The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And the highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding,
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark innyard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by the moonlight,
Watch for me by the moonlight,
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way.

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon,
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching,
Marching, marching
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at the casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement,
The road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"now keep good watch!" And they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say
"Look for me by the moonlight
Watch for me by the moonlight
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years!
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it!
The trigger at least was hers!

Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs were ringing clear
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming!
She stood up straight and still!

Tlot in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment! She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the west; he did not know she stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Amazing it was what Grandad would do
with a drop of oil or a bit of glue
Stopped watches, sticking locks
Faulty switches, zips on breeches
Kettles that wouldn't sing
Bells that wouldn't ring
He'd say let me have a look  my dear
Touch the pencil behind his ear
Adjust his specs, stick out his tongue
And in a jiff it was mended and done
But now he's not here to save us from sin
Anything broken goes straight in the bin

come in many styles,
walking, soft top, striped,
you name it , they make it,
market it.

now then i buy cheap ones,
5 pair a go quite comfy,
with dots mainly.

we talked of clough ellis, his yellow
breeches, long wool hose to knee,
all arty and architecture.

she liked the woolly ones, chose
a dull colour over pink.

a day of rearrangement.

as you were.

sbm

Nota: man is the intelligence of his soil,
The sovereign ghost. As such, the Socrates
Of snails, musician of pears, principium
And lex. Sed quaeritur: is this same wig
Of things, this nincompated pedagogue,
Preceptor to the sea? Crispin at sea
Created, in his day, a touch of doubt.
An eye most apt in gelatines and jupes,
Berries of villages, a barber's eye,
An eye of land, of simple salad-beds,
Of honest quilts, the eye of Crispin, hung
On porpoises, instead of apricots,
And on silentious porpoises, whose snouts
Dibbled in waves that were mustachios,
Inscrutable hair in an inscrutable world.

One eats one pate, even of salt, quotha.
It was not so much the lost terrestrial,
The snug hibernal from that sea and salt,
That century of wind in a single puff.
What counted was mythology of self,
Blotched out beyond unblotching. Crispin,
The lutanist of fleas, the knave, the thane,
The ribboned stick, the bellowing breeches, cloak
Of China, cap of Spain, imperative haw
Of hum, inquisitorial botanist,
And general lexicographer of mute
And maidenly greenhorns, now beheld himself,
A skinny sailor peering in the sea-glass.
What word split up in clickering syllables
And storming under multitudinous tones
Was name for this short-shanks in all that brunt?
Crispin was washed away by magnitude.
The whole of life that still remained in him
Dwindled to one sound strumming in his ear,
Ubiquitous concussion, slap and sigh,
Polyphony beyond his baton's ******.

Could Crispin stem verboseness in the sea,
The old age of a watery realist,
Triton, dissolved in shifting diaphanes
Of blue and green? A wordy, watery age
That whispered to the sun's compassion, made
A convocation, nightly, of the sea-stars,
And on the cropping foot-ways of the moon
Lay grovelling. Triton incomplicate with that
Which made him Triton, nothing left of him,
Except in faint, memorial gesturings,
That were like arms and shoulders in the waves,
Here, something in the rise and fall of wind
That seemed hallucinating horn, and here,
A sunken voice, both of remembering
And of forgetfulness, in alternate strain.
Just so an ancient Crispin was dissolved.
The valet in the tempest was annulled.
Bordeaux to Yucatan, Havana next,
And then to Carolina. Simple jaunt.
Crispin, merest minuscule in the gates,
Dejected his manner to the turbulence.
The salt hung on his spirit like a frost,
The dead brine melted in him like a dew
Of winter, until nothing of himself
Remained, except some starker, barer self
In a starker, barer world, in which the sun
Was not the sun because it never shone
With bland complaisance on pale parasols,
Beetled, in chapels, on the chaste bouquets.
Against his pipping sounds a trumpet cried
Celestial sneering boisterously. Crispin
Became an introspective voyager.

Here was the veritable ding an sich, at last,
Crispin confronting it, a vocable thing,
But with a speech belched out of hoary darks
Noway resembling his, a visible thing,
And excepting negligible Triton, free
From the unavoidable shadow of himself
That lay elsewhere around him. Severance
Was clear. The last distortion of romance
Forsook the insatiable egotist. The sea
Severs not only lands but also selves.
Here was no help before reality.
Crispin beheld and Crispin was made new.
The imagination, here, could not evade,
In poems of plums, the strict austerity
Of one vast, subjugating, final tone.
The drenching of stale lives no more fell down.
What was this gaudy, gusty panoply?
Out of what swift destruction did it spring?
It was caparison of mind and cloud
And something given to make whole among
The ruses that were shattered by the large.

In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter.  It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs:
the inside of a volcano,
black, and full of ashes;
then it was spilling over
in rivulets of fire.
Osa and Martin Johnson
dressed in riding breeches,
laced boots, and pith helmets.
A dead man slung on a pole
"Long Pig," the caption said.
Babies with pointed heads
wound round and round with string;
black, naked women with necks
wound round and round with wire
like the necks of light bulbs.
Their ******* were horrifying.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop.
And then I looked at the cover:
the yellow margins, the date.
Suddenly, from inside,
came an oh! of pain
--Aunt Consuelo's voice--
not very loud or long.
I wasn't at all surprised;
even then I knew she was
a foolish, timid woman.
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't.  What took me
completely by surprise
was that it was me:
my voice, in my mouth.
Without thinking at all
I was my foolish aunt,
I--we--were falling, falling,
our eyes glued to the cover
of the National Geographic,
February, 1918.

I said to myself: three days
and you'll be seven years old.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off
the round, turning world.
into cold, blue-black space.
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't look any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.

Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone?
What similarities
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat, or even
the National Geographic
and those awful hanging *******
held us all together
or made us all just one?
How I didn't know any
word for it how "unlikely". . .
How had I come to be here,
like them, and overhear
a cry of pain that could have
got loud and worse but hadn't?

The waiting room was bright
and too hot.  It was sliding
beneath a ******* wave,
another, and another.

Then I was back in it.
The War was on.  Outside,
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
were night and slush and cold,
and it was still the fifth
of February, 1918.

