trapped in a ribcage
frail and fretting and fettered
hummingbird heart beats harder and harder
your skeleton fingertips tilling the ground
combing for the catacombs
of all your past lives

look what i have done for you
teeth marks to chart your growth
black red purple sky no stars no light no
for thine is the kingdom, the dead leaf diadem
battle-ready raccoon eyes, scored and scowling
if you do not run you will be left behind.

1075

The Sky is low—the Clouds are mean.
A Travelling Flake of Snow
Across a Barn or through a Rut
Debates if it will go—

A Narrow Wind complains all Day
How some one treated him
Nature, like Us is sometimes caught
Without her Diadem.

hey! i don't mind the dodo! i don't have some neuroticism encompassing vitriol to continue: but sure as ****, you do. what happens when the white ladies die off? **** a monkey?! i accept my fate, like you accept your being bound to heavenly graces of continuum inexhausted with death being a lost concept of compensation... it only takes 2 generations to revise the piglet race... so... where's the competing element of nervosity? really? really?! existential blackmail?! is this how low it has to be grounded in? look at me, do i look like i actually give, a ****?! maybe you do, but this existential blackmail in the anglophone world of puritanical darwinism is not for more... i already find it hard raising jerking off in this world, let alone a pair of tadpoles... honest to god, it's already hard raising a pristine jerking off, let alone a pair of children.

i'm still trying to figure out this existential anglophone
blackmail... it's been bothering me for
ages... i simply can't fathom it...
i really can't stop seeing it as an existential blackmail...
that i somehow need to reproduce...
   that i'm somehow needed, my genes are speaking
to the darwinistic affection
of keeping "form"... can i just say that i don't
get it?! can i just cite that
darwinism has a negative impetus strategy for
invoking existentialism?
    can i just say that darwinism belongs on
the isles, and existentialism
belongs on the continent, and that the two never
are allowed to mingle?
no? so why do i feel blackmailed
into "needing" to reproduce?
besides the point, i never intended,
i was one of the one child state policy of china,
we were always the weirdos -
but the english have half a wits' worth
of understanding of existentialism,
they kept **** *******
darwinism, sorry, but they did...
an ex-girlfriend's father once asked
me: what are the famous poles?
i forgot to reply...
copernicus, marie curie,
          chopin?
   no, doesn't ring a bell in your
paddy sodden brain? **** me,
i'm always late when it comes to
insulting someone, it usually takes me
years upon years to reply an insult...
which makes everything a really bad joke.
but i hate how english existentialism
took off,
   just as bad as my late reaction to
an insult's worth of joke...
     existentialism & darwinism do not exactly
mingle...
        come on, you have to be kidding me...
when it comes to english existentialism
(covert darwinism): i am being blackmailed...
i am literally being blackmailed into
some form of apartheid...
some sort of quasi: apartheid...
no, i'm not equipping myself
with misnomer tactics -
         i'm being blackmailed to: "continue"
my "species"...
  last time i checked,
i couldn't give two ***** of concern
for *queen sheeba's prophecy
of the world being populated by
the copper skinned peoples...
i.e. cuprum populus...
                 somehow darwinism,
existentialism and populism and the general
of competition, have created a toxic affair
of: a complete lack of competing energisation;
sure! the jews will win their "prize"
of recanting their jewel prize of ten diadem
rules...
     among the choccies and the copper skins;
don't you think the jews look a bit
odd, a bit out of place, given that they're
so white, in the middle east?
         oh right, no i remember:
stating the obvious huh? is now considered
a hate speech;
so the fact that the jews returned to the middle
east: kinda bleached, is not, "a bit" weird?
can i have those magic mushrooms now?

Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt

to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O house illuminated by beams of bright light,
dressed in shimmering stone jewels,
awakening the world to awe!

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. She was high priestess of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite) and the moon god Nanna (Sin) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, translation, Zabalam, Inanna, Akkad, Sumer, Ur, Sumerian temple hymns

The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance!

Beloved Lady of An and Uraš!
Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled!
Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess!

Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers!
My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the seven divine powers!
You hold the divine powers in your hand!
You have gathered together the seven divine powers!
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!

You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper;
all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur!
You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys!
When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you!

Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna!

You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil!
The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers!

Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause!
Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind!
Men cower before you in their anguished implications,
raising their pitiful outcries,
weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations!

But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen!

My Queen,
You are all-conquering, all-devouring!
You continue Your attacks like relentless storms!
You howl louder than the howling storms!
You thunder louder than Iškur!
You moan louder than the mournful winds!
Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies!
You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations!

My Queen,
all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods,
fled before Your approach like fluttering bats!
They could not stand in Your awesome Presence
nor behold Your awesome Visage!

Who can soothe Your infuriated heart?
Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed!

Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin,
O Majestic Queen, greater than An,
who has ever paid You enough homage?

O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers,
Inanna the Exalted!

Merciful, Live-Giving Mother!
Inanna, the Radiant of Heart!
I have exalted You in accordance with Your power!
I have bowed before You in my holy garb,
I the En, I Enheduanna!

Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ...

But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary.
The sun rose and scorched me.
Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me.
My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident.
My joy became dust.

O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate!

To An, I declared: An will deliver me!
I declared it to An: He will deliver me!

But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna,
at Whose feet the floodplains lie.

Inanna the Exalted,
who has made me tremble together with all Ur!

Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications!
I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna,
my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants!
Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna,
I will greet Her in peace ...

O My Queen, I have exalted You,
Who alone are worthy to be exalted!
O My Queen, Beloved of An,
I have laid out Your daises,
set fire to the coals,
conducted the rites,
prepared Your nuptial chamber.
Now may Your heart embrace me!

These are my innovations,
O Mighty Queen, that I made for You!
What I composed for You by the dark of night,
The cantor will chant by day.

Now Inanna’s heart has been restored,
and the day became favorable to Her.
Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy,
she carried herself like the elegant moonlight.

Now to the Noble Hierodule,
to the Wrecker of foreign lands
presented by An with the seven divine powers,
and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ...

O Inanna, praise!

In the year I discovered baseball
I stumbled on my brother's marbles.
I begged Jim out of a few and he
showed me how to make my thumb a trigger.

Soon I was checking out at Woolworths
with my pockets a couple of quarters lighter
but otherwise enriched by
several "purey's", a pair of "cat's eyes",
a largish agate as black as anthracite
and a pull string carry sack.

At home I lined them up in rows
admiring their reflections
on the glass top table.
I held my favorite cat's eye" to the light
(The diadem of my molded treasure trove)
However  did that orange swirl get inside?

Whistling through the playground
I joined a group of older kids
haunched around a circle
etched in the summer dust
with marbles clustered in the center.

Not to be left out I said,
"I've got marbles."
Before I had a chance to question why,
My orange diadem was in the center

Then WHACK, another marble sent it
flying out beyond the rim
and the shooter stuffed it in his sack.

I yelled,"Hey, that's my marble"
"Not no more, kid, the game is 'keeps'".
"What's 'keeps' I asked?"
"It means you lose"
and everyone laughed but me.

I scooped up the balance of my treasury
and left the circle quick -
(I dared not show my ***** tears).

So I left the cruelty of that dusty circle
sadder but just a little wiser
and never played for keeps again!

Well, not in marbles anyway.

October, 2013

When the end of eternity arrives, you shall be by my side awaiting the dawn.
The Sun rises bringing newfound hope to the denizens of a light and airy realm,
Our spirits reanimate, rejuvenate, resurrect; intercept weariness of heart.
Doves above the high plains carry our love across the infinite sea of the Universe.

Stars and twinkling celestial bodies swirl around the center of all creation.
Pianos, my threnody has become a source of lament and bemoaning but in time a love song will revitalize a deadened soul with a deprivation of cosmic oxygen.
I want you to breathe newfound air into my nostrils, fill me to the brim with your breath of life, toxicity to the bones.
Being able to stand in your midst will be an impossibility.

