To Battle!

To battle they flew.
Broadswords in hands.
Wings open fully.
Standing ***** in glory.
With broadswords swinging.
As they lash the clouds.

Creating joint forces of thunder and lightning.
Bruising the sky.
Making it ebony rich.
They will ****.
Any who stand in their way.
Will decimate a million images.
Presented to their eyes.

The end of war is near.
Their word is spoken.
It is their final will.
A testimony to the work of angels.

Seraphim and cherubim.
Stand to protect their unholy comrades.
Full camaraderie.
Brothers in arms.
Wings extended in protection.
Guarding world from extinction by idiotic men and their stupidity.


By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

We lined the ridge of Senlac hill
The shield wall stood five men deep
In the autumn chill
The came at us on horse and foot
But we were the men of the Sussex weald
Men who would not yealed
Our shields now hacked and broken
Bodies bloodied bruised and sore
But we the housecarles of the English King
Would stand and fight the war
Prince William came with his aray the English crown to take
But we the men of Sussex
Would many French bones break
Alas our shield wall has broken
Kentish men on the right have charged
They sought to cut the Norman line
And so the men of Kent did die
The French now archers did deploy
With bitter arows fired high
Harold, our king, our leige Lord
Took an arrow in his eye
We gathered round his body
We men of the Sussex Weald
Our king was dead, the battle lost
But Sussex men don't yeald
The shield wall now in disaray
Large gaps now opened up
Brave men now die before the spear
From the broadswords vicious cut
And so we died on Senlac ridge
But there were no wounds in our backs
We died for England's glory
Cut down by spear and axe

When concerning sculptures,
patience and skill are vital,
since many amateurs will boast
their cracked wooden carvings,
constructed carelessly with
dull, heavy broadswords
flung in random directions,
but only an expert
can transpose the beauty
of life-bearing flesh
onto cold, hard marble
using only the simple, strict strikes
of a small chisel and hammer.

I can't breath around you
Because deep breaths fill my lungs with an aroma that overwhelms me
And because emotions that awaken because of you have taken a home within my heart and haven't made room for air yet

I can't stand around you
Because my knees quiver with thoughts of your face
My head drifts into your deep ocean eyes
And butterflies try to escape threw my thoughts and only come out in stutters

I can't think around you
Because the stories that are strung between your silk lips dance to the melody of my eardrums
leaving me in a confused state of awe

And I can't hold your hand
Because you fear they'll remove it
like were thieves at a market
And I can't kiss you
Because you fear creeping eyes
ready to sink their fangs into the rumors
And I can't say I love you
Because you fear the whisper
running around changing tales into reality within our piers

And we can never be together
Even though the people who matter
Stand ready with their broadswords
To fight the devils that follow us home
Even if their fire breath rains down like
missiles exploding at our feat
leaving burns Of the third degree
melting away our flesh
and exposing our bone
At Least they'll see that inside we are the same
But that doesn't matter to you
And if you never learn to care
I can't stand to be with you

We didn’t dwell on the streetlights,
Festooned with garland-strewn bells, ersatz nutcrackers,
The odd buoyant and ebullient snowman;
We were crossing the Hempstead Turnpike,
No task for the faint-hearted in bright light of midday,
Outright perilous on a late Friday evening
(Especially for those feeling the effects
Of an afternoon of social drinking
Which had gently spilled over into that good night.)
There were four of us—myself, and a Tehran-born trio
(Fun-loving, borderline jolly sorts,
A group of thin, dark Falstaffs, as it were)
Headed to a nearby off-campus bar,
Low-slung ranch-style edifice constructed on the Levittown model,
As non-descript and indistinguishable as its regular clientele,
Some of whom eyed us warily if not angrily,
Weighing the pros and cons of lobbing a comment in our direction
Before we headed to the “Downstairs Disco”
Which had been added, very grudgingly at that,
As a nod to the times and fiscal necessity.

