’s bible  

it is not known when and how
every piece of sleep that spatters  
from the oesophagus of the dip-swimming  
has stick to the c-sharp
of the newly-purchased tooth-brush

the air within the wish-bicycle
figures nothing less

how much is it necessary now
to ****** the blue-hue  with the study
that can be saved by the depression of the Ganges-basin
to develop the snap-shot of the garland-exchange with the
antiseptic cream

would you think it for some moments
my lord
the lord of the market

before sending any secret e-mail
to the cyclone
residing in the room
behind the stair-case
let the Volga be read once more
with all its clothes
and hair-styles

Volga - 2

the winter of the water-canon
oxidised by the fireflies
wants to touch every bamboo-flute
of this soil, it seems

as if it plays
in the body of every cauliflower
the total memorising-skill
of  the blue and yellow pyramid

and if some lines of changes
in the planet be added
the birth-day of the bolster
that goes to the sea
may learn with a lesser effort
the pollen-efficiency of the nail-marked walls

how much should I scold the squirrels
who don’t want to swim
in the still-water of the black-board  

Volga – 3

the green-circuit of the fried-almonds
that was submerged
in the open-hair of the afternoon
the whole-night workshop
has taught
the thumb-impression is to be put
how far below it

if the autobiographies are planted
into the drawer of nature
the solubility of the river-reed
gets it done too late at night

all the plus-signs around
from their etiquettes
come down  

so many foot-notes
caused by the season-changes

so before planting life
to the address of the wall-lamps
it seems the cotton-flower
written by the oceans
began yawning

Volga – 4

to the homoeopathy phial
standing on the traffic-island
why it appears
within her womb
the number of germinated nights
stolen without a kiss
is too little

is then it true
if all the chanting of Harinam
can’t be withdrawn from the alcohol
the body-odour of the running tamarisk-shrub  
will enter into the circuit-house

and that devouring of the parchment
brings to the feelings of the non-veg ant-hills
the let’s-go-cure
gathering in the sauce-island

Volga - 5

coming to this ironed canal-side
every auto-rickshaw  
wants to know and let other know
the mystery
behind  the rice-rain
from the cirrus                                                

the shame in the eyes of the seal containing signs
supplies the whole-sale dealership
of the civil disobedience movement
to the locality

the role of the hammer also
wakes up early in the morning
to put under its own tongue
an antacid

is it possible that the spits
used in the observatory
be made a little more fast-moving

manuscript of the basement of a well

the biography of the pond-heron will be scripted
even-then the productivity of the merry-go-round
wouldn’t be uttered for a moment
no sir, such has never been expected

in the liquefied banana-blossoms
too many hot breads resulted from the season-change
continues to bat  vehemently  
and climbs to the peak of heart-throbbing runs

they in a group will go to the
aqua anetha of the mole hill
to organise a folk-song

to understand this
no arbitration of the cactus is required

notwithstanding
it is heard that the thread was pulled
by the violin of  the wife of the moon-god
from behind the screen

here in the eye-front
is the basement of the morning-well

on its one page lies the faulty  crow-caws
and on another some sun-shines
swinging on the hanger
after some pages in recurring …the chicken-pox … the boot-polish …

within the two covers of the dance-drama
also comes the creepers and herbs
grown around the melting point
of the arm-chair
whose legs are broken

if each pore on the skin of the river-lily
becomes so much known
then in the background of this low land

let us have one game more
kirk Mar 2018
There is an age old story in a place called middle earth
About Hobbits, Orcs and Wizards all fighting for there turf
It all involved a ******* ring too much for what its worth
Sending all men crazy when its wrapped around their girth
With their finger in the ring who knows where they may surf
Wars began when worlds where new the creation of times birth

So what exactly does it mean by lord of the rings
Is it the golden type or does it mean other things?
Being a lord of a ring who knows what that brings?
Is it a Drawf ,an ugly Orc or an Elf that swings?
Or a Hobbit with hairy feet bouncing on bed springs
Maybe its a Wizard or some ***** Queens and Kings
Something with open ***** spread wide like Dragons Wings
Could it be a merriment of drunken Men or a Bard that sings
A mystical sword detecting Orcs while the blue blade 'Stings'
Or caught inside an arachnids lair when her webbing clings

If the one true ring is reaching out can you hear it call
Is this the case for Hobbitses spread up against a wall
I'm not sure if its all powerful or enough to make you crawl
But its certainly a finger trap when your about to fall
Dont get caught up in a song or a bar room brawl
You'll end up exposing your ring laid out in a sprawl
First there was a fellowship so that explains it all
An Elf, a King, a Warrior and a Wizard that was tall
One Dwarf and Four Hobbits oh so ******* small
A band of miss-matched fellows so too much **** and ball

There wasn't any ladies present none in their vicinity
No big boobed buxom vixens so no sweet femininity
Just a load of sweaty men so too much masculinity
One true ring to rule them all and the loss of their senility
Nine guys on a long quest with the need of strong agility
Half way up a mountain heading for their own affinity
Inside a cave "You shall not pass" Gandalfs grey divinity
With staff in hand the Balrog's Bain both falling to infinity
Frodo's lose and upset the fellowships diminishing ability
With the hope of something more for the lose of their virginity

Just take a look at Bilbo Baggins with his transfixed eyes
With his finger in the ring is what he would visualise
His persona will be changing to what you wont recognize
But he wont want to give up the ring or even compromise
Could it be the feeling he has of the rings sweet tantalize
Or leaving this reality behind under his minds hypnotize
If he does not surrender the ring he will be so unwise
Coz Gandalf will get so ******* with Bilbo's demoralize
An obsessed Bilbo Bagginses he's under a different guise
If the ring then turns him gay it will come as no surprise

So if your in the tavern and you spot old Boromir
And he's got a pewter tankard quaffing froth and beer
If he handles the one true ring who knows which way he'll steer
He'll end up in the cocktail bar the ring will turn him queer
Mr Underhill is waiting with the ring will he ever get gear
Waiting for a stranger while the patrons look and leer
Some people in the tavern they may even laugh and cheer
But I doubt they'd be too happy if they where taken at the rear
Frodo's mistake ******* the ring his invisibility may be severe
Black riders are not far behind so there is something to fear