My knees will give out and as I fall to ground you will tightly grasp my hand and pull my body into yours.
“Amplify my heartbeat with the sound waves of your voice.”
“Ensconce within the warmth of my body, feel the heat rise when we begin to caress each other softly.”
My blood becomes frigid smoke when I’m in your midst.

Nothing but cold heat courses through my body.
I’m frozen, stuck in a cube of time and space where you and I reside in comfort and abysmal enamorment.
-Ardent passion-
This is where my heat lies.

The inferno that burns beneath my wary skin is a tempest of sequestered affection.
“I’m afraid to be touched.”
You are the element of freedom.
You are the most sought after and desired material in all creation.

The materialistic nature of this world has accosted me with a cannonade of ****** bullets, pleasing in a forbidden way…
Gazing upon you with my eyes is a sin.
A transgression.
But the platinum heart in your possession is my desire.

Daffodils and roses surround us in a floral sphere; a yellow tinged bubble..
We transcend gravity and float above the ground.
-Fragrance-
An aromatic barrage of iridescent fumes intoxicates us as we rise past the stratosphere, mesosphere, troposphere, and conscious- sphere.

Being with you is a higher plane of existence where your every breath is vital to my survival.
Magic courses through my veins when I hold your arms around me.
Aqueous bombs descend from my eyelashes when you depart.
A deluge of tears has accosted me.

My body contorts and I crawl into a corner; this is my cloister of trials.

Those seemingly eternal eons during which I endure the withdrawal symptoms of your narcotic love…
Maybe you’re a hallucinogenic?
Lying on the cold and sobering concrete floor beneath me, I **** my thumbs in the fetal position.
I’m an infant after you vanish in the thick and noxious puff of smoke that lingers long after you are gone.

You are a master of the arcane.
You are nothing short of extraordinary.
Even when you disappear it is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I feel the love spells from your tome of seduction blast my fragile spirit till’ I begin to lose my sight.

I clench my forehead with the back of my skull pressed against, being caressed by these sanguine reds walls that seem to cave in.
I can’t hold my head up any longer.
I lie in darkness as chaos consumes my soul.
The murky and dank ambushes me from the corners of an unknown dimension.

I’ve slipped into an unknown land.
A myriad of ravens with ebony wings surround me until I am no longer visible to another human soul.
They latch onto my skin, grapple onto my thighs, weigh me down with despair and push me six feet under.
When all is dim and lost?

I realize this is figment of the imagination, a fabrication…
I realize this is all a dream.
A dream of what could be.
A dream of a narcotic love.

I have yet to jostle that unknown creature who lurks at the threshold of the limitless skies.
When I reach the stars in my spaceship of galactic love then I will find you.
Obscurity runs amuck in the dimension that I now reside in.
Dark clouds loom above the skies…

The sun is nowhere in sight.
A storm is brewing as lightning begins to crash.
In those brief seconds of illumination I am bombarded with visions of your face.
The complexion of your skin, the feel of your flesh beneath my fingertips.

I hope that your touch will unbind me, loose me from the disillusionment that I’ve been threatened by all my life.
I beseech the heavens to shackle me with iridescent chains to the stars so that gravity will never pull me away from my dreams.
I will hang above the terrene never plummeting down the sea of the skies, never being incinerated by the blaze of freefalling down the atmosphere.
You will be my reward.

That glowing gift box with a celestial wrapping.
A diadem with the most extravagant gems and diamonds shall be waiting for me beneath the cosmic plastic wrapping and the golden ivory box that surround this gift.
When I open it, this crown shall begin to levitate and a human silhouette made of light shall begin to transfigure itself from naught beneath it.
Skin will slowly attach to your luminescent body.

Your metacarpals and phalanges will appear.
Your ribcage will expand and a platinum heart will begin beating within it’s confines.
-The heart that I’ve always wished for-
I will finally be able to gaze upon your face.

I will hold onto and never let you go.
We will grow old together and when we near the end of our lifetime, we shall become nebular gases.
We will then become one with the Universe.
The remnants of our love will last everlastingly even after the spark of passion is long gone, when our corporeal vessels no longer exist in a physical form.

“I don’t…I have nothing else to say but that I will be waiting.”
“I will wait for you to materialize in my midst.”
“My heart ails for you but my malady will dissipate once you arrive.”
“Every heartbeat leads you and I one step closer to one another.”

“You will be my remedy, my panacea of love.”
“I love you but I don’t even know who you are!”
“The reason why is unknown to me.”
“I will be waiting darling.”

“I will be waiting for your earth-shattering kiss.”
When the ground beneath us begins to crumble, we shall plummet beneath the lithosphere and asthenosphere till’ we reach the core of the planet.
We shall become the inferno beneath the ground.
Our passion will burn so brightly, so fervently, that an eruption will take place above the surface of the ground.

The world will know that when we make love, the air will be ignited.
Our passion shall heat up the Universe.
You will be in my Universe  and you will be my Universe…
Maybe then?

-I’ll become yours-

To my Future Lover, to my moon, sun, and stars, to my Universe,
By, Iridescently Efflorescent

A reverie to say the least,
a darkness perpetrated by beliefs.
I envision the entrance, a cold whistle screams adventure.
Entering the mouth of the beast, my calloused hands, my fragile tips,
brushing against the ceiling, caressing and corrupting the structure,
disappearing deeper from destruction.
This grimace upon the face, this terror protruding within the gut,
an agony to be replaced,
once escaped, courage will flourish.
Expanding the vessel,
vomiting to emptiness, given room to proceed,
phosphorescent hues exploding through my dreams.
Reaching the cusp, I gather my strength,
placed upon my scalp, a diadem to show defeat,
unworthy, fruitless scavengers, left to retreat.
Broken, a shattered age, misguided and abused, nothing to lose.
Words ring true, guidance for those envious of power,
wake from endless lies,
enter into an abyss, never to return,
abandoned dark tunnel.

i hate to break it to you kid,
i'm not mindful of narcissus'
economics that's all oh so very modern...

but women are their own orbit,
more chance to find a single mother
than a single father...
it's against nature to make the man
without god,
as it's against nature to make the woman
with god...
thus we have the tectonic plates
making man with god, accepting
or doubting, church or laboratory...
and woman... an eroticism of jaw eaten
faces... but a kiss to be a fingerprint
likened to erasing the dangling of the bitten
jaw... erased only once by the aphrodisiac of sirens'
wail of aquatic opera so damnable that only
one man heard it, while others scolded
being in audience with beeswax...
and by second chance, erased, indeed,
but only by the suffragettes as the new nuns...
as the new nuns dare comply to change,
like every male become female and
vice versa,
and the popes disclose their continual
loss of matrimony in their misogynistic
involvement in ******; if i'm not the pope
and do no encounter such practices,
i'm not a pope at all!

only a ninth spoke as the necromancer,
and of the nine spoke clearest,
as it spoke, it dawned on me
that sauron was invisible for the sword
to strike, a gravity enveloping,
a gravity envelope, rather than a skin
of infinite diadem sharpenings,
for nine rigs unto men,
seven unto dwarfs, three unto elves,
but none unto the orcs... strange....
ORC ARKHAN MORDOR ARRAC!

I want to live in the embrace
of these rain clouds so ominous so dark
and yet within them somewhere
there must be a spark
why else to they set alight such illicit pleasure

the drizzle burns upon my skin
and glistens like a diadem in my hair
petrichor teasing gently before the shower brings
a volley of dreams crashing down here
a bird within my chest sings

a mizzle is just not enough
the darkness without echoes the darkness within
I want a deluge, I want to drown
want to be borne away and lose control
want to stand in the rain and feel this sweet pain

I just want to feel – don’t want to think
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
        11.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. Her bio appears after her poems, and it is a fascinating bio...



Temple Hymn 15

to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most ancient and terrible shrine,
set deep in the mountain
like a mother's womb ...

Dark shrine,
like a mother's wounded breast,
blood-red and terrifying ...

Though approaching through a safe-seeming field,
our hair raises as we near you!

Gishbanda,
like a neck-stock,
like a fish net,
like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles ...
your ramparts are massive,
like a trap!

