It's the continual
opening of the
eyes that disappoints,
not that sleep brings peace,
but it's the momentary
reprieve from life's
clenched fist, and
it's ruthless apathy.

Life is a toss of
the coin,
a roll of the dice.
Often, it's snake eyes.
As a kid, I always
thought that everything
would be alright.
Now I see the
randomness of
it all.

I'm always trying to
get back to Eden.
Sometimes, the
dreamer in me
forgets the futility.
The banishment is
forever.

i

Then must I always bear your endless accusations?
They all prove false, but still I have to fight them.
If I happen to glance at the marble theater's topmost row,
you pick some girl in the crowd to moan about;
or if a beautiful woman looks at me wordlessly,
you charge she's using lovers' wordless signs.
If I compliment a girl, you try to tear out my hair;
if I criticize one, you think I've got something to hide.
If I look well, I love no one - not even you;
if I'm pale, you say that I'm pining for someone else.
I wish I really had committed some such sin:
punishment hurts less when you deserve it;
but as it is, your wild indictments at every turn
themselves forbid your wrath to have much weight.
Think of the little long-eared donkey's wretched lot:
continual beatings only make him stubborn.
Now look, here's another charge: Cypassis, your coiffeuse,
is cast at me for defiling her mistress's bed!
The gods forbid that I, even if I yearned to sin,
should find delight in a slave-girl's lowly lot!
What man, being free, would want a servile liaison,
or wish to embrace a body the whip has scarred?
And furthermore, the girl's your personal beautician,
and valued by you because of her skillful hands.
Is it likely that I'd approach such a trusted serving-maid?
What would I get, but rejection and exposure?
By Venus and by the bow of her swift boy I swear,
you'll never find me guilty of that crime.

ii

Cypassis, expert at dressing the hair in a thousand ways
(but you ought to arrange the tresses of goddesses only)
you that I've found quite polished in stolen ecstasy,
fit for your mistress's service, but fitter for mine,
whoever was it that told of our bodies joining together?
Where did Corinna learn of our affair?
Could I have blushed? Or slipped by a single word to give
some sign that has betrayed our furtive joys?
And what of it, if I argued that nobody could transgress
with a servant, except for a man who was out of his mind
The Thessalian burned with passion for lovely Briseis, a servant;
the Mycenean leader loved Apollo's slave.
I'm no greater man than Achilles, or the scion of Tantalus.
How can what's fine for kings be foul for me?
And yet, when your mistress turned her glowering eyes on you,
I saw a deep blush spread all over your face.
But how much more possessed I was, if you recall,
I swore my faith by Venus's great godhead!
(You, goddess, bid, I pray, the warm Southwind to blow
those innocent lies across the Carpathian sea.)
Now give me a sweet return for the favor I did you then,
by bedding with me, you dusky Cypassis, today.
Don't shake your head, you ingrate, pretending you're still afraid:
you can please one of your masters, and that's enough.
If you're silly enough to refuse, I'll confess all that we've done,
making myself the betrayer of my own crime,
and I'll tell your mistress how often we met, Cypassis, and where,
and how many times we did it, and how many ways!

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wond’ring at the present, nor the past,
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste:
    This I do vow and this shall ever be:
    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

And the trees about me,
      Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
      Groan with continual surges; and behind me
      Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!


Paint me a cavernous waste shore
  Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
  Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me ****** above
  Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
  And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
  (Nausicaa and Polypheme).
Gesture of orang-outang
  Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
  Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
  The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees
  Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
  And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
  Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
  And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
  Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
  Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)

Tests the razor on his leg
  Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
  Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
  Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
  And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
  Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
  It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
  Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
  And a glass of brandy neat.

Shatter the paradigm
Thirsty soul, enrich, affirm, flame the winter fire
The playa calls out to everything you are or will ever be
Resonate as the eye of the storm
Unfurl your colors and let them fly among the other banners

Walk onto the playa, a man strapped
with a guitar, nine harmonicas, one morraca, a melodica, a journal,
and a soul full of childlike wonderment radiating love.

Share the highest self
receive others in the same saintly light
"Buddha", "Buddha"
Man the poet's post, gift a poem to whatever brave adventurer
finds their way to your dusty shore
Be a beacon of spontaneous joy among the other bright lights
Engage in the mystic pleasures of Black Rock City with a lustful curiosity reserved only for the most devout Bacchanalian Priest,
standing amid the pagan ****, waving spilled goblets
like an overflowing gaggle of drunken pirates singing a wild tune,
arms sweeping and fists swinging in clever rocking harmony,
conductors composing romantic chaos

Love being alive.
Love putting your feet in the dirt and smelling the dry air.
Hear the birds singing unknowable songs that you were born to follow, Feel the sun on your skin, let your Self burn.
Walk amongst trees and wrap your arms around rooted giants
as you hurtle through space

Connect and feel balanced within this paradoxical existence
of constant change,
lightly hold the hand of letting go
See into people's eyes,
Create new channels for awakening.
Be a romantic and cherish womanly love and lust.
Enjoy the embrace of hands, union of lips,
and the primal enlightenment afforded by duality.
Attend jazz nights at pirate mead bars and write dizzy poetry in comfy corners. Share art. Speak spanish and play guitar.

This waking life is a dream, is it not?
Dream of exploration, in the material and spiritual realm.
People are endlessly fascinating, dream of meeting them all.
Continual realization of the oneness of all life is a sustained dream,
trust your path and part within this grand symphony,
the light of the festivals may provide clues,
fearlessly be a seeker of these chances.

Be ready for genuine human interaction,
be brave enough to ask the forbidden questions,
and wild enough to attempt at the answers.
We all carry a piece of the puzzle, find community,
a place where many pieces can come together
to bask in the glory of life.
Add your own piece of light to shine in the desert.
Sit amongst philosophers and rebels in the shade,
revel in the mystery together.

Haunting apathy clouds and clots
the blood beneath insomniac eyes
and the thoughts becoming tangible
simply search for reasons.

If everything is settled now, then
why the sudden start of regression
leading to apathetic depression
from a catalyst to happiness?

Temporary respite from endless fatigue
and allergies to chocolate cake--
sick in my mouth and mind
and lethargy the glue between my sheets:

a silent prayer never crosses the ceiling
because amidst all the turmoil of
a phantom city
never was a god.

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong,
now grieve, mourn and fast.

Originally published by Measure

Keywords/Tags: Old English, Middle English, Medieval English, long night, lament, complaint, alas, summer, pleasant, winter, north wind, northern wind, severe weather, storm, bird, birds, birdsong, sin, crime, fast, fasting, repentance, dark night of the soul, sackcloth and ashes, regret, repentance, remonstrance



Three Roundels by Geoffrey Chaucer

I. Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.



II. Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign,—
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.



III. Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.



Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet—please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you’re far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain—
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I’ll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains!



Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can only hazard guesses.
But they rear like prancing steeds
raked by brilliant spurs of need,
Young lovers.



Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
    Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
    To give my lady dear;
    But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
        Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
    And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
    Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
    Her worth? It tests my power!
    I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
        For it would be a shame for me to stray
    Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
    And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
    Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
    And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
        As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
    Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
    Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier—
    God keep her soul, I can no better say.



Winter has cast his cloak away
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Winter has cast his cloak away
of wind and cold and chilling rain
to dress in embroidered light again:
the light of day—bright, festive, gay!
Each bird and beast, without delay,
in its own tongue, sings this refrain:
"Winter has cast his cloak away!"
Brooks, fountains, rivers, streams at play,
wear, with their summer livery,
bright beads of silver jewelry.
All the Earth has a new and fresh display:
Winter has cast his cloak away!

Note: This rondeau was set to music by Debussy in his Trois chansons de France.



The year lays down his mantle cold
by Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

The year lays down his mantle cold
of wind, chill rain and bitter air,
and now goes clad in clothes of gold
of smiling suns and seasons fair,
while birds and beasts of wood and fold
now with each cry and song declare:
"The year lays down his mantle cold!"
All brooks, springs, rivers, seaward rolled,
now pleasant summer livery wear
with silver beads embroidered where
the world puts off its raiment old.
The year lays down his mantle cold.



Wulf and Eadwacer (Old English circa 960-990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here, bloodthirsty curs roam this island.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
Whenever it rained, as I wept,
the bold warrior came; he took me in his arms:
good feelings for him, but their end loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your infrequent visits
have left me famished, deprived of real meat!
Do you hear, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.



Cædmon's Hymn (Old English circa 658-680 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, let us honour      heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the might of the Architect      and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father.      First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established      the foundation of wonders.
Then he, the Primeval Poet,      created heaven as a roof
for the sons of men,      Holy Creator,
Maker of mankind.      Then he, the Eternal Entity,
afterwards made men middle-earth:      Master Almighty!



Westron Wynde
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 1530 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Western wind, when will you blow,
bringing the drizzling rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



Pity Mary
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the sun passes under the wood:
I rue, Mary, thy face—fair, good.
Now the sun passes under the tree:
I rue, Mary, thy son and thee.



Fowles in the Frith
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!



I am of Ireland
(anonymous Medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!



Sumer is icumen in
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1260 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Summer is a-comin’!
Sing loud, cuckoo!
The seed grows,
The meadow blows,
The woods spring up anew.
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe bleats for her lamb;
The cows contentedly moo;
The bullock roots,
The billy-goat poots ...
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing so well, cuckoo!
Never stop, until you're through!

Sing now cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo!
Sing, cuckoo! Sing now cuckoo!



Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms’ to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within ...
what hope of my help then?



Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the hell I will go!



Ich have y-don al myn youth
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously ...
And oh what grief it has brought me!



Are these the oldest rhyming poems in the English language? Reginald of Durham recorded four verses of Saint Godric's: they are the oldest songs in English for which the original musical settings survive.

The first song is said in the Life of Saint Godric to have come to Godric when he had a vision of his sister Burhcwen, like him a solitary at Finchale, being received into heaven.  She was singing a song of thanksgiving, in Latin, and Godric renders her song in English bracketed by a Kyrie eleison:

Led By Christ and Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By Christ and Saint Mary I was so graciously led
that the earth never felt my bare foot’s tread!

Crist and sainte marie swa on scamel me iledde
þat ic on þis erðe ne silde wid mine bare fote itredie

In the second poem, Godric puns on his name: godes riche means “God’s kingdom” and sounds like “God is rich” ...

A Cry to Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
Saintë Marië Virginë,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarenë,
Welcome, shield and help thin Godric,
Fly him off to God’s kingdom rich!

II.
Saintë Marië, Christ’s bower,
****** among Maidens, Motherhood’s flower,
Blot out my sin, fix where I’m flawed,
Elevate me to Bliss with God!

Original

Saintë Marië Virginë,
Moder Iesu Cristes Nazarenë,
Onfo, schild, help thin Godric,
Onfong bring hegilich
With the in Godës riche.

Saintë Marië Cristes bur,
Maidenës clenhad, moderës flur;
Dilie min sinnë, rix in min mod,
Bring me to winnë with the selfd God.

Godric also wrote a prayer to St. Nicholas:

Prayer to St. Nicholas
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Saint Nicholas, beloved of God,
Build us a house that’s bright and fair;
Watch over us from birth to bier,
Then, Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there!

Sainte Nicholaes godes druð
tymbre us faire scone hus
At þi burth at þi bare
Sainte nicholaes bring vs wel þare



The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem aka The Riming Poem
anonymous Old English poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and graciously provided its radiant engine.
I was gladdened with glees, bathed in bright hues,
deluged with joy’s blossoms, sunshine-infused.

Men admired me, feted me with banquet-courses;
we rejoiced in the good life. Gaily bedecked horses
carried me swiftly across plains on joyful rides,
delighting me with their long limbs' thunderous strides.
That world was quickened by earth’s fruits and their flavors!
I cantered under pleasant skies, attended by troops of advisers.
Guests came and went, amusing me with their chatter
as I listened with delight to their witty palaver.

