Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little
zebra Oct 2018
Round about the couldron go:
In the poisones entrails throw.
Toad,that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweated venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first in the charmed ***.
Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing.
For charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and couldron bubble.

Scale of dragon,tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd in the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat; andslips of yew
silver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by the drab,-
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For ingrediants of our cauldron.
Double,double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
William Shakespeare
Ian Beckett Dec 2012
An altitude of ale
A barometer of beer
A circulation of champagne
A depression of damassine
An equilibrium of eau de vie
A fractus of fenny
A gust of grappa
A hail of horilka
An isotherm of icewine
A jet stream of jenever
A kilopascal of kirsch
A layer of limoncello
A metamorphism of mead
A nocturnal of nuvo
An overcast of ouzo
A persistence of porter
A reaction of rakia
A storm of sake
A torrent of tequila
An updraft of unicum
A vortex of *****
A winter of whiskey

A disaster of drink
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2016
of the few that might quote,
  or least, the ones that might be quoted:
a reference of uno nacht -
there abiding, equal to Poseidon,
     a courteous signification of what zodiac
there is, among oyster clams and seashells,
there i stood and upon no words divine
felt to continuum necessity to riddle
man with Dante, but merely with, ape.
   there i stood:
tumbleweed at hand and two flits,
and there the cavern deity of human weakness,
   as pleb unto pleb... the jealous hands weaving
a Bulgarian acronym to what was once Greek
that became Cyrillic....
floundering under the guise of promise...
  noose abiding Hindenberg...
   never will you agitate the pleb...
    leave them like the priestly caste:
begrudging the slack on redneck culturalism -
                      then woe...
and of woe much is said that isn't done..
but then appropriated with the times,
a love affair chimes the culprit's chalice
as with all jades of resurrection,
three hyenas, and so too three Medusas,
and so top three sybils...
    in orchestra said as much
that only a man could have said them,
had he clothed himself in being one:
-  thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd...
leisure be! no claim of self-defence!
  but a claim instilled nonetheless -
      as anything concerning self-reliance!
woe to the wordings of man...
that she claim no crown above the peacock's
or the pigeon's coo, or the lion's roar,
or the nano-sound of an ant's architecture construct...
or the crow's croaking segment,
or the cackle of a magpie's segmentation...
o woe man.. for you are but nought disguised
and at times disguising such splendour...
that you make so little focus,
              and yet so much abhorrence...
that you may be crowned rex -
    but neither tyrannical nor tetra-sourced governing,
should a wind turn into tornado,
   or the earth into an earthquake...
the water into a tsunami...
            or a fire a wildfire spontaneity -
or the Zeusian bolt into insomnia and techno...
  cure all, and cure none at all..
    skylark Macbeth... at least you were not forsaken
to rest in a psychoanalytic deathbed with continual
resurrection to answer prayers,
    as might the necromancer of Endor embodied by
Freud... resurrect you to the suitor Hamlet...
  and how fortunate you are... for fortunate you are
mein herr...
                 or so act iv continues...
- thrice and once the hedge-pig whin'd (whined).
- harpier cries: 't is time, 't is time!
- round about the cauldron go;
    in the poison'd entrails throw -
  toad, that under cold stone
    days and nights have thirty-one
swelter'd venom, sleeping got,
    boil thou first i' the charmed ***,
- double, double, toil and trouble:
fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
  - fillet of a fenny snake,
in the cauldron boil and bake;
eye of newt, and toe of frog,
       wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
lizard's leg, and howlet's wing...
   and naught to recite the ancient Graeae
   conferring...
                   or what one called the splinter
eye, or what was shared among the three...
then repeat, the common incantation,
   and say: woe the moorish lad enthroned...
i have my prickly finger pointing toward
the heath... and thistle kissed, and the tartan
            as harmonious dressing toward
     a ******* of 70 years by all accounts
considered: a happy marriage.
                      oh no, don't teach me what i might
abhor... teach me music with your words!
          don't make words an act of polity and
of what goes around and never comes back
in terms of romancing truancy -
teach me logic, a logic that's hill-bred
   and goat-tango for a heart's hefty sum of
lost thought! teach me this! preach me this!
i have a second home, of what is nought
but the harrowing abyss: where i hear no Slavic
and i hear no Anglican, where i hear no Farsi
and i hear no Sanskrit... but the aim
of resurrecting a lingo of near dodo Celtic.
  no ethnicity is nation bound.
      then unto the Graeae once again
- scale of dragon, tooth of wolf;
witches' mummy; maw, and gulf,
or the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark;
liver of a blaspheming Jew;
      gall of goat, and slips op yew,
silver'd in the moon's eclipse;
nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips          -
and perhaps after such things were and had been said,
   i might too engage in a blasphemous benediction,
            cross-my-heart-and-sever-three-fingers
and out comes the Byzantine conscription -
rhyme a lot and rhyme what's willed -
      rhyme a dot and rhyme: standstill.
take to road and take to breath -
      take to sleep and take to craving earth -
  for no acrobats in the tomb -
     the Hindu acrobats remembering flame -
             in dust spoke of a whirlwind incantation -
and said: memorise me by allowing the billionth
man my own location...
      or as the Mandarin maxim suggested...
eat a dog, eat a cow, eat a horse, eat anything,
       and relegate all importance solely to plough...
aye Hibernian and you Lothian kin -
          tell them fables of the lost Loch Fin -
tell them things that will keep them grounded,
and not spread their arrogance
   to clap toward a tourism...
         well... one can only wish to revisit
the plagiarism of the Graeae... had but one
the pursuit of what was original, and what coupled us
to sin, in making us un-justify a god,
                       and justify our perpetuated ordeal.
shanta young Nov 2015
It was back in 012 did a couple of tapes did a couples of DVDS but I made a couple of mistakes. Didn’t know what I was doing but I put on the cape know it’s which world tour should go on today?
See you told me I would lose but I won I might cop a million Jimmie chews just fun. Because ******* couldn’t take what was in me Australian Kinney might run up to Disney out with in LA with fenny. I got the eye of the tiger the lion of Judah.
Now it me and my time me and just me and my prime everything I tried to teach them they gonna see it in time tell the ******* to get a stick I’m done leading the blind. Got two shows tonight out in Brooklyn and Dallas then a private hand party in the new British tower you can see me in sight it’s my time to shine all the people in line which mean I have fly like a movie no commercial its lil-Tay more money yah I’m universal.
I hear they coming for me because I hear the top is lonely what the **** they gonna x2 say I’m the best doing it x2. I’m the best
I Rember a time they didn’t give me a time of day just spit in my face then walk away couldn’t buy my mother a couch now I’m sitting at the closing board brought my mother a house you can never understand why I grind like I do damaiyah and abri why I cry like I do cause even when my real mother was on crack I was crack now the whole album crack you don’t got to skip a track I don’t have  to get a plaque I don’t go to get a reward I just walk out the door
all the girls would applaud All the girls would commend as long as they understand that I’m fighting for the girls that never thought they can never can win but before they can begin you told them it was the end and I’m am here to reverse the curse that they live in. got two bones to pick but Imma only chose one you might get address on the second album which mean you breathe tells my mothufucker to say so tell all my bad ******* I can see your halo.
I hear they coming for me because the top is lonely what the **** they gonna say x2 I’m the best doing it x4 I’m the best x2 its ok x2 as long you know as long you ******* know I’m the best x5 I’m the best doing it
IM THE BEST...
Michael John Feb 2020
a)