But once we’re inside,
as the sun rises,
you yield widespread abundance!

Your prince
is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's holy one,
Lord Ningishzida!

Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair
cascades down his back!

Oh Gishbanda,
he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance!
He has placed his throne upon your dais!



Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt
to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, high-situated Kesh,
form-shifting summit,
inspiring fear like a venomous viper!

O, Lady of the Mountains,
Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site!

O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep,
your walls high-towering and imposing!

O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains!...



Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt
to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed
in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe!



Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt
to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house, you wild cow!
Made to conjure signs of the Divine!
You arise, beautiful to behold,
bedecked for your Mistress!



Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt
to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O house illuminated by beams of bright light,
dressed in shimmering stone jewels,
awakening the world to awe!



Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt
to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of brilliant stars
bright with lapis stones,
you illuminate all lands!

...

The person who put this tablet together
is Enheduanna.
My king: something never created before,
did she not give birth to it?



Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy our land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like tempests,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down mountainsides.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

******* of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.

Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you impose our fates.

You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,
why you carry on so?



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance!

Beloved Lady of An and Uraš!
Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled!
Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess!

Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers!
My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the seven divine powers!
You hold the divine powers in your hand!
You have gathered together the seven divine powers!
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!

You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper;
all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur!
You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys!
When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you!

Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna!

You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil!
The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers!

Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause!
Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind!
Men cower before you in their anguished implications,
raising their pitiful outcries,
weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations!

But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen!

My Queen,
You are all-conquering, all-devouring!
You continue Your attacks like relentless storms!
You howl louder than the howling storms!
You thunder louder than Iškur!
You moan louder than the mournful winds!
Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies!
You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations!

My Queen,
all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods,
fled before Your approach like fluttering bats!
They could not stand in Your awesome Presence
nor behold Your awesome Visage!

Who can soothe Your infuriated heart?
Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed!

Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin,
O Majestic Queen, greater than An,
who has ever paid You enough homage?

O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers,
Inanna the Exalted!

Merciful, Live-Giving Mother!
Inanna, the Radiant of Heart!
I have exalted You in accordance with Your power!
I have bowed before You in my holy garb,
I the En, I Enheduanna!

Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ...

But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary.
The sun rose and scorched me.
Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me.
My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident.
My joy became dust.

O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate!

To An, I declared: An will deliver me!
I declared it to An: He will deliver me!

But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna,
at Whose feet the floodplains lie.

Inanna the Exalted,
who has made me tremble together with all Ur!

Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications!
I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna,
my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants!
Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna,
I will greet Her in peace ...

O My Queen, I have exalted You,
Who alone are worthy to be exalted!
O My Queen, Beloved of An,
I have laid out Your daises,
set fire to the coals,
conducted the rites,
prepared Your nuptial chamber.
Now may Your heart embrace me!

These are my innovations,
O Mighty Queen, that I made for You!
What I composed for You by the dark of night,
The cantor will chant by day.

Now Inanna’s heart has been restored,
and the day became favorable to Her.
Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy,
she carried herself like the elegant moonlight.

Now to the Noble Hierodule,
to the Wrecker of foreign lands
presented by An with the seven divine powers,
and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ...

O Inanna, praise!



Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. She was the entu (high priestess) of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite) and the moon god Nanna (Sin) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Enheduanna's composition Nin-me-šara ("The Exaltation of Inanna") details her expulsion from Ur, located in southern Iraq, along with her prayerful request to the goddess for reinstatement. Enheduanna also composed 42 liturgical hymns addressed to temples across Sumer and Akkad. And she was the first editor of a poetry anthology, hymnal or songbook. Now known as the Sumerian Temple Hymns, this was the first collection of its kind; indeed, Enheduanna so claimed at the end of the final hymn: "My king, something has been created that no one had created before." And poems and songs are still being assembled today via the model she established over 4,000 years ago! Enheduanna may also have been the first feminist, as she made Inanna the supreme deity. Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, translation, Akkad, Sumer, Nanna, Inanna, Ur, Sumerian temple hymns, Gishbanda, Ningishzida



The Love Song Of Shu-Sin
(the earth's oldest love poem, Sumerian, circa 2,000 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling of my heart, my belovéd,
your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey.
Darling of my heart, my belovéd,
your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey.

You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!
You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!

Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things to you!
My precocious caress is far sweeter than honey!
In the bedchamber, dripping love's honey,
let us enjoy life's sweetest thing.
Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things to you!
My precocious caress is far sweeter than honey!

Bridegroom, you will have your pleasure with me!
Speak to my mother and she will reward you;
speak to my father and he will award you gifts.
I know how to give your body pleasure—
then sleep, my darling, till the sun rises.

To prove that you love me,
give me your caresses,
my Lord God, my guardian Angel and protector,
my Shu-Sin, who gladdens Enlil's heart,
give me your caresses!
My place like sticky honey, touch it with your hand!
Place your hand over it like a honey-*** lid!
Cup your hand over it like a honey cup!

This is a balbale-song of Inanna.

This may be earth's oldest love poem. It may have been written around 2000 BC, long before the Bible's "Song of Solomon, " which had been considered to be the oldest extant love poem by some experts. The poem was discovered when the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard began excavations at Kalhu in 1845, assisted by Hormuzd Rassam. Layard's account of the excavations, published in 1849 CE, was titled Nineveh and its Remains. Due to Nineveh's fame (from the Bible) , the book became a best seller. But it turned out that the excavated site was not Nineveh, after all, as Layard later discovered when he excavated the real Nineveh.

As a surrogate for Inanna, the bride's mother would be either Ninlil or possibly Ningal, both goddesses.

As a surrogate for Inanna, the bride's father would be either Enlil or possibly Suen, both gods.

Shu-Sin was a Mesopotamian king who ruled over the land of Sumer close to four thousand years ago. The poem seems to be part of a rite, probably performed each year, known as the "sacred marriage" or "divine marriage, " in which the king would symbolically marry the goddess Inanna, mate with her, and so ensure fertility and prosperity for the coming year. The king would accomplish this amazing feat by marrying and/or having *** with a priestess or votary of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and war. Her Akkadian name was Istar/Ishtar, and she was also known as Astarte. Whichever her name, she was the most prominent Mesopotamian female goddess. Inanna's primary temple was the Eanna, located in Uruk. But there were many other temples dedicated to her worship. The high priestess would choose a young man who represented the shepherd Dumuzid, the consort of Inanna, in a hieros gamos or sacred marriage, celebrated during the annual Akitu (New Year)ceremony, at the spring Equinox. The name Inanna derives from the Sumerian words for "Lady of Heaven." She was associated with the lion-a symbol of power-and was frequently depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. Her symbol was an eight-pointed star or a rosette. Like other female love and fertility goddesses, she was associated with the planet Venus. The Enlil mentioned was Inanna's father, the Sumerian storm god, who controlled the wind and rain. (According to some god/goddess genealogies, Enlil was her grandfather.)In an often-parched land, the rain god would be ultra-important, and it appears that one of the objects of the "divine marriage" was to please Enlil and encourage him to send rain rather than destructive storms! Enlil was similar to the Bible's Jehovah, in that he was the supreme deity, and sometimes sent rain and plenty, but at other times sent war and destruction. Certain passages of the Bible appear to have been "borrowed" by the ancient Hebrews from much older Sumerian texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Such accounts include the creation myth, the Garden of Eden myth, and the myth of the Great Flood and a mankind-saving ark. However, the Hebrew scribes modified the accounts to suit their theology, so in the Bible there is only one "god" who controls everything, and thus behaves like an angel at times and like a demon at others. And that is understandable if one posits that one god controls the weather, since earth's weather is unpredictable and at times seems like a blessing and at other times like a curse.

Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, Poetess, Sumer, Sumerian, Akkad, Akkadian, Saragon, Ur, High Priestess, Hymn, Hymns, Hymnist, Psalm, Psalms, Psalmist, Prayer, Prayers, Lament, Lamentations, Goddess, Nanna, Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Sauska, Ornament of Heaven, mrbtr, mrbtran, mrbhymn

O, it is December,
A brumal, solemn,
Algid December;
I do fall
And I do quiver, in
Reminiscence
For it is December.