Well-appointed ships glided by in the distance;
when I sailed myself, I was never without guidance.
I was of the highest rank; I lacked for nothing in the hall;
nor did I lack for brave companions; warriors, all,
we strode through castle halls weighed down with gold
won from our service to thanes. We were proud men, and bold.
Wise men praised me; I was omnipotent in battle;
Fate smiled on and protected me; foes fled before me like cattle.
Thus I lived with joy indwelling; faithful retainers surrounded me;
I possessed vast estates; I commanded all my eyes could see;
the earth lay subdued before me; I sat on a princely throne;
the words I sang were charmed; old friendships did not wane ...

Those were years rich in gifts and the sounds of happy harp-strings,
when a lasting peace dammed shut the rivers’ sorrowings.
My servants were keen, their harps resonant;
their songs pealed, the sound loud but pleasant;
the music they made melodious, a continual delight;
the castle hall trembled and towered bright.
Courage increased, wealth waxed with my talent;
I gave wise counsel to great lords and enriched the valiant.

My spirit enlarged; my heart rejoiced;
good faith flourished; glory abounded; abundance increased.
I was lavishly supplied with gold; bright gems were circulated ...
Till treasure led to treachery and the bonds of friendship constricted.

I was bold in my bright array, noble in my equipage,
my joy princely, my home a happy hermitage.
I protected and led my people;
for many years my life among them was regal;
I was devoted to them and they to me.

But now my heart is troubled, fearful of the fates I see;
disaster seems unavoidable. Someone dear departs in flight by night
who once before was bold. His soul has lost its light.
A secret disease in full growth blooms within his breast,
spreads in different directions. Hostility blossoms in his chest,
in his mind. Bottomless grief assaults the mind's nature
and when penned in, erupts in rupture,
burns eagerly for calamity, runs bitterly about.  

The weary man suffers, begins a journey into doubt;
his pain is ceaseless; pain increases his sorrows, destroys his bliss;
his glory ceases; he loses his happiness;
he loses his craft; he no longer burns with desires.
Thus joys here perish, lordships expire;
men lose faith and descend into vice;
infirm faith degenerates into evil’s curse;
faith feebly abandons its high seat and every hour grows worse.

So now the world changes; Fate leaves men lame;
Death pursues hatred and brings men to shame.
The happy clan perishes; the spear rends the marrow;
the evildoer brawls and poisons the arrow;
sorrow devours the city; old age castrates courage;
misery flourishes; wrath desecrates the peerage;
the abyss of sin widens; the treacherous path snakes;
resentment burrows, digs in, wrinkles, engraves;
artificial beauty grows foul;
                                             the summer heat cools;
earthly wealth fails;
                                enmity rages, cruel, bold;
the might of the world ages, courage grows cold.
Fate wove itself for me and my sentence was given:
that I should dig a grave and seek that grim cavern
men cannot avoid when death comes, arrow-swift,
to seize their lives in his inevitable grasp.
Now night comes at last,
and the way stand clear
for Death to dispossesses me of my my abode here.

When my corpse lies interred and the worms eat my limbs,
whom will Death delight then, with his dark feast and hymns?
Let men’s bones become one,
and then finally, none,
till there’s nothing left here of the evil ones.
But men of good faith will not be destroyed;
the good man will rise, far beyond the Void,
who chastened himself, more often than not,
to avoid bitter sins and that final black Blot.
The good man has hope of a far better end
and remembers the promise of Heaven,
where he’ll experience the mercies of God for his saints,

freed from all sins, dark and depraved,
defended from vices, gloriously saved,
where, happy at last before their cheerful Lord,
men may rejoice in his love forevermore.



Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar [1460-1525]
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.



Now skruketh rose and lylie flour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 11th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now skruketh rose and lylie flour, // Now the rose and the lily skyward flower,
That whilen ber that suete savour // That will bear for awhile that sweet savor:
In somer, that suete tyde; // In summer, that sweet tide;
Ne is no quene so stark ne stour, // There is no queen so stark in her power
Ne no luedy so bryht in bour // Nor any lady so bright in her bower
That ded ne shal by glyde: // That Death shall not summon and guide;
Whoso wol fleshye lust for-gon and hevene-blisse abyde // But whoever forgoes lust, in heavenly bliss will abide
On Jhesu be is thoht anon, that tharled was ys side. // With his thoughts on Jesus anon, thralled at his side.



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"

The poem has also been rendered as "Adam lay i-bounden" and "Adam lay i-bowndyn."



I Sing of a Maiden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.
He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.
He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.
He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.
Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.



Brut (circa 1100 AD, written by Layamon, an excerpt)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now he stands on a hill overlooking the Avon,
seeing steel fishes girded with swords in the stream,
their swimming days done,
their scales a-gleam like gold-plated shields,
their fish-spines floating like shattered spears.

Layamon's Brut is a 32,000-line poem composed in Middle English that shows a strong Anglo-Saxon influence and contains the first known reference to King Arthur in English. The passage above is a good example of Layamon's gift for imagery. It's interesting, I think, that a thousand years ago a poet was dabbling in surrealism, with dead warriors being described as if they were both men and fish.



Tegner's Drapa
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard a voice, that cried,
“Balder the beautiful lies dead, lies dead . . .”
a voice like the flight of white cranes
intent on a sun sailing high overhead—
but a sun now irretrievably setting.

Then I saw the sun’s corpse
—dead beyond all begetting—
borne through disconsolate skies
as blasts from the Nifel-heim rang out with dread,
“Balder lies dead, our fair Balder lies dead! . . .”

Lost—the sweet runes of his tongue,
so sweet every lark hushed its singing!
Lost, lost forever—his beautiful face,
the grace of his smile, all the girls’ hearts wild-winging!
O, who ever thought such strange words might be said,
as “Balder lies dead, gentle Balder lies dead! . . .”



Deor's Lament (Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen island dungeon
after Nithad had fettered him,
many strong-but-supple sinew-bonds
binding the better man.
   That passed away; this also may.

Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths
but even more, her own sad state
once she discovered herself with child.
She predicted nothing good could come of it.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have heard that the Geat's moans for Matilda,
his lady, were limitless,
that his sorrowful love for her
robbed him of regretless sleep.
   That passed away; this also may.

For thirty winters Theodric ruled
the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand;
many knew this and moaned.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have also heard of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he held wide sway in the realm of the Goths.
He was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his kingdom might be overthrown.
   That passed away; this also may.

If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious,
bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening,
soon it seems to him that his troubles are endless.
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
This I will say for myself:
that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop,
dear to my lord. My name was Deor.
For many winters I held a fine office,
faithfully serving a just lord. But now Heorrenda
a man skilful in songs, has received the estate
the protector of warriors gave me.
   That passed away; this also may.



The Wife's Lament
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I draw these words from deep wells of my grief,
care-worn, unutterably sad.
I can recount woes I've borne since birth,
present and past, never more than now.
I have won, from my exile-paths, only pain.

First, my lord forsook his folk, left,
crossed the seas' tumult, far from our people.
Since then, I've known
wrenching dawn-griefs, dark mournings ... oh where,
where can he be?

Then I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,
full of unaccountable desires!
But the man's kinsmen schemed secretly
to estrange us, divide us, keep us apart,
across earth's wide kingdom, and my heart broke.

Then my lord spoke:
"Take up residence here."
I had few friends in this unknown, cheerless
region, none close.
Christ, I felt lost!

Then I thought I had found a well-matched man –
one meant for me,
but unfortunately he
was ill-starred and blind, with a devious mind,
full of murderous intentions, plotting some crime!

Before God we
vowed never to part, not till kingdom come, never!
But now that's all changed, forever –
our friendship done, severed.
I must hear, far and near, contempt for my husband.

So other men bade me, "Go, live in the grove,
beneath the great oaks, in an earth-cave, alone."
In this ancient cave-dwelling I am lost and oppressed –
the valleys are dark, the hills immense,
and this cruel-briared enclosure—an arid abode!

The injustice assails me—my lord's absence!
On earth there are lovers who share the same bed
while I pass through life dead in this dark abscess
where I wilt, summer days unable to rest
or forget the sorrows of my life's hard lot.

A young woman must always be
stern, hard-of-heart, unmoved,
opposing breast-cares and her heartaches' legions.
She must appear cheerful
even in a tumult of grief.

Like a criminal exiled to a far-off land,
moaning beneath insurmountable cliffs,
my weary-minded love, drenched by wild storms
and caught in the clutches of anguish,
is reminded constantly of our former happiness.

Woe be it to them who abide in longing.



"The Husband's Message" is an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poem from the Exeter Book, the oldest extant English poetry anthology. The poem may or may not be a reply to "The Wife's Lament," another poem in the same collection. The poem is generally considered to be an Anglo-Saxon riddle (I will provide the solution), but its primary focus is persuading a wife or fiancé to join her husband or betrothed and fulfill her promises to him. The Exeter Book has been dated to 960-990 AD, so the poem was written by then or earlier. The version below is my modern English translation of one of the oldest extant English poems.

The Husband's Message
anonymous Old English poem, circa 960-990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See, I unseal myself for your eyes only!
I sprang from a seed to a sapling,
waxed great in a wood,
                 was given knowledge,
was ordered across saltstreams in ships
where I stiffened my spine, standing tall,
till, entering the halls of heroes,
           I honored my manly Lord.

Now I stand here on this ship’s deck,
an emissary ordered to inform you
of the love my Lord feels for you.
I have no fear forecasting his heart steadfast,
his honor bright, his word true.

He who bade me come carved this letter
and entreats you to recall, clad in your finery,
what you promised each other many years before,
mindful of his treasure-laden promises.

He reminds you how, in those distant days,
witty words were pledged by you both
in the mead-halls and homesteads:
how he would be Lord of the lands
you would inhabit together
while forging a lasting love.

Alas, a vendetta drove him far from his feuding tribe,
but now he instructs me to gladly give you notice
that when you hear the returning cuckoo's cry
cascading down warming coastal cliffs,
come over the sea! Let no man hinder your course.

He earnestly urges you: Out! To sea!
Away to the sea, when the circling gulls
hover over the ship that conveys you to him!

Board the ship that you meet there:
sail away seaward to seek your husband,
over the seagulls' range,
                 over the paths of foam.
For over the water, he awaits you.

He cannot conceive, he told me,
how any keener joy could comfort his heart,
nor any greater happiness gladden his soul,
than that a generous God should grant you both
to exchange rings, then give gifts to trusty liege-men,
golden armbands inlaid with gems to faithful followers.

The lands are his, his estates among strangers,
his new abode fair and his followers true,
all hardy heroes, since hence he was driven,
shoved off in his ship from these shore in distress,
steered straightway over the saltstreams, sped over the ocean,
a wave-tossed wanderer winging away.

But now the man has overcome his woes,
outpitted his perils, lives in plenty, lacks no luxury,
has a hoard and horses and friends in the mead-halls.

All the wealth of the earth's great earls
now belongs to my Lord ...
                                He only lacks you.

He would have everything within an earl's having,
if only my Lady will come home to him now,
if only she will do as she swore and honor her vow.



Lament for the Makaris [Makers, or Poets]
by William Dunbar [1460-1525]
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

i who enjoyed good health and gladness
am overwhelmed now by life’s terrible sickness
and enfeebled with infirmity ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

our presence here is mere vainglory;
the false world is but transitory;
the flesh is frail; the Fiend runs free ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

the state of man is changeable:
now sound, now sick, now blithe, now dull,
now manic, now devoid of glee ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

no state on earth stands here securely;
as the wild wind shakes the willow tree,
so wavers this world’s vanity ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

Death leads the knights into the field
(unarmored under helm and shield)
sole Victor of each red mêlée ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

that strange, despotic Beast
tears from its mother’s breast
the babe, full of benignity ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

He takes the champion of the hour,
the captain of the highest tower,
the beautiful damsel in her tower ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

He spares no lord for his elegance,
nor clerk for his intelligence;
His dreadful stroke no man can flee ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

artist, magician, scientist,
orator, debater, theologist,
must all conclude, so too, as we:
“how the fear of Death dismays me!”

in medicine the most astute
sawbones and surgeons all fall mute;
they cannot save themselves, or flee ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

i see the Makers among the unsaved;
the greatest of Poets all go to the grave;
He does not spare them their faculty ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

i have seen Him pitilessly devour
our noble Chaucer, poetry’s flower,
and Lydgate and Gower (great Trinity!) ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

since He has taken my brothers all,
i know He will not let me live past the fall;
His next prey will be — poor unfortunate me! ...
how the fear of Death dismays me!

there is no remedy for Death;
we all must prepare to relinquish breath
so that after we die, we may be set free
from “the fear of Death dismays me!”




