Enthusiast is a bit of an understatement,
My friend Claire could tell you that;
As we hiked from the West coast to the East coast of Scotland
At night she read "normal things" - while I read maps.

Of course I needed to be sure of the route,
But after 25 miles of walking that wasnt all-
I'd spend at least 3 hours staring and staring
The roads, the woods, the rivers, hostels, churches, pubs and schools....

In fact night after night I spent,
So long engrossed,
That after five nights,
I had one of the strangest dreams ever experienced.

I was "in" an OS map -
Walking a yellow road, past big red triangles,
Counting contours,
And heading straight for the strangest of all -
Just across the red road, the enormous half filled pint glass
- the public house of course!

Surreal dream that was,
But also great fun,
I was in an OS map...
One without people - I was the only one

I did ease up on the map reading after,
Thought I might start hallucinating otherwise,
Claire already thought I was slightly mad,
If I told her we needed to shelter from the rain in the giant pint glass - well, as I said, she already knew I was mad!

But my obsession is not limited to OS maps,
Oh no, its the entire World Atlas;
Continents, Countries, Oceans and territories,
Nothing escapes my attention in the World Atlas.

I have so so many maps,
Because people keep changing things,
From the names of Countries and places
To minor details...bridges...silly little things.

I have a map that says USSR,
The Soviet Union so large,
Now I have another with Russia,
Belarus, Estonia, Ukraine, and others that re-emerged.

Even isolated places like Greenland
People cant make up their mind,
Is it Nuuk or Godthaab?
They are both still there to confuse the mind.

I had a map with Zaire,
Once the biggest country in Africa,
Its now the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Needed to amend my map of Africa.

Ok, all maps up to date;
Just when I can rest my map brain...
Sudan is then split in two!!
Get out the map Emma - quick - draw a line!!

I dont know what I think would happen
If my maps were not up to date;
But I just cant take the risk,.
I have to change them before its too late.

Most recent of course was Swaziland,
How? Why? When?!
Its ok, i've read about it now,
And I understand...let me get my pen.

But Swaziland is so tiny
Now I need to write eSwatini (!)
My map is now such a mess
Time for a new one? No not yet - Swaziland has not yet changed like the rest!

I have to wait for cartographers
To catch up and make all the changes,
Or otherwise i'll only trust my own map
The one with scribbles all over the pages.

Its not just on a Country scale
Such changes do confuse us,
For even in South Africa alone -
New names replaces the oldies.

Port Elizabeth,
Now Nelson Mandela Bay;
I think its wonderful,
But its not what my map says!

Umtata became Mthata;
Another very welcome change,
But that one letter is on my mind...
Quick - cross out the "u"...in case we go insane!

Nothing is more messed up in my guide books,
Which consist almost exclusively of maps
Than the city of Durban....
Street names have changed...but "not quite yet"

I picked up a local map,
And not shown in the one I carried
- Its still in process of "changing",
So two names there are for almost every road!

Pretoria became Tshwane,
Again I agree with the name change,
But by now the maps in my book
Make so little sense - it could be mistaken for Adelaide!

I wont go into Rhodesia,
There have been so many changes across Africa,
But if they were before I was born,
It somehow doesnt seem so much to matter...

I only get frustrated with
Things that I know,
Before 1980 -
I had no maps to know.

I'd be talking about the Transkei, the Ciskei,
The Orange Free State and all,
More recent but left in the past -
I have none of those on my walls.

I focus more on Africa,
as most will know i'm a bit obsessed,
Being from a British Island on the African Plate,
...with Ascension drifting away with America...albeit very slow.

The Mid Atlantic Ridge runs between them,
From Iceland to the South Pole,
Dividing the Continental plates,
St Helena and Ascension came out of a hole...

My mind drifts a little to Asia,
Although I dont know it as well,
But...is it Burma or Myanmar now?
And is Palestine shrinking still?

Islands cause much fascination,
Being an Islander myself,
But mine is just the tip of a volcano,
The map doesnt show anything else.

As far as Islands go - the Atlantic is easy,
Try staring at the Pacific,
Such a vast and empty ocean,
Hides many secrets...more than the Atlantic.

You may think St Helena isolated,
But only till your eyes enter the Pacific,
It might be a huge mostly empty ocean,
But the vast Island chains are prolific.

There are fracture zone after fracture zone,
Creating Island chains and coral atolls;
From the Coral sea of Australia,
To the Galapagos of South America.

There's Polynesia, there's Melanesia,
Micronesia too;
And within these - hundreds of Islands...
And yes - I've tried to count them too..

We look for other British Islands,
Pitcairn - the most isolated of all;
And what a sorry story to tell..
About 60 people and half of them in jail...

Sometimes im desperately trying to find an Island
To replace my British non-British Island;
Those who think im mad loving South Africa-
Wont even begin to understand.

But this poem is not about emotion,
So i'll mention that no more,
Its more about Geography
- too many Islands to explore.

Staring at the Pacific
Can occupy at least three sleepless nights,
Remembering the names of the islands -
Is a much more difficult plight.

Most heart breaking about this Ocean,
Is the Islands being lost;
Populations having to leave,
As sea levels rise and coral islands are lost...

I think I have found my location,
or a few i'd give a try,
On a large map they simply appear as "bumps"
Surrounded by bigger Islands, and the ocean wide

Sleepless nights have drawn me to Tokelau;
A tiny territory of New Zealand;
Three beautiful coral atolls...
But oh so far from New Zealand.

Less than one thousand people,
Yet with their own language,
The closest Island is Samoa,
That boat journey for me would be a privilege...

The Island has 100% clean energy,
With so few people to sustain,
It's setting an example for the World,
Tokelau looks like "paradise" on my map....if I had to give it a new name...

Indigenous people full of colour,
Flowers round their necks and some clothes a recent thing,
They even have their own musical culture,
Its only mass worry is rising tides - and the flat atolls eventually submerging....

There is another island I look at,
With its tribal peoples far more "untouched",
It really is like a land time forgot,
Although it does have an airport..

It is the Island of "Mog-Mog"...
Yes...I didnt make that up..
It really does exist,
Although I admit it took me years to discover on my map...

I wont mention where it is,
I dont want to give it away;
My maps are full of secrets,
And that is how some should stay.

You can visit from Tahiti,
Which is more like France than its surrounds;
But Mog-Mog is a totally different world,
Dont be fooled by Tahiti - Mog-Mog is part of the "untouched surrounds"

I could talk about these Islands forever,
As even I have not discovered them all,
But I have to finish with the Indian Ocean,
The Chagos Islands are British afterall...

What happened to the Chagossians
was a cruel sin of humankind,
Not just ST Helena suffers at the hands of the British
- Chagossians were forced to leave their Isle behind...

To make way for an American Air base,
Ascension - how familiar does that sound?!
The story of the Chagossian tragedy
Must touch every Islander to be found...

The Chagossians also inspire us however,
For fifty years on they are still fighting,
Fighting to return to their homeland,
Now a heavily guarded secret is their homeland...

My people however dont seem to care,
And that does make me sad;
This is another British Island
Not in the Atlantic, or Caribbean - but that does not make it bad...

The powers at be are so evil
That even after the fifty year lease was up..
The British just signed yet another...
As for the Islanders - they just want forgot...

I support the Chagossian people,
In their desperate fight to go home,
Even after deportation-
Their British Citizenship rights are next to none...

I am not proud of my motherland either,
And im not the only one;
I dont consider myself even British,
I dont "worship" my motherland like some...

I see what is really happening,
In St Helena and other "Crown Territories",
Just take a moment to look at them all....
and let me know if you find any that are totally "free"...

....oppression comes in many forms....

........................Nomkhumbulwa...

PART I: ADRIFT

Madness passed Misery
and bumped into me.
We travel together now,
Islands lost at sea.

Ahead, Tomorrow rides,
pinned to the sunrise.
Yesterday dogs us,
marking our tides.

Empty atolls pass
on windborne paths.
Now homes to only bones;
more dead outcasts.

The Ocean never laments
or attempts to make sense.
We just wander across it
until living relents.

PART II: VAGRANT

Lagoon to lagoon,
harboring my tether.
Giving me shelter
from daily storms.

Lost in the masts,
a paper boat.
Taking on water...
as expected.

