"cretan" poems
Olives, figs, dates and mastic, wyrd or oracles, fates and magic, wars and loves and all that’s tragic.
A Father’s lust, an Uncle’s hate, a puzzling labyrinth, through the gate,
A Cretan born, another covered, a starry symbol, placed in the cupboard,
Special place, where heroes meet him, mindless creature, murderous ******
South in winter, man below with a bull above, placed in the heavens by two father's love,
A strangeness here, the seat of trade, in forbidden tryst, a beast was made,
Man of blood, tortured soul, stalks the maze, that stalks the pole,
"Stranger still, this wild pattern, revolving Seventh, Circle of Saturn?"
Unholy corridors made of granites, trace out the movements of the planets!
Life of horror, a soul of pain, terrorizing, with no refrain,
Smells their fear, scents of sin, raging actions, threshing men;
“They call me Moloch! They call me Baal! Tear your body, festoon my hall!”
In trepidation, to gatekeeper sent, a ****** start, for your punishment;
“I collect the hearts, I eat the eyes, I eat the liver, before he dies!”
Olives, figs, dates and mastic, wyrd or oracles, fates and magic, life and death and all that’s tragic.
Jun 9, 2016
Jun 9, 2016 at 11:48 PM UTC
And their feet move
rhythmically, as tender
feet of Cretan girls
danced once around an
altar of love, crushing
a circle in the soft
smooth flowering grass
8.6k
PARNELL'S FUNERAL
UNDER the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy -- but I name no more --
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
7.7k
Elan that lifts me above the clouds
into pure space, timeless, yea eternal
Breath transmuted into words
Transmuted back to breath
in one hundred two hundred years
nearly Immortal, Sappho's 26 centuries
of cadenced breathing -- beyond time, clocks, empires, bodies, cars,
chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation empires
brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork
of the mind -- but where's it come from?
Inspiration? The muses drawing breath for you? God?
Nah, don't believe it, you'll get entangled in Heaven or Hell --
Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake all night
flooding mind with space, echoing through future cities, Megalopolis or
Cretan village, Zeus' birth cave Lassithi Plains -- Otsego County
farmhouse, Kansas front porch?
Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no nirvana --
coffee, alcohol, ******* mushrooms, marijuana, laughing gas?
Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the brain into blue sky
at May dawn when birds start singing on East 12th street --
Where does it come from, where does it go forever?
May 1996
4.6k
Sailing through purple skies unhindered
And breathe crystal snowflake frosted air
Floated past the mysterious Weeping Mountains
And yellow forests called Warlocks Fair
Trembling
Wandered the underworld
Drunk with false courage from Cretan wine
Leapt bravely from star to star
Journeyed through red starred scattered galaxies
Witnessing the birth and death of time
The finality of the forever feared tolling
The ringing of deaths solemn bell
Conjured this was in my mind quite carefully
For I am she who tells the tale
Commanding the heavens and the earth with my pen
To me the four winds bow low and kneel
The water robed river nymphs pirouette
Wild horned stags vault high to my music
You must admit the scene quite captivating and surreal
The moon kiss my cheek with shy affection
Apollo grace me with a sunburst arrow of gold
Syrian lotus seed the door to the universe
Held tightly in small clutching hands
Where lies stories soon to be told
She who tells the tale
Sprung from blood of ancient lands
Portraying in ink and script
The dark images of man.
@ Copyright Tammy M. Darby Dec. 12, 2018.
Dec 10, 2018
Dec 10, 2018 at 9:07 PM UTC
I
Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
II
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy--but I name no more--
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
1.7k
Stars gleam -night/snakes run their races,
Rain always seems/to find our faces,
Drowning deep abyss/those dark and evil places,
Wanna' die, release/trapped time, a Beast,
....come end this stasis,
....come end this stasis,
*I wanna' die,
Transpose,
I wanna' die,
Cosmos!*
We have eyes/still won’t see it,
Hearing without hearing, ears won’t believe it,
Argo, course, pivot/never touch, feel, regret,
Hunger boils feel/pain, life, hurts, reveal;
*I wanna' die,
Transpose,
I wanna die,
Cosmos!*
I wanna' dine at the table of Kro-nos!
