"byzantium" poems
…These men are worth your tears:
You are not worth their merriment.
-Wilfred Owen, “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”
When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean? Paradise Lost? Probably not
Nor Saint Paul speaking on the Field of Mars
The Kalevala, Hagia Sophia
With its pendentives lifting up our prayers
Horatius fighting to defend his bridge
And Wilfred Owen dying bravely on his
Lord Tennyson and Idylls of the King
Chapultepec, Henry V, Becket
The paratroops at Arnhem, Saint Thomas More,
His King’s loyal servant, but God’s first
The Stray Dog poets of Saint Petersburg
The brave last stand of Roland at Roncesvalles
Lewis and Tolkien and glasses of beer
Montcalm and Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham
Hildegard von Bingen, Siegfried and the Rhine
Magna Carta, HMS Hood, the Thames
The Grove of Daphne, “The Old Rugged Cross”
Beatrix Potter and her little pet rabbit
El Cid, Anne Frank, John Keats, Saint Benedict
“I Have a Dream,” Dostoyevsky, and Greene
Viktor Frankl, Dag Hammarkskjold, and Proust
Good Chaucer’s naughty pilgrims telling tales
The Gettysburg Address, Willie and Joe
Stern Saint Augustine of North Africa
Wodehouse writing a jolly bit of fun
Saint Corbinian and Bavaria
The ancient glories of Byzantium
Pius XII contra the bombs and lies
The 602nd TD Battalion
Saint Joan, the Prado, and Robert Frost
And far, far more.
When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean?
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 4:06 PM UTC
A dozen fellows draped in threadbare tread densely,
Profligating goons in obsidian gowns
gathered under rainbow
moonshine shaking bronze hands,
howling and ****** in the shambles of the moon,
rap'n and nod'n to the notes of midnight.
The mellow marines mourned over malice,
lionizing over lost ones,
many howled venerated, exalted in wonder
in favor of their thrilling grace, and delight,
and brilliance, and might!
but some neighboring sticklers,
behaved haughty and in disdain,
of the crowdy Cavaliers bellowing echoes
signaling out
to the seers of the sea,
singing to the wands overwatching the wedding,
and ravens listened,
roving like noble patrolsmen.
Traveleres and trainees at sea
humble and bright
niave, and frieghtened
in traverse,
volatile and toiling,
tireless,
Lunatics, (laughing, laughing, laughhing,)
Rumaging through rain,
fireciely,
rallying and rableroused,
through towering halls of mohogony,
hefty and wholesome were their hearts
though, beast of the woodsy edifice
were foul and benumb
scowling with contempt,
haste to devide and devised to hindrance.
Hence the heroes heed
to the valleys of rose, and violet,
and strawberry fields of forever,
seeking Saint Nicholas,
in the bustling Byzantium,
in the murky shadows of doubt.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 10:08 AM UTC
I entered my poem "last night I dreamed" in the Tallenge poetry competition for May 2014, which it won, it's now in the annual competition so I'd really appreciate your support by voting for it at - bit.ly/1pJ0N3z
You can find the poem down the line in my list of poems, but I'll paste it here again so you can check it out to see if it's worth a vote.
Last Night I dreamt
Of the Hagia Sophia.
Looking across
mighty Bosphorous.
In Istanbul, in Byzantium,
in Constantinople.
A prize of ages...........
In all her many's
real and imagined glory.
Man's desire,
God's gift.
Stone's testament
To my species' faith,
In eternity.
Though this Hagia,
My Sophia,
was one of my dreams
In a dream-city/state.
In a dream Macedon/Thrace,
Modern and ancient
Asian/Europe, European-Asia,
Turk and Greek
Jew and Russian
Balkan stars fall upon her'
Coloured light's
and bright vid-screens.
Amid stone and earth
Glass and concrete,
Granite and amythst
Huge, jewel-covered,
ancient beyond measure....
Not just Constantine's church,
though mighty church it was..
Or Mehmet's prize;
though great Mosque it became
Nor Theodosius's rock
Though he still fights for her
Somewhere in the past.
And no dry museum either,
Though museum she is..........
In reality.
Just an ancient place,
Euxine harbour
Cross-road of man and water,
Land and Gods
Magic and reality
Chozen by Hellas
Built and owned
by Christ's children
Subjects of St. Paul's
Holy empire.
