Tea Talk (or Taking Tea)


Jam comes first
And then the cream
Said the scone from Cornwall
To one ‘n’ all
Taking tea

Milk jug blinked.
The teaspoon gasped,
Who would have linked
The layers of bliss that sweetly kiss
With their order between the halves of a scone
From Cornwall
Where one ‘n’ all
Know that the milk is churned
Until it’s solid
Then we say the cream is clotted.

The teapot looked at the scone from Devon
Who knows that cream and jam is heaven
But only if the cream comes first
And then the jam . . . . .
My thoughts exactly said the ham
From between its sandwich fingers
Where it lingers
Until it’s time for tea.

‘Are you sure?’ the teacup said
To ham within its breaden bed.
Saucer asked the cucumber salad,
‘Should jam come first?’
‘But does it matter?’ said cucumber salad.
‘It’s a ballad
So red and white,
A symphony of taste
Into which to bite.
It is so right
For those who are taking tea,’

‘Jam then cream, is what you do,’
Insisted Cornwall’s scone who
As we know likes cream to be clotted.
But tomato blushed and quickly said,
‘With cream from Devon I am besotted
Because we know it’s clotted. . . . .
Too.

Onion, hearing Cornwall and Devon
Knows that cream and jam are heaven . . . . .
But jam and cream are bliss
Sealed with a kiss that is heaven . . . . .too.
The dilemma of order fuels onion’s frustration
And onion’s tears lead to prostration
For those who are taking tea.

What is to be done
To solve the question of order
Jam first . . . . . or cream?
The issue borders
On the ridiculous
As the layers sweetly intermingle
Like the lovers’ kiss
As those who are taking tea
Bite . . . . .
Ouch! said onion
The scone from Cornwall
And the scone from Devon
‘Either way is heaven.

David Applin

Copyright …David Applin (2015)

NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

Steven my boy,

We coasted into a medieval pub in the middle of nowhere in wildest Devon to encounter the place in uproarious bedlam. A dozen country madams had been imbibing in the pre wedding wine and were in great form roaring with laughter and bursting out of their lacy cotton frocks. Bunting adorned the pub, Union Jack was aflutter everywhere and a full size cut out of HM the Queen welcomed visitors into the front door. Cucumber sandwiches and a heady fruit punch were available to all and sundry and the din was absolutely riotous……THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS UNDERWAY ON THE GIANT TV ON THE BAR WALL….and we were joining in the mood of things by sinking a bevy of Bushmills Irish whiskies neat!

Now…. this is a major event in the UK.

Everybody loves Prince Harry, he is the terrible tearaway of the Royal family, he has been caught ******* sheila’s in all sorts of weird circumstance. Now the dear boy is to be married to a beauty from the USA….besotted he is with her, fair dripping with love and adoration…..and the whole country loves little Megan Markle for making him so.

The British are famous for their pageantry and pomp….everything is timed to the second and must be absolutely….just so. Well….Nobody told the most Reverend Michael Curry this…. and he launched into the most wonderful full spirited Halleluiah sermon about the joyous “Wonder of Love”. He went on and on for a full 14 minutes, and as he proceeded on, the British stiff upper lips became more and more rigidly uncomfortable with this radical departure from protocol. Her Majesty the Queen stood aghast and locked her beady blue eyes in a riveting, steely glare, directed furiously at the good Reverend….to no avail, on he went with his magic sermon to a beautiful rousing ******….and an absolute stony silence in the cavernous interior of that vaulting, magnificent cathedral. Prince Harry and his lovely bride, (whose wedding the day was all about), were delighted with Curry’s performance….as was Prince William, heir to the Throne, who wore a fascinating **** eating grin all over his face for the entire performance.

Says a lot, my friend, about the refreshing values of tomorrows Royalty.

We rolled out of that country pub three parts cut to the wind, dunno how we made it to our next destination, but we had one hellava good time at that Royal Wedding!

The weft and the weave of our appreciation fluctuated wildly with each day of travel through this magnificent and ancient land, Great Britain.

There was soft brilliant summer air which hovered over the undulating green patchwork of the Cotswolds whilst we dined on delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, from an elevated position in a medieval country inn..... So magnificent as to make you want to weep with the beauty of it all….and the quaint thatched farmhouse with the second story multi paned windows, which I understood, had been there, in that spot, since the twelfth century. Our accommodation, sleeping beneath oaken beams within thick stone walls, once a pen for swine, now a domiciled overnight bed and pillow of luxury with white cotton sheets for weary Kiwi travellers.

The sadness of the Cornish west coast, which bore testimony to tragedy for the hard working tin miners of the 1800s. A sharp decrease in the international tin price in 1911 destituted whole populations who walked away from their life’s work and fled to the New World in search of the promise of a future. Forlorn brick ruins adorned stark rocky outcrops right along the coastline and inland for miles. Lonely brick chimneys silhouetted against sharp vertical cliffs and the ever crashing crescendo of the pounding waves of the cold Atlantic ocean.

No parking in Padstow….absolutely NIL! You parked your car miles away in the designated carpark at an overnight cost….and with your bags in tow, you walked to your digs. Now known as Padstein, this beautiful place is now populated with eight Rick Stein restaurants and shops dotted here and there.

We had a huge feed of piping hot fish and chips together with handles of cold ale down at his harbour side fish and chip restaurant near the wharfs…place was packed with people, you had to queue at the door for a table, no reservations accepted….Just great!

Clovelly was different, almost precipitous. This ancient fishing village plummeted down impossibly steep cliffs….a very rough, winding cobbled stone walkway, which must have taken years to build by hand, the only way down to the huge rock breakwater which harboured the fishing boats Against the Atlantic storms. And in a quaint little cottagey place, perched on the edge of a cliff, we had yet another beautiful Devonshire tea in delicate, white China cups...with tasty hot scones, piles of strawberry jam and a huge *** of thick clotted cream…Yum! Too ****** steep to struggle back up the hill so we spent ten quid and rode all the way up the switch back beneath the olive canvass canopy of an old Land Rover…..money well spent!

Creaking floorboards and near vertical, winding staircases and massive rock walls seemed to be common characteristics of all the lovely old lodging houses we were accommodated in. Sarah, our lovely daughter in law, arranged an excellent itinerary for us to travel around the SW coast staying in the most picturesque of places which seeped with antiquity and character. We zooped around the narrow lanes, between the hedgerows in our sharp little VW golf hire car And, with Sarah at the helm, we never got lost or missed a beat…..Fantastic effort, thank you so much Sarah and Solomon on behalf of your grateful In laws, Janet and Marshal, who loved every single moment of it all!

Memories of a lifetime.

Wanted to tell the world about your excitement, Janet, on visiting Stoke on Trent.

This town is famous the world over for it’s pottery. The pottery industry has flourished here since the middle ages and this is evidenced by the antiquity of the kilns and huge brick chimneys littered around the ancient factories. Stoke on Trent is an industrial town and it’s narrow, winding streets and congested run down buildings bear testimony to past good times and bad.

We visited “Burleigh”.

Darling Janet has collected Burleigh pottery for as long as I have known her, that is almost 40 years. She loves Burleigh and uses it as a showcase for the décor of our home.

When Janet first walked into the ancient wooden portals of the Burleigh show room she floated around on a cloud of wonder, she made darting little runs to each new discovery, making ooh’s and aah’s, eyes shining brightly….. I trailed quietly some distance behind, being very aware that I must not in any way imperil this particular precious bubble.

We amassed a beautiful collection of plates, dishes, bowls and jugs for purchase and retired to the pottery’s canal side bistro,( to come back to earth), and enjoy a ploughman’s lunch and a *** of hot English breakfast tea.

We returned to Stoke on Trent later in the trip for another bash at Burleigh and some other beautiful pottery makers wares…..Our suit cases were well filled with fragile treasures for the trip home to NZ…..and darling Janet had realised one of her dearest life’s ambitions fulfilled.

One of the great things about Britain was the British people, we found them willing to go out of their way to be helpful to a fault…… and, with the exception of BMW people, we found them all to be great drivers. The little hedgerow, single lane, winding roads that connect all rural areas, would be a perpetual source of carnage were it not for the fact that British drivers are largely courteous and reserved in their driving.

We hired a spacious ,powerful Nissan in Dover and acquired a friend, an invaluable friend actually, her name was “Tripsy” at least that’s what we called her. Tripsy guided us around all the byways and highways of Britain, we couldn’t have done without her. I had a few heated discussions with her, I admit….much to Janet’s great hilarity…but Tripsy won out every time and I quickly learned to keep my big mouth shut.

By pure accident we ended up in Cumbria, up north of the Roman city of York….at a little place in the dales called “Middleton on Teesdale”….an absolutely beautiful place snuggled deep in the valleys beneath the huge, heather clad uplands. Here we scored the last available bed in town at a gem of a hotel called the “Brunswick”. Being a Bank Holiday weekend everything, everywhere was booked out. The Brunswick surpassed ordinary comfort…it was superlative, so much so that, in an itinerary pushed for time….we stayed TWO nights and took the opportunity to scout around the surrounding, beautiful countryside. In fact we skirted right out to the western coastline and as far north as the Scottish border. Middleton on Teesdale provided us with that late holiday siesta break that we so desperately needed at that time…an exhausting business on a couple of old Kiwis, this holiday stuff!

One of the great priorities on getting back to London was to shop at “Liberty”. Great joy was had selecting some ornate upholstering material from the huge range of superb cloth available in Liberty’s speciality range.

The whole organisation of Liberty’s huge store and the magnificent quality of goods offered was quite daunting. Janet & I spent quite some time in that magnificent place…..and Janet has a plan to select a stylish period chair when we get back to NZ and create a masterpiece by covering it with the ***** bought from Liberty.

In York, beautiful ancient, York. A garrison town for the Romans, walled and once defended against the marauding Picts and Scots…is now preserved as a delightful and functional, modern city whilst retaining the grandeur, majesty and presence of its magnificent past.

Whilst exploring in York, Janet and I found ourselves mixing with the multitude in the narrow medieval streets paved with ancient rock cobbles and lined with beautifully preserved Tudor structures resplendent in whitewash panel and weathered, black timber brace. With dusk falling, we were drawn to wild violins and the sound of stamping feet….an emanation from within the doors of an old, burgundy coloured pub…. “The Three Legged Mare”.

Fortified, with a glass of Bushmills in hand, we joined the multitude of stomping, singing people. Rousing to the percussion of the Irish drum, the wild violin and the deep resonance of the cello, guitars and accordion…..The beautiful sound of tenor voices harmonising to the magic of a lilting Irish lament.

We stayed there for an hour or two, enchanted by the spontaneity of it all, the sheer native talent of the expatriates celebrating their heritage and their culture in what was really, a beautiful evening of colour, music and Ireland.

Onward, across the moors, we revelled in the great outcrops of metamorphic rock, the expanses of flat heather covering the tops which would, in the chill of Autumn, become a spectacular swath of vivid mauve floral carpet. On these lonely tracts of narrow road, winding through the washes and the escarpments, the motorbike boys wheeled by us in screaming pursuit of each other, beautiful machines heeling over at impossible angles on the corners, seemingly suicidal yet careening on at breakneck pace, laughing the danger off with the utter abandon of the creed of the road warrior. Descending in to the rolling hills of the cultivated land, the latticework of, old as Methuselah, massive dry built stone fences patterning the contours in a checker board of ancient pastoral order. The glorious soft greens of early summer deciduous forest, the yellow fields of mustard flower moving in the breeze and above, the bluest of skies with contrails of ever present high flung jets winging to distant places.

