"cromwell" poems
(for Nietzche, who cowers behind art.)
The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every night yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
when there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing.
Yet still it yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise.
The world called Canaanites ******
while they traded and toiled along the shores
of land promised to the aged heretic of Sumer,
whose wife could give only love.
The world called Hebrews ******
while they raised Pharoah tombs
Provided respite from the eastern chariots
Stubborn in refusal of the living gods
Drinking only Eloheim's bitter grape
That provides brief respite from his decrees
When delving deep in one's cups.
The world called Britons ******
When flogged Boudicea fought and fought and finally fell
To Roman spear and gladius
When Angles and Saxons raided then stayed
When Cromwell climbed the pale cliffs
The world called the Iberians, Gauls and Teutons ******
when Caesar crossed the Rubicon
Pax Romana for Citizens born
Land for the wealthy, voting rights too
Taxes and tithes from their toil.
The world called the Khoikhoi of South Africa ******
From the VOC to fatal Apartheid
Up rose a man
The heart of the land
A man named Nelson Mandela.
The world called the Viet Minh ******
from Can Vong to Dien Bien Phu
'till they slogged howitzers above
to reign Napoleonic terror below.
And to them it was just
The American War
After the world called them
Vietnamese.
The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every day yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
When there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing
yet still it yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
'though it never watches its own rising
undoing raiment of fading embers
swimming naked in the royal blue
bathing all with daily newborn naked glory
chasing the celestial tidal tease
that seems to wander where it please
reminding that all are born free
but can grow into ignorance
and be called ******
Seek truths
that hold in unity;
that provide nourishment
beneath the lash
allowing one
to rise, to rise, to rise.
Jul 15, 2019
Jul 15, 2019 at 9:01 AM UTC
[Being an humble address to Her Majesty's Naval advisers, who sold Nelson's old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.]
WHO says the Nation's purse is lean,
Who fears for claim or bond or debt,
When all the glories that have been
Are scheduled as a cash asset?
If times are bleak and trade is slack,
If coal and cotton fail at last,
We've something left to barter yet--
Our glorious past.
There's many a crypt in which lies hid
The dust of statesman or of king;
There's Shakespeare's home to raise a bid,
And Milton's house its price would bring.
What for the sword that Cromwell drew?
What for Prince Edward's coat of mail?
What for our Saxon Alfred's tomb?
They're all for sale!
And stone and marble may be sold
Which serve no present daily need;
There's Edward's Windsor, labelled old,
And Wolsey's palace, guaranteed.
St. Clement Danes and fifty fanes,
The Tower and the Temple grounds;
How much for these? Just price them, please,
In British pounds.
You hucksters, have you still to learn,
The things which money will not buy?
Can you not read that, cold and stern
As we may be, there still does lie
Deep in our hearts a hungry love
For what concerns our island story?
We sell our work -- perchance our lives,
But not our glory.
Go barter to the knacker's yard
The steed that has outlived its time!
Send hungry to the pauper ward
The man who served you in his prime!
But when you touch the Nation's store,
Be broad your mind and tight your grip.
Take heed! And bring us back once more
Our Nelson's ship.
And if no mooring can be found
In all our harbours near or far,
Then tow the old three-decker round
To where the deep-sea soundings are;
There, with her pennon flying clear,
And with her ensign lashed peak high,
Sink her a thousand fathoms sheer.
There let her lie!
3.2k
O Liberty, God-gifted--
Young and immortal maid--
In your high hand uplifted,
The torch declares your trade.
Its crimson menace, flaming
Upon the sea and shore,
Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming
That Law shall be no more.
Austere incendiary,
We're blinking in the light;
Where is your customary
Grenade of dynamite?
Where are your staves and switches
For men of gentle birth?
Your mask and dirk for riches?
Your chains for wit and worth?
Perhaps, you've brought the halters
You used in the old days,
When round religion's altars
You stabled Cromwell's bays?
