Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Julian Mar 2019
Tantalized by the fractious limerence of a vestigial habiliment of the old order, we conclude that hypertrophy leads to a limbo where random permutations alloyed by the rickety limits of concatenation subsume concepts that are equivocal but populate the imaginations of newfangled art forms that jostle the midwives of rumination to lead to unique pastures that are intuitively calibrated to correspond to definitive unitary events in conceptual space that sprawl unexpectedly towards the desultory but determinative conclusion of a meandering ludic sphere of rambunctious sentiments cobbled together to either rivet the captive audience or annoy the peevish criticaster when they dare to inseminate the canvassed and corrugated tract of intellectual territory created ad hoc to swelter the imagination with audacious ingenuity that is an inevitable byproduct of lexical hypertrophy. In this séance with the immaterial realm of concept rather than the predictable clockwork reductivism of a perceptual welter that is limited by the concretism circumscribed by spatiotemporal stricture we find that an extravagant twinge of even the smallest tocsin in the interstitial carousel of conscientious subroutines compounding recursively to pinprick the cossetted smolder of potentiality rather than extravagate into the vacancy of untenanted nullibiety can spawn a progeny of utilities and vehicles for dexterous abstraction that poach the exotic concepts we fathom by degrees of sapience malingering in lifeless bricolages of erratic abstraction in manners useful to transcend the repose of abeyance and heave awakening into the slumberous caverns of still-life to make them dynamically animated to capture ephemeral events that defy the demarcations of wistful indelicacy of the encumbered bulk of insufficient precision.

Today we embark on a quest to defile the anoegenetic recapitulation of canon that litters the dilapidated avenues of miserly contemplation that has a histeriological certainty and feeds the engines that enable novelty but ultimately remain rancid with the stench of the idiosyncratic shibboleths of synoptic alloyed impoverishment that leads to the vast wasteland of cremated entropy that is a stained foible of misappropriated context interpolated usefully as botched triage for daunting problems that require a nimble legerdemain of facile versatility that we easily adduce to conquer the present with the botched memorial of a defunct salience. Despite the travail of scholars to retreat from the frontier into the hypostatized hegemony of recycled credentialed information, we often are ensnared by the solemn attrition of decay as we traverse the conceptual underpinnings of all bedrock thought only to dangle precariously near the void of lapsed sentience because of transitory incontinence that is contiguous to the doldrums of crudity but nevertheless with mustered mettle we purport that the very self-serious awakening to our hobbling limitations is akin to a prosthetic enhancement of ratiocination capable of feats that stagger beneath the lowest level of subtext to elevate the highest superordinate categorization into heightened scrutiny that burgeons metacognitive limber. Marooned in the equipoise of specifiable enlightenment countermanded by the strictures of working memory we can orchestrate transverse pathways between the elemental quiddity of impetuous meaning and the dignified tropes of transitivity that bequeaths entire universes with feral progeny that modulate their ecosystems with both a taste of approximated symmetry and a cohesive enterprise for productivity that rests on the granular concordance of the highest plane to the indivisible parcels of atomic meaning that solder together to exist as intelligible if strained by the primordial frictions guaranteed by the brunt of motion incipient because of the metaphorical inertia created within insular universes to inform sprawling conurbations of mobilized thoughts designed to reckon with the breakneck pace of the corresponding reality to which they explicitly and precisely refer to.

We must singe surgically the filigrees that amount to the perceptible realities that transmute temperaments into the liturgy of routine conflated with the rigmarole of neural dragnets of reiterative quips in an elegant game of raillery with our supernal contumacy against the rigid authority of aleatory vagaries mandated by a dually arbitrary universe in a probabilistic terpsichorean dance with the depth of our dredge for subliminal acuity or the shallow bellicosity of common modes of glib contemplation characteristic of the basic nobility of improvisation. This basic interface with the world can either be mercurial or tranquil based on the interactionism of the enfeebled trudge of surface senses or blunt intuitions and the smoldering impact of the vestigial cloaks that deal gingerly with the poignant subtext evoked in the cauldron of immediacy rather than pondered with the portentous weight of imperative singularities of uniqueness derived from the plunge into the arcane citadel of microscopic introspection so refined that the ineffable drives we seek to fathom become amenable to the traipse of transcendental time that rarefies itself by defying the brunt of compartmentalized bureaucracies administered by the fulcrum of stereotypical notions of acquired gravitas imputed to mundane pedestrian quidnunc concerns that defile humanity rather than embolden the subaudition of gritty punctilios that show the supernal powers of the axiomatic divinity of sharpened sentience to reign with supremacy over the baser ignoble components of bletcherous nescience that leads to knee-**** platitudes that provoke folksy peevish divisions. We should rather orchestrate our activity by heeding the admonishment about the primogeniture of poignant sabotage buffered by the remonstration of innate tranquility and finding a whipsawed compromise of rationalization with true visceral encounters with the fulgurant quips of brisk emotions that grind industriously into amorphous retinues of the trenchant human imagination to either equip or hobble the leapfrogged interrogation of veracity and more consequently our notions of truth and fact.

When we see the hackneyed results of default ecological dynamics, we find ourselves aloof from purported transcendence because the whimpered bleats and cavils of the importunate masses result in a deafening din of cacophony because we strive throbbing with sprightliness towards the galloped chase of tantalization without the luxury of a terminus for satiation. Obviously a growth mindset is the galvanic ****** that spawns the imaginative swank of the pliable modulations of our perceived reality that, when protean, showcase the limitless verve of our primordial cacoethes for epigenetic evolution rather than the stolid and staid foreclosure of impervious sloth that memorializes the gluttony of speculation about fixed entities rather than imperative jostling urbanity that dignifies the brackish dance with dearth and the exuberant savory taste of momentary excess because it engages the animated pursuit of limerence rather than the exhumed corpse of wistful regret. Nature is a cyclical clockwork system of predatory instinct met with the clemency of the prosperous providence enacted by the travailing ingenuity of successive cumulative generativities that compounded unevenly and unpredictably to predicate a fundamental zeitgeist calculated to engorge the fattened resources of the resourceful and temper the etiolated dreams of the fringed acquiescence of a hulking prejudiced population of dutiful servants that balk at the diminutive prospects of a lopsided distribution of talent and means but slumber in irenic resolve created by the merciful hands of defensive designs that configure consciousness to relish comparative touchstones rather than absolute outcomes that straggle beyond a point of enviable reference to shield the world of the barbarism of botched laments clamoring for an uncertain grave from the gravity of the orbiting satellites of apportioned wealth both sunblind and boorish but simultaneously inextricable from the acclimated fortune of heaped nepotism and herculean opportunism. The intransigence of the weighted destiny of inequity is a squalid enterprise of primeval abrasive and combative tendencies within the bailiwick of the indignant compass inherent to the system that fathoms its deficiencies with crabwise and gingerly pause but airs a sheepish grievance like a bleat of self-exculpation but simultaneously an arraignment of fundamental attribution erroneously indicted without the selfsame reflexiveness characteristic of a transcendent being with other recourses to clamber an avenue to Broadway without malingering in the slums of opprobrious ineffectual remonstration against the arrangement of a blinkered metropolis of uneven gentrification.

