Benign, benevolent ballerina bubbly bathing by beautiful blossoming balsams.

A gander I took and I was a statue, still, allured, and enchanted. my lips basted by beauty, before her I was an apparition, lost in forests of adulation.

A vanishing spirit soon to be a vestige of a vestige. I shall wage wars, arm myself and battle my way to her hands that can melt the glaciers residing in my heart.

Mahmoud Darwish: English Translations

Mahmoud Darwish is the essential breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging ... his is an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered.―Naomi Shihab Nye



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's trembling beginnings,
a boulder covered with moss,
mothers who dance to the flute's sighs,
and the invaders' fear of memories.

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
September's rustling end,
a woman leaving forty behind, still full of grace, still blossoming,
an hour of sunlight in prison,
clouds taking the shapes of unusual creatures,
the people's applause for those who mock their assassins,
and the tyrant's fear of songs.

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
Lady Earth, mother of all beginnings and endings!
In the past she was called Palestine
and tomorrow she will still be called Palestine.
My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life!



Identity Card
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Record!
I am an Arab!
And my identity card is number fifty thousand.
I have eight children;
the ninth arrives this autumn.
Will you be furious?

Record!
I am an Arab!
Employed at the quarry,
I have eight children.
I provide them with bread,
clothes and books
from the bare rocks.
I do not supplicate charity at your gates,
nor do I demean myself at your chambers' doors.
Will you be furious?

Record!
I am an Arab!
I have a name without a title.
I am patient in a country
where people are easily enraged.
My roots
were established long before the onset of time,
before the unfolding of the flora and fauna,
before the pines and the olive trees,
before the first grass grew.
My father descended from plowmen,
not from the privileged classes.
My grandfather was a lowly farmer
neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Still, they taught me the pride of the sun
before teaching me how to read;
now my house is a watchman's hut
made of branches and cane.
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name, but no title!

Record!
I am an Arab!
You have stolen my ancestors' orchards
and the land I cultivated
along with my children.
You left us nothing
but these bare rocks.
Now will the State claim them
as it has been declared?

Therefore!
Record on the first page:
I do not hate people
nor do I encroach,
but if I become hungry
I will feast on the usurper's flesh!
Beware!
Beware my hunger
and my anger!

NOTE: Darwish was married twice, but had no children. In the poem above, he is apparently speaking for his people, not for himself personally.



Excerpt from “Speech of the Red Indian”
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let's give the earth sufficient time to recite
the whole truth ...
The whole truth about us.
The whole truth about you.

In tombs you build
the dead lie sleeping.
Over bridges you *****
file the newly slain.

There are spirits who light up the night like fireflies.
There are spirits who come at dawn to sip tea with you,
as peaceful as the day your guns mowed them down.

O, you who are guests in our land,
please leave a few chairs empty
for your hosts to sit and ponder
the conditions for peace
in your treaty with the dead.



Passport
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They left me unrecognizable in the shadows
that bled all colors from this passport.
To them, my wounds were novelties―
curious photos for tourists to collect.
They failed to recognize me. No, don't leave
the palm of my hand bereft of sun
when all the trees recognize me
and every song of the rain honors me.
Don't set a wan moon over me!

All the birds that flocked to my welcoming wave
as far as the distant airport gates,
all the wheatfields,
all the prisons,
all the albescent tombstones,
all the barbwired boundaries,
all the fluttering handkerchiefs,
all the eyes―
they all accompanied me.
But they were stricken from my passport
shredding my identity!

How was I stripped of my name and identity
on soil I tended with my own hands?
Today, Job's lamentations
re-filled the heavens:
Don't make an example of me, not again!
Prophets! Gentlemen!―
Don't require the trees to name themselves!
Don't ask the valleys who mothered them!
My forehead glistens with lancing light.
From my hand the riverwater springs.
My identity can be found in my people's hearts,
so invalidate this passport!



Excerpts from "The Dice Player"
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

I am not a stone
burnished to illumination by water ...

Nor am I a reed
riddled by the wind
into a flute ...

No, I'm a dice player:
I win sometimes
and I lose sometimes,
just like you ...
or perhaps a bit less.

I was born beside the water well with the three lonely trees like nuns:
born without any hoopla or a midwife.

I was given my unplanned name by chance,
assigned to my family by chance,
and by chance inherited their features, attributes, habits and illnesses.

First, arterial plaque and hypertension;
second, shyness when addressing my elders;
third, the hope of curing the flu with cups of hot chamomile;
fourth, laziness in describing gazelles and larks;
fifth, lethargy dark winter nights;
sixth, the lack of a singing voice.

I had no hand in my own being;
it was mere coincidence that I popped out male;
mere coincidence that I saw the pale lemon-like moon illuminating sleepless girls
and did not unleash the mole hidden in my private parts.

I might not have existed
had my father not married my mother
by chance.

Or I might have been like my sister
who screamed then died,
only alive an hour
and never knowing who gave her birth.

Or like the doves’ eggs
smashed before her chicks hatched.

Was it mere coincidence
that I was the one left alive in a traffic accident
because I didn’t board the bus ...
because I’d forgotten about life and its routines
while reading the night before
a love story in which I became first the author,
then the lover, then the beloved and love’s martyr ...
then overslept and avoided the accident!

I also played no role in surviving the sea,
because I was a reckless boy,
allured by the magnetic water
calling: Come to me!
No, I only survived the sea
because a human gull rescued me
when he saw the waves pulling me under and paralyzing my hands!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you
outside the church door?

I'm nothing but a dice throw,
a toss between predator and prey.

In my moonlit awareness
I witnessed the massacre
and survived by sheer chance:
I was too small for the enemy to target,
barely bigger than the bee
flitting among the fence’s flowers.

Then I feared for my father and family;
I feared for our time as fragile as glass;
I feared for my pet cat and rabbit;
I feared for a magical moon looming high over the mosque’s minarets;
I feared for our vines’ grapes
dangling like a dog’s udders ...

Then fear walked beside me and I walked with it,
barefoot, forgetting my fragile dreams of what I had wanted for tomorrow
because there was no time for tomorrow.

I was lucky the wolves
departed by chance,
or else escaped from the army.

I also played no role in my own life,
except when Life taught me her recitations.
Are there any more?, I wondered,
then lit my lamps and tried to amend them ...

I might not have been a swallow
had the wind ordained it otherwise ...

The wind is the traveler's fate: his fortune or misfortune.

I flew north, east, west ...
but the south was too harsh, too rebellious for me
because the south is my country.
I became a swallow’s metaphor,
hovering over my life’s debris
from spring to autumn,
baptizing my feathers in the cloud-like lake
then offering my salaams to the undying Nazarene:
undying because God’s spirit lives within him
and God is the prophet’s luck ...

While it is my good fortune to be the Godhead’s neighbor ...

Just as it is my bad fortune the cross
remains our future’s eternal ladder!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?
Who am I?

I might have not been inspired
because inspiration is the lonely soul’s compensation
and the poem is his dice throw
on an unlit board
that may or may not glow ...

Words fall ...
as feathers fall to earth:
I did not plan this poem.
I only obeyed its rhythm’s demands.

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

It might not have been me.
I might not have been here to write it.
My plane might have crashed one morning
while I slept till noon
then arrived at the airport too late
to visit Damascus and Cairo,
the Louvre, and other enchanting cities.

Had I been a slow walker, a rifle might have severed my shadow from its cedar.
Had I been a fast walker, I might have disintegrated and vanished like a fleeting whim.
Had I dreamt too much, I might have lost my memories of reality.

I am fortunate to sleep alone
listening to my body's complaints
with my talent for detecting pain,
so that I call the physician ten minutes before death:
dodging death by a mere ten minutes,
continuing life by chance,
disappointing the Void.

