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No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam’d. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death’s harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;
Or Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son:                        

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign’d; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast
Serv’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem.  Me, of these
Nor skill’d nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress’d; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
“twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round:
When satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned
From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
He circled; four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way.  There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,
From Eden over Pontus and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctick; and in length,
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
Doubt might beget of diabolick power
Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence!  As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.
With what delight could I have walked thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,
Rocks, dens, and caves!  But I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from so base original,
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul descent! that I, who erst contended
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with ******* slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of Deity aspired!
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to?  Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things.  Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
With act intelligential; but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
From the Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands’ dispatch of two gardening so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.
Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild.  Thou therefore now advise,
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day’s work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear!
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
How we might best fulfil the work which here
God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study houshold good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labour, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
Food of the mind, or this sweet *******
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
To brute denied, and are of love the food;
Love, not the lowest end of human life.
For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need:
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
To whom the ****** majesty of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austere composure thus replied.
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s Lord!
That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
And from the parting Angel over-heard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear.
His violence thou fearest not, being such
As we, not capable of death or pain,
Can either not receive, or can repel.
His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,
Adam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
To whom with healing words Adam replied.
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
If such affront I labour to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once
The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
Or daring, first on me the assault shall light.
Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
Subtle he needs must be, who could ******
Angels; nor think superfluous other’s aid.
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue; in thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestick Adam in his care
And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
Less attributed to her faith sincere,
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
To whom thus Adam fervently replied.
O Woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less Man,
Or aught that might his happy state secure,
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the will; for what obeys
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right,
But bid her well be ware, and still *****;
Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
She dictate false; and mis-inform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
Since Reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
First thy obedience; the other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not fre
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs
and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the
day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first
fell out with one another.
  And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the
son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a
pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of
Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the
ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a
great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo
wreathed with a suppliant’s wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but
most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.
  “Sons of Atreus,” he cried, “and all other Achaeans, may the gods
who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach
your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for
her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove.”
  On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for
respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not
so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away.
“Old man,” said he, “let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor
yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall
profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my
house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom
and visiting my couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the
worse for you.”
  The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went
by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo
whom lovely Leto had borne. “Hear me,” he cried, “O god of the
silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos
with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have ever decked your
temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or
goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon
the Danaans.”
  Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down
furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver
upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage
that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with
a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot
his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their
hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves,
and all day long the pyres of the dead were burning.
  For nine whole days he shot his arrows among the people, but upon
the tenth day Achilles called them in assembly—moved thereto by Juno,
who saw the Achaeans in their death-throes and had compassion upon
them. Then, when they were got together, he rose and spoke among them.
  “Son of Atreus,” said he, “I deem that we should now turn roving
home if we would escape destruction, for we are being cut down by
war and pestilence at once. Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some
reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why
Phoebus Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we
have broken, or hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will
accept the savour of lambs and goats without blemish, so as to take
away the plague from us.”
  With these words he sat down, and Calchas son of Thestor, wisest
of augurs, who knew things past present and to come, rose to speak. He
it was who had guided the Achaeans with their fleet to Ilius,
through the prophesyings with which Phoebus Apollo had inspired him.
With all sincerity and goodwill he addressed them thus:-
  “Achilles, loved of heaven, you bid me tell you about the anger of
King Apollo, I will therefore do so; but consider first and swear that
you will stand by me heartily in word and deed, for I know that I
shall offend one who rules the Argives with might, to whom all the
Achaeans are in subjection. A plain man cannot stand against the anger
of a king, who if he swallow his displeasure now, will yet nurse
revenge till he has wreaked it. Consider, therefore, whether or no you
will protect me.”
  And Achilles answered, “Fear not, but speak as it is borne in upon
you from heaven, for by Apollo, Calchas, to whom you pray, and whose
oracles you reveal to us, not a Danaan at our ships shall lay his hand
upon you, while I yet live to look upon the face of the earth—no, not
though you name Agamemnon himself, who is by far the foremost of the
Achaeans.”
  Thereon the seer spoke boldly. “The god,” he said, “is angry neither
about vow nor hecatomb, but for his priest’s sake, whom Agamemnon
has dishonoured, in that he would not free his daughter nor take a
ransom for her; therefore has he sent these evils upon us, and will
yet send others. He will not deliver the Danaans from this
pestilence till Agamemnon has restored the girl without fee or
ransom to her father, and has sent a holy hecatomb to Chryse. Thus
we may perhaps appease him.”
  With these words he sat down, and Agamemnon rose in anger. His heart
was black with rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he scowled on
Calchas and said, “Seer of evil, you never yet prophesied smooth
things concerning me, but have ever loved to foretell that which was
evil. You have brought me neither comfort nor performance; and now you
come seeing among Danaans, and saying that Apollo has plagued us
because I would not take a ransom for this girl, the daughter of
Chryses. I have set my heart on keeping her in my own house, for I
love her better even than my own wife Clytemnestra, whose peer she
is alike in form and feature, in understanding and accomplishments.
Still I will give her up if I must, for I would have the people
live, not die; but you must find me a prize instead, or I alone
among the Argives shall be without one. This is not well; for you
behold, all of you, that my prize is to go elsewhither.”
  And Achilles answered, “Most noble son of Atreus, covetous beyond
all mankind, how shall the Achaeans find you another prize? We have no
common store from which to take one. Those we took from the cities
have been awarded; we cannot disallow the awards that have been made
already. Give this girl, therefore, to the god, and if ever Jove
grants us to sack the city of Troy we will requite you three and
fourfold.”
  Then Agamemnon said, “Achilles, valiant though you be, you shall not
thus outwit me. You shall not overreach and you shall not persuade me.
Are you to keep your own prize, while I sit tamely under my loss and
give up the girl at your bidding? Let the Achaeans find me a prize
in fair exchange to my liking, or I will come and take your own, or
that of Ajax or of Ulysses; and he to whomsoever I may come shall
rue my coming. But of this we will take thought hereafter; for the
present, let us draw a ship into the sea, and find a crew for her
expressly; let us put a hecatomb on board, and let us send Chryseis
also; further, let some chief man among us be in command, either Ajax,
or Idomeneus, or yourself, son of Peleus, mighty warrior that you are,
that we may offer sacrifice and appease the the anger of the god.”
  Achilles scowled at him and answered, “You are steeped in
insolence and lust of gain. With what heart can any of the Achaeans do
your bidding, either on foray or in open fighting? I came not
warring here for any ill the Trojans had done me. I have no quarrel
with them. They have not raided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut
down my harvests on the rich plains of Phthia; for between me and them
there is a great space, both mountain and sounding sea. We have
followed you, Sir Insolence! for your pleasure, not ours—to gain
satisfaction from the Trojans for your shameless self and for
Menelaus. You forget this, and threaten to rob me of the prize for
which I have toiled, and which the sons of the Achaeans have given me.
Never when the Achaeans sack any rich city of the Trojans do I receive
so good a prize as you do, though it is my hands that do the better
part of the fighting. When the sharing comes, your share is far the
largest, and I, forsooth, must go back to my ships, take what I can
get and be thankful, when my labour of fighting is done. Now,
therefore, I shall go back to Phthia; it will be much better for me to
return home with my ships, for I will not stay here dishonoured to
gather gold and substance for you.”
  And Agamemnon answered, “Fly if you will, I shall make you no
prayers to stay you. I have others here who will do me honour, and
above all Jove, the lord of counsel. There is no king here so
hateful to me as you are, for you are ever quarrelsome and ill
affected. What though you be brave? Was it not heaven that made you
so? Go home, then, with your ships and comrades to lord it over the
Myrmidons. I care neither for you nor for your anger; and thus will
I do: since Phoebus Apollo is taking Chryseis from me, I shall send
her with my ship and my followers, but I shall come to your tent and
take your own prize Briseis, that you may learn how much stronger I am
than you are, and that another may fear to set himself up as equal
or comparable with me.”
  The son of Peleus was furious, and his heart within his shaggy
breast was divided whether to draw his sword, push the others aside,
and **** the son of Atreus, or to restrain himself and check his
anger. While he was thus in two minds, and was drawing his mighty
sword from its scabbard, Minerva came down from heaven (for Juno had
sent her in the love she bore to them both), and seized the son of
Peleus by his yellow hair, visible to him alone, for of the others
no man could see her. Achilles turned in amaze, and by the fire that
flashed from her eyes at once knew that she was Minerva. “Why are
you here,” said he, “daughter of aegis-bearing Jove? To see the
pride of Agamemnon, son of Atreus? Let me tell you—and it shall
surely be—he shall pay for this insolence with his life.”
  And Minerva said, “I come from heaven, if you will hear me, to bid
you stay your anger. Juno has sent me, who cares for both of you
alike. Cease, then, this brawling, and do not draw your sword; rail at
him if you will, and your railing will not be vain, for I tell you-
and it shall surely be—that you shall hereafter receive gifts three
times as splendid by reason of this present insult. Hold, therefore,
and obey.”
  “Goddess,” answered Achilles, “however angry a man may be, he must
do as you two command him. This will be best, for the gods ever hear
the prayers of him who has obeyed them.”
  He stayed his hand on the silver hilt of his sword, and ****** it
back into the scabbard as Minerva bade him. Then she went back to
Olympus among the other gods, and to the house of aegis-bearing Jove.
  But the son of Peleus again began railing at the son of Atreus,
for he was still in a rage. “Wine-bibber,” he cried, “with the face of
a dog and the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the
host in fight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this
as you do death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes
from any man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you
are king over a feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward
you would insult no man. Therefore I say, and swear it with a great
oath—nay, by this my sceptre which shalt sprout neither leaf nor
shoot, nor bud anew from the day on which it left its parent stem upon
the mountains—for the axe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the
sons of the Achaeans bear it as judges and guardians of the decrees of
heaven—so surely and solemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall
look fondly for Achilles and shall not find him. In the day of your
distress, when your men fall dying by the murderous hand of Hector,
you shall not know how to help them, and shall rend your heart with
rage for the hour when you offered insult to the bravest of the
Achaeans.”
  With this the son of Peleus dashed his gold-bestudded sceptre on the
ground and took his seat, while the son of Atreus was beginning
fiercely from his place upon the other side. Then uprose
smooth-tongued Nestor, the facile speaker of the Pylians, and the
words fell from his lips sweeter than honey. Two generations of men
born and bred in Pylos had passed away under his rule, and he was
now reigning over the third. With all sincerity and goodwill,
therefore, he addressed them thus:-
  “Of a truth,” he said, “a great sorrow has befallen the Achaean
land. Surely Priam with his sons would rejoice, and the Trojans be
glad at heart if they could hear this quarrel between you two, who are
so excellent in fight and counsel. I am older than either of you;
therefore be guided by me. Moreover I have been the familiar friend of
men even greater than you are, and they did not disregard my counsels.
Never again can I behold such men as Pirithous and Dryas shepherd of
his people, or as Caeneus, Exadius, godlike Polyphemus, and Theseus
son of Aegeus, peer of the immortals. These were the mightiest men
ever born upon this earth: mightiest were they, and when they fought
the fiercest tribes of mountain savages they utterly overthrew them. I
came from distant Pylos, and went about among them, for they would
have me come, and I fought as it was in me to do. Not a man now living
could withstand them, but they heard my words, and were persuaded by
them. So be it also with yourselves, for this is the more excellent
way. Therefore, Agamemnon, though you be strong, take not this girl
away, for the sons of the Achaeans have already given her to Achilles;
and you, Achilles, strive not further with the king, for no man who by
the grace of Jove wields a sceptre has like honour with Agamemnon. You
are strong, and have a goddess for your mother; but Agamemnon is
stronger than you, for he has more people under him. Son of Atreus,
check your anger, I implore you; end this quarrel with Achilles, who
in the day of battle is a tower of strength to the Achaeans.”
  And Agamemnon answered, “Sir, all that you have said is true, but
this fellow must needs become our lord and master: he must be lord
of all, king of all, and captain of all, and this shall hardly be.
Granted that the gods have made him a great warrior, have they also
given him the right to speak with railing?”
  Achilles interrupted him. “I should be a mean coward,” he cried,
“were I to give in to you in all things. Order other people about, not
me, for I shall obey no longer. Furthermore I say—and lay my saying
to your heart—I shall fight neither you nor any man about this
girl, for those that take were those also that gave. But of all else
that is at my ship you shall carry away nothing by force. Try, that
others may see; if you do, my spear shall be reddened with your
blood.”
  When they had quarrelled thus angrily, they rose, and broke up the
assembly at the ships of the Achaeans. The son of Peleus went back
to his tents and ships with the son of Menoetius and his company,
while Agamemnon drew a vessel into the water and chose a crew of
twenty oarsmen. He escorted Chryseis on board and sent moreover a
hecatomb for the god. And Ulysses went as captain.
  These, then, went on board and sailed their ways over the sea. But
the son of Atreus bade the people purify themselves; so they
purified themselves and cast their filth into the sea. Then they
offered hecatombs of bulls and goats without blemish on the sea-shore,
and the smoke with the savour of their sacrifice rose curling up
towards heaven.
  Thus did they busy themselves throughout the host. But Agamemnon did
not forget the threat that he had made Achilles, and called his trusty
messengers and squires Talthybius and Eurybates. “Go,” said he, “to
the tent of Achilles, son of Peleus; take Briseis by the hand and
bring her hither; if he will not give her I shall come with others and
take her—which will press him harder.”
  He charged them straightly furthe
Raj Arumugam Sep 2010
Boys, I warn you, you are not
to look at Twinkle Girls;
I, Glum Master of the Universe, command
that none of you boys
look at those Shiny Girls who
are Bright as Stars
and so are called Twinkle Girls –
remember, you are not to look at
or wink at Twinkle Girls.
You can, O you immature boys
you can chase butterflies
and climb trees and fall off them and break your legs
but chasing Twinkle Girls,
no – I expressly forbid you from such a pursuit.
Twinkle Girls always come with a chime and charm
still, when they pass by and their scent gets into your mind
you are to poke your noses into your books
and you will contemplate the secrets of addition and subtraction
and the intricacies of algebra
until they pass you by…
Look, boys – you can have computer games
and you can play role-play games
and you can twitter and text
and you can steal cookies from the pantry when mom’s not looking
and you can spend the whole day
at websites your parents told you to stay away from –
but looking at Twinkle Girls,
that, I, Glum Master of the Universe,
I expressly forbid
And what will I, Glum Master of the Universe,
do about it if you ogle at  those Twinkle Girls who giggle?
I’ll amend the Books that Surely Lead to Heaven
so boys like you will all end up in Hell…
So, if you want to go to Heaven and eat for free
without mom nagging at you to be neat
and you want to play computer games for all eternity –
boys, I warn you, you are not
to look at Twinkle Girls…
Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen
Him whom they heard so late expressly called
Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,
And on that high authority had believed,
And with him talked, and with him lodged—I mean
Andrew and Simon, famous after known,
With others, though in Holy Writ not named—
Now missing him, their joy so lately found,
So lately found and so abruptly gone,                      
Began to doubt, and doubted many days,
And, as the days increased, increased their doubt.
Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,
And for a time caught up to God, as once
Moses was in the Mount and missing long,
And the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheels
Rode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.
Therefore, as those young prophets then with care
Sought lost Eliah, so in each place these
Nigh to Bethabara—in Jericho                              
The city of palms, AEnon, and Salem old,
Machaerus, and each town or city walled
On this side the broad lake Genezaret,
Or in Peraea—but returned in vain.
Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek,
Where winds with reeds and osiers whispering play,
Plain fishermen (no greater men them call),
Close in a cottage low together got,
Their unexpected loss and plaints outbreathed:—
  “Alas, from what high hope to what relapse                
Unlooked for are we fallen!  Our eyes beheld
Messiah certainly now come, so long
Expected of our fathers; we have heard
His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth.
‘Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand;
The kingdom shall to Israel be restored:’
Thus we rejoiced, but soon our joy is turned
Into perplexity and new amaze.
For whither is he gone? what accident
Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire                  
After appearance, and again prolong
Our expectation?  God of Israel,
Send thy Messiah forth; the time is come.
Behold the kings of the earth, how they oppress
Thy Chosen, to what highth their power unjust
They have exalted, and behind them cast
All fear of Thee; arise, and vindicate
Thy glory; free thy people from their yoke!
But let us wait; thus far He hath performed—
Sent his Anointed, and to us revealed him                  
By his great Prophet pointed at and shown
In public, and with him we have conversed.
Let us be glad of this, and all our fears
Lay on his providence; He will not fail,
Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall—
Mock us with his blest sight, then ****** him hence:
Soon we shall see our hope, our joy, return.”
  Thus they out of their plaints new hope resume
To find whom at the first they found unsought.
But to his mother Mary, when she saw                        
Others returned from baptism, not her Son,
Nor left at Jordan tidings of him none,
Within her breast though calm, her breast though pure,
Motherly cares and fears got head, and raised
Some troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad:—
  “Oh, what avails me now that honour high,
To have conceived of God, or that salute,
‘Hail, highly favoured, among women blest!’
While I to sorrows am no less advanced,
And fears as eminent above the lot                          
Of other women, by the birth I bore:
In such a season born, when scarce a shed
Could be obtained to shelter him or me
From the bleak air?  A stable was our warmth,
A manger his; yet soon enforced to fly
Thence into Egypt, till the murderous king
Were dead, who sought his life, and, missing, filled
With infant blood the streets of Bethlehem.
From Egypt home returned, in Nazareth
Hath been our dwelling many years; his life                
Private, unactive, calm, contemplative,
Little suspicious to any king.  But now,
Full grown to man, acknowledged, as I hear,
By John the Baptist, and in public shewn,
Son owned from Heaven by his Father’s voice,
I looked for some great change.  To honour? no;
But trouble, as old Simeon plain foretold,
That to the fall and rising he should be
Of many in Israel, and to a sign
Spoken against—that through my very soul                  
