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V. TO APHRODITE (293 lines)

(ll. 1-6) Muse, tell me the deeds of golden Aphrodite the
Cyprian, who stirs up sweet passion in the gods and subdues the
tribes of mortal men and birds that fly in air and all the many
creatures that the dry land rears, and all the sea: all these
love the deeds of rich-crowned Cytherea.

(ll. 7-32) Yet there are three hearts that she cannot bend nor
yet ensnare.  First is the daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis,
bright-eyed Athene; for she has no pleasure in the deeds of
golden Aphrodite, but delights in wars and in the work of Ares,
in strifes and battles and in preparing famous crafts.  She first
taught earthly craftsmen to make chariots of war and cars
variously wrought with bronze, and she, too, teaches tender
maidens in the house and puts knowledge of goodly arts in each
one's mind.  Nor does laughter-loving Aphrodite ever tame in love
Artemis, the huntress with shafts of gold; for she loves archery
and the slaying of wild beasts in the mountains, the lyre also
and dancing and thrilling cries and shady woods and the cities of
upright men.  Nor yet does the pure maiden Hestia love
Aphrodite's works.  She was the first-born child of wily Cronos
and youngest too (24), by will of Zeus who holds the aegis, -- a
queenly maid whom both Poseidon and Apollo sought to wed.  But
she was wholly unwilling, nay, stubbornly refused; and touching
the head of father Zeus who holds the aegis, she, that fair
goddess, sware a great oath which has in truth been fulfilled,
that she would be a maiden all her days.  So Zeus the Father gave
her an high honour instead of marriage, and she has her place in
the midst of the house and has the richest portion.  In all the
temples of the gods she has a share of honour, and among all
mortal men she is chief of the goddesses.

(ll. 33-44) Of these three Aphrodite cannot bend or ensnare the
hearts.  But of all others there is nothing among the blessed
gods or among mortal men that has escaped Aphrodite.  Even the
heart of Zeus, who delights in thunder, is led astray by her;
though he is greatest of all and has the lot of highest majesty,
she beguiles even his wise heart whensoever she pleases, and
mates him with mortal women, unknown to Hera, his sister and his
wife, the grandest far in beauty among the deathless goddesses --
most glorious is she whom wily Cronos with her mother Rhea did
beget: and Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, made her his chaste
and careful wife.

(ll. 45-52) But upon Aphrodite herself Zeus cast sweet desire to
be joined in love with a mortal man, to the end that, very soon,
not even she should be innocent of a mortal's love; lest
laughter-loving Aphrodite should one day softly smile and say
mockingly among all the gods that she had joined the gods in love
with mortal women who bare sons of death to the deathless gods,
and had mated the goddesses with mortal men.

(ll. 53-74) And so he put in her heart sweet desire for Anchises
who was tending cattle at that time among the steep hills of
many-fountained Ida, and in shape was like the immortal gods.
Therefore, when laughter-loving Aphrodite saw him, she loved him,
and terribly desire seized her in her heart.  She went to Cyprus,
to Paphos, where her precinct is and fragrant altar, and passed
into her sweet-smelling temple.  There she went in and put to the
glittering doors, and there the Graces bathed her with heavenly
oil such as blooms upon the bodies of the eternal gods -- oil
divinely sweet, which she had by her, filled with fragrance.  And
laughter-loving Aphrodite put on all her rich clothes, and when
she had decked herself with gold, she left sweet-smelling Cyprus
and went in haste towards Troy, swiftly travelling high up among
the clouds.  So she came to many-fountained Ida, the mother of
wild creatures and went straight to the homestead across the
mountains.  After her came grey wolves, fawning on her, and grim-
eyed lions, and bears, and fleet leopards, ravenous for deer: and
she was glad in heart to see them, and put desire in their
*******, so that they all mated, two together, about the shadowy
coombes.

(ll. 75-88) (25) But she herself came to the neat-built shelters,
and him she found left quite alone in the homestead -- the hero
Anchises who was comely as the gods.  All the others were
following the herds over the grassy pastures, and he, left quite
alone in the homestead, was roaming hither and thither and
playing thrillingly upon the lyre.  And Aphrodite, the daughter
of Zeus stood before him, being like a pure maiden in height and
mien, that he should not be frightened when he took heed of her
with his eyes.  Now when Anchises saw her, he marked her well and
wondered at her mien and height and shining garments.  For she
was clad in a robe out-shining the brightness of fire, a splendid
robe of gold, enriched with all manner of needlework, which
shimmered like the moon over her tender *******, a marvel to see.

Also she wore twisted brooches and shining earrings in the form
of flowers; and round her soft throat were lovely necklaces.

(ll. 91-105) And Anchises was seized with love, and said to her:
'Hail, lady, whoever of the blessed ones you are that are come to
this house, whether Artemis, or Leto, or golden Aphrodite, or
high-born Themis, or bright-eyed Athene.  Or, maybe, you are one
of the Graces come hither, who bear the gods company and are
called immortal, or else one of those who inhabit this lovely
mountain and the springs of rivers and grassy meads.  I will make
you an altar upon a high peak in a far seen place, and will
sacrifice rich offerings to you at all seasons.  And do you feel
kindly towards me and grant that I may become a man very eminent
among the Trojans, and give me strong offspring for the time to
come.  As for my own self, let me live long and happily, seeing
the light of the sun, and come to the threshold of old age, a man
prosperous among the people.'

(ll. 106-142) Thereupon Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus answered
him: 'Anchises, most glorious of all men born on earth, know that
I am no goddess: why do you liken me to the deathless ones?  Nay,
I am but a mortal, and a woman was the mother that bare me.
Otreus of famous name is my father, if so be you have heard of
him, and he reigns over all Phrygia rich in fortresses.  But I
know your speech well beside my own, for a Trojan nurse brought
me up at home: she took me from my dear mother and reared me
thenceforth when I was a little child.  So comes it, then, that I
well know you tongue also.  And now the Slayer of Argus with the
golden wand has caught me up from the dance of huntress Artemis,
her with the golden arrows.  For there were many of us, nymphs
and marriageable (26) maidens, playing together; and an
innumerable company encircled us: from these the Slayer of Argus
with the golden wand rapt me away.  He carried me over many
fields of mortal men and over much land untilled and unpossessed,
where savage wild-beasts roam through shady coombes, until I
thought never again to touch the life-giving earth with my feet.
And he said that I should be called the wedded wife of Anchises,
and should bear you goodly children.  But when he had told and
advised me, he, the strong Slayer of Argos, went back to the
families of the deathless gods, while I am now come to you: for
unbending necessity is upon me.  But I beseech you by Zeus and by
your noble parents -- for no base folk could get such a son as
you -- take me now, stainless and unproved in love, and show me
to your father and careful mother and to your brothers sprung
from the same stock.  I shall be no ill-liking daughter for them,
but a likely.  Moreover, send a messenger quickly to the swift-
horsed Phrygians, to tell my father and my sorrowing mother; and
they will send you gold in plenty and woven stuffs, many splendid
gifts; take these as bride-piece.  So do, and then prepare the
sweet marriage that is honourable in the eyes of men and
deathless gods.'

(ll. 143-144) When she had so spoken, the goddess put sweet
desire in his heart.  And Anchises was seized with love, so that
he opened his mouth and said:

(ll. 145-154) 'If you are a mortal and a woman was the mother who
bare you, and Otreus of famous name is your father as you say,
and if you are come here by the will of Hermes the immortal
Guide, and are to be called my wife always, then neither god nor
mortal man shall here restrain me till I have lain with you in
love right now; no, not even if far-shooting Apollo himself
should launch grievous shafts from his silver bow.  Willingly
would I go down into the house of Hades, O lady, beautiful as the
goddesses, once I had gone up to your bed.'

(ll. 155-167) So speaking, he caught her by the hand.  And
laughter-loving Aphrodite, with face turned away and lovely eyes
downcast, crept to the well-spread couch which was already laid
with soft coverings for the hero; and upon it lay skins of bears
and deep-roaring lions which he himself had slain in the high
mountains.  And when they had gone up upon the well-fitted bed,
first Anchises took off her bright jewelry of pins and twisted
brooches and earrings and necklaces, and loosed her girdle and
stripped off her bright garments and laid them down upon a
silver-studded seat.  Then by the will of the gods and destiny he
lay with her, a mortal man with an immortal goddess, not clearly
knowing what he did.

(ll. 168-176) But at the time when the herdsmen driver their oxen
and hardy sheep back to the fold from the flowery pastures, even
then Aphrodite poured soft sleep upon Anchises, but herself put
on her rich raiment.  And when the bright goddess had fully
clothed herself, she stood by the couch, and her head reached to
the well-hewn roof-tree; from her cheeks shone unearthly beauty
such as belongs to rich-crowned Cytherea.  Then she aroused him
from sleep and opened her mouth and said:

(ll. 177-179) 'Up, son of Dardanus! -- why sleep you so heavily?
-- and consider whether I look as I did when first you saw me
with your eyes.'

(ll. 180-184) So she spake.  And he awoke in a moment and obeyed
her.  But when he saw the neck and lovely eyes of Aphrodite, he
was afraid and turned his eyes aside another way, hiding his
comely face with his cloak.  Then he uttered winged words and
entreated her:

(ll. 185-190) 'So soon as ever I saw you with my eyes, goddess, I
knew that you were divine; but you did not tell me truly.  Yet by
Zeus who holds the aegis I beseech you, leave me not to lead a
palsied life among men, but have pity on me; for he who lies with
a deathless goddess is no hale man afterwards.'

(ll. 191-201) Then Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus answered him:
'Anchises, most glorious of mortal men, take courage and be not
too fearful in your heart.  You need fear no harm from me nor
from the other blessed ones, for you are dear to the gods: and
you shall have a dear son who shall reign among the Trojans, and
children's children after him, springing up continually.  His
name shall be Aeneas (27), because I felt awful grief in that I
laid me in the bed of mortal man: yet are those of your race
always the most like to gods of all mortal men in beauty and in
stature (28).

(ll. 202-217) 'Verily wise Zeus carried off golden-haired
Ganymedes because of his beauty, to be amongst the Deathless Ones
and pour drink for the gods in the house of Zeus -- a wonder to
see -- honoured by all the immortals as he draws the red nectar
from the golden bowl.  But grief that could not be soothed filled
the heart of Tros; for he knew not whither the heaven-sent
whirlwind had caught up his dear son, so that he mourned him
always, unceasingly, until Zeus pitied him and gave him high-
stepping horses such as carry the immortals as recompense for his
son.  These he gave him as a gift.  And at the command of Zeus,
the Guide, the slayer of Argus, told him all, and how his son
would be deathless and unageing, even as the gods.  So when Tros
heard these tidings from Zeus, he no longer kept mourning but
rejoiced in his heart and rode joyfully with his storm-footed
horses.

(ll. 218-238) 'So also golden-throned Eos rapt away Tithonus who
was of your race and like the deathless gods.  And she went to
ask the dark-clouded Son of Cronos that he should be deathless
and live eternally; and Zeus bowed his head to her prayer and
fulfilled her desire.  Too simply was queenly Eos: she thought
not in her heart to ask youth for him and to strip him of the
slough of deadly age.  So while he enjoyed the sweet flower of
life he lived rapturously with golden-throned Eos, the early-
born, by the streams of Ocean, at the ends of the earth; but when
the first grey hairs began to ripple from his comely head and
noble chin, queenly Eos kept away from his bed, though she
cherished him in her house and nourished him with food and
ambrosia and gave him rich clothing.  But when loathsome old age
pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs,
this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in
a room and put to the shining doors.  There he babbles endlessly,
and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his
supple limbs.

(ll. 239-246) 'I would not have you be deathless among the
deathless gods and live continually after such sort.  Yet if you
could live on such as now you are in look and in form, and be
called my husband, sorrow would not then enfold my careful heart.

But, as it is, harsh (29) old age will soon enshroud you --
ruthless age which stands someday at the side of every man,
deadly, wearying, dreaded even by the gods.