In between ear-numbing bass lines
And the strobe light’s cornea-threatening ministrations,
We nursed significantly watered *****-and-tonics,
Smiled unsuccessfully at spike-heeled and Jordache-clad local girls
(Every bit as unwelcoming to clear outsiders
As their decidedly less glamorous counterparts upstairs)
And carried on brief, lightweight bits of conversation.
At one point I’d mentioned that I was looking forward to getting home
And partaking in some peace and quiet and home cooking
When suddenly, one of my companions
(A full-bearded sophomore named Anush,
Whose last name I never knew;
As his roommate Mossoud once told me,
Shaking his head and smiling,
You would never be able to pronounce it.)
Gave forth with a wail—full-throated, tear-stained
Pained to the point of being almost *******.
As I stared uncomprehendingly, Mossoud snapped at me
(His eyes thunderstorms, his words blunt as broadswords)
You! What do you understand of any of this?
And as he comforted Anush as best he could
(The music the volume of bombs,
Disco ball spitting light like tracer fire)
I began to suspect my relative uselessness
Was not simply the inability to comprehend Farsi

I can feel your little bites, like parasites
breaking down effervescent days
into still, silent nights; prying porous flesh
with the scent of death,
lingering in cratered moonlit breath.
Is this where i was meant to be led,
repeatedly fed, to these hungered hands?
again, my feet scrape this familiar path
wearing down the dirt that buries me,
internally. covering everything that hurts,
so i can never be allowed to scream.
split my lungs and let them seep,
release all i have held in when i breathe;
weak waves and shallow water
my song is carried, but still, it falters.

feel my microscopic actions and
minuscule movements
as i crawl between your flesh
robbing you of nutrients;
trying to survive and thrive, like little
parasites

Creepy crawlers, horrors, and lawyers
keep enforcing these busted borders.
They're stalking my chalk lines;
exploring the fine folds where time slows
And my songbirds carry broadswords,
so it's good morning, Deathblows
every time the pendulum tolls.
My silhouette is wedged between
two threads protruding from my neck
and Beelzebub possessed the helm just
to twist my alphabet into a triple threat,
so when I speak the receiver has
to navigate an end-game quest.
But I promise I'll do my best
against these wretched guests
so long as you heed my request
and enjoy yourself no matter
where the road lays etched.

-SLuR & S.K.G.

Charcoal, silver, sea-blue clouds muscle up
in clumps of dark impasto, caking the arch
of the spherical nave of the northwestern sky.
Cloaked in clusters of paler blue, the gods

of Olympia push eastward. They buckle under
the weight of this mortal firmament that hems
them in with the force of towering thunderheads.
Perhaps only Titanic heroes can survive the

titillating sizzle of lightning strikes. Naked
filaments of electricity hurl holograms of color:
a tangle of negative ions, radical brush strokes,
and Nietzsche's will-to power. Eradicate and destroy.

Golden-green fields of ripened wheat ripple
in the dying sunset, the final line that fierce
Titanic warriors dare not cross. They no
longer belong to the Earth: The mortal-divine

divide that once made them flourish now opens
into an absurdly widening chasm. No landing
place, no welcome space. Redundancy redounds.
So they don their ancient armor and pointed helmets

again, swinging butcher-sharp broadswords
in the sky. Achilles drags his blood-smeared blade
through the clouds around and around Priam’s
blood-rich frame, mocking the way Hector's

ravaged corpse circled mindlessly in the sands
of Troy. Today, such hate-hewed heroics are but
buried shards, fragments battered with blatant
disregard. Now, these violent vistas lie visible

only to the Tiresiases of millennia past. Savagery
has sown the wind, reaped the whirlwind: cyclones
of blind, wild urges cutting up moral character
into bite-sized portions. Rank desolation flees,

sublimated, subjugated to the mind's many-
splendored mansions of poetry. Homer chants
hymns to Troy, to the Hades-bound heroes, experts
in evisceration, in swift evasion, in black-blood death.

The glory of war today rots into nothingness,
sputtering under charcoal clouds pouring rain.
Once Leda waddled behind Zeus like an imprinted
cygnet. No longer. Below the sunset, humans hover

free above their handiwork, suffering from the humid
heat, striving to attain a semblance of household pride.
Their gods-slain ghosts adorn the family crest, as they enlarge
the world's unbelieving chasm with each new shock of wheat.

Courtesy narcissistic trumpeting
fungi moldering democratic underpinnings
donning spore ergot
lump n prowl lot terror re: hot,
hence yours truly compelled to jot
reasonable rhyme analogously describing
how land of the free home
of the brave strangled
courtesy Gordian knot
tying even Steven score
with diabolical phenomena
characterizing Salem's Lot.

