Ill-fated crowds neath unchained clouds: the Silent City braved
against a sudden flashing flood, unleashing lashing waves,
which stripped its stony structures, blown with neutron bursts that laved.

Its barren streets, although effete, resound of yesterday
with chit-chat words no longer heard (though having much to say)
since teeming life (at one time, rife), surceased and slipped away.

Within its walls? Whist buildings, tall... Outside the City? Dunes,
which limn its frail forgotten tales, in weird unworldly runes
with symbols strung like halos hung in lifeless, limp festoons.

Above! The dismal ditch of dusk reveals a velvet streak,
through which the winter’s wicked winds will sometimes weave and sneak,
and faraway a cable sways, a bridge clings hushed and bleak.

Thin shadows shift, like silver shafts, throughout the doomed domain
reflecting white, wee wisps of light in ebon beads of bane
which cast a crooked smile across a faceless windowpane.

Wan neon lights glow through the nights, through darkness sleek as slate,
while lanterns (hovered, high above, in silent swinging gait),
whelm ballrooms, bars, bereft bazaars, though no one’s left to fete.

Death's silhouettes show no regrets, 'twixt twilight’s ashen shrouds,
oblivious she always was to cries in dying crowds –
in foggy neap the spirits creep beyond the mushroom clouds.


No ghosts of ones with jagged tongues will sing a silent psalm
nor haunt pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor yet redress the emptiness that shifting shades embalm.



The City’s blur? A sepulcher for Christians, Muslims, Jews –
Cathedrals, Temples, vacant now, enshrine their residues,
for churches, mosques and synagogues abide without a bruise.

No cantillation, belfry bells, monastic chants inspire
and Minarets, though standing yet, host neither voice nor crier -
abodes and buildings silhouette a muted spectral choir.

A church’s Gothic ceilings guard the empty pews below
and, all alone amongst the stones, a maiden’s blue jabot.
The Saints, in crypts, though nondescript, grace halos now aglow.

Stray footsteps swarm through church no more (apostates that profane)
though echoes in the nave still din and chalice cups retain
an altar wine that tastes of brine decaying in the rain.

Coiled candle sticks, with twisted wicks, no longer 'lume the cracks -
their dying flames revealed the shame, mid pendant pearls of wax,
when deference to innocence dissolved in molten tracks.

Six steeple towers, steel though now drab daggers in the sky!
Their hallowed halls no longer call when breezes wander by –
for, filled with dread to wake the dead, they've ceased to sough or sigh.

The chapel chimes? Their clapper rope (that tongue-tied confidante)
won’t writhe to ring the carillon, alone and lean and gaunt –
its flocks of jute, now fallen mute, adorn the holy font.


No saints will come with jagged tongues to sing a silent psalm
nor bless pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor pray for mercy, grace deferred, nor beg lethean balm.


Beyond the suburbs, farmers’ fields (where donkeys often brayed)
inhale gray gusts of barren dust where living seed once laid
and in the haze a scarecrow sways, impaled upon a *****.

Green trees gone dark in palace parks (where kids once paused to play),
watch lifeless things on phantom swings (like statues made of clay)
guard marbled tombs in graveyards groomed for grievers bent to pray.

And castle clocks, unwound, defrock with speechless spinning spokes,
unfurling blight of reigning Night by sweeping off her cloaks,
and flaunting dun oblivion, her Baroness evokes.

The sun-bleached bones of those who'd flown lie scattered down the lanes
while other souls who’d hid in holes left bones with yellow stains
of plaintive tears (shed insincere, for no one felt the pains).

The wraiths that scream in sleepless dreams have ceased to terrify
though terrors wrought by conscience fraught now stalk and lurk nearby
within the shrouds of curtained clouds, frail fabrics on the sky.

And fog no longer seeps beyond the edge of doom’s café,
for when she trails her mourning veils, she fills the cabaret
with sallow smears of misty tears in sheets of shallow gray.

The City’s still, like hollowed quill with ravished feathered vane,
baptized in floods of spattered blood, once flowing through a vein.
The fruits of life, destroyed in strife... ’twas truly all in vain.


No umbras hum with jagged tongues nor sing a silent psalm
nor lade pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm –
they've seen, you see, life’s brevity, beneath a neutron bomb.


EPILOGUE

Beyond the Silent City’s walls, the victors laugh and play
while celebrating PEACE ON EARTH, the devil’s sobriquet
for neutron radiation death in places far away.

The ******* of embezzled glory staunchly defend their counterfeit stature by defalcating the public trust of industrious societies governed internally by compunction and sabotaged externally by the tempests of acerbic fate met with inclement aleatory convergence. To supply a society with ingenuity without being complaisant or officious with unctuous pleas to the overlords we must fashion a new vogue that taps the bustle of giants and aggrandizes the margins to oversee their own creative destinies with scaffolded arrangements of titanic promise and justifiable fluidity to conquer the blinkered dogmatism of a dissolute chastity to inveterate apocryphal tenets of factitious but unmerited perspectives. Democracy crumbles when the convenience of sensationalism supplants the resolve of those that fossick hidden wealth and promulgate validity instead of undergirding pomp with precarious prevarications of duplicitous omission guarded gingerly by the gatekeepers of a ****** sanity that whitewashes the discussion with invented hobgoblins and purblind catharsis. To defeat simplicity and enshrine byzantine elegance as the paragon for voguish commentary rather than abide by a bowdlerized decorum for appeasing simpletons with divisive balkanization through identity politics we can overcome the impediments to human progress that are engineered to persist because of the inertia of the listless and the stubbornness of doctrinaire politicization and invent vivacity and festivity anew. We need to divorce ourselves from pedestrian quibbles of hero-worship that endanger the vitality of the common discourse because of fastidious pedantic disempowerment that ravages us with debased dreams by underscoring nuisances and tolerable nightmares that emasculate the virulence of the liberated individual and subvert his ambitions to contend with a picaresque world of limitless promise and self-motivated internal wealth.
      The bane of modernity is how chary the world becomes because of fractured histories intersecting with controversial destinies and the antidote to that poisonous self-defeating self-censorship is the audacity of brazen challenges to expurgation through assiduous resourcefulness and delicate diplomacy in wrangling controversies with outspoken courage rather than whispered resentment. Temerity waged in inclement circumstance is justified and curiosity stoked by lambent flames of fulgurant individualism should be fortified to the extent necessary to conquer the feckless spoilsports of unctuous puritanism and institutional obedience. The quacksalvers that blather about inconsequence strand the imagination in a desiccated desert that is ostracized from the palettes of the artistic whim to wield efflorescence rather than squander life in pursuit of perfunctory lucre or tenuous solidarity around banal idealism promised by social justice warriors that forget the biggest war being waged on humanity is on the ingenuity of the common discourse and the liberty to opine about real issues rather than saccharine conventions of emasculation through linguistic imprisonment and epicurean slavery to fashimites who relish the buzzword but never the enlightened audience that scoffs at feeble attempts at cultural commentary like Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video. This particular artifact is a demonstration of how childishly fickle the plebeian mentality really is, stitching together a bricolage of violence to engineer controversy and serenading it with the most banal music imaginable and exhorting people to herald it as a high artform while inundating the world with unimaginative comic book movies and Star Wars rip-offs because of the lucrative business of formulaic replication. “This is America” should be regarded as a parody of itself because of how hackneyed its design is and how cacophonous it sounds and mocks its audience with lowbrow tactics of adding tinsel to trash and marketing it as the glory of tatterdemalions rather than the refinement of true cinematic achievements that have been relegated because Warhol’s Campbells-Soup-consumerism trumps true belletrist in the public view.
        Cultural watersheds punctuate our history with salient achievements in experimentation, but the formulaic profiteering of buzzword sensationalism and yellow journalism and the ostentatious glorification of promiscuous boasting and fancy cars tantalize the mice to continue playing slot machines rather than penning a novel or doing something promethean. The world scoffs at Trump but ignores the bigger institutional caveats that endanger us much more than a pragmatic albeit unconventional pontificator who is complicit in constructing a false narrative to enslave mindless people to fret about eminence rather than delight themselves in the consequential nuances of established refinement that used to serenade the world with flourish and spectacle. The world kowtows to the crusade against flavor-of-the-week enemies of the liberal-conservative syncretism because it has been conditioned to believe that synthesis is the only logical solution for the polarized worldviews of churlish people that become parvenus not on their merits but on their marketable pitfalls and their public foibles. Peccadillos are more important to people than virtues and this makes society morally bankrupt if we loiter around Astroturf causes that have been infiltrated by corporatism and venal debauchery and acquiesce as disempowered gossip hounds that hunt in packs to find jest in aberration rather than achievement in self-created narratives that defy the stupid purblind boorishness of the mainstream media and its haughty liberalism or the persnickety condemnation of priggish conservative moralities that had an expiration date 50 years ago. Who the **** cares about transgender-touting-gender-fluidity quidnuncs and the snooty obsession with lurid personal endeavors of reputable people that made minor ****** transgressions in a world policed by wide-eyed feminazis that seek to ransack men of their vital virulence to spotlight their unjustifiable oppression. Women are oppressed but the carnal nature of their calumniation and their vindictive powers of persuasion are deployed with such vehement vigilance and such distaste for the majority that the world relegates itself to quibbles of celebrities rather than substantive issues. There is a systemic feminization of society occurring that seeks to demarcate despotic uxorious pleasantries as an incarceration of vocal dissent against supercilious women and their tamed men that slavishly grovel in repudiation of anything prickly.  Men historically have oppressed women but the solution to this quandary isn’t a reverse discrimination where the minority concern is spotlighted as a majoritarian issue that overshadows the disproportionate nature of our society where nominal accreditation is afforded in a non-meritocratic way to absolve people of their carnality and demote the vigorous defense of human liberty as secondary to compromise solutions that appease more people than they offend but simultaneously result in suboptimal conditions that reward arbitrarily coachable people while jettisoning anyone witty enough to be capable of insubordination of a hedonistic epicurean world obsessed with appearance and ravaged by the decadence of formulaic profiteering at the expense of originality and true promethean art that is herculean enough to defy hackneyed tropes and siphon the best elements from a piecemeal world variegated with complexity but stifled by fomented hatred.
The solutions to these problems is to create a watchdog group of artistic critics who become eminent and ubiquitously heard enough to offer creative consultation to the artistic endeavors that we consume and the music that is curated for fastidious ears that crave euphonic originality rather than the banality of easily dovetailed bass-heavy cookie-cutter garbage and the gaudy tactics of talentless rappers whose swagger derives from  the intersection of opportunism and the divestiture of an industry that rewards gloated supercilious epicureanism and meretricious marketability. Am I the only one jaded by second-rate superhero movies that infest the cinemas that borrow from Michael Bay while thrusting pulse-pounding but narratively bankrupt movies down the throats of consumers that might prize the cinematic originality of the heyday of filmmaking? Is it always high art to invent controversy that is witless or half-witted just because it will create buzz? Shouldn’t we condemn the laziness of society in acquiescing to the penury of the modern cultural narrative which belabors the dead horses of racism and sexism ad nauseum? Shouldn’t we fight the war of against inequity through legislation rather than hibernating about scandalous eminence and testy malfeasance?
          Liberty should be championed above all else and we are turning our backs on the future unless we muster the resolve to diminish the sway of the common narrative and aim our spotlight at consequential endeavors rather than the tropes of prosaic and pedestrian bastardization of art and culture. We need to fight artistic laziness which has ravaged our culture and castigate the tactics of wannabee celebrities that use lurid tactics to attract an audience by bedizening themselves with Pyrrhic ostentations and rampant fakery to create more melodrama in a world that needs to be less histrionic. YouTube celebrities swarm us as they get high on ******* and lean-- at our expense-- and vandalize property and convincing nine-year-old’s like Lil Tay to flex her money like it is infinitely renewable in a finite world where all our attention is wasted on artless artifice of less talented people that know how to engineer a ruckus by strutting themselves beyond all decency and selling out to a corporatist nightmare of enslaved convenience. We need to be more vocal about the dissolution of artistic merit and the formulaic repetition of successful formulas that jade us and make us yawn about another retread of a previously successful idea that is milked to the point of cruelty.                                                         ­                       
       Let’s change the narrative and focus on creating true art rather than reacting to the meretricious tinsel of the vogue consensus which is so impotent in its ability to rivet audiences because it has become so notoriously lazy. Fight laziness in art, dismiss your news feeds, be resourceful, seek true happiness rather than find yourself hoodwinked and duped by the idea that Trump is the most important issue or getting caught in thought loops and brooding about sexism and inequality. Let us strive to be egalitarian but within limits that would also appease hominists rather than just the hypertrophy of the leftist narrative that seeks to cage us with the doublespeak of complaisant conformity.  Reject the unctuous charlatans that pretend priggishness when their banausic purpose is barbaric but beguiling to be a lullaby for laggards. We need to fight for the future of civilization rather than hobnob with convenience and loiter around decrying false perpetrators rather than systemic injustices that could otherwise be rectified if enough people fought for it. We can invent a future that is a great festivity serenaded by cultivated artistic refinement and forget about the trifles that divide us. United in ambition and fueled by ingenuity we can defeat artistic laziness and be resourceful with how we decide what is newsworthy. Spurred by the argosy of proactive motivation we can change the world in a substantial way by deciphering the subtext that governs the world. The subtext is everything!

