I. Song of the Beggars
"O for doors to be open and an invite with gilded edges
To dine with Lord Lobcock and Count Asthma on the platinum benches
With somersaults and fireworks, the roast and the smacking kisses"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And Garbo's and Cleopatra's wits to go astraying,
In a feather ocean with me to go fishing and playing,
Still jolly when the **** has burst himself with crowing"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And to stand on green turf among the craning yellow faces
Dependent on the chestnut, the sable, the Arabian horses,
And me with a magic crystal to foresee their places"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And this square to be a deck and these pigeons canvas to rig,
And to follow the delicious breeze like a tantony pig
To the shaded feverless islands where the melons are big"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And these shops to be turned to tulips in a garden bed,
And me with my crutch to thrash each merchant dead
As he pokes from a flower his bald and wicked head"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.
"And a hole in the bottom of heaven, and Peter and Paul
And each smug surprised saint like parachutes to fall,
And every one-legged beggar to have no legs at all"

Cried the cripples to the silent statue,
The six beggared cripples.

Spring 1935

II.
O lurcher-loving collier, black as night,
Follow your love across the smokeless hill;
Your lamp is out, the cages are all still;
Course for heart and do not miss,
For Sunday soon is past and, Kate, fly not so fast,
For Monday comes when none may kiss:
Be marble to his soot, and to his black be white.

June 1935

III.
Let a florid music praise,
The flute and the trumpet,
Beauty's conquest of your face:
In that land of flesh and bone,
Where from citadels on high
Her imperial standards fly,
Let the hot sun
Shine on, shine on.

O but the unloved have had power,
The weeping and striking,
Always: time will bring their hour;
Their secretive children walk
Through your vigilance of breath
To unpardonable Death,
And my vows break
Before his look.

February 1936

IV.
Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts today,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.

Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other's necks
Inert and vaguely sad.

What hidden worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out.

March 1936

V.
Fish in the unruffled lakes
Their swarming colors wear,
Swans in the winter air
A white perfection have,
And the great lion walks
Through his innocent grove;
Lion, fish and swan
Act, and are gone
Upon Time's toppling wave.

We, till shadowed days are done,
We must weep and sing
Duty's conscious wrong,
The Devil in the clock,
The goodness carefully worn
For atonement or for luck;
We must lose our loves,
On each beast and bird that moves
Turn an envious look.

Sighs for folly done and said
Twist our narrow days,
But I must bless, I must praise
That you, my swan, who have
All the gifts that to the swan
Impulsive Nature gave,
The majesty and pride,
Last night should add
Your voluntary love.

March 1936

VI. Autumn Song
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last,
Nurses to their graves are gone,
But the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbors left and right
Daunt us from our true delight,
Able hands are forced to freeze
Derelict on lonely knees.

Close behind us on our track,
Dead in hundreds cry Alack,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Scrawny through a plundered wood,
Trolls run scolding for their food,
Owl and nightingale are dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Clear, unscalable, ahead
Rise the Mountains of Instead,
From whose cold, cascading streams
None may drink except in dreams.

March 1936

VII.
Underneath an abject willow,
Lover, sulk no more:
Act from thought should quickly follow.
What is thinking for?
Your unique and moping station
Proves you cold;
Stand up and fold
Your map of desolation.

Bells that toll across the meadows
From the sombre spire
Toll for these unloving shadows
Love does not require.
All that lives may love; why longer
Bow to loss
With arms across?
Strike and you shall conquer.

Geese in flocks above you flying.
Their direction know,
Icy brooks beneath you flowing,
To their ocean go.
Dark and dull is your distraction:
Walk then, come,
No longer numb
Into your satisfaction.

March 1936

VIII.
At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my friend, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of the migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

April 1936

IX.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

April 1936

X.
O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; "O Johnny, let's play":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Matinee Charity Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
"Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver or golden silk gown;
"O John I'm in heaven," I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
"O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away.

April 1937

XI. Roman Wall Blues
Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,
My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone.