And if you looking for a man who's name is Strider
But you're not really sure who he is a friend or an insider
For all you know he could be a foe or a even a Black Rider
He is just a lying **** his false name is his divider
At the Prancing Pony Inn he may well be your hider
But it will be a team effort and not a soul provided
Be careful of that ******* ring your tail will get much wider
You don't want any hindrance or a ridicule derider
Don't lose your ring deep in the woods within a ***** slider
That's nothing to what lies ahead when you face a giant spider

Just beware of those Ring Wraiths the nine riders of the black
Cos you don't want to use your ring if your going to be slack
Resist the use of the ring or they'll stab you in the back
The eye of Saurons watching you blades of evil in your crack
If evil gets into your heart you'll become one of their pack
At Elrons river their taunting you cos they are right on track
They will beckon you to Mordor but it's courtesy they lack
So warn them off defeat those Wraiths a sea of horses to attack
Time and pain could have been saved and a hell of a lot of flak
If you went with the Wraiths and it was them that you could hack

And you really don't want to come across the army of the dead
There are far too many of them and you'll run out of lead
You should get out while you can just don't loose your head
Make a bargain with the Dunharrow Dead to avoid bloodshed
The protection of those ****** rings protect your own instead
Is it worth all of the blood spilled when you could have fled
Sam should keep his guard up as he may fear to tread
Cos Gollum's out there stalking you as you lay on your bed
He'll **** to gain "My Precious" filling your heart with dread
Attacking you while your asleep and any of your stead

Smoke rises from the Mountain of Doom and the hour is late
Gandalf The Grey rides to Isengard of this he cannot wait
Seeking council with Saruman but he doesn't know his fate
The lord of Mordor he sees all I'm afraid that is his trait
Sauron's great eye's looming my old friend's fallen for the bait
Reason abandoned for madness the insanity of Saruman's hate
We must join with Sauron but then what would that create
The hour is later than you think are their staffs twisted or straight
A fight within Orthanc tower this was Gandalf's one true date
Escaping the clutches of Saruman's trap his former friend and mate

Have you ever wondered how Gandalf turned from grey to white
The quest began but too their dismay the Balrog came to sight
Deep within the cavern walls the desperation of their plight
No way back on a stone bridge during that hopeless fight
The danger of the crumbling rocks falling a great height
Gandalf will not let it pass the whip of the Balrog's blight
Was it that confrontation when Gandalf turned dark into light
Or when he got tossed of that bridge was his grey cloak getting tight
Is it the strain of whiplash pulling him or the fiery Balrogs bite
Gandalf will return on Shadowfax and the Eagles will take flight

Gandalf and a group of men the Great Eagles they had mastered
So why didn't he take the ring himself the selfish ******* *******  
Those Wars could have been prevented instead of death forecasted
But it seems they'd  rather people die populations maimed and blasted
The burden Sam and Frodo faced too long their quest had lasted
It could have been completed sooner if certain spells where casted
They where to suffer seemingly with rings they should have fasted
Instead of which they shared the pain with others that contrasted
Gandalf could have flown that ring without being flabergastered
But he'd rather smoke his ******* pipe and surprisingly get plastered

Battles ensued that needn't have been so was that really fair?
Gimli will have to get his axe out so you better all beware
He'll team up with Legolas and they'll **** without a care
Keeping score of all their kills cos they are a strange old pair
Aragorn would join them and he'd take on his fare share
But Legolas was a nice boy with his lovely long blonde hair
He liked to score with Gimli perhaps he had that certain flair
I'm not sure which way his arrow went I'd ask but I don't dare
Was it fair on Frodo the heavy burden was his own nightmare
Especially when Gollum leads you into a trap inside of Shelobs lair

The anger of Samwise Gamgee at Gollums treachery and betrayal
Fat Hobbitses don't like Smeagol a defence that was quite frail
With Frodo succumbing to the ring it's to late for him to bail
He wished the ring had not come to him afraid that he may fail
So do all that see such times when you could fall off the rail
Isn't that how its always been with the kings you have to hail
It's bad enough taking the ring when your led right off the trail
And maybe facing certain death not knowing if you'll avail
Don't let the ring take control or you'll end up going pail
Bilbo has already been there and back again in a Hobbits Tale

The great horn sounds attacking Orc's and 100's of their creed
A valiant fight but to no avail when protection takes the lead
The wooded Hill of Amon Hen Boromir died of his last deed
On the grassy ***** near Parth Galen the death of lust and greed
If he didn't want the ring so much there may have been no need
For hordes of Orc's to strike him down with arrows of great speed
Aragorn's comfort of a dying man a confession to take heed
He tried to take Frodo's ring so now his heart will bleed
Men will die and get obsessed the one true ring will breed
Rings will come and rings will go so don't you spread their seed

To gain the power of the ring many battles have been fought
If the ring wasn't so desirable then we wouldn't all get caught
Killing was Smeagol's desire his stressed mind in distraught
Deagol's demise to obtain the ring is what Smeagol sought
A birthday demand a savage rage a strangled death resort
Gladen River's legacy Smeagol's friend killed in a fraught
Downward spirals of sheer desire is what the ring has brought
Gollums years of torment but still nothing has been taught
If you don't resist the ring you'll lose your male support
The power of the ring's too great and far to hard to thwart

A sneaky ******* in our midst the slime was almost dripping
The foulness of this slimy guy Theoden chilled heart ripping
Chief adviser to his feeble king the oldness of poison sipping
Exposed as Saruman's agent and spy allegiances kept flipping
A name like Grima Wormtongue you'd expect a double tipping
Unless he used his wormy tongue for a tonguing and a slipping
A henchmen of the slimiest order his tongue is always dripping
Stabbing Saruman in the back his treachery deserves a clipping
Escaping from their Orc captives good old merry and pippin
Treebeards wooden victories he'll give those Orcs a whipping

The towering strength of fourteen feet and a unique repartee
He Ent stumped and he Ent felled and he's not potpourri
Do not be hasty in times of need take notice of our plea
With Meriadoc and Peregrin they where the power of three
Going to war that mighty oak for cutting down the tree
Branching out coz he's hacked off at Saruman's killing spree
He'll ******* stick one on you so those Orcs they better flee
Cos his wood, timber and leaf are his trunks aristocracy
So don't you ******* Treebeard because you will not foresee
His bark is worse than his bite and his log's his legacy