Unholy Trinity
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Man has three enemies:
himself, the world, and the devil.
Of these the first is, by far,
the most irresistible evil.

True Wealth
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is more to being rich
than merely having;
the wealthiest man can lose
everything not worth saving.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose lack “reasons”
and merely sways with the seasons;
she has no ego
but whoever put on such a show?

Eternal Time
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eternity is time,
time eternity,
except when we
are determined to "see."

Visions
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Our souls possess two eyes:
one examines time,
the other visions
eternal and sublime.

Godless
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God is absolute Nothingness
beyond our sense of time and place;
the more we try to grasp Him,
The more He flees from our embrace.

The Source
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water is pure and clean
when taken at the well-head:
but drink too far from the Source
and you may well end up dead.

Ceaseless Peace
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unceasingly you seek
life's ceaseless wavelike motion;
I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed.
Whose is the wiser notion?

Well Written
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Friend, cease!
Abandon all pretense!
You must yourself become
the Writing and the Sense.

Worm Food
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No worm is buried
so deep within the soil
that God denies it food
as reward for its toil.

Mature Love
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes.
Mature love, calm and serene, abides.

God's Predicament
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell,
or He would have to join them in hell!

Clods
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A ruby
is not lovelier
than a dirt clod,
nor an angel
more glorious
than a frog.



A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

3.
Often the deed-dodger avoids ventures,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

Winfrid or Wynfrith is better known as Saint Boniface (c. 675–754). This may be the second-oldest English poem, after "Caedmon's Hymn."



Franks Casket Runes
anonymous Old English poems, circa 700
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The fish flooded the shore-cliffs;
the sea-king wept when he swam onto the shingle:
whale's bone.

2.
Romulus and Remus, twin brothers weaned in Rome
by a she-wolf, far from their native land.



"The Leiden Riddle" is an Old English translation of Aldhelm's Latin riddle Lorica ("Corselet").

The Leiden Riddle
anonymous Old English riddle poem, circa 700
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dank earth birthed me from her icy womb.
I know I was not fashioned from woolen fleeces;
nor was I skillfully spun from skeins;
I have neither warp nor weft;
no thread thrums through me in the thrashing loom;
nor do whirring shuttles rattle me;
nor does the weaver's rod assail me;
nor did silkworms spin me like skillfull fates
into curious golden embroidery.
And yet heroes still call me an excellent coat.
Nor do I fear the dread arrows' flights,
however eagerly they leap from their quivers.

Solution: a coat of mail.



He sits with his harp at his thane's feet,
Earning his hire, his rewards of rings,
Sweeping the strings with his skillful nail;
Hall-thanes smile at the sweet song he sings.
—"Fortunes of Men" loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Fairest Between Lincoln and Lindsey
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the nightingale sings, the woods turn green;
Leaf and grass again blossom in April, I know,
Yet love pierces my heart with its spear so keen!
Night and day it drinks my blood. The painful rivulets flow.

I’ve loved all this year. Now I can love no more;
I’ve sighed many a sigh, sweetheart, and yet all seems wrong.
For love is no nearer and that leaves me poor.
Sweet lover, think of me — I’ve loved you so long!



A cleric courts his lady
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My death I love, my life I hate, because of a lovely lady;
She's as bright as the broad daylight, and shines on me so purely.
I fade before her like a leaf in summer when it's green.
If thinking of her does no good, to whom shall I complain?



The original poem below is based on my teenage misinterpretation of a Latin prayer ...

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

. . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . .
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
. . . requiescat in pace . . .
May she rest in peace.
. . . amen . . .
Amen.

NOTE: I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Vulgate Latin Bible (circa 385 AD).

Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby
with Minerva’s help he might be able to **** the suitors. Presently he
said to Telemachus, “Telemachus, we must get the armour together and
take it down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you
have removed it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the way of
the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went
away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more
particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel
over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may
disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes
tempts people to use them.”
  Telemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called
nurse Euryclea and said, “Nurse, shut the women up in their room,
while I take the armour that my father left behind him down into the
store room. No one looks after it now my father is gone, and it has
got all smirched with soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it
down where the smoke cannot reach it.”
  “I wish, child,” answered Euryclea, “that you would take the
management of the house into your own hands altogether, and look after
all the property yourself. But who is to go with you and light you
to the store room? The maids would have so, but you would not let
them.
  “The stranger,” said Telemachus, “shall show me a light; when people
eat my bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from.”
  Euryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their
room. Then Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets,
shields, and spears inside; and Minerva went before them with a gold
lamp in her hand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon
Telemachus said, “Father, my eyes behold a great marvel: the walls,
with the rafters, crossbeams, and the supports on which they rest
are all aglow as with a flaming fire. Surely there is some god here
who has come down from heaven.”
  “Hush,” answered Ulysses, “hold your peace and ask no questions, for
this is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me here
to talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief
will ask me all sorts of questions.”
  On this Telemachus went by torch-light to the other side of the
inner court, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his
bed till morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering
on the means whereby with Minerva’s help he might be able to ****
the suitors.
  Then Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana,
and they set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near
the fire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and had
a footstool all in one piece with the seat itself; and it was
covered with a thick fleece: on this she now sat, and the maids came
from the women’s room to join her. They set about removing the
tables at which the wicked suitors had been dining, and took away
the bread that was left, with the cups from which they had drunk. They
emptied the embers out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them
to give both light and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a
second time and said, “Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging
about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you
wretch, outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out
with a firebrand.”
  Ulysses scowled at her and answered, “My good woman, why should
you be so angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my
clothes are all in rags, and because I am obliged to go begging
about after the manner of tramps and beggars generall? I too was a
rich man once, and had a fine house of my own; in those days I gave to
many a ***** such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he
wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which
people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased
Jove to take all away from me; therefore, woman, beware lest you too
come to lose that pride and place in which you now wanton above your
fellows; have a care lest you get out of favour with your mistress,
and lest Ulysses should come home, for there is still a chance that he
may do so. Moreover, though he be dead as you think he is, yet by
Apollo’s will he has left a son behind him, Telemachus, who will
note anything done amiss by the maids in the house, for he is now no
longer in his boyhood.”
  Penelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, “Impudent
baggage, said she, “I see how abominably you are behaving, and you
shall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself,
that I was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband, for
whose sake I am in such continual sorrow.”
  Then she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, “Bring a seat with
a fleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his
story, and listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some
questions.”
  Eurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as
soon as Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, “Stranger, I
shall first ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town and
parents.”
  “Madam;” answered Ulysses, “who on the face of the whole earth can
dare to chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven
itself; you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness,
as the monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its
wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring
forth lambs, and the sea abounds with fish by reason of his virtues,
and his people do good deeds under him. Nevertheless, as I sit here in
your house, ask me some other question and do not seek to know my race
and family, or you will recall memories that will yet more increase my
sorrow. I am full of heaviness, but I ought not to sit weeping and
wailing in another person’s house, nor is it well to be thus
grieving continually. I shall have one of the servants or even
yourself complaining of me, and saying that my eyes swim with tears
because I am heavy with wine.”
  Then Penelope answered, “Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty,
whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my
dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs
I should be both more respected and should show a better presence to
the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the
afflictions which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from
all our islands—Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca
itself, are wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can
therefore show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to
people who say that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time
brokenhearted about Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once,
and I have to invent stratagems in order to deceive them. In the first
place heaven put it in my mind to set up a great tambour-frame in my
room, and to begin working upon an enormous piece of fine
needlework. Then I said to them, ‘Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead,
still, do not press me to marry again immediately; wait—for I would
not have my skill in needlework perish unrecorded—till I have
finished making a pall for the hero Laertes, to be ready against the
time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of
the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.’ This was what I
said, and they assented; whereon I used to keep working at my great
web all day long, but at night I would unpick the stitches again by
torch light. I fooled them in this way for three years without their
finding it out, but as time wore on and I was now in my fourth year,
in the waning of moons, and many days had been accomplished, those
good-for-nothing hussies my maids betrayed me to the suitors, who
broke in upon me and caught me; they were very angry with me, so I was
forced to finish my work whether I would or no. And now I do not see
how I can find any further shift for getting out of this marriage.
My parents are putting great pressure upon me, and my son chafes at
the ravages the suitors are making upon his estate, for he is now
old enough to understand all about it and is perfectly able to look
after his own affairs, for heaven has blessed him with an excellent
disposition. Still, notwithstanding all this, tell me who you are
and where you come from—for you must have had father and mother of
some sort; you cannot be the son of an oak or of a rock.”
  Then Ulysses answered, “madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist in
asking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs
me: people must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as long
as I have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless,
as regards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a
fair and fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly
peopled and there are nine cities in it: the people speak many
different languages which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans,
brave Eteocretans, Dorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi.
There is a great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every
nine years had a conference with Jove himself. Minos was father to
Deucalion, whose son I am, for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and
myself. Idomeneus sailed for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am
called Aethon; my brother, however, was at once the older and the more
valiant of the two; hence it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and
showed him hospitality, for the winds took him there as he was on
his way to Troy, carrying him out of his course from cape Malea and
leaving him in Amnisus off the cave of Ilithuia, where the harbours
are difficult to enter and he could hardly find shelter from the winds
that were then xaging. As soon as he got there he went into the town
and asked for Idomeneus, claiming to be his old and valued friend, but
Idomeneus had already set sail for Troy some ten or twelve days
earlier, so I took him to my own house and showed him every kind of
hospitality, for I had abundance of everything. Moreover, I fed the
men who were with him with barley meal from the public store, and
got subscriptions of wine and oxen for them to sacrifice to their
heart’s content. They stayed with me twelve days, for there was a gale
blowing from the North so strong that one could hardly keep one’s feet
on land. I suppose some unfriendly god had raised it for them, but
on the thirteenth day the wind dropped, and they got away.”
  Many a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope
wept as she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes
upon the mountain tops when the winds from South East and West have
breathed upon it and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with
water, even so did her cheeks overflow with tears for the husband
who was all the time sitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was
for her, but he kept his eyes as hard as or iron without letting
them so much as quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears.
Then, when she had relieved herself by weeping, she turned to him
again and said: “Now, stranger, I shall put you to the test and see
whether or no you really did entertain my husband and his men, as
you say you did. Tell me, then, how he was dressed, what kind of a man
he was to look at, and so also with his companions.”
  “Madam,” answered Ulysses, “it is such a long time ago that I can
hardly say. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home,
and went elsewhither; but I will tell you as well as I can
recollect. Ulysses wore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and
it was fastened by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On
the face of this there was a device that showed a dog holding a
spotted fawn between his fore paws, and watching it as it lay
panting upon the ground. Every one marvelled at the way in which these
things had been done in gold, the dog looking at the fawn, and
strangling it, while the fawn was struggling convulsively to escape.
As for the shirt that he wore next his skin, it was so soft that it
fitted him like the skin of an onion, and glistened in the sunlight to
the admiration of all the women who beheld it. Furthermore I say,
and lay my saying to your heart, that I do not know whether Ulysses
wore these clothes when he left home, or whether one of his companions
had given them to him while he was on his voyage; or possibly some one
at whose house he was staying made him a present of them, for he was a
man of many friends and had few equals among the Achaeans. I myself
gave him a sword of bronze and a beautiful purple mantle, double
lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet, and I sent him on
board his ship with every mark of honour. He had a servant with him, a
little older than himself, and I can tell you what he was like; his
shoulders were hunched, he was dark, and he had thick curly hair.
His name was Eurybates, and Ulysses treated him with greater
familiarity than he did any of the others, as being the most
like-minded with himself.”
  Penelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable
proofs that Ulysses laid before her; and when she had again found
relief in tears she said to him, “Stranger, I was already disposed
to pity you, but henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome
in my house. It was I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I
took them out of the store room and folded them up myself, and I
gave him also the gold brooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall
never welcome him home again. It was by an ill fate that he ever set
out for that detested city whose very name I cannot bring myself
even to mention.”
  Then Ulysses answered, “Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure
yourself further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can
hardly blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and
borne him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even
though he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a
god. Still, cease your tears and listen to what I can tell I will hide
nothing from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately
heard of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home; he is among the
Thesprotians, and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he
has begged from one and another of them; but his ship and all his crew
were lost as they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and the
sun-god were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the
sun-god’s cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses
stuck to the keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the
Phaecians, who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him
as though he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing
to escort him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been
here long ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land
gathering wealth; for there is no man living who is so wily as he
is; there is no one can compare with him. Pheidon king of the
Thesprotians told me all this, and he swore to me—making
drink-offerings in his house as he did so—that the ship was by the
water side and the crew found who would take Ulysses to his own
country. He sent me off first, for there happened to be a
Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheat-growing island of Dulichium,
but he showed me all treasure Ulysses had got together, and he had
enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep his family for ten
generations; but the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he
might learn Jove’s mind from the high oak tree, and know whether after
so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret.
So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly; he is close at
hand and cannot remain away from home much longer; nevertheless I will
confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is the first and
mightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses to
which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely come to
pass. Ulysses will return in this self same year; with the end of this
moon and the beginning of the next he will b

