You can feel it spinning
                                         fast
the Chinese, Japanese, American and European junk
orbiting at several thousand miles per hour could
                                                           ­                             punch
a hole in your armor, future. Thanksgiving passes, then Christmas.
A nuclear detonation, we absorb that fact. The scientist in us
delays sadness by recording observations. What is is,
sorrow's for tomorrow.

By reducing probabilities to near zero I hope to avoid sorrow.
In yr suburb.
In history when there were many fewer people we still found reason
to cross space, explore, trade and war. Now
                                                             ­                 overpopulation
may not be the problem but food and water shortages
get our attention.
                              I have Korf's fears.
And hear what I want to hear.

Some hear singing, some hear speeches or complaining.
Martin Luther King sang his complaints, dreamed of a brotherly nation
which came to pass, spinning fast, past Thanksgivings, past jailings
into reconnaissance, small wars, drones, renaissance, inventions.
At the border,
                         where the Juaristas fought Maximilian:
Benito Juarez (1806-1872) Zapotec Amerindian who served five terms as president of Mexico. He was the first Mexican leader who did not have a military background and also the first full-blooded indigenous person to lead a country in the western hemisphere in over 300 years. For resisting French occupation, overthrowing the Empire, and restoring the Republic, Juarez is regarded as Mexicoxs greatest and most beloved leader. 

Each soldier chooses what war at what border, or just
                                                            ­                                   shows up
spinning with the planet.
The neighborhood and surrounding nature is orderly.
But always there is implied force, violence holding it together,
                                                       ­                                                       chaos
is contained
kept out of the playground, government buildings, childrenxs games
but lies within
the force maintaining order, a spinning tumor, a gyroscope of
                                                              ­                                                inertia.
The force of the spinning, the speed of the force bring one to one's
      death
seasons, weather, earth.
                                         While the emperor's being beheaded
enduring seeds are discovered and invented, cross-fertilized and bred.
Corn, yams, potatoes, sunflowers, rice.
                                                           ­       Food is life and a good study,
useful discipline
                           daily meditation.
                                                     ­   The fighting man protects the farmer
and the farmer feeds the fighting man.
They elect the governor
                                        who serves the people. Peace out.

Peace and war are transitory manifestations of spinning
electrons, planets.
                               The sun's a nuclear detonation, essential
to spring and planting. Food is life. Seeds endure
if man goes to his daily discipline. If woman is man.
Birth and death
                           together are orderly, the border can be known,
voluntarily. How we live together, by prayer or force,
is our story.

Knowledge
from laboratory to starry corridor keeps us very
                                                            ­                         versed.
Did Juaristas consider the rights of animals not to be eaten?
Not during that spinning.
                                              And perform the history that surrounds us.
All that can be done
is written in the spinning:
"The people of the land, the Indian farmers of North America - like their counterparts in Mesoamerica, the Andean region, and the Amazon - have continuously cultivated maize, beans, squash and other crops for more than five thousand years. One of the salient features of their traditional farming systems is the high degree of biodiversity. These traditional farming systems have emerged over centuries of cultural and biological evolution, and they represent the accumulated experience of indigenous farmers interacting with the environment without access to external inputs, capital or scientific knowledge. In Latin America alone, more than 2.5 million hectares under traditional agriculture in the form of raised fields, polycultures, agroforestry systems and the like document indigenous farmers' successful adaptations to difficult environments."

South Florida
if you were a body part,
you’d be an armpit.

You’d be a bulged vein
on the side of a forehead
forever locked in a scowl
behind sunglasses.

You speak the language of horns
middle name, finger
blood type, combustible

You're a melting ***
that's boiled over the lid
sweating salt water at the brows
eyes red as the brake lights
in the maddening brightness,
you’re torrential daylight
heating nerves like greenhouse gasses
waiting for a reason to explode.

You’re a tropical motilov cocktail
no one can afford
2 parts anger, 1 part stupidity
full of yourself in a souvenir glass with a toothpick umbrella
You're all image

You’re all talk: the curse words
breaking out the mouths
of the angry line mob at Starbucks in the morning
You’re the indifferent silence
in the arena at the Heat games leaving early,
showing up late
due to the distance
from Brickell to Hialeah,
West Palm to Pompano
the gap between the entitled and the under-paid
a skyline of condos in a third world country
You’ve always been foreign to me.

You’re winterless, no chill
you attract only hurricanes
and tourists,
shoving anything that isn’t profitable
out of the way like post-storm debris
into the backyards of the Liberty City projects,
onto a landfill off the side of the Turnpike
Hide it beneath Bermuda grass,
line it with palm trees
if only conceal your cold blooded nature:
I see you.
You are overrun with iguanas,
blood-******* mosquitos
hot-headed New York drivers
not afraid to get hit

You get yours, Soflo
and you'll go as low
as the flat roofs of your duplexes
and the wages that can barely pay the rent to get it
latitude as attitude
temper as temperature
if you were a body part
I swear you’re an *******

south of the brain, one hour
in all directions,
I’d find you.
You’d impose your way
onto my flight to the Philippines,
to Seattle, to Raleigh
You’d follow me like excess baggage,
like gravity,
bringing me back when asked where I'm from:

That area north of Miami, I’d say
(the suburbs, but whatever, we are hard in our own way)
I'd show you off on their map
like some badge of grit,
certificate of aggression
I know how to break a sweat
walk brisk, drive evasive
ride storms in my sleep
I know you, I’d say,
“He’s a friend of mine.”
and I’d watch them light up
and remember
the postcards you've sent them
of the sunrise,
welcoming brown immigrants
onto white sand beaches
You were foreign to us
yet raised us as your own
in the furnace of your summers
iron on iron, the forger striking
softness into swords
built for survival
I'm made of you

my South Floridian temper
cools down
in your ocean breeze

if you were a body part,
you'd be a part of me
a socked foot in an And1 sandal
pressed to the gas pedal
as my drive takes me north
of your borders, far from home

I see you
in the rear view mirror,
tail-gating
like a sports car on the exit ramp
the color of the sun.

Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

Think of nothing but this night.
The blooded stars, blue leaves and red trees...
Think of nothing...
Nothing but tonightt.

Close your eyes,
Relax your mind...
Unfold my lies
And everything'll be fine

My **** begins to rise
As my moist lips drag along your neck
My hand slides up your sides...
Contemplating left, right or back down to your thighs

Bite me
Force on the aggression
Grab me
****, just simple persuasion.

