"augusta" poems
Saturated in steely blue clutches, sweating from the 75 degree Georgia night
strung up and washed out with a serpent woman that keeps bringing on the blight
Singing you a song of bliss and blinders.
A big brick red boot on your neck and a green collar that reads The Gardens *****
The Garden takes the taxes tightens up the lead and never relaxes
Hit ya where ya like, the pain is disguised, leather tastes like candy, The Gardens got ya hypnotized.
Your late night camping sight attracts the moon light parasite, that acolyte of appetite, Tonight your the Gardens Delight
You wanna run but she's got those hooks between your shoulder blades feeling like an inexorable **** of silk, smoke and skin.
She gives you every thing you need,
Fountain heads of intemperance and black out nights
Whole streets smelling like grease and charcoal charbroils
Men and women of dexterous lechery, feverous severance, and generous deference
Crystals for your cranium, high altitude dives and the lowest lows.
A cacophony of any entertainment you might want or need, just as long as its seedy.
The Garden keeps blinders on your head to make sure you can't see anything she doesn't want you to.
Try to remove em and the punishment is usually severe.
She might give you the greatest loves you've ever known and turn em to photographs, blot em with LSD and trip you out on memories.
And when you come back to what you think reality is she'll take those photographs and burn em up right in your face and leave you asking if any of it really happened while feeling like it was the realest thing that ever has.
She'll break you and build you up, build you up and break you worse. A cycle of bad things feeling real good.
The Garden will do everything in her power to keep you right here.
But if you can get all those straps and tight leather off, all those hooks and chains.. If you can escape her steely blue clutches,,
You'll finally see how wrong you've been done, and your still gonna want her back in some strange way..
but you might start to heal....
But know this.
No matter where you might run off to,
You'll still be hearing The Garden City call.
That siren song of bliss and blinders.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 4:27 AM UTC
I send my voice into your mouth
You return the compliment
I am the Count of Cannizzaro
You are Her Royal Highness the Princess Augusta
I am the thaumaturgic chain
You hold the opera glass and cards
You become extemporaneous song
I am your tutor
You are my invisible seed
I am Timour the Tartar
You are my curious trick
I your enchanted caddy
I am your confounding doll
You my confounded dummy.
4.3k
Beautiful lofty things; O'Leary's noble head;
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd.
"This Land of Saints", and then as the applause died out,
"Of plaster Saints"; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
Standish O'Grady supporting himself between the tables
Speaking to a drunken audience high nonsensical words;
Augusta Gregory seated at her great ormolu table
Her eightieth winter approaching; "Yesterday he threatened my life,
I told him that nightly from six to seven I sat at this table
The blinds drawn up"; Maud Gonne at Howth station waiting a train,
Pallas Athena in that straight back and arrogant head;
All the Olympians; a thing never known again.
1.8k
The volition of Augusta planter and blacksmith ..
Elberton Pulp-wooder and Quarryman .. The song of the steam fired engine , back breaking labor of Tifton Sharecropper and Atlanta Iron -worker ..
To the heat lightning of the humid Georgia night , the cold rain of
November , the unsure , bitter turbulent shrieking winds of March ..
The first turn of the Albany Ploughman , to the evening whistle of Macon Factory worker . To dawns horizon goes the Brunswick Shrimper , to the honor of Cattleman and Savannah Tugboat tender ...
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 9:17 PM UTC
there's a secret place i found to keep my fear
to hide my tenderness & be vulnerable --
it's next to the smallest bones in your inner ear
the fluid skin blanket of your swooping neckline
lily-soft & somehow stiff enough to break
open my seed-pod heart
the one i thought no one could pry apart
but with rosebud ******* -- lips --
the figure of biblical magdala takes me
away from a lone satsuma tree raising its
shriveled offering from the crippled earth
on sunday strolls through duckpond parks
kicking cobbled streets of augusta block
or scooping water at me smiling in cutoffs
on a hot hometown riverbank
you came to me on barefeet out of the smoke
& rain silence where i was invisibly sobbing
where heat-lightning waltzed
sneaky-pete over the prairie
& what are you if not a rain -- a zephyr
flowing through stone temple
just as the dry-mouth dog days of summer
brought hell's fire across the southern field
so i've abandoned the hermetic existence
& buried my old dead shell with a
harp song hail glory to the contortionist god
vaulting off the balance beam in the
back of my mind beneath the
rain soaked topsoil of dawn
among the mound palaces
of ants & mourning mud hornets
while the gray shadows of the magpie
dance & writhe on the mosaic faces of
the trespassed lupine forest
& the sun still comes up on time big
gold fluttering like a delusional cicada
over the empty pink street
i'm still fidgeting because
clouds with tails like jellyfish sting
with rooted memories of azaleas but
you kiss away my all my latent
restless gypsy fears & keep the harsh
light dimmed or wrapped in heat-foil
in your front dress pocket & you only
give it back to me in brief drips --
pinches -- wet tongue kisses --
we talk with our eyes as only animals
can our butts in the damp sand
beside the breathless sea where streaked
clouds seem free to finger the horizon
but are cut by the city skyline --
a switchblade
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 11:44 AM UTC
Bleak the rays shattered through broken panes
life, dust, dust, future and smoke
automobiles and gunshots solitary this hour
when screams rend the air, not my turn today -
no, not as yet. Mother, I want to rest my head
in your lap. Can I weep?