A throne
Worn, earthen-millefleur recliner
And I
Vestured in dereliction,
Crowned in
The Diadem of Loveless Blight:

Your utterances resound in
The dense sense of the past tense;
Ineffable magistry,
Where our
Scintillations and propagations might emblazon
The Luminous Seeds of the Stars.

Your soul
Waxeth Messianic,
In those
Pithy moments
Of our ethereal communion.

        Your porcelain epidermis
                                                And azure irides
                                    Quaked mine senses
                                                          ­ Until every sight was
                                                 ∞Arcadian∞

O, Where
                        Have you gone
            Glaceaen Arcadia?

     O, Is the
            Fulgurant Vista
     You sparked in
Mine Mind’s Sky
              Now twilit, a starless Aether?

Breathe me
            Anew, that the Auric Chalice of Amour might pour
Me into thee, set me free, let me be
                              Yours and yours
                                        Alone (∞).
            

O, it is December,
A brumal, solemn,
Algid December;
I shall transcend
And I shall remember
Your infinite arms,
For it is December.

you know that there's a weird
but omnipresent eye
wired in the igloo...
yeah... it encodes a message in
Morse... it asks for darting to & fro,
rather than blinking.

i'm waiting to leave the rhythm section
of pop music,
rhythm that was once a standard
soloist impressions in classical
music, and in classical music
solos that were just asking
for broken finger of piano,
while leaving the brass and woodwinds
worrying about schnittlippe smiles,
Chelsea a mile away:
how about... a todgrinsen...
your lips cut off and forever grinning
like an enclosure for a hyena laugh:
teeth to rattle to cages to bars...
make a big O... a big rat tat tat ha ha...
i pray i'm not you once you
entertained me for a while in silence
and in thinking to equate to my inactivity...
they remembered me as a party animal,
ready for the next friday...
sure, i used to be like that,
but i settled down: ready bodied
with weak thought against
a thought strengthened because the body
weaker, once readied for the look,
the applause... the perfected grammar of
changeable fashion appealing...
that's gone, and so the self that once was,
now standing outside the collective...
peering in, because they never attributed
depression to cancer victims...
apparently cancer just affect the body
and not the thinking,
now they realised cancer affects both body and thought...
you can't think of a friday three weeks away
in soberness dubbed sanity when you have
a physical ailment... so why create physical
ailments from simply having the odd thought:
the ancients dug a fetish for immortal creatures
and lived and slaughtered...
the modern congregation of supposed immortal
beings is a ridiculous thought... but so the antidote...
immortal beings disappeared,
but mortal beings turned to a quickened heed
for immortality with a thought rather than activity...
no heroism in the aisles of hospital beds...
no heroism there...
immunity for ideas also lost, immunised
by gaming and shooting blanks into duke nuke 'em
geography of the labyrinths...
by disengaging from immortal beings
where all suffering took place: let's face it,
mortality understands immortal psychology the best
it's simply unendurable -
we invoked a loss of immortal beings
by becoming twice mortal,
by dwelling among animals for a synchronised
systematisation of understanding we lost
many individuations of the unit, the self,
with too much darwinistic interpretations
we claimed some strange mirror,
a multi-diadem mirror of man: a minute a swan,
a minute a monkey, a minute an ant,
a minute a larvae of flies when naked...
no one said the theory is wrong,
but someone said: but that's how i feel about it...
overly objectifying does not look cool,
it limits emotions ready for individuation...
apathy breeds no pathology,
love embraces apathy: the apathy of
someone selling a newspaper while you
commute, the baker, the butcher, the medic...
hatred doesn't appreciate such an apathy,
it embraces pathology, and because of this,
becomes caged.
i just want one stab at it...
to feel a finite resolve of estimation,
to have camouflaged as a mammal among
other mammals, but thinking more complex
more different...
rather than resort to the simplest of simplicities
for a resolve on the matter of ontology...
a pre-dating reasoning...
but you see... it's not darwinism that governs
humanity... it's a plagiarism...
humanity adapts via plagiarism...
all the poor dream of making it big...
the only thing that keeps us moving
is a stress on plagiarism... you see a homeless
guy you get the defence mechanism usher message
telling you: DO NOT PLAGIARISE...
you see a guy with a harem in a black limo
you get a striving mechanism usher message:
PLAGIARISE! it's idiotic to think of /
utilise darwinism in terms of defining origin...
me? monkey over man any day...
simpler diet... plus endless swings and branches...
parasites no much of a problem...
plus moral killers like tigers not too eager
into sadism and mutilation, because just hungry...
not fetishes with carnivores... quick kosher kills.
the only adaptability we have is plagiarism,
because we have a self to worry about
as a. in a collective assertion of it whether
existent or non-existent... and b. in a singular
event asserted by abstracting it, notably
via existential notation, of a "self";
as someone once said:
animals do not commit to genocide...
yes, that's true,
they don't commit to passive genocide
of enforced laws of differentiation
to look cooler or smoother or just plain
caught up in a cultural grooves and edges;
and from the tree of knowledge
of good and evil you will not eat,
because you'll enforce plagiarism,
a consciousness of plagiarism
a consciousness stressing that no self be attached,
with only attachment being via a "self",
the continuum of misunderstanding,
reaching a potential of understanding
once the continuum reaches a twilight peak
at *ad infinitum, where a randomised
narrator steps in, and deviates from the
orthodoxy of constants and subsequent remnants
of how man de-glorifies god, and glorifies nature,
but doesn't dare to engage nature as nature
engages with itself, apprehensive of nature per se
man defiles a god to abstract nature,
by calling to question the role of nocturnal beings,
insects and parasites... choosing to believe
in god in order to exact due noun to his fellow
creature... for man defiles god and glorifies nature,
but by glorifying nature he ought to despise,
he creates insects parasites and murderers
he eventually lacks the power to despise...
personally? it's hard to write a coherent opinion
in english, too much prepositional / conjunction
shrapnel... poetry is overly elitist, my lamentation...
in an age where overt use of images
numbs a sense of entertainment using words...
and dialectics just lost a disputing partner...
in an age when each to his own, a free-reigning-free-fall...
where non-engagement with one strand of opinions,
leads to another, even more extreme than the one prior.

Am I still living do I **** on God's command?
What can my soul fathom of my slumber.. what is the plan?

Are solutions fair or evil that demons' skills plough upon my ear...dare I define you as you have me?... debtors crave flesh

Dawn rare swift quotes by their undertones you are yet to have, fenced burning for expression, will you call clear? Skeptical witch endears

You are unnamed types that of import move on to the next before the friends even touch on relating back
Why if we stand hutches seep carnage blood moonlit banter before fallen memories refuse to face our dead
Gnawed genuine venomous gargoyles are we... lives by the sign of the ***** who screes by the nines and sways with the bats winged blunting through caves of the mind in our sky

Souls tell contrary... to laugh, feign pleads of great lithe flaunts across cantors and countries, a vestige of the dark light

Estuary's loom of private butterflies membranes lull of shadows with cryptic blues and replace love with holds of a rainbows indicted as they greet our coven

Close our eyes... shapes rhombus differential clouds dusts of ultimate buffer approach siren of purple and green dive into morphed reverie

Not persons hammers shields sabotage marauding
variance destiny reveals

You ancillary! You roundabout! Barrage pains a path, roads and flights over etched instances derived so separately...
You your self makes the difference and so you listen of the meaning and of the preening, the delve into an elegy of unwise diadem

For this mentality does the worst despite astute gowns and rings that crush

Am I still living, do we know if anyone cares, most haven't stopped trying to consume the front from which they were born then lost,
whether its instinctual, or of the evil diadem.

