Ill-fated crowds neath unchained clouds: the Silent City braved
against a sudden flashing flood, unleashing lashing waves,
which stripped its stony structures, blown with neutron bursts that laved.

Its barren streets, although effete, resound of yesterday
with chit-chat words no longer heard (though having much to say)
since teeming life (at one time, rife), surceased and slipped away.

Within its walls? Whist buildings, tall... Outside the City? Dunes,
which limn its frail forgotten tales, in weird unworldly runes
with symbols strung like halos hung in lifeless, limp festoons.

Above! The dismal ditch of dusk reveals a velvet streak,
through which the winter’s wicked winds will sometimes weave and sneak,
and faraway a cable sways, a bridge clings hushed and bleak.

Thin shadows shift, like silver shafts, throughout the doomed domain
reflecting white, wee wisps of light in ebon beads of bane
which cast a crooked smile across a faceless windowpane.

Wan neon lights glow through the nights, through darkness sleek as slate,
while lanterns (hovered, high above, in silent swinging gait),
whelm ballrooms, bars, bereft bazaars, though no one’s left to fete.

Death's silhouettes show no regrets, 'twixt twilight’s ashen shrouds,
oblivious she always was to cries in dying crowds –
in foggy neap the spirits creep beyond the mushroom clouds.


No ghosts of ones with jagged tongues will sing a silent psalm
nor haunt pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor yet redress the emptiness that shifting shades embalm.



The City’s blur? A sepulcher for Christians, Muslims, Jews –
Cathedrals, Temples, vacant now, enshrine their residues,
for churches, mosques and synagogues abide without a bruise.

No cantillation, belfry bells, monastic chants inspire
and Minarets, though standing yet, host neither voice nor crier -
abodes and buildings silhouette a muted spectral choir.

A church’s Gothic ceilings guard the empty pews below
and, all alone amongst the stones, a maiden’s blue jabot.
The Saints, in crypts, though nondescript, grace halos now aglow.

Stray footsteps swarm through church no more (apostates that profane)
though echoes in the nave still din and chalice cups retain
an altar wine that tastes of brine decaying in the rain.

Coiled candle sticks, with twisted wicks, no longer 'lume the cracks -
their dying flames revealed the shame, mid pendant pearls of wax,
when deference to innocence dissolved in molten tracks.

Six steeple towers, steel though now drab daggers in the sky!
Their hallowed halls no longer call when breezes wander by –
for, filled with dread to wake the dead, they've ceased to sough or sigh.

The chapel chimes? Their clapper rope (that tongue-tied confidante)
won’t writhe to ring the carillon, alone and lean and gaunt –
its flocks of jute, now fallen mute, adorn the holy font.


No saints will come with jagged tongues to sing a silent psalm
nor bless pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor pray for mercy, grace deferred, nor beg lethean balm.


Beyond the suburbs, farmers’ fields (where donkeys often brayed)
inhale gray gusts of barren dust where living seed once laid
and in the haze a scarecrow sways, impaled upon a *****.

Green trees gone dark in palace parks (where kids once paused to play),
watch lifeless things on phantom swings (like statues made of clay)
guard marbled tombs in graveyards groomed for grievers bent to pray.

And castle clocks, unwound, defrock with speechless spinning spokes,
unfurling blight of reigning Night by sweeping off her cloaks,
and flaunting dun oblivion, her Baroness evokes.

The sun-bleached bones of those who'd flown lie scattered down the lanes
while other souls who’d hid in holes left bones with yellow stains
of plaintive tears (shed insincere, for no one felt the pains).

The wraiths that scream in sleepless dreams have ceased to terrify
though terrors wrought by conscience fraught now stalk and lurk nearby
within the shrouds of curtained clouds, frail fabrics on the sky.

And fog no longer seeps beyond the edge of doom’s café,
for when she trails her mourning veils, she fills the cabaret
with sallow smears of misty tears in sheets of shallow gray.

The City’s still, like hollowed quill with ravished feathered vane,
baptized in floods of spattered blood, once flowing through a vein.
The fruits of life, destroyed in strife... ’twas truly all in vain.


No umbras hum with jagged tongues nor sing a silent psalm
nor lade pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm –
they've seen, you see, life’s brevity, beneath a neutron bomb.


EPILOGUE

Beyond the Silent City’s walls, the victors laugh and play
while celebrating PEACE ON EARTH, the devil’s sobriquet
for neutron radiation death in places far away.

Simplest of names,
So plain, But how I love to say it
A promise for warmth in igloo block prison eyes
And tone of Daria,
just whelmed enough to respond
A chance of sarcasm is air
Venom in plain daylight.

Plain tone.
Plain mood.
Plain old abuse.
And most would take it from her.
As she would and certainly has taken it from us.

Petit feminine fighter with no haymakers or KO records.
****** face, that rested war and peace between chin and brow.
Baroness of motherhood or is it the queen of hearts and depression?

Stars and music always forever
Anchor tattoos with a key to a heart, now a predator.
Forever enchanted by the la-de-dah and bleeding heart affairs
A savior in no motion or fashion but I dare not call you hypothetical

But a standard broad, beauty and-
So shameless I celebrate seeing you, awkward and so ****
Cleopatra, to be a bit dramatic-
Yes Cleo-mantra, I collectively disintegrate all charm and physical form
And you,  unfazed or unimpressed with either detail of romance

My friend, compromised by style and NO amusement.
There is much more to you than ****** faces and belittling arguments.
There is more to you then practicing soapbox rants in your kitchen.
There is more to you than a shallow mothers intoxications and material.
There is more to you than the new hair dye or the wigs you collect.

The things you store in the boxes cluttering your room with everything not in those boxes
The clothes on your floor, decorations from your teenaged 3rd or 4th personality.
The smell of perfume and coffee and more perfume all over,
stuck to papers, next to wine bottles, borrowed and never returned books, unfinished snacks,
used paper towels, lipstick stained mugs and glasses, your sons toy I stepped on 4 times,
pictures of gone lovers and notes, your license; now found again after the second time ordering a new one.
And…it's expired,
Then finally under the aftermath of years, doubt, clutter, your cell phone vibrating in the fray of sheets.

"found it."

Least we forget that, as we forgot we are both in this room together.
You are so much more than this mess I picked up for you countless times
And though I complain I will pick it up for you and not ask your permission
I won't scold you, I can only exhale failure and help.

Staring blankly into your screen discussing all genres of worldly horror and ways to divert.
Such plans and opinions but no federal funding!
We would pay homage to girl power and the early 90's and call her G.I. Jayne-
(Or not cause she doesn’t have that kind of sense of humor.)
But imagine a solider, a true solider of the meek.
That is theoretically, G.I. Jayne.
Has all of our best interest at hearts, our hero.
Songs of children are said to give her strength-
(She really doesn't like this kind of humor, I must move on.)

My friend truly distressed by the world she can't control from her tiny screen.
I place all comfort I can to her and understandably rejected like a stranger making rounds.
No trust comes from her nowadays, None for me at least. I can't speak for all.
I try to climb over the steep absurdity, alluding to her self-mutilation and task this is
but not going as far as just telling her this is ******* killing me.

I have no lesser or sophisticated words.
I'm dying every time we reach these altitudes.
Fingers and my tone raising at every disagreement .
How you can break me down to my atomic core and decimate miles of friendship.
My closest star in the sky, use to bring me morning tea, flowers and maternity
We now stand in quasar as our space and stardust find mass in thousands of millions of years in development
For me to be sent to the loony bin and you to prison like our heroes from Clinton to Lazaretto.

I


"My dearest, sweetest love" the Baron said,
"Now that we two affianced souls are one,
What's mine is thine, for joy that we are wed
And through this house I bid thee freely run.