But who am I to disappoint the Void?
Who am I?
Who?

Keywords/Tags: Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine, Palestinian, Arab, Arabic, translation, Gaza, Israel, children, mothers, injustice, violence, war, race, racism, intolerance, ethnic cleansing, genocide

Nothing Remains
by Fadwa Tuqan the "Poet of Palestine"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, we're together,
but tomorrow you'll be hidden from me again,
thanks to life's cruelty.

The seas will separate us...
Oh! Oh! If only I could see you!
But I'll never know
where your steps led you,
which routes you took,
or to what unknown destinations
your feet were compelled.

You will depart and the thief of hearts,
the denier of beauty,
will rob us of all that's dear to us,
will steal this happiness from us,
leaving our hands empty.

Tomorrow at sunrise you'll vanish like a phantom,
dissipating into a delicate mist
dissolving quickly in the summer sun.

Your scent! Your scent contains the essence of life,
filling my heart
as the earth absorbs the lifegiving rain.

I will miss you like the fragrance of trees
when you leave tomorrow,
and nothing remains.

Just as everything beautiful and all that's dear to us
is lost! Lost, and nothing remains.

Keywords/Tags: Fadwa Tuqan, Palestine, Palestinian, Arabic, translation, nothing, remains, parting, separation, loss


Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.

Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.

Published by Palestine Today, Free Journal and Lokesh Tripathi



Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
—once, twice—
until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
and in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate and distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of our spirits in the flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.

Published by This Week in Palestine, Arabic Literature (ArabLit.org) and Art-in-Society (Germany)



Labor Pains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the wind wafts pollen through ruined fields and homes.
The earth shivers with love, with the agony of giving birth,
while the Invader spreads stories of submission and surrender.

O, Arab Aurora!

Tell the Usurper: childbirth’s a force beyond his ken
because a mother’s wracked body reveals a rent that inaugurates life,
a crack through which light dawns in an instant
as the blood’s rose blooms in the wound.



Hamza
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hamza was one of my hometown’s ordinary men
who did manual labor for bread.

When I saw him recently,
the land still wore its mourning dress in the solemn windless silence
and I felt defeated.

But Hamza-the-unextraordinary said:
“Sister, our land’s throbbing heart never ceases to pound,
and it perseveres, enduring the unendurable, keeping the secrets of mounds and wombs.
This land sprouting cactus spikes and palms also births freedom-fighters.
Thus our land, my sister, is our mother!”

Days passed and Hamza was nowhere to be seen,
but I felt the land’s belly heaving in pain.
At sixty-five Hamza’s a heavy burden on her back.

“Burn down his house!”
some commandant screamed,
“and slap his son in a prison cell!”

As our town’s military ruler later explained
this was necessary for law and order,
that is, an act of love, for peace!

Armed soldiers surrounded Hamza’s house;
the coiled serpent completed its circle.

The bang at his door came with an ultimatum:
“Evacuate, **** it!'
So generous with their time, they said:
“You can have an hour, yes!”

Hamza threw open a window.
Face-to-face with the blazing sun, he yelled defiantly:
“Here in this house I and my children will live and die, for Palestine!”
Hamza's voice echoed over the hemorrhaging silence.

An hour later, with impeccable timing, Hanza’s house came crashing down
as its rooms were blown sky-high and its bricks and mortar burst,
till everything settled, burying a lifetime’s memories of labor, tears, and happier times.

Yesterday I saw Hamza
walking down one of our town’s streets ...
Hamza-the-unextraordinary man who remained as he always was:
unshakable in his determination.

My translation follows one by Azfar Hussain and borrows a word here, a phrase there.



Biography of Fadwa Tuqan (aka Touqan or Toukan)

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), called the "Grande Dame of Palestinian letters," is also known as "The Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets. Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, named her “the mother of Palestinian poetry.”



Excerpts from "The Dice Player"
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

I am not a stone
burnished to illumination by water ...

Nor am I a reed
riddled by the wind
into a flute ...

No, I'm a dice player:
I win sometimes
and I lose sometimes,
just like you ...
or perhaps a bit less.

I was born beside the water well with the three lonely trees like nuns:
born without any hoopla or a midwife.

I was given my unplanned name by chance,
assigned to my family by chance,
and by chance inherited their features, attributes, habits and illnesses.

First, arterial plaque and hypertension;
second, shyness when addressing my elders;
third, the hope of curing the flu with cups of hot chamomile;
fourth, laziness in describing gazelles and larks;
fifth, lethargy dark winter nights;
sixth, the lack of a singing voice.

I had no hand in my own being;
it was mere coincidence that I popped out male;
mere coincidence that I saw the pale lemon-like moon illuminating sleepless girls
and did not unleash the mole hidden in my private parts.

I might not have existed
had my father not married my mother
by chance.

Or I might have been like my sister
who screamed then died,
only alive an hour
and never knowing who gave her birth.

Or like the doves’ eggs
smashed before her chicks hatched.

Was it mere coincidence
that I was the one left alive in a traffic accident
because I didn’t board the bus ...
because I’d forgotten about life and its routines
while reading the night before
a love story in which I became first the author,
then the lover, then the beloved and love’s martyr ...
then overslept and avoided the accident!

I also played no role in surviving the sea,
because I was a reckless boy,
allured by the magnetic water
calling: Come to me!
No, I only survived the sea
because a human gull rescued me
when he saw the waves pulling me under and paralyzing my hands!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you
outside the church door?

I'm nothing but a dice throw,
a toss between predator and prey.

In my moonlit awareness
I witnessed the massacre
and survived by sheer chance:
I was too small for the enemy to target,
barely bigger than the bee
flitting among the fence’s flowers.

Then I feared for my father and family;
I feared for our time as fragile as glass;
I feared for my pet cat and rabbit;
I feared for a magical moon looming high over the mosque’s minarets;
I feared for our vines’ grapes
dangling like a dog’s udders ...

Then fear walked beside me and I walked with it,
barefoot, forgetting my fragile dreams of what I had wanted for tomorrow
because there was no time for tomorrow.

I was lucky the wolves
departed by chance,
or else escaped from the army.

I also played no role in my own life,
except when Life taught me her recitations.
Are there any more?, I wondered,
then lit my lamps and tried to amend them ...

I might not have been a swallow
had the wind ordained it otherwise ...

The wind is the traveler's fate: his fortune or misfortune.

I flew north, east, west ...
but the south was too harsh, too rebellious for me
because the south is my country.
I became a swallow’s metaphor,
hovering over my life’s debris
from spring to autumn,
baptizing my feathers in the cloud-like lake
then offering my salaams to the undying Nazarene:
undying because God’s spirit lives within him
and God is the prophet’s luck ...

While it is my good fortune to be the Godhead’s neighbor ...

Just as it is my bad fortune the cross
remains our future’s eternal ladder!

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?
Who am I?

I might have not been inspired
because inspiration is the lonely soul’s compensation
and the poem is his dice throw
on an unlit board
that may or may not glow ...

Words fall ...
as feathers fall to earth:
I did not plan this poem.
I only obeyed its rhythm’s demands.

Who am I to say
the things I say to you?

It might not have been me.
I might not have been here to write it.
My plane might have crashed one morning
while I slept till noon
then arrived at the airport too late
to visit Damascus and Cairo,
the Louvre, and other enchanting cities.

Had I been a slow walker, a rifle might have severed my shadow from its cedar.
Had I been a fast walker, I might have disintegrated and vanished like a fleeting whim.
Had I dreamt too much, I might have lost my memories of reality.