“The curiosity of the city rings with the death deliverance of grieving mothers and drunk fathers and optimists who claim the world is made, of more than just those two people. This is the Republic and the gates are open for service. Comedians were once serious people like all the rest who were mocked and remained vigilant in the face of despair. Life and death are part of our lives, but not the entirety. Grave markers have no grace for that truth. Summing up our choices to dashes in metal or plastic. What about the singing in the shower? The embarrassing time we were caught ******* or with ****? The overall fear of death creeping over these moments. Where is the answer? I wish Philosophy had a wick, something tangible to grasp onto, but it is no different than alcohol or drugs. Even that is no different than the dash. It only sums up our existence in simplicity. Labels of any sort do no justice to the comedians, mothers, fathers, republics, cities, and or life. In short, this land is the Atlas-cyst.
I look up at the clouds and see the impression of silver cherubs sitting on  flying horses. If they were real, they'd stab the hearts out of lovers from their aluminum vessels.
We are kings and queens of too much.
How many people have died for something that was not the cause—martyrs labeled as abolitionists. But to the illiterate-pop culture they are the heroes. Zealous posters written by apathetic authors trying to call back to the glaciers till the chimes of apocalypse come. The sad songs are true. Pity is polio too sick to bend and too accustomed to power. More than anything it is the simple moments that make the best music."
I remember telling Kaitlyn all that after we had ***.
"Should I continue?" I asked.
"I guess. I do like listening to you." she said.
“Your name is a word, but I think it is a culture.”
“The dark is a force,” she said, “But it is a child  too.”

She was the first one that made me realize that romantic tendencies are as hollow as realistic ones.
She laughs and I laugh. We are slaves beyond truth and defiance.
I can almost hear the old people that were friends of my granddad saying, “Remember your path.”
A failed proverb. Now as my sneakers hit the black top at night I see a messy web in the gutter belonging to a black widow. Every town in America should have a street named after Leo Szilard, the idealist father of the atomic bomb. I wish the one I was walking down now was named after him, but instead it is named after Hemingway. Hemingway St.--
“Everything I want and I couldn't be happier.” Kaitlyn says as she rolls away from me. Almost in cinematic beauty.
Now Sedans pass by playing catchy music--reminding me of the same melody earlier in the day when we were on our date at a local pizza place. The waitress was late with our order and we were making fun of Communism and Southern women on verandas.
“Oh Charles, I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies!” she impersonated.
I laugh, gather myself, and add, “frankly my dear, I don't give a ****!”
Our giggles and bursts of laughter spawned our waitress in record time.
Later in the night, a ***** sock is still on her door as I leave her apartment. There are things still to be done. We aren't married after all.
I hear sirens in the background, downtown and I laugh to myself.
“Avoid the police! Avoid the police!” I promise myself I'll tell her tomorrow.
As I cross the street and the stench of wet dog in the night becomes second nature to me I add a conclusion to the communist joke from earlier. Imagine nowadays walking around Moscow passing out pamphlets about Communism to Russian citizens. The punchline sets in as lame like a worn lobotomy—no one would get the joke or take it too seriously. It's one of the commodities of sanity.
“You're never angry with me and I like that about you.” I told her once our pizza was delivered to our table. That statement cleaved the conversation to a halt and all we did was eat for the rest of our date there. She is the perfect bride I may never marry—a wedding in a box. Other than that she brings  spinal traction in this rough world—I feel like a man.
3:55 am brings ego death from acid. Not a song for the kiddies, but it is a recycled song for the college kids down the street. Even though the closest college is two hundred miles away. I call Kaitlyn up, she too can't sleep.
“How many times can a woman scream after *******?” I ask.
She exhales heavy when she smiles. “As many as I can.”
I do the same when I smile.
I imagine it all again: “Being absent on death's radar for that one moment. Teenagers dream about it, preachers scold it, tv promotes it, children have no idea what it is.”
“You make it sound so bad. Like ****.”
“It's not bad. It's a faith in a white flag.” I say.
“Of surrender?”
“Yes.” I reply.

The next time I blink it's breakfast, over at her place.
“You have the most fantastic beard.”she says.
The compliment goes down good with eggs over-well, bacon still moist from grease, golden toast, sloppy grits, and hashbrowns flat like a sandwich. I need a cup of coffee to level out her perfume.

No one knows I'm unsure if I'm the one she wants. But I would want her, no breakfast, just her and her aroma steeping in my life till my body runs cold.

“I surrender.”
“What?” she asks.
A torn piece of white fabric lies on the table.


The wine still lingers in my throat an hour after New Year's. The burn creeping down my esophagus much slower than the glistening ball in New York on tv. I taste blood. I wonder if it will last the year. The white flag is now starboard. And there is an opera in my fingers.  That last sentence makes no sense.
I know I am a man with hairy feet, a bruised heart and young. As Ivy Compton-Burnett says, “Real life seems to have no plots.” But it does have star-crossed lovers stuffed in suitcases beside heels and breeches. Traveling along the serpentine east coast watching the world in anticipation. Death can wait. I wonder if the same two people can live in perpetual amazing-ness apart?
I don't know. I can't wait for the answer. I begin, end, and live my life around the words 'and' and 'more'.
She doesn't know I barely move from my bedroom.

They had long met o’ Zundays—her true love and she—
   And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;
But she bode wi’ a thirtover uncle, and he
Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be
Naibor Sweatley—a gaffer oft weak at the knee
From taking o’ sommat more cheerful than tea—
   Who tranted, and moved people’s things.

She cried, “O pray pity me!” Nought would he hear;
   Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed,
She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi’ her.
The pa’son was told, as the season drew near
To throw over pu’pit the names of the peäir
   As fitting one flesh to be made.

The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on;
   The couple stood bridegroom and bride;
The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone
The folks horned out, “God save the King,” and anon
   The two home-along gloomily hied.

The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear
   To be thus of his darling deprived:
He roamed in the dark ath’art field, mound, and mere,
And, a’most without knowing it, found himself near
The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,
   Where the lantern-light showed ’em arrived.

The bride sought her cham’er so calm and so pale
   That a Northern had thought her resigned;
But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,
Like the white cloud o’ smoke, the red battlefield’s vail,
   That look spak’ of havoc behind.

The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain,
   Then reeled to the linhay for more,
When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain—
Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi’ might and wi’ main,
   And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.

Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,
   Through brimble and underwood tears,
Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright
In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi’ fright,
Wi’ on’y her night-rail to screen her from sight,
   His lonesome young Barbree appears.