Britain has a flavour. Antiquity is evidenced everywhere, there is a sense of old, restrained pride. A richness of spirit and a depth of character right throughout the populace. Britain has confidence in itself, its future, its continuity. The people are pleasant, resilient and thoroughly likeable. They laugh a lot and are very easy to admire.

With its culture, its wonderful history, its great Monarchy and its haunting, ever present beauty, everywhere you care to look….The Britain of today is, indeed, a class act.

We both loved it here Steven…and we will return.

M.

Hamilton, New Zealand

21 June 2018

evidence of my passing through
each room litters every surface
time worn skin points to decades
living contact with the elements
tongue and lips pronouncing
thousand thousand words each
requiring breath ****** in lungs
clotted breathlessness spent health
eyes worn out of looking so much
seen before and counting once more
the tiredness haunting my very essence

But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare
The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land,
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair
And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand;
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto its glassy breast
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea
There lies a long and level stretch of lawn;
The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun
Is not afraid, for never through the day
Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.

But often from the thorny labyrinth
And tangled branches of the circling wood
The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth
Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood
Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,
Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could steal the hoarded money from each flower
Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy
Its over-greedy love,—within an hour
A sailor boy, were he but rude enow
To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow,

Would almost leave the little meadow bare,
For it knows nothing of great pageantry,
Only a few narcissi here and there
Stand separate in sweet austerity,
Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,
And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad
Of such dear servitude, and where the land
Was ****** of all waters laid the lad
Upon the golden margent of the strand,
And like a lingering lover oft returned
To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,
Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost
Had withered up those lilies white and red
Which, while the boy would through the forest range,
Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.

And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied
The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand,
And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,
And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade
Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms
Crushing her ******* in amorous tyranny,
And longed to listen to those subtle charms
Insidious lovers weave when they would win
Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

To yield her treasure unto one so fair,
And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth,
Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,
And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth
Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid
Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, ‘He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line
Already a huge Triton blows his horn,
And weaves a garland from the crystalline
And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn
The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,
For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crowned head,

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,
And a blue wave will be our canopy,
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl
In all their amethystine panoply
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold
Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.

And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.’

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun
With gaudy pennon flying passed away
Into his brazen House, and one by one
The little yellow stars began to stray
Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed
She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still
With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir
Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher
Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen
The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen.

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,
And every morn a young and ruddy swain
Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain
By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;
But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

With little crimson feet, which with its store
Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore
At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had
Flown off in search of berried juniper
Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency
So constant as this simple shepherd-boy
For my poor lips, his joyous purity
And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy
A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;
For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;

His argent forehead, like a rising moon
Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon
Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse
For Cytheraea, the first silky down
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and
brown;

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not; it was for thee
I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come
To rid me of this pallid chastity,
Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam
Of all the wide AEgean, brightest star
Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring
Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst
To myriad multitudinous blossoming
Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons
That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous
tunes

Startled the squirrel from its granary,
And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,
Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein
Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,
And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood.

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,
And on my topmost branch the blackbird made
A little nest of grasses for his spouse,
And now and then a twittering wren would light
On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.

I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
The timorous girl, till tired out with play
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful
snare.

Then come away unto my ambuscade
Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy
For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify
The dearest rites of love; there in the cool
And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool,

The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,
For round its rim great creamy lilies float
Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,
Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat
Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid
To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made

For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen,
One arm around her boyish paramour,
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen
The moon strip off her misty vestiture
For young Endymion’s eyes; be not afraid,
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,
Back to the boisterous billow let us go,
And walk all day beneath the hyaline
Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico,
And watch the purple monsters of the deep
Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.

For if my mistress find me lying here
She will not ruth or gentle pity show,
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere
Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,
And draw the feathered notch against her breast,
And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest

I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect!  O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air
Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare
Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,
And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the glade.

And where the little flowers of her breast
Just brake into their milky blossoming,
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,
Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,
And ploughed a ****** furrow with its dart,
And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death her heart.

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry
On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid,
Sobbing for incomplete virginity,
And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,
And all the pain of things unsatisfied,
And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing
side.

Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,
And very pitiful to see her die
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known
The joy of passion, that dread mystery
Which not to know is not to live at all,
And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall.

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,
Who with Adonis all night long had lain
Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady,
On team of silver doves and gilded wain
Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar
From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair,
And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry,
Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air
As though it were a viol, hastily
She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,
And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous
doom.

For as a gardener turning back his head
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows
With careless scythe too near some flower bed,
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,
And with the flower’s loosened loneliness
Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness

Driving his little flock along the mead
Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide
Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,
Treads down their brimming golden chalices
Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages;

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book
Flings himself down upon the reedy grass
And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,
And for a time forgets the hour glass,
Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,
And lets the hot sun **** them, even go these lovers lay.

And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis
Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,
Or else that mightier maid whose care it is
To guard her strong and stainless majesty
Upon the hill Athenian,—alas!
That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should
pass.’

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl
In the great golden waggon tenderly
(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl
Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The bright car soared into the dawning sky,
And like a cloud the aerial caravan
Passed over the AEgean silently,
Till the faint air was troubled with the song
From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips
Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips
And passed into the void, and Venus knew
That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest
With all the wonder of this history,
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest
Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky
On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere
The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

Mince Pies and Clotted Cream go together like a dream.
Like  Jelly and Ice Cream
Like Green and Red are Christmas colours
Like Crackers go off with a bang
Like Christmas lights all shiny and bright
Like Carols sung at midnight
Like children waiting excitedly to see whether they've been good or bad
Like every special Christmas you have ever had
Like Christmas Pudding with pennies inside
Like a shiny new bike taken for its first ride
Like train sets set up for hours of play
Like joy and excitement on Christmas Day.

It was the hour of dawn,
When the heart beats thin and small,
The window glimmered grey,
Framed in a shadow wall.

And in the cold sad light
Of the early morningtide,
The dear dead girl came back
And stood by his beside.

The girl he lost came back:
He saw her flowing hair;
It flickered and it waved
Like a breath in frosty air.

As in a steamy glass,
Her face was dim and blurred;
Her voice was sweet and thin,
Like the calling of a bird.

'You said that you would come,
You promised not to stay;
And I have waited here,
To help you on the way.

'I have waited on,
But still you bide below;
You said that you would come,
And oh, I want you so!

'For half my soul is here,
And half my soul is there,
When you are on the earth
And I am in the air.

'But on your dressing-stand
There lies a triple key;
Unlock the little gate
Which fences you from me.

'Just one little pang,
Just one throb of pain,
And then your weary head
Between my ******* again.'

In the dim unhomely light
Of the early morningtide,
He took the triple key
And he laid it by his side.

A pistol, silver chased,
An open hunting knife,
A phial of the drug
Which cures the ill of life.

He looked upon the three,
And sharply drew his breath:
'Now help me, oh my love,
For I fear this cold grey death.'

She bent her face above,
She kissed him and she smiled;
She soothed him as a mother
May sooth a frightened child.

'Just that little pang, love,
Just a throb of pain,
And then your weary head
Between my ******* again.'

He snatched the pistol up,
He pressed it to his ear;
But a sudden sound broke in,
And his skin was raw with fear.

He took the hunting knife,
He tried to raise the blade;
It glimmered cold and white,
And he was sore afraid.

He poured the potion out,
But it was thick and brown;
His throat was sealed against it,
And he could not drain it down.

He looked to her for help,
And when he looked -- behold!
His love was there before him
As in the days of old.

He saw the drooping head,
He saw the gentle eyes;
He saw the same shy grace of hers
He had been wont to prize.

She pointed and she smiled,
And lo! he was aware
Of a half-lit bedroom chamber
And a silent figure there.

A silent figure lying
A-sprawl upon a bed,
With a silver-mounted pistol
Still clotted to his head.

And as he downward gazed,
Her voice came full and clear,
The homely tender voice
Which he had loved to hear:

'The key is very certain,
The door is sealed to none.
You did it, oh, my darling!
And you never knew it done.

'When the net was broken,
You thought you felt its mesh;
You carried to the spirit
The troubles of the flesh.

'And are you trembling still, dear?
Then let me take your hand;
And I will lead you outward
To a sweet and restful land.

'You know how once in London
I put my griefs on you;
But I can carry yours now--
Most sweet it is to do!

'Most sweet it is to do, love,
And very sweet to plan
How I, the helpless woman,
Can help the helpful man.

'But let me see you smiling
With the smile I know so well;
Forget the world of shadows,
And the empty broken shell.

'It is the worn-out garment
In which you tore a rent;
You tossed it down, and carelessly
Upon your way you went.

'It is not you, my sweetheart,
For you are here with me.
That frame was but the promise of
The thing that was to be--

'A tuning of the choir
Ere the harmonies begin;
And yet it is the image
Of the subtle thing within.

'There's not a trick of body,
There's not a trait of mind,
But you bring it over with you,
Ethereal, refined,

'But still the same; for surely
If we alter as we die,
You would be you no longer,
And I would not be I.

'I might be an angel,
But not the girl you knew;
You might be immaculate,
But that would not be you.

'And now I see you smiling,
So, darling, take my hand;
And I will lead you outward
To a sweet and pleasant land,

'Where thought is clear and nimble,
Where life is pure and fresh,
Where the soul comes back rejoicing
From the mud-bath of the flesh

'But still that soul is human,
With human ways, and so
I love my love in spirit,
As I loved him long ago.'

So with hands together
And fingers twining tight,
The two dead lovers drifted
In the golden morning light.

But a grey-haired man was lying
Beneath them on a bed,
With a silver-mounted pistol
Still clotted to his head.

Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the
Achaeans when they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his
own ship. But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to
his brave comrades saying, “Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own
trusted friends, not yet, forsooth, let us unyoke, but with horse
and chariot draw near to the body and mourn Patroclus, in due honour
to the dead. When we have had full comfort of lamentation we will
unyoke our horses and take supper all of us here.”
  On this they all joined in a cry of wailing and Achilles led them in
their lament. Thrice did they drive their chariots all sorrowing round
the body, and Thetis stirred within them a still deeper yearning.
The sands of the seashore and the men’s armour were wet with their
weeping, so great a minister of fear was he whom they had lost.
Chief in all their mourning was the son of Peleus: he laid his
bloodstained hand on the breast of his friend. “Fare well,” he
cried, “Patroclus, even in the house of Hades. I will now do all
that I erewhile promised you; I will drag Hector hither and let dogs
devour him raw; twelve noble sons of Trojans will I also slay before
your pyre to avenge you.”
  As he spoke he treated the body of noble Hector with contumely,
laying it at full length in the dust beside the bier of Patroclus. The
others then put off every man his armour, took the horses from their
chariots, and seated themselves in great multitude by the ship of
the fleet descendant of Aeacus, who thereon feasted them with an
abundant funeral banquet. Many a goodly ox, with many a sheep and
bleating goat did they butcher and cut up; many a tusked boar
moreover, fat and well-fed, did they singe and set to roast in the
flames of Vulcan; and rivulets of blood flowed all round the place
where the body was lying.
  Then the princes of the Achaeans took the son of Peleus to
Agamemnon, but hardly could they persuade him to come with them, so
wroth was he for the death of his comrade. As soon as they reached
Agamemnon’s tent they told the serving-men to set a large tripod
over the fire in case they might persuade the son of Peleus ‘to wash
the clotted gore from this body, but he denied them sternly, and swore
it with a solemn oath, saying, “Nay, by King Jove, first and mightiest
of all gods, it is not meet that water should touch my body, till I
have laid Patroclus on the flames, have built him a barrow, and shaved
my head—for so long as I live no such second sorrow shall ever draw
nigh me. Now, therefore, let us do all that this sad festival demands,
but at break of day, King Agamemnon, bid your men bring wood, and
provide all else that the dead may duly take into the realm of
darkness; the fire shall thus burn him out of our sight the sooner,
and the people shall turn again to their own labours.”
  Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. They made haste
to prepare the meal, they ate, and every man had his full share so
that all were satisfied. As soon as they had had had enough to eat and
drink, the others went to their rest each in his own tent, but the son
of Peleus lay grieving among his Myrmidons by the shore of the
sounding sea, in an open place where the waves came surging in one
after another. Here a very deep slumber took hold upon him and eased
the burden of his sorrows, for his limbs were weary with chasing
Hector round windy Ilius. Presently the sad spirit of Patroclus drew
near him, like what he had been in stature, voice, and the light of
his beaming eyes, clad, too, as he had been clad in life. The spirit
hovered over his head and said-
  “You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; you loved me living,
but now that I am dead you think for me no further. Bury me with all
speed that I may pass the gates of Hades; the ghosts, vain shadows
of men that can labour no more, drive me away from them; they will not
yet suffer me to join those that are beyond the river, and I wander
all desolate by the wide gates of the house of Hades. Give me now your
hand I pray you, for when you have once given me my dues of fire,
never shall I again come forth out of the house of Hades. Nevermore
shall we sit apart and take sweet counsel among the living; the
cruel fate which was my birth-right has yawned its wide jaws around
me—nay, you too Achilles, peer of gods, are doomed to die beneath the
wall of the noble Trojans.
  “One prayer more will I make you, if you will grant it; let not my
bones be laid apart from yours, Achilles, but with them; even as we
were brought up together in your own home, what time Menoetius brought
me to you as a child from Opoeis because by a sad spite I had killed
the son of Amphidamas—not of set purpose, but in childish quarrel
over the dice. The knight Peleus took me into his house, entreated
me kindly, and named me to be your squire; therefore let our bones lie
in but a single urn, the two-handled golden vase given to you by
your mother.”
  And Achilles answered, “Why, true heart, are you come hither to
lay these charges upon me? will of my own self do all as you have
bidden me. Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around
one another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows.”
  He opened his arms towards him as he spoke and would have clasped
him in them, but there was nothing, and the spirit vanished as a
vapour, gibbering and whining into the earth. Achilles sprang to his
feet, smote his two hands, and made lamentation saying, “Of a truth
even in the house of Hades there are ghosts and phantoms that have
no life in them; all night long the sad spirit of Patroclus has
hovered over head making piteous moan, telling me what I am to do
for him, and looking wondrously like himself.”
  Thus did he speak and his words set them all weeping and mourning
about the poor dumb dead, till rosy-fingered morn appeared. Then
King Agamemnon sent men and mules from all parts of the camp, to bring
wood, and Meriones, squire to Idomeneus, was in charge over them. They
went out with woodmen’s axes and strong ropes in their hands, and
before them went the mules. Up hill and down dale did they go, by
straight ways and crooked, and when they reached the heights of
many-fountained Ida, they laid their axes to the roots of many a
tall branching oak that came thundering down as they felled it. They
split the trees and bound them behind the mules, which then wended
their way as they best could through the thick brushwood on to the
plain. All who had been cutting wood bore logs, for so Meriones squire
to Idomeneus had bidden them, and they threw them down in a line
upon the seashore at the place where Achilles would make a mighty
monument for Patroclus and for himself.
  When they had thrown down their great logs of wood over the whole
ground, they stayed all of them where they were, but Achilles
ordered his brave Myrmidons to gird on their armour, and to yoke
each man his horses; they therefore rose, girded on their armour and
mounted each his chariot—they and their charioteers with them. The
chariots went before, and they that were on foot followed as a cloud
in their tens of thousands after. In the midst of them his comrades
bore Patroclus and covered him with the locks of their hair which they
cut off and threw upon his body. Last came Achilles with his head
bowed for sorrow, so noble a comrade was he taking to the house of
Hades.
  When they came to the place of which Achilles had told them they
laid the body down and built up the wood. Achilles then bethought
him of another matter. He went a space away from the pyre, and cut off
the yellow lock which he had let grow for the river Spercheius. He
looked all sorrowfully out upon the dark sea, and said, “Spercheius,
in vain did my father Peleus vow to you that when I returned home to
my loved native land I should cut off this lock and offer you a holy
hecatomb; fifty she-goats was I to sacrifice to you there at your
springs, where is your grove and your altar fragrant with
burnt-offerings. Thus did my father vow, but you have not fulfilled
his prayer; now, therefore, that I shall see my home no more, I give
this lock as a keepsake to the hero Patroclus.”
  As he spoke he placed the lock in the hands of his dear comrade, and
all who stood by were filled with yearning and lamentation. The sun
would have gone down upon their mourning had not Achilles presently
said to Agamemnon, “Son of Atreus, for it is to you that the people
will give ear, there is a time to mourn and a time to cease from
mourning; bid the people now leave the pyre and set about getting
their dinners: we, to whom the dead is dearest, will see to what is
wanted here, and let the other princes also stay by me.”
  When King Agamemnon heard this he dismissed the people to their
ships, but those who were about the dead heaped up wood and built a
pyre a hundred feet this way and that; then they laid the dead all
sorrowfully upon the top of it. They flayed and dressed many fat sheep
and oxen before the pyre, and Achilles took fat from all of them and
wrapped the body therein from head to foot, heaping the flayed
carcases all round it. Against the bier he leaned two-handled jars
of honey and unguents; four proud horses did he then cast upon the
pyre, groaning the while he did so. The dead hero had had
house-dogs; two of them did Achilles slay and threw upon the pyre;
he also put twelve brave sons of noble Trojans to the sword and laid
them with the rest, for he was full of bitterness and fury. Then he
committed all to the resistless and devouring might of the fire; he
groaned aloud and callid on his dead comrade by name. “Fare well,”
he cried, “Patroclus, even in the house of Hades; I am now doing all
that I have promised you. Twelve brave sons of noble Trojans shall the
flames consume along with yourself, but dogs, not fire, shall devour
the flesh of Hector son of Priam.”
  Thus did he vaunt, but the dogs came not about the body of Hector,
for Jove’s daughter Venus kept them off him night and day, and
anointed him with ambrosial oil of roses that his flesh might not be
torn when Achilles was dragging him about. Phoebus Apollo moreover
sent a dark cloud from heaven to earth, which gave shade to the
whole place where Hector lay, that the heat of the sun might not parch
his body.
  Now the pyre about dead Patroclus would not kindle. Achilles
therefore bethought him of another matter; he went apart and prayed to
the two winds Boreas and Zephyrus vowing them goodly offerings. He
made them many drink-offerings from the golden cup and besought them
to come and help him that the wood might make haste to kindle and
the dead bodies be consumed. Fleet Iris heard him praying and
started off to fetch the winds. They were holding high feast in the
house of boisterous Zephyrus when Iris came running up to the stone
threshold of the house and stood there, but as soon as they set eyes
on her they all came towards her and each of them called her to him,
but Iris would not sit down. “I cannot stay,” she said, “I must go
back to the streams of Oceanus and the land of the Ethiopians who
are offering hecatombs to the immortals, and I would have my share;
but Achilles prays that Boreas and shrill Zephyrus will come to him,
and he vows them goodly offerings; he would have you blow upon the
pyre of Patroclus for whom all the Achaeans are lamenting.”
  With this she left them, and the two winds rose with a cry that rent
the air and swept the clouds before them. They blew on and on until
they came to the sea, and the waves rose high beneath them, but when
they reached Troy they fell upon the pyre till the mighty flames
roared under the blast that they blew. All night long did they blow
hard and beat upon the fire, and all night long did Achilles grasp his
double cup, drawing wine from a mixing-bowl of gold, and calling
upon the spirit of dead Patroclus as he poured it upon the ground
until the earth was drenched. As a father mourns when he is burning
the bones of his bridegroom son whose death has wrung the hearts of
his parents, even so did Achilles mourn while burning the body of
his comrade, pacing round the bier with piteous groaning and
lamentation.
  At length as the Morning Star was beginning to herald the light
which saffron-mantled Dawn was soon to suffuse over the sea, the
flames fell and the fire began to die. The winds then went home beyond
the Thracian sea, which roared and boiled as they swept over it. The
son of Peleus now turned away from the pyre and lay down, overcome
with toil, till he fell into a sweet slumber. Presently they who
were about the son of Atreus drew near in a body, and roused him
with the noise and ***** of their coming. He sat upright and said,
“Son of Atreus, and all other princes of the Achaeans, first pour
red wine everywhere upon the fire and quench it; let us then gather
the bones of Patroclus son of Menoetius, singling them out with
care; they are easily found, for they lie in the middle of the pyre,
while all else, both men and horses, has been thrown in a heap and
burned at the outer edge. We will lay the bones in a golden urn, in
two layers of fat, against the time when I shall myself go down into
the house of Hades. As for the barrow, labour not to raise a great one
now, but such as is reasonable. Afterwards, let those Achaeans who may
be left at the ships when I am gone, build it both broad and high.”
  Thus he spoke and they obeyed the word of the son of Peleus. First
they poured red wine upon the thick layer of ashes and quenched the
fire. With many tears they singled out the whitened bones of their
loved comrade and laid them within a golden urn in two layers of
fat: they then covered the urn with a linen cloth and took it inside
the tent. They marked off the circle where the barrow should be,
made a foundation for it about the pyre, and forthwith heaped up the
earth. When they had thus raised a mound they were going away, but
Achilles stayed the people and made them sit in assembly. He brought
prizes from the ships-cauldrons, tripods, horses and mules, noble
oxen, women with fair girdles, and swart iron.
  The first prize he offered was for the chariot races—a woman
skilled in all useful arts, and a three-legged cauldron that had
ears for handles, and would hold twenty-two measures. This was for the
man who came in first. For the second there was a six-year old mare,
unbroken, and in foal to a he-***; the third was to have a goodly
cauldron that had never yet been on the fire; it was still bright as
when it left the maker, and would hold four measures. The fourth prize
was two talents of gold, and the fifth a two-handled urn as yet
unsoiled by smoke. Then he stood up and spoke among the Argives
saying-
  “Son of Atreus, and all other Achaeans, these are the prizes that
lie waiting the winners of the chariot races. At any other time I
should carry off the first prize and take it to my own tent; you
know how far my steeds excel all others—for they are immortal;
Neptune gave them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to
myself; but I shall hold aloof, I and my steeds that have lost their
brave and kind driver, who many a time has washed them in clear
water and anointed their manes with oil. See how they stand weeping
here, with their manes trailing on the ground in the extremity of
their sorrow. But do you others set yourselves in order throughout the
host, whosoever has confidence in his horses and in the strength of
his chariot.”
  Thus spoke the son of Peleus and the drivers of chariots bestirred
themselves. First among them all uprose Eumelus, king of men, son of
Admetus, a man excellent in horsemanship. Next to him rose mighty
Diomed son of Tydeus; he yoked the Trojan horses which he had taken
from Aeneas, when Apollo bore him out of the fight. Next to him,
yellow-haired Menelaus son of Atreus rose and yoked his fleet
horses, Agamemnon’s mare Aethe, and his own horse Podargus. The mare
had been given to Agamemnon by echepolus son of Anchises, that he
might not have to follow him to Ilius, but might stay at home and take
his ease; for Jove had endowed him with great wealth and he lived in
spacious

Love Sonnet XVII
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I do not love you like coral or topaz,
or the blazing hearth’s incandescent white flame:
I love you like phantoms embraced in the dark,
secretly, in shadows, unrevealed and unnamed.