The night just confides
As I pull your legs apart.
Squeezing your sides
Lifting you up on my hard ****

Biting your neck
As you moan aloud
Squeezing your *******
As you gasp, with each insertion

Aggression but pure passion,
I throw you down.
And force my **** in your tight, warm *****
Hearing you scream aloud, I ******* deeply.

Open your grey eyes...
Realize it's just a poem.
Unfold my demise
And know this night will come.

She moves with
      Grace
The Gracious meeting in denial
He's the baron of beef delicious side
Reproduction picture full slide
The most
   Casual face

Met the eternal masterly
    Artist face
Saying Oh! Grace
The other side of midnight
     Mask Face
She could overjoy anyone's
Heart in the right place
    Deceiving Face

The miracle of love principles
Such skepticism could it be overjoyed realism

But a hell of a time with heavenly bliss
What a shock when he gave me my kiss
His Crooked face to longevity nose
Hiding place A-Rose

Beachy trance-set face

Highlands of Scotland,
anybody would want her
     *Joyful face

He's the baronial
Secluded caves but risky dives
The turn only If?? I
could turn back the time
The events strictly
confidential

Her apple cheeks bathing suit
He is picking her fruit
So soothing the fiddle
Tinman whistles the ladies harps

Their medieval moment's help!!!
The swords  bust to his manly chest
Sleeping Inn New castle west
Their best bedrest

The cupboards open overjoyed
invitation decorative cans
Of greens, pinks, purple passion

And flourless chocolate cakes
Powdered lips love his reaction

She was seductively awe-inspiring
The top hills of Ireland grass
vividly raised her legs
The bowl next to her
The Rose blush wines
Bare it Fruit and figs

The baronial tug of war wigs

Melodious birds the
Grand One
The thousand piano words
Overjoyed but
under the {Baronial} weather

So lordly new threads tailored
White-collared
carpenter pants
Men of the herds
She's the
Caron French boutique

There ****** desires
The creature within
Wildly mating like critiques

Her perfumes so extinct
mysteriously
Overjoyed her heart
So cultured violin strings
Dollhouse Castle to restore
With her unique touches,
he wanted more

The steps tiring like a killed deer
every muscle he could hear

Over elaborating how people are dating
With a  stamped from the very
heart  approval
But hard times such laboring
Sitting in her
overjoyed chair
His face all Scrooged
no gifts of flowers
What are the odds of this pair

Over and over again her rainbow
her sensitivity we need longevity
The  endless walls are caving in
We are not so overjoyed by
this monster garden
She had her first breakdown
Going up the
Jack and Jill Ireland hill
In the longtime what long run
Way too short
It didn't come from above

The vintage oldtimer
radios sitting
together with
family listening
so long ago
So commercialized
The crazy shows
Where do you really want to go,
you just want to shut everything off

He called her the powder puff
Waiting for the nocturnal star
Those scrubs and hot rubs shower
Over my knee-high boots so in
love cahoots

Oh! It's her
The smart student
Owl Hoot whats to boot
Eating her shepherd's pie
so lordly full lips word-me
Ireland Holy Land
of love and beauty

Overly scrupulousness
The time of blessings

But the baronial loved to be
overly entertained
And she would sit there  
Blue-blooded royal dishes
Got flushed away no wishes

Oversimplification
Like the hardest love
of multiplication
The ****** overstimulation
Over embellished
But you're still positive
overjoyed
But why did she
want to vanish

Over-programming
    Web-Face
Destroyed her
Apple jubilee computer

Spiritual Zen
Or new lover Amen
Ever touched by Ireland maidens
Like the crimson and clover
I do believe in the
Four leaf clover Face

Like the only thing she picked
were the weeds
More beauty of life and deeds
Or tons of sorrow wondering
how she
would feel tomorrow?
We will never know

they emerge from the wooded neighborhood ridge and fringe at dusk
into breadth of lawn
& limb.
witchy chicks
casting banter n bitchcraft.
teenage dead end dreamers tipped in black magick lip gloss
& glitter, their
genderfluid familiars &/or wayward boyfriends apparate
in the street pink cloud spinning wheel,
& hawking bile.
****** stella smile.
swallow a hex, send a snap, tongue along his neck
promising to fold bodies before sunrise.
the effervescent gasp
of post-ritual clarity.

in the house,
is a kid.
a gig.
the devil with a younger grip.
& the kid thrills on a bit of the ol’
         u l t r a v i o l e n c e.
****** videogames, ****** anime, ****** mayhem n melodic music.
he is a conduit of dark energy.
a pure blooded offering of the stone age/video age,
mind in a kind of kaleidoscopic way.
he is me.
bred on televised bucket slime ceremonials.

she checks her purse.
drugs & snacks & juul & a pretty dead bird.
a daughter of delphi watching your kid.
tending to him.
trending him.
popcorn smelling him, the texas chainsaw massacre on vhs just before bed.
palace of teeth n twigs.
just a short walk to the edge and then its bath time.

             the demon version is grisly and cruel.
             the angel version is starry-eyed and adventurous.

to conjure some
  thing,
at the cliff jumping.
it was fun.

To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.

1
We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.

We, who taste of exotic dishes,
And enjoy fully the delights of love,
Are better than those who were buried.

We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires
On which the winds of endless autumns howled,
We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared in
paroxysms of pain.
We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge.

By sending others to the more exposed positions
Urging them loudly to fight on
Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost.

Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend
We chose his, coldly thinking: Let it be done quickly.

We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread
Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.

As befits human beings, we explored good and evil.
Our malignant wisdom has no like on this planet.

Accept it as proven that we are better than they,
The gullible, hot-blooded weaklings, careless with their lives.

2
Treasure your legacy of skills, child of Europe.
Inheritor of Gothic cathedrals, of baroque churches.
Of synagogues filled with the wailing of a wronged people.
Successor of Descartes, Spinoza, inheritor of the word 'honor',
Posthumous child of Leonidas
Treasure the skills acquired in the hour of terror.

You have a clever mind which sees instantly
The good and bad of any situation.
You have an elegant, skeptical mind which enjoys pleasures
Quite unknown to primitive races.

Guided by this mind you cannot fail to see
The soundness of the advice we give you:
Let the sweetness of day fill your lungs
For this we have strict but wise rules.

3
There can be no question of force triumphant
We live in the age of victorious justice.

Do not mention force, or you will be accused
Of upholding fallen doctrines in secret.