The tattered glory of America,
now heats up to fahrenheit 451 degrees
analogous to kindling tinder
once again with agitation poised
to strike on brink
arty choked Jerusalem
legislation incites humiliation,
which goads desecration
fête accompli *****
in armor of Democratic

rubric, constituting capitalistic
ethic, generic iconoclastic,
and jingoistic logic,
nor budging an inch when man
dating trans sect
shoe ell masses swallow his drink
what huff huck –
this belligerent, dominant and
fervent hellraiser doth bungle in the jungle
decreeing tacit Marshall law

fast as twittering shutterfly eyewink
as his cosmic crotch grab doth
put Venus under his sway
with his Mercury re: hill temperament
pitches orbit of planet Earth
tubby comb out of balance
infected by hiz anti Jew pit
er damnations, excoriations, fulminations
huzzah sing how **** derriere
didst Saturn simultaneously

crushing crucible as an Uranus
indiscriminately plopping
approximately two hundred
and fifty pounds off flesh
doubling down humming
his favorite Neptune,
dost affect Pluto hoc crass sea
repeating self coined motto
I yam almighty, therefore no fink
simply commandeering reins of control,

a one man military intelligence groupthink
hut triad and true dyed in the wool
rip pugged ant guise zing rogue
rejoicing tuff fool, governing and hoodwink
king die hard fans of dictatorial,
linkedin and monarchist ink
cube bus thriving
wielding indomitable aggression
practiced in the Art of the Deal
Surviving at the Top,

The Art of the Comeback,
and The America We Deserve
incorporating an unanticipated jink
iron fist rule reigning down vis a vis
pro pens heave lee and prop hen city
flashing hiz seal of approval,
which scribbled signature
doth not smooth survey monkey
serve hazmat puzzling kink
boot his frenzy to bulldoze

catastrophic, formulaic, and illogic
spells these fruitful plain
in short *******rendered barren
United States of America
land of milk and honey
twill become wasteland
hell in a hand basket
with nary trace of able link
kin, the sixteenth president,
(whose rugged pioneering frontier existence)

found him steady and strong,
plus soft hearted as pelt o’ mink
the epitome if  elected forty seventh
commander in mischief
a twenty first century Drake
yule ha – albeit tink
con **** – barely describes
this oafish piranha making waves,
(whereby Hurricane Katrina
seems like child’s play),

where even a toddler,
could out rule,
out smart, and out think
maniac pampered
by donned patriarch Fred,
who fawned, doted
and bow wowed
over polarized magnate trick son,
whose rapacious,
reprehensible and riling actions

generated when United States
First Lady Melania Trump
wear a $39 jacket emblazoned with
"I really don't care, do you?"
during a trip to a migrant
child detention centre
published June 21st, 2018
didst give (in my humble opinion),
an affirmative clear cut, eye raising wink
to exploitation and fraternization
with kneading greed,

which four years of horror and terror
wrought chaos in the white house,

When congressman and senators forewent
all manner of civility, fidelity and integrity wii
hull ding broadswords, derringers
and firearms as all hell broke loose as testimony
to dire prognostication foretold
more than saber rattling and Gatling guns que
kind from lambastes, fisticuffs
and brickbats ratcheted
up as agents provocateurs nee
said obedience to semper fidelis

credo, coda and **** knee
stance when dire straits called for restraint
against excess versus raising cane old hickory
i.e. Andrew Jackson latched onto
when opposing with energy
plus verve espoused by fellow delegates,
and his hologram ghost ******
from battle scars outside and/or inside
the halls of government where blows bashed
dovetailed elected legislators to officiate

as angry birds viz brouhaha clashed
Federalist against their nemesis
of twenty first century
during the term of Donald Trump,
who throve on cutthroat frenzied
internecine lawlessness dashed
to and fro, hither and yon
any hopelessness for
civilians to escape bloodshed
spilled from without

vaunted halls of justice,
the approach of doomsday
writ large as anarchy and mayhem flashed
with uproarious coup d’etat,
when Democrats outliers gnashed
teeth, and nonestablishmentarian outlaws
pistol whipped and hashed
tagged traitors who roared America
went bankrupt at sold
at fire sale price slashed

when Donald Trump ran country
into the ground evidenced
by Molotov Cocktails residue
in concert with the sulfuric odor
of hand grenades trashed
like some sorority or fraternity house
left the sanctified righteous West Wing
with powder puffs canisters
of pepper spray, whereby
most docile, humble,