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen *******,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones--
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone--
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.--
Are then regalities all gilded masks?
No, there are throned seats unscalable
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate
A thousand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe--
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
Our piece of heaven--whose benevolence
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
She unobserved steals unto her throne,
And there she sits most meek and most alone;
As if she had not pomp subservient;
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
Waiting for silver-footed messages.
O Moon! the oldest shades '**** oldest trees
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
Within its pearly house.--The mighty deeps,
The monstrous sea is thine--the myriad sea!
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.

  Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.
Where will the splendor be content to reach?
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion.

                  On gold sand impearl'd
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy veils
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:--when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.

                      Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox;--then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

  "What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move
My heart so potently? When yet a child
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance,
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing spright
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top--the sage's pen--
The poet's harp--the voice of friends--the sun;
Thou wast the river--thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast--thou wast my steed--
My goblet full of wine--my topmost deed:--
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized tune
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Myself to immortality: I prest
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss--
My strange love came--Felicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away--
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby power
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
My sovereign vision.--Dearest love, forgive
That I can think away from thee and live!--
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
For as he lifted up his eyes to swear
How his own goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the sea
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
And his white hair was awful, and a mat
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans
Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar
Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell
To its huge self; and the minutest fish
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
And show his little eye's anatomy.
Then there was pictur'd the regality
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd
So stedfastly, that the new denizen
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

  The old man rais'd his hoary head and saw
The wilder'd stranger--seeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
Echo into oblivion, he said:--

  "Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
In peace upon my watery pillow: now
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc'd and stung
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?--
I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a whale
To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly sweep
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
Where through some ******* pool I will be hurl'd
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
I bow full hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!" Endymion started back
Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the rack
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to die
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to draw
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!--
O Tartarus! but some few days agone
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, and--ah, ripe sheaves
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner'd. I must stoop
My head, and kiss death's foot. Love! love, farewel!
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
Would melt at thy sweet breath.--By Dian's hind
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!"

  He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look'd high defiance. Lo! his heart 'gan warm
With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

  "Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
I know thine inmost *****, and I feel
A very brother's yearning for thee steal
Into mine own: for why? thou openest
The prison gates that have so long opprest
My weary watching. Though thou know'st it not,
Thou art commission'd to this fated spot
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown power
I had been grieving at this joyous hour
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task."

  So saying, this young soul in age's mask
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd sands
Took silently their foot-prints. "My soul stands
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,--
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,--and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!--Is it then possible
To look so plainly through them? to dispel
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one's own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings all
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading ****,
The which I breathe away, and thronging come
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

  "I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
And left me tossing safely. But the crown
Of all my life was utmost quietude:
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
And never was a day of summer shine,
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
For I would watch all night to see unfold
Heaven's gates, and Aethon snort his morning gold
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

  "Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
To feel distemper'd longings: to desire
The utmost priv

Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep
Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora’s fan,
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song
Of birds on every bough; so much the more
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve
With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek,
As through unquiet rest:  He, on his side
Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice
Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus.  Awake,
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,
Heaven’s last best gift, my ever new delight!
Awake:  The morning shines, and the fresh field
Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring
Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove,
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,
How nature paints her colours, how the bee
Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake.
O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose,
My glory, my perfection! glad I see
Thy face, and morn returned; for I this night
(Such night till this I never passed) have dreamed,
If dreamed, not, as I oft am wont, of thee,
Works of day past, or morrow’s next design,
But of offence and trouble, which my mind
Knew never till this irksome night:  Methought,
Close at mine ear one called me forth to walk
With gentle voice;  I thought it thine: It said,
‘Why sleepest thou, Eve? now is the pleasant time,
‘The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
‘To the night-warbling bird, that now awake
‘Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song; now reigns
‘Full-orbed the moon, and with more pleasing light
‘Shadowy sets off the face of things; in vain,
‘If none regard; Heaven wakes with all his eyes,
‘Whom to behold but thee, Nature’s desire?
‘In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment
‘Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.’
I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;
To find thee I directed then my walk;
And on, methought, alone I passed through ways
That brought me on a sudden to the tree
Of interdicted knowledge: fair it seemed,
Much fairer to my fancy than by day:
And, as I wondering looked, beside it stood
One shaped and winged like one of those from Heaven
By us oft seen; his dewy locks distilled
Ambrosia; on that tree he also gazed;
And ‘O fair plant,’ said he, ‘with fruit surcharged,
‘Deigns none to ease thy load, and taste thy sweet,
‘Nor God, nor Man?  Is knowledge so despised?
‘Or envy, or what reserve forbids to taste?
‘Forbid who will, none shall from me withhold
‘Longer thy offered good; why else set here?
This said, he paused not, but with venturous arm
He plucked, he tasted; me damp horrour chilled
At such bold words vouched with a deed so bold:
But he thus, overjoyed; ‘O fruit divine,
‘Sweet of thyself, but much more sweet thus cropt,
‘Forbidden here, it seems, as only fit
‘For Gods, yet able to make Gods of Men:
‘And why not Gods of Men; since good, the more
‘Communicated, more abundant grows,
‘The author not impaired, but honoured more?
‘Here, happy creature, fair angelick Eve!
‘Partake thou also; happy though thou art,
‘Happier thou mayest be, worthier canst not be:
‘Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods
‘Thyself a Goddess, not to earth confined,
‘But sometimes in the air, as we, sometimes
‘Ascend to Heaven, by merit thine, and see
‘What life the Gods live there, and such live thou!’
So saying, he drew nigh, and to me held,
Even to my mouth of that same fruit held part
Which he had plucked; the pleasant savoury smell
So quickened appetite, that I, methought,
Could not but taste.  Forthwith up to the clouds
With him I flew, and underneath beheld
The earth outstretched immense, a prospect wide
And various:  Wondering at my flight and change
To this high exaltation; suddenly
My guide was gone, and I, methought, sunk down,
And fell asleep; but O, how glad I waked
To find this but a dream!  Thus Eve her night
Related, and thus Adam answered sad.
Best image of myself, and dearer half,
The trouble of thy thoughts this night in sleep
Affects me equally; nor can I like
This uncouth dream, of evil sprung, I fear;
Yet evil whence? in thee can harbour none,
Created pure.  But know that in the soul
Are many lesser faculties, that serve
Reason as chief; among these Fancy next
Her office holds; of all external things
Which the five watchful senses represent,
She forms imaginations, aery shapes,
Which Reason, joining or disjoining, frames
All what we affirm or what deny, and call
Our knowledge or opinion; then retires
Into her private cell, when nature rests.
Oft in her absence mimick Fancy wakes
To imitate her; but, misjoining shapes,
Wild work produces oft, and most in dreams;
Ill matching words and deeds long past or late.
Some such resemblances, methinks, I find
Of our last evening’s talk, in this thy dream,
But with addition strange; yet be not sad.
Evil into the mind of God or Man
May come and go, so unreproved, and leave
No spot or blame behind:  Which gives me hope
That what in sleep thou didst abhor to dream,
Waking thou never will consent to do.
Be not disheartened then, nor cloud those looks,
That wont to be more cheerful and serene,
Than when fair morning first smiles on the world;
And let us to our fresh employments rise
Among the groves, the fountains, and the flowers
That open now their choisest bosomed smells,
Reserved from night, and kept for thee in store.
So cheered he his fair spouse, and she was cheered;
But silently a gentle tear let fall
From either eye, and wiped them with her hair;
Two other precious drops that ready stood,
Each in their crystal sluice, he ere they fell
Kissed, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse
And pious awe, that feared to have offended.
So all was cleared, and to the field they haste.
But first, from under shady arborous roof
Soon as they forth were come to open sight
Of day-spring, and the sun, who, scarce up-risen,
With wheels yet hovering o’er the ocean-brim,
Shot parallel to the earth his dewy ray,
Discovering in wide landskip all the east
Of Paradise and Eden’s happy plains,
Lowly they bowed adoring, and began
Their orisons, each morning duly paid
In various style; for neither various style
Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise
Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced, or sung
Unmeditated; such prompt eloquence
Flowed from their lips, in prose or numerous verse,
More tuneable than needed lute or harp
To add more sweetness; and they thus began.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty!  Thine this universal frame,
Thus wonderous fair;  Thyself how wonderous then!
Unspeakable, who sitst above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in Heaven
On Earth join all ye Creatures to extol
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crownest the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climbest,
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fallest.
Moon, that now meetest the orient sun, now flyest,
With the fixed Stars, fixed in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wandering Fires, that move
In mystick dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature’s womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform; and mix
And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye Mists and Exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world’s great Author rise;
Whether to deck with clouds the uncoloured sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling still advance his praise.
His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and, wave your tops, ye Pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living Souls:  Ye Birds,
That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,
To hill, or valley, fountain, or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil, or concealed,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark!
So prayed they innocent, and to their thoughts
Firm peace recovered soon, and wonted calm.
On to their morning’s rural work they haste,
Among sweet dews and flowers; where any row
Of fruit-trees over-woody reached too far
Their pampered boughs, and needed hands to check
Fruitless embraces: or they led the vine
To wed her elm; she, spoused, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with him brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves.  Them thus employed beheld
With pity Heaven’s high King, and to him called
Raphael, the sociable Spirit, that deigned
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seventimes-wedded maid.
Raphael, said he, thou hearest what stir on Earth
Satan, from Hell ’scaped through the darksome gulf,
Hath raised in Paradise; and how disturbed
This night the human pair; how he designs
In them at once to ruin all mankind.
Go therefore, half this day as friend with friend
Converse with Adam, in what bower or shade
Thou findest him from the heat of noon retired,
To respite his day-labour with repast,
Or with repose; and such discourse bring on,
As may advise him of his happy state,
Happiness in his power left free to will,
Left to his own free will, his will though free,
Yet mutable; whence warn him to beware
He swerve not, too secure:  Tell him withal
His danger, and from whom; what enemy,
Late fallen himself from Heaven, is plotting now
The fall of others from like state of bliss;
By violence? no, for that shall be withstood;
But by deceit and lies:  This let him know,
Lest, wilfully transgressing, he pretend
Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned.
So spake the Eternal Father, and fulfilled
All justice:  Nor delayed the winged Saint
After his charge received; but from among
Thousand celestial Ardours, where he stood
Veiled with his gorgeous wings, up springing light,
Flew through the midst of Heaven; the angelick quires,
On each hand parting, to his speed gave way
Through all the empyreal road; till, at the gate
Of Heaven arrived, the gate self-opened wide
On golden hinges turning, as by work
Divine the sovran Architect had framed.
From hence no cloud, or, to obstruct his sight,
Star interposed, however small he sees,
Not unconformed to other shining globes,
Earth, and the garden of God, with cedars crowned
Above all hills.  As when by night the glass
Of Galileo, less assured, observes
Imagined lands and regions in the moon:
Or pilot, from amidst the Cyclades
Delos or Samos first appearing, kens
A cloudy spot.  Down thither prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air; till, within soar
Of towering eagles, to all the fowls he seems
A phoenix, gazed by all as that sole bird,
When, to enshrine his reliques in the Sun’s
Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies.
At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A Seraph winged:  Six wings he wore, to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o’er his breast
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his ***** and thighs with downy gold
And colours dipt in Heaven; the third his feet
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,
Sky-tinctured grain.  Like Maia’s son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled
The circuit wide.  Straight knew him all the bands
Of Angels under watch; and to his state,
And to his message high, in honour rise;
For on some message high they guessed him bound.
Their glittering tents he passed, and now is come
Into the blissful field, through groves of myrrh,
And flowering odours, cassia, nard, and balm;
A wilderness of sweets; for Nature here
Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will
Her ****** fancies pouring forth more sweet,
Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.
Him through the spicy forest onward come
Adam discerned, as in the door he sat
Of his cool bower, while now the mounted sun
Shot down direct his fervid rays to warm
Earth’s inmost womb, more warmth than Adam needs:
And Eve within, due at her hour prepared
For dinner savoury fruits, of taste to please
True appetite, and not disrelish thirst
Of nectarous draughts between, from milky stream,
Berry or grape:  To whom thus Adam called.
Haste hither, Eve, and worth thy sight behold
Eastward among those trees, what glorious shape
Comes this way moving; seems another morn
Risen on mid-noon; some great behest from Heaven
To us perhaps he brings, and will vouchsafe
This day to be our guest.  But go with speed,
And, what thy stores contain, bring forth, and pour
Abundance, fit to honour and receive
Our heavenly stranger:  Well we may afford
Our givers their own gifts, and large bestow
From large bestowed, where Nature multiplies
Her fertile growth, and by disburthening grows
More fruitful, which instructs us not to spare.
To whom thus Eve.  Adam, earth’s hallowed mould,
Of God inspired! small store will serve, where store,
All seasons, ripe for use hangs on the stalk;
Save what by frugal storing firmness gains
To nourish, and superfluous moist consumes:
But I will haste, and from each bough and brake,
Each plant and juciest gourd, will pluck such choice
To entertain our Angel-guest, as he
Beholding shall confess, that here on Earth
God hath dispensed his bounties as in Heaven.
So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent
What choice to choose for delicacy best,
What order, so contrived as not to mix
Tastes, not well joined, inelegant, but bring
Taste after taste upheld with kindliest change;
Bestirs her then, and from each tender stalk
Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields
In India East or West, or middle shore
In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where
Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat
Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell,
She gathers, tribute large, and on the board
Heaps with unsparing hand; for drink the grape
She crushes, inoffensive must, and meaths
From many a berry, and from sweet kernels pressed
She tempers dulcet creams; nor these to hold
Wants her fit vessels pure; then strows the ground
With rose and odours from the shrub unfumed.
Mean while our primitive great sire, to meet
His God-like guest, walks forth, without more train
Accompanied than with his own complete
Perfections; in himself was all his state,
More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits
On princes, when their rich retinue long
Of horses led, and gro