(ll. 247-290) 'And now because of you I shall have great shame
among the deathless gods henceforth, continually.  For until now
they feared my jibes and the wiles by which, or soon or late, I
mated all the immortals with mortal women, making them all
subject to my will.  But now my mouth shall no more have this
power among the gods; for very great has been my madness, my
miserable and dreadful madness, and I went astray out of my mind
who have gotten a child beneath my girdle, mating with a mortal
man.  As for the child, as soon as he sees the light of the sun,
the deep-breasted mountain Nymphs who inhabit this great and holy
mountain shall bring him up.  They rank neither with mortals nor
with immortals: long indeed do they live, eating heavenly food
and treading the lovely dance among the immortals, and with them
the Sileni and the sharp-eyed Slayer of Argus mate in the depths
of pleasant caves; but at their birth pines or high-topped oaks
spring up with them upon the fruitful earth, beautiful,
flourishing trees, towering high upon the lofty mountains (and
men call them holy places of the immortals, and never mortal lops
them with the axe); but when the fate of death is near at hand,
first those lovely trees wither where they stand, and the bark
shrivels away about them, and the twigs fall down, and at last
the life of the Nymph and of the tree leave the light of the sun
together.  These Nymphs shall keep my son with them and rear him,
and as soon as he is come to lovely boyhood, the goddesses will
bring him here to you and show you your child.  But, that I may
tell you all that I have in mind, I will come here again towards
the fifth year and bring you my son.  So soon as ever you have
seen him -- a scion to delight the eyes -- you will rejoice in
beholding him; for he shall be most godlike: then bring him at
once to windy Ilion.  And if any mortal man ask you who got your
dear son beneath her girdle, remember to tell him as I bid you:
say he is the offspring of one of the flower-like Nymphs who
inhabit this forest-clad hill.  But if you tell all and foolishly
boast that you lay with ric
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,
Knowing the truth of things unseen before;
Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old
that grew elm-oak amid the wold.
’Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their heart’s home
That they might do this wonder thing;
Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.
Keith J Collard Aug 2012
Colonial mansion, in an ocean of grass,
windows aglow as I walk past.
funeral service now used of verandah,
but I hear music, not mournful stanza.
french doors open to a reminisce,
with boyhood heart, of vitreous.

Footfalls on parquet floors,
tux and gown past crown moulded doors.
captured ambiance of a setting sun,
shown from chandeliers highly hung,
day I was born, born the day of prom,
I smiled cordially, and my date fawned.

Girls betrothed by corsage on wrist,
rare french curls--a lunar eclipse.
bedraggled boys now dapper and genteel,
vest and bow-tie, a knightly feel.
chapperesses smiling at maidenly gait,
happy drowse in  mansion estate.

Cuff-links, silk gloves, nail polish of gloss,
beheld tonics and sweets, carefully aloft.
opening cord, an arrow from cupid's bow,
striking coquettes to their tippy toes.
they sprang to dance,I stepped back,
invisible in shadow with tux of black.

Shoulders, lake ripples easing to shore,
hips, gentle waves, right before they pour.
boys stiff, as if waists beheld sabers,
legs, sweeping brooms of on shore waiters.
"your too handsome to stay here unseen,"
said rivaling chaperess, past semblance of queen.

"You should dance ,"said glittered lips of pink,
bent like sparrow wings, during teacup drink.
privy to why in shadow I hid my blush,
her class my crush, that crushed me so much.

She strained me, even the shadows she gave,
black silk, stretching,--convex and concave.
crude metal and wood classroom seat,
clasped her waist of slender physique.
she was guarded by a window in curtain mail,
and tended to by servants of light and gale.
light loved her skin of Mediterranean sand,
and wind enthralled by each and every brown strand.

Light penetrated strands, blondly hot,
wind would blow, cooling pony tail off.
her shadow curtsied under my desk,
long legs danced in irritableness.
mourning class is abuzz with scent of prom,
flower not frost, rules the school's dawn.

I gave my consent, to an earlier invite,
then on, suitor blinded me with light.
and Great Gatsy, and looming prom night,
subjects of sparrow wings pressed tight.
" show of hands, who do not have a date?"
slender wrist arises, from an arm curvate.

alone, she shown that no one asked her,
this stone of Rome amongst boys of plaster.
hand fell with boy of teachers match,
wind shrouded her,from the window sash
rays gave discomfort,to gaze her way,
but I looked through burning ray--

To see a trace of a tear,in eyes ovate,
a goddess unsought, with sadful face.
I, poor, fatherless, could not possibly go,
to prom with princess of arched portico?
I could not interweave my hands to dance,
or know where I could place my glance.

Wind blew a scrap from her desk, indiscreet,
it was pierced by light at my feet.
"will" and "with" were dotted with a heart,
"prom" and "me" before most painful part.
my name in her beautiful free hand,
the color red from hearts inkstand.

(Class bell rings) I travel over star lit lawn,
the music gets louder as I return to prom,
eyes turn to cotton, in shadow as I ponder,
as pain was forgotten, I came upon her.
invisible hands, lifted my chin to a red shape,
our eyes met, her's smiling, mine agape.

Only a glass-maker could imagine my sight,
seeing hot curves form in dance floor light.
only a wax-wing could have rivaled her eyes,
waves gently broke to gown down her thighs.
"will you dance with me,"she softly entreated,
" I don't know how,"a coward repeated.

A princess which tournaments were held,
for which every timber of mansion were felled.
not for Rome the mansion's Corinthian column--
--for her--from quarry prom did befall them.
I could not tarnish this feminine form,
with my lineage in crown she adorned.

I turned from beauty, to dark acres tread,
under willow, I play the last thing she said--
my name--as I shunned from last chance,
now back under willow, cane marks my stance.
I have preserved her forever, shying fate,
even if it was with my own heart-break.

