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Graff1980 Dec 2014
You crossover the cutting board
Quick witted leather fitted
Eyes blasting beautiful rainbows
Muscle rippling with truth
Capes and cowls
Heroes and villains
Smiles and scowls
A league of Avengers
A modern mythology
Patterned after past pantheons
DC to Marvel
The same side of two twisted coins
The same lie that I love to enjoy
Fiction intertwined with philosophy
Violence intertwined with morality
Leaving me with these power fantasies
Of superhero friends and families
You’re on my tv, movie screen
In my comic books, novels,
And even in my dreams
The Convent at Le Cap Fureur
Lies empty, by the sea,
Its ancient walls a grim despair
Of anonymity,
No more the chants of singing Nuns
To vespers, weave their way,
A thousand years of heartfelt prayers
In silence, drift away.

The Sisterhood of Sainte Bernice
Is cloistered there no more,
The end came in a fury from
The world outside, at war,
The Nuns were fasting, deep in Lent,
When soldiers came across
To find each sister worshipping
The Stations of the Cross.

No godly men were in their ranks
No thoughts of sin or Christ,
The Nuns were ***** and beaten in
Some pagan sacrifice,
The Abbess stood with arms outstretched
And prayed, ‘Forgive them not!’
Was taken to the courtyard where
The sergeant had her shot.

There’s blood still on those convent walls
It leaches out at Lent,
Runs down the walls of dim-lit halls
And stains the grey cement,
We lodged there late one April night
Myself, Joylene and Drew,
Lay staring at the stars above
As round us, silence grew.

We slept within those hallowed walls
Until I woke in fright,
And roused the others, ‘Come and see
This strange and fearful sight!’
For out there in the entrance hall
We heard a weird chant,
And two long lines of Nuns approached
To keep their covenant.

Two lines of candles in the dark,
The Nuns wore hoods and cowls,
And as each candle flickered out
Their chant gave way to howls.
Screams and pleas then filled the air,
The sound of steel-capped boots,
A pagan army from the east
Of rough and raw recruits.

Joylene was in hysterics by
The time this vision went,
And Drew was praying loudly on
That final day of Lent,
We grabbed our things, rushed out and then
We heard a single shot,
The blood-stained Abbess blocked our way
And cried: ‘Forgive them not!’

David Lewis Paget
(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

I

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

II

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one’s life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

III

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain’s edge as bare as the creature’s skull,
Save a mere **** of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
—I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair’s turned wool.

IV

But the city, oh the city—the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there’s something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry!
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by:
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

V

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights,
’Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:
You’ve the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive trees.

VI

Is it better in May, I ask you? You’ve summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
’Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.

VII

Is it ever hot in the square? There’s a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash
Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash!

VIII

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like Death’s lean lifted forefinger.
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons,—I spare you the months of the fever and chill.

IX

Ere opening your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there’s the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene-picture—the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop’s most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke’s!
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero,
“And moreover,” (the sonnet goes rhyming,) “the skirts of Saint Paul has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached.”
Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!
Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one’s haunches still: it’s the greatest pleasure in life.

X

But bless you, it’s dear—it’s dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate
It’s a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still—ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke’s guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals.
Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
Saul Makabim Jun 2012
Mercury drips
from cold fingertips
Into cracked teacups
arrayed on a child's play table
"Where is my Alice?"
Chuckling bends the edge of the silence
Chemical cocktails sprayed
Weaponized aerosols
designed to cloud minds
bring dark knights crashing to their knees
Short sickly man
with a blood red head of hair
Stares oh so sweetly
at his darling sweetie
******* the straight edge
concealed in his pocket
Wonderland gang strikes
devices devised for controlling minds
activated
chips in cowls, linked to size eleven hats
Denigration of children's tales
although Lewis Carrol was a ******* they say
either way there is no avoiding
the madness of the hatter.
my eyes are drawn
to two seagulls
perched contentedly on
a ****-caked lamp post
nothing decorative
lacking flourish or accent
a simple narrowing pole
coloured inexplicably green
with gently domed cowls
that gulls and pigeons
seemingly frequent
marred by a combination
of cream brown white
for all i know
it could be
their own faeces
in which they stand
or it could be
weathered and aged
built up and dried in place
for days
for months
for years
perhaps even decades
never to return
to untarnished days
perhaps if the bulb blew
or the lamp failed completely
it might be restored
while it is repaired
but there is no
guarantee of that
and yet the birds
could not care less
they'll pay no heed
to that which is less
than perfection
treating this evidently
well-favoured resting place
the same as they would
an unmarred branch
protected amongst tree tops
or a dainty bird-bath
amidst the flowers
of someone's quaint garden
Trevor Gates Jan 2014
These storybooks woven with leathery imbrication
Filling my palms with vile indication
Detailing such wickedness and strife
What ethereal threads cling to life?

