When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes an hears—they let the strongest loose.
The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare half wounded buzzes by.
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all the day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where’er they go;
When badgers fight, then everyone’s a foe.
The dogs are clapped and urged to join the fray’
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for hours and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through—the drunkard swears and reels

The frighted women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd again;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and crackles, groans, and dies.

While in the midst of playing solitaire
(with losing outcome foreordained
after a couple moves), I became gripped
with combinations predicated on thirteen
ranks each of four French suits subsumed:
Clubs (♣), Diamonds (◊), Hearts (♥) And Spades (♠).

I  totalled a sum of fifty two variations.

If one of four possible draws for king available,
(which could be either Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts,
and Spades), that would automatically determine
every subsequent card diminishing in rank
topped off with an Ace.

Please feel welcome to challenge my presumption
within a dark alley late at night.

The above calculation logical since a standard deck
(not surprisingly) comprises 52 cards
(4 suits of 13).

Each suit (Clubs ♣, Diamonds ◊, Hearts ♥, Or Spades ♠)
contains an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Jack, Queen, And King.

There are no duplicates.

No Google search yielded results
asper this nagging question, but unexpectedly
whet an immediate appetite describing
the history of plain old vanilla playing cards.

Said legacy encompassing the four suits
i.e. collectively represent four elements
(wind, fire, water, and earth),
the seasons, and cardinal directions.

They represent struggle of opposing forces
for victory in life. Each suit on a deck of cards
represents four major pillars of economy
during middle ages: Heart represented
Church, Spades represented  military,
clubs represented agriculture, and
Diamonds represented merchant class.

King of hearts is the only king minus a mustache.

Face cards (Jacks, Queens, And Kings) so called
"face cards" because the cards
have pictures of their names.

One-eyed Royals (the Jack of spades
and Jack of Hearts often called "one-eyed Jacks"),
and King of Diamonds drawn in profile;
therefore, these cards
commonly referred to as "one-eyed".

The King of Spades ♠ ranks
as one of three immovable Fixed Cards
in the Cards of Life and resides
in the Crown Line of both Master Scripts
(Spirit and Life).

Said card, in situ, the most powerful card
in the deck.

A Jack or Knave is a playing card,
which in traditional French and English decks,
pictures a man in traditional or historic
aristocratic dress generally associated
with Europe of the 16th or 17th century.

The usual rank of a Jack, within its suit,
plays as if it were an 11
(that is, between the 10 and the Queen).

Charming, resourceful, personable and easy-going
best defines Jack of Spades.

Blessed with a creative mind,
this one-eyed Jack of the deck manifests
jais nais sais quois salient scrutiny
jest via virtue of lightness of his being.

The four card suits that we know today —
Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs
(rooted in French design) circa 15th century,
but the idea of card suits is much older.

The written history of card playing
began during 10th-century Asia,
from either China or India,
as a gambling game.

That idea found its way to ancient Muslim world
before 14th century.

The oldest known deck of Muslim playing cards,
like the playing cards of today,
had four suits: Coins, Cups, Swords, and Polo Sticks.

These decks of cards then showed up
in southern Europe, but because polo sticks
were unfamiliar to Europeans, that suit
eventually changed to Scepters, Batons,
or Cudgels (a type of club).
In France, Parisian cardmakers
settled on Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds
as the four suits.  
    
The first adaptations of German card suits
constituted Leaves, Hearts, and Hawk Bells
(Acorns rounded out German suit).

Considering cards strictly made
for French upper class, tis little surprise
cardmakers chose expensive
Diamonds over common Acorns.

The French advanced card making utilizing
flat, single-color silhouettes for suits.

These images created with simple stencils,
made manufacture easy, quick, and inexpensive.

Innovative new, cheaper cards
flooded the market in the 15th century,
became popular in England,
and then traveled to America.    

Contrary to contemporary belief four suits
meant to represent four seasons inaccurate.

Equally questionable 52 cards linkedin
to 52 weeks of the year.

Many numerological and religious
explanations asper composition  
analogous to deck of cards postulated,
but these explanations purportedly created
ex post facto, perhaps to give deck-holders
a solid argument, that role deck of cards
maintained existed other than for gambling.

