Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy’s despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,
And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear,
And bade the pilot head her lustily
Against the nor’west gale, and all day long
Held on his way, and marked the rowers’ time with measured song.

And when the faint Corinthian hills were red
Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay,
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head,
And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

And a rich robe stained with the fishers’ juice
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought
Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,
And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,
And by the questioning merchants made his way
Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the labouring day

Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud,
Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet
Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd
Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat
Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring
The firstling of their little flock, and the shy shepherd fling

The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang
His studded crook against the temple wall
To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang
Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall;
And then the clear-voiced maidens ‘gan to sing,
And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering,

A beechen cup brimming with milky foam,
A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery
Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb
Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee
Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil
Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white-tusked
spoil

Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid
To please Athena, and the dappled hide
Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade
Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried,
And from the pillared precinct one by one
Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple vows had
done.

And the old priest put out the waning fires
Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed
For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres
Came fainter on the wind, as down the road
In joyous dance these country folk did pass,
And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass.

Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,
And the rose-petals falling from the wreath
As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,
And seemed to be in some entranced swoon
Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon

Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,
When from his nook up leapt the venturous lad,
And flinging wide the cedar-carven door
Beheld an awful image saffron-clad
And armed for battle! the gaunt Griffin glared
From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and ruin flared

Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled
The Gorgon’s head its leaden eyeballs rolled,
And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield,
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold
In passion impotent, while with blind gaze
The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp
Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen *****
Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast
Divide the folded curtains of the night,
And knelt upon the little ****, and prayed in holy fright.

And guilty lovers in their venery
Forgat a little while their stolen sweets,
Deeming they heard dread Dian’s bitter cry;
And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats
Ran to their shields in haste precipitate,
Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky parapet.

For round the temple rolled the clang of arms,
And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear,
And the air quaked with dissonant alarums
Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear,
And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed,
And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the cavalcade.

Ready for death with parted lips he stood,
And well content at such a price to see
That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood,
The marvel of that pitiless chastity,
Ah! well content indeed, for never wight
Since Troy’s young shepherd prince had seen so wonderful a sight.

Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air
Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh,
And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair,
And from his limbs he throw the cloak away;
For whom would not such love make desperate?
And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with hands violate

Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown,
And bared the ******* of polished ivory,
Till from the waist the peplos falling down
Left visible the secret mystery
Which to no lover will Athena show,
The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of
snow.

Those who have never known a lover’s sin
Let them not read my ditty, it will be
To their dull ears so musicless and thin
That they will have no joy of it, but ye
To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile,
Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O listen yet awhile.

A little space he let his greedy eyes
Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight
Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,
And then his lips in hungering delight
Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck
He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion’s will to check.

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,
For all night long he murmured honeyed word,
And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

It was as if Numidian javelins
Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
In exquisite pulsation, and the pain
Was such sweet anguish that he never drew
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew.

They who have never seen the daylight peer
Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain,
And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear
And worshipped body risen, they for certain
Will never know of what I try to sing,
How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his lingering.

The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,
The sign which shipmen say is ominous
Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,
And the low lightening east was tremulous
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran
Like a young fawn unto an olive wood
Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood;

And sought a little stream, which well he knew,
For oftentimes with boyish careless shout
The green and crested grebe he would pursue,
Or snare in woven net the silver trout,
And down amid the startled reeds he lay
Panting in breathless sweet affright, and waited for the day.

On the green bank he lay, and let one hand
Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly,
And soon the breath of morning came and fanned
His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly
The tangled curls from off his forehead, while
He on the running water gazed with strange and secret smile.

And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak
With his long crook undid the wattled cotes,
And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke
Curled through the air across the ripening oats,
And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed
As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed.

And when the light-foot mower went afield
Across the meadows laced with threaded dew,
And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,
And from its nest the waking corncrake flew,
Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream
And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem,

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
‘It is young Hylas, that false runaway
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
Forgetting Herakles,’ but others, ‘Nay,
It is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.’

And when they nearer came a third one cried,
‘It is young Dionysos who has hid
His spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise indeed were we away to fly:
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.’

So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined,
And no man dared to cross the open green,
And on that day no olive-tree was slain,
Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain,

Save when the neat-herd’s lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade new had found,
And gat no answer, and then half afraid
Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade

A little girl ran laughing from the farm,
Not thinking of love’s secret mysteries,
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm
And all his manlihood, with longing eyes
Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity
Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadly and wearily.

Far off he heard the city’s hum and noise,
And now and then the shriller laughter where
The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys
Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,
And now and then a little tinkling bell
As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
In sleek and oily coat the water-rat
Breasting the little ripples manfully
Made for the wild-duck’s nest, from bough to bough
Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the
slough.

On the faint wind floated the silky seeds
As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass,
The ouzel-**** splashed circles in the reeds
And flecked with silver whorls the forest’s glass,
Which scarce had caught again its imagery
Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly.

But little care had he for any thing
Though up and down the beech the squirrel played,
And from the copse the linnet ‘gan to sing
To its brown mate its sweetest serenade;
Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen
The ******* of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen.