I love you like shrubs that refuse to bloom
while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers;
now thanks to your love an earthy fragrance
lives dimly in my body’s odors.

I love you without knowing how, when, why or where;
I love you forthrightly, without complications or care:
I love you this way because I know no other.

Here, where “I” no longer exists, nor “you” ...
so close that your hand on my chest is my own,
so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams.

Keywords/Tags: Neruda, translation, Spanish, love, sonnet, rose, topaz, coral, dark, shadow, obscure, secret, fragrance, hand, chest, eyes, close, dreams



More Pablo Neruda translations ...

You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring.
―Pablo Neruda, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

While nothing can save us from death,
still love can redeem each breath.
―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As if you were set on fire from within,
the moon whitens your skin.
—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Please understand that when I awaken weeping
it's because I dreamed I was a lost child
searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness.
―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m no longer in love with her, that's certain ...
yet perhaps I love her still.
Love is so short, forgetting so long!
—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I alone own my darkness.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I own my own darkness, alone.—Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates between ice and fire.

I love you only because you’re the one I love;
I hate you deeply, but hatred
Bends me all the more toward you, so that the measure of my variableness
Is that I do not see you, but love you blindly.

Perhaps January’s frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays,
robbing me of any hope of peace.

In this tragic plot, I am the one who dies,
Love’s only victim,
And I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, my Love, in fire and blood.



Every Day You Play
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Every day you play with Infinity’s rays.
Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water.
You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly
like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ...



Love Sonnet XI
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
I stalk the streets, silent and starving.
Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me
from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor.

I long for your liquid laughter,
for your sunburned hands like savage harvests.
I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles.
I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole.

I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty,
to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face,
to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade.

I pursue you, snuffing the shadows,
seeking your heart's scorching heat
like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue.



The Book of Questions
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Is the rose ****
or is that just how she dresses?

Why do trees conceal
their spectacular roots?

Who hears the confession
of the getaway car?

Is there anything sadder
than a train standing motionless in the rain?



In El Salvador, Death
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death still surveils El Salvador.
The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted;
time cannot congeal it,
nor does the rain erase it from the roads.
Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead
by Martinez, the murderer.
To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors
the land, bread and wine of El Salvador.



If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I need you to know one thing ...
You know
how it goes:
if I gaze up at the glowing moon,
if observe the blazing autumn’s reddening branches from my window,
if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log’s wrinkled body ...
everything returns me to you,
as if everything that exists
―all aromas, sights, solids―
were small boats
sailing toward those isles of yours that await me.

However ...
if little by little you stop loving me
then I shall stop loving you, little by little.

And if you suddenly
forget me,
do not bother to investigate,
for I shall have immediately
forgotten you
also.

If you think my love strange and mad―
this whirlwind of streaming banners
gusting through me,
so that you elect to leave me at the shore
where my heart lacks roots,
just remember that, on that very day,
at that very hour,
I shall raise my arms
and my roots will sail off
to find some more favorable land.

But
if each day
and every hour,
you feel destined to be with me,
if you greet me with implacable sweetness,
and if each day
and every hour
flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ...
then ah my love,
oh my only, my own,
all that fire will be reinfernoed in me
and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten;
my love will feed on your love, my beloved,
and as long as you live it will be me in your arms ...
as long as you never leave mine.



Sonnet XLV
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because―
how can I explain? A day is too long ...
and I’ll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station
where the trains all stand motionless.

Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because―
then despair’s raindrops will all run blurrily together,
and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home
will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart.

Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf;
may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance.
Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because then you'll have gone far too far
and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth:
Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying?



My Dog Died
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My dog died;
so I buried him in the backyard garden
next to some rusted machine.

One day I'll rejoin him, over there,
but for now he's gone
with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose,
while I, the atheist who never believed
in any heaven for human beings,
now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter.

Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel
where my dog awaits my arrival
wagging his tail in furious friendship!

But I'll not indulge in sadness here:
why bewail a companion
who was never servile?

His friendship was more like that of a porcupine
preserving its prickly autonomy.

His was the friendship of a distant star
with no more intimacy than true friendship called for
and no false demonstrations:
he never clambered over me
coating my clothes with mange;
he never assaulted my knee
like dogs obsessed with ***.

But he used to gaze up at me,
giving me the attention my ego demanded,
while helping this vainglorious man
understand my concerns were none of his.

Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd gaze up at me
contentedly;
it was a look he reserved for me alone
all his entire sweet, gentle life,
always merely there, never troubling me,
never demanding anything.

Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail
as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together,
in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward
as my golden-maned friend leapt about,
supercharged by the sea's electric surges,
sniffing away wildly, his tail held *****,
his face suffused with the salt spray.

Joy! Joy! Joy!
As only dogs experience joy
in the shameless exuberance
of their guiltless spirits.

Thus there are no sad good-byes
for my dog who died;
we never once lied to each other.

He died, he's gone, I buried him;
that's all there is to it.



Tonight I will write the saddest lines
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight I will write the saddest lines.
I will write, for example, “The night is less bright
and a few stars shiver in the distance
as I remember her unwarranted light ...”

Tonight I will write her the saddest lines:
that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes,
all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight
and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes ...

Then she loved me too, as I also loved her,
compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes.
Tonight I will write her the saddest lines
as I ponder love’s death and our mutual crimes.

Outside I hear night―silent, cold, dark, immense―
as these delicate words fall, useless as dew.
Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught
if love was false, or perhaps even true?

And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance.
How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her?
I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer.
But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear!

Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees.
We also are ghosts, by love’s failing light.
My love has failed me, but how I once loved her!
My voice ... this cursed wind ... what use to recite?

Another’s. She will soon be another’s.
Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her! And why should I love her
when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise?

Because of cold nights we clung through so closely,
I’m not satisfied to know she is gone.
And while I must end this hell I now suffer,
It’s sad to remember all love left undone.

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
   Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

The dayseye hugging the earth
in August, ha!  Spring is
gone down in purple,
weeds stand high in the corn,
the rainbeaten furrow
is clotted with sorrel
and crabgrass, the
branch is black under
the heavy mass of the leaves—
The sun is upon a
slender green stem
ribbed lengthwise.
He lies on his back—
it is a woman also—
he regards his former
majesty and
round the yellow center,
split and creviced and done into
minute flowerheads, he sends out
his twenty rays— a little
and the wind is among them
to grow cool there!

One turns the thing over
in his hand and looks
at it from the rear:  brownedged,
green and pointed scales
armor his yellow.

But turn and turn,
the crisp petals remain
brief, translucent, greenfastened,
barely touching at the edges:
blades of limpid seashell.

I was there from the time you were born. I stood in
the delivery room, staring down at you before you
could even open your eyes to see me. Your
parents, relatives and doctors couldn’t see me
there, in the corner, watching you with cloudy eyes,
but I was there from the time you were born.

And I followed you home.

I was with you always, your constant companion.
You played with your toys alone while I stared from
all angles in nearby mirrors; my matted, clotted
hair with oily sweat that hung off my dented
forehead like glue. I was always your constant
companion, drifting behind your mother’s car on
your ride to preschool. You alone in the bathroom,
but I was on the other side of the door, wind
whistling through the bruised hole in my throat. My
arms twisted and hanging in their sockets as I
stood hunched on the other side of the shower
curtain. I wait and follow you. I follow and drift
behind you.

I’m not seen. I’m almost not-there in light. You
never saw me that morning as I sat across from
you at the breakfast table, a shiny red clot hanging
from an empty tooth socket as I gaped grotesquely
at you. I wonder sometimes if you know I’m there. I
think you are aware, but you’ll never understand
just how close I am.

I spend hours of your day doing nothing more than
breathing in your ear.

Breathing – gagging, really.

I crave to be close to you, to always wrap my
crippled arms around your neck. I lie near you ever
single night, cloudy eyes staring at your ceiling,
underneath your bed, at your sleeping face in the
dark.

Yes. You caught me staring occasionally. Your
parents came running down to your room one
night when you screamed. You were just beginning
to talk, so you were only able to cry out “Man! Man
in my room!” You thought you’d never forget the
sight of me, with my collapsed jaw hanging to my
chest, swinging back and forth. I sank back into
your closet and your mother was unable to see me
though you pointed and pointed and pointed. You
thought you’d never forget when they left that
same night. You saw the closet door crack so
softly and me crawling across the floor to your bed
on all fours, shambling in jerking movements as I
pushed myself under your bed on disjointed limbs.

You learned a new word for me: boogeyman. Not
quite the monster you thought I was. I’m just
waiting and following you always, touching your
face with my knotted fingers as you sleep.

You’ll see me again soon. Any day now, I’m
coming, blunt and brutal. One day you’ll walk
across the road and – I believe I’ll plow into you
with loud roar and a screech.

You rolling on the pavement, rolling under wheels,
bluntforce metal fenders and my fingers touching
your face again and again.

As you stare up from the cold pavement with
cloudy eyes; your matted, clotted hair hanging in
your face and your jaw unhinged and swinging to
your chest.

You’ll see me approaching.

No one else will see me. You will stare past them
into my eyes and I’ll leer down at you. For the first
time in our life, something like a smile will come
over my face. You’ll swear you’re looking into a
mirror as clotted red bubbles from our mouths.

I’ll lean down, past the doctors and the oogling
people and pick you up in my crooked arms.

Our faces will touch. My wings will unfurl. And then
you’ll have to follow me.

And I am always with you.

I am your guardian angel.

when the moon  writhe and crawling the silent night..
it was time to layover yearning  who clotted for sweetheart..
when the sun excited to greet the morning ..
it was time to embed cheerfulness on the idol of conscience..
sprinkle knitted heart turmoil and dew drops each cavity of jasmine petals ..

i greet to you,  my dearest sister..
each twist will crease beautiful crowded heart longing ..
so that  relieved you feel full carefree breathing..
with the presence of me,
i will fulfill your every drought in the lake of your worries ..
i will treat every your petulant  in lap with more  excellent attention ...

return back to you  as always,  my dearest sister..
to pulling  the curtain  the recesses of the heart that always hiding ..
to wrapping blush smolder desire in your heart arms ..

because your bliss,  my dearest sister..
it's  most beautiful thing that can i enjoy ever ..*

-the poetry is dedicated to a sincere friend of mine, Ha-

┈┈┈┈┈»̶·̵̭̌✽✽·̵̭̌«̶ ƦУ »̶·̵̭̌✽✽·̵̭̌«̶┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

adinda

kala sang rembulan menggeliat merayapi malam sunyi..
tibalah waktu untuk menyinggahi gigilnya kerinduan sang kekasih sanubari..
kala sang mentari bersemangat menyambut pagi ..
tibalah waktu untuk menyematkan kecerian pada sang pujaan nurani..
menyemaikan untaian gejolak kalbu dan meneteskan embun disetiap rongga kelopak melati..

kusambut darimu, adinda...
setiap simpul lipatan hati yang sesak akan indahnya kerinduan..
agar terasa lega engkau bernafas penuh riang..
bersama hadirku,
kan kupenuhi setiap kekeringan ditelaga keresahanmu..
kan kumanjakan setiap rajukanmu dipangkuan perhatian nan syahdu...

berpulang selalu kepadamu, adinda..
untuk menyibakan tirai pada relung hati yang selalu bersembunyi..
untuk membalut rona kerinduanmu yang membara dalam dekapan hati ..

kerena bahagiamu, adinda...
adalah merupakan hal terindah yang dapat kunikmati..

