Man. In a cleft that's christened Alt
  Under broken stone I halt
  At the bottom of a pit
  That broad noon has never lit,
  And shout a secret to the stone.
  All that I have said and done,
  Now that I am old and ill,
  Turns into a question till
  I lie awake night after night
  And never get the answers right.
  Did that play of mine send out
  Certain men the English shot?
  Did words of mine put too great strain
  On that woman's reeling brain?
  Could my spoken words have checked
  That whereby a house lay wrecked?
  And all seems evil until I
  Sleepless would lie down and die.

Echo. Lie down and die.

Man.                             That were to shirk
  The spiritual intellect's great work,
  And shirk it in vain.  There is no release
  In a bodkin or disease,
  Nor can there be work so great
  As that which cleans man's ***** slate.
  While man can still his body keep
  Wine or love drug him to sleep,
  Waking he thanks the Lord that he
  Has body and its stupidity,
  But body gone he sleeps no more,
  And till his intellect grows sure
  That all's arranged in one clear view,
  pursues the thoughts that I pursue,
  Then stands in judgment on his soul,
  And, all work done, dismisses all
  Out of intellect and sight
  And sinks at last into the night.

Echo. Into the night.

Man.                     O Rocky Voice,
  Shall we in that great night rejoice?
  What do we know but that we face
  One another in this place?
  But hush, for I have lost the theme,
  Its joy or night-seem but a dream;
  Up there some hawk or owl has struck,
  Dropping out of sky or rock,
  A stricken rabbit is crying out,
  And its cry distracts my thought.

It goes( as it
always goes, to )
: ! PENALTIES !

A chorus of "Oh Noooos'!"
rises from the fans like
winter breath from cattle

Hamlet, places it:
...steps back to take it
&. . .

"Do it England!"
the fanatic fans chant
"Dooooo....Itttt...Angle...la...and!"

Hamlet thinks
( No...nOOOO Hamlet don't
.     .     .think! )

But it is alas -too late
he has
already thunked!

"If it be now, 'tis not
to come; if it be not to come
it will be now!"

"Duh!" the fans think
"Agggghh...just
do it!"

The thoughts sprout
from his great big noggin like
a cartoon speech bubble.

"...if it be now now
yet
it will come!"

"The readiness is all!"
Hamlet runs up to
the waiting ball.

Hamlet hushes his
thought process
strikes the ball with his right foot &.     .     .

"To be or, aggggghhhh noooooo!"
After that comma  that
negative sentence.

'NOT TO BE!"
jeer the rival fans
'*** THEEEE...TOA...NONE...ER...EEE!"

Hamlet ends it all
with a bare bodkin.
"O, O, O, O." Dies

"Football is not...."
as Shankly so succinctly
put it

"...a matter of life and death.
It's. . .
much much more important than that!"

The rest.

Is.

silence.

I

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

II

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

III

And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could ******, even self-******
ever a quietus make?

IV

O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus, make?

V

Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
Already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.

VI

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

VII

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
fitting and ready for the departing soul.

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's black waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.

There is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening blackness darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!

VIII

And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone

It is the end, it is oblivion.

IX

And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
of a flood-dawn.

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.

X

The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.

Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.

Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

Your bodkin, seeking my heart if straight,will find it's target quick,
I'll gladly die an honorable death, still remembering the arrows of cupid,
but if your sword, stealthily moves from behind, in deceit, cuts me down,
denigrates love, let darkness shout, from  where once love solemnly stood,
you'll have to be on your knees to seek forgiveness for this sin, it's no win.

HAMLET AT THE WORLD CUP

It goes( as it
always goes, to )
: ! PENALTIES !

A chorus of "Oh Noooos'!"
rises from the fans like
winter breath from cattle

Hamlet, places it:
...steps back to take it
&. . .

"Do it England!"
the fanatic fans chant
"Dooooo....Itttt...Angle...la...and!"

Hamlet thinks
( No...nOOOO Hamlet don't
.     .     .think! )

But it is alas -too late
he has
already thunked!

"If it be now, 'tis not
to come; if it be not to come
it will be now!"

"Duh!" the fans think
"Agggghh...just
do it!"

The thoughts sprout
from his great big noggin like
a cartoon speech bubble.

"...if it be not now
yet
it will come!"