Orthodox and sacred
To Greek and Rus.
No Latin hymns
We're sung in her walls.
Then won by Turk
In wars fierce and long -
So now Muhammed's shrine
Ottoman and Pasha
Jewel of a new kingdom
Built upon built
Myriad upon myriad
Pagan, Muslim, Jew, and Christian
And the Gods of Hellas
who dwell there still
Watch and wonder
at it all
But in my dream
She was made -
in the shape of a grassy mound
Many faceted, growing still
Amid structures, attached to her
spans and arches
Ancient wonder
Modern glory
Flowing and rising
Worshipped by all who
dwelt near her.
Grassed covered
Monument strewn
Stretching up to the dark -
Starry Sky
Arches
Domes
Butress'
Spires
Crosses
Cresents
Heart's desire
White rocks paved
And eternal grasses
Dewed by Hellene Gods
Whose light it saved
Last night I dreamed
Of the Hagia Sophia.......
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 6:21 PM UTC
we did not Dye in vain!
by michael r. burch
(from “songs of the sea snails”)
though i’m just a slimy crawler,
my lineage is proud:
my forebears gave their lives
(oh, let the trumps blare loud!)
so purple-mantled Royals
might stand out in a crowd.
i salute you, fellow loyals,
who labor without scruple
as your incomes fall
while deficits quadruple
to swaddle unjust Lords
in bright imperial purple!
Originally published by The American Dissident
Notes: In ancient times the purple dye produced from the secretions of purpura mollusks (sea snails) was known as “Tyrian purple,” “royal purple” and “imperial purple.” It was greatly prized in antiquity, and was very expensive according to the historian Theopompus: “Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon.” Thus, purple-dyed fabrics became status symbols, and laws often prevented commoners from possessing them. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium, where the imperial court restricted its use to the coloring of imperial silks. A child born to the reigning emperor was literally porphyrogenitos ("born to the purple") because the imperial birthing apartment was walled in porphyry, a purple-hued rock, and draped with purple silks. Royal babies were swaddled in purple; we know this because the iconodules, who disagreed with the emperor Constantine about the veneration of images, accused him of defecating on his imperial purple swaddling clothes!
Keywords/Tags: royal, purple, imperial, Tyrian, Byzantium, porphyry, swaddling, clothes, porphyrogenitos, mollusks, sea snails, royalty, kings, lords, emperors, popes
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 4:35 AM UTC
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My ****** form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
2.2k
Last Night I dreamt
Of the Hagia Sophia.
Looking across
mighty Bosphorous.
In Istanbul, in Byzantium,
in Constantinople.
A prize of ages...........
In all her many's
real and imagined glory.
Man's desire,
God's gift.
Stone's testament
To my species' faith,
In eternity.
Though this Hagia,
My Sophia,
was one of my dreams
In a dream-city/state.
In a dream Macedon/Thrace,
Modern and ancient
Asian/Europe, European-Asia,
Turk and Greek
Jew and Russian
Balkan stars fall upon her'
Coloured light's
and bright vid-screens.
Amid stone and earth
Glass and concrete,
Granite and amythst
Huge, jewel-covered,
ancient beyond measure....
Not just Constantine's church,
though mighty church it was..
Or Mehmet's prize;
though great Mosque it became
Nor Theodosius's rock
Though he still fights for her
Somewhere in the past.
And no dry museum either,
Though museum she is..........
In reality.
Just an ancient place,
Euxine harbour
Cross-road of man and water,
Land and Gods
Magic and reality
Chozen by Hellas
Built and owned
by Christ's children
Subjects of St. Paul's
Holy empire.
Orthodox and sacred
To Greek and Rus.
No Latin hymns
We're sung in her walls.
Then won by Turk
In wars fierce and long -
So now Muhammed's shrine
Ottoman and Pasha
Jewel of a new kingdom
Built upon built
Myriad upon myriad
Pagan, Muslim, Jew, and Christian
And the Gods of Hellas
who dwell there still
Watch and wonder
at it all
But in my dream
She was made -
in the shape of a grassy mound
Many faceted, growing still
Amid structures, attached to her
spans and arches
Ancient wonder
Modern glory
Flowing and rising
Worshipped by all who
dwelt near her.