Other worlds have hopes,
for plants, for trees and
dogs walking by, panting
soaking in humidity like carp
above water.
Not ours.
Dead ends, parked cars supplanting
serenity with passion, desire
crammed into
row upon row of heartless
dwellings expunging sunglass-wearing
**** suckers
blocking their emptiness from the world
with reverse blindfolds.
I know their eyes still glare at me, scoffing at
them. Walking, I
walk past
their barricaded kennels, under-
construction housing
impersonating natural climes
with sushi and slushy shops.
People like them have admiss-
able drives, hankering after
freedom; they're indoctrinated
to believe admission is
monthly cable bills
wired in beneath concrete slabs
maintained compliance
through lines painted on grass
where overlords can tell livestock
what to do.
Bus chutes form
hillsides, beside lines of
trees which perfume these
feedlots
we call
cities.
**** oozes below streets
walked on, they stared at me
like cows, watching a ranch-hand
suspicion toward anything
beyond bistro fences.
"What the **** are you looking at,
you filthy animal?
Have you no idea which species your greed
feeds?
Do you know where this ends
for you?
Who's tazing your ***,
who's making you sit there?"
Moo, mooo.
Mooooooooooooooooooo.
Receipts, a cudgel on each table,
more cudgels ring
from pockets
telling them what time it is,
where they're to be.
Sunday's almost over,
back to blocks of houses!
Graze on painted grass,
then die,
but not before you stare at me
with empty eyes,
you pathetic, miserable
creatures.

He told his sister to feed the dogs,
His twin sister; Sophia Bogvoskya,
As he was to take out the herds
Of horses, sheep, donkeys and cows,
Out to the plains and hill land for grazing,
She never took a ****, she locked herself,
Up in the ante chamber of the main house,
She took the mirror and began looking
At her beauty, Russian model beauty
She began picking her nails,
As the dogs were starving in the sheds
They whined but no succor came forth,
A fiat that coincided with arrival of ogres,
The great Western Ogres, the tongues wagging,
They had a plethora of eyes and mouths,
Noses and ears, limbs both hind and fore,
They ate all the young sheep,
They took away Putin’s young brothers
Crimea and Ukrainian, both were taken away,
By the ferocious NATO ogres they were taken
In a whelp and desperate kicking for freedom,
Dogs stood aloof as ogres thrashed Sophia
Into thin lacerations of red flesh,
They ate as they roared with laughter,
Then they went away with their loot,
Vladimir came back home, found nothing
No sister, no brothers no sheeplings,
Only two white sepulchers glared at him,
The graves of his mother and father;
The former cooks of Lenin Vladimir,
He mourned and mourned grievously,
Then he sang a dirge of his forefathers
From the herculean land of Bosnia,
And also Moscow, he dirged;
We were born in the wee of the night,
When the bear is whelping,
And we were suckled by the Tigre
When our mothers were taken slaves,
For no man or creature
Will ever make us victims
Nor subjects of fear,
He recovered from the moment
Trial some moment of loss and bereave,
Then he chose to go after the ogres
But with a strategum of no match,
He began arming himself first
Before  he could set on,
His mobile armory full of deadly weapons;
A bunch of wasps, wild bees, black ants,
A thousand slings, spears and sickles,
Machetes, poisonous saps, and toxics,
Wild dogs, five hundred snakes and scorpions,
Bows and arrows as well as cudgels,
Clubs, stones and chains,
He also learned how to use the hands
In the most lethal manner,
Then he went for combat,
To rescue all that was taken,
Taken from him by the ogres….

Goya's not gone
his nightmares and realities still shadow us -
the Los Desastres de la Guerra
still palpitate in our desert lands and hills
beating like hearts the Aztecs offered the sun;
and the barbarism of an axe over heads still thrives -
and barbarians can never hear the plea of a mother

Tampoco
tells us of women and girls ***** in war
and Oh, the Fight with Cudgels
looms large over our skies
and the horror of Saturn devouring his son
pervades the earth
and the Black Paintings
run amok in the form of men shrouded in black

Ah, Picasso is there too in our madness:
Guernica bares its teeth and monstrosities

My brother was twelve years older so
I knew him not so well,
But heard of him in the taverns,
Getting drunk, and raising hell,
My mother said, ‘Keep away from him,’
And I did, for many years,
But blood is blood, and a brother should
Help out, though it ends in tears.