We flicker sometimes between the strategic drivel of appeasement and the candor of audacious imprecation of the culprits of indignity or considerate nutritive encomium of the beacons of ameliorated enlightenment because we often masquerade a half-witted glib consciousness lazily sketched by the welters of verve alloyed with the rancid distaste of squalor and slumber on the faculty of conscientious swivels of prudential expeditions with an avarice for bountiful considered thought and wily contortions of demeanor that issue the affirmative traction of adaptive endeavor to cheat a warped system for a reconciled peace and a refined self-mastery. We need to traduce the urchins that sting the system with pangs of opprobrious ballyhoo and the effluvia of foofaraw that contaminate with pettifoggery and small-minded blather the arenas better suited for the gladiatorial combat of cockalorums tinged with a dose of intellectual effrontery beyond the span of dogmatism rather than the hackneyed platitudes that infest the news cycle with folksy backwardation catered to the fascism of a checkered established press that urges insurrection while tranquilizing dissent against the furtive actions of consequence hidden behind the draped verdure of pretense whose byproduct is only a self-referential sophistry that swarms like an intractable itch to devolve the spectator into a pasquinaded spectacle of profound human obtuseness that pervades malignantly the system of debate until the reductionists outwit themselves with the empty prevarication of circular logic that deliberately misfires to miss the target of true importance because of the pandered black hole easily evaded by creatures of high sentience but inevitably ensnaring the special kind of dupe into a cycle of bellicose ferocity of internecine balkanization. The vainglory of the omphalos of entertainment is also another reckoning because it festers a cultural mythos of glorified crapulence parading a philandered promiscuity with half-baked antics that gravitate attention and the lecheries of gaudy tenses of recycled tinsel alloyed by debased aberrations of seedy grapholagnia that magnetize as they percolate because of the insidious catchphrases embedded in pedestrian syncopation that ignite retention and acclimate to mediocrity the sounds of generations discolored by faint pasty rainbows rather than ennobled by majestic landscapes of ignipotent mellifluous sound that stands a supernal amusement still for the resourceful trainspotter.

Despite the contumely aimed in the direction of contrarians for deviating from the lockstep clockwork hustle of stooped pandered manipulation that peddles the wares of an entirely counterfeit reality, I stand obstinately against the melliferous stupefaction of entire genres of myth and subcultures huddled around the sentimental tug of factitious sophistries regaled by thick amorphous apostates that cherish the vacuous sidetracked spotlight with fervor rather than pausing on the enigmatic querulous inquisition about the penumbras that lurk with strained effort beneath or above the categorical nescience of the shadowy unknown that often coruscates with elegance even in obscurity. I fight with labored words to spawn a psychological discipline that invokes the incisive subaudition of the pluckily pricked exorcism of true insight from the husk of buzzwords that constellate auxiliary tangential distractions from the art form of psychological discernment that predicates itself on the concept that the rarefaction of rumination by degrees of microscopic precision enables the introspective hindsight of conscious events that can be parsed without the acrimony of cluttered conflations of the granular prowess of triumphant ratiocination that earns a panoramic perch with the added luxury of perspicacious insight into the atomic structure of the rudiments of our phenomenological field and the abstractions that linger beyond perceptual categorization. When we analyze the gradients of anger, for example, we can either be ****** into a brooded twinge of wistful resentment or we can decipher that through heuristics designed to cloister the provenance of subconscious repose with ignorance there exists a regimented array of tangential accessories embedded deep within the cavernous repository of memory that designates a cumulative trace of compounded symmetries of concordant experience immediately perceptible because of the tangible provocateur of our gripes and the largely subliminal tusk that protrudes because of primal instinct that squirms with peevishness because of the momentary context preceded by the desultory churn of smoldering associations swimming with either complete intangible sputtered mobility through the tract of subconscious hyperspace or rigidly fixated by an arraignment of circumstances with propinquity to the deep unfathomed flicker of bygones receding or protruding because of the warped and largely unpredictable rigmarole of constellated spreading activation.  
When we examine the largesse of the swift recourse of convenience we forget by degrees the travail that once bridged the span of experience from patient abeyance in provident pursuit to now the importunate glare of inflated expectations for immediacy that stings the whole enterprise of societal dynamics because it vitiates us with a complacency for the filigrees of momentary tinsel of a virtualized reality divorced from the concretism that used to undergird interaction and now stands outmoded as a wisp beyond outstretched hands straggling beyond the black mirror of a newfangled narcissistic clannishness that shepherds the ostentation of conceit to a predominant position that swaddles us with fretful diversion that operates on a warped logic of lurid squalor and pasty trends becoming the mainstays of a hypercritical linguistic system of entrapment based on the apostasy of candor for the propitiation of fringed aberration because of the majoritarian uproar about touchy butthurt pedantic criticasters with a penchant for persnickety structuralism. With the infestation of entertainment with the ubiquitous political cavils engineered by the ruling class to have a common arena of waggish irreverence we forget that sometimes the impetuous ****** of propaganda is cloaked by the fashionable implements of a rootless time writhing in a purported identity crisis only to gawk at the ungainly reflection of modernity in the mirror and remain blissfully unaware about the transmogrified cultural psyche that feeds the lunacy of endless spectacle based on the premise that one singular whipping post can unite an entire generation of miscegenated misfits looking for commonality to team up against the aging generations that cling to the sanctity of cherished jingoism against the intentionality of a revamped system that malingers with empty promises using exigency and legerdemain to obscure the mooncalves among their ranks that march on with quixotic dreams that tolerate only the idea of absolute tolerance and moderate only when feasibly permitted by the anchored negotiation of the fulcrum of totemic governmental responsibility between factions that wage volleys of invective at each other to promote a binary choice of vitiated compromises of mendaciloquence that ultimately endanger the republic with either the perils of hidebound conventionalism and nativist fervor or the boondoggles of fiscally irresponsible insanity cloaked with rainbows and participation trophies. Reproach can be distributed to both sides of the aisle because ironically in a world where gender is non-binary the most important reproductive ***** in the free world is a binary-by-default despotism that polarizes extremely ludic fantasies on the left met with the acrimony of the traditionalisms on the right that staunchly resist the fatuous confusions of delegated order only to the sharp rebuke of the revamped political vogue that owes its sustenance to a manufactured diplomacy of saccharine lies and ubiquitous lampoons that are lopsided in the direction of a globalist neoliberal bricolage of moderately popular buzzwords and the trojan horse of insubordinate flippant feminism that seeks to subvert through backhanded manipulation the patriarchy so many resent using lowbrow tactics and poignant case studies rather than legislating the egalitarian system into law using the proper channels. I myself am a political independent who sides with fiscal conservatism but libertarianism in most other affairs because the pettifoggery of law-and-order politics is a diatribe overused by sheltered suburbanites and red meat is often just as fatuous as blue tinsel and sadly in a majoritarian society the ushers of conformity demand corporate divestiture in favor of an ecological system of predictability rather than an opinionated welter of legitimate challenges to a broken system of backwards partisanship and wangled consent. Ultimately, I remain mostly apolitical, but I am a fervent champion of the mobilization of education to a statelier standard that demands rigor and responsibility rather than the chafe of rigmarole that understates the common objectives of humanity and rewards conventional thinking and nominal participation to earn credentialed pedigree when the bulk of talent resides elsewhere.
Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre
Oxford June 26th, 1878.