A lucky hook
snares the soggy craft.
Dried and opened:
a cry for          .

When no reply came,
a folded flotilla
Whitened the water,
a cry now screaming.

This harbor now empties.
My travels resume.

PART III: DREAM

The sea fades to gulls, and then,
a delta rushed with mountainfulls.
I've become a salmon fighting upstream,
an island lost in a riverbed dream.

When cold hits the desert,
I'll go to Kwajalein.
I'll go to Kwaj.
I'll go in a Micronesian jet,
and I'll ride a rusted bike.
I'll go to Kwaj,
and the bougainvillea will sing.
Oh the blue eyed lagoon
     at Emmon beach.
I'll go to Kwaj.
And the palm trees will bow to the wind.
Barbecue air.
Plumaria and Parties.
Turtles in the pit
     and milk truck shuttles.
I'll go to Kwaj
     like I always said I would.
Crescent island and
     windside waves.
Bicycle rush hour.
Coral sand and coral reefs.
I'll go to Kwaj.

Ben Sanders sat in his final days
By his cottage, up on the bluff,
He’d spent his life as a rover, and
He said, ‘I can’t get enough!
The sea, the sea, the lure of the sea,
It whispers at my front door,
And calls to me, here up on the bluff,
‘Come down, come down to the shore!’’

‘But I can’t go down and I won’t go down
For I daren’t go down, you see,
Not since I was caught in the maelstrom
When the seabed beckoned to me,
My mate had clung to the mast, while I
Had lashed myself to the rail,
And he went down to the stony ground
Along with the yards and sail.’

‘I hear the sound in my ears still
The roar of the whirling pool,
I’d cried, ‘Let go of the iron chest,
But he’d not let go, the fool.
It was filled with gold and pieces of eight,
Dubloons and precious stones,
It carried him down to an awful fate
Is spread, all over his bones.’

‘But I clung on ‘til the turn of the tide
I could almost touch the ground,
My head was spinning, deep in the pool
As the ship whirled round and round,
But then the tide began to subside
And I said goodbye to Bjork,
For then the ship rose up to the lip
And popped right up like a cork.’

‘We’d sailed forever the Spanish Main
The ship, Bjork and me,
And searched the atolls of rocks and sand
Of the Caribbean sea,
We found the treasure that Blackbeard hid
In a shaft, six fathoms deep,
Then Bjork had pined for Norwegian lands,
Said, ‘What we’ve got, we’ll keep!’

‘The further north that we sailed, the sea
Grew surly in its ride,
The waves crashed over the foredeck and
They tossed us, side to side,
The squalls came in and the rain came down
And we had to reef the sail,
The water rose in the bilge, until
I thought we’d have to bail.’

‘But then one night it was flat and calm
And the water lapped below,
I heard the voice of a siren then
That whispered, sweet and low:
‘Come down,’ she said, ‘you can rest your head
And give up your earthly seat,
But lie instead on a seaweed bed
With a mermaid at your feet.’’

‘I think of Bjork on the ocean bed
Though I don’t know where he lies,
His bones are covered with precious stones
With two dubloons for his eyes,
I’ve never been back to the sea since then
For I fear it, more and more,
As still it whispers on moonlit nights
‘Come down, come down to the shore!’’

Ben Sanders sat in his final days
By his cottage, facing the sea,
He seemed remote, but a final note
That he wrote was left for me.
‘My days of watching the sea are done,
I think that I’ve had enough!’
And then he strode as the tide arose
And walked, right over the bluff.

David Lewis Paget

(Inspired by E. A. Poe’s ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom).

Across the water he skates with feet of clay. Frigid eels in his veins, they slither under his skin. His blood is volcanic ice. His forehead is an avalanche. His eyes are frozen atolls. His soul is made of liquid nitrogen. Dancing, he's the creature 10000 Leagues Under the Sea. At rest the iceberg that wrecked the Titanic. Don't come near him ladies. He comes off as a nice little cuttlefish. But he will lash out with his whip pads, ****** you into his ***** beak, and glomb on with every sucker he owns.
He's a real masher, the Disco Slasher, Mr Goodbar X 10. Comes off as a "Nice Guy".
Comes off as a "Friend". But watch out for his Frozen tentacles. They will be your END.


SoulSurvivor
(c) 3/10/2016

À Manoel de Barros

PSAUME I

Tapi dans la mangrove, bondissant...sautant-matant

Le ciel aux trois-quarts nu

De giraumon, de pissat et de sang...

Assis sur le trottoir, le ciel tousse

Kein-hein kein-hein

Ivre de parfums rouges errants,

De brocarts et de confettis à ses trousses.

Assis à marée basse, électrique...

Insensible aux chevaux des dieux

Qui tournoient

Au-dessus des tambours

Qui chavirent

Insensibles

Aux orgues charnelles

Des moites guérisseuses...

Le ciel caracole,

Glisse, contorsionniste,

Mascarade immobile

Démêlant le cours des amours burlesques

Entre les atolls obscurs

De pistaches et de bonbons,

D’anges et de démons...

Cabriole, tiède et poisseux,

Cisaille à contre-jour

L’orpailleur en transe

Aboyant dans le sérail de mes âmes

Sevrées, esseulées...

L’aube culbute

Dans les lambeaux du gouffre

Dans les calypsos du soleil

D’où sourdent, dégénérées,

Les jambes et les larmes

Qui fraient encore, exotiques

Sur les pilotis

Du carnaval nocturne

D’où va saillir le jour.

PSAUME II

Il pleut sur le kiosque des songes

Des encres mornes

Comme des brindilles

Enfantées de l’œuf tiède

Où s’aimante

Délicieusement noire

La mygale

Fleuve des nuages

Qui emballe

De son ouate ludique

Le rayon nain

Dérobé

Au serpent arc-en-ciel

Enfin rassasié

PSAUME III

Tellurique, dame Terre esquive les amarres

Effervescentes. Le ciel, hameçon entre les îles,

Rayonne, entonne l’odyssée perpétuelle,

Pion libre dans l’espace

Sempiternellement baigné par les baumes

Incendiaires du soleil obèse, son jumeau

Complice des moissons violées, œcuménique,

Humble, jadis et toujours, Terre :

Oasis, océan, oxygène, oeil

Revêtu d’or, jardin où les ombres basses

Exultent, balbutiant des airs amnésiques..."

PSAUME IV

Rebelle lascive

Telle la lune blette

Suçant les corps subtils

Des mangues sauvages

Enroulées dans la pluie d’obsidienne...

Courtisane de toutes les brousses

Avaleuse de poisson vivant

Pour mieux apprendre à nager

Dans les moues du fleuve douillet...

Les lacets se cabrent, dans un baiser de peaux, de tôles et de croix

Les laves du dernier décan affleurent,

Saupoudrent l’écloserie de marbre humide

Et la pellicule humide de feu cru

Enfouit les dieux écartelés

Aux moues du fleuve endiablé..."

PSAUME V

Soudain pagayer dans le vent et découdre l’odeur légère de la forêt

Chasser les désirs cueillis dans la poudre des oiseaux rares

Et repriser dans les entrailles des pétales juteux...

Puis amarrer à la lumière verticale des matins

Un éclair avec le mot “boum”.

PSAUME VI

"Nomades, où sont les nuits ?"

Grince l’arc débandé du soleil

Embrassé à la portée de cristal

Des nuages en menstrues...

Peut-être que la nuit décante
Blottie dans le nid du large

Faite une enfant, se vautre

Sous les flottilles de jasmin

Dévastant les marées,

Traquant le ressac du temps...

Peut-être que la nuit accouche
Bien après les chaleurs

Faite une gueuse, brise

De son cœur de soprano

Les rames de glace de la lune qui s’épand

Dans un banc d’aquarelles...

Ou peut-être, la nuit, peut-être

La nuit, lisse et lasse,

Allaite les étoiles prises

Aux moustiquaires de cendre

Où le ciel foudroyé

Bat en retraite la chamade.

Peut-être qu’elle arraisonne
Les frêles écailles de l’orgasme total

Pour que nul ne sache

Qu’elle est née sans nombril,

Pour que nul ne sache

Qu’elle est grosse d’un jour

Au goût de sel...