You are my
Ensorcelled Elysium,
You are my
Eden Dream.

You cascade
Upon my Dreamscape,
Enshrine my slumber in
A flowered gale of aromatic petals
That envelop me, beckon me
To herald the rebirth
Of Days of Yore.

You vein
The Glistening Glade of Memories
With your
Brooks of Aqueous Emerald.

Tis' the
Phantasmagoric Plane
Where still
My wayworn spirit wanders, wearily
In search of the magic
To enfetter
The Hands of Fate
(For they conspire against us).

Swifter than your descent
Into my soul
(Five seconds still and flat)
By
The nexus of your affections,
You evanesced
Like vapor,
Yet
I shall not concede to
The Malevolent Matriarch of Destiny.

For you
O, Breath of Life,
Forsook me not
So I sublime all stains
Tarnishing my flesh
By cries to The Ethereal.

At midday
Awaiting the Twilight
I long for
The birth of The Womb of Aether’s
Progeny,
Starlit winds.

I muse
Swimmingly in Seas of Reminiscence,
Banished from that Blackened Bastion
Of Shadowed Heavens,
For when darkness shrouds
My dreams can be seen
Draping the skies.

I then fathom,
You must not be far off,
Wishing,
Hoping,
Believing
That perhaps
You too
Wonder upon stars
Longing to find that one
That entwines us anew.

You shall alight,
Upon me once more
As
August Sun’s Nimbus
(If only for a moment)
Is thwarted
By
Ebony Miasma
That drenches Cimmerian skies.

In search
Of Ardor’s Light abiding in
The Sylvan Shrine of Your Numinous Eyes
I plead that
The Crag oppress
The Coals of Tribulation,
Until my anguish is
A Diamond Heart.

The pilgrimage
I must bear,
Must be traveled by
The Adamantine alone.

Where have you gone,
Tree of Life?
Why have you withered,
Yggdrasil?

Do I possess
The Eradia of Souls,
By which you shall
Effloresce?

I would halt the cogs of time,
Relinquish my liberty,
To slumber for eternity
In crystal stasis
By your side.

Even in that crystalline quietude,
I would be eminent,
I would be exalted,
I would be ennobled,
In the knowingness that
Your
Stalwart Heart
Radiates
Just beside me.

I exhale Empyrean Winds
When rapt in reverie,
Yearning to be
Captive to your devotion,
Yours alone.

The Bliss of Your Most Holy Kiss
Would signet me
With the
Bounty of Your Name
Burnishing the skin
On my lips.

Though ephemeral,
Your presence divined,
Your presence
Was my anointing.

To be solaced
By the astral resonance emitted
By your touch
Sent the
Pulse of Nirvana
Surging, rippling,
Like a kaleidoscope tide,
Down my spine

You are
The Waters of Vitality
That floweth from
The Creeks of Eden,

You have been
Poured upon my palate
From the
Goblet of Redemption
That I may drinketh
Of
Supernal immortality.

When once again we meet,
Perhaps the tears you summoned
From my spirit
By your
Stirring caress
Shall have absolved me
Of the pangs
In loving a man
(And man alone).

Perhaps then,
The sentiments
I pine to profess,
Will resound.

A melody
Sung in legato,
A  mellifluous melisma,
Flawlessly delineated
And
Intonation in deiform
Or perhaps,
Flowering fioritura
Lacing airwaves,
By the Empress Coloratura.

Perhaps then, piety
Betwixt you and I,
Will waft the air
And I might then,
Permit my quaking body
To succumb to
You alone.

Until that morn,
I shall be vigilant,
Counting the Dawns,
Counting the Twilights,
Until
I can gaze
Into your forested eyes
If even for but a moment.

For even but a moment
Spent with you,
Will bleed a nostalgia
Across my mind's sky,
Painting clouds crimson with passion,
And
That I shall revere,
And
That shall last
And last
And,
Last… And
Last.

O, it will last,
To Elysian Infinity.

∞
            I am a vestige,
               But I shall live once more,
                  In the light of memories
                       That blossom, are perennial,
                           And imbibe the dazed glory of the past
                       Until the past is vanquished
                 By a future that is fragrant
             With the mist of romance
          And eclipses the simulacrum,
       A fictitious sun of the infernal masquerade,
    The antithesis of the truest holy,
Then, rapture of life shall mystify no longer,
For the Numen of Truth,
  Shall cleanse creation without a drop of façade,
      His Providence shall emancipate the hollow,
             The Death of Dreams shall writhe
               In everlasting abeyance,
                 Absolving our wayward spirits,
                  The Winds of Change,
                  The Scourge of Pain,
               And
          The Loveless Wraiths
        That haunted our husks
      Shall be transcended for aeons,
  And tribulation made distant, made nebulous
As the Genesis of Time and Space itself
  For we embark on an exodus,
     Beseeching salvation to redeem us
        When the Requiem of Iniquity
           Is triumphed by everlasting cadence.

Be Valiant,
                 Be Sapient,
                             Be Love
                                       And
                                          By this
                                                You shall conquer the world
                                                           ∞