To my friend George Fleming author of ‘The Nile Novel’
and ‘Mirage’

I.

A year ago I breathed the Italian air,—
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,—
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet’s gentle drooping head,
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire
Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);
And all the flowers of our English Spring,
Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.
Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,
And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;
And down the river, like a flame of blue,
Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,
While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.
A year ago!—it seems a little time
Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,
Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,
And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.
Full Spring it was—and by rich flowering vines,
Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,
I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,
The white road rang beneath my horse’s feet,
And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name,
I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

O how my heart with boyish passion burned,
When far away across the sedge and mere
I saw that Holy City rising clear,
Crowned with her crown of towers!—On and on
I galloped, racing with the setting sun,
And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,
I stood within Ravenna’s walls at last!

II.

How strangely still! no sound of life or joy
Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy
Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day
Comes the glad sound of children at their play:
O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here
A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,
Watching the tide of seasons as they flow
From amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow,
And have no thought of sorrow;—here, indeed,
Are Lethe’s waters, and that fatal ****
Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,
Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,
Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.
For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,
Thy noble dead are with thee!—they at least
Are faithful to thine honour:—guard them well,
O childless city! for a mighty spell,
To wake men’s hearts to dreams of things sublime,
Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.

III.


Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,
Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,—
The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,
Gaston de Foix:  for some untimely star
Led him against thy city, and he fell,
As falls some forest-lion fighting well.
Taken from life while life and love were new,
He lies beneath God’s seamless veil of blue;
Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o’er his head,
And oleanders bloom to deeper red,
Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.

Look farther north unto that broken mound,—
There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb
Raised by a daughter’s hand, in lonely gloom,
Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,
Sleeps after all his weary conquering.
Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind and rain
Have broken down his stronghold; and again
We see that Death is mighty lord of all,
And king and clown to ashen dust must fall

Mighty indeed their glory! yet to me
Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,
Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,
Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.
His gilded shrine lies open to the air;
And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there
The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,
The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,
The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,
The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,
The weary face of Dante;—to this day,
Here in his place of resting, far away
From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down
Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,
Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise
A marble lily under sapphire skies!

Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain
Of meaner lives,—the exile’s galling chain,
How steep the stairs within kings’ houses are,
And all the petty miseries which mar
Man’s nobler nature with the sense of wrong.
Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;
Our nations do thee homage,—even she,
That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,
And begs in vain the ashes of her son.

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes:  sleep in peace.

IV.

How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run
By the stone lions blinking in the sun.
Byron dwelt here in love and revelry
For two long years—a second Anthony,
Who of the world another Actium made!
Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,
Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,
’Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.
For from the East there came a mighty cry,
And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,
And called him from Ravenna:  never knight
Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!
None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,
Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!
O Hellas!  Hellas! in thine hour of pride,
Thy day of might, remember him who died
To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:
O Salamis!  O lone Plataean plain!
O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!
O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!
He loved you well—ay, not alone in word,
Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon:

And England, too, shall glory in her son,
Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.
No longer now shall Slander’s venomed spite
Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,
Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.

For as the olive-garland of the race,
Which lights with joy each eager runner’s face,
As the red cross which saveth men in war,
As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far
By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea,—
Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!

Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:
Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene
Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,
In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;
The laurels wait thy coming:  all are thine,
And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.

V.

The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze
With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,
And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright;—
I wandered through the wood in wild delight,
Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,
Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,
And small birds sang on every twining spray.
O waving trees, O forest liberty!
Within your haunts at least a man is free,
And half forgets the weary world of strife:
The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life
Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while once again
The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.
Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see
Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy
Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid
In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart!  O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper bell,
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours
Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,
And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

VI.

O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told
Of thy great glories in the days of old:
Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see
Caesar ride forth to royal victory.
Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew
From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue;
And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,
Till in thy streets the Goth and *** were seen.
Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,
Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!
No longer now upon thy swelling tide,
Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!
For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,
The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;
And the white sheep are free to come and go
Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.

O fair!  O sad!  O Queen uncomforted!
In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,
Alone of all thy sisters; for at last
Italia’s royal warrior hath passed
Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown
In the high temples of the Eternal Town!
The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,
And with his name the seven mountains ring!