PSAUME VII

"Abysses en vue !" vocifère l’huile en larmes

Faisant voler dans l’onguent vagabond

Les feux follets sortis de leur miroir,

Condors de phosphore, cyclones désemparés

Où se bousculent, palefrenières distraites,

Les couleurs qui rient en allant au supplice...

En chapelets, la lumière débouche, foule, broute,

S’autodévore sous la caresse des truelles,

Moud les étincelles, les taches, les brèches

En route vers le seuil du sacrifice,

Et dans l’embellie de l’œil

Éclot le prétendant buriné

Dans l’apothéose du matin soigneusement peint...

PSAUME VIII

Noyée dans la saumure en flammes

Du soir délicieusement grand ouvert, l’indicible lueur

Cloîtrée dans son écrin liquide

Jalonné de boues, moustiques et palétuviers,

Harponne la braise moribonde de charbon rose

Innombrable qui serpente dans le cirque de sable

A force de nager, à force de nager

Éternellement à joncher les grèves de l’arc-en-ciel.

PSAUME IX

Dans la baie, un sein vert flambe

Campant dans un bain de coton...

L’écho, hypnotique, tourne, tourne, prolifique...

Ô îles, les îles

Notes en menottes, ailes balafrées,

Miels de sel, fiels de ciel...

Ô îles, les îles

Filaments de mangue, eaux assoiffées

Larmes chaudes de tambours incoagulables...

Ô îles, les îles

D’où venez-vous, miettes de sang ?

Comment vous êtes-vous posés, papillons,

Au milieu de la grande termitière d’or bleu ?

PSAUME X

Kaki, dans le jour rectiligne,

Le soleil, bibelot tiède et omniprésent,

Affalé dans les sortilèges

De la pluie ensorceleuse..

.
Incrustée dans son terrier maternel,

Luciole équilibriste,

A demi ivre souffre l’espérance,

Soufflant des goélettes de papier...

Les lunes se rétractent lestes et faibles,

La visibilité est bonne

De chenaux en détroits, vont, naufragées,

En débandade, les voluptés,

Roues flamboyantes

Dilacérant les haillons allumés

Des orbites sismiques..

PSAUME XI

Zéro heure, la chauve cascade

Où le délire se découd

Dans les courbes de l’ennui...

Zéro heure, l’édentée

Déchirant les échos

Des obsèques de minuit...

Zéro heure, poupée

Aptère, assoupie

A l’ombre des rêves...

Cartomancienne hérétique

Châtrant les éruptions chagrines,

Châtrant, multipliant les yeux

Vers les plages pourpres...

Zéro heure, nymphe sourde

Défunte à la canne bossue,

Hissant le grand pavois

De la couleur polyphonique,

L’accord,

La peau du poète,

Éclipse magique

De tous les déluges...

PSAUME XII

Songes dans l’extrême sud

Monochromatique

Ancres tapissées,

Couples éteints, inflorescences...

Chevaux cardiaques

Occultés dans un nid lunaire...

Passager de la nef du fou

Fouetté par le roi si bémol

Qui monte à l’échafaud...

Battements rupestres,

Sentiers crevant les lieues

Au rythme des ailes de nuages...

La pluie soudain s’est tue

La liesse s’est tue soudain

Dilapidée dans ce jour rongé...

PSAUME XIII

Éteint dans la lumière, le portraitiste

Brûle l’absence mate,

La suie insolite...

La haute mer se dilue..

L’arche hiberne aussi **** que porte la vie

Dans son sanctuaire de sève

Où la terre saigne ses eaux bouclées

Qui écument des épaves de pierre

Aussi **** que porte la vie.

PSAUME XIV

Les îles du matin m’embrassent

Après une nuit de lune rase

Le ronflement du rayon

Macule en naissant le chœur torride

De l’alcôve qui s’écaille émaillée.

Entre traits, tracés et rayures

Flottent des oranges polymorphes

A portée des mains...

Sous la ménagerie de ses eaux poissonneuses

La gomme méthylique du soleil

Frotte dans le bassin d’étincelles

L’orchestre infime de ce lointain carnaval renié

Qui crépite, savonné...

Entre gravillons et bulles

Flottent des oranges polymorphes

A portée des mains...

Devant l’horloge en rut

Se signent les orangers...

Le soleil consent à la lune

La mare de feu

Greffée dans le pouls vivace de l’ombre ivre...

Entre ruines et volutes

Flottent des oranges polymorphes

Scandaleusement

A portée des mains...

PSAUME XV

Le matin nage, innombrable

Salamandre aux cent venins de verre

Qui se distillent dans une encre de cendres

Offertes au soleil insatiable...

Dans le calice débordant

Des récoltes que la nuit

Ne grignote qu’à moitié,

Les sargasses du désir plongent,

Cinglant le silence des incohérences...

Hilare, la lune

Se réveille et butine

Le nectar indigo

Qui s’attarde

Comme une musique rétinienne

Aux confins du jour...

Ainsi emmurés vifs

Dans le flux impénétrable des reflets,

Vont à l’aveuglette

Dans le palais des singes volants

L’amour et ses tribus aborigènes

Veillant sur la toison rouge du ciel...

PSAUME XVI

Mon deuil échoue à l’aube

Les yeux ouverts sur les laves

De ce volcan éteint

Où s’apaisent les étoiles...

La flèche de l’archer s’évanouit, fauchée...

Le licol de mousseline de l’archipel précieux

Vacille, se dissout,

Orphelin mélancolique

Murmurant des baisers d’aniline

Aux marges du rêve...

Insomnuit d’été

Si seulement je pouvais rêver !

PSAUME XVII

Sur l’échiquier, la nuit chancelle, vénéneuse...

Un vaisseau de pierre au galop s’envole

Au chevet de la mer noyée

Suant la résine...

Sifflotant, le saltimbanque

Éconduit les horizons pétales

Pris du soleil gemme étanche

Dans les écumes du ciel d’étain...

Bientôt, les lunes oscillent

Ondulent, se dérobent frivoles,

L’étalon noir se dissipe

Décochant des flèches en forme de cœur...

Quelque chose se brise dans le noir :

Était-ce un masque ou un miroir ?

Quand luit la dernière tranche d’ombre

Déboussolées, dans la dune de verre, les étoiles

Bégaient...

Les coquilles se détellent de la terre réfractaire...

Le soleil dévastateur s’abreuve de ciel

Cachant les antres de brai...

Tâtant les décadences nacrées

Ointes de sueurs salines

L’amazone enfin répudiée

Chantonne aux aguets

Dans la baie couleur sépia...

PSAUME XVIII

Clic
Hennissement aveugle, l’île

Se déhanche

Toute soie et serpent

Contre l’épi de maïs vert...

Clac
“Marée basse”, dit la reine-mère...

Aucune abeille ne rame,

Ne laboure les pollens de la mer...

Clic
**** des brise-lames

Lisses et bouillonnants

Des crinières sans fin et du goémon,

L’iguane sous la villa jaune...

Le long des bougies

Coule le gouvernail du silence...

Clic
Sous les fleurs délabrées de l’éclair

Dans leur hamac vert

Les vagues veuves, les vagues nues

Courent après les lunes

Et lentement chantent les araignées...

Clic
Parfums de lumière

Qui jouent, jouent, jouent

Se décomposent

Dans une brise d’alcools...

Clic
Chimères de la mer, coup de sifflet final

Rongeant les sables glauques

Les tranchées dans le ciel ouvert

Tapis du soleil et son essaim de sujets...

Clic
La nuit, la mer fructifie

Au ralenti...

PSAUME XIX

"Au feu, au feu !

Feu à la dérive !"

Scandent deux coléoptères...

Le feu fuit !

Le magicien s’est brûlé

A faire sa magie.

Le pôle s’évapore,

Le puits fait l’aumône,

L’enfant aboie,

La moto boite,

La forêt détale,

Le lion se vêt de singe

Noir et doré

Et petit à petit

Va planer

Au-dessus de l’autel fugace

Où gît

Hululant, pullulant, virulent,

Le vol agile craché

Du saxophone ténor...

L’hiver fouette le ciel,

La terre meurt prématurée,

Liane après liane,

Sécrétant comme vestiges

Le tapis de talc

D’une aile de sirène

Et le vertige nuptial

De deux notes jaunes inachevées

Au sein des similitudes.