*Cactus in my soul, I ask, Can I, all that I am?
Lust is the death of man. Gouge your eye that lusts.
Broken void of my afterdays, that mourn
like the wind on the dunes*
Mother, I am well. There is love, there is hope, light
hidden like nuggets in piles of the dark.
Mother, I must be well.
It was the other night. Nightmare in loop.
Shamed, stripped beaten violated.
I am in a well, deep pit, drained
of all the essence of light
I can hear your voice echoing with the ray
shattered tumbling down the walls
*free, free I am the wind mourning in the dunes
can you tame the wind?*
In the depths, and in the deaths islanding life
mirage of oases, Mother, I have found him,
my Senor, to whom I give my ring
Violate me, visage of the abyss,
burn me, but can you find me?
beat me, chain me, but can you enslave me?
I am not here in these nerves and veins.
I am all of Augusta, America,
I fly in the Masts above the skies
*Sweet Lord, I see you have deemed heaven
for me, no purgatory but here.
I accept, I surrender, I submit. To thy will.*
Mother, do not negotiate. I am strong.
Where in my naked body have you found me?
here, in these bruises, have your embers soothed?
I am the Lamb that does not cower.
I haunt your soul as guilt.
In what little's left of it.
*He finds you in the catacombs where
I haunt the crypts that no vicar penetrates.
When all is lost, when death is certain at the sea,
there opens a way and I will walk out*
Mother, I am coming. Have faith, for faith maketh.
I hold you here in my ***** smouldering pain,
that gets me to wake every haunting day.
Every day that brings the sound of darkness home.
*I fly in the Masts above the skies.
Tame me, I am the wind breaking the dunes.
Ilohi, lema sebachtani sebachtani*
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
then I am wearing black suit,
white shirt, black tie,
pockets full of tissues,
most crumpled, mostly used,
like my spirits
If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
in a baptist church,
a nice jewish boy,
fixing his askewed tie,
doing what
The Lord commanded of him
If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
sunny and 72 Farenheit,
inside of me its a different forecast,
y'all decide the condition,
the condition I'm in
I'm in the way back row,
humming so softly,
me and Johnny C.
nobody hears,
nobody cares,
*She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans
In a long black veil she cries over my bones
She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave where the night winds wail
Nobody knows, no and nobody sees
Nobody knows but me*
nobody knows, I am there,
nobody sees, nobody believes,
but god only knows I am here
my spirit taken here
unasked, unaided, unabated
did not have to fly,
the ship that was to take me,
busted on the rocks
for
*the words that are used
to get the ship confused
will not be understood as they’re spoken
for the chains of the sea
will have busted in the night,
will be buried at
the bottom of the ocean*
still
If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
at a funeral,
my words gone silent,
even store bought stock phrases,
so sorry for your loss,
not for sale, all gone, all aloft,
all sold out on
this Sabbath day
If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
in some form of which
not readily acquainted,
my new context a riddle,
never knew this morphosis
till now, until
it was needed,
all on that day
If it's 2:45pm
can't understand
all these people standing
over me, and the sidewalk
taste in my my mouth
it appears I appeared
on east 57th street
in my New York City,
it appears I appeared
to have
fainted dead away,
asking me not where how or when,
only why,
and I have no answers for
them or me or anybody who dare asks
a quest,
commencing and ending in
why
must have been the heat,
but decide then and there
maybe go visit
my Jordan and
my grand children
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 2:00 PM UTC
Sorrow is a lonesome river,
she feeds a deep blue sea.
She'll take all the tears you give her;
open the gates and set her free.
When it rains in Georgia,
it's flooding sacred ground.
From Augusta to Savannah,
that's holy water coming down.
Lift your chin up off your chest,
raise your eyes up to the sky.
The flood has reached its crest,
let the warm sun sanctify.