Behind you, unsuspected,
Have you the axe, fair *****
Wherewith you once collected
A poll-tax for the French?
America salutes you--
Preparing to "disgorge."
Take everything that suits you,
And marry Henry George.
2.4k
Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
And the age changed unto a mimic play
Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
We are but fit to delve the common clay,
Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
Which bare a triple empire in her hand
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
2.3k
On The Proposalls Of Certaine Ministers At The Committee For
Propagation Of The Gospell
Cromwell, our cheif of men, who through a cloud
Not of warr onely, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith & matchless Fortitude
To peace & truth thy glorious way hast plough’d,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud
Hast reard Gods Trophies, & his work pursu’d,
While Darwen stream with blood of Scotts imbru’d,
And Dunbarr field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worsters laureat wreath; yet much remaines
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renownd then warr, new foes aries
Threatning to bind our soules with secular chaines:
Helpe us to save free Conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves whose Gospell is their maw.
1.8k
Ole Hunchback
Got a right Royal burial;
That smiling villain's bones
Bleached black-blonde
In underground parking.
Exhumed and parlayed
For over two years;
Confirmed to be he
Who caused a Queen
To cry vats of tears
For the Tower boys.
Poor Anne dropped her hankie.
His horse-drawn caisson
Is a subterfuge,
A distraction to veil
Civil dissatisfaction.
He finally got his horse,
And we get the droppings.
And I see Cromwell
Standing beside Churhill
And Charles ouside
Westminster.
Perhaps Manson
Will be busted
In Poet's Corner.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 9:22 AM UTC
Famine had come to our shores
The poor and weak it claimed.
It was our staple, the potato, which failed.
There was no lack of grain.
The landlords were exporting crops
While they watched their tenants bide.
A crueler death than Cromwell gave
Back when he let God decide.
The Wealthy were the Protestants,
centuries in the ascendant.
The victims, mostly Catholic,
of native Celts descendant.
Starvation is a lingering death.
It is not quick or kind.
Green Grass was, for many,
the last meal on which they dined.
When our neighbor, Kitty Kelly, died,
too proud to take the soup.
We boarded ship for old New York
And left behind our youth.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM UTC
YOU ask what -- I have found, and far and wide I go:
Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's mur-
derous crew,
The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,
And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen,
where are they?
And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride -- -
His fathers served their fathers before Christ was
crucified.
O what of that, O what of that,
"What is there left to say?
All neighbourly content and easy talk are gone,
But there's no good complaining, for money's rant is
on.
He that's mounting up must on his neighbour mount,
And we and all the Muses are things of no account.
They have schooling of their own, but I pass their
schooling by,
What can they know that we know that know the
time to die?
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
But there's another knowledge that my heart destroys,
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy's
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep com-
pany,
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their setvant though all are under-
ground.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
I came on a great house in the middle of the night,
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome
too;
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds. howled
through;
And when I pay attention I must out and walk
Among the dogs and horses that understand my talk.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
1.5k
A child found a book of war ,from hay where her mother and father lay dying .
From page to page she turned ,
each page of sage dripped in blood and gore .
Each page spoke of vengeance’s sharped sword ,
each page of sorrow and death ,
each page of sabered ****** hand .
Call of tyrants from mountains came to fight forever in Odin halls ..
The weavers witch spinned and cut the thread and cursed the land .
and goblets of blood of man slept till nevermore .
Spin spin tales of woe ,
Spin spin the weavers go and blood and goblits forever until
the curse is broken .
Gods poets spoke of love and peace to take the darkness that stalked
the land one bright light to guide them,
so even God in his mighty love might not judge them .
Spin the thread the tales of woe ,
Spin the weavers gold and blood ,
and goblits until the curse is broken .
And the fires burnt and furnise fired for shells of war,
that fed the cannon and muskit .
For King and country ,
For Cromwell’s army ,
to over throw the country .
