"circe" poems
Mine
6:48 a Wednesday
Two Weeks later
Then: Thanksgiving eve
5E; MIT
I sit at my desk:
stare out of the windows <
My skull
at the Chocolate Bock I just
Overflowed > all over my notes
on the Circe episode of Ulysses,
which I have not yet read.
20 minutes after I just ––
Went alone. Stood there, yes, alone
Above the porcelain enterprise
Taking that litmus test of humanity
Clear, I pass. Yellow, I fail.
It was rather clear I think
Honestly? I don't remember.
Two weeks ago, I stood there==
and came up with this phrase.
Standing there with special eyes::::
Seeing.
Came back to my room, I did, faithfully
Looked there below my second fridge
A plate sat. mine. On it: maybe food, maybe *****
Probably marijuana
Only the first my own
Who remembers?
Next to it: an empty prescription bottle
"It's some medicine for Asthma. I don't even
_have_ asthma!"
"Classy **** I am; I've never bought a shot glass.
Just use discarded prescription bottles."
An experiment @ the sink: exact: 2.0z. On the dot.
Turns out that's 1&1/3 of the standard—The ritual
We make it. And have made it.
For years now together after midnight
[or so]
4 years. Soon it will be
Maybe I shall leave; probably not
but harken back, that fortnight, less 6
To that evening. Orange and purple
Effort sublime but not enough:
Lost to a team of Freshman.?!
~If only:~
"Tripped mad-laundry shrooms",
6 and a half months ago
Two men sit in the corner of my room
I know one; the other spoke
2-weeks-later: sticky keyboard
I am not sober, but who is?
Last night. Remember those videos?
reminded me that *** can be beautiful:
After basically 2 years: I almost forgot.
x-art.com. December 6, 2011
I have a perspective now:
It is not the same as yours
it is not and, by necessity,
can not be the same.
But I see it. Stephen Daedalus
calls it immature—lyrical
but **** you, James: it is mine!
I am. Will always be.
Will have never been.
But, God/Goddess **** it now!
I am: I See.
I try!
~D.B.Guy
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 3:23 AM UTC
Your face,
Tender, round and dimpled,
Framed with gilded, carved, tawny curled
Whirlpools of hair, long, lighted, and sparkling,
Your face is the face—
Of Ireland.
Your lips,
Full, moist and deathly deep,
Are wells, not well for me, not safe, taboo,
Tantric, tall told tales of brave Odysseus
Under Circe's alchemies
Of forgetfulness.
Your *****
The zenith of blossom in fabled
Elysium, gateway to the forbidden gardens
Of sage and sinners, warrior-poets, Aphrodite's
Envy, Poseidon's drowning
And smoldering Zeus.
Jul 16, 2012
Jul 16, 2012 at 10:58 PM UTC
You open to me
a little,
then grow afraid
and close again,
a small boy
fearing to be hurt,
a toe stubbed
in the dark,
a finger cut
on paper.
I think I am free
of fears,
enraptured, abandoned
to the call
of the Bacchae,
my own siren,
tied to my own
mast,
both Circe
and her swine.
But I too
am afraid:
I know where
life leads.
The impulse
to join,
to confess all,
is followed
by the impulse
to renounce,
and love--
imperishable love--
must die,
in order
to be reborn.
We come
to each other
tentatively,
veterans of other
wars,
divorce warrants
in our hands
which we would beat
into blossoms.
But blossoms
will not withstand
our beatings.
We come
to each other
with hope
in our hands--
the very thing
Pandora kept
in her casket
when all the ills
and woes of the world
escaped.
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What should we have expected from new ascents?
You think there is simple safety in messages sent?
Melancholic waves descend, lonely veins sink in,
If I was simple before, you'd be able to see,
See through the extremities that bounded me.
But how could a flower begin these internal spins?
Bounded by piety to seek love away from sin,
Destined, we hope that this one will sink in.
If life's a play then this one is just pretend,
And the toil of tragedy, revealed at play's end.
But if this life is an Odysseun ode,
Then oh! the wonders to be told!
For each new ascent, a heroic tale,
On the way down, purified hail.
For we have cast Circe like Jonah's whale,
And fly alongside a dove's tail,
Whose wings spread in glorious white,
Revealing Leila, mistress of the night.
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 8:43 PM UTC
Smoke, it is all smoke
in the throat of eternity. . . .