And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,
And mocks her tyrant!  Venice lives again,
New risen from the waters! and the cry
Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,
Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where
The marble spires of Milan wound the air,
Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,
And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more.

But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,
Thy ruined palaces are but a pall
That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name
Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun
Of new Italia! for the night is done,
The night of dark oppression, and the day
Hath dawned in passionate splendour:  far away
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,
From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died
In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side
Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,—
Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:
And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine
From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,
Thou hast not followed that immortal Star
Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.
Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,
As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,
Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,
Mourning some day of glory, for the sun
Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,
And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well,
Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,
Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest thee there,
To mock all human greatness:  who would dare
To vent the paltry sorrows of his life
Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife
Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride
Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride
Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea!
The Queen of double Empires! and to thee
Were not the nations given as thy prey!
And now—thy gates lie open night and day,
The grass grows green on every tower and hall,
The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;
And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest
The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.
O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,
O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,
Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,
But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,
From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;
Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,
Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?
Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose
To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;
As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold
From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;
As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

O much-loved city!  I have wandered far
From the wave-circled islands of my home;
Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome
Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,
Clothed in the royal purple of the day:
I from the city of the violet crown
Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,
And marked the ‘myriad laughter’ of the sea
From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;
Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,
As to its forest-nest the evening dove.

O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen
Some twenty summers cast their doublets green
For Autumn’s livery, would seek in vain
To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,
Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed
Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s reed,
Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky,
And flame across the heavens! and to try
Such lofty themes were folly:  yet I know
That never felt my heart a nobler glow
Than when I woke the silence of thy street
With clamorous trampling of my horse’s feet,
And saw the city which now I try to sing,
After long days of weary travelling.

VII.

Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,
I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow
From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:
The sky was as a shield that caught the stain
Of blood and battle from the dying sun,
And in the west the circling clouds had spun
A royal robe, which some great God might wear,
While into ocean-seas of purple air
Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night
Brings back the swelling tide of memory,
And wakes again my passionate love for thee:
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,
Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;
And after that the Winter cold and drear.
So runs the perfect cycle of the year.
And so from youth to manhood do we go,
And fall to weary days and locks of snow.
Love only knows no winter; never dies:
Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies
And mine for thee shall never pass away,
Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

Adieu!  Adieu! yon silent evening star,
The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar,
And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.
Perchance before our inland seas of gold
Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,
Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,
I may behold thy city; and lay down
Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown.

Adieu!  Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,
Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,
Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well
Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.
herein lies common fault - loosely hanging on a speculative conjecture
     than exact detail.

mind's prison- asylum.
you go in to see furtive showcases
of the many names walking without
faces. you went in without invitation. only or abstract solicitation.

there is something that sinks
deeper than marrow, blows colder than December winnow, something that burgeons beyond naked sense.

inside this lair,
conflated you are with bent question marks to their distinct, curved smallnesses. you peek into the window of my eyes and inside this airless vault, we are both
heavy with staring at each other
dripping and bare-all, yet
this rigmarole of eyes contain
their visceral silences still.

i stripped them all of their voices
and they only look at each other
with onerous eyes, pondering
about their places, answerless
and just whirling in capacitous space --
Steven Fried Jun 2013
War
Antagonism
burgeons back bad blood.
Compatriots, courtesy can cool contentions:
doubly, disrespect demands decisive
execution. Early efforts evolved
fatuously, force facilitated farcical fighting.
Gambling gents gleefully gored
hedonistic harlots. Harassing
ignorantly, igniting
jealously,
killings
listlessly- liars lament
momentarily. Meanwhile, monetary
nuances
of opulence obscure
prime problems.
Quarries quake
running red. Remembering
solitarily- stoic steeds stand silent, sending
thoughts,
unbidden, unbeknownst.
Violence:
we were
xanthic,
yellow years yaw…
Zymotic.
An alliteration of a the reasons for a battle, and the results of said battle.
Julian Aug 2015
Decadent choirs bemoan the prudish proctor of the inevitable and decisive test
Profligacy anneals and the knaves repeal the prohibition of the earth’s very best
Despondent clouds tower over a garbled loud and an unapologetic proud
Panache whisks the hallowed cross into transmogrified dross amassing a boisterous crowd
Hidebound ideologies tether the masses to masses and gather the rust of the bustle and bust
Recusant allegiance mocks the science of sanctimony and dissolute lust
Deathless in prayer and breathless in despair rhapsody creeps and percolated ideals leap
Arriving in the limelight of providence, the renegades daunted by the specter of commination weep
Proofs now exist and investment in their emphasis burgeons into a divine cease and desist
But in the hubris of victory and the rubrics of history pleasure wrenches control and importunacy insists
Brisk alacrity and savvy rapacity beseech the death of the stodgy gate
Time lingers in evanescent turmoil satiated only by the fish and the bait
But when the bait runs in low supply the society hearkens the agents of the sky
They pout over water even with verdant temptations escorting them away from the dry
How do you anoint in a world preoccupied with the next joint rather than the next joint venture
Revelations lies to stultify the brides of misadventure
Caprice rampant, society recusant deadlocked in hedonistic dreadlocks
The fools boast of victories never won, and the prattle of yesteryear is stalked
Restraining order duly noted but never imposed
Stygian elements wrought apparel to contribute to indecency in clothes
To the master of destiny and the architect of decency
I advise the future to focus more than just on recent sprees
Ignominy forgotten in tokes, we forget about the labor of cotton
We forget also about the putrefaction of the rotten
Abdicate the uprooted era squelched by disorientation wrought by intensified sensations
And return to the regal promise of prudes living beyond temptation
But who is the fool foolish enough to forswear the hide of the bear in the dead of the winter scare
Lilting in sumptuous praise and reckless abandon this charge and travesty seems unfair
Slanted lies of stodgy disguise revile the return to primitive commode and camaraderie
To loot of the panaceas and nepenthes to the extent of dearth seems a more egregious robbery
But in the uprooted future the past has no say
The primacy of today shines the refulgent and overpowering rays
The sun won’t burn out but the burn outs won’t establish any clout
Even in a world divorced from prudishness in sanctimonious doubt
Powerless in the rout of pleasure over the scourge of dearth
The earth awakens renewed even with the impossibility of rebirth
Resurrecting the indulgences of Rome while abdicating the tome
The theophany astounds especially the most prone
The coming of righteousness working to castigate immoderacy
The renegades listen barely enough to subvert their own profligacy
Shouting over the skylines the rain announces the sentences for the wicked crimes
Of a past forgotten and a future rotten because of an ill-designed time
An ill-designed design leading to wanton men groveling in grime
Time to indulge time to abstain
Either extreme ultimately lame.
Where does solitude end
And the beauty of love begin?
We must allow our emotions to permeate
Our spiritual vestibule
Before rapture dawns
Like an empyreal gust
Within, upon, and throughout us,
Then our bliss will no longer be ephemeral,
It will be everlasting.