PSAUME **

Prunelle de gris jaune
Prunelle nuit et mer
Bleu coursier d’argile
Tigresse à la crinière couleur de brume.
Dans le rare verger qu’est l’amour
Audacieuse, elle va, incendiaire
Empaillée dans un paquebot hystérique
Vers le hasard des quais identiques
Les yeux pleins de chaux.

Dans ce chant veuf, dans cette capitale pyromane
La voilà, légère,
Aspirant les équinoxes dans cet air enchaîné
En selle pour un bain d’herbes monastique
Geôlière verte
D’émeraude pure...

PSAUME XXI

L’accordéoniste des abysses
Peint dans l’œil de l’obscur :
Un nuage en zigzaguant
Ancre aux eaux du vide.

Et le gong sue...timide.
Et comme en un tango antique
S’écoule le cri acide

Des teintes atteintes par les balles,
Hoquet du temps incarné
A l’aube d’une pluie sèche de chaleurs vertes.
Et le gong sue...tumide.

Et comme en un tango marin
Caracole la pirogue étoilée du tigre intime
Renversant de son parapluie
Les certitudes les plus ensevelies de la peur.

Et le gong sue...tumide.
Et les papillons enfantent
Des flammes dans les sables mouvants,
Des harpes éoliennes
Comme des gymnastes hués par le soleil en ruines
A la recherche des marées sèches.

Et le gong sue... tumide.
Et comme en un tango de funambules
Les œillères des brebis galeuses
Traversent la toile, vieillissent, exhument le salpêtre
D’un bandonéon dont la sueur incendie les cernes
De la nuit qui jazze...

PSAUME XXII

Tendrement
Le messager lit
Les lignes du vent,
Prend le pouls
Du ventre jaspé
De la basilique d’encre de chine :

-Là-bas, sous les monts de Vénus
Rode le messager,
Troubadour englouti
Par une lave obscure,

Passager invisible
Des failles muettes
Qu’il restaure encore...

Tendrement
Le messager
Harponne
Les coquilles du temps...
A la pointe de l’hameçon,

Un morceau de vitrail
Où à peine filtre
La lueur des entrailles,
On devine soudain
La forme d’un cheval marron
Qui hennit.

PSAUME XXIII

Bleu roi
De ces couleurs pièges.
Bleu de ces teintes imprévisibles.
Issu du venin tribal
Des roses du désert
Le bleu tombe,
Comme un nuage de coton doux,
Sur la brousse atlantique des lèvres
Enflées de secrets,
Où, hystérique, il donne le jour
Sous le kiosque sympathique des pluies cyanes
A une larme de sang,
Daltonienne.

Bleu roi
De ces couleurs mutantes :
Seul le baiser de cobalt réchauffe
Les escales mélancoliques
De ces ailes closes,
Révèle les jeux d’artifice,
Et murmurant des flammes,
Fait évanouir
Le deuil magnétique
Des rênes d’ivoire...

La flèche de l’archer pénètre,
Débridée,
Le voile de mousseline de l’archipel précieux
Qui vacille, se dissout,
Orphelin en suspens, spectre d’aniline
Aux gants d’émeraude
Et aux chaussons d’améthyste...

PSAUME XXIV

Dormir, virgule,
Souffler doucement
Des cases jumelles,
Ramper à nouveau, gigoter,
Jusqu’à ce que tout ne soit plus
Qu’une seule immensité...

Au lieu de l’abîme
La clairière dans la caféière.
Dormir, virgule,
Ça et là,
Lune bleue
Embuée
Sous la baguette du silence...

Le rêve entre et sort

Et jusqu’aux nuages
Craignent la chute
Vers le sommeil...

PSAUME XXV

Les îles et une nuits
Me font chavirer,
Je fuis,
Naufragée inlassable,
Hors du clan tentaculaire
Vers la clarté volatile
Des voiles incendiaires...

Mes nerfs à la fleur du large
Bifurquent,
S’évaporent en filigranes
Plus **** encore...

Bleu nuit devient la mer
Aux portes de son repaire
Ancré à la rive gauche du cœur.

La crique n’est plus ce qu’elle était :
La neige reptile teint les dauphins de rose...
Éden ?
De temps à autre

Passe un trapèze
Balayant le silence.

PSAUME XXVI

Ô Reine, Notre Duc
Sous tes ongles laqués
J’imagine un ciel rouge
Aux parfums de lait de cobra...
Le soleil fait pleuvoir des sceptres sur le fleuve
Et des piranhas aux dents d’eau
Larguent des cerfs-volants sans fin...

“Chantez les très riches heures de l’En-Dehors !”
Crie à la face du levant
Un caméléon qui lisse les ailes du hasard
Planté dans le dédale de ta langue baccarat.

PSAUME XXVII

Près de la passerelle d’ivoire :
“Odyssées,
Métamorphoses,
Mues,
Je vous aime !” "

The passengers from the ‘Bold Dundee’
Were sick as they crawled ashore,
Tossed about in an angry sea
By the God that they knew as Thor.
He’d beat his hammer along their hull,
He’d roared as the thunder clapped,
And ripped the sails from the forward stays
As the sheets and the masts collapsed.

The tide had hidden the rocks from view,
A mist had obscured the shore,
The captain thought he was sailing free
As he’d always done before.
But the ocean swell in its mystery
Hid atolls of murk and myth,
That never appeared on a sailor’s chart
Where the Gods of old still lived.

The ship had shuddered and holed the bow,
Rode up, and sank at the stern,
The swell burst over the after deck
Drowning the crew in turn.
The passengers on the steerage deck
Were swept clean over the side,
Onto the rocks of a thousand wrecks,
But only a few survived.

By dawn that few had struggled ashore,
But the rest of them were dead,
Were floating out on the turn of tide
To rest on the deep seabed,
But Robert Young and his wife Jeanine
Were cast right up on the land,
And so was Emily Wintergreen
And the lad called Adam Shand.

They woke to an alien sunrise,
In a strange, pale purple mist,
And a sound came down from the mountainside
From a thousand years of myth.
A pale white horse bore a surly man
Who was ten feet tall to his head,
And roared, ‘Now bow before Woden, or
By Odin, you will be dead!’

Then striding noisily through the trees
That grew right down to the shore,
Came a giant man, a hammer in hand
Who roared, ‘You can call me Thor!
What brings you here to our hideaway,
To disturb our God’s redoubt?
We left you, hundreds of years away,
Yet now, you seek us out.’

Each one of them bowed, and touched the sand,
‘We don’t know why we’re here.
We didn’t plan it,’ said Adam Shand,
‘It wasn’t our idea.’
‘You turned away from us,’ Woden roared,
‘Sought other gods to please,
Once you were praying to us for help,
Would beg of us, on your knees.’

‘I swear we’ve never forgotten you,
You’re with us, all of our days,
For Woden, you are our Wednesday now,
And that is eternal praise.
While Thor is our every Thursday,
Every week that he comes around,
And Tiw, well he’s become Tuesday
So you’re lost, but you are found.’

The Gods stood back, and then conferred,
‘We’re going to let you go,
But only because you honour us
With your calendar, if that’s so.’
A longboat, free from the wreck came in
And the four of them climbed aboard,
Then waved goodbye to the Isle of Gods,
But at sea, they thanked the Lord!

David Lewis Paget

À Manoel de Barros

PSAUME I

Tapi dans la mangrove, bondissant...sautant-matant

Le ciel aux trois-quarts nu

De giraumon, de pissat et de sang...

Assis sur le trottoir, le ciel tousse

Kein-hein kein-hein

Ivre de parfums rouges errants,

De brocarts et de confettis à ses trousses.

Assis à marée basse, électrique...

Insensible aux chevaux des dieux

Qui tournoient

Au-dessus des tambours

Qui chavirent

Insensibles

Aux orgues charnelles

Des moites guérisseuses...

Le ciel caracole,

Glisse, contorsionniste,

Mascarade immobile

Démêlant le cours des amours burlesques

Entre les atolls obscurs

De pistaches et de bonbons,

D’anges et de démons...

Cabriole, tiède et poisseux,

Cisaille à contre-jour

L’orpailleur en transe

Aboyant dans le sérail de mes âmes

Sevrées, esseulées...

L’aube culbute

Dans les lambeaux du gouffre

Dans les calypsos du soleil

D’où sourdent, dégénérées,

Les jambes et les larmes

Qui fraient encore, exotiques

Sur les pilotis

Du carnaval nocturne

D’où va saillir le jour.