A sword shall pierce.  This is my favoured lot,
My exaltation to afflictions high!
Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest!
I will not argue that, nor will repine.
But where delays he now?  Some great intent
Conceals him.  When twelve years he scarce had seen,
I lost him, but so found as well I saw
He could not lose himself, but went about
His Father’s business.  What he meant I mused—
Since understand; much more his absence now                
Thus long to some great purpose he obscures.
But I to wait with patience am inured;
My heart hath been a storehouse long of things
And sayings laid up, pretending strange events.”
  Thus Mary, pondering oft, and oft to mind
Recalling what remarkably had passed
Since first her Salutation heard, with thoughts
Meekly composed awaited the fulfilling:
The while her Son, tracing the desert wild,
Sole, but with holiest meditations fed,                    
Into himself descended, and at once
All his great work to come before him set—
How to begin, how to accomplish best
His end of being on Earth, and mission high.
For Satan, with sly preface to return,
Had left him vacant, and with speed was gone
Up to the middle region of thick air,
Where all his Potentates in council sate.
There, without sign of boast, or sign of joy,
Solicitous and blank, he thus began:—                      
  “Princes, Heaven’s ancient Sons, AEthereal Thrones—
Daemonian Spirits now, from the element
Each of his reign allotted, rightlier called
Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath
(So may we hold our place and these mild seats
Without new trouble!)—such an enemy
Is risen to invade us, who no less
Threatens than our expulsion down to Hell.
I, as I undertook, and with the vote
Consenting in full frequence was impowered,                
Have found him, viewed him, tasted him; but find
Far other labour to be undergone
Than when I dealt with Adam, first of men,
Though Adam by his wife’s allurement fell,
However to this Man inferior far—
If he be Man by mother’s side, at least
With more than human gifts from Heaven adorned,
Perfections absolute, graces divine,
And amplitude of mind to greatest deeds.
Therefore I am returned, lest confidence                    
Of my success with Eve in Paradise
Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure
Of like succeeding here.  I summon all
Rather to be in readiness with hand
Or counsel to assist, lest I, who erst
Thought none my equal, now be overmatched.”
  So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all
With clamour was assured their utmost aid
At his command; when from amidst them rose
Belial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell,                  
The sensualest, and, after Asmodai,
The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised:—
  “Set women in his eye and in his walk,
Among daughters of men the fairest found.
Many are in each region passing fair
As the noon sky, more like to goddesses
Than mortal creatures, graceful and discreet,
Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues
Persuasive, ****** majesty with mild
And sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach,                
Skilled to retire, and in retiring draw
Hearts after them tangled in amorous nets.
Such object hath the power to soften and tame
Severest temper, smooth the rugged’st brow,
Enerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,
Draw out with credulous desire, and lead
At will the manliest, resolutest breast,
As the magnetic hardest iron draws.
Women, when nothing else, beguiled the heart
Of wisest Solomon, and made him build,                      
And made him bow, to the gods of his wives.”
  To whom quick answer Satan thus returned:—
“Belial, in much uneven scale thou weigh’st
All others by thyself.  Because of old
Thou thyself doat’st on womankind, admiring
Their shape, their colour, and attractive grace,
None are, thou think’st, but taken with such toys.
Before the Flood, thou, with thy ***** crew,
False titled Sons of God, roaming the Earth,
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,                  
And coupled with them, and begot a race.
Have we not seen, or by relation heard,
In courts and regal chambers how thou lurk’st,
In wood or grove, by mossy fountain-side,
In valley or green meadow, to waylay
Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene,
Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa,
Or Amymone, Syrinx, many more
Too long—then lay’st thy scapes on names adored,
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan,                          
Satyr, or Faun, or Silvan?  But these haunts
Delight not all.  Among the sons of men
How many have with a smile made small account
Of beauty and her lures, easily scorned
All her assaults, on worthier things intent!
Remember that Pellean conqueror,
A youth, how all the beauties of the East
He slightly viewed, and slightly overpassed;
How he surnamed of Africa dismissed,
In his prime youth, the fair Iberian maid.                  
For Solomon, he lived at ease, and, full
Of honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond
Higher design than to enjoy his state;
Thence to the bait of women lay exposed.
But he whom we attempt is wiser far
Than Solomon, of more exalted mind,
Made and set wholly on the accomplishment
Of greatest things.  What woman will you find,
Though of this age the wonder and the fame,
On whom his leisure will voutsafe an eye                    
Of fond desire?  Or should she, confident,
As sitting queen adored on Beauty’s throne,
Descend with all her winning charms begirt
To enamour, as the zone of Venus once
Wrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell),
How would one look from his majestic brow,
Seated as on the top of Virtue’s hill,
Discountenance her despised, and put to rout
All her array, her female pride deject,
Or turn to reverent awe!  For Beauty stands                
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes
Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abashed.
Therefore with manlier objects we must try
His constancy—with such as have more shew
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise
(Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked);
Or that which only seems to satisfy
Lawful desires of nature, not beyond.                      
And now I know he hungers, where no food
Is to be found, in the wide Wilderness:
The rest commit to me; I shall let pass
No advantage, and his strength as oft assay.”
  He ceased, and heard their grant in loud acclaim;
Then forthwith to him takes a chosen band
Of Spirits likest to himself in guile,
To be at hand and at his beck appear,
If cause were to unfold some active scene
Of various persons, each to know his part;                  
Then to the desert takes with these his flight,
Where still, from shade to shade, the Son of God,
After forty days’ fasting, had remained,
Now hungering first, and to himself thus said:—
  “Where will this end?  Four times ten days I have passed
Wandering this woody maze, and human food
Nor tasted, nor had appetite.  That fast
To virtue I impute not, or count part
Of what I suffer here.  If nature need not,
Or God support nature without repast,                      
Though needing, what praise is it to endure?
But now I feel I hunger; which declares
Nature hath need of what she asks.  Yet God
Can satisfy that need some other way,
Though hunger still remain.  So it remain
Without this body’s wasting, I content me,
And from the sting of famine fear no harm;
Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts, that feed
Me hungering more to do my Father’s will.”
  It was the hour of night, when thus the Son              
Communed in silent walk, then laid him down
Under the hospitable covert nigh
Of trees thick interwoven.  There he slept,
And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream,
Of meats and drinks, nature’s refreshment sweet.
Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood,
And saw the ravens with their ***** beaks
Food to Elijah bringing even and morn—
Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought;
He saw the Prophet also, how he fled                        
Into the desert, and how there he slept
Under a juniper—then how, awaked,
He found his supper on the coals prepared,
And by the Angel was bid rise and eat,
And eat the second time after repose,
The strength whereof sufficed him forty days:
Sometimes that with Elijah he partook,
Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.
Thus wore out night; and now the harald Lark
Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry              
The Morn’s approach, and greet her with his song.
As lightly from his grassy couch up rose
Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream;
Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked.
Up to a hill anon his steps he reared,
From whose high top to ken the prospect round,
If cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd;
But cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw—
Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove,
With chaunt of tuneful birds resounding loud.              
Thither he bent his way, determined there
To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade
High-roofed, and walks beneath, and alleys brown,
That opened in the midst a woody scene;
Nature’s own work it seemed (Nature taught Art),
And, to a superstitious eye, the haunt
Of wood-gods and wood-nymphs.  He viewed it round;
When suddenly a man before him stood,
Not rustic a
Thus, then, did Ulysses wait and pray; but the girl drove on to
the town. When she reached her father’s house she drew up at the
gateway, and her brothers—comely as the gods—gathered round her,
took the mules out of the waggon, and carried the clothes into the
house, while she went to her own room, where an old servant,
Eurymedusa of Apeira, lit the fire for her. This old woman had been
brought by sea from Apeira, and had been chosen as a prize for
Alcinous because he was king over the Phaecians, and the people obeyed
him as though he were a god. She had been nurse to Nausicaa, and had
now lit the fire for her, and brought her supper for her into her
own room.
  Presently Ulysses got up to go towards the town; and Minerva shed
a thick mist all round him to hide him in case any of the proud
Phaecians who met him should be rude to him, or ask him who he was.
Then, as he was just entering the town, she came towards him in the
likeness of a little girl carrying a pitcher. She stood right in front
of him, and Ulysses said:
  “My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king
Alcinous? I am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know
one in your town and country.”
  Then Minerva said, “Yes, father stranger, I will show you the
house you want, for Alcinous lives quite close to my own father. I
will go before you and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and
do not look at any man, nor ask him questions; for the people here
cannot abide strangers, and do not like men who come from some other
place. They are a sea-faring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of
Neptune in ships that glide along like thought, or as a bird in the
air.”
  On this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps; but
not one of the Phaecians could see him as he passed through the city
in the midst of them; for the great goddess Minerva in her good will
towards him had hidden him in a thick cloud of darkness. He admired
their harbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of
the city, which, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking,
and when they reached the king’s house Minerva said:
  “This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show
you. You will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do
not be afraid; go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely
he is to carry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the
queen. Her name is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her
husband Alcinous. They both descend originally from Neptune, who was
father to Nausithous by Periboea, a woman of great beauty. Periboea
was the youngest daughter of Eurymedon, who at one time reigned over
the giants, but he ruined his ill-fated people and lost his own life
to boot.
  “Neptune, however, lay with his daughter, and she had a son by
him, the great Nausithous, who reigned over the Phaecians.
Nausithous had two sons Rhexenor and Alcinous; Apollo killed the first
of them while he was still a bridegroom and without male issue; but he
left a daughter Arete, whom Alcinous married, and honours as no
other woman is honoured of all those that keep house along with
their husbands.
  “Thus she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her
children, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look
upon her as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city,
for she is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart, and when
any women are friends of hers, she will help their husbands also to
settle their disputes. If you can gain her good will, you may have
every hope of seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to
your home and country.”
  Then Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. She went to
Marathon and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered
the abode of Erechtheus; but Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous,
and he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the
threshold of bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that
of the sun or moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end
to end, and the cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and
hung on pillars of silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while
the lintel was silver and the hook of the door was of gold.
  On either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan,
with his consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch
over the palace of king Alcinous; so they were immortal and could
never grow old. Seats were ranged all along the wall, here and there
from one end to the other, with coverings of fine woven work which the
women of the house had made. Here the chief persons of the Phaecians
used to sit and eat and drink, for there was abundance at all seasons;
and there were golden figures of young men with lighted torches in
their hands, raised on pedestals, to give light by night to those
who were at table. There are fifty maid servants in the house, some of
whom are always grinding rich yellow grain at the mill, while others
work at the loom, or sit and spin, and their shuttles go, backwards
and forwards like the fluttering of aspen leaves, while the linen is
so closely woven that it will turn oil. As the Phaecians are the
best sailors in the world, so their women excel all others in weaving,
for Minerva has taught them all manner of useful arts, and they are
very intelligent.
  Outside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of about
four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful trees-
pears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are luscious
figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor fail
all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so
soft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows
on pear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the
grapes, for there is an excellent vineyard: on the level ground of a
part of this, the grapes are being made into raisins; in another
part they are being gathered; some are being trodden in the wine tubs,
others further on have shed their blossom and are beginning to show
fruit, others again are just changing colour. In the furthest part
of the ground there are beautifully arranged beds of flowers that
are in bloom all the year round. Two streams go through it, the one
turned in ducts throughout the whole garden, while the other is
carried under the ground of the outer court to the house itself, and
the town’s people draw water from it. Such, then, were the
splendours with which the gods had endowed the house of king Alcinous.
  So here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when
he had looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the
precincts of the house. There he found all the chief people among
the Phaecians making their drink-offerings to Mercury, which they
always did the last thing before going away for the night. He went
straight through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness in
which Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King
Alcinous; then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at
that moment the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became
visible. Every one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there,
but Ulysses began at once with his petition.
  “Queen Arete,” he exclaimed, “daughter of great Rhexenor, in my
distress I humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests
(whom may heaven prosper with long life and happiness, and may they
leave their possessions to their children, and all the honours
conferred upon them by the state) to help me home to my own country as
soon as possible; for I have been long in trouble and away from my
friends.”
  Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held
their peace, till presently the old hero Echeneus, who was an
excellent speaker and an elder among the Phaeacians, plainly and in
all honesty addressed them thus:
  “Alcinous,” said he, “it is not creditable to you that a stranger
should be seen sitting among the ashes of your hearth; every one is
waiting to hear what you are about to say; tell him, then, to rise and
take a seat on a stool inlaid with silver, and bid your servants mix
some wine and water that we may make a drink-offering to Jove the lord
of thunder, who takes all well-disposed suppliants under his
protection; and let the housekeeper give him some supper, of
whatever there may be in the house.”
  When Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him
from the hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had
been sitting beside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant
then brought him water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a
silver basin for him to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table
beside him; an upper servant brought him bread and offered him many
good things of what there was in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank.
Then Alcinous said to one of the servants, “Pontonous, mix a cup of
wine and hand it round that we may make drink-offerings to Jove the
lord of thunder, who is the protector of all well-disposed
suppliants.”
  Pontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after
giving every man his drink-offering. When they had made their
offerings, and had drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said:
  “Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You
have had your supper, so now go home to bed. To-morrow morning I shall
invite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a
sacrificial banquet in honour of our guest; we can then discuss the
question of his escort, and consider how we may at once send him
back rejoicing to his own country without trouble or inconvenience
to himself, no matter how distant it may be. We must see that he comes
to no harm while on his homeward journey, but when he is once at
home he will have to take the luck he was born with for better or
worse like other people. It is possible, however, that the stranger is
one of the immortals who has come down from heaven to visit us; but in
this case the gods are departing from their usual practice, for
hitherto they have made themselves perfectly clear to us when we
have been offering them hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts
just like one of our selves, and if any solitary wayfarer happens to
stumble upon some one or other of them, they affect no concealment,
for we are as near of kin to the gods as the Cyclopes and the savage
giants are.”
  Then Ulysses said: “Pray, Alcinous, do not take any such notion into
your head. I have nothing of the immortal about me, neither in body
nor mind, and most resemble those among you who are the most
afflicted. Indeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit
to lay upon me, you would say that I was still worse off than they
are. Nevertheless, let me sup in spite of sorrow, for an empty stomach
is a very importunate thing, and thrusts itself on a man’s notice no
matter how dire is his distress. I am in great trouble, yet it insists
that I shall eat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows
and dwell only on the due replenishing of itself. As for yourselves,
do as you propose, and at break of day set about helping me to get
home. I shall be content to die if I may first once more behold my
property, my bondsmen, and all the greatness of my house.”
  Thus did he speak. Every one approved his saying, and agreed that he
should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Then when
they had made their drink-offerings, and had drunk each as much as
he was minded they went home to bed every man in his own abode,
leaving Ulysses in the cloister with Arete and Alcinous while the
servants were taking the things away after supper. Arete was the first
to speak, for she recognized the shirt, cloak, and good clothes that
Ulysses was wearing, as the work of herself and of her maids; so she
said, “Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I
should like to ask you. Who, and whence are you, and who gave you
those clothes? Did you not say you had come here from beyond the sea?”
  And Ulysses answered, “It would be a long story Madam, were I to
relate in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven
has been laid heavy upon me; but as regards your question, there is an
island far away in the sea which is called ‘the Ogygian.’ Here
dwells the cunning and powerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas.
She lives by herself far from all neighbours human or divine. Fortune,
however, me to her hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my
ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in mid-ocean. My brave
comrades were drowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and
was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till at
last during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the
Ogygian island where the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in
and treated me with the utmost kindness; indeed she wanted to make
me immortal that I might never grow old, but she could not persuade me
to let her do so.
  “I stayed with Calypso seven years straight on end, and watered
the good clothes she gave me with my tears during the whole time;
but at last when the eighth year came round she bade me depart of
her own free will, either because Jove had told her she must, or
because she had changed her mind. She sent me from her island on a
raft, which she provisioned with abundance of bread and wine. Moreover
she gave me good stout clothing, and sent me a wind that blew both
warm and fair. Days seven and ten did I sail over the sea, and on
the eighteenth I caught sight of the first outlines of the mountains
upon your coast—and glad indeed was I to set eyes upon them.
Nevertheless there was still much trouble in store for me, for at this
point Neptune would let me go no further, and raised a great storm
against me; the sea was so terribly high that I could no longer keep
to my raft, which went to pieces under the fury of the gale, and I had
to swim for it, till wind and current brought me to your shores.
  “There I tried to land, but could not, for it was a bad place and
the waves dashed me against the rocks, so I again took to the sea
and swam on till I came to a river that seemed the most likely landing
place, for there were no rocks and it was sheltered from the wind.
Here, then, I got out of the water and gathered my senses together
again. Night was coming on, so I left the river, and went into a
thicket, where I covered myself all over with leaves, and presently
heaven sent me off into a very deep sleep. Sick and sorry as I was I
slept among the leaves all night, and through the next day till
afternoon, when I woke as the sun was westering, and saw your
daughter’s maid servants playing upon the beach, and your daughter
among them looking like a goddess. I besought her aid, and she
proved to be of an excellent disposition, much more so than could be
expected from so young a person—for young people are apt to be
thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine, and when she had
had me washed in the river she also gave me the clothes in which you
see me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to do so, I have
told you the whole truth.”
  Then Alcinous said, “Stranger, it was very wrong of my daughter
not to bring you on at once to my house along with the maids, seeing
that she was the first person whose aid you asked.”
  “Pray do not scold her,” replied Ulysses; “she is not to blame.
She did tell me to follow along with the maids, but I was ashamed
and afraid, for I thought you might perhaps be displeased if you saw
me. Every human being is sometimes a little suspicious and irritable.”
  “Stranger,” replied Alcinous, “I am not the kind of man to get angry
about nothing; it is always better to be reasonable; but by Father
Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, now that I see what kind of person you are,
and how much you think as I do, I wish you would stay here, marry my
daughter, and become my son-in-law. If you will stay I will give you a
house and an estate, but no one (heaven forbi
katewinslet Nov 2015
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Eryck Jun 2018
I'll  do nothing...
bad in life that will make my mother cry.
You can disgrace me, debase me, tie me to a railroad track.
But once the tears flow from my beloved mother, there's  no putting them back.