Enjoy the drawing room, the stately hall,
The bedchamber where thee and I shall play;
The blue room for each annual summer ball,
All draped in swags of blue and silver grey;

Enjoy the music room, my fine spinet,
The gilded harpsichord that sweetly sings,
With music to dispel all past regret -
Thou hast free rein of all my treasured things.

But go with caution to the library,
And only ever in my company."



II


With that, the Baron shewed her all around
His mighty chambers, all the corridors;
The quarters where the servants could be found,
The painted ceilings and mosaic floors.

The library he shewed her last of all;
The key hung on his chest, on a gold chain.
The secrecy thereof held her in thrall;
It seemed the library was his domain.

"Love, touch ye not the Book of Samothrace,
Don't venture to the pages held inside!
For when the sun hath turned about its face,
Malevolence finds shadow lands to hide!

The pages of our lives are clean and bright,
The Book of Samothrace is endless night!"



III


"My handsome sweetheart" Said the Baroness,
I'm humbled by thy generosity,
And when my maid has helped me from this dress,
Thou shalt discern how grateful I can be.

Thou gavest jewels for my neck and hair
That shine as well by day or candlelight;
And I shall kiss thee all and everywhere -
Prepare for not a wink of sleep tonight!"

With that, she led him to their master bed,
Undressed and pressed him down on sheepskin furs;
There proving true to everything she said
Till he declared his soul forever hers.

Anon, with trembling lips and blissful sighs,
Yielding to sleep, the Baron closed his eyes.


IV


How eloquent is beauty in repose
The Baroness reflected, as he lay
With lips half-open, like a dewy rose,
His night-black hair in tousled disarray;

And in the central furrow of his chest
One hand lay, as if half-protectively,
Next to the key more treasured than the rest -
The one that could unlock the library.

"Love touch ye not The Book of Samothrace"
She heard her love's words echo in her head.
Remembering, her heart began to race,
That such forbidden pages might be read.

Thus, yielding unto curiosity,
She let her fingers tiptoe to the key...



V


The golden catch was easy to undo,
Seconds before the Baron turned away
In blissful dreams of love. He never knew
How vicious time was leading fate astray.

The key was gone, while in the corridor,
His wife was creeping, ever-stealthily,
Drawn to the library's beguiling door,
Enchanted by base curiosity.

Only one lamp revealed the tall bookshelves
Which bore the most illustrious of tomes;
Huge hide-bound celebrations of themselves
Where God and science found unequal homes.

Herein her questing fingers came to trace
The cover of The Book of Samothrace.



VI


An ancient script met her enchanted gaze,
Whose Foreword mentioned a young sorcerer:
The fabled author of this book of days
And book of spells, unfolding now for her.

The spells were fashioned with one grand design,
To be recited in a secret place,
To call upon a spirit most malign -
A terrible demon, named Samothrace.

"...And mighty magick shall infuse the one
Who looks the longest in the daemon's eyes;
Undreamed-of power, burning like the sun,
With insights into Hell and Paradise.

Go to the garden seat and draw the ring,
Be seated and begin the summoning!"



VII


If hindsight were the author of our fate
We might find ways to live with less regret.
The Baron woke to realise, too late,
The secrets of his book were safer kept.

'Twere better had he mentioned not at all
The Book of Samothrace, so markedly,
For now she did not answer to his call
- He guessed she must be in the library.

He raced downstairs to find the door ajar,
The Book of Samothrace had gone astray,
Into the garden, yet it seemed too far -
He tried to walk, his legs would not obey.

Beyond the French door glass, a dreadful sight
Had rendered him immobile, mute with fright.



VIII


His wife sat rigid on the garden seat,
Her hair splayed like a sea anemone,
With a wine chalice lying at her feet,
Her mouth was open, screaming silently.

A doppelganger, like in every way,
Unto his mistress, with red splayed-out hair
Was screaming, still he could not turn away
To flee the image of her wild-eyed stare.

As time stood still, the Book of Samothrace
Floating on air, was burning by her side,
Eerie green smoke began to veil her face
The earth within the circle opened wide.

Out sprang the demon, withered, smoky-grey,
With cruel teeth and eyes as bright as day.



IX


Hereby the demon Samothrace was freed,
A great evil unleashed upon mankind,
That all life must remember how to bleed
Within a world grown dark and mercy-blind.

The terrible futility of war
Decay and all the tyranny of flies
Futility and struggle, all the poor,
A hidden curse on every new sunrise.

"Love, touch ye not The Book of Samothrace,
Don't venture to the pages held inside"
The Baron, frozen still in giving chase,
Watched and remembered, grieving for his bride.

The book, having now caused the demon's birth
Fell deep into the chasm in the earth.



-------END------


NOTE: This was inspired by a painting of the same title by the brilliant fantasy artist, Barry Windsor-Smith. I emailed the poem and was delighted to get a reply and positive feedback about it from him.

And indeedst, thou mourneth once more
When th' lover who is to thine become
Returneth not, in thy own brevities-of love and hate,
As t'is chiding ruthlessness might not be
thy just fate.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Shalt thy soul ever weepest for me?
Weep for t'ese chains of guilt and yet, adorable clarity
T'at within my heart are obstreperously burning
I thy secret lover; shrieks railing at my heart
Whenever thou lurchest forwards
and tearest t'is strumming passion apart.

And t'ere is one single convenience not
As I shalt sit more by northern winds; and whose gales
upon a pale, moonlit shore.
Cleopatra, play me a song at t'at hour
Before bedtime with thy violin once more
And let us look through th' vacant glasses;
at clouds t'at swirl and swear in dark blue masses.

Ah, my queen, t'ese lips are softly creaking
and swearing silently; emitting words
of which I presume thou wouldst not hear.
On my lonely days I sat dreamily
upon t'at hard-hearted wooden bench,
and wrote poems of thee
behind th' greedy palm trees;
They mocked me and swore
t'at my love for thee was a tragedy;
and my poem a menial elegy
For a soldier I was, whom thy wealth
and kingdom foundeth precisely intolerable.
How I hate-t'ose sickly words of 'em!
Ah, t'ose unknowing, cynical creatures!
I, who fell in love with thee
Amongst th' giggling bushes,
stomping merrily amongst each other
and shoving their heads prettily on my shoulder
As I walked pass 'em;
I strapped their doom to death,
and cursed their piously insatiable wrath
Until no more grief was left attached
To th' parable summer air; and rendered thou as plainly
as thou had been,
but bleak not; and ceremoniously unheeded
Only by thy most picturesque features, and breaths.
Thou who loved to wander behind th' red-coated shed,
and beautiful green pastures ahead
With tulips and white roses on thy hand,
And with floods of laughter thou wouldst dart ahead
like a summer nightingale;
'fore stretching thy body effortlessly
amongst th' chirping grass
Ah, Cleopatra, thou looketh but so lovely-
oh, indeedst thou did; but too lovely-too lovely to me!
A figure of a princess so comely,
thou wouldst but be th' one
who bringst th' light,
and fool all t'ose evils, and morbid abysses;
Thou shalt fill our future days with hopes,
and colourful promises.