Her cwold little figure half-naked he views
   Played about by the frolicsome breeze,
Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,
All bare and besprinkled wi’ Fall’s chilly dews,
While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,
   Sheened as stars through a tardle o’ trees.

She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn,
   Her tears, penned by terror afore,
With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,
Till her power to pour ’em seemed wasted and gone
   From the heft o’ misfortune she bore.

“O Tim, my own Tim I must call ‘ee—I will!
   All the world ha’ turned round on me so!
Can you help her who loved ‘ee, though acting so ill?
Can you pity her misery—feel for her still?
When worse than her body so quivering and chill
   Is her heart in its winter o’ woe!

“I think I mid almost ha’ borne it,” she said,
   “Had my griefs one by one come to hand;
But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,
And then, upon top o’ that, driven to wed,
And then, upon top o’ that, burnt out o’ bed,
   Is more than my nater can stand!”

Tim’s soul like a lion ‘ithin en outsprung—
   (Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)—
“Feel for ‘ee, dear Barbree?” he cried;
And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,
Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung
Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung
   By the sleeves that around her he tied.

Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay,
   They lumpered straight into the night;
And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,
At dawn reached Tim’s house, on’y seen on their way
By a naibor or two who were up wi’ the day;
   But they gathered no clue to the sight.

Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there
   For some garment to clothe her fair skin;
But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,
He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,
Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair
   At the caddle she found herself in.

There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did,
   He lent her some clouts of his own,
And she took ’em perforce; and while in ’em she slid,
Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,
Thinking, “O that the picter my duty keeps hid
   To the sight o’ my eyes mid be shown!”

In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay,
   Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;
But most o’ the time in a mortal bad way,
Well knowing that there’d be the divel to pay
If ’twere found that, instead o’ the elements’ prey,
   She was living in lodgings at Tim’s.

“Where’s the tranter?” said men and boys; “where can er be?”
   “Where’s the tranter?” said Barbree alone.
“Where on e’th is the tranter?” said everybod-y:
They sifted the dust of his perished roof-tree,
   And all they could find was a bone.

Then the uncle cried, “Lord, pray have mercy on me!”
   And in terror began to repent.
But before ’twas complete, and till sure she was free,
Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her key—
Tim bringing up breakfast and dinner and tea—
   Till the news of her hiding got vent.

Then followed the custom-kept rout, shout, and flare
Of a skimmington-ride through the naiborhood, ere
   Folk had proof o’ wold Sweatley’s decay.
Whereupon decent people all stood in a stare,
Saying Tim and his lodger should risk it, and pair:
So he took her to church. An’ some laughing lads there
Cried to Tim, “After Sweatley!” She said, “I declare
I stand as a maiden to-day!”

Moral pulls herself up
by her own bootstraps
on her high horse boots
with stir ups when I visit
and the rocking chairs
throw down newspapers
and stand to attention
in the name of Moral support
looking like we might be game
who holds the whip hand in this sport?

I straddle the fence
with her strict father
Duty
Duty gives the orders here
we try to carry them out
they're no heavy burden
not keeping mum Mercy
from being close
to daughter Moral
Duty is of higher rank
and gives Moral
direction
Duty sets the boundary
Mercy's bound to
follow
while Moral
carries the compass
and the compassion
of a conscience

Me?
I'm loyal
love enough
and
light enough
to jump the fences
with my own defence
Moral permits

This defence is
good for morale
but Duty is always on guard
for Moral
a perfect match
that can have
a deadly when ignited
bite to catch
those who are free spirited

When Duty's asleep
alone
he leaves a stern
guardian
off the safety catch
in Duty of care
for Moral
- Discipline

I must steal
this care
away
from the arms of Discipline
when Moral's involved
because Discipline
in the hands of Duty
would explode in the face
of neighbourly straying
should Duty do what he sees
fit
without Mercy at his side

But should Duty awaken
alone
to his Moral's
dilemma
I fear
his Moral Discipline
can be Merciless

Did we burn our breeches?
almost
we rode a city of them
chaste
off racecourse
to show
Moral Italy

A sneaky glance here, a forbidden love ignited
Your stamina driven by a fire un-blighted.
Our limbs lock, intertwine like puzzle pieces
Our chests pressed together, hands loosening breeches.

I can feel you under my skin
Ebbing and flowing to my whim
And your hair feels like the stars I’ve longed to touch.
Your eyes are closed, no dreams are here
We’re breathing in the here and now
I never thought I’d want someone so much.

Your grip makes me feel safe
My arms can’t let you go.
My hairs stand rigidly, at a pace
We’re putting on a desire rid show.

I can feel nothing but fingers and skin
Exploring and groping to whim
And your hair feels like the stars I’ve longed to touch.
Your eyes are closed, no dreams are here
We’re breathing in the here and now
I never thought I’d want someone so much.

You leave me breathless and gasping
My fantasy fulfilled, and rasping
Your sweat is sweeter than water
Our limbs never falter

I can feel nothing but fingers and skin
Exploring and groping to whim
And your hair feels like the stars I’ve longed to touch.
Your eyes are closed, no dreams are here
We’re breathing in the here and now
I never thought I’d want someone so much.

Boys can be boys, but not you and I
We go far back to the very first time
That you wanted me and I craved you;
This wasn’t merely a *****.

5th August 2016

‘’We’re running in circles in the night and we will be by the fire devoured’’

This gnawing fire ardently feeding on our weak bodies since the idle bird of our soul was tortured by the rebellious death, and debased if any occult alliance was giving indulgences away, it would be ******, sullied by several sins and it would desperately date a demon despite the dreaded consequences: The forces of Darkness would be dressed in their bacchanal breeches their crowns tainted by their fanciful sets cinching on sordid sanguinary dances in a tremor hearts and hearths in unconverted sets the demon’s sap, onto which would flow the alabaster lymph of the nymph, in an orgiastic horror my senses secede from this union of leeches and leave this macabre theater…

Towards angels, divine messengers, I turned my eye when, alone in the mystical night I screamed from my inner rings they let me touch an aura in a flurry of wings bathing in this fountain of youth, river of the rare ragweed in the radiance of a ray, they appear, one will prophesy the celestial might of their powers, in the new day’s seed.