Your muse: a frumpy feminist who doesn't even like you or your poetry; a clipped-face mean-hair nag of a PC hag, a harridan of the nanny-state who inspires boring identity politics-driven free verse. Your muse smells nasty and has bad teeth. She voted for Hillary and loves Maya Angelou. Your muse barely tolerates your tepid unpoetic soul but she smiles a fake smile and lies to your face. Yours coerced you into publishing that e-book no one ever downloads. Your muse is unamusing, unmusical and moos like a cow. Mine mews and purrs like a sleek feline friend while sinuously scribing heroic rhymed couplets in the air with her tail. Yours grunts superficial Haiku through her snout then heads for her feed-trough in the mire. Your muse is a  dumpy data-driven bureaucrat who recites in a monotone to 3 medicated listeners at the yearly event. Your muse hired a social media specialist to market her product that no one wanted. My muse has no Facebook page because she want no Facebook page..

My muse is ergonomically sustainable in exquisite ******* epiphany. My muse laughs eternal rivers of lyrical light over the fact that your muse made you recite that silly stuff at the poetry slam. My muse loves me almost as deeply as I love her. Her ethereal body embodies all philosophy. One tiny point of light refracted from a single facet of her diadem will vaporize your merely mediocre muse. My muse is beloved of all true poets, for she stepped forth from the riven crown of the lyrical Father himself to bathe in the wellsprings of holy inspiration. You are utterly unworthy to even fantasize about kissing my muse's beatific, shining and holy ***. You wouldn't recognize MY MUSE if she knocked your post-modern skull with an Alexandrine sonnet. My muse gazes upon you for a millisecond and you writhe like an academic insect pinned to a collection board. My muse sneezes on you— and you get published in Atlantic and people yawn. Your muse makes entire English Departments nod off and then wake up and leave work early. My muse gets me high, drives me home AND pays my bail. In cash. My muse is an orthodox blood-washed Christian saint, elect of God and alive forevermore, shining wisdom personified, mother and sister and daughter of lyrical love. Yours is a lying crypto-Marxist troll who had to pay an ogre to artificially inseminate her and even then she could only conceive misshapen dull-witted free-verse freaks who whine about micro-aggression while they limp to the nearest safe space where they curl up in fetal position and scrawl confessional existential incoherent dullness.

My muse rocks. I love her more ever since she kicked your muse's unpoetic ***. I choose my muse so you lose.

283

A Mien to move a Queen—
Half Child—Half Heroine—
An Orleans in the Eye
That puts its manner by
For humbler Company
When none are near
Even a Tear—
Its frequent Visitor—

A Bonnet like a Duke—
And yet a Wren’s Peruke
Were not so shy
Of Goer by—
And Hands—so slight—
They would elate a Sprite
With Merriment—

A Voice that Alters—Low
And on the Ear can go
Like Let of Snow—
Or shift supreme—
As tone of Realm
On Subjects Diadem—

Too small—to fear—
Too distant—to endear—
And so Men Compromise
And just—revere—

508

I’m ceded—I’ve stopped being Theirs—
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading—too—

Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace—
Unto supremest name—
Called to my Full—The Crescent dropped—
Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.

My second Rank—too small the first—
Crowned—Crowing—on my Father’s breast—
A half unconscious Queen—
But this time—Adequate—*****,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose, just a Crown—

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
          Until I labour, I in labour lie.
     The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
  Is tired with standing though they never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,
        But a far fairer world encompassing.
  Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
     Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
  Tells me from you, that now 'tis your bed time.
      Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
  That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
        Off with that wiry coronet and show
      The hairy diadem which on you doth grow;
  Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
   In this love's hallowed temple, this soft bed.
   In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
   Received by men; thou angel bring'st with thee
    A heaven like Mahomet's paradise; and though
     Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
     By this these angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
      License my roving hands, and let them go
       Before, behind, between, above, below.
          O my America, my new found land,
  My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,
       My mine of precious stones, my empery,
     How blessed am I in this discovering thee!
      To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
    Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
      Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee
    As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be,
   To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
   Are like Atlanta's *****, cast in men's views,
     That when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
    His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.
  Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
      For laymen, are all women thus arrayed;
     Themselves are mystic books, which only we
       Whom their imputed grace will dignify
     Must see revealed. Then since I may know,
        As liberally, as to a midwife, show
  Thyself: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,
      Here is no penance, much less innocence.
     To teach thee, I am naked first, why then
  What needst thou have more covering than a man.

The Aftermath

Please read this to see in my limited way I want to show you your true worth and value and you will see
What the devil never can get.

This is what I would stand and testify in church but what I have to say is lengthy here it can be read or
Not I would first say this to love souls is agonizing it comes with pain and great tears I went to the site
Where they started the church years ago on my Grandma Brown’s front porch as I set there I pleaded
With God to help me make a difference I turned and looked down the old street that held so many
Memories of course Tommy and Elise and Glena are the only ones that remain but I looked farther
That’s when God moved wave after wave of hard rocking sobs that lasted for thirty minutes or more
And after getting back home some will say this is foolish and I’m the first to know we can’t take the devil
On by ourselves but overcome with emotion I turned from the computer and spoke to evil its self that I
Was declaring total war for souls this is what it has cost me so far at the time I had one open wound on
My shin above the ankle two appeared directly above the first one then one to the side and then I knew
What was to come because I have sleep apnea I sleep in a recliner I knew the sores would ring my leg
And they did you can’t lay your leg out on the ledge with open wounds with nerve endings screaming
Then it jumped to my other leg so that was the first volley when I write I get lost time doesn’t exist many
A time daylight would surprise me coming through the window then the onslaught increases I go to the
Hospital I got there in early afternoon they got me in the room at ten thirty but just before a lady comes
In and takes my blood pressure it is close to perfect and then she comes back in five minutes and tells
Me take these three blood pressure pills trusting her I take them well about twelve or one they come
Into and take my blood pressure they had driven it down to seventy over thirty and plus my first
Experience with morphine I was sick and strangely loopy I wasn’t in the bed I couldn’t lay my legs
Down and no one else was in the room only one bed I did set at the end of the bed with it all the way up
In the back I put my head on it and slept comfortably one funny they have it posted call don’t fall I didn’t
Do this on purpose but when I was pulling the drawer out of the stand it came out with a wonderful
Crash Steve the male nurse made record time from down the hall at the nurse station he lunges in the
Room it wasn’t humpty dumpty just the drawer I couldn’t tell if he was relived or ticked off then it was
Their shot back over the net intravenous antibiotics five days needed a doctor from disease control to
Release me then there version of cons scarring kids with tales about prison to keep them messing with
Drugs scared straight now was scared healthy I walked out the same as I walked in I got a bill for thirty
Thousand well at least I didn’t have a bad heart then it was eleven weeks at the wound center this was
Where I met as I lovingly call them my healing angels they finally got all twelve open sores to close then
for the rest of the problem it was six weeks three times a week forty five miles to and from hundred
Degree heat every day you have to pay a hundred and seventy dollars yourself for the compress wrap
Material then you turn around a pay for compress socks that insurance doesn’t cover least the inside is
Pure silver so missed the Olympics but I got silver in fact every six months I will get silver again this is
Kind apropos I asked the compress wrap therapist where Lymph edema comes from and I will spare you
The pictures but the infection and lymph edema pictures even grossed me out but interestingly the
Therapist said an ancient king in Israel had the disease hello devil no cure just mange it from now on
This is the biggest cut of all someone else has to put them on I have always been called a free spirit
Try to take off on your own and what say hey stranger would you put these on my leg it’s like trying to
Put a baby squirrel skin on a full grown body the therapist does speeches internationally with a doctor
From India she asked permission after taking pictures to show the audience I wouldn’t want to see that
Show give the devil his due he is good at being bad I crossed swords with him he rampaged all over me
I didn’t include everything I have gone through and that doesn’t include my poor wife but I am profane
Corrupt undone should I speak to you of such great things as eternal verities matters that involve where
You will spend eternity there is the cleansing of the word the cleansing of changing my corrupt nature to
His by the spirit but know this no one will ever approach or in any way defile the very ones that as the
Finest gems will be placed in his Holy diadem this takes the cleansing of suffering and brokenness with
The heart Broken for souls and the most necessary of all this nature that is too much like the evil one
That’s what he doesn’t get the more he beats up on a person he is doing God’s work of purifying the
Most elemental evil that must be scourged if I touch you it has to be purist intentions of holy deign
We are awash in the lowest dregs dare I say quick sand only holiness can enable us to traverse this
Killing place of a dark and ever turning evil that compounds itself the devil will never lose the majority
On The Broad way that leads to destruction but there are the blessed few that stop and say oh no this is
Not for Me I was his child and I will be again thanks for the load you made me bear serving you devil
now Only Love will be the weight I feel it comes by a great price of God Himself and His people

My heart beats for you.
In resonance I am
touched by the words
of love you shared.
I reciprocate and respond
in resonance to your love.
Like the voice of one
looking for a treasured and
valued lost precious gem,
my soul calls out for you.
My heart beats and respond
to your love for me.
I know I'll be alright with you.
You are my gem,
valued and treasured,
precious and endearing,
you are worth more than gold.
The diadem on my forehead,
the fire in my heart,
my soul mate,
my beloved,
my darling dear,
a love to be desired always.
You are the breathe on which
my heart beats.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.