I'll  do nothing, bear this in mind and hear it,
I'll  do nothing that will diminish her spirit.
I  wont let evil near it. 
 I'll honor her by being like her, and proudly cheer it.

    A mother is nurture, she is the birth of nature.
A teacher not a taker, a mentor not a faker.
The ultimate God given talent, a human being maker.

She forsakes hers for the needs of  yours,
with dreams of high aspirations of her off- spring for,
nothing less, till their health and happiness soar.

Who else in this jaded,
complicated,
world gives unconditional love.  Who else.
Who else has you in their thoughts expressly, wantonly.
Who else has you in their thoughts religously, constantly. 
 
Concerned about your wants and needs, worries and dreads,  
doesn't want to pry, so she prays for you instead.
Who else.
No one else!

I'll  do nothing bad in life that will make my mother cry.
Happy father's day. Sorry dad.
Second place, in away, ain't so bad.
Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
LIke Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
are all used up.
But as for me,
look into my face
and you will know that crimes dropped upon me
as from a high building
and although I cannot speak of them
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the old and the famous -
that you overlooked.

The story of his life
is the story of mine.
I have one glass eye.
My nerves push against its painted surface
but the other one
waiting for judgement
continues to see . . .

Of course
the New Testament is very small.
Its mouth opens four times -
as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster,
yet somehow man-made
held together by pullies
like the stone jaw of a back-***.
It gouges out the Judaic ground,
taking its own backyard
like a ****** daughter.

And furthermore how did Judas come into it -
that Judas Iscariot,
belonging to the tribe of Reuben?
He should have tried to lift him up there!
His neck like an iron pole,
hard as Newcastle,
his heart as stiff as beeswax,
his legs swollen and unmarked,
his other limbs still growing.
All of it heavy!
That dead weight that would have been his fault
. He should have known!

In the first place who builds up such ugliness?
I think of this man saying . . .
Look! Here's the price to do it
plus the cost of the raw materials
and if it took him three or four days
to do it, then, they'd understand.
They figured it weighed enough
to support a man. They said,
fifteen stone is the approximate weight
of a thief.

Its ugliness is a matter of custom.
If there was a mistake made
then the Crucifix was constructed wrong . . .
not from the quality of the pine,
not from hanging a mirror,
not from dropping the studding or the drill
but from having an inspriation.
But Judas was not a genius
or under the auspices of an inspiration.

I don't know whether it was gold or silver.
I don't know why he betrayed him
other than his motives,
other than the avaricious and dishonest man.
And then there were the forbidden crimes,
those that were expressly foretold,
and then overlooked
and then forgotten
except by me . . .
Judas had a mother
just as I had a mother.
Oh! Honor and relish the facts!
Do not think of the intense sensation
I have as I tell you this
but think only . . .

Judas had a mother.
His mother had a dream.
Because of this dream
he was altogether managed by fate
and thus he ***** her.
As a crime we hear little of this.
Also he sold his God.
yes you can mention how cold it is
Though you can't expressly show the cold.
literally breaching my innocence
To capture your heart.

we don't count memories of love
much as they greatly shine in our lives
only the wonders of how its started
reflects its stages in flow.

Time developes it and so does it fade with it
worse than a burial
laying ....the dangers of s waterfall
tameable on probability
In
a nightmare of a swim on land.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
eat my cinnamon raisin bread
from the inside out,
so if you follow the trail of
crust and crumb to my bed,
swear innocent but not one
cinnamonized raisin will be found

put on my slippers with
trepidation,
for slippers so named,
slip off my toes
at the worst moments,
that my life insurance
expressly forbids our
cohabitation

Well gifted and well returned,
my parents taught me to love
words and the human voice enthralling,
voyage never ending,
love of words

If our issue be our mark,
then mark them well
for you reputation recedes
with them

so as I ponder the why and where,
of the last poem I will write,
issue a tiny prayer that the notes
be cinnamon raisin sweet
and that each letter
slip from my heart,
and let these marks of me
come with smoothing ease of
a welcoming finality
Onoma May 2017
Have you ever been
pulled over by the culture
police?
I know this culture cop
who loves pulling people
over for self-expression.
He'll wait till you break
into color, and cut you
off at your most emphatic.
He'll ****, burp, scoff--
master craft a discombobulating
smack to your mouth.
He thinks most expression pins
you down to obviousness.
So by definition a lack of expression,
or stifled expression, means
you're not being obvious.
Therefore tolerable, but being obvious, or not being obvious is still
being, trying--expressly.
Watchdog of his own passive-agression, his cagey brooding activated by voices in excitation
of uniqueness.
He's living hard between the lines,
unable to read so to speak, as sing!
My mouthy mute carbon copy
of repression, I'm so sorry--truly.
aromatic coffee awakens senses
   midst the gestured warmth of radiant
      smiles's 'tween morning brew,
reverently paused to catch
    the awe inspiring  poignancy
               of sunrise's exhilaration,
whilst cozily wrapped in the delightful unfurl
   of captivating poetry's skillful delectation
    a rising ritual begun many blue moons afore,
  tempting consciousness, feeding soulfulness
    enlightening sensibilities as it
        enriches the day's appreciation
               'pon the keen awareness of poets,
tempests from all niches of the world
   coming together amid upheavals and serenity,
ceremoniously dubbed fierce confirmations
      of words expressly borne, communing the
         artfully spirited of resourceful artisans,
     procuring special collective bonds that
               only poesy can wholly dictate,
they look upon us as enigmas
  rather strange breed of puzzling characters,
     as this inexplicable endeavor
        escapes their stifled perceptions
         of conduit's musing reasonable facsimile,
we're merely cognitive passages for
    experiences on common ground
       in realizations of all-too-human foibles
          eccentricities, yearnings and fortitude,
released deliverance of  potpourri
   serving up inky joy beyond expression,
    intention's distinction deciphering
      reflections in meditative affirmations,
breadth of unrestrained beholden visions
   conjured notions of paramount significance
       wherein lies evidence of life's burnt offerings,
beginnings and endings of hearts' indulgences
     wept in resolute  celebrations of existence

                *as only a poet could discernibly translate
A Simillacrum Jul 2018
Have you ever clicked that button and seen the next page?
For those missing it there, here, I'll explain.
For just seven US dollars and fifty US cents
a month you can subscribe to this event
and receive two disconcerting things.

First of all, the page itself says you'll be favored by the staff.
Secondly, you'll have more influence than those who don't pay
to influence the trends, which means, control of what is seen.

If you're confused, let me use a modern analogy. More online games than ever use this method of operation, free to play on one side, the other pay to win.

This keeps the total number of overall players high, and with these two sides in the same environment, it's only a matter of time before the desperate give in to this disparity and express piety with cash else completely fizzle out.

That's exactly what we have here. If paying expressly means you immediately mean more to this environment than those who don't, what the hell is the point of this at all, Elliot?

Why not bite the bullet and fully implement a pay-wall?
That way everyone who gives you money can be left alone in peace and harmony to ****** their ***** and/or their *****.

This might work with a game which contains intrinsic rules and values, but to use money to decide the fate of art is the same **** that's been going on for centuries.

Notice to the newer names on this site:

Beware.
You are a commodity.
You are a $

And if you air a grievance, the names who give their money will jump to the defense.

Can't you just be happy and not complain?

The poetry they use their sunshine to boost,
funny,

says the same thing.
LOL. XD.

Cover that ***** with pitch and flick the match.