He doesn't need Intra Ocular Lenses,
To dismember my defenses.
Without a Stethoscope,
He can hear my heart,
He won't have to take an MRI scan,
To know where to start.
He won't need to inject a syringe,
To romantically unhinge,
My every multiplying cell,
Into a palpitating craze.
He won't need a lubricating gel,
To ****** and amaze.
He won't require to operate
Nor investigate,
Me from head to toe,
To plainly know,
That I'm besotted,
my insides knotted,
My better sense clotted,
In deep rooted feeling,
Of immense love.

If “dying is an art,” you do not do it well.  I do not
have words, do not have thoughts; there is nothing inside
of me anymore.  I am vacant, hollow, and if this is what
time travel feels like I do not want any part of it.  Racing
past the stars, past the planets, past Andromeda's spiraling, galactic force,
I am light-years ahead and then light-years behind—I am
                two years                    too late.                  

You cannot know, you will not know, how
Auriga is waiting in the sky to whisk you
                                                                 away,                away,                            away.

Th­e bubbling of your oxygen sounds like the water fountains
you used to pass as a child, but there are no pennies at the bottom
of this.  And I wonder, with your eyes closed, if you feel like you
are swimming.  Barely treading water, fighting to keep your head above,
choking on salt and brine as you try to kick your feet, try to
swim to Lake Michigan’s shoreline.  I want
Poseidon to spit you out of sea like a cork, want
Neptune to come alive through the mosaics of your bathroom and
lead you away from the great, black, wave of stars that is
breaking and crashing and barely brushing your bare feet.

Some fish were meant to drown.  You are
not one of them.  Pisces is meant to swim                   forever.

This time machine has dropped me back into my nightmare again,
but it is not only mine, it’s yours.  I am trying to read
the constellations, trying to map the planets, trying to figure out
the moon cycles, but I fear that this is a language I had learned once
and tried to forget—we are now digging each others graves.  
The nurse in blue, the doctor in white, the sun in gold, and you,
red as dead and clotted blood, have merged into a new dialect
that does not mirror what I know the way the
Gemini twins mimic one another in the cosmos. (I think
                                 I have lost my ability to speak with angels
and this terrifies me.)

Is God whispering the secrets of the world into your ear yet?  Is Jesus
showing you how to be holy?  Are you tearing the bread for communion
and feeding it to the birds?  Are you taking shots from His heavenly blood,
getting drunk off the possibility of closing your eyes, leaning back, and
watching Perseus fight your battles for you?  
                                                        Do you want to be a constellation, too?

I am eighty miles away from you, but it feels more like
eighty light-years.  I am watching you through someone else’s eyes and
choking myself with my own hands as I try to show you
what you mean to me.  My hands are cracked and bleeding from
pounding them against the wall you constructed around yourself, but you
don’t have control over that wall anymore, do you?

You are too young to ride Pegasus in the night sky, too young to
build your own wings, too young to fall and drown like Icarus.  You
know how to swim.  You are learning how to fly.  There is no
reason for you to shake God’s hand yet.  Put the halo down—
                                                           ­                                                you are not ready.

“Good afternoon”
Light kisses on the cheek
Walk gracefully to your seat
Cross your legs at the ankles
                    Never the knees!

“May I have a cup of tea, please?”
A porcelain teapot pours
With grace, three quarters full
And, as not to cross the paths of love
                    Milk is always last

A silver spoon in glistening pride
An inverted reflection
Of your well-bred smile
Stir, ever so carefully, from 6 to 12
                       Never ***** the sides!


Take a sip, looking into, never over
The cup. Laugh, smile, and converse
Indulge in a skon (not scone)
With clotted cream and raspberry jam
                         Always parted in two

As you say your farewells, praise yourself
You have made Queen Catherine proud
With your lady-like poise and elegant charm
At afternoon tea

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

      Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,--
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more--but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up from out the ***** of the lake,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding the sword--and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king:
And, wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known:
But now delay not: take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle mere:
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word."

      To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."

      So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.

      There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,
This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd
There in the many-knotted water-flags,
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King.

      Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?"

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag."

      To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word."

      Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought;
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud,

      "And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,
Should thus be lost forever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good should follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake;
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost."

      So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.

      Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
"What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?"

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds."

      To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art,
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands."

      Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword,
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.
And lightly went the other to the King.

      Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?"

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;
But when I look'd again, behold an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere."

      And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:
"My end draws nigh; 't is time that I were gone.
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die."

      So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words,
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs.

      But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard,
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick!
I fear it is too late, and I shall die."
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd
Larger than human on the frozen hills.
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels--
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.

      Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold--and from them rose
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come, since the making of the world.

      Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge,"
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud
And dropping bitter tears against his brow
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wither'd moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls--
That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the dais-throne--were parch'd with dust;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter'd column lay the King;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

      Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

      And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest--if indeed I go--
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."

      So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

The groove, the rut, and the cut
were walking down the street.

As good friends do oft,
Cousin in name and in shape,
They strode sided, but said not a word.
Still understood that three
So different, nonetheless, one design.

The cut was old yet still bled
From time to time.
The groove and the rut, always in touch,
T'issued spear-carriers, armed and
Loving, dabbed and blotted the cut clotted.
For that is what the friends are 'the for,'
For the clotting, the knitting and the closing.

The bleeding came when it came,
They jested that they could never leave him,
For tho he bled regular, there was no schedule,
No knowing the when, but the why, that they
Understood. They would not have left him anyway
Exception of course now and then, but leave
Their man, their cuz, was not to be conceived.

The rut was long, thin, you had to look down
To see his full length, for he grew bottom-down,
Every day another ring, another inch, on the soles
Notched, they dared not, count them, so many days
Rutted in the tedium of a blood count of unable,
Incapable of being broken, his enemy, arch, was his friend.
Tedium his companion, his drug dealer,
When groove and cut were at work, failing to supervise.

Rut could only sigh. Sole solitary sound, except for the
Quiet ringing only he could hear, rings forming,
Day after day, and he could not count that high,
So instead each rut was given a name,
For blessed endless the world of words that say
I am a daily existence, nothing more, nothing but less.

The groove, hero to the cut and the rut,
Had his moments.
But he had secrets he did not share with them,
But as an outside-looker-in, I was privy to the
Privy of everything.

The groove was oval, wiry, snakey shaped,
But prone when prone to twisty turns when
Objects like objectives met, in counter ed.
But when groove was grooving,
There was full blown full mo, the world observed.

Strict silence for the poems that
Shook lose from his frame,
Bad his eyes, wept he,
Lines of ones and twosies,
Fat and wide his fame,
For when the groove was
Cooing and cooling,
Life infused him and sips of tea,
Each transformed into the heat of ooh and the ahh,
When the cup was empty, he had his finished 'aha,'
Of a new parting, gift giving in his heart.
For he she see saw the angle of simple, and thus could
Groove on grooving.

The rut and the cut were happy for him,
Watch with incredible incredulity and an itty bitty
Jealousy of which they never rudely spoke.
But they would board his poetry-train sled,
Down they rode, the white snow
Of being a a lookalike groovy kid,
Even if and but, for just a few minutes.

Everyone loved groovy, and watch his every movie,
Licked the whiskey wooden snowball words from his lips,
but would not admit they kept them hid,
So they could be reread when they were at home
In the closet with flashlight, and the weeping was easy.

The three cuz went to the carnival.
Fun house with mirrors that made you look like
Who You really were.

But not them, for "the for" was different,
For when they strode sided before those mirrors,
They could plainly see that the
Groove, the rut the cut
Looked exactly alike,
Exactly alike,
All looked
Like
me.

the Himalayas rise
there is snow on the peaks
I watch it from my bed
I gaze and gaze at it
in the morning
as a little village girl goes by
sniffling with cold
I too am cold
it is chilly here in Tosh in May
but a young Israeli boy
took off his shirt
and stood on the fencepost of the guesthouse dancing
down was the deep green valley
all of us watched in admiration
the next day I went down to the waterfall
which from here is a beautiful whisper in the air
there are donkeys and a path
and pretty houses on the other side of the valley
and everywhere there are people smoking hash and relaxing
in the cafes and the guesthouses
it is almost like a pilgrimage smokers keep coming
and sit around smoking talking
I pull down my woollen cap my arms and back
feel the chill despite a thick sweater
despite a blanket and a four inch thick quilt
I roll my joints and smoke them alone
sometimes smoke them with others
I look at the hills and the valleys and the wooden houses
I look at the white peaks glowing in the sun
and talk about CCR and stained glass art with Michael from Norfolk
who’s going down the valley to another village for a party tonight
with his young Spanish friend
I talk about Bombay with Puneet and Manya from Kanpur
who’ve come here on a Bullet
Hash Heaven Manya says reading my mind as the joint passes on
to the four engineering interns from Delhi
and all the time I sip on ginger lemon honey
for my sore throat until on the last day it disappears
unlike the young Israeli girl’s pink laptop in a pink cover
found by the part time caretaker in the garden on a pink chair
she left behind last night because it was too dark
come again the guesthouse boys say to me as I pay them
what a scene I think how cool as I begin to leave the village
down the dung-clotted stone steps nodding to the smokers coming in.

Around me architectural mastery:
sycamores, embankments, enduring ionic pillars.
I round a walkway bordered by trees,
enamel thawing, gliding off their low leaves.
Beneath the late-May’s pounding sun,
through the glittered trees’ reaches,
a gazebo crackles into sight.
Children in their prime, sunbathers, a wistful portraitist
encircle it carelessly:
a leisured chimney; the billows of life.
The foliage escapes into the river,
purplish, palpitating, cyclic creases
receive the dewy notes.
Kayaks licking acacia-gum-edged
ripples sputter and slip
through reverberations
of leveled white-water terraces.
Blackcurrants in clotted cream
slide on the plush lips of a young passerby.
The 8 above a doorway
dances motionless, silent in my periphery;
“Nicolas Cage just sold the spot”
pops from unknown lungs
inside the Circus crowd.

Unacknowledged, half-proud
hands built the Roman baths
alone, closed-in by such grace,
forgotten, then as now.
I wander these ancestral lanes
more or less alone, the same.

--To C. M.


Fountains that frisk and sprinkle
The moss they overspill;
Pools that the breezes crinkle;
The wheel beside the mill,
With its wet, weedy frill;
Wind-shadows in the wheat;
A water-cart in the street;
The fringe of foam that girds
An islet's ferneries;
A green sky's minor thirds--
To live, I think of these!

Of ice and glass the ******,
Pellucid, silver-shrill;
Peaches without a wrinkle;
Cherries and snow at will,
From china bowls that fill
The senses with a sweet
Incuriousness of heat;
A melon's dripping sherds;
Cream-clotted strawberries;
Dusk dairies set with curds--
To live, I think of these!