PSAUME II

Il pleut sur le kiosque des songes

Des encres mornes

Comme des brindilles

Enfantées de l’œuf tiède

Où s’aimante

Délicieusement noire

La mygale

Fleuve des nuages

Qui emballe

De son ouate ludique

Le rayon nain

Dérobé

Au serpent arc-en-ciel

Enfin rassasié

PSAUME III

Tellurique, dame Terre esquive les amarres

Effervescentes. Le ciel, hameçon entre les îles,

Rayonne, entonne l’odyssée perpétuelle,

Pion libre dans l’espace

Sempiternellement baigné par les baumes

Incendiaires du soleil obèse, son jumeau

Complice des moissons violées, œcuménique,

Humble, jadis et toujours, Terre :

Oasis, océan, oxygène, oeil

Revêtu d’or, jardin où les ombres basses

Exultent, balbutiant des airs amnésiques..."

PSAUME IV

Rebelle lascive

Telle la lune blette

Suçant les corps subtils

Des mangues sauvages

Enroulées dans la pluie d’obsidienne...

Courtisane de toutes les brousses

Avaleuse de poisson vivant

Pour mieux apprendre à nager

Dans les moues du fleuve douillet...

Les lacets se cabrent, dans un baiser de peaux, de tôles et de croix

Les laves du dernier décan affleurent,

Saupoudrent l’écloserie de marbre humide

Et la pellicule humide de feu cru

Enfouit les dieux écartelés

Aux moues du fleuve endiablé..."

PSAUME V

Soudain pagayer dans le vent et découdre l’odeur légère de la forêt

Chasser les désirs cueillis dans la poudre des oiseaux rares

Et repriser dans les entrailles des pétales juteux...

Puis amarrer à la lumière verticale des matins

Un éclair avec le mot “boum”.

PSAUME VI

"Nomades, où sont les nuits ?"

Grince l’arc débandé du soleil

Embrassé à la portée de cristal

Des nuages en menstrues...

Peut-être que la nuit décante
Blottie dans le nid du large

Faite une enfant, se vautre

Sous les flottilles de jasmin

Dévastant les marées,

Traquant le ressac du temps...

Peut-être que la nuit accouche
Bien après les chaleurs

Faite une gueuse, brise

De son cœur de soprano

Les rames de glace de la lune qui s’épand

Dans un banc d’aquarelles...

Ou peut-être, la nuit, peut-être

La nuit, lisse et lasse,

Allaite les étoiles prises

Aux moustiquaires de cendre

Où le ciel foudroyé

Bat en retraite la chamade.

Peut-être qu’elle arraisonne
Les frêles écailles de l’orgasme total

Pour que nul ne sache

Qu’elle est née sans nombril,

Pour que nul ne sache

Qu’elle est grosse d’un jour

Au goût de sel...

PSAUME VII

"Abysses en vue !" vocifère l’huile en larmes

Faisant voler dans l’onguent vagabond

Les feux follets sortis de leur miroir,

Condors de phosphore, cyclones désemparés

Où se bousculent, palefrenières distraites,

Les couleurs qui rient en allant au supplice...

En chapelets, la lumière débouche, foule, broute,

S’autodévore sous la caresse des truelles,

Moud les étincelles, les taches, les brèches

En route vers le seuil du sacrifice,

Et dans l’embellie de l’œil

Éclot le prétendant buriné

Dans l’apothéose du matin soigneusement peint...

PSAUME VIII

Noyée dans la saumure en flammes

Du soir délicieusement grand ouvert, l’indicible lueur

Cloîtrée dans son écrin liquide

Jalonné de boues, moustiques et palétuviers,

Harponne la braise moribonde de charbon rose

Innombrable qui serpente dans le cirque de sable

A force de nager, à force de nager

Éternellement à joncher les grèves de l’arc-en-ciel.

PSAUME IX

Dans la baie, un sein vert flambe

Campant dans un bain de coton...

L’écho, hypnotique, tourne, tourne, prolifique...

Ô îles, les îles

Notes en menottes, ailes balafrées,

Miels de sel, fiels de ciel...

Ô îles, les îles

Filaments de mangue, eaux assoiffées

Larmes chaudes de tambours incoagulables...

Ô îles, les îles

D’où venez-vous, miettes de sang ?

Comment vous êtes-vous posés, papillons,

Au milieu de la grande termitière d’or bleu ?

PSAUME X

Kaki, dans le jour rectiligne,

Le soleil, bibelot tiède et omniprésent,

Affalé dans les sortilèges

De la pluie ensorceleuse..

.
Incrustée dans son terrier maternel,

Luciole équilibriste,

A demi ivre souffre l’espérance,

Soufflant des goélettes de papier...

Les lunes se rétractent lestes et faibles,

La visibilité est bonne

De chenaux en détroits, vont, naufragées,

En débandade, les voluptés,

Roues flamboyantes

Dilacérant les haillons allumés

Des orbites sismiques..

PSAUME XI

Zéro heure, la chauve cascade

Où le délire se découd

Dans les courbes de l’ennui...

Zéro heure, l’édentée

Déchirant les échos

Des obsèques de minuit...

Zéro heure, poupée

Aptère, assoupie

A l’ombre des rêves...

Cartomancienne hérétique

Châtrant les éruptions chagrines,

Châtrant, multipliant les yeux

Vers les plages pourpres...

Zéro heure, nymphe sourde

Défunte à la canne bossue,

Hissant le grand pavois

De la couleur polyphonique,

L’accord,

La peau du poète,

Éclipse magique

De tous les déluges...

PSAUME XII

Songes dans l’extrême sud

Monochromatique

Ancres tapissées,

Couples éteints, inflorescences...

Chevaux cardiaques

Occultés dans un nid lunaire...

Passager de la nef du fou

Fouetté par le roi si bémol

Qui monte à l’échafaud...

Battements rupestres,

Sentiers crevant les lieues

Au rythme des ailes de nuages...

La pluie soudain s’est tue

La liesse s’est tue soudain

Dilapidée dans ce jour rongé...

PSAUME XIII

Éteint dans la lumière, le portraitiste

Brûle l’absence mate,

La suie insolite...

La haute mer se dilue..

L’arche hiberne aussi **** que porte la vie

Dans son sanctuaire de sève

Où la terre saigne ses eaux bouclées

Qui écument des épaves de pierre

Aussi **** que porte la vie.

PSAUME XIV

Les îles du matin m’embrassent

Après une nuit de lune rase

Le ronflement du rayon

Macule en naissant le chœur torride

De l’alcôve qui s’écaille émaillée.

Entre traits, tracés et rayures

Flottent des oranges polymorphes

A portée des mains...

Sous la ménagerie de ses eaux poissonneuses

La gomme méthylique du soleil

Frotte dans le bassin d’étincelles

L’orchestre infime de ce lointain carnaval renié

Qui crépite, savonné...

Entre gravillons et bulles

Flottent des oranges polymorphes

A portée des mains...

Devant l’horloge en rut

Se signent les orangers...

Le soleil consent à la lune

La mare de feu

Greffée dans le pouls vivace de l’ombre ivre...

Entre ruines et volutes

Flottent des oranges polymorphes

Scandaleusement

A portée des mains...

PSAUME XV

Le matin nage, innombrable

Salamandre aux cent venins de verre

Qui se distillent dans une encre de cendres

Offertes au soleil insatiable...

Dans le calice débordant

Des récoltes que la nuit

Ne grignote qu’à moitié,

Les sargasses du désir plongent,

Cinglant le silence des incohérences...

Hilare, la lune

Se réveille et butine

Le nectar indigo

Qui s’attarde

Comme une musique rétinienne

Aux confins du jour...

Ainsi emmurés vifs

Dans le flux impénétrable des reflets,

Vont à l’aveuglette

Dans le palais des singes volants

L’amour et ses tribus aborigènes

Veillant sur la toison rouge du ciel...

PSAUME XVI

Mon deuil échoue à l’aube

Les yeux ouverts sur les laves

De ce volcan éteint

Où s’apaisent les étoiles...

La flèche de l’archer s’évanouit, fauchée...