i hate to break it to you kid,
i'm not mindful of narcissus'
economics that's all oh so very modern...

but women are their own orbit,
more chance to find a single mother
than a single father...
it's against nature to make the man
without god,
as it's against nature to make the woman
with god...
thus we have the tectonic plates
making man with god, accepting
or doubting, church or laboratory...
and woman... an eroticism of jaw eaten
faces... but a kiss to be a fingerprint
likened to erasing the dangling of the bitten
jaw... erased only once by the aphrodisiac of sirens'
wail of aquatic opera so damnable that only
one man heard it, while others scolded
being in audience with beeswax...
and by second chance, erased, indeed,
but only by the suffragettes as the new nuns...
as the new nuns dare comply to change,
like every male become female and
vice versa,
and the popes disclose their continual
loss of matrimony in their misogynistic
involvement in ******; if i'm not the pope
and do no encounter such practices,
i'm not a pope at all!

only a ninth spoke as the necromancer,
and of the nine spoke clearest,
as it spoke, it dawned on me
that sauron was invisible for the sword
to strike, a gravity enveloping,
a gravity envelope, rather than a skin
of infinite diadem sharpenings,
for nine rigs unto men,
seven unto dwarfs, three unto elves,
but none unto the orcs... strange....
ORC ARKHAN MORDOR ARRAC!

Moments, each like a drop of rain
That is the continual movement
Of the Omniverse
Forming, falling, breaking and rejoining,
Inhaled back up to the skies
And starting all over again,

Eventually, even the Gods,
Like energy into matter
Like electrons and protons and neutrons
Like atoms into molecules,
Like those bodiless strands of DNA
Floating in magnificent soups of matter,
Cloning themselves,
Like the cells they formed connecting and creating life,
Systems of energy making machines,
Like the bodies that wasted away
When their brains became their graves
Breaking away into pure information,
Finding each other
In the vast expanses of space
And reconnecting like the broken lines of a puzzle
Finally piecing together
To make the image of a single universal being…
They too shall join and make one,
For many are the plains of the multiverse
And many are the gods that stare out
Into its infinite dimensions.

O pleasant eventide!
    Clouds on the western side
Grow gray and grayer, hiding the warm sun:
The bees and birds, their happy labors done,
    Seek their close nests and bide.

    Screened in the leafy wood
    The stock-doves sit and brood:
The very squirrel leaps from bough to bough
But lazily; pauses; and settles now
    Where once he stored his food.

    One by one the flowers close,
    Lily and dewy rose
Shutting their tender petals from the moon:
The grasshoppers are still; but not so soon
    Are still the noisy crows.

    The dormouse squats and eats
    Choice little dainty bits
Beneath the spreading roots of a broad lime;
Nibbling his fill he stops from time to time
    And listens where he sits.

    From far the lowings come
    Of cattle driven home:
From farther still the wind brings fitfully
The vast continual murmur of the sea,
    Now loud, now almost dumb.

    The gnats whirl in the air,
    The evening gnats; and there
The owl opes broad his eyes and wings to sail
For prey; the bat wakes; and the shell-less snail
    Comes forth, clammy and bare.

    Hark! that's the nightingale,
    Telling the self-same tale
Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
So echoes answered when her song was sung
    In the first wooded vale.

    We call it love and pain
    The passion of her strain;
And yet we little understand or know:
Why should it not be rather joy that so
    Throbs in each throbbing vein?

    In separate herds the deer
    Lie; here the bucks, and here
The does, and by its mother sleeps the fawn:
Through all the hours of night until the dawn
    They sleep, forgetting fear.

    The hare sleeps where it lies,
    With wary half-closed eyes;
The **** has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck:
Only the fox is out, some heedless duck
    Or chicken to surprise.

    Remote, each single star
    Comes out, till there they are
All shining brightly: how the dews fall damp!
While close at hand the glow-worm lights her lamp
    Or twinkles from afar.

    But evening now is done
    As much as if the sun
Day-giving had arisen in the east:
For night has come; and the great calm has ceased,
    The quiet sands have run.

The finest meaning of  'Wholeness'..

Is shown  most fully within the intertwining  
in to the pivotally and most necessary
healing of both body and mind..  

    In that
the perfect expression of Spirit here on Earth
can only happen through the physical--

     You "feel" the Receptives  and/or the Urgings
     from deep  within you (your flesh wrapped spirit),
That are only brought out into the light of day  (made known)
the moment your very tangible fingers  touch the keyboard..

     Or up close..
    the tangibly-heard sound your very voice-tones,

Created by your so very tangible vocal cords--   made unique
by how deeply infused your spirit is  into that
beautiful mind and body of yours..

      By your ever-renewed
     and continual choice to heal.

Within that beautiful union,  the Sensings and Respondings
of the body  bring impulses into the spirit..  
touching deeper, the Core--  

      The "Image"  of Perfect,  Absolute Being
      placed deeply into each and every one of us..
          by the very nature of Love's Ache--  
    Residing within the center of this Universe..
    (and all other Universes)..  both known..  

             and those also yet to be..

..An Image placed, as to be a Plumb-line,
and also a Never-ending Cinematic  placement of the View
onto (and within) the inner-wall linings
     of both mind and spirit..
..Seen in greater and greater  "less dimly-lit"  degrees,  
based solely on how far we commit ourselves along,
     and in to,   the healing process.

        In its finest form,  through healing,
the things we take in..  through feeling;
and then express back out..  
from both mind, and body's  untethered Unfolding,

           ..Becomes closer and closer
           to the very Expression of God's own heart,

..Therefore smashing through,  and gorgeously undoing
the ever- quenching.. ever-diluting nature of Subjectivity, itself.

Hmm..

The "taking in"  and then  The Tremblings,  of your body's
unavoidable responses  are the very thing most 'maverick loners'
like me need most from another in this world,  

if we are to continue on in our mission with any kind of strength..
    (along with its much desperately-needed resolve).

If,  within the "taking in" process.. the beautifully feeling
Receivers  such as yourself, were to be  overcome
to the point of release~  all alone..  on the edge of your bed..
isn't that a very understandable  and nearly unavoidable  
and also so very very tangible  part of the process also..      

     --In itself
above  and outside of all human (and Heavenly) judgement?

Carry on, sweet Angel..
and so gorgeously continue to  be  who you are.
Those that can see..   see  (and feel) most clearly.


           I  see  you.

ÆFRE SWĀ DÆGES, ĪSERNUM-BORDHREÓÐUM
GRYRELÉOÐ OND HLÉOÞCWIDE SWĀ! 
FÉÐEWÍGUM SĒ EFTCYME! SWĀ SĒ WIELM BLŌD!

Thae Verra Wordis o' Battle Auld! an' Verra Prelude War-Hye o' mine! 
Tae ye a' ageyne tell Ah! afor yondir Forgotten Myrk Whunstane!
Fore cannae ye a' see? frae ma Verra Vision, Thais Immortal Battle-Landis, 
Fore let mee Thais War-Sange, ne'er tae e'er, wi'in Anie Quiet Loch, wane!
Nowe ageyne, weall! thro' Hye-Boilin' Steel-Bluid Eternal Ȝell:

Cauld an' Feudal Battle-Yeir, Sacral o' mine A.D. MXVII hynne! 
Let mee weall, weall! stick-an-stowe intae Thais Deep Past Bluid-Fyre, 
O'er Thais Hoat Airn, ma Guid Auld Swaird Feathfull! 
Ays a Distinct War-Vision Ah nowe stylle see! unco radiatin', 
Dogydder wae Thad Bygane Shower o' Arrows nowe ay War-Invisible:

MĪN HEAÐUWÆD!

An' afore Thae Hye Lowes! ma Stane-Hearth, nowe hynne remember, 
Fore ageyne! ay maun nowe Thais Bluid-Vision o' mine tallid unco Ah! 
Ays Supreme Fyre-Wylle! o'er an' 'yont th' Cauld Lang Hame, 
Meanie Feudal Towmonts ago, hynne, wae ma Airn-Wame, 
An' th' War-Mask o'er ma Swaird-Cut Cheek Bane
Unco haiwin', a Feudal Rebel an' Wulde Brooch-Wearer, Ah!

DOLHWUND OND BORDRANDE, 
EFT WLWULF SWIÞE WÆS IC!

Intae CARHAM'S BATTLE MAYHEM AULD! an' th' Scyld-Horror
Ne'er, IT! thro' th' Murky Moorlan Nicht tae unco wane! 
Wae ITS Open Jaws, an' Het Braith, an' Whyte Teeth Dazzlin', 
Thro' Thoosan Cries Norland an' Clashes Micht hynne! 
Frae Thoosan Battle-Scheldes unco Wooden-Colorful Thay A'!

BORDWUDA MĪN HRÍÐ,

Across yondir Scyld-Wauch found masell hynne Ah! 
Verra, Verra Guid Vision! Verra, Verra Guid Wunner!

NORÐÞUNRES SCIELDWEALL,

An' th' Steel-Spirit, verra Gleamin' IT unco haiwin'
Thad deep thro' ma Battle-Veins in Deep Moorlan Gore, 
Yondir! o'er Thae Blacklyn Hylles, wae ma Guid Claymore-Lore:

LĪEĠÞRACUM NÆGLING!

Ays a Storne Micht! Þenne an' nowe stylle unco flowed, 
Hwenne, IT! Great Þunor's an' Bauds' Warlike Orrah! 
Th' Daye-Luminarie at ITS Zenith-Trune Sacral, 
Verra, Verra Hye IT! waes, wae Rid Lowes Invincible
In nae, nae hynne! Hye Skye-Agony dwellin':

ĒACEN DÆGSCIELD,

Invisible, IT! intae Thae Deep Cauld Norland Skyes
Whare Thais Sunne! allwayes unco owre Wee, 
O'er Thais Horizon Harsh an' Warlike an' Dreary
Wae Fiery Skye-Dignity Primordial unco rules, 
Hwenne, IT! weall, weall Ah nowe stylle in Fyre Thad see!

STĪELENE GLYDERING,

Great Kvaysir's Orrah! th' Swaird-Hurt Schawdu! 
HYS Ghastly Apparition o'er Whin-Rock devastatingly makyt
Wae HYS Bluid Mirk! downe, downe! descendin', 
Hwenne, IT! ****** Hel's Guid Battle Orrah! 
Th' Enraged Ocean spake nae, nae IT laanger!