Death is just another path give me a ******* brake
But being a lord of a ring that is a big mistake
Forging of these ****** rings why are they on the make
The one true ring that ruled them all off this I can forsake
How many wars have been lost how many lost their stake
With people killed and deaths occurred within a battles wake
At helmsdeep Gandalf the White returned from grey opaque
Sword aloft taking a stand making those Orc ******* quake
On the back of Shadowfax the rumbling ground will shake
It would not have happened if the rings where ******* fake

Sharp black mountains up winding stairs was Smeagols secret way
He'll Lead Frodo into a trap he'll make those nasty hobbits pay
The heaviness of stagnant air the darkness consumes the day
Unaware of what awaits when SHE comes out to play
Weaving webs of shadows the dankness of black and grey
Deep inside of that dark lair is where Mr Frodo lay
The Phial of Galadriel's silver light keeping darkness at bay
Sam's glimmer of hope the Elvin blade Shelob he tried to slay
Feeling the 'Sting' of Sam's despair he made that spider sway
Dark defeated by the light but Gollums pleasures gone astray

Arriving at the fires of mount doom the volcano's of Mordor
Destroy the ring throw it in the fire but Frodo wanted more
Just let it go and don't hesitate what are you waiting for
As Sam looks on the ring is mine Frodo's last withdraw
******* the ring is hard enough especially if your not sure
Don't be too obsessed like Gollum was by being the rings *****
The following of footsteps Gollum's foul bite of blood and gore
Frodo's severed finger ring lost from a blooded scarlet claw
The joy of regaining 'My Precious' was Gollums goal and law
Falling in the fires of mount doom his death ended Frodo's chore

With Gollums Demise the ring destroyed our stories nearly told
Mount Doom has fell all things must end including rings of gold
Mordor has crumbled the defeat of Sauron and enemy's of old
Great Eagles came Frodo and Sam saved from Mordors fiery fold
Frodo's fellowship reunion at the bedside of the brave and bald
They'll never be the same again but no longer Orced or Trolled
Cheering crowds the Return of the King Arwen's beauty to behold
The Hobbits bow before the king but they really should withhold
My friends you bow to no one kings honour for the hobbits mould
A kneeling of the whole kingdom bestowed the Hobbits over bowled

Thirteen months to the day our returning to bag end
A familiar sight our home the Shire we left to defend
The beginning of the fourth age Sam's marriage to attend
Sam's choice of bride Rosie Cotton his wife to wed intend
Home at the Shire was too hard to fully comprehend
For Frodo's old threads of life the bonds of a true friend
There is no going back some things time cannot mend
Some hurts they go to deep the book that he now penned
The completion of Lord of the Rings a few pages to extend
Giving the manuscript for Sam to continue the written trend

The galleon is waiting and its time to break the chain
Bilbo's journeys are over the last ship to leave the main
The time of men has come and the end of the rings reign
Gandalf's work was over the brave Hobbits teary strain
True endings of the fellowship seas call us home again
Don't be sad and do not weep but Frodo felt the pain
Not all tears are evil Gandalf knew of Frodo's wane
A departure of emotion the tears they could not retain
The saving of the shire but it isn't quite that plain
Frodo's sad farewell the Gray Heavens don't refrain

The fellowships disbanded but as if that wasn't known
Quests for gold are no more the dead are dust and bone
Elvish has left the building the trolls have turned to stone
The one true ring has been lost so its no longer shown
Hobbits are back in their holes so all of them will groan
Hords of Orcs have now ****** off after lowering the tone
Towers have been toppled, Mount Doom's collapsed and blown
Gollum has lost his precious so he'll have good cause to moan
The Dwarfs are not around no more cos their not all fully grown
Ring bearers have been and gone so they'll be on their own
The king has now returned and he's got his ******* Throne
The story has now ended but you know how far we've flown
So thank you J.R.R Tolkien thanks for your story loan
But it isn't exactly Lord of the rings so its not a ****** clone
Judy Ponceby Oct 2011
Within this crimson,
opalescent phial entwined
with metallic vine slumbers
death's grim visage.

A few drops
laced in wine or tea
produces sinister
hallucinations
and
searing agony.

To be used so
sparingly,
only in greatest
need
to avoid discovery
of secrets harbored.

I tuck the phial away.

He never knew
how close he was to
agonizing death
by my hand.
It was the hour of dawn,
When the heart beats thin and small,
The window glimmered grey,
Framed in a shadow wall.

And in the cold sad light
Of the early morningtide,
The dear dead girl came back
And stood by his beside.

The girl he lost came back:
He saw her flowing hair;
It flickered and it waved
Like a breath in frosty air.

As in a steamy glass,
Her face was dim and blurred;
Her voice was sweet and thin,
Like the calling of a bird.

'You said that you would come,
You promised not to stay;
And I have waited here,
To help you on the way.

'I have waited on,
But still you bide below;
You said that you would come,
And oh, I want you so!

'For half my soul is here,
And half my soul is there,
When you are on the earth
And I am in the air.

'But on your dressing-stand
There lies a triple key;
Unlock the little gate
Which fences you from me.

'Just one little pang,
Just one throb of pain,
And then your weary head
Between my ******* again.'

In the dim unhomely light
Of the early morningtide,
He took the triple key
And he laid it by his side.

A pistol, silver chased,
An open hunting knife,
A phial of the drug
Which cures the ill of life.

He looked upon the three,
And sharply drew his breath:
'Now help me, oh my love,
For I fear this cold grey death.'

She bent her face above,
She kissed him and she smiled;
She soothed him as a mother
May sooth a frightened child.

'Just that little pang, love,
Just a throb of pain,
And then your weary head
Between my ******* again.'

He snatched the pistol up,
He pressed it to his ear;
But a sudden sound broke in,
And his skin was raw with fear.

He took the hunting knife,
He tried to raise the blade;
It glimmered cold and white,
And he was sore afraid.

He poured the potion out,
But it was thick and brown;
His throat was sealed against it,
And he could not drain it down.