Sorrow is a lonesome river,
she feeds a deep blue sea.
She'll take all the tears you give her;
open the gates and set her free.
r ~ 5/16/14
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 5:48 PM UTC
When all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray—
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,
The weak despair—the cold depart;
When fortune changed—and love fled far,
And hatred’s shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose, and set not to the last.
Oh, blest be thine unbroken light!
That watched me as a seraph’s eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o’er thy ray—
Then purer spread its gentle flame,
And dashed the darkness all away.
Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brook—
There’s more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world’s defied rebuke.
Thou stood’st as stands a lovely tree
That, still unbroke though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.
The winds might rend, the skies might pour,
But there thou wert—and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o’er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind—and thee the most of all.
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken—thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel—but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found, and still are fixed in thee;—
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert—e’en to me.
1.5k
¡Ya viene el cortejo!
¡Ya viene el cortejo! Ya se oyen los claros clarines,
la espada se anuncia con vivo reflejo;
ya viene, oro y hierro, el cortejo de los paladines.Ya pasa debajo los arcos ornados de blancas Minervas y Martes,
los arcos triunfales en donde las Famas erigen sus largas trompetas
la gloria solemne de los estandartes,
llevados por manos robustas de heroicos atletas.
Se escucha el ruido que forman las armas de los caballeros,
los frenos que mascan los fuertes caballos de guerra,
los cascos que hieren la tierra
y los timbaleros,
que el paso acompasan con ritmos marciales.
¡Tal pasan los fieros guerreros
debajo los arcos triunfales!Los claros clarines de pronto levantan sus sones,
su canto sonoro,
su cálido coro,
que envuelve en su trueno de oro
la augusta soberbia de los pabellones.
Él dice la lucha, la herida venganza,
las ásperas crines,
los rudos penachos, la pica, la lanza,
la sangre que riega de heroicos carmines
la tierra;
de negros mastines
que azuza la muerte, que rige la guerra.Los áureos sonidos
anuncian el advenimiento
triunfal de la Gloria;
dejando el picacho que guarda sus nidos,
tendiendo sus alas enormes al viento,
los cóndores llegan. ¡Llegó la victoria!Ya pasa el cortejo.
Señala el abuelo los héroes al niño.
Ved cómo la barba del viejo
los bucles de oro circunda de armiño.
Las bellas mujeres aprestan coronas de flores,
y bajo los pórticos vense sus rostros de rosa;
y la más hermosa
sonríe al más fiero de los vencedores.
¡Honor al que trae cautiva la extraña bandera
honor al herido y honor a los fieles
soldados que muerte encontraron por mano extranjera! ¡Clarines! ¡Laureles!Los nobles espadas de tiempos gloriosos,
desde sus panoplias saludan las nuevas coronas y lauros
-las viejas espadas de los granaderos, más fuertes que osos,
hermanos de aquellos lanceros que fueron centauros-.
Las trompas guerreras resuenan:
de voces los aires se llenan...-A aquellas antiguas espadas,
a aquellos ilustres aceros,
que encaman las glorias pasadas...
Y al sol que hoy alumbra las nuevas victorias ganadas,
y al héroe que guía su grupo de jóvenes fieros,
al que ama la insignia del suelo materno,
al que ha desafiado, ceñido el acero y el arma en la mano,
los soles del rojo verano,
las nieves y vientos del gélido invierno,
la noche, la escarcha
y el odio y la muerte, por ser por la patria inmortal,
¡saludan con voces de bronce las trompas de guerra que tocan la marcha triunfal!...
928
Farm house windows have been boarded up , dilapidated outbuildings , abandoned water well , farm tractor , implements rusted over . Kudzu has blanketed the garden spot , farm bell lies on the ground , silo in need of paint , repairs ..Clover dominates a fertile pasture , once home for many abundant harvest ! Corn , soy bean and sorghum , sweet potato and collards .. Oak trees , well over a hundred years old with twenty years of unchecked leaf debris beneath them . Apple , pear and peach trees are barren .. A once sturdy white picket fence now unkempt , frail with rusted barbed wire and nails .. The afternoon train still comes through each afternoon . I can imagine that very train taking the harvest produced by this old farm to market . Macon , Augusta or Albany ? A planter is taking a break beneath a Pecan tree with a bucket of cold well water and a ladle , plug of tobacco , and a daydream or two ! The afternoon train delivers the news of the world , a Farmers almanac , Sears and Roebuck catalogue , corn cake for the rabbit dogs , hog feed from a mill in Columbus , thread and quilt patches for Mother . Off it goes , cloud of steam rising above the mighty engine , the whistle echoing across cotton fields for many a mile ! The link between city and farm , before electricity , telegraph or telephone . The old Georgia my great grandparents knew . Fruitful Summer harvest , painfully cold Winters laboring , scratching out a meager living and at times barely surviving ! I can still hear the crack of leather , braying of mule , firewood being stacked , horses , cattle and the rooster breaking the silence of night , sunrise announcing the new day to a hard working family plus every hamlet along the way ! .