"The readiness is all!"
Hamlet runs up to
the waiting ball.

Hamlet hushes his
thought process
strikes the ball with his right foot &.     .     .

"To be or, aggggghhhh noooooo!"
After that comma  that
negative sentence.

'NOT TO BE!"
jeer the rival fans
'*** THEEEE...TOA...NONE...ER...EEE!"

Hamlet ends it all
with a bare bodkin.
"O, O, O, O." Dies

"Football is not...."
as Shankly so succinctly
put it

"...a matter of life and death.
It's. . .
much much more important than that!"

The rest.

Is.

silence.

On a lonely night
when my moon
refused to show her face,
even after pleading
till my heart broke,
in to pieces of gold
and diamonds,
dedicated to her
all covered with love
dripping like drops of blood,
darkness forced me
to confess the love crimes
I never did commit
I thought it will set everything right
but in vein....

Wolves howled with
a mad glee to make me
nervous thinking that
you'll be frightened,
the owl, in silence
pretended to be all knowing
but not a wee bit
about the gravity of our love
registered in his mind,
hooted again and again
"She doesn't love you"
in a  voice reeking vengeance.

My love, I never thought
of a cup hemlock, a bodkin
or a flight to darkness
from the hill, we used to sit
heart beating against heart
when
          you
                  gave
                             me
the portion of your love
for the first time from your
trembling lips....................
I am enscorned in you
you are in my veins
immortal I am
I'll meet you in your abode,
even if you fail to keep your word
and don't turn up in our rendezvous.

the jasmine bush, whose
fragrant buds just bloomed
took me in her ***** and
wrapped me with her scent
of love, what a solace!

"Your love is immortal
never grieve, your true love,
never would perish, it would
stand the tests, however tough
she is always yours, you are hers
in this life and lives to come"

I slept like kid under the jasmine bush
like a kid in his mother's bed
she covered me with her tears
of falling flowers, till dawn appeared,
at last I saw my beloved in my dreams.

Man
IN a cleft that's christened Alt
Under broken stone I halt
At the bottom of a pit
That broad noon has never lit,
And shout a secret to the stone.
All that I have said and done,
Now that I am old and ill,
Turns into a question till
I lie awake night after night
And never get the answers right.
Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?
Did words of mine put too great strain
On that woman's reeling brain?
Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?
And all seems evil until I
Sleepless would lie down and die.
Echo

Lie down and die.

Man
That were to shirk
The spiritual intellect's great work,
And shirk it in vain.  There is no release
In a bodkin or disease,
Nor can there be work so great
As that which cleans man's ***** slate.
While man can still his body keep
Wine or love drug him to sleep,
Waking he thanks the Lord that he
Has body and its stupidity,
But body gone he sleeps no more,
And till his intellect grows sure
That all's arranged in one clear view,
pursues the thoughts that I pursue,
Then stands in judgment on his soul,
And, all work done, dismisses all
Out of intellect and sight
And sinks at last into the night.

Echo
Into the night.

Man
O Rocky Voice,
Shall we in that great night rejoice?
What do we know but that we face
One another in this place?
But hush, for I have lost the theme,
Its joy or night-seem but a dream;
Up there some hawk or owl has struck,
Dropping out of sky or rock,
A stricken rabbit is crying out,
And its cry distracts my thought.

Blood, now boils quick, it's intense, he is in fire,
on her every touch, there is a special anesthetic
a poisonous binge, causes tidal waves go berserk
in his stream of blood,tangible effects of arousal results,

body now is a vast field,  goosebumps sprout like spotted
magic mushrooms after a night long rain and thunderclaps,
the salacious intent of the scent of woman,wafts,
singing pheromones perfectly rhyme with *** center
of the brain, "Ï am addicted to tarantula's love"
his whisper sounds ominous, tarantula casts her net

Serpentine vines tangle on wild trees,in natural history
museum premises,trees fall down and rise, create leaf beds
dark enclosures where lovers escape the detection of radars,
explore,the unbridled ascent of carnal wishes,as if a permit
is ingrained in the scent of exotic orchids wafting in the wind,
allowing the wild run of instincts, a dam burst, here cobras prowl,
tarantulas, at a quick look are exposed ******* with dark *******,
on eight legs the desire stands,waiting for the next ***** lover,