Le licol de mousseline de l’archipel précieux

Vacille, se dissout,

Orphelin mélancolique

Murmurant des baisers d’aniline

Aux marges du rêve...

Insomnuit d’été

Si seulement je pouvais rêver !

PSAUME XVII

Sur l’échiquier, la nuit chancelle, vénéneuse...

Un vaisseau de pierre au galop s’envole

Au chevet de la mer noyée

Suant la résine...

Sifflotant, le saltimbanque

Éconduit les horizons pétales

Pris du soleil gemme étanche

Dans les écumes du ciel d’étain...

Bientôt, les lunes oscillent

Ondulent, se dérobent frivoles,

L’étalon noir se dissipe

Décochant des flèches en forme de cœur...

Quelque chose se brise dans le noir :

Était-ce un masque ou un miroir ?

Quand luit la dernière tranche d’ombre

Déboussolées, dans la dune de verre, les étoiles

Bégaient...

Les coquilles se détellent de la terre réfractaire...

Le soleil dévastateur s’abreuve de ciel

Cachant les antres de brai...

Tâtant les décadences nacrées

Ointes de sueurs salines

L’amazone enfin répudiée

Chantonne aux aguets

Dans la baie couleur sépia...

PSAUME XVIII

Clic
Hennissement aveugle, l’île

Se déhanche

Toute soie et serpent

Contre l’épi de maïs vert...

Clac
“Marée basse”, dit la reine-mère...

Aucune abeille ne rame,

Ne laboure les pollens de la mer...

Clic
**** des brise-lames

Lisses et bouillonnants

Des crinières sans fin et du goémon,

L’iguane sous la villa jaune...

Le long des bougies

Coule le gouvernail du silence...

Clic
Sous les fleurs délabrées de l’éclair

Dans leur hamac vert

Les vagues veuves, les vagues nues

Courent après les lunes

Et lentement chantent les araignées...

Clic
Parfums de lumière

Qui jouent, jouent, jouent

Se décomposent

Dans une brise d’alcools...

Clic
Chimères de la mer, coup de sifflet final

Rongeant les sables glauques

Les tranchées dans le ciel ouvert

Tapis du soleil et son essaim de sujets...

Clic
La nuit, la mer fructifie

Au ralenti...

PSAUME XIX

"Au feu, au feu !

Feu à la dérive !"

Scandent deux coléoptères...

Le feu fuit !

Le magicien s’est brûlé

A faire sa magie.

Le pôle s’évapore,

Le puits fait l’aumône,

L’enfant aboie,

La moto boite,

La forêt détale,

Le lion se vêt de singe

Noir et doré

Et petit à petit

Va planer

Au-dessus de l’autel fugace

Où gît

Hululant, pullulant, virulent,

Le vol agile craché

Du saxophone ténor...

L’hiver fouette le ciel,

La terre meurt prématurée,

Liane après liane,

Sécrétant comme vestiges

Le tapis de talc

D’une aile de sirène

Et le vertige nuptial

De deux notes jaunes inachevées

Au sein des similitudes.

PSAUME **

Prunelle de gris jaune
Prunelle nuit et mer
Bleu coursier d’argile
Tigresse à la crinière couleur de brume.
Dans le rare verger qu’est l’amour
Audacieuse, elle va, incendiaire
Empaillée dans un paquebot hystérique
Vers le hasard des quais identiques
Les yeux pleins de chaux.

Dans ce chant veuf, dans cette capitale pyromane
La voilà, légère,
Aspirant les équinoxes dans cet air enchaîné
En selle pour un bain d’herbes monastique
Geôlière verte
D’émeraude pure...

PSAUME XXI

L’accordéoniste des abysses
Peint dans l’œil de l’obscur :
Un nuage en zigzaguant
Ancre aux eaux du vide.

Et le gong sue...timide.
Et comme en un tango antique
S’écoule le cri acide

Des teintes atteintes par les balles,
Hoquet du temps incarné
A l’aube d’une pluie sèche de chaleurs vertes.
Et le gong sue...tumide.

Et comme en un tango marin
Caracole la pirogue étoilée du tigre intime
Renversant de son parapluie
Les certitudes les plus ensevelies de la peur.

Et le gong sue...tumide.
Et les papillons enfantent
Des flammes dans les sables mouvants,
Des harpes éoliennes
Comme des gymnastes hués par le soleil en ruines
A la recherche des marées sèches.

Et le gong sue... tumide.
Et comme en un tango de funambules
Les œillères des brebis galeuses
Traversent la toile, vieillissent, exhument le salpêtre
D’un bandonéon dont la sueur incendie les cernes
De la nuit qui jazze...

PSAUME XXII

Tendrement
Le messager lit
Les lignes du vent,
Prend le pouls
Du ventre jaspé
De la basilique d’encre de chine :

-Là-bas, sous les monts de Vénus
Rode le messager,
Troubadour englouti
Par une lave obscure,

Passager invisible
Des failles muettes
Qu’il restaure encore...

Tendrement
Le messager
Harponne
Les coquilles du temps...
A la pointe de l’hameçon,

Un morceau de vitrail
Où à peine filtre
La lueur des entrailles,
On devine soudain
La forme d’un cheval marron
Qui hennit.

PSAUME XXIII

Bleu roi
De ces couleurs pièges.
Bleu de ces teintes imprévisibles.
Issu du venin tribal
Des roses du désert
Le bleu tombe,
Comme un nuage de coton doux,
Sur la brousse atlantique des lèvres
Enflées de secrets,
Où, hystérique, il donne le jour
Sous le kiosque sympathique des pluies cyanes
A une larme de sang,
Daltonienne.

Bleu roi
De ces couleurs mutantes :
Seul le baiser de cobalt réchauffe
Les escales mélancoliques
De ces ailes closes,
Révèle les jeux d’artifice,
Et murmurant des flammes,
Fait évanouir
Le deuil magnétique
Des rênes d’ivoire...

La flèche de l’archer pénètre,
Débridée,
Le voile de mousseline de l’archipel précieux
Qui vacille, se dissout,
Orphelin en suspens, spectre d’aniline
Aux gants d’émeraude
Et aux chaussons d’améthyste...

PSAUME XXIV

Dormir, virgule,
Souffler doucement
Des cases jumelles,
Ramper à nouveau, gigoter,
Jusqu’à ce que tout ne soit plus
Qu’une seule immensité...

Au lieu de l’abîme
La clairière dans la caféière.
Dormir, virgule,
Ça et là,
Lune bleue
Embuée
Sous la baguette du silence...

Le rêve entre et sort

Et jusqu’aux nuages
Craignent la chute
Vers le sommeil...

PSAUME XXV

Les îles et une nuits
Me font chavirer,
Je fuis,
Naufragée inlassable,
Hors du clan tentaculaire
Vers la clarté volatile
Des voiles incendiaires...

Mes nerfs à la fleur du large
Bifurquent,
S’évaporent en filigranes
Plus **** encore...

Bleu nuit devient la mer
Aux portes de son repaire
Ancré à la rive gauche du cœur.

La crique n’est plus ce qu’elle était :
La neige reptile teint les dauphins de rose...
Éden ?
De temps à autre

Passe un trapèze
Balayant le silence.

PSAUME XXVI

Ô Reine, Notre Duc
Sous tes ongles laqués
J’imagine un ciel rouge
Aux parfums de lait de cobra...
Le soleil fait pleuvoir des sceptres sur le fleuve
Et des piranhas aux dents d’eau
Larguent des cerfs-volants sans fin...

“Chantez les très riches heures de l’En-Dehors !”
Crie à la face du levant
Un caméléon qui lisse les ailes du hasard
Planté dans le dédale de ta langue baccarat.

PSAUME XXVII

Près de la passerelle d’ivoire :
“Odyssées,
Métamorphoses,
Mues,
Je vous aime !” "

I've forgotten
What it means

You across the void
Slumbering beneath
Your eternal ocean
I hear your siren song

Set sails and follow sunsets
Over the vast liquid expanse
Rocks jut out and become my anchor
Driftwood and I drift away

I pass islands but they're not mine
They're yours, fortresses of solitude
Each one a dot, a speck, atolls in infinity
Your loneliness spread and fragmented

Incarnations of your personality
One by one fading from view
Fading into obscurity
A mirage to the eye as if thats all you ever were

What's yours or mine is gone
We own the same mind yet live alone
Our hearts turned to the storm
Finding peace with our hells as it crashes into our bones

We drift apart alone
And I've forgotten what that means

"Vernarthiano and well-wisher name leads me to you in temporary fissure and tolondro, abjuring virginity in my maiden legion delivered in barbarism, and in blood betrothed for those who more in the finesse prolactin emulsion is renewed as a teenager, opening spaces to bring depressions of inheritance, for whom or those who found hieratic parents and children here in the disputed ****** that nests their nature.