and liberal took page
from playbook of Pandora,
and landed an aimless swing
at root cause of melee
by hurling objet d’art
at pompous trump ping
septuagenarian, whose platoons of goons
rent asunder peoples against their king,
the donnybrook heathen, whose remarks
against libertarian rubric

made America great
wantonly soup peer egg go whist tickly
reviving prejudices declared dead
from yesteryear and his attempt to bring
back the glory days, when WhistleBlowers
getting water boarded and aching
deigning to implement dictatorship
virulent strain Jane's Addiction
of the Proletariat as capital idée fix
weaving together, the salient strengths

viz founding fathers credo gave licks
to King George, and now in an ironic
twist and shout of fate through eclectic mix
basket of deplorables further shamed
by being routed by New York Knicks
sewed jaws, heads of state, and dignitaries
with limping bodies spent like derricks
oil used up and no place to go except
to keep Alice in Chains and
Alice Cooper Company with toys in the attics.

Meanwhile the complex edifice
housing innocent Little Red Riding hood
standing in for realm of Pilgrim's Progress
witnessed statuesque Lady Liberty
firmly grappling torch of freedom,
when sequel to forty fifth commander in chief
whereby talking head strongly prophecy
how he blatantly snatches emblematic symbol,  
and essential fabric and rubric
stitched together over the course

since Declaration of Independence
arrogated courtesy founding
fathers and mothers, (albeit unsung)
huge bear paws figuratively swiping
sacred inviolable enshrined covenants
stripping away said constitutional perquisites
establishing totalitarian hegemony
casting dark shadows
along the edge of night,
wherein outer limits of the twilight zone
harken stranger than fiction dystopian wasteland.

Welcome back DONALD TRUMP –
holding hostage goose
that laid the golden egg.

Axe the old don
a trump peter n piper
of incredulous hellish crud - be gone
with the ha airbrushed pompous ****
so the kiss my a** in Macy's window
paraded jackal hound doth run
after public outcry yelps
for his hide and proletarian discord won!

No matter Donald Duck Trump
i$ - a pompous ***
makes war with his big brass
knuckles and bucket of crass
maligns vis a vis character assassination
with Kristallnacht broken glass
inciting banal deathly
hallowed expletives toward lass
seen – especially as viewed
on archives from Fox Television
then news anchor woman Megyn Kelly
bracing herself against ogre personality
to bear the brunt of brutish mass
of vitriolic n vile insults
from incriminating verbal pass  
so…NO VOTE from me
from such a snooty, petty, haughty
arrogant simian with sass!

I van nah try to describe
while sitting on me ****
how he oh bomb in lee rages
with gnashing teeth while back a slump
blasting democratic nomination as a sham –
from special interest bro and sis turn pump
he, the epitome
of crass bloviation, a malignant lump,
whose rants sans
presidential outcome a sham bull

with his millions beds this,
that and another woman to ******* jump
disseminating gene pool –
birthing more quackers
and additionally doth ****
the mass media as some foolhardy charade
and caricature of a frazzled grump
this arboreal clothed ape
erecting taj mahal ******* symbols
where players dump

and gamble away hard earn cash
for his hello kitty,
as if that cachet to grind and bump
lambasting with maniacal leering pout
while hair *** red bulls
atop his bulbous aerosol sprayed
heady measly shaped muppet
diseased cranial hologram
of a cretaceous,
facetious and insidious measly mump.

The old man clamped onto my hand
like a manacle of stars.
I gazed up at his wispy, white beard
and watched his cheeks tremble
as he recited the Iliad in the
original Greek.

Simone Weil, a French philosopher
who starved herself to death,
condemned the violence of the poem
as a testament to the brutality
oozing out of men's souls. Little
to celebrate there. Plenty to mourn.

Hexametric rhythms caught my
hearing: They echoed in my brain
like exhales from labored breathing.
Life or death lost its meaning.
The will to power conquers all.

Swift movements of being, and
broadswords plunged through
finely hammered breastplates.
Black blood pooled at the victim's
feet. Another triumph for Agamemnon.

The old man, collapsed at the poem's
end, shape-shifted to a marble bust of Homer.
I turned to grasp his missing hand,
But the constellation of stars had vanished.
He had instantly become blind.