Someone on this existential expanse
Loves you
Beyond words, Beyond thoughts, beyond
Time & space,
With cosmic understanding;
Like, age-old supernovae
Radiating with stellar light
Until their macrocosmic romance
Waxes nebulous:
—Dust to dust.

You who are gleaning these words,
Contemplate your immortal value
As a living legacy
That Burgeons & blossoms beyond the day
Of your exodus from the Earthly Plane
For the soul is a seed
Radiating with the Eradia of Ages;
Therefore, shine
Until The Flora of Yore, Yggdrasil germinates within.

Lamentation makes you more loving,
Just, wise, and strong;
Yes, embrace every moment
That life brings
For Providence safeguards you
Within His Celestial ramparts.
"But the path of the righteous is like the bright morning light
That grows brighter and brighter until full daylight."
(Proverbs 4: 18) (NWTSE)

You have an undying will within you,
You are a vessel of sanctity
Intemerate & hallowed;
Yes, you have been set apart
For an ethereal crusade
With no known beginning &
An indeterminable end;
Exhale, you are Life, Love, and Liberty,
And a Spark of The Divine.

It is true, that you are the experiencer of
Your joys, your sufferings,
Your exultation, and your woes,
But you must ne' er forget
That you are not alone;
Therefore, walk forevermore
In the Baptismal Rays of The Sun
For you were borne with purpose,
O, Warrior of Light.
Excelsior Forevermore,


Sanders Maurice Foulke III



02/22/21
SøułSurvivør May 2015
---

one       day
when love fills up
on rain which is
scarlet hued
a flower
the

heart     which
grows wild and is
never cut for the
table woos us
with the
same

fervor     within
as a red rose or bird
of paradise lost in
the jungle or as
orchid bloom
burgeons
we

can      know
this flower only as
the bleeding heart
all baby's breath
queen Anne's
lace and the
pure

daisy

all other     flowers
listen to the music played
by the beauty of a heart
broken but yet strong
a bard who has the
key to your pale
forgotten
dream



soulsurvivor
5/4/2015
There is an actual flower known
as the Bleeding Heart

It hamgs like a fuchsia

---
the stream is a breeze of
blue stars, layered in sweet
melancholy, layered in
sadness and love.

the world revolves like
a wheel, burgeons like
a flower, weeps like a
sorrowful cloud.

i yearn for you, down
misty lanes and dreams of
dark seas, fall until
i can no longer fall,

fall until our love blossoms
and our hearts cry out.
i'm sorry if i have not returned a comment it is really down to time and trying to find the right balance in my life between poetry and loved ones.
Now fades the last long streak of snow,
  Now burgeons every maze of quick
  About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
  The distance takes a lovelier hue,
  And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
  The flocks are whiter down the vale,
  And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
  In yonder greening gleam, and fly
  The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood; that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast
  Spring wakens too; and my regret
  Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.
"And he created out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and set limits of the dwelling of man." (Acts 17: 26) (New World Translation Study Edition)

When I look in the mirror, a doughty warrior, an oracle, an Olympian gazes back at me. The caramel-tinge of my skin tells of the colored pedigree from whence I came. Every ebony-tendril that bursts from my epidermis is as impregnable as the Sacred Lotus.

The history of my Mind's Sky has been tried by the Ancient African Sun of my ancestors. It is my hope, that I have passed the trials decreed by the ordinances of the Moon & Sun. Moreover, the Arbiter of Fates, Jah, dawns upon our fleshly vessel at each twilight, assaying our entities. (Isaiah 60: 19, 20) (New World Translation Study Edition)

So many intrepid souls have compassed me about. The Chalice of my Heart burgeons with esprit d' amour. The meaning of life is ne' er about intellect, is ne' er about achievement, is in part, about creativity; wholly, about Love. (John 13: 34, 35) (New World Translation Study Edition) For this reason, strength cascades upon me every moment as I witness the brilliance, the resilience of my beneficent matriarch, Stacy Amanda Foulke.

In life, I have learned that being a person of color in America is not only a wonderful privilege, but a responsibility. Why? The afflictions brought upon this skin only make it glisten brighter after convalescence. Our people have suffered inordinately so, but this is conducive to cultivating surpassing empathy. Therefore, I believe that history, as begotten through the colored legacy, shall be one of ultimate victory.

If and only if, we unfetter ourselves from the onerous burdens of the past, then Monarchical Wings shall burgeon from our Astral Chrysalis. "For though the tribulation is momentary and light, it works out for us a glory that is of more and more surpassing weight and is everlasting." (1st Corinthians 4: 17) (New World Translation Study Edition) Se' lah.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------    

               The Dictum of Vitality:

(I) "If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass

(II) “Freedom is never given; it is won.” – A. Philip Randolph

(III) "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes

(IV) “There is no ***** problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.” – Frederick Douglass

(V) ”Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

(VI) ”Where there is no vision, there is no hope.” – George Washington Carver

(VII) ”Character is power.” – Booker T. Washington

(VIII) ”Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman

(IX) ”Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

(X) ”When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” – Audre Lorde

-------------------------------------------Envisage-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Freedom, freedom---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------At last---------------------------------------------------
Ken Dec 2015
Five hundred moons the bud
on slender, lithe, soft-skinned stalk
belies its strength in quiet latency
bundled in its own promise

Nurtured in ancestral love's soil
bending, bowing, under weight of rain
shedding seasons in quiet deferrence
unaware, its own verdure burgeons

Soft new petals on florets of truth
weep in its turbulent spring
gentle drops of elven victuals
mustering, nourishing itself

Twin blossoms of vibrant azure ice
blazing brilliance, fulfillment
I am a humble bee in grateful witness
Yes, your eyes
Monica Rose Apr 2012
Dryness pervades
On the arid wasteland
Cracks spider through the earth
Desiccant littered through the fissures

Wearied, I seek
Searching, I stumble
Through parched land,
Limitless

The horizon bleeds
As the day ends
Coldness permeates
Into my soul

No direction
This landscape
Void of paths
Here, my footprints
Circles, I wander
Days, I suffer…

Lost.