Oh dear cherub, now recedes the sweet veil of my vision off my tired eyes sliding in the wind when the morning sighs trapped during my lethargic battle late at night, by evil sylphs, life’s harshness ruthlessly hangs onto me with no ceasefire. As I am struggling, if I could only cling onto the coastline, I inquire, of my childhood’s lake…Like a fainted fairy, they plan my annihilation…

“Say my soul, if you were sent before the gates of a double infinity towards which would you hold out your limp limbs, say it please, between Hell’s chaos and Heaven’s inner peacefulness would you choose the Devil or God’s eternity? To whom would you alter your altar and to whom would you give your night? Answer me! Test the shapeless orb of your entity, you know that nothing will leave this room under a candlelight. And nothing will be known, so wiggle with ease. “

‘’I would kiss love, I want to hear neither about the Arcadia or Styx
I want a seraph, would it be blessed or cursed that I would love and cherish.’’ ‘’Oh my soul, such a nice undertake, you would submit to another type of torment thus I say: There is no other painful path when declining, I will blemish your dreams… Love love to death and you will let yourself die- you cannot fix this: Love, when hell tortures you closer and closer to the edge, will tear you appart and bring this pain to the firmament and I would not call this a pleasurable privilege.

Come closer
by all means come closer where in a blink
pools fix and widen into trackless lakes
your eyes unflinching against my own
forcing mine to yield to look's vortex power
I sink lengthways on to beached magnificence
fearing no fences bind this brimming shore
desiring all of your cresting feistiness

we close in privacy like a whispered prayer
I stoop to overhear furled head to head
the feather of your cheek ticked pinker
confession spilling loosely off shoulders
flowing undressed like some burlesque fantail
and I found myself buoyed up on thin air
shocked by the vapour in essential oils
so lavishly luxurious their condensing iniquity
I could only try to endure your body heat
by closing my own eyes for a moment
but out of focus pours into a concentrate

the control over hands gives me false hope
but I find a clearing of purity overwhelms me
caught helpless in all I add to mire seeping cruel
your lifeline lips offering a hint of moist buoyancy
then sinking a ship of plumped up poison
purple as inky clouds penetrating my mind
the slim tip of your tongue elusively unkind
flickering like a searching candle in a cave
dripping in irregular beats an anti-doting
to form rivulets which in their mystical midst
surround a fresh discovered vale to defile

I feel it's formation in an archway of neck
the undercurrents freed into giving way
you suspend on the bridge an apex and deck
my firmly held happiness into crowning cries
overflowing from the safety of inner recesses
the excesses needing knee breeches on both sides
to wade through a drowning press of paradise
in on the outstretched reach of a relentless tide

yet gorgeous is its precipitous edging test
with bouts of engorged selfishness
I hear your eager call in urge
return
from compliance into shambolic demands
until I am summoned to a trembling portal
biting on its handles like a moon crazed wolf
wanting to escape but in awe of its might
that it will capsize and spring open floodgates

plunging me back into dizzy abandonment's past
to the captivating idea of a last biting grasp
at your sweep-me-up voluptuous swoon
so tight on my heart we both go swimming
from intakes of breath into open eyes again
loving the saltpetre of a spa bath drop descent
into rapids extinguishing hot pulsating harm
which taunts and scolds me to calm the claim
for more days of dangerous vain tainted venom
held at bay
held aloft
by your pressure
bandage
arms

By: Cedric McClester

It’s a witch hunt
Donald Trump insists
But listen closely
And then dig this
You don’t hunt witches
Where none exists
Despite the President’s anger
And him balling his fist

It’s a witch hunt
You’ll hear him shout
At various rallies
But there is no doubt
He runs the coven
And they’re all about
In his administration
As well as out

It’s a witch hunt,
That Mueller probe
But Trump lacks the patience
Shown by a Job
The investigation
Stays on his frontal lobe
And he appears naked
Without a bathrobe

It’s a witch hunt
And Mueller’s caught witches
He’s indicted dozens
Of those sons-of-*******
The president needs to
Be kicked in his breeches
Because the emoluments
Adds to his riches




Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018.  All rights reserved.

The pirates were dressed partly to look as the ******.
They wore baggy breeches, stockings, hairy hats with initials,
Thigh-length shirts; but also waistcoats and sashes wore these men.
The sash was draped over one shoulder to carry the pistols.


The color of their clothes was chosen to match the color
Of the sea lessening the chances of being seen by
Their enemies; this kind of uniforms looked much duller
Than the sea color; the prisoners started to learn to die.


They understood that they could suffer of starvation.
Each one received a quarter cup of dried bread crumbs and two pints
Of water all day long; while thinking that there is no salvation,
The pirates were drinking *** and dancing their strong knee joints.

When they were gambling for handfuls of gold and precious stones,
They were singing songs about mermaids or beautiful women,
And about some past victories to allay the victims' moans.
Two pirates came with liquor sharing it equally when


Others came with a lot of money and jewelry found
On the ship to divide them equally to all, except
Their captain and his quartermaster, who took a big mound.
They started to renew the oath they had always kept.


Then, they exclaimed 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, '
While hoisting two flags, one red, and the other one having
A skull and two crossbones. ''Don't you need a pinch of dignity? ''
Frederick screamed, ‘’you will end in jail! ’’ ''Sure, '' said one of them laughing.

‘’ The nations control only small zones of the seas, so
There are no laws when we're sailing on the wild waters.’’
One of them said, ‘’Look, man, we are necessary; don't you know
That we're guards to stop you when with weapons you cross the borders? ''

Freddy replied, ‘’you know it’s a stupid lie; ’’ one pirate
Pulled out one of his fingernails with a plier. '' I will
Make you walk the plank, '' he told Frederick, 'It's your cruel fate.''
''Captain, to sell the slaves at good prices, you have the skill! ''


While living in the misery, the prisoners had to face
A grinding nightmare; Freddy wanted to give them some moral
Support but he wasn't allowed to talk with them; in disgrace
They received small amounts of food; Miguel whispered, '' Don't quarrel! ''

Arturo has died because he couldn’t take the stress
While thinking that Francesca must follow Lucca in death.
One pirate grabbed Francesca's hand while needing to possess.
With a hellish smile, he approached her to smell her honeyed breath.


He told her, '' Look, I’m a good guy; I give you time to think.’’
Francesca fainted. He left her telling all the pirates
‘’ No one may touch her.; tomorrow, she will marry me at the dawn's pink.''
They heard a huge sound and they realized they are in dire straits.