As one who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused
Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes.
Thus thou hast seen one world begin, and end;
And Man, as from a second stock, proceed.
Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive
Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine
Must needs impair and weary human sense:
Henceforth what is to come I will relate;
Thou therefore give due audience, and attend.
This second source of Men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgement past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
With some regard to what is just and right
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace;
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,
Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock,
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,
With large wine-offerings poured, and sacred feast,
Shall spend their days in joy unblamed; and dwell
Long time in peace, by families and tribes,
Under paternal rule: till one shall rise
Of proud ambitious heart; who, not content
With fair equality, fraternal state,
Will arrogate dominion undeserved
Over his brethren, and quite dispossess
Concord and law of nature from the earth;
Hunting (and men not beasts shall be his game)
With war, and hostile snare, such as refuse
Subjection to his empire tyrannous:
A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled
Before the Lord; as in despite of Heaven,
Or from Heaven, claiming second sovranty;
And from rebellion shall derive his name,
Though of rebellion others he accuse.
He with a crew, whom like ambition joins
With him or under him to tyrannize,
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boils out from under ground, the mouth of Hell:
Of brick, and of that stuff, they cast to build
A city and tower, whose top may reach to Heaven;
And get themselves a name; lest, far dispersed
In foreign lands, their memory be lost;
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tower
Obstruct Heaven-towers, and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit, to rase
Quite out their native language; and, instead,
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown:
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud,
Among the builders; each to other calls
Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage,
As mocked they storm: great laughter was in Heaven,
And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din:  Thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased.
O execrable son! so to aspire
Above his brethren; to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given:
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.
But this usurper his encroachment proud
Stays not on Man; to God his tower intends
Siege and defiance:  Wretched man!what food
Will he convey up thither, to sustain
Himself and his rash army; where thin air
Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross,
And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
To whom thus Michael.  Justly thou abhorrest
That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty; yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires,
And upstart passions, catch the government
From reason; and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free.  Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgement just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom:  Tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice, and some fatal curse annexed,
Deprives them of their outward liberty;
Their inward lost:  Witness the irreverent son
Of him who built the ark; who, for the shame
Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
Servant of servants, on his vicious race.
Thus will this latter, as the former world,
Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last,
Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw
His presence from among them, and avert
His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth
To leave them to their own polluted ways;
And one peculiar nation to select
From all the rest, of whom to be invoked,
A nation from one faithful man to spring:
Him on this side Euphrates yet residing,
Bred up in idol-worship:  O, that men
(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown,
While yet the patriarch lived, who ’scaped the flood,
As to forsake the living God, and fall
To worship their own work in wood and stone
For Gods!  Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
To call by vision, from his father’s house,
His kindred, and false Gods, into a land
Which he will show him; and from him will raise
A mighty nation; and upon him shower
His benediction so, that in his seed
All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys;
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes:
I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldaea, passing now the ford
To Haran; after him a cumbrous train
Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude;
Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who called him, in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents
Pitched about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain
Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land,
From Hameth northward to the Desart south;
(Things by their names I call, though yet unnamed;)
From Hermon east to the great western Sea;
Mount Hermon, yonder sea; each place behold
In prospect, as I point them; on the shore
Mount Carmel; here, the double-founted stream,
Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons
Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills.
This ponder, that all nations of the earth
Shall in his seed be blessed:  By that seed
Is meant thy great Deliverer, who shall bruise
The Serpent’s head; whereof to thee anon
Plainlier shall be revealed.  This patriarch blest,
Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call,
A son, and of his son a grand-child, leaves;
Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown:
The grandchild, with twelve sons increased, departs
From Canaan to a land hereafter called
Egypt, divided by the river Nile
See where it flows, disgorging at seven mouths
Into the sea. To sojourn in that land
He comes, invited by a younger son
In time of dearth, a son whose worthy deeds
Raise him to be the second in that realm
Of Pharaoh. There he dies, and leaves his race
Growing into a nation, and now grown
Suspected to a sequent king, who seeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them slaves
Inhospitably, and kills their infant males:
Till by two brethren (these two brethren call
Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim
His people from enthralment, they return,
With glory and spoil, back to their promised land.
But first, the lawless tyrant, who denies
To know their God, or message to regard,
Must be compelled by signs and judgements dire;
To blood unshed the rivers must be turned;
Frogs, lice, and flies, must all his palace fill
With loathed intrusion, and fill all the land;
His cattle must of rot and murren die;
Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss,
And all his people; thunder mixed with hail,
Hail mixed with fire, must rend the Egyptians sky,
And wheel on the earth, devouring where it rolls;
What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain,
A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down
Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green;
Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,
Palpable darkness, and blot out three days;
Last, with one midnight stroke, all the first-born
Of Egypt must lie dead.  Thus with ten wounds
The river-dragon tamed at length submits
To let his sojourners depart, and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice
More hardened after thaw; till, in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismissed, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass,
As on dry land, between two crystal walls;
Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand
Divided, till his rescued gain their shore:
Such wondrous power God to his saint will lend,
Though present in his Angel; who shall go
Before them in a cloud, and pillar of fire;
By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire;
To guide them in their journey, and remove
Behind them, while the obdurate king pursues:
All night he will pursue; but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch;
Then through the fiery pillar, and the cloud,
God looking forth will trouble all his host,
And craze their chariot-wheels: when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;
On their embattled ranks the waves return,
And overwhelm their war:  The race elect
Safe toward Canaan from the shore advance
Through the wild Desart, not the readiest way;
Lest, entering on the Canaanite alarmed,
War terrify them inexpert, and fear
Return them back to Egypt, choosing rather
Inglorious life with servitude; for life
To noble and ignoble is more sweet
Untrained in arms, where rashness leads not on.
This also shall they gain by their delay
In the wide wilderness; there they shall found
Their government, and their great senate choose
Through the twelve tribes, to rule by laws ordained:
God from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets’ sound,
Ordain them laws; part, such as appertain
To civil justice; part, religious rites
Of sacrifice; informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destined Seed to bruise
The Serpent, by what means he shall achieve
Mankind’s deliverance.  But the voice of God
To mortal ear is dreadful:  They beseech
That Moses might report to them his will,
And terrour cease; he grants what they besought,
Instructed that to God is no access
Without Mediator, whose high office now
Moses in figure bears; to introduce
One greater, of whose day he shall foretel,
And all the Prophets in their age the times
Of great Messiah shall sing.  Thus, laws and rites
Established, such delight hath God in Men
Obedient to his will, that he vouchsafes
Among them to set up his tabernacle;
The Holy One with mortal Men to dwell:
By his prescript a sanctuary is framed
Of cedar, overlaid with gold; therein
An ark, and in the ark his testimony,
The records of his covenant; over these
A mercy-seat of gold, between the wings
Of two bright Cherubim; before him burn
Seven lamps as in a zodiack representing
The heavenly fires; over the tent a cloud
Shall rest by day, a fiery gleam by night;
Save when they journey, and at length they come,
Conducted by his Angel, to the land
Promised to Abraham and his seed:—The rest
Were long to tell; how many battles fought
How many kings destroyed; and kingdoms won;
Or how the sun shall in mid Heaven stand still
A day entire, and night’s due course adjourn,
Man’s voice commanding, ‘Sun, in Gibeon stand,
‘And thou moon in the vale of Aialon,
’Till Israel overcome! so call the third
From Abraham, son of Isaac; and from him
His whole descent, who thus shall Canaan win.
Here Adam interposed.  O sent from Heaven,
Enlightener of my darkness, gracious things
Thou hast revealed; those chiefly, which concern
Just Abraham and his seed: now first I find
Mine eyes true-opening, and my heart much eased;
Erewhile perplexed with thoughts, what would become
Of me and all mankind:  But now I see
His day, in whom all nations shall be blest;
Favour unmerited by me, who sought
Forbidden knowledge by forbidden means.
This yet I apprehend not, why to those
Among whom God will deign to dwell on earth
So many and so various laws are given;
So many laws argue so many sins
Among them; how can God with such reside?
To whom thus Michael.  Doubt not but that sin
Will reign among them, as of thee begot;
And therefore was law given them, to evince
Their natural pravity, by stirring up
Sin against law to fight: that when they see
Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak,
The blood of bulls and goats, they may conclude
Some blood more precious must be paid for Man;
Just for unjust; that, in such righteousness
To them by faith imputed, they may find
Justification towards God, and peace
Of conscience; which the law by ceremonies
Cannot appease; nor Man the mortal part
Perform; and, not performing, cannot live.
So law appears imperfect; and but given
With purpose to resign them, in full time,
Up to a better covenant; disciplined
From shadowy types to truth; from flesh to spirit;
From imposition of strict laws to free
Acceptance of large grace; from servile fear
To filial; works of law to works of faith.
And therefore shall not Moses, though of God
Highly beloved, being but the minister
Of law, his people into Canaan lead;
But Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call,
His name and office bearing, who shall quell
The adversary-Serpent, and bring back
Through the world’s wilderness long-wandered Man
Safe to eternal Paradise of rest.
Mean while they, in their earthly Canaan placed,
Long time shall dwell and prosper, but when sins
National interrupt their publick peace,
Provoking God to raise them enemies;
From whom as oft he saves them penitent
By Judges first, then under Kings; of whom
The second, both for piety renowned
And puissant deeds, a promise shall receive
Irrevocable, that his regal throne
For ever shall endure; the like shall sing
All Prophecy, that of the royal stock
Of David (so I name this king) shall rise
A Son, the Woman’s seed to thee foretold,
Foretold to Abraham, as in whom shall trust
All nations; and to kings foretold, of kings
The last; for of his reign shall be no end.
But first, a long succession must ensue;
And his next son, for wealth and wisdom famed,
The clouded ark of God, till then in tents
Wandering, shall in a glorious temple enshrine.
Such follow him, as shall be registered
Part good, part bad; of bad the longer scroll;
Whose foul idolatries, and other faults
Heaped to the popular sum, will so incense
God, as to leave them, and expose their land,
Their city, his temple, and his holy ark,
With all his sacred things, a scorn and prey
To that proud city, whose high walls thou sawest
Left in confusion; Babylon thence called.
There in captivity he lets them dwell
The space of seventy years; then brings them back,
Remembering mercy, and his covenant sworn
To David, stablished as the days of Heaven.
Returned from Babylon by leave of kings
Their lords, whom God disposed, the house of God
They first re-edify; and for a while
In mean estate live moderate; till, grown
In wealth and multitude, factious they grow;
But first among the priests dissention springs,
Men who attend the altar, and should most
Endeavour peace: their strife pollution brings
Upon the temple itself: at last they seise
The scepter, and regard not David’s sons;
Then lose it to a stranger, that the true
Anointed King Messiah might be born
Barred of his right; yet at his birth a star,
Unseen before in Heaven, proclaims him come;
And guides the eastern sages, who inquire
His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold:
His place of birth a solemn Angel tells
To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night;
They gladly thither haste, and by a quire
Of squadroned Angels hear his carol sung.
A ****** is his mother, but his sire
The power of the Most High:  He shall ascend
The throne hereditary, and bound his reign
With Earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the Heavens.
He ceased, discerning Adam with such joy
Surcharged, as had like grief been dewed in tears,
Without the vent of words; which these he breathed.
O prophet of glad tidings, finisher
Of utmost hope! now clear I understand
What oft my steadiest thoughts have searched in vain;
Why o

For those among us who lived by the rules,
Lived frugal lives of *****-scratching desperation;
For those who sustained a zombie-like state for 30 or 40 years,
For these few, our lucky few—
We bequeath an interactive Life-Alert emergency dog tag,
Or better still a dog, a colossal pet beast,
A humongous Harlequin Dane to feed,
For that matter, why not buy a few new cars before you die?
Your home mortgage is, after all, dead and buried.
We gave you senior-citizen rates for water, gas & electricity—
“The Big 3,” as they are known in certain Gasoline Alley-retro
Neighborhoods among us,
Our parishes and boroughs.
All this and more, had you lived small,
Had you played by the rules for Smurfs & Serfs.

We leave you the chance to treat your grandkids
Like Santa’s A-List clientele,
“Good ‘ol Grampa,” they’ll recollect fondly,
“Sweet Grammy Strunzo, they will sigh.
What more could you want in retirement?

You’ve enabled another generation of deadbeat grandparents,
And now you’re next in line for the ice floe,
To be taken away while still alive,
Still hunched over and wheezing,
On a midnight sleigh ride,
Your son, pulling the proverbial Eskimo sled,
Down to some random Arctic shore,
Placing you gently on the ice floe.
Your son; your boy--
A true chip off the igloo, so to speak.
He leaves you on the ice floe,
Remembering not to leave the sled,
The proverbial Sled of Abbandono,
The one never left behind,
As it would be needed again,
Why not a home in storage while we wait?
The family will surely need it sometime down the line.

A dignified death?
Who can afford one these days?
The question answers itself:
You are John Goodman in “The Big Lebowski.”
You opt for an empty 2-lb can of Folgers.
You know: "The best part of waking up, is Folger's in your cup!"
That useless mnemonic taught us by “Mad Men.”
Slogans and theme songs imbibe us.

Zombie accouterments,
Provided by America’s Ruling Class.
Thank you Lewis H. Lapham for giving it to us straight.
Why not go with the aluminum Folgers can?
Rather than spend the $300.00 that mook funeral director
Tries to shame you into coughing up,
For the economy-class “Legacy Urn.”
An old seduction:  Madison Avenue’s Gift of Shame.
Does your **** smell?” asks a sultry voice,
Igniting a carpet bomb across the 20-45 female cohort,
2 billion pathetically insecure women,
Spending collectively $10 billion each year—
Still a lot of money, unless it’s a 2013
Variation on an early 1930s Germany theme;
The future we’ve created;
The future we deserve.

Now a wheelbarrow load of paper currency,
Scarcely buy a loaf of bread.
Even if you’re lucky enough to make it,
Back to your cave alive,
After shopping to survive.
Women spend $10 billion a year for worry-free *****.
I don’t read The Wall Street Journal either,
But I’m pretty **** sure,
That “The Feminine Hygiene Division”
Continues to hold a corner office, at
Fear of Shame Corporate Headquarters.
Eventually, FDS will go the way of the weekly ******.
Meanwhile, in God & vaginal deodorant we trust,
Something you buy just to make sure,
Just in case the *** Gods send you a gift.
Some 30-year old **** buddy,
Some linguistically gifted man or woman,
Some he or she who actually enjoys eating your junk:
“Oh Woman, thy name is frailty.”
“Oh Man, thou art a Woman.”
“Oh Art is for Carney in “Harry & Tonto,”
Popping the question: “Dignity in Old Age?”
Will it too, go the way of the weekly ******?
It is pointless to speculate.
Mouthwash--Roll-on antiperspirants--Depends.
Things our primitive ancestors did without,
Playing it safe on the dry savannah,
Where the last 3 drops evaporate in an instant,
Rather than go down your pants,
No matter how much you wiggle & dance.
Think about it!

Think cemeteries, my Geezer friends.
Of course, your first thought is
How nice it would be, laid to rest
In the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Born a ******. Died a ******. Laid in the grave?
Or Père Lachaise,
Within a stone’s throw of Jim Morrison--
Lying impudently,
Embraced, held close by loving soil,
Caressed, held close by a Jack Daniels-laced mud pie.
Or, with Ulysses S. Grant, giving new life to the quandary:
Who else is buried in the freaking tomb?
Bury my heart with Abraham in Springfield.
Enshrine my body in the Taj Mahal,
Build for me a pyramid, says Busta Cheops.

Something simple, perhaps, like yourself.
Or, like our old partner in crime:
Lee Harvey, in death, achieving the soul of brevity,
Like Cher and Madonna a one-name celebrity,
A simple yet obscure grave stone carving:  OSWALD.
Perhaps a burial at sea? All the old salts like to go there.
Your corpse wrapped in white duct/duck tape,
Still frozen after months of West Pac naval maneuvers,
The CO complying with the Department of the Navy Operations Manual,
Offering this service on « An operations-permitting basis, »
About as much latitude given any would-be Ahab,
Shortlisted for Command-at-sea.
So your body is literally frozen stiff,
Frozen solid for six months packed,
Spooned between 50-lb sacks of green beans & carrots.
Deep down in the deep freeze,
Within the Deep Freeze :
The ship’s storekeeper has a cryogenic *******
Deep down in his private sanctuary,
Privacy in the bowels of the ship.
While up on deck you slide smoothly down the pine plank,
Old Glory billowing in the sea breeze,
Emptying you out into the great abyss of
Some random forlorn ocean.

Perhaps you are a ******* lunatic?
Maybe you likee—Shut the **** up, Queequeg !
Perhaps you want a variation on the burial-at-sea option ?
Here’s mine, as presently set down in print,
Lawyer-prepared, notarized and filed at the Court of the Grand Vizier,
Copies of same in safe deposit boxes,
One of many benefits Chase offers free to disabled Vets,
Demonstrating, again, my zombie-like allegiance to the rules.
But I digress.
« The true measure of one’s life »
Said most often by those we leave behind,
Is the wealth—if any—we leave behind.
The fact that we cling to bank accounts,
Bank safe deposit boxes,
Legal aide & real estate,
Insurance, and/or cash . . .
Just emphasizes the foregone conclusion,
For those who followed the rules.
Those of us living frugally,
Sustaining the zombie trance all these years.
You can jazz it up—go ahead, call it your « Work Ethic. »
But you might want to hesitate before you celebrate
Your unimpeachable character & patriotism.