Lips split from drought
Yearning for balm
Open, asking
Yet not without doubt…

           A
        Clear
      Singular
     Dewdrop
     Answers
        Hope

A jewel from the sky
Promise of Mercy
A tear from God’s eye
I am but unworthy

Dizzy and haggard
I crawl to deliverance
Where once was a droplet
A stream burgeons forth

This water, a well within
Flowing to restore
Never shall I thirst again
Only You do I adore
James Rives May 2019
My sunlight burgeons,
burns, brightens, sears, and sees all.
I'm the son of light.
Becca Nov 2013
Oh they flow, my failures
As a river towards the valley
The defining feature in an otherwise
Sparse, pale
Landscape

Each sin like a raindrop burgeons on
And my river grows
Oh my river flows

Steady as a sieve, leaking o’er my head
In my eyes, soaking into my soil
And I’m flooded, no I cannot breathe
Under the weight of my stream
But ****** if I’ll open my mouth and
Let the water course down my throat
In my lungs

****** if I’ll drown
No I cannot let them find me
Bloated
Sodden
Choked by the rush as it consumes me

But how I want to
How one scream to release me weighs
On my mind heavier than the river I’ve made
A pressure the ocean itself
Could never hope to match

And what a trick it is
What a sick practical humour of the universe
That my river grows
And my river grows
Only as I try to keep my mouth shut

Once upon a time I could say
I never understood why
‘they’
did what they did, what I do
why did we let them dam break?
oh god I know
i remember going back to the now bleared moment, where it burgeons in
its ruinous hands. they demolished the hearth long ago and the dearth only fills
the air together with the splinters of what
was once yours — the wind is much tenser there, and there too is the bleak behemoth-shadow cast by the towering bell of the cathedral juxtaposed to the many a pompous mango tree enshrouding it like parasols to young, tender loam.
we were akin  to those moments of death,
lauded by the assuage of its avid fondness — when it has died, we can hardly tell that it were stripped out of life
and when it continued to live, we denied it
inside us that it was no more than an ephemera enjoyed. rain obscured the
dry land seeking till, and sooner than we
knew,
        the leaves have abandoned the trees
and we were underneath a shade of
       our own.
Jamie L Cantore Feb 2017
I was there within a lil tropic dale,
Marrow of one lil 'ol stealthy vale,
I hearkened of a grand titanic tale
'Midst two Midnighters loud speil.
The spat was pitiless & oh! strong;
Faint 1st was their spoken old song,
Then harsh as each bird had swelled,
To rage the strife away which dwelled.

The warbler led the great speech,
Easeful in a nook of a wide beech;
Perched on a pulchritudinous bough,
About her were burgeons florid now,
Utterly in a downy, substantial hedge,
Intertwisted with buds and new sedge.
Happier she was for having the sprays,
Sing she did for gladness in many ways.

Yet was there an old prong lying beside,
Wherefrom an old owl came and cried;
The branch w/ climbing vine overgrown,
And here this owl sojourned quite alone.
The warbler did after not so long  espied,
And looked upon her w/ confuted pride.
Many were her scoffings 2 the jejune owl,
For to the warbler was she loath'd & fowl.

The owl stayed in her place till eventide,
Not a moment more did she there abide,
So thrived her ***** with flowing wrath
That she could hardly even regain breath;
Say that I grasped thee in my sharp claw,-
Would that I may do so here in this shaw!
And thou wert torn from off your spray,
Then we shall see who sings a nights lay.

And with that... the warbler stole away.
To hang her shingle and head in shame.
Sillo Anderson Feb 2019
Mononymously I called for a name
Navigating words through memories
Sorting failed hopes by the thickness of its pain
But by what time have I to stop
To settle for what faith serves thee.

Inequalities of a family
Reaps burgeons of fantasies
More than realities.

As precautions mold happiness
Youth graze from beneath unfinished dreams
For family has lost its made
Julian Feb 29
The sakura whispers
with the softness of first light,
but it burgeons,
as all brave hearts do,

it drapes its limbs
in the tender cradle of the breeze,
sending roots deep
to clutch the heart of the earth.

And when it blooms,
oh, how it blooms,
with the ferocity
of a love that refuses silence,

as if it alone
were chosen to guard
the fragile blush
of dawn,

its petals holding
the light,
infusing its essence
as it reaches for the sky,
yearning for the sun's warmth
and the rain's solace.

Sakura hesitates
in the moment before unfolding,
for it knows
that beauty unfolds in its own sacred time -

Life is a tender whisper
in the vastness,
and to blossom at all
is an act of divine grace.
trip to japan, poetry about cherry blossoms
Merry Feb 2018
My first love did not take me by the hand but rather by the ear
He was a ghostly music man who sang of sweet violence
He would chide and chide again of my innocence, my ignorance, my insolence
Through ghastly and grief-ridden streets, he would lead me here.

My first love was my first enemy though,
Gnashing teeth and pointed tongues lashing upon each other
For long time come, this hatred and distaste would not fade low
Forever in stinging words but there was change soon, a change to bid him my lover.

First breach of a tiled, misty dream, he has earned no right to my mind’s unreality
Again and again, his visage haunts my most inner eye
Second breach of a buzzing, glitzy dream, it has become a wish of reality,
Strange and unsettling, distorted and pale; a most convincing lie.

Unfair September echoes in my heart as I reach for his memory
An ethereal grip on a hand that is no longer there; belonging to a beachside now
How I long for a scent or touch of remembrance of him upon me
Practically lands away from him, fog kissed hills of the girth realm glower.

We are but fools in divided courts: winter and summer
Belonging more to each other than the seasons of those who divide us
We hail to ourselves and each other, giving bitter thanks to our monarchs in murmur
Dangling upon a cliffside, will we or won’t we? There is no try, only lust.

