silver lines the trees
and gold lines the skies belly

strip of pink azure highlight the docile clouds
as the pine forests rise up all around
a mist devours the eye line
and as it does cloaks my clock
time stops
it doesn't exist here
no more are we bound to the slave driver of 24 hour monotony
but the metronome strikes one
two
three
minus seven

plus twentyfive cupcakes
filled with a blackberry light jam capable of aiding in levitating your shoes
the mist unfurls
and a mountain peak emerges as i run towards the ever rolling stones
that gather no moss
but pass
by the chicken and chip shops to wards
green earthyness
and fresh produce

i admit to 'male' --
'female' strikes me low
curving
concupiscent hips (of Venus swaying so)

the one who places,
caught bathing in her morph
to mar
her goddess innocence (Peleus grasps her so)
        
her evergreen paradise-
apple spraying scruples,
while the sun
dries forgiveness **** (on Eve's fragrant *******)

in other Edens
Lilith simply leaves him blind
to lust
for unknown Didos (craving **** or suicide)

the limping god
nets love and war, olympicly
to smith
a mortal death (from Vulcan jealousy)

foresight's fire-gift
leaps obedience
to lie
far falls the divine (in ******* he defied)

potent swan of sky,
what judgement?
for a girl
you laid in that white rush, (virginity unfurled)

immortal ****
fates sails of progeny,
raging
poet-birthing strife (for temple priestess' cries)

fated nation-death swoons,
shares beauty's scale,
and Aphrodite's foam (caresses history's thighs)

Trojan tensions mix
the modern mind to heights of doubt
of mythopoets' truth ( -yielding blindnesses)

lonely walk the earth
with guiding wisdom lacking
all the pawns of fate (forget love's darknesses)

sphinxine hunger asks
the soul of destiny
of hubris, tragic sight (and orgiastic nights)

of unknown woman
man struck down
sickly city safe
and burning, yearning (nymph and satyr sating Bacchic rites)

Ah, Coventry, thou art but dead now-to me;
Thy life is not alive, and thy winds are too cold
Thou art as filthy as dust can be, and eyes might see;
Thy hearts are too bold, and to greed-your soul hath been sold.
And I want not, to be pictured by thy odd art;
For than oddness itself, 'tis even paler, and more odd;
And 'tis not honest, and full of disputing fragments;
Gratuitous in its earnest, talkative in each of its sort.
Ah, Coventry, I shall go, and catch up-with the strings of my story,
Which thou hath destroyed for the sake of thy fake harmony;
And in my tears lie thy most fragrant joys, and delightful sleep,
Which thou findeth tantalising, but idyllic-and satisfactory.
Ah, Coventry, go away-from my sight, as I solve my misery;
T'is misery thou hath assigned to, and dissolved over me,
I bid thee now fluently blow away from my face;
With a spitefulness so rare, and not to anyone's care nor taste;
And doth not thou question me, no more, about my tasks-or simply, my serenity;
For thou hath fooled me, and testified not-to my littlest serendipity,
You who claimed then, to be one of my dearest friends;
And now whom I detest-cannot believe I trusted thee back then.
And my soul! My soul-hath been a tangled ball-in thy feeble hands;
Colourless like a stultified falsehood, blundering like a normal fiend.

For on thy stilted dreadfulness at night, I hath stepped;
For in front of thy heterogeneous eves, I hath bluntly slept.
I had tasted thy water, and still my tongue is not satisfied;
I had swum in thy pages, but still my blood is not glorified.
Among thy boughs-then I dared, to solidify my fingers;
But still I couldst not bring thee alive, nor comprehend thy winters.
Instead I was left teased, and as confused as I had used to be;
I couldst find not peace, nor any saluted vehemence, in thee.
Ah, I am exhausted; I am brilliantly, and sufficiently, exhausted!
I am like torture itself-and if I was a plant, I wouldst have no bough,
For my branches wouldst be sore and demented,
For my foliage wouldst be tentative and rough.
I hath been ratified only by thy rage and dishonour;
I hath been flirted only, with thy rude hours.
And my poems thou hath insolently rejected,
And my honest lies thou hath instantaneously abused.
Thou consoled me not, and instead went furtive by my wishes;
Thou returned not my casual affection, and crushed my hope for sincere kisses.
I hath solemnly ratified thee, and praised thy music by my ears,
Yet still I twitch-as my sober heart then grows filled with tears.
Ah, thou hath betrayed, betrayed me!
Thy grief is even enhanced now-look at the way thou glareth by my knee!
O, Coventry, how couldst thou betray me-just whenst my time shivered and stopped in thine,
Thou defiled me so firmly; and disgraced the ****** poetry bitterly in thy mind,
As though it wouldst be the sole nightmare thou couldst 'ver find!
Ah, Coventry! Thou art cruel, cruel, and forever cruel!
Thou hath disliked me-like I am a whole scoundrel;
Whenst I but wanted to show thee t'at my poetry was safe, and kept no fever at all;
But no other than an endorsement of thy merriment, and funny disguises for thy reposes.
Ah, how couldst be thou be so remorseful-how couldst thou cheat me, and pray fervently-for my fall!
And to thee, only greed is true-and its satisfaction is thy due virtue,
For in my subsequent poetry, still thou shalt turn away-and scorn me once more;
With menace and retorts simply too immune, and perhaps irksome loath-like never before.

Ah, but how far shall thy distaste for me ever go?
Thou who hath blurred me-'fore even seeing my dawn,
'Fore even lurching forward, to merely glance at my town.
Thou art but afar, and now shall never enter my heaven,
For victory is no longer my shadow, 'tis to which I shall return.
I am like a shame behind thy glossy red curtain,
I am a pit whom thou couldst only befall, and joylessly spurn.
But ah! Still I am blessed, within my imperfection-thou knoweth it not?
I am blessed by the airs-and wealthy Edens of the Almighty, thou seeth t'is not?
He who hath the care, and pride anew-to cut thy story short,
He who hath listened to my cores, and shall deliver me from thy resort.
T'us I shall be afraid not, of thy wobbly tunes-and thy greedy notes!
For humility is in my heart, though probably thou hath cursed me;
And bidden me to let my soul detach, and run astray,
Still I shall find my fertile love, and go away;
I shall bring him away-away from thy abrupt coldness-and headless dismay;
I shall nurse and love him again-like I hath done yesterday, and even today;
And in t'is, I shall carest not for what thou might say to me later-day after day.
For as far as I shall go, my poetry t'an shall entail me;
And thus follow the liveliness, and scrutiny-of my merritorious paths only,
And in the name of Him, shall love thee and rejoice in thee not;
But within my soul, it shall recklessly, but patiently-do them both;
'Tis my very goal it shall accomplish,
And for my very romance, shall it sketch up altogether-such a mature bliss.
I should dance, thereof-just like a reborn female swan;
And forget everything life might contain-including my birth, as though life wouldst just be a lot of fun.

But I shall be alive like my tenderness,
So is my love-he t'at hath brought forth my happiness,
I shall be dressed only in the finest clothes-and he my prince,
As the gem of my soul hath desired our holiness to be, ever since.
Yet still I hope thou wouldst be freed, and granted my virtue,
Though still I doubt about which-for thy fruits are weightless, and to forever remain untrue.
Such be the case, art thou entitled to my current screams,
And blanketed only by my most fearful dreams.
T'is is my curse-in which thou shalt be in danger, but must be obedient,
For curses canst be real-and mine considers thee not, as a faithful friend.
And obedience be not in thee-then thou shalt all be death,
Just like thou hath imprisoned my love, and deceived my breath!
Still-my honesty leads me away, and shall let me receive my triumph;
As so cravingly I hath endured-and tried to reach, in my poems!
Ah, Coventry, unlike the stars-indulged in their tasteful domes,
Even when I am free, in thee I shall never be as joyful-and thus thou, shalt never be my home.

Below the surfaceless
looking above
under the furls of wavering clouds
all you'd see is that untouched stare
an absence of warmth disclosed
elapsing over,
collapsing over
you

Shallows edges so elusive,
as obscure as a serpents nest
anonymous as the rest,
intrusive like these dated feelings

and yet those eyes like minds wander
wonder as if it's ever been to lie beyond
those gated passages to Edens flowers
a pocket of hours been laid before you,

Ghosts.