Nail in my head, from my creator.
You gave me life,
now,

Show. Me. How. To live.
Bes



It's high midnight and I'm up to my old tricks again.
Bes came by my apartment last night, ostensibly to see why I've stopped answering everyone's calls but harboring more ulterior motives than a presidential charity event. I let her in, mumbling some vague, ******* excuse about how I'd simply been busy. She stood in my living room, her hands demurely folded in front of her as her eyes swept the scene, a quick appraising glance that took in the leaning towers of paper and rows of empty bottles, the rings under my eyes and the cheeks grizzled with god knows how many days of growth, and when at last they met mine they seemed to ask what exactly it was that I had been busy doing. Her lips said no such thing though, held in check either by innate tact or single-minded purpose. Instead she smiled, that old, slanting smile that was more a twitching of her cheeks than an actual moving of her lips, and asked if I liked her dress. It was the first time that I'd seen her dressed in anything but jeans, and the change was as unexpected as it was becoming. The dress was short, black, simple and elegant in its simplicity. In the expected places it clung to her curves and invited you to do the same, but elsewhere it hung in loose folds, folds so deep that she seemed almost lost in them, and when you did catch a glimpse of her body -the delicate line of her collarbone, the thin ridge of a rib- the force of the contrast struck home with calculated, bewildering power. She looked incredibly fragile yet fraught with danger, like broken glass swaddled in a black flag. I gave her an exaggerated once-over, then said, "Do you really need me to answer that?" She laughed, her voice high and breathy, and dropped me a theatrical curtsy. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes narrowed, and the ghost of a smile twitched its way back onto her face.
"We're going out tonight."
"We are? And why are we doing that?"
"It's ladies' night at Stoa, and that means free drinks."
"Free drinks for you, kiddo. I doubt that I could pass as a lady, even in that ****-hole."
"For me, yes. But if I were to get those free drinks and then decide that I didn't want them, well, what would happen to them? It would be wrong just to waste them, after all. I suppose I should have to give them away, perhaps to a good friend?"
"If you should change your mind." I said flatly.
"Of course. Woman's prerogative, you know."
"Are you trying to bribe me with free liquor?"
"Well, if that isn't enough I could always throw in a 'please'. Limited time offer, though, non-negotiable and nontransferable."
"Unlike the drinks, you mean."
"Rules are like bodies; they aren't meant to be be broken, but sometimes it's fun to see just how far you can stretch them."
"Far be it from me to tell a pretty girl no when she says please."
"Pleeaazzee?" She batted her eyelashes at me, lower lip stuck out in a burlesque pout.
"Okay."
"Put on a fresh shirt and grab your coat, I'll get a cab."
"Yes'm," I said, snapping off a quick salute before about-facing toward my bedroom. She laughed again as she left, the soft chuckles punctuated by the click of her heels on the concrete steps outside. I dressed quickly, taking roughly three minutes to apply fresh deodorant, sniff-test and shrug my way into a shirt with marginally less wrinkles than your average nursing home and grab my keys. I walked out the front door to find Bes ready and waiting for me, having snared a cab with the same brisk efficiency with which she had beguiled me into escorting her. She stood at the curb, toe of one black pump tapping impatiently as the taxi idled next to her, engine panting like some exotic animal brought to heel. The ride there was silent. The cabbie was one of those garrulous specimens of his trade who seem always to have something to offer his customers in addition to the transportation for which they had paid; some tidbit of folksy wisdom, or a sage prediction of the weather, no doubt buttressed with countless examples from the days of yore. He brought out several of these chestnuts for us, but after a few failed gambits even he lapsed into what for him must have passed for a taciturn state, contenting himself with humming along to the radio, albeit loudly. He had sloughed tunelessly through several songs and a commercial break by the time we arrived, and had begun to sing under his breath, apparently unaware that he was doing so. This unwitting serenade had been steadily growing in volume, and he was working himself into a rather heartfelt rendition of Black Velvet as we disembarked.
It was just past eleven, relatively early for a nightclub, but the line was already stretched ten yards from the door. It wound around the side of the building, surprising me in spite of myself. I really hadn't been out in a while, and had forgotten all about waiting outside, that desultory purgatorial period where people shifted restlessly from foot to foot and chain-smoked, anxious for admittance, though in all likelihood less concerned with being able to dance or mingle (which they could have probably done just as well out here) than they were with losing the buzz they had brought with them. Some of the people had clustered into loose groups and those who had looked more sanguine, almost serene, and no doubt there were a few water bottles filled with ***** stashed in their purses and jacket pockets. I started toward the corner, intending to join the rest of the sad-sacks at the back of the line, but Bes grabbed my arm, giving me a slight shake of her head. She walked directly toward the entrance, deftly sidestepping the little pockets of people and putting on a smile of almost predatory brilliance. She sauntered up to the bouncer posted at the door, one of any number of interchangeable drones whose charge is to prevent just such flouting of protocol as she undoubtedly had in mind. She said something to him and he shook his head. She spoke again, raising up on tip-toe and looking directly into his eyes, and when she spread her hands in a comely now-do-you-see gesture he looked around furtively then nodded. She waved a hand at me and he nodded again, though more apprehensively than at first, and the hand pointed in my direction now wiggled its fingers in a come-hither gesture. I walked up and looked a question at her but she merely shook her head again, though this one was accompanied by a slight smile that said nothing and hinted at everything. She took my hand, dragging me forward like a she-wolf dragging a rabbit into her den, and as we passed into the club she favored the sentry with another smile, so warm that I could have sworn I saw him blush.
The interior was dark, cavernous and redolent of a thousand mingled perfumes, a heady, dizzying blend spiced here and there with the dank odor of marijuana. As soon as we were past the bouncer, Bes stopped and pivoted on her toes like a ballerina, spinning so quickly that I almost stumbled into her. She said something to me then, but despite the sudden and shocking proximity of her body to my own her voice was lost in the car crash of voices from the dance floorahead. I cupped a hand to my ear in the commonly understood signal for deafness, and she responded by cocking her head at a questioning angle and forming an elongated y with her thumb and pinky finger, tilting them toward her lips in the universal gesture for drinks. I nodded my assent and she took my hand again, pressing it gently as she threaded her way through the tumult of writhing flesh on the dance floor. We found seats in the corner of the bar, the one place where you could actually sit with your back to the wall instead of the rest of the club, a place that I privately thought of as Paranoiac's Cove. I dug out my pack of Lucky's and set to work on trying to find my lighter as she flitted away, returning moments later with a pair of highball glasses, each filled to the brim with a curiously green concoction that was so bright that it seemed almost as though the glass was filled with liquid neon. She handed me one, her fingers momentarily brushing mine as I accepted it, visions of the cauldron from Macbeth flashing briefly through my mind. That smile twisted its way onto her face again as she offered a silent toast, raising her glass toward me with an oddly solemn gesture. I raised mine in return, noticing the way her eyes sparkled in the shadows, green and impossibly bright, almost lambent, bright like the drink though her eyes were a deeper, truer green, closer to jade than to the grassy color we held in our hands. We touched their rims together, the clink almost inaudible in the howling bedlam of the club. She threw her drink back at a single draught, surprising me into a laugh and I followed suit, barely tasting the liquor as it ran down my throat. What I did taste was a rather poor attempt at artificial apple, cloying and somehow thick, like melted jolly ranchers. It was saccharine sweet yet bitter, a harsh undertone that matched the crisp tang of a real granny smith about as well as the sweetness did, which is to say not at all. Not that this bothered me; alcohol and bitterness have always gone well together for me.
She leaned over to me, fingertips resting lightly on my shoulder, breath tickling confidentially in my ear as she asked, "Dance with me?"
I demurred, not bothering to waste words but simply waiting until she pulled back to look at me and then shaking my head. She didn't lean in again, catching my eyes instead and mouthing the word with an exaggerated care that was almost comical. "Okay." She hesitated momentarily before adding, "Maybe later." She didn't wait for a response, instead sliding off her stool with easy, doe-like grace and disappeared into the throng. I stayed at the bar for some time, an hour perhaps, drinking steadily and watching the growing chagrin of the woman behind it as she realized that I had not intention of tipping her no matter how drunk I got. Bes reappeared periodically, staying long enough to grab each of us a free shot and steal one of my cigarettes before vanishing again. I whiled away the time by counting the necklaces that came bobbing and heaving up to the bar. The vast majority were crucifixes, their forms and sizes as varied as those of their bearers, but there was a smattering of other ikons as well; Celtic knots and stars of david, pentacles and hammers, and once, nestled incongruously in the ample and expertly showcased cleavage of its wearer, a crescent moon and star. The owner of that particular pendant also happened to clutch a drink in one hand, and while it may have been a shirly temple or club soda, the glassy eyes above it and the boneless, disjointed movements that arm described in the air spoke to a more potent brew. I wondered what they meant to the people who wear them, those chains of devotion donned voluntarily. A symbol of their faith, they would probably say, though it's a faith betrayed by virtually every action that they take, and if there's one thing that I've learned about people it's that their vows and promises may be lies, but their betrayals never are. Even a virtuous act, an act of unequivocal good in the face of overwhelming temptation, even that can be a lie. It is concealment, a denial of the temptation, of its reality, of the fact that the desire for what tempts us exists. But in betrayal, in succumbing to temptation, people reveal themselves, for they are true to their desire and desire is the most accurate mirror, the truest reflection of who we are. Most people wear masks to cloud that mirror, false faces that sometimes fool everyone and sometimes fool no-one. But truth always asserts itself and so most people betray; others, causes, even themselves. But even the betrayal of self is also an act of honesty, the final acknowledgement of who we really are.
There was a time, of course, when these signs and symbols of faith were a business of deadly seriousness, when their betrayal would have begotten swift and sure punishment, when the mere display of one's allegiance was both a pledge and a challenge, but no longer. Now they are carried as casually as their wearers carry the name of some obscure fashion designer on their underwear, and given the reverent attention paid to the latter and their blasé hypocrisy regarding the former, one has to wonder which is really more important to them. Yet the symbols persist even when the meaning has been forgotten, and the majority still carry signs of fealty formed from counterfeit gold and beaten nickel, sigils that flash quicksilver in the strobing lights, leading the way like the wooden maidens which adorn the prows of ships. I used to have one of them, you know, a rough loop of rawhide the carried three little trinkets, a bunny a book and a small golden heart. It's gone now, of course, and fittingly so, the heart having fallen after the bunny down the rabbit-hole, and the book remaining unwritten, though I suppose if your reading this, that if these disjointed ramblings ever manage to make it onto the printed page, refugees finally transplanted from the wilted notebooks or the cocktail napkins that I even now sit scribbling madly on, it has been written after all and you're reading it. You poor *******.
I realized my thoughts were drifting, meandering on their own down paths that I have expressly forbidden them to tread, rambling like unsupervised children in an amusement park at sundown. I gathered them up, scolding them, trying to exert some authority in my own mind, telling myself to just take a deep breath and shake it off. I can't though, and for once it's not because I can't quiet the thoughts but because I can't seem to take a breath that is deep enough. I realized that I was panting, well nigh hyperventilating, my breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that seem to crystallize in my longs like spun glass. I take stock of myself, trying to assure myself that I'm not going to have a heart attack or a ******* stroke, noting with some alarm that my hands are shaking and my vision has narrowed into a twisting, undulating tunnel. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, the darkness behind my eyelids streaked with purple and red, and gradually I became aware that those explosions of color are rhythmic, recurrent. They happened not with the pounding of my heart, as I would have expected, but in time with the music, sunbursts of color appearing each time the bass kicked. The panic diminished, replaced by curiosity, and I realized that without the shrill yammering of panic in my ear and the terror of impending death in my mind, the combined sensations are not only pleasant, but oddly familiar. It's then that I realized what happened, belatedly doing the mental arithmetic and realizing that unexpected invitation, the free drinks and the first's oddly bitter taste, the secretive smile with which it was delivered, that it all added up to a single thing. She drugged me, of course, spiked my drink with something and I didn't even notice, naive as a sorority pledge at a keg party, and oh **** was I high. I stayed at the bar, knowing from hard experience that there was no sense in fighting it, and so giving in to it. If you can't put out the fire you might as well feed it, feed it all that you can, because the sooner the fuel runs out the sooner the fire dies. So I stayed there, focusing on my breathing and letting my thoughts spiral out, catching the waves in my head as they rose and fell, finally learning to float on their crests, in some semblance of control. Calmer now, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one, the process taking an eternity, empires rising and falling in the time between the moment when the spark caught and the flame exploded into life and the one when it reached my lucky. I breathed out a plume of smoke, a pillar of cloud that also seemed to go on forever, and as it cleared there was Bes, materializing out of the smoke like a Cheshire cat.
"Ready to dance?"
I looked at her, unable to speak for a moment, not the drug this time but something entirely, a thing that came surging up from some unsounded depth within me and caught in my throat, because when I looked in her eyes, wide and wet with excitement, her pupils telescoped into pinpricks that told me she was in the grip of the same I saw myself. Because she was looking at me the way I looked
Tragedy
Cedric McClester Apr 2015
By: Cedric McClester

Excuse me as I do my ablution
After I wipe my *** on your Constitution
Which you don’t believe in anyway
At least not the parts that expressly say
There’s freedom of religion as well as speech
Those are the things that I’m told you teach
The same things that you want to now take away
As you dictate to me where I can or can’t pray

I need ablution
To wash myself clean
Of the things that you say
But clearly don’t mean
Your attitude
Borders on the obscene
So I need ablution
To wash myself clean

What’s happened to the American ideal
The one that was sold that had such appeal
And is all but forgotten nowadays
Which is apparent in so many ways
Where’s the principles on which you stand
Have they been abandoned throughout this land
If your core values are becoming suspect
Is there anything left for you to protect

I need ablution
To wash myself clean
Of the things that you say
But clearly don’t mean
Your attitude
Borders on the obscene
So I need ablution
To wash myself clean

Your attitude has me so confused
Cos the right to free speech
Is so often abused
And you know you’re guilty
As you’ve been accused
When burning Korans
Is all over the news

I need ablution
To wash myself clean
Of the things that you say
But clearly don’t mean
Your attitude
Borders on the obscene
So I need ablution
To wash myself clean

Excuse me as I do my ablution
After I wipe my *** on your Constitution
Which you don’t believe in anyway
At least not the parts that expressly say
There’s freedom of religion as well as speech
Those are the things that I’m told you teach
The same things that you want to now take away
As you dictate to me where I can or can’t pray



(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.
Cedric McClester Mar 2016
By: Cedric McClester

Excuse me as I do my ablution
After I wipe my *** on the Constitution
Which you don’t believe in anyway
At least not the parts that expressly say
There’s freedom of religion as well as speech
Those are the things that I’m told you teach
The same things that you want to now take away
As you dictate to me where I can or cannot pray

I need ablution
To wash myself clean
Of the things that you say
But clearly don’t mean
Your attitude
Borders on the obscene
So I need ablution
To wash myself clean

What’s happened to the American ideal
The one that was sold that had such appeal
And is all but forgotten nowadays
Which is apparent in so many ways
Where’s the principles on which you stand
Have they been abandoned throughout this land
If your core values are becoming suspect
Is there anything left for you to protect

I need ablution
To wash myself clean
Of the things that you say
But clearly don’t mean
Your attitude
Borders on the obscene
So I need ablution
To wash myself clean

Your attitude has me so confused
Cos the right to free speech
Is so often abused
And you know you’re guilty
As you’ve been accused
When burning Korans
Is all over the news

I need ablution
To wash myself clean
Of the things that you say
But clearly don’t mean
Your attitude
Borders on the obscene
So I need ablution
To wash myself clean

Excuse me as I do my ablution
After I wipe my *** on the Constitution
Which you don’t believe in anyway
At least not the parts that expressly say
There’s freedom of religion as well as speech
Those are the things that I’m told you teach
The same things that you want to now take away
As you dictate to me where I can or cannot pray

Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2016.  All rights reserved.
ogdiddynash Nov 2015
~~~

early Saturday morn marked,
looks as if it will be a as-scheduled,
chill fall brisk one, a November blend,
sun wants in, but clouds say,
uh-uh, no way Jose,
yet the yellow star insists, persists

the bed so coy, suggests a ploy


stay with me, stay with her,
ready steady in this hearts hearth,
let this Saturday be an Ogdiddynasherday


*the blonde deep sleeps,
covers up to the nose,
she doesn't know
and never will

that the edges of my eyes filled with tears,
watery from amniotic fluid,
a byproducts of this days first time ever
birthday

a moment morning marked, colored by
early morn re-readings of prior poems,
of darling love mended with tender,
writ expressly for her,
over the years of being
together~tethered

soon that other pair (of eyes) will open,
in a new way,
anew the day,
a whole new world,
a seventh day resting,
unaware of my steadfast guardian,
over-watching protection

will inform her of the Saturday menu,
stay in bed with her obedient server-man,
performing continual catch up
on who we are and why we be a we,
with out ever thinking
that's a good idea,
just like this poem came unplanned,
just an unscheduled day in bed,
woman and man,
with a new poem snuggling
in between
November 7, 2015
7:02 am
nyc
Daniello Mar 2012
I
who am indescribable to myself
because true
am describable to you
precisely because
to you
I can only be
expressly
untrue.  

Unless that I
is you
Nik Bland Oct 2013
And I could be a commode...
A common
A common oddity
With Mira Cole
Miracles
Coming out of me
Please excuse my stout
My strut
My s-s-stuttering
Not being ******
I mean this
Wouldn't be missed-ery
I could come and then glow
And the grow
And then go so far away
To expressly convert
I mean overt
Avert from the things I say
And just so the gray
No, the way
No, the day would illuminate
I would rise a ***
I mean above
All the shyness and the hate
I could sleep
I mean weep
Because of the weak things I say
S-stammering
Stuttering
It brings out the worse in every way
Oblatum - Magnus Volumine

John is defined in the Gospel of him as the disciple whom Jesus loved (cf. Jn 13:23). Thanks to the special signs of predilection that Jesus showed him at very significant moments in his life, John was closely linked to the History of Salvation. The first sign that showed him the great affection of Jesus was that he was called to be his disciple along with Andrew, Peter's brother, through John the Baptist who baptized in the Jordan River and of whom they were already disciples.. In fact, as Jesus passed by, the Baptist introduced him to him as "the Lamb of God" and they immediately followed him. John was so impressed by his personal encounter with Jesus that he never forgot that it was around four in the afternoon that Jesus invited them to follow him (cf. Jn 1:35-41). The second sign of predilection was having been a direct witness of some events in the life of Jesus, which he later reworked in the fourth gospel, in a theological way very different from the synoptic gospels (cf. Jn 21:24). And the third moment in which Jesus himself made him feel his friendship and his very particular brotherhood was when Jesus, about to give up his spirit (cf. Jn 19:30), wanted to associate it in a privileged way with the mystery of the Incarnation, expressly confiding it to his mother: "here is your son"; and expressly instructing his mother: "here is your mother." (cf. Jn 19:26-27).

The sources from which the data on John's life as an apostle, as an evangelist and as "adopted son" of Mary have been extracted do not always coincide. Some sources are more convergent and others are more dubious or apocryphal. From the gospels we know that together with his brother James - who will also be an apostle - the two were fishermen originally from Galilee, from an area of Lake Tiberias, and that together they were nicknamed "the sons of thunder" (cf. Mark 3:17). ). His father was Zebedee and his mother Salome. We find John in the narrow circle of the apostles who accompanied Jesus when he performed some of the most important "signs" (cf. Jn 2:11) of his progressive revelation as a type of Messiah very different from the one that the people of Israel was expected (Lk 9, 54-55). In fact, when Jesus resurrected Jairus' daughter (cf. Lk 8:51), when he was transfigured on Mount Tabor (cf. Lk 9:28), and during the agony in Gethsemane (cf. Mk 14:33), Jesus tried to make them understand that they had to transform their mentality linked to hope into a violent Messiah, similar to Elijah because, on the other hand, he was the beloved Son of the Father (cf. Lk 9:35), he was the Messiah come from the heaven to communicate divine life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), and that he was also going to suffer rejection and injustice from the religious leaders of his people (cf. Mt 16:21). In the Gospel of John, Jesus appears as the Teacher who also tries, in vain, to make the Jews understand the paradoxical logic of the Kingdom of God (cf. Jn 8, 13-59). His disciples, on his behalf, are invited to be born again (cf. Jn 3:1-21) to worship the Father in Spirit and Truth (cf. Jn 4:23-24); Jesus prays for them so that they remain united by divine Love (cf. Jn 17:21) and that they are fed by the Bread of Life (cf. Jn 6:35).

During the Last Supper, John had leaned on Jesus' chest and asked him: Lord, who is the one who is going to betray you? (cf. Jn 21:20). John was the only one of the apostles who accompanied Jesus to the foot of the Cross with Mary (cf. Jn 19, 26-27). John was the first to believe the announcement of the resurrection of Jesus made by Mary Magdalene (cf. Mt 28, 8): he ran quickly to the empty tomb and let Peter enter first to respect his precedence (cf. Jn 20, 1-8). Tradition adds that some years later he moved with Mary to Ephesus, from where he evangelized Asia Minor. It also appears that he suffered persecution from Domitian and that he was banished to the island of Patmos. Finally, thanks to the advent of Nerva as emperor, he (96-98) returned to Ephesus to finish his days there as an ultracentenarian, around the year 104.

The Gospel attributed to John was named after Origen. It has also been called the "Spiritual Gospel" or "Gospel of the Logos." His style and literary genre are full of "signs", symbols and figures that should not be interpreted literally. In the prologue of his gospel, John uses refined theological language to show how at the beginning of the New creation, in the New beginning the divine "Logos" already pre-existed; logos meaning the eternal creative Word of the Father, which was later translated into Latin as "Verbum". In the prologue of the fourth gospel Jesus is presented as the "Divine Word", the "Light of life" and "the pre-existing Wisdom of God" (cf. Jn 1:1-18). This gospel invites us to accept, through a faith full of amazement and gratitude, the surprising revelation that the Word of God, which no one had seen, became flesh and has made his home among his people. (cf. Jn 1:14). For this reason, the word "believe" is repeated almost 100 times, because God wants all men to be saved (cf. 1Tim 2:4) and to have abundant life through faith in Jesus Christ, God made flesh (cf. Jn 11, 25).

The Gospel of John also presents us in two very emblematic episodes the identity of Mary and the special relationship of John as her "adopted son" to her: at the wedding at Cana and at Calvary. In the narration of the sign of the water transformed into the new Wine during the wedding at Cana, Mary is shown to us as the powerful intercessor who anticipates the hour of Jesus' revelation to his People (cf. Jn 2:1- 12). On Calvary, at the moment of the glorification of Christ, Mary is presented as the Woman who is transformed into the New Eve or Mother of the disciples of her Son (cf. Jn 19:25-27). If we consider the close filial relationship between John and Mary, it is not difficult to imagine that the revelation of the figure of the Messiah in the Gospel of John has also been nourished by the direct testimony of Mary, since she, better than anyone else, in her last years of loneliness, he collected in his heart and in his memories the "signs", the "signs" and the words of life of Jesus. It is therefore conceivable that the unique experiences that she preserved in her memory, she later shared with the disciples of Jesus, and in particular with John. Therefore, it can be considered that Mary herself also progressively welcomed and interpreted in faith the revelation that the Son of her womb was at the same time the eternal Son of the Father, (cf. Jn 10:30), the only Bread. of life (cf. Jn 6:34), the Light of the world (cf. Jn 8:12), the Door (cf. Jn 10:7), the Good Shepherd (cf. Jn 10:11), the Resurrection and life (cf. Jn 11:24), the true Vine (cf. Jn 15:1) and the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6).

The three "letters" are attributed to the tradition of the disciples of John, which also have the flavor of brief homilies. The Apocalypse is a canonical book, recognized as inspired, that was born in the environments of the churches of the Johannine tradition that suffered the attacks of Gnostic doctrines. This, which is the last book of the Bible, uses a literary genre similar to that of some prophetic books of the Old Testament, such as the book of Daniel (cf. Dan 7), Ezekiel or Zechariah. The word apocalypse is the transcription of a Greek term that means revelation and not destruction, as is sometimes thought. John addresses seven letters to the seven churches (cf. Rev 1-3) to transmit to us, through very fascinating characters and symbols, a very concrete message of hope in which the slain Lamb (cf. Rev 5:12), i.e., Christ the Savior will triumph over all persecutions and oppositions of the forces of evil to the Kingdom of God and will make all things new. This will happen when God will establish his Kingdom of justice, love and peace at the end of time. In this book it is shown, with numerous and suggestive symbols, such as the seven seals (cf. Rev 6-8, 1), the seven trumpets (cf. Rev 8, 6-11, 19), the seven angels with the seven bowls (cf. Rev 15, 5-16, 21), the tiring path and the struggle that believers of all times have to face so that one day the building of the New Jerusalem will be carried out (cf. Rev 21-22), today we would say the Civilization of Love, brotherhood and care for life, when Jesus, the Alpha and Omega (cf. Rev 22:13), returns at the end of time. In this sense, the Apocalypse is also a prophetic book that interprets God's action in history, ensuring that the faithful and truthful Witness (cf. Rev 3:14) will return soon (cf. Rev 22:20) and will definitively conquer. to evil, pain, and death (cf. Rev 22:1-5).


Dedicavit

This manuscript is dedicated to Sauter Bernardino Edmundo Carreño Troncoso “ Primum Coniugem Alexandri Magnis ” of the first of the Gamelion of Dionysius of Leneo, to his Adelphos of Etrestles of Kalavrita, to Alexander III of Macedonia, known as Alexander the Great (July 21, 356 BC - June 10 or 11, 323 BC), Leonidas of Epirus, Lysimachus of Acarnania, Aristotle, Bucephalus, of the sixth of Hecatombeon, the month in which the Macedonians called him with the paelative Loios, the same day as the temple of Diana in Ephesus was burned; As Hegesias of Magnesia makes occasion for a presumption, Cassander, Ptolemy, and Hephaestion would become his lifelong companions and generals in his army. Callisthenes, another friend, was Aristotle's nephew. Dedicated to the dignity of Raeder of Kalymnos; son of Etrestles of Kalavrita, especially to Saint John the Apostle, distinguished relatives of the Transverse Valleys of Horcodndising and Sudpichi. Finally to my parents Luccaca and Bernardolipo Monarchs of Horcondising. And all the characters who will live eternally in this colossal Magnus Volumine. “Gratias Ago Tibi Propter Heroismum Tuum Vernarth, Et Doce Nos Viam Messiae” Thank you for your heroism Vernarth, and teaching us the way of the Messiah!

“I must tell you of my great admiration for my steed Alikantus, with which I will come to visit you soon, also to Kanti who have been a great precursor to take you to Athens, Thessaly, Delphi and Lefkandi. You can see that Bucephalus has joined our fight; where the “Sons of Iaveh, have eyes like a flame of fire or Aish, and feet like to go burnishing the chaff of bronze towards Patmos”, which will instigate you for the contrition of Thyatira, under the trick of my Rabbi Saint John the Apostle”


Thyatira

City rebuilt at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. E.C. by Seleucus Nicátor, one of Alexander the Great's generals. It was located about 60 km from the Aegean coast, on the banks of a tributary of the Gediz (ancient Hermos River), in the western Asia Minor. The Christian congregation of Thyatira received a message written by the apostle John as revealed to them by the Lord Jesus Christ. (Revelation 1:11) “which said: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches that are in Asia: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

In this regard, the Lord declared in a reproving tone: “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my slaves astray to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols.” This “woman” was probably named Jezebel because of her wicked behavior similar to that of Ahab's wife and her stubborn refusal to repent. However, it appears that only a minority of the members of the Thyatira congregation approved of this Jezebel influence, as the message continues to address “the rest of you who are in Thyatira, to all who do not have this teaching, to the very same ones who did not come to know the 'deep things of Satan'." (Revelation 2:18-29).

“ Children of Iaveh, you have “Eyes like a flame of fire or Aish, and feet like burnishing the chaff of bronze” toward Patmos that has freed me from your Xorki, how to say and what not to say to you; that my voice has stammered, making me feel that once I flee, I must adhere to the Eternal fire of the Mayim, children of Iaveh, the Mayim of Hydor and saint of water, the Windmill and its sad Myloi, fall on my face ”


Magnus Volumine I    


The Vernarth's intensification of this prosopography as Prosopography Magistri Militum Strategos Typology; he has used the raffle of a History it was not known but it is Vernarth now introduces in Historiography as an auxiliary. The methodological fragment could be torn apart from its screens of a mind enslaved to having to worship a cycle that condemns it to surrender to its loved ones leaving it at the same time to be sectored from a condemnation, to prostrate itself to an Eternal Life its images nor Masterful Words that would have to distinguish the parasciences from subdividing their corporality into thousands of Othónes or Screens, in order to be able to sustain themselves from others that do not compose the knowledge of what is not History; but rather that what happens typical of prosopography allows to obtain visibility regarding the different sectors of society, and the possibilities of their members to access positions of a present that never leaves the power of the Space of a Strategoi, as Time-Space at levels of superior Intelligence subject to mandates of divine Power that oscillates in a mental power of the Militum that coexists with the Community of the Strategos, creating the entire Quantum Band of the antiquity as an omnipresent being par excellence. When its ****** envelope is reflected in its Purgation, it will trigger a presence that governs itself and leads in the trend of a "Duoverse that will only be built in its Unique unity"... given the trend of all crowds that bustle beyond the mass of their Villas or Cities that they inhabit, creating sensations and an unreal genetic world even that amalgamates a large number of generations that only increases its demography based on the autarkic mandate of a history that goes back for not knowing what to imagine of the past and of a future without present that is sustained in a Spiritual Intelligence.

The sociological mutations will be circular, and the retrograde since the collective of images will exceed everything that is sustained on a material floor and therefore it denies that what develops in an empty heart will be a specialized material of a periodicity, that does not spare New Universes that a pillar or support be added that tends to calligraphy better where imagery could prevail all the limits of common language. The grammar of ancient Greece will defend periods that are neither static nor finite, leaving free space for words that are engulfed by vast seas of stagnant bibliographical records never known never written nor destined for a secular record. The Submythology Potential is provided by the entire Belt that surrounds from South America to the Mediterranean as an infinite cord of Eternity to re-hold itself in a matriarchy in the societies of the past to recognize, that femininity is the real genesis of research from where a frequent human origin proceeds, so this it is the transcended in the Universality that transcends in the investigation of the sphere of Unknown History; pretending its ligament of prosopography, and the vivifying instance of Submythology as a unifying entity to summarize the condition of Strategos/Magister Militum we have taken into consideration the situation of our utter information in this existing prosopography works. Parapsychology is subject to a dimension closely linked to non-reflection to even the Primordial Quantum to governs, and governs everything just as this Magnus Volumeni I tries to express the independence of all literary expression if it is about Vernarth, rather it is a documentary space.

Afterward six years of knowing and introducing myself to the area of   Technology, and the Science in the Tourism industry, I made my presentation at Macromedia University, Berlin-Germany. Through this university management I had the option of presenting my concept and avant-garde projects, which condescended me to get to know the E-Tourism Perspectives area of the University of Svizzera Italian-Ticino. This allowed me to meet and join an independent study challenge with the slogan of deriving a full range of analysis, and dedicated study Heritage Sites of UNESCO. All thanks to the agreement that consecrated me at the Pantheon-Sorbonne Université, specifically Maria Gravari-Barbas, Directore de la Chaire UNESCO, Culture, Tourisme / Lorenzo Cantoni, professor at USI Universitá della Svizzera Italiana.