He looked to her for help,
And when he looked -- behold!
His love was there before him
As in the days of old.

He saw the drooping head,
He saw the gentle eyes;
He saw the same shy grace of hers
He had been wont to prize.

She pointed and she smiled,
And lo! he was aware
Of a half-lit bedroom chamber
And a silent figure there.

A silent figure lying
A-sprawl upon a bed,
With a silver-mounted pistol
Still clotted to his head.

And as he downward gazed,
Her voice came full and clear,
The homely tender voice
Which he had loved to hear:

'The key is very certain,
The door is sealed to none.
You did it, oh, my darling!
And you never knew it done.

'When the net was broken,
You thought you felt its mesh;
You carried to the spirit
The troubles of the flesh.

'And are you trembling still, dear?
Then let me take your hand;
And I will lead you outward
To a sweet and restful land.

'You know how once in London
I put my griefs on you;
But I can carry yours now--
Most sweet it is to do!

'Most sweet it is to do, love,
And very sweet to plan
How I, the helpless woman,
Can help the helpful man.

'But let me see you smiling
With the smile I know so well;
Forget the world of shadows,
And the empty broken shell.

'It is the worn-out garment
In which you tore a rent;
You tossed it down, and carelessly
Upon your way you went.

'It is not you, my sweetheart,
For you are here with me.
That frame was but the promise of
The thing that was to be--

'A tuning of the choir
Ere the harmonies begin;
And yet it is the image
Of the subtle thing within.

'There's not a trick of body,
There's not a trait of mind,
But you bring it over with you,
Ethereal, refined,

'But still the same; for surely
If we alter as we die,
You would be you no longer,
And I would not be I.

'I might be an angel,
But not the girl you knew;
You might be immaculate,
But that would not be you.

'And now I see you smiling,
So, darling, take my hand;
And I will lead you outward
To a sweet and pleasant land,

'Where thought is clear and nimble,
Where life is pure and fresh,
Where the soul comes back rejoicing
From the mud-bath of the flesh

'But still that soul is human,
With human ways, and so
I love my love in spirit,
As I loved him long ago.'

So with hands together
And fingers twining tight,
The two dead lovers drifted
In the golden morning light.

But a grey-haired man was lying
Beneath them on a bed,
With a silver-mounted pistol
Still clotted to his head.
JS CARIE Jun 2019
On the night of initiation,
curves of pale luster began to gleam unwrinkled from the darkened divots along the lunar surface
A perspective unseen for so long, it was viewed as a defaulted “wink” on the face of the moon
And therefore, forgotten, unmentioned, until it’s means were sought  

From days ‘fore, and long since now dust
Scribing authors, secrete beads of frenzy  into ink filled phial
Sending tremors down, into the quill tip
Filling scrolls for permanence in a preemptive defense against continuous unraveling thoughts would befall
this fluency into incoherent clutter  

Pioneers of preprint in a provoking tome,
would speak educated reasons why these areas of Moon had been locked under sealed dark punishment

since Empedocles mixed cosmic elements to breed an undeniable proving truth

Exhibiting the myth of danger
alongside
The established absolute and supervening fizzling sunset
proving the existence of love...

—————————————————-

“Since I have given you words from my within
like the ecliptic rising and burning massive,
Our mutual visibility of late is either one-sided
or
short lived
I’ll take a detour around the comforts of romance
And try to talk my way into your pants
By tossing at you, letters squeezed together,
for your minds transcription into the heart of my subliminal write  
In hopes you’ll feel a trickling gush
If I get really lucky these words will find you like a volcano erupts a ****
The same way water, beating against years of stone can fall
And crash through a dam with pouring force so insatiable it’s territory is marked in history
A map of every country known,
With not a foot to call his own.
A list of folks that kicked a dust
On this poor globe, from Ptol. the First;
He hopes,-- indeed it is but fair,--
Some day to get a corner there.
A group of all the British kings,
Fair emblem! on a packthread swings.
The Fathers, ranged in goodly row,
A decent, venerable show,
Writ a great while ago, they tell us,
And many an inch o'ertop their fellows.
A Juvenal to hunt for mottos;
And Ovid's tales of nymphs and grottos.
The meek-robed lawyers all in white;
Pure as the lamb,-- at least, to sight.
A shelf of bottles, jar and phial,
By which the rogues he can defy all,--
All filled with lightning keen and genuine, 20 And many a little imp he'll pen you in;
Which, like Le Sage's sprite, let out,
Among the neighbours makes a rout;
Brings down the lightning on their houses,
And kills their geese, and frights their spouses.
A rare thermometer, by which
He settles, to the nicest pitch,
The just degrees of heat, to raise
Sermons, or politics, or plays.
Papers and books, a strange mixed olio,
From shilling touch to pompous folio;
Answer, remark, reply, rejoinder,
Fresh from the mint, all stamped and coined here;
Like new-made glass, set by to cool,
Before it bears the workman's tool.
A blotted proof-sheet, wet from Bowling.
--'How can a man his anger hold in?'--
Forgotten rimes, and college themes,
Worm-eaten plans, and embryo schemes;--
A mass of heterogeneous matter,
A chaos dark, no land nor water;--
New books, like new-born infants, stand,
Waiting the printer's clothing hand;--
Others, a mottly ragged brood,
Their limbs unfashioned all, and rude,
Like Cadmus' half-formed men appear;
One rears a helm, one lifts a spear,
And feet were lopped and fingers torn
Before their fellow limbs were born;
A leg began to kick and sprawl
Before the head was seen at all,
Which quiet as a mushroom lay
Till crumbling hillocks gave it way;
And all, like controversial writing,
Were born with teeth, and sprung up fighting.

'But what is this,' I hear you cry,
'Which saucily provokes my eye?'--
A thing unknown, without a name,
Born of the air and doomed to flame.
They took their shovels and digging tools
To the top of Highgate Hill,
They walked in a deadly silence there
In the dusk, in the evening chill,
They picked their way through the deep-laid bones,
The monuments, great and small,
And looked for the plain Rossetti stone
In their search for Elizabeth Siddal.