And the continuance to roam
inside of these channels
left empty and vacuous

so out of depth,
with filtering essence of memory
faltering lights of ambiguity,
letting the pieces drip upwards

you’re alone together with what ties are to be had
you speak as through the pith
of this insecurity,
the plight of this immaturity

a footstep in the waters
spilling from your tongue.

Venture from the beginning
a start to finish
as though time bounded in ripples
your tinted sight lines
undesigned and impalpable
even through strategy

under the palms, your hands,
the happens mind of another kind,
settling not in stones but
in sands
a habitual mess of ingraining
always draining and seeping

never enclosing,
fostered only by a feint solace
in the flooded catacombs of yours.

A participance of midnights moons
in these swimming conversations,
cycled discussions
the rising tides of snake eyes
with one onerous touch
submerging your voice

into a fragmented drowse

burning notes left from pictures
choking out all that swirls
the delirious magnetism of weight that pulls to you
creating an astringent terrain,
as your blood is spilling down

a pipeless drain.

A manifestation of ego's brain bubbling down
under the masque of self-worth and integrity
into a thick mud
painted with entitlement

across a dotted line

the deeds of your fascinations
possessions to another
inclinations unbeknownst to you,
against the black skies
opposing truths of deflection

you find yourself with silkless ink
writing what you think it to be
beyond your skin

and the closer the pen drips
the tighter the bolts become
on the grips over your perception
a darker rainstorm

straining out
lifelessly.

Pressure slowly eased
into soothful washing
though cliffs eroded from memory

cresting the hall
that remains beneath

as a little boy
with glassless eyes
and a mouth full
of rose thorns,

Greeting you

To the welcomes of goodbyes,
until the shrill whispers
of the sirens of deception call you

once more

threading over your faces
elapsing the rims of reality,
overgrowing its garden
into a shipwrecked valley

warped by tainted reveries.

Bordering the ear of Dyonisius, in the latomia stone cuts of paradise, they stopped at Syracuse. A certain flash of limestone reflected Wonthelimar's court; Marielle Quentinnais, wandering before him on calypso calcareous stones. Her superior powers made her eclipse her from an underground world, to mount towards carbonated stones that made egregious tilts to revive her in her arms. The end of a century became part of her heart with the premiere of the female species that led her to the Shemesh of Syracuse. The excessive temper strengthened it in everything, making it a revived stone from the Miocene with the Avignon characters, colluding through the Rhone until hitting this neat gold stone brought from the arms of Ezpaktul, transplanted with precision and gold typologies, with great Malleable morphologies that carried him across the surface where Wonthelimar was looking at her, his heart almost pounding when he saw her! the waters spoke of hydric morphologies that conferred of her on waters and springs that were inferiorized in disheartened lower levels when he lost her in the forests of Valdaine. Her brackish tears did not stop imputing a micro space with distinguished Psilocybin mushrooms, for an Ambrosia Mercurial compote that Wonthelimar chewed and that had been immolated from the remnants of Eleusis, helping to revive it from the lost space die of the Mausoleum of the Quentinnais. The mantles froze the cold and warm air masses in Syracuse, carried several meters above sea level, with eager extra surpasses by coexisting in the cave blocks, where she would rest with Vernarth in her arms. For the subjugation of the journey that would make him perhaps mortal, retreating towards a three-dimensionality that would raise him above the Pleiades, as Aurion would do behind with his club, but rather leaving behind the cavities that would put his quantum at the mercy of the tiny rosaries that she did, while he was getting ready to approach on the surfaces of the hypogeal speleothemes, like the Profitis of the Mediterranean who spoke to him of music, and of flood episodes with his spectrum in front of her, losing her in a melancholic fervor, being plunged into the hypogeum of Chauvet. The level of her vicious intrigues led him to follow her like an unattainable cousin, but with backwaters that compelled him to think of her master Vernarth, linked to micro images that warned him when he tried to get too close. The floating instants weighed more than a slight depth through accumulations of his retro memory, making him flee from her, and now she was fleeing from him, with large sprays of dew that filtered into her arid aquifer memory, superior to the kart that is established by correspondence when someone supposedly disappears, because their free will is entombed with their stone specter. Due to regimes suffered, there was only one monarch that rose in icy and polar vadose conditions, towards an earthly level where the feet melt the calcaneus as if it were a weak relative ascent towards a couple of beings who loved each other imprecise, and contexts when vivifying their hiding place. in the caverns of Chauvet. He can hardly recall it a shallow light, almost falling without mass towards the front of the stalactites, creating concretions of solid love under the deepest prodigality.

Wonthelimar, had had a vision on the vadose threshold when he came out to the surface with Vlad and Vernarth, being able to realize that the cloying environment made him subordinate himself in the altimetry of his maniacal impossible love, putting at risk the mission of overcoming the fluctuations of his visions, placing precepts in the sighting courses in Syracuse that had him dazzled, and very close to the entrance pit of the Ear of Dionisius. The puffs of caliginous air mass climbed before the beastly decibel of Vlad's chiropterans, falling through the marshes that were found from freshwater by several estuaries, and with decimeters when they tried to adjust their addiction. Solvents in the glaciers looked immutable when they were taken by underwater stimuli and models, still remaining after an extraordinary performance of vague probity, reviewing the details of actualism on the interfaces that led them, causing the water to flee from their bodies and inclinations. Only a few deposits favored the band mechanism to protect Vernarth's burning, which crystallized in excesses of the Sun, precisely when the fluctuations seemed bulky, by coordinating the foreign fattening in its arms, with which it would open the floodgates before entering the Grotto of Dyonisius, with greater rigors of concretion and emotion that flourished towards a maximum extension, which progressively gave rise to the devotional areas that received them at adjoining angles of forty-five degrees from its main arch, where frequencies stood out and the light with the mass of the Sun, distributed in small stars, which leaving campaniles that adhere to the normal area of distribution of the frequencies of the cave, on bands that reflected moved bodies on the mirror of rain that was shown on themselves, such as once striated towards a more tempting rib of the Coralloidal Speleothems. In Catania, they settled in the polis of Artemis's prosapia, on sieges where he led Marielle to past vigils with the Archons of Athens, not being able to subject her to arbitrary vexation.

Marielle was screened behind the Erithrina Coralloides of the Speleothemes, when this deciduous tree changed the color of its foliage in emerald colors, its spines served to deposit the Vernarth clone on its leaflets. After the libation of the alkaloid by Wothelimar, helping him to materialize the elusive effigy of her Marielle, making insertions in her disintegrated seeds allowing him to remove from her back some elytra, like those of Daedalus when she fled to Sicily escaping from King Minos. A snowy thread emanated from the similar ether that was picking through the noses of Wonthelmar and Vlad Strigoi, making it necessary to put wings on both of them to go to the cave of Dyonisius, toning the resins and aldehyde they carried to keep the Vernarth clone alive. Both rose over Marielle who was left with the custody of the clone, as well as their backs released red resins as consumed fuel, which was circularly reconsumed to rise up and enter the cave, resisting the arid aridities of the toxic fuel that was expelled on the Edens of Sicily.

Within the fires are the spirits
The gong upon our anvil
As such arms can only be made in Heaven.

Of various persons each known to his part
Distinct are the Poet and the Dreamer
And so I was Gods ape,
Piety so chaste
I hold it half a sin
Entering the cold broken world
Thus Adam lamented to himself aloud.

"No coward soul is mine
What will come at last too soon
For honour bit-wize travels
Unwinking on this fair ship 'Life'".

But there was resistance involved
The swift blazing flag of regiment
As bare as a birds tail
To make a clean breast
The iron entered my soul.

I pray you
The earthly bribble-brabble
A veil for the glory of Angels
Lest evil tidings to utter
To turn and face them
And see ones self
Not to be lost but by the makers hand.