He who has power, has it by historical logic.
Respectfully bow to that logic.

Let your lips, proposing a hypothesis
Not know about the hand faking the experiment.

Let your hand, faking the experiment
No know about the lips proposing a hypothesis.

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision
Then burn the house down to fulfill the prediction.

4
Grow your tree of falsehood from a single grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.

Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.

After the Day of the Lie gather in select circles
Shaking with laughter when our real deeds are mentioned.

Dispensing flattery called: perspicacious thinking.
Dispensing flattery called: a great talent.

We, the last who can still draw joy from cynicism.
We, whose cunning is not unlike despair.

A new, humorless generation is now arising
It takes in deadly earnest all we received with laughter.

5
Let your words speak not through their meanings
But through them against whom they are used.

Fashion your weapon from ambiguous words.
Consign clear words to lexical limbo.

Judge no words before the clerks have checked
In their card index by whom they were spoken.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.

6
Love no country: countries soon disappear
Love no city: cities are soon rubble.

Throw away keepsakes, or from your desk
A choking, poisonous fume will exude.

Do not love people: people soon perish.
Or they are wronged and call for your help.

Do not gaze into the pools of the past.
Their corroded surface will mirror
A face different from the one you expected.

7
He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.

You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.

Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark.
You can fill them with any feature desired.

Proud of dominion over people long vanished,
Change the past into your own, better likeness.

8
The laughter born of the love of truth
Is now the laughter of the enemies of the people.

Gone is the age of satire. We no longer need mock.
The sensible monarch with false courtly phrases.

Stern as befits the servants of a cause,
We will permit ourselves sycophantic humor.

Tight-lipped, guided by reasons only
Cautiously let us step into the era of the unchained fire.

Perplexed people of a politically polluted land,
Are uncertain of who they truly are.
Sons supporting freedom's fight, fathers seem lost,
Seeking meager gains with no gain in power.
Subjugation and forced order is in play,
Forgotten the episodes of cold blooded ******.
Rapes, intimidation and tormented nights,
All ignored, for they are not
our daughters or mothers.
No concern given to our neighbors strife?
Our humanity we sold, for positions in this land.
Strengthened the corrupted power at play,
Full of anarchy and devoid of mercy.
The foibles in name of government and development,
Oh Lord!Fill our fellows hearts
with compassion.
Open their eyes to the inadequacies,
Bring our nation back to consciousness.
©Perveiz Ali

[Intro]
Ah, it's a plane, it's a bird, it's a zombie, hahaha

[Verse 1: Meech]
The highest high, I'm Ayatollah
Rubber on my ****, allergic to baby strollers
Blue dream, that amazing odor
Ant is a pyrex, I'm the coke and the baking soda
Juice be the blue flame that create the whole thing
Rap game, crack game, apparently the same thing
If this was eighty-something I'd be in shell toes
Gucci link fat rings ashy *** elbows
Saving every penny trying to get up out this hell hole
For my super-thugs, hustling up off the jail phone
Life's a battle fool you better have your weapon drawn
How could I be scared of death, *****, I'm already gone
Money on my mind, your ***** on my zipper
Breaking up pound after pound, THC on every finger
You gon' need a boost from God to get as high as me *****
Excuse me, I meant to say as high as we *****

[Bridge]
Flatbush Zombie, A$AP Mobbin'
Hit a killswitch and put an end to any problem

[Verse 2: Juice]
Hash and ****, hash in a ****
Got **** by the ton, got blow by the load
If you wanna get throwed, A$AP Ant got the po-tion
Three fly *** ******* with we
Double-cupped them double D's
Hi-high *****, hi-high living
Three young *** ****** running ****, no slipping
Gotta know the game, gotta know the lane
Gotta know the pain, no handouts, ain't **** easy
Dark shades, on my Eazy-E, got ******* on my mini-me
And you ****** in the rap game can't relate
I'm real pimping, no fornicating
**** what you heard, I'm goin' ape
Smokin Grape Ape, **** your mixtape
That's a **** plate, Zombie style
A$AP, never mind these clowns
I love brain, zombie style, never mind these clouds

[Interlude: A$AP Ant]
Juice pass me the ****, Meech where the acid at?
A$AP Ant in this *****, uh

[Verse 3: A$AP Ant]
I'm a demon triple beaming, painting pictures
****** Mona Lisa, blood sheets, creeping for the *******
With the collar danny's, killing ******* sniffing *******
***** Wonka candy *****, three ******, one *****, one clip
One brain dead girl off your mind leave your brains on your moms
Razor blades dipped in bleach, tear your skin to pieces
Dump the body in Tennessee, highway getaway OJ bronco
Cap it baby drive 'em off the bridge, look into my eyes, vivid tears
I see fear, y'all some ******' queers
Grow a ******' pair, I'm 'posed to be here
'posed to be dead, overdosed on shrooms
Let's cruise, drive by on site
Ride like a bike, for my zombie homies **** tonight

[Bridge]

[Verse 4: A$AP Rocky]
A$AP ****** we aliens, cold-blooded *****, reptilian
Acid, acid, ambiens, only **** a ***** if she lesbian
Trill ****** run the city, got the key on lock
Juice got the juice, ***** Meech gon' pop
Addie in the Caddy with the heat on ****
When a Mac go brrra cause the beef don't stop, *****
My name is, that pretty *******
From the land of the lost of the gully and the gutta
See the Preds made a toast for the honey and the butter
Only die for two things, that's my money and my mother, *******!
****** know my name, did I stutter?
****** know me, man I keep it one hunna
I'm a stunna, Hood by Air for the summer
Toast to the God and it cost nine hunna
So-so ru-run up if you wanna
Mac in the backpack, right by the Macbook
And I rep that Harlem
And my Zombie ****** straight out of Flatbush

You're a volcano in winter
Made when the Earth splintered
Tectonic plates shifted
And you were gifted

The frigid air outside is subzero
So you become my volcanic hero
When you scorch the cold
With your warmth so bold

I await an eruption
But there's a disruption
Dormant you remain
With suspicion engrained
But entering your main vent
Was not my main intent
Yet now that I'm in your magma chamber
I can see your anger
You're made of lava and ash
So you demand drama and cash
And violently explode in a flash

You've become my Krakatoa
When I wish I didn't know ya
Because of your grand magnitude
I question my aptitude
And insecurity ensues
As confidence I lose

I realize I've gone too far
When I feel your lava discharge
That pushes me into your crater
The pain I feel couldn't be greater
When all I see is an ashen cloud
And all I hear is your lashing growl

Inside of your volcano
There is a tornado
As sure as day glow
I feel I must lay low
And dodge the debris
While playing referee
As you're dissecting me
In your burning sea
That swirls in a cyclone maelstrom
Hell is where it was mailed from
I receive it
Reprieveless
I begin to drown in fire
And wish to retire

You think you're neat
Yet despite your heat
You're a cold blooded lizard
But outside there's a blizzard
So I get used to your volcano
I can't contain my disdain though

Mirza Ghalib Translations

Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is considered to be one of the best Urdu poets of all time. The last great poet of the Mughal Empire, Ghalib was a master of the sher (couplet) and the ghazal (a lyric poem formed from couplets). Ghalib remains popular in India, Pakistan, and among the Hindustani diaspora. He also wrote poetry in Persian.