I am fortunate to sleep alone
listening to my body's complaints
with my talent for detecting pain,
so that I call the physician ten minutes before death:
dodging death by a mere ten minutes,
continuing life by chance,
disappointing the Void.

But who am I to disappoint the Void?
Who am I?
Who?

Keywords/Tags: Gaza, Palestine, Palestinian, children, mothers, injustice, violence, war, race, racism, intolerance, ethnic cleansing, genocide

my thumb
pushing down
on a lighter
is more calming
than a
small hand
holding said thumb
watching
anything burn
is more
entertaining
to me
than the
dancing flames

On the land molded by footsteps and ruled by obnoxiously bleached clowns,
Visited by swarms of neighborhood guttersnipes and the opulent from uptown.

Allured by the traditional Irish circus music and the grinding of rusted gears,
To arrive at dawn and to leave only when the night sky is tired of fireworks and flares.

Skittish and gleaming eyes would roll on the floor, struck by daze and lost in wonderment,
At the marvel of giant steel rides and god forsaken and socially foretoken genetic mutants.

The word of a woman with two faces and the boy with a tail would make any catholic priest run.
Amusing the rational ones, alongside the man with elastic skin and the girl with the forked tongue.

The opera lady with outlandish proportions and tumorous lips sings to break a piece of cheap glassware.
Little do people know,that the magician’s red gloves are actually stained with blood of rabbit that disappeared.

Their noses get caught in the medley of fragrances from the exotic perfumes shop,
Blended with the saccharine tang from the stall that sells candy floss and soda pops.

Indulging over the overly priced confectioneries at the stall of the baker with the forbidding grin.
Try it a hundred times,try it a thousand,you’ll never get the fifth one right in the game of rings.

People will come out screaming from the haunted house,only to laugh about it later,
Little do they know,that skeletons that drove them pale and white couldn't get any realer.

They’ll jostle and struggle to make their way through the crowd to various rides and attractions.
Hustling to navigate through the maze the carnival is, encountered by countless illusions.

And once your body wears out and senses give in,that’s when you've truly entered the carnival state of mind.
Your ears stinging ,nose stifled,tongue baffled, eyes exhausted,and your sense of judgment blinded.

That’s when my masked act begins,the most profitable act at the carnival,
Diving into the heart of the crowd,to draw an act of brilliance lasting an ephemeral.

Slithering across the crowd in a different disguise every hour,concealed by stealth.
Sneaking into every nook and corner and slipping my furtive hands into your pockets for a little bit of wealth.

Only to dine with the clowns and the carnival family at the haunted house at the end of the day.
**And of course, rabbits for dinner,if the baker may

The scent of the pollen allured her, hanging in the still air of the morning. She would stop in her travel and visit each flower that she found. The precious nectar oozed from deep within the petals and she would thirstily drink at each one.   She would gently land in the scented shade of each blossom and coax the precious nourishment from it. She never gorged, but rather drank from each flower what it was willing to give. Some were full and over ripe and bursting with the honeyed juice. Others had a smaller treasure, but she would drink lovingly of their gift leaving them an offering of pollen as a thanks.     Her small, delicate tongue would gently lick and probe the recesses of the flower hunting the sweetness inside. The pollen on her coat would touch with the very deepest innards of the bloom and enter its very core. Her gift, as she suckled each part, was imparted into the scented womb of the softly petaled blossom.     Each flower awaited her coming and spread wide it’s scented opening for her to enter. Their swollen pistils would be gorged with the potential for life and their gently glistening stamens would tempt her to feed on their sticky juices. The soft buzzing of her wings caressed the delicate parts of the fragrant blooms with a gentle breeze as she drank her sustenance.                She sheltered in the colored shade of petals, hung round her like colored sheets, as she took what each one had to offer.      When she was done she would move on to the next, slowly and deliberately milking the juice of life from each one. Every flower needed her and each one did what it could to tempt her in. Some threw heavy fragrance into the air so she could catch their scent while others bared their large and swollen glands so she could see their abundance.        She traveled from bloom to bloom, sometimes enticed by the shaded shelter, and other times the sight of glistening pollen. But she fed on each one, large and small, and in each one she left her gift. The pollen that she carried would be imparted on each ***** stamen as she fed. The glistening end of the shaft was soft and sticky and waiting for the pollen that would carry on its life.      While she fed each day, there was a gardener who tended to her plants. He took gentle care of them, weeding and pruning and tending to their needs. The flowers that she fed on were his future sustenance and he tended her as well. He would follow her sometimes through his garden and watch as she gently buzzed from plant to plant.        She was used to his watchful eyes as he watched her drink from each bloom. He knew that his crop depended on her and he would peer into the bedding of petals as she caressed the sweetness from each one with her tongue. Her long tongue would probe deep into the recesses of the fragrant flower and find every drop of nectar.         The gardener watched as she carried on the cycle of life for him and would wait for days to see the swollen fruits of her labor burgeoning from his plants. When she left each flower satisfied with their delicious treat, she would fly off to the next, not knowing that a seed would be swelling in the gorged pistil that she just left.        And so it went as the bee buzzed her life away every day. The gardener would be there among his carefully tended crops, watching and waiting as she moved among the flowers. His gaze would follow her as she traveled through the foliage and landed amongst the blooms. Every day he would watch as she coaxed the sweet nectar from each one and left her gift in return.

1279

The Way to know the Bobolink
From every other Bird
Precisely as the Joy of him—
Obliged to be inferred.

Of impudent Habiliment
Attired to defy,
Impertinence subordinate
At times to Majesty.

Of Sentiments seditious
Amenable to Law—
As Heresies of Transport
Or Puck’s Apostacy.

Extrinsic to Attention
Too intimate with Joy—
He compliments existence
Until allured away

By Seasons or his Children—
Adult and urgent grown—
Or unforeseen aggrandizement
Or, happily, Renown—

By Contrast certifying
The Bird of Birds is gone—
How nullified the Meadow—
Her Sorcerer withdrawn!

Her eyes radiant and sensous,
she proudly wore them.
Her eyes allured praises,
and conquered the art of flirting.

She looked at him to flaunt her eyes.
Which, she knew will tantalize him.
She wanted to arouse his highs,
and have him fantasize about her.

She looked at his eyes,
assuming it's just another fling.
Powerful and authentic were his eyes,
but also strangely familiar and gently captivating.

Her eyes met his eyes.
For the first time,
her impish and sparky spirit
felt something alien.

His eyes were all that were focussed
for, the rest of the surrounding faded.
She didn't feel the air.
She didn't feel the ground.
She only felt the gaze.

Her always rambling mind
went thoughtless now.
Her burning desire to keep doing more
was suddenly extinguished.

She went quiet.
Neither into an uncomfortable silence,
nor a painful silence.
But a peaceful silence.
A satiated silence.

The haunting memories from the past,
the gripping fear of the future,
all dissolved and energised the ecstatic present.

She no longer wanted this to be a fling
for, she knew she was captivated.
This was the first her flirting failed.
And she knew she couldn't be bailed out
from what's to come.