That red-haired, wraithlike, ghostly girl
Who had charmed the PRB,
She'd sat, at first, for Deverell
Who was doomed, with Bright's Disease,
She'd fallen hard for the artist then
Though her love was never returned,
For Deverell died so suddenly -
It was as if her love was spurned.

She sat for Dante Gabriel,
For Holman Hunt, Millais,
As the model for drowned Ophelia
In an ice cold bath she lay,
She lent her beauty to every brush,
Each stroke laid bare her soul,
When she looked around for herself she found
There was nothing left at all.

Rossetti had kept her close to him
As he slowly became obsessed,
He scribbled a dozen portraits from
Her head to her heaving breast,
He placed her high on a pedestal,
A Madonna in all but name,
But kept his physical love from her
That she might not suffer shame.

He penned the poems he wrote for her
In a small, grey calf-skin book,
He carried the poems everywhere
As a proof of the love it took,
He made no copies, he held them close
They were food for a future muse,
For his art and poetry vied with him -
It was painting he would choose.

But she; who knew what rent her soul,
The cravings she despaired?
She sipped at the potion laudanum
As her heart and her mind were bared,
She scribbled the weary verses that
Spoke love, of a love long-lost,
While Dante frolicked with Annie Hughes
At Elizabeth Siddal's cost.

As Lizzie despaired on laudanum
She had ceased to be of use,
Her visage was sad, and aged and drawn
In the sick room of abuse,
While girls with youth, vitality
And an earthy yen for sin
Like ***** Cornforth, came to sit -
And Rossetti let them in.

They wed, but much as a faded dream
The knot had been tied too late,
As Lizzie, dying a little each day
Succumbed to a morbid fate,
For one dark night she had laid her down
Penned a final note, to whit:
'My life has become so miserable
That I want no more of it.'

She lay by an empty laudanum phial,
Rossetti was quite distraught,
He'd loved her, but with a purer love
Than his lust or his money bought,
His grief was such, as he laid her down
In her coffin, she looked so fair,
That he placed the book of his poems
Between her cheek and her auburn hair.

The years went on and he sank himself
In a pit of despond, unwell,
Withdrew from his friends and dosed himself
With a phial of chloral,
His painting suffered, his income too,
He turned to the ancient muse,
And thought of the poems beyond the grave,
He knew that he'd have to choose!

He wrote to Charles Augustus Howell
A rogue that he'd used before,
To test him; whether to dig her up
Or to lose his poems forever;
Howell replied he should get them back,
Or he'd lose them to death, for good,
'Your works are the works of genius,
Bring them back to the world - You should!'

So Howell, he toiled up Highgate Hill
While Dante hid in his lair,
Too scared to look on his love again,
His muse with the auburn hair,
A fire was lit in the dead of night
The coffin was raised on high,
His love was torn from her deathly stare
They could almost hear her sigh.

The book was caught in her tangled hair
Which had filled the coffin's space,
And she was lovely, and quite serene
As they lifted the book from her face,
They lowered her gently, back in the ground
That had served as her awful tomb,
She lay defiled like a bride, reviled,
But without her lawful groom.

Rossetti published his poems then,
They sold by the thousandfold,
For Howell had leaked the story out
That he hadn't wanted told;
But a fate awaited Augustus Howell
A revenge that would beggar belief,
He was found, throat cut in the gutter -
With a coin, tight clenched in his teeth!

David Lewis Paget
Certainly our city with its byres of poverty down to
The river's edge, its cathedral, its engines, its dogs;
Here is the cosmopolitan cooking
And the light alloys and the glass.

Built by the conscience-stricken, the weapon-making,
By us. Wild rumours woo and terrify the crowd,
Woo us. Betrayers thunder at, blackmail
Us. But where now are They.

Who without reproaches showed us what our vanity
has chosen,
Who pursued understanding with patience like a ***,
had unlearnt
Our hatred and towards the really better
World had turned their face?

Who knows? The peaked and violent faces are exalted,
The feverish prejudiced lives do not care, and lost
Their voice in the flutter of bunting, the glittering
Brass of our great retreat,

And the malice of death. For the wicked card is dealt and
The sinister tall-hatted botanist stoops at the spring
With his insignificant phial and looses
The plague on the ignorant town.

Under their shadows the pitiful subalterns are sleeping;
The moon is usual; the necessary lovers touch;
The river is alone and the trampled flower;
And through years of absolute cold

The planets rush towards Lyra in a lion's charge. Can
Hate so securely bind? Are they dead here? Yes.
And the wish to wound has the power. And tomorrow
Comes. It's a world. It's a way.
Ben Jones Apr 2014
Peter built a paper boat
To set afloat upon the sea
And visit spots of hidden coast
Where not a ghost of man would be
He painted letters on her bow
Which soon would plough and skip and trot
Between the waves which rose and fell
The letters spelled ‘Forget Me Not’

He bid his love a fond goodbye
The tide was high when he embarked
And drifted from his lonely cove
While weather drove and seagulls larked
His course was set, horizon bound
For solid ground and ****** shore
When darkness fell he made a bed
'Goodnight' he said and nothing more

His fast was broken elegantly
Delicately poached, his eggs
His freshly laundered morning clothes
Were hung in rows on paper pegs
He cut a furrow, straight and true
Across the blue, towards the sun
But in the distance, lightning spat
As thunder rattled, eddies spun

The tempest threw a wall of ice
Like careless dice, they clattered down
The sails dropped amid the squall
The hatches all were battened down
A curse was uttered through the storm
Its evil born on salty spray
With gusting arms of icy wet
It threw Forget Me Not away

He coughed awake, all caked in sand
Upon a strand of desert beach
Forget Me Not had run a-ground
But safely found the water's reach
He walked ashore and found a glade
Within it, made a paper home
And origami wings, he built
To never wilt and ever roam

He felled the tree and smote the ground
A frame, he wound of paper string
His garden flourished all around
Each sight and sound of ever-spring
The flowers jostled in their beds
And turned their heads to follow him
He kept his distance from the blue
In case the view should swallow him

An evil creature stalked the trees
It dined on bees and butterflies
On owls and cats, it liked to sup
To gobble up and gluttonize
With paper sword, he killed the beast
And cooked a feast to celebrate
A rain cloud sought to disagree
But quick was he to remonstrate