She was watching an insatiable pair of tarantulas in elaborate
mating rituals,they move inside, cracks and burrows,concealed
by the cover of darkness,they come out,to eat the night flowers,
exhaling ****** hunger; their dark, devious fingers, touching, caressing
finding each other's intimate  parts has a dark frenzy...
he saw the blue glimmer of a concealed weapon,smeared on by amour,
as they tumble in bed,she flashes her most venomous smile,
like the quick move of the sharp end of a bodkin,
Tarantula's love affair,when it all are over, her lover's end comes near.

you will not like what
you will soon imbibe...

long has a single moot court team
infernal internal debated,
the if's and of's, among itself:

"To Read, Or Not To Read?"

in solitary confinement,
place one's self,
undisturbed but for stale bread,
but unpolluted water

letting only visions sprung internal
guide thy words and world,
from tongue to paper,
creating as pure as one can,
unperturbed by the
rocket's glare of another's poetry

risking all but certain knowing,
it is my fawlty fault alone,
no compare, all laid bare,
no infection of inflection,
no reflection of yours,
in mine mirrored image

my issued seed, entire genetic,
it's only inked environment what is
pre-seeded by blood and *****,
my eyes filter all sight by this light,
this lonely light alone

for the moment, when,
I bend my head to thy stream
to partake when inspiry is parched,
the knowledge that what you
write and wrought,
so much better
than my small portions,
I am condemned in perpetuity
not to the agony mot of defeat,
for I could not
cease to write,
any more than I could
cease to breathe,
or despair of all hope
for messianic better days

but, if to be burdened
by the too real title of
second best,
then my poems,
all sadness to be.

this I cannot have,
so let my pieces,
mediocre or even trash,
live peacefully unencumbered
by the site lines of the living
and the dead

thy finery exceeds my plain grasp,
when I read yours,
my self-pity self-suffocates,
and I ask,
nay, I beg of myself:

let my voice be still
but not stilled,
let my thoughts be boundless,
but not in thine clasped,
let my heart speak my truth,
even unto admitting my yellow courage,
let it not be disparaged by,
for my rank of commonality,
it's low caste author's curse

"for who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time"

I have read the best

once, I wrote
to laugh,
reminded and reminding,
they too feared,
the compare to those who
wrote before their own hour

now I know better,
my only solution,
let my additive, be uncomplicated
my images, uncompromised,
by that, my eyes have n'ere seen,
in languages unspoken, but yet believed,
that were given birth only
for a poet's needs

you may dispense
with my droppings,
as you please, but when
I read you and yours,
I am,
so dangerously pleasured,
my creativity,
my one true god and deity,
oft no longer speaks to me,
it's silence a death sentence
that no court, not in any land,
on earth or unheaven,
may e'er grant clemency,
that of course,
unkindest cut of all

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry"

"The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of"

You see, already cursed and contaminated,
All my sins italicized, except for my original one,
The imposition of mine own hand,
To dare to write and dream in line and meter, verse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


*To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia. Nymph, in all thy Orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

Love means: no surrender;
No weapons thrown to the ground,
Don Quixote charging windmills,
Just to knock the giants down.

Love means: no more evils;
No more swallowed poison pills,
Men taking deadly medicine,
But it won’t cure the chills.

Love means: coming back again;
Never having to abstain,
From every sweet indulgence,
You never can contain.

Love means: the Heart’s evince;
A radiance not know here since,
A true mind took the blade,
And the bodkin took the prince.

Love means: no masquerade;
All our truth on Parade,
You don’t have to take the cross,
But you can’t stop the crusade.

Love means: No more loss;
All deep chasms bridged across.
You can still blow out the candle,
But you can’t switch it off.

Love means: souls entangled;
Entwined as dangling bangles,
Draw about your neck,
All other feeling strangled.

Love means: complete respect;
Unconditionally, you needn’t check.
Undeniably, we all need it.
Unconsciously, you feel effects.