And slithered I, like a naive snake
Throughout th' bushes; to swing myself into thee
Even only through thy shadow,
I didst, I didst-my love, procured my satisfaction
By seeing thee breathe, and thrive, and bloom.
I loveth her not, t'is village's outrageous,
but sweet-spirited maiden;
a dutiful soldier as I am,
my love for thee is still bountiful,
ah, even more plentiful t'an t'is cordial one
I may hath for my poor lover. Not t'at I despise
her poorness, but in my mind, thou art forever my baroness;
Thou art th' purest queen, amongst all th' virgins
Ah, Cleopatra!
To me, if rejection is indeedst misery,
thine is but a glorious mystery;
for whose preciousness, which is now vague,
by thy hand might come clear,
for within my sight of thee
All t'ese objections are still ingenious,
within thy perilous smile,
t'at oftentimes caresses me
With relief, whenst I am mad,
and corrupts my conscience-
whenst I am sad;
Even only for a second; and even only
for a while.
But if thy smile were all it seemeth,
and thy perfection all t'at I dreameth,
Then a nightmare could be mirth,
and a bitter smile could be so sweet.
Just like everything my eyes hath seen;
if thy innocence was what I needest,
and thy gentleness th' one I seekest,
then I'd needst just and ought, worry not;
for all thy lips couldst be so meek
and thy glistening cheeks
wouldst be so sleek.

Oh, sweet, sweet-like thee, Cleopatra!
Sweet mournful songs are trampling along my ears,
but again, t'ey project me into no harmony-
I curse t'em and corrupt t'em,
I gnaw at t'em and elbow t'em-
I stomp on t'em and jostle t'em-
th' one sung by my insidious lover,
I feel like a ghost as I perch myself beside her.
Whilst thou-thou art away from me!
Thou, thou for whom my breath shalt choke
with insanity,
thou who wert there and merrily laughed with me-
just like last Monday,
By yon purple prairie and amber oak trees
By my newest words and dearly loving poetry.
Oh, my poetry-t'at I hath always crafted so willingly,
o, so willingly, for thee!
For thee, for thee only, my love!
Ah, Cleopatra, as we rolled down th' hoarse alley t'at day,
and th' silky banks by rueful warm water-
I hoped t'at thou wouldst forever stay with me,
like th' green bushes and t'eir immortal thorns,
Thou wouldst lull me to sleep at nights,
and kiss me firmly every dewy morn.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Ah, and with thy cherry-like lips
Thou shalt again invite me into thy living gardens,
With thy childish jokes and ramblings and adventures
To th' dying sunflowers, thou wert a cure;
and thy crown is even brighter t'an their foliage,
For it is a resemblance of thy heart, but
thy vanity not;
Thou art th' song t'at t'ey shalt sing,
thou art th' joy t'at no other greatness canst bring.

Ah, Cleopatra, look-and t'is sun is shining on thee,
but not my bride;
My bride who is so impatiently to withdraw
her rights; her fatal rights-o, I insist!
And so t'is time I shall but despise her
for her gluttony and rebellious viciousness.
T'at savage, unholy greed of hers!
How unadmirable-and blind I was,
for I deemed all t'ose indecipherable!
How I shalt forever deprecate myself,
for which!
Ah, but whenst I see thee!
As how I shall twist my finger into hers,
(Oh! T'is precocious little harlot!)
Thou art th' one who is, in my mind, to become my lover,
and amongst tonight's all prudence and marriage mercy
I shall dreameth not of my wife but thee;
Whilst my wife is like a cloaked rain doll beneath,
and her ******* shall be rigid and awkward to me-
unlike thee, so indolent but warm and generous
with unhesitant integrity;
Ah, I wish she could die, die, and be dead-by my hands,
But no anger and fury could I wreak,
for she hath been, for all t'ese years,
my single best friend.
Or she was, at least.
Oh Cleopatra, thou art my girl;
please dance, dance again-dance for me in thy best pink frock,
and wear thy most desirous, fastidious perfume;
I shall turn thee once more, into a delicious nymphet,
and I standing on a rock, a writer-soldier husband to thee-
Loving thee from afar, but a nearest heart,
my soul shalt become tender; but passionately aggravated
With such blows of poetic genuinity in my hands-
by t'ese of thee-so powerful, and intuitive sonnets.

Oh, my dear! T'is is a ruin, ruin, and but a ruin to me-
A castle of utmost devastation and damage and fear,
for as I looketh into her eyes behindeth me,
and thine upon thy throne-
so elegant and fuller of joy and permanent delight
Than hers t'at are fraught with pernicious questions,
and flocks of virginal fright,
I am afraid, once more-t'at I am torn,
before thy eyes t'at pierce and stun me like a stone,
an unknown stone, made of graveyard gems, and gold
Thou smell like death, just as dead as I am
On my loveless marriage day
And as I gaze into th' dubious priest
And thee beside him, my master-o, but my dream woman!
Oh, sadly my only dream woman!
Th' stars of love are once more
encompassing thine eyes,
and with wonder-oh Cleopatra, thou art seemingly tainted
with sacrifice, but delightfully, lies-
As I stareth at thee once more,
I knoweth t'at I loveth thee even more
just like how thou hath loved me since ever before
And thy passion and lust rooted in mine
Strangling me like selfish stars;
and th' moon and saturated rainbows
hanging up t'ere in troubled, ye' peaceful skies, tonight.

I want her not, as thou hath always fiercely,
and truthfully known,
so t'at I wriggle free,
ignoring my bride's wise screams
and cries and sobs uttered heartbreakingly-
onto th' gravel-and gravely chiseled pavement outside,
'fore eventually I slippeth myself out of my brownish
soldier's uniforms.
Thou standeth in surprise, I taketh, as I riseth
from my seat-my fictitious seat, in my mind,
for all t'is, pertaining to my unreal love for her,
shalt never be, in any way, real-
All are but th' phantom and ghost
of my own stories; trivial stories
Skulking about me with unpardonable sorries
Which I hate, I hate out of my life, most!
As to anyone else aside from thee
I should and shalt not ever be-married,
and as I set my doleful eyes on thee once more,
curtained by sorrow and unanswered longings,
but sincere feelings-I canst, for th' first time,
admire thy silent, lipped confession
Which is so remarkably
painted and inked throughout
thy lavish; ye' decently translucent face;
t'at thou needst me and wouldst stick by me
in soul, though not in flesh;
but in heaven, in our dear heaven,
whenst I and thou art free,
from all t'ese ungodly barriers and misery,
to welcome th' fierceness of our fate,
and taste th' merriment of our delayed date.
Oh, my love!
My Cleopatra! My very own, my own,
and mine only-Cleopatra!
My dear secret lover, and wife; for whom
my crying soul was gently born, and cherished,
and nurtured; for whose grief my heart shall be ripped,
and only for whose pride-for whose pride only,
I shall allow mine to be disgraced.
Cleopatra! But in death we shall be reunited,
amongst th' birds t'at flow above and under,
To th' sparkling heavens we shall be invited,
above th' vividly sweet rainbows; about th' precious
rainy thunder.

Drip yourself into a cup
Fill up your body with antiquity
Let the collagen insist
An allegory of Capricorn
Memories crystallised
Settled in
Forevers harvest
Insensitive
Misconstrued chemical
Collective symmetry's sin
A condition, livid
Fleeting in Human imagery
Ships break
Loop our tongued
Hands, tossed in Dramamine
Whittled in a succession of malleable fashion
Talent spilled spread in supper
Collate our atrophy
And drink from baroness
Flavours tarnished
Super-collider
Blood soaked in Gematria
A garden of totality
High brow comparison
Entitled in your vacuous stigma
Forever burning
In the lesser key of Solomon
28 daemon
Tessellation in trigonometry
Temperance towards an infinite
Champion of mind, complex

Renee Vivien Translations


Song
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped in flightless wings.

It's getting late; soon we will sleep
(your eyes already half closed)
steeped
in the shimmering air.

O, the agony of burning roses:
your forehead discloses
a heavy despondency,
though your hair floats lightly ...

In the night sky the stars burn whitely
as the Goddess nightly
resurrects flowers that fear the sun
and die before dawn ...



Undine
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Kim Cherub (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

Your laughter startles, your caresses rake.
Your cold kisses love the evil they do.
Your eyes―blue lotuses drifting on a lake.

Lilies are less pallid than your face.