Such labyrinthine desires scrapping in my mind
My soul from body; that body which isn’t kind
To delve deeper within the wounds that sever
To fellow wolves, demons and toothless beggars

Unholy martyrs preach from a podium underground
Ablaze in hellfire, monsters of the ravenous mound
Black tongues and cheeks full of worms and leeches
Coals flung and burning over deafening speeches

Sumptuous in eloquence, these tossers and man-boys
Evocative displays of violence, hushed by silence and toys
Beseeched, reprimanded in city squares with common folk
Feeding dogs in heat slop with a pail and tote

Children waving hi to people in cages, smiling indifferently
Don’t they know what this is? Yes and no, forever in shame
Don’t they know there be wickedness afoot?
There be shadows of molestation
And whips of industry
Eyes removed and replaced with bar-codes
There be devils amongst the valiant
And dark angels amongst us
The few and proud
Recite aloud:

        “Darkness brings uninvited guests
        And our bodies are bare
        Give us a blessing, a crumb or drop
        Of life that we all can share.”

Veins full of rubies and auburn sapphires
Creepers laced in the cowls of cadavers
Red water thicker than mud and spit
The fatherland sicker than a rotten ****

There be dark angels amongst us, telling tales deep-seated
They be grave and weary, their lives left defeated
Now in the wilderness they give slothful lectures
But it’s only fools who listen to these rambling specters

And soon no one listens
Save for the moon that glistens
Deep in the village of Darkling
Where the Squires and their Ladies rule,
No-one comes out in the eventime
Unless they’re a brazen fool,
The Hunt is rallied for after dark
And they wear the hood and the cowl,
Roam far and wide through the countryside
While the ravening hounds just howl.

They say that they’re hunting foxes,
But I know, that just isn’t true,
That blood they seek at the end of the week,
They may be looking for you,
They take their cues from the Magistrate
Who leads the Hunt through the grounds,
His word is law, and he sets the score,
They call him the Master of Hounds.

Sir Roland Bear has an awful stare
As he glares at you from the bench,
The lawyers do what they’re told to do
And offer little defence,
If you poach a hare from a Squire’s land
Or take a fish from his stream,
And you see him add your name to a list,
You know it’s your final scene!

For once outside in the courtyard there
The peasants will stare in dread,
They cross themselves as they pass you by
For nobody speaks to the dead!
You can’t go hide in your cottage,
If it still has a window or door,
Though you’re locked right in, the hounds of sin
Will come up through a hole in your floor.

The light of my life, Evangeline,
Was married to Percival Shroud,
He beat her once with a riding crop
To keep her bullied and cowed,
She worked all day in the Dairy,
In a barn on Percival’s Farm,
And I said one day that he’d have to pay,
I’d not see her come to harm.

She stared at me with her worried eyes
And she let me believe she cared,
We’d hide together beneath the hay
At the height of our love affair,
But one day soon, her burly groom
Had seen us going to ground,
And hauled us before the Magistrate
While our legs and our hands were bound.

‘There isn’t a place in Darkling here
For the likes of a pair like you!’
Sir Roland Bear, his pen in the air
Considered what he would do.
‘You’ve wandered outside the marriage bounds
Brought shame on the vows you swore,
While you have sullied her decency,
And turned a wife to a *****!’

He put his pen to the fabled list
And he wrote two names in there,
Then ****** us into the courtyard so
The folk could shame and stare.
They cut our bonds and we heard the hounds
As they howled and yapped for blood,
So we went trembling, hand in hand
To hide ourselves in the wood.

The Squires were grim and remorseless when
The Hunt pursued its fare,
Their Ladies thought it a festival
When they rubbed warm blood in their hair,
I’d said I’d not let her come to harm
But Evangeline had cried,
I broke a branch and I sharpened it
To defend my shattered pride.

They came at us like the hounds of hell
In their cloaks, and hoods and cowls,
Along with a pack of hunting dogs,
We could hear their approaching howls,
Evangeline was safe in a tree
While I stood guard below,
My fear was clear in my trembling hands
But I stood so it wouldn’t show.