(After buying a house in Prinylas, Geraldine, Maya, Carla, Erica, Surak, and Fargo spent their night in silence. In the morning, Fargo and Maya went to bring the priest and everything was necessary for the funerals. Fargo told Geraldine that he had left the piracy in order to live a normal life. He said that he was afraid that much worse than the prisoners' death was to be found in Prinylas. He wanted to do everything he had to do very quickly.)

After Bella's funerals, Fargo told Geraldine,
'I must convince the army to go there to put them down.
I'll buy a galley for Frederick on which my name will shine.
I take a part of the treasure to go to Corfu Town.''

(To be continued...)

Poem by Marieta Maglas

the recycled song
that repeats in the throats of the lovers that came so many times
they were invisible on death's radar for just one night. Is it possible
                                                        ­                  for the same two people
                                                          ­                to live in that kind of
                  perpetual amazing-ness?

                  A white flag of surrender in the nose of scolding lips--her lips--those wonderful lies.
The best beard no one will forget. That last sentence makes no sense
                           without the breakfast it went down with. My eggs over well, the bacon still moist with grease, the toast over golden, the grits sloppy, the hashbrowns like a fried sandwich. I need a fantastic cup of coffee.                                                          ­              with her perfume. I'm not sure
                      if I am what she wants, but the alcohol in the
wine I had for                                                              ­            New Years still lingers in my throat.
                                                  
                                                I still feel the burn of loss in my esophagus. The white banner starboard,
blood in my teeth and an opera on my fingers--
what a beautiful world for this day to begin on                and this night to end on. I am a man
and                                                          ­               woman
My feet are hairy--my heart is bruised and young,               like crossed lovers in heels and breeches.

                             The faith of a white flag--a serpentine
                             coast in my suitcase. The world awaits,
                             death can wait--and thanks to Hemingway,
I begin, end, and live my life around the word
                                                            ­                       'and'.

Tonight is for reflection.
Not the kind found in a mirror.  
Which of course I have none.  Mores the pity.  I would love to see how splendid I look in my new shirt with French lace and ruffles.  Under my sapphire blue waist coat and buckskin riding breeches.  All I can clearly see full of, would be my boots.  The softest leather and a shine to see ones reflection in.  Sigh, But not mine.

Where was I.. Ah yes,  I was waxing philosophical.
One can never be too busy to better ones self.  Thus
my new clothes.

Let's see...reflection.  

While looking back upon my long lived life as the Prince Of Darkness.  I realize, I have been selfish.  Not
once have I invited others to my humble home.  Not once have I hosted a party.  Not once have I allowed others to witness my grandeur.  

Tonight, I vow to remedy that.  I will have a party.  One to outdo all the others which I have had the privilege to crash.  

Hmm.  Perhaps I should start a bit smaller.
A dinner party!
For the intimates of intimates.

Let me see.  Who to invite?

Reginald Wadsworth!  He's a jolly chap.  No.  He was a late night snack a few days ago.

Hortense Mayweather!  She is always in good humor and a fair conversationalist.  No.  She had the misfortune of crossing my path last month while I was woozy from battle blood loss.  A fight with a tresspasser left me a bit worse for wear.  But Hortence fixed me right up.

I've got it!  General Clayston!  He makes for such a fun curmudgeon.  Oh,  He died of old age.

Hmm........

Oh look!  The Carlstayton's are hosting a party tonight.

Looks like I will be dining out.

~Lord Kellington

A lowly wooden bench lent itself to a lonesome aged narrow man in a common garden in the smallest hour of the day’s beginning. In the thick haze of the summer’s waking light the common is thinly met with the company of others. Just an old man and his acquainted bench who came to give his eyes sight to the grass and trees, and to rid himself of thought.
He and the bench creak as he sits back; clutching at the satchel veiled among his dull drudged garb that bleeds into his pallid slack and cracked skin.
The wiry hairs bushed around his nostrils recoil to the deep inhale before the sigh, his yawning blue eyes sliding behind a milky glaze follow a bushy tailed rodent hurry into the confidence of a tree.
Through all nonchalance a pair of hobgoblin lugs under a brown woollen hat slides up the flanks of his head to outlying drowned tones of laddish laughs and lewd levity, an unseen clutch of kids filling the common’s spread with their foolish louting prances. Intimidating the preferred and performed with their innocuous idiocies; a mere asocial array of follies without the thought of good manner.
The thoughts of the old man are only briefly drawn; his ears leave the sounds of reckless recreation and back to the hushing song of the swaying grass, the rustling shake of the seasoned leaves on gorged and drooping branches. To his own wilted waning heart, the tremors, quiver and shivers within his own cage, his thoughts turned to his own temporal passage and to the re-joining of his love, of whom no longer lays her head on his shoulder, whom no longer wraps herself around his arm on the lowly park bench.
His lowest lip gives to an emotive tremble as he heaves himself over to the hem of the seat, his hands without any other part to play; frenetically tickle one another with frail kinked fingers.
With what little his body has left to give the eyes well to the upmost point of a tear, as he feels the weight of his wallet in his side trouser pocket against the rough of his skin. Where there within lays an image of a most loved face in a prized time, so that it may be remembered so it may fetch ease to a remittent floundering morsel of a man who could justly with the dead.
The photograph within his keeping need not be looked upon from under the shine of a laminated holding; it needs only to be there, only to be known that it is there.
The satchel was undid and fetched from within the clutter came an elderly notebook now held in his hands. A phlegmy husk of something said breeches his gummy chops, and he spits as he spat shouting out at the still of the garden.
“You should always write more than you do,” she would say, “you are better for it when you do and it lifts me as it does you, when you do.”
The old man reads from the notebook with a weak hate for the world.

“Am I for the worms yet? Am I to be from this rock?
Am I not yet too mad for this mad maddening world?
Four corners of an empty house, a homeless place of curling wallpaper and aloneness for company.
A room in a vagrant house with no light to fill it with a decrepit fool for a keeper
His stink stinks the walls for days as the blow flies form a speckled haze as they feast in filth of his unnoticed demise
With no manner of intention and for relation or friend, there is no cause and no mention for any to attend
He will rot with the house and his memory with it, with his memory does his love die and together they are ghosts in a world where ghosts do not exist.”

The old man pauses as he forcibly triggers one finger to his temple and ***** in his lips. His empty cries fall to a mumble as his hands tremble with his dear notebook in their grasp.