Aulus goes hanging around her place,
I don't like his manners, I don't like his face.

Piso's a Christian, he worships a fish;
There'd be no kissing if he had his wish.

She gave me a ring but I diced it away;
I want my girl and I want my pay.

When I'm a veteran with only one eye
I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

October 1937

XII.
Some say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like classical stuff?
Does it stop when one wants to quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn' in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories ****** but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on the door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

January 1938

HEART-SHIP

About me, I swear down.
I'll tell thee of treks – how I in radged-days
put up with fretted-time,
sought abode and still do, get bitter ***-care,
in us heart-ship, scary waves’ rolling,
where narrow neet-ogle
often kept us at heart-ship’s stem
when it scurries by cliffs.

Us feet clammed by cold,
bound by frost’s frozen cold steel,
where those frets sighed
marfin about heart;
clemmed within ripped
mind of sea-knackered.

2.  CARE-BEGGARED

Town lads have it soft, dunt know nowt
as how us, care-beggared, ice-scratched sea dwellers wintered in exile,
swayed from mates and kin,
rigged with rime-crystals.
Hail stones bounced off our decks.
I heard nowt there but sea’s groan,
ice-flecked seas furrow. Heard at times summat like swan’s. And made glad by gannet’s and curlew's clamour,
for homely laughter,
gull-shriek for bitter ale.
Hail beat up stone-cliffs, where feathered
spray nattered to them; often eagles dew-feathered screamed.
No mates sheltered us,
or made us feel minded.

Town folk dunt credit it,
complacent with blessings
and few baleful journeys –
proud and wine-sozzled, how I, knackered,
often on sea-snickets had to abide.
Night-shadow snuffed us out;
snow fell from the north;
rime bound soil; hail felled earth
coldest of corns. So, now, thoughts
mither my heart, that I the deep sea,
salt-waves, should fetch myself on.

3. NOR

Salt yearn moves us gently.
Desire is a gust catcher.
Heart-ship bobs in its harbour,
as it pitches and yaws
to stranger islands.
Refugees homeland seek.
Though embarking, the reckless, skilful, youthful, brave,
do not know what life has in store.
Nor my hands on harp or on coin,
on lasses limbs delight,
nor on owt save wayward water.


4. UNWINTER

These woodlands unwinter too much with blossom,
give too much gold to villages, overbrighten meadows. World pushes on, all this urges us,
doom minded spirits to leave on flood-ways.
Heart-ship tugs at moorings.
Summer cuckoo's mournful call urges,
bodes sorrow, bitter in breast-hoard.
If tha blessed with comfort, how does tha know what some endure on tracks of exile?


5. WHALE-WEND

Heart-ship tugs at its harbour.
My imagination in mere-flood,
in whale plunge, wide in its turns
eager for seas vastness. Gannet yells
as whale-wends, spirit quickens over holm’s deep, irresistible delights of life are more
than this life that flits on land.
Illness, old age and aggression
wrests life away, bests breath.

6. PRAISE OF LIFE

Praise life. Before tha death
tha must climb mast against malice,
shun dodgy devils. Days stale,
earth’s grandeur beggared,
now no bosses, gold-givers gone,
glorious deeds done,
live out their doom.
Joys stale, weak rule this world,
live here afflicted. Glory humbled,
earth grows old, withers this November.
Old age fares over thee; tha bright face pale;
gray-haired, tha grieves over tha mates
given to the sod. Homeless tha flesh, then, when life is lost to thee, tha cannot sweet swallow nor sore feel, hand stir nor mind think.
Tha gold means nowt beside graves of tha mates, that proud deed will not go with thee,
gold is no help to a self full of itself.

7.   THE MEASURER

The world's craftsman is a Measurer
that turns the earth. Founder of fields
and sky. Only the foolish mess with it
and die unexpected. Tha must be humble.
The Measurer helps them be strong
as is minded in steer of their heart-ship
wise in tha decisions, clean in tha ways.
Anchor tha fire or be burned.
  Fate is stronger Measurer than any a tha thought.
Harbour is a life long in love of Earth,
hope int skies. Through all rough tides
and smooth trust in water and the sod.