i


they nigh on carted me away
in some distant palmed bay
cashew fenny* and too much beauty..

(you know the way..)
it would have been a short fray
they left no exit free..

i was zonked and skinny
they were three
and tidy..

i eyed the nurse wearily
exotic the flora and tree
the birds- free..!

the people so politely
inclined
sands so dazzling
..

b)


so,i said
must be off
late for tiffin..

which
was
funny..

anyway she
laughed
and i made

like a blade
of grass-
blowing

on spring days
past the guys
and did not glance back..

ii

they had me cornered
i thought well,now,
i´m ******..!

i was naked
lsd..?!
lol..

but we british
we have a saying
never darkest then

before the dawn
and we introduced
tiffin..

how did we rule this
world
the biggest empire

this world ever
knew..
quick thinking


..

c)


in india this woman
this woman lay naked
awaiting my passage..

i near on tripped over
her brown skin one time
she was so pretty..


d)

i was twenty


e)

fenny is like poteen
or raki..i liked it
made from either coconuts
or nuts..a memory of my youth
..
The Muir

As a child living on a farm during the war
had a pond on peatland, the pond’s water
was fenny and dark.
Slow swimming trout that tasted of mud
Swam, near the surface of the pond.
My friend and I built a boat with sails,
It sunk, I clung to the mast, Peter swam
didn’t make it, screamed before being
dragged under by something atrocious.
The adults came running, they didn’t find
Peter, the pond had endless silt, lukewarm
infinite, its foundation in the maelstrom
of conflicting horrors.

— The End —