Vale-lily and periwinkle;
Wet stone-crop on the sill;
The look of leaves a-twinkle
With windlets clear and still;
The feel of a forest rill
That wimples fresh and fleet
About one's naked feet;
The muzzles of drinking herds;
Lush flags and bulrushes;
The chirp of rain-bound birds--
To live, I think of these!

Envoy

Dark aisles, new packs of cards,
Mermaidens' tails, cool swards,
Dawn dews and starlit seas,
White marbles, whiter words--
To live, I think of these!

At last these Plums took the Daughter in Kind
From Lord Raffles' Paradise she adored
A Marriage of Saints she thought to remind
Though behind her Door was Melancholy.
But who a Pony-Child in Fashion's New
Could taste the Recipe she may not like?
Clotted Cream? Or Fish in the River-View
Tore through the Muddy Dress to greet her Delight
This is not the Age, Tories of the West
To switch on Lights dimmed for your Books to read
She is a Sweet-Tooth; Or Filmer at best
Just give her a Spoon; She makes one Great Mead.
She is my Friend. And the Plum's Diver Son
Rewarded a Follow never un-done.

Beauty out in the open, light falls on linoleum tiles like heel-worn stones
Windows to a sunny world sit at the end of locker-lined tunnels, beckoning beyond fluorescent mazes
Clotted with conversation, upperclassmen stroll like the elderly
Young blood doge or cling to the sides, scared of the critical runway that is us

Windows to a sunny world sit at the end of locker-lined tunnels, beckoning beyond fluorescent mazes
Eyes from all sides, thinking nothing yet are supplied by our own thoughts
Young blood doge or cling to the sides, scared of the critical runway that is us
Finding refuge in educational terrariums, an ecosystem that saves me from the weight

Eyes from all sides, thinking nothing yet are supplied by our own thoughts
Finding solace in stairwells, sealed off by doors and hold awkward opportunities
Finding refuge in educational terrariums, an ecosystem that saves me from the weight
Clanging like a child’s cry releases stress like floodgates, another trip into the shark tank

Finding solace in stairwells, sealed off by doors and hold awkward opportunities
Open doors that are actually closed; they are like aquariums – no tapping on the glass please.
Clanging like a child’s cry releases stress like floodgates, another trip into the shark tank
The longer I stay the more I wish to leave, away from substituted confrontations


Open doors that are actually closed; they are like aquariums – no tapping on the glass please.
Prejudice like heavy rain beats at my skin and soaks my clothes - but I know it was I who brought the downpour
The longer I stay the more I wish to leave, away from substituted confrontations
Must comparisons be so obvious when I walk alone, unprotected? They are lucky to have such equals to act as parents; they hold each other’s hands to keep from drowning

Prejudice like heavy rain beats at my skin and soaks my clothes – but I know it was I who brought the downpour
They pull like vultures at flesh; I am not allowed to wrap myself in hurricanes while out in the open
Must comparisons be so obvious when I walk alone, unprotected? They are lucky to have such equals to act as parents; they hold each other’s hands to keep from drowning
Ignorance is bliss, they say, and truth that is here – the less you know the less hate you bear the weight of.

They pull like vultures at flesh; I am not allowed to wrap myself in hurricanes while out in the open
Look down, one foot – and then the other!
Ignorance is bliss they say, and truth that is here – the less you know the less hate you bear the weight of.
Anger and sadness, guilt and fear turn like Viewmaster slides lit up by the sun

Or am I on my own here? Each boy's path runs along each other like long-exposure stars, leaving streaks between the darkness.

Black hair like a ripped, jagged silk curtain
Cascading down her back, twisted spirals
Like snakes growing out from her vile mind
Succubus
She has no heart,
And she feeds on your flesh;
Drinks your blood, bathing herself in your death
Your last attempt to overpower her
Dried on her Ivory, hard skin
Patterns of clotted blood
Puddles of crimson dripping down
Underneath the floorboards, her body awash with it
The beast, with piercing silver eyes
So beautiful as the moon,
Succubus;
She has no Heart

This sherry trifle with clotted cream,
that tray of sugar cookies there.
My best laid plans to lose some weight
are thwarted by this time of year.
I shouldn’t go for my arteries’ sake
to Holiday parties with frosted cakes
As it is, I can inhale
chocolates quicker that I can Kale.
Each holiday brings treats and beers
and another roll of fat appears.
Perhaps before I’m too far gone
I ought to switch to Ramadan.
While not convinced about the rest
Self abnegation should be stressed.

Pine tree horizon,
stretched to the point of rupture
over the divine cardinal points around
A round world
which's center is me.

Roads I'll maybe walk,
most of which I won't
but the voyage goes on anyway
as long as I have feet.

Nothing this generation gets:
I chased this out of a bad bet,
and found heaven in a net.
We ate the scenery that day
let it drip onto our ***** sleeves
drying in the cold night
the stars,
God they were bright.
It makes me feel alone here in suburbia,
where the buffalo don't roam,
it's impossible to feel so small and so free,
so careless, in this city,
For there is more to Electricity
there's more to useless junk,
there's boy Scouts going
on a real adventure,
their adventure out of their hell
tha smelly parisian cage of pipes,
tubes, teachers and tests.

They get to breave here in Eden,
they see they're missing out,
they cheer the sun all morning,
till the nightime dries him out.
They get to hug the moon,
to face the secret truths under a piece of cloth,
a brown sky tent from which they
feel like they get it:
Men were apes and
they still are
they cannot live inside a jar
and when we breave that honeyed
air, when the smelly brezze rushes through
our clotted hair
we finally get to peek over the mountain,
and love it with
all we got.