For centuries, the air was full of witches
Whistling up chimneys
on their spiky brooms
cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe,
as they flew over rooftops
blessing & cursing their
kind.
We banished & burned them
making them smoke in the throat of god;
we declared ourselves
"enlightened."
"The dark age of horrors is past,"
said my mother to me in 1952,
seven years after our people went up in smoke,
leaving a few teeth, a pile of bones.
The smoke curls and beckons.
It is blue & lavender
& green as the undersea world.
It will take us, too.
O let us not go sheepishly
clinging to our nakedness.
But let us go like witches ****** heavenward
by the Goddess' powerful breath
& whistling, whistling, whistling
on our beautiful brooms.
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Tired, I awoke upon a lonely island beach
And gazed on a Goddess above the shore,
With sea foam hair, coral skin, what dream,
My salt eyes, blinded, open, wanting more,
Conspiring with rays of summer she shone
So bright, this daughter of the sun, we stood
I and my castaway crew, to that siren prone
As she led us to her mansion in the woods.
Her potions tamed the forest wolf and lion,
Spellbinding warrior poets to liven feasts.
Why then must she turn ***** men to swine,
By what she most desired contented least?
Desert falcon, my moly held Pharaohs' breeze
And what nil escape above the wine dark seas.
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 7:46 PM UTC
I love it when your Odyssian
smile
Turns into a Circian smile,
seducing me and keeping me there,
in that place,
in love with you.
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
calm down while sun beams down
yearn for less and crave nothing
disappointing investing in second guessing
calm down while reading Circe
ponder the ways that men have hurt me
remove the blade instead of pushing it deeper
hand in hand, i am married to harmony
pearl earrings, pearl ring, pearl bracelet
i find beauty in everything i am facing
Apr 16, 2023
Apr 16, 2023 at 7:47 PM UTC
Arachne’s Shadow
Silver spindles manifest, each one
unique; artistry
at the tip of eight long
fingers--crafted carefully to
catch curious creatures;
trapped by the allure of Circe’s
web of lies. Glistening
and bright from distances, yet
dead upon impact; sticky, dull.
A corner, so decorated with
cobwebs and dust; Arachne
spins her loom in the dark, a room,
that is used seldom, with the exception
of the dinner show; always
on time, 8 o’clock sharp. Witness
the cunning I lack, benevolence
she disregards; a fly—simple in intelligence,
but chaotic when trapped
in a small room; nuisances
that need dealing with.
Once caught, the struggling ignorant
victim chokes on
mistakes of days past, cheating on
a test, beating the ******* boy; observed
errors of judgment, punishable by death.
Every victim is different, but each is caught
screaming, praying, gasping
for life, only to be
muffled, hushed, stifled; No remorse
during mealtime.
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 9:32 PM UTC
when my faith is tested
i recoil into the lurid nest
by moonlight, by the sound of a lyre
whose blood whispers dank currents
into the low hillside.
and over the hillside
pour screaming maenads
who pluck from the damp ground
snakes for their altars.
a timid peak out of my grotto reveals
a crawling sailor scattered on the rocks.
Apollo’s choir releases hymns
from underneath dark sediment.
i am secure inside the den
the man writhes on the shore for help
but even if i let him in,
i will consume his rooted soul,
so he dies one way
or another.
foot
steps
does he really wish to
become absorbed by this
dark cloak? where he will kick
and drool and never again
see rain stretch over the Aegean?
as i have not seen past this
constant haze of lead,
an infinite bang on a finite drum i
played long ago into infinity?
and the swirls
of infinity
shedding outward like the
tresses of a fire haired fae.
a sprinting sugar fae,
the wind inside the hair
outside her head,
blowing behind her.
she dashes through the wood
until her feet fossilize
within the rock below.
one day several naturalists will find
the slabs of granite
and make a map of elegant
collarbone etched into hardened stone.
all the while i will guard this cave, alone.
and if my foes send winds as
messengers, i will saunter in
amusement, with an olive
on my tongue
the wind cannot destroy
the seashore,
the moon and sun
command the tides.
Sep 27, 2011
Sep 27, 2011 at 10:00 PM UTC
Circe
by Michael R. Burch
She spoke
and her words
were like a ringing echo dying
or like smoke
rising and drifting
while the earth below is spinning.