Grassed covered
Monument strewn
Stretching up to the dark -
Starry Sky
Arches
Domes
Butress'
Spires
Crosses
Cresents
Heart's desire
White rocks paved
And eternal grasses
Dewed by Hellene Gods
Whose light it saved
Last night I dreamed
Of the Hagia Sophia.......
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 3:07 AM UTC
Everybody knows of Istanbul in Turkey,
This poem will only lay some light on it,
Through the history & mankind's irony.
Istanbul was settled as a Greek colonial city,
'Twas named Byzantium after a Greek king,
And the Old Greek king's name was Byzas.
The Romans under Constantine won over it,
Now it was their turn to rename the city,
After the emperor as Constantinople.
The great Turks captured it in 1453 AD lastly,
The fabulous fortress was renamed yet again,
The present name Istanbul descended in 1923.
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 2:15 AM UTC
FEW POETIC REFLECTIONS ON OLD AGE
Dear Poet Friends, after a long break, I have composed a few lines as a very senior citizen and a lover of poetry. If you like the same, kindly Re-post this poem for wider circulation. Thanks and best wishes, - Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
It has been often been said that old age is that period of life,
When all bad habits are given up on doctor’s advice,
And yet you don’t feel all that good while you survive!
Yet I do try to take some solace from Robert Browning’s poem
‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ which says;-
‘’Grow old along with me!
For the best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.’’
Despite my grey hairs and wrinkled face,
With creaking joints and scattered aches and pains,
‘’Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress’’,
In thanks giving to the Lord and sings his praise;
As I recall WB Yeats’ ‘Sailing Byzantium’, - that
lovely poem from my college days.
As our biological clock continues to tick incessantly,
Getting older becomes compulsory.
But becoming Wiser in wrinkled years remains optional,
A choice our free will has the opportunity to make!
I recall what Agatha Christie had once said,
That an archaeologist is the best husband a woman can get,
For the older she gets, the more interested in her he
becomes;
With due respect to our women whose age is impolite
not ask.
Here I recall what the Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost
had once said,
That a diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s
birthday and not her age.
I recall the observation of Sartre the famous French philosopher
who had said,
That more sand that escapes from the hourglass of our life,
The clearer we should see through it as a blessing of time!
It is true that we live in deeds, not in years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial, - as James Bailey had said.
I finally conclude by quoting the first stanza from ‘Beautiful Old Age’ by DH Lawrence;
‘’It ought to be lovely to be old
To be full of the peace that comes of experience
And wrinkled ripe fulfilment.’’
-Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
Dec 19, 2019
Dec 19, 2019 at 11:04 AM UTC
If I were a painter
I would craft a goddess, hung
Immortal to some museum
or midst the the dusty collection of some baron
With body, flawless
Form, divine
And all of her admirers
Turning the muses flanking Apollo, jealous
But the real fire, the life giving spark
Would flare mad passion in her eyes
And the thundering, A call;
Theodora, freed from the patriarchy of old Byzantium
A bearer of the old magic, ghosts dancing from another time
Her beauty would be harmonious
To the glittering brown-gold of honeydew
And bursting,
Like a symphony loud and tremulous
All the true aesthetes, trembling
That a painter got to meet a woman so
To set his heart afire
And if I had been born a sculptor
If I had been given the power to shape
My crowning achievement
The great anthem of my time, spent
Would be a face;
A chin, gently tilted skyward
The eyes, sparkling with that unknown sea
Hair disheveled, parted, smoothing the cheeks
and the glimmer of lips,
Softly pursed;
But the eyes, the doorways to that tidal force
All of the dreams
All of the feelings, trapped and rolling, the ocean beneath
Would burst forth; A thousand church candles,
Or a gathering of street lights.