Nestor was sitting over his wine, but the cry of battle did not
escape him, and he said to the son of Aesculapius, “What, noble
Machaon, is the meaning of all this? The shouts of men fighting by our
ships grow stronger and stronger; stay here, therefore, and sit over
your wine, while fair Hecamede heats you a bath and washes the clotted
blood from off you. I will go at once to the look-out station and
see what it is all about.”
  As he spoke he took up the shield of his son Thrasymedes that was
lying in his tent, all gleaming with bronze, for Thrasymedes had taken
his father’s shield; he grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod spear, and
as soon as he was outside saw the disastrous rout of the Achaeans who,
now that their wall was overthrown, were flying pell-mell before the
Trojans. As when there is a heavy swell upon the sea, but the waves
are dumb—they keep their eyes on the watch for the quarter whence the
fierce winds may spring upon them, but they stay where they are and
set neither this way nor that, till some particular wind sweeps down
from heaven to determine them—even so did the old man ponder
whether to make for the crowd of Danaans, or go in search of
Agamemnon. In the end he deemed it best to go to the son of Atreus;
but meanwhile the hosts were fighting and killing one another, and the
hard bronze rattled on their bodies, as they ****** at one another
with their swords and spears.
  The wounded kings, the son of Tydeus, Ulysses, and Agamemnon son
of Atreus, fell in Nestor as they were coming up from their ships—for
theirs were drawn up some way from where the fighting was going on,
being on the shore itself inasmuch as they had been beached first,
while the wall had been built behind the hindermost. The stretch of
the shore, wide though it was, did not afford room for all the
ships, and the host was cramped for space, therefore they had placed
the ships in rows one behind the other, and had filled the whole
opening of the bay between the two points that formed it. The kings,
leaning on their spears, were coming out to survey the fight, being in
great anxiety, and when old Nestor met them they were filled with
dismay. Then King Agamemnon said to him, “Nestor son of Neleus, honour
to the Achaean name, why have you left the battle to come hither? I
fear that what dread Hector said will come true, when he vaunted among
the Trojans saying that he would not return to Ilius till he had fired
our ships and killed us; this is what he said, and now it is all
coming true. Alas! others of the Achaeans, like Achilles, are in anger
with me that they refuse to fight by the sterns of our ships.”
  Then Nestor knight of Gerene answered, “It is indeed as you say;
it is all coming true at this moment, and even Jove who thunders
from on high cannot prevent it. Fallen is the wall on which we
relied as an impregnable bulwark both for us and our fleet. The
Trojans are fighting stubbornly and without ceasing at the ships; look
where you may you cannot see from what quarter the rout of the
Achaeans is coming; they are being killed in a confused mass and the
battle-cry ascends to heaven; let us think, if counsel can be of any
use, what we had better do; but I do not advise our going into
battle ourselves, for a man cannot fight when he is wounded.”
  And King Agamemnon answered, “Nestor, if the Trojans are indeed
fighting at the rear of our ships, and neither the wall nor the trench
has served us—over which the Danaans toiled so hard, and which they
deemed would be an impregnable bulwark both for us and our fleet—I
see it must be the will of Jove that the Achaeans should perish
ingloriously here, far from Argos. I knew when Jove was willing to
defend us, and I know now that he is raising the Trojans to like
honour with the gods, while us, on the other hand, he bas bound hand
and foot. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say; let us bring down
the ships that are on the beach and draw them into the water; let us
make them fast to their mooring-stones a little way out, against the
fall of night—if even by night the Trojans will desist from fighting;
we may then draw down the rest of the fleet. There is nothing wrong in
flying ruin even by night. It is better for a man that he should fly
and be saved than be caught and killed.”
  Ulysses looked fiercely at him and said, “Son of Atreus, what are
you talking about? Wretch, you should have commanded some other and
baser army, and not been ruler over us to whom Jove has allotted a
life of hard fighting from youth to old age, till we every one of us
perish. Is it thus that you would quit the city of Troy, to win
which we have suffered so much hardship? Hold your peace, lest some
other of the Achaeans hear you say what no man who knows how to give
good counsel, no king over so great a host as that of the Argives
should ever have let fall from his lips. I despise your judgement
utterly for what you have been saying. Would you, then, have us draw
down our ships into the water while the battle is raging, and thus
play further into the hands of the conquering Trojans? It would be
ruin; the Achaeans will not go on fighting when they see the ships
being drawn into the water, but will cease attacking and keep
turning their eyes towards them; your counsel, therefore, Sir captain,
would be our destruction.”
  Agamemnon answered, “Ulysses, your rebuke has stung me to the heart.
I am not, however, ordering the Achaeans to draw their ships into
the sea whether they will or no. Some one, it may be, old or young,
can offer us better counsel which I shall rejoice to hear.”
  Then said Diomed, “Such an one is at hand; he is not far to seek, if
you will listen to me and not resent my speaking though I am younger
than any of you. I am by lineage son to a noble sire, Tydeus, who lies
buried at Thebes. For Portheus had three noble sons, two of whom,
Agrius and Melas, abode in Pleuron and rocky Calydon. The third was
the knight Oeneus, my father’s father, and he was the most valiant
of them all. Oeeneus remained in his own country, but my father (as
Jove and the other gods ordained it) migrated to Argos. He married
into the family of Adrastus, and his house was one of great abundance,
for he had large estates of rich corn-growing land, with much
orchard ground as well, and he had many sheep; moreover he excelled
all the Argives in the use of the spear. You must yourselves have
heard whether these things are true or no; therefore when I say well
despise not my words as though I were a coward or of ignoble birth.
I say, then, let us go to the fight as we needs must, wounded though
we be. When there, we may keep out of the battle and beyond the
range of the spears lest we get fresh wounds in addition to what we
have already, but we can spur on others, who have been indulging their
spleen and holding aloof from battle hitherto.”
  Thus did he speak; whereon they did even as he had said and set out,
King Agamemnon leading the way.
  Meanwhile Neptune had kept no blind look-out, and came up to them in
the semblance of an old man. He took Agamemnon’s right hand in his own
and said, “Son of Atreus, I take it Achilles is glad now that he
sees the Achaeans routed and slain, for he is utterly without remorse-
may he come to a bad end and heaven confound him. As for yourself, the
blessed gods are not yet so bitterly angry with you but that the
princes and counsellors of the Trojans shall again raise the dust upon
the plain, and you shall see them flying from the ships and tents
towards their city.”
  With this he raised a mighty cry of battle, and sped forward to
the plain. The voice that came from his deep chest was as that of nine
or ten thousand men when they are shouting in the thick of a fight,
and it put fresh courage into the hearts of the Achaeans to wage war
and do battle without ceasing.
  Juno of the golden throne looked down as she stood upon a peak of
Olympus and her heart was gladdened at the sight of him who was at
once her brother and her brother-in-law, hurrying hither and thither
amid the fighting. Then she turned her eyes to Jove as he sat on the
topmost crests of many-fountained Ida, and loathed him. She set
herself to think how she might hoodwink him, and in the end she deemed
that it would be best for her to go to Ida and array herself in rich
attire, in the hope that Jove might become enamoured of her, and
wish to embrace her. While he was thus engaged a sweet and careless
sleep might be made to steal over his eyes and senses.
  She went, therefore, to the room which her son Vulcan had made
her, and the doors of which he had cunningly fastened by means of a
secret key so that no other god could open them. Here she entered
and closed the doors behind her. She cleansed all the dirt from her
fair body with ambrosia, then she anointed herself with olive oil,
ambrosial, very soft, and scented specially for herself—if it were so
much as shaken in the bronze-floored house of Jove, the scent pervaded
the universe of heaven and earth. With this she anointed her
delicate skin, and then she plaited the fair ambrosial locks that
flowed in a stream of golden tresses from her immortal head. She put
on the wondrous robe which Minerva had worked for her with
consummate art, and had embroidered with manifold devices; she
fastened it about her ***** with golden clasps, and she girded herself
with a girdle that had a hundred tassels: then she fastened her
earrings, three brilliant pendants that glistened most beautifully,
through the pierced lobes of her ears, and threw a lovely new veil
over her head. She bound her sandals on to her feet, and when she
had arrayed herself perfectly to her satisfaction, she left her room
and called Venus to come aside and speak to her. “My dear child,” said
she, “will you do what I am going to ask of you, or will refuse me
because you are angry at my being on the Danaan side, while you are on
the Trojan?”
  Jove’s daughter Venus answered, “Juno, august queen of goddesses,
daughter of mighty Saturn, say what you want, and I will do it for
at once, if I can, and if it can be done at all.”
  Then Juno told her a lying tale and said, “I want you to endow me
with some of those fascinating charms, the spells of which bring all
things mortal and immortal to your feet. I am going to the world’s end
to visit Oceanus (from whom all we gods proceed) and mother Tethys:
they received me in their house, took care of me, and brought me up,
having taken me over from Rhaea when Jove imprisoned great Saturn in
the depths that are under earth and sea. I must go and see them that I
may make peace between them; they have been quarrelling, and are so
angry that they have not slept with one another this long while; if
I can bring them round and restore them to one another’s embraces,
they will be grateful to me and love me for ever afterwards.”
  Thereon laughter-loving Venus said, “I cannot and must not refuse
you, for you sleep in the arms of Jove who is our king.”
  As she spoke she loosed from her ***** the curiously embroidered
girdle into which all her charms had been wrought—love, desire, and
that sweet flattery which steals the judgement even of the most
prudent. She gave the girdle to Juno and said, “Take this girdle
wherein all my charms reside and lay it in your *****. If you will
wear it I promise you that your errand, be it what it may, will not be
bootless.”
  When she heard this Juno smiled, and still smiling she laid the
girdle in her *****.
  Venus now went back into the house of Jove, while Juno darted down
from the summits of Olympus. She passed over Pieria and fair
Emathia, and went on and on till she came to the snowy ranges of the
Thracian horsemen, over whose topmost crests she sped without ever
setting foot to ground. When she came to Athos she went on over the,
waves of the sea till she reached Lemnos, the city of noble Thoas.
There she met Sleep, own brother to Death, and caught him by the hand,
saying, “Sleep, you who lord it alike over mortals and immortals, if
you ever did me a service in times past, do one for me now, and I
shall be grateful to you ever after. Close Jove’s keen eyes for me
in slumber while I hold him clasped in my embrace, and I will give you
a beautiful golden seat, that can never fall to pieces; my
clubfooted son Vulcan shall make it for you, and he shall give it a
footstool for you to rest your fair feet upon when you are at table.”
  Then Sleep answered, “Juno, great queen of goddesses, daughter of
mighty Saturn, I would lull any other of the gods to sleep without
compunction, not even excepting the waters of Oceanus from whom all of
them proceed, but I dare not go near Jove, nor send him to sleep
unless he bids me. I have had one lesson already through doing what
you asked me, on the day when Jove’s mighty son Hercules set sail from
Ilius after having sacked the city of the Trojans. At your bidding I
suffused my sweet self over the mind of aegis-bearing Jove, and laid
him to rest; meanwhile you hatched a plot against Hercules, and set
the blasts of the angry winds beating upon the sea, till you took
him to the goodly city of Cos away from all his friends. Jove was
furious when he awoke, and began hurling the gods about all over the
house; he was looking more particularly for myself, and would have
flung me down through space into the sea where I should never have
been heard of any more, had not Night who cows both men and gods
protected me. I fled to her and Jove left off looking for me in
spite of his being so angry, for he did not dare do anything to
displease Night. And now you are again asking me to do something on
which I cannot venture.”
  And Juno said, “Sleep, why do you take such notions as those into
your head? Do you think Jove will be as anxious to help the Trojans,
as he was about his own son? Come, I will marry you to one of the
youngest of the Graces, and she shall be your own—Pasithea, whom
you have always wanted to marry.”
  Sleep was pleased when he heard this, and answered, “Then swear it
to me by the dread waters of the river Styx; lay one hand on the
bounteous earth, and the other on the sheen of the sea, so that all
the gods who dwell down below with Saturn may be our witnesses, and
see that you really do give me one of the youngest of the Graces-
Pasithea, whom I have always wanted to marry.”
  Juno did as he had said. She swore, and invoked all the gods of
the nether world, who are called Titans, to witness. When she had
completed her oath, the two enshrouded themselves in a thick mist
and sped lightly forward, leaving Lemnos and Imbrus behind them.
Presently they reached many-fountained Ida, mother of wild beasts, and
Lectum where they left the sea to go on by land, and the tops of the
trees of the forest soughed under the going of their feet. Here
Sleep halted, and ere Jove caught sight of him he climbed a lofty
pine-tree—the tallest that reared its head towards heaven on all Ida.
He hid himself behind the branches and sat there in the semblance of
the sweet-singing bird that haunts the mountains and is called Chalcis
by the gods, but men call it Cymindis. Juno then went to Gargarus, the
topmost peak of Ida, and Jove, driver of the clouds, set eyes upon
her. As soon as he did so he became inflamed with the same
passionate desire for her that he had felt when they had first enjoyed
each other’s embraces, and slept with one another without their dear
parents knowing anything about it. He went up to her and said, “What
do you want that you have come hither from Olympus—and that too
with neither chariot nor horses to convey you?”
  Then Juno told him a lying tale and said, “I am going to the world’s
end, to visit Oceanus, from whom all we gods proceed, and mother
Tethys; they received me into their house, took care of me, and
brought me up. I must go and see them that I may make peace between
them: they have been quarrelling, and are so angry that they have
not slept with one another this long time. The horses that will take
me over land and sea are stationed on the lowermost spurs of
many-fountained Ida, and I have come here from Olympus on purpose to
consult you

Ushers clad in white rush the masses to their seats.
Talk dulls to whispers as the queue outside depletes.
A black suit waves his wand at centre stage.
“It looks just like they said it would on this week’s news’ front page,”
             they say.

The tuxedo raised its hands, to quell the audience,
His stonewall face daunting, demanding perfect silence.
As the ushers move in tandem, down the aisles to the stage,
The curtain breaks, the glasses shake, as the lights begin to fade.

Hooded figures appear, wheeling metal tables
Bearing cobalt cadavers, held fast with jumper cables.
They are brought to centre stage, to three white-clad physicians.
Tools are passed into the hands of each the meat-magicians.
“Thank you. You’ve arrived very much on time,” says tuxedo,
       and he snaps a shot of bourbon.

Curtains billow ‘round the stage like clouds of clotted blood.
The lights dim and the show begins, the audience waiting, rabid.
And through the obscurity,
Through the gloom of the room,
They see the white-coat men lift their arms in unison,
As the tuxedo points his wand about like a handgun.
He waves his stick at the white-coat men
And they lower their hands to the bodies in front of them.
They hold tools with blades short and long,
    and dig into their subjects.
They pick through pith and pulp,
     casting flecks of flesh into the audience.
Their white coats blush deeper and deeper
   the farther they dig with their knives and their peepers.
The tuxedo thrashes his wand astir, directing the dissection with little discretion.
The audience gasps and murmurs a disturbed digression
   but watch with wide eyes in disgusting obsession.
“Someone’s got to teach these ******* a lesson,” says a white-coated man, digging deeper depressions.
All the while the corpses lay, until the tuxedo man bends in plie.
And the cadavers awaken and scream upon seeing their entrails laid out for display.
“What a horribly carnal ballet!”
             they say.

The audience clamours, simply enamoured,
Erupting with tears, and applause, and laughter.
They clap at the bodies exploding in seizure
While the white-coats rip and cut to their leisure,
The subjects watch in horror as they are filleted,
Their own pelts and rinds are stars on Broadway.

Suddenly the tuxedo man stops,
Signaling the white-coats to stop in mid-chop.
The mangled bodies see on the floor themselves in pieces like the dried needles of pines.
And they curl and writhe on the metal tables, hugging tightly to their own spines.
“Thank you. But it seems we’ve run out of time,” the tuxedo man says with a bow,
As he wipes the sweat and blood from his brow.
And the ushers rush the audience out,
While the hooded men return to collect the waste
While the audience leaves feeling nothing close to disgraced.
“I’ve never once seen a better display,”
             they say.

These are outsiders, always. These stars—
these iron inklings of an Irish January,
whose light happened
thousands of years before
our pain did; they are, they have always been
outside history.
They keep their distance. Under them remains
a place where you found
you were human, and
a landscape in which you know you are mortal.
And a time to choose between them.
I have chosen:
out of myth in history I move to be
part of that ordeal
who darkness is
only now reaching me from those fields,
those rivers, those roads clotted as
firmaments with the dead.
How slowly they die
as we kneel beside them, whisper in their ear.
And we are too late. We are always too late.

You never were a hater,
But you tried to be a player.
You tried to come off cool,
But there's a devil in your lair.
You tried to be a good one,
But they talk behind your back.
They're plotting, they're wotnotting,
And they're planning their attack.
They severed your reality -
They twisted every turn.
They're burning and they're churning,
They don't render what you yearn.
Then panic triggers fever,
And you feel the fever burn.
If they keep on pushing,
Those suckers gonna learn.
Then the witness understands.
There is reason for concern.
There is a new commander -
And oh!   The worm has turned.

What could you do?
You never knew.
How could have you?
No-one told you.
Misery is glue,
Sticks to you.