He flew his island, shore to shore
And kept a score of fire flies
They hung imprisoned in a glass
The light they cast could hypnotise
With nothing left to see or do
He flew up to the highest spot
And carved into a single tree
Remember me, forget me not

His boat remade and set a-sail
The heavens pale with early dawn
Upon his bed, he sat inert
With paper curtains neatly drawn
His charts uncharted, compass blunt
A currant bun, to satiate
A world of peril out to sea
To skillfully negotiate

Some time to contemplate the past
And backward cast the here and now
The Merfolk sang a siren song
And leapt along beside his bough
They guided him to foreign ports
Where shady sorts in cider soak
The tales they told were sizeable
And risible, the words they spoke

He folded down his paper boat
Into a coat of paper lace
And set the ocean to his back
The open track, he turned to face
The way he took was through a copse
The swaying tops of mighty pines
Leant form and rhythm to his pace
Upon his face were thoughtful lines

To either side, the shadows grew
No more, the blue shone through the boughs
And branch and bracken, driven wide
Were cast aside as careless vows
He chanced upon a quiet nook
A winding brook, it scurried by
It seemed a place where time would bide
While either side it hurried by

So dining sparse on only bread
He laid his head upon the ground
A lullaby the branches sighed
Was far and wide, the only sound
He deftly pitched a paper tent
And in it, spent a weary night
A whisper echoed in his ear
It lingered near, beyond his sight

So many weeks of rambling
Through bramble and through briar patch
And pausing for an hour at best
With feet to rest and breath to catch
The summer season on the wane
With autumn rain, attention pinned
To pounce on unsuspecting shoulder
Ever colder rose the wind

Above the adolescent fruit
Fed by the roots of ancient trees
Gave promise of a juicy crop
But yet to drop, they simply tease
Upon a morning laced with dew
A shadow grew and fell across
The spongy ground rose underfoot
And boulders jutted through the moss

The space between the trunks expanded
Saplings stranded on the scree
And whispers carried on the air
From places where they couldn't be
A sheer cliff now blocked the way
A ***** gray and smothering
Against, there thrived a mess of vines
With jagged spines their covering

He found a cave and ventured in
A desperate grin upon his lips
His chattering of nervous teeth
Was lost beneath the endless drips
Reverberating ceaselessly
Increasing with each fall of foot
A passageway and crooked path
By wrath of ancient water, cut

The arid air was felt to shift
And Peter sniffed a musky trace
The passage opened wide and tall
It sprawled into a massive space
The walls were smooth as beetle hide
But all inside was bathed in black
The flies were putting up a fight
But solid night was biting back

A tower carved from stalactite
In spite of probability
Was looming from the cavern top
And from it dropped futility
A spring of purest liquid gloom
Within, there bloomed an evil thirst
For those who drank a thimble worth
Would tread the earth, forever cursed

The cavern floor was laced with dust
A powdered crust of rotted skin
As Peter neared the central spire
The fire flies grew weak and thin
But all across the distant dark
There lit a spark and sprang a flame
That burst from ancient blackened lamp
To banish damp and shadow shame

A scrabbling amid the murk
As forward, lurked a breaking wave
Of decomposing denizens
The citizens of Evergrave
With sinew bared through rotted hide
The flesh inside was yellowing
From every throat that still remained
There shot a baneful bellowing

They forced him to the tower's tip
From which the drip of night was thrown
Gruesome stairs he climbed in haste
Of interlaced and knotted bone
A dire tunnel led within
The light was thin and shadow thick
A deathly door he tumbled through
And fell into a bloodied slick

Within was rank and heavy air
Like foxes lair where hunters slept
The walls, from living flesh, were stitched
The carpet twitched as Peter stepped
The Zombie Queen sat on her throne
Of flesh and bone of Underlands
She rested on its gory arms
Which raised their palms and held her hands

The creature laughed and cocked her head
A single thread of drool there hung
Between her lips and fear crowned
The single sound which echoes sung
The living walls, they tensed and strained
As terror reigned and ichor dripped
And when the monarch of the dead
Inclined her head, the stitches ripped

She spoke in harsh and bitter tones
As withered crones do curses bloom
The fate of Peter turned to dread
His soul, the dead would soon entomb
A single card he had to play
On such a day, in such a spot
He grinned and bid the rotting queen
‘Your time has been, forget me not’

His folded coat he casted wide
And from inside, a paper storm
Within the flurry, shapes were made
As wings were splayed and talons formed
A paper dragon rustled forth
And in his jaws, the queen he caught
He turned on the assembled dead
Within his head, a single thought

Peter climbed between the wings
Where paper rings he’d fastened there
Gave safety for the coming fight
And all the night, he nestled there
Until the dragon fell asleep
Upon a heap of smitten foes
And Peter robbed the deathly hoard
Each room explored on stealthy toes

He shunned the dark and met the day
And made away for higher ground
Along a path of narrow ledges
Razor edges, upwards wound
A trail, he scaled around the peak
Of Raven’s Beak the mighty mount
Up slopes which claimed so many lives
And widowed wives beyond his count

He stood atop the pinnacle
Where clinical, the ****** snow
Reflecting in the autumn light
Lent all a white and eerie glow
The frost had chilled his fleshy core
His eyes absorbed the scenery
A distant shoreline tugged his soul
A long unfolding memory

Of home and of his fireside
His future bride would tarry there
The tiny church upon the sand
He’d always planned to marry there
He took his dagger from his sock
Into the rock at just that spot
He carved upon the highest stone
I turn to home, forget me not

The knotted land that lay between
Had never been abode to man
The name it took was infamous
And ominous: The Neverspan
Its valleys tinkered with the eye
A fractured sky shone crookedly
Above a wood of vacant trees
That clawed the breezes hookedly

The setting sun would lead the way
Through lands which lay in wait for him
To bare him forth, a paper horse
To keep a course and gait for him
The blackness trickled from the bark
The  tangled dark enshrouded him
And songs in long forgotten tongues
About him hung and clouded him

He journeyed through the Ebonmire
Though fire failed to kindle there
His breath before him writhed in blight
And turned to fight the rancid air
Through many months of loneliness
And bitterness of solitude
He conquered the abandoned wood
And silent stood in gratitude