But when the herdsman called his straggling goats
With whistling pipe across the rocky road,
And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes
Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode
Of coming storm, and the belated crane
Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain

Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,
And from the gloomy forest went his way
Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,
And came at last unto a little quay,
And called his mates aboard, and took his seat
On the high ****, and pushed from land, and loosed the dripping
sheet,

And steered across the bay, and when nine suns
Passed down the long and laddered way of gold,
And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons
To the chaste stars their confessors, or told
Their dearest secret to the downy moth
That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging froth

Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes
And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked
As though the lading of three argosies
Were in the hold, and flapped its wings and shrieked,
And darkness straightway stole across the deep,
Sheathed was Orion’s sword, dread Mars himself fled down the steep,

And the moon hid behind a tawny mask
Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean’s marge
Rose the red plume, the huge and horned casque,
The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe!
And clad in bright and burnished panoply
Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea!

To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks
Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet
Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks,
And, marking how the rising waters beat
Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried
To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side

But he, the overbold adulterer,
A dear profaner of great mysteries,
An ardent amorous idolater,
When he beheld those grand relentless eyes
Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’
Leapt from the lofty **** into the chill and churning foam.

Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,
One dancer left the circling galaxy,
And back to Athens on her clattering car
In all the pride of venged divinity
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,
And the old pilot bade the trembling crew
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen
Close to the stern a dim and giant form,
And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm.

And no man dared to speak of Charmides
Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought,
And when they reached the strait Symplegades
They beached their galley on the shore, and sought
The toll-gate of the city hastily,
And in the market showed their brown and pictured pottery.
THE PROLOGUE.

This worthy limitour, this noble Frere,
He made always a manner louring cheer                      countenance
Upon the Sompnour; but for honesty                            courtesy
No villain word as yet to him spake he:
But at the last he said unto the Wife:
"Dame," quoth he, "God give you right good life,
Ye have here touched, all so may I the,                         *thrive
In school matter a greate difficulty.
Ye have said muche thing right well, I say;
But, Dame, here as we ride by the way,
Us needeth not but for to speak of game,
And leave authorities, in Godde's name,
To preaching, and to school eke of clergy.
But if it like unto this company,
I will you of a Sompnour tell a game;
Pardie, ye may well knowe by the name,
That of a Sompnour may no good be said;
I pray that none of you be *evil paid;
                   dissatisfied
A Sompnour is a runner up and down
With mandements* for fornicatioun,                 mandates, summonses
And is y-beat at every towne's end."
Then spake our Host; "Ah, sir, ye should be hend         *civil, gentle
And courteous, as a man of your estate;
In company we will have no debate:
Tell us your tale, and let the Sompnour be."
"Nay," quoth the Sompnour, "let him say by me
What so him list; when it comes to my lot,
By God, I shall him quiten
every groat!                    pay him off
I shall him telle what a great honour
It is to be a flattering limitour
And his office I shall him tell y-wis".
Our Host answered, "Peace, no more of this."
And afterward he said unto the frere,
"Tell forth your tale, mine owen master dear."

Notes to the Prologue to the Friar's tale

1. On the Tale of the Friar, and that of the Sompnour which
follows, Tyrwhitt has remarked that they "are well engrafted
upon that of the Wife of Bath. The ill-humour which shows
itself between these two characters is quite natural, as no two
professions at that time were at more constant variance.  The
regular clergy, and particularly the mendicant friars, affected a
total exemption from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction,  except that
of the Pope, which made them exceedingly obnoxious to the
bishops and of course to all the inferior officers of the national
hierarchy." Both tales, whatever their origin, are bitter satires
on the greed and worldliness of the Romish clergy.


THE TALE.

Whilom
there was dwelling in my country                 once on a time
An archdeacon, a man of high degree,
That boldely did execution,
In punishing of fornication,
Of witchecraft, and eke of bawdery,
Of defamation, and adultery,
Of churche-reeves,
and of testaments,                    churchwardens
Of contracts, and of lack of sacraments,
And eke of many another manner
crime,                          sort of
Which needeth not rehearsen at this time,
Of usury, and simony also;
But, certes, lechours did he greatest woe;
They shoulde singen, if that they were hent;
                    caught
And smale tithers were foul y-shent,
         troubled, put to shame
If any person would on them complain;
There might astert them no pecunial pain.
For smalle tithes, and small offering,
He made the people piteously to sing;
For ere the bishop caught them with his crook,
They weren in the archedeacon's book;
Then had he, through his jurisdiction,
Power to do on them correction.

He had a Sompnour ready to his hand,
A slier boy was none in Engleland;
For subtlely he had his espiaille,
                           espionage
That taught him well where it might aught avail.
He coulde spare of lechours one or two,
To teache him to four and twenty mo'.
For, -- though this Sompnour wood
be as a hare, --        furious, mad
To tell his harlotry I will not spare,
For we be out of their correction,
They have of us no jurisdiction,
Ne never shall have, term of all their lives.

"Peter; so be the women of the stives,"
                          stews
Quoth this Sompnour, "y-put out of our cure."
                     care

"Peace, with mischance and with misaventure,"
Our Hoste said, "and let him tell his tale.
Now telle forth, and let the Sompnour gale,
              whistle; bawl
Nor spare not, mine owen master dear."