ELEETE J MUIR

Gold shed upon suckling gold,
The time of the bole blackens,
Of the dark mounted through dapple,
While in the sealed apple
The seed cradled toward cold.
A gold on gold spent,
Put by from an elm in its years
Now its gilded of days,
Over turf’s dishevelment;
Where all which is green sickens,
All the fresh shall be sere.
All which is green sickens,
And it is but for a time
Those embered veinings blaze
A year’s delirium;
Or neared of other space,
Unportioned azure shall close
One of more, and which is,
One which goes.
Let the little pupils that will,
Of vision, gaze for salt
To whet their gazing, wit
In one weather is high
From burrow and lair, by
Nether providences’ default
An all’s accrued.
And apposite, beyond
Such primer beholdings, has
Its long accounting known


The beetle’s morsel thus
Was rich, and the slug’s bed on
The oak’s generations, deep
Over the lark’s bones.
In slough of Edens fast
Wit in one weather shall stand,
While millennia nibble at
The sensual apple
Toppled it net,
Plenty in the palm of the hand,
And the fallen not fallen, not lost
From out its certitude—
For our unbeggaring
Has been gross. Few and late
To cherish an immoderate
Wish, hope’s calculus,
Love’s hope; few to miss,
From natural tally ******,
In the lime-girdled space
Of choice, where alone
Man can abandon what
Is only his own;
And in cold and tarrying
Their rearisers sleep:


While to the granite cheek
Light’s purples bring
Infinite their ministering,
And past our finial
And ragged crests, to keep
Time’s ambient stood,
Propose horizons from
Their shadowy quarries; while,
In an unwandered wood,
Or under the indifferent foot,
Is let fall, let fall a fruit,
Through eternal leisures down,
For but time’s unravelling.

Withered Roses
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What shall I call you,
but the nightingale's desire?

The morning breeze was your nativity,
an afternoon garden, your sepulchre.

My tears welled up like dew,
till in my abandoned heart your rune grew:

this memento of love,
this spray of withered roses.



Ehad-e-Tifli (“The Age of Infancy”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The earth and the heavens remained unknown to me,
My mother's ***** was my only world.

Her embraces communicated life's joys
While I babbled meaningless sounds.

During my infancy if someone alarmed me
The clank of the door chain consoled me.

At night I observed the moon,
Following its flight through distant clouds.

By day I pondered earth’s terrain
Only to be surprised by convenient explanations.

My eyes ingested light, my lips sought speech,
I was curiosity incarnate.



Excerpt from Rumuz-e bikhudi (“The Mysteries of Selflessness”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like a candle fending off the night,
I consumed myself, melting into tears.
I spent myself, to create more light,
More beauty and joy for my peers.



Longing
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, I’ve grown tired of human assemblies!
I long to avoid conflict! My heart craves peace!
I desperately desire the silence of a small mountainside hut!



Life Advice
by Allama Iqbāl
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This passive nature will not allow you to survive;
If you want to live, raise a storm!



Destiny
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Isn't it futile to complain about God's will,
When indeed you are your own destiny?



O, Colorful Rose!
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are not troubled with solving enigmas,
O, beautiful Rose! Nor do you express sublime feelings.
You ornament the assembly, and yet still flower apart.
(Alas, I’m not permitted such distance.)

Here in my garden, I conduct the symphony of longing
While your life is devoid of passionate warmth.
Why should I pluck you from your lonely perch?
(I am not deluded by mere appearances.)

O, colorful Rose! This hand is not your abuser!
(I am no callous flower picker.)
I am no intern to analyze you with dissecting eyes.
Like a lover, I see you with nightingale's eyes.

Despite your eloquent tongues, you prefer silence.
What secrets, O Rose, lie concealed within your *****?
Like me you're a bloom from the garden of Ñër.
We’re both far from our original Edens!

You are complete, content, but I’m a scattered fragrance,
Pierced by love’s sword in my errant quest.
This turmoil within might be a means of fulfillment,
This torment, a source of illumination.

My frailty might be the beginning of strength,
My envy mirror Jamshid’s cup of divination.
My constant vigil might light a world-illuminating candle
And teach this steed, the human intellect, to gallop.



Bright Rose
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You cannot loosen the heart's knot;
perhaps you have no heart,
no share in the chaos
of this garden, where I yearn (for what?)
yet harvest no roses.

Of what use to me is wisdom?
Having abandoned Eden,
you are at peace, while I remain anxious,
disconsolate in my terror.

Perhaps Jamshid's empty cup
foretold the future, but may wine
never satisfy my desire
till I find you in the mirror.

Jamshid's empty cup: Jamshid saw the reflection of future events in a wine cup.



Coal to Diamond
by Allama Iqbal, after Nietzsche
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am corrupt, less than dust
while your brilliance out-blazes the brightest mirror.
My darkness defiles the chafing-dish
before my cremation; a miner's boot
crushes my cranium; I end up soot.

Do you acknowledge my life's bleak essence?
Condensations of smoke, black clouds stillborn from a single spark,
while you with your starlike nature triumphantly adorn monarchs,
gleam of the king's crown, the scepter's centerpiece.

"Please, kin-friend, be wise," the diamond replied,
"Assume a gemlike dignity! Carbon must harden
before it can fill a ***** with radiance. Burn
because you yield warmth. Brighten the darkness.
Be adamant as stone, be diamond."

Iqbal’s poem was written after a passage in Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols in which a kitchen coal and diamond discuss hardness versus softness.

Keywords/Tags: Urdu, Hindi, translation, English, rose, roses, withered roses, nightingale, desire, breeze, garden, nativity, cradle, infancy, heart, tears, dew, rain, rainfall, longing, conflict, tumult, peace, life, life advice, live, nature, survive, survival, storm, destiny, God, God's will, silence



Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found.

Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of apples
far from the bustle of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream-filled sleep of the child
who longed to cut out his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear how the corpse retains its blood,
or how the putrefying mouth continues accumulating water.
I don't want to be informed of the grasses’ torture sessions,
nor of the moon with its serpent's snout
scuttling until dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
whether a second, a minute, or a century;
and yet I want everyone to know that I’m still alive,
that there’s a golden manger in my lips;
that I’m the elfin companion of the West Wind;
that I’m the immense shadow of my own tears.

When Dawn arrives, cover me with a veil,
because Dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me;
then wet my shoes with a little hard water
so her scorpion pincers slip off.

Because I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of the apples,
to learn the lament that cleanses me of this earth;
because I want to live again as that dark child
who longed to cut out his heart on the high sea.

Gacela de la huida (“Ghazal of the Flight”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have been lost, many times, by the sea
with an ear full of freshly-cut flowers
and a tongue spilling love and agony.

I have often been lost by the sea,
as I am lost in the hearts of children.

At night, no one giving a kiss
fails to feel the smiles of the faceless.
No one touching a new-born child
fails to remember horses’ thick skulls.

Because roses root through the forehead
for hardened landscapes of bone,
and man’s hands merely imitate
roots, underground.

Thus, I have lost myself in children’s hearts
and have been lost many times by the sea.
Ignorant of water, I go searching
for death, as the light consumes me.



La balada del agua del mar (“The Ballad of the Sea Water”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sea
smiles in the distance:
foam-toothed,
heaven-lipped.

What do you sell, shadowy child
with your naked *******?

Sir, I sell
the sea’s saltwater.

What do you bear, dark child,
mingled with your blood?

Sir, I bear
the sea’s saltwater.

Those briny tears,
where were they born, mother?

Sir, I weep
the sea’s saltwater.

Heart, this bitterness,
whence does it arise?

So very bitter,
the sea’s saltwater!

The sea
smiles in the distance:
foam-toothed,
heaven-lipped.



Paisaje (“Landscape”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The olive orchard
opens and closes
like a fan;
above the grove
a sunken sky dims;
a dark rain falls
on warmthless lights;
reeds tremble by the gloomy river;
the colorless air wavers;
olive trees
scream with flocks
of captive birds
waving their tailfeathers
in the dark.



Canción del jinete (“The Horseman’s Song” or “Song of the Rider”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cordoba. Distant and lone.
Black pony, big moon,
olives in my saddlebag.
Although my pony knows the way,
I never will reach Cordoba.

High plains, high winds.
Black pony, blood moon.
Death awaits me, watching
from the towers of Cordoba.

Such a long, long way!
Oh my brave pony!
Death awaits me
before I arrive in Cordoba!

Cordoba. Distant and lone.



Arbolé, arbolé (“Tree, Tree”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sapling, sapling,
dry but green.

The girl with the lovely countenance
gathers olives.
The wind, that towering lover,
seizes her by the waist.

Four dandies ride by
on fine Andalusian steeds,
wearing azure and emerald suits
beneath long shadowy cloaks.
“Come to Cordoba, sweetheart!”
The girl does not heed them.

Three young bullfighters pass by,
slim-waisted, wearing suits of orange,
with swords of antique silver.
“Come to Sevilla, sweetheart!”
The girl does not heed them.