Love means: The grand idea;
Conquering without fear.
And until Maria returns to Judea,
The truth is: Amor vincit omnia.

you invite
the cut,
you know you do

bloodlet come
dust off those bad humors
that have already won

one
incision
on the inside of inner-thigh,
nicely
neatly: remedies indecision for a wee bit
doesn't it?

confirm that silly string
and pipe cleaners
aren't reeeally your insides

lifely! lifely! qualifies your moves
in this
thing
this
****** sadwhirenoughenough

you jus
Buddha the hurt afterward
but emptiness of being always keeps
a few of your you's and me's around
ricocheting off far unkempt corners

like me, the pigeon
and you, the squirrel

...

look, they've already won, my love;
no,
they -always- have already won
so, plz, don't k?

jus don't

don't assemble upright-me as your
night-n-shiny handle

don't fix me la-la opposite his hard gleam
his trite inky blah bodkin Brahmin to my Bodhisattva
i can't, won't do it anymore,
my core torpid
Luke Skywalker warm

It was a suicidal Prince of Denmark—
Hamlet was his name—who observed that sleep
eternal held not agony or pain, but release:
a bittersweet dream, a postmortem peace
into which we awake that may,
or may not be, what we seek.
I have not crossed that final bourne,
not rapped upon Death’s chamber door,
but I have often wandered into sleep.
My dreams are quagmires of blazing fires,
of shadows, of my dark desires,
of landscapes, always shifting, out of beat.
And yet she is always there,
standing, staring, wind blowing through
her chestnut hair, so close that I could
feel her breath upon my cheek.
But when I raise my hand to touch,
to stroke, to hold her ghostly form,
she turns her head, and glides away,
and I can almost hear her speak:
an insubstantial whisper—
but one so sad and sweet that, if I could,
I would choose to linger long
in that realm of sleep.
But choice, in dreams, does not exist;
I do not choose to search for her,
I do not choose to weep.
And when I wake, I see her face;
her knowing gaze has scorched my soul,
as if to say, “It has always been this way,
for me to run, for you to seek.”
Though I would, like the poor Prince,
purchase quiet with bodkin bare,
to dream, perchance to sleep,
I would do it only if I could, forever,
be lost within her amber stare.

I am the jug that has been discarded,
I have tumbled down to the marble floor,
From the drunkard’s slack hand I have parted,
Hit the ground and rung hollow to my core.

I am the sky each dawn that paints the day.
While below men toss to me their prayers.
With thunder and lightning I try to say,
My air is vacant; your God is not there.

I am the cavity in a young boy’s chest.
In which compassion and joy did once lie.
What once did beat is now laid to rest,
You can hear it in the bare cavern, cry.

With love, prayers or drink your mortality escape.
I choose not surrender, the bare bodkin I’ll take.

what dreams may come
on nickel thumbs
i take my chances here

to be or not
such fickle crumbs
i lay my bodkin bare

Time:
We can never truly,
Never fully
Grasp the subject.
We can measure Time,
But we really don’t know.
What is Time?
The tick tock clock
Gives just inkling.
We hear. We see.
We are aware.
Sequence—
An essential piece of definition—
Yet, a bare fraction,
Sliced off with a
Bare bodkin,
Scraping Shakespeare’s
Lyric-perfect bare bottom
For inspiration, I suppose.

But I digress.
Time: longitudinal?
The model--of course—for all
Correlational research.
Repetitive observations
Of the same variables
Over long periods of time,
Often many decades--
‎Our lives:
“Just one **** thing after another.”
Quantum mechanics, be ******.

You and I/beging / flying above the rocks /
away from the salty / above the  bodkin glance /
invisible / and naked / with a white handkerchief/
between our  fingers /as bare knives /
hidden on the frozen sand / night / and day /  
breath  of yours / smell of my heart /
lightning in  every touch  cream my body
to wire power /or go away lover  /
before it s too late   / or stay and  light  the fire /
to extinguish  stars /as  you re /  the first move /
brackish water / to my breast   /glimpse into a single thought /
lowering sky /to  your feet /what  else can I squawk/
how more am I straining my lips/
quittance  to us/ to appear/

Maria Panoutsou

I can say flarkle
I can say spleet
I can even embarkle
On magonical deets

Don’t know what I’m on?
Can’t tell what I’ve said?
Haven’t you heard?
It’s only a word

And I can be whoompus
Only when I wumple!
Or else when I foompus
With a bodkin’s kerflumple

Have the senses all gone
From inside of your head?
Don’t be absurd,
It’s only a word

I can say them where I please-
I can say them to your mother
Who gives for right or fair
When behavior’s but a bother?

Are we all done
With defining instead
Of crowding in herds
Of only words?