He’d done a spot of embezzling,
He’d picked the pockets of Earls,
You never left him to tend a horse
And he wasn’t safe with girls,
But he was my brother Toby,
And I was his brother Tim,
I’d often find him beneath my bed
When he said, ‘Don’t let them in!’

By ‘them’ he had meant the Runners
Who were active in the Bow,
And some of the old Thief-Takers
With their ruffians in tow,
They roamed the streets with their cudgels
And would lie, just out of sight,
Beyond the doors of the Taverns, when
They turned them adrift at night.

The streets were mean, and were far from clean
Where my brother used to roam,
Despite the pleas of our mother, who
Would beg him to come back home,
But father remained unbending, said
His eldest son was a swine,
‘His endless scrapes, a Jackanapes!
He is no son of mine!’

I heard he’d taken a horse and fled
From a stables in the Strand,
‘There’s little that anyone now can do,
When they catch him, he’ll be hanged!’
My mother, crying a flood of tears
As my father cursed and swore,
‘I’ll call the Runners, or I’ll be ******
If you let him through my door!’

So Toby galloped to Hounslow Heath
Along the Great West Road,
Teamed up with the brute Tom Wilmot,
Lay low in his abode,
They’d venture out on a moonlit night
To wait for the latest Stage,
But Tom was never the gentleman,
Or known to contain his rage.

They stopped the coach on a lonely night
‘Your money or your life!’
Dragged out a country gentleman,
His maid, and his homely wife,
He wanted the ring on the lady’s hand
But her finger held it tight,
So he sawed the finger off as well
With a sharp, serrated knife.

‘It was terrible,’ Toby told me
As they loaded him onto the cart,
‘The screams and the blood, unholy,’
As the horse was about to depart,
They hung him high on the Tyburn Tree
Next to the Wilmot pig,
Not undeserved, but I cried and cursed
As he danced the Tyburn jig.

David Lewis Paget

Crouched between the table & the wall
with his eyes in his hands
& his mouth in the shape of a small
barren island in the Atlantic Ocean
he waits for the blow to fall

Opposite him in the angle formed
by a filing cabinet & a drinks dispenser
a tiny furry creature does the rat-fink-a-boo-boo
its eyes blinking furiously
its ears revolving like an out-of-control radar station

Somewhere a radio plays
& a voice gabbles something about moonshine
& binge drinking & little green men out of Upminister
who are SERIOUSLY NO SERIOUSLY GONNA F--- YOU UP MAN

Later there will be music & lights & long legged
lovelies will strut their funky stuff across the walls
while a siren sounds in the street below
& the woodentops come calling
cudgels primed for some ******* ultraviolence

from the delightful pinch of your waist
is effused the mauling senility of your
forgetting smell
(which like cudgels' dozing blows
wreak the apt obliteration
of my normally conscience
                )
and i'm a can'thelpit
but kiss dubiously
pressing down
the quake of
your
ecstatically
expecting stomach
(at when  reaches
the ultimate cusp
of your brimming
ecstasy pulpit
my deft oral precisely
                                      )

the first time i choked on tear-gas,
we were standing in the heart of the Empire.
the scent of capsaicin still smarted
as we fished our medic bags for water-bottles
to flush our comrades’ eyes. we did not weep
for the revolt. we were at peace even as we knew,
beyond a shadow of a doubt,
we were ******.

the black bloc, three thousand strong,
had raged through the streets of D.C.
overturning dumpsters, torching limos,
taking hammers and crowbars
to Bank of America windows
with gleeful abandon, a sense of endless,
militant joy. it would be
anarchy or annihilation.

the spontaneous insurrection
of the antifascist demonstration
was an inferno hotter than the dumpster-fires
we’d left like signal-flares in our wake.
for a moment, there, we could feel
the ******* quaking as our feet
shook the Earth, stepping
in-and-out of Lovecraftian shadows,
eldritch horrors of doom gloating over us.

but we’d been kettled,
cordoned by cops in riot gear,
cut-off from all possible routes of escape.
faceless phantoms clutching cudgels
to bludgeon our conflagration
into submission. and then
the call came. “this way! this way!
we found an exit!”