Does that lamp still burn in my Father's house,
  Which he kindled the night I went away?
I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,
  And marked it gleam with a golden ray;
  Did he think to light me home some day?

Hungry here with the crunching swine,
  Hungry harvest have I to reap;
In a dream I count my Father's kine,
  I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,
  I watch his lambs that browse and leap.

There is plenty of bread at home,
  His servants have bread enough and to spare;
The purple wine-fat froths with foam,
  Oil and spices make sweet the air,
  While I perish hungry and bare.

Rich and blessed those servants, rather
  Than I who see not my Father's face!
I will arise and go to my Father:--
    "Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,
    Grant me. Father, a servant's place."

Standing on the tiptoe
of my universe
I found I had

Nothing but love to offer
While the nature of
Anonymous cruel indifference
Can seem unnameably cold
I admired the ability of it

To make us feel free
Insolent as my fate had been
Greener than the word May

The mast of these afternoons
Only beggared for moderation
And that enraptured simplicity
From which I came
That was enough, and so were

The rest of the years that I was given
at the asylum of the eucalypti
I would rest, and it would be
Wondrous and christening
Like a white sunset.

Everybody in Russia loves Vladimir Putin.
In the years since he muscled his way to the top of the tree, he has established himself as the Champion of all Russia!

In the degradation following the collapse of the USSR, national pride in Russia spiralled down to an all-time low, there was little to be proud of. The satellite nations fled to independence abandoning the Rodina,  Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically, law and order diminished dangerously. The economy shrank and the order of success in business depended largely on connection with Government and/or the Mafia. The Oligarchs became monstrously rich, the average Ivan monstrously poor. Life savings were rendered worthless overnight by the plummet of the value of the rouble. Russian society polarised from the ecstatically happy, filthy rich to the chronically unhappy, beggared poor.

Russian leadership staggered from Gorbechev’s democratisation through Yeltsin’s alcoholism to Andropov’s sudden death…. enter the fray Vladimir Putin.

Putin tightened the reins.
He organised regular payment of wages and salaries to the movers and shakers, the police and the military.
He changed the rules of doing business within the nation and made investment opportunities within Russia available to outside interests.
He took charge and commandeered discipline within the ranks of central Government.
He set about correctional treatment for the terrorists/freedom fighters in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere.
He raised the expectations of the common man and gave the people an element of promise for Russia’s tomorrow.
He invaded and took back the Crimea as legitimate Russian sovereignty.
He garnered the roaring support of the six million ethnic Russians domiciled in the Eastern region of the Ukraine.

Putin now stands, bare chested, astride Russia. He faces a hostile but cowed West with pale, blazing eyes and a ******* bulge in his trousers.
He is widely idolised by Russian women and admired by Russian men. He is their champion; he is believed to be their key to the future.
His nation is currently under severe trade embargo and economic sanction by Europe and the West which is hurting the strained economy right across the board.
The declining price of oil is adversely affecting Siberian oil profits and making further shale oil exploration uneconomic.
He enjoys hugely profitable Siberian natural gas pipeline sales to the Southern neighbour, China, but they watch the unfolding political landscape with careful, calculating tiger eyes.
Putin is regarded by Europe and the West as an unpredictable, serious threat who should not be unduly provoked.
Undeniably, the West, in their sour lipped manner, would be happy to see him and his Russian bear, fade quietly and permanently into the obscurity of the frozen wilds of the far Siberian tundra.

But if Vladimir Putin plays his cards well, he could actually bring the Rodina all of the benefits, glory and rewards that it seeks.
However, should he overplay his hand here, he may well crash and burn….and in doing so, could bring Russia’s dreams and aspirations crashing down with him.

Marshalg
Auckland
15 November 2014

For Leonard Baskin

To his house the bodiless
Come to barter endlessly
Vision, wisdom, for bodies
Palpable as his, and weighty.