He forayed through the hill and plain
As on the wane the winters hold
The grass had shaken off the snow
Its Icy glow had turned to gold
A paper hat he now prepared
For as he fared, the rain endured
His horse was crumpled in the wet
No living vet would see it cured

The seasons tumbled mindlessly
And rivalry removed his haste
A sallow band of Neverbeast
By shadow greased and interlaced
With paper sword, he lay in wait
To penetrate each haggard hide
And when their blood was deftly spilled
A phial he filled for sake of pride

The sun became his only guide
His face belied his weariness
With little left to raise his soul
Above the cold and dreariness
Until the second summer passed
And sunset cast a silhouette
The outline of a tiny church
Was perched beside a maisonette

A flutter leapt about his heart
And wide apart, his eyes were flung
As Peter ran with tired limbs
The heavens dimmed and crickets sung
He reached his open garden gate
His face elated, turned to woe
As through the window he could see
His bride to be would not be so

A gentleman stood at her side
His bride adorned in happiness
And though it burned in Peter’s chest
His wrath would rest in idleness
So with a final fleeting peek
He turned to seek a worthy cause
Before he left he knelt before
His former door and seemed to pause

He fled upon his paper wings
As many things he’d yet to see
A myriad of foreign faces
Distant places he should be
He sailed the sky and sought the sand
His native land he soon forgot
Behind, he left a single note
And on it wrote: Forget me not
JadedSoul Aug 2014
If I had a garden
with frilly little fairies
I’d catch them all,
grind them up for pixie dust!

I’d tie a lovely pink ribbon
around a pretty little phial
and with a pure gold necklace
decorate your beautiful neck

Then wherever you go
fast or slow
you’d have some magic
to turn your day to happy from tragic

and maybe always
have some sunshine
while I sing because you’re mine
YOU came with your small tapering flame of passion
Thinly burning like a nun's desire,
Your eyes in slim and half-expectant fashion
Faintly painting what your veins require
With little pallid pyramids of fire.

So very small and unfulfilled you sat,
Building a little talk to keep you there,
Your face and body pointed like a cat,
Your legs not reaching down from any chair,
Your thoughts not really reaching anywhere;

So dumb and tiny--yet Love guessed your mood,
And pressed his phial in its fervent bed,
And poured his thrilling philtre in my blood,
And all his lustre on your body shed,
And hot enamel on the words you said;

Your littleness became a monstrous thing,
A rank retort, a hot and waiting vat,
Your eyes green-copper like a snake in spring,
And *****-bold your laying off your hat,
And fell your purpose like a hungry cat;

The dark fell on us through our narrowed eyes,
The heat lashed up around us from the floor,
Encrimsoning the lips of our surprise
To sway like music, and like burning pour
Across the truth that parted us before.
Donall Dempsey Sep 2016
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Pauvel Jétha Aug 2014
The night descends
draping a blanket of calm
over the cares of the day.
I lounge amidst those earthly stars-
the deciduous,flickering fireflies.

The wind meekly blows,
the night lies silent,expectant
like a child for a story
before it sinks its head in the pillow.
And so I bring out my flute.

And no mere flute,this of mine.
Carved of the finest ivory,
enchanted in the ages bygone,
this flute that can sway the heavens
acquiesces to be touched by my lips.

Touched by a whiff of melancholy,
the flute guides me to play.
It lends me one of its memories.
As my fingers dance nimbly,
the flute and I bring back a forgotten lay.

The song floats higher
and the Moon leans in to hear.
Memories take shape,music takes forms
and the people long past
walk and sing and live once more.

Among them shines one the brightest-
A boy of low birth,
a boy loving and shy,
tender-hearted and frail
yet a boy who never cried.

Many sorrows he has known
and even more deaths seen.
His father killed,sisters ravaged,
his mother and home lifeless.
Yet never a tear did he shed.

No living soul knew his pain;
no pitying glance thrown his way,
this little boy of innocent age
carried his heavy heart
till his hope-bereft eyes fell upon a flute.

This very same that I now hold
had become a companion to him
and cried in his stead.
All his torments poured out
like a flood into a tune.

The boy went on playing
while his mother's life ebbed.
The flute went on singing
even when the little fingers went cold,
Lamenting;drawing air from his very last breath.

Memories dissolve into the night
The people walk back to the past.
The flute and I play the lament still.
Serenity prevails within me,notwithstanding.
A curious serenity,with a touch of sorrow.

The Moon starts weeping
and sheds tears of twinkling stars.
I catch them in a crystal phial
and stopper it with a dewdrop;
a talisman to dispel my nights.

******

I spill a few drops every now and then.
Where they touch the earth,flowers bloom
that are tender and white and star-like,
that shine their radiance in the night.
People call them Elinthé,'Tears of the Moon'.
Tears of the Moon(First Version of Elinthé)

When the night falls,
Draping a blanket of calm
on the day's worries and cares
and dulling the pains of life,
I sit alone and lonely

Lounging amidst those earthly stars-
the deciduous,flickering fireflies,
yearning for some company,
for a gentle caress of comfort,
pining for a warm embrace.

I play my sorrows on my flute
voicing my woes on mournful notes.
The night remains silent,
the breeze but timidly blows
and the Moon lends an ear.

Melancholy never vents through tears
but seeps in making the soul writhe.
Seeking a token of sustaining hope,
I pour out my misery into the night,
my flute lamenting for me.

And when the Moon weeps for me,
crying tears of twinkling stars,
I will catch them in a crystal phial
and stopper it with my aching heart.
A gift to myself; to lighten my night.
Sue Dunhym May 2011
A lofty rabbit stands afore me
Mocks and jeers, if occasionally.
It came from behind a curtain.
Why now, I am not certain.
To the masses, I flee.

It jumped and socialised with humans there.
Aware I was; always naked and bare.
Confused I heard and spoke.
It shrunk only slightly, yet it leered.

Speak with a distraction, my ***** play the same.
True, my contradiction, sometimes it I blame.
Useful, as always, I speak to a girl.
Eyes of Tsavorite, tongue of Mercury; what a thrill.