This false thief, the Sompnour (quoth the Frere),
Had always bawdes ready to his hand,
As any hawk to lure in Engleland,
That told him all the secrets that they knew, --
For their acquaintance was not come of new;
They were his approvers
privily.                             informers
He took himself at great profit thereby:
His master knew not always what he wan.
                            won
Withoute mandement, a lewed
man                               ignorant
He could summon, on pain of Christe's curse,
And they were inly glad to fill his purse,
And make him greate feastes at the nale.
                      alehouse
And right as Judas hadde purses smale,
                           small
And was a thief, right such a thief was he,
His master had but half *his duety.
                what was owing him
He was (if I shall give him his laud)
A thief, and eke a Sompnour, and a bawd.
And he had wenches at his retinue,
That whether that Sir Robert or Sir Hugh,
Or Jack, or Ralph, or whoso that it were
That lay by them, they told it in his ear.
Thus were the ***** and he of one assent;
And he would fetch a feigned mandement,
And to the chapter summon them both two,
And pill* the man, and let the wenche go.                plunder, pluck
Then would he say, "Friend, I shall for thy sake
Do strike thee out of oure letters blake;
                        black
Thee thar
no more as in this case travail;                        need
I am thy friend where I may thee avail."
Certain he knew of bribers many mo'
Than possible is to tell in yeare's two:
For in this world is no dog for the bow,
That can a hurt deer from a whole know,
Bet
than this Sompnour knew a sly lechour,                      better
Or an adult'rer, or a paramour:
And, for that was the fruit of all his rent,
Therefore on it he set all his intent.

And so befell, that once upon a day.
This Sompnour, waiting ever on his prey,
Rode forth to summon a widow, an old ribibe,
Feigning a cause, for he would have a bribe.
And happen'd that he saw before him ride
A gay yeoman under a forest side:
A bow he bare, and arrows bright and keen,
He had upon a courtepy
of green,                         short doublet
A hat upon his head with fringes blake.
                          black
"Sir," quoth this Sompnour, "hail, and well o'ertake."
"Welcome," quoth he, "and every good fellaw;
Whither ridest thou under this green shaw?"
                       shade
Saide this yeoman; "wilt thou far to-day?"
This Sompnour answer'd him, and saide, "Nay.
Here faste by," quoth he, "is mine intent
To ride, for to raisen up a rent,
That longeth to my lorde's duety."
"Ah! art thou then a bailiff?" "Yea," quoth he.
He durste not for very filth and shame
Say that he was a Sompnour, for the name.
"De par dieux,"  quoth this yeoman, "leve* brother,             dear
Thou art a bailiff, and I am another.
I am unknowen, as in this country.
Of thine acquaintance I will praye thee,
And eke of brotherhood, if that thee list.
                      please
I have gold and silver lying in my chest;
If that thee hap to come into our shire,
All shall be thine, right as thou wilt desire."
"Grand mercy,"
quoth this Sompnour, "by my faith."        great thanks
Each in the other's hand his trothe lay'th,
For to be sworne brethren till they dey.
                        die
In dalliance they ride forth and play.

This Sompnour, which that was as full of jangles,
           chattering
As full of venom be those wariangles,
               * butcher-birds
And ev'r inquiring upon every thing,
"Brother," quoth he, "where is now your dwelling,
Another day if that I should you seech?"                   *seek, visit
This yeoman him answered in soft speech;
Brother," quoth he, "far in the North country,
Where as I hope some time I shall thee see
Ere we depart I shall thee so well wiss,
                        inform
That of mine house shalt thou never miss."
Now, brother," quoth this Sompnour, "I you pray,
Teach me, while that we ride by the way,
(Since that ye be a bailiff as am I,)
Some subtilty, and tell me faithfully
For mine office how that I most may win.
And *spare not
for conscience or for sin,             conceal nothing
But, as my brother, tell me how do ye."
Now by my trothe, brother mine," said he,
As I shall tell to thee a faithful tale:
My wages be full strait and eke full smale;
My lord is hard to me and dangerous,                         *niggardly
And mine office is full laborious;
And therefore by extortion I live,
Forsooth I take all that men will me give.
Algate
by sleighte, or by violence,                            whether
From year to year I win all my dispence;
I can no better tell thee faithfully."
Now certes," quoth this Sompnour,  "so fare
I;                      do
I spare not to take, God it wot,
But if* it be too heavy or too hot.                            unless
What I may get in counsel privily,
No manner conscience of that have I.
N'ere* mine extortion, I might not live,                were it not for
For of such japes
will I not be shrive.           tricks *confessed
Stomach nor conscience know I none;
I shrew* these shrifte-fathers
every one.          curse *confessors
Well be we met, by God and by St Jame.
But, leve brother, tell me then thy name,"
Quoth this Sompnour.  Right in this meane while
This yeoman gan a little for to smile.

"Brother," quoth he, "wilt thou that I thee tell?
I am a fiend, my dwelling is in hell,
And here I ride about my purchasing,
To know where men will give me any thing.
My purchase is th' effect of all my rent        what I can gain is my
Look how thou ridest for the same intent                   sole revenue

To winne good, thou reckest never how,
Right so fare I, for ride will I now
Into the worlde's ende for a prey."