.penta - come in: like i said, horror movie soundtracks, i fall asleep listening to them... they're so atmospheric i, simply can't resist their inherent allure.

the infamous Croydon cat killer...
i'm not buying what the media is selling...
i'm currently in the possession
of a quasi-pet...
  a fox...
comes round my garden for food,
leftovers...
which i give to him with overcooked
rice...
      no... i'm not buying the police report...
two reason...
you know where Croydon is...
and when the next incident happened?
north east London...
   did the fox... ******* swim?!
a fox is not a migratory animal...
   it's niche...
   it's local...
   if it has a sustained food source...
scavenger that it is...
omnivore like a petted dog...
  no...
i don't buy it...
              why would it transverse
south west London and strike in
north east London...
    did Herr Fusch
and why were the bodies left as evidence?
this fox has a *******
fetish for cranium meat or something?
i'm no Mr. Softie for the company
of a fox...
     but on the outskirts of London...
cats and foxes share a strange
   symbiosis...
   ever walk the dark Essex roads
at night, and peer into the fox
and the house-cat look at each other with
curiosity?
      like all serial killers...
it begins with animals,
there's always the audacity with animals...
most of them would probably become
model citizens, if they were allowed
a job at a slaughter house...
   so the mainstream media explains
the Croydon cat killer as a fox...
a fox that decapitates a body...
   and doesn't eat the torso?!
******* magic!
that's not how mature nature of
the wild works: you either eat...
or you're eaten..
        my neighbors owned ducks...
you think that when a fox
dug a hole beneath the cage...
there was a duck torso and a missing
duck head?
ha ha! good luck!
       why would a wild animal **** something...
and not eat it?
    a Swizz fondu makes more sense
than this explanation!
no cautionary animal,
that is primarily a scavenger,
travels from south west London
to north east London...
             BULL...****...
       BULL... ****!
           i don't feed my Brody because
i think he's cute...
   i feed him...
     because i randomly feel like it...
do foxes even own the concept
of a head terrine delicacy?
   my little ******* will eat
rice mingling with off-cuts of meat
and fat...
           so... he bit the head off...
but left the torso for evidence?!
BULL... ****...
oh i'm pretty sure a shy, a very shy
bored Jimmy is lurking in the shadows...
shy bored Jimmies need
a canvas of innocence...
animals are their primal choice...
  well... considering that Cain
was a vegetarian and Abel wasn't...
          he's lying low...
he needs to wake up from the adrenaline
rush...
   he needs for it to cool down...
a fox doesn't leave torso evidence...
and what would be the point of...
   did they say whether the heads
were guillotined, or chewed off?
no ******* animal chews off a head,
unlikely for an animal
to decapitate another animal...
   only human imagination provides that
sort of ingenuity...
         crock ****... basic crock ****...
blame the foxes...
     ha ha!
find me this shadowy little Jimmy before
he boasts about
the human sin of being gullible....
thank **** i'm not a campaigner...
   what i do with "my" fox is concerned
with ecological advantages...
also something akin
  to a Monday morning...
and how my neighbor's trash isn't littered
over the road... because
the wolf was fed, and so the sheep
too...
                 there is no logic to
the claim that a fox made methodological
killings of pets...
   if you ever walked
the streets at night,
and watched the stare-off between
a fox and a cat...
   last time i checked:
   cats have claws and a ferocious bite...
foxes? no claws...
just the bite...
oh, right... what am i listening to?
    penta -            come in...
   i'm still thinking of little Jimmy in the shadows,
collecting his decapitated
   cat heads... and stuffing them
with fiddles of a post-scriptum
to the Hollywood movie genre...
   oh believe me...
from what i heard of Eddie the Gain...
20th century alternative culture
was basically him
being covertly cited...
            no...
a fox wouldn't do it...
   if it was a a duck / chicken affair...
sure...
   but cats being decapitated...
and the torsos left as evidence,
i.e. not being eaten?
         little Jimmy is taking a break...
given that: i'm pretty sure a Bonsai
tiger knows a few tricks about
how a predator defends himself...
          then again, the explanation
could be:
  too many cat videos...
             cats aren't cute...
they're bogus critters who are in
the potential of biting and scratching...
come one...
all the way from south west London...
to north east London?!
foxes don't travel that far,
and the closest route would be
by a hypotenuse vector...
   sooner proving Santa Claus
exists...
    and...
              it couldn't be the same fox...
wild animals are analogous...
but they're certainly not original copy-cats...

coming from a newspaper
like the times:
   i'm vaguely allured to claim them
left-leaning... right-centrist for sure...
but they're still quasi-Guardian
types...

the topic at hand came,
thanks to no. 10,154 sudoku puzzle...
and the narrative...

1    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    5
0    5   ­ 0    0    2    0    0    3    0
0    4    0   6    0    5    0    1    0
0    0    2   0    0    0    8    0    0
0    0    5    4    0    3    7    0  ­  0
0    3    0    5    0    2    0    6    0
0    6    0    8   ­ 0    1    0    9    0
5    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    1
­0    7    0    0    6    0    0    4    0

ut 10,153 was a mess...
i can only suppose it was too simple...

let's just say i had to think
of something,
esp. little Jimmy...
    
                        and the scapegoat fox...
after all: it's the easiest route...
   pretending that a wild
animal is to behave in a civilized manner...
but even wild animals
do not behave like
meticulous killers...
          and decapitation?
it an example of a civilized
meticulousness of a killing...
        
i sniff a rat, a see a rat...
             mainstream media is a load
of *******, and hardly an outrage
of der stimme...
    
foxes don't assert methodological killings...
little Jimmy... whittle Jimmy...
taking a break...
having made foundation
in the first membrane of audacity...
sooner or later...
little Jimmy is moving from cats,
and into the territory of humans...

they all do...
  "they"?
        serial killers!

          that wasn't a fox...
i'm petting a fox at this moment in time...
well.. petting is a lose term...
otherwise strapped to:
"petting"...

           but as you do... solving a sudoku...
here's the linear
narrative:

   (b) 8 8 1 1 3 4 7 9 7 7 9 9 4 9 7 9 4 7
(a) 1 1 5 5 5 1 6 6 7 7 8 2 3 4 9 6 6 6 8 2 3 2 4 4 8 3 9 3 9 2 3 2 2 8 8

and you do think up crazy ****
while you're at it...

1    2    6    9    3    8    4    7    5
7    5    8    1­    2    4    9    3    6
3    4    9   6    6    5    2    1    8
4    1    2   7    9    6    8    5    3
6    8    5    4    1    3    7    2  ­  9
9    3    7    5    8    2    1    6    4
2    6    4    8   ­ 5    1    3    9    7
5    9    3    2    4    7    6    8    1
­8    7    1    3    6    9    5    4    2

but then the everyday newspaper
you read on the everyday
from Monday to Friday....
and there's a newspaper magazine...
ah...
   so that's the problem...
i'm not bundled up in a demographic
nearing retirement age?!

the Croydon cat-killer is still out there...
  a fox wouldn't leave a decapitated
torso as evidence...

as the one simple rule of nature suggests:
NATURE DOESN'T BELIEVE
IN LANDFILL SITES...
IT BELIEVES IN RECYCLING...
a fox that chews off a head
of a cat, and doesn't drag the torso into
the forest to eat?
   well... let's just suppose
that idiocy doesn't exactly permeate
in the wild...
              less a stupid animal...
more a selfish / slothful animal...
  foxes are neither...

             little Jimmy is still out there...
with his love for souvenirs of
cat heads...
           and he's buying time...
so a scapegoat emerges...
  
        if a fox did what was "supposedly" done...
i'm pretty sure there would be
no evidence...
          left...

you get the picture?
  Michael Myers began experiments
on animals... as did Jeffrey Dahmer with
road-****...
                can't someone make an outlet
for these people to work
in slaughterhouses?!
                    they'd be perfect!

decent human beings:
in the most indecent human conditions -
and i'm pretty sure these guys
would love working
in the slaughterhouses...

  i could, for some reason,
forget vegetarians akin to Adolf ******
by then!

Some time ago in the furnace below
Grew restless the ruler of sin;
He dug through His closet
Composed a composite
Consisting of a violin.

The underworld rang with
Delectable twang
As Lucifer plucked on His strings;
E'en angels flew down
Allured by the sound
Til Cerberus plucked off their wings.