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 9:49 AM UTC
El alma traigo ebria de aroma de rosales
y del temblor extraño que dejan los caminos...
A la luz de la luna las vacas maternales
dirigen tras mi sombra sus ojos opalinos.
Pasan con sencillez hacia la cumbre,
rumiando simplemente las hierbas del vallado;
o bien bajo los árboles con clara mansedumbre
se aduermen al arrullo del aire sosegado.
Y en la quietud augusta de la noche mirífica,
como sutil caricia de trémulos pinceles,
del cielo florecido la claridad magnífica
fluye sobre la albura de sus lustrosas pieles.
Y yo discurro en paz, y solamente pienso
en la virtud sencilla que mi razón impetra;
hasta que, en elación el ánimo suspenso,
gozo la sencillez que viene y me penetra.
Sencillez de las bestias sin culpa y sin resabio;
sencillez de las aguas que apuran su corriente;
sencillez de los árboles... ¡Todo sencillo y sabio,
Señor, y todo justo, y sobrio, y reverente!
Cruzando las campiñas, tiemblo bajo la gracia
de esta bondad augusta que me llena...
¡Oh dulzura de mieles! ¡Oh grito de eficacia!
¡Oh manos que vertisteis en mi espíritu
la sagrada emoción de la noche serena!
Como el varón que sabe la voz de las mujeres
en celo, temblorosas cuando al amor incitan,
yo sé la plenitud en que todos los seres
viven de su virtud, y nada solicitan.
Para seguir viviendo la vida que me resta
haced mi voluntad templada, y fuerte y noble,
oh virginales cedros de lírica floresta,
oh próvidas campiñas, oh generoso roble.
Y haced mi corazón fuerte como vosotros
del monte en la frecuencia.
Oh dulces animales que, no sabiendo nada,
bajo la carne sabéis la antigua ciencia
de estar oyendo siempre la soledad sagrada.
778
Siento que algo solemne va a llegar a mi vida.
¿Es acaso la muerte? ¿Por ventura el amor?
Palidece mi rostro, mi alma está conmovida,
y sacude mis miembros un sagrado temblor.
Siento que algo sublime va a encarnar en mi barro
en el mísero barro de mi pobre existir.
Una chispa celeste brotará del guijarro,
y la púrpura augusta va el harapo a teñir.
Siento que algo solemne se aproxima, y me hallo
todo trémulo; mi alma de pavor llena está.
Que se cumpla el destino, que Dios dicte su fallo,
para oír la palabra que el abismo dirá.
604
There's a girl name, Augusta,
Like the month where the branches are stripped from their leaves but turn an evergreen somewhere else,
There's a girl named, Augusta,
Who wears her heart on her long sleeves and weeps the tears no one should weep,
There's a girl named, Augusta
Who breathes blossoms but her hair is frosted in ice,
There's a girl named Augusta,
She shows the joy of the turquoise seas but feels the wind of the grey sky.
There's a girl named Augusta
And I wish for her to find someone who will thaw the winter that grows in her heart.
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 9:32 AM UTC
Autumn is the priest of pride.
Her shadows lifts a gentle fragrance
that farmhands duly celebrate.
The coffin makers drink a sweet nectar
that lifts their souls.
The milkmaid idolises memories of her first love.
August is this flame
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 4:33 AM UTC
Calico gloomy rail yards
Steel vessels whine , brakeman -
locking cars against Winter sky backdrops
Painted horseman bound for Augusta -
tonight , through Conyers , Rutledge and
Union Point
Eastbound dedication passing rural
depots , breaking the twilight silence -
for many a mile , lighting each crossing -
as it slowly rumbles down the meandering line ...
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 11:06 PM UTC
There once was a girl from Augusta,
Whose adolescent days will disgust ya.
She claimed she was emo,
But loved Finding Nemo.
Those days were a whole lot of blustah.
May 7, 2019
May 7, 2019 at 11:31 AM UTC
La santidad de la muerte
llenó de paz tu semblante,
y yo no puedo ya verte
de mi memoria delante,
sino en el sosiego inerte
y glacial de aquel instante.