immediately, the cops swarmed in,
their momentarily vindictive arrogance
shattered by the freedom that rang
like church-bells in a half-a-hundred voices.
“this way! this way! we found an exit!”
motorcycles turned down the alleyway,
sirens screaming, echoing off the tenement halls
and only one of us possessed the sense to intervene.

for a moment, she stood alone.
a single figure, holding up her hands
and shaking her head, refusing to let
the ******* advance. but courage
is infectious. a moment later,
another joined her, then another,
until all of a sudden a half-a-dozen
of us stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting,

“no pasaran! you shall not pass!”
we waited for the billy-clubs to rain
hell upon our shoulders, but still
we remained steadfast, anchored
by the weight of our conviction
and the hope that even if we fell
the rest of the bloc would escape
to wreak havoc another day.

that clenched another win (yahoo)
jimmied today August 15th, 2022 single handedly
just before the crack of dawn
with both hands tied behind my back,
and a blindfold worn over my eyes.

While in the midst of playing solitaire
(with losing outcome foreordained
after a couple moves), I became gripped
with combinations predicated on thirteen
ranks each of four French suits subsumed:
Clubs (♣), Diamonds (◊), Hearts (♥) And Spades (♠).

I  totalled a sum of fifty two variations.

If one of four possible draws for king available,
(which could be either Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts,
and Spades), that would automatically determine
every subsequent card diminishing in rank
topped off with an Ace.

Please feel welcome to challenge my presumption
within a dark (and stormy) alley late at night.

The above calculation logical since a standard deck
(not surprisingly) comprises 52 cards
(4 suits of 13).

Each suit (Clubs ♣, Diamonds ◊, Hearts ♥, Or Spades ♠)
contains an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Jack, Queen, And King.

There are no duplicates.

No Google search yielded results
asper this nagging question, but unexpectedly
whet an immediate appetite describing
the history of plain old vanilla playing cards.

Said legacy encompassing the four suits
i.e. collectively represent four elements
(wind, fire, water, and earth),
the seasons, and cardinal directions.

They represent struggle of opposing forces
for victory in life. Each suit on a deck of cards
represents four major pillars of economy
during middle ages: Heart represented
Church, Spades represented  military,
clubs represented agriculture, and
Diamonds represented merchant class.

King of hearts is the only king minus a mustache.

Face cards (Jacks, Queens, And Kings) so called
"face cards" because the cards
have pictures of their names.

One-eyed Royals (the Jack of spades
and Jack of Hearts often called "one-eyed Jacks"),
and King of Diamonds drawn in profile;
therefore, these cards
commonly referred to as "one-eyed".

The King of Spades ♠ ranks
as one of three immovable Fixed Cards
in the Cards of Life and resides
in the Crown Line of both Master Scripts
(Spirit and Life).

Said card, in situ, the most powerful card
in the deck.

A Jack or Knave is a playing card,
which in traditional French and English decks,
pictures a man in traditional or historic
aristocratic dress generally associated
with Europe of the 16th or 17th century.

The usual rank of a Jack, within its suit,
plays as if it were an 11
(that is, between the 10 and the Queen).

Charming, resourceful, personable and easy-going
best defines Jack of Spades.

Blessed with a creative mind,
this one-eyed Jack of the deck manifests
jais nais sais quois salient scrutiny
jest via virtue of lightness of his being.

The four card suits that we know today —
Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs
(rooted in French design) circa 15th century,
but the idea of card suits is much older.

The written history of card playing
began during 10th-century Asia,
from either China or India,
as a gambling game.

That idea found its way to ancient Muslim world
before 14th century.

The oldest known deck of Muslim playing cards,
like the playing cards of today,
had four suits: Coins, Cups, Swords, and Polo Sticks.

These decks of cards then showed up
in southern Europe, but because polo sticks
were unfamiliar to Europeans, that suit
eventually changed to Scepters, Batons,
or Cudgels (a type of club).
In France, Parisian cardmakers
settled on Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds
as the four suits.  
    
The first adaptations of German card suits
constituted Leaves, Hearts, and Hawk Bells
(Acorns rounded out German suit).

Considering cards strictly made
for French upper class, this little surprise
cardmakers chose expensive
Diamonds over common Acorns.