If I were a sculptor my greatest achievement would be cast in Lady's Dream
Not for the skin, but for the glittering eyes
Or if I were a composer
Working on my symphony
I would have the brasses buzzing,
and the strings
A chorus of thought
And the melody would be defined not by the loudness
But the silences
The gaps of deep thought, juxtaposed
Amongst the roaring
The soft gasps of tide being pulled back to sea
and all of the sweet undulations, the rivers of a mind
If I were a composer the audience would get a glimpse,
The briefest moment,
Of the beauty
Of quiet
The deepness
Of thought
But I am merely a poet,
A poor shaper of words
Strung out on hope,
Gambling on luck,
Trapped, eternally, to the brightness of the sun
And lost to those whirlwind emotions that govern men so
And for a moment, smiling,
I got to know the wildness in another poet's eyes
The softness of her smile,
And if I could spell love in her heart
I would
But I am merely a poet,
A poor shaper of words
And with these powers
I can merely say this:
When I say beauty
and the thoughts fall loosely on the page,
hopefully bringing forth a smile
When I say beauty,
When I say beauty
What I mean:
You.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC
The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the ***** of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no ****** feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
1.7k
Sara L Russell
Bright colours in a pool of crystal clarity
reflecting all the spectrum of our days
slip down into a quagmire of nonentity
with nothing left to sully or erase.
This cold disease that strips a man of human soul,
is worst of all the ravages of time;
behold those eyes, devoid of everything you stole,
yet blissfully unknowing of your crime.
This bright man, worn away to barest minimum,
this one-time writer and great raconteur,
this poet - will not travel to Byzantium;
his world is fading to a senseless blur.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
She reminds me of an emerald hue
of Gorgeous, deep-sea, ocean blue
And royal, byzantium purple, too
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 5:53 PM UTC
Through untamed shadows and blurred silhouettes
The moon remembers what the night forgets
it was a time before all, before the time we met
the form of a shadow and my love's silhouette
Gathering darkness of the collective noir
the hellish display of Satan's bazaar.
The passively insane, jokers and boars
of Victorian plays and Spanish guitars!
The view from here is lovely indeed
the vantage point of insanity.
A suit of skin is miraculous, I see
The stunning cloth of evil dreams
My, my, what a treat
ah,Visitors we see
all waiting to share
a shallow moment of care
Please show us, what's new
in the world of the living, this paradigm stew
A dance on the roof summons suspicion
from the mess below of ugly submission
I plead, I implore, abandon all tradition!
Before you pummel down the world's attrition...
I have seen the wonders of the other side.
Where mass ballrooms of dead reside
all swooping, crying, laughing with pride
While the they truly live and you surely die.
The fires of madness, the abundant endeavor
strikes a chord with those, whomever,
enjoy such masked adventures, whichever
Such with Boris, Phil, Julie and Trevor.
beating pain out from the brim
Retching blood and bile from within
Yes, of course I'll obey
Please...could you stay?
Yes my lover, my illustrious shadow tamer
the other that is here but only I can see, my sane reclaimer....
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 1:42 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 12:53 PM UTC
somewhere in my dreams
last night I swam in a lake
that glittered as a hundred
thistle prisms, I ran through
schools of fish, hallways that
whistled, stairwells that were
no feat at all, everyone was
somehow impressed by me
I held faces between palms
and kissed so many people.
Dec 25, 2012
Dec 25, 2012 at 1:37 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 6:39 PM UTC
If letters spell out words:
Si byzantium (si somos vampirosos y hacemos cosas dastricas, y nos pela, somos lo que somos, con cusualidad) que haremos con que simpáticos seremos, elegancia de acuerdo, nectalina y recuerdos suficientes y sufficientas que ere el ere, sin ere entiende. Ere ex: pájaro volador con tres alas y una dicha fragancia elevada de recitar con exacta voz el recuerdo de silbar.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 4:26 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 4:33 PM UTC
When the shadows overtake me
I hope my throat is already slit.
/MERCY.
I've learned by now
That fast and painless
Is a concept of fiction.
It wouldn't matter
If you were to tear out my heart
Or rip out my spine,
It's all death just the same.
If you choose to take my life,
Don't take mercy into consideration,
Because mercy has been long lost
On those already rotting
In the graves dug in their minds.
/CONSUMPTION.
Peace from the darkness
Has taken the shape
Of your hand on the goblet,
With all my absolution taking the form
Of your loving embrace.
Let's build up our legions,
Show them the light in our gospel,
And convert them to our truth...
Such a beautiful proposition,
If we could work it out ourselves.
Wash over me with your holy sermon.
Let me absorb all your light.