You move like water parting.
Your hair falls in rootlike tangles.
Your words like treacherous rapids rise.
Your arms, flexible as reeds, strangle,

Choking me like tubular river reeds.
I shiver in their enlacing embrace.
Drowning without an illuminating moon,
I vanish without a trace,

lost in a nightly swoon.



Amazone
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

the Amazon smiles above the ruins
while the sun, wearied by its struggles, droops to sleep.
******’s aroma swells Her nostrils;
She exults in blood, death’s inscrutable lover.

She loves lovers who intoxicate Her
with their wild agonies and proud demises.
She despises the cloying honey of feminine caresses;
cups empty of horror fail to satisfy Her.

Her desire, falling cruelly on some wan mouth
from which she rips out the unrequited kiss,
awaits ardently lust’s supreme spasm,
more beautiful and more terrible than the spasm of love.

NOTE: The French poem has “coups” and I considered various words – “cuts,” “coups,” “coups counted,” etc. – but I thought because of “intoxicate” and “honey” that “cups” worked best in English.



“Nous nous sommes assises” (“We Sat Down”)
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling, we were like two exiles
bearing our desolate souls within us.

Dawn broke more revolting than any illness...

Neither of us knew the native language
As we wandered the streets like strangers.
The morning’s stench, so oppressive!

Yet you shone like the sunrise of hope...

                     *

As night fell, we sat down,
Your drab dress grey as any evening,
To feel the friendly freshness of kisses.

No longer alone in the universe,
We exchanged lovely verses with languor.

Darling, we dallied, without quite daring to believe,
And I told you: “The evening is far more beautiful than the dawn.”

You nudged me with your forehead, then gave me your hands,
And I no longer feared uncertain tomorrows.

The sunset sashayed off with its splendid insolence,
But no voice dared disturb our silence...

I forgot the houses and their inhospitality...

The sunset dyed my mourning attire purple.

Then I told you, kissing your half-closed eyelids:
“Violets are more beautiful than roses.”

Darkness overwhelmed the horizon...

Harmonious sobs surrounded us...

A strange languor subdued the strident city.

Thus we savored the enigmatic hour.

Slowly death erased all light and noise,
Then I knew the august face of the night.

You let the last veils slip to your naked feet...
Then your body appeared even nobler to me, dimly lit by the stars.

Finally came the appeasement of rest, of returning to ourselves...
And I told you: “Here is the height of love…”

We who had come carrying our desolate souls within us,
like two exiles, like complete strangers.



Renée Vivien (1877-1909) was a British poet who wrote primarily in French. She was one of the last major poets of Symbolism. Her work included sonnets, hendecasyllabic verse and prose poetry. Born Pauline Mary Tarn in London to a British father and American mother, she grew up in Paris and London. Upon inheriting her father's fortune at age 21, she emigrated permanently to France. In Paris, her dress and lifestyle were as notorious as her verse. She lived lavishly as an open lesbian, sometimes dressing in men's clothes, while harboring a lifelong obsession for her closest childhood friend, Violet Shillito (a relationship that apparently remained unconsummated). Her obsession with violets led to Vivien being called the "Muse of the Violets." But in 1900 Vivien abandoned this chaste love to engage in a public affair with the American writer and heiress Natalie Clifford Barney. The following year Shillito died of typhoid fever, a tragedy from which Vivien never fully recovered. Vivien later had a relationship with a baroness to whom she considered herself to be married, even though the baroness had a husband and children. During her adventurous life, Vivien indulged in alcohol, drugs, fetishes and sadomasochism. But she grew increasingly frail and by the time of her death she weighed only 70 pounds, quite possibly dying from the cumulative effects of anorexia, alcoholism and drug abuse.

Keywords/Tags: Renee Vivien, lesbian, gay, LBGT, love, love and art, French, translation, translations, France, cross-dresser, symbolic, symbolist, symbolism, image, images, imagery, metaphor, metamorphose, metaphysical

She's been enjoying her time while living and working in London.

And Nicole Kidman was clearly thrilled to be one of the star guests at The 60th Women Of The Year Luncheon & Awards in the British capital on Monday afternoon.

The 48-year-old actress - who is currently starring in West End play Photograph 51 - cut a beautiful figure in a multi-tonal lace dress as she arrived at the prestigious event, held at the InterContinental London Park Lane.

The willowy beauty covered her slim figure in the mid-length dress, made up of several different lace panels in pale lilac, purple, yellow, black and white.

Cinching in at her slender waistline, the dress billowed out into a full A-line skirt, and also included long sleeves.

A Victoriana-style high-necked black lace section finished off the gorgeous garment, giving her a serene, ladylike air.

The Australia actress teamed the eye-catching dress with a pair of strappy black heels with pointed toes, and a tiny black box clutch.

Her pale red locks were swept back into a chic updo, her mid-length fringe framing her face.

The actress' bright blue eyes were highlighted with just a touch of mascara, and her beauty look was pulled together with a pretty pink shade on her lips.

Nicole was one of many star guests at the annual central London event, held to honour amazing women across all industries.

The famous event, which paid special tributes to six remarkable women from all fields, saw plenty of other star guests in attendance, with 400 in total at the luncheon.

After rising to fame as the winner of this year's The Great British Bake Off, Nadiya Hussain was one of the star attendees at the highly-significant ceremony.

The talented baker and busy mum, 30, rocked a simple and chic ensemble of slim-fitting black trousers and a crisp blue blazer, and bright turquoise heels.

Another familiar face was singer/songwriter Katie Melua, who opted for a cool androgynous ensemble.

The Call Off The Search hitmaker showed off her lovely long legs in a pair of black leather trousers, teamed with a sheer white blouse, a blazer and a cute black ribbon ******* around the collar.

Writer-comedian-actress Meera Syal rocked a typically unconventional ensemble as she arrived, cutting a striking figure in a bold patterned shirt dress with a lovely long black scarf and a jacket thrown over the top.

Princess Diana's glamorous niece Lady Kitty Spencer channelled a power-dressing 1980s vibe in a standout black shirt dress with bright, colourful buttons donw the front.

The pretty blonde finished her luncheon look with a chunky white clutch bag and perspex heels.

Choreographer and former Strictly Come Dancing star Arlene Phillips was a chic addition to the guest list in a figure-hugging red dress, and TV presenter and journalist Julie Etchingham wowed in an understated taupe dress with an origami-folded skirt and matching cropped jacket.

Also in attendance were the likes of Dame Esther Rantzen, TV's Lorraine Kelly - who was glorious in a gold lace frock - Maureen Lipman, Mary Nightingale, Jo Brand and

The Women of the Year winners were whittled down and chosen by a panel of notable, accomplished women: Sandi Toksvig CBE, Sue MacGregor CBE, Dame Tessa Jowell MP, Baroness Doreen Lawrence OBE, Jane Luca, Ronke Phillips, Eve Pollard OBE, Lisa Markwell, Gill Carrick and Sue Walton.

And viewers of popular morning programme, ITV's Lorraine, were also able to vote for their Inspirational Woman of the Year via a phone poll.

Sandi, President of the Women of the Year Awards, said: 'Women of the Year has celebrated the wonderful achievements of women since 1955.

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She walks in beauty and with elegance.
But I cannot seem to reach for her lips.
She leaves to go on her annual trips.
When she’s gone, I fill up with helplessness.
I will never feel such a blessedness
Until her restless green eyes come back here.
Losing her is the only thing I fear.
Just the mere thought fills me with dreadfulness.

The baroness came to grant me a kiss.
My heart skips a beat as she walks towards me.
Her radiant smile burns into my soul.
Spirits combined for a moment of bliss.
Our love shall last, it was meant to be.
To be joined at last, to become a whole.