The French advanced card making utilizing
flat, single-color silhouettes for suits.

These images created with simple stencils,
made manufacture easy, quick, and inexpensive.

Innovative new, cheaper cards
flooded the market in the 15th century,
became popular in England,
and then traveled to America.    

Contrary to contemporary belief four suits
meant to represent four seasons inaccurate.

Equally questionable 52 cards linkedin
to 52 weeks of the year.

Many numerological and religious
explanations asper composition  
analogous to deck of cards postulated,
but these explanations purportedly created
ex post facto, perhaps to give deck-holders
a solid argument, that role deck of cards
maintained existed other than for gambling.

Mass hysteria, a sea of cudgels,
With one mind, they rush forward,
Bearing down on the unfortunates,
That went in search of greener pastures.

No matter how one fights
He cannot win
He can use any means at all
Cudgels, guns, knives, forks, pitchforks , or darts
He can puff himself up
He can rant and rave
He can cheat and lie
But
He cannot win
If there's no one there to fight/

He came one day to the village green
And rented a cottage there,
The village gossips said, ‘have you seen
That guy with the flame red hair?
We know he’s up to some evil scheme
He wouldn’t be up to good,
He goes inside and he’s rarely seen,
He’s bad for the neighbourhood.’

He never went out to work at a job,
They didn’t know how he lived,
He always had funds at the supermart,
‘He must be a crook,’ they believed.
One of them pushed through his letterbox
A message to curdle his fear,
‘Your kind isn’t wanted,’ the message read,
‘So why do you want to live here?’

They hung a bad omen up over his door,
Threw rocks through a window-pane,
Left his milk bottles smashed on the floor,
And did it again and again,
He never seemed flustered or worried at all,
But wandered abroad with a grin,
They thought he set fire to the village hall,
But never could prove it was him.

Then girls were beginning to knock at his door,
And he began letting them in,
They’d stay there for hours, but none could recall
Why tattoos were found on their skin.
For each had a number, embellished in red
And nobody knew what it meant,
The higher the number the shorter the skirt
The answer, it seemed evident.

The mothers, they gathered then, out in the street
And cried ‘leave our daughters alone!
Stop tattooing numbers on arms and on feet,’
The neighbours would hear them all moan.
But he would ignore them and lock himself in,
The guy with the flame red hair,
He’d not venture out till the dark had set in,
And scattered the women out there.

The night came that fathers, with cudgels and belts,
Came down on the house on the green,
‘Come out, take your medicine, bruises and welts,
We know all your crimes are obscene.’
They tried to set fire to the front of his porch
To drive him out into the street,
But he had escaped by the light of his torch
And the silent pit-pat of his feet.

He should have been able to seek his revenge
On this village of trivial minds,
But he was content in the time he had spent
With the daughters of them at the time.
For long after all had forgotten their angst
At that stranger who’d angered them there,
Some seventeen daughters, the pride of the town
Gave birth to a tribe with red hair.

David Lewis Paget

I was rooted
within the forest --
so cold-blooded
yet no one noticed
he swept me off my feet.

He promised me
such a sweet loved life
-
-

These are my bars.
Limbs that stretch too much
to soaring stars
I could never touch –
these limbs are defective.

Bitter restart,
frail, powerless cudgels
grasping at Heart.
Claws cutting pastels,
shredding ****** dawn sky.

My mirror sepals
are names and faces
of all people
who meet my graces
or sail my winding path.

Leaves of glazed gold
reflect sun’s bright rays
as they enfold
the sharpened green maze
in torn and ripped portraits

Leaves of Abyss
litter my bony scars
swallow my bliss
coat me like hot tar --
kissing at dying bark.

Red lipstick stains
on switchblade carvings
of names on veins
with no callings
see me as a trophy.

Not one of worth --
just merely conquered.
A space for berth
and his young *******.
I am nothing to him.

He can't see me
as mighty Belle Arbre
or hear my plea
as I feel his barb
plunge my old wooden core.

They'll cut me down,
carve me to shape them --
I'll be His crown
as they are condemned
by my only Father.

That's so far long --
sitting on his lap,
dreaming I'm strong
enough to entrap
all my stolen virtue.