Hands moving move priestlier
Than priest's hands, invoke no vain
Images of light and air
But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone.

Obdurate, in dense-grained wood,
A bald angel blocks and shapes
The flimsy light; arms folded
Watches his cumbrous world eclipse

Inane worlds of wind and cloud.
Bronze dead dominate the floor,
Resistive, ruddy-bodied,
Dwarfing us. Our bodies flicker

Toward extinction in those eyes
Which, without him, were beggared
Of place, time, and their bodies.
Emulous spirits make discord,

Try entry, enter nightmares
Until his chisel bequeaths
Them life livelier than ours,
A solider repose than death's.

Peace broke out
with a rash of shepherds
Peace broke in
while most were asleep
Peace broke out
with a choir of angels
Peace broke in
with the bleat of sheep

Peace broke out
in a backyard stable
Peace broke in
and beggared belief
Peace broke out
in the stink of a manger
Peace broke in
with a cry of release

Peace broke out
to a child breast feeding
Peace broke in
to a mothers relief
Peace broke out
in the hearts of believers
Peace broke in
to the middle east

Peace breaks out
to those who believe him
Peace breaks in
to the hearts of the meek
Peace breaks out
here in Ealing
Jesus breaks in
as the Prince of true Peace

I once worked the sign
at the intersection
of Facebook and HelloPoetry.
All those years when
secure in my job,
flush with cash,
I'd not meet the eyes
of those who muttered
"thank you, sir"
on those rare occasions
when a crumpled dollar
fell from my hand into theirs.
So I now tell on myself
to bleed the shame
from the arrogance,
never knowing the courage
it takes to look the privileged
in the eyes and ask for help
until I stood on the corner
clothed only in my naked need.

Forth from the dust and din,
The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare,
The odour and sense of life and lust aflare,
The wrangle and jangle of unrests,
Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win--
As from swart August to the green lap of May--
To quietness and the fresh and fragrant *******
Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware
In any of her innumerable nests
Of that first sudden plash of dawn,
Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large,
Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day
In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn
Forward and up, in wider and wider way,
Shall float the sands, and brim the shores,
On this our lith of the World, as round it roars
And spins into the outlook of the Sun
(The Lord's first gift, the Lord's especial charge),
With light, with living light, from marge to marge
Until the course He set and staked be run.

Through street and square, through square and street,
Each with his home-grown quality of dark
And violated silence, loud and fleet,
Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp,
The hansom wheels and plunges.  Hark, O, hark,
Sweet, how the old mare's bit and chain
Ring back a rough refrain
Upon the marked and cheerful *****
Of her four shoes!  Here is the Park,
And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust,
The tired midsummer blooms!
O, the mysterious distances, the glooms
Romantic, the august
And solemn shapes!  At night this City of Trees
Turns to a tryst of vague and strange
And monstrous Majesties,
Let loose from some dim underworld to range
These terrene vistas till their twilight sets:
When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand
Beggared and common, plain to all the land
For stooks of leaves!  And lo! the Wizard Hour,
His silent, shining sorcery winged with power!
Still, still the streets, between their carcanets
Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep.
But see how gable ends and parapets
In gradual beauty and significance
Emerge!  And did you hear
That little twitter-and-cheep,
Breaking inordinately loud and clear
On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere?
'Tis a first nest at matins!  And behold
A rakehell cat--how furtive and acold!
A spent witch homing from some infamous dance--
Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade
Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade!
And now! a little wind and shy,
The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),
A sense of space and water, and thereby
A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky,
And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams
And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,
His dreams that never save in our deaths can die.

What miracle is happening in the air,
Charging the very texture of the gray
With something luminous and rare?
The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire,
And, as one lights a candle, it is day.
The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire
On the little formal church, is not yet green
Across the water:  but the house-tops nigher,
The corner-lines, the chimneys--look how clean,
How new, how naked!  See the batch of boats,
Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam!
And those are barges that were goblin floats,
Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream!
And in the piles the water frolics clear,
The ripples into loose rings wander and flee,
And we--we can behold that could but hear
The ancient River singing as he goes,
New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea.
The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass:
The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake,
And light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take
His hobnailed way to work!