The university has had here in South America, in Chile an intrepid collaborator who has tried to interpret the postulates of the Sciences of Humanity exposing the nature of preserving, and keep investigating everything in the lost history of Europe, which has great significance for Culture that has branched out through the Tourism Technology, and its Digital transformation for this purpose of understanding public life in dissimilar fields that are still hidden in intangible archives, which deduce important material of study in areas of Science, Philosophy, History, Politics, Geography, Jurisprudence that would add to the world of the conservation of the ancestral peoples with all its courageous identity of the Prosopography, and the archaeological demography.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization, known for short, as UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It was founded on November 16, 1945 with the aim of contributing to peace and security in the world through education, science, culture and communications. The constitution signed that day entered into force on November 4, 1946 ratified by twenty countries. In 1958 its main headquarters were inaugurated, in the VII district of Paris. Its general director is Audrey Azoulay the specialization and search for Culture, Education and Science is a way of contributing to humanity, peacefully granting security through the entire International community for this reason we believe that this work fulfills that prerogative narrowing organically, as been always it is here with the multidimensional epic narrative that is broken down with the prose, and parapsychology other than is a field closely linked to the intrinsic link of all the treasure that has been transmitted for thousands of years, leaving before our expectation what its ruins and works have wanted to demonstrate with their laudable dedication foundations, and expansion of multiple Sites in their musings that have traveled the history of diction of the science of culture, information, communication to create knowledge that this still remains with our reality of society that has the pattern of explosive generation of the current one. One of Vernarth's is the most important premises to create the roots of systematic knowledge, that is to say to provide platforms for their family trees, prosopography and the art of writing Submythological Prose whose the objective tends to occupy the expanded universal literature that has advanced for thousands of years on the other hand, Submythology is free of format cancels many aspects of the temporary format, and creates a relationship link between the academic and the secular attracting infinities of Cultures, historical landmarks, hybridity of languages, and above all merging and re-transforming existences of the post-Classical period; where the source and personal question does not daunt the distances of the inheritable that distanced us by geological-Historical periods, rather it makes the viability of an unexplored field up to now as Vernarth is the granting a hierarchical international value that will retransmit knowledge and skills.

In this way, agglutinating ourselves in those interstices that are not visible, qualifyable or quantifiable, only have to materialize when patrimonial beings are chosen by others who are already hereditary of an industrious will it occupies the supports of a platform of earthly inheritance, and later disseminate it throughout different sectors of the field of knowledge and the research, connoting that there are many variables that could help us interpret the foundations of the UNESCO heritage, today are far removed from communities that want to invest time in inquiring more deeply about them. For this reason, Central and Eastern Europe is at the forefront of generating multi-channels that can ensure the treatment of technological routes or flourishing that want to be found again, such as the Qhapac Ñan, or perhaps the Jacobean Route, perhaps the Route from Patmos to Judah pointing to Vernarth by demonstrating that hindsight could be perfective when visualizing facts that were not witnessed or written as they should be, VG the return to Galilee of Saint John the Apostle in the Hegira to Judah, relegated to Greece by Emperor Domitian. The amendment of such a well-deserved return confirms the wait for an immortal being in the Eclectic Portal for three months, who will mean the ordinary that rises up from the phenomenal investing in roles that many times, as indicated by the dogma of the baptistery indicating that we can be saints and apostles to preserve the patrimonies to educate and retransmit values to follow.

Vernarth Trilogy II at its end, is reiterated in deliberating that this work never ends because each chapter of Paraps, inaugurates a new infinite regressive dimension as it is in the case of Poielipsis; as it is a liquefaction of the parameter of Poiere, and the inverted Apocalypse to make changes after personalities that manage to impact the successive episodes of alteration of Life periods, as in this case Vernarth when he was legitimized to assist Gaugamela by the god Spílaiaus to make the support to Alexander the Great not only for winning the battles but for saving and winning the souls of the fallen Hoplites, generating in them an idyllic prose that promotes and sublimates the possession of the principles of an Apocalypse, that suggests protecting those who should believe without pain of what will await them later for an indefinite death. The Souls of Trouvere will stand out with the bulwark of enthronement of the state of energy that would mobilize Charles the Great by taking him to the platform of conquest of Europe crowned as emperor by Pope Leo III taking the lessons strongly rooted, and letters that would subscribe the cheers where nothing dies in the center of its own fear, because that is where the edge of a sword loses its value that it cannot use the other as an arbitrary neologism of only reigning without the sacrifice that every regime bets on, including the crown when Charlemagne assumed his great legacy at twenty years after expiring later at seventy-two. This is where fears die, not being able to hope or convalesce in concepts of Energeia that vitally moved from the similar aspect to Alexander the Great in the same even numeral but thirty-two, and letters that would be signed by cheers where nothing dies in the center of its own fear because that is where the edge of a sword loses its value that it cannot use the other as an arbitrary neologism of only reigning without the sacrifice that every regime bets on, even the crown when Charlemagne assumed his great legacy at twenty after later expiring at seventy-two.

In another topic, Vernarth after witnessing Stratonice's intermission decides to run at her bare feet for those who banish with their needs on the parental scale of their range, succeeded by Energeia's need for the impudent sense of being enraptured in possibilities, here insulting also the principle of quantum science with the spin of subatomic particles, alembicated in the timeless particles that could leave out of the nucleus the proportion of rotation of time that could be found, and rooting of memories in rectilinear lines of the imperturbable Hellenic mental axis. One could also amend here all the licentious action of Seleucus by Stratonice when she splits the gross threshold of her son Antiochus, and Antigonus I Monophthalmos referring to the father Stratonice of Macedonia for never marrying her to Seleucus. All this generates the Epistle addressed to Vernarth to solve the strident and impalpable of the warlike Diadocos that greatly affected the female descendants, confining them to their domestic avatars in disloyal empires, where these vilifications devastate the imperial partiality through the centuries of an oppressive strength, and disagreement in their moral wrongs. From this quality the coordinate of the Souls of Trouvere that remains in the present, always allying themselves in saviors of oppressed and abandoned peoples who strive in the neologism of the Epsilon or Vernarth's fifth dimension, and not restrict themselves as Aristotle affirms, investigating the entity towards a mono-meaning in this causal of such an alpha that says the paradoxical demonstrating diversity of optics. Prior to this diatribe, Vernarth decides his naturalness that he decides to promote the Souls that are part of both topics to alleviate the potentialities of the acts that are apprehended in the light of genius that coexists with both. What he judged us in the unfolding of his entity and will deliver it by divine intelligence so as not to reduce the free power of the Epsilon that was extracted in the welcoming the presence of Stratonice on the (substitute scale of Vernarth's relativistic emotions). There are few seconds that can be extended more from a selective argument of tendencies in ex-sheets that could be attributed to dimensions of the period of Trouvere's souls, lacking stillness in simulated biological environments.

The dynamics of this Poielípsis is to adorn the Voielípsis as an analogous addition of quantum causality and timeless Christianity, since it supports a conjugate mix deified by Saint Thomas Aquinas heading towards the mainstay in the mega absorption of Christian Aristotelian ideals. The souls will be residents of the indeterminate spiritual mechanics to put effects of the incredulous versatility on themselves, in sub-aquatic depths that coexist with the geological structure of the cavern of Saint John Apostle more than sub-earthly concomitance under the same axial of geological sustaining coordinate. Namely; they will live together while the temple is established except three hundred, and eight meters from its antipode in the underwater base of Prophytis Ilías.

The upholstery of the Pithya Herophile attacks the subtending of the flying buttress that was supported by the cavities of the volcanic rocks of Patmos, indicating its agreement with the Souls due to the disoriented cognitive dissonance that was generating paradigms, which tracked the stones that formulated Aquarian sounds in their dominant tonality due to the minuscule machine of light, more distant in the incommensurability that evaded its eclipsed in the resplendent major note that became monarchical due to the hypotenuse of the rectangle in three subdominant angles. This means that the Sybille was in the high point of observing her premonitions towards the creation that was born from another end to end in the recycling of creation in the dim light of clarity of the destinations that were going to present themselves as a song of remembrance of the Poielipsis, venturing the new restart or attempt of the Delphic oracular. The songs remain in the spell, and in the banal desires that would harm a mortal that will expand to the hypotenuse or line of the sentence that marked a step impelling in the misgivings and forgiveness of the banner of risk. Santiago of Compostela was going to Stratonice with his inclinations, like a geometric racconto subduing the fears that slip through the veil of the dogma of the arch where no philosophy can look higher if it is not allowed, typical of vegetating or freeing oneself from what revives in fears that do not shed light on eternal life, perhaps of a the Matematikoi himself who doubts an Ad finitas basis, and who finds out without the limits leading Pythagoras to the ground handcuffed from Crotona, always ignorant of the linguistic power that urges to rewind the spheres that still weave crossed angles placing themselves in trial, and error when considering a non-renewable past the soul of the Poielípsis adopted a Pythagorean conception in the halters of livid legions of Orpheus, as if it were his consecrated to the hypogeum where the level was to stir the embankment that will merge with Zefian's Arrows.

A diminutive atonal music possible existed in the molecules, and in trigonometric periods in which the measures were united in time as a stationary whole vivifying a great variety of fractional numbers as souls of the same numeral that finally appear to be Pythagorean digits. Vernarth's military of Phalanxes in this epic made the crucial oblique moment to break Dario's troops like a dozen Elegy that was going to re-flower what he knew of his already sub-treated destinations, other than will only be souls tired of keeping themselves alive in their morbidity, and the dissociated causal of immortality that will distance itself from the prohibited abstinences in libertarian exercises of any counting that ponders on the coming etymology of the Vita Pythagorae on the couch of joy, and serving his doctrine that saves himself that will save us in the Messiah for those who in their souls do not have the sacrifice of a lamb that feeds, nor a base that goes ahead in the centuries grazing what no one was capable of. In the second triad of Apollo the oracle of Apollo with the Souls that reveal Charles the Great to be his favorite for the protectorate of Compostela, and his spiritual regency the invitation to Charlemagne breaks out from Aachen after 33 consecutive years in the sword dispute stating that the Saxons never complied with the treaties and signed surrenders. Charlemagne put himself at the head of his army on several occasions to fight with his sword against the Saxon danger, also entrusting the troops to the counts when other matters required his presence in the second concave wasteland, and the straight ascending of the Trouvere Souls crowning Charlemagne emperor of Rome and Francos chosen by Leo III, predicted by the Apostle Santiago in defensive pontifical struggles, and defenders of Christianity. In this paradigm there is a deceased seep through of an elusive world that was joining from here in the vein of Poielípsis for the sake of some eras that came from the mutes, and anonymity that augured to link them to know within their endless intrinsically organic movement, also as a diligent active cosmos of the discovery of the Jacobean route longing to be a better region than the Dodecanese merged by the twelve apostles, and now the brother of the son of Zebedee; Santiago, brother of Saint John the Apostle, ennobled in the 778 AD tying it to Hispania. In ****** and constant fighting, Charlemagne besieged the Saxons, he entered Hispania crossing the Pyrenees as an anticipation of the aforementioned the Jacobean Route, everything worsened in this way witnessing the subjugated places in the jurisdictions of the Trouvers who were Pythagoric elite of soldiers who they had be bilocated in this Christian Era, preceded by this perfidious Basque in the woods subsisting separated right here from the progenitors of the Trouvers, who claimed to be the strongest to pursue them to Pamplona with Charlemagne. Everyone was escaping from Islam, and not a few Christians resented this affront in the dynamics that will reveal the Songs of the French Deed.

This previous paragraph exhibits the eloquence of how the interlining that Vernarth had to create a Brotherhood Code called "Raedus Codex" for the high nomination polished in the Infant Raeder as a twitch of the sacrifice of his young soul, who fought battles in pursuit of defenses pure and free with the freshly grown grass of the spring of the world in Genesis. The Souls in Trilogy III will be the compendium of the Codices that will enter the Wind Tunnel what will be governed by the warm Meltemi wind, and swirled by the winds of Eolonymy, ascending all those who should be admitted and not purging those in between who they enjoyed a pre-Christian heritage citing Pythagorean antiquity behind those who must have dressed it up as a Codex Calixtinus. From this arrangement Charlemagne will drive souls with antiphons, the Apostle Santiago will come lacerated to meet his brother Saint John the Apostle, his barge will be abandoned in the Strait of Gibraltar and then arrive at Santiago of Compostela from here he will make tributes of name to ascend to Patmos. Just as the end of Vernarth's Trilogy II is faithfully transcribed, also Stratonice, the Hexagonal Primogeniture, Alexander the Great, King David Elias, Malachi, Isaiah and all the acquirer flashed in Raeder and his Pelican Petrobus, as self-sustaining defenders of the Infantile Fantasies that they continued in this complex work after a finding that fed them up in Vernarth as well as everything related to their release and investiture to say that all roads lead to Patmos, as Locus Sanctus of all the shepherds who heal their sheep that do not belong to others that are populated with white souls, for the good of other shells 308 meters below the Prophytis Ilias with the consent of Stratonice who would be arriving in Macedonia where the pass of the centuries they would tell them about the Jacobean Route instructed in confrontations, and concordances with the airons of the Trouvere protected by a rectangle of three Pythagorean subdominant angles in dissipated darkness of the golden astrological ambiguity of Theoskepasti of the meridian of the Kimolos. He will go away saying explicitly that the darkness became visible mists where there was nothing to hide from Psathi Roadstead in Kimolos, until reaching the Agia or the Chapel of Theoskepasti that would become visible for the phenomenon of Faith, alluding to a portentous desire that everything was tied to the same sense of compression of which the image or sound of the creation at times to became invisible but precisely understandable, as it was when imagining palpable the reality of what allows the human eye to feel for an instant that everything is real imperceptible, more present of all what can be detected by superior senses more than humans, giving way next to the Raedus Codex more present of all what can be detected by superior senses more than humans.

From Ios or Nios, bordering on Psathi, the Trilogy is unleashed when the association of all the spaced Cyclades of Vernarth will come to every equinox to shine the careful nap of the villagers of the Cyclades, close to the torpor of Thira. It will raise each Hoplite that from the point of Nios drags them with its abandoned body that could never receive the roads that led to Chora in infinitesimal distances and in white spots of all the Cycladic ghosts, who try to exalt themselves and assimilate to the villagers of Psathi.

According to Plutarch, the name Ios or Nios is believed to derive from the ancient Greek word for the violets "Ία" (Ia) because they were commonly found on the island, and is the most accepted etymology. It is also postulated that the name is derived from the Phoenician word iion, which means, "pile of stones". It was called "Φοινίκη" (Phiniki) named after the Phoenicians in the 3rd century when the island joined the League of Islanders it was probably temporarily called Arsinoe after the wife of Ptolemy II. Today the inhabitants of the Cycladic Islands call Nio Island a name derived from the Byzantine era. The name Little Malta, found in traveler's texts during Ottoman rule, is related to the permanent presence of pirates on the island of Latin-script languages.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C382CQNN