OFERȲÞUM BRIMRAD,

Wae HYS Whispered Woirds o' War intae HYS Storne Rageful, 
Hwenne hynne, at length IT! Airn an' Guid Thundir's Orrah! 
Th' Gore Sacrificial o' thoosan enemies o' mine! 
Quhame faced a' Ah! th' Lone Wolf-Feeder! ay nae Age-Worn! 
Wae ma War-Blade Dearest, THOROLF GIED called:

DYNGES BEADULÉOMA!

Red-Boilin' IT becam! an' frae Cauld Horizon tae Cauld Horizon extendin', 
An' Þenne a Vortex Feudal o' Coagulatin' Energy Micht! 
Indistinguishable frae thais Battle-Mass frae Auld Carham,

A LONE CRIMSON WAR-FIGURE UNCO MICHT
WAE THAIS BOILIN' BLUID BATTLE-SACRIFICIAL
UNCO! IN WAR-GORE PERENNIAL MAKYT! 
FRAE THAIS CAULD PROWID BATTLE-LANDIS
O'ER A'! TAE TH' WOUNDED SKYES HYE SOARIN'
WHA'S FEUDAL NAIM GORY, TH' OWAR-MANN! 
AYS WYLLE O' MINE BLUID-INCARNATED! 
FRAE DEEP TH' BYGANE, TOWARDIS YONDIR FUTURE, 
NOWE AFORE MINE SCARS O' WAR WAES
O'ER AN' O'ER, GUID BRUNANBURH'S ORRAH! 
TAE MEE! WAE MA SOLITARYE VISION
WAR-BLINDED UNCO RETURNIN',

Weall Ah hynne remember! An' nowe play mair, mair for mee! 
Yer Steel-Lyre Auld Wise! Fore Ah e'en mair distinctly see! 
Thro' Wreaths o' Bluid-Vapor Sacrificial, th' Heat o' th' Strywe! 
Theare cam forth, Ah say, an' TH' THYNGE! soared, unco free,

HEAHÞRYM OND DRĒOR-HÉAHSÆ,

O'er Thais Swaird-Encounter an' a' th' fallen afore mine eyes, 
Bye wha's Naim neither Ullr in Airn Enraged hynne, 
Nor Kvaysir Micht! nor Auld Vargs Unda gleamin'
Nor o' Hôm Loga Himna Hye! waes IT called, 
An' IT swayed nae, o'er th' Battle-Mass Gory!

CAMPWÍGES CWEALMDRÉOR,

Nor thro' HYS Feudal Bluid soarin', IT spake in any Battle-Ȝell, 
An' theare IT unco remained! o'er Thais Perennial o' mine Swaird-Hel:

MĪN GEMYNDIG GIET ÞUNRODE!

Wha's HYS ROUND SCYLD O' WAR held hye! towardis th' Sunne! 
A Continual Lowe o' Dense Fyre hynne a' gatherin', an' a
Luminous Rain frae th' Zenith-Sunne Invisible, thad waes IT

WAE REASON THUNDIR-FORCE A' STEERIN', 
DAZZLIN' LIGHTNIN' PERENNIAL A' CONQUERIN', 
TAE TH' INFINITE ITS WAR-BLUID INCREASIN', 
O'ER TH' SCYLD O' TH' OWAR-MANN
AYS A FYRE-RAY AN' MICHT STAR FLASHIN', 
AN' IN FEUDAL AIRN DWELLIN',

Hwenne! HYS Substance frae Bluid Sacrificial intae Gleamin' Steel turned, 
Thro' Loud Cries frae th' Battle thad stylle heard Ah:

WULFUM BEARHTM!

Stylle Liquid Metal o' War Dazzlin'! Feudal Wapin Formidable! 
Weaponized Airn-Soul Fetch'in-Micht o' mine! 
Wha's naim, in loud cries stylle! ays a BLINDIN' STAR O' WAR SUPREME,

HEOFONSTEORRA-GEBYLD,

Frae th' Remote Zone Mirk o' th' Luminous Skye nowe appearin'
Waes! Þenne Distinct a Titan Steel-Colossal IT becam, 
Whileas Thae Auld Woirds o' War Whispered Thay!

BLÓDWRACU,

Wee, ewyre-remembered, an' nae at a' Damnable Thay! 
Thad winna Thay a' ne'er, ne'er fade awa! stylle
Wi'in ear o' mine thro' th' Whooshin' Wynde
An' o'er th' whole Kintra rulin', stick-an'-stowe felt Ah:

ENDELĒAS MANFULTUM OND MÆGENÞISE
MĪN GEWILL ÆT SĒ ŌFER-MANN BIÞ, 
FORWEARD OND ÆGHWÆR STÍELE SWĀ, 
ÞA ÍSENWYRHTAN SĒ ŌFER-MANN,

Th' Frame! The Verra Frame o' Hye Conquerin' Steel-Feudal! 
Frae yondir Norþan-hymbre auld an' verra colorful! 
Wae th' War-Blade Bleezan intae deep Thais Battle-Storne, 
Th' Scarred in th' Cheek! th' Lone Scyld-Fighter:

BORDHREÓÐAN SCEADUGENGA OND WRECEND!

Nowe unco! Great Orrah! o' Soarin' War-Airn Empowered! 
Wi'in Thoosan Hye Skye-Clashes! Wi'in Thoosan Onslaughts, A' Rairan o' mine! 
Tae nowe in Airn schawe ye a'! HYE HEL:

EFTWYRD-GEWILL OND ÆLÍFES GEWIDERE, 
MĪN HEOFONFYRE WÆPENÞRACU! 
NU LÍGETSLIEHTUM SĒ ÞEGN, 
SWĀ STÍELE ĒACEN SĒ ŌFER-MANN,

Frae th' Bygane ays allwayis a Blank intae th' Gore dabbed, 
Towardis th' Future ays allwayis a Dangerus Landis! 
Whare th' cowardly enemies allwayis lurk an' await:

BEADOLEÓMAN UNWEORÐE!

Th' same wae TH' WYLLE TAE TH' HYE OVERMAN waes! 
Richte Nowe! Thais Steel-Titan Micht afore mine eyes
O'er th' corpses o' th' fallen an' intae th' Core-Fyre Sacrificial
Thad HYS SOLAR SCYLD held hye! stylle receivin' IT waes:

AHWÆR OND BALDLICE, 
EFT HEAÐUSIGLES ÁNWÍG,

Fore willin' th' Bygane ays IT haes bin in th' Overman Hye! 
Th' future ays empowered in HYS Feudal Person waes tae, 
Fore Willin' waes, IT! willin' th' Person o' Overman alone! 
Lyke a Verra Destination Tangible o' mine, IT! 
Intae thais Colossus o' Battle-Gore boilin' ays Cast Steel, Thad Wylle!

ÞYRSUM HEAÐUWÆD,

Thad th' Rational Firey Ah say, Continuum o' Lowes waes IT haudin! 
Wpon th' Scyld o'er an' o'er Flashin' IT, hynne Steel-Crucial! 
Increasin' IT! ITS Force Micht an' the Ray! tae th' Endless Skye! 
An' th' Frame! Th' Verra Noble Frame IRONCLAD-FEUDAL!

AD ALTA SIDERA INVICTO METALLO
NUPER SUPREMUM ARTIFICIUM BELLI
FLAMMISQUE CORPUS EXTRAMUNDANUM
QUOD GEWILL OVERMAN NUNC NOMINATUR
ERIT FERRO MAGNO SANGUINEQUE ET SCUTO
IN PROELIO APUD CAMPUM CARHAM
RUBRA VEXILLA REDITUS IGNEA SPIRAQUE
INVICTO METALLO VOLUNTAS MEA,

Fore, ageyne! Beguid Great, Great Orrah! 
Th' willin' Ane Thynge waes! wae Thais Steel-Titan O'erhuman! 
Thad GEWILL OVERMAN o'er Carham's Gory Landis waes IT called Auld:

SWEOLUNGA OND ÆLINGUM SWIÞE SWĀ! 
ÞÆR MĪN GLOWENDE-ÆDREGEARD ĀRĀS,

Fore, ageyne! Great Glamis' Wae Orrah! 
Willin' backiewards th' Bygane ays IT allwayis in Gore haes bin, 
Waes IT! willin'th' Overman ays nae laanger a Blank an' a War-Cauld:

HEÁFODWYLME OND SWEOLOÐAN HLEO!

Fore, ageyne! Þunores Fair an' Wounded Orrah! 
Willin' th' Bygane ays Want o' Pow'r waes willin' th' future ays Pow'r, 
Intae th' Verra Steel-Person o' Thais O'erhuman Steel-Avenger untold:

SĒ ĪSERN-HEREWÆÐA,

Fore, ageyne! Dagur's Guid Orrah o' mine! 
Willin' backiewards intae th' Tyme Irreversible, hynne unco Unforgivin' IT! 
Waes IT! willin' th' future ays Skye-Empowered nowe! 
Intae th' Person o' th' Overman Thais Steel-Titan o'er th' Scyld-Wa Micht, 
Thro' th' Spiral-Continuum thad Becomin' ays Increase in Pow'r waes: 

TH' SEL-RETURNIN' RAY CONDENSATIN' FYRE-JOYFUL:
FULLMÆGENES BRYNELEÓMA,
WPON TH' COLOSSAL SCYLD HELD IT, wae th' arm VERRA HYE! 

Fore ageyne! Devastatin' frae Cauld Thule Orrah! 
Th' bygane intae th' Airn-Person o' th' Overman ays IT haes bin! 
Must be IT willed! Fore thus different IT shall agyne be! 
Ays empow'red intae th' Central an' unco Firey-Abysmal IT, 
An' wae Rid Lowes hynne Rid! Return o' Pow'r Event:

BÆLÞRACE WUDUROSE!

Firm Thynge! an' Verra Core wi'in continual Becomin' ays Pow'r, 
Fore, ageyne! Thoosan Thundirs' Skye-Orrah! 
Tae affirm Lyife tae affirm th' OVERMAN nesisarie IT waes! 
Ays Wylle Superior, hynne True Wylle IT provin'! 
Ma Final Inner Strength! Ma Ultimate Inner Vision!

ÞUNORUM OND BEADWE GRYRELÉOÐE, 
MĪN WIGSIGOR-GESIHÐNES HLÍFEDE!

Thad ainlie Thais Steel-Jǫtunn o' War cannae, wi'in Battle-Lowes Hye! 
Across Auld Carham's Colorful, verra Colorful Scyld Wa Micht nae be! 

BREIÐØX-DRENGR ÆN ATGANGA!

Frae th' Past allwayis bleedin'! intae th' Future allwayis Dangerus! 
An' nae for a' wi'in th' Great Spiral o' Strife, o'er th' Battlefield
Ah nowe stylle see, Thais Steel-Spirit unco waes!

ÁGLÆCAN WUNDORSÉON, HĀL! 
NU MĪN FEORHBOLD BRǢDEÞ SWIÞE, 
RANDWÍGA WÆS IC! SĒ BISENE WRECEND! 
SWURD ON HANDA! HEORU-DRĒORE NACOD! 
HILDE-GRĪMAN! RÝNE STÍELE OND CRÆFTUM
BEADU WÆPEN, BRYNEWELMES STÁNTORR, 
HEAÐUWYLME OND STIELE SWĀ, 
GEWILL ÆT SĒ ŌFER-MANN HÂTEN,

Þenne, och! Great Guid Orrah! Tae nae mere War-Legend nowe fullefylle! 
Let mee ma Vision lastly recollect! THRIE SKYE-GLOBES O' SKYE-FYRE Fwlle! 
Tae ma Battle-Scarred Sight appeared out-owre th' Conquerin' Sunne! 
Intimately blended Thay A'! intae Thais Soarin' Metal-Fusion Gleamin' stylle: 
TH' OVERMAN! AN' TH' BEIN' AYS POW'R, unco Magnificent Thynge! 
AN' TH' RETURN AYS INCREASE IN POW'R! a Reingȝe formin' o'er yondir Hylle! 
Flashin' A' Thay! wae Thais STEEL-TITAN ays hynne ma Verra Guid Battle-Wylle!

