How do I learn to truly forgive myself?
How do I stop blaming myself
for the mistakes I have made?
How do I find peace within
myself to move forward,
instead of always looking backwards?  
How do I turn this around,
before I totally lose myself again?

These questions haunt me
each and every day.
Just when I think I am making
even the smallest of steps forward,
there is something, or someone,
who pulls me back –
back down into the abyss
of pure sorrow and shame.  
Sorrow of love gone wrong, or lost;
shame for allowing it to
consume such a beautiful heart, and mind.

I know that I must learn to forgive myself
for all of my errors of judgment,
which is one of the hardest things
I have ever had to face.
Being one’s own worst enemy,
while facing the deepest of all criticisms,
is very hard to overcome,
especially, when you lose sight of
the light at the end of the tunnel.  
My faith deserts me when
I need it the most.  
I am solely living on the outside,
while slowly dying in the inside.  

I see, nor feel, any real purpose.  
Am I always meant to loom
in another’s shadow?  
Never to reap the benefits
of all that I have invested?
Never to be acknowledged
for having a good heart?
Never feeling like I will
ever be truly loved,
or cherished, for the
person that I am?  
What does it truly take
for someone to see
the worth in me?  

All these questions,
while not having the answers
makes it hard to believe
that you matter that much
to all those around you.  
Am I just going to always be
an afterthought,
instead of, a forethought?

What more can I do to
prove my own worthiness?
Will I perpetually be stuck
in uncertainties of my own
self-doubt?  
Will I ever truly find my
place in this world?

All these questions constantly
swirl in my mind, as I try
to figure out the answers.
The pressure of finding
these answers lies
heavily on my shoulders.
I am a strong woman, indeed,
but when I face one
challenge after another,
without truly healing,
I tend to find myself
questioning my own existence.

I do not want to be remembered
as a woman who was always in pain.
I want my self-description to be of
a woman, who despite her
many adversities,  found her
sense of being, as an example to others.
Life is exactly what we make of it.
If I continue to allow myself to
wallow in these fears,
then I have truly succumbed to
own my demise.

Even with the most clouded
of mind, I know I can not
allow this anymore.  
I know that my heart
cannot endure the pain
and disappointment that it bears.  
So, I must learn to recognize
that I am human, and that
I will make mistakes.  
How I learn from these mistakes
is what separates me from another -
it is what defines my uniqueness.  
Regardless of the loneliness
that surrounds me constantly,
I must remember that I am
needed, and wanted, by others.

The only way to do this
is to try to forgive myself,
while realizing,
that those who also recognize
my true beauty are the ones
that deserve to be part of my life.  
As the haze lifts more and more each day,
I do believe I will find my way again.
Just some more bumps along this
road that they call life.  

Vicki A. Zinn
May 27, 2013

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
  However the pack parts,
  Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
  But, sift them as I will,
  Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:
  Vain hope, vain forethought, too;
  That Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
  "There should be one card more,"
  You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once: I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
  Yet such another back
  Deceived me in the pack:

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown
An imitative dint that seemed my own;
  This notch, not of my doing,
  Misled me to my ruin.

It baffles me to puzzle out the clew,
Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:
  Unless, indeed, it be
  Natural affinity.

Lev. 20:13 "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives."
This was said to make sure the population on earth grew, which it did. God was NOT saying this because it will always be wrong. They are just regular people and this is where they belong. Homosexuals are the same as everybody else. This is equality that they strive for because no one is better than the other. We are all from the same God, and we are all sisters and brothers. This is not a disease and this is not something you can change. They were born like that, it is not something that you were taught. I was born with brown hair, this is not something that is forethought. Why does it matter so much what your ****** orientation is? That is that person's business, not ours to judge. We have no right to judge and all of this homophobia is actually just a carnage. We call ourselves Christian, but is this actually living in the true image of God. Have you not heard "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you?" That is the golden rule and how would you like it if it were heterosexuals that were hated anew?
God made all of His children in His image. Do you honestly think that God would turn away His own children because they were born Homosexuals? With all of this hate and anger, turning away people that could be our friends, well we aren't humans; we are actually animals. Why is it that now they get the same benefits as the people who are straight? Why has this taken so long to do? Are they not the same as everybody else that we know? There are many things that are wrong with society, this homophobia needs to stop so why must we forgo? If two people love each other so much to remain together for the rest of their life, then let them. Homophobia is wrong. God loves all of his children headlong. And to all those gays and lesbians out there, STAY STRONG.

The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten

We rushed on glorious wings
that fed bombs into Baghdad soil
with feverous lust for a hollow dream.
Now nine long years later,
seventeen bodies lie on earth where oil
engenders a lust that’s even greater.

Seventeen skeletons innocent;
Seventeen bloodlines’ descent.
Karzai’s blank solace and Kandahar’s dead
seventeen lay heavier on the heart than lead.

Three tours were far too many,
the fourth far more than he could take.
A sergeant who’d have given any-
thing for his wife and kids’ sake.
Seeing a good friend’s severe injury –
the last blow Sanity could handle.
Morality goes out – light from a candle
swaddled in smoke’s endless perjury.

Seventeen seconds of forethought
may perhaps have faltered his shot;
Seventeen centuries of ponder
and still the heart may have not grown fonder.
Seventeen lovers left alone,
or loves that’ll never come to pass,
seventeen graves of heavy bones
mark where a madman’s mind broke at last.

Seventeen skeletons innocent;
Seventeen bloodlines’ descent.
Karzai’s blank solace and Kandahar’