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
The University where my friend teaches
has sadly forgot what Free Speech is.
Instructors are expressly forbidden
to use the name” Christ” in a greeting.
If you say “Merry Christmas” in passing
if non tenured,  it can be career ending.
If you bless in the name of the Lord,
be prepared for your Ox to be gored.
On the same Campus, on many occasions,
Folks speak freely of perverse persuasions.
Yet, Dean forbid, you should pray,
You’d be better off coming out gay.
If Supernatural salutations you savor
“May the Force be with you”- still is in favor.
So forget about Magi and Manger
or your teaching career is in danger.
If you lecture about Christ and sin
be prepared for what they did to Him.
A Midwest University has some unusual Holiday proscriptions
Cedric McClester Nov 2015
By: Cedric McClester

“There’s something going on
In the Mosques,
Something,
We don’t know about,”
Said Donald Trump
While on the stump
And I respond,
No doubt

There’s something going on
In the Mosques
Houses of worship
Made expressly
For prayer
But anyway, it’s hard to say
For those
Who've never been there

There’s something going on
In the Mosques
Perhaps,
Just religious study
But he don't know
Cuz he won't go
Therefore his perception
Is muddy

There’s something going on
In the Mosques
Like any other
Religious institution
You’ll find people
Praying on
Their knees
Seeking absolution









Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2015.  All rights reserved.
brooke Aug 2016
what have the drunkards told you?

that you were beautiful--
different, gentle, pure
while they were busy
vacillating, you found
yourself whole among
their stormy seas, a tidal
wave bearing down upon
choppy waters where sailors
are lost and boats are sunk
ships full of diatribes and
bitterness, crippling resentment
folded into the bathus --

What have the drunkards told you?


to be less, to dissolve, to speak expressly in
salt and ***, come down from the hill, from
the towers, from the lighthouses where you
poured over the bounding main
learning to be for others lost
what have the drunkards told you?
mixed and unbecoming, double minded
and hopeful for your body


but testimony seeps out from beneath your dress
and some men are scared of lights and lamps
of flowers pressed into the walls, quiet and
unassuming, of stair steps and bookcases
without books

be the light
be the light
(c) Brooke Otto 2016

it is what it is.
We've been around
We've been around
to every reach and place so common and yet never talked about
We've been around
We've been around
the streets paved with the teeth of hopeless lying underground

Watching at ley lines
Walking with flow of the crowd

Heaven is merciless with decision
You might want to scream low
and on the inside if only to provide
your stealth from the jury
Born any time it's hard to believe
with the droves in dead zones
written in bylines, that real estate is prime
but the line for our kind is off
kilter at best

Don't pity us, wager up
Just double down, and on the other side
Don't pity us,
Just double down,
Wager up and on the flip side of winning
we all have these lines to lay

You've been seen between trees broadcasting that look
It says every word that you mean to speak, expressly open book
To who live the drabbest day with the brightest faith and take your
comfort away while enduring hell on earth

We've been around
We've been around
right to the edge of blasphemy's reach and have the greatest fortunes found
Onoma Feb 2015
A mountain dweller clung the livelong
day...rank and ****...fuschia skies sequenced.
Surrogate family to ram, serpent, eagle--
inebriate of consciousness, holy spurn.
Of rubble and dappled shadow, G*d's
wayside seed sown...severe eyes, Witness expressly.
He could crowd fire, latch to it--rocking in
orange flashes.
A swarm of chants uplift and pivot him...
flying a thousand names for not this, nor that...
as That.
A haunting inheritance whole--ascendant
body of mind...transfiguring locus of
whitening white...there pardoned of nature,
supernatural panache.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2021
Y
i might not be the smartest crab in the bucket but... Darwinism enforces hierarchies... politics enforces: hierarchies... how hard is it to not see: political biology?! if nature has hierarchy in place... then: the supposed "man-ape"? you're telling a man he's actually a walking abortion... that's all you're saying... now: i can figure out something for myself: but... that's me! i drink alone: i can figure out the recluse, perhaps not the nature of the recluse: but the desire to be a recluse... hell... i was primed to some quasi-alpha... but i wanted to forgo this inherent: trajectory... Darwinism is... politics: it' universal politics... it's: you want to look at apes and forgo the need for beauty for: this long? ugly heads of the Hydra... come on! you don't require Islam as the driving force for the motives: you need motives per se! it only take 0.000001 of any scale... or measure... to take a noumenon from a shadow: mustard seed genesis... into a full phenomenological exegesis of worry... but it's too late by then... the chess pieces are already moving... inclined to free-will or completely without it... it's just sad to think that: when Darwinism employs the argument for hierarchies: real-politik is somehow "devoid" of said: employment of synonymous measures: the worst of woman brought out the worst of man.

well: after, say... a 7 day back to back **** fest of drinking
solo: a litre of herr whiskers & ms. amber
even my liver opts out...
i call it the furry liver stage: or: the onslaught of
pate...
but by then it's not only my liver that's asking
for a breather...
my heart's no longer into it...
and my mind is exhausted to boot...
heart, liver & sensible Brian are looking for a reboot...
oddly enough... i'm more than willing to give it
to them...
it's not like drinking & writing during the night
while going for a marathon cycle run to sweat
out the toxins... it works when you're having
a drinking ****... but not at the end of one...
you can't just fast-track the toxins out...
you need to... pickle...
i call this stage the honey-trap...
it's alcohol "abuse": unlike the use of ******
from what i've seen in pop culture...
it's the opposite of doing a cold turkey...
the honey trap really begins when you're about
to go to bed: even though throughout
the whole day you didn't think about drinking...
you did go to the local shop for two pints
of milk & bought & expressly drank a hipster can
of IPA... burped for a minute...
the fun really starts when you go to bed...
it's a honey trap although:
you're sweating: stewing or pickling your take...
you have the most amazing night
dripping cold sweat... waking up three or four times
during the night...
the APAP, the naproxen or the phenergan dosage
isn't enough...
you need to fall asleep by draining all the brain
going to your brain: direct it to your intestines:
as ever... you eat too much you want to sleep...
but this is during the night:
you're not going to really eat...
lo! & behold... 2 pints of milk disappear...
after all... if you ever puked up milk you notice
the fatty cells split from all the other matter:
the proteins & the sugars...
it's a pretty looking cocktail...
but i just adore the sweating & the toiling...
of course with milk you'll eat something sweet...
coming down from 118kg because of concerns
for my blood-pressure i was given
the option: lose weight: or we'll put you on
high-blood pressure tablets...
at the zenith of the **** i weighed in at 96kg...
one night of the honey trap
and i jumped up to 98kg...
         one day's & one's night's worth is enough...
i've been slightly sleep deprived enough to know
that i have a rekindled want to spew...
from the hear & the brain...
here's back to mr. liver being the punching-bag...
plus... you don't really want to be hangover
when going to the Turkish barber...
you want to have allowed the toxins to leave
your body: slowly... not via exercise...
i still don't know...
£120 per hour for some ******* & oyster dipping...
or... £12 for circa half an hour's worth of
getting the ***** on my hair trimmed
(since i go for a haircut at a unisex salon)...
i don't know...
the trimming of the ***** (sorry, beard) would
only cost me £10...
ah those Turkish barbers...
but he asked at the end: would you like a hot towel?
i declined once... not this time...
so what was i expecting after having my beard
trimmed, shamed... having a close encounter
of the third kind at the "event horizon" where
skin meets hair with some cool whip
& a classic razor?
well i wasn't expecting to find him drop
the electric razor & add finishing touches with
scissors...
he did put a hot towel onto my face...
started my face & beard with it...
until he then folded it round my face
like a doughnut ensuring my nose was playing
peek-ah-boo... he then told me to relax...
outstretched my hands...
sprayed some lemon zesty spray on my hands...
then started to pull my fingers from
their knuckle sockets...
massaged my arms with slaps and "bites"...
took up my arm and folded it to the side:
each arm... between each arm he crudely massaged
the back of my neck and the collar-bone...
the towel still on my face...
for £2 extra? all this when i only walked in
for a trim of the beard?
he then applied some "olive oil"...
anything by OSSION... this turkish brand of male
hair products... top of the line...
the Fwench can hide with their alcohol infused...
trans-man baby products...
point being: this is so much about make culture...
there's nothing to do with:
make-up... nail-polish...
the end product doesn't even matter...
it's the experience...
a man can groom a man in such a way
that a woman couldn't... ever...
oddly enough i have hair to not give a ****
whether it's the Turkish barber or some
blonde bombshell giving me: something just shy
of a crew-cut... i don't miss having long hair...
one man in history pulled off
having long hair & a beard:
i'm not the one to pull that stunt off...
long hair & a goatee: i tried...
but if you're going for the full beard?
short hair...
                   & if my liver doesn't like it:
when Brian and Hertz is up for it again...
so be it... i'll allow the liver to check out early...
but so much is wong with...
the worst of woman has brought up the worst of man...
you: "you" heard of the current craze hitting
university campuses...
so more & more women are entering higher education:
imagine to my shock: the men they're left with...
the ones no longer bothered about
spiking drinks... no... these days they just walk up
to a girl & "syringe" her: that word has been
elevated from a mere noun: to a verb...
it implies spiking her directly...
i once drank a spiked drink once...
idiot me...
but i'm not a woman...
i found a slap of pavement along my dizzy faze
& ended up walking home with it:
finding my own bed...
i don't remember where i left that slab of
pavement... but i clung to it like it was: anchor...
i was with some girls: full clown make-up:
Halloween... they just dropped some ecstasy &
were dancing like the teenagers they were...
i'm pretty sure that drink was not intended for:
i could tell... 3 guys and 1 girl were playing
this boxer arcade game seeing me drink the spiked
beer...
punching at bad (good) as they could...
i guess they didn't have the sort of punch to
punch a clown...
terrible experience...
         ugh...
    but the worst of woman is bringing up the worst
of man...
incel culture is not terrorist culture...
oh sure... it isn't...
last time i heard that a jihadi performed his acts
of terror by first killing his mother...
i'm pretty sure must have heard of some jihadi
that killed his mother prior to going on a rampage...
right now? i think my mother is obnoxious...
an obnoxious brat...
but then her fractions are all wrong...
it's two days short of a year since she lost her father...
i lost a grandfather & a friend:
but her grief is a hierarchy above my own...
so i have to let the whole ******* ****-show slide...
i have my grievances but they somehow have to
ferment in: how she has had grievances with her mother
over why she wasn't informed earlier
about the dreaded affair of: eintreten tod!

oddly enough i'm about to visit to get a time-bomb
of a tooth fixed with root-canal surgery since...
these days... your best bet at any sort of "tourism"
is: health-tourism...
no chance of me getting root-canal treatment
in England... the easy way out: pull the tooth out...
it's a healthy... semi-healthy tooth!
it can be treated!
no treatment available in England:
****-off i go to Eastern Europe...
mind you: it'll be nice to immerse myself with
a people that speak my mutter-zunge for a while...
where the whole world won't be there...
plus i'll have no internet access...
i'll finish that vol. 4 of Knausgaard & read
some Rousseau... happy days:
unhappy days...
my dementia riddled friend won't be there...
but i'll be the one who'll take his grandmother
to the graveyard & make inquiries as
to why: she couldn't have informed "us" sooner
about the dire straits...
i'll be the grandson making the *******
inquiries my mother: her daughter is not willing
to make...

my uncle: her brother: her son is yet to make it clear
how he knew about his impeding death
2 weeks (circa) prior... he came round &
had a blast talking about: "putting things into perspective"...
he asked for some chewing gum
prior to the funeral surface...
& while the coffin was lowered into a shallow grave
(why shallow... oh... you know...
they were intending to cremate him,
rather than seeing his dead corpse in his most
formal attire) - my grandfather had a fear of
cremation...
as much an atheist as he was:
he still believed in resurrection rather than
the traffic of reincarnation:
well... it's not like reincarnation is "wrong": wong...
but you must be a people with a libido that
allows you to have as many people
as you like: for most living in poverty...
for a people that prefer less people
but a higher quality of life...
"perspectives" alter... no?

so as they lowered the coffin into the shallow
dug-out... his chewing of gum...
it's only fresh now... in the moment i was numb...

even today: esp. today... of course if i'm going
for a blood-test i need to sober up: slowly...
i can't just sweat out the toxins on a bicycle ride:
but a glorious storm from France arrived...
in between trying to snooze in some sleep
while listening to the ** debut
& Trentemøller's - The Mash and the Fury:
there was the sound of rain...
beating against my windows...
the cold sweats & the night...

come circa noon while i cycled to the barber
shop i was still sweating: what was it...
circa 10°C?
it just so happened that once the barber
"doing" me tried to wipe off my sweat
for the 2nd time to no avail that the head-barber
told him: blow some cold air on his forehead...
it worked...
as they trim your "event horizons" they also
treat those areas with some baby-bottom powder
sprinkled on a brush...

between the 3Ps...
priests, psychiatrists, prostitutes...
there are the one singular B... (Turkish) barbers...
esp. ones that keep a pair of budgerigars
in their practice...
enough said...
i could count a 4th P: ahem... poo'ets...
but... come one...
some of us are smear merchants when we
don't get the proper credentials...
some of us are not fit for an underground
streak of luck with an audience...
some of us are not built to last:
outside the immediacy of the crab-bucket
mentality:
few make it for the ultimate game:
the: rattekönig game...
                  
it almost feels like an "unfair" exchange
of resources...
the worst of woman brings out the worst of man...
so those supposed male-feminists are
having a field day at universities being
out-numbered 3:1... aren't they?
it's like revenge ****...
but with added spice...
          thank god i'm your sort of everyday
man: i feel no solidarity with...
ahem... my "fellow" man...
thank god i like to focus on what
i want...
seeing how i want very little...
very little seems.... brimming to the fore
with a fullness i never: not once...
hoped for...
                      lucky me...
but there is no solidarity with man:
if an incel begins his trajectory of terror
by first killing his mother:
i'm looking for a name of a jihadi
that began his rampage in a similar way:
although one thing is sure...
why are all the right-wing "extremists",
incels... branded as... mentally ill...
while all the jihadi "soul-jeers": simply not?

seems rather unfair that one side is about
to be treaded via a pharmacological concoction
while the other side is to be:
left alone... yet still making inquisitions
into the "argument"...
        that's my beef...
i'd say both sides are terrorists...
but one side isn't treated in the same way
that the other side is...
shouldn't all sides be... psychiatrically
evaluated... given the same "happy" pills?
to me... that's not fair...
one convicted side gets an Imam and the "psychiatry"
of the Quran...
the other side gets the "happy" pills
and...        what literary focus?!

perhaps it sounds better in Deutsche...
dies welt ist für ein feuer:
das wille machen
           nacht drechen zu tag...
meit gott! it does sound better in German!
who would have guessed: ist so!
Joseph C Ogbonna Mar 2023
I am the sun, I energize your day.
I speak expressly to the humid air;
'dry up for a day that is bright and fair.'
I command moisture to dry the lush hay
for non-ruminants to be well nourished.
I am ageless, and I am distinguished.
My golden rays have living things enriched,
my yellow rays induce the labourer's sleep,
having toiled so hard for his family's upkeep.
The flower smiles at my usual advances,
and with her fixed gaze, she makes no glances.
My loving rays speak with no utterances.

The day flourishes with my assistance,
as I serve from my celestial distance.
My service to you, none else can replicate.
Without me, life-form will from the earth vacate.
A poem about the sun
Chase Elsner May 2016
Bang!!!!!
Another silent gunshot falls on deaf ears
Draining one man of his life and another of his humanity
It’s a good thing it was a fair trade

The theory of equity dictates that only objects of equal value can be traded
This is proven in the taking of a life

When a gun is fired the one who shoots loses himself inside the bullet
Putting his soul into the destruction of another
The soul is then used to cancel out the soul of another