When twilight falls and the sky purples
with day’s demise,
a young man passes by, bearing
roses and moonlit myrtle.
“Come to Granada, sweetheart!”
But the girl does not heed him.

The girl, with the lovely countenance
continues gathering olives
while the wind’s colorless arms
encircle her waist.

Sapling, sapling,
dry but green.



Despedida (“Farewell”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

The boy eats oranges.
(I see him from my balcony.)

The reaper scythes barley.
(I feel it from my balcony.)

If I die,
leave the balcony open!



In the green morning
I longed to become a heart.
Heart.

In the ripe evening
I longed to become a nightingale.
Nightingale.

(Soul,
become the color of oranges.
Soul,
become the color of love.)

In the living morning
I wanted to be me.
Heart.

At nightfall
I wanted to be my voice.
Nightingale.

Soul,
become the color of oranges.
Soul,
become the color of love!



I want to return to childhood,
and from childhood to the darkness.

Are you going, nightingale?
Go!

I want return to the darkness
And from the darkness to the flower.

Are you leaving, aroma?
Go!

I want to return to the flower
and from the flower
to my heart.

Are you departing, love?
Depart!

(To my deserted heart!)

I.

Let’s contend no more, Love,
  Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
  —Only sleep!

  II.

What so wild as words are?
  I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
  Hawk on bough!

  III.

See the creature stalking
  While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
  Cheek on cheek!

  IV.

What so false as truth is,
  False to thee?
Where the serpent’s tooth is
  Shun the tree—

  V.

Where the apple reddens
  Never pry—
Lest we lose our Edens,
  Eve and I.

  VI.

Be a god and hold me
  With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
  With thine arm!

  VII.

Teach me, only teach, Love
  As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
  Think thy thought—

  VIII.

Meet, if thou require it,
  Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
  In thy hands.

  IX.

That shall be to-morrow
  Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
  Out of sight:

  X.

—Must a little weep, Love,
  (Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
  Loved by thee.

Two Blue Beams
rise in the twilight
from dark recesses
of a wounded city

astral projections
paint night clouds
in looming hues
of temporal intent

declarative beams
affirm a bold portent
of an insistent will
and timeless aspirations

one thrusting light
projects wanton determination
bequeathed from unhealed wounds
of a lacerated city

the other casts fervent hope
onto the vast celestial sea
boldly etching upon the heavens
an earnest nations highest ideals

the pillars of light
reveal the dual nature
fixing our place
in a turbulent universe

the brighter light
affirms the beneficence
of liberty's eternal grace
so divinely conferred

received by a higher self
accepted with gratitude
the gracious anointing
of freedoms rich abundance

ride this beam with angry cries
conjure ghosts from a dead past
channel a full measure of resent
its power of restoration is quelled

stirred from nagging agonies
nursed with righteous indignation
untreated wounds fester
the weak blue spire cannot heal

a bleak azure apparition
screams for selfish retribution
heed this dire admonition
a promised fury of
full demonic dimension

the rankled city
yearns to come together
united in communion
around these lights

drawn to the blue flames
like swirling moths
unconscious of what
compels shock and awe

earnest yearnings
flutter to exhaustion
struggle toward the light
aspiring to heal in the inviting glow

transcending the fissures
of our fractured nation
the waning resolve
of a national will

a restless Zeitgeist
cannot be repressed
nor will it relinquish
its will to manifest

a city's fondest hopes
entombed in collective memory
is foretold again
around these bold lights

entranced by the light
a solemn urban campfire
transfixed and sealed
we speak our hearts

holding hands
gnashing teeth
we bite into
our bent knees
tucked up
to sullen chests
heavy hearts
bear pains of loss
dreary tears wash
ash stained cloths
crumpled photos
dear bereavements
of faded memories
and expired hope

resolve is renewed
in bursts of pride
incendiary nationalism
suppress dissent
pummel thoughts
of perceived sedition
pump iron fists as
zealous sledgehammers
forged with conviction
in kilns of
righteous indignation
seething with infected
emotional hangovers
from prurient
tribal diatribes

these sweet sentiments
swing between the polls
of the vast pendulum's arc
along a narrow celestial scale

too and fro
angst and expectation
ebbs and flows
in this astral assignation

the heavenly helix
a set of blue axles
a modern vision
of Ezekiel's Wheel

the rung-less vertices
of our Jacob's Ladder
invites all citizens
to climb again

ascend this pathway
in the company of angels
arrive transfigured
renewed again

build new cities
transcendent destinations
new Edens await
pioneers to explore

fearless pilgrims
sojourn onward
moving to secure
liberty for all

conscious stewards
of the blessed good earth
celebrate rich diversity
of all the beloved

descending back
to an expired past
is a ridged stasis
anchored in Hell

witness flitting
nostalgic phantoms
pathetic pantomimes
of histrionic fictions

the downward path
of the lesser light
tethers us to the place
we cannot leave

The upward light
abhors a hells decent
resolved to vacate
acrimony and hate

the dancing helix opens
a blue portal to heaven
don saintly garb
wing upward in light

transcendence calls us
to traverse with angels
touch the luminescent hem
of God's divine robe

Selah

Music Selection:
Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring , Simple Gifts

NYC
9/11/10
jbm

Alabaster Archipelagos
Benevolent Beauty Beaming
Constructive Contradictive Creative Contemplations
Dante's Darling Dances Deliberating Denominatives
Effervescent Escapisms Endearingly Emerge Elusive Edens  
Fantastic Flamboyant ******* Flamed Fabulous Fiery Flickerings
Gorgeous Garden Gim'memores Gaudied Garnishing Gasps
Heavenly Hues Humming Heart's Harmonies
Immortaly Impregnated Inspired Ideals
Jessamin Jargon Jacuzzi Jams
Know-how Knacking Knurls
Light-spirited Lovers
Merge Magnificent
Naked Nocturno Nights
Omnipresent Ousia Over Odeons
Palpitations Perfect Peaks Pi Paws
Quintessential Quality Quarrels Question Quarks Quietness
Rododendron's Richameters Rescued Raw Reeling Ruby Realms
Sentient Syllabic Sapfo's Splendidly Spirited Semantics
Turning Turner's Timeless Timeless Twinklings
Unified Undulatory Unsolved Unicorns
Velvety Venice Voyages
Wanton Wantings
Xsylophone Xsantiphas
Yearnin' Yuki's Yen
Zed's Zealous Zen-it-hall Zeppelins

The aliens are already here
The aliens- hip, square and clean
The runaways, they've disappeared
Down pipes and drains and holes of
Sewage garden, gangs and green

There's a silent anarchy stirring in the heights
From it flows a saturnalian wine
For this free country
Can't stop drinking
Stretching its mouth to indulge in extravagance
It must be everyday, it must be more-
Take it all
Create a proxy war
And as the black *** sits and waits,
The kettle cries wolf

I pledge allegiance to the grandest of institutions
Where the last, best hope on Earth is hidden underground
Where only married fools are allowed to divide and conquer
And make gracious dents of our lives

Keep marketing death
And selling hope
Chips in our heads and
Veins full of dope
Mental warfare
Gangster mentality

The revolutionaries you hired are losing
So you better add more fuel to their fire
Till you got newspaper gods and TV messiahs
And all the innocent ones are pariahs

Capitol I and little u
Here's a free copy of our corporate Bible
Don't read the fine print
You Dead Peasant
Cause we might just put a policy through
Our Mammon's still hungry
Mommy's little terror

Bed right and woo
Bilderberg *******
Underground railroad of hate and hypocrites
You sell prison Gods
And sunny asylums
A life full of plastic
To die wrapped in plastic-
No wonder the blues originated here

We would have settled for the Silver Age
Even if it was Iron in disguise
But you kept it out too long and let it rust
Telling us it's ok-
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

We believe in something
But it's been called by the wrong name
For thousands of years, we've been insane
(What's in a name?
Your fascist-military-papal gain)
Dropping bombs on the peers
You've pressured before
Going off to make new friends
***** diamond

Wish you a water burial when alive
So you simmer in your beloved element
Better be mindful of death
You'll never die
But beware when that elixir explodes in your face

All we want is a world where sinners sin sincerely
And the narcs are narcoleptics
And the dearest of the devil dare to see more clearly

Let's put the prisoners in a church
The congregants in a prison
The crazies in an art school
The students in a parachute-prism;
We'll send them off to all four corners
With crayons, canned goods and doves (for the mourners)
In hopes of one day seeing a world
Where expression is survival, the beggars twirl,
(And no one goes hungry with a palette of rainbows
On a day when only true praise is hurled.)