It's Only My Heart!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s only my heart, not unfeeling stone,
so why be dismayed when it throbs with pain?
It was made to suffer ten thousand darts;
why let one more torment impede us?



Inquiry
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The miracle of your absence
is that I found myself endlessly searching for you.



Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have struck us as deeply profound
and we might have pronounced you a saint ...
Yes, if only we hadn't found
you drunk
as a skunk!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of songs nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different:
that this weakness has not burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing—
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.



The Mistake
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was *****
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!



The Infidel
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand desires: each worth dying for ...
So many fulfilled, yet still I yearn for more.

Being in love, for me there was no difference between living and dying ...
and so I lived each dying breath watching you, my lovely Infidel, sighing                       afar.



Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience but lust is relentless;
what colors must my heart leak, before it bleeds to death?



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Life becomes even more complicated
when a man can’t think like a man ...

What irrationality makes me so dependent on her
that I rush off an hour early, then get annoyed when she's "late"?

My lover is so striking! She demands to be seen.
The mirror reflects only her image, yet still dazzles and confounds my eyes.

Love’s stings have left me the deep scar of happiness
while she hovers above me, illuminated.

She promised not to torment me, but only after I was mortally wounded.
How easily she “repents,” my lovely slayer!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s time for the world to hear Ghalib again!
May these words and their shadows like doors remain open.

Tonight the watery mirror of stars appears
while night-blooming flowers gather where beauty rests.

She who knows my desire is speaking,
or at least her lips have recently moved me.

Why is grief the fundamental element of night
when everything falls as the distant stars rise?

Tell me, how can I be happy, vast oceans from home
when mail from my beloved lies here, so recently opened?



Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
Or show me the place where God abstains!



Shared Blessings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She soon informed me that God does not belong to any one man!



Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Often we have heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I depart your paradise.



To Whom Shall I Complain?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To whom shall I complain when I am denied Good Fortune in acceptable measure?
Thus I demanded Death, but was denied even that dubious pleasure!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You should have stayed a little longer;
you left all alone, so why not linger?

We’ll meet again, you said, some day similar to this one,
as if such days can ever recur, not vanish!

You left our house as the moon abandons night's skies,
as the evening light abandons its earlier surmise.

You hated me: a wife abnormally distant, unknown;
you left me before your children were grown.

Only fools ask why old Ghalib still clings to breath
when his fate is to live desiring death.


Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience while passion races;
must my heart bleed constantly before it expires?


Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
Or show me the place where God abstains!


Step Carefully!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Step carefully Ghalib—this world is merciless!
Here people will "adore" you to win your respect ... or your
downfall.


Drunk on Love
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She quickly informed me God belongs to no man!


Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.


A lifetime of sighs scarcely reveals its effects,
yet how impatiently I wait for you to untangle your hair!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


Every wave conceals monsters,
and yet teardrops become pearls.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


I’ll only wish ill on myself today,
for when I wished for good, bad came my way.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


People don’t change, it’s just that their true colors are revealed.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


Ten thousand desires: each one worth dying for ...
So many fulfilled, and yet still I yearn for more!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


Oh naïve heart, what will become of you?
Is there no relief for your pain? What will you do?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


I get that Ghalib is not much,
but when a slave comes free, what’s the problem?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


My face lights up whenever I see my lover;
now she thinks my illness has been cured!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


If you want to hear rhetoric flower,
hand me the wine decanter.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


I tease her, but she remains tight-lipped ...
if only she'd sipped a little wine!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


While you may not ignore me,
I’ll be ashes before you understand me.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

NEW TRANSLATIONS 03-01-2025

I long to embrace her, Ghalib,
whose thought is the rose in its dress of petals.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wholly pledged to passion amid mundane life,
I worship lighting, lament the torched harvest.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nights, sleep and composure are his,
who sleeps entwined in your disheveled mane.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As a single ray of sunlight damns the dew to oblivion,
so I’m destroyed by a single kind glance.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I see her, my face lights up;
thus she thinks the patient is cured.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There’s no cure for passion, Ghalib. It’s the fire
that, ignited won’t burn, and, extinguished, refuses to die.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There, the arrogance of airs and appearances. Here, simple modesty.
If I were to meet her on the thoroughfare, would she invite me to her soiree?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I understood the merits of decorum and asceticism,
but wanted no part of them.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How could I have escaped,
when the sky spread its nets of stars?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An arrowless quiver, no hunter lying in ambush?
I’m content in my corner of the cage.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where does one plant the second footstep of longing, Lord,
when the first found an infinite desert?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Inquire with my heart about your negligent archery:
since there’s an arrow in my liver rather than higher.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Having murdered me, she foreswore further cruelty.
Such is her “repentance.”
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thanks to passion, I developed a taste for life,
but seeking a cure for pain, I found pain beyond cure.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Due to weakness, my weeping became sighs.
Thus I learned water can evaporate.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To erase the thought of your elegant fingers
was to rip the fingernail from its flesh.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rain pouring down from spring clouds
is like weeping in grief at death’s separation.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON DRUNKENNESS

To hear my rose-bestrewing speech,
first place the flagon before me!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let someone too obedient for wine and honey
transform our paradise into hell.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Grief overflows the cup despite the abundance of wine,
but this cupbearer’s slave, what griefs do I have?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leave me alone at ZamZam because spinning in circles makes me dizzy.
And besides, my pilgrim’s loincloth has wine stains!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will the One grants you such glorious radiance, O Moon,
not also grant me glorious wine?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the flagons and glasses are all filled,
the winehouse stands empty.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I drank wine all night, then at dawn
I washed the stains from my pilgrim’s loincloth.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the winehouse has been departed, do we care where we go?
Whether to the mosque, the classroom or some Sufi lodge?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We’re unaccustomed to leisure:
when the winehouse door closed, we visited the Ka’ba.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We departed Paradise for illusions here,
but the inebriation’s overwhelmed by the hangover.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON GHALIB