En el ataúd exiguo,
de ceras a la luz fatua,
tenía tu rostro ambiguo
qiuetud augusta de estatua
en un sarcófago antiguo.
Quietud con yo no sé qué
de dulce y meditativo;
majestad de lo que fue;
reposo definitivo
de quién ya sabe el porqué.
Placidez, honda, sumisa
a la ley; y en la gentil
boca breve, una sonrisa
enigmática, sutil,
iluminando indecisa
la tez color de marfil.
A pesar de tanta pena
como desde entonces siento,
aquella visión me llena
de blando recogimiento
y unción..., como cuando suena
la esquila de algún convento
en una tarde serena...
476
Mare Nostrum
On the coast of Augusta, in Cecilia this wonderful sea,
the bluest of turquoise, transparent and I saw fish play.
Blood and bloated corpses have made the sea less pretty
and fish nibbles on cadavers of those who tried to cross
the sea to escape the lunacy we created in Libya.
A president short of stature but with inflated ego plus
philosopher idiot, two men were responsible this disaster
of a war just to get rid of a dictator one of them had lent
money of the other who should not be left out of his confine
of academia, he should have in hidden in a university writing
books only historians take a passing interest in.
As it is the impossible vain man get feted, all because he is
an intellectual and wears a velvet jacket and clean collars.
My old Mafia friend Thomas the knife, has invited me to
Augusta, I will go there but not swim the hazy sea, but we
will eat langouste, drink child wine and talk about the days
when philosophers and presidents left us alone to **** only
when needed and never the innocent.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 2:55 AM UTC
Las selvas hizo navegar, y el viento
al cáñamo en sus velas respetaba,
cuando, cortés, su anhélito tasaba
con la necesidad del movimiento.
Dilató su victoria el vencimiento
por las riberas que el Danubio lava;
cayó África ardiente; gimió esclava
la falsa religión en fin sangriento.
Vio Roma en la desorden de su gente,
si no piadosa, ardiente valentía,
y de España el rumor sosegó ausente.
Retiró a Solimán, temor de Hungría,
y por ser retirada más valiente,
se retiró a sí mismo el postrer día.
394
Éstos, amada, son sitios vulgares
en que en el ruido mundanal se asusta
el alma fidelísima, que gusta
de evocar tus encantos familiares.
Añoro dulcemente los lugares
en donde imperas cual señora justa,
tu voz real y tu mirada augusta
que ungieron con su gracia mis pesares.
Y recuerdo que en época lejana,
por tus raras virtudes milagrosas
y tu amable modestia provinciana,
ebrio de amor te comparó el poeta
con la mejor de las piedras preciosas
oculta en pobres hojas de violeta.
Tuviste, en la delicia de mi sueño,
fuerza de mano que se da al caído
y la piedad de un pájaro agreño
que en la rama caduca pone el nido.
De tu falda al seráfico pergeño
cual párvulo medroso estoy asido,
que en la infantil iglesia de mi ensueño
las imágenes rotas han caído.
Yo sé que en mis catástrofes internas
no más quedas tú en pie, señora alta,
de frente noble y de miradas tiernas.
Condúceme en las noches inclementes
porque sin ti para marchar me falta
el óleo de las vírgenes prudentes.
406
I'm living in Augusta, Georgia now
working my hands to the bone.
The first night I was here I shaved my head,
to cope with the Southern heat.
You didn't seem to like it, nor the way it looked with my beard.
Good thing I don't have to look good for you anymore.
I told you that when I come home,
I'll be a different man.
You didn't seem to know what I meant
nor did you really care.
I found myself so far from home
and realized the man I've been for far too long
was never me at all.
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 6:31 PM UTC
Mare Nostrum
On the coast of Augusta, in Cecilia this wonderful sea,
the bluest of turquoise, transparent and I saw fish play.
Blood and bloated corpses have made the sea less pretty
and fish nibbles on cadavers of those who tried to cross
the sea to escape the lunacy we created in Libya.
A president short of stature but with inflated ego plus
philosopher idiot, two men were responsible this disaster
of a war just to get rid of a dictator one of them had lent
money of the other who should not be left out of his confine
of academia, he should have in hidden in a university writing
books only historians take a passing interest in.
As it is the impossible vain man get feted, all because he is
an intellectual and wears a velvet jacket and clean collars.
My old Mafia friend Thomas the knife, has invited me to
Augusta, I will go there but not swim the hazy sea, but we
will eat langouste, drink child wine and talk about the days
when philosophers and presidents left us alone to **** only
when needed and never the innocent.
Jul 7, 2017
Jul 7, 2017 at 5:57 AM UTC