Let us too pass--
Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows--
Through these long, blindfold rows
Of casements staring blind to right and left,
Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece
Of life in death's own likeness--Life bereft
Of living looks as by the Great Release--
Pass to an exquisite night's more exquisite close!

Reach upon reach of burial--so they feel,
These colonies of dreams!  And as we steal
Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze,
Fitfully frolicking to heel
With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas,
We might--thus awed, thus lonely that we are--
Be wandering some dispeopled star,
Some world of memories and unbroken graves,
So broods the abounding Silence near and far:
Till even your footfall craves
Forgiveness of the majesty it braves.

No such beauty
           longer dwells
         under the guise
      of flesh and bones,
           in the garden
      of a sullied heart

           fallow heart
     barren and longing                                                  .
      ­  time built walls
      an unfillable void
           burdens tall,
      beggared of light
        befallen within

  a devolving moment
so many flowers wither
       left in a broken
         heart of gold
          
    a gardener knows
        sweetest soils
     of love and light,
     without sunshine
              sour
    as unripened fruit

     memories fading
          as if florae
    never blossomed
        perpetuating
     wholly starving,
    unweedable roots
            too deep,
  rupture when pulled

        a **** let be
            beauty

   unfertile seeds sown
       where nothing
        longer grows
    in an uninhabited
             silence

raging unseen within
  the fires of the ages
still smoldering inside,
   mingled with hope  
        left for dead

hidden in the shadows
an engulfing stone cold,
handwriting on the wall
of silence growing taller

I once worked the sign
at the intersection
of Facebook and HelloPoetry.
All those years when
secure in my job,
flush with cash,
I'd not meet the eyes
of those who muttered
"thank you, sir"
on those rare occasions
when a crumpled dollar
fell from my hand into theirs.
So I now tell on myself
to bleed the shame
from the arrogance,
never knowing the courage
it takes to look the privileged
in the eyes and ask for help
until I stood on the corner
clothed only in my naked need.

cease awhile
and hold commune
with his fabrication
and admire
every cordant note
of a symphony yet unwritten.

t’was a nymph
saw i a-Maying
her comeliness
beggared the reach of art
outreached my arms
to touch her tidy traces
alack, gone she
in the mists of morn.

the moon-kissed bed
was light and life
with verdant dewy leaves
astride the speechless
mountain tops
a journey was begun
to rain again
his darts of gold
to every waiting one.
the blanket of
the skies was azure blue
on limpid waters seen
along her hurried way
she dropped those
gaudy flowrets beam.
saw i her locks
in every nodding palm
‘neath the tropic sun.
t’was birds do counterfeit
her melody the
rustling bamboo stole.

they utter now
sweet words of love
as winds doth
beat and blow
the roar and rush
of the swollen river asks:
what is it to you?

sprightly now
the winged ones
from bud to bud alight.
athirst, searching for that
self-same delight.
the crown of earth’s
flowing seas of grass
its mighty arms apart
attentive to the
incoherent whispers of
the breeze that chances by.

what now
messengers of the skies?
what saw you beyond
the floating clouds?
what find you at the
end of the rainbow?
what secrets lie hid
in yonder hills?
pray tell this
to the hurling spar
of the ever-running brook
for down and down and down
she goes to her anxious
ocean-brother.

could she have paced
the grotesque shore
to appease the bleating sea?
now she laps up
the sand-white beach
now she beats
the rock-bound shore with
shrill indignant murmur.

the shore and plain
nod assent
nay, my search is done.
twelve knotty hours
of day are gone and still
my find is none
to tease the gloomy
brow of night
aflame is all the west
in its expiring redolence
my happy nymph adieu.