Eventually Satan grew bored of this, too;
That thrill-seeking ******* must capture the new;
So up to the land of the living He flew;
Disguised as a figure whom everyone knew.

First on the agenda of any pretender:
Extinguish the genuine soul;
He arrived in Genoa
Disguised as a boa
And silently swallowed him whole.  

With Europe His playground
The Devil, He made sound
That no one alive had yet heard;
He fiddled and plucked,
Gambled and ******,
Until inside Him syphilis stirred.  

His physical shell He now had to retire;
Back to the depths of the black and the fire;
Forever above will the humans admire;
The legend of strings; the king; the sire.

black bee
head first in a

hibiscus flower
waxy pollen beads

dabbled down
its gleaming back

foraging done
it shimmies out

to spy the next
allurement

darting and hovering
as it chooses its mark

close enough
to feel its pulsing whir

breeze the hair
on my arm

I hover too
allured

and unfurled
before turning to dart

through this
shimmering world


Tom Spencer © 2018

I was deeply mesmerized, through her dull look I was incised;
Her eyes looked far beyond my world & all the memories I bore,
Her tears were suppressed in her captivating me with a stare,
Her lips would say the words on mine with each word I’m looking for,
Her breath would flow into my heart with each beat I’m dying for,
Still I sought her to the door.

Forever I chose to roam, everywhere with her is home;
She just lingered in my heart but I left my peace outdoor,
Winter was a time of sorrow, but we dreamt of new tomorrow,
But tomorrows came with terror, terror that did taste so sore,
But tomorrows were much painful than the days I lived before,
& she lingered than before.

My heart strings I tried to weave, with some threads of endless grief;
Searching for some face some trace, of her upon my memories floor,
Deep in me I tried to call, I found nothing can console,
Glimpsing her straying in some castle lain deep within my core,
She allured me to beguile me somewhere lost into my core,
Lost within forevermore…

In me a thousand demons weep, aching me in wake & sleep,
Scathed & scorched, seeking your smile that lulled their wicked hearts before,
Thousand raging mutineer, down the silver chandelier;
Those whom you once did inflict, & left their life in twitching war,
Those you provoked yesterday, & incensed their nocturnal war,
They are whom I’m dying for…

As I stood glimpsing you fleet, shadows smothered down my feet,
Fragile were my crisp heart beats, those beats that were solid in core,
Though I am the one you crave, you raised in my heart my grave,
Yearning was harrowing, severing, one can’t endure nor ignore,
My desire have seared my hearts with fires I cannot ignore,
& my fires taste so sore…

I’m condemned to watch you flee; it plucks feelings out of me;
While these voices stuttering muttering; voices I’ve not heard before,
Voices resonates in my veins, filled my heart with myriad stains,
Stains of noises of the voices of my bones & flesh & gore,
Stains of lovelorn lays & cold old days & my spilled livid gore,
Stains upon your castle door…

You were poising through each room, in fragrant feverous perfume,
Burning all my flames vehemently, surging all my beasts to roar,
Flaunting fluttering in each chamber, on the eve of deep December,
Tainting this untarnished heart that just sought you & nothing more,
Confounding that steadfast faith that believed you & nothing more,
Now faith won’t taste like before…

As I give up empty tries, your eyes kissed my bleak goodbyes,
Then you lurk behind the dungeons of my dreary darkling core,
Wicked me O wicked day, when I pursued you to stray,
But in straying I keep praying if you strayed it won’t feel sore;
I’ve strayed in much lonely nights, & lonely nights did taste so sore
Without you into my core…

As you stroll in me & breathe me, look beyond me gaze beneath me,
Look beyond your horrid world, the morbid heart apart you tore,
Now is fainting swooning searing, & your absence keeps on tearing,
Every shard of hope that lingered deep inside you fill with pore,
You severed my happy thoughts & happy thoughts are not galore,
Wish you were some place for more…

I’ve renounced every Love, & still you rove & still you rove,
Still the phoenix flame is aching, healing, waking me once more,
Thousand times your name I call, now there is no place to scrawl
Your name on the walls of my heart, upon which phoenix may soar,
set your luring eyes to my heart, upon which phoenix may soar,
Haul my heart unto the shore…

Shattered chastened, I am sitting, watching my cells as they’re splitting,
All my soul is torn asunder, falling under, horrid curses that I bore,
My fate is to stay awaking, tasting nightmares as I’m aching,
Scathed & bruised, the hells I cruised without you seems not like before,
Scathing breathing, grueling seething, senses I’ve not felt before,
Without you inside my core…

Stricken thrashed & Flayed & shattered, each shard in my heart is scattered,
Quavered fluttered, badly battered, almost dead at your front door,
My flesh is cleaved off my bones, drained in deep hazy unknowns,
Disassembled was my conscious, rapt & smitten was my core,
Insecure, no cure can take it what erodes me deep in core,
For you’re not here like before...

If you only chose to waive, come along & dig my grave,
Lest you watch each wave subduing me away far off your shore,
Swooning fading every night; choking, burying alive my light,
Out of anguish that you’re absence scourged & languished, twinged & tore,
Now it flays me mauls me impairs me feeding on my screams once more,
Those that rise far off my core…

My blood flows with fire surging, steadily emerging, steadily emerging,
They keep suffusing submerging in my heart as you ignore,
All your torment seems in vain, my soul’s liquored by my pain,
All my tears are blood that’s falling all like rains in days of yore,
Now I’m stewed by your long absence that I forgot days of yore,
When we used to sway & soar…

Nothing can ever awake me; you seize me as you forsake me,
You absorb me as you ache me; you possess me from the core,
Illude..Spirits..Opaque...Livid.. Once before words seemed so vivid;
Once before our Love was prancing, prancing as we used to soar,
Once before our hearts were fighting, side by side on Love’s vast war,
When you thrived deep in my core…

Now you’re presence irritates me,
It cleaves warmth off my embrace,
now your absence ghost still hates me,
You have left me abstract space,
Wicked, fallen, out of grace;
& I can’t hold on anymore…

Transfixed by your gaze,

Enticed by your word,

Allured by a promise,

I yet to have heard.

555

Trust in the Unexpected—
By this—was William Kidd
Persuaded of the Buried Gold—
As One had testified—

Through this—the old Philosopher—
His Talismanic Stone
Discernéd—still withholden
To effort undivine—

’Twas this—allured Columbus—
When Genoa—withdrew
Before an Apparition
Baptized America—

The Same—afflicted Thomas—
When Deity assured
’Twas better—the perceiving not—
Provided it believed—

People say that love leads to metamorphosis.
People say that love will illuminate your soul.
People say that love will bind up a wounded quintessence.
-I’m finished- waiting for love.

All of my life I've been pining, pining for the soul, and the soul of another to bind up my aching wounds.
An illusion, a mirage in all its sweet and manufactured glory arises in a weary heart.
Tasting it, visualizing it, it’s mellifluous nectar fondling my occipital lobe.
Flowing profusely, waning when a tellurian is out of sight, my muse is ever-changing, a butterfly glimmers in the dark.

I can’t bear this trial, a tribulation of love, all these repetitions, a diminutive and ephemeral Fall.
The vernal winds embrace me, in my sweet and lulling dreams, binding my soul to Wonderland, just as Alice I’ve escaped.
I run to another realm of existence, longing for emancipation, standing in a hollow shelter, my flame shall soon collapse.
Golden cards; The Joker, poking fun at my malady uncured, the land within which I have ensconced is a symptom a disease.

Insanity; a furor; reality serves no purpose.
Anger me once more then I’ll relinquish my own life.
I relinquish a newfound hope, to abandon all that is my own.
I reach into the chaos beneath my succulent flesh.