A rider burst on out through the trees
And he roared, ‘Now pay for your crime!’
I waited until he rode up close
Then I ****** my stake in his eye,
He screamed just once, and fell from his horse
And his cowl, it floated wide,
I saw I’d killed the Master of Hounds
As the dogs tore at his hide.

The Squires looked down with little remorse
At the corpse that lay in the mud,
While the ladies leapt from their jittery mounts
To dip their hands in his blood,
We made our way unseen through the woods
Escaped from the killing grounds,
And Darkling now is free from the spell
Of the evil Master of Hounds!

David Lewis Paget
Arborvitae Oct 2014
Relaxed in a state of absolute calm,
The air of serenity a soothing balm
To ease the imminent struggle ahead
As I sit on my throne of porcelain and shed
The anticipation tugging at my bowels
And out come the mud dogs wearing brown cowls.

Out they come and my tension is released,
In a violent cacophony the silence has ceased!
It has been replaced by a beautiful sound
Like the music of nymphs, with voices all crowned.

The release is a final stinky-sweet ender,
As the *** paper flows my world lights up with splendor!
The sunlight filters through my one bathroom porthole
And the warm rays splay playfully across the hairs of my *******.

This is the moment, ***** all the rest.
Nothing else can compare...a good **** is best.
jimmy tee Feb 2014
the crowd mills around the rough wooden scaffold
each has a part in the show of the condemned
dour officials beneath hooded cowls, darkness
a display of the supreme power of the law
criminal death sends a very, very strong message
the procession to the block ministered
by clergy vestments murmuring coded prayers
valleys of shadows, power, light everlasting
all hinting at a justifiable vengeance
the prisoner resigned to his fate under the jeers
his situation outranks the screaming populace
they will return to empty existence full of threats
he to the near comfortable mystery of the beyond
the blade falls, the blood flows staining red over brown
the flies gather for their feast, the deed is complete
the damning flies that no one expected
Beware, if you should venture out
There's spirits in the air
Be on the watch for all about
when walking, if you dare

The wind is up, the moon is full
There are witches in the air
Be on the watch for all about
when walking, if you dare

Ghosts and ghouls are waiting
For the midnight bell to toll
They lie in wait there in the dark
For those who dare to take a stroll

The moon is bright, it lights the sky
You can hear the haunted howls
The coven forms, there in the dark
Hidden by their capes and cowls

Listen close, the wind will speak
You can hear it if you try
The voices of those long gone
Or is it just a ghostly sigh

The veil is lifted on this night
The darkness hides the evil there
You hear it now "rosebud" it says
Do you go out, do you dare

A simple word, between the worlds
Houdini, maybe so
I dare you to go out tonight
But, be wary if you go

For, ghosts and ghouls are waiting
For you to take that stroll
Do you dare to face the moonlight?
Do you dare to bet your soul?
Mark Wilson May 2020
Pressed-foil bowls or bakelite cowls
Sitting still and open-mouthed
Ready to eat her dog-eared ash
Burnished or scarred as she burns-up her brass
Incensed as at a Virginia Mass
The tobacco weaves yellow shrouds

Coarse saffron fingers tap-tap at your rims
And dapple sweet drags on your lips
You could tell us some tales of long-drunken sins
Where the day-**** leave off and the night-**** begin
Of the filters with flares or the Park Drives with fins
With red lipstick, split lips and rouge films