430

It would never be Common—more—I said—
Difference—had begun—
Many a bitterness—had been—
But that old sort—was done—

Or—if it sometime—showed—as ’twill—
Upon the Downiest—Morn—
Such bliss—had I—for all the years—
’Twould give an Easier—pain—

I’d so much joy—I told it—Red—
Upon my simple Cheek—
I felt it publish—in my Eye—
’Twas needless—any speak—

I walked—as wings—my body bore—
The feet—I former used—
Unnecessary—now to me—
As boots—would be—to Birds—

I put my pleasure all abroad—
I dealth a word of Gold
To every Creature—that I met—
And Dowered—all the World—

When—suddenly—my Riches shrank—
A Goblin—drank my Dew—
My Palaces—dropped tenantless—
Myself—was beggared—too—

I clutched at sounds—
I groped at shapes—
I touched the tops of Films—
I felt the Wilderness roll back
Along my Golden lines—

The Sackcloth—hangs upon the nail—
The Frock I used to wear—
But where my moment of Brocade—
My—drop—of India?

What’s mine is
yours what isn’t
all his possessed cheap
and passed on
needle deeds to pour out
the thimbles-
full fitting
nimbly in the shallow
dimples of
a love’s distressed palm.

Its clutch of fare-
well will break
hers down to
beggared bits
so nebulous ours
can’t keep from
advancing
matters and oh how
theirs gets circulated
energetically.

Trees and the menace of night;
Then a long, lonely, leaden mere
Backed by a desolate fell,
As by a spectral battlement; and then,
Low-brooding, interpenetrating all,
A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky,
So beggared, so incredibly bereft
Of starlight and the song of racing worlds,
It might have bellied down upon the Void
Where as in terror Light was beginning to be.

Hist!  In the trees fulfilled of night
(Night and the wretchedness of the sky)
Is it the hurry of the rain?
Or the noise of a drive of the Dead,
Streaming before the irresistible Will
Through the strange dusk of this, the Debateable Land
Between their place and ours?

Like the forgetfulness
Of the work-a-day world made visible,
A mist falls from the melancholy sky.
A messenger from some lost and loving soul,
Hopeless, far wandered, dazed
Here in the provinces of life,
A great white moth fades miserably past.

Thro' the trees in the strange dead night,
Under the vast dead sky,
Forgetting and forgot, a drift of Dead
Sets to the mystic mere, the phantom fell,
And the unimagined vastitudes beyond.

Ah, wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace it self with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains?
    O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had
    In days long since, before these last so bad.

beggared on this taunted key
her eyes, benighted, smashed and hollowed,
no longer descry the encirclement
of strapping glass and steel

thus cowered beneath such plumb hauteur,
she finds herself now wimpled in
a creeping green
while her walls bleed of a jealous neglect

where flaked façade like dandruff drips
and grumbling brick works effloresce,
into her winter’s final stupor
there she rancorously slips

for who could love her now?

those weeds grown long around her feet?

yet still we look

through the fog
through the trees
through the dearth of honey bees to where
the dewdrops sit, like sugared spit,
upon this old maid’s bristled lip

A work of art I must produce
One eye on the clock
and one on the muse
I sit here waiting
and watching time
Slip quietly by
with hardly a chime

With her she takes
my thoughts and expressions
Clears out my head
no trace of compassion

Beggared and blighted
An innocent fool
A would-be poet
stripped of her tools

I'm sure I should be grateful
for peace and quiet aplenty
but can't help being  resentful
at the cost of poetic currency

I'm a wounded chalice, filled with thoughts
of redemption; of forgiveness within.
Roaming through my failing happiness
like a whisper from a winter's icy wind.

My thoughts have turned to daze long ago,
when I felt as pure and innocent as an infant.
Remembering the desires held like crystal;
delicate glass which shatters in an instant

Tears won't come, I am too deeply ingrained
into the mindset that big boys never cry.
Instead, I close down my emotional valves,
letting my despair come out in a silent sigh.

I would, if I could, embrace a dangling hope
of glowing rainbows filtered through my rain.
Letting the whisking whispers of contentment
filter like diamonds into my emotional plain.