Spin the thread the tales of woe ,
Spin the weavers gold and blood ,
and goblits ,
until the curse is broken .
Two lovers with beating hearts ,
one left for King and Country.
He looked
into her eyes ,
“;don’t be sad when I have gone for you’re sadness forever take you .
Then over the top to the four winds blown ,
over the top for King and country .
.” So weep beside the willow tree ,
for letters of love for me .
For where flowers grow our hearts will go ,
See the flowers they grow
beside you .
and though the trench in death you lay my heart will forever find you for a telegram man arrived today as i was picking flowers .
The girl closed the book and placed a flower in ,
then danced around a young willow tree for now the curse was broken .
Dance around the willow tree ,
plant a flower of love for me ,
for now the curse is broken.
Nov 17, 2018
Nov 17, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
There was a time in Europe long ago
When no man died for freedom anywhere,
But England’s lion leaping from its lair
Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so
While England could a great Republic show.
Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care
Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair
The Pontiff in his painted portico
Trembled before our stern ambassadors.
How comes it then that from such high estate
We have thus fallen, save that Luxury
With barren merchandise piles up the gate
Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:
Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.
1.4k
I dream of living to see the next revolution,
And of the men who will not live through that revolution,
Of the air humming electric static heat in anticipation of the inevitable riot,
Of the holy barricades standing in defiance of Heaven,
Of the enlightened kicking down the doors with guns and masks, asking;
"ARE YOU GONNA BE A PART OF THE PROBLEM OR ARE YOU GONNA BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION?"
Of gallows for the dogs of war,
Of guillotines for the capitalist pigs,
Of a firing squad for every reactionary content to oppose the wheel of history even as it crushes their bones down to nothing,
Of the end which justifies the blood staining the cities red as the hammer and sickle cells that divide and multiply fevered in the streets,
Of the ghosts of iron men long dead still insisting that we take not one step back,
Because men get arrested, animals get put down
And God,
God made them as stubble to our swords, boys
And with blades clenched between their teeth so climb the dregs of the Earth to the surface to taste the apples they shook from the trees,
In 24 hour news cycles the slogans repeat to infinity:
"NOT RESISTING ARREST"
"NOT COMMITTING A CRIME"
"I WAS NOT A THREAT, WHY DID YOU TRY TO **** ME"
You can only force people to paint the smallest target possible on their own backs for so long before you end up in the crosshairs
I have seen the faces of my saints painted on the walls of eternity -
Of Trotsky, million headed proletariat staring daggers through the hearts of the tsars,
Of Cromwell, crusader for the ungovernable force of will,
Of Robespierre, headsman of divine terror riding on the wings of the Angel of Death,
I have seen the end and the means played out in countless dramas across millennia,
And the only question that remains unanswered is this:
Are you gonna be a part of the problem or are you gonna be a part of the solution?
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 12:30 AM UTC
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton’s flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are;
The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers
And heaven is lighting star after star.
Places I love come back to me like music —
Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily;
In the ship’s deep churning the eerie phosphorescence
Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,
And I can hear a man’s voice, speaking, hushed, insistent,
At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.
1.3k
what i find with western societies
is that they overly assert the worth of
psychology, without ever having read
a book of philosophy; meaning that
too many are treated as psychiatric
imbeciles, when in fact the culprit is
hard-worn and readied to re-enact the execution,
ready the plumber and forget the library banger;
with all that might hang, Charlie would
have asked Cromwell: did i have the power
or are you jeopardising in the extreme?
Calcutta o.k., hunches and surf's up!
surf's up... biggie bagpipe wave! hoo! hay!
a transvestite hooray! i too a
Thailand lady-boy, translated: north korea
in jitters and Japanese worth of shoo shy flips
of Kentucky Solomon... or some other slang
glued to cool.
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 10:28 PM UTC
They came by the Inn that morning,
A troop of Cavaliers,
With their swords and buckles shining,
And ringlets round their ears,
They called to the simple stable boy
To attend without delay,
To feed and water their horses,
The King would be there today.