I still see her--in the most beautiful prom poses--
--still--as lights flicker out and a coffin closes.
Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the
Achaeans when they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his
own ship. But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to
his brave comrades saying, “Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own
trusted friends, not yet, forsooth, let us unyoke, but with horse
and chariot draw near to the body and mourn Patroclus, in due honour
to the dead. When we have had full comfort of lamentation we will
unyoke our horses and take supper all of us here.”
  On this they all joined in a cry of wailing and Achilles led them in
their lament. Thrice did they drive their chariots all sorrowing round
the body, and Thetis stirred within them a still deeper yearning.
The sands of the seashore and the men’s armour were wet with their
weeping, so great a minister of fear was he whom they had lost.
Chief in all their mourning was the son of Peleus: he laid his
bloodstained hand on the breast of his friend. “Fare well,” he
cried, “Patroclus, even in the house of Hades. I will now do all
that I erewhile promised you; I will drag Hector hither and let dogs
devour him raw; twelve noble sons of Trojans will I also slay before
your pyre to avenge you.”
  As he spoke he treated the body of noble Hector with contumely,
laying it at full length in the dust beside the bier of Patroclus. The
others then put off every man his armour, took the horses from their
chariots, and seated themselves in great multitude by the ship of
the fleet descendant of Aeacus, who thereon feasted them with an
abundant funeral banquet. Many a goodly ox, with many a sheep and
bleating goat did they butcher and cut up; many a tusked boar
moreover, fat and well-fed, did they singe and set to roast in the
flames of Vulcan; and rivulets of blood flowed all round the place
where the body was lying.
  Then the princes of the Achaeans took the son of Peleus to
Agamemnon, but hardly could they persuade him to come with them, so
wroth was he for the death of his comrade. As soon as they reached
Agamemnon’s tent they told the serving-men to set a large tripod
over the fire in case they might persuade the son of Peleus ‘to wash
the clotted gore from this body, but he denied them sternly, and swore
it with a solemn oath, saying, “Nay, by King Jove, first and mightiest
of all gods, it is not meet that water should touch my body, till I
have laid Patroclus on the flames, have built him a barrow, and shaved
my head—for so long as I live no such second sorrow shall ever draw
nigh me. Now, therefore, let us do all that this sad festival demands,
but at break of day, King Agamemnon, bid your men bring wood, and
provide all else that the dead may duly take into the realm of
darkness; the fire shall thus burn him out of our sight the sooner,
and the people shall turn again to their own labours.”
  Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. They made haste
to prepare the meal, they ate, and every man had his full share so
that all were satisfied. As soon as they had had had enough to eat and
drink, the others went to their rest each in his own tent, but the son
of Peleus lay grieving among his Myrmidons by the shore of the
sounding sea, in an open place where the waves came surging in one
after another. Here a very deep slumber took hold upon him and eased
the burden of his sorrows, for his limbs were weary with chasing
Hector round windy Ilius. Presently the sad spirit of Patroclus drew
near him, like what he had been in stature, voice, and the light of
his beaming eyes, clad, too, as he had been clad in life. The spirit
hovered over his head and said-
  “You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; you loved me living,
but now that I am dead you think for me no further. Bury me with all
speed that I may pass the gates of Hades; the ghosts, vain shadows
of men that can labour no more, drive me away from them; they will not
yet suffer me to join those that are beyond the river, and I wander
all desolate by the wide gates of the house of Hades. Give me now your
hand I pray you, for when you have once given me my dues of fire,
never shall I again come forth out of the house of Hades. Nevermore
shall we sit apart and take sweet counsel among the living; the
cruel fate which was my birth-right has yawned its wide jaws around
me—nay, you too Achilles, peer of gods, are doomed to die beneath the
wall of the noble Trojans.
  “One prayer more will I make you, if you will grant it; let not my
bones be laid apart from yours, Achilles, but with them; even as we
were brought up together in your own home, what time Menoetius brought
me to you as a child from Opoeis because by a sad spite I had killed
the son of Amphidamas—not of set purpose, but in childish quarrel
over the dice. The knight Peleus took me into his house, entreated
me kindly, and named me to be your squire; therefore let our bones lie
in but a single urn, the two-handled golden vase given to you by
your mother.”
  And Achilles answered, “Why, true heart, are you come hither to
lay these charges upon me? will of my own self do all as you have
bidden me. Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around
one another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows.”
  He opened his arms towards him as he spoke and would have clasped
him in them, but there was nothing, and the spirit vanished as a
vapour, gibbering and whining into the earth. Achilles sprang to his
feet, smote his two hands, and made lamentation saying, “Of a truth
even in the house of Hades there are ghosts and phantoms that have
no life in them; all night long the sad spirit of Patroclus has
hovered over head making piteous moan, telling me what I am to do
for him, and looking wondrously like himself.”
  Thus did he speak and his words set them all weeping and mourning
about the poor dumb dead, till rosy-fingered morn appeared. Then
King Agamemnon sent men and mules from all parts of the camp, to bring
wood, and Meriones, squire to Idomeneus, was in charge over them. They
went out with woodmen’s axes and strong ropes in their hands, and
before them went the mules. Up hill and down dale did they go, by
straight ways and crooked, and when they reached the heights of
many-fountained Ida, they laid their axes to the roots of many a
tall branching oak that came thundering down as they felled it. They
split the trees and bound them behind the mules, which then wended
their way as they best could through the thick brushwood on to the
plain. All who had been cutting wood bore logs, for so Meriones squire
to Idomeneus had bidden them, and they threw them down in a line
upon the seashore at the place where Achilles would make a mighty
monument for Patroclus and for himself.
  When they had thrown down their great logs of wood over the whole
ground, they stayed all of them where they were, but Achilles
ordered his brave Myrmidons to gird on their armour, and to yoke
each man his horses; they therefore rose, girded on their armour and
mounted each his chariot—they and their charioteers with them. The
chariots went before, and they that were on foot followed as a cloud
in their tens of thousands after. In the midst of them his comrades
bore Patroclus and covered him with the locks of their hair which they
cut off and threw upon his body. Last came Achilles with his head
bowed for sorrow, so noble a comrade was he taking to the house of
Hades.
  When they came to the place of which Achilles had told them they
laid the body down and built up the wood. Achilles then bethought
him of another matter. He went a space away from the pyre, and cut off
the yellow lock which he had let grow for the river Spercheius. He
looked all sorrowfully out upon the dark sea, and said, “Spercheius,
in vain did my father Peleus vow to you that when I returned home to
my loved native land I should cut off this lock and offer you a holy
hecatomb; fifty she-goats was I to sacrifice to you there at your
springs, where is your grove and your altar fragrant with
burnt-offerings. Thus did my father vow, but you have not fulfilled
his prayer; now, therefore, that I shall see my home no more, I give
this lock as a keepsake to the hero Patroclus.”
  As he spoke he placed the lock in the hands of his dear comrade, and
all who stood by were filled with yearning and lamentation. The sun
would have gone down upon their mourning had not Achilles presently
said to Agamemnon, “Son of Atreus, for it is to you that the people
will give ear, there is a time to mourn and a time to cease from
mourning; bid the people now leave the pyre and set about getting
their dinners: we, to whom the dead is dearest, will see to what is
wanted here, and let the other princes also stay by me.”
  When King Agamemnon heard this he dismissed the people to their
ships, but those who were about the dead heaped up wood and built a
pyre a hundred feet this way and that; then they laid the dead all
sorrowfully upon the top of it. They flayed and dressed many fat sheep
and oxen before the pyre, and Achilles took fat from all of them and
wrapped the body therein from head to foot, heaping the flayed
carcases all round it. Against the bier he leaned two-handled jars
of honey and unguents; four proud horses did he then cast upon the
pyre, groaning the while he did so. The dead hero had had
house-dogs; two of them did Achilles slay and threw upon the pyre;
he also put twelve brave sons of noble Trojans to the sword and laid
them with the rest, for he was full of bitterness and fury. Then he
committed all to the resistless and devouring might of the fire; he
groaned aloud and callid on his dead comrade by name. “Fare well,”
he cried, “Patroclus, even in the house of Hades; I am now doing all
that I have promised you. Twelve brave sons of noble Trojans shall the
flames consume along with yourself, but dogs, not fire, shall devour
the flesh of Hector son of Priam.”
  Thus did he vaunt, but the dogs came not about the body of Hector,
for Jove’s daughter Venus kept them off him night and day, and
anointed him with ambrosial oil of roses that his flesh might not be
torn when Achilles was dragging him about. Phoebus Apollo moreover
sent a dark cloud from heaven to earth, which gave shade to the
whole place where Hector lay, that the heat of the sun might not parch
his body.
  Now the pyre about dead Patroclus would not kindle. Achilles
therefore bethought him of another matter; he went apart and prayed to
the two winds Boreas and Zephyrus vowing them goodly offerings. He
made them many drink-offerings from the golden cup and besought them
to come and help him that the wood might make haste to kindle and
the dead bodies be consumed. Fleet Iris heard him praying and
started off to fetch the winds. They were holding high feast in the
house of boisterous Zephyrus when Iris came running up to the stone
threshold of the house and stood there, but as soon as they set eyes
on her they all came towards her and each of them called her to him,
but Iris would not sit down. “I cannot stay,” she said, “I must go
back to the streams of Oceanus and the land of the Ethiopians who
are offering hecatombs to the immortals, and I would have my share;
but Achilles prays that Boreas and shrill Zephyrus will come to him,
and he vows them goodly offerings; he would have you blow upon the
pyre of Patroclus for whom all the Achaeans are lamenting.”
  With this she left them, and the two winds rose with a cry that rent
the air and swept the clouds before them. They blew on and on until
they came to the sea, and the waves rose high beneath them, but when
they reached Troy they fell upon the pyre till the mighty flames
roared under the blast that they blew. All night long did they blow
hard and beat upon the fire, and all night long did Achilles grasp his
double cup, drawing wine from a mixing-bowl of gold, and calling
upon the spirit of dead Patroclus as he poured it upon the ground
until the earth was drenched. As a father mourns when he is burning
the bones of his bridegroom son whose death has wrung the hearts of
his parents, even so did Achilles mourn while burning the body of
his comrade, pacing round the bier with piteous groaning and
lamentation.
  At length as the Morning Star was beginning to herald the light
which saffron-mantled Dawn was soon to suffuse over the sea, the
flames fell and the fire began to die. The winds then went home beyond
the Thracian sea, which roared and boiled as they swept over it. The
son of Peleus now turned away from the pyre and lay down, overcome
with toil, till he fell into a sweet slumber. Presently they who
were about the son of Atreus drew near in a body, and roused him
with the noise and ***** of their coming. He sat upright and said,
“Son of Atreus, and all other princes of the Achaeans, first pour
red wine everywhere upon the fire and quench it; let us then gather
the bones of Patroclus son of Menoetius, singling them out with
care; they are easily found, for they lie in the middle of the pyre,
while all else, both men and horses, has been thrown in a heap and
burned at the outer edge. We will lay the bones in a golden urn, in
two layers of fat, against the time when I shall myself go down into
the house of Hades. As for the barrow, labour not to raise a great one
now, but such as is reasonable. Afterwards, let those Achaeans who may
be left at the ships when I am gone, build it both broad and high.”
  Thus he spoke and they obeyed the word of the son of Peleus. First
they poured red wine upon the thick layer of ashes and quenched the
fire. With many tears they singled out the whitened bones of their
loved comrade and laid them within a golden urn in two layers of
fat: they then covered the urn with a linen cloth and took it inside
the tent. They marked off the circle where the barrow should be,
made a foundation for it about the pyre, and forthwith heaped up the
earth. When they had thus raised a mound they were going away, but
Achilles stayed the people and made them sit in assembly. He brought
prizes from the ships-cauldrons, tripods, horses and mules, noble
oxen, women with fair girdles, and swart iron.
  The first prize he offered was for the chariot races—a woman
skilled in all useful arts, and a three-legged cauldron that had
ears for handles, and would hold twenty-two measures. This was for the
man who came in first. For the second there was a six-year old mare,
unbroken, and in foal to a he-***; the third was to have a goodly
cauldron that had never yet been on the fire; it was still bright as
when it left the maker, and would hold four measures. The fourth prize
was two talents of gold, and the fifth a two-handled urn as yet
unsoiled by smoke. Then he stood up and spoke among the Argives
saying-
  “Son of Atreus, and all other Achaeans, these are the prizes that
lie waiting the winners of the chariot races. At any other time I
should carry off the first prize and take it to my own tent; you
know how far my steeds excel all others—for they are immortal;
Neptune gave them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to
myself; but I shall hold aloof, I and my steeds that have lost their
brave and kind driver, who many a time has washed them in clear
water and anointed their manes with oil. See how they stand weeping
here, with their manes trailing on the ground in the extremity of
their sorrow. But do you others set yourselves in order throughout the
host, whosoever has confidence in his horses and in the strength of
his chariot.”
  Thus spoke the son of Peleus and the drivers of chariots bestirred
themselves. First among them all uprose Eumelus, king of men, son of
Admetus, a man excellent in horsemanship. Next to him rose mighty
Diomed son of Tydeus; he yoked the Trojan horses which he had taken
from Aeneas, when Apollo bore him out of the fight. Next to him,
yellow-haired Menelaus son of Atreus rose and yoked his fleet
horses, Agamemnon’s mare Aethe, and his own horse Podargus. The mare
had been given to Agamemnon by echepolus son of Anchises, that he
might not have to follow him to Ilius, but might stay at home and take
his ease; for Jove had endowed him with great wealth and he lived in
spacious
Hal Loyd Denton May 2013
They tell and show us about space debris this matter that freely floats in the vastness of space
There is a comparison to the inward being many emotional breezes come unannounced they
Live in these treasured sightings the wind undulating across the prairie grass it first is caught by
The eye then it is drawn down deep into the soul how much bigger and newer life it gets when
The great magnate of all life receives it invests in it truth value the outward being can never
Know take the common fire from a campfire the mystery rises from the crackle and the leaping
Flames no longer is it just chatter but it is soul talk produced in depths of wonder that emerge
At the surface level bestowing gold from common folds of life or the majestic views of
Mountain grandeur Vaulted sky
Shaded canyon breathtaking heights does the angry wind speak if so in a whisper the granite peaks austere and bleak seem to frown on the trees and lowly grass lands with their fertility and ease of growth. While he the monarch bristling with his cold barren armor of granite invites the stares the awe inspired gratitude of nature and mortal man he knows there dreams and thoughts how many have stood at the edge of wonder on his brow with fainted hearts. Their thoughts drift out and away ever upward reaching the clouds filled and clothed with mountain air brightly they are displayed in these untamable rays. Voices of the ancient ones still echo their wisdom still resounds in the summer thunder they visited and released many a tortured soul. Before Blind they stood before the closed door of their minds knowing there is a path but where can it be found. Riches unbound await the searcher who will go to any and all lengths to conquer unbelief freedom his guiding star he walks in great shadows. Mountainous men Jefferson Lincoln his stalwart companions stand with grandest stature takes from the mountain those teachings not found in musty universities. Thoughts born on creations morn formed and laid on this rocky foundation now for centuries they have bore the weight this colossus purified they are words more noble than gold. Share them invest them in the borderless world of human kind that circle the globe. Moses was familiar and consorted with mountains the angel made one his sepulcher. Waste not the golden hours they are the thread that sows life’s most exquisite moments together making a life. Turn aside seek the heights they will give you respect and honor words will flow that are uncommon they will fit any and all circumstances filling the empty void where hearts bleed without ceasing. Your voice will be like the cool mountain breeze soothing filled with substance and comfort
Is it molecular it is and so much more they tell us of the drive by shootings a wonderful place to
Draw this contrast is Los Angeles called the city of angels but the most beautiful is
Its Spanish interoperation Low hovering angels this loses if we say it but let a Mexican say it his
Inflection most perfect if he is saying it from love. Is there a seriousness here our blessing is not be in That crucible even New York is called the big apple but those in the know call it the volcano with all its Eruptions and pressures so does L A fall into this category in fact if you live on Pico Ave it’s a category Five tornado this is one of the most fought out streets in the turf war for space to sell the Bain to all Society drugs see the flame it consumes the guilty and the innocent view this common occurrence way To common how many small neighborhood chapels were filling with caskets instead of wedding Ceremonies look and listen a Mac Ten pistol grease gun thirty round capacity it has just started its Deadly chatter laying down a withering fire this isn’t battle ground conditions this is a neighborhood Strafing a car the widow’s blow out the shooter keeps the fire steady it starts plinking metal as it moves
To the front of the car off the car into a white small picked fence wood matching the spray of bullets as It Flies in all directions Chicago revisited instead of the Tommy gun chopper of probation you got a Crazed dope fiend punk without emotions the sight of fourteen year old Maria standing on the sidewalk Never registered or didn’t matter three red dots appeared on her bright blouse across her back the Center spot stopped her heart forever now these precious Spanish eyes closed never to  see her rightful Future instead of one day walking the Church isle in a wedding gown now she would lie in repose in White with the flowers not in a bouquet but neatly fixed in  her hair So robbed of youth and life her Budding life so filled with promise where angels hover yes this is the blackness the soul knows perpetrated by the evil one but
There exists a counter part to this evil the good gifts divinely wrought the walk by how many
Hearts have fallen to love by just the chance encounter of her loveliness just walking by you the
Hair flowing and glowing the face created in the throes of love and romantic overload
Spellbound was the creator what chance do you have a mere mortal we are not in casual
Observation the soul is processing this at deepest of levels magic is taken from theatrical
Surroundings to the open places of the heart and being of living two other places for instance
The sea shore a new vastness that overwhelms with delightful pleasure and promise

SeaThoughts

Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows
Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only
There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its
Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over
Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’
Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature
Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship
Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and
Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea
Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined
by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part
of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep

Where God passes
The edge of forever where raw power is displayed
Walk the seascapes enter the story told in timelessness except for outer space it is the only place where man finds his mind freed so steep is the unending awe that without question he finally is able to present his self as the tiny speck lost is all ego all self importance he is open to the quest for ultimate truth. You perfect you’re thinking at the sea shore it is a storehouse that lends itself to grand thoughts no limitations hamper your endeavors aliveness engulfs you totally. Subdued moods excavate every shallow you start a down ward decent the deep cries out to your soul the part that never can be accessed on shore. The ground a foundation for raising up temporal structures your needs are served in waters that open as a mysterious gate the deeper the fathoms the more understanding is released. To abide in calm surface features of the sea what a waste take off the restraints become a voyager drift with churning twisting pressures they will give great reward for accosting your accustomed staid and uneventful living. Go deeper the mundane the so called important will be forced through your very pores as you continue calling the unknown manifest itself with great scrolls hidden beyond reach to those that plod along the sunny quiet banks. Life test all men you can face them unafraid armed with years not minutes of preparedness found alone in the struggle only found at sea. Pondered Plumbed in inexorable conditions that stretches changes a person’s character his stature tempered fired as steel in the caldron. We need leaders vibrant thinkers people who can and will accost hell in the very near future and come away victorious. They will have found their way through the untold deadly entanglements figuratively and real they’re not accustomed to ease and know perils at close quarters they learned them in great waters not in pools that have not the ability to stir you to your core you’re going to pour out your life in one form or another do it with sand and grit leave a scarred an effectual trail for others to follow not the light untraceable light footsteps of one who has never lived this just barely scratches the surface of the breezeless that tug and press the center and being of us all I wrote this to be another of the blessings that touch your soul

If there are any mistakes I will have to fix them in a bit I can only work at the computer for so long and I want to get this out
Nigel Morgan Jan 2013
The sun rises tentatively through the forest heights behind the palace. In the pre-dawn light Jia Li has secured water and fuel for her visitors and despite the attentions of the pack horse men, who have returned from an evening at her village the worse for drink, she settles to feed her infant child. Meng Ning enters to seek her counsel. She already guesses his intentions and answers his brief questions with confidence. She knows the route to the Red Slate Path, perhaps four li distant. The path is clear, though little used. It is not a place those of her village visit, though she has learnt that the path itself defies nature’s attempts to cover its existence.
    Zuo Fen is standing on the terrace as Meng Ning returns to the Emperor’s Hall. She has slept deeply, is refreshed after a period of meditation and, despite the cold, has been washed and massaged by her maid. She appears dressed for walking, her boots, fur cloak and hat in purposeful combination. As she surveys the lake flocks of wild geese and duck chatter and squabble as they float on the surface. There are some experimental flights, pairs of duck taking off to fly in wide arcs only to return to the same stretch of water from where they rose in tandem. Soon the geese will leave to fly across the forests and moorland for distant harvested fields where they will spend the day foraging. Meng Ning points to a distant peninsula jutting out from the northern shore of the lake. Behind it, he says, lies the cove of the Red Slate Path. Perhaps there they will be able to understand more keenly the why of this mystery.