Grinded, gnashed, sliced, eaten/devoured as a Cretan,
Die, soul to fly/meet in the sky,
I wanna' die in the cosmos,
*I wanna die,
Transpose,
I wanna die,
Cosmos!*
Trapped mill machine/they eat, they gleam,
Meet for the feast/Almighty beast, Almighty Kronos!
*I wanna dine,
It a crime?
Swallowed by time,
In the cosmos,
I wanna die,
I wanna dine,*
I wanna dine cosmos/retch my body, I transpose,
I wanna dine at the table of Kro-nos!
*I wanna die,
Transpose,
I wanna die,
Cosmos!*
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 9:09 PM UTC
It is
a lazy nod of orchid shift that sees
the poppies lean in times, where
glockenspiel lanyard clings are
goat herds on a Cretan rise.
Sweet boat-words claim a beltane fare
that calls to mind all Summers gone
in spools of warming solitude
that talk of when the Earth was young.
Jun 22, 2017
Jun 22, 2017 at 9:36 AM UTC
ACHILLES son of king PELUS of PHTHIA.
From near Thessalia not Sparta.
Born near where you parents married on mount Pelion.
Your mother Thetis a NYMPH known by AGAMENON.
King MENELAUS'S betrayal the Greeks all cross the Aegean.
Odysseus and PATROCLUS an armada some by passing the CRETAN.
Sons of Priam killed and only Odysseus escaped back to Ithica.
The BESIEGING of Troy in a wooden horse from Sparta.
Prince of the Myrmidon's to avenge PATROCLUS it's HECTOR you cut down.
All Troy did burn weak horse lovers they should have fled and in the RIVER STYX they would drown.
May 5, 2019
May 5, 2019 at 6:02 AM UTC
Story flying, falling, shooting by.
Rumors passing, going round though we never ask why!
Poems riming, sighing, reminiscing.
People laughing, talking, yelling, screaming.
Doors opening, closing, slamming shut.
Prays being said to the great one above.
Longing, feeling, thinking, though it never lasts.
Faces crying, frowning, smiling, thinking about the past.
Looking in the mirror like somethings a miss.
Us wondering why everyone looks so ******
Ever felt like you were abandoned.
Felt so lost that you were stranded.
To the point where there seems to be no way out.
So you have the weird one comes out to look and move about.
Cretan, ****** the weird one cries.
For Cretan cannot answer.
For the fact is that Cretan is the way out
Jan 29, 2010
Jan 29, 2010 at 4:30 PM UTC
That river runs most of the year, through
Wickenburg, Arizona,
phonic resonance, wiccan, twisted wick
dipped in golden oil to write the vision,
seen from the copper kettle coffee shop
on the banks of the shallow Hasayampa
I formed a story from a glimpse, an instance
made plain for me, I see, seeming
to think we know I mean you see, we know.
We know the way oaths work, we comprehend
open source, may we all say we know and know,
nothing said to have been done by truth,
as all things worked together,
is intentionally keeping
our interpretations of story smeared history,
from just yesterday, as true, first impression
as ever began,
I wrote. And I write, and as I write, I think,
I pray, instants passed in the process give
momentary pause
ele-ment-al
all ment ends are mental acts done thought,
deed done, as when in his heart a man does,
be it he or she, wombed or un, mirror neurons
do not discern thought and deed, indeed,
we all have been beguiled, but never forever.
We die to know, but we then do, as far as you
may know, until we go incommunicado.