Art is made to forget we're slaves
To show the world's flaws
With a tinge of beauty
So it's bearable
How ****** up things are
How we need change
But the true lovers
Are not at the top
True lovers' passion lies in bottomless alleys
Seething baths of sweat
Relieving sins imposed by a lonely man
A ceremony of the streets- Not your false ritual

"You're all talk and no action-
Where are the answers?"
Well, sweet inquisitor
We just don't have the power
And those that do are pinball wizards-
Deaf, dumb and blind,
And friends of time
Why should they care
In their own little Edens
With fortresses of gold
And platinum eyelashes?

Aquafuck and Aquafina
*** and water
Rings called sacred
But profane down under

No Xenia, no refuge, no candle in the dark
Pyramid pointless
Your fascist brigade claims its people are fasting
Least you could do is use your paper wisely
Add impresario to your resume
And let us have our heyday

It isn't how it feels
But how it looks
We could've been healed,
But they burnt the books
Better get a gun
Technology won

They say war is over when you want it
So I'll sleep in bed all day
Throwing pennies in my dream-well
Letting my weak flag fly

And I wonder why Africa, Egypt, Eden's eating me
As the host to a ghost they pray so sweetly to
It all boils over in oil to who's royal
And what ever happened to loyalty?
(With no boundaries)

Powers that be
I need to put you out of my misery
So here's your shut-up money
Your gilded cage becomes
My blank page
Your sedition becomes
My intuition:
The last standing land mass- No woman, don't cry
Ain't that a gas?
Better take to the mountains and the trees
Before you say this too shall pass

We all bleed the same
Cultivated and wild
Fragile dust
Abandoned by a mercurial God
Waiting to be saved by a beaten sailor

It started as a shade of green and blue
And golden sands and cosmic plans
Transformed to the home of me and you
Where 100 shades of grey steam the sky
And colors fly to a place we'll never reside

Wonders of the world
Don't require human hands
A heart is all you need to plant seeds
And touch the sky
A mystery it was
And a mystery it'll be
Even if it's all dust
And matter and debris

Still, I wish I could pull a brick
And watch the whole thing crumble

choices
embrace things
that sickens
enslaves
maims
kills

unbound
yourself

loose
your chains

turn away from
the dungeon
that has
become
your death
chamber
you
alone
crafted
with such
deft skill

you exiled
yourself

hid away
from the living

inhabiting a
convenient
confinement

relishing
the deceitful
pleasures of an
addled mind

a twisted
portrait
of a
shackled
self

living
inside
the
dark abode
of your head

bumping
about in
unmapped
caves

dwelling
in a place
that no one
could find
nor dare
explore

you heap
stones
at the door
providing
your only
means
of escape

safely
entombed
in your
vapid
delusions

a decrepit
graveyard

an abandoned
township
of lonely
sarcophagi

long forgotten
by the
moldering
bodies
of the city's
ghostly
citizens

you reek
with the
stench
of death

you
murdered
yourself

and
became
dead
to us

But
Jesus
wept

over
your
self
denigration

never
forsaking
y­our favored
condition

The
Good Friend
lifted
you
from
Edens
dust

and
showered
you
with
fine
thi­ngs

yet
you
found
no joy
in

the gift
of solace

the might
of grace

the balm
of love

the rest
of peace

all
only
heaped
torments
upon
you

your
sisters
wailed
in grief

imploring

The
Resurrector
to make you
whole

he only
shrugs
and
extends
a palm

unloose
the rags
of your
swaddled
grief

unbound
yourself
Lazarus

come out
and walk
amongst
the living
again

put
down your
stones

the hand
is nigh

choose well
my friend

St. Alban's
Bible Study
7/09

jbm

Even a World So Ugly As This        
  
  
                  Is Full of Beautiful Things.  
  
  
  
  
It was one of those evenings  
when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty  
are one.  
                            
  
  
  
  
  
Waste no day with too-much sleep,  
              Darling,  
The wilderness beckons.  
  
  
Let us rustle the trees.  
Remember to laugh, Remember to sing.  
  
Fill again my head with constellations.  
Fill again my head with consolations of sound.  
For i am inseparable from you, and you from me as well.  
  
  
Remember to dance, Remember to dream.  
Remember to listen, Remember to see.  
For even a world as ugly as this  
      Is full of beautiful things.  
  
  
All other questions of the mortal coil  
More or less become clear  
In the unwinding.  
  
Hushed and heedless,  
The sunflower, chico, and the fountain  
Twi-lit with honey.  
Forests grand with oaks, and the lunar zig-zag which paints the mountain.  
  
  
The slow dripping noise beside you,  
The cool *** of night become icicle morning.  
  
A thousand thousand impish clamors call out!  
The elfin quietude.  The flighty bird. The brotherhood.    
  
The mirror changes with moods.  
  
The brother, the sister.  The merry-go-round of laughing children.  
The daughter with a bouquet of curls beaming gold, red, brown sincerity.  
The freckled enchantment of lovers perennially in Idumaean night.  
  
  
The artistry of female radiance on which all things are born and balanced.  
Beauty such as to drive a mind to madness.  O  
And the splendid metaphysics of the male,      
The shimmering brandy of honed muscle and action.  
  
I am recalling, the ebony of her form,  
Perfect in inexhaustible allurement!  
  
I am recalling, the pale fragility of another,    
Perfect in exquisite pulchritude!  
  
The friendly mutt whose voice exalts sonnets of pure love.    
The great haunches of colts at full run.  
Tendrils of primordial music bloom on the wind!  
  
  
Under the water the world drowns and continues on.  
Yet the measure of mocking men produces only sand  
Fit to fill a broken hourglass.  
  
Let not gladness be empty banter amongst us  
Ye city of perplexed imaginings!  
City of labyrinths, curves, catwalks, and spires.  
An elegant evening strolling with you produces charming memories.  
  
In abandoned churches the ***** blessed us heathens with greater timbre and romances  
Than a thousand caterwauling religions.  
  
  
With Juliet's rose between my teeth  
My jaunty daydream burst out laughing !  
In the snug lamplight of home again  
Vines and evergreen ropes of oleander twined up to the roof and quite through!  
& Together we climbed it to find the proof.  
  
  
Refine your strength, refine your shame.  
By all means, breath deep, lustily!  
  
Even the body which drags weary feet.  
Even the nervewrack'd hours dark and steep .  
Midnight strikes quickly and time melts away, completely.  
  
Apprehend again the heart  
Before it washes away in the storm.  
This and all things that we cannot untie  
Should not bind us to an early grave.  
  
  
Here i grow too old for fearing frivolous shadows.  
The eyes fill with sleep - and then reopen.  
The eyes fill with sleep - and then they do not.  
The conversation carries on .  
  
At times perhaps we hear the ocean  
      grinding grinding  
Those orphaned spirits of old Edens,  
What soon again we are to become.  
  
  
But what is a home unwanted?  
                       it is nothing!  
  
And what is a life unlived in?  
                  it is nothing!  
  
  
The surgeon with steady and learned hands.  
The mechanic with hard and learned hands.  
The soldier. The mother.  The strength of one in solitude.  
The strength of those whom lean upon each-other.  
  
Bubbling bedfellows of rivers rambling  
in a forest of Birch and wildflower.  
The Odyssey in the park with you, under a pagan serenade of moons.  
The red blood of pomegranates passed between.  
  
The throb and churn of engines is lovely in its way.  
The darkness is lovely in its way.  
The present, the past, the future - all the sunsets,  
Sonorous in their way.  
  
Weep and weep into the dusk.  
But what do you imagine bitterness shall win you?  
  
    
The natural harmony and dis-harmony.  
Towers of strained hardening.  
The mud and the water.  The fire which governs.  
Grapes upon the vine, and diamonds in the mine.  
I provoke myself onward.  
  
And say let us speak hastily, neighbor,  
For what time is there to waste  
On expectant verses, and platitudes to over-made faces?  
  
I for one do not care much for dawdling beneath false skies.  
The realist parts of me know too well of life's harsh cruelties, and yet,  
                  realize also that reality is the theater of artifice.  
                  - and you are ever free to see it as you wish.  
  
  
The mirror changes with moods.  
  