She awoke
with a cry
from a dream that had no ending,
without hope
or strength to rise,
into hopelessness descending.
And an ache
in her heart
toward that dream, retreating,
left a wake
of small waves
in circles never completing.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Keywords/Tags: Circe, enigma, enigmatic, enchantress, siren, enchanted, witch, goddess, magic, Ulysses, pigs, sty
Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch
Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark...
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?
Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared—
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?
Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
I believe I wrote this poem in my late teens, during my “Romantic Period.”
Tomb Lake
by Michael R. Burch
Go down to the valley
where mockingbirds cry,
alone, ever lonely . . .
yes, go down to die.
And dream in your dying
you never shall wake.
Go down to the valley;
go down to Tomb Lake.
Tomb Lake is a cauldron
of souls such as yours —
mad souls without meaning,
frail souls without force.
Tomb Lake is a graveyard
reserved for the dead.
They lie in her shallows
and sleep in her bed.
I believe this poem and "Moon Lake" were companion poems, written around my senior year in high school, in 1976. In addition to having similar titles, they had similar "staircase" indention styles. According to my notes, I modified "Moon Lake" two years later in 1978, at which time the poem was substantially finished. I then modified "Tomb Lake" in 1981, but must have forgotten about it, because I don't show that I ever submitted the poem for publication or did anything with it for more than 40 years. Keywords/Tags: Moon, Lake, Lakes, Water, Reflection, Reflections, Image, Imagery, Mirror, Magic, Magician, Seer, Prophet, Shaman, Spell, Spells, Enchantment, Sorcery, Bewitchment, Bewilderment, Incantation, Rhapsody, Love Talk, Love Potion
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 4:47 AM UTC
The first time i saw you, your stare lingered beneath
My mind went blank, it's as if i was recovered from the river Lethe
Eros and Ananke took the longest time on fashioning you
Apollo would befriend you because in my mind, you are the greatest view
To gain your love, i am willing to carry the world like Atlas
If you ask me, i will suffer the pits of Tatarus and come back to be your lass
I wouldn't mind staying with you in the island of Calypso
To be with you, i would face Charybdis and jump inside her tornado
Everytime you smile, it's as if the gates of Olympus open just for me
Your face will launch a thousand ships and i won't mind bringing my army
If i have no chance, my grief would reach the river Cocytus
And my heart would wander in the labyrinth of Daedalus
In the most confusing maze, you are my Ariadne string
You are the melody of the three muses when they sing
To get to your love how i wish i could be the goddess, Aphrodite
And maybe you can be Odysseus and i will be Penelope
With my kind of desire for you, Artemis and her hunters would never approve
If i am not for you, i would persuade Aphrodite and deny Cupid's reprove
Like Zeus and his lightning bolt, i can never leave your side
Poseidon's angry seas would compare to my feelings which will take long to subside
For your honor, i will fight like Hector of Troy
But like the giant, Typhon, someone will always destroy
Like Paris and Helen, we were doomed from the start
You are Cassandra and I, Apollo so you will never give me your heart
I am not Aphrodite, not Hestia, Helen and Hera
You can compare me to Circe, The Fates or even Medusa
Not as important as Hercules, Odysseus and Achilles
I might as well have a tea party with Achlys
No ship will be launched for my sake
In the garden of Hesperides, i am ignored even by a snake
In Olympus, you feast with the twelve goddesses and gods
Together with Hephaestus who was shunned, i share his odds.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 2:30 AM UTC
Neck-deep in the business
of business,
only his head remains sleepless
in the dark of early mornings
to enlighten those
who sleep in, and spotlight
his peers who delight him.
His capital investment
is love and empathy;
he replenishes the funds spent
on an island of shelter,
the helter-skelter of Monday-Friday
a Distressway away.
North Country chair on the dock
over beckoning waves
sounding their Circe song,
drawing him to the bedrock
of peace
with himself and others.
Generous with his words
his head runneth over
and verses cascade down,
filling one from another
like a mountain of flutes
poured from a veritable jeroboam
of the muse's vintage.
Only love shows as he writes
doing the poetic hokey-pokey,
left foot in, left foot out.
He has turned my world around...
and that's what it's all about.
Sep 2, 2017
Sep 2, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
Tired, I awoke upon a lonely island beach
And gazed on a Goddess above the shore,
With sea foam hair, coral skin, what dream,
My salt eyes, blinded, open, wanting more,
Conspiring with rays of summer she shone
So bright, this daughter of the sun, we stood
I and my castaway crew, to that siren prone
As she led us to her mansion in the woods.
