Buy me chrysanthemums
Not lavandula or geraniums
Or phalangium with their low hanging bulbs
Why don’t you know I love chrysanthemums!

Chrysanthemums, Dahlia…Hera…Willow?
Lillian! Lillian,
How could I take chrysanthemums from Lillian?

You should know. I shouldn’t have to say anything! You should know.

Buy me Viognier
Not Muscat or Chardonnay
Or Furmint with its corky taste
Why don’t you know I love Viognier!

Viognier, Vionnier…Vienne…Vienna?
Dalmatia! Dalmatia,
How could I take Viognier from Dalmatia?

You should know. I shouldn’t have to say anything! You should know.

Dalmatia, near Sibenik
From where I dine on scallops,
Or do you not know that I love scallops?
If not then you should know that I love fickle, false and fair
It’s my nature and you are my nurture
If you did not know then know this, love’s a hapless farce

Barking along the seething sea
Tethys sparkling
Sans Pellagrino
Bubbled up with volcanic
Albido
And it exposed the cragged shores
Of a incessantly compiling
Or
Completely snuffed
Mountain
Bored and drilled by time
Sharper than a dying dimond
Cooked and left to rest
A Dinar plate
To which an all you can eat
Buffet
Played out pleasently
From antiquity
To present
A gift to an aging child
To be which pure joy can behold.

Today it is home of the Croats
The ancient Frontier of a meiotic Rome
And over small-grain time
Made coats
Of arms and animal manes
To give a name
To the nameless

To give a place
To the missed

That old Tethys barks like a fish
Beyond the Odoacerean boot, Scylla and Charybdis
Where the whales float
And great souls
Stolen deep within
wishing to find god
Fumbling in the dark
Searching for Alexandria
The flame of life
Become great stories to be told
And nothing more.

Odysseus
Hug the shore
Follow the land of the mysterious Croats
Do not venture beyond the threshold
Or you will be consumed by time
And lost to her Circedean jealous pines
Do not anger the constant love of
Helios

No,
These Croats have never croaked
They know not of amphibiotes
And the sharpened clades of life
Made and tailored bespoke
Sowed
In the fractals
Of the quiet word of
Eloah.

Dalmatia and Other Localities before the War
When we ate grilled fish on the floating restaurant
lording it on the Dalmatian coast

...mistaken for Party children- daddy must be an
official for them to have a motor bike like that...

how cool

when we stood on the quayside at Budva then later
stranded on that hotel island watching the causeway
slowly disappear beneath an unhurried sea

when detouring to Kotor to see the earthquake damage
imagining the earth move a dust shrouded town
staring through chained gates as if at a movie set

when I drove the Honda too fast skidding around
potholes and you giggled later drinking rocket fuel
local liqueurs in a bar with currency for wall paper

then when we strolled the leaning streets of
Mostar where soon there would be tanks
Then what of our own smouldering conflict

our own trajectory of spite filled ordnance
could you sense that it was coming?
a nurtured, carefully concealed attack

time worn sophistry
what of that when gun smoke
smarts your eyes.

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:

8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

9 Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me:

10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

11 Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

12 And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.

13 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.

14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:

15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.

16 At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

18 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

19 Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus.

20 Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.

21 Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.

22 The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.