There is a lady in the night
A constellation fair
Lady of the Crescent Moon
You'll see her sitting there.

She wears a diadem of stars
Opals of bright hues
Each color in it represents
A soul who's been abused.

She, who is their patron
Lets them shine like suns
She holds them in the heavens
And cares for every one.

She holds a scepter crystalline
Wears rubies on her sleeves
Her bossom alabaster stones
A tapestry she weaves.

The crescent moon behind her
It's beams are like a flood
It is a second diadem
For she's of royal blood.

AH! You cannot see her?
No. You will not see her soon
You'd only see from VENUS

Lady of the Crescent Moon.

   [These statues were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum after the sculptor's death. The figures alluded to are the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln, and the monument in memory of Mrs. Henry Adams, the original of which is in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington. --Max Eastman]

POET, thy dreams are grateful to the air
And the light loves them. Tho' they murmur not,
Their carven stillness is a music rare,
And like the song of one whose tongue hath caught
The clear ethereal essence of his thought.

I hear the talkers come, the changing throngs
That with the fashions of a day surround
Thy visions, and I hear them quell their tongues,
And hush their querulous shoes upon the ground;
Thy dreams are with the crown of silence crowned--

Though they feel not the glowing diadem,
Who sleep for aye in their cool shapes of stone.
Nor ever will the sunlight waken them,
Nor ever will they turn their eyes and moan,
To think that their brief Poet's life is gone.

The tender and the lofty soul is gone,
Who eyed them forth from darkness, and confessed
His spirit's motion in unmoving stone.
His praise upon no mortal tongue doth rest;
By these unwhispering lips it is expressed.

Soon will the ample arms of night withdraw
Her shuffling children from the twilit hall--
From that heroic presence, in dim awe
Of whom the dark withholds a while her pall,
And leaves him luminous above them all.

Then are ye lost in darkness and alone,
Ye ghostly spirits! And the moment rare
Doth quicken that too sad and nameless stone,
To move her robe, and spill her sable hair,
And be in silence mingled with the air;

For she is one with the dim glimmering hour,
And the white spirits beautiful and still,
And the veiled memory of the vanished power
That moulded them, the high and infinite will
That earth begets and earth does not fulfil.

466

’Tis little I—could care for Pearls—
Who own the ample sea—
Or Brooches—when the Emperor—
With Rubies—pelteth me—

Or Gold—who am the Prince of Mines—
Or Diamonds—when have I
A Diadem to fit a Dom—
Continual upon me—

well peasant boy milked the cow proved god
that fed and gave the mosquito,
and the people still desired the flashy bling:
that stole the magpie -
that stole the magpie from the cake
in diadem of whipped cream of having it too;
what the magpie stole, from having it too to not having
it, the magpie with the magpie’s thieving eye
accustomed itself to what is desired being thieved
but not thieved by a magpie:
aesop’s eloquence would have helped here
to compare a silver spoon given to the groom
prior to marriage... as the twinkle in that magpie’s eye
or the antidote in bullet shot at a warewolf
sitting lonesome with the moon, bare-chested in the forest
hearing a creepy sound of a fallen branch breaking nearby
under pressure from a foot - echoing the words:
‘no wild animal comes this close to man in the depths of its niche.’

I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
  To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanish’d quite;
And wheresoe’er had struck the *****,
The greenest grasses Nature laid,
  To sanctify her right.

I call’d the place my wilderness,
For no one enter’d there but I.
The sheep look’d in, the grass to espy,
  And pass’d it ne’ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
  But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!
I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
  Beneath a poplar-tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen-white,
Well satisfied with dew and light,
  And careless to be seen.

Long years ago, it might befall,
When all the garden flowers were trim,
The grave old gardener prided him
  On these the most of all.

Some Lady, stately overmuch,
Here moving with a silken noise,
Has blush’d beside them at the voice
  That liken’d her to such.

Or these, to make a diadem,
She often may have pluck’d and twined;
Half-smiling as it came to mind,
  That few would look at them.

O, little thought that Lady proud,
A child would watch her fair white rose,
When buried lay her whiter brows,
  And silk was changed for shroud!—

Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns
For men unlearn’d and simple phrase)
A child would bring it all its praise,
  By creeping through the thorns!

To me upon my low moss seat,
Though never a dream the roses sent
Of science or love’s compliment,
  I ween they smelt as sweet.

It did not move my grief to see
The trace of human step departed:
Because the garden was deserted,
  The blither place for me!

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken
Hath childhood ‘twixt the sun and sward:
We draw the moral afterward—
  We feel the gladness then.

And gladdest hours for me did glide
In silence at the rose-tree wall:
A thrush made gladness musical
  Upon the other side.

Nor he nor I did e’er incline
To peck or pluck the blossoms white:—
How should I know but that they might
  Lead lives as glad as mine?

To make my hermit-home complete,
I brought clear water from the spring
Praised in its own low murmuring,
  And cresses glossy wet.

And so, I thought, my likeness grew
(Without the melancholy tale)
To ‘gentle hermit of the dale,’
  And Angelina too.

For oft I read within my nook
Such minstrel stories; till the breeze
Made sounds poetic in the trees,
  And then I shut the book.

If I shut this wherein I write,
I hear no more the wind athwart
Those trees, nor feel that childish heart
  Delighting in delight.

My childhood from my life is parted,
My footstep from the moss which drew
Its fairy circle round: anew
  The garden is deserted.

Another thrush may there rehearse
The madrigals which sweetest are;
No more for me!—myself afar
  Do sing a sadder verse.

Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay
In that child’s-nest so greenly wrought,
I laugh’d unto myself and thought,
  ‘The time will pass away.’

And still I laugh’d, and did not fear
But that, whene’er was pass’d away
The childish time, some happier play
  My womanhood would cheer.

I knew the time would pass away;
And yet, beside the rose-tree wall,
Dear God, how seldom, if at all,
  Did I look up to pray!