Her potions tamed the forest wolf and lion,
Spellbinding warrior poets to liven feasts.
Why then must she turn ***** men to swine,
By what she most desired contented least?
Desert falcon, my moly held Pharaohs' breeze
And what nil escape above the wine dark seas.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
Your face,
Tender, round and dimpled,
Framed with gilded, carved, tawny curled
Whirlpools of hair, long, lighted, and sparkling,
Your face is the face—
Of Ireland.
Your lips,
Full, moist and deathly deep,
Are wells, not well for me, not safe, taboo,
Tantric, tall told tales of brave Odysseus
Under Circe's alchemies
Of forgetfulness.
Your *****
The zenith of blossom in fabled
Elysium, gateway to the forbidden gardens
Of sage and sinners, warrior-poets, Aphrodite's
Envy, Poseidon's drowning
And smoldering Zeus.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC
[Click]
…
*"Welcome back to Story Hour on PBS. Today we have a very special guest, who’s going to read us a very special story. Do you kids know anything about Greek Mythology? No? Well, you’re gonna learn some today. Everyone… say “Hello” to Bill."
“Hiiii Billlll”
“Now, children… he can’t hear you…”
“HIIII BILLL–”*
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees;
I am the Dean
of Cosmic Beans
That grow to poetrees
Then every man will ever clime
to he that sits upon
atop this rhyme
this mythic vine
Dwells the giant Albion
The giant of the sees,
his jealousea and fierce
bid him to seize
an Odyssey
assisted by a Circe
Circe, in play, did then, inturn
the shipsmen of his Highness
and with a Feast
did tern to beasts
not one of them a tygress
As Circe distracted with the beasts
Did Albion then turn
He stole the Fleece
from Circe’s niece
and left it to the terns
The terns, in turn, interned at sea
did little to digress
flew fleece of ram
into the hands
of swift and mighty Tigris
From Milton’s tale of sim’lar tree
that of Eve and Adam
With fearful sea
and symmetree
The Tyger ate The Lamb
*“The Tiger ate the Lamb?”
(crying)*
[Click]
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 6:04 PM UTC
I'm unable to feel, to be human, to reach out
From inside my sad soul to my fellow earthly brothers.
And even were I to feel, I'm unable to be useful, practical, quotidian, definite,
To have a place in life, a destiny among men,
To have a vocation, a force, a will, a garden,
A reason for resting, a need for recreation,
Something that comes to me directly from nature.
So be motherly to me, O tranquil night . . .
You who remove the world from the world, you who are peace,
You who don't exist, who are only the absence of light,
You who aren't a thing, a place, an essence or a life,
Penelope who weaves darkness that tomorrow will be unravelled,
Unreal Circe of the fevered, of the anguished without a cause,
Come to me, O night, reach out your hands,
And be coolness and relief, O night, on my forehead . . .
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 1:05 PM UTC
Remembering Greece,
I imagine you there now:
naked, skilled in spells.
Your toes in the sand,
your bright green eyes radiant:
island conqueress.
~mce
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 7:37 PM UTC
-- Wish You Were Here -- standard postcard greeting
-- Poems aren't postcards to send home -- Anne Sexton
Dear friends, dear friends at home, resent
No pagan rite nor chance event
We've failed to photograph for you
With technicolor flair in the true
Late Tourist Style. Be satisfied
You're there, not here in Circe's herd
Or dodging stones some Giant's hurled
Or fending Triton's tempest blasts
Or lashed, like me, to a shattered mast
As tempting taunts roll down the tide.
When night winds grind the wheel of sleep
Consider Cyclops, counting sheep;
When home-fires cool, just think of us
Attending smokes more perilous!
Home-bound friends, be notified:
This holiday's a Trojan Horse.
The wine's gone bad. The weather's worse.
So mark our fates by this palsied hand:
*Have sacrificed most every man.
Now homeward-bound. Still terrified.*
Sep 10, 2011
Sep 10, 2011 at 5:47 PM UTC
Perhaps the most
honest woman
in all history;
she only did what
all women see.