I long for a simple kind of closure.
Wherein grief does not desecrate the faded memories if once happy folk, now ghosts
I long for a battening down of cross-hatches of emotions and composure
Wherein tears do not tear away the ghosts in my mind where dwells my sacred host.

Confusion burgeons and blossoms in my mind
Excess of people draw close to me but there is only one for the companionship I seek
Do I love him, do I wish to make him mine?
Through embarassing lovelorn writings, at my own heart I dare to peek.

My first love was a ghostly music man, forever marching off unto paths that wind.
By my ear, he would lead me heavy as lead
Through untold streets where grief was forever upon mankind
Through streets that did not exist, only in song, only upon my lips and in said.
-------------------------------Existential Schismatics------------------------------------------------------­-------
------------

Nox Denuded:
---------
--------------------

Sorrows have sundered my soul;
Pain is the inward chaos, the virulent bane;
O, Starscourge, that burneth bright,  
Upon Noctis Lucis Caelum: Sempiternal Night  
Of The Mind's Sky.

-----------------------------------------------------------­-----
-----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------
------------------------------------------
­
The Whispers of the Spirit:

There exists one way to expiate the blights that wicked souls have wrought. We must love superabundantly. It is only through supernal Love that we find the capacity to transcend suffering.

The blight of the human condition is the existential schism that we all experience, every denomination, every label, every creed, they serve to divide. A sage once uttered, "...we're all one. The ordinances of the Sun & Moon shine on each one of us indiscriminately. The heavenly bodies do not dare mete out illumination lest fulminant with impartiality. Therefore, be compassionate in your arbitration."

It is only when we possess an undivided eye, that the Multiverse begins to flow abundantly through each one of us. Every soul upon the Earthen Mother has the unbound potential to achieve. Before this, a mandate of introspective awareness of our existential purpose cometh, to actuate our highest divine. Some of us find that awakening only when a kindred soul jostles our own. At times, it is that entity that possesses the secret key to our most veritable of identities.

We need each other. It is only when we come to realize this that the spirit burgeons deep within our anima. We can never underestimate the value of our spiritual kin if we are to effloresce, metamorphose, and blossom as spiritual entities. There is so much to be learned from every moment of pain. Every vagrancy, every perfidy, every bout of dereliction; consequently, these are all impediments to our existential success.

If I am to move forward and to transcend the difficulties transpiring, I must ne’er absolve myself of my duty as an entity of light. It is my fundamental belief that every soul is brought into this world with an inherent virtue, an intrinsic excellency. Sometimes, our experiences take us out of our sense of equanimity; moreover, we lose our sense of balance, feeling less poised to confront thorns. This occurs when we are accosted with a fusillade of trials. These gauntlets assay our ability to endure.

Trial in-and-of-itself can make us feel as though we are predisposed, foreordained, or even predestined to suffer. But suffering is the commonality of creation. In difficulty, there is always an opportunity to manifest resolve.

If we ail together, we are ennobled together. Vexation irritates the soul, but in the end, whence transcended, it also liberates. In most circumstances, the very same thing that enfetters us serves to free us from a pre-condition that no longer serves its existential purpose.
      
Take life as it comes, unabating in your longing for ascendency. You will rise Heavensward, if-and-only-if you take the stance never to surrender: Seek Justice, burgeon in Love, acquire Wisdom, grow in Might. It is only then that you will be complete in every respect; it is only then that your spirit will subdue the flesh. The carnal is vehement in it’s pining, yet the incorporeal essence is intemerate in its yearning.

(Se' lah)
------------
-----------------------------------
----------Wisdom Epitomized-----------
----------------------------------
-------------

(I)

"In a time of disjunct, remember that we're all one. The ordinances of the Sun & Moon shine on each one of us indiscriminately. The heavenly bodies do not dare mete out illumination lest fulminant with impartiality. Therefore, be compassionate in your arbitration."

—A Vagrant Sage

(II)

"I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”

—John 13:34, 35 (New World Translation Study Edition)

(III)

"Within nature, all things are observable, in scarcity or in profusion. This is veritable when men or women unfurl their minds to the ethereal tides of space & time; consequently, all becomes a transcendent torrent, a cosmic unraveling, a communal oneness that is existence."

—An Existential Vagary

(IV)

"In reply Jesus said to them:
'Those who are healthy
do not need a physician,
but those who are ill do.'"

—Luke 5:31 (New World Translation Study Edition)

(V)

"Every artist was first an amateur."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

------------------------------
---------------------------------
------------------------------

Excelsior Forevermore,




Sanders Maurice Foulke III
Jenie Aug 2020
Windstorm blowing through
suspending the days
Irish summer ending I shiver
at the darkness spreading
the white wisp morphing into black cloak

The fig tree stands branches wild
new sprouts shaking
second season raspberries
crushed on the wall
the tomato vine falls heavily to the ground

Sprigs jerking I sway
trunk holding fast until it fractures
I collapse and the fruits splatter
sap leaking I wipe my cheeks
flustered by my syrupy hands I stare