  
I for one prefer the perfume of the moment.  
Nothing simplified, and perhaps, yes everything!  
The human smells and earthy musks.  The animal abruptness.  
The persisting imagination, the infinite onward.  
  
I for one prefer to hear the music outpouring  
loud and rockus,  
            Rather than the bells that morn us.
And so...
...From the Benevolent Ashes, We Rise!

Doubt is the venom that kills the miracle it sees and it questions.
Things are not always made as false miracles to trap the weak or the lonely of hearts.
See thy actions as clear and beautiful.
I have no ill gotten gains in which I seek... no lustful meaning to these loving words...wonderful!
That is this selfless spirit who never seeks darkness from the bright souls in which he longs for...
In love, friendship, and in unity...yes!
This one male heart beats still truer than most false seekers.
With my many flaws, I never hide them. I try and change them.... a true bless!
Confess!
My gentle hand is holding open to gently grab upon the one who chooses to reach for it.
Beauty at the top of where I pull you too...
Do not regret..... or pass it!
For I offer you the flames in which true love is fueled and remains, forever, to burn.
Let me hear you speak the words in which for me and my true heart, in such you truly yearn!
Hold me, tight!  NEver stop growing with me!
What beauty I seek is not simply the outside, but, the inner beauty that makes your outside glow!
Together, you and I shall enjoy unity's miracle.
A true force...so pure that is unselfish and non selfish hunger for simply conquests!
It is the purest of reasons for you and I to hold one another and become the newest spectacle!
An energy booming far past our mortal shells.
I hold this hand out for the one who can understand my clear and sweet messages...
You take my hand... we shall than stroll through eden's sweet garden passages!

The Quiet of a Pickwickian World
By Sy Roth

In the silence of my Pickwickian world,
A transcendent quiet stands vigil.
Left to its own devices it rattles around, a
lonely brown-suited courier,
Hefting weighty cargo from one sooty corner to the next.

Seeks tranquility in a world where,
Fettered by golden reins
Hobbled by unceremonial chain mail
Lanced by coronets of thorns,
Astride, a long-in-the-tooth steed
Spurred on to wrestle shredded windmills,
A cavil of unrepentant correctors rest.

And they still come--
Tidal waves of disturbances,
Tsunamis that rip ashore and sweep all away
Into a loathsome pile,
Bilious flotsam of a generation bereft of empathy.


A forced silence clings to the dusty rafters
Where sages once stood
Hanging like KKK castoffs
In a closeted Jim Crow attic of rules and regulations gone mad.

A quiescent quiet demands quiet.
Nestles behind muffled screams
Of ages of piles of rotting flesh.

Dolorous vision of a peaceful world
Where peace packed for a long vacation
To Edens that exist only in fairy tales.
Bring with them untruths of understanding
Swaddled in ******, soiled bedclothes.

Leave me to my silence,
Lave me of the Ash Wednesday smudge
Where realities come home to roost in the dim corners
Where the highwaymen have no access.

Ahhh,  but,
it's simple pleasures , that rejuvenate life's rough weather patches

and it's interesting how animosity turns from curiosity to real world , pilgrams
and biblical stories turned hindu prophecies and karmic debts paid in full .


of stories unwinding, to fantasies tidings -
tidal whirlpools of old age relinquishment
from trapped in butterfly effect
movements
and conjoined twins of several natures
EARTH , AIR, FIRE , WATER AND EATHER.

there seems to be no end to the twin connections -
but a very fine line between earth and heaven

a very fine tune between love and lust
a very fine sand dune's shapeful curve between trust and lack luster half hearted , half arsed apathy.

it seems that there are no more fruits in edens dens , then zen masters at hand to help us through the din try not to get those dijins in your ears but let them pass freely - knowing you are safe from fear.

everyone has their own soul mate
but some have mates

i  tell ya

this is set to be a pretty interesting venture ,
to discover and adventure
across plains of realization ,
with the wind of uncomplicated, honest , one love
as the sail
and i hail a taxi

to the next borderline and i know we'll be making it in time and style

and keepin it all holy
all the whilst

we walk on sacred ground

we walk on sacred ground

we are sacred ground.

it was
                                                                ­                                                              Des­demona




                                                 deceiver of new Edens
                                                           ­ 
                                           left black fields        flooded
           by the sewage coming from the open wells cut into her skin.
I've been here before. A place where saints can be violent, and still   pleading
                                              for father, please, let me go?

he releases.

Desdemona follows,
dragging her corpse
through the minds
that unhinge
for the cold mechanics
of violence;

how the Savage
                            tick
                            and sputter
their jagged gears.        how the human bits,
human bang bang
counts to an unknown number,
waiting
for Desdemona to click her tongue

to spit out
to splatter
wingless
hysterical angels
across the walls of liberty

who with flaming swords
in their hands, slay
to the bellows
of a martyr's sweet rendition,
muttering
words of annihilation,
scavenging for faithful men

that
from the droning
of hissing solicitors
become fettered
to the yin
of fractured knowing
underneath skies
of starry nobility

                                                       ­                                                                 ­ Desdemona



sees this country
through a thimble

knows the name
of every state,
every citizen  that assumes
today, they will be protected
by glory
and that tomorrows
list will not get longer
with each new birth
stamped
American,
maybe It's American.?

this fleshy
and gentle
citizen soldier

quickly taught
to remember
their place
In this

grand Nation,

already paying
the tithing
of mind
and
body
cleaned
in a kitchen sink
       baptised

in the plasma of terror
with the wet
hands
of good hearted parents
commercially radicalized
by tv frenetic
freedom mobs,

fleshy

gentle

soldiers

remember to take
until swollen, because


there lives a longing,
and there lives
other monsters
caste in lighter
shades of violence.



                                             America. You eat your own children.
                                                America­, that dines more divine
                                                     when there is a different
                                                                ­    heathen
                                                     ­      at the dinner table,
                                          
                                                             Land of the brave,
                                                              yo­u worship fear.


                                                         ­                                               American Desdemona
does not know
of her own death song,
she leaves the grieving
alone to paint a tableau
of future Gods
to spring from barrels
sprouting
beheaded bouquets of metal
seen in the slow motion chaos
crawling in the gallery
of methadone media.

the harbinger of all things
seemingly unimportant,

who's orders
are definite



urging stillness.    



to sit with them in the   quiet   room
where lamenting will not be heard

told hush in the morning,

why the **** are you screaming.?
this is the ******   quiet     room

this is existence, this is what surrounds us.
                 "What did you see?"

said
the ones warned to behave
in the silence of tragedy,
But are still sent to the
purgatory
of tin rooftops
in the midwest
or a brick cloud by the shore

bouldering their fists
to beat bright punctures
into the sky
before the eleventh hour
pushes them down eternal twilight.

here again
are the bells that toll
with the kind sound of ammunition

with the voices of
all those disagreeable people
moaning
their grim
disenchantment
for yesterday's sorrows


who stay up late, dizzy
and red faced, shouting
about the guns
of politics,
shouting
about the guns
of politics,
vomiting guns guns guns
and political despair
throwing their voices
out of windows
broken
by
expletives
twisted in the
left over red lights
that bathe rallies
in mayhem
to be taken back
to small boxes
where
young
and numb lips
smoke turpentine
   after *******
to political ****

No longer shocked by politicians
who remind the masses about
9/11 jumpers
falling
to the concrete
in ten
second
intervals

they want you to
remember terror in the 10,000

Terror.

get down on your knees
and bow to obsession--


accept this
as indulgence

for what it is,

you live to be whole
but revoke
the thoughts
you inact in a soft blanket
of cerebral vices.

This is what purity
seeks in the wilds,    

bloodwood virginity
wet with the constitutional lust
of victimless moaning
victimless crimes

oh

holy holy
I arch my back for you
I bend for you
I writhe painlessly
with every moment that passes
your gun can lay at the alter of my temple,  surly
it will be an anointed dimming

a secret that is kept in the chest
of dual gatekeepers
who yearn for unison
and longs to tell the other,
     do not be afraid

Or,    Don't you dare
stand in front of
a podium, condemning
slaughter like a daily prayer
at the dinner table,      prayer

that sounds like faith
and God splitting in half, prayer
which has always been
a plea to change life
into what we think it should be

like the once happy

Elitists,
now soft belly sickened
by the obscured notion
of protecting
the people they
claim as their own, if only?

apostates
of folklore,
weren't so full
with grievances,
with their
own wars

brooding and
burdened by lax limitation,
seething angry
at
the great agenda

utterly raging

against the talking mouths
too loud with
freedoms thoughts,    swelling
with maddening repetition
and promptly ridiculed
into the execution
of sentimental insanity,

crazed

enough
to arm themselves with something
that does not feed the machine
in the pursuits of destroying it.