When she
drove leverage
zonk-out an
exchange rate
at window
ready open
market on
a cloudy
day trade
that sun
ripened with
humid heat
wave finally
went to
the brink
in oil
of gladness.

I get off the Belt Parkway at Rockaway Boulevard and
Jet aloft from Idyllwild.
(I know, now called J.F. ******* K!)
Aboard a TWA 747 to what was then British East Africa,
Then overland by train to Baroness Blixen’s Nairobi farm . . .
You know the one at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
I lease space in Karen’s African dreams,
Caressing her long white giraffe nape,
That exquisite Streep jugular.
I am a ghost in Meryl’s evil petting zoo:
I haunt the hand that feeds me.

Safely back in Denmark, I receive treatment
For my third bout with syphilis at Copenhagen General.
Cured at last, I return to Kenya and Karen.
In my solitude or sleep, I go with her,
One hundred miles north of the Equator,
Arriving at Julia Child’s marijuana herb garden–
Originally Kikuyu Land, of course—
But mine now by imperial design &
California voter referendum.
(Voiceover) "I had a farm in Africa
At the foot of the Ngong Hills."
My farm lies high above the sea at 6,000 feet.
By daybreak I feel oh, oh so high up,
Near to the sun on early mornings.
Evenings so limpid and restful;
Nights oh, so cold.
Mille Grazie a lei, Signore *******!
Andiamo, Sydney, amico mio.
Let it flow like the water that lives in Mombasa.
Let it flow like Kurt Luedtke’s liquid crystal script.
We zoom in. We go close in. Going close up,
On the face of Isak Dinesen’s household
Servant and general factotum. (Full camera ******)
Karen Blixen’s devoted Muslim manservant,
Farah: “God is happy, msabu. He plays with us…”
He plays with me.  And who shall I be today?
How about Tony Manero for starters?
Good choice. Nicely done!
Geezer Manero:  old and bitter now,
Still working at the hardware store,
Twice-divorced, a chain-smoker,
Severely diabetic, a drunk on dialysis 3 times a week.
Bite me, Pop:  I never thought I was John Travolta.
But, hey, I had my shot:  “I coulda been a contenda.”
Once more, by association only,
I am a great artist again, quickly made
Near great by a simple second look.
Why, oh God? I am kvetching again.
I celebrate myself and sing the
L-on-forehead loser’s lament:
Why implant the desire and then
Withhold from me the talent?
“I wrote 30 ******* operas,”
I hear Salieri’s demented cackle.
“I will speak for you, Wolfie Babaloo;
I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.”

Must I wind up in the same
Viennese loony bin with Antonio?
Note to self:  GTF out of Austria post-haste!
I’ve been called on the Emperor’s carpet again,
My head, my decapitated Prufrock noodle,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter.
Are peaches in season?
Do I dare eat one?
I am Amadeus, ******, infantile,
An irresistible iconoclast and clown.
Wolfie:   “I am called on the imperial carpet again.
The Emperor may have no clothes but he’s got a
Shitload of ******* carpets."
Hello Girls: ‘Disco Tampons!
Staying inside, staying inside!
Wolfie: "Why have I chosen a ****** farce for my libretto?
Surely there are more elevated themes . . . NO!
I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes,
People so lofty they **** marble!"
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis.

So, I mix paint in the hardware store by day.
I dance all night, near-great again by locomotion.
Join me in at least one of my verifiable nine lives.
Go with me across the Narrows,
Back to Lenape with the wild red men of Canarsee,
To Vlacke Bos, Boswijk & Nieuw Utrecht,
To Dutch treat Breuckelen, Red Hook & Bensonhurst,
To Bay Ridge and the Sheepshead.
Come with me to Coney Island’s Steeplechase & Luna Park, &
Dreamland (aka Brownsville) East New York, County of Kings.
If I’m lying, I’m dying.
And while we’re on the subject now,
Bwana Finch Hatton (pronounced FINCH HATTON),
Why not turn your focus to the rival for Karen’s heart,
To the guy who nursed her through the syphilis,
That old taciturn ******, Guru Farah?
Righto and Cheerio, Mr. Finch Hatton,
Denys George of that surname—
Why not visualize Imam Farah?
Farah: a Twisted Sister Mary Ignatius,
Explaining it all to your likes-the-dark-meat
Friend and ivory-trading business partner,
Berkeley (pronounced BARK-LEE) Cole.
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

Oh yeah, Tony Manero, the Bee Gees & me,
A marriage made in Brooklyn.
The Gibbs providing the sound track while
I took care of the local action.
I got more *** than a toilet seat, a Don Juan rep &
THE CLAP on more than one occasion.
Probably from a toilet seat.
Even my big brother–the failed priest,
Celibate too long and desperate now–
Even my defrocked, blue-balled brother,
Frankie, cashing in his chips at the Archdiocese,
Taking soave lessons from yours truly,
Taking notes, copying my slick moves with chicks.
It was the usual story with the usual suspects &
The usual character tests. All of which I flunk.
I choose Fitzgerald's “vast, ****** meretricious beauty,”
My jumpstart to the middle class.
I spurn the neighborhood puttana,
Mary Catherine Delvecchio: the community ****
With the proverbial heart of gold &
A backpack full of self-esteem deficits.
I opt out.  I’m hungry and leaping.
I morph again, grab *** the golden girl.
Now I’m Gatsby in a white suit,
Stalking Daisy Buchanan in East Egg,
Daisy: her voice full of money;
My green light flashing on the disco dance floor.
I, a fool for love; she, my faithless uptown girl,
Golden and delicious like the apple,
Capricious like a blue Persian cat.
My “orgiastic future” eluded me then.
It eludes me still. Time to go home again to the place
****-ant Prufrocks ponder their pathetic dying embers.
Time to assume the position:
Gazing out from some trapezoidal patch of green
At the foot of Roebling’s bridge,
Contemplating an alternative reality for myself,
A new life across the East River,
In the city that never sleeps.
I crave. I lust. I am a guinzo Eva Duarte.
I too must be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires:
THE BIG APPLE.
But I am ashamed of my luggage,
Not to mention my baggage.
It’s like that last thing Holden Caulfield said to me,
Just before he crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge,
Crossed over to Manhattan without me,
Leaving me alone again, searching for our kid sister,
Phoebe, the only one on earth we can relate to:
“It’s really hard to be roommates with people
If your suitcases are much better than theirs.”
Ow! That stung; that was a stinger.
I am smithereened by a self-guided drone,
A smart bomb full of snide antigravity,
Transformational and caustic.
My meager allotment of self-esteem
Metastasizes into something base,
Something heavy and vile.
I drop to earth like lead mozzarella.

I am unworthy, unworthy in the maximum mendicant,
Roman Catholic mea culpa sense of the word.
I am now Umberto Eco’s penitenziagite.
I am Salvatore, a demented hunchback
(Played flawlessly as a demented hunchback by Ron Perlman),
Spewing linguistic gibberish in a variety of vernaculars:
“Lord, I am not worthy to live anywhere west of the Gowanus Canal.”
By East River waters I weep bitter tears,
The promise of a promised land denied.
I am a garlic-eating Chuck Yeager,
Auguring in, burnt beyond recognition,
An ethnic trope, a defiant Private Maggio
From here and for eternity,
Forever a swarthy ethnic stereotype
Trying to escape thru a small but significant
Hole in the ozone layer above South Ozone Park,
New York, zip code 11420.
That’s right, Ozone Park.
If you don’t believe me, look it up.
GO ******* GOOGLE IT!