Who doesn’t know Ghalib?
He’s a good poet with a terrible reputation.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Although there are other excellent poets,
they say Ghalib excels them.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Think of Poetry as an enchanted world rich with meaning:
every word, Ghalib, that charms my verse.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No matter where awareness flings its nets,
the Phoenix sleeps unseen in my nests of words.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

With his special style, Ghalib sang of subtleties.
It’s a public invitation, for friends in the know.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hearing my speech, accomplished critics
enjoined me to accessibility,
but my thoughts are complex
and if I don’t speak, I’m even harder to understand!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose bestows her glory, true,
but you have to open your eyes, Ghalib!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The shroud veiled my nakedness;
otherwise clothed, I disgraced life.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confide in no one, Ghalib, for these days
no one keeps secrets, save the doors and walls.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When it’s allied with the enemy, there’s no trusting the heart.
My sighs? Ineffectual. My laments? In vain.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me be punished, not tortured,
since I’m merely a sinner, not an infidel.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Something accounts for my reticence,
otherwise I can speak, can’t I?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON LIFE AND LOVE

In a dream I transacted business with you,
but when I awoke there was neither profit nor loss.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All I know of my heart is this:
the more I sought it, the more you found it.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How to describe the intensity of her eyelashes?
I strung my clotted blood into coral prayer beads.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All my longings were silenced, transformed to blood.
Thus I became the extinguished lamp on a pauper’s grave.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas, union with her was not my destiny.
Our life together would only have meant more procrastination.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I knew from your delicacy that your vows were nebulous.
Had one been firm, it could not have been so easily broken.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Joy is a drop in Oblivion’s river,
but boundless pain soon becomes its cure.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m the captive of Love, the Huntress,
otherwise I’d have strength to flee.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your sidelong glances? Arousing.
Your cruelty? Demoralizing.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her temper’s an inferno,
but I’ll be ****** if I don’t desire hellfire.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand airs and graces
negated by a single tantrum.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where will the steed of life stop,
lacking hands on the reins and feet in the stirrups?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your glances, deadly daggers. Your winks, unerring.
You are allured by your own reflection.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you can’t see my heart’s wound charring,
can’t you smell it, dear doctor?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m dying with the longing to die;
death comes, but not quickly enough.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We went to complain about her negligence,
but she dismissed us with a glance and we disintegrated.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whence, world-warming sun ray? Why not shine here?
Yet strange darkness descends like a shadow.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tyranny adores those who adore the tyrant;
she’s not cruel by being unkind.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Having adopted a mendicant’s rags, Ghalib,
I’m amazed by the spectacle of generous people.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I keep up awhile with each new jogger
yet fail to find a guide.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All creation moves toward entropy,
the sun a flickering candle in the wind.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fidelity if it holds fast is the root of faith;
if the Brahmin dies in the idol’s temple, bury him in the Ka’ba.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I hadn’t been held up by day, would I have slept as comfortably by night?
Thankful for the theft, I bless the highwayman.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How small, our world to the oppressed
when a single ant’s egg is our entire sky.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You didn’t press your lips to another’s in kiss?
Save your breath, we also have tongues!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t fall for the illusion of existence, Asad,
when our world’s one link in the chain of thought.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even if I live a few more days,
inside I’m resigned to someplace else.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My opposite became granite
when she saw my fluidity.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose unfurls as a means of taking leave;
fly, nightingale, fly, for the days of spring have fled.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Aloofness veils friendship;
when will you cease concealing you face from us?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where is there anyone not in need?
Where is there anyone who can fill anyone’s need?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wealth of this world’s a lament, a handful of dust;
the sky’s a dull gray egg, to me.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why assume everyone would arrive at the same answer?
Come, let’s tour Mount Tur together.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Mirza Ghalib, translations, Urdu, Hindi, love, philosophy, heart, stone, sainthood



Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows:
how long will the darkness remember you?
— by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Turkish poet, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



The following translation is the speech of the Sibyl to Aeneas, after he has implored her to help him find his beloved father in the Afterlife, found in the sixth book of the Aeneid ...

The Descent into the Underworld
by Virgil
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sibyl began to speak:

“God-blooded Trojan, son of Anchises,
descending into the Underworld’s easy
since Death’s dark door stands eternally unbarred.
But to retrace one’s steps and return to the surface:
that’s the conundrum, that’s the catch!
Godsons have done it, the chosen few
whom welcoming Jupiter favored
and whose virtue merited heaven.
However, even the Blessed find headway’s hard:
immense woods barricade boggy bottomland
where the Cocytus glides with its dark coils.
But if you insist on ferrying the Styx twice
and twice traversing Tartarus,
if Love demands you indulge in such madness,
listen closely to how you must proceed...”



Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found.

Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of apples
far from the bustle of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream-filled sleep of the child
who longed to cut out his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear how the corpse retains its blood,
or how the putrefying mouth continues accumulating water.
I don't want to be informed of the grasses’ torture sessions,
nor of the moon with its serpent's snout
scuttling until dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
whether a second, a minute, or a century;
and yet I want everyone to know that I’m still alive,
that there’s a golden manger in my lips;
that I’m the elfin companion of the West Wind;
that I’m the immense shadow of my own tears.

When Dawn arrives, cover me with a veil,
because Dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me;
then wet my shoes with a little hard water
so her scorpion pincers slip off.

Because I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of the apples,
to learn the lament that cleanses me of this earth;
because I want to live again as that dark child
who longed to cut out his heart on the high sea.

Gacela de la huida (“Ghazal of the Flight”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have been lost, many times, by the sea
with an ear full of freshly-cut flowers
and a tongue spilling love and agony.

I have often been lost by the sea,
as I am lost in the hearts of children.

At night, no one giving a kiss
fails to feel the smiles of the faceless.
No one touching a new-born child
fails to remember horses’ thick skulls.

Because roses root through the forehead
for hardened landscapes of bone,
and man’s hands merely imitate
roots, underground.

Thus, I have lost myself in children’s hearts
and have been lost many times by the sea.
Ignorant of water, I go searching
for death, as the light consumes me.