‘At such a distance,’ says Zuo Fen, ‘the detail of a boat would be quite lost. I imagine the peninsula acting like a pointing finger to its floating form. There is already fashioning within me a possible story that might explain this mystery.’

She smiles warmly at Meng Ning who bows his head rather than stare into her jade green eyes. She moves closer to his standing posture, taking his left hand secure but tense against the balustrade of the veranda. Lowering one leg before the other she slowly kneels, removing her hat, loosening her fur cloak that now spreads itself of its own accord beside and behind her. With both hands behind her neck she lifts her long hair found to parted and tied in simple peasant fashion. Raising her hands to full-stretch her sleeping hair warm from the bare skin of her back slowly cascades forward and across each of her ******* to curl like two cats in the bowl of her robe.

‘Mei Lim is with Jia Li’, Zuo Fen says curiously and with a voice Meng Ning has not encountered before. ‘I fell to sleep dreaming of your kind presence and the joy of being touched and kissed.’ He cannot see her face as she speaks, only the quivering fall of her hair across her kneeling body. ‘I awoke feeling your breath on my cheek and so brought your limbs to entwine with my own.’ He now senses the delicate unguents of her body; they compass him about, his hand falls from the balustrade to touch her hair.

Finding her right ear his fingers describe its shape, its sculptured relief of folded forms and crevices. He is becoming faint with something outside passion that requires him to go beyond her ear and flow of hair about his fingers. He unties his cloak, letting it drop behind him. He removes his boots and outer garments. She follows his example. He moves to her side, adopts the position of the swallow resting on the wind. They face one another.  To the accompaniment of their breathing, her hands begin a dance in the space between their lower limbs as though they are birds turning and falling in flight. Unlike the courtesans he sees at court her nails are short, her fingers long. Then, it is as though her hand holds a brush forming characters and she begins to write on his body with short deft movements this way that way describing her flight of passion. Some intuition tells him to allow this, and not to seek repricocity, as it seems from her breathing that these very actions give her the greatest delight, bring her to the edge of the first coitus. Eyes closed, he moves his nose into a glancing embrace with her own, feeling there a semblance of perspiration, that tell-tale sign of a woman’s readiness for the deeper embrace. She responds to this with sighs and swift movements of rapture that envelope him, and now, as she quickly brings her limbs into a right conjunction, he places one hand beneath her, the other to recline her body gently to the floor, her cloak becoming a pillow for her head.
    He now looks directly at her, her face expressionless as though all thought and feeling has entered her body in preparation to receive his own. She does not blink. There is a moment of great stillness, a great wave of calm breaks, moves forward and pulls back – and again, again. In an instant he will enter her Jade Gate to caress and kiss and move where only his Lord has visited. He knows that once there he will seal his own fate . . .
     It is the talk of poets that women are often at their most sensitive to love’s attention in the morning hours, and that this was, for so many reasons, the most impractical of times for men. Zuo Fen herself had written fu poems that took the reader to the most intimate moments of a concubine’s experience in the morning hours, those times when alone the body gathers to itself its essential nature, and is often caressed with the woman’s own hand and thoughts. To understand such circumstance, to hold its sweetness as an abiding taste during the formalities of the day, only to release its flavour in the pleasure hours of the night, was a manly attribute, said to be treasured, indeed honoured by women.
      When Meng Ning withdrew Zuo Fen lay for some while letting the unaccustomed circumstance and its location only gradually allow a return to conscious and present thoughts. She pictured now her journey to the Red Slate Path, Jia Li, her baby on her back, striding beside Meng Ning, then herself and finally Mei Lim - who would have entreated her mistress to be allowed to accompany her. There was the glade, a small bowl in the hillside where it was just possible to see a small cave from which, glistening, the broken patterns of the slate path fell after half a li into the lake. She would investigate the cave. She would walk to the water’s edge, where the trees stepped into and reached over the lake to lay a carpet of fallen leaves. Then to see the path gradually, gradually disappear into the depths.
    Whilst Zuo Fen, with her eyes closed, projected her thoughts forward in time, with accustomed tact Mei Lim left those accouterments a woman needs after the attentions of a lover. She feared for the young man, though she knew her Lord prized too much his Lady of The Purple Chamber to effect jealousy or display anger.
    As the sun cleared away the thin cloud and approached its zenith the company broached the crest of the hill above the glade. It was, Zuo Fen had to admit, just as she had imagined lying prone and in disarray in the Emperor’s hall. In silence, and in the company of her imagination, she now paced from cave to path to water, and standing at the very edge of the lake’s bank focused her mind to envisage the events of twenty years past.
     It was as though a rhapsody was already formed. She found herself recounting the tale in her world of characters where there is only present time. She felt her hand describe them with the flow of her brush, heard the sound of its movement across the thick parchment. She was slow to notice that Meng Ning had disrobed and was entering the water. Without a word she watched him move through the carpet of floating leaves, some sticking to his nakedness, and onwards, slowly, following the submerged path until his torso then only his shoulders were visible. She then knew what he hoped to find, even after the passage of so many years.

She saw it all, suddenly. The sorcerer Yang Mo and the Emperor’s second wife descending the Red Slate Path as a cavalcade of fire and smoke, loud flashes of light, noises of brass and clashing metal enveloped the glade and the boat itself. The watching company witnessed for a moment the couple disappear under the waters only for their collective sight to be shrouded in a climaxed confusion of the sorcerer’s devices and effects.

When, finally the smoke cleared, the boat and the lovers had vanished.

Zuo Fen watched Meng Ning disappear from view. She imagined him, as the pearl fishers she had heard tell of, diving down to the depths, holding his breath to seek what might remain of the illusory boat. But time passed beyond the possibility of what she knew could be endured by human-kind. The surface of the water remained unbroken. The division of open water made by Meng Ning in breaking apart the carpet of floating leaves was already reforming itself.
   Removing her cloak and her boots, and unpinning her hair, Zuo Fen stepped into the water. A memory floated towards her of bathing in the lake near to her summer retreat. Water held no fear for her, only now the cold consumed her. Her loosed hair, and her elaborate untied robe settled on the water’s surface: to surround her like a lily pad, she the budding flower at its centre. She felt her feet still firmly on the Red Slate Path, her chin now resting on the water’s surface. Whatever had happened to Meng Ning she knew her action to be compliant. She had immersed herself with the very element that had brought him either death or, as she knew in her heart, a most honorable escape.
mj cusson Nov 2012
The final breath is entreated by the breaths of wind,
the sky returns again as the stormy clouds depart.
Droplets of water, from seas all over Earth
Puddles of mud which use to be dirt.
Centuries of creation all about,
Weep as fast as the swimming trout.

The morning birth of the turtle doves,
peaceful and sad to see the dark night.
The atmosphere of peace in might,
As it pecks its way out of shell.
Beneath the bone of its mother,
She nurtures without a bother.


The evening loss of dogs of war.
At last the threat returns,
****** turned out of sores.
Teacher sick of burns.
Fire of skies tormenting,
Precipitate of dirt fomenting.

The freedom of the snake is not so seditious,
It feeds on the nest of the turtle dove.
Protect O mother-bird your love,
Jettison the hatred deep inside,
And **** the snake with severely brutal guile.

The final wind is shakened by the quakes of ground.
Hurt is one dove but there is three.
Enough to go around,
Eaten as food by thee.
Hurt I'm, Hurt I be, nature you sicken me.
Nature you sicken me.
Jeff Barbanell Jun 2013
I took a stroll down my childhood lane
These neural pathways took me back
Multilingual versions of the narrative
Warned me of imminent attack
I made it work for me my people
Bedeviled on behalf of all my greater good
I took my time in stride with sidewalks cracked
And broke my swag along a scattered beach
Came down with that viral capacity to fluctuate
According to what gut feeling feeds heart pumping
Where we intersect that jazz bebopper inhabiting art
Draw outside the lines come together in stark contrast
To the words we negotiate with each other in exchange
For favors better left unpaid yet enacted cross-purpose
To our intended lizard goal to wrap our prey entangled
Tongued in the mail entreated globally galactic guardian

I’d simply settle inside ambitious repose armed by you
Draped across our gossamer webs wet commingled faces
To Jenny came a gentle youth
   From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
   By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
   And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been
   A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
   Of many loves had she
From scarcely sixteen years above:
Among them sundry troopers of
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
   Had bluffed the Biscay wave;
And Jenny prized her gentle one
   For all the love he gave.
She vowed to be, if they were wed,
His honest wife in heart and head
   From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust
   In Jenny knew no bound,
And Jenny kept her pure and just,
   Till even malice found
No sin or sign of ill to be
In one who walked so decently
   The duteous helpmate’s round.

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,
   And roamed, and were as not:
Alone was Jenny left again
   As ere her mind had sought
A solace in domestic joys,
And ere the vanished pair of boys
   Were sent to sun her cot.

She numbered near on sixty years,
   And passed as elderly,
When, in the street, with flush of fears,
   On day discovered she,
From shine of swords and thump of drum,
Her early loves from war had come,
   The King’s Own Cavalry.

She turned aside, and bowed her head
   Anigh Saint Peter’s door;
“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;
   “I’m faded now, and ****,
And yet those notes—they thrill me through,
And those gay forms move me anew
   As in the years of yore!”…

—’Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn
   Was lit with tapers tall,
For thirty of the trooper men
   Had vowed to give a ball
As “Theirs” had done (fame handed down)
When lying in the self-same town
   Ere Buonaparté’s fall.

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”
   The measured tread and sway
Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”
   Reached Jenny as she lay
Beside her spouse; till springtide blood
Seemed scouring through her like a flood
   That whisked the years away.

She rose, and rayed, and decked her head
   To hide her ringlets thin;
Upon her cap two bows of red
   She fixed with hasty pin;
Unheard descending to the street,
She trod the flags with tune-led feet,
   And stood before the Inn.

Save for the dancers’, not a sound
   Disturbed the icy air;
No watchman on his midnight round
   Or traveller was there;
But over All-Saints’, high and bright,
Pulsed to the music Sirius white,
   The Wain by Bullstake Square.

She knocked, but found her further stride
   Checked by a sergeant tall:
“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;
   “This is a private ball.”
—”No one has more right here than me!
Ere you were born, man,” answered she,
   “I knew the regiment all!”

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”
   Upspoke the steward free;
“We lack sufficient partners still,
   So, prithee let her be!”
They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,
And Jenny felt as in the days
   Of her immodesty.

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;
   She sped as shod with wings;
Each time and every time she danced—
   Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:
They cheered her as she soared and swooped
(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped
   From hops to slothful swings).

The favorite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”—
   (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—
“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow dow,”
   Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”
“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”
“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),
   She beat out, toe and heel.

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,
   And Peter’s chime told four,
When Jenny, *****-beating, rose
   To seek her silent door.
They tiptoed in escorting her,
Lest stroke of heel or ***** of spur
   Should break her goodman’s snore.

The fire that late had burnt fell slack
   When lone at last stood she;
Her nine-and-fifty years came back;
   She sank upon her knee
Beside the durn, and like a dart
A something arrowed through her heart
   In shoots of agony.

Their footsteps died as she leant there,
   Lit by the morning star
Hanging above the moorland, where
   The aged elm-rows are;
And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge
To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge
   No life stirred, near or far.

Though inner mischief worked amain,
   She reached her husband’s side;
Where, toil-weary, as he had lain
   Beneath the patchwork pied
When yestereve she’d forthward crept,
And as unwitting, still he slept
   Who did in her confide.

A tear sprang as she turned and viewed
   His features free from guile;
She kissed him long, as when, just wooed.
   She chose his domicile.
Death menaced now; yet less for life
She wished than that she were the wife
   That she had been erstwhile.

Time wore to six. Her husband rose
   And struck the steel and stone;
He glanced at Jenny, whose repose
   Seemed deeper than his own.
With dumb dismay, on closer sight,
He gathered sense that in the night,
   Or morn, her soul had flown.