And I just don’t know when to quit.
So why quit there?
Work with me, fratello mio, mon lecteur.
Like you, I took the LSAT so long ago.
Why am I not a distinguished American jurist
Asking the one question that seems to be on
Everyone’s eugenic lips today:
“Aren’t three generations of imbeciles enough?”
I am Charly from Flowers for Algernon,
A slow learner with a push broom, swept up in
Some dust from Leonard Cohen’s cuff.
Lenny: a grey-beard loon himself now, singing
“Hallelujah” for fish & chips in London’s O2 Arena.
“Suzanne takes you down, Babaloo!”
At last, I am Jesus Quintana—
John Turturro stealing the movie as usual--
This time in a hair net and a jumpsuit,
"Made of a comfortable 65% polyester/35%
Cotton poplin, you can even add your own
Ribbon leg trim and monogramming
For just the right look to be one of
The Big Lebowski’s favorite characters.
Mouse-over the thumbnail below to see our actual style
(Color must be purple). Style #: 98P, Price: $55.95. On sale: $50.36.www.myjumpsuit.com."
Fortunately, I am a savvy marketeer:
I understand the artistic potential, the venal
Possibilities of product placement. Go with me
To that undiscovered country.
The humanities uncorrupted till now by
Crass gimcrack television ads. That’s right:
******* commercials smack dab in the
Middle of a ******* poem. Why not?
Great literature has always been about
Selling something, even if only an idea.
Hey, **** me, Herman Melville!
We both know the publication costs of
Moby **** were underwritten by the tattoo artists &
Harpoon manufacturers of New Bedford,
Matched by a small research grant from some
Proto-Greenpeace, Poseidon adventure in some
Great white whale-watching swinging soiree.
Murray the ******* K, pendejo!
At last, I am The Jesus, a pervert & pederast,
According to Walter Sobjak—another post-traumatic
Post Toasty, like me, still out there in the jungle,
Still in love with the smell of ****** in the morning.
My bowling buddy, Walter, comfortably far to the right of
The Dude, and Attila the *** for that matter,
But who gives a **** if Lenin was The Walrus?
(“Shut the **** up, Buscemi!”)
“Once you hang a right at Hubert Humphrey,”
Said the streets of 1968 Chicago,
"It’s all ******* fascism anyway.”
That creep could roll, though, and as we know so well:
“Nobody ***** with The Jesus.”
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

INCOMING!
I just heard from an old girlfriend who is miles away,
Teaching school in Navajo Land.
The Big Rez:  a long day’s interstate katzenjammer,
A Route 66 nightmare by car, but by email,
Just down the block and round the corner.
I had previously closed an email to her with a frivolous
“Say hello to my stinky friend.”
It was a total non-sequitur, an iconic-moronic,
Ace Ventura-mutant line from Scarface,
Which may have meant–in my herbal lunch delirium—
That she should say hi to some mutual acquaintance
We mutually loathe, Or, perhaps an acknowledgement that she–
My surrogate Cameron Diaz–has a new **** buddy,
Of whom I am insanely jealous.
Or maybe it was a simple Seinfeld “about nothing.”
Who knows what goes on in that twisted *****’s head?
She spends the next two hours in a flood of funk,
A deluge of insecurity.
A veritable Katrina ****** of self-consciousness,
Interpreting my inane nonsense in terms of vaginal health.

Hey, you want to ruin a woman’s day?
Tell her, her **** smells.

Cinnamon sonogram

Detect the abnormalities too late.

Morning after birth of

a placebo placenta.

Irrigate the porcelain

of a lost labor laboratory.

Love found not within the arms of

the golem grasping for straws.

-

Wailing a harmony of blue and red.

Pumping panacea.

Steady the pace, you hotheads

with elegant electric veins.

On Monday she sung so sweetly and

whispered her prophet tales.

Saturday appeared as an echoing,

hollow and halfhearted hymn.

-

They retreat in rebellion;

lapping at salt laced lacerations.

Rye, grain, roots, and grapes

for the Baroness of the Barrens.

Weeping waters leads to the

sleeping daughters that dangle

their threats like fishing hooks

off of the edge of a world so flat.

We have a Baroness and a diplomat. They were a team in a global organization. And they had an affair. And both were addicted to something. She to ****** and he to saving the world.
She promised him to quit and he promised her to quit.
He promised to quit if she promised to submit to a clinic after he quit his world saving addiction.
She promised to enter the clinic if he promised to leave the world’s stage.
They sat in a hotel room and she says, for the time being you can use you diplomatic status and pouches to get me the brown sugar. He said, the world saver he was, that could be great cover, for the time being.
Diplomaniak, I love you. Baroness, you sweet Brownie, I love you.
So for the time being as it was nothing changed.
The diplo haggled and joked with the dealers. He had learned the trade from his parents who both had been junkies. So he bought the best of the best. The Baroness took it for granted she got the best of the best.
Pouches came and went and the diplo covered it all up with a crazy story. About them containing samples of biochemicals used in warfare. And used by him to expose rogue states. All to prevent exposing his rogue mate.
Dealers asked him, you on the sugar?
No, it’s for my sugar. I’m on a drop of whiskey and a puff of tobacco.
But then time being as it was something changed.
The diplo finally found a suitable successor.  One who wasn’t trying to save the world. The world decided it would do it’s saving it self.
So in came a peace loving and peaceful negotiator. A man who extended existing wars and supported starting new ones.
The Baroness booked herself into the clinic. The diplo visited her every day. This time without the sugar but with a bottle of crème de cacao for her and a drop of whiskey for him. The nurse expressly had forbidden any stimulants in the clinic, so the diplo used a different pouch. He bought a large chocolate box. Together they retreated to a secluded spot in the garden and enjoyed sips of their respective browns.
One day the Baroness said, I’ve got to tell you something.  I’ve fallen in love.
With whom?
With the nurse.
Well, that’s better than being married to the needle, said the diplo.
You don’t care?
I care a lot but only for you.
Her new lover barred him from visiting her.
But the diplo found a way around this. He mimicked the voices of her family members and got her to visit him in their usual hotel rooms. There they sipped their browns in secret.
But the time being as it was one of them died. And when that happened their last words to each other were that they stopped making promises to each other.

A man wearing a tailored suit appears at a rivals lodging holding a box in his right fist and his hat in the other. He knocks on the door. A man in rags answers, he is desperate to experience the same kind of riches that the well dressed man has accomplished. It seems that they have been rivals since birth.  Both men came from the same place and are indistinguishable in almost every way. The only difference was appearance. One appeared  greater, and the other appeared lesser. The well dressed man's rival has been hounding, pleading, scheming for years to get whatever it is that made his counterpart successful. The man in rags dropped to his knees in the doorway of his broken down cube that he calls home. "What's your secret? Is it in that box?" This box was in the successful man's life for years. This exact interaction has happened countless times. The difference with this particular moment is that the man in rags has lost hope. Lost luster, lost vigor and drive. His downfalls have put extreme weight on his shoulders and has literally brought him to his knees right in front of his rival.
Once he had demanded,  "You will tell me your secret! At every chance you get you look in that box. At every heartbreak or wrong turn you peek inside and get aspiration, epiphanies. I want that. I need that. You tell me what's inside!" But it never worked. The well dressed man would say nothing, do nothing, and would act as if the lesser man was invisible. The man in rags could never convince the well dressed man to share his secret. Force wouldn't work either because the man in rags was a pacifist.  Also displayed weakness, meagerness, he was insufficient and desperate.  The well dressed man was the exact opposite,  strong decisive, calm and confident.  The lesser man wanted what was on the other side of the fence, he wanted to feel the soft bluegrass beneath his feet, as opposed to the dirt covered baroness yard that he had became so spiteful of.  "The key to success is in the box." The man in rags thought.
Now the man in rags is almost 6 feet into the ground, metaforiacally, he is at rock bottom. The well dressed man for saw this and that was why he was standing in front of a failing vessel holding his prized humble possession.
The box was black, with gold trim painted on the sides. It also had a lock embedded in the side made of platinum.  It was a identical to what the well dressed man embodied. The man in rags tried many times to break inside but to no avail,  the box stood resilient. Couldn't even make a dent or scratch.  
Now he had given up. Leaning against the frame of his door, welts growing bigger and more painful on his knees with every passing moment. Tears flowing from his eyes, so much he could hydrate a village of camels. The well dressed man, with no reservations, no emotion says nothing and hands the lesser male a purple key with a gold and platinum crown embroidered on the hilt. The man  in rags looks up with sorrow and anticipation.  He gently grasps the key and slowly glides it into the platinum lock. 'Click' it's opening. Every second that passes by feels like an hour to the man who's knees are numb with pain. Finally he looks inside and comes to see... That the box is empty. "What is this!? A trick?! A lie!? Why do you toy with me so, why?" The lesser man's shoulders slumped down to his waist. He falls dead fully silent.
The well dressed man puts the box aside while he kneels down on one knee, still exuberant with confidence and strength and looks the man in rags man in the eyes. The energy was so intense the lesser man was frozen and felt every emotion imaginable at once.  ".....There was never anything inside of this parcel..." The greater man  then put his hat on, and walked away.