La balada del agua del mar (“The Ballad of the Sea Water”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sea
smiles in the distance:
foam-toothed,
heaven-lipped.

What do you sell, shadowy child
with your naked *******?

Sir, I sell
the sea’s saltwater.

What do you bear, dark child,
mingled with your blood?

Sir, I bear
the sea’s saltwater.

Those briny tears,
where were they born, mother?

Sir, I weep
the sea’s saltwater.

Heart, this bitterness,
whence does it arise?

So very bitter,
the sea’s saltwater!

The sea
smiles in the distance:
foam-toothed,
heaven-lipped.



Paisaje (“Landscape”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The olive orchard
opens and closes
like a fan;
above the grove
a sunken sky dims;
a dark rain falls
on warmthless lights;
reeds tremble by the gloomy river;
the colorless air wavers;
olive trees
scream with flocks
of captive birds
waving their tailfeathers
in the dark.



Canción del jinete (“The Horseman’s Song” or “Song of the Rider”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cordoba. Distant and lone.
Black pony, big moon,
olives in my saddlebag.
Although my pony knows the way,
I never will reach Cordoba.

High plains, high winds.
Black pony, blood moon.
Death awaits me, watching
from the towers of Cordoba.

Such a long, long way!
Oh my brave pony!
Death awaits me
before I arrive in Cordoba!

Cordoba. Distant and lone.



Arbolé, arbolé (“Tree, Tree”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sapling, sapling,
dry but green.

The girl with the lovely countenance
gathers olives.
The wind, that towering lover,
seizes her by the waist.

Four dandies ride by
on fine Andalusian steeds,
wearing azure and emerald suits
beneath long shadowy cloaks.
“Come to Cordoba, sweetheart!”
The girl does not heed them.

Three young bullfighters pass by,
slim-waisted, wearing suits of orange,
with swords of antique silver.
“Come to Sevilla, sweetheart!”
The girl does not heed them.

When twilight falls and the sky purples
with day’s demise,
a young man passes by, bearing
roses and moonlit myrtle.
“Come to Granada, sweetheart!”
But the girl does not heed him.

The girl, with the lovely countenance
continues gathering olives
while the wind’s colorless arms
encircle her waist.

Sapling, sapling,
dry but green.



Despedida (“Farewell”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

The boy eats oranges.
(I see him from my balcony.)

The reaper scythes barley.
(I feel it from my balcony.)

If I die,
leave the balcony open!



In the green morning
I longed to become a heart.
Heart.

In the ripe evening
I longed to become a nightingale.
Nightingale.

(Soul,
become the color of oranges.
Soul,
become the color of love.)

In the living morning
I wanted to be me.
Heart.

At nightfall
I wanted to be my voice.
Nightingale.

Soul,
become the color of oranges.
Soul,
become the color of love!



I want to return to childhood,
and from childhood to the darkness.

Are you going, nightingale?
Go!

I want return to the darkness
And from the darkness to the flower.

Are you leaving, aroma?
Go!

I want to return to the flower
and from the flower
to my heart.

Are you departing, love?
Depart!

(To my deserted heart!)

Cold mornings but yet i dont feel it...
Cold blooded soul
Got a heart with a hole....
No sealent...
30 and below
i wont start to show...
Black ice on the ground tell me you can see it...
Tropic antiseptic...
rubbed across my skin...
novacane injected...
followed by a pin...
No pain, just frost bitten..
with no mittens...
ground across my belly..
Eat the fruit I know your hungry...

I was always the invisible one,
Walking like a spirit amongst others,
They would hurt me just for fun,
But no one expected me to become a cOlD bLoOdEd MuRdErEr...

The murders started slowly,
Each night another would be gone,
You could call this unholy,
But when being a mUrDeReR it doesn't matter...

I would sneak into their rooms,
Blooded knife raised and brought down into their stomachs,
Afterwards they would be buried in their tombs,
The MuRdErEr would smile insanely whilst being invisible...

Eventually the murderer would be caught,
Taken away to never see the light of day,
They would ask me questions and what I thought,
But all I said was,

*'I bEcAmE a CoLd BlOoDeD mUdErEr...'

Summer grows old, cold-blooded mother.
The insects are scant, skinny.
In these palustral homes we only
Croak and wither.

Mornings dissipate in somnolence.
The sun brightens tardily
Among the pithless reeds. Flies fail us.
he fen sickens.

Frost drops even the spider. Clearly
The genius of plenitude
Houses himself elsewhwere. Our folk thin
Lamentably.

This one's for me
and I'm gonna watch it burn.
Watch it flicker and pop and crackle and spit.
Gonna take lessons on how to dance with the draft,
also hoping she doesn't ******* out.
I'll make poems out of smoke and shadows
and fading, lonesome, sepia-tone summer photographs.
I want to make dusty picture frames feel like well-loved tuxedos.
I'm gonna see if candlelight can be all the company I need to keep.
Gonna sweep this floor clean,
like it's not what we say, it's what we mean
between the lines of
one too-polished table setting:
one knife,
one spoon,
but two forks for wishful thinking.
I'm gonna eat my fill
and fill my cup again and again,
to the point that I begin to make conversation
with my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I'll tell that *******, "My friend, you are drunk."
and he'll tell me, "Kid, look who's talking."
Then it'll be back to a glass
that treats its brim like a suggestion.
Gonna have whisky and black lager and champagne
'til my toes and thumbs tingle.
Thin blooded and numbed;
Steeled by my father's novocain.
Come morning, this house couldn't get more hollow.

In these hallowed halls where I wallow in the way that
I only seem to appreciate the preciousness of days
Once they've passed,
here's what I'm gonna do:
I'm gonna write questions on one side of the wooden window blinds,
and write punchlines to completely unrelated jokes on the other.
I don't know why. Maybe just to **** with people.

I'm gonna reminisce with full streets of ghosts
That glow like kerosene lamp posts
all the while, stomping my feet, just to prove that I can.
Gonna make toasts to the isolated;
to the quarantined and the misanthropes.
I'll boast that lovers are not unlike poachers,
but I'm not gonna mention that in every other under-cover dream
I seem to swoon like ivory elephant tusks.
I'm gonna gamble on Dusk
because I think it's got a little less honesty,
but a little more promise than its
attention-*******, good-for-nothing, go-getter big sister Dawn does.
That flirtations *****.
Gonna give Christian names to half drawn caricatures
of people who only ever existed when the lights died out
and the snow fell heavy.