                                                         ­                                                                 ­  this is
                                                                ­                                                       Desdemona

that seeps into the burrow
of a throat

is the auditory creeping
that dredges a chemical longing

until everyone is gasping
at the horrid image of death,
or in the middle of a vitriolic
death cry

only accepting finality
if the afterlife
proved to be as infinite
as a blue sky slitting itself open
to let in the burnt offerings of the sun.

And no one will ask,

what have you taken to the inferno.?

flesh and blood,
That which is not yours.


bodies for the dead, you say.
well, how many?

not everyone
has a key
to the quiet room

away from the decidedly
unlucky,

we
Will be the ones
behind the locked door
pretending
she is not
on the other side,
unhindered by her cracked skull,
she is listlessly
heaving
dissected torso
through
junkyard corridors
collecting the dead
for tomorrow's congregation

who have become
sinfully reincarnated
by the flesh
of their own belief,
or fed into zombie culture
to sing and sway
in the pews, reciting

My people
I love you.

my God!
do I love you.
do I love you.

My God,
my Desdemona, I love you.

on cloudless days we besmirch the suns reign
the spirit hankers for Autumn
the baltic coast apposite
launches thy being by the northern skies,
a trinity of light  leds to the caucasus plains
to reveal Edens gardens
and locate cultivars of apple
and vine
to graft onto our dying seasons

À Mme de P*.

Il est pour la pensée une heure... une heure sainte,
Alors que, s'enfuyant de la céleste enceinte,
De l'absence du jour pour consoler les cieux,
Le crépuscule aux monts prolonge ses adieux.
On voit à l'horizon sa lueur incertaine,
Comme les bords flottants d'une robe qui traîne,
Balayer lentement le firmament obscur,
Où les astres ternis revivent dans l'azur.
Alors ces globes d'or, ces îles de lumière,
Que cherche par instinct la rêveuse paupière,
Jaillissent par milliers de l'ombre qui s'enfuit
Comme une poudre d'or sur les pas de la nuit ;
Et le souffle du soir qui vole sur sa trace,
Les sème en tourbillons dans le brillant espace.
L'oeil ébloui les cherche et les perd à la fois ;
Les uns semblent planer sur les cimes des bois,
Tel qu'un céleste oiseau dont les rapides ailes
Font jaillir en s'ouvrant des gerbes d'étincelles.
D'autres en flots brillants s'étendent dans les airs,
Comme un rocher blanchi de l'écume des mers ;
Ceux-là, comme un coursier volant dans la carrière,
Déroulent à longs plis leur flottante crinière ;
Ceux-ci, sur l'horizon se penchant à demi,
Semblent des yeux ouverts sur le monde endormi,
Tandis qu'aux bords du ciel de légères étoiles
Voguent dans cet azur comme de blanches voiles
Qui, revenant au port, d'un rivage lointain,
Brillent sur l'Océan aux rayons du matin.

De ces astres brillants, son plus sublime ouvrage,
Dieu seul connaît le nombre, et la distance, et l'âge ;
Les uns, déjà vieillis, pâlissent à nos yeux,
D'autres se sont perdus dans les routes des cieux,
D'autres, comme des fleurs que son souffle caresse,
Lèvent un front riant de grâce et de jeunesse,
Et, charmant l'Orient de leurs fraîches clartés,
Etonnent tout à coup l'oeil qui les a comptés.
Dans la danse céleste ils s'élancent... et l'homme,
Ainsi qu'un nouveau-né, les salue, et les nomme.
Quel mortel enivré de leur chaste regard,
Laissant ses yeux flottants les fixer au hasard,
Et cherchant le plus pur parmi ce choeur suprême,
Ne l'a pas consacré du nom de ce qu'il aime ?
Moi-même... il en est un, solitaire, isolé,
Qui, dans mes longues nuits, m'a souvent consolé,
Et dont l'éclat, voilé des ombres du mystère,
Me rappelle un regard qui brillait sur la terre.
Peut-être ?... ah ! puisse-t-il au céleste séjour
Porter au moins ce nom que lui donna l'Amour !

Cependant la nuit marche, et sur l'abîme immense
Tous ces mondes flottants gravitent en silence,
Et nous-même, avec eux emportés dans leur cours
Vers un port inconnu nous avançons toujours !
Souvent, pendant la nuit, au souffle du zéphire,
On sent la terre aussi flotter comme un navire.
D'une écume brillante on voit les monts couverts
Fendre d'un cours égal le flot grondant des airs ;
Sur ces vagues d'azur où le globe se joue,
On entend l'aquilon se briser sous la proue,
Et du vent dans les mâts les tristes sifflements,
Et de ses flancs battus les sourds gémissements ;
Et l'homme sur l'abîme où sa demeure flotte
Vogue avec volupté sur la foi du pilote !
Soleils ! mondes flottants qui voguez avec nous,
Dites, s'il vous l'a dit, où donc allons-nous tous ?
Quel est le port céleste où son souffle nous guide ?
Quel terme assigna-t-il à notre vol rapide ?
Allons-nous sur des bords de silence et de deuil,
Echouant dans la nuit sur quelque vaste écueil,
Semer l'immensité des débris du naufrage ?
Ou, conduits par sa main sur un brillant rivage,
Et sur l'ancre éternelle à jamais affermis,
Dans un golfe du ciel aborder endormis ?

Vous qui nagez plus près de la céleste voûte,
Mondes étincelants, vous le savez sans doute !
Cet Océan plus pur, ce ciel où vous flottez,
Laisse arriver à vous de plus vives clartés ;
Plus brillantes que nous, vous savez davantage ;
Car de la vérité la lumière est l'image !
Oui : si j'en crois l'éclat dont vos orbes errants
Argentent des forêts les dômes transparents,
Qui glissant tout à coup sur des mers irritées,
Calme en les éclairant les vagues agitées ;
Si j'en crois ces rayons dont le sensible jour
Inspire la vertu, la prière, l'amour,
Et quand l'oeil attendri s'entrouvre à leur lumière,
Attirent une larme au bord de la paupière ;
Si j'en crois ces instincts, ces doux pressentiments
Qui dirigent vers nous les soupirs des amants,
Les yeux de la beauté, les rêves qu'on regrette,
Et le vol enflammé de l'aigle et du poète !
Tentes du ciel, Edens ! temples! brillants palais !
Vous êtes un séjour d'innocence et de paix !
Dans le calme des nuits, à travers la distance,
Vous en versez sur nous la lointaine influence !
Tout ce que nous cherchons, l'amour, la vérité,
Ces fruits tombés du ciel dont la terre a goûté,
Dans vos brillants climats que le regard envie
Nourrissent à jamais les enfants de la vie,
Et l'homme, un jour peut-être à ses destins rendu,
Retrouvera chez vous tout ce qu'il a perdu ?
Hélas ! combien de fois seul, veillant sur ces cimes
Où notre âme plus libre a des voeux plus sublimes,
Beaux astres ! fleurs du ciel dont le lis est jaloux,
J'ai murmuré tout bas : Que ne suis-je un de vous ?
Que ne puis-je, échappant à ce globe de boue,
Dans la sphère éclatante où mon regard se joue,
Jonchant d'un feu de plus le parvis du saint lieu,
Eclore tout à coup sous les pas de mon Dieu,
Ou briller sur le front de la beauté suprême,
Comme un pâle fleuron de son saint diadème ?