“Take me now cruel are the fates, take me now and rid me
The worms will welcome me, my flesh for an endless night
My life for a world without this life, for a life without his world
I would hold with a brim smile if it was not for my memory of her, if she was not to be lost at the close of this stint
I know not or want knowledge; I seek not of a design and not of meaning
Just a cure for this affliction for my must to her who brings me so much sorrow
Through blissful ages I can no longer hold, and can barely recall
We are all just people who will soon be once living, to be unlived and to forget is a conflict in myself
I have no answer as I have no question, you can have no answer to a question you do not seek nor ask
I dare not speak but I have no end for this, I have no solace and I have no end.”
The old man; the poor old man began to close his dear aged notebook and find the need to bring a smile, perhaps a moment of lunacy to calm the tightening knot beneath his breast.
He pulled a scratching cackle from the pit, wild and uncooked wiping the drool from the crook of his maw with the back of his blotched, mottled hand.
The old man found some seconds of a stoic amenity as his wild eyes grew gallant for those mere moments before the grey metal heft of his sullen vesture fell to his shoulders, he became heavy once more as the world retook him and cloaked again in the present - the light ebbed from him as swiftly as it came. The old man reproached his satchel to humbly return his dear old notebook.
There was a crack like a pick to ice with a hollow thud like a boot to wood as an immediately dissipating claret mist fizzed above his head. The make shift found-about cosh still swinging through the air and over his crown, the old man’s wilted body twisted and slumped to the floor face first. The concrete path before him tearing at the skin of his chin, his frail bones cracked as the meagre weight of his body forced itself into his neck. Laying perverse and unnatural the life was soaked up into his woollen hat and out across the concrete, to the grass – to the worms that writhed below the muck. His eyes were as lifeless as they were when he lived.
They did not wait for the gentle hiss of the spray or the bubbles that popped in the pool that surrounded the old man. They had snatched the satchel and ran off into the spread of the common until they were nothing but outlying drowned tones of laddish laughs and lewd levity.
Crazy old *******.
A lowly wooden bench has lent itself to a lonesome aged narrow man in a common garden in the smallest hour of the day’s beginning. In the thick haze of the summer’s waking light the common is thinly met with the company of others. Just an old man and his acquainted bench who came to give his eyes sight to the grass and trees, and to rid himself of thought.

My love lies 'neath the fragrant boughs
of pine, within yon stand of trees.
Where upon a bed or ferns he did deeply drowse,
whilst locks of hair were tickled by the breeze.

I sat near to count the seconds pass,
till he would wake and espies my vision there.
Then into his arms I would fall at last,
loving away the longing of these past years.

Silver moonlight contrasts a God like form,
in leather breeches and shirt of linen.
Four years he was gone, I had been forlorn.
There he lay so close to home and kin.

Lashes rest upon sculpted cheeks of bronze,
hiding from me eyes of liquid brown.
Eagerly I awaited the sun of dawn,
to show me more of the marvel I had found.

Yes, my love lies now 'neath the fragrant boughs
of pine within yon stand of trees.
Now eternally he does drowse,
as I fatally grieve down upon my knees.

For as the sun rose upon his stubble face,
I saw the lines of pain and of bloom erased.
Of life, my frantic hands, could find no trace.
What game is this so cruelly played by fates?

where a dollar separates you from being broke
or rued some fellar' stealin' your broad.
down the blue collar road in the land
of Alabam' ?

ever been a shill for a thief or the cuckolded
ole stooge standin' in the wake of the love
hurricane?

Ever noticed another man's woman?
Or tried to pet his dog when he was gone?
Stole a glance at some beauty,
way outside your reach?

Been immobile no phone or
wherewithal wet breeches and droopy
jowled, alone in Mobile?

But the skies are so blue,
the song said it true.
Down in Alabam'

slow the wind dost blow,
a sadder light hath the morrow
brought for me;

colour of crimson fire breeches
over the expanse,
a boiling sphere;
the embodiment of wrath,

beauteous is her sky,
as the lips of the days light
kiss the darkened lips of night;

cold, forgotten is her cornerstone;
the reflection of her soul,
rested upon the heavens, it sits,

              Solar Flares

                      &

             Moon Beams

Oh, this forbidden love, I dare to breath in!

bristles tender bristles,
birth a soft touch beneath my fingers,
like that of a fine silk brush,

driven to a blissful land,
walking upon this field of grass so simple, it driveth the painter mad,

t's the break of dawn
which begets the fall of night,
this equilibrium stop; its twilight,

the moment draws ever nigh,
whence the heart of Colour shall rest within the Soul of her reflection
once more...

As his hand held the horn
Advancing in the flow
Guided by the gold glow
The scent of a black thorn
Caught his courageous core.
Bravely, his blade he bore
The callous cave calling
The evil and lurking
Mischievous monster
The mourning, mad mother
Of the deceased Grendel.
The ghost of the rebel
Haunting the silent rocks
Bones, brides, breeches, in blocks.

And his hand held the hilt
For no demon will spilt
His burning and blessed blood.
Blue and bright was the sweep
His body sinking deep
In this felonious flood.
He shuddered as he shone
“ Look, I could light your lone”
What a wielder, my woe !”
“ Show yourself, filthy foe
I thus swear, your demise
Will be swift, I promise…”
“ Sweet sayings, o slayer
Come closer, commander,


Epic epitome
Of grace and of beauty
I reckon you royal
I do know you, kind knight
I have been, from afar
Whilst you were with Hrothgar
Beholding, in the night
Your might and your madness.
I praise  your pure prowess
Until my dreaded den
You have disturbed my dawn
And slaughtered my fine fawn…
You must be Beowulf
Son of the bees and wolves. “

“Silence, seditious sin
You are not from my kin
Let alone from my line
You will never be mine !
March, woman, bow your nape
Under my trusted blade
Let your light crimson cape
Fall to the fallen floor
This shelter you have made
Your marooned murky moor
In this stretch naught was found
Your kingdom and your mound
Shall be your last torrent
The moon will be crescent !“

His eyes devoured her
Dear delicious posture
He pondered, standing there
Over her tempting tone
This soft gift of nature…
He wanted her dead, gone
She cursed him with a kiss
Basking in a pure bliss
His sallied sword collapsed
As the time sighed, elapsed
She skimmed him in the sun
With her dark divine dun
Seducing and soft sight
And he had lost the fight


He left her shining side
When the tedious tide
Swallowed his strong structure
As a King, with no cure !