When told that some too mighty strain
   For one so many-yeared
Had burst her *****’s master-vein,
   His doubts remained unstirred.
His Jenny had not left his side
Betwixt the eve and morning-tide:
   —The King’s said not a word.

Well! times are not as times were then,
   Nor fair ones half so free;
And truly they were martial men,
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.
And when they went from Casterbridge
And vanished over Mellstock Ridge,
   ’Twas saddest morn to see.
The Birds Fly into the eclipse of Mars,
They're lives tithe me by fives,
To the Man beyond those jailed bars.

Searching for a new place to call home,
Since this place is a waste of space,
For everyone an then some.

But with especial selfishness, especially me.
I need to beat my heart again, by meeting those I once found sweet,
Birds flying to the Eclipse of mars to be free.

Its futile of course,
But that is where beauty is truly entreated,
Into our lives of insignificant remorse.

Get me out of here now.
We'll go flying just like those birds, into the eclipse Of mars,
Just me and you, the gorgeous Queen of the Stars,
Your smile radiates my Milky way and beyond,
We'll navigate the asteroid belts,
And fly through the black holes,
Because like those futile birds,
We just want to be free.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed. Now the Dream is over. It's time to wake up and become your own reality weaver.- From Birds Flying Into The Eclipse Of Mars
Judgson blessing Jun 2015
king Cophetua and Beggar Maid is inspired of the painting of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1884 , England ) the painting run about an old legend of king that found that his love for Beggar Maid was greater than anything his possess : wealth and power . In that painting of Burne-Jones , the king Cophetua was moon stroke of the beauty of a Beggar Maid ,instead of her naked appearance in regard to this earthing consideration  , though he was allured by her state and deemed the Beggar Maid  would trade her natural beauty upon worldly elevation .But anemones was thrown about around the Beggar Maid standing . Anemone is the sign of refused love , to the king most astonishment and great deceit .Here lain the elevation of love above all thing consideration ; wealth , power and others .the painting also ran another significant meaning to Sir Edward Burne-Jones : its an undercurrent self resentments about chaos upon Frances Graham , a lady he was so devoted that got married one year earlier the painting .


What beauty , did behold a lady .
for what a fame completely shadowy.
lo, in dim recess of England a lady did dwell .
from head to toe a feature exquisitely so well .
her face is the panorama of crimson hue .
with dimple and frown so divinely imbue .
she is effigy of the culmination of word beauty .
peeping her through day long ; you will never feel thirsty.
all her face is settled in heavenly attire of smile .
for her possession of beauty is unique worldly simile .
her body had the mark of excellent work of art .
no nymph , no fairy could possess her frame impart .
princess of heaven ,celestial beauty of holy attire .
for your rendition of beauty a painter worship at your retire .
a smile ; radiant and blatant a devotion of all thing heavenly .
a couple of lips very in regular design , most delicate  work of father holy.
the short up turn of the upper golden lip in rosy glow .
with lower lip so justly fitted as lid and bowl .
nay it deemed the most work of legendary painter hand .
but now what a glorious gait of cadence did withstand .
where in remotest antique could we withheld such beauty ?
from head to toe all the feature luridly in unity .
little upwards the average height with magnificent bearing .
her arms and legs proportionally fitted in good caring .
the neck is culmination of adjusted rings darting as snake .
when she depart all her part spring like a dance at music .
slim and fitted with fitting body as a young mutated snake .
but i warrant all thing upon her hip jingling spring like .
her look naked you and everything with impure world .
well begrounded as reflex through giant mirror .
meeting with her personality is a kind of celestial discovery.
like discovery of a gold pit or gas gush in desert of misery .
she betoken of kind of aura that prevails peace .
but Beggar she was at her secluded place .
with a smile she attracts but beg worldly sympathy .
not a corrupted heart or soul she believe in the holy trinity .
what a beauty to wasted but in shameful mendicancy .
the sagacious spirited dimly alluded with grin .
for all the hole tandem dwelt but in rich lustrine .
the quantity is the mother of all pain and sin .
but chastity is holy devotion all in pure spiriting .
oh, what good for us if we just live in nothing but lust .
money, fame and other elevations are vile and endless lost .
pure beauty you behold with pure noble spirit .
rich or poor do only one thing :run away from ignominy .
the Beggar Maid was sitting upon her recess and shadowy .
lo, trodden king Cophetua back of horse of finely white garb .
and riding sat majestically ***** like state pole in richly parade.
perfume and the richness of articulation stole through and filled the momentum .
with guards and valet finely polite and alerted at the extremum .
what a cadence ! what a sight ! as heaven trotting herd .
but lulled in mostly attire and paraded mostly in gold .
with a look the purest radiant and the noblest ever been .
nothing but a grandeur and riches were what to be seen .
settled on horse so holy that was moved as not touching the soil .
king Cophetua trotted and commanded but with moderate majestic control .
beheld with the Beggar Maid that beauty was a heavenly allure .
halt he made and laid his feet on ground with real frantic gesture .
in obsequious and excess real gesture drove to his knees .
and held altogether ***** airy and up tall .
upon the King procession on his knees the Maid took on in respect.
with stature all slanted flat across the ground all beaming in light .
what grandeur or glory fitted before the Maid most alluring ?
nay,fame ,riches ,noble , power ,cunning nor learning .
all but are subjected and tamed ,transformed into nothing.
king Cophetua is a glory ,but pure beauty is holy not a thing stand pure beauty.
for the worship of our splendor is the betoken kind spiritually .
the Beggar Maid is a right down deprived and seemed a cursed sin .
but pure beauty beholds with pure resplendent holy garden .
what life led you through ?behold there is no wealth down here more your soul .
and you are diving in filthy abode and lamenting your spirit in foul .
nay, beauty keep out of lust and covetousness and preserve your spirit .
cause none ,but only you will stand when is the last verdict .

the maid garbed in silken attire float so soft and dainty .
king Cophetua in his mighty clad covered with gold is holy .
i seen you are a beauty , entreated he in lowest musical resonant voice .
and i deemed make you you the praise of my ever unique choice .
yet before God and before mortal i would worship you as holy throne .
the Maid as voice as lute and lyre sang but in sweet musical tune .
my King im as much obliged though unworthy servant of your kingdom .
all the honor is for me ,and upon my foil state is for me a bloom .
my honor is regardless said he ,i fain treat you as an equal .
now deign tell me what can i do to you cause i feel towards you loyal .
glory be to Lord !for you philanthropic reverence my Lord .
for i need nothing more but, 'give me today my daily bread '.
appalled but aghast upon the Maid humble and unequivocal demand .
he stretched ***** in mournful and sad air of command .
and took quite survey of the Maid that is nothing but pretty creature .
for his wildness dreams he never seen such purity upon his pasture .
yet abashed with the Maid demand ,a lesson of life of great enormity .
something somehow weird and unusual stroke him about the Maid personality.
but he restated once more i feel hearty and  kind towards you then .
you might tell me that you need in life now and then .
and sat ***** fancying himself of new pleasant answer .
oh King retorted the latter i had formulated my need .
for faith under and heaven above i have no greed .
nettled he settled his curled hair back thrown .
and so should it be as you but did deem .
and nothing but here receive a dime .
Lo, I have loved thee long, long have I yearned and entreated!
Tell me how I may win thee, tell me how I must woo.
Shall I creep to thy white feet, in guise of a humble lover ?
Shall I croon in mild petition, murmuring vows anew ?

Shall I stretch my arms unto thee, biding thy maiden coyness,
Under the silver of morning, under the purple of night ?
Taming my ancient rudeness, checking my heady clamor­
Thus, is it thus I must woo thee, oh, my delight?

Nay, 'tis no way of the sea thus to be meekly suitor­
I shall storm thee away with laughter wrapped in my beard of snow,
With the wildest of billows for chords I shall harp thee a song for thy bridal,
A mighty lyric of love that feared not nor would forego!

With a red-gold wedding ring, mined from the caves of sunset,
Fast shall I bind thy faith to my faith evermore,
And the stars will wait on our pleasure, the great north wind will trumpet
A thunderous marriage march for the nuptials of sea and shore.
Two good friends had Hiawatha,
Singled out from all the others,
Bound to him in closest union,
And to whom he gave the right hand
Of his heart, in joy and sorrow;
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.

Straight between them ran the pathway,
Never grew the grass upon it;
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods,
Story-tellers, mischief-makers,
Found no eager ear to listen,
Could not breed ill-will between them,
For they kept each other’s counsel,
Spake with naked hearts together,
Pondering much and much contriving
How the tribes of men might prosper.

Most beloved by Hiawatha
Was the gentle Chibiabos,
He the best of all musicians,
He the sweetest of all singers.
Beautiful and childlike was he,
Brave as man is, soft as woman,
Pliant as a wand of willow,
Stately as a deer with antlers.

When he sang, the village listened;
All the warriors gathered round him,
All the women came to hear him;
Now he stirred their souls to passion,
Now he melted them to pity.

From the hollow reeds he fashioned
Flutes so musical and mellow,
That the brook, the Sebowisha,
Ceased to murmur in the woodland,
That the wood-birds ceased from singing,
And the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
Ceased his chatter in the oak-tree,
And the rabbit, the Wabasso,
Sat upright to look and listen,

Yes, the brook, the Sebowisha,
Pausing, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach my waves to flow in music,
Softly as your words in singing!”

Yes, the bluebird, the Owaissa,
Envious, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach me tones as wild and wayward,
Teach me songs as full of frenzy!”

Yes, the robin, the Opechee,
Joyous, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach me tones as sweet and tender,
Teach me songs as full of gladness!”
And the whippoorwill, Wawonaissa,
Sobbing, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach me tones as melancholy,
Teach me songs as full of sadness!”

All the many sounds of nature
Borrowed sweetness from his singing;
All the hearts of men were softened
By the pathos of his music;
For he sang of peace and freedom,
Sang of beauty, love, and longing;
Sang of death, and life undying
In the Islands of the Blessed,
In the kingdom of Ponemah,
In the land of the Hereafter.

Very dear to Hiawatha
Was the gentle Chibiabos,
He the best of all musicians,
He the sweetest of all singers;
For his gentleness he loved him,
And the magic of his singing.

Dear, too, unto Hiawatha
Was the very strong man, Kwasind,
He the strongest of all mortals,
He the mightiest among many;
For his very strength he loved him,
For his strength allied to goodness.

Idle in his youth was Kwasind,
Very listless, dull, and dreamy,
Never played with other children,
Never fished and never hunted,
Not like other children was he;
But they saw that much he fasted,
Much his Manito entreated,
Much besought his Guardian Spirit.

“Lazy Kwasind!” said his mother,
“In my work you never help me!
In the Summer you are roaming
Idly in the fields and forests;
In the Winter you are cowering
O’er the firebrands in the wigwam!
In the coldest days of Winter
I must break the ice for fishing;
With my nets you never help me!
At the door my nets are hanging,
Dripping, freezing with the water;
Go and wring them, Yenadizze!
Go and dry them in the sunshine!”

Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind
Rose, but made no angry answer;
From the lodge went forth in silence,
Took the nets, that hung together,
Dripping, freezing at the doorway,
Like a wisp of straw he wrung them,
Like a wisp of straw he broke them,
Could not wring them without breaking,
Such the strength was in his fingers.

“Lazy Kwasind!” said his father,
“In the hunt you never help me;
Every bow you touch is broken,
Snapped asunder every arrow;
Yet come with me to the forest,
You shall bring the hunting homeward.”

Down a narrow pass they wandered,
Where a brooklet led them onward,
Where the trail of deer and bison
Marked the soft mud on the margin,
Till they found all further passage
Shut against them, barred securely
By the trunks of trees uprooted,
Lying lengthwise, lying crosswise,
And forbidding further passage.

“We must go back,” said the old man,
“O’er these logs we cannot clamber;
Not a woodchuck could get through them,
Not a squirrel clamber o’er them!”
And straightway his pipe he lighted,
And sat down to smoke and ponder.
But before his pipe was finished,
Lo! the path was cleared before him;
All the trunks had Kwasind lifted,
To the right hand, to the left hand,
Shot the pine-trees swift as arrows,
Hurled the cedars light as lances.

“Lazy Kwasind!” said the young men,
As they sported in the meadow:
“Why stand idly looking at us,
Leaning on the rock behind you?
Come and wrestle with the others,
Let us pitch the quoit together!”

Lazy Kwasind made no answer,
To their challenge made no answer,
Only rose, and, slowly turning,
Seized the huge rock in his fingers,
Tore it from its deep foundation,
Poised it in the air a moment,
Pitched it sheer into the river,
Sheer into the swift Pauwating,
Where it still is seen in Summer.