Dans le limpide azur de ces flots de cristal,
Me souvenant encor de mon globe natal,
Je viendrais chaque nuit, tardif et solitaire,
Sur les monts que j'aimais briller près de la terre ;
J'aimerais à glisser sous la nuit des rameaux,
A dormir sur les prés, à flotter sur les eaux ;
A percer doucement le voile d'un nuage,
Comme un regard d'amour que la pudeur ombrage :
Je visiterais l'homme ; et s'il est ici-bas
Un front pensif, des yeux qui ne se ferment pas,
Une âme en deuil, un coeur qu'un poids sublime oppresse,
Répandant devant Dieu sa pieuse tristesse ;
Un malheureux au jour dérobant ses douleurs
Et dans le sein des nuits laissant couler ses pleurs,
Un génie inquiet, une active pensée
Par un instinct trop fort dans l'infini lancée ;
Mon rayon pénétré d'une sainte amitié
Pour des maux trop connus prodiguant sa pitié,
Comme un secret d'amour versé dans un coeur tendre,
Sur ces fronts inclinés se plairait à descendre !
Ma lueur fraternelle en découlant sur eux
Dormirait sur leur sein, sourirait à leurs yeux :
Je leur révélerais dans la langue divine
Un mot du grand secret que le malheur devine ;
Je sécherais leurs pleurs ; et quand l'oeil du matin
Ferait pâlir mon disque à l'horizon lointain,
Mon rayon en quittant leur paupière attendrie
Leur laisserait encor la vague rêverie,
Et la paix et l'espoir ; et, lassés de gémir,
Au moins avant l'aurore ils pourraient s'endormir !

Et vous, brillantes soeurs! étoiles, mes compagnes,
Qui du bleu firmament émaillez les campagnes,
Et cadençant vos pas à la lyre des cieux,
Nouez et dénouez vos choeurs harmonieux !
Introduit sur vos pas dans la céleste chaîne,
Je suivrais dans l'azur l'instinct qui vous entraîne,
Vous guideriez mon oeil dans ce brillant désert,
Labyrinthe de feux où le regard se perd !
Vos rayons m'apprendraient à louer, à connaître
Celui que nous cherchons, que vous voyez peut-être !
Et noyant dans son sein mes tremblantes clartés,
Je sentirais en lui.., tout ce que vous sentez !

6 days of work
On the 7th day you rested
Seeing all was good
In all you had invested

Took the hand of man
And gave to him the charge
The taste of freedom and
You his loving God

To ward off loneliness
Made for him a helper
Inside of Edens bliss
Paradise the shelter

With only one stipulation
Listen what you're saying
Do not eat from the tree
The only rule you're making

Listened to that snake
Lying in his hissing
Made the fatal mistake
He was just a henchman

**********

Eating from the tree
Who told you, you were naked
Sin has been set free
Paradise has left ya

Look what you have done
Kicked out of the garden
Hear the whole earth moan
Nothing's more alarming

Nothing now has been the same
Since the apple then was bitten
Think I'll give this poem the name
Let the festivities begin

Nothing but this exists.
Nothing but you,
Nothing but me,
Nothing but this nothingness.

I am the infinte,
the almighty.
I am everything and nothing,

I am the void in your soul,
the mystery in your ear,
that call of night and darkness
in the hallow sweat of fear.

I’m a wreck,
a ship on edens shore.
I am here,
there,
and one day I will be no more.

I am dissatisfaction and I am pounding at your door.
But do not answer or acknowledge me.
I am too busy
waging little wars against my battered skin.
I am that itch that stings in the crook of your back,
the place you cannot reach.
Let me freeze or let me burn,
but do not come out here with me.
I need
to be
alone.

Devils of saintly virtues?
Or a saint of sin?
Who is evil or good?
Who bestowed such titles?

A boisterous ***** baron?
Ordained by dour dukes?
Spilled blood to pave a road?
Does your honor sunder and erode?

Was it virtuous to shove innocents?
To put them under lock and key?
Saintly, to make them fear?
Courage, to turn a blind eye?

Is it a sin to feed the starving enemy?
A devil to help a dying foreigner breath?
Bereave their suffering?
To feel guilt when malnourished prisoners beg for feed?

What makes you so noble?
Foible flags, and an adorable mantra?
A little training makes it right?
Maybe you know it does not,

Paving roads with bones and blood?
Did you join to fire a gun?
To retrieve bullets from inside of someone?
To stand for your flag and defend?

Does a medal wash away those sins?
All forgiven because you won?
Bombs dropped and humanity undone,
Another chapter in the book of justification,

Titled, ‘War is Hell’
The history of death, peace unsung,
Souls seized, leaders appeased,
From rot, money and disease,

Waiting for battle under south side trees,
What makes you better then them?
Education? A uniform?
Signing your life away to conform?

What if your not as noble as you seem?
Noble intentions in a hellish scene,
In total might, what if neither is right?
A hired killer of a higher power,

Atrocities in the name of swell intentions,
Killing for Lord Benton, or General Jenkins,
Does what you read make you mad?
Or sad?

Will war ravished ruffians take pity?
Is it wrong if they slaughter and **** your life?
Everyone in it?
Will your god founded, blessed flag save you?

Maybe they are right,
After all,
You did it to them first,
Suddenly it’s wrong? No chalking up to war is hell?

Maybe you’re lost,
Maybe notches on your gun makes you proud of past,
Maybe feel lied to, in a cloud,
Or maybe you’re a demonic psychopath,

The history of Saints is usually tattered with sin,
Passing volatile judgements upon men,
Devils usually do what they are asked,
Whether or not it should come to pass,

After all,
It was conflict that caused Edens fall,
Do you care if you’re right or wrong?
You, mercenary of the flag?

When is wrong, right?
Right, wrong?
Call you hero and sing your song,
Will history see it like you?


After all,
Stonewall made innocent civilians fall,
Regarded hero,
Instructed by a drunk,

Who are you?
What makes you so great?
Why are you right?
Why are you wrong?

In the end, I don’t care if you think,
Or ask yourself stated questions,
That’s not my biz,
Simply put...
It is what it is..

To wake,
when the only light is a greasy yellow morning
oiling itself up against the window.
When the door stands,
around the corner and out of sight,
open to the humid comfort of rain today.
To wake.
To see how far I haven't come,
though I do want my life,
and all its stagnant petals,
for the sake of truly ardent ties to the people there.
To wake,
and want death as well.
No more prostrate thinking,
dwelling on the fragrances of lost Edens,
and other things I cannot have.
To wake,
and discover a season
so rid of constants that there are no ports in this storm,
nor lands to call home,
nor even shoals to sink to
in tears.

you'll always venture near dark gardens,
through mazes going along eastern hills
over fences you'll explore vast spaces
made of imaginary kingdoms

until the sun quits raying and shining down,
scamper into joyous field of flowering sepals just heavenly
see the valley's dandelions sway and drift side to side
under olive trees, from vine to vine

out even further lies some open-faced southern edens,
for visiting despite malevolent heathens not going their
expected ways

-c.j.

Cracked lips,
starving for just a drop,
running my tongue over them,
hoping that you'll grace me with a few dark clouds,
a rain shower,
no matter how brief.
The crackling lightning and thunder
would be a welcome consequence
to the desperate vying for your attention.
I drag my anguished limbs across the expanse of your sand and clay floor,
wavering between a hope for an end,
and a hope that if I keep going
and prove myself,
that you'll put me out of my misery yourself.
Your sun beats down on me with a hot weight
that I've grown used to.
In the distance,
visions of lush, green-dusted mountains dance,
but I learned long ago that they remain at the same distance,
no matter how far I walk.
I've had fantasies of shimmering lakes
and Edens full of colorful blossoms and succulent fruits,
but despite my hunger,
despite my thirst,
and despite the aches that burden my body,
the most beautiful delusion I've succumbed to,
is one of you,
appearing before me,
and holding out your arms in that perfect, sweet embrace,
knowing that it would relieve my every ailment.

As I mope around the swamps of my brain
I think of nature’s beautiful scenery
Stuck in a world where currency reigns
Littered with mankind's rapacious factitious imagery

Sat in a cube, walls off-white
Ceiling tiles, **** stained
Trapped in ennui's plight
Blue light keeping a soul maimed

But there's a cure
Just beyond these walls
5pm, till then I endure
Then I can answer Edens call

Fireworks scream, but so few of them seen
The Delhi night sky is of pure gasoline
It’s a maze of a haze that is thicker than thieves
It’s a Christmas without any Adams and Eves
A festival littered with living for less
Than the worth I assign my semantic excess
I am one in a billion perceiving it thus
Because I am afraid it returns us to dust
Of invisible stars, so unnoticeably
Lost on these earthling’s electricity
How could they be phased by the brilliance of gods
When they drool at bedazzling splendors of frauds
And they worship mirages of angels and demons
Polluting their Ganga and Yamuna Edens
With Kashmiri violently mountains eroding
Partition eruptions of chaos exploding
Like Company cannons that made them all pay
To celebrate freedom in slums of Bombay