What is the root of Max Weber’s WORK ETHIC concept?
‘Tis one’s grossly misplaced, misguided, & misspent neurosis.
Unmasked, shown vulnerably pink & naked, at last.
Truth is: The harder we work, the more we lay bare
The Third World Hunger in our souls.
But again, I digress.  Variation on a Theme :
At death my body is quick-frozen.
Then dismembered, then ground down
To the consistency of water-injected hamburger,
Meat further frozen and Fedex-ed to San Diego,
Home of our beloved Pacific Fleet.
Stowed in a floating Deep Freeze where glazed storekeepers
Sate the lecherous Commissary Officer,
Aboard some soon-to-be underway—
Underway: The Only Way
Echo the Old Salts, a moribund Greek Chorus
Goofing still on the burial-at-sea concept.

Underway to that sacred specific spot,
Let's call it The Golden Shellback,
Where the Equator intersects,
Crosses perpendicular,
The International Dateline,
Where my defrosted corpse nuggets,
Are now sprinkled over the sea,
While Ray Charles sings his snarky
Child Support & Alimony
His voice blasting out the 1MC,
She’s eating steak.  I’m eating baloney.
Ray is the voice of disgruntlement,
Palpable and snide in the trade winds,
Perhaps the lost chord everyone has been looking for:
Laughing till we cry at ourselves,
Our small corpse kernels, chum for sharks.

In a nutshell—being the crazy *******’ve come to love-
Chop me up and feed me to the Orcas,
Just do it ! NIKE!
That’s right, a $commercial right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Do it where the Equator crosses the Dateline :
A sailors’ sacred vortex: isn’t it ?
Wouldn’t you say, Shipmates, one and all?
I’m talking Conrad’s Marlow, here, man!
Call me Ishmael or Queequeg.
Thor Heyerdahl or Tristan Jones,
Bogart’s Queeq & Ensign Pulver,
Wayward sailors, one and all.
And me, of course, aboard the one ride I could not miss,
Even if it means my Amusement Park pass expires.
Ceremony at sea ?
Absolutely vital, I suppose,
Given the monotony and routine,
Of the ship’s relentlessly vacant seascape.
« There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea,
And I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. «
So said James Russell Lowell,
One of the so-called Fireside Poets,
With Longfellow and Bryant,
Whittier, the Quaker and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,
19th Century American hipsters, one and all.

Then there’s CREMATION,
A low-cost option unavailable to practicing Jews.
« Ashes to ashes »  remains its simplest definition.
LOW-COST remains its operant phrase & universal appeal.
No Deed to a 2by6by6 foot plot of real estate,
Paid for in advance for perpetuity—
Although I suggest reading the fine print—
Our grass--once maintained by Japanese gardeners--
Now a lost art in Southern California,
Now that little Tokyo's finest no longer
Cut, edge & manicure, transform our lawns
Into a Bonsai ornamental wonderland.
Today illegal/legal Mexicans employing
More of a subtropical slash & burn technique.

Cremation : no chunk of marble,
No sandstone, wood or cardboard marker,
Plus the cost of engraving and site installation.
Quoth the children: "****, you’re talking $30K to
Put the old ****** in the ground? Cheap **** never
Gave me $30K for college, let alone a house down payment.
What’s my low-cost, legitimate disposal going to run me?"

CREMATION : they burn your corpse in Auschwitz ovens.
You are reduced to a few pounds of cigar ash.
Now the funeral industry catches you with your **** out.
You must (1) pay to have your ashes stored,
Or (2) take them away in a gilded crate that,
Again, you must pay for.
So you slide into Walter Sobjak,
The Dude’s principal amigo,
And bowling partner in the
Brothers Coen masterpiece: The Big Lebowski.
You head to the nearest Safeway for a 2-lb can of Folgers.
And while we’re on the subject of cremation & the Jews,
Think for a moment on the horror of The Holocaust:
Dispossessed & utterly destroyed, one last indignity:
Corpses disposed of by cremation,
For Jews, an utterly unacceptable burial rite.
Now before we leave Mr. Sobjak,
Who is, as you know, a deeply disturbed Vietnam vet,
Who settles bowling alley protocol disputations,
By brandishing, by threatening the weak-minded,
With a loaded piece, the same piece John Turturro—
Stealing the movie as usual, this time as Jesus Quintana—
Bragging how he will stick it up Walter’s culo,
Pulling the trigger until it goes: Click-Click-Click!
Terrestrial burial or cremation?
For me:  Burial at Sea:
Slice me, dice me into shark food.

Or maybe something a la Werner von Braun:
Your dead meat shot out into space;
A personal space probe & voyager,
A trajectory of one’s own choosing?

Oh hell, why not skip right down to the nitty gritty bottom line?
Current technology: to wit, your entire life record,
Your body and history digitized & downloaded
To a Zip Drive the size of the average *******,
A data disc then Fedex-ed anywhere in the galaxy,
Including exotic burial alternatives,
Like some Martian Kilimanjaro,
Where the tiger stalks above the clouds,
Nary a one with a freaking clue that can explain
Just what the cat was doing up so high in the first place.
Or, better still, inside a Sherpa’s ***** pack,
A pocket imbued with the same Yak dung,
Tenzing Norgay massages daily into his *******,
Defending the Free World against Communism & crotch rot.
(Forgive me: I am a child of the Cold War.)
Why not? Your life & death moments
Zapped into a Zip Drive, bytes and bits,
Submicroscopic and sublime.
So easy to delete, should your genetic subgroup
Be targeted for elimination.
About now you begin to realize that
A two-pound aluminum Folgers can
Is not such a bad idea.
No matter; the future is unpersons,
The Ministry of Information will in charge.
The People of Fort Meade--those wacky surveillance folks--
Cloistered in the rolling hills of Anne Arundel County.
That’s who will be calling the shots,
Picking the spots from now on.
Welcome to Cyber Command.
Say hello to Big Brother.
Say “GOOD-BYE PRIVACY.”

Meanwhile, you’re spending most of your time
Fretting ‘bout your last rites--if any—
Burial plots on land and sea, & other options,
Such as whether or not to go with the
Concrete outer casket,
Whether or not you prefer a Joe Cocker,
Leon Russell or Ray Charles 3-D hologram
Singing at your memorial service.
While I am fish food for the Golden Shellbacks,
I am a fine young son of Neptune,
We are Old Salts, one and all,
Buried or burned or shot into space odysseys,
Or digitized on a data disc the size of
An average human *******.
Snap outta it, Einstein!
Like everyone else,
You’ve been fooled again.

they never tell you about the seagulls and the pigeons, do they?
sure sure, they have the bees and the birds covered,
your #mama and your #papa - you overheard them doing the
piston orchestra and said: the sort of onomatopoeia that
sounds just like you, that silences the sort of: just like you.
but why not listen with covert  benignant anticipation -
i did think English was a rotten
tongue, but i think French is worse...
                                                        ­  endear you? sure:
                 they put these additions
to the encoding, but never, ever explain how it works...
if dialectical is gone then diacritical
remains...
                                          ­                               and it's there,
a pink ostrich doing the go-g'ah dance
imbecile pigeon: neck a strut and half
by half nearly hanging off a desecrated body that's in limbo
on the scaffold where Charles I met his first cousin ******
thanks to Ollie Cromwell.... none of the Versailles
i have you know....
                            there should be a Greek
                   Kn                  symbol....
             not K as in potassium... something more.
and i'd never hear ****** jesus' i'm
the mountain                            on the radio,
thank you advertisement.
               but that thing about Jihadist French?
well... it's here,
                               i thought the English
were bad with not using diacritical marks,
second in command? diacritics,
first in command? dialectics?
abandon the first, the second is hyenas' razor
sharp: bite and smile at the same time.
           no, i'm not joking...
i'm choking you.
                             this is what the Jihadist in France
saw...
                            main example? how diacritical marks
**** around the syllable laws...
             bypass them straight... past them...
             main example? they never teach this...
i was never taught this, i was taught this in
an anti-alphabet ruling - it's not atomic
(but it really is), hence it's compounded -
but it's really atomic,
               where are the ancient atomic scientists now?
nowhere.
                         all of this came from
a footnote from maldoror, by isidore ducasse -
i too thought about putting Uruguay on the map -
                    in the notes, the use of "accent",
yes, a revelation from on high -
                      look at the French, how they speak it:
aplatissement
                             apply diacritic revision
and cut off the excess: aplatissemą -
                             (humiliation) -
          if only the French, then only the French know
how to create dyslexia... excess spelling
where distinct phonetic units should exist -
they never teach you how diacritical marks change
the syllable cutting up, the butcher's or forensic's inquiry -
                 they never teach you the use of diacritical
marks like they might teach you punctuation markings -
                  they never do the science of liberated pause -
liberated i.e. understood -
                                    you're just given the fudge
and told... CHEW! CHEW! CHEW!
                                    they never tell you how to
cut-up words as they should be cut up..
                                   never did they say
colon = umlaut over u and means prolonged
   i.e. uu          or omega
                                        because never was the
current aesthetic questioned...
                             Dictator Blue, adherent of
the dictionary bible said: already said, rex, rex, ego rex.
                    but there's this thing going on
from above - on high -
                           and all they want is to understand...
                  even i would hate to be left out...
still from the notes from the book maldoror -
                s'arrêter à             (to dwell on /
                                     stress) -
ê (circumflex) is like the grave approach -
                 the circumflex is binding -
            i.e. the -er is optional, but a necessary
aesthetic for the form to be written, but not said -
meaning the sound units disappear -
                  hands on the joints, a book is closed -
ê represents this: s'arrêt
                                                         ­  (-er) -
                   saret -
                                            ugly, isn't it?
well, if you wrote             saret
                rather than      s'arrêter               you wouldn't
be looking at the Louvre -                again, even without
diacritical marks you don't say     Louvré -
                                          but Loùvre -
               so the ê
                                     binds the r and t
   and makes                  the   -er obsolete -
which is why French is worse than English:
it utilises diacritical marks
                                       for odd syllable intakes
and other surgeon oddities -
    to learn the proper use of diacritics (using French
as a canvas) is to learn syllables again, and again...
all over again... one might say:
at least the English do not use diacritical markings
and subconsciously are so thoroughly
accommodating to alien cultures...
                       and that's justifiable, they are the fathers
of globalisation... they use phonetic encoding
without diacritical markings to enshrine
a Bangladeshi English, as much as a German English...
   they are the propagators of accents -
even the Scots are speaking proudly about the
matter of fact...
                            so indeed, diacritical marks
are not only concerns for aesthetic reasons,
but is pronunciation markings within words,
                          not between words:
intra                     v.                inter                  (wording);
they never teach you how to extend a sentence
with a semi-colon (;), because they only managed
to tell you that means wink: ;) -
                          in the same way that they didn't tell
you that a colon is (a) making a list, but also
       (b) an emphasis - the alternative to italics.
they didn't! i know they didn't because they didn't
teach me this!             i had to learn it myself!
              which is why i find diacritics so fascinating
that dialectics and its abandonment can rot in hell...
at least i don't have to deal with nuanced opinions
or the discussion or the non-discussion of
                 opinions...
                                       i can look at something
and see the blatant pronunciation dynamics at work...
            not between words, but inside words...
French is the best to investigate...
                        maybe that's why the Jihadists are
attacking France, from sheer frustration at not being
given access to the cordiality of speech when
settling into their envisioned Caliphate misnomer -
                    but diacritical marks are precisely that:
and when amateurs teach they never bother explaining
the atoms, they just say: turkey! gobble up that frying pan!
and you do! you are never given the most basic units,
you're never told what the time-span between a
full dot (.) and a semi-colon (;) is...
                                        ****: you can run a mile or
100 metres in under 10 seconds, but when it comes
to an aesthetic pause you're told to start
the hyperventilation sequence or blame it on asthma
rather than
                                 what's actually the archaeology of
rhetoric - these are rhetorical symbols...
                                   and that's the foremost question
that needs a debate: how to make rhetorical puncture
symbols into aesthetic symbols -
                   how to steal from rhetoric and do a Robin
Hood for aesthetic? primarily because there are
punctuation signs above letters, or below letters -
                   < (more than)
                                 > (less than)
      and the circumflex and caron -
                                         tilde
  or approx. 5                              i.e. ~5...
            and the millionth additive to make decimals
shake...
                                you never get told this...
if i was told the basics of diacritical markings enabling
a smoother syllable dissection i'd probably speak German
fluently...
                       when i should have been given crumb-like
understanding of a language, i was given a whole
loaf of bread, for ***** sake; that ain't cool -
          teach me language from the basics,
on the promise of teaching me a language like i might
be taught penguin talk: on the promise of
an onomatopoeia deciphering: it sounds like this...
                   : + u = oo             onomatopoeia e.g.:
                       pool                    /                  pull -
yes, the quiet literal representation -
  but English can be ***** by this appropriation -
not utilising diacritical marks makes certain words
sound alike but be spelled differently,
            via the same methodology extending into
certain letters being pronounced as entire words;
e.g.                   why                                  &             y.
reason? missing diacritical marks.
             oh, and the most blatant form of Judaism
  given              y               h                    w               h
                   without Abraham, without Moses,
without circumcision         without Jesus...
                                                               choice is yours.