Long nights without sleep extinguished in you
Harsh mornings begun in your bed
Some twisted, some stabbed as they poke them in you
The product of nicotine-jumpy sinews
Your pile overflows, now over to you,
Please tell: what goes out in your head?
Christian Bixler Sep 2015
She stands there by the open window,
its mornings gray that lights her face.
her curls are long and fair and golden,
dulled by the light of the cold winters
morning; truthful in its stark demean.
Her face is pale and fair and lovely;
dark shadows circle her eyes, and her
eyes are gray, cold as the dawn, as they
watch the procession of men down the
road; in black are they robed, and their
cowls are dark. Her figure is lovely, or
was lovely, once; angles there are, and her lines
are hard and stark and sharp. Tall she stands
in the wasteful light, her pride a mantle, to
hold back the tide. Dressed in a sheet of
shimmering gray, almost she would blend into
the grey dawning morn, were it not for her hair,
though lackluster and shorn; longer it was in
summers fair past, till she cut it with shears and
shivers and hate. The cowled procession slows
to a stop, before a man and a pit and a naked tree.
He speaks in a voice of resonance and power; not
a tear is shed in that makeshift bower, not a tear,
not a whisper, not a head bowed in grief, for the
man they had carried. They spared him no pity; he
had shown none in life. The woman watches from
the empty tower, no tears shed there in her ancient
bower. Cold she stands in the cold morning grey,
robed in power and pride, and great beauty, past.
She watches as they lower her dead lord inside, no
coffin, he; too many had he broken. She watches
in silence, in pain, and in pride, foolish though it be
in the grey mornings light. Dirt over him. Dirt under.
A paupers grave, in a field, in winter. No honor in death;
he had had none in life. Last shovelful thrown; the ground
is smoothed over. The priest and his men leave the grey field
empty, save a tree in the center, stark in death.
she watches, and remembers, and falls in her folly, in her cold,
prideful folly, to join him in death, who had murdered her love.
To join him, though he it was who had murdered her love, and her joy and her dreams, and her young, laughing beauty. Fallen she, through prideful
folly.
Batchelor Oct 2020
We'll hang up our cowls & capes

In the thick of the collapsed ruins

Cranking one last tune on expired phonographs

Groaning as osteofluorosis plays his merry tune again

Still, gazing with the vast emptiness of long-lost eyes,

As a long lost chord haunts these halls again, we mutter :

"I can hear it now, like I heard it then."
And after four months, the infernal typewriter roars again.

And soon, the next book will come to play.

Maiden of the black rag, your last encore is coming right up.
Chris Thomas Oct 2016
He drops his bomb and calls it a feather
Gripping tightly to his rugged leather
A king of his castle, of north and of south
The worst of intentions crease a dour mouth
He sips at his courage and spits from the parapet
His voice echoes through halls like a blaring trumpet
The queen cowls, tears veil her soft face
A palisade of loathing separates their space
Absolute power drips from his brow
Eyes like lightning, striking a bough
Creaks, cracks, defiance, and spite
The king does not pardon, in black or in white
She braces, erases, knights herself with adrenaline
The spear finds its mark like a dose of medicine
Impaled, curtailed, the king gasps a breath of contrition
The reign falls to its knees, Hell's latest acquisition
Aa Harvey Jun 2018
Dark Angels


It's a long way down, so grab a hold and make sure you hold on tight;
This is our time to disappear and be never found under this light.
Obscured from the all-seeing; hidden within our darkest souls,
Are the thoughts of a dark angel, his dark angel bride
And the end of all that which you call hope.


Standing in these flames, I feel no pain;
I feel ignited, united and saved from being saved.  
Let the waters fall and bury us all.
With flaming swords we go to war,
Without a shield to protect us; we want to fall.


Words ring aloud and true and break!
Our faith into pieces; we have been lured away.
Lead us into temptation and bring down a notion.
An army against your purity; this is our Heaven.


Destroy their love with a sinister growl.
Our love will die in a blaze of glory; we scowl beneath our cowls.
These walls must fall, for onward steps are forever required.
What chance do you have,
If the deceivers are the ones who will decide?


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Nathan MacKrith Dec 2018
Winter is coming
with glimmers of snow
this at least I know
because of sky growls

Winter is coming
I watch fowls
wrapped in their feather cowls
head for warm relief

Winter is coming
gasps the last leaf
unfurled from its mortal sheaf
when Night King’s sword swings down

Winter is coming
tremble, under Ice Maiden’s frown
when the sight of her gown
dismays rather than awes

Winter is coming
with its silent claws
so much pain it will cause
its enemies will know defeat

Winter is coming
there is no soul so fleet
as to successfully retreat
from Winter’s adroit wrath

Winter arrives at Winterfell
taking a hail and sleet bath
contented growls cause pause
spikes rained down
cover advance of a thief
whose nefarious shadow’s prow
stifles light so darkness may grow.
~
NM
4/11/18
slow burn May 2020
please be my distraction
and take me away from myself
grow wings that might carry us
you and i
away from the sunset and toward certain disaster

per chance these phantoms do chase
we must go faster and escape
our own hallowed grounds do wait
freedom must be so sweet to taste

i can't stress how important it is that we leave right now
we mustn't delay as beneath their cowls
do lurk the hearts of ghosts and beasts ugly, fowl
or are they mirrors of ourselves
hatred shelved and stored away
that which cannot see the light of day
for they are monsters we must contain

lest we can't and must fly
far far away
and become new people
though our hearts' gone astray
we haven't died yet and still have chance
so pray
we do find ourselves again
though now amongst shadows we must play
maybe one day we'll find the lighted way
You can only hide from yourself for so long.
The sun limns the crest of snow-capped peaks packed below
a pale, cloudless sky. The faded blue draws out the
steely gray of the three mountain musclemen: Eiger,
Munch, Jungfrau. Alpine white outshines the same hue
of fresh carnations placed delicately in a vase
on the living room table -- as if forever.