Escaping from the beast and the libido of the criminal patron of the dynasty, which continues to flow senile gold through the scattered veins of beasts that hunt spoil, falling in love with the young and their commiseration. I swiftly attracted the henchmen who bleed before the door of the corporal and fateful destiny, opening in Hellenicidal impostor blood of the Holy Land, and in contradiction by Maccabees with immobilized blindfolded eyes, intimating the extreme virginity of a quasi Sibyl maiden, grasped in the tweezers. Of Seleuco, expired in the dark chamber of Wonthelimar, and in ardent desires that sever brains in the darkness of the cavern of Chauvet bilocated in the roadstead of Skalá. Vernarth I have come to you as a double birth, moaning descendants of the helots, phrases that found no excuses that salutely leave compassionate, like Antiochus who exhorted me to go to your solemn Investiture of the Himation. Ad mostem festinamum Eurydice said that she sang to me romantic atolls from the balcony of nowhere, unrequited I was consumed with the love that flowed through the vena cava of the sufferer in Apollo. Ezpatkul looked at the koelum or demiurge sky in his epiphany, summoning your Gerakis to station themselves near Petrobus, entrenching me tightly in the clutches of the Ibic Rings to be referred to your luminary by the seat of Leros.

My parents by the name of Demetrio and Fila brought me to Roshus on the Perian coast of Macedonia, where I was given as a gift at the regent's wedding. I am Stratony of Macedonia, the daughter of Strategy of Syria, my mother. It is I when writing this epistle, which in turn had a prosperous one, but in posterity when my consent was distanced from the same tenor, my mother was solicitously delegated to Seleucus and then to my father Antiochus. Then I shunned Demetrius II, due to his extra union with Phtia, Daughter of Olympia II of Epirus. It was enough that a link in this Seleucid genealogy was lost in the open from a sick dynasty and successions, so that they appear on the henbane embankment, and go back from Lambdas and Epsilons of consanguineous matings, betting principalities and fratricidal blood, cursing themselves in campaigns since the same that is sheltered in mutes and feelings in Judah by Olympian torments, and immortal Gods shrouding fleeting perishable itineraries of life to the tempting mayor of the puppets, and of the mortal reigns without disposition rattling in Samothrace libido, of hundreds superior, and all the enlightened contents of a captive genealogical of semi-gods trying to equalize.


Beloved Vernarthiano on Venus, anxieties made me fly to the sound of the souls of Trouvere, committing crimes in my larnax, for tears that have spread one spring afternoon, which I only saw in contained affections, being able to walk through Roshus with my mother, in the discharge of essences saturated that truncate release in the Epsilon hopper. Subtending lines and diameters towards the ends of the curved arch or broken lines, being able to refer to the circumferential buttress between the sides of the angle of my asthmatic regret…! When I removed my hand from this obituary, I saw that The Hague reigned at its lowest point, which made the ink pinch that made me a princess out of her lines, and characters that were molded in such proactive and literal numbers. Beautiful and charitable is the beautiful donna that is born flowered for nuptials of the angelic white indigo "Deus Meus Captivus", in your purpose I could be Stratonice regent of wandering honoring through the palatial corridors of my mother evading intentional and reasons of victory to our good honor, and of the audited and emphasized names of "Victorious Armies" in their real meaning in our patronymic, after the victory of Ipsos. As Argeadas, the king yielded to the prince, what his subjects receive from replicated dynasties, in retreats and shallow swells of temperament, linking liras between liras of Corinth and patronizing condescension in the dominions of Persia.

Much more than an umpteenth outrage in the bands of tolerance and knowledge, I was able to discount the years to come. Passed through our unconfessed lineage, reaching our sarcophagi in the good news by raising the frame, and lifting my mother in your tragedy by three that are tripled, knowing that they allude to Saint John the Apostle, over the loafers who drool in scabs stepdaughters of party mouths, and monarchical slaps that have united us behind the scenes, and in the interlocking followed by re continued guarantees of worship, pro-Seleuchism or Antiochism vanished in buried Diadoco briefs, adjacent to the ibid in mega nuptials or Olympic descendants, and in the relatives of the Orphism-transgenerational surrogate! Vernarth give me a taste of the well, I require a new territorial ally in your quilts to new heads branded in his autumnal Hegemon.

In the attempt to take out a dagger and put it in the night watchman, I was already amazed at the reading of the fluttering of the Gerakis, who threw the tantrum of other Gerakis with the souls of Trouvere, kidnapping half of my letter that had cut for you Vernarth with chlorinated tears of solid, towards the swallowing of the airones that intimated in bastardized allegories, containing intoxication and unsheathed unison echoes of the bronze settled in the thundering law, making the Gerakis and the Trouveres fall together in some Mycenaean jars of wine. Anger provided beds of each one for manly acts in the Patmian Olympic allegory, denying the reactions of those who become the purveyor of the riches of tragedy, in immaterial environments that discuss not having it if they only run aground in logical narratives of Demosthenes' contented spoiled bozo. Smooth sites wound me with poisonous openings on the campaign pistils and on the Áspis Koilé shields, being worth confusing against the hives of the queen mother and her drone, tolerating and yielding to her heir, with foolish demeanor in caring for him and inheriting him a procreated barbarian reign.

Now we are barbarian slaves and heirs, in unresolved conflicts of parents deprived of a loving life, by progeny that ennoble crusades that stone patrimonial alliances for consanguineous alliances that should never have prospered in the bitter toast of Stratonice worried in her borne sarcophagus, avunculated in true pro lactic godmother of the son of a nascent Zeus. We are all divided as a lineage; there is nowhere to gather more dismembered successors of Macedonian polytheists, after central efforts to reign without a crown. The same of the love that reigns without meaning, imparted from the decadent effort that worsens to resurrect the aristocracy that lies of grubs,  and the sacrosanct helminth in our Alexander the Great, preceding intercessions of the Royal Marriageable Dynasties before your most illustrious, in the new kingdom of the Lord that does not he sees himself enthroned in the black trepidations of our ill-managed partitions, by humors that flow from the couplings and bandages of who is said to be the abbot of a Vernarthian preliminary.

Vernarth, culminated in the auspices of the complete conjecture and its subsequent grievances to request your office, in subsequent claims that induce to draw the irascible thunderbolts of those who only want to make us wake up from their apostasy, alone and insubstantial, covering muddy stores of grace, which establish walled up reigns in all honor and charm of hearing the true voice of the Mashiach, with all its solemn title being able to help all those freed from the Caucasus scene, and in the edicts that nullify memories as human beings of their castrated history.

Before your letter is read, I add Stratonice as my name is, and I am aware of his reading by uttering: “The signal field has been prophesied, it has condensed the Hegemonic energy of Alexander the Great, pointing out that the diseased body of Antiochus; my father…, is supplanted by that of the to happen all the trances and difficulties that are assumed after the hazardous departure in Babylon. Therefore it must carry every corollary prophesied in the death of my grandfather Seleucus in the hands of Ptolemy Ceraunos. Wanting to dress up the irrevocable interference that occurred in Judah by his Diadocos gangs, opting for the effect of his offspring, therefore on his spiritual stretch of residual and static energetic mass, ad libitum that will end when unleashed in his son. By now all will be consumed in the pathogenic body of Antiochus, and of the love for my mother where she was abducted, and possessed by retaliation from Alexander the Great for proven insubordinate ethical demands. "

The sun and its veil drags along the humdrum path, like an old dog’s broken tooth, lodging itself into a decrepit chair. Right up its ****; where it belongs and longs to be loved. It suffocates, coagulates, and discombobulates the bowery citizens within the pearl atolls. By the rims of the gates, Moses receives ******* while a sojourning sheik blasts the radio. Meanwhile, the teats of Atlas are duly pounded as the mortals are aroused and grounded. Never beholden to ecumenist beauty, life lives on, defying questions. It festoons its lexicon of self-defeat and the synonyms that we waste sun on; A halcyon is redacted before long. I am left at the teeth of a sycophant and a broad-shouldered man who I adore in dangerous elan. Epigrams foist themselves upon the masts, the masts that sail us o’er the soot of the ocean, and land us flippantly onto the crystalline concentration line which is a-gaping wide.
The orifice of a primordial awaits us.