The time is past: and now that grows
The cypress high among the trees,
And I behold white sepulchres
  As well as the white rose,—

When wiser, meeker thoughts are given,
And I have learnt to lift my face,
Reminded how earth’s greenest place
  The colour draws from heaven,—

It something saith for earthly pain,
But more for heavenly promise free,
That I who was, would shrink to be
  That happy child again.

aged six, got hit by a swing,
                                 rushed to hospital,
                      now have a kippah-scar
     when the monk resides...

it just gets boring after a while, when too many people try
to **** you, and there's no Golgotha  theatre to make
all the necessary requests for kneeling worshippers...
   well...
you soon realise that you sometimes
get to worship a god by drinking
a glass of water...
   and with that argument: ex nihil...
i thought that black holes were nothing,
but apparently they're not
nothing after all...
i have no concept of nothing,
i see too many things...
  nothing is harder to conceptualise than
a deity,
      but this is the boring bit,
i mean: religiousness has to involve
a group of people,
a communal meaning...
being given this multi-diadem lottery
ticket and then asking the right question
is not really the only approach,
    i guess walking past a few evergreen shrubs
   and sticking your nose into them
(i wish i stashed my entire head in them)
     to get the scent...
  atmosphere, and how there's a need for
scent,
    lavendar, evergreen shrubs...
     and it has been valentine's day, right?
all the urban people must have been busy
under the guise of the cupid called cliché...
in local news:
   passing an indian restaurant with five beers
i spotted only 2 couples... only *2 couples
celebrating the whole point of having
anniversaries and days that could be considered
   worth having...
i'd feel happier if Hemingway didn't commit
suicide...
          but i'm happy that he invented
the cocktail: death in the afternoon...
a shot of absinthe in a champagne flute...
    tried it once, knocked me out straight...
   but there is something, really bugging me,
i'd love to have had an honest relationship
with women, i.e. the honesty concerning money...
just talking about it...
           it's no wonder we were given
toys as children and sometimes having to share
them...
             i never had an honest conversation
with a woman about money,
count prostitutes out of it...
no money at the beginning of a conversation:
no honey...
       maybe that's why it is so complicated
about talking about money,
how it: suddenly "kills" the romance...
  i can think of better ways of killing
a romance... e.g. reading heidegger's
"aphorism" no. 159...
   that's really killing it...
                money and romance...
no money and a familial affair of tribalism...
     i'd like to meet a few Aztec
and ask them why they kept so much
useless mineral resource until
the European Smaug came...
  and settled...
   and why the schizophrenia of the american
content is english up north, spanish down south...
ok... "exactness": a bit of french land and english
up north, a large chunk of portugese and spanish
down south...
    i left the house today hearing
the most amazing conversation between a man
and a woman... they were talking about money...
and how they'd juggle the accounts
  and pay for the roof...
               it was so nice hearing a man and a woman
talking about money without either
pretending to be a thief, and the other a king
or queen...
             when two people meet god is hardly
the difficulty to be managed,
    people can enter relationships from a variety
of backgrounds, one kneels periodically every
sunday, the other jokes about it...
  but money is the hardest obstacle to synchronise
between two people...
   it would have been nice to have written that
sort of symphony with someone...
     but when you're in a relationship with a woman
and there's a money "issue"?
    that's harder than keeping a dialectical argument
solo about god...
     from an early age i was told that money
was the root of all evil, that it displaced people,
that it transvaluated all values...
   well... it sorta did,
let's try toi engage atheists in talking about
the concept of money, past all economic theories
like past all theological theories...
  it would be easier to talk to them
about that thing that never seems to disappear
then about a deity...
question is: at what point will the argument
become considered too "infantile"?
   when we consider money to be a concept
that could be translated as an element akin to earth
and the earthquake of the great depression in the 1930s
that no one could prevent?
  or the Amazonian offshoots of the last remaining
tribes without the concept walking
into a house?
     and i thought: when was the last time people
used hard cash, and didn't buy on credit
and didn't turn gold in plastic?
            fervently, i believe that money had a real
place in the world, i honestly do,
even though i abhorred wearing rings
or necklaces, and that i didn't have the capacity
in me to not say: red is red, blue is blue...
     a chicken is worth more to me than a slab of gold...
   and this ties in with the ancient pagan practice
of paying the ferryman across the Styx,
  χαρoν / καρoν - (depending how you like to say it,
****! a choice! quick! make it!)
       how they placed two coins on the burial body,
nowhere else than on the eyes,
    not in their hands... on their eyes...
i just think there's more to it than the myth of the Styx,
even though i like the myth, i like the storytelling
aspect of it... something we could have engaged with,
in those days, when people reached old age,
they discovered philosophy, and mythology,
that's what they gave us,
   now... oh! it hurts!
           just talk of ailments...
  most people living to old age would have made more
sense having lived in ancient times,
when the really strong lived to old age
and could invent philosophy and a timescale
anti, completely anti-scientific, i.e. mythological...
   and that's the sad truth...
it's almost as if the young these days have to take
to the reins, and utter some very unfathomable stances...
so if they didn't place the coins for χαρoν in their hands
(as money is usually passed that way) - why
place them on the eyes, if not merely to state:
    let us see beyond the concept of money
in the afterlife...
                i can't see a reason for it...
                            that's what the ancients said,
when the concept of money was precious,
akin to diamonds, gold...
                        i think the concept is exhausting itself...
why do so many people fall into dept,
         they're hardly dealing with hard-money,
in urban areas i mean, at the high-end of society...
gone is the joke: how was copper wire invented?
two scots pulling a penny apart...
       at what point does this all become: delusional?
infantile?
              even as Ezra pointed out: usury...
or the fake exponential quality of being lent this
abstract thing that later translates into
concrete things like: a baker provides bread
in a supermarket... a butcher some meat...
  the apple farmer apples... and civilisation is built...
nothing familial being established...
and how the concept of family is now abhorred...
and how we only created money to give no
better idea of procreation... but the objective-unconscious
focus on mere numbers... being as they are...
     without money there would be no
sad story... but there wouldn't be this number
of us...
      i don't know at what precise point
i'm going to feed the seven pages of civiliation
(they were once called the cardinal sins) -
   how can i feel pride for this fact? how can i drop
into a cest pit of gluttony?
     oddly enough: drinking excessive is by comparison
a virtue... but it can rarely involve a lot
of people... oh look... here comes the pompous cannabis
crowd... the the m.d.m.a. freaks...
    poncy buggers...
        i have for that matter,
an experience of driving in a fiat 126 P,
and a ford mondeo, and a fiat cinquecento,
one of them would fit into a cadillac, no problem,
there! yonder! america and its size-complex!
just hearing a man and woman talking about
money so frankly, ah...
  romeo and juliet and *******...
            if you can be honest about money,
you sorta never have this desire to be dishonest
in the emotional life...
            and cheat, e.g.,
money isn't exactly a nice topic on the ground,
in the trenches of life... it's hardly an economic theory
for the highbrow talks at university...
   but at least both parties are agreed that
money is real, and like a philosopher's stone,
   it turns all subjects into a tapeworm of needs...
  take a penny and with your index and thumb press
it against every single thing in the whole wide world...
   like a magic wand, it changes every single thing
into, that common motto: beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
or a flea market: one man's clutter, another's treasure trove.
nietzsche didn't write the transvaluation of all values
because it would have been
   a book, with only one word in it:
                                                         money.
i know he's dead and there are many biographies,
but all of them are wrong,
  it wasn't the end of his relantionship with
   lou salomé, how she ran off after the mengage troi
ended with Rée... she ran off with Rilke after that,
and god knows who else...
    it just so happens that i'll state his motto:
poets act shamelessly toward their experiences...
they exploit them...
    he did see a *******, and so did i...
eventually prostitutes are like dentists or doctors...
dealing with the heart bit...
          what broke Nietzsche was the book title...
and the one word answer -
all the rest of it is *******...
                    yes: because it's such an infantile
   consideration to understand the basics of our lives.

so considering the beginning that's completely
unrelated to the end...
    people started, really, really boring me...
               in that they made so many attempts to get
rid off me... and that i'm still here...
  and within the groundwork of the only
pragmatism left in me... laughing at them.

713

Fame of Myself, to justify,
All other Plaudit be
Superfluous—An Incense
Beyond Necessity—

Fame of Myself to lack—Although
My Name be else Supreme—
This were an Honor honorless—
A futile Diadem—

A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch

There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world—
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.

We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race,
raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe’s.
Yours was an antique grace—Thrace’s or Mesopotamia’s.

We were never quite sure of your silver allure,
of your trillium-and-platinum diadem,
of your utter lack of flatware-like utility.

You told us that night—your wound would not scar.
The black moment passed, then you were no more.
The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star!

The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold.
You were this fool’s gold.