A demon had allured me; enticed me with a stare.
Sorrow runs amuck here, degeneration inflames my veins.
Expanding, contracting, I can’t breathe anymore!
Red blood cells eliminated, my panic is on the rise.

How much longer can I bear this?
Love eludes my soul; your unchartered exterior inspires an inquisitive mind.
I search the seven seas, I voyage across space and time, I’ve waited for eternity for an ethereal beauty to arise.
The water beneath my ship bubbles; frost smoke from the watery deep; a mermaid in its glory has infatuated me.

I live in my dreams, detached from the world.
-Stars fall-
Your arms are no longer wrapped around me; I no longer feel your heady embrace.
The light and airy feelings when I fantasize of holding your body close to mine.

Your delicate and perfectly assembled hands; your gaseous rhapsody; a toxic love absent of truth; a hazy fume inhaled through my nostrils.
When I finally gaze upon you, I shall fall asleep in your arms, lying on the bed together will no longer do me any harm.
Butterflies and fireflies shall illuminate the night sky; intoxicated with honey I will have my fill of love.
Just to have you close to me, will be more than enough, to know that a spirit so celestial has enraptured a tenuous heart.

Your voice will be a healing; your words intoxicating fumes; your lips a source of astonishment; your gorgeous vessel my muse.
Lavender mist befalls us and violet sparkles glimmer upon the bed; we’re lifted into the stratosphere; it’s no longer in my head.
Enamorment will be a reality, and chains shall bind our arms; we shall be bound to each other by a magnetic surge of love.
Electric benedictions shall conduct my weary eyes; my iris shall be illuminated and my pupils shall start to gleam.

Going higher and higher, our bodies shall be burned, but not devoid of our spirits for we shall be conjoined into one.
A deity will resurrect us; a Phoenix with rejuvenating wings, the inferno of passion will consume us and our bodies shall be renewed.
For but a moment in time, the pressure between us began to rise; turbulence has fortified our very beings; we have shone just like moon.
Alas this but a fantasy, a dream unfulfilled, I fill my life with spirit, until the appointed time.

My creative surge of energy creates a diamond out of pain; my ivory tusks of iridescence shall plow through the Great Walls of the world.
I know that you lurk there; amongst a galaxy unknown; in time you shall expand my Universe…Maybe just maybe, I’ll expand into yours.
The supernova shall illuminate the heavens; our passion will glimmer like the Sun; a sphere of flame in overdrive; ready to explode.

I miss you already but I must depart from my dreams, for but an ephemeral moment until I that know you are here.
I’ll wait for the rest of eternity and I shall plow through the chaos of the world, warping through dimensions; trying to reach your heart.
A key shall lead me to a doorway; on the other side will be open plains; florid with embellishing blossoms, daisies and a flame.
That flame shall burn up the stratosphere until the skies begin to fall, for there will be no place in the Universe that can contain our intergalactic love.

I know that you are always with me. I follow that scent, the calm folded crisp smell of cigars lit on the rainy morning in the streets of Calais. I pass through the art galleries, boat docks, pubs, markets and old churchyard buildings. That scent again? It draws me in and embraces me close into secluded streets. I see friendly faces wearing the same weepy eyes and bright smiles every day. They were buskers, street tramps, just in my eyes fellow lost rebels who I admire. They haven’t yet given up even now their naked without luxury, starved of food and clothing they wander around building up a new home every day.  

Every time the buskers see me they each greet me in turn shake and kiss my hands. I drop a penny down; they play out their beautiful music and sing their songs into the early hours of the evening. The air of the night is surrounded with the distinctive smell of cider and cigars. Outside the docks of boats the pub is festered with local communities drinking and talking about previous nostalgia. People laugh and cheer at the buskers who come into the pubs and applaud even louder when each of them comes on stage. They play, they dance, they rant in their own unique way in time to the guitar and banjo. When the evening is finally over music and laughter without question just stops, I can hear those... heavy awkward whispers, muffled voices and coughs of things left unsaid. At that point each of the smiles of the lost rebels fades out into the night, they know they must face and enter that filthy alley alone forced into the solitude of old cardboard boxes. I thought they did a splendid show and award them money and praise in return some of them come up to compliment and kiss me again.

The next morning I visit the library to indulge in my long lost passion of French poetry but I keep on getting distracted. I pick up on that very dangerous scent of cigars, wine and … aftershave. It was just so intoxicating, the fuel I craved. The aroma got stronger outside, something was around me. I was feeling that someone had just touched my breast, pinched my ******* then started to bite, caress and kiss my back but that feeling had quickly faded out.I sat down, unable to detect anything. I open up an loaned book of poems by Christina Rossetti. Before I could read her first poem, a written letter had fell to the floor. It was encrypted in my name with a place and time. I begun to read it out aloud as if it was some fairy tale enchantment.

The cigar smoke started to rise, embrace and surround me it filled my eyes again. A young man appears at my feet. He is *****, long black hair; smile cheeky but eyes concrete and dreamy when magnified they melt into a fire. I gaze into his piercing green eyes; I can already feel my body heating up and chest feel tenser. We start to greet each with a handshake, he grabs my hand and begins to put each of my fingers into his mouth. Straight away I could feel this urge to share everything with him to plant that warm kiss onto his lips. We start with talking for hours about our previous past, poetry and art. I read out some of the poems in French and he was translating them for me. He asks whether I would want to go Paris with him; he knew the best historic sites to take pictures and then without any hesitation he flashes out two train tickets. A charmer no less, but I feel drawn to follow him hoping he would lead me to more adventure. We both catch a train together from Calais to Paris. He takes me into the French café near his apartment we end up drinking coffee together out in the balcony. He drove me around in his car; we end the day with having a great picnic of red wine, sandwiches, cakes and croissants out in the jardin. We end the first evening having a smoke or two out in the beautiful countryside air. He drops me back to my villa and kisses me slowly on the ears then begins to whisper softly the words k.i.m.m.y into my ear. I could feel the last of his words really start to linger, the final words before leaving me and promising to meet up the next evening outside his own apartment.

I came out the next evening wearing a tight red frock and bright red lipstick on the ****** cobbled streets. We both embrace each other with small kisses on the cheek, walking down with our tongues tied in knots and arms locked together to the local tavern drinking more wine. When it finally got late I was allured to follow him into his apartment a classy one bedroom with a double bed, rose flowers on each window ledge. There is another classy rose wine bottle on the table and a room of old books. We sit on the sofa watching movies, eating chocolate and sipping on wine. My head begins to spin, lose some focus. Could this really be love or was this just another drunken lusting daze? I droop to his shoulders; He recites bits of his own poem, I can’t help but stare into his deep eyes when he reads them, I look up again at his moist lips when he reads out aloud the final words. I yearn to snog him or for at least him to make that first move. I feel dizzy and high on red blooded wine and cigars. I could then feel him starting to kiss the temples of my neck and feel his soft teeth mingle and bite leaving small indented marks on my neck. I draw even closer towards his mouth; I can feel his beard tickle me. I love to taste him, love that aroma! He tastes of dimly lit cigars which mingle with my fruity perfume. At this point I feel that the ember inside surround and heat up my whole body. I want him to really light me up so I can explode into them blue flames. I begin to clench up my body as he bites my neck, we both kiss frantically. He whispers into my ears and begins to nibble on them. We end up huddled up together in bed! The window reflects that the sun is approaching, he sits on top of me staring at me blankly in silence. He takes time to admire my calm sleepy concrete clay features.