GEGYLDEN HRINCG GEWILLE!

That could describe you
That could describe me
Those of us of obscurity
Who do not have a name to back us up

Not an Ernest Hemmingway
Not a James Joyce
Not a Maya Angelou
Just a continual scribbler of some thoughts

Only are we considered underrated
Because we're not well-known
But that doesn't mean
We can't give the best of them a run for their money

(From a Persian Carpet)


Ash and strewments, the first moth-wings, pale
Ardour of brief evenings, on the fecund wind;
Or all a wing, less than wind,
Breath of low herbs upfloats, petal or wing,
Haunting the musk precincts of burial.
For the season of newer riches moves triumphing,
Of the evanescence of deaths. These potpourris
Earth-tinctured, jet insect-bead, cinder of bloom—
How weigh while a great summer knows increase,
Ceaselessly risen, what there entombs?—
Of candour fallen from the slight stems of Mays,
Corrupt of the rim a blue shades, pensively:
So a fatigue of wishes will young eyes.
And brightened, unpurged eyes of revery, now
Not to glance to fabulous groves again!
For now deep presence is, and binds its close,
And closes down the wreathed alleys escape of sighs.
And now rich time is weaving, hidden tree,
The fable of orient threads from bough to bough.
Old rinded wood, whose lissomeness within
Has reached from nothing to its covering
These many corymbs’ flourish!—And the green
Shells which wait amber, breathing, wrought
Towards the still trance of summer’s centering,
Motives by ravished humble fingers set,
Each in a noon of its own infinite.
And here is leant the branch and its repose
of the deep leaf to the pilgrim plume. Repose,
Inflections brilliant and mute of the voyager, light!
And here the nests, and freshet throats resume
Notes over and over found, names
For the silvery ascensions of joy. Nothing is here
But moss and its bells now of the root’s night;
But the beetle’s bower, and arc from grass to grass
For the flight in gauze. Now its fresh lair,
Grass-deep, nestles the cool eft to stir
Vague newborn limbs, and the bud’s dark winding has
Access of day. Now on the subtle noon
Time’s image, at pause with being, labours free
Of all its charge, for each in coverts laid,
Of clement kind; and everlastingly,
In some elision of bright moments is known,
Changed wide as Eden, the branch whose silence sways
Dazzle of the murmurous leaves to continual tone;
Its separations, sighing to own again
Being of the ignorant wish; and sways to sight,
Waked from it nighted, the marvelous foundlings of light;
Risen and weaving from the ceaseless root
A divine ease whispers toward fruitfulness,
While all a summer’s conscience tempts the fruit.

A quiet, broken smile graced her lips
And to the everyday it looked quite convincing
But it was deceiving because
At the moment she was
Indeed shattering, putting herself back
And shattering more
If her innards were out
You could see the spidering veins around her piteous heart
Of continual cracking
And if you looked close, without doubt
You could see, the original point of impact
And you'd know
There was nothing we could do for her
She passed on site, and time of death had been called
So had her former lover.
Although his response, 'I'm sorry, who?' was particularly painful.
But in his defense I will say that he was being the most honest of all of us.
I felt that I should've written something significant and profound for this morose little girl
But all that came was unworthy.
Instead I took the dear child to the place where I found most comfort.
There we lain in a decrepit old graveyard trying to relate to the dead.
Marble mausoleums mimicking my nightly resting place.
I happened upon a black witch moth which had gracened us with his company.
I sat there enraptured watching his nonsensical trail.
As he began his decent I had a most unsettling feeling nothing to do with countless bodies under head.
Upon a glistening tomb he made beautiful land.
I suddenly found myself creeping onward, praying reprieve.
The mariposa de la muerte fluttered not but an inch.
As I realized his demise, I gazed back to my bride
Only to find a black hooded shape disappear as I focused with a painfully sharp tone of finality.

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs
That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn--thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in His ear.

                       Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantasting carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here--thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summit of these trees
In music;--thou art in the cooler breath
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship;--nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes: and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak--
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated--not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
Ere wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

  My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me--the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
For ever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die--but see again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses--ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her ***** yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death--yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne--the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own *****, and shall have no end.

  There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;--and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities--who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

currently wishing
my uber driver would shut the **** up for half a minute

I just want to listen
to Joy Division
in silence;
with nothing
but the pressure
of my inescapable apathy

please shut up;
I really don't care
that two children were hit
by a tractor trailer this morning,
only a bit jealous.
I never thought I'd meet
someone as lonely as me,
but the continual conversation
that you regurgitate
proves otherwise.
I wish I could be
taken out
by a tractor trailer -
at this point,
I'll settle for anything.

uh-huh
yeah
really
no way

I feel as though this trip
is a metaphor
for my waking life:
just a blur of scenery
flying by,
while a stranger
makes noises at my depression -
and I just,
uh-huh
yeah
really
no way

I hate how
I hate everything

hate
how lonely I am

how regardless
of who
surrounds me,
        comforts me,
                loves me,
I still feel like I'm alone

welcome to the void

I’m sorry I shut you out and blamed you for my own undoing,

You see I have this cloud that hangs above my head and I had begun

To call it home.

My thoughts and feelings got lost somewhere in the condensation phase,

And I trapped them there, only allowing occasional acknowledgment of the pain

I was in, doing as much as I could so as not to show if or how I had been affected by it,

For I am my own prisoner of sorts.

I let you in my cell to feed me water and gruel, but when you asked to spend the night

I immediately pushed you out and handcuffed myself to

The illusion of accomplishment, for lo and behold, I was there supposedly

Protecting myself, abandoning you before you could abandon me.

Over time, my pride turned to boredom which turned to anger which turned

To loneliness, and I had to place the blame upon someone’s shoulders.

There were no mirrors in my cell, so I chose to blame you

For I had forgotten that I even existed.

Your kindness cut into the unripe parts of me, the parts that were not ready

To be handled so gently, where breathing is slow,

Where each time you blink is like having a windshield wiper wash away the rain

From a car so clarity can enter your veins and visceral rearview mirrors.

I unraveled while you were away, I cried over my million losses while I counted

Your continual successes, I was envious of you,

Gradually falling silent to the truth of everything that had once surrounded me.

I was afraid you no longer loved me, for I no longer wished to be loved

Nor did I feel deserving of it.

That wish was strong and I fell down a long and narrow well

Where you were not waiting for me when I finally reached the bottom.

I stayed there awhile, beneath my cloud, locked in my cell,

With the murky water and unforgiving gruel.

You called down to me from the top, your voice

Your voice

Your voice

Oh but how could I possibly forget?

That voice.

It never left,

It never lied.

I can’t promise you I won’t fall down here again,

For my heart is stubborn and I still haven’t learned

The art of removing that which has been engraved

On this selfish mind.

But for now,

I wish to stay.

It seems sadly ironic that the LGBTQ community remains transphobic when it comes to Male Lesbians. It's the pathetic politics of fixed groupthink, get woke while still asleep, social justice theory with out any justice in its performative aspect
Just so you know I'm not performing gender. I'm being gender  
and he's a fire ******* red head

I propose that as a straight male  I may also be a lesbian, ***** aside please love my man-gina butch ladies the way I love yours! Both straight  and very much a lesbian I do two genders simultaneously and both smoke cigars.

My childhood; marked by a dark  tragedy scared me for life. I remember running down the hall in junior high proclaiming my lesbianism and no one would be my friend. Everyone called me names and the butch girls would jeer at me and knock me around when ever I went into the ladies room just to hear them flush or cop  an innocent feel. I felt so isolated when I finally realized that the female lesbians would have nothing to do with me.

Do I not suffer the agony, frustration and anxiety of feeling self hatred because I am continually rejected by lesbians and objectified only as a man even though I am a lesbian too.
Do men like me  not suffer continual discrimination by women who identify with the masculine?

ENOUGH!!!

I just dont feel understood in terms of my true lesbian identity
I love lesbian ***** as much as the next *****, maybe even a lot more.
It's way past time!
Male lesbians must finally come out of the closet and be accepted as true members of the Lesbian community and be invited to all Prince God ***** dance parties.
After all  ladies remember  I'm a lesbian you're a lesbian.
Up with MLLGBTQ
male lesbians, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer
Dysphoric Men Lesbians Must Unite
….
Male Lesbians Unite
Join M.L.U.
Lesbians R Us
" We Love Lesbians"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmTWAJRbx2Q

You have me stuck on
repeat playing this love
song all day long
each day I profess
my secrets in various
tunes describing
how magnificent you are
how special you are
how much you mean to me
I wonder if you will ever tire
of the continual song
until you recite back a melody
complimenting mine
mirroring my emotions
by simply saying ditto

“We are all actors in an idiots play A tale of sound and fury,
meaning naught. Yet who would care to be a wise man's pawn
Where every twist of fate is well deserved And where a single flaw
could ruin lives? Far better to be in a madman's mind At least for
those (and are we all not so?) Whom fate has smiled on more than
we deserve If life were fair, earth would be hell indeed.”

“Macbeth” William Shakespeare.


From out of the darkness I can see an ever increasing
glow. Intensifying with luminosity as it gets closer and closer.
The blinding eye of fate is upon me. I am thrown with
tremendous vigour. Into where? I have no idea! Surrounded now,
by the blackest of blacks. I can only liken it to a bubble in a pool
of crude that flows wherever the black tide takes me. All I have is
the familiar company of my own voice. A continual narration that
one could expect from a television documentary. The life and
death situ of Michael Simon Jones, filmed in black surround
vision. It reminds me of oh so many nights, when all I wanted to
do is sleep. My mind just wants to stay awake, spouting that
continuous torturous soundtrack into the early hours of the
morning.

Through the darkness a piercing light, coming to me and
then gone, to me then gone. Do I dream? Perhaps of the high
seas. I picture a large tower, It protrudes out of a vast nothing.
The only safe path to steer by is a beam of light, cast down upon
me, from up high. Its beam Revolves continually around, a never
sleeping sun. A light that prevents many flimsy craft, from
grounding onto the craggy rocks that are hidden in the darkness
of the stormy oceanic swells, that roar below.

Again the quiet is shattered, am I not to be allowed to
sleep.
It can only be a dream, for through my bleary eyes I see a figure
of a man, sporting a bright yellow helmet. He seems to be
holding a huge lobsters claw, it is chewing its way through shards
of steel that seem to imprison me. His mouth moving, but I hear
nothing. I half expect to see subtitles appear below him, like an
old Buster Keaton movie. Then he is gone and once more I drift
into that blackened void.

Now a shadowy figure appears. Bending over me his hands
are holding something over my face. I think I can feel myself
struggling against his advances. He is too strong, I can’t breathe,
is he is killing me?

What sort of nightmare is this? Flat on my back in the
darkness, I am gliding speedily along the ground. Intermittent
lights flash past my closed eyes. I recall the deep red on-off glow
of the light, diffused by the blood that rushes through my closed
lids. Can somebody turn the ******* light off, I’m trying to sleep.

Gaaaaa………… I am blinded by the worlds brightest
light! Where am I? The light subsides and I can see, but nothing
is clear. It is like looking through a frosty glass window. There is
movement below me and the bleeding blurs of colours finally
evolve into recognition. What is this? What’s going on down
there?

Rather, what the hell is going on up here? How did I get up here?
I am suspended in mid air. Look I can move my legs. Holy Mary
mother of God, I’m naked! Naked and floating around what looks
to be a hospital operating theatre. Hovering above several
gowned professionals in the toil of their labour.

A naked satellite orbiting above the planet NHS.

Now tell me if there is something wrong with this scenario, but
this is totally not normal is it? I just hope I don’t need to have a
****. I believe that there can only be two possible answers for my
predicament. First is that I am in fact having one totally out of
my head dream.