listening to the radio is far less melancholy than you might think, sure, the adverts are there, and you can't skip them or hush them like you can on the internet and on-demand t.v., but it doesn't bother me, i sometimes like to take a break from being my own d.j., because as my own d.j. i tend to choose music that's perfect for writing, for honing in on the sizeable bite of verbiage, sometimes distinguished by a touch of a magician's wand. plus i surprises are better than presents - i stopped celebrating all the orthodox occasions in the calendar - i forgot my birthday, christmas = pyjamas and movies, Easter outside the Catholic / Orthodox realm is a bit silly... rabbit testicles... the greatest profanity, Protestantism has its weak spot... coupled with championing capitalism, Easter has no surprises, given the most celebrated act of the man who lived when Spartacus burped and Ben Hur farted... (cat just started his opera when i wrote this, just treat it as an odd thing, remembering the dead and still famous in cinema adaptation)... but you seriously can't imagine Easter in England... chocolate *****, Christianity has become a joke, it hasn't died out, it has just become a joke... what with Elijah becoming a saint rather than a prophet, what with the Archangel Michael also becoming a saint... you'd start thinking: this is getting ridiculous with hen parties and fairy wands, plastic wings and ******* in the alley... the disrespect people have for Easter and over-powering the celebration of Christmas just shows the weakness... a sly incursion into a penitence for the Inquisition... comfortable chairs in churches across America... like i said, a joke. Islam is heading the same way, the failings of these two monotheisms is bound to (as i mentioned already) the incorporation of a polytheistic concept of polytheism bound to the last book before the fiasco, Malachi's promise of a return of Elijah, to turn the son's heart unto his father's, antonym too with the women; well, i have to take this text seriously, i hate ridiculing them, the 20th century's antidote to explaining why the Holocaust wasn't averted by some big brother - i live in England, i'm used to c.c.t.v. voyeurism, i don't understand why a theological c.c.t.v. is so ****** complicated - usually argued by the person with his hand in a cookie jar... why should anyone else be worried? don't worry, i'm not digressing, there's a reason why i added an emphasis title to the first of a sequence of my experiment (where i stop being my own d.j.).

my father left for England when i was 4,
i do have a vague memory of 1990 -
most notably my mother waking up late
and in his words: wake the baroness,
lothar matthaus (1990 world cup) -
carrying a table for the kitchen with him -
meeting his grandmother that raised him
being the oddest experience -
(yeah, he was an unwanted child,
raised by his grandparents,
the shame stories of his drinking father living
near him but taking no interest,
his mother moving to Silesia) -
so from a presence aged 4 to being 8
he was simply a voice on the telephone
and a pack of presents once in a while -
my mother left to join him when i was 6 -
before she left she bought me a dog,
a doberman pinscher - called him Axel
(after Axl Rose) - after that i got a taste
of my father's childhood, i.e. being raised
by my grandparents - driving an industrial
buggy on the steel plant complex,
taking a shower in the bathrooms -
my grandfather was an alcoholic... now i'm
a post-stoner alcoholic... so i don't have any
horror story to name and shame someone,
it doesn't matter, once i walked my grandfather
from his mother's house on her birthday,
he got the woman's wrath from my grandmother
and my mother, but i sure as **** walked him home;
just stating the obvious, not all poets are
fluffy heart frail, some of us learn to live.
so when i arrived in England aged 8 at the Victoria
Coach Station i didn't quiet know what to do
hugging my father... a complete stranger
(early development is not the development of
adults used to the mundane hamster wheels
of countless Mondays and Fridays and nights out) -
my memory of learning English in primary school
from scratch? i can't tell you anything detailed -
what i can tell you is that Jurassic Park came out
that year and i really wanted to see it after
becoming a fan of the Japanese versions of Godzilla,
my favourite? *Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.
and Lion King was out too... each day after coming
back from primary school (fond memories,
like taking pictures of Pamela Anderson from
a newsagent that were given out for free into
the schoolyard and distributing them, getting ratted
out given the shame-mantra by the headmaster:
what would you say if this was your mother?
Christianity is perfect by shaming you first, then
supposedly redeeming you, their own vice fruit
and that ******* crucifix. the game of bulldog
the meals, Ribena, choc cake with custard,
drawing Ophelia drowning for a school exhibition...
the devil mask bought at Warsaw and worn at
a dance ball, having it worn by all too eager friends
one by one... the list is endless - as ever, memory,
the best cinema in town) - so each day after coming
back from primary school i'd watch the Lion King
religiously... even my mother was bothered,
after two weeks if not more she complained to me
with concerns as if i were autistic or something -
why was i watching it? think about it... from the age
of 4 to the age of 8 i hadn't seen my father -
but you know that famous scene when Scar betrays
Mufasa and throws him to his death in the stampede?
pivotal moment for my psychic life to catch-up
with having a father - using the fear of loss in bright
colours kinda illuminated the dull realities around me -
intuitive masterminding what many people will take
for a standard family life - obviously i stopped the Lion
King after i saturated enough feeling for a person
i didn't develop around aged 4 till 8... which might
explain my resorting to alcoholism... but i'm not bothered,
i don't feel like starting a family, plus alcohol
sedates and makes writing more uninhibited (show me
a writer who didn't drink and i'll find you a bored
reader and unfinished books, that's the point of the
anti-haiku concept of ensō - i'm counting on it:
written without effort, should, technically be read without
effort), and never mind that ****** focal point in
my life that's not at all interesting aged 21 and thus
what happened after; that's me, automaton -
rebellious against being grilled down to:
an Englishman's house is his... cave... Darwinism take
on history will continue to be my pet peeve -
it just erases so many advances we've had down the centuries,
plus for every humanism alive... it must be kinda boring -
no... i'm not ensuring Darwinism is sparring in a boxing
ring with theology - from human to human -
that new program on channel 4 (naked attraction)
looks a bit like a trip to the butchers - and however you think
about it... the date after still looks ******* awkward,
so the ******* doesn't really help, the situation between
the pair is still like rubbing sandpaper on your face:
you're not showing a rouge of minor shame and inhibition...
you've just been basically *****-slapped silly.

written while talking to a dear friend, Irene, who i met on my travels to Paris, and who i'm spotted with, in a photograph, by the Moulin Rouge, hunched in homage to Quasimodo, with Paul the wild haired australian.