September, 18, 2013

I dream of Wheat, and a wife in a past life.

It always plays back to me in flashes like a memory of a past life. Her ankle length Azure dress, the blue sky with so few clouds. Her pale skin and bare feet as we walk. I carry her many brass-buckled sandals as we walk, these are things that always come back to me in echos, these things always remain constant. It started when i was a little girl, maybe six or seven, I started having a series of recurring dreams. The one I tell you about now always feels like it happened before, I call it “Woman of Wheat.”

Sometimes I am a grown man, I wear leather bracers with lions or a tree, an old oak design. My hands are calloused and as I look down to step over a root I see my maroon tunic and leather breeches and buckled boots I wear also. I am tall and strong. My blades are heavy and familiar upon my back.
Sometimes I am a Grown Woman, I wear Iron rings upon my hands, and brass wrist cuffs with a chiseled vining flower design. My hands are scarred from my previous life of war, my arms are scared and I feel the pain of the fire under my brass arm cuffs even still. As I look down to step over a root I see my white knee-length dress, secured with a brass chain belt, the buckle is chiseled leather with a Lion head, a mane made of Serpents. My thin yet deadly blade bounces on my hip. Why do these things stick out to me so? I was once able to bear, but cannot any longer, yet our children are strong and beautiful.

Her face, always seems out of focus as we walk upon the worn path through the golden, harvest ready wheat stalks. They come up near out chests and waists, I run my hands over the grain as I pass. Her shoes dangle always in my right hands, my Sword hand.

Her hair falls in Ringlets down to the center of her back. The Sun lights her up, making her seems like a Seraphim or Valkyrie. It shines Golden, red and caramel in the light of day, like blood stained gold, soft as silk she sometimes lets me braid it.
Her laughter sounds like joyous chimes around us. Sometimes, their laughter, the laughter of our children joins in, as they rush through the wheat just out of sight. I catch glimpses of them as they run past me, they are so beautiful and fill me with love. My sons and daughter, our three children, my little lion cubs.

When she turns back to me, she doesn’t say anything, just smiles an joyous smile upon her crimson painted lips, and her laugh twinkles through the air like soothing chimes in the air once more. Her eyes I cannot remember the shape, but I will always remember the color; A clear emerald, seafoam green. It is these eyes I fell in love with when I first looked upon her, and do so every time. Her soul shines like a lighthouse, to a sailor lost in a hurricane through them to me.
It is so peaceful as we walk, just walk though the wheat on a clear day as a cooling breeze shuffles the land. I don’t know how long the five or so of us walk through the fields, just walking through our harvest with a purpose to be somewhere, but us in no hurry to get anywhere. Only laughter from her and the children ringing around me, and I chuckle at their antics.

It feels as though I had waited lifetimes to have this sort of peace after all I feel I have done.
When I wake I am always happy but a little sad. I never know the shape of her or my children’s faces. I only know their eyes and hair and laughter. I have never known them in this lifetime, in this reality. But I miss them as though I did.


Written: Monday Febuary 20th 2017

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
   But be careful how you speak,
   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
   Woven, oven, how and low,
   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
   This phonetic labyrinth
   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
   Blood and flood are not like food,
   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
   Discount, viscount, load and broad,
   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
   Would it tally with my rhyme
   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
   You'll envelop lists, I hope,
   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
   We say hallowed, but allowed,
   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
   Petal, penal, and canal,
   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
   But it is not hard to tell
   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
   *****, ***** and possess,
   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
   Making, it is sad but true,
   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
   Mind! Meandering but mean,
   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
   Prison, bison, treasure trove,
   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
   Evil, devil, mezzotint,
   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
   Funny rhymes to unicorn,
   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
   No. Yet Froude compared with proud
   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
   But you're not supposed to say
   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
   Episodes, antipodes,
   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
   Rather say in accents pure:
   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
   Say then these phonetic gems:
   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
   With and forthwith, one has voice,
   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
   Job, Job, blossom, *****, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

****** does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and *****,
Next omit, which differs from it
   Bona fide, alibi
   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
   Rally with ally; yea, ye,
   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
   Never guess-it is not safe,
   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
   Face, but preface, then grimace,
   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
   With the sound of saw and sauce;
   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
   Respite, spite, consent, resent.
   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
   Monkey, donkey, clerk and ****,
   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
   Once, but *****, toll, doll, but roll,
   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
   Won't it make you lose your wits
   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
   Islington, and Isle of Wight,
   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
   Finally, which rhymes with enough,
   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

antidotes become a long walk home
after leaving everything you used to know
the swaying trees speak in tongues through leaves
and roses become chloroform

tied to a a mast i'm set to outlast
sirens on horizons, harmony intact
this boat becomes a home for everything still unknown
as the hull breeches from impact

can't complete what i'll never believe.  
been forced to deny what makes sense to me.
and while the tired are now wired, and begging to flee
i'm still addicted to whats worst for me

In this garden,
This beautiful creation I've blessed with my wisdom and experience,
I see in dimensions no one else can.
My third eye gleams in the sunlight, glowing and glistening like a perfectly cut jade.

In the distance, I see my goal.
It breeches the soil and reaches for the sun's warm embrace,
Escaping the mortal coil without ever leaving its vessel.

I approach.
Through the travel, the soil beneath me turns to salt and cracks.
The bees turn to wisps of a time once forgotten,
The butterflies, ghosts of a forgotten era.
The sun and Moon become a single entity forever fused in a dance older than time itself.
The sky turns dark and bleeds attempting to warn me of the horrors protecting my ambitions.
My claim to my destiny becomes shaken.

I power forward, blinded only in the physical world.
And as I approach the apple hanging gracefully from the tree
The snake will whisper its temptations,
And God will scream and tear the heavens asunder, seeking my cursed flesh and blood.
And as I pluck my ambitions and wisdom, digesting it and the truth whole,
The corners of my stone eyes will crack,
My third eye will screech,
And I will watch as both God and the serpent battle over my intentions.

I am The Prophet.
My destiny is written by me and me alone,
And all those who take claim to my soul will be cut down by my power.

I am The Prophet.
Where my gifts and talents, ambitions and goals, and curses and vices originate
Is unknown
But these are answers that do not matter.