Second, that I am experiencing some sort of out of body
experience. If that is so, then I can only assume, that the person
lying on that operating table, somewhere under the mass of green
hat and gowns spread eagled on that table below, is me! If only
that fat doctor would move his head out of the way.
Bah! Only so another head can immediately take its place. I think
I now know how a ****** feels when he cant get a clear shot. Oh!
Hang on a second, the assassination can go ahead. I can see!
No that don’t help, I can’t tell who the guy is, he has a mask
covering most of his face and more tubes coming out of him than
a Scottish pipe band. Oh my God! Who else do you know with
that tattoo? I should of known that an indelible red cartoon of the
devil would not be the luckiest thing to have etched into my skin.
I wish now that I’d gone for the Sacred Heart. That might have
been the healthier option and may just of tipped the scales in my
favour. I can’t really see Saint Peter letting me through those
pearly gates with a picture of Beelzebub brandished for all and
sundry to see. Oh ****! That’s me okay, and from this position I
don’t look at all in a healthy state. Can a spirit or whatever I am,
throw up?

But how did I get here? I can’t remember anything that could of
led to this. I do remember going to bed last night, I had an early
night, don’t know why though cause I never get to sleep before
4am. Its a bit laughable I suppose, an Insomniac reading a book
called Insomnia. Perhaps a novel called sleeping tablet would be
more apt?

Unless of course…………… If I can’t remember anything since I
went to sleep then perhaps it’s because I’m still asleep and that
this is merely a dream. That makes more sense, doesn’t it? What’s
happening down there? Something doesn’t look right, things
seem very intense. If only I could make out what they were
saying, everything is silent.

“Hello! What is happening down there? Hello! Hello! Can you
hear me?”

They can’t hear me, no, of course they can’t but why can’t I hear
them? What if this is no dream? What if I am really dying on that
table down there? I can’t make out what they are doing to me but
it doesn’t look good.

There’s a lot of blood.

I wish I had taken more notice when ER was being aired on
television. The only thing I know for sure is, that is a scalpel the
surgeon is holding. The guy at the head of the table should be the
anaesthetist? the woman to the left whom looks like a nurse and
is passing the instruments, is a nurse. But the others I don’t have
a clue.

If only I could hear what they were saying. ****. This is a
nightmare, I can’t believe this. I can see them, why can’t they see
me? Oh please God let them hear me.

“I’m up here, listen to me you death ******* I’m up here.”

So close yet so far away. This can’t be real, this can’t be
happening, not to me. I’ve, never done anyone harm, I've worked
hard all my life. Always been a popular guy, never had a problem
mixing with people. What’s that the nurse is pushing around on
the trolley. I think its one of those crash box things. That’s it, a
defibrillator! *******! I don't think I'm breathing. Look at the
screen, I’ve seen enough movies to know that the green line
should not be one continuous solid.

Oh no, I’ve flat lined! I’m dead! Oh God no, not like this. Looks
like they are going to try and defib me. Here they go.

BAM!

Oh no, the line is still flat. They’re going at it again.

BAM!

****! Still nothing. What they doing now? No don’t stop!
What are they talking about? What have you got to discuss? Just
get on with it, this isn’t a ******* seminar. I’m dying down there.
Just crank that hunk of scrap iron up and send some volts through
me. God, I sound like ******* “Frankenstein,”

That’s it, he’s greasing up the connectors, here we go, here we
go.

_When I came back to the real world I had been in the land
of Coma-City for almost three months and for all of that time it
had been touch and go. It was later explained to me that I had
been involved in a RTA.

It had been surmised that due to my sleeping disorder I had fallen
asleep at the wheel of my car (A classic American 1950’s plated
Cadillac) and had veered into the oncoming traffic. Hitting at
least one vehicle and careering off road and down an
embankment. Finally coming to rest three parts of the way
through a brick built structure, this in turn supported a steel
constructed dome. Used as a point for ramblers trekking high
above Sheermont Cove and offering excellent views across the
horizon and out to sea. An ideal location in particular for budding
photographers to shoot the best possible images of Sheermont
Bay Lighthouse. The Caddie precariously balanced with its long
bonnet hanging over the edge of the cliff top.

In fact I believe that it was the domes heavy steel frame that
secured my fate. The brick walls now demolished beyond
recognition caused the now unsuspended dome to fall onto the
roof of my vehicle. Pinning it solidly to the spot, it crushed the
roof in on top of me, also saving me from plunging to the depths
below and almost certain death. I was trapped under the structure
for almost six hours. I remember very little of the ordeal as I
tripped in and out of consciousness. My rescuers had to cut me
out of the vehicle, with a tool commonly referred to as the Jaws
of Life and I was flown to hospital by air ambulance.

And here I am to tell the tale. But!

Did this metallic redeemer smile on me that fateful night? Saving
me from that almost certain death, on the rocks below Sheermont
Cove?

I think not.

The Dome. It saved my life I know this but the price I would
have to pay was far to high a toll. As I spend the rest of my days
drinking my food through the proverbial straw with only my own
mindful narration forever keeping me company.

I pray to die.

Every time I try to write,
I don’t know what to say.
You always occupy my mind,
Yet I can’t explain the reasons why.

It’s like a never-ending dream,
It’s like a child in a toy store,
Perfect in their own ways,
And yet the continual joy is too much to explain.

It seems you’re always on my mind,
But I don’t want you anywhere else.
Like a infinite fantasy-
An escape,
And possibly just what I need.

You’re here with every decision,
You’re there in every dream,
You help make things better,
And give existence more importance.

I can’t explain the feelings that you give me,
I can’t explain the excitement you place deep inside me,
I can’t clarify the immense feeling I get when I’m with you,
All I know,
Is you make every situation,
Every idea,
Just a little better.
You make living worth it.

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

ARIES: please remember that you are not a graveyard for all those dead butterflies you once had

TAURUS: tell us how long have you been waiting for someone to say the words "the feeling is mutual"?

GEMINI: you've sunk so low. the only difference between you and the Titanic is that someone had the decency to shout "brace for impact!"

CANCER: your life is a continual series of "i should have kept my mouth shut" and "how did i **** that up?"

LEO: remember the night you died via that lump on your throat? how the taste of guilt buried itself under your tongue

VIRGO: you can't fix people who don't want to be fixed. and most importantly, you can't love someone who doesn't want to be loved

LIBRA: it's not self-harm anymore if you let someone else see the scars

SCORPIO: they told you to stay away from trouble but honestly, i think trouble should stay away from you

SAGITTARIUS: tell us how falling in love with her felt like lighting a cigarette & then seeing a sign that says "no smoking"

CAPRICORN: tell a starving kid on the street that god loves him. that the suffering he feels rn will come to pass. i dare you to lie

AQUARIUS: god cringes on memories of you praying. especially the ones that just beg for the ones you love to love you back

PISCES: tell us about that night you talked to god, how he said "i got tired of answering prayers because all i ever used to say was sorry."

Whence came his feet into my field, and why?
How is it that he sees it all so drear?
How do I see his seeing, and how hear
The name his bitter silence knows it by?
This was the little fold of separate sky
Whose pasturing clouds in the soul’s atmosphere
Drew living light from one continual year:
How should he find it lifeless? He, or I?

Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field,
With plaints for every flower, and for each tree
A moan, the sighing wind’s auxiliary:
And o’er sweet waters of my life, that yield
Unto his lips no draught but tears unseal’d,
Even in my place he weeps.  Even I, not he.

Her almond-shaped gaze squints slightly
as if to question “how can this be?”
A wave of solace overtakes her
A sun break streaming through,
dissolving every cloud,
tiny particles of warmth beaming
every last cell of her, radiating

Safe and held in the caress of his softness
Deep desire seeps from her, dripping from each trembling thigh
The same which hold him,
locked in a grip of passion
An unfamiliar yearning
An indescribable pulsation
Each wave overcoming her attention
Each longing so visceral, they leave her
crying out in gasps of predilection

She rests in pleasure of deep golden hazel
Asleep soundly knowing those eyes,
those hands have taken her in completely before finally releasing her to a slumber of immeasurable possibility

She feels awakened
A diverging electricity courses from her
A dichotomy of unknown-mixed-certainty
jolts her palpating heart with exhilaration
Each story from his lips weaves continual mystery,
twinning a heightened awareness;
That pure contentment graces her just at the sight of him

My visual field flashes white in a moment of highest swelling heart
white light dissipates following blackness of my hearts lowest sun­dried hurt
my view of oppressively low hung clouds questions any earthly sensation, twerked torture
of a self­inflicted radiation of irredeemable gloom, hung by self

The acrid ebony of my soul dissipates to an antique comfort with love stretched infinity
I then breathed an atmosphere of sorrow; snapped, shattered infinity into a pile of broken windows
My call of a family of evil given in an intolerable agitation and searched remedy
led to be found abandoned within a continual struggle of grim phantasm

Necessity spake in me, called one mili­helen enough to launch my remaining ship
a cadavorness of complexion, forced port­side of me when crystal ships started to drip with lies
a guttural utterance whispered blankly, alluded keine endurance
as I could only wear certain textures, and not endure the physical elements of this sensory deprived flower

My conjured will, looks upon the morbid moral of an undiagnosed existence
if not unreservedly found in the recesses of self
rosie cheeks forced not by pleasure, but screamed excitement of eternal enjoyable nothing
as my visual field flashes white with a moment of highest swelling heart

If you let the ******* get you down,
you deserve to be down.
It's that simple.
While the mad howl
into the void
of restless summer nights,
bad *******
sip cool drinks
in confident silence.

Bad *******
laugh when others weep,
feast when others hunger,
they **** long and deep
the angels others crave.

Bad ******* die
far more often,
worn from the continual fight,
broken by the drama
of never-ending
women.

In rebirth,
bad ******* learn
to wring out every last drop
of a whiskey flawed life.
Then and only then
do blood red skies,
that musky scent of wet ****,
or these typed words
have any real meaning
or significance.

The truth is hidden until proven wrong
Pain concealed, there lies a mask instead
On his lips forever there was a song
Deep down his heart continually plead

At certain times the mask was firmly placed
But alone it fell to pieces through tears
When the time came to go home his heart raced
Fueled by continual vivid fears

He found himself in a circular room
Corners were no longer there to hide in
No one knew he would end it with a boom
For not knowing some felt a burning sin

Some of us heard with no tears of sorrow
Others know they'll not forget tomorrow

All saw united **** of assassin's Gov't's premeditated taking
a knee for 9 minutes on George Floyd's neck, the **** cop
calmly looking into the camera, an assassination for many
reasons, who's seeing past the 'show', following the $?

Ebony, ivory supremacies repeating their victory of 2016's
(Only) Black Lives Matters participation in the Int'l criminal
conspiracy's installing **** into the Black House, etc.,
determining their dividing the nation, in perfect harmony.

Like the bi-headed, Utin and Utin's ****, global axi of
supposed power has re-established, East, West, you're
either totalitarian or not-see, and if not you're murdered
by both, now either Black or white supremacist, or die.

For 15 years ebony has dictated Caucasians call themselves
"white", "be proud of being white", make believe they have
"white privilege", to the benefit of division, ivory, when
there's no "whites", and almost no non-repubs thought it.

That while the reality is their class war against the lower-
middle-class to poor, the boot on our neck, by the police/
military/intelligence complexes, is all 23 flavors of the
baskin + robbins of supremacies, usa, the global oligarchy.

Criminal insanity, that illegally installed the Int'l crime
family **** into the Blackhouse: repubs, conservatives, global
hackers, wicked leaks, J. Assange, usa intelligence/military/
police/prison industrial complexes, J. Comey, R. Barr, C. + K.

West, J. Stein, 13 % of Bernie or Bust 'Bots voting **** and
another % that stopped the youth vote from getting behind a
"not perfect" Hillary, "boat loads" of organized crime $ from
Russia, Ukraine, white supremacy, sinos, linos, ginos, ainos,

dinos, Moore for hawking 'trumpland' entitled book for months
before the election while projecting **** "would win", a % of
the elite of the black supremacy, etc., just allowed the not-
sees, totalitarians to destroy, ****** at an increased clip,

now add premeditated pandemic, ebony/ivory dictated duality,
racial environmental justice "only my environment matters"
movement and voila, the end of the climate crisis movement,
total extermination of humanity to it's extinction, in a can.