They kicked the Inn door open
With boots that came to the knee,
Demanded an instant pottage
For the troop of twenty three,
‘So get your wife to the kitchen,
Your daughter up to the bar,
By serving us you will serve your King,’
They said to the Inn-Keeper.
They crowded into the tap room,
Where Molly was serving ale,
Made rude and haughty gestures
‘Til the girl had turned quite pale,
Their empty steins were flung at the hearth
And shattered, over the stair,
The Inn to them was beneath contempt
With its simple peasant fare.
The wife served up a ploughman’s lunch
Of wheaten bread and cheese,
They snatched and curled their lips at it
And not one mentioned ‘Please!’
They tore an edict of Parliament
That was hanging over the bar,
And held it over a candle ‘til
The ash was spread on the floor.
‘We have us an act of treason here,’
The Captain said to his men,
‘What shall we do with an Inn-Keeper
Who favours Parliament?’
They dragged him out to the stable yard
And hung him high on a tree,
Dragged the wife and the daughter out
As he died, so they could see.
‘God rot you each and every one,’
The wife screamed out in pain,
‘I curse your colours and curse a King
That could be so cruel - For shame!’
They held the daughter and dragged the wife
Out of sight, in alarm,
Despatched her with a rusty pike
And then set fire to the barn.
The soldiers started to fall about,
Were throwing up, and pale,
While Molly shrieked, ‘How did you like
My Belladonna Ale?’
They still were there when a troop rode up
Of Cromwell’s Ironsides,
Who slaughtered the King’s own troop that day
As the daughter sat, and cried.
David Lewis Paget
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 6:57 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
90,000 Screaming Fans
There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I
wear the crown, there are those like Master Cromwell
who follow me because they are jackals with sharp
teeth and I'm their tiger, there's a mass that follows me
because it follows anything that moves. And then
there's you.
-Henry VII to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons
Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo!Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo!Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo!Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh!
https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-college-football-dan-mullen-gainesville-football-1e21c3bd07b05e4ea0ecd02fa9923679
Oct 15, 2020
Oct 15, 2020 at 9:44 AM UTC
*it's a dead, obviously, working from per se, i only used prae to be near per, i could have used foris, or even ante, but given the dictionary and the necrosis of the Latin tongue per se as in: per - by rather than in - and se - himself rather than itself, you can imagine the complications of coining a phrase for the antidote of in-itself, i.e. outside-itself.*
revision of Enya: **** away **** away,
against the wind against the wind;
mash up... brrrrapt big up big up east end
Loud Don... bonkers bunch...
now that is random,
i wanted to make a serious point,
and i will (insert snigger)... eventually.
what i wanted to communicate was the revenge of
von Kleist against Kant...
Kant is the enemy of poetry we're led to believe,
i can imagine, only Heidegger took Holderlin seriously
and lectured on his poetry,
von Kleist committed suicide out of despair
having read Kant's critique...
but what i want to do:
to take each poetic technique out of poetry, and
then use each technique to describe it's origin...
so for example metaphor... given that poetry is
ensō (one smooth stroke) - ever watched the t.v.
series Wolf Hall? it's about the dealings of Thomas
Cromwell, all matters of intrigue, Henry the VIII,
and Anne Boleyn... so the metaphor describing
poetry... at the end of Wolf Hall
Anne Boleyn is about to be decapitated, because
she ****** like Catherine the Great (although i'm
sure the myth about the horse by polish / lithuanian
conspirators isn't true... or applicable to Anne)
and that offended the king...
so on the scaffold, there's the swordsman (using a sword
was a clean affair, axes were brutal, imagine hacking
at stump of wood, or like Longinus Podbipięta,
who with a Teutonic sword cut three Turk
heads in one go, so Longinus Podbipięta vouched
to a lady his chastity that he'd bed her if he also
cut three Ottoman heads in one go ref. Sienkiewicz
with fire and sword - the sword
that cut ****** Mary's head was, blunt)...