"Ah," quoth this Sompnour, "benedicite! what say y'?
I weened ye were a yeoman truly.                                thought
Ye have a manne's shape as well as I
Have ye then a figure determinate
In helle, where ye be in your estate?"
                         at home
"Nay, certainly," quoth he, there have we none,
But when us liketh we can take us one,
Or elles make you seem
that we be shape                        believe
Sometime like a man, or like an ape;
Or like an angel can I ride or go;
It is no wondrous thing though it be so,
A lousy juggler can deceive thee.
And pardie, yet can I more craft
than he."              skill, cunning
"Why," quoth the Sompnour, "ride ye then or gon
In sundry shapes and not always in one?"
"For we," quoth he, "will us in such form make.
As most is able our prey for to take."
"What maketh you to have all this labour?"
"Full many a cause, leve Sir Sompnour,"
Saide this fiend. "But all thing hath a time;
The day is short and it is passed prime,
And yet have I won nothing in this day;
I will intend
to winning, if I may,               &nbs
Dylan May 2012
Draw up your skirt, O woman of temptation.
Then watch yourself flirt with no contemplation.

Attracting the slack-jawed -- the ignorant ***,
whose thinking is drawn to *** as you pass.

Set bare your breast to these "love-confessors"
and bare all your flesh to the fangs of oppressors.

Make them pay for your meals, for your wine and delight.
Then let them steal you away in the night.

Put feathers in your hair -- the peacock's vanity! --
Then watch the men stare and whisper profanity.

Wear lace and sheer clothing; hide not from their gawking.
Then listen, with loathing, to the non-sense they're talking.

Perfume yourself in myrrh, draw all senses in your direction.
Then drink in their ardour, and their misplaced affection.

Build tall your chancel with pleasure and desires;
play the distressed damsel, O great queen of liars!

You'll find soon enough the emptiness of touch.
You'll call your own bluff, and drop what you clutch.

But until then, sullen temptress, drive yourself from my door.
Leave my sight, but don't distress; I've no want for your flesh any more.
Jason Green Oct 2015
My life
has appeared unclothed in court, death-bone by death-bone witness,
and I was shamed at the verdict
and was given a cut penny
and the entrails of a cat.
But nevertheless I went on
to the invisible priests,
confessing, confessing
through the wire of hell
and they wet upon me in that phone booth.

Then I accosted winos,
and derelicts of the region,winning them over into a latrine of my details.
Yes.  It was a compulsion
but I denied it, called it fiction
and then I swallowed it like my fate.

Now,
in my middle age
I'm well aware
I keep making statues
of my acts, carving them with my sleep-----
or if it is not my life I depict
then somone's close enough to wear my nose ----
my nose, my patrician nose,
sniffing at me or following theirs down the street.

Yet not even five centuries ago this smelled queer,
confession, confessions
and you devil was thought to to push out their eyes
and all the eyes had seen (too much! too much!).
It was proof that you were a needle
to push into their pupils.
And the only cure for such confessions overheard
was to sit in a cold bath for six days,
a bath full of leeches, drawing out your blood
into which confessors had heated the devil in them,
inhabited them with their madness.

It was wise, the wise medical men said,
wise to cry Baa and be smiling into your mongoloid blood,
while you simply tended the sheep.
Or else to sew your lips shut
and not let a word or a deadstone out.

I too have my silence,
where I enter another room
and am not only blind,
but speech has flown out of me
and I call it dead
though the respiration be okay.
Perhaps  it is a sheep call?
I feel I must learn to speak the Baa
of the simple-minded, while my mind
dives into the multi-colored,
crowded voices,
cried for help, I've no ******* on me.
The transvestite whispering to me,
over and over, My legs are disappearing.
My mother, her voice like water,
saying "fish are cut out of me.'
My father,
his voice thrown into a cigar,
"A marble of blood rolls into my heart"
My great-aunt,
her voice,
thrown into a lost child at the freak's circus
"I am the flame swallower
but turn me over in bed
and I am the fat lady."

Yes! While my mind plats simple-minded,
plays dead-man in neon,
I must recall to say
Baa
to the black sheep that I am.

Baa.  Baa.  Baa
Laura Oct 2018
It’s in a secret folded letter,
in a book somewhere.
Building dust in your,
crusty childhood trauma.

Words like “I’m sorry that
we couldn’t fit together”.
Maybe “I’m sorry that they
didn’t teach you to love better”.

It might say that I just
want you to finally be happy.
You’ll think that’s another one
of my unforgettable darling lies.

But the anger I’ve been feeling
is completely unforgivable.
Making no better reason
to relentlessly forgive.

Seeking lustful validation
is probably my sin.
Seeking your forgiveness
is probably my mistake.

But time is always our cruelist
and truest confessors,
and I have never been betrothed
to anyone, but the truth.
I honestly dont think this adds up to a real message but its something - i also love being blunt and honesty, and also learning to forgive even in pain!!!! seriously!!! positivity!!!
K Brooks Dec 2015
love is a mysterious act
it's the good and the bad
and all it attracts
it can be power or pressure
or our worst confessors
we dream of a place
a place that is real
a place with some space
a place you can feel
love is a delirious act
In ROTC I dared to grow my hair.
   On the cusp of hippy life with
   burned bras and free love and
   smoking hash I dumped my baggage.
   I joined a circus going to Boston.
   I was baptized in saltwater. Plum Island.
   I made love to love tilting at windmills.
   In my attic I learned the hard truths.
   The People's Almanac was my bible and
   those who held my heart my confessors.
JB Claywell Oct 2020
Where have we gone wrong?
Is this wrong?