I'm gonna let the levies break.
I'll go insane, just ******* lose it--
do the Boot-Scoot-'n'-Boogie in a onesie
with the hind flap flying free and the Greek Theatre masks of
Comedy and Tragedy painted on my *** cheeks,
(because no one should ever take their art too seriously)
And I'm even not gonna even care who sees,
partially because there's no one around to watch anyway,
but mostly because I want,
more than anything, to just be me.
Or at least I want to want that.
See, I read somewhere that,
"You should always be yourself…
unless you can be a unicorn,
then always be a unicorn."
And that really struck home for me because,
even though I've never really ached to be
the ******* love child of a Narwhal and Zebra
(In my imagination, unicorns are
striped and impecable swimmers)
I truly believe that Men will always dream of being Titans
and Titans will always dream of being Gods
and Gods want nothing more than to be Wind--
to twist with lit candle sticks
and teach the lonesome how to dance.

A one-step waltz tip-toed to distract.

But the fact is, I'm bound to take a few back steps.
I'm gonna think about her.
Gonna harbor hard feelings towards back bedroom dealings
that I have no right knowing about.
Gonna pray like a desperate atheist
that they keep their knees locked in a one night stand.
I might break down.
Only once, just long enough to regain my strength.
Then I'll tame the earthquakes in my hands, like I always do.
Gonna find what it takes to move on.
Not just regenerate, but to grow stronger than I ever was before.
So I'm gonna meticulously straighten these place settings:
One knife.
One spoon.
A healthy dose of wishful thinking.
Gonna try my hand again at dancing with the back draft;
I heard she's been aching for a duet,
and with all the life of candlelight
I'm gonna ignite the coal shafts beneath my eyes.
Gonna finally see me as the man I am,
not the titan I wish to be,
because I heard somewhere that,
"You should always be yourself…
Especially when all you've known
all you've ever shown
is some mythology."
So raise your glass because this one?
This one's for me.

Guarding what it truly loves
A dragon treasures gold
Jewels and plundered *****
Deep down inside it's hold
A dragon guards it's one true love
Fire breathing, blooded ....cold
My woman has a dragon
Here's your warning...you've been told

Real or just imagined
My woman has a dragon
Deep inside,
How she feels

Real or just imagined
My woman has a dragon
You may laugh
But, I know that it's real

Guarding what it truly loves
A dragon treasures gold
Jewels and plundered *****
Deep down inside it's hold
A dragon guards it's one true love
Fire breathing, blooded ....cold
My woman has a dragon
Here's your warning...you've been told

Her heart burns like a fire
set by dragons breath no less
it's an inferno like no other
i have felt it...i confess

Don't ever cross that dragon
and go to where it lies
I have seen the dragon's fire
Coming deep from in her eyes

It's a mine field of surprises
An act of balance every day
Do you tempt what it is guarding
or do you let the dragon stay ?

Real or just imagined
Your woman has a dragon too
I can tell, because I've seen it
And her dragon's guarding you

I used to feel ashamed to be put in the category of:
Illegal, immigrant, undocumented,
Or simply not a U.S Citizen

I’ve been oppressed and rejected from:
Jobs, schools and programs,
Because I’m not a red-blooded American

But through God I learned that I should
Be proud of who I am and what country I come from
And that makes me free

Because I still have choices
I still have options
As long as I try, I can smile
As long as I have God
My life is worthwhile
Because I’m His child

I can’t contain myself any more
I’m tired of being broke and poor
I’m going to get that full ride
Into a 4 year college
I’m going to get that steady job security with:
A steady paycheck, that’s re-locatable and it’s fun

I’m tired of lying, hiding, and scamming
To get into organizations, staffing agencies and jobs
That would help my life be healthier

I dislike the fact that you have to
Get married to get a green card
I hate using a fake social security number
Or tax ID on applications that ask for it
I don’t like making up excuses about
Why I don’t qualify for financial aid or unemployment

But I’m going to man up and keep moving forward
It doesn’t matter how much:
Pain, anxiety, frustration, bad attitudes,
Disappointment, confusion, heart break
Or put downs I get in life
I’ll keep fighting the good fight with all my heart
And I’m going to be honest even if hurts me

Because I still have choices
I still have options
As long as I try, I can smile
As long as I have my God,
My life is worthwhile
Because I am His child

By Shannon Pollard
© December 2012

i knew from the first time i saw you,
tamed by the crimson eyes and its hue.
amidst the cold stare you have given,
cunningly, i see the emotions hidden.

heaven has its own way of showing,
i believe it just by seeing.
unbeknownst under those cold-blooded eyes,
cunningly, i see the emotions rise.

haunting me from the depth within,
igniting the curiosity that is seething.
hollowed, i tried reaching you,
and still, you grabbed me out of the blue.

St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
    The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
    The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
    And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
    Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
    His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
    Like pious incense from a censer old,
    Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet ******'s picture, while his prayer he saith.

    His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
    Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
    And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
    Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
    The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
    Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails:
    Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
    He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

    Northward he turneth through a little door,
    And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue
    Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;
    But no--already had his deathbell rung;
    The joys of all his life were said and sung:
    His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
    Another way he went, and soon among
    Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.

    That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
    And so it chanc'd, for many a door was wide,
    From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
    The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide:
    The level chambers, ready with their pride,
    Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
    The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
    Star'd, where upon their heads the cornice rests,
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their *******.

    At length burst in the argent revelry,
    With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
    Numerous as shadows haunting faerily
    The brain, new stuff'd, in youth, with triumphs gay
    Of old romance. These let us wish away,
    And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
    Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
    On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.

    They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve,
    Young virgins might have visions of delight,
    And soft adorings from their loves receive
    Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
    If ceremonies due they did aright;
    As, supperless to bed they must retire,
    And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
    Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

    Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
    The music, yearning like a God in pain,
    She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
    Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
    Pass by--she heeded not at all: in vain
      Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
    And back retir'd; not cool'd by high disdain,
    But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sigh'd for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.

    She danc'd along with vague, regardless eyes,
    Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
    The hallow'd hour was near at hand: she sighs
    Amid the timbrels, and the throng'd resort
    Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
    'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,
    Hoodwink'd with faery fancy; all amort,
    Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

    So, purposing each moment to retire,
    She linger'd still. Meantime, across the moors,
    Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
    For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
    Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implores
    All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
    But for one moment in the tedious hours,
    That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss--in sooth such things have been.