I will tame the serpentine prince.
I will take claim to the power your God once stole from me.
I will refuse the sun its moment to set, plunging myself in eternal sunset.
I will embrace the moon as my lover,
And I will not allow you, nor anyone, nor anything power.

I am The Prophet.
I will scan the horizon with my peripheral vision
And blind myself with the sun's direct effects
To strengthen the sight of my soul.

just let me go
just for a minute
ill be
right back
come with me
or stay right there
ill be
right back
if i could stay
away for good
i would already
be gone
but when a dolphin
breeches high
with the intention
just to fly
it comes
right back

Run Rabbit, Run,
Alice is after you,
Alice, The Madman, or
The local federals-

Given the chance,
All would take a leg for luck,
The hand of fate,
Has passed you up,
And here you stand,
Hips in tuck,
Saved in passing,
granted luck-

it turns out that I’m the Rabbit
and you the Madman in the tall hat.

You've poisoned the tea and spiked the punch with ACID!

Oh Absalom! Absalom!
Grant me safety in your smoky blue carousel,
My legs have gone gimp,
I've been running for days-

The beast called Alice,
Is drawing near,
Her thundering steps,
Are all I hear,
This short-bread cake,
Will quell my fear,
Though the smiling cat,
Will forever peer-

His eyes are gleaming,
Bright and blue,
Iris sharp,
Focused on you,
No blinking, no moving,
That cheeky grin,
His frozen face,
Softened by the gin-

Brass buttons clasp,
The muddied breeches to my belly,
An everlasting coat,
That drags in the dust-

The smiling cat stoops his head,
“To get beneath the branch”, he said,
But really what I think he wants,
Is to get a better look at my watch-

If Alice were to find me,
The game would be up,
The treasure I've found,
The sword, the watch, the cup,
Lost to the ether,
They would be found,
By the big headed queen,
In her rouge hearted crown-

“Save me! Save me Queen!” I pleaded with the *****-

No longer needing,
My help or my time,
She had found the gold, found the sword,
And taken the crown-

My uses were up,
I was kicked to the side-

“Oh Absalom! Absalom!”
Will you help me now?
Have I shown you my worth as a runner?

All I need is a bite,
Of your spotted toad-stool,
A puff of your pipe,
And I’ll be on my way-

No help from the slug, I return to the tea-party-
To sit and drink and make merry with the wood-folk-

The Hatter has tricked me into his game,
It has rendered me blind,
His sweet tasting tea,
Is playing with my mind,
He says to relax,
Take it easy,
Close my eyes,
He’ll see me again,
Once that Red Queen has died-

I like it right here,
In my world of light and colour,
I can’t hear anymore,
Or at least I can’t hear the fuss-

Though I know when I wake,
That Alice will be gone-
When morning comes round I must be prepared to run-

My girl likes little things
not the big things of value
or baggy big like Jeans
But short skirts and tight tops
Little shorts and flip flops
with high hopes,
but little dreams

My girl likes little things
Not big things or deep
Little things like lipstick
The comments on her self pics
The brand of her breeches  
The right lace on her sneakers
My girl likes little things
Not the things
too heavy to keep

My girl likes little things
Not the big and the weighty
Just the little things shiny
like an iPhone glittering
the right tone on the dial ring
a cover case with the right bling
Almost everything
And anything
not significantly big

My girl likes little things
nothing seriously grand
little things, like small talk
A nice sweet short walk
Even holding hands
among other little things
If there’s room for my fingers
beside her diamond rings

Chiara, Arturo's wife, approached them together with
Lucca and Francesca, the other Italian pair
Saying, ''Was Quare's invention real? I thought it was a myth.''
'' His barometer measures the pressure of the air.''


Chiara was wearing a red gown, with lace trimming the low,
A green velvet mantel, which was lined with some ermine,
Square neckline and sleeves, which were gathered at the elbow.
She spoke well Italian, Spanish, and German.


Italians wanted to disembark at Syracuse.
Bella and Miguel traveled to Barcelona home.
To find a new home, Naimah and his son had an excuse.
Out of their Turkey's limit, through the storms, they would roam.


Tia, Athan, Megan, and Karsten would disembark
At Selanik, an Ottoman province, where Ahmed
The Third was reigning while his war was a fire in the dark.
They were Greeks being born during the reign of Mehmed.


Marco and Rosa, Cruz and Pedra, Pedro and Carla
Were Portuguese pairs coming home from America.
They had bought from the Pueblo Indians some ollas.
They gave one to the Russian pair, Ivan, and Erica.


Ivan said, ''Tell me something about these Indians.''
Carla said, ''Their belief means dualism; they eat corn.
Some became Catholic due to the Spanish civilians.
They think they emerged from underwater to be born.''


Carla wore a black cap, having a veil, and a green gown
Patterned with acorns and flowers, and her sleeves were caught
With jeweled clasps on lace at the elbow; her eyes were brown.
''The water is fresh in the ollas, I like them a lot.''

She asked Ivan’’ Now, where do you go? ’’ ‘’We left the war.’’
''Ahmed and Peter the First! '' replied Cruz, '' tell me something,
How could you reach Constantinople after coming from far? ''
''I do trade with them, but this war destroyed everything.''

''Did you lose everything you had? '' Marco asked Ivan.
''To make business in Turkey, I sold all my Russian goods.''
Erica tried this conversation to enliven,
''In Portugal, we'll search for a job in cities and hoods.''

Marco wore a banyan with a patterned lining; his cuffs
Were embroidered in gold; his justacorps and stockings
Over his breeches were red like Rosa's shoes and muffs.
All of them wore periwigs and talked a lot while walking.

( To be continued...)

Poem by Marieta Maglas

The fresh-faced youth, dagger on hip,
is possessed of many secrets.

Spy, chameleon, a wolf in sheep’s clothing,
accustomed to the shadows,
indeed, he is not a ‘he’ at all,
but a woman in service to her dauphin.

The drape of her shirt and breeches
hint at her curves, her muscle,
the delicate arch of her feet
in her red court shoes
long and well suited to
slipping across foreign marble
to do what she must.

She has played the man-at-war,
the page boy and the cupbearer,
the mistress and the catamite,
in the bed of men and women both,
their pillow talk treason carried away
while she still bears their bruises and love bites.  

Servant of the state, the empire,
her lord and her god-
she is Madonna, Joan of Arc,
a thousand women unnamed,
her king’s blade, steel under velvet.