Once as down that foaming river,
Down the rapids of Pauwating,
Kwasind sailed with his companions,
In the stream he saw a ******,
Saw Ahmeek, the King of Beavers,
Struggling with the rushing currents,
Rising, sinking in the water.

Without speaking, without pausing,
Kwasind leaped into the river,
Plunged beneath the bubbling surface,
Through the whirlpools chased the ******,
Followed him among the islands,
Stayed so long beneath the water,
That his terrified companions
Cried, “Alas! good-bye to Kwasind!
We shall never more see Kwasind!”
But he reappeared triumphant,
And upon his shining shoulders
Brought the ******, dead and dripping,
Brought the King of all the Beavers.

And these two, as I have told you,
Were the friends of Hiawatha,
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
Long they lived in peace together,
Spake with naked hearts together,
Pondering much and much contriving
How the tribes of men might prosper.
Hal Loyd Denton May 2013
Words found in the wind supreme telling boisterous antagonistic they form in the great ocean they
Come they challenge everything and much is changed the sea cleanses land and its tenuous hold
Everything fair and precious must find a harbor a defiant manner to endure broken trees exemplify the
Hardy the uncompromising bend you must if broken it only gives up the dead and weak branches if up
Rooted it only shows the growth of deception that presented itself as truth all trivia superficial living will
Be reveled in the wind that which is rock solid and is built on a solid foundation will only flourish the
Storm is its bestowing gift these matters deeply rotted in the emotional center of the heart heeds the
Elemental force brought to bear by the wind it stands and shows its power that is not fake or foreign
But has a lasting place that grows because it is pure and is undaunted by assailing contradictions its
Value claims a root system born of time and reason compromise and injustice has never been found in
The hidden places of the heart there is no hidden agenda friend or foe is welcome to look and see to a
Friend it speaks of deep comfort knowing that all is open and it will stand any test and afford great help
In time of trouble the enemy will find a formidable foe not all enemies are without worth in the struggle
You can acquire skill and knowledge that will give you resources that will guide you to hidden veins of
Gold that can be found in no other way a rich life compared to one of poverty is to be much desired in
The lax uncommitted world of anything goes but that is about to change our enemies have found the
Formula that no one can win against its deadly poison the nation so grandly founded will turn on its own  
People to try to survive it will survive but a different streamlined and hardened one we believe it will be
An Outcome of good as weakness and folly are thrown off and the core values in much smaller form will
Continue sadness will pervade our world because of lost glory and our guilt that brought the big
Upheaval that reduced the heritage our children should have inherited this started with the sea wind so
I will insert this earlier piece and then continue
Sea Thoughts
Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows
Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only
There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its
Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over
Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’
Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature
Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship
Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and
Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea
Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined
by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part
of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.
____________
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them
I inserted this because the piece was running hard and it’s not my purpose to be negative or black
With troubling thoughts but at the sea you will find tumult and danger and at this time it echoes
Financial woes that are buffeting are precious nation there will be a resolution but not a pretty
One there are laws mathematic ones that you dare not trifle with but we have people who
Arrogantly hold office and think they can do as they please and all will magically fall into place
Because they wish it to be so it has never been true since earth began and will be no different
Now all will suffer as the same as the guilty but in extreme hope and faith possibly those seeds
Of greatness that was our true heritage will weather the storm and will re surface with pure
Power and grace that will create within each of us the true an unending love of country that will
Give us an arching back to the hearts and minds of our forefathers we will bestow a new
Beginning that Lincoln spoke of in the Gettysburg address after strife and winds that carry
Destruction there will be a new tomorrow from children who owns up to the mistakes and turns
Back to the true paths that will always assure glory and victory too many generations just like
before
Qweyku May 2014
Noon had barely finished his circuit
when I engaged the Sun in conversation,
wondering if her healing rays were a golden ode to pain?

Abruptly interrupted;
shirts' silk thread dripping displeasure,
at the sudden moistness of its condition.

In return and in much the same verbal position,
I chided this thread,
intoxicated with sticky saline libation,
much less for the distraction
as opposed to the - parley intrusion,

citing;

“My dear shirt it’s impolite to gravitate beyond one's social inclusion”

Instinctively,
back and fingers joined this spoken foray
distancing themselves in unison
from the sozzled garments' argument.

Arching and pulling away,
his company no longer entreated,
whatever beauty he had,
now lost,
in his present
dis - position.

In agreement and sunshine unabating,
I attempted to continue our once lovely conversation.
But she;
her glow unwaning,
had moved on,
no longer finding such small talk entertaining.



**© Qwey.ku
Have you ever seen a the pages of a story unfold in a single movement of a moment; these are stolen.
deanena tierney Oct 2010
My heart has not felt a beat so strong,
As the daythat you first touched me.
And yet I still don't know where I belong,
Or if anything's even meant to be.
I was hopeful when you entreated me,
And somehow my soul let you in,
But lately it has ushered you to the door,
And has sealed it up tight again.
And my conscience stakes not even a claim,
To the muddled life that I live,
I am but a slave who never meant any harm,
And I pray that you will forgive.
Raj Arumugam Sep 2014
(Warning: The following poem is a tale of horror)
_______________

1
E­at your food
pleaded the mom

Or else what?
shouted the stubborn child

Please eat your food
entreated the grandma

Or else what?
screamed the ungrateful child

Or else, said the father
the barber will come in when we are out
and he'll snip off your fingers



2
And true enough, one evening
when all the adults were out
a barber appeared before the child
and he said: Eat your food

Or else what? shouted the brat of a child

And when the adults returned that night
they found ten little fingers
all neatly displayed on the dining table
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried--Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, ******'d from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.
Hal Loyd Denton Apr 2013
A message for you on this Sunday

I had a terrifying nightmare a person I know was driving a pickup truck in the back was this
Great African lion he hardly seemed to fit in the truck and then he would surge forward against
The restraints that had him bound and that’s when it became more terrifying he would
Grow Even more his giant head not to mention his fangs his claws and his great mane all the
Time this little human person is racing down the road this depiction has multiple telling the
Foremost the devil is as a roaring lion that prowls about seeking whom he can devour and it is
The Great lion time individually the hour glass of many is very low Roger Ebert’s last golden
Grain Feel to the pile of sand at the end of the hour glass and then Valerie Harper has few
Grains Remaining in her case I’m hoping that a great number of us can pray and possibly God
Would be Entreated by us and change this irreversible course her life is headed in and then the
Hour glass for the whole world shows prophetically and in just common understanding the days
Are numbered now time has plundered the ship of wonder it passes on the leeward side her
Sails torn by centuries of travel many have been the thrills and adventures that have made the
World a nautical fantasy she would run with her sails full and many a dream she has pursued
And captured many were the days she lay low in the water and all humanity on board was
Smiling now it’s told in the wind and the waterspouts seem to say you will soon pass as it were
Into a cloud bank when you break clear it will no longer be the old familiar trade routes but just
A short distance ahead the break waters are seen and they hold a world that has only been
Seen By faith now it lies just off the starboard this time the delirium is not a fever of human
Content but finally being behind the vale where love was sweet and satisfying now it is laden
Like a ship’s cargo and now it is uncompromised unsoiled by sins pollution this love is a mixture
Of pure joy fulfillment that strains at every seem the laughter is uncharacteristic by it being
Without an ounce of sadness and you thought you had earth family well heavens census holds
Relatives that are an understatement when they say this is a distant relative and some bore the
Marks of martyrdom everyone’s disposition seems like they been on a steady diet of honey
Those former days when the worst pains came from trouble with family are the faintest and to
The most part forgotten memories this is and all feeling holds buoyancy what you will never see
Is a frown a tear or a want of any kind not fulfilled this is all pertaining to the emotional realm
Then you start with the physical structure of this golden city this is where the ignoble problem
With riches have been removed gold if put in heaps would reach higher than Everest but it is
A sheen transparent it’s  what Jesus told the street department to use as material to make the
Streets out of in fact every work order has this stamped on it my faithful children who loved me
And deserted the false and deadly world of self are coming home we will make it perfect my
Favorite emeralds are the great jeweled wonders that continually shine out from his throne if
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend my dears you will need your new glorified bodies or you would
Be instantly blinded by the splendor no coal cream no wrinkles you will be eighteen for ever any
Imperfections I wrote about last time had their day and brought good from bad now it’s time to
Enjoy what the word says Eye has not seen or ear has heard what God has prepared for them
That truly loved him doesn’t this awaken you to the cheap and dangerous world of following
The Devil into his rightful place into the flames the great thing it’s in our hands to decide
Continue to be devoured or stop and call on Jesus and be empowered and for your safety sake
Try this Experiment go to churches and if in any way they disregard Acts 2:38 and the message
It speaks as pure gospel truth and if from that they tell you things that are different but this
Guarantee Exist in God’s word if you desire truth on the inward parts it will be shown to you I’m
Talking to People already in churches I’m not slamming your beliefs I’m just offering you the
Missing parts nothing on earth is more important than this writing that you’re reading today
You can and should prove me wrong you will be surprised and blessed by your results I will add
This if this what I write offends you it could mean there is a problem and I will tell you another
Guarantee God says if I or anyone offends one of these little ones it will be better for him to
Have a mill Stone tied around his neck and be thrown into the deepest sea that’s how much
God cares for you I care and I make it sure by my own immortal soul there is all kinds of lies
Mistakes Misrepresentation but only one real truth that will get you where I have written about
Today
spysgrandson Sep 2016
from her window she could see
the shells of buildings the bombs battered--gray concrete
ghosts, haunting in their silence

Father said his ears
hadn't stopped ringing since the attacks, though he still
could hear her playing

and he expected her practice to continue
for one day, he promised, prayers would prevail, peace
would return, and her song would be heard

play, he entreated, for ivory, black
and white, has forgotten the evil of men, their carnage;
the notes know nothing except to be played

and to give pause for hope, when
more trenchant sounds demanded one’s attention,
still the song must remain
Aleppo, December 2014
731

“I want”—it pleaded—All its life—
I want—was chief it said
When Skill entreated it—the last—
And when so newly dead—

I could not deem it late—to hear
That single—steadfast sigh—
The lips had placed as with a “Please”
Toward Eternity—
EASILY ENTREATED IS WHAT I CRAVE THE MOST ALL OF THE TIME
NO SHADOW OF A DOUBT, NO IOTA OF WONDER IS MINE.
ONLY PURE THOUGHT REINS IN MY MIND PROMPTING A MOST WELCOMED SMILE;
CALM, SOOTHING AND UNENDING LIKE THE WATERS OF THE NILE.
TO BE CERTAIN AND CONVINCED IN ALL SITUATION AND IN GOOD SPEED
TO KNOW DEEP DOWN INSIDE AND TO BE FREED.
WE ALL DESERVE WISDOM FROM ABOVE, UNDISPUTED TRUTH, A JOYFUL HEART AND A PEACEFUL MIND
ONLY IN DARKNESS WILL WE SEE THE LIGHT WE ARE DESTINED TO FIND.
Raj Arumugam Jan 2013
....this poem is dedicated to our fellow-poet here at HP, Marisa White...


Corax versus Tisias*


(1) CORAX PRESENTS HIS CASE

Sirs, you most esteemed judges in all of Syracuse
most revered in all of our Greek world
I, Corax - known fondly, no doubt, as The Crow -
charge this man Tisias my student in rhetoric
of a mean trick against me, his teacher; he is a cheat
He entreated me often to teach him the smooth Art of Persuasion
the Perfection I had shaped in Rhetoric
And I agreed, after due consideration, prompted by my sense of duty;
and it was agreed he would pay me only if he wins
his first case in our esteemed courts
But Sirs, mark you well his treachery  -
for having learned of me my 5-Stage Movement in Persuasion
he then has refused to take any legal case in court
so he would never have to pay me my due
And so it is now I have forced him to court;
and so I trust, most Honourable Judges, in your wisdom
If I win the case, I should naturally receive all payment;
if I should lose the case, Tisias wins, and so - logically -
he should pay me…Ah, I submit myself to your wisdom


(2) TISIAS PRESENTS HIS CASE

Sirs, it is most true I was taught by Corax
but I have not kept away from court deliberately
but of fear - for I have no confidence in the rhetoric
he has taught me
For all he taught me was reliance on flattery
which I know, Sirs, never moves you
And so Sirs, if I should lose, it is I who should be paid
by the terms of the agreement;
and if I should win, in spite of his poor instruction,
then it is I again who should be paid for I win then
by my own naturalness
and by your aversion to flattery


(3) THE ESTEEMED JUDGES MAKE THEIR DECISION KNOWN

“Kakou korakas kakon oon”*
which translated in the vernacular, you commoners, is:
“Bad Crow, Bad Egg”

Case dismissed!
Throw the Crow and its Egg out of this Revered Court!
1) This poem is dedicated to our fellow-poet here at HP, Marissa White.
She describes herself as:  “A senior in high school just trying to make my way through life. This is my poetry. I would really like to improve as a writer so critiques are welcome.”
Do read her poems – each one is full of life and deep thought, and originality.