He knows that when the sun comes up that everlasting rainbow of color we created together will begin to melt and transform back into monochrome. It just comes to the end. we know we can not argue, we must leave each other. I know I must say the two forbidden words. The very two words that turn me back into this empty corpse. I hate them; I greet him with a long lost embrace, the in-completed hug and the final words to end everything! Bon- Voyage At the same time trying to hold myself together, I leave on that last train, feeling tired and drained but only for a second. The whispers of his voice fill up the station crying out… KIMMY, kimmy... kimmy! . They echo out and embrace me again, they always make me smile.

I catch the last train back to Calais then head off home to stormy England. I never feel sad to leave him or the place behind because I will always remember him. Just as any dying whisper, music of buskers, words of a poem. The bond you share is never really gone it ignites again to finally burn on eternally.

Allured by the witchcraft of your auburn curls,
hit by the corners of those swift piscine eyes,
submitted to your canoodling with my secret desires;
the last straw was your pouty, luscious, ruby lips!

she touches me and i am lost
in her hair, her mouth,
her eyes, her skin—
she is quicksand, she is oasis.
she speaks to me and i am allured
her voice lily of the valley,
daring tongue soft and subtle
lethal as i drink her in
no longer can i give anyone else
what i so eagerly give to her

Thy effigy was so charming
It can grips a heart
Thy face of youthfulness
It can tranquilized a war

Many roses envied thee
Their complaints was loudly burst
That blessed was unjust
That you owned a beauty, to them ugliness

Thy prettiness a weapon
Can  slave a kingdom
But it feared someone
The monstrous beast - the time

Thy beauty was rotten
The one that allured thousand kings
Thy effulgence doom
A star that used to be dream...


written: July 31, 2001 at 7:00 pm

Mysterious Aries

Step into my world & see what I see
Suit up in my armor & role play me
Once there, you’ll be shocked & alarmed
When you see him, allured & charmed
You’ll see my love through stormy eyes
Hold your ground, you may be surprised
For in my world, it is only him that is there
But, you’ll discover his love he does not share
He is the storm in my eyes, furious & surging
But, the fire in my heart continues my yearning
You’ll feel the way it jumps out of my chest
In my passionate world, not such a thing as rest
For I will not rest until his love does return
I’ve acquired to him watching me as I burn
From the fire within him I become impaired
He is a bit frightening, but don’t be scared
Just suit up in my armor, don’t make a sound
Take a walk in my world on my alluvial ground
It may be left destroyed from his endless rain
So try being me, I bet you can’t handle the pain
Though you'll have my armor big & strong
Darling even with that, you won't last **long.

The twilight’s inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my ******, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running, till the night was black,
Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand
And quiver with the winds from off the sea?
Ah, quietly the shingle waits the tides
Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me
Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.
I crept and touched the foam with fevered hands
And cried to Love, from whom the sea is sweet,
From whom the sea is bitterer than death.
Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more
To thee, God’s daughter, powerful as God,
It is that thou hast made my life too sweet
To hold the added sweetness of a song.
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
I hold my peace, my Cleïs, on my heart;
And softer than a little wild bird’s wing
Are kisses that she pours upon my mouth.
Ah, never any more when spring like fire
Will flicker in the newly opened leaves,
Shall I steal forth to seek for solitude
Beyond the lure of light Alcæus’ lyre,
Beyond the sob that stilled Erinna’s voice.
Ah, never with a throat that aches with song,
Beneath the white uncaring sky of spring,
Shall I go forth to hide awhile from Love
The quiver and the crying of my heart.
Still I remember how I strove to flee
The love-note of the birds, and bowed my head
To hurry faster, but upon the ground
I saw two wingèd shadows side by side,
And all the world’s spring passion stifled me.
Ah, Love, there is no fleeing from thy might,
No lonely place where thou hast never trod,
No desert thou hast left uncarpeted
With flowers that spring beneath thy perfect feet.
In many guises didst thou come to me;
I saw thee by the maidens while they danced,
Phaon allured me with a look of thine,
In Anactoria I knew thy grace,
I looked at Cercolas and saw thine eyes;
But never wholly, soul and body mine,
Didst thou bid any love me as I loved.
Now I have found the peace that fled from me;
Close, close, against my heart I hold my world.
Ah, Love that made my life a lyric cry,
Ah, Love that tuned my lips to lyres of thine,
I taught the world thy music, now alone
I sing for one who falls asleep to hear.

She had seen him there
At the party
Dark eyes watching her
From the corner
As she danced

He had not been there
When she left
Dark skies blanketed her
And stars lit the way
As she began her walk home

She had not taken this path before
To get home
A glowing field allured her
With nearly fluorescent flowers
So she took this shortcut

He had seen her approaching
Full of new memories
Then stopping
Hesitating to make the decision
To go left through the field

She had soon felt him
Among the treacherous flowers
His dark presence in the wind
His words soon blended in
As he moved in closer

He had not lingered
To see her awaken
On the grass outside the field
Red mixed in yellow
**** seed dust

Innumerable aeons ago,
in the unformed valleys,
on the barren land,
two beings were born.
  From the roots of the elm,
and through the earth,
raised as man and woman,
with flesh were they adorned.

Oh what a sight it was,
the first breath of life,
the start of two worlds,
both so deftly intertwined.
  And once formed,
they glanced at each other.
It was beauty infinite,
to their new-formed minds

The man being braver,
took the first step.
Unaccustomed to feet,
he swayed and staggered.
  The woman being gentle,
took the second step.
Reached tentatively to him,
and fell upon the heather.

Both lay upon the grass,
and contemplated the next move.
But of this they were sure,
one they must be from two.
  He stood up weakly again,
pulled her to her feet.
Thus they stood as one,
and trode upon the dew.

Unknown to them,
was a vast unexplored land
to which they hitherto went
walking together always.
  They did not stop,
fearing the giant expanse.
Dark as otherworldly nights,
bright as unseen summer days.

Treading together
they discovered wonders.
About the living land
and more about the other.
  The woman saw more,
as she was observant.
The man learned skills,
for he was stronger.

After many rises and falls,
of the great warm disk,
They arrived at a great cave
near the shores of the blue serpent.
  It welcomed them
with the warmth of endurance.
With sanctuary and a haven,
where they finally laid.

Soon the giant expanse,
parted and poured water.
Sooner, the warm disk,
became even warmer.
  Then trees bared themselves,
and the earth withered.
The breath of the air,
would cause them to shiver.

And through the seasons,
she observed and he learned;
all that they could,
of their serene world.
  He would rise with the sun,
bring berries and fruits.
She would feed them,
and thus life did unfurl.

Now they had all they wanted,
comfort, safety and a home.
As human tendencies go,
they moved to each other.
  He would often see her,
singing to the air.
She would often see him,
in their heavenly slumber together.

Here was a woman,
who could tame beasts.
Here was a woman,
who raised bounty from the earth.
  She would sing and dance,
and the flowers would bloom.
She would sing in the cave,
warming heart and hearth.

Wherever she went,
life would follow.
If there was none,
she would be a new mother.
  Life into trees,
life into bones.
Life she would pour,
whenever she would sing.

And before he knew it,
he could not breathe.
Without her voice,
he became weak.
  And so it went without doubt,
she was the one he wanted.
Much more than his life,
his mate, his Eve.

Ten moons later,
while sitting under a tree.
Said he to her,
his heart with her heals.
  Through emptiness, loneliness,
and through hurt and pain.
Through heat, through cold,
through fall, through rain.

Her voice pierces all,
all gloom and despair.
It sets this man free,
from his flesh-bound lair.
  She brings bounty,
of the earth to their dwelling.
Fruits, nuts and flowers,
oh, so sweet smelling.

Her words are commands,
to beasts and birds alike.
This man before her,
his heart too, she did strike.
  He has waited,
watched, wondered and awed.
The ethereal voice she possesses,
fire from a dragon's maw.