so there's this scene in Wolf Hall, ah man, the swordsman
is classy, Thomas Cromwell asks him, 'will it be a clean
death?', 'only if she doesn't move',
so on the scaffold, he takes his shoes off, speaks into her right
ear as if she's expecting the swing to come from there
and then with great stealth moves in the other
direction and cuts her head off from the left...
so i guess poetry is a metaphor of that, an ensō,
an evolution from haiku: one smooth stroke and you're done:
nothing airy fairy, like you need to sigh...
no... you need to drop the anchor:
poetry prae se, as described by metaphor.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 9:24 AM UTC
As you walk along this pavement
Walk where they cannot
See where they do not
Listen to what the know
Hear what came to sow
Send a little kiss
See where they cannot
Walk where they do not
Hear and come to know
Listen to what came to sow
To the girls of Cromwell
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 5:16 PM UTC
You've probably never heard of Lough Egish.
I'm not surprised.
The gene pool there, swirling near the mill,
For centuries,
Produced a multitude of survivors
From famine, Cromwell,
And seven hundred years of ethnic cleansing.
Then, sixty-one years ago today,
Me.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 7:34 AM UTC
They failed to filch her fine and noble mien
when Anne Boleyn endured the ****** stand.
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.
Fifteen thirty three could not foresee
this heinous act by Cromwell’s sinful hand,
yet still they failed to filch her noble mien.
‘Twas Edward sought to sully his regime,
obsessed with sons not gracing merry England.
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.
How stealthily does fortune warp the scene.
Betrothed in majesty; so bluntly ******
And yet, they failed to filch her noble mien
The ‘hangman from Calais‘ equipped the scheme.
In haste he struck the deadly blow. Poor Anne!
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.
In face of death prevailed a humble queen.
‘God praise the King; long may he rule the land’.
They failed to filch her fine and noble mien
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.
Feb 6, 2016
Feb 6, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
Francis sits down at the bench and begins his meal.
The other monks eat without thought other than
What the reading monk on his high stool reads out.
Some book on Cromwell, halfway through, the reader’s
Tone dry and at an even pace. Francis reflects on the
Preparation of the meal. The gathering of vegetables
From the garden, the preparing of the meat, the soup,
The dessert and all with little help save what Brother
Benedict brought with time and skill. Francis studies
Each monk in turn, his eyes sweeping the refectory,
The way this one holds his fork, that one shovels in
Without thought or care, another picking through his
Meal like some old hobo through a garbage heap.
The reader pauses to sip water. The sound of cutlery
On plates, the birds outside the tall windows of the
Refectory in song, the odd slurp or cough, a sneeze.
The reader reads on, Cromwell brought to life, his
Deeds both good and bad, high and low. Francis brings
His spoon to his lips, sips the soup, thick and dark.
One of the young monks pushing round the trolley
With meals for the next course, stops and stares at
The crucifix on the wall above the abbot’s head,
Thinks on the Last Supper with the sipping of blood
And wine and the breaking of both body and bread.
Mar 8, 2012
Mar 8, 2012 at 2:23 AM UTC
I wish that we’d never found it now,
I wish that we’d stayed away,
Avoided the twisted mansion that
Was fashioned in Cromwell’s day,
But we were just a couple of lads
Out there, and having fun,
We wouldn’t have thought to change the world,
Nor hurt just anyone.
The place sat deep in a bluebell wood
Surrounded by a marsh,
I said, ‘Should we?’ and he said we should,
My friend was a little harsh,
We waded up to our knees out there
Until we reached the porch,
The rooms within were as dark as sin
Till Joe took out his torch.
The house had once been a splendid place
Though the floors were deep in mud,
Of fetes and ***** there was still a trace
Then the fields submerged in flood,
The house sank on its foundations then
No doubt, to cries and tears,
Its noble crew had deserted it
For all of two hundred years.