We can hardly stand to speak to
one another anymore.

Does anyone remember how to
actually use the telephone feature
of the device that they carry
in their pockets?

Is this the future?
Am I living in the past?

How does one stay grounded, centered,
in the moment, these days, these months,
this godforsaken year?

Everything,
every conversation,
even my plate of biscuits & gravy
has been politicized, polarized,
punctuated, with the pugilism of
keystroke pundits.

On most Sunday afternoons,
I sit and compose.

My own musings;
the oatmeal of my mind.
Waiting for Goldilocks,
maybe a bear or three.

Come Monday,
I’m incarcerated for the day,
playfully playing the role
of Counselor
to men with addiction-issues;
an outright aversion to following
the norms of our less-than-gracious
Golden Age.

I might say that I’m playacting,
but I take it all very seriously.
(Not myself, mind you,
the work done inside those iron-gates.)

I refuse to perform with an angry eye,
heart or mind.
Seeking
clarity.
Showing
concern.

Are you a help or a hindrance?

This might be the question
we all could answer,
especially now,
on the downward *****
of
The 21st year
of the 3rd Millienia.

We’ve elected an inept celebrity.

Several of us love that facist fact,
loading out in our flag-adorned F-150s.

(Yee-haw!)

What a shame.
What a sham.
What a shambles our humanity
is in.

Our souls scream for something
that feels like success,
security, surety.

Even those whom are seen
as the least of us;
who vote against their own
self-interests,
they deserve better than
The Beast of Us.

Our faces hidden behind masks,
tearful eyes,
our fellow citizens have died,
our leaders lied,
we rioted, protested,
looted,
in response to jack-booted oppressors.

Confessors?
None.

This battle,
this race of inequity
may never be won.

Still,
we run.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublicarions 2020
We butchered our oppressors
  became the new suppressors
  we were the elite professors
  punish unwashed confessors
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2020
when one can simply peel off poetic-prose like...
so... like... scratching one's head...
or clipping toenails...

    now that washing your hands: perdiodically
and with: fingerprinting technology details...
well: i suggest all that soap bottled and
riddled by a diluted composite of:
mainly water and sodium chloride with
some perfumes...

              when one can simply peel off poetic-prose
like... that sort of a ripe banana...
not much good for raw eating with the chimps
making congregation over
arthur's later edward the confessors
round-table... no... no ape-politico!
not with darwin ideologues and those
neurosurgeons who would never meet up
with the horror-flick: almost a B-movie...
crank-me-up... doctor channard...

     but there's this... waking up to...
no... it's not the radio...
and not... a violent reaction...
      or panic in babylon...
   the brian jonestown massacre...
            #... #iwasnevercrazyaboutvivaldi-
                                    -violinsimitatingsparrows-
   -oranyotherbirdofspring...

well... checking the temp. my prayers have
been met... the pepsi... or cola...
whichever... i expect there came some
coca-cola contraband when gaining
the ingredients for the pepsi max...
i can't tell the difference these days...
between a coke zero or a pepsi max...
but sure as **** pepsi max came first...
so... contraband between corporations...

some mishter jamesh bon'        double-oh:
yep 00 does look like...
what isn't a double-U of a... W...

i mean... where could i get such words...
if not in a victorian work of chicken-scratches
and archeological scribbles...

they should defame Shakespeare... but not quiet...
only because... of that:
thane of Glamis! thane of Caledonia...
         but i should have met Dickens...
before having met... Charlotte Brontë...
hell: thank god i didn't meet Jane Austen...
and i can thank a monster for hooking me up
with Mary Shelley...

                but what's a Dickens with a fishing
rod... with no desire to entertain
a panorama of... 5am... river... pitch-black...
or thereby... and fingers counting fingers when
pinching a sound-bite of a wriggling rot-tooth
of a maggot...

       misnomer: or just the appropriate sounds?
mind you... what's that i heared about rhyme?
it looks well caged... zoological even...
given that i have been given assurances...
they would rhyme... those poems...
well... apart from the greek narrative epics...
or the latin... narrative mundane bouquets...
teasing at maxims and: fare-ye-well...
me... tarzan... jane... dr falstaff:    yummy garden
greens!
rhyme... well if rhyme it is...
you won't be needing a piece of paper on stage...
rhyming as a way to remember lines...
imagine being an actor...
for that "concern" a poet too...
and... no rhyme was involved...
i guess by rhyme you hear the bouncing ball...
and the suffixes are tabulated...
  when and thus: all this forgotten...
better in song when there are couplets
of sentences and they... end with -ed:

   i head!
to which... wink wink...
  my head of... a sunken ship's worth...
an anchor! sleeping cerberus ahoy!
we will surely pass!
into this belly of the most fantastic beast
that's Hades himself...
digesting shadow creamed with ash...
topped with a dash of hope: that's soul...
and hey presto! we'll have ourselves...
a feast: al fresco... although...
6-feet beneath the ground...
which is... aeons from sunlight...
     and... 6ft short of a flower's tip...
hardly gagging for the heights of an oak...
am i?