It is not meant to be, that I now see; for instead
the undertaker will measure my containment.
The drooping silence will become my friend,
and I shall enter into a rusted sense of spent.

I have nothing left to offer, no words which may
bring anyone a ******* of beggared desires.
Though my body like a knife, pleads for release,
I shall instead build myself a black funeral pyre.

This one's on the house, Theresa.
The unifying symbol
you've failed in any way to muster.
Here he is, look -
chain mail and charger,
leonic triptych
boldly bronzed.
You stirred yet?
Heart skipping a beat?

He gave
not one ****
about England.
***** and pillaged his way
through foreign fields.
Beggared a nation
to maintain his position.
"I'd sell London,
if I could find a buyer!"
Is this guy
a patron saint
or what?

When Churchill falters
or the Queen quails,
Tie Richard to the mast
and whip him into use.
I'm sure
your old Etonians
will be happy to assist.

Nocht tae dae wi Scotia, like,
but we're good
at falling into line.

a late swimmer, touching
one side, then the other.  
night window, this wine.  
a walker, beggared
to the wend of a wheel

loosed from the lean of its car.  
a bad man jawing
a gradient slur
of hand puppets

on another's dark drive.
a second swimmer
I hadn't seen, touching
the first.  same stone
on the pool's bottom-

unmoved, unmoved
by the yaw of the moon.

i summon and conquer your dreammind
with ghosts of aborted foetuses
and we rampage through the corridors
of your indoctrinations.
knock on the doors and you answer
with your deadmind ex nihilo,
manifestations of deeper fetishes,
like the one where you
want to fuckkids and have that power
because you have nothing.
your life is nothing but a bookend
waiting to fall off the shelf.


*n u drag ur naked body thru the blood n the glory of a fight that still has some losing left in it. u lick away ur bruzes n sleep in catatonia coz ur mind fuckedya. had enough but it was pillory n stocks n u swim on the back of a nightterror. still u drag that useless body thru gravel n rocks n icecold water, washing off the dust n the silt n the beggared belief of the siren call of a dream u had when u was young but now its gone n ur left grasping at the pebble of a memory that was once a mighty boulder but time has weathered m worn its face n peeled away all the best parts until now it is smooth n useless n small, an insignificant little morselpiece of what it once was, and u turn it round in ur hand n bury it in the silt.

Oh seismic Kate, why can't you wait until I get home from the fields
the corn's turning brown and the rain's hissing down and the cat doesn't mind
she's indoors.

But I'll be beggared and blowed if this road doesn't end at the end of my nose and tha' knows that it's none to the wise if thee don't open thar eyes,
thee might as well skate on wet fish.

Here I am
in the midst of sadness
joining pieces of memories
useless effort
the hours do not retrace their steps
nor is love ever beggared

This is the place of love gone dormant for the sake of sanity;
Exiles from the hearths of home and kin's polite society.
The caravan of broken sleep/dreams file past the border,
And leave the world alone to hash out it's social order.

The loneliness of the frozen plains stretches and wearies
The hazy eyes of the dreamscape denizens in 1010 series.
The poverty of beggared imagination lies dark in the soul,
And I know too well the losing of what once did console:

Embraces, tender touches, guileless looks and intimacy,
Eyes that touch upon the music of the stars glowing;
And yet more is there you may have ceased knowing...
Merging as one by the fires beneath the mantelpiece.

(20 minute poetry)


Pencil it in
I'll be there on the dot,
Get me a second
and fit me up for the plum shot.

Type me a tissue match and let the duel begin
at ten paces to midnight only one of us will win.

Honour be beggared, but it must be upheld,
It's a tradition,
dubious when the two of us have come to this field and only one will walk away.

And as a gentleman would say,
'you first'
In this case the lead case holding tight to the chamber will explode and propel my opponent through the doorway to an afterlife and I shall reply,
'No sir,
after you sir'

(alternately titled: idolizing childhood's end
today April 25th, 2021
generates elusive warm treasured memories).