Awake me through unwritten
music of mine,
If possible, sing me a song
that would be perfect
and divine,
Perhaps, that is the way
the heart could refine,
But, no one knows the
state of solitude,
which would enshrine.

I don't want to be perfect
What an incorrect prospect
I like my defect
At least I'm not an object

My eyes do not resemble suns
My words are more like guns
Aimed at your sons
I've only just begun

My hair is not soft and fine
You simply cannot define
Or enshrine
Standby and do not whine

My thoughts are not innocent and pure
Nothing is secure
But I am certainly not your saviour
My behaviour brings danger
I am not your entertainer

My hands are not are not flowers
I have different powers
Which devours and towers
Over your mouth as he cowers

Nature is not just beautiful
And neither am I
How dare you belittle it with unsuitable lies
Save your goodbyes
I am not your demise, that would be unwise
Do you not realise I have a disguise?

I am not  perfect
Yet you could never recreate and resurrect my imperfections
Save your affections
I need to find my own directions, away from your infectious reflections

I see no other endless tomorrow than

To lie face to face with you

On a bed of lavenders and violets.

The cool sun magnifies

The verdant fields in your eyes

And the radiant shadows of my hair.

Morning breeze enshrouds our bodies

Sustained by flames more eternal than Vesta’s.

Here forever after

In my ideal world.



If I felt hunger it shall not last long,

For there are nectars from the giant continent that is you.

If you knew thirst it shall be quenched,

Just drink from my hidden wells and fountains.

But remember that I’m not like the ancient Eve

And you can only be the Adam in our own accord.

The butterflies or birds won’t shame me.

The grasses or trees won’t complain.

For loving you is the only truth

In my ideal world.



My hands are here to heal and amuse you,

As long as your arms embrace me from harm.

We own only the lips and ears

Where sweet sounds pass by

To lull as to dream or memorize

We’ll not know starless night of horror,

The way the moon becomes our constant watcher.

We’ll fear no lightning or thunder of wrath

For the rain will be our noble preserver.

Come and stay

In my ideal world.



We don’t have to worry about Sunday

Or think of God to pray.

Nature is our divine link to the cosmos,

And us the perpetual worship fleshed out.

Celestial or earthly we need not know

For this is the spot where boundaries depart.
But all these remain as bright colors in my head

Unless you key in yourself in my mind

And enshrine me to your heart.

Our story can be written by our breath

On petals and foliage of existence to this place.

Somewhere we can call ours,

Come and take

My ideal world.

I kneel
kneecaps cracking, head bowed
under the heavy breath of your adoration
eyes ground into the dust each footstep rises

I am dirt-blind
but the crows can see, my ears bleed
how they cry and scream, weep and admire -
they enshrine him; I, unwilling, immortalise.

I keep
my eyesight clouded, looking down
the soil is my church, inadequacy
a mired crown.

Ethnic Raging in my face
Everywhere I care to look
Coptic Christians, brown and white
Scream intolerance, forsook.
Jew and anti Jew defile
All good laws of rationale,
In raw voraciousness of hate,
In howling shred of faith’s morale.
Blessed are the just for they
Enshrine their plaque of rich noblesque,
Blessed are the weak of will
Who deeply sip  from traitor’s breast.
And blessed are the strong who hold
At bay the laws of God’s restraint,
In tandem with the rich who cower,
White, behind their armoured gate.

Ethnic raging everywhere
I watch it through the children’s eyes,
Led to purge the coloured flesh,
To flay a difference ‘till it dies.


Marshalg
Recoiling from it all.
Auckland NZ
11 October 2011

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
I’m so sorry for this;
I’ve done you wrong so many a time,
Finally babe, it's my victimless crime.

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
Need to apologize,
Realize I’m mad and bound for decay,
Need to tell you; the fleeting light of the day.

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
I’ve lied, through these, my guilt,
Kneel here repenting, hugging your hips.
Start to break down, what was sobriety dips.

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
I’ve done it all again;
You’re already aware of my past,
Your fears they will continued, here I relapse.

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
I’m back to it, the past.
These scars and old wounds fester again;
I’m back in the dirt, like a dog in his chains.

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
You’re forced to know this now;
I fought, and I fight, it’s gotten bad.
I broke, then killed a man, giving all I had.

Oh Darling, Oh Darling,
There was that look again!
You my rock, my only salvation;
Gone, apartment empty, at the bus station...

Oh Darling, you’re no longer mine!
I cry into a mirror, cursing my name;
Sorrow turns to anger, these fists to blame.
A crash, broken mirror, a home inflamed...

Oh Darling gone, Oh Darling gone,
I can only apologize with my life,
A true sacrifice to never enshrine...

epitomize
and optimize
imitate
and recalibrate
streamline
and recombine
the evolutionary "line"

fireflies  
and theorize
circulate
and gyrate
guideline
and divine
the galaxy and the stars

moonrise
and clockwise
death rate
and procreate
sunshine
and lifeline
laws of nature are defined

maximize
and re-size
penetrate
and migrate
bloodline
and decline
the story of our world

allies
and despise
prostate
and dictate
enshrine
and benign
generations throughout time

endings
and beginnings
losing
and winnings
and everything
in between
is what we find

An acolyte of White Chapel, I walk the streets at night,

I strut the dark to feed my lust, my mildly selfish plight.

Don’t mistake me for insane, my demonic thoughts are clear,

Come to me my little *****, I show you why I’m revered.

-

I walk behind, step by step,

As I stalk my little coquette

she leaves the brothel, all dressed up,

Awaiting young gentleman to sup,

I’ve chosen this one for my knife,

It calmly grins to end her life.

-

Her caller leaves with no tip to spare,

Her saddened face hidden by her hair,

I follow her back until an alley,

The hatred then shall take my lead.

-

Twenty feet there from the door,

I felt her heart drop to the floor,

As I choked the breath out of her lungs,

I saw the sadness from being so close to home.

-

Upon my shoulder, I take her back

To the venue of my attack

I sneak through the darkest paths,

Until my home, we reach at last.

-

And at this part in my confession

I warn of the graphic, due to depression.

-

Upon my medical table she lay,

My scalpel awaits the ****** flay,

A little anesthetic, here and there,

Keeps her awake but still and fair.

-

She cannot scream but her eyes do widen

Though to be fair, my form does frighten,

When I lay my other instruments out,

Of leaving alive, I see her doubt.

-

“To business then my dear, my dear.”

Out of one eye, I spy a tear.

-

Because of paralysis I need no restraints,

She remains still, her heart remains faint,

I start with the kneecaps, just in case,

She breaks free of the spell, so I needn’t chase.

-

I place them upon my “excess” table

And then her legs I begin to cradle,

I take then every one of her toes,

And place them in a neat little row.

-

I take my time stemming the blood,

So death doesn’t come misunderstood,

Also that she may not pass out,

She remains conscious and without clout.

-

“My Sweet,

I cherish the sorrow I see in you eyes,

I enshrine the abhorrence of love I’ve revised,

acrimonious am I, animosity guides me,

I’ll **** everything you’ve ever believed.”

-

I move up onto her thighs,

Upon the blade, the sanguine does shine,

I split each side to sew again,

Except the muscle taken from within.

-

I stitch her fingers there together,

I rip out the nails to put on a tether,

Her arms have no concern to me,

Lest I graze an artery.

-

And  my favourite, the chest cavity,

I’ll make it a shrine to my depravity

Now is the point where time is a factor,

As I do this, she will die faster.

-

I hammer away with the sternum-splitter,

It cracks and cracks, her heart does flutter,

I eagle the ribcage as she stares in horror,

The sound of my laughter begins to adore her.

-

Her organs gaze up at me in fright,

I begin extracting in delight,

She looks up, looks for her God,

But he is absent, he is a fraud.

-

I witness the beating grow faster,

She is in shock, this could be disaster,

A little more solution for the pain,

But just enough so that she remains.

-

I slowly take a needle and puncture the left lung

Her other grows violent when its marriage is undone,

I extract her spleen and then,

Her heart does pump, her blood thickens.

-

Involuntary muscles in her lips tighten,

I barely catch it with her lips stitched in,

Her eyes, how they wonder everywhere,

Searching for some thing somewhere.

-

I see in them, she questions me,

‘Why have you forsaken me?’

Darling, I think that is not the question

I did this of my own suggestion,

-

You may ask why I left her womanhood alone,

Her ******* and ***** no violence shown,

To that, I answer you now and simply,

Frivolous things such as *** do not concern me.

-

You may ask why and where she may be found,

But you won’t find her, though don’t let that cloud

Your idea of me or what lies inside,

Don’t worry however, I allowed her to die,

After I had taken her precious heart,

She likely could’ve lived half a minute to start,

But at about second “fifteen”,

I cut her throat ever so gently,

She gurgled so quietly, ever somber,

I’m sure she would’ve thanked me regardless,

But in the end I don’t feel I’ve robbed a father,

After all, what father has a ***** of a daughter?

-

You will never catch me, I have no motive,

Other than sport, and a mind supported,

With thoughts of these wretched street walkers,

May they all be mindful they’ve gained a stalker,

Perhaps one day you may of me learn,

A clean city and plain interest, is all I yearn.

he should be called Jesus Lucifer
rather than Jesus Christ,
i mean, the illumination is unreal -
there are so many faults,
and redemption does come,
you're given a name by your parents,
then you're given a church name
at your baptism, then you're entrusted
with making a choice:
given your first and second name,
and your surname: 3 down, 1 to go...
and if the new testament wasn't
a revelation as a profanity of
the tetragrammaton, then the
Christian bureaucracy added to that
does prove to be a concern of abuse,
they said Idle        Joe Samuel Philip Esquire
was the same as      Y       H         W        H -
i'm only stressing these four letters,
because, when i approach them, they respond,
with that joke i'll hear coming from science:
the roving stars will be hailed as comets!
well, revisions of comets, Dobermans
(enlarged Dachshund, which in Polish
is read jamnik, curiously not Deutschehund): tails cut off.
honestly, in him our sole salvation,
i've seen so much **** in this world
i'd gladly do a Homer and earn blindness...
but the profanity of the tetragrammaton
goes beyond the four gospels,
it's enshrined in the first name,
the middle name, the confirmation name,
and the surname -
that's a desecration if i've ever seen one,
i didn't imagine it would be this
crucial as to follow falling brick
with falling brick when it came to spelling
out something a carrier pigeon would have
carried: so, honestly?
i think the a - z was born from a priori
sustenance was not enough, nothing makes it clear
why we would enshrine Chinese whispers
for empirical reasons, when they were from -
well, optically we invited transcendence
of our eyes, we basically put our eyes into our
mouths and asked our tongues to
raise a choirous rebellion against the ears.
               - now she wishes to be the gladly budding
flower... now she wishes she was more
home approving than: a house built on sand...
i've seen feminism turn into a sordid affair,
associating itself with many cares of bachelors
in the field of study...
this ain't picking broccoli mind you,
this isn't peeling onions,
ever wonder why you keep hearing a train
or the gallop of horses in the night?
i love that game children have: hide & seek,
which later translates into negation & denial of adults...
because that's how i will exactly deal with you people...
candy floss choo choo... you're
not in the invested in percentage...
but he clearly is, Jesus Lucifer,
he's so ******* illuminating you get bargain sales
in the calculator department... as describing him shows,
given the Church and first and second and
confirmation name and surname... a profanity
of the tetragrammaton, more harm done in that than
desecrating Roman temples in Syria...
you basically broke the bank
and said: Swiss investments following this
are budding with hefty approvals -
but it really doesn't matter... i'm used to jokes,
i can walk into a supermarket,
by my usual litre of whiskey and a beer,
and hear the cashier talk with another customer and joke
and laugh... i don't mind, i like entertainment,
they speak of the sacred chalice...
well, they joke about a sacred chalice...
in my mind i just have an imprint of Christopher Columbus;
his contemporaries aren't exactly laughing now...
they're tourists... camping out 1 mile outside of Las Vegas;
so yeah, ha ha, he he.