a sound a shout I straighten
the burgeons call
Storm Ellen, pandemic and bad news. The burgeons are my children.
Bloomie Scott Nov 2014
Patience of the oak as it burgeons through life.
Exhibit your vision for us
The value you add to life influences my path towards an application of human trust.
Yet as scales of emotion tip over ----unmanaged energy your smile provided
Sealed blood from escaping my heart
Connect moments in a sample of time----- our time  
My secret of shame funded my campaign for everlasting trust.
Appease my purpose with a thought rather than a touch of insecurity, release of hesitations.
SPEAK
Tell me what lies ahead; make me understand that you are growing at rare pace
Silence the doubts.
Find fidelity in a weary night before the hazy dawn
Never stop and I will be yours
Bloomie Scott Nov 2014
Patience of the oak as it burgeons through life.
Exhibit your vision for us
The value you add to life influences my path towards an application of human trust.
Yet as scales of emotion tip over ----unmanaged energy your smile provided
Sealed blood from escaping my heart
Connect moments in a sample of time----- our time  
My secret of shame funded my campaign for everlasting trust.
Appease my purpose with a thought rather than a touch of insecurity, release of hesitations.
SPEAK
Tell me what lies ahead; make me understand that you are growing at rare pace
Silence the doubts.
Find fidelity in a weary night before the hazy dawn
Never stop and I will be yours
Bohemian May 2019
Could cry
As used to
Vowing I shall wait forever
Ever and ever
That this pain burgeons
Emily McClelland Jul 2018
Emotion burgeons with each passing day,
becoming indolent through exhaustion.
Calling for help imperatively,
but not being heard through a cloud so thick.
The Noose May 2021
In waning threads of light
The shadow of
Our lily burgeons
That howling wind
takes everything
But
She's easy on the eyes
When the time comes
She'll have the heart.
Sadia Tuba Feb 2017
I used to drench with colors like the joyful spring.
As if it lent the essence of most awaited love from two vague souls.
They don't believe in true love at the end;
Though the innocent part of nature endues those colors forever.
I opened my burning eyes,
balmy smell of mango burgeons touched my soul.
I can remember how I met summer.
When tepid aroma wafted in my lungs.
And greeted my rusty pen.
Then I met autumn.
I learned to forget.
I often heared the rustling of my reminiscences.
I became a deciduous tree, shed those memories like dry leaves.
One day whiteness spread across my rainbow surface.
I got stagnant and rigid.
I grew frosty inside,
enslaved by the heaviness like the clever fog condenses the earth.
And I acquainted with winter.
I wonder was it a secluded heart, that possessed these divine four layers?
Or, a decieved one, where deep anguish made a void once?
Ivy Dec 2020
I am who’s lying to myself
I am the one deceiving sacred
What are you doing for god’s  sake
Why this pretending
Your weaknesses are falling one by one
Revealing burgeons
Your sins, addictions and the vice
What a delight
What a betrayal
I’m in a fight
But what I’m fighting for?
For whom’s this glory?
For whom’s this vanity?
Is that for you?
Or for your bloated ego only?
I do mistakes
But can I fix them?
Sometimes I think they’re beyond retrieve
I feel I’m sinking and I’m falling
In the dark
Prashant Shaurya May 2020
The raging river tears apart
Mighty Himalayas’ sturdy frame
It pierces the mountain’s rocky heart
Burgeons, to fertilise the plains.

The mist conspires with the clouds
To pour down on the foothills weak
Which crumble across the hilly terrain
To break the traveller’s winning streak.


Prashant Shaurya ©

All Rights Reserved
14/07/2019
23Dreptate Dec 2019
These hiatus burgeons daily.
The air parches constantly.
The music we heard together is no more music.
The bread we broke together tastes
No more than bread.
All desolate, for your beauty died.
I saw your hands hold the glass
Waggled my heart stir with desideratum
A requisition I lost at the sight of your
Beauty that died.
Megan Sherman Jul 2022
Beyond the stratosphere
A majestic cosmos fruitions
And radiates light
That burgeons in the human heart divine
Despite being infinite light-years away

Beneath source, the final destination, the one and all
Young mystics ascend, their quest
Anointed with the approval of saints
Fully formed spirits pure as the core of a star
That transcend the transience of mortal incarnation
In their rebellious existence

Above the world, itself an illusion
Cosmic, angelic entities
A multifaith pack traversing a heavenly trajectory
Zoom, twirl and pirouette
In stunning array
Like light is to day

The order of the cosmos
Adhering to laws of nature
Themselves yielded partially to human knowledge in abstractions,
Theory, which, whilst awesome to behold
Eviscerates the spirit of the cosmos by objectifying it
And isolating it's elements in fractions
The scientist's sin

Their schemes have jilted and jaded the sky
Once supreme
The crown of a dream
Ryan O'Leary Jul 2023
.      Shoots, germinates, burgeons
proliferates, mushrooms, pullulates,
    sprouts, in the garden of Europe.
[] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
Outside, walls of BRICS are being
  constructed, the jungle is being
   manicured and ‘Putin' in order.
Matt Martin-Hall Oct 2020
From whence love comes;
so to ventures
the soul-

a vessel left
caverned
and wilting.

Hollow wisps
dancing in
drifting husks-

enriching soils
upon which
they fall.

Hooves pattering
to impress
the fauna that begs growth.

Packed earth.
The nudest berth
for which it burgeons;

a bed
to rest
our heads.

And watch
it all rise
around and about

us.
This is about as close to a love poem as I can get. I posted this one first because a poet friend told me it’s better than the next one I’m going to post. I disagree but - I’m also impressionable.
audrey Jul 2021
the cathartic breath,
burrowed beneath my lungs,
i hear it gasping, panting,
choking for air,
caged between my ribs
for i never let it free into the abyss,
it burgeons and flourishes
until any arrow that hits it,
will never miss.
Arlene Corwin Feb 2021
Sometimes it’s better to look at a writing years after.

     Holding On To Empty Spaces

This body is a scandal.
Hidden clocks we cannot handle:
Agings, dyings out;
Impossible to rise above.
Easy prey for ego-love;
Body, with its rotting ways,
Craving undue notice.

Power-loving beast of burden
Following illusion’s burgeons,
Chasing visions leading nowhere
But to temporary shelters:
Time’s ordeal the ‘real deal’.

Sweltering in breathing shells
That lose their health and too soon fall
From superficial aim & goal
And shrugging off the inner graces,
Chasing after outer-places:
Holding on to empty spaces.

Holding On To Empty Spaces 10.30.2003Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Time;
Re-composed 2.20.2021  Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin
efni Dec 2019
his brain births and gathers,
puffs of throbbing agony.
eyes seal, lips purse,
it expands, he contends,
more intense and in raw fury.
his face, now twisted, contorted,
tightening his eyelids as it grows.

it burgeons and darkens and deepens and darkens.
finally, with teeth gritting and jaw clenching,
the gates of his soul unfold.
i rush to soak his shivering skin,
as lightning strikes withing his glossed orbs,
coupled with claps of desperate thunder,
from where powerful, quivering winds escape.

soon and swiftly, i replace my pours,
with light drizzle and gently mists.
quick breezes turn to steady, huffed sighs,
for his clouds of sorrow have emptied.
his thunder quiets, his lightning fades,
void and clear is his mind's sky.
so why is it still grey?

23.10.18
this is my first poem! in the POV of the "rain"

— The End —