You never were a villain
Till they clotted up your chill.
You never needed anyone
To tell you what you feel.
They only know to validate
Themselves - they never love.
If it suits their motives,
They will bite, and kick and shove.
There never was a heartache
That you could not overcome.
You have to have a heart that's hard.
So go out and get you one.
Trample loosers under foot,
Or they'll be too burdensome.
Keep your left hand from your right,
And keep your lovers under thumb.
Finally, you start to see
That life is just a loaded gun.
You can never stop to rest,
You're always on the run.

What could you do?
You never knew.
How could have you?
No-one told you.
Misery is glue,
Sticks to you.

You master all that you survey, Everybody knows your name.
Cream rises to the top -
You are the winner of the game.
If you gave them half the chance,  
They  would cut you down.
You forever have to watch your back,
Never let them gather 'round.
You didn't try to rule the world,
You only wanted to survive.
If they had their way,  
You would no longer be alive.
Your meter's getting weaker,
But you strive to make it through.
You've trudged thicker purposes,
You always make it through.
They will give it all they've got
When they finally come for you.
You have never had a moment's peace,
'Cause misery is glue.

What could you do?
You never knew.
How could have you?
No-one told you.
Misery is glue,
Sticks to you.

For knowing we must suffer

How ironic that our knowledge is the source of our struggle

Ignorance is bliss

Knowledge is suffering

The more I know, the blacker the void becomes

The more I know the more inevitable that end seems

Certain apocalypse closing in...Life’s flame flickers, sputters, fights to burn...then dies

For the oxygen is thicker than the cadence that the flame is accustomed to

And the wrath of god is our own sick self-torture

Encasing our minds in a torrent of glass and nails

Nihilism scorches what faith once warmed

Blackened, numb, dead, bleeding no more

Leaving nothing but the simple signs of lost hope

And broken dreams

Which ride on a cavalry of lame horses, clutching swords long broken

Dead eyes stare from cracked helmets, bones rise from sunken skin

They have become nothing more than a shadow of their own misfortune

A sick punchline to a humorless joke

Aimless they stumble to our side but at the snarls of hell's misery they recoil

Broken by adversity, their will as dead as ours, they are not our allies

They are a greater enemy then either heaven or hell can create

For they are our own brokenness, we gaze into their eyes and see what we have lost

We see doors long shut, dreams long shredded by ****** razors of truth

For they are our past.

Our past with no future.

For what future do these dead things hold

The promise of decay, of despair, of a fight long ago lost

Marching in to save us these soldiers tie our noose

And suspend us from the bridge of tyranny that our minds have created, using ropes long since broken by the strain of living

Hope, not what we cling to, but nostalgia for as our eyes glaze over, as lips turn blue, we see a faint light of what once was

We see before the knowing, before the insidious whispers of torture began

We see and desire, but may not have

For desire is the truest form of torture

Also the most sinister

For we are in hell and we hunger, hunger and thirst

With cracked lips and swollen tongues, the water slips from us before we drink

With contempt we struggle on with no hope for our lives, only for the pain to end soon

Death, in its comforting embrace, for no longer shall our eyes open to see the fading colors of life

No longer shall we know sin and desire

Nor the cruel touch of a scornful lover or the heart ache of regret

For through death, all life has purpose

No longer shall we know broken, twisted parodies of heroes nor love

We look to the black abyss, not the void of hopelessness, and we leap

And like the dream we fall but never land, in the arms of flight, of ethereal endings

The darkness collides with the light of knowledge leaving the black an even paler gray then that even of a cadaver's skin

The gray of apathy, of nothingness, of a vacuum that draws from our mouths the very souls we were foolish enough to try to save

Bleaching all hope of dying till there is not left but a sliver of an arrogant belief that our suffering would end so easily.

Lifeless yet feeling, blind yet seeing we plummet till there is no time left to fall.

What we know, all knowledge was our own ignorance of eternity, our fight for it, our fight against it

As death consumes, as the final suffering begins, we are drawn to the things we never knew, the things we could not know, things that draw us to heaven and yet drag us to hell

The very existence of our soul creates a greater torture than any we have ever encountered, creating bile in our mouths thicker than the blood pouring from our hearts

It separates from our lifeless bodies, from our twisted minds, and it is as though we are ***** and robbed of the thing that tethered us to any possibility of hope

Like a silver bullet it flies from us but we are helpless to catch it as crushing agony fills our lungs with black, clotted blood

Creating a sad excuse of a person out of our flesh and sending it wallowing in our midst

Flashing our memories and hopes into the mind’s eye of something that can only be compared to blackest of dreamers

The very discontent of hope

And the believer of agony

This monster, this twisted parody of ourselves, this demon of the shadow

We shudder and recoil, for the sight burns our newly closed eyes

Its venom poisons our veins and we lay writhing on the floor, vomiting black bile of revulsion

Finally we look up to see that these monsters are who we really are

They are our truest form, our twisted belief in humanity laid out to mock us in the cruelest of ways, with the truth

Shivers fill our bodies as we realize that this is the hell we have feared, a never ending satire of our very existence

This, this and not fire, this and not brimstone

This is hell, the purest form of knowledge of the ugliness of what we are

This understanding creates an unbearable agony far beyond any imagined by the creators of the underworld

Tearing at out minds like a thousand hooks, glowing red hot with the heat of burning souls, twisted to form the torture of millions

Sending pain through every channel imaginable in the human form including those that are yet to exist

So this is the truth, to be sent to hell before we even know of life

For life is just a parody of hell, a weak heaven to prepare us for the ****** chaos to follow

The irony of living is nothing compared to the irony dying

We seek heaven in life, we seek a soul that never existed, that humanity with its gleaming metal scythe ripped from us before we even knew it existed

Creating a maelstrom of regret and hollow pain unfathomable by human minds until the cold hands of death close around their existence

And they lay there, as all must in time, choking on their own blood, tears welling up as they realize what their life has come to

The pleasures they once sought are no more, the rosy cheeks are now a skeletal pallor

Their hands are broken and their shoulders hunched as the weight of the black closes around them

This is death, an end to all means, an end to mortality

Yet the beginning of pain and suffering

Nothing in life means anything and the knowledge imbues us with inexorable despair

Unable to breathe for our metal chains of torture

Which drag us down into the marshes of chaos

Their locks are made so not even the strongest of steel can rupture them, leaving us hopeless and stranded on an island of our own thoughts as the black water closes around us

Filling our mouths with the taste of sickness and the feel of slime running down our throats

Glacial hands tear at us, leaving ice where our hearts once were, where our skin once was, the cold a fiery burn upon our flesh

We cry out for love, our last hope, our last ray of light remembered

To realize that we are alone

Love is no more than hedonistic vice and no soul but our own is here in this ****** place

Sending us reeling into madness, spiraling ever deeper into the realm of insanity

Our hearts are gone; our minds left with not but their own company, starving for more than one thought...a thought other than escape

Yet it cannot come

For we have brought this on ourselves

Blood clotted tissues,

Full of blood

clotted

tissue,

I find

myself

waiting,

In the

waiting room....

Again.

I need the beach
sand in the places
where
it's hard to reach

the sea
clotted cream and
strawberry jam for tea

You
at my side when
the tide comes in

bingo and
sin, oh!
the devil
says no
so

sand eels
fishing reels
catch of the day.

B and B
you and me
double room
ideally.

There were not many at that lonely place,
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race
Unseen by any.  Toward the further woods
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.
--We were most silent in those solitudes--
Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,
The clotted earth piled roughly up about
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,
Short words in swordlike Latin--and a rout
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,
The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.

"I grant you ample leave
To use the hoary formula 'I am'
Naming the emptiness where thought is not;
But fill the void with definition, 'I'
Will be no more a datum than the words
You link false inference with, the 'Since' & 'so'
That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl.
Resolve your 'Ego', it is all one web
With vibrant ether clotted into worlds:
Your subject, self, or self-assertive 'I'
Turns nought but object, melts to molecules,
Is stripped from naked Being with the rest
Of those rag-garments named the Universe.
Or if, in strife to keep your 'Ego' strong
You make it weaver of the etherial light,
Space, motion, solids & the dream of Time --
Why, still 'tis Being looking from the dark,
The core, the centre of your consciousness,
That notes your bubble-world: sense, pleasure, pain,
What are they but a shifting otherness,
Phantasmal flux of moments? --"

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
She casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
And stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
The stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

Well, Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
Where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
Where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
Whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood are spattered on the spire;
Though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread:  “her age? a sweet 16,
With child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.”
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
In limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
And all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
Which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
Neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
But Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire -
Beyond the nave, a gravelled grave, the final Rectifier”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

<>

with raggedy old words, this is how I write,
in a raggedy old navy t-shirt,
upon a ragged edged old chair,
whose splinters will soon enough,
seed themselves in poet's unreceptive,
but just asking-to-be-barbed
flesh bared

splinters asking with the phony politeness ,
in the manner of a steady, but  minor irritating
would-be-a-friend, annoyingly, but cloyingly

"am I not a poem, yet Father?"

Poet has no answer,
mixed words
deemed satisfying suitable but unusable,
unconvicted upon the hard hearted
mixed wood

poet waits for the ragged clotted cumulus
of old grey ladies shaped clouds
to dissipate

clouds shaped like the
puffed up shopping bags
that the old ladies clutch
while crossing mid-street
making the traffic play
"dodge'r the codgers"

bags fill with the odd things
that old ladies treasure,
objet d'art of empty
Oil of Olay Ole! and mindless dribble,
mementoes of completed containers
of emptied out hopes

expired coupons,
that they refuse to surrender
even under threat
by sour faced bossy
supermarket manager dictators,
who hate their lives and  
in the deepening creases
of the elderly clientele,
foresee their own fate inevitable

poet's waits for them,
these images,
these clotted bursts of sourpuss,
to depart his skin, sky's.
yes, his sky's

wits and wilts while he waits,
for he always has much to say,
of what lies above,
the unseen,
hid behind the bland uniform of  the overhanging
one-no-color sky
of blanched meh and feh crinolines

thinking to no one now,

this is how I write, this is who I am,

waiting for insight inspiration foam to form,
from the multi-variable model that predicts
with a high degree of confidence,
failure with tainted certainty,
even as clouds are shuffled along,
a new poem will pass
that haha, no one will read

but nonetheless, arguing among his several selves,
better to be more fulfilled by the emptying of himself
upon padded cell of paper, of his staining,
the piece of him now
un-chambered & un-containered
thru magma fissures, steaming & cleaning,
providing a penny's penance
for his disparate gloomy idiocies

the gray ladies always smile at him,
always so nice and gentlemanly like, that poet,
underneath his cowardly disdain,
against his pretense's  grain,
contempt for old grey ladies
with old lady odors emanating

is this who you are, is this how you write?

*with raggedy old words, that splinter our delight?

I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking
Through the rotating shell, strong
As motor muscle on the drill, driving
Through vision and the girdered nerve.

From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled
Off from the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.

Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A creature in my bones I
Rounded my globe of heritage, journey
In bottom gear through night-geared man.

I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel
Rammed in the marching heart, hole
In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled
Death on the mouth that ate the gas.

Sharp in my second death I marked the hills, harvest
Of hemlock and the blades, rust
My blood upon the tempered dead, forcing
My second struggling from the grass.

And power was contagious in my birth, second
Rise of the skeleton and
Rerobing of the naked ghost. Manhood
Spat up from the resuffered pain.

I dreamed my genesis in sweat of death, fallen
Twice in the feeding sea, grown
Stale of Adam's brine until, vision
Of new man strength, I seek the sun.