It's not a coinky-**** that the "knee" was taken upon the
news that "Biden was considering not choosing a woman of the
right color, Black".  For Ebony figures "if they're not get-
ting a Black president now, through a Black VP pick, they

might as well just put up with 4 more years of ****.  Biden,
Sanders, Warren, etc., will have aged out, Booker, Harris,
Patrick, etc., will be sitting pretty for the 'once you go
Black you never go back' prez job.", same as it ever was.  

Even though the 'show' was able to pull a Mattis out of their
hat, supposedly legitimizing not just the military, but the
republican conspiracy, during this 15th anniv. of the 'use'
of Katrina to "clean out the bowl", and "let the river take

what's the river's", exterminate the lower-middle-class to
poor, gentrify, militarize NOLA by purposely not preventing
the failing of the levees by 2005, by Reagan "we got 300
buses but no drivers" Nagin, Gov. Blanco, etc., to the tune

of mass-murdering going on 3000 predominantly lower-middle-
class to poor, mostly people of color, like king george and
his ****, cheney didn't the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 and
serial murderers masquerading as cops don't daily terrorist

attacks, their one-sided and continual coverage of the
"current controversy", as ebony and the 'Blackish' lead
actor called the premeditated murderer of some women, ******,
kidnapper of 100's more, B. Cosby, was suffering from, is

clear, keeping the faux opening news out.  No ebony racist
comments, like the Houston Police Chief who repeatedly stated
throughout the day that "the looters were white" only, were
even remarked on.  The lock, ebony and ivory, the fix is in,

if it ain't fixed don't break it.  All the smoke and mirrors,
song and dance, show, weapons of mass distraction, to take
the news cycles off the too early "opening of the country",
pandemic, by ebony for ivory, in the world can't change the

facts, even though it's death toll is only 111,000 by their
accounts, actually 122,000, and there's going on 2 million
infected, there will be an extra 100,000 murdered by ****'s
policies and lack thereof in handling his virus circus.

That there's more prisoners, defacto-slave laborers now than
the number of slaves at the height of the slave trade, here,
not spoken about because ebony, ivory are both the corporate
structure, global oligarchy that it enriches, won't change.

See how the assassinations of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor,
George Floyd, have paid ivory by ebony, like they did in 2016
to stop there being a minimum of 16 years straight of 'white'
prezs, Hillary and Tom.  Their deaths and the aftermath being

used now to cover up the premeditated ****** of 10,000's of
Blacks by ****, because ebony + ivory, working together in
perfect harmony to fill every news cycle now and for months,
want 'the economy open', to make them more $ now, instead

of saving all those Black lives who don't actually matter to
them at all, 'cause it's all about the benjamins, instead.  
Biden should pick a progressive woman to cement Bernie
voters, if not, then a liberal one of color, no particular hue.  

'De-funding police dept.s', etc., should wait until after the
election, unless ebony's insisting **** wins to get a Black
prez in 2024, instead.  The determined Winter of our death,
extermination to come, will surpass their class warfare's

liquidation of ases and assets of the masses en masse's
increased rate of blitzkreiging Gaia's kids to their
extinction.  Now it seems too late, their 'use' of pandemic
to subjugate the world to survival instead of alival,

exigency instead of humanity, has closed eyes, minds, pulled
the rug out....  But, "...we(e),..." can't be over-confident,
apathetic, cynical, complacent, nihilistic, pessimistic,
burned-out, for supposed anarchy is the global bi-polar axi

of supposed power's mutual modus operendi, to determine
la machine's chaos, and the division it causes, increases
vacuum-up economics to the global oligarchy, replicating the
'show' that must goes on, including colonialism, hegemony,

patriarchy, imperialism, supremacy, conspiracy, etc..  If you
didn't vote Hillary you voted Utin and his **** be installed
into the Black House.  There's public records of who did and
didn't do what, please stop them from doing it again, or die.

Protect, occupy, GOTV, "you can't dismantle the man's house
with the man's tools", Lordes, notseeism and totalitarianism.  
"The root of all oppression lies in (supposed) science",
Gandhi.  If you're not taking bullets you're making them.  
Viva la vida, solidaridad, la evolucion   :)   reality

466

’Tis little I—could care for Pearls—
Who own the ample sea—
Or Brooches—when the Emperor—
With Rubies—pelteth me—

Or Gold—who am the Prince of Mines—
Or Diamonds—when have I
A Diadem to fit a Dom—
Continual upon me—

24 is an age of paradox. A type of 'adulthood puberty' full of change, hair in strange places or colors, and a continual battering of unprecedented demands and expectations.

Conversations evolve. Your phone calls with parents and family become more frequent and important than ever before. They also consist of bites "Your mother and I were married at 21" "How are your savings going?" "Taxes are due on Tuesday" Something involving grandchildren rears its head weekly. How you talk to friends changes as well. The college friends no longer talk about hilarious nights at the bars-your conversations center on reminiscing, planning trips to the mountains, and genuine encouragement. Scotch and Gin have replaced well drinks and Evan Williams-thanks be to God. If you are blessed to have good friends from high school and eras prior the conversations are a combination of dreaming about the far future, checking in on aging family, and an underlying theme of ******* about work.

Making new friends is ******* exhausting. You are all lonely, craving to be known deeply. Liz Lemon screams the mantra of 24, "Yes to staying in more! Yes to Netflix and night cheese! Yes to drinking a beer alone!" Even the most extravagant of extroverts start to value solitude. This is not bad. This is a sign of growth. Herein enters the necessity of balance; commit to investing in those around you and to investing in yourself.

Parents told us "You can be the president! Fly to the moon! Cure cancer!" Those time-stamped conversations are over a decade old. We settled for status on campus via greek life, leadership positions, or achieving a 4.0 GPA. Post-grad none of us are president of anything nor have we walked the lunar surface. For most, a 5 digit salary without benefits equates our level of success. Some have babies or marriage bands, some have masters degrees. The awakening of 24 is sharp. After two decades of being promised we will all achieve the best, we walk in a daze of wondering if we have failed. We have not. Yet we feel the weight of failure. There is much ahead.

At 24 we learn that the promise of the "much ahead" is not guaranteed. Death becomes terrifyingly more constant. Friends, grandparents, teachers, even ones younger than us seem to be dying at a more rapid rate. This is new and it is terrifying. It teaches the importance of community, conversations, and creating.

We may not yet, or ever, be president of the USA. But we have lived enough to know what skills we enjoy and what talents we harbor. The importance of using them rings deeper than ever before-it resonates in our bones. The joy of a well prepared dinner, a thirty-minute watercolor creation, or a blog post your three followers may or may not read in its entirety is a joy worth the effort.

At 24, we are in transition. We are beginning to admit certain unalienable truths about this world and ourselves. We are beginning to really become.

Yes, perhaps 'tis true.
Everywhere I go-with all t'ese dwindling thoughts on my mind-
'tis always the same shadows that roam, and moan-
before my eyes: and t'eir never-ending business.
Crawling on t'eir lips,
poisoning t'eir bosoms, chins, and hips-
but unrelenting in their unfolded shades;
with a swamp of bruises like mazes-tangled mazes;
likening them to spoiled, yet uncherished, little pearls.
How despairing-such views I obtaineth, on my every journey!
But shalt there still be space for us, to be outstanding;
to understand this world from a pair of eyes
glistening like unquestioning gentleness; but learning simultaneously
its unvivid perspectives
with such comprehension t'at is crystal clear;
such wit t'at is far from recklessness and greed-
salutations that are pure, and distant from any blighting threats
of equivocation? For t'is world is, in spite of its minuteness,
was framed and brought into life from
awesome darkness, abysmal cells of lifelessness
and hateful ambiguity.
How terrifying!
And often have I enforced myself to wandereth into those shades,
with unmolested poems boiling up in my brains-
and t'ose windy thoughts toppling out into th' paper
on my hand,
jostling through my veins like some ghastly, furious power
t'at's unseen, invisible as it is to th' human eye-
frail and susceptible to th' weather's surly temptations-
and entrapping me in the shrieks of its wondrous grot-
so I could never wane it any further, in my guileless brambles.
How I have dreaded t'ose sights-and t'eir dormant treachery! Lessons of
guilt, teaching of such guilty flakes of harm
and abomination! And how in my following quietude have I pondered-
t'at t'is would be just a balmy prelude to some far bigger strains of
mockery, obstinacy, and destitution. Hark to how those powers
shall arise! And that will indeed be th' abjuration of our splendidness-
everything shalt stop at a halt-everything will become flawed,
and no more poems shalt be liberated-from living souls, and t'eir undamaged
blood, as t'ey still are now! How I shiver at t'ose possibilities, as soon as our
latent enemies be on th' loose-free in t'eir ruthlessness, traces of dark,
unperturbed miseries, and brutal savagery.
And shalt we shine no more-like those summer flowers that are waiting for us-
to be fed daily like th' hungry morning doves;
with their thorns as sharp as love, and innocent gladness
in the arms of their lips-'tis but a scent so dear to the heartbeat
of oureth salubrious mornings.
But t'at danger, danger indeed! And its eyes of glaring monstrosity!
And 'tis just of substantial profoundness t'at we should be
cautious-yes, cautious, my dear fellows, towards t'ose signs
of th' upcoming storm-th malevolent storm of human rage, t'at shalt attack us
one day-at one perilous night, unpredicted and unexpected is its fate-
especially when all th' battling footsteps areth
peaceful in their slumbers-and no more palms dancing around
piles of paper-in th' holy procurement of continual wealth.
How t'at moment shalt be our early Armageddon-awakened shalt be
all rivers of terrors, and waves of hatred. How t'is beautiful solitude shalt end-
in th' fierce burning, brimming death of t'at flame-credulous shalt we be,
disempowered from th' heat-which shalt bring us but our dead feet.
Thus I but sincerely hope t'at gloom shalt not conquer our race-
the noblest of all creatures on earth-on t'is dull earth, fatigued as it is
from all th' uniformed battles, hatred, and anger-t'at untiringly sneer
at th' faces of those dying soldiers.
Peace, peace, my dear mates!
Ought to realize thou now-t'at swords shalt shed blood only if instructed.
So tranquility is but in oureth hands-yes, we are but th' key to our own salvation,
and since it is so, shalt we move forward and be the charms of t'is world's
new foundation: for it is our own life that we shalt save.
Peace, my friends, shalt but break all t'ese unseen boundaries amongst us,
and enrich our fathom of t'eir unspoken presence; so t'at th' small world is but
th' most dwelling of comfort, and aught but ease to our hearts-
our very dear, dear hearts in t'is life.

What's given
Can be taken
Life constantly mending
The rules that are continually bending
Our troubles from alarm
From people trained to bring harm
Now do we live to love
Find ways to rise above
Or cave into
The things we think we'd never do
Lose the things we came to be
Never knowing what we could truly see
Rough patches through the dark
Even though we've all been given an ark
Some choose to live that path
Living in a continual blood bath
Using hate to make us feel provin
Living a life that's not worth livin
It's easy to just give up
And get obsession and disrupt
But I beg of me come away
To shine on and shine today
I beg of you to do the same
Do not let the darkness bring you  shame
Move through life with a great light
Something that will eventually shine bright
I know it's hard when dark destroys
Trying to fool you with all it's mental ploys
But your are strong
You'll learn to prove life wrong
Or maybe right
Cause life could be bright
I say to you with great haste
make sure to go out and give life a taste
Cause it's worth the time
do not commit the crime
Stop abandoning your morals
And begain to remove your quarrels
Life will transcend
It's only around the bend
Don't give up I beg of you
They say couple people make it only a few
But I believe if we all really tried
That everyone will make it before they all have gone and died
So I say to you be the ones who tried
And give up the  you who once lied