Nov 2, 2023
Nov 2, 2023 at 3:43 PM UTC
by the window,
gazing on the crescent moon,
cold breezes tear through the room,
the night sky,
glistening monochrome picture,
the beauty reminds me of you,
goose bumps graze the skin,
reality fades away,
and,
involuntarily end up on your world,
The first letter i wrote you,
lays on my hand,
i spilt my heart out for you,
asked to take you out too,
wind blows pieces of paper,
and there lies the fourth letter,
i wrote, it's a poem
scripted script less,
written from the edges of my thought's,
as words coined at will,
i think you would've liked it,
the ending, a cretan,
sends me to the second letter,
a rhyme, declaring
my love for you,
a lovely one,
but the brightest thought's,
bloom the darkest,
and then reality keeps up,
it haunt's you know,
knowing my heart harbors affection,
for you,but silence rule's my mouth,
knowing my brittle heart,
would easily fall for her charm's,
letters didn't see the mail man,
i once dropped it at your doorstep,
wore a cape to get the courage,
to knock,and i did,
but instead i woke up.
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 10:58 AM UTC
You’re impenetrable my little
Nemean lion
You have cauterized your skin my brittle
Lernaean hydra
Forever I'll chase my crippled
Ceryneian hind
Where ever you lay waste my graceful
Erymanthian boar
Even if you never come clean my *****
Augean stable
No matter how many you eat my hungry
Stymphalian bird
No matter your myth my covetous
Cretan bull
No matter how many you’ve ate my cannibalistic
Mare of Diomedes
Even if blood has to shed my bellicose
Belt of Hippolyta
I built this field for us to grow my starving
Cow of Geryon
I will hold your world up my poisoned
Golden apple of the Hesperides
I will travel to the depths of hell for you my frightening
Cerberus
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 7:35 PM UTC
Her ****** was confusing
Like a Cretan Labyrinth
Her dad was the Minotaur
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 11:37 PM UTC
No investment.
No skin off my nose.
- went back to Fool's day
- and then back to all in, free
No loss in time's eternity,
ended in the awesome knowing.
All trials in the ready past, ordo,
Seclorum Sanctorum Ordo, aside
ordinarily free visitor alien status,
-not allowed, they say, my status
holding no sway,
as a free spirit, they
no say, in the way things work here,
-crosswind to all good fortune
now was set to be long
before me, or thee,
verily
very mankindish, we may make do
imaginable causal agencies,
amen-emo-pet insurance
points in prepositioned order,
as we meander after looking out
past the creation of the sun,
some say, and may know, but we,
the common sensors on the planet,
amused and amusing others as well,
we are finishing a projected imagination,
the rites of spring, proposed as worthy
of our Fantasia evolution from Fool's Day,
through several saints days and processions,
all about the passions,
all appointed anointed salves
slick as any Bucky ball solutions
to the smooth, slave mind fear, hell,
set the captives free, break every yoke,
find the shibboleths and laugh at those,
not the accents ya'll'll use to abuse,
the speaker who stumbles …
tongue tied
while quoting Cretan poets.
Apr 29, 2024
Apr 29, 2024 at 9:05 PM UTC
Reborn into the Aether
After chaos revelations
Quintessential elevations
For the demi-god ascendancies
Transcending divinations
Of Olympic heights
Titanic mights
And Uranus castrations
Spawning Erinyes of fury
In my spartan fights
And Cretan flights
Escaping wings of Icarus
When Helios ignites
Within me, Gaia's chosen sun
Aphrodite is my lover
By her oceans overcome
With a beauty Hellenistic
Making lions of a man
Though Charybdis stirs beneath her
I still sink into the sand
Of her blissful Themiscyran shores
Elysian Fields I've seen
At the end of Trojan wars
Through Iliads and Odysseys
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 12:38 AM UTC
Slay the lion, slay the hydra,
Take away the hind’s horn,
For the fourth one, bag a boar,
Clean the stables till you’re sore.
Give your word to slay the birds,
Swear to tame that cretan bull,
Ride the mares plum out of fuel,
And grip a little lighter the hip of Hippolyta,
Grab the girdle, jump the hurdle,
Steal the cattle from the fool,
And pray the beast won’t get the feast
He wishes of your skull.
And even if the apples
Aren’t as gold as ones you've known,
Never mind! Cut the vine!
Reap! Before that Titan goes!
But that distant thunder rolling
And the lightning all around,
Let it part before you start
Toward the triple-headed hound.
Aug 9, 2019
Aug 9, 2019 at 9:56 PM UTC