    He ventures in: let no buzz'd whisper tell:
    All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
    Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous citadel:
    For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
    Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
    Whose very dogs would execrations howl
    Against his lineage: not one breast affords
    Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

    Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
    Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
    To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
    Behind a broad half-pillar, far beyond
    The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
    He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
    And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand,
    Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!

    "Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;
    He had a fever late, and in the fit
    He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:
    Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
    More tame for his gray hairs--Alas me! flit!
    Flit like a ghost away."--"Ah, Gossip dear,
    We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
    And tell me how"--"Good Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."

    He follow'd through a lowly arched way,
    Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
    And as she mutter'd "Well-a--well-a-day!"
    He found him in a little moonlight room,
    Pale, lattic'd, chill, and silent as a tomb.
    "Now tell me where is Madeline," said he,
    "O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
    Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously."

    "St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve--
    Yet men will ****** upon holy days:
    Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve,
    And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
    To venture so: it fills me with amaze
    To see thee, Porphyro!--St. Agnes' Eve!
    God's help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
    This very night: good angels her deceive!
But let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to grieve."

    Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
    While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
    Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
    Who keepeth clos'd a wond'rous riddle-book,
    As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
    But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
    His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook
    Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

    Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
    Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart
    Made purple riot: then doth he propose
    A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
    "A cruel man and impious thou art:
    Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
    Alone with her good angels, far apart
    From wicked men like thee. Go, go!--I deem
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem."

    "I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,"
    Quoth Porphyro: "O may I ne'er find grace
    When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
    If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
    Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
    Good Angela, believe me by these tears;
    Or I will, even in a moment's space,
    Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears,
And beard them, though they be more fang'd than wolves and bears."

    "Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
    A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
    Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
    Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
    Were never miss'd."--Thus plaining, doth she bring
    A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
    So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
    That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.

    Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
    Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide
    Him in a closet, of such privacy
    That he might see her beauty unespy'd,
    And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
    While legion'd faeries pac'd the coverlet,
    And pale enchantment held her sleepy-ey'd.
    Never on such a night have lovers met,
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

    "It shall be as thou wishest," said the Dame:
    "All cates and dainties shall be stored there
    Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
    Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,
    For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
    On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
    Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
    The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead."

    So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
    The lover's endless minutes slowly pass'd;
    The dame return'd, and whisper'd in his ear
    To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
    From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
    Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
    The maiden's chamber, silken, hush'd, and chaste;
    Where Porphyro took covert, pleas'd amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

    Her falt'ring hand upon the balustrade,
    Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
    When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid,
    Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware:
    With silver taper's light, and pious care,
    She turn'd, and down the aged gossip led
    To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
    Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd and fled.

    Out went the taper as she hurried in;
    Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
    She clos'd the door, she panted, all akin
    To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
    No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
    But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
    Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
    As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

    A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
    All garlanded with carven imag'ries
    Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
    And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
    Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
    As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
    And in the midst, '**** thousand heraldries,
    And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.

    Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
    And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
    As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
    Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
    And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
    And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
    She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
    Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

    Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
    Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
    Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
    Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
    Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
    Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-****,
    Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
    In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

    Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
    In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay,
    Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
    Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
    Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
    Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain;
    Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
    Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

    Stol'n to this paradise, and so entranced,
    Porphyro gaz'd upon her empty dress,
    And listen'd to her breathing, if it chanced
    To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
    Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
    And breath'd himself: then from the closet crept,
    Noiseless a

When you decide to wash the car, make sure of your stability
Don't lose your footing, or any form of your own credibility
Some driveways are a dangerous place, they can be a liability
Knees get grazed through carelessness, but that's your responsibility

You've slipped down the embankment, you wasn't banking on a stumble
Coming into contact with the concrete, giving you good cause to grumble
Is it possible that your garden, has got loose parts that crumble
Or was it due to clumsiness, that made you fall and tumble

Water splashing on the car, but it wasn't that translucent
You ended up with ****** knees, from your unruly movement
Bucket dropping did not help, with your clean car improvement
I can't say that your actions, didn't cause us some amusement

We had a laugh at your expense, because your knees got scuffed
Spilling water on the path, is when your legs we're stuffed
You didn't look too happy, so I guess you wasn't chuffed
Because you fell, it'll be some time before the car gets buffed

One thing I will mention, we would not have seen you fall
If you didn't have that camera, that you wanted to install
But it has served it's purpose, cos we have seen it all
You was not completely focused, and you wasn't on the ball

Security has now been viewed, splashed water not in stealth
Is it worth the hassle, when you clean the car yourself
You don't want to trip and fall, and damage your leg health
Take it to the car wash, cos it doesn't cost much wealth

Your unfortunate leg scrapping, we hope it was not deep
But we nearly ****** ourselves, when you fell in a heap
We laughed at your misfortune, it almost made us weep
Cleaning cars come at a price, when it's done on the cheep  

Some Ideas are valid, and most of them go far
Set backs are not wanted, make sure that your on par
Be aware of your surroundings, if your washing the car
Trips around the garden could result, in a blooded scar

mean beam bottom ***** without reluctance.
\ air above \
since forever baby boy: since forever liquid sparkler.

he has sense
& peanut butter jelly geography to his page.
his romance is of the west.
his eyes are of dandelions kicked & to the wind.
he moves like ancient turtle migration.
reaches feet to sidewalk \ sand to depths \ ride \

night:
velcro-tightened mind withstanding.
party lights, ***** willows, retro punch, he
is orpheus descending: with all the elements positioned just so.
\ jellyfish electric \  
he says he likes the loneliness.
he says it’s the water.

& so he moves \ wills himself into the next measure.
liquid resolute bits.
so move \ orca \
curl of eye \ so ride \ black rollo wave \
basilica \ & \
coral reaches below \\\

he likes to tell it, with warmed exaggeration.
slow-motion buffalo stampede. ride the railroads free & easy.
orange glowing bars of elsewhere. oscillating seal calls.
oily portland hipsters howling on the beach. those
juno cheeked rosy-red lips.
somewhere, sister getting married.
spring, summer, fall, winter, spring.
africa ******* a branch of a tree of a forest, overlooking elephant burial grounds.
color & white material:
plantations, gas stations, diners, & sharks.

this is the morning lunar \
sweet blue beach of the old & awakening.
he crawls out & into her breaks.
her deep heights & bombora reef. the serotonin
functions twice, exposed between thin tissues of warm-blooded neurochemistry.
human, shown.
he is as a raw page, blank, yet
dipped \
\ so ride \ bulbous waves of air mother agua \
ride \ &
\ ride \ &
brew by light these occurrences forever.