- mce
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 3:45 PM UTC
(sonnet)
Tired, I awoke upon a lonely island beach
And gazed on a Goddess above the shore,
With sea foam hair, coral skin, what dream,
My salt eyes, blinded, open, wanting more,
Conspiring with rays of summer she shone
So bright, this daughter of the sun, we stood
I and my castaway crew, to that siren prone
As she led us to her mansion in the woods.
Her potions tamed the forest wolf and lion,
Spellbinding warrior poets to liven feasts.
Why then must she turn ***** men to swine,
By what she most desired contented least?
Desert falcon, my moly held Pharaohs' breeze
And what nil escape above the wine dark seas.
.
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 8:39 PM UTC
I’m doing so well.
I offered you to Charybdis in exchange for my sanity.
Scylla too, at first, but she seemed too great an evil and I’m over it, I promise.
I’d rather watch you disappear into the maelstrom of my memory than
have to pick six pieces of your body from the crags in my head.
I’m doing so well.
I warned you of the Lotus Eaters
and took ten deep breaths when you peeked inside the bag of winds and blew our love astray.
I told a blind Polyphemus you were sorry for his loss.
He said Nobody is sorry, and I knew that he was right.
I’m doing so well.
I amble through Phoenicia on sidewalks that remember all the stories you told.
I bump into Nausikaa. She asks if I am Circe, and I tell her my name.
She drops her gaze to the pavement before admitting that you never mentioned me.
I’m doing so well.
I don’t spite the olives that dare to grow without our bodies entwined beneath them.
And I don’t mind when Antinous calls me ahead, begging me to finish our shroud - to leave the loom,
and us, behind.
I’m doing so well.
I buried all my anger in Kalypso’s wet sand
And as it followed you out to sea with the tide she came up and commiserated;
You left her once, too.
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 6:37 PM UTC
Your face,
Tender, round and dimpled,
Framed with gilded, carved, tawny curled
Whirlpools of hair, long, lighted, and sparkling,
Your face is the face—
Of Ireland.
Your lips,
Full, moist and deathly deep,
Are wells, not well for me, not safe, taboo,
Tantric, tall told tales of brave Odysseus
Under Circe's alchemies
Of forgetfulness.
Your *****
The zenith of blossom in fabled
Elysium, gateway to the forbidden gardens
Of sage and sinners, warrior-poets, Aphrodite's
Envy, Poseidon's drowning
And smoldering Zeus.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 10:56 AM UTC
Tired, I awoke upon a lonely island beach
And gazed on a Goddess above the shore,
With sea foam hair, coral skin, what dream,
My salt eyes, blinded, open, wanting more,
Conspiring with rays of summer she shone
So bright, this daughter of the sun, we stood
I and my castaway crew, to that siren prone
As she led us to her mansion in the woods.
Her potions tamed the forest wolf and lion,
Spellbinding warrior poets to liven feasts.
Why then must she turn ***** men to swine,
By what she most desired contented least?
Desert falcon, my moly held Pharaohs' breeze
And what nil escape above the wine dark seas.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC
He
Fill your bowl with roses: the bowl, too, have of crystal.
Sit at the western window. Take the sun
Between your hands like a ball of flaming crystal,
Poise it to let it fall, but hold it still,
And meditate on the beauty of your existence;
The beauty of this, that you exist at all.
She
The sun goes down,--but without lamentation.
I close my eyes, and the stream of my sensation
In this, at least, grows clear to me:
Beauty is a word that has no meaning.
Beauty is naught to me.
He
The last blurred raindrops fall from the half-clear sky,
Eddying lightly, rose-tinged, in the windless wake of the sun.
The swallow ascending against cold waves of cloud
Seems winging upward over huge bleak stairs of stone.
The raindrop finds its way to the heart of the leaf-bud.
But no word finds its way to the heart of you.
She
This also is clear in the stream of my sensation:
That I am content, for the moment, Let me be.
How light the new grass looks with the rain-dust on it!
But heart is a word that has no meaning,
Heart means nothing to me.
He
To the end of the world I pass and back again
In flights of the mind; yet always find you here,
Remote, pale, unattached . . . O Circe-too-clear-eyed,
Watching amused your fawning tiger-thoughts,
Your wolves, your grotesque apes--relent, relent!
Be less wary for once: it is the evening.
She
But if I close my eyes what howlings greet me!
Do not persuade. Be tranquil. Here is flesh
With all its demons. Take it, sate yourself.
But leave my thoughts to me.
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