but that's quiet an affair...
everything, is, in, its, right... place...
i was thinking: amnesia and vanilla sky...
but then there's the curse of tom cruise
not winning best actor for:
born on the 4th of july...

it's a make-over...
the original movie is also an opening
quote from vanilla sky:
amphetamines on dylan
and cognac's worth of monet...
                
   open your eyes...
      again... in spanish...
abre los ojos
     abre: open...   los ojos (hush hush)...
   los: i knew it...
even the spaniards have it...
los = the...
      if the spanish have a definite article
before the eyes...
while the english have a determiner: your...
which is... by extension of the pronoun: you...
which i will use...
you(я) - chewbacca-otter round of applause!
you-i... or you-you... yoyo... W!

eh... some languages don't even
bother with a definite article or a determiner:

they just cut it down to... bypassing
grammatical shrapnel... and how can you have
gender neutral pronouns...
when the nouns themselves: are gendered?
i just heard the hyper-woke crowd
of grammatical geniuses are lying low...
worrying about spaghetti and toilet paper...
i figured: leech on!

              otwórz oczy
well... i guess the point of )open(
   is implied... that word just gobbles down
any determiner...
a verb within a verb...
to be open: ****... pronouns!
otwarty: to be open (masculine)
otwarta: to be open (feminine)...
otwartość... to be open (as a quality)...

    but i thought that we could bypass the natives
and treat english like the medieval world
treated french: lingua franca style...
i.e. the language of tourists and clown-world
intellectuals: ahem... "intellectuals"...
the lingua inglese (l'inglese)...

    open your eyes...
    could make sense if it was only an english
****** translation:
   otwórz (twoje) oczy....
but it's already an intimate statement of wants...
who's who is beside the point
when someone says: open... and eyes...
so who needs: your's to be included as my
demand for your shut eyes?

and then... the spanish definite article...
open the eyez...
abre los ojos... it might as well be german...
rhien german: not vienna prone german...
öffnen ihre! das augen!

     a translation of german, as a joke...
never tires... from spanish to english or...
the saxons on these isles really softened and turned
themselves into oysters...
mingling with the welsh the picts and the irish...
but... that's "life"...

   it's all in a pud... or a pug...
or an 'pple pi'...           or a spud...
                  or the red herring...
                        attempting to tell a joke in german...
i guess the only jokes they do tell...
are when drinking and as SS-*****-heichschtig-herr-meisters
in some concen-trato-kampisch...
  uber... uber... cosmo-ZEX... trans-...
                                               6s & 7s... of a 69'ers roulette...
the pink-bollocking ladies of the agony aunts
of the tabloid press... what's that?
oh... right! METRO-ZEXXIES! or the usuals...

joint-stock company of fish & flattery...
**** me... that's a scalping...
i wasn't expecting that to hit me...
i the bird that passes a stone to another bird...
not in a rubric of shakespeare of a cascade...
you're sort of expecting it to latch-on to you...
but not... when it's wwwwwwwwwwwinding
                                                                          o
                                                                          w              l
                                                                          n    and then
                                                                                            f
                                "ƨbɿɒwʞɔɒd" bnoγɘd bnɒ Ɉʇɘl ɘʜɈ oɈ

and then back into a paragraph of cuddling
to a pillow... unexpecting... a near-miss of genius...
****-*******? Dickens' a worth a lot
more than ****-*******...
more like catching a ****... beheading it...
plucking it... gutting it...
poaching it a while...
before even feigning to attempt to roast it!

as is waking up to: everything is in (its / the) right place...
its by definition is not: it's...
and the... well... its can be a determine of yours...
but now we have at least three languages
to juggle...
and you're still the one sending me postcard
from Dover...
when i should hear the sound of:
piedlibre / piedsrelâché dans Calais...
so no... no postcard from kevin bacon
made homeless by Bruges or Strasbourg...
because... because of the ******* architecture!

i'll watch one commentary video...
after i have sampled some Dickens...
           and that's with an intro of some sip sip...
and afterwards... it's onto the maincourse
of music... and... counting the number
of bones in my hands... the ones that wouldn't
make me a professional snooker player...

would i even care to call radiohead a group...
passe? sooner or later pink void and floyd
the barber will be... dinosaur music...
                    and at least... this electric sunrise...
of... a movie i never starred in...
but somehow borrowed... because i didn't
want to be rudely awakened by the bbc radio 1
breakfast show... but wake up to a movie-cliche...
does it matter?
      
something subtle... perhaps it should have been
the....
                         DAS BOOOOOT theme...
or         teenzeitalterRANDALIEREN of sonic youth...
diese ist nicht vesternberlinerbranddeburaegean...
schimmenschimmen... izm:siemensiemen...

i swear... either me... or the "boomer"
monty python quack and prance choke.... joke.