Reconstruct all my arrogance
Upon the backs of the broken,
Just for the rare opportunity
For such a picture perfect landscape.
Monarchy never looked so stunning.
/EMPIRE.
Drowning is becoming an art.
Deeper and deeper
Into the depths do I venture,
All the while indifferent
To my lack of oxygen.
I'm plugging in plot holes.
I'm re-founding Byzantium,
And all for the iconography
That has left me
In such a state of marvel.
I don't want compromise
Or pity of any sort.
I just want you in tidal waves,
And to get pulled deeper
Beneath the whole of your personality.
In a modern world
So short on imperialism
Why was it so easy for you
To colonize my heart?
/TRANSLATION.
For the first time in years,
I need no translation.
I speak clearly, openly,
And without filtration.
She both listens and hears,
And that's not even the beginning
Of her infinite positive traits.
She's a modern masterpiece,
So above modern art.
I want to dissolve into her brilliance
If for even a moment.
/RECOIL.
I have nothing to fear.
I am the God of Death...
I am the shadows
That haunt even the deepest corners
Of my recuperating mind.
I'm gaining back the strength
To show the world once more,
That there are better, truer
Forms of evil in our control.
I am the culmination
Of the lives I have taken,
And now I choose to never
Be frightened by fate again.
I am the God of Death,
And now I choose to live.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 11:54 PM UTC
i told you thanksgiving was my favorite holiday when i forgot to give tradition something to prop itself up on i lost the code to your apartment and now i walk the two vertical and one horizontal blocks to your house and peek inside the mailbox for a security question and answer session.
have you considered sending a postcard from where you are now, or does the idea of you having an affair with the mailman stop your conscience from turning on snooze?
when my body is cremated and my lungs turn to dust who will stop me from sending extremely drunk texts while being extremely drunk?
try commissioning somebody to make a marble statue out of you. find out you were overcharged when it turns out to be just a huge clump of marshmallow fluff, when you're lactose intolerant, when your kids are gonna have it even better than you did and you had it really good.
you take your kids to MOMA,
and i wonder why we never had *** outside except for sometimes on your balcony under a quilt. i'm not upset about it because it'll be 2065 soon and outside will be obsolete and you and i will be something similar to the Byzantium period where we have to struggle to remember it existed.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 3:43 AM UTC
*oh **** i know, it happened in your bedroom... and thak **** it didn't happen anywhere apart from that! except in advert, and at a Trump rally.*
i can't be really Polish,
and i certainly can't be English,
so what's left? partly Scottish?
åka ɲørdé - aaka(h) niu-rd(eh) -
to go forth, with Shelley,
and seek my goat-herder
there among the icecaps
in frozen Victorian land,
among grey and among
Orca slaughter - to feast,
while those who seek more than
grape seek dactyl - under the palm -
may in eternity our paths
never cross as they did by mortality
and the shaken hands... ever, never!
like a nursery rhyme, should
Fredrick fall asleep during a
lightning / thunder-storm and
be branded a thief to your own supposed Eden
prophecy and account balance
unshaken - while the Pharaoh the first-born
drowns with Herod plagiarising the fabled
lure of David's lyre and sang psalms;
keep away from here, unless
in your heaven the Dachau of lost unheard
un-worded breaths;
take your god no further than Byzantium or
Venice will attack.
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:55 PM UTC
Often we have disagreed, but now I refuse to hold my tongue
and shall raise pen to meet pen, watch the words clash in the air,
for how could you grant such a way of living superiority?
When the sensual and the intellect can meet as one
in capturing a young man's beauty in such a way
that he leaps from the page,
causing the reader to sail away away too.
But even if we saw eye to eye, as shortsighted as each other,
lack of intellect be ******
I could not wish to travel there
to a place devoid of him, of all that encompasses him,
devoid of green eyes and jet hair,
a space within which his voice does not resonate
and participate in such an unequal trade
as to exchange immortality for a life without him.
Revered as you are, I do not agree.
I shall champion the dearth of intellect,
revere in all things sensual, as this is all I am fit for in your eyes,
but I shall be in love
and it is this I choose
over an infinite rhapsody of lifetimes.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 9:06 AM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Jun 5, 2012
Jun 5, 2012 at 2:32 AM UTC