This place we now find ourselves in, in history, where Human aggression is recognized as being a universal paramount in the fight for global survival..

Where in the face of Russian warmongering and charging Chinese military expansionism?
Where in the uncertainty of the volatility and utterly predictable intentions of second string nuclear nations, such as North Korea, Israel, India , Pakistan, South Africa and, soon, Iran, there can be no promise of security from the possibility of spontaneous outbreak of nuclear hostilities.?
Where the USA, because of the trajectories of its diabolical, episodic electoral swings, In that every four years the political spectrum and its spinning wheel of alliances and militaristic articulations change to render the nation as predictably unreliable militarily and, essentially, heading towards being a potential fortress unto itself?
Where nuclear NATO and Europe wallow in a quagmire of indecision and bickering between themselves rendering them, collectively, insignificant?
Where emergent South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and several South American nations are currently being backed into a position where they are being forced to militarize, to join the nuclear club for their own survival?
Where the Jihadists will ultimately procure and utilize a nuclear device in the most spectacular manner possible….to further their own ends?

There have been 106 major wars fought since 1945. Many of them brushfire wars between populations within a single or neighboring nation, the like of which are still being fought in countries such as Nigeria, the Congo, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan and Yemen. Wars where people are being brutalized, dispossessed, killed and *****, daily. Where thousands are made refugees having to abandon their homes, their lives and their families in the face of brute force and extreme violence. Wars which are completely ignored by much of the rest of the world. Ignored because they don’t touch the comfortable normality of everyday life, the harmony of an existence without the threat of violent death by marauding gunmen or suicide vest explosives.

We in peaceful corners of the world live in a fool’s paradise because the threat of sudden widespread thermonuclear war has never been so immanent, so poised to erupt, since that of the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 where Kennedy and Khrushchev were within a hairs breadth of unleashing nuclear armageddon on the world. Sanity prevailed then, a compromise was reached where nuclear armaments were mutually removed from Poland and Cuba and the world entered the phase of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). An insanity which berthed the age of Détente.

And so it has been till now. A balancing act where nuclear nations tip toed around each other stretching the limits of confrontation without actually trespassing to the threshold.

Putin has passed the threshold with his extended invasion of Ukraine, He had the opportunity of freezing hostilities and retaining Donbas and the Crimean peninsula for Russia. He twice declined this opportunity and reinforced his attack on the Ukrainian people. Biden’s USA dug in as did the nations of NATO declaring their intention to militarily support the  forces of Ukraine for as long as it took to force Russia’s hand.
An impasse which hovers both sides on the very brink of nuclear confrontation.

China skips back and forth playing peacemaker to the UN and brother in arms to its Communistic ally, Russia. Yet all the while China trumpets its ultimate destiny of world ******* by force. Flexing her muscle in the Spratley and Paracell islands of the South China sea where she has expanded coral atolls into fortified military airfields threatening the free trade sealanes between Asia and the world. China now claims the South china sea as her own sovereign territory and patrols this seaway aggressively with armed warplanes and warships.

China confronts the Seventh Fleet of the USA navy over her demand of ownership of Taiwan, the forces are nose to jowel with fingers on the trigger. Taiwan is the world leader in production of microchips, They have the factories and the raw materials, Taiwan own the secrets of the processing. China are desperate to get this technology… and they need it now for further development of their computer and space research development. They have threatened Taiwan with military maneuvers and declarations of intention to invade. The only thing stopping them is the standoff with the USA military. Hair trigger stuff which is so volatile it could erupt at any time.

I gaze out the window here in the beautiful green foothills of Mt. Taranaki in New Zealand. The Tasman sea extends out for miles as a peaceful, shimmering deep blue visage. The air is warm and still in this early Autumn harmony. Birds fly by, farmers till their fields bringing in the season’s crop of maize. Harmony, peace and beauty reign supreme. A masterpiece of order and something of immense value to all who live here and share it……But for how long before it all becomes destruction, despair and subjugation. How long before the aggression and the greed for power reaches out to this far outpost of humanity to crush the life out of it with it’s sudden, vast, violent and toxic nuclear fist?

The way humanity is going right now?…..NOT LONG!

I listened to a podcast recently where this question was put to a number of philosophers, scientists, authors and national leaders…..”When will War End?”
The consensus of opinion was that war has always been a part of mankind’s makeup. Only humans and Chimpanzees wage war and only humans do it with a visceral passion.
When humans wage peace…they get bored! Peace is boring!  …genuinely this was a common theme.
The group saw warfare as an inherent part of man’s competitive nature, they saw it as a compilation of greed, ego, lust for power and assets.

When will war end? Certainly not in my lifetime, probably never!
Live with it, they said!

M@Foxglove,Taranaki NZ

axis tilt a whirl
as fault lines crack
and shiver
antipodes sears skin black
ozone gapes blisters smack
it's the melanoma boogey
under a scorching sun
or how about
club med Tahiti
c'est magnifique non mes amis?
compliments of the house...
s'il vous plait
a shot on the rocks of
muroroa nuclear cough
moratorium qu'est-ce que c'est?
rainbows explode into the sea
Mafart et Prieur...oui? oui?
can you hear the aperture
open and close and close
and not open sea sea
buried with the warrior
under nouvelle zealandes
harbour city
atrocity after atrocity
blowing up rainbows
blowing up atolls
blowing up souls
blowing up life
blasting off
tearing atmospheric silk
at it's fragile seams
at the brutal hands
of closed minded men
with megalomaniacal dreams.

J.C. 1st Sept 2019.

Dire prognostications
(terrestrial inhabitants blithely heeded)
with contemporary age
fortune tellers foretell day of (w)reckoning,

sans total mortal kombat annihilation
when human (and many) other innocent species
(stalwart cockroach adept to survive)
pitch headlong toward critical limit stage.

That eleventh hour fast upon mankind,
(as Earthlings speed headlong)
on a bee line irrevocable debacle
portending apocalyptic gloom

sprung, where weapons of mass destruction,
this from fusion and/or fusion of atom
(way smaller than an ant)
would severely impact global proliferation,

the vectors clearly delineated
sans urban jungle population boom
Plus billions of people occupy ground zero,
viz the only planet in solar system

how zing cheek to jowl **** Sapien life,
but Western Civilization may become
a footnote in cosmic history
(a justified exemption,

and rational acceptable excuse
for going doing homework),
unless immediate measures taken
to (yet rather ideally)
reverse nuclear destruction.

A multitude of flora and fauna would
no longer constitute biological niches
established via survival of the fittest
each animal and plant
(re: species and genus),
a catastrophe unto themselves

reducing genetic pool to zero, and subsequently
availing breeding ground for well sea sunned
microorganisms, perchance even a select
few critters immune
to radioactive oblate spheroid

dominating, flourishing,
occupying, et cetera #terra-firmae.
If screaming, slamming, strafing atomic, hydrogen,
neutron, bombs do not spell immediate demise
of the supposed brightest Primate put forerunners

handed figurative baton from Neanderthal
to modern man heating up human race,
the endangered qua extinct list,
the greenhouse effect from spewing
pollutants sky high,
with punctured Ozone layer as serious fallout

the latter revving into overdrive
squeezing Mother Earth Sunkist love
visiting via burgeoning population explosion
each respective year, those once dubbed

marginal lands will be exploited. Inclusive
fragile ecosystems (atolls coral expelled,
rain forests slashed and burned, wetlands
drained for another crowded house).

Once over population passed the tipping point
(possibly already surpassed),
a flagrant, ignorant, poisonous re-agent
will decree death-sentence, define desolation
deprive materialistic existence
no amenable longer fashionable, sustainable.

Abortion doth buzzfeed as controversial issue
among many simian members
(some well coiffed) of human zoo,
yet regulation regarding reproduction
the only surefire solution
to sustain quality existence
while livingsocial people occupy planet Earth.