2) Google "Corax of Syracuse" for more information on the historical context. The poem is based on information in  the book "You Talking to Me?  Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama" by Sam Leith
Hal Loyd Denton Aug 2013
Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows
Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only
There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its
Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over
Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’
Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature
Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship
Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and
Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea
Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined
by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part
of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.
____________
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them.
Sedoo Ashivor Oct 2015
He pulled her to himself and said,
"Give me a kiss, my Lady, just a kiss"
She turned away and shook her head
"No. I thought you promised me bliss".
"But look, all my shelves are bare,
What tells me of your professed care?"


Almost kneeling, he entreated her
"But Sweetheart, here, you have my heart
Or would you rather I gift you a car?"

She wailed, "You must think me daft!
You have a beautiful wife and child
Sitting around the glowing fire in your home
Then you abandon me here, in the wild
To live by myself, all alone
You think I care for a car
When you'd still be so far
I could not even drive to meet you
Then, I'd be a complete fool".


He replied, "Dear lady, I hate to have met you
Long after I had been hooked to a wife
That no one had given me a chance to woo
Now I couldn't live without you in my life
Please, tell me what I ought to do."


Her eyes a-blazing, his a-gazing
She declared,"Send your miserable wife away
And I'm sorry, your daughter
Will have to live without her father
And I'm going to the big mansion to stay!"


"Oh no! No!" he cried, "That's unfair!
I love you but I must say the truth
The miserable wife has always shown me care
Over the years, right from our youth
I could not divorce her for anything
Least of all, you selfish, drama queen!"


She snorted and said, *"Well spoken!
Beware of this heart you have broken
I tested to know how much you loved me
Your lies are now very evident to see
Go away and leave me alone
I'll find me a husband,
To give me a proper home!"
You hear my every thought,
My every prayer,
My every cry of anguish-
Or so I have always believed.

You are a God of justice,
And mercy,
And love.
You promise me rest from
This world's burdens.

Yet this is denied to me.

I asked for light in the darkness,
Pleaded for peace in chaos,
Wept for an end to this unbearable pain.

On my knees, tears streaming, I entreated;
"Bring me home, Lord.
I am too exhausted to fight this endless war.
Please, I want to come home!"


And I heard a whisper;
Not yet.
It is not your time,
There is still far more I have in mind
For you.
You cannot see it now,
But there are blessings to come
Far greater than you can dream.


And with this frail hope
I trudged through
Week by week,
Taking it a day at a time,
Sometimes surviving only hour to hour.

And here I am once again,
Agony enveloping my heart.
Salt water stinging my eyes,
My body wracked with sobs,
Choking back screams.

You are the God of justice,
And mercy,
And love.
You promise me rest from,
This world's burdens.

Yet you curse me with this affliction,
Disguised in a strong embrace,
A heart-melting smile,
Warm, brown eyes,
Three, single syllable words.

I love you

I shake uncontrollably.
I desperately gulp for air.
I can't think
Over the clamor
Of my own heartbeat.

I am not here,
This is not happening,
This is not my life.

Can you say it back?
It would mean a lot to me...
I know you do...


My thoughts roar with the words,
My heart beats to their rhythm,
My soul sings their melody,
Every fiber of my being screams it.

You are God of justice,
And mercy,
And love.
You promise me rest from
This world's burdens.

I am sure that You love me, Lord,
With all that You are,
Yet I cannot fathom
How this man holding me
Could even begin to love me
When I can't even love myself.

Why me? Why love me?
How could you possibly love me?

You deserve someone better,
Someone good,
Someone beautiful,
Someone whole.


Lord;

If You are justice,
Then why give me this punishment?

If You are mercy,
Then why am I captive to my past?

If You are love,
Then why am I so terrified of being loved?

If You promise me rest from
This world's burdens,
Then why can't I let myself be happy?

You hear my every thought,
My every prayer,
My every cry of anguish.

So I desperately fall to my knees again,
And throw myself completely into You,
Praying that someday You give me the strength
To make myself weak
And say to him
Three, single syllable words.

*I love you
Hal Loyd Denton Mar 2012
Sea Thoughts

Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows

Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only

There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its

Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over

Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’  

Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature

Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship

Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and

Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea

Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined

by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part

of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song  this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.
____________
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them.
Hal Loyd Denton Jun 2013
Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows
Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only
There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its
Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over
Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’
Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature
Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship
Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and
Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea
Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined
by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part
of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.
____________
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them.
Ken Pepiton Jun 2019
A resting place, beyond the madding crowd,
find rest
com fort ify
your quiet place, safe, say, make it so,
listen,
hear jets high above,
no contrails, no clouds, high pressure
clear skies,
no war on the horizon;
what if we imagined this,
today, while it is called today,
were a day when no lie was left
posing true, on earth, as in this
quiet place.

No word holding thoughts once common
is left idle,
meaning forms
a place where a prehender
can see how the handle makes the tool.
In formation, each imagined useful idea in need
of believers to let it be,
in a word.
Ask.
Is this useful for good?
Whole ideas can be null-ift, with a no.
You know, if the whole idea is a lie
locked in a meaningless whatphor.

Nature, and Nature's god, for instance,
escapes the test. Try it. Imagine now,
2019, your quiet place,
am I a being being? For no reason?

Is reason my word now, as may is mine,
ask
in your quiet place.

Prove me now, and see if
desire
words, de sidare (old idea, from the stars)
wishin' and hopin' and prayin'

grant or give or take away that which
you
desire, see sire, desire is a word that waits
in quiet places, for you, all ya'll,
to cognize and claim,

consider the connection made. Click.

That peace past understanding,
ever learning, line upon line,
precept after precept
apprehended

in your quiet place
word of truth
shows
unseen things, substantiates
situations worth the waiting patient per
fection of all concerning
you,
say the compilers of the good news who selected

that which works from that which shant,
should we agree to
go and see, if so and so saying, make it so,

makes it so. Amen is never a question,

you know. Amen is an agreement when so and so
says do as I tell you  to do,

and you obey. Eh? A link in an old chain?
Obediance is better than sacred making (art-ficing sacred, in effect).

Quiet. This time-less gap be twixt touch and feel and hope and see.
Here, we hear wisdom.
She, please agree, is gentle, never rude, but sharp, easy
to be entreated,

a poke in the old pineal gland, pay attention,
slightest ***** of a pin danced upon by angels
who fasted for
chains to be broken,
oppressed be set free,
strangers to be welcome here, iftar, after the fast
the future
now, here, where war is null ift, let us be
a net of quiet places
where messages
from where heaven is

connect to reality,
woof and warp, Ley
lines in time to this day, threads through
the maze to now, as natural as breathing.

(look around, there are no fates with scissors poised,
the titled reader's
pride acts a ***** and shame threatens blame,
but hell. whatcha got to lose?)

Be, still, being. Wonder what you are.
Pushing my envelope a bit, expanding my bubble. The idea in iftat, the meal after the fast when strangers are nvited into peace. I like this explanation of the Ramadan fast,
The best way I can explain Ramadan is this: to act as if we are standing in front of God 24 hours a day. How would you act? You are trying to perfect your relationship and your practice in a real, practical way. It's a googled quote. SO, 1.6 billion earthlings should agree, if evil is defeated in each of us, we could love our enemies.
Sam Conrad Nov 2013
Raine...
What's in a name?
We long knew of our downfall
Our star-crossed love.
As our minds combined,
And our bodies mingled,
We joked we were doomed.

Raine,
What's in a name?
We fell into untouchable love
Our star-crossed love.
As our minds intrigued,
And our bodies harmonized,
We knew we were doomed.

Raine,
What's in a name?
You fell out our wonderful love
Our star-crossed love.
As my mind pleaded,
And my hands entreated,
I found *I was doomed.
Ken Pepiton Aug 2019
Hearing history whisper in the background

in an aural realm
I hear enkidu bled
ink
to fill the pens

of ready writers after
ever
lasting word
forms
a name
Enki, wisdom and life
flowing

into length of days
ancient
days
long

remembered, visited
in daydreams
featuring

all that may have been,
then.

Some soporific drink drunk
in old Uruk

vicareate, those in lieau of you.

Dying for you to go into the
realm
of knowns past
knowing knowns now in this

realm

make your mind reach mine.
Stand under my lines and

lean toward joy
good and calm,

gentle waves of peace
swirling fibrating threads
forming

woven things, matrices,

see the points crossed over
and under,
see the edges wound around,
to keep the rubbing of

reality from fraying ends.

did the fingers gno the math,
the ciphers we see
in carpets woven by magi
families
for centuries, ere

The Prophet were told to Read,
and he refused
to learn,

but chose to teach that which
an angel of light,

warned against by Paul the Gnostic Jew,

taught? Told to read, but never learning to do it, because angel said,
say exactly what i say...

Teachers once learned by teaching, but
never has reading been masterd
sans
sensibility of the graphemes
re
presenting the noises

common in every human ear
hearing in
sapience, abruptly

Hear!
Easy to be entreated. You have ears?
Hear.
How is never asked, why is clear; ears hear,
we all have ears.

Not all ears hear.
But eyes can learn to read, with some effort.

I magine it your task. You the first speaker of your
magic tongue-lung-teeth-lips, epiglot-tonsil-nasal

noise making system, engineered
to permit

song in accord with this, our shared realm of
noises, common.

Ha. This tale of an angel telling a messenger to read,

is this a famous story? Have I not learned of a war being
waged,
i.e. fought with stand-ins paid to fight, live or die.

Soldiers formed from hearers of empty songs
stretched to cover eyes, as well,

push and pull, hot and cold, balance value
weight and worth

imagine knowing no written tongue

you, dear reader, this book of lives in life per se,

who could see this coming?

Papyrii and clay and stone

cities are inventions of men

men who would be kings
imagined
delegating

knack for knack *** for tat

this for that all
for me,
the man wombed or un who would be

like the most high god I can imagine

ah the danger of falling into anachronism

you first must imagine, dear reader, that
writing is an invention

intended to bher the burden of learning to
remember, really,

no po'etic license claimed or blamed

famine of the written word
negates not the worth of rhyme and dance

masques and noises of roaring bulls

thrumming, thundering herds

screaming hawks, squeeling rabbits,
caw
cawing crows or ravens if that
distinction is
ever
necessary...

as the story is told, some time after ever starts.

This has been a chapter in our history,
dear reader from the times before the pictures
were scratched on the rock Sisyphus rolls.

Twixt now and then lies a realm of stories locked in idle words
never written for never having a reader
who grasped the message to the prophet,

read.

-----
Uruk, was there a ****** who watched you rise and learned
to make a city sufficiently

enslaving to raise a king from the son of a king

to the level of luxury allowing

reading all that writing demands

suggestive is the fact that the written word for C2H5OH
is a spirit ual thing caught in a word
as old as the earliest writing
remaining

alcohol, spoken now, would call for a drink in old Uruk and Akkad,
as would reference to kohl warm eyes,

be cool

as are we all, we living words spoken in times past,
listing in lusting vacuums of empty songs

ah, you shall not surely die, poor Gilga-
mesh, the net

spread in your sight, you never thought

networking and weaving were skills teachable, thus
this witty idea, the best potter makes only one pattern of ***,
all for me,
I take them a ll and feed the potter meat. Mighty hunter, am I.

I feed many with one mammoth

I am worthy of all they make with strength taken as granted

while chewing the carcass of my
****
--- here it comes,

civilization---

things in abundance might be made,
and traded
for
that which we lack the knack to make

so soon does some medium of exchange manifest

as witty inventions emerge from seeds carried from the garden

How? Now, off-scour, **** of the earth, us-all,

poor you have with you always,

we, the feeble-but-not-un-minded, people, whisper

when we sing,
shuffle when we dance, fly when we dream
and live until we die and leave mere words to live ever after in the wind,

making peace for the heirs of the earth.
J.M Roberts history of the world in the backgound listening to Sunday in my valley.
Poetus Jun 2019
I begged,

On bent knee, my palm gently kissing her hand.

If I needed to smith a sword she was my searing heat.

If I needed to craft a ship she was my impenetrable weld.

If I needed to fly she was the wind beneath my wings.

I had never been able to do anything without her.