Alps wear puffy cowls above craggy faces, drooping
indentations from too many jaw-shattering bouts
with the natural elements. White wobbles always
on the ropes; the countdown begins. Disfiguring
bruises turn into the loser’s crown. Nature tricks
us with its charms of purity and innocence.

Lucerne’s {Kapellbrucke} exists only for us, transported
from the 14th century to now, little changed from its origins --
and all for our pleasure. Yet It is a ruse that anything
eight centuries old would remain in place for
our touristic joy. We are intruders on history, backpacks
replacing 19th-century carpet bags, gilded in fool’s gold.

At dusk, Eiger turns from white to orange, a fruitful hue
whose sustenance is only glory. You can feast on
white Raclette cheese, white wine, white boiled potatoes,
white onions, but not white glory. Nutrition comes in many
substances. Orange stones satisfy some senses,
but leave us waiting for more, night after night,

This is true even in the light afternoon rain of autumn.
Jonathan Moya Mar 2019
a black cowl is over her
deliberately shuttered
in an unlit windowless room
so when I open my eyes
she is invisible,
a lemon whiff
peeling away,
a piano c note
on a whole beat
struck three times,
to tingle skin,
ping the tuning ear,
enough to know-now-ow-w
the first great rain of her,
the steps to her
now a thousand
clear receding lights
causing blinks
needing their
very own cowls,
leaving her-er-r
r last lost space
Onoma Nov 2020
emerging cowls from densifying

mists, hanging around featureless faces.

instantly recognizable strangers

of pain, walking barefoot on snow.

leaving footprints that stalk that

downy white straight to the hearth.

givers and bearers of all its variety--

shattering circulations of its lifeblood,

cold to the touch.

they come for those whom they come--

without exception, and are known for

all that they are.
KorbydAngyle Oct 2022
If faith has betrayed me, my entire life... the entrusted dynamic varying between munificence

or lethargic catatonic pain

Lays innocuous clasps, brazen and denounced, assert  juxtaposition sans identity

the indemnity a semblance of soul redemption's cowls

   upon the call of the unclear

Lost identity flushing away my right to palpable stalwart meditations...

And the little worth of a day's work, lays only callous the thoughts of future redemptions

What trust is there?- In the guild of fate, the guise of champions and warriors?

Can bereft cessation of  continuing thoughts, vain and in claustrophobic retention -....?

Quell what small path of hope truly lays before me



The scratching arms and demon's claws

Shield resounding hope and prey on what little

clarification lays before me...

In the center of desolation is a slowly churning series of events

When the caustic remembrance of distant hope came and went...

And falling upon an enslaved cross, of all defiled creatures in eternity



I fear the angels have turned their back and beckon with laughs mocking me

Simple requiem, safe courted satisfactions denied, amassing principle

Caught by  Godless precipice, doughty subjective paucity and impure

  classlessness devolves into brash resuming horrors

That the best of me

Was the first

Yet again the least to fight and prove

What can faith redeem?
Classy J Jan 2020
Whispering sweet myths,
Singing soft tune melodies,
Peering ahead looking beyond the cliffs,
To a beautiful commodity.

Telling white lies,
Sweet little discrepancies,
Tricking tender eyes,
For fools will follow anything.

Such sheep the lot of them,
With Shepard’s guiding them.
However, some Shepard’s are actually wolfs.
Lurking in the shadows ready to ****** one’s soul.

You may think us foul.
Hiding under our cowls.
But I’ll ask you now?
Wouldn’t you do the same?
After all life is game!
With winners and losers.
Survival of the fittest,
Which has been engrained in our DNA features.
Power is an interesting thing,
Pride before the fall,
The ultimate price to be king!
So, I ask you again?
What will become of you if you attain that all powerful ring?
You may say you’ll cure the world,
But the truth is when someone has unchecked power...
They’ll **** this world!
For greed is a seductive thing!
And our flesh has made us such fragile beings.

— The End —