Keywords/Tags: surfeit, light, presence, chariot, Thrace, Mesopotamia, silver, gold, platinum, antique, grace, heirloom, diadem, crown, tiara

I shalt weareth a barong Tagalog, mine tribesgirl in terno dress
A diadem upon her head, hemmed from living amongst the dead;
Her inferno blaze, is satin oriental sheathe, rubies on her Lilly feet, she entranceth me, in serpahim seed, a muse to mine meet.

She's Dalisay, in night and day, her Kinaadman not of earth
A child from tropical tree's, I kneweth her, cherub baby by birth;
The Tadhana of ourn creator, stitches ourn etching realm's
I shalt be her on her side, In death and hell, I'll taketh the ride,

Falling deeper
                         Into her eye's......


©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©あある じぇえん

427

I’ll clutch—and clutch—
Next—One—Might be the golden touch—
Could take it—
Diamonds—Wait—
I’m diving—just a little late—
But stars—go slow—for night—

I’ll string you—in fine Necklace—
Tiaras—make—of some—
Wear you on Hem—
Loop up a Countess—with you—
Make—a Diadem—and mend my old One—
Count—Hoard—then lose—
And doubt that you are mine—
To have the joy of feeling it—again—

I’ll show you at the Court—
Bear you—for Ornament
Where Women breathe—
That every sigh—may lift you
Just as high—as I—

And—when I die—
In meek array—display you—
Still to show—how rich I go—
Lest Skies impeach a wealth so wonderful—
And banish me—

Why do I hate you?
You perplex me so.
Is it all an illusion?
All in my head?

I feel as though the pain inside multiplies by the second, a leech in its parasitic glory siphons my spiritual force.
I feel the darkness overwhelm me, dark clouds approach me from the south; lightning befalls my quintessence and the mayhem is revealed.
You couldn’t even acknowledge me, I feel as though I don’t exist; I slip into another dimension, and I become one with a black hole.
I am an anomaly; consuming negativity is my sole purpose; I am a thoughtless soul who has been sedated by noxious charm.

Hearts await me on the threshold of a heavenly and divine bliss; I supplicate the Transcendental to resurrect an undead heart.
Flame has led to glory; in time it will be revealed, that the Lord shall be my portion and baptismal rivers my shield.
All this horrid bruising; ensconcing within a façade, I await the time when love will greet me with a benevolent smile.
Adorned with a lavish diadem of rubies, diamonds and garnets, she edifies a being with a disheartened soul.

I feel like relinquishing my sacred and precious life, in order to escape to horror of an unreciprocated love.
I’m totally decimated, I don’t know if I can take the pain; I drift into a sea of everlasting sorrow and demise.
Vociferous cries to the heavens,
“Please help me escape dereliction”

I want to get to know you but you just won’t open up,
It pains me to know that your love for me is so close and yet so far.
Maybe I should’ve stayed away from you, maybe then I could’ve evaded the grief.
I’m slowly going insane; my equanimity is waning; shooting stars are falling and the ground beneath me begins to collapse.

I don’t want to do this anymore, you don’t understand what you’ve done, you could’ve had a lover who would cherish you till’ the end.
I’ll lock my soul in a treasure chest, turn my feelings off; I’m tired of being rejected; I can’t escape the pain.
When two ethereal beauties come face to face, there is a magnetic attraction; a gravitational pull.
I’m evolving by the minute, my soul is about to explode; a big bang of epic proportions; an eruption of distress.

Complex equations; possibilities are never-ending, your eyes and surreal eyelashes infatuating my heart.
I ask the deity of the heavens to send an angel from up above, a tenuous and ethereal beauty who relinquishes acceptance for my heart.
Someone who will cherish me and relish in my aromatic embrace; someone who will be entranced by my enamoring and celestial face.
Someone who will want me, for the remainder of precious time, to live with them in passion, rhapsody and connection.

I see the darkness within you; obscuring your delicate and yet barely visible light; I’ll never get to know you; your love is just a lost cause.
-Will’o’-the-wisp-
An ethereal blue flame burns within my heart, my soul is blossoming with fervor and iridescence overtakes my being.
I see that I have no one, I feel so cold and alone; I retreat to my bed being lonely with my muscles aching and sore.

I love myself enough, to know that the chaos shall slip away, love is over the horizon and the lightness shall bring me home.
Where I was meant to be is in the arms of a God unknown; a being with the transcendental power to resurrect a weary heart.
Lie with me upon a levitating bed; we shall arise into a galaxy where our names will be on each other’s lips.
Finality is so redundant; I surrender to the waves of the sea; an ocean teeming with luminous blood is where my boon shall arise.

Sacrifice after sacrifice and bone after bone; I shall bury my cherished dream beneath a sanguine and ruby Red Sea.
Roses and daffodils will blossom in the Fall; just when faith is diminishing my fate shall be revealed; chunks of frigid icebergs cool my red hot skull.
Anger, seething with anger.
I await love in an ambiguous form.

I am a sentinel who is slowly losing strength, how much longer can I bear to stand upon my own two feet?
When will they be there to catch me?
To take my breath away?
To resuscitate a languishing vessel ready to decay?

The Universe is expanding and the moon is on the rise; I shall reach your galactic radio waves when the celestial illuminates the night.
Just when all is lost; you shall kiss me on my lips; a crimson petal shall sit upon my slowly rising chest.
It shall sink beneath my flesh and my skin until it reaches the deep, the depths of my heart so that I shall become inflamed with love.
You shall revive me; your baptismal and cascading embrace; it slowly descends upon me like a waterfall from the sky.

I don’t know what to say, I’m demolished in every single way.
My bones are slowly breaking but my soul is here to stay.
I don’t know how much longer I can bear this but I pray that I can hold on.
Long enough to know that you have been here in my Universe all along.

To my Dream Lover,
To the grief of rejection,
To nothing but pain;
The quintessence of my soul.

-Amen-

By, Iridescently Efflorescent

270

One Life of so much Consequence!
Yet I—for it—would pay—
My Soul’s entire income—
In ceaseless—salary—

One Pearl—to me—so signal—
That I would instant dive—
Although—I knew—to take it—
Would cost me—just a life!

The Sea is full—I know it!
That—does not blur my Gem!
It burns—distinct from all the row—
Intact—in Diadem!

The life is thick—I know it!
Yet—not so dense a crowd—
But Monarchs—are perceptible—
Far down the dustiest Road!

312

Her—”last Poems”—
Poets—ended—
Silver—perished—with her Tongue—
Not on Record—bubbled other,
Flute—or Woman—
So divine—
Not unto its Summer—Morning
Robin—uttered Half the Tune—
Gushed too free for the Adoring—
From the Anglo-Florentine—
Late—the Praise—
’Tis dull—conferring
On the Head too High to Crown—
Diadem—or Ducal Showing—
Be its Grave—sufficient sign—
Nought—that We—No Poet’s Kinsman—
Suffocate—with easy woe—
What, and if, Ourself a Bridegroom—
Put Her down—in Italy?

I went to SLEEP with a Diadem -
Upon my hand;
The Valley of Serenity held Prosy,
During that wedding grand.

I awoke from Sleep -
When the Gem was Gone from my hand;
And now I weep,
With Sorrow at my command.

If you were to dress me.
What would I wear.
Jeans and a tee-shirt with braids in my hair.
Or maybe a ball gown in crimson sateen.

Maybe a dress flowing down round my ankles.
A belt of knots around my waist.
Sandals with poked through painted toes.
Perhaps a hippy chick with a ring through my nose.

A wedding dress of Ivory.
It states out loud you're all for me.
With a diadem of sparkling gems.
To match the one upon my finger.

Would you dress me as an angel in your own naivety.
Should I wear my uniform.
Tie back my annoying hair.
Watch on my breast.
As I'm obsessed with time.
Not my choice I swear.

Or would you like me naked.
Dressed as nature meant.


By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

surrendering to the angel you send in the night
tarnishing night with stars you set, of mementos, gems
sweetened into being by the heat of unknown
fun in the warning
sun in the worsening
need to see the warm winds
in your hair, see it myself
my vigil, diadem is a pen
decrees are on each page
that summer endings and I
lay down to
- it's dreaming
of the soul that holds my soul