He has watched her,
be one with nature.
He has seen her,
walking hither and tither.
  Her hair shimmers,
in the moon like a blaze.
Cascading falls of black,
his eyes stay fazed.
  She could not be Earthly,
of this he was sure.
Made for a higher meaning,
by her, he was to be allured.
  This was intended,
to flourish and to live
He loved her so, the tamer of beasts,
nothing could take her away from him.

Stay still, like a stone, he said
so this man can caress you.
Let him come closer,
'tis time for what is due.
  And as their lips met,
the withered fall transformed.
Spring came forth,
all dead life morphed.

Unable to keep silent,
God himself came forth.
Planted an immortal orchard,
of Apples before the two betrothed.
  Said he to her then,
we must never go unto the garden.
Defiant, the bearer of life, the woman said,
unwise it is to ignore the fruits laden.

So she passed, having said that
while he was left with his cries.
For what good are pleas and somber begging
to deaf ears and blind eyes?
  And as her toes bore her weight,
she plucked the ripest of the fruit.
Whilst the man's unheard shouts,
all they were to her were moot.

And before his eyes,
his love withered and died.
Disobedience with Deathly price,
the Apple from her fist he pried.
  He savored the juice it spilled,
ecstatic revelry of immediate sorrow.
How could he have walked alone,
in now an unwanted tomorrow.

Thus it came to pass,
that Magna Mater and Pater ceased.
Parents to Kingdoms to come,
the original Sinners before their children-to-be.
  As I sit here and wonder,
of the lovely sin, ancient and arcane.
God pardon me tonight,
For my Eve, I would have done the same..

At daybreak, the messenger was killed by my hand;
I grasped and cleaved the life where it once grew,
Claiming it selfishly for my own eyes to view.
Violet allured and the desire began to expand.
Each morning the secret scent of future days
Secretes whirlwinds of intoxicating haze.
A lustful hunger overtook what was planned.
Before snapping root to stem, a final call ­before the knell:
The delicate crocuses whispered, “Spring,” then softly fell.

The scent of the pollen allured her, hanging in the still air of the morning. She would stop in her travel and visit each flower that she found. The precious nectar oozed from deep within the petals and she would thirstily drink at each one. She would gently land in the scented shade of each blossom and coax the precious nourishment from it. She never gorged, but rather drank from each flower what it was willing to give. Some were full and over ripe and bursting with the honeyed juice. Others had a smaller treasure, but she would drink lovingly of their gift leaving them an offering of pollen as a thanks. Her small, delicate tongue would gently lick and probe the recesses of the flower hunting the sweetness inside. The pollen on her coat would touch with the very deepest innards of the bloom and enter its very core. Her gift, as she suckled each part, was imparted into the scented womb of the softly petaled blossom. Each flower awaited her coming and spread wide it’s scented opening for her to enter. Their swollen pistils would be gorged with the potential for life and their gently glistening stamens would tempt her to feed on their sticky juices. The soft buzzing of her wings caressed the delicate parts of the fragrant blooms with a gentle breeze as she drank her sustenance. She sheltered in the colored shade of petals, hung round her like colored sheets, as she took what each one had to offer. When she was done she would move on to the next, slowly and deliberately milking the juice of life from each one. Every flower needed her and each one did what it could to tempt her in. Some threw heavy fragrance into the air so she could catch their scent while others bared their large and swollen glands so she could see their abundance. She traveled from bloom to bloom, sometimes enticed by the shaded shelter, and other times the sight of glistening pollen. But she fed on each one, large and small, and in each one she left her gift. The pollen that she carried would be imparted on each ***** stamen as she fed. The glistening end of the shaft was soft and sticky and waiting for the pollen that would carry on its life. While she fed each day, there was a gardener who tended to her plants. He took gentle care of them, weeding and pruning and tending to their needs. The flowers that she fed on were his future sustenance and he tended her as well. He would follow her sometimes through his garden and watch as she gently buzzed from plant to plant. She was used to his watchful eyes as he watched her drink from each bloom. He knew that his crop depended on her and he would peer into the bedding of petals as she caressed the sweetness from each one with her tongue. Her long tongue would probe deep into the recesses of the fragrant flower and find every drop of nectar. The gardener watched as she carried on the cycle of life for him and would wait for days to see the swollen fruits of her labor burgeoning from his plants. When she left each flower satisfied with their delicious treat, she would fly off to the next, not knowing that a seed would be swelling in the gorged pistil that she just left. And so it went as the bee buzzed her life away every day. The gardener would be there among his carefully tended crops, watching and waiting as she moved among the flowers. His gaze would follow her as she traveled through the foliage and landed amongst the blooms. Every day he would watch as she coaxed the sweet nectar from each one and left her gift in return.

Back and forth do I sway, an unfamiliar ripple has disrupted my directionless flow. Curiosity; an attribute I all too well, know.
I am a mallard.
Following the trail of nourishment, it has led me to you...The bread giver.
Beautifully unfamiliar you are, allured by your whisper.
Nearer do I drift so unsure, for you stand ashore, so certain in manner.
I am but a mallard.
Limited is my understanding, for I hardly float, and you stand.
I, on water; you on land. Dusk draws close, be where you need to be, bread giver. The edge waiting for you I will be.
I long for your nourishment. At dawn I will learn to stand with you.
For I am just a mallard.

I'd like to tell you
the story of the eyes
that changed my world.

It wasn't hazel but instead
it was sunken bloodshot eyes.
His eyes were heavy-lidded and
fringed with incredibly long lashes.

It was deep and empty yet
it was penetrating my soul.
Invitingly mysterious and all
I could think of the first time
I laid my eyes on it,
I was love-struck.

It was restless yet it
makes me breathless.
Allured by a round burning
brown-eyed.
I for sure was bewitched by
his unusual ***** of sight.

I was lost in a hollow
passage of his soul.
The colors that are painted
beneath his eyelids was full of
sorrows and chaos.
They are beautiful but
it was cold and dark in it.

It carries his heart and
draws everything in it.
It captures all that I am
and makes me see things
some can't.

A hurricane in his eyes yet
it laid my nerves calm.
A very familiar and miraculous
jellylike pair in a bony orbit.
It harbor the lonely skies,
enigmatic as the universe
itself.

His eyes were unconquerable.
You get lost and you get found.

His hands
My thighs
A combination of two worlds intertwined
Abiding by each millisecond to entice

His crystal eyes
Darting
My body
Allured, oh the stare that’s daunting

Sitting, untouched
Warm summer breeze
Lips compromised
Bodies emerging

My head
His chest
Speaking the unspeakable
It’s almost surreal to digest

Attached, don't want to let go
Extraordinary illusions undergo
Am mesmerized, am in awe
Oh darling, please carry on

When the cloud that once wandered over your vale,
leave you alone in the dale,
you weep for a friend that is lost;
when your tree is conquered by wintry frost,
and your misery is mounted by choices,
that is when you are allured by the voices.
Of shadows that pull you down,
of the oblivion that makes you frown,
and of your beloved that was once kissed,
and the endless starry nights that are now missed,
your wandering clouds are now pouring,
and the sheep that was hurt in now roaring.

The chants of your sadness are being sung,
at night in the pine of the young,
and the sun of your valley has now fled,
for your cloudless clime has bled.
The muses of your poems are now stuck,
in the cup of fate where wine is found with luck,
you yourself stand on the hill screaming all the night,
and in the morning you seek your own fading light.
You wander the roads seeking acceptance and love,
but, do you not know, it is of your black dove,
that you seek of its approval for it is a part of you,
you think it’s dead, but it never flew.
O respect the yesterday, and bow to today,
for tomorrow you will do as you may.
O to live today, and tomorrow at the same,
and to cast every star with your name.