Once again I beseeched her to lend herself to me.

Her dark brown eyes probed mine in keenness

Discerning the nobility of my plea, if to heed

If I am to set sail amidst the flooding waves of life

I’d need her as my anchor

If I am to brave the fog and the winter cold

I’d need her to radiate against my skin

If I am to fashion a generation of impeccable humans

I’d need only her to be.

Once again I entreated her to lend herself to me.

Her eyes came out of my deeps, sparkling with satisfaction

And a curve of her lips preceded the calm in her answer

No
I give myself to you!
My sister Susan had disappeared
At the age of twenty four,
She’d gone on up to the attic room
And she’d locked and barred the door,
We beat, cajoled, and entreated her,
But she never would come out,
I said, ‘We shouldn’t have argued Sue,
I didn’t need to shout.’

My father came with his gravel voice
And demanded ‘Open up!’
He thumped and kicked on the cedar door,
And beat with a metal cup,
But there wasn’t even a whimper
As of somebody inside,
It was like she’d suffered a broken heart
Had crawled in there, and died.

We left her there till the morning,
Thought a night would calm her down,
‘She’ll come out once she is hungry,’
Said my brother, (he’s a clown).
But as the clock struck for dinner time
With not the slightest stir,
My father carried a battering ram
And ran right up the stair.

He stood and battered the cedar door,
He said it gave him pain,
‘I can’t afford to replace it, but,’
Then belted it again,
The door had splintered, the lock fell off
And he burst into the room,
But all that he saw were cobwebs, dust
And an air of deepest gloom.

‘Susan, where can you be,’ he cried,
‘There’s nowhere you can hide,
There isn’t even a window here
So you can’t have got outside,’
His voice rang out through the house and sent
An echo down the stair,
My mother burst into tears to hear
That Susan wasn’t there.

The police came over and climbed the roof,
Dropped into the attic space,
They hunted among the rafters there,
Looked almost every place,
There wasn’t a sign of Susan though
She’d simply disappeared,
‘The same thing happened to Grandma Coe,’
My mother cried, ‘It’s weird!’

‘She locked herself in the attic there
In the fall of forty-eight,
‘They thought that they heard her on the stair
When the hour was getting late,
But never a sign of her came back,
Then her husband, Grandpa died,
We always thought that she must be here
But somehow locked inside.’

We called the local clairvoyant in
And he brought his Tarot pack,
He stared long into his crystal ball
Till we had to call him back,
He chanted into the midnight hour
In a voice both loud and slow,
Till shuffling out of the Attic came
Not Sue, but Grandma Coe!

David Lewis Paget
Kimberly C Brown Oct 2010
What if I asked you
entreated you into ending me.
My fingers click against
sweat stained keys,
my eyes strain against the florescent lights of
my computer screen,
my ears vibrate with the sounds of laughter penetrating the empty
dead space of my closed room.
I don't want to continue like this.
My life is walking
with wearied feet sinking
deeper
and deeper still
in the mud of desperation.
My toes crack
my ankles creak from the stiff cold
as I rotate their joints.
I'm becoming tired,
as the night progresses
I wish often than cautiousness allows
that I
would sleep and not wake.
Ken Pepiton Jan 23
Many inputs say Mondays are common,
but one input says this Monday is uncommon.
We are to be the judge of that.

This is the Monday when you appear,
as reader dear, ready to reason with ghosts
amusing each other with wishes doing pirouettes
as angels may be imagined doing on pinheads,
spinning, or kicking in chorus line choreography.

The elderly nobody imagines the scene,
and makes it seem a vision, something seen,
after the finest sieve - pulling pin wires

snipping whimseys, making mites for widows.

------------ The Government's about to change,
wanna bet, whose got money on whom,

leave the room… vacate the judgment hall,
we are all here, to judge me, last call
all the outs are in, all the ins are intimate,

and we have made all the seed we could,
in word and deed, and we chose to leave
the edges un mowed, so critters can live,

when we can understand our own words
and read other languages using them,
these words are as living things imagined,

said and known, at once, in Housie or Hindi

whatsoever we can envision and project,
we may elect to try to do, or we may do
using words alone,
we think as one
mind,
so now we is I, we is not royal,
we is eloheemishical. Us big good being.


Watcher what of the night?

----------------------
Two geriatic puppets duke it out
for the FOOTBALL
News is all reruns.
Making war for pay,
money makes it work,
gotta love it, gotta love it.

Any reason for killing for,
gotta love it, real deal love it,

steal from the rich to become
richer, Lord knows, war's reason,

come now, let us reason together,
let us cogitate clarity of conscience,
with science standing in for knowledge,
the whole truth, once told, whole knowing

all things working together with reason,
for those in the blooming gnosis realms,

where augmented intelligence forms
teams of knowing hidden reconnectors,
citizen band geeks in the olden days
breaker, breaker, let the learned agree,

we lived just in time to see it all work.

In older olden days…
Messages were carried, at current
stretch of the imagination speed, by slaves…

Writing letters was…
different, I suppose, or
propose, positionally different,
sup and pro posals posed as statu'es,
forms of former founders of the orderly
clusters of human compliance called nodes,
junctions and interchanges, whither all roads lead.

Edu-pre-gogy-ology **** bang,
mechanical thinking in the subconscience science
used auto responsively,
finger aiming quick **** experience, wired below
the will, deep down to predator macrophage stage,
running id scans on the ego accepting wedom hero role.

The sole survivor, from ten thousand stories repeated
trillions of times by now, exoterror faces esoterror,

children led to mindless aliegiance to the flag,
and to the given republican form
of labor management,

had the heros of history
had my tools, perhaps sense had been made easy,

but this is the future, tense
I have, for a modest sum, any course of andragogy,
mankind mind leading, post child mind pedagogy,
- repeat not in vain taking my name, say true
- memory for song is long as all that

among canine species, we see breeds.
among human species, we see types, types for tasks,
intuitive doers of certain things magnificently, once

often, relatively, often
in the process of time, unique tasks.
Ever canonical, global and beyond, true wow
Onesies
Single mortal lifespan tasks, centered self aware tasks,
rockstar, base baller, foot baller, tackle, center, guard,

sergeant major, permanent noncommissioned officer,
loyal to the letter, let us assume, a military mind,
holds all response react ready reading inclination
to check for polisemy snuck in under humor heresy,

whose spirit is stirred up when fans are frenzied,

where do the emotions go, after the connection
to the whole aspect of prowess in team leadership
leaves the bubble of we the fans, become me,
alone and unwilling to ever cry wolf again…
-que sera sera
my side won, my times done
being, as a man with no real job,

they pay me for surviving crazy,
that's how this magic pen is driven.

Of course, in the course of human events,
this stage of peace enough and time enough,
shelter enough and sustenance enough,

centering, any whole self requires more knowledge
than had been made plain using words
in agreemental treaty
form, easily entreated,
as wisdoms are,
so you know what the adverse position is, and why
or why not, good or no good, workable or not,
doable or not, whatsover we agree,

as touching anything,
in all the sense ever fit
to touch, the initiates recognosis
sense the essential lies all being judged
in your heart,
gentlest touch, truly superlative softest

Public heart, common stander at the anthem, hoo yah
rah and all, good citizen soldier ever ready, to imagine

your part in the billions of parts is perfect
for one task, Life given, your one deed,
who says? Fate from the exoterica available to boys,
and girls who seem allowed to mind wander, some how

reading children, book reading children, in homes with
gigabit wifi and
dads and moms and
grand parents who lived
through historical moments.
  
Selah, long breathers, long now,
times proof recollections written
on the tables of my prayer's heart,
I prayed for one of the kind that works
instant in prayer, ask and eventually, find.

The process of time, see, seems invisible.
Perfect, facere specifically just right to be you,
dude, man, joker, street wise desert gawker, you

lucky, you live in a world where words are animated,
via actual Starlinking thinking come to pass
in proces of time since I was
preschool, a kid, child from the escaped goat clan,
mindshapers begin at the ******, confusion,
is common enough for first borns, nobody knew,
really, you can imagine, the cravings,
but confusion is not disconnection,
and no disconnect to knowledge
becomes immortal hell zones.

oh, my god, why, and
then, an elderly man with mottled skin,
sun squint wrinkles around slit smiling eyes,
bemusing the unbeguiled
amused at his appearance, a'knowledges knowing

With a re-coknowing Nod, to the east,
we are so far from where stories start forming leaven,
we merely imagine many long unthinkable things,
habits lost in ritual performance, character act-or,

no need to change a thing, that guy, that person,
that could be me, I have done that same dumb thing,
or watched it done while doing nothing
time and again, get lost in genre and find myself
wondering in wonder land
wonder woman world  of my own
imaging, imagining
living words between us, intimate, most in, inest most
crowd of witnesses,
reading right minds left letters better left than right read
clunk chunk
encoded news from the superlative zone, grand canyons
filled with technical debris and useless superlatives
clicks from children who know what discern means
are subsiding,
slipping under the wave,
trending sense first your worth,
before you accept a bid for your attention,
if you know this line of reasoning, having been
this far
before, as a thought, forethought
-breathe knowing now more than ever
knowledge inside intimates attain
to thorough patient word
redemption and restoration to full
polisemy parallel -all el, par excellence, a we
awe
form. Wind shapes form of spirits, tried, true.

Mind thing first reading each letter,
finding the evolved pen much to my liking,
fluid forms meander, and sigh, and sometime,
puddle to ponder surface reflections,
seeing some wishing for simple,
while we all know we are a ways after simple

this is sub-limity. Lowest ever so far. Look around
nothing needs to be secret at the bottom of it all.
If you don't like the style, I understand, some people come with clipped attention spans, gotta love em.
Ken Pepiton Jul 2019
Fasces and olive branch on one side, tails;
wing-ed Phrygian cap on the head
of an image of the spirit of
Liberty, a fem.
Heads.

Dimes in the olden times,
when I was born,
1948,

dimes in America in those days
symbolized a long known
goodness for all men,
included in
we, the people, which includes
me.

Me and thee, we are we, only by virtue of my
words being written and your reading
of the same within our
terms of endearment
cookie.

Each we we are in, let us call a set,
but that confuses us, fuses us
to gether.
So, let's seee

See it like this. I am good. I repel wrong and
act right,
asif I were
polarized live in op
position to evil

evil live, have you seen it? Live,
did it prosper in your presence or was peace the final state?

Just, now. Please plea with your knower, don't lie.
Say never all you wish, however never lie
against the truth.

To thine own self, et al... y'know

in each generation of earth borne,
one hero is reared to play your role, dear reader.
Fret not,

know wisdom has been maligned as
calling us through each position
of the fool... there is a map
of these positions in a statuary garden
behind the temple of the golden buddha

in Bankok, visited with Mr. Boo in 1968.

I remember none of the poses but ai knows they form
a pyramid,
i
imagine it
peaks in some backward
footed kundalini pose,

which is *******. I imagined. Wisdom is gentle
and easy to be entreated, okeh, heko.
Thanks, dear reader, you empower my whimsy to see if this is visible on earth in 2019.
victor tripp Sep 2013
Red white Blue the colors of the flag flowing over the Nation that stands for peace but surely defend in war we can countries that we have entreated that scorned global peace American guns of war and mighty power to in due course defeat Americans stand out wherever they go naturally proud of their country so that every one will know.America the beautiful I pledge my love and dedication forever to you serving this this great and free land as under the free flowing stars and stripes united we all stand .I will always love America the beautiful forever
victor tripp Sep 2013
RED WHITE BLUE THE colors of the flag flowing over the Nation one that stands for peace but surely defend in war we can defeat countries that we have entreated that have scorned global peace American guns of war and mighty power in due course tend to repeat .Americans stand out wherever they go voices rising with pride of their country so that every one will know. America the beautiful I pledge my love and dedication forever to you serving this great and free land as under the free flowing stars and stripes united we all stand I will love America the beautiful forever
My very own words
I prayed & entreated
"Don't leave me, my love"

Yet again & again

I pointed blunt knives
At our chests
Leaving a trail of pain
In my wake

Like soldiers unrecovered
Rushing back in
Pushing both to our limits
Breaking our necks

Our battlefields forever alive
Restless as children
Drowning in compunction
An unending dirge
ERA Feb 2015
I,
defines love
as
Entoptic, for
love starts from
the eye.
Love is entreating,
as well as
it is entreated
your willingnes
to do things matter.
Love evolves
and it is enchanted.
Love is envious and
by love you envy.
Love is an epidemic
it spreads in no
time.
Love excels and
Love is excellent
but
Love is equal
and NO matter how
I define
LOVE
Love is still love
it is Erratic.

— The End —