i'm always depressed before composition
and the first whiskey to
stop me throwing up anything i might
ingest,
but then the seemingly graceless magpie
with its extended tail flies into eyesight,
then the blackbird, the crow, the seagull (huh?!
30 miles inland and a ****** seagull?)...
and then i open my eyes a second time,
take off the eyes that see lust gluttony colours
and shapes, and put on my x-ray spectacles
of looking at a white page and typing for a while...
and then a song crops up and it bothers me,
mortiis' parasite god from the album *the smell
of rain, if there is such a thing as a parasite god,
we'll be constantly thinking about it,
it will be an ontological implant of ours to
then debate whether we're atheists, theists,
gnostics or agnostics... it would be a burden, indeed
an oversized tapeworm to put it mildly -
but then the other description floating about,
the entitlement of a title, akin to prince, knight,
sir, baron or baroness or even a marquis...
the lord of hosts... and with vain attempt at sounding
in blossom of a magnolia tree attentive of courtesy,
a host is someone who contains a parasite,
why would i want to contain a parasite of thought in
me, that would necessarily sway me from denoting
myself an atheist, theist, etc.?
atheists do indeed uphold the principle stated in this
song i mentioned mortiis' parasite god;
i among the jews a parasite of the host of
ancient egypt;
i mean, they always say they're atheists or whatever,
they want that little sticker at a speed dating gathering
hello, my name is, queue (oh sorry,
Hugh), but when it comes to
defining what sort of thinking defines you as such and
such, it's vaguely satisfying to hear a presupposition label,
followed by a string of even more unsatisfying propositions,
and since i'm not a fisherman in that department,
i think i'll just stick to what i know, or at least what i think i know.

Chaos,
grandness around us, within us
our pasts and our fates,
the heads and the tails you bring us,
nothingness,
mistress, our all that is free and forbidden
forgiven, forsaken, forseen and forsworn;

Our endlessness,
countless infinities that you defy
our unbreaking circle of charities your grace is defined by;
our mother, our barrens of space who is bearing existence;

our eminence,
baroness, dancing the torments of pregnance
our sorceress, chanting the songs of emergence;

our senses and souls,
your spawn, your kin, your death and your sins
our servant, your serfs
kneeled down and bowed over
your lust that is shameless, yearned for and proud,
raised up and all that is tall afly
your will that is mindful, yearning, forgiving;

our Godesses, our locks and our keys,
around us, within us, the now and the here,

listening through the ears of machine elves
our absolution from words uncertain;

speaking through colours of clockwork glyphs
our faith to bring magic into our lives;

teaching through picture puzzle pattern cellar doorways
our choice to approach whenever we wish.

You are awareness. We are mindful.
You are presence. We are eternal.

streets do not bustle and cats eyes are two ferries and miles and miles of tarmac away,
this seeming baroness is teeming with creatures of the inner-scape,
this is not poetry to some
but poetry is a free-spirit and defies all captors, all chains.
the roads she takes are her own.

I'm a ****** in a carnivore my martyr wants to craft in a hunt
where biting laughs make romance posit their knowledge or fact
if then skunk mull ground with graph only message hers affront

to slander this right and sleep in the courtyard
and chastise fortuity at baroness
when she'd attract communist lore till Angora
freeze her T & A all the way to Tennessee.

She ambles, cautious, methodical
(In her world, there is no time and place
For something so frivolous as traipsing)
Through narrow and informal trails which criss-cross
The slump-shouldered hills above town,
Thick pine stands obscuring the abandoned woolen mill,
The ungainly pock-marks of the abandoned quarries below.
She is in love (but coyly, chastely) with the mountain laurel,
Unremarkable and unprepossessing in its pallidity,
Demure foil for the hawkweed, the Indian paintbrush,
The resigned counterpoint without which
The beautiful may claim no more than some vague quality,
Some ethereal, gauzy notion which sets them apart.
She has no pretensions concerning her own self
(Plain as the dirt on Bootjack Hill, she reckons,
Although she entertains the odd fanciful notion:
Small hotels in Corfu, out-of-the-way Parisian nightspots,
Tete-a-tetes with second sons of some minor baroness)
And she contents herself with the occasional ramble over the knolls,
Meandering silently among the ubiquitous tiny flowers,
Joining them in understated and minor communion,
The mute and muted envy of the canvas
Toward the bright and showy pigments of the palette.

My sweet heart, my queen of fairies from far off land
I can sacrifice my life on intensity and warmth of love
You are so beautiful so grand , no one is of your brand
I remain down the drain and you are up in sky above

Let me cherish embers of beauty in lovely love flames
Take me to the heights where may touch drops of dew
I want to be with you on eternal heights with my claims
Where we should be through, I shouldn't find any clue

Who I am where I am my lunacy should touch aristocracy
As baron I should command and as a baroness you follow
Where my love should just cash the graces of your beauty
Through and through let it be an excellent and grand show

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow

It felt like a drainpipe down the gullet of the actress
As she leapt out of sight of the red baroness
Asking, why do the streetlights stay blue?
And will the soil maintain its hue?

Faceless people eating capriciously
As they tenderly speak of their shore leave
As they’re foisting their dreams to their sleeves
Speaking of odd, foreign fleece

Decadent manners spoke in secret tongues
Polarized banners through brazen tar lungs
As bravado finds a new face
To win wars with one holy gaze

Something’s the matter but it’s all for nought
As the gilded Centurion claims he forgot
What he built his first child’s house upon
For all his sons are vagabonds

I mimicked a child in the way he embraced
His nascent complacence to the human race
Clinging to a wooden rail
For fear of the careless hail

A man claimed his newsboy hat kept him enclosed
For his fear that his thought-dreams would serve to corrode
The last bastions of society
Which he clings on to haplessly

The visor hung low on the Titan of Rhodes
For he knew of the judgment on one head exposed
In his position above
Where the sky belongs only to doves

Calendars festoon their tactless grace
With legions of chandeliers, forming a haze
Now, we know that the days are numbered
Yet, the fact leaves us all encumbered

Facsimiles of the nationwide veins
Will collapse next year as they fight for the grain
Now, the horse is extinct with the train
And everyone fears to remain

There is a beauty, I must confess
In the roll of her eyes
She is an all-encompassing baroness
In ill disguise
There is something behind her charred lips
That I do wish to hold
But when she sharpens her lilac fingertips
I simply lose my soul

Sat still by the fire, she seemed to me
Sadly contrary to eternity
She speaks with words that one cannot teach
Her gaze beckoned me to reach

She walks to me on scalpels
I cannot deny her
She drowns my tongue
In the sound of lyres
Her name, Her name
Her name, Her name
Her name, Her name
Her name

Escapes my mouth
Through no fault of mine
She cannot be held
In the interest of time
Her age will never show too clear
When her hood falls down
The sun will kneel
There will be no sound
But her spinning heel
This conquest, so severe
Her teeth lash out like mirrors
I held her hand in fear

As she types away all of her rights
She keeps ******* tied
When she asked me to call her Eurydice
I politely declined
She threw a fleeting fit that died with a kiss
From me unto her hand
Then she said, “how could you throw away all this bliss?”
I couldn’t understand
She snapped her toes, the room bellowed
I quickly shrivelled in brilliant fright
Her nest of pearly hair swallowed me
Then she fell out of sight

The lady stood behind me
In a dress of pins
She smiled and swayed
I never saw her again
Her name, Her name
Her name, Her name
Her name, Her name
Her name

Escapes my mouth
Through no fault of mine
She cannot be held
In the interest of time
Her face will never show too clear
When her hood falls down
The sun will kneel
There will be no sound
Nor pain to feel
Her footsteps, so severe
As the pangs of her toes echo clear
I run, for I know she’s near

I took the liberty of relieving you of your broken heart
and slept through the night.
you are my baroness, and i am the moonlit glade after dark
and the depth of available light.
true love is like watering
the fish.

people don't. but you do.

and you might.