The girl she responds, yet why does the rabbit smile?
Could the rodent have sent me to her? How vile.
This act creates displeasure.
My mind, here, loved her at my leisure.
A sip, a sip, from a forbidden phial.

This was a day beyond my conscious.
Betrayed and now, slightly anxious.
You see, I knew to love you, would
Not be intelligent. Refrain, I should.
Yet, here I write merely to be bloodless.
copyright of  TP Flusk
The Wicca Man Dec 2012
A Valediction to a Love
___

Here I lie, my Love, beneath
the sod upon this barren heath.
And in my crypt deep underground,
your forlorn tears my only sound.

But weep not for me, my Angel Love,
for soon your soul, as like the dove,
freed will be from earthly bound
and join me here beneath the ground.

Then, as two lovers, hand in hand
we shall walk this barren land.
And to all about we’ll seem to be
no more than the whisper of the trees.

And at the dying of each day,
as in each other’s arms we lay,
so shall we sleep beneath this earth
’til the dawn and day’s rebirth.

The Lover’s Reply
_

I rest upon this barren heath
Knowing you lie dead beneath.
My tears that rain upon the ground
are pearls in which our love is bound.

And I can aught but weep for you
For what we had was love so true.
And so this phial gripped in my hand
Will lead me to that distant land.

Once there I can in your arms lie
as one again our spirits fly.
And we shall walk the land above
As gentle zephyrs sing our love.

Then as the growing light of day
Sends the shadows from their play
So shall I wait beside your tomb
”til we shall sleep in Death’s dark womb.
This is an attempt at writing in rhyming couplets, and a reverential nod to the Metaphysical Poetry School. I was also trying to create a Gothic tableaux. Let me know what you think.
Haydn Swan Jul 2016
Tip toeing through the shards of darkness,
ever searching for the surety of solid objects,
creeping souls within decaying bodies,
reality is what we seek in a glimpse of transient sleep,
lies and slumber,
the antiquity of numbers,
naked bones swimming in a sea of obscurity,
nothing really matters
as the last grains of sand trickle through the glass phial,
stone pillows await our weary heads.
Donall Dempsey Sep 2019
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Donall Dempsey Sep 2017
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Lorenzo Cawley Feb 2018
I see
I observe
Information floods my banks
And I continue on.

But, you see,
I saw you,
Sitting there:
Gazing out the bus window.

Instead of storing.
Moving on.
I stop.
Watch on.

"Beauty"
Not in my syntax,
Nor in my archive.
So I watch on.

Brown hair
Deep eyes
Many of these archived
So I keep on--

Why
This order
Of things?
I think on.

Her pensive look.
Sad
I suppose.
Ponder on.

Her hand,
Chin resting on.
A sigh lifts her form
Breathe on.

Bus heaves.
A stop?
She glances:
Leave on.

I catch a whisp of her leave,
Her hair weaves through the crowd.
No, she can't leave.
Follow on.

But the crowd was too deep,
Like an ink drop,
Back to it's phial
Indistinguishable.

Opportunity, gone.
I see,
I observe
Information floods my banks.

And I, sadly,
continue on.

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of the experience
Or the beauty of memory
The small time I knew her,
Or the time after.
Thomas Bodoh May 2019
A brew’r of hearts once offered me a phial,
Her fragile workings wrought with glass-tipped hands,
Brimming gold and glinting simmering smile;
It wafted cooling springs and lotuslands.
Her gentle fingers crushed our fateful flowers,
Enchanting them, and seven years surged back
In bottled blooms. Undo, O nightly hours!
You saw my tainted tongue poison it black.
But ere the deadly draught near stopped my heart,
A foggéd dream collects within my sight:
The far ’way face that Time has locked apart,
Her unblack tresses matching moonless height.
Hear, sweet witch, my soul’s lamenting plea
And fashion me the flask of saving remedy.
Mick Devine Jul 2018
Do not open
A parcel bomb
Or an email from Nigeria
A phial of the diphtheria virus
A conversation with a serial killer
Or a joint account with Godzilla
Don’t open my diary
Or a pub in Dubai or
The door to a Seventh Day Adventist
Your heart to a Muslim fundamentalist
Your legs to a Jewish dentist
Your knees to a bee
Don’t open a message in a bottle if it’s come from overseas
Or your bowels in Cecil Gee's
A can of worms
The seal on a pharaoh’s tomb
Old wounds
Or your mouth to speak ill of the dead
Some things are best left unsaid.

Having said all that
Sometimes it’s fun to do
Things that are bad for you
This is a **** it list
Though I’d give the parcel bomb a miss.
Donall Dempsey Sep 2018
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Lawrence Hall Jun 2019
Please consider the seeming illogic
The seeming illogic of paying a man
A good and wise and educated man
To poke his finger upwards in your ///

After a visit to a wizard’s lab
Where a pleasant, professional young woman
Attaches a vampire butterfly to your wrist
And ***** your blood into a little phial

“Now you might feel a little pressure, okay?”
And then consider the happy logic
                                                           ­        of staying alive
I will never again in my life attempt to spell "milliliter."

Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:

Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
when your arms form
a garland around my waist
I am unpacking the toiletries

first the electric toothbrush
with its accompanying charger
then the half-empty

lurid green bottle of shampoo
aftershave in its glass phial
cheap razor and deodorant

I tell you this feels like
one of those cheesy adverts on TV
and you say yes it’s just like that

so what
and I say so what back
and close our cabinet door
Written: March 2021.
Explanation: A simple poem written in my own time. Feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
Donall Dempsey Sep 2020
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT

Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what

all the fuss was
about?

It was all such
a reductive absurdum.

The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions

decoherence
entanglement or whether

reality was really
quantum

to save its life.

It was aware of
one thing & one thing

only
. . .the diabolic device. . .

Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter

with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah

an atom decaying or something or
other &

releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.

Wot!

"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.

It was a very literary cat.

So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )

being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or

. . .wot!

So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!

Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?

So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &

disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.

So no cat was harmed
in the making of this

thought experiment.

It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!

And he( hee hee )
never did discover

what ever
happened to his socks.

I forever stealing
one sock from a pair

from the open
washing machine.

Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?

The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not

rocket science!

Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of

a quantum entity.

"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"

"Naw....I still don't get it!"

"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"

"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"

— The End —