No words can share the chaotic precision
Of waves sweeping a sandy shore

Clean of its filth, expired life, footprints
Leaving the ground beneath supple and bare

Find me the words to describe
The confidence of a feisty crest

As it approaches the shore so swiftly
To pound without relent

How the pinnacles raise
A turbulent impasse

Until another frothy height
Follows its thin soapy tier

And stacks its might like ***** keys
Carrying them both to shore

Tell me the poem that captures
The layers and ripples dashing

As countless and intermingled
As the buttery layers of a croissant

I wish I could find the words to hold
This image deep within me

To remember the blur of green and blue
When I am far from their ruling roars

I would enshrine their vivacity
With a razor in my heart

If I could keep their beauty
A keepsake of nature’s art

When the outside world is yelling
I wish I could recall

At will the rumble of undertow
The thunder of admonished land

The crashing sounds that kidnap you
Forcing reality far behind

For no mortal trouble is so large
To ground you by the sea

The only thing to consume a wave
Is the crest rising in its wake

you see it...
the Cartesian pH scale...

i think
             the acidic               concerning
       evil thoughts

and

i am
         the alkaline                 concerning
evil action...
                          sketching mezzo in Spain...

but still so much resides in people
expressing da- -denken,
no fallacy with that,
to express thinking you're there
is no fallacy, there's no wrong with that,
being there is a fake,
Heidegger spoke of plagiarism,
rightly he's a magician, a quick hand,
a droplet of Mercury -

sometimes music overpowers,
there's no music, only meaning, after all,
aren't we to decipher our encoding?

philosophy has no access to music,
it can't enter the realm of syllables, or alphabetical
units, its limit is reasoning and meaning,
it cannot perform autopsy on words,
for philosophy words are cursors, vectors,
it cannot dissect words toward syllables
and units of sound, it relies on compounds
ending with a -logy-, pristine ~arithmetic ...

the therefore sequencing
akin to 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 can be discarded,
acceptable the Newtonian causality
and the mishmash loss of vector, of Einstein's paralleling
for the parabola, or vacuum dipping...

we are concerned with therefore acting as
a multi-facet mathematical function,
with two algebraic modes of expression -
as much bewilderment entombs Newton's theories
as much bewilderment entombs a serial killer's actions...
acidic or alkali are expressions of pigmentation
or activity, yet when encompassed within
pH scaling, non-differential...

in that so many concerns enter the verb thought
(verb - activity of expressing it) that thought per se
excludes nouns to revel in pristine form...
what basis is there for nouns if not automation
rubrics that are settled for a rekindled encounter?
if thinking is an activity, it turns the animate thing
into an inanimate thing, a philosopher's stone
away from peculiar assortment -
and when god seized walking freely,
he turned into a stone, apathetically accepting
monotheistic prayers - once an animate thing,
chained into inanimate enthroning.

what is the prime category of words utilised
in thinking, should no narrative schematic be utilised?
we all know the cognitive schematic narrative,
in fear of linguistic bombardment
that provides puzzles from syllables and
eyed-encoding shapes such as mm or dentistry's
A having cut out the tongue.

but the Cartesian balance - being does not
prove thinking, and thinking does not prove being -
better that unsolved than perpetually
exhausting the argument of being via beings sacrificed
to enshrine a memory - lesser concern
for the thought that spurned others to think
a similar complication, via allowance of the leisurely
timing worth consuming -
with the former a gas chamber, with the latter
a library - there is still a scaling,
not necessarily attributing acidity or alkaline superstition...
_______________­____________________­________
                                     ­  Δ
on topic of pivots and Archimedes.

What have I planted today
but the seeds of words in my mind's garden?
would they germinate and grow
would they beautify?  and gladden

the heart in verse and song? I'll not fail you
  my love,  as it was you who gave me
the seeds with your white tender hands
which I kissed--your love I'll enshrine forever in my poetry.

Plastic artifact reminds me of her. Flesh and blood, she melts her own icon.
My Goddess, I worship our craft, married in the Nth dimension.
Our candles illuminate each hemisphere, synced red & blue, purple state.
Pulp of war profits in arms, fisticuffs gerrymandered and rigged against us.
We remember asunder, yet constellate in ways we cannot disconnect.
Put us back together, again forever, to care for the always already poor.
Rich boats raise all waters. Overboard, she fends for herself against all odds.
Statuesque pin-up, femme ichthyologist of garb, gaggle *** sushi swim mate.
Corners enshrine our meditation department network, transcendent yet in touch.
Taste felt on tongue brings us closer together to see and hear what’s happening now.
Hearts over matter, heads roll, eyes forward; brains make the most of a sticky situation.
Sounds blend synethesiastically, our opposite angels harmonize to build twin passages.
Wend our raft downriver, stroke unbound tandem wrists and ankles from spawn upstream.
Our cocoon igloo ensconces like alien cavewomen thaw out their men, then mate on the spot.
Through the delta, Venus beckons, her molten artifice pools our hull. To be baled out by Lucifer?

Lincoln’s House


This notable landmark stands now silent and reserved. From its shelter one would be called forth to fulfill

a unique destiny in American history. He would have to be course and strong as the logs that formed his frontier home. The nation was on a collision course, there were the greater differences than one being

industrialized and the other still in an agrit economy. The difference could only be resolved after the scale was balanced with the lives of six hundred thousand men and the ****** of the nation’s greatest

protector since Washington and Jefferson.
Into this chaos an individual of peace would step fourth to make war on the other half of the nation it

would test his last measure of his convictions. In the person of one individual the whole country and its
fundamental beliefs would be tried once and for all the dross would be skimmed off and the purest part

of the national soul would remain.
Before the sunlight of freedom would again be allowed to burst forth into its former glory, a train draped

in black would make its way west caring its precious cargo his job was finished it would be left to a
distant home coming to give him the thanks of a grateful nation. We would enshrine him as a national

hero; for ever more we will pay him homage as the great emancipator and lover of the constitution and
the principles it avows.

His words over shadow us still freedom needed a renewed language he spilled the contents of his mind
and it formed the truest representation in the annals of human thought on the subject of freedom. He

was at home in each circumstance that he faced, he spoke with elegance his words found the center of his subjects there was no need for further discussion.

Subjected to poverty in youth but he grew rich in adult thinking and living and one who wept at the death of his son’s pony now was caused to preside over the death of many boys and men for a cause that was
greater

Than them all through dark war clouds a pristine sun shine would emerge across the breadth of the land
and in its rays a new lease on freedom would continue so great an experiment that was first forged in

Valley Forge
York Town and other places that small roots took tenuous hold to enable a colony to throw off the power

of a Monarch through the hard and seemingly impossible circumstance a common tongue would become the greatest voice for freedom the world would ever know


He pulled off these feats while at the same time he was a husband and father. He lovingly doted on his sons and never paid attention to their childish mischief. Was a loving husband to a wife that needed

a kind gentle hand. Through it all he was a successful lawyer.
He lived in an era different than our own but people are the same from generation to generation. The

lights were coal oil and they made your eyes burn no nostalgia or romantic thoughts leaped to your mind
Remembering these instruments of by gone days their home was fashionably decorated with silver and green wall paper fine furniture throughout the house. A favorite place had to be the back porch that was

sizeable enough to walk up and down on where you could gather your thoughts or just sit and muse about the problems of the day.

He kept his divine appointment fulfilled his duty to the fullest degree. When war and trouble raises its head we always find comfort in the familiar sad face of Abraham Lincoln he is our enduring treasure born out of the turbulence that consumed our nation for a tragic period. We shall always be grateful

Sisters can be difficult creatures,
The towels left transforms me into a preacher.
They combine and plead that it wasn't either- of them,
Defending that they are benign and not leavers.
But I do not accept their lines, I rebut them and decline
What they are feeding me and a desire to confine them- overwhelms.
But instead of convulsing into a seizure or giving in to something malign and of a devious nature,
My words become fiercer as I deliver my "bottom-line"
To those rascally creatures that I wish to refine.
Yet I can hear features of mine, in their voices, before I was their keeper and only nine,
And it made me realize that I, too, once was a creature and not fully defined.
Calming down I enshrine myself and become a wistful dreamer.
To have things I've made stay made would be sublime, and so much cleaner.
And so- in my confines dreaming of refined sisterly creatures, I recline.
Alas, being a teacher makes me want to lie supine.

Affinity for the sharks attraction to the squeeze
Apotropaic lyrics cure an ineluctable terminal disease
Traversed time repent and rhyme
For every dollar exists a crime for every penny lost cured with wine
I serenade the world with lore threadbare and cloying but earnestly transcendent
Linger longer in evanescence so I can see the rainbow’s intent
Confederate putsch subverted by transnational push and supreme wonder
Tactless assault on the unadulterated truth a sheepish blunder
Ennobled and regal they gentrify the legal
A European tyrant fishes the sky to capture the preeminent eagle
Kings of the jungle turning us gradately into desert
Desiccated promises elicit the thirst but **** myself they can be so curt
One eye to see them all
One conqueror beyond the confines of linearity hogs the ball
Shoot the three when two will do
Missing every time when the sky is completely blue
Shrouded in the clouds are souls wafting to the sky
Concealed in the Dow a dry rain turns the dust extra wry
Moments clash with movements and chaos erects a monolithic lie
Sold in every shop consumed by every cop it keeps us landlocked on the verge of flight
Rescue the contempt needed to override the wrong and enshrine the right
Abdicate the war, annex the score and appear to soar
Words cannot corral the present anymore than the future can ignore
The past becoming present presents us throttled to the wire
Cartels own the news but the periphery is harder to conspire
We scour the earth looking for rebirth
We tower over the worthy with a catchy mirth
To all law belongs the defeat of malcontent with a begrudging consent
To any miser nothing is more miserable than avaricious but impotent intent
Invisible prison with visible prisoners beset by bars established by BAR exams that we fail to apprehend
Zero sum collapse contingent on the motives of the tyrants that cannot break or bend
So stand to grow the earth with elapsing sand and synchronize the beating of the drum with the actions of the best possible invisible hand
Choice monopolized by a garbled voice trying his best to be the lead singer of the smartest brand
Wary of the scary and contemplative before the boast
We align with design streamlined in serpentine time and on that sinuous path we coast
So we find time for a dream that proves God is a dreamer
Only to find out that all the teams play for the teamsters
Bribe yourself and renege your own wage
Depriving yourself of the ink needed to fill the page
But many words are impotent
When few will do
All you truly need in this world is an emboldened you and a chosen few

contained within
it glistens and is illuminated
radiates from my teeth to my ocular orbs
not the sun
not the one that makes the ivy creep
or the blossom open and become fragrant
but its mistress
the sphere of the night
pounds light from beneath the chest cavity
but this derivative
compels all those like us
in the dark
to hold hands

this is the moon
my insides are worshiping
one and one without
and the one with in
like our nearest star
the love within me
is only a reflection of the truth
that one that you imbue
hold true
and fast
towards the surface within me
that is reflective

my heart is the second moon
moon two
only as it speaks to me
and me and me to you
and you reflect upon me
and i shine and enshrine
my soul is made true

WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME
FOR ASTRONAUTICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY OR GEOLOGY!
IN NAUTICAL TERMS
COPERNICUS SAID THAT
THERE'S NO EAST OR WEST
WITHIN THE GEOMETRIC
CONSTELLATION OF THE STARS...
THERE IS NO ARCHAEOLOGY ON MARS
THERE'S ONLY GEOLOGY -
WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR
ASTRONAUTS PLAYING THE GIMMICK
OF GEOLOGISTS...
IF THERE'S NO ARCHAEOLOGY WORTH
INSPECTING ON MARS,
THEN ALL GEOLOGY WILL
ONLY PROVIDE US A GEOLOGY
we could easily find carbon dating on earth...
mind you, didn't we like ******* too much?
WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME -
WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME -
UNLESS YOU WANT IT TO BECOME
A CINEMATIC PROPHESY OF
THE RICHEST GET OFF FIRST AND
BY BEING FIRST THE ONLY ONES TO GET OFF;
THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO *******
REASON TO FICTIONALISE OUR SITUATION;
GET IT?!
I GET IT... THERE'S ONE PANIC ATTACK
PRIOR TO THE TSUNAMI, AND NO ONE MINDS...
THEN THEY ARE KNEE-DEEP IN
SEAWATER, THEN "SUDDENLY" EVERYONE
REMEMBERS THE WEATHERMAN PROPHETIC
ABOUT THE WEATHER ON MONDAY
AND "CARING" WHETHER YOU TOOK OUT
YOUR UMBRELLA OR NOT...
AND YOU THINK... SHOULDN'T I'VE HAD
A WASTED THOUGHT RATHER THAN WASTING
TIME IN THE UNDERGROUND LABYRINTHS
DURING THE BLITZ... WELL... A WASTED
TIME, BUT HARDLY A WASTED SPACE,
SINCE YOU'RE THERE, A SINE OR A COSINE
CURVE OF CONTINUITY...
AND NOT A TANGENTS CURVE OF:
HERE ONE MINUTE / GONE THE NEXT...
well, wouldn't we all like to enshrine our politics
as the pinnacle, and our lack of co-operation
as the dire foreseeable exclusion to mind the
ecclesiastical Eden of our hopes ****** minding
the flag of Wales prior to the unearthing of
the fire-breathing lizard skeletons; at least we gave hope
to the third and last world - who will lazily
accept its fate as if a brightly lit room
and the mammalian candle extinguished without
a sadistic approach to industrialise the poll of death.

where space and space become mandible,
where flex is not distinguishable from flux,
where, precisely, on a treasure island
of contentment i could have planned my
daydream trip solo to India, and set off by
myself aged 21, but i didn't - and perhaps
i have a regret or two not having seen
the tsunami of colours, brighter than
fireworks, in whatever gloom we represent
grey, to be cremated and turn into the colour
of cinnamon, or chilli, or turmeric,
if only we could turn to such colourful powdering,
one song, a mosaic of feeing: Moby's porcelain
spurred me, but indeed, the trip was abandoned,
India was replaced with Hades, the internal
adventure, with my ego theories extinct,
no couches, represented as a walking stick,
a prayer mat, a support of some sort, and before
me the mountains, canyons, rivers and seas
of thought - nothing more.
aeons have passed since my hope to travel
the oceanic and oriental traverses -
but in my ivory tower, like old Merlin trapped
on the drip of knowledge, i read a ted hughes
poem glimpse: /
'o leaves', crow sang, trembling, 'o leaves -'
the touch of a leaf's edge at his throat
guillotined further comment.
                                                        ­nevertheless
speechless he continued to stare at the leaves
through the god's head instantly substituted. /
commiserations having left a sense of
achievement from a novel - but the feelings
are not mutual - a love for a god or a love
for a novel is quiet alike - cold narcissism of one,
instant devotion for the other -
poetry like breadcrumbs, sometimes, all the time,
it's not a loaf of bread, the poem isn't,
to have a taste for poetry doesn't necessarily
mean a capitalistic sport, competitive and blood
thirsty, it's a chance, a stealthy endeavour -
in whatever profession, forever defining our art -
i'm sure many chemists could say:
reduced us to skin-care and suntan lotion,
perfumes and bleach? imagine the geneticist
working on the d.n.a. of down syndrome people,
i mean: those people hardly age!
what's your secret Freddy? come on, tell us,
you're 50 and yet your orangutan expression
is hiding Dorian Grey for ****'s sake - yet you're
pristine like a snowflake!
apart from that, what i really wanted to say,
what philosophers and quasi disciples of regurgitation
speak of: to stand outside all of space and time -
well, hell, i'll give it a go!
the great mountain range that was once Sahara,
the great mountain range that was once Gobi,
a day will come when the Himalayas will turn
into a desert, a grand desert by the name of Himala,
jasmine scented Layla told me so, whoever she is,
i probably would have met her, had i travelled to
India and walked from Bengal to Jerusalem,
walking across Persia - but i didn't, and since i didn't
i did the best i could: with my ego acting like a walking
stick, i crossed frontiers of what horizons came,
and all horizons consolidated themselves as a thought,
unblemished by choice - residue of ink,
not even a bone - to be incubated in the elemental,
a walking flask of water that i am, non-revelatory,
to enshrine myself in fire, to that likelihood i
am affectionate - all this stuff of coffin and burial
is humorous in the extreme black, the morbid rites,
expecting resurrections almost everyday -
so morbid - housing shortages due to cemetery spaces
needed, strange, isn't it? i expect we're hoping
to be the next stockpile of oil for other humanoids
later on - the mechanisation of our age, apparently
due to some great disaster -
as i wonder: historically speaking, isn't
reaching so far back into history, to the humanoids,
to the dinosaurs, to the big bang, sort of,
make our history slightly meaningless? the effort
to write it, you'd have to write it like a Holocaust...
and who wants to write history like that?
with affection, given the scaling of where we wished
to regress to: the big bang theory or no theory...
is... just... as... important... as... a... full... stop                    *.

I am made of water

I first learnt it when, at age 13
I dropped a glass of it
And it trickled through my veins
As my father told me he didn’t know why he loved me

After that, every day I was kissed by sunlight
I shimmered
Like a pond lost in a forest of
Thought that no one visited

I used to look at my hands and wonder
Why I could see right through
The sinew
And bone
Into translucent fluid bubbling
Where blood red should be

But whenever someone deigned to hold
My shaking digits, I felt the cold
Of my insides freezing us both
Eventually, when they could no longer hold
My icy arms,
They let go
On their way to greener pastures

Then I would melt
Seek the sun,
Weep for joy at the torrents inside me
That flowed again

You cannot touch this liquid life
Unless your fingers are blessed by a burning
Unlike anything before or after you,

I long to simmer in a scalding embrace,
You whom I have yet to meet,
You who will boil my insides until
One day,
I disappear
Like a pond dried up in summer,
Its filaments caressing the sun,
Lost forever to the world below

Until after years,
I will rain again on gardens
That men will worship
And whose beauty,
(Nourished by a love that no one knows),
Will enshrine our embrace for generations

[Humorous Intervention]

The seagull rendered sculpture
of discarded fast-food containers,

(early, Sunday morning leftovers
from Saturday night’s punctured remains)

the locus of which gives the value of
a ******, good night out.

It is left to the curator of found objects
to enshrine their cultural worth.

Six months is all it took to find my love,
a beauty that I never dreamed I'd find.
who knew our wayward paths would be entwined,
My love, you're my whole life or part thereof.

I like to think of all the reasons why,
the true, unbroken love I feel for you,
brought swiftly peace to pain and impromptu,
gave life anew to what had gone awry.

With life I'd long since given up the fight,
to find the life for which I had so longed.
What will you found in me you have prolonged,
and given me a bright and guiding light.

For years to come we'll watch the sunrise shine.
Each day with you our love will long enshrine.

within a dark wood, no sound could be heard,
no rustle or leaf, nor chorus of bird.
though through thickets of thorn, and tangle of vine,
a traveller long lost, settled down by a pine.

it was then that the trees, and brambles beneath,
twisted their branches and made him his wreath.
a crown of late thorns, to place on his head,
by the exact moment, in which he was dead.

the traveller had wandered, for days through this grove,
mistook it for where there'd been buried a trove.
many had done so, the young and the old,
naïve in their search, for fairy-tale gold.

asleep on the fallen, both leaves and past men,
our traveller breathed once, then no more than ten.
his lungs filled with scarlet, his blood running thick,
from poisons and toxins of berries he'd picked.

as night came to banish, the warmth of the sun,
his corpse slowly stiffened, decay then begun.
what of his soul, his spirit, you wonder?
encased by his bones, shall never float yonder.

no other remembers, this story I've told,
long lost in myth and legends of old.
his death was not pleasant, nor lacking in strife,
it felt oh so sweet, to steal that man's life.

for I was the wood, that he'd set eyes upon,
to plunder and pillage, and lay his hands on.
but blind from desire, for coffers of gold,
the man did not witness, his follies unfold.

my treasure's not buried, but strewn all around,
if only one glances, to see nature abound.
the man had such fortune, in the palm of his hand,
but thought nothing of it, of cherished wood-land.

although he still lies here, enveloped in moss,
his death is not tragic, don't mourn for this loss.
a traveller he was, perhaps you are too,
but his soul was crook'd, his values askew.

oh yes he was selfish, and now he is mine,
his body 's held tight, for my roots to enshrine.
the lesson dear reader, I ask you to heed,
is that misfortune awaits, all men filled with greed.

lift up your face
let your radiance
like the sun shine
fill up this space
with your sapience
(i) wish i could enshrine

Hello Matthew,
Sorry I missed your visit the other day; I was obviously teaching and the office staff couldn't locate me.
It is encouraging to see I am now dealing with a published writer who will hopefully tell me what the book title is without my need for research.
Glad to see you have remembered that punctuation is a linguistic colonialist, for wNt of s better term.
I picked up your books yesterday and immediately gave one copy each to two year 13 students with the simple instruction to 'read this.'
The one you kindly inscribed I have taken home and intend to read over the October half term.
How's everything going?
Mr Bunce (or to use my colloquial Glaswegian first term, Tam)
Sent from my iPhone*


Hello Thomas,

no apologies necessary, it's well understood that a teacher is always untouchable when it comes providing an aqueduct of intellectual assimilation peppered with acquisition and relative hope for pedantic (missing the plural).

The apologies are all mine, I spent the week at the Cheltenham like ****** pusher, evidently not everyone is hooked on on poetry; but I did find the deviant art form that's known as "spoken word" a blast, i dare stand-up comedy to compare itself to the antics so hushed by society.

The part where you say: dealing with a published author... well, authored: but via my own expenses. Entitlements of the book being titled so? i was trying to remember how anyone gives up a good portion of their memory to remember something like the atom R               without the English softening, without the French harking up phlegm, and the age old Victorian trill            of the rolling Baskervilles... i tried to attire Grecian optics in how every child expands his capacity for memorising language on the basin of up-keeping and use: via the need to abolish hyphenated compound words, and against dyslexia that turn English into a complexity that's German, remnants of it remaining true with e.g. hydrocarbon, or chemists punctuating: or averting from the hyphenated ease: as truth goes: chemistry in English is a standard Saxon German. A lesson in finding enough eyes in a single tongue that might make me forcefully distinguish an N that's a V that's actually ν (nu), sharpened, and υ (a              u that's capital y that's less sharpened than nu that's Y that's upsilon - and that's lowercase gamma)... I hope some form of a kaleidoscope might be revealed with this revision of Copernican East on the moon.

I have more copies you can distribute, walking from that netherworld that's bound to be tamed with the name of Romford into the A406 region.

I hope you might find the inscribed opinion kindred to your own, its authenticity is based on how serious poetry is taken in the East, the western world has solidified itself in proclaiming poetry with rap, in turn poetry has become less rhapsodic, but that aside, I hope you enjoy the end-product, it's only a snippet of my work, evidently by the fact stated, I have more.

Everything is as everything should be. My 3 years in Scotland were a dream I wish I never woke from; I could not have wished for a more welcoming convent of lessened religious ridiculousness among people: churches turned into nightclubs and chandelier shops? Well, that's the bright-sprung reality of the Scotland I remember, and from what the journalists provide, it seems the story has just begun in terms of a youthful invigoration demanding a voice: yes, away from the infamous deep-fried Mars bar. I still remember that self-deprecating joke you made about how copper wire was invented: two Scots arguing over a penny (pulling it apart).

Well, if I over-economised my reply I apologise, otherwise I hope I can enshrine your legacy further, with the motto: don't teach them grammar (the subconscious)... teach them language, or what's lessened arithmetic rubric concern, and more: authenticity - a variant word for familiarity and a tattooing on one's locality as primarily organic: given the inorganic trend of globalisation. Can I offend with an informality? I will anyway: sounds like a ****** manifesto - in the end all I wanted to reply with was: thank you.

Well, thank you, for teaching me English without necessitating a concern for a grammar consciousness / an awareness of grammar: public school ponces can have their Eton mess funfairs: language is pure, pristine, palpable, and we're allowed our own interpretation of grammar, even Nietzsche said: we only believe in god as long as we believe in grammar... as said, I can provide more copies of the book, I'm duly counting the numbers in terms of representation, given that the book is but a snippet of the Σ, I can gain as much as I have already lost, which in practical wording equates to nothing.

Kind regards, dearest Tammy (inexplicable innuendo to follow without the appropriated seasoning to match,
                            in this grand era of political hoo correct ha); or otherwise intended in the more formal
acquisition of familiars -
                                              thanks, Matthew.