Akin to significance my eldest sister
felt toward her “*******” –
(totally tubular fuzzy bendable contrivances
analogous to an outsize pipe cleaner)
until she became a tweener
my Matty Mattel Doll (circa mid 1960's)
meant the webbed wide world  
with promise of much greener pastures
on the Apollo space age horizon
where virtual Oculus virtual reality dwelt
amongst Carib ****** indigenous tribes.

No matter yours truly then
fast approaching his decade number seven  
of twentieth century tantalizing
figurative future promises held sway
(namely technologically
Luddite intimations spawned),
I zealously, fervently,
and desperately clung
to battered Matty Mattel doll.

Any child with creative artistic bents
(including this scribe),
whose innate sensibilities and cents
severely limited me drawing
stick figures, more so dense
macabre satisfactorily applying
beard or mustache as stylish elements
applying magic marker to picture printed
faces forged into fences
of famous people popular
within culture club, both gents
or gals, whose retouched photographs
beggared ****** pents
sieve looming hair of men and women,
while simultaneously rents
sing preoccupied to access
excel lent glue, which caricatured outlook
devoid of common sense
I held said goofy looking doll
appeared contrived of household padding material,
and short scraps from circus tents
of yarn for do whit yourself based artisans
into trash bin of history project went.

Even than orange ranked as the new black
charming plaything sophistication did lack
plus batteries not required
to hear voice activated track.

This (think) abhor ridge gin null snippets
red + yellow colored strands
atop kepi twas pseudo hair,
sans manufactured eunuchs
adorned head lands
with avast capita lone linkedin
fingerhut dishabille curls,
could easily construct trolling grandstands
a similar facsimile re: globular molded,
incorporated, glommed,
fragile Ostrich egg shape
contrived head (vis a vis Plaster of Paris
overcovering NON GMO gluten free
partially hydrogenated brands
inflated balloon) to affect trademark
globular fuzzy noggin dry as Acklands.

The simple plain plaything included
a fitbit lifesaver size plastic ring
said small circular loop perfect “O”pening
to get jammed below first knuckle the King
Kong of index finger affixed to a short string
(when pulled to extent tub buckle did bring
taut tether) activated
moon face fixed bug eyed ping
pong blank stare to utter garbled syllables
asper one who nipped viz suckle something.

Despite the drabness, homeliness,
lacquered painted trapped
xyst Yarmulke cheap flatness,
I loved ragged slapped
around, and still iconic schlepped treasure
(uber voiceless with rapt
zealous application bridging elementary
functioning gizmo), initiating mapped
jabbering lock lipped absolute zero prattling.

Sometimes well worn action hero lapped
exhilaration, (got tossed in the air, booted
as football, succor silently accepted flapped
sear sucker punches from robed buck
after favorite fictitious "brother" chapped
accompanied my scrawny body
at bath time) to adapt.

Nonetheless, this adored
billed idol kept me secure,
especially on rare occasions
that found this contemplative lad, a lore
ring dutiful, fun loving kid
under the weather, or hospitalized for
minor adenoids removal,
which entailed post surgical recovery
swallowing quite a chore.

Oh yes, this non gendered plaything
nondescript featureless
sewn seams showed zero differentiation,
no matter to tell this August, cherished, fondled
kiddie piece de resistance lacked ****** identity.

Absent reproductive organs
(eh, nada so significant omission)
cuz, this seemingly resistant
quirky plaything, who unfairly re
ceived punishing physical
indiscriminate treatment, yet still
connection omnipotent bond existed
as if goofy guise happened
to be extended part of mine kempf.

Upon reflection, asper
childhood memento (nary a clue
what triggered remembrance
of things past yesterday comprised
true value), an aha moment awoke
to attempt to cap cha vague
essence about pretend friend designed in 1955,
and based on a concept by Mattel co-founder
Elliot Handler.

The character “Matty”
derived from the name Mattel.

The nom de plume a concatenation of sorts
derived after founders,
Harold Mattson and Elliot Handler.

A brainstorm session
yielded concurrence viz the hybrid name
of Matt + El (short for Elliot).