OBDURATE...
it's either shooting up junk or drinking and acquiring
a purse of victorian vocab wealth...
never heard of it...
              as any word... with the onslaught of slang...
"out of fashion"...
hardened...                      he had an obdurate resolve...
er war verstockt! he was stubborn...

at a time when english still clinched to:
veriloquium ex latine -
origins of truth from latin...
or at least... the meaning of words...
apart... of course... from the odd greek -suffix
or prefix- "loan" worth of scalpel...
for technicality's sake ol' chap!

                         oh things could have been...
much much worse...
i could have been the drunk and the dunce!
         lucky for me... i found... conversations...
outside of writing... a... theatre with too many...
uncertain... chess-games of...
                        origins of poker... via... physiognomy...
and... at that point...
anything by the gnostics... would suffice...
sprinkle in a little bit of kabbalah...
  hell...                        those wise wise people:
who started to know all about the misgivings
of life... the same ones...
who never held a book at a leisure...
   nor later: as a variation of their work...
that work... which offered them but one relief...
to escape boredom...
and to later find further escape...
   in being... entertained...
                             my shadow already does that
for me.
In the first century of the Lord, the retinue of Wonthelimar entered the pavilion of the space of nine hundred years, where a retrograde period ceases and is disturbed. Here in Sfendoni's Speleothemes, the carbonated waters were purified in a state of total purification of the nine hundred years that it would take them to reach Patmos. But everything happens expeditiously and without any kind of outcome in the states that refer to delaying purification. Only the Logos of God carried them certain and stable in their temporal mechanical intrigue, surpassing what phosphorescence cannot cross in a vacuum without a Gehenna that pursued them as a consequence until the last day, and the graces of the labyrinth of the Logos that were He went in the cascades of gibberish and comfort of the seraphim who escorted them for these 900 years with the help of the Kyrios and their magines.

At that time, the breath of the Vernarth Rhema was imprisoned in the mansion that dominated the child of the Sfendoni cave, united with the Kyrios, designating them as the only guides in the nebulosity with a word of sharpness, who walk through the light wind of eternal night. . Here the Gehenna will try to convince them and lead them to the exceptional creatures everywhere in the temptations assigned to them, amidst storms of blows and resounding ultrasounds that echoed from the idiosyncrasy and from the folds of all those grouped travelings with the cross in their hand, at each intersection bounced the plasma of the ultra-world that he knew well about the Wonthelimar. The spoils of shadows gradually became visible before the victory of those who persist in the vanquished darkness of 900 years amidst bones and ultra-earthly roots, and autonomous laws that were imposed on the just.

Vernarth in this thirty-seven parapsychology, before arriving he felt on Patmos that 900 years had passed, but liberation was becoming superior to the slavery of unnamed eternity, with the Chiroptera specimens that were in charge of fleeting on flights to make them creatures like them. but as semi-human capacities, to meet the only begotten, after overcoming the Logos of the primordial one that resurrected them hyper-oxygenated, where the domain of all extreme and dynamic confusion is found.

Wonthelimar held Marielle's hand tightly when he wanted to escape from the prelude of the surface that made them temporary captives and rather closed the eyes of those who were fatigued by not being able to follow this holocaust. The Kyrios like Adonay asked the Seraphim for help in rescuing the imprisoned confessors, presumed of wisdom, but not of salvific origin. Here the Souls of Helleniká and Trouvere appear in the final section. Everything begins to normalize, and the desire of the powers became more diligent for those who felt renounced and exceeded this quantum time that evaded them by going demartyrizing, but insisted on the last addition of who went back and forth thousands of times to Bethany, and vice versa through these nine hundred years. Until an Alexandrian follower appears singing for the beginning of the end of the 900 years, faithfully following the propaedeutic of a woman who in the future was to be assumed as all those who would be immolated before Patmos arrived.

The nine hundred years were hypnosis and biofeedback in the efforts that Vernarth made, since he became autonomous from his doctor in Piacenza, from here the emotions for him were of belonging in everything and everyone. Therefore his physical body interacted with others and all his immediate orbit,  in such a way that these nine hundred of the darkness of the Speleothemes commanded by his devotee Wonthelimar, went all with bilocation sets, beings from the ultra world, incidents outside the body that he could sovereignly show. Like his noble and loyal hoplites from the site of Arbela, who began to communicate hovering in his brain function. From this point, Wonthelimar received Vernarth's brain waves, as an awareness of not being inert in the matter of his cognition, which was the predominant basis as Hetairoi with his Quantum Monad. Great attention was reflected in everything to receive each one with his spiritual offerings and requests, and with his gaunt officials who were righteous to him. Here the matter was not the basis of everything that exists, they were sovereign energy fields of the Speleothemes with the Kyrios as mediums in the rectitude and the projections of the unknown arteries that would lead to Patmos, after nine hundred years. Only millions of rivers of blood were spilled by the illusion of those who wanted to finally be reborn later in a prime hour 03:00, this dimension that transported them being paranormal, each one did not experience physical or psychological changes, to the point that Vernarth presents himself to them and tells them:

Vernarth: "the reality of this Odyssey called Scientific Rhema, where poetry rests on human beings and frees them from all urgency, clearing the secrets of reality as teleportation metaphysics in those who possessed a physical body, of which it was not tele carried at the macromolecular level. Namely; Bilocation of the material and spiritual energy is what I have added to you like quantum physics since the electron crossed the dark field where you feel the Torah close. They felt they did not know what to follow or find, but the phenomenon made precognition in my substance so that we can now enter the field of the Eclectic Portal from where I came to help them. The paranormal consequence was understood by all physical phenomena that did not alleviate the exemptions of science, rather it was paranormal quantum theology that led them to that nine hundred-year redoubts to conceive ourselves together in this very particular Ultraworld of Wonthelimar and Vlad Strigoi. Here we will be able to find with your intuitive and scientific truth this same laboratory of theological geology, conceptualizing from its regressive number that it would complete the nine hundred years without anything biological that makes them not know from precognition of matter-body. Your parapsychology is ours, we are all connected and we are the new mechanics of the senses, that even in millions of years will it take you where to look for them ...? in those that not all of humanity could reveal "
Nine Hundred Years of Darkness
Michael Marchese Jan 2020
So easy a caveman can do it
But few to its word
Convince others
He drew it
Upon set in stone
Scriptures
Speaking their tongues
In all languages’
Origin-
Stories are spun
And from one
White as snow
It becomes
Avalanche
And from dripping red lips
Is the kiss
Of romance
For it dances
With devils
And levels the field
Playing aces up sleeves
Is the Art of its Deal
It will steal
To feed millions
Of stocked-market shelves
As it spells out
It’s death-sentence’s
Prison cells
Of the orphans of its
Unaborted fetus
And its silent night’s
Slit-wristed
Christmas wish list
Just like Jesus himself
Still makes use of its gifts
With the oratory glories
Through gory holes
Seep
Hissing its allegories
And counting its sheep
Deepest secrets of its
Fatal weakness
Sequestered
In festering cores
Of its hordes
Of confessors
Still preaching what it
In its malpractice
Teaching
The meek to inherit
The earth
By beseeching
What it
Seeks to keep
Beggars’ hands
Ever reaching
And pious denial
Disciples
From leaking
Its nemesis
Genuine
Freely
From speaking
Against
What its crying wolf
Fenced-in
Mike Pence’s
Expenses
Dispense with
To bolster its trial’s
Unerring defenses
And while we try
To prohibit
Its urge
Overruling our will
And our subconscious serves
Its injustice for all
Reign of terror sustained
It’s corrupt crusade
Black-money-financed
Campaign
It’s enrapturing trappings
Of fortune and fame
It’s scandalous escapade’s
Ignorance feign
The extortion
Contortionist’s
Warped-picture frame
Of mine’s
Victimless crimes
In the system it games
It’s prescription pops fired
In mental health rain
Ever blameless
It stains
Reputations
Exclaiming
Its puppets insane
Always true
To its name
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2022
Nice is alright, kinda nice
But it's boring bourgeois too
I wish the Carolina Inn
But I'm only Carolina blue

Not near a university now
But I write some professors
High school lately lingers
Old friends are my confessors

Weather getting colder now
Got my Maryland hat
Harper's Ferry not too far
That is where I'm at

               True dat.
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
I occasionally read them
But I don't really like the book reviewers
The professional critics
The columnists, The professors

I was a teacher
Taught the writers, poets, novelists
Not too charismatic myself
But earnest; tried to do my duty

The idea of the Jesuits
More than the reality
Black robes in Japan
Aristocratic confessors

Kathryn Orr
Gal Gadot
Susan Meek
Beauty.
Norbert Tasev Jun 2021
I hear today irreversibly getting closer and closer to my vulnerable heart as critical, cheap grabs are eaten; Worthy executioners of cultures! And how do my kidneys try to process the eloquent sermons of unworthy black soups, if they don't take care of those who gala usurp the gifts of their spirits, the empty shell of the shell becomes an echoing example to me! And the infinite space also communicates with the Odyssey sighs of the once-once seas!
 
Out of me there will be rancid prophetic squeals, and the few fragments of My Time are barely making music, but they are knocking! In the cave-deep soul of my opening cave-deep soul, a child is still crying and threatening: until He grows out of me, I can remain as a Man, and my boundaries cannot disappear! I can only be an exact, missing link in a junk formula! I would try my wings half-nail-hesitantly as Icarus became more and more impatient!
 
I would happily push myself into the background, but this sensationalist world is forcing me to confess as stubborn confessors certain things! Behind me, the Void is consciously sneaking in, and a sticky feline light flowing from the lunar lobes like wounds! He immersed himself in rat souls as a refuge, a hardy worm of Indifference! And in many cases, the "camp of some" still listens to his words: Cowards crouching in themselves!
 
No one was easily denied solid defense from anyone! The words of the Prophet are sharp at the top of my tongue! As a thousand overzealous geysers, I would increase the number of a laid-back, legitimate Judgment while a murderous silence rumbles in my throbbing ears
Qualyxian Quest Mar 2019
the atheism of the professors
         the ignorance of the confessors
                      hope for future successors?


              the musicians are the Impressors.
Revolution
  We seeded discontent
  increased the angry want.
  We butchered our oppressors
  became the new expresses
  we were elite suppressors
  buried unwashed confessors
  called it the flip of a coin.
  Queen, off with their heads.
  The sheep survived and join
  Reds starve them no breads.

— The End —