I raced my friend to the stairway that
Led up from the central hall,
Half of the rail had fallen away,
Was resting against the wall,
When up above in a tiny room
Stood a bureau, finely made,
Inlaid with delicate parquetry
That lay concealed in the shade.
But over the lintel of the door
Was the carving of a man,
His wings spread wide, with the sharpest claw,
He was from some evil clan,
His teeth protruded over his lip
And his eyes were fierce and black,
I caught at Joe and he almost tripped
But he shrugged, and turned his back.
And on the dust of the bureau lay
A long, fine feather quill,
I knew I shouldn’t disturb it there
But I thought, ‘I can, I will!’
And beside the quill was a manuscript
In an old and faded hand,
Calling for the death of a king
That I couldn’t understand.
I knew, I’d read in my history books
That a cruel, evil one,
A man called Oliver Cromwell had
Caused pain for everyone,
He’d raised a citizens’ army and
Had thought to **** the king,
But fell to the King’s Own Cavaliers,
Was beheaded in the spring.
I knew this, yet I still signed my name
With that awesome feather quill,
It seemed to have me so hypnotised
That I quite had lost my will,
So then when a roll of thunder shook
The house right through to the floor,
The man in black that was carved, alack,
Came bursting in through the door.
He snatched at the parchment manuscript
And let out a howl of glee,
Then screamed, ‘I’ve waited forever just
To play with your history.’
I know that you think the civil war
Took the head of a rightful King,
But how could I know the power of a quill
That could upturn everything?
David Lewis Paget
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 3:42 AM UTC
Two monks pick fruit
from bushes
in the abbey gardens,
the early
afternoon sun
blesses
their tonsured heads,
a black beaded rosary
hangs
from the leather belt
of the younger one.
I polish the wood
of the choir stalls
with beeswax
and a yellow duster;
I remember her softness,
her opening wide,
the scent of hair
as I moved in
and lay there.
The Austrian monk,
head to one side,
sups his soup
in the refectory
off the old
French spoon,
listening to the reader
read of Cromwell,
and the thought of Compline
and bed quite soon.
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 1:59 AM UTC
On a brighter note
a Thames lighter boat,
where the rivermen between the banks give thanks to
tidal waves and wave across between the shores,between the puritans and ******
Southwark never bores the citizens,pitting them against the age where Shakespeare plays upon the stage and Chaucer sits in Tabard Square,
awaits the pilgrims who are milling corn atop the bridge.
Cromwell sells the tickets for his latest gig,to dig the graves and inter the raving lunatics who switch from bedlam down to palaces in the minster where the spinster out of place knits balaclavas for the faces that she sees dropping from a guillotine,
these things I've seen a thousand times, written in ten thousand lines and acted out below the chimes of clocks that stand before the sway of one more 'down south london way' or anyway what do I care if it's share and share alike or not.
I've got allotted but a short spell here,time for dinner,one more glass of beer and then my dear I'm on my way,
to stroll through more of yesterday.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe’s edge did try;
Nor call’d the gods with ****** spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assur’d the forced pow’r.
So when they did design
The Capitol’s first line,
A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the state
Foresaw its happy fate.
from:
An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland
by Andrew Marvell, 1651
Jun 3, 2017
Jun 3, 2017 at 7:47 AM UTC
Once upon a time
in a nasty little war
Cromwell came to Ireland
like a blight upon our shore.
He waged war upon my people
in a genocidal style
but some revisionists might argue
he was merciful and mild.
At Drogheda he killed thousands,
what a slaughter that place saw,
at the hands of "Christian" soldiers-
surely righteous was their cause.
Then, when the war was over
and all our blood was spent
the Gaels, who used to own the land,
all wound up paying rent
" To Hell or Connacht" is a phrase
sound biters did invent
I don't know if he uttered it
but its surely what he meant!
Jul 22, 2012
Jul 22, 2012 at 12:44 AM UTC