A soul for a soul is fair
The theory of equity is not

Will’s theory of contract law is a theory that dictates a contract can be made if both parties agree
If one party is a gun and the other the shooter then a contract is offered
The offer consists of one party carrying a soul in order to decimate the shell of the holder
When its terms are carried out a soul and a squirming carcass are found broken like shards of crystals

A soul for a shell is fair
Will’s theory is not

The theory of an implied contract is that an agreement can be formed informally and swiftly where both parties understand the terms without them being expressly stated
If a person is involved in gang related activities then they know that when a rival gang appears no one will walk away
The offer is swift and signaled by one of the parties drawing the .45 caliber firearms and it is accepted when the other group fires

A gang for a gang is fair
Implied contracts are fair

It’s a shame life isn’t
The theory of life is that **** happens and you’re supposed to go on like nothing else matters
The theory of life is that we stand by as obligatory witnesses to events that destroy the people who we are and who we were
The theory of life is that no matter what happens we are not allowed to bend the rules around the only two truths that we have or will ever experience
The theory of life is that we will also have to live with the theory of death

Why is it that the theory of life is the same as the theory of death?
Because they are equitable they must be of equal value
Because we either breathe or not we have agreed to one
Because no one will explain what either one is, it is implied

The theory of life and death is that in the end there is nothing left
The theory of life and death is that you can exist freely in either
The theory of life and death is that you can never exist in both
The theory of life and death is that you are nothing if you’re seen from the other plane
The theory of life and death is that you are nothing

The truth of nothing is that we have no control
The truth of nothing is that we are nothing

Bang!!!!!
Another silent gunshot falls on deaf ears
Draining one man of his life and another of his humanity
It’s a good thing it was a fair trade
Antiphon Benedictus II / Sybilla Herophile

The wide influence of history was automated in rituals; it would indicate a bibliographical time rather than secular. The antiphons will take us through the hallelujah of eternal times and along the path of the Spring of Castalia. In singularity will be Delphic Herófila, primordial of Delphi prophesying Trojan conflicts. By reinterpreting her priesthood, she leads us to the Templar Adyton, which can be reinterpreted in a Christian way in the classical antiquity of this antiphon. Being able to be captive, she looked serious and wise, visionary and with customary strange gestures, for an abnormal state of Young Sybilla woman who was later supplanted by older fortune tellers.

The Antiphon Benedictus says: “Herophila you were plagiarized and ridiculed by a heterodoxy that knows rituals and sacred cares, the Pneuma that emerged from the cracks upset your incongruities, which settled on the millennial pedestal in Macedonian territorial geographies, uniting with Alexander the Great, recirculating in Sibylline centers and dividing the doors of Sober Hell, towards epiphanies of the cult of light, and of the sacred pairs of wisdom.

The discussion took place in front of those who surrounded the perimeter of the Antiphon; there was Vernarth and Saint John the Theologian. For decades the twilights have not made the red blood cells of the Cassotis iridescent, which defied a hydrographic competition, for the purpose of desembalming the bodies of the Falangists that emerged from the Temenos of Patmos; secular space for the auditoriums of the antiphon. With ornamental fictitious oracles envisioning the inadvisable opening of opposing eyes towards a Mysta or Mystírio Eleusino, so that finally, given the toxicity of Mercury's sulfide, they would emancipate themselves by making objections to the hypothesis of ruddy post-mortem symbols, which the braves of Tel Gomel, when appearing outside the extinct topic, so that the Benedictus songs would button their navels, which was the only thing that united them to the Sybillas who came from the expropriated ethics, and from the Cinnabar outpatient clinics for long periods providing life in the quantum of Mercurial Ambrosia. Being this preferably housed in the skulls of the V (Fifth courtyard of Helleniká, but this time with eschatology of the Koumeterium of Messolonghi). Eurydice is associated with an exhumation in front of the alerted and emitted effluvia of the Herophile after the Zygastron, which shone from a canvas and that Borker preserved from the Laurel Woods, in a sycalyptic horizon of the equinoctial Aftó of the Kaitelka Cetacean, which nitrated oxides from the eastern vertical, on its back, spauto shredding with purple carbonates towards the Rubicunda del Tinctorium, and from the rhizome that hydrated the enervated and dispersed drops that remained from the convulsion of the Metelmi wind, and shaking the fin that came from this Balaenidae specimen Mysticete, in casuistry of a whale with Down syndrome, but with prodigious psychic powers.

The Cinnabar wandered through the clothes of Tel Gomel's disembalmed ones, who colored themselves with sulfur mercury and revived from the oracles of Herófila, who woke up early with Eurydice validated by her Orphic impetus like no one else. The specific parts were tints of vital signs and epidermis shoots that trembled through the epiphyses of the tibiae that decanted arthritic through the femurs, and that rose with timid muscular masses, until they reached the instep where the celestial holes of Vernarth appeared, that he struck each one of his faithful with his Xifos sword, to bleed a bronze chalice for their reduced movements, stacked on crossed legs with dejected cheekbones that fell on their feet.

Reddish spots on his jaws and on his forearm they were transposed with red salvific footprints of Eurydice that he brought from Charon, but that expressly limited them in the posterior scapula that came arriving from the fifth courtyard of Messolonghi completely stiff in black. The muscular insertion was made of pale ocher, and the Cinnabar was elemented to verticalize the involuntary bodies of the earthquake, before the controversy of the makeup of their resurrection, after an outfit that they had never used before, pigmented by an antiseptic oracle of Herófila, which already insisted to compensate with war shrouds the size of the Benedictus that self-shod the iron suns, and that buried fangs of light and life in their facials, moving in the nervous of the trigeminal towards the ethmoid, causing rales of stimuli feminoids, for the enthronement of the women present in the only atrium of the Mandragoron. Thus they remained in multi-partial stages of the psalm that revived them, to go to meet the Hegemon Alexander the Great, who emerged synchronously from Larnax, from an eruption that uttered the greatest insults of political clarity, in the fierce agonies of his perforated lung. Parasites were sprinkled like empathic germs of Hellenism, conferring Masken resurrection, beyond the curtain or canopy that separated them in Persepolis..., returning from the Indus, for the funeral that would pass through the departure of Hephaestus. Rigor-mortis buried a soul overheating in pulmonary contusion, after a feverish respite, and re sulphating in the rhetorics of Plato and Aristotle.

The Sybillas no longer menstruated on the tripod, the Pythoness in their prehistoric eagerness was conceived twice cyclical, which were reconverted into prehistoric female raptures that confirmed the exo-red blood cells of the menstrual torment, to become reconverted Christian goddesses who were doubly buried in one past joined to the other, and that they were about to precede the next past-present, on an oak that supported them, clinging to them to bear the pain that never existed.
Sybilla Herophile
Helen Dec 2014
We don't always get what we want
we very rarely get what we deserve
most often time, we stand in line
turning a corner to find a curve
Standing alone, at the end of the line
We fail to see beyond the bend
We shuffle along in our own blindness
until the light deblinds us, and then,
We see where we are headed
instantly taking a thousand steps back
except we must accept and find we're on
an express elevator to the beyond
and it's an expressly* one way track
Breathes sigh of relief
(like toe tilly gnarly mon)
footing expenses good grief.

Onus encompassing marital
responsibilities with (Holy Scott)
Matt man locked dread
precariously rested squarely and unfairly
upon mine figurative lead

pencil necked geek hirsute head,
and bony shoulders, that said
lemme communicate with modesty
and frankly earnest Sesame Street cred

hoop fully words understandable
meant tubby easily interpreted and read
lookout for courtesy double entendres
signalling where ***** wed
did himself, yet careful to tread,

no faster than sixty nine as he sped
into forbidden, verboten two lipped arrid
hot zone bubbling volcanic oasis
plunging his swollen jughead
suffocating till gratefully dead.

Reroute threaded needle gaining nascent
ability to manage independent living,
whereby counterpart availed
her pheromone scent
spurring feeling heightened testosterone,
within instantaneous moment

thus took tactile apprenticeship
receiving mail order bride thru
correspondence course sent,
I also donned role of special ops agent
provocateur, a hardened gent
fluke how I became

process of elimination chosen incumbent
learned, familiarized, adept...
grudgingly accepted covenant
to pay affordable low income rent,
plus manage other monthly bills due, i.e.
water, telecommunications insurance

(automobile and renters), and electric -
companies (Aqua Pennsylvania, Verizon,
Nationwide and Peco
respectively) with efficient
aplomb mastered (dub bate double)
art of being accommodating tenant.

Domestic chargé d'affaires
became mine bailiwick
dint of the missus being
disinclined and less quick
budgeting, hence I inadvertently
accepted lickity split,
subsequent obligation did

smoothly clack and click,
which minimized conflict
whereby we shared equal intrinsic
reciprocity complicity, culpability
then at playtime, thee enigmatic
one whipped out adult toys
stashed in the attic.

Altercations impossible to avoid,
'specially when unemployed
(think Rob zombie humanoid)
additionally, I lacked emotionally unalloyed

communication cues, nearly destroyed
romance, cuz only recourse re: primal
non verbal, viz Braille
while disguised as android
amorousness I expressly enjoyed

satisfactorily papa bear
groaning courtesy steroid
launching petsmart aery mission
poised to strike no
matter mainly to void

i.e. unpacking heat prohibited,
one tony peppy trooper deployed,
but unexpectedly waylaid
understandably yours truly annoyed
unsheathed hot pistol manually toyed.

Admission, confession, decision firmly laid
down, I oft times insisted felt test ease made
purposeless seething hormonal secretion
triggered fountainhead sprayed

activated provocation upbraid
ding the then live in girlfriend
French kissing parlez vous
pledged troth plus
serving as milkmaid.
Yes, I think I am drunk metaphorically
Because if I said, I am drunk of you
I would sound normal.

But what the mind is trying to communicate,
Is something deeper and insanely special.
I am more than drunk of you.

How do I know this? I know because
At that particular moment when I miss you
And I need you, and cannot reach you, I get weak.

I get weak to the exact description of the word
I feel almost like dizziness and afraid
I feel powerless.

To me I am in an alien world
Which you have shown my soul,
I can’t understand these weak moments.

I feel it, when I miss you, and sometimes I miss you a lot,
I need you to tell me how you are, I need to know it.
I have lived knowing and believing that I am living a life,
When you came along, you blew me apart exposing my fault lines,
Now, I know you are the secret ingredient to the best of me.

The weakness I feel, I came to learn, its panic weakness.
I am afraid to watch you get uninterested, because I have not expressly
Given you a gentleman reason as to why you should hang around.

What I have is a drunk soul, what I feel around you is a stammered, I.M.I.S.S.Y.O.U
As I wait for it to grow, I can’t have the courage not to get Panic weakness.
It’s the only silent message, my soul can send to you Ameerah.
Brother Jimmy Jan 2015
Time is a faucet being slowly opened until the trickle becomes a torrent.
Time is flying by and we’ve been growing together
into one...



You are to me
My everything, True Love,
Filling me with glee,
Ordained by One above

Audaciously you leapt
Into my longing life
And though your mother wept
Steadfast, you quelled her strife

I, kneeling in the leaves
You, in that clownish-dress
Your acquiescence thrilled me
When you uttered, simply, “Yes.”

And now, like melting candles
Our beings intertwine
You hold me by the handles
I drink your kiss like wine…

It’s of the finest vintage
This kiss of yours, so fine
Each lip expressly minted
To snugly fit with mine

The mountains stretch toward heaven
Sky lies down with sea
The Lord has blessed a fallen being
And you are all to me
Anya Sep 2018
She says that people don’t listen to her
I hold back my retort that
“She doesn’t listen to others”

She mentions how everyone keeps leaving her
I hold back my retort that
“Maybe if you were more aware of others it’d be easier to stay with you”

Honestly,
It’s more complex than that

To an extent,
I admire
Her ignorance of her surroundings
Those around her

Because,
I’m hyper aware
Too self conscious
Too worried about how others think of me

She’s the opposite
So wrapped up in a cacoon
Of her own problems
She doesn’t notice those around her

But this can also pose problems
A LOT
Of problems
We were best friends in eighth grade
But we grew
And I couldn’t handle
Such a close relationship
With her

I tried to expressly wait for her
Remember her birdthday
She didn’t notice
Or even if she did,
It was never reciprocated

I was talking
She’d respond
Immediately switching
The conversation
To herself

It’s not maliciousness
It’s just plain ignorance

But what can I do?
I’m still friends with her
She’s just not-nowhere near
The top of my list

I can’t go up to her
And tell her this
She’d take it the wrong way

But even then,
Who am I to tell her how to live her life?
I have enough social issues of my own
And she’s fine just the way it is

It’s extremely frustrating
Seeing a problem
But being unable
To do anything
About it

She wants more friends
She has to put in that effort
And I can’t
Be
The
One
To advise her how
Rana DiOrio Apr 2019
Long before you said so expressly, I knew you‘d moved on.
Your sweetness turned slightly bitter.
Your intrigue became apathy.
Your focus was everywhere but on me.

I had started to fall in love with you—irrationally, inexplicably, unintentionally, yet wholeheartedly.
I had dreamed about what could be.
I had made myself vulnerable.
So when you leaned away, I anguished.

I didn’t understand my heartache and tears.
How can you begin to love someone you barely know?
But I did know you—your fears, insecurities, strengths, and dreams.
And I wanted to know more.

I picked up the pieces of my shattered heart,
And stuffed them back into my chest.
I locked away my aspirations for us.
I moved on because that is all I could do.

And then, after a while, you came back to me.
At first, tentatively, and then with conviction.
I don’t know what to make of it all.
Dare I hope?
Jester Feb 2019
Let's talk for a moment about free speech.

Hello Poet, say what you will for art is free speech and expression of the soul.

Hello poet, think what you will because thoughts are free and through thought we become more and strive for greater heights.

So, I am torn and here is why.

Censorship in art?

The word *****- a female dog.
The word ****- a term for a rooster.
The word ***- a British term for a cigarette.

Offensive words yet being offended is a one to one ratio.

To censor words and art is a step backward in the artistic community, that being said this is a public site who have advertisers and marketable money making devices set in place to keep this site running...so art vs commerce...

Who chooses what gets the starred dots and under what guidelines, is it context? Is it all no matter what?

What if the offensive part of the piece isn't a word what about the topic?

The open discussion isn't to be found it's hid behind stars where meaning and emotion are often blurred.

So I can't say FcK fair enough, I'd have to say Sx or making love,  but I can't really say I got made love out of a job or I got scred out of a job.

Is there no place for raw language that is ugly and unflattering? So all art must be clean and pristine so it does not offend the mass population?

Do you know how the population got to be so big? A lot of lve making, Oh because what if someone finds that word offen
ve?

Do we spe
* around the iue* now?

finds what *?

If
is a ***** word then isn't language lost?

Words alone are not offensive, the subjective nature of the word to the individual makes them offensive, now clearly there is a time and a place for these things...you shouldn't say *
in church, you shouldn't call a ....sorry a human younger than a toddler an *.

But this is an art site, a website devoted to art and free thinking, yet the advertisers who support and fund this site say that some words may offend the public and so those words must be banned...so are we * more * * *?

*

I am torn because in a place where thoughts should be free, where art and ideas are expressly told to be free and stand out, now in some way the voice of anger, the voice of radical emotions are now muted, yet at the same time...someone has to pay for this site to keep it running, and a platform to stand is better than no platform at all...but if you're going to censor the words where does it stop?

Everyone is offended by something all it takes is one loud good complaint and a word, an image, a book, a movie, a song...they get burned, deleted, blocked, censored...

I am torn.
Gods1son Sep 2019
Your uniqueness is located within
Get to know who you are beneath the skin
Let your true identity be expressly revealed
Isn't it a misplacement of self, living
as someone else?
Don't lose yourself while trying to please
Your first commitment should be to you
before anyone else
Discover who you really are and live it out
So that you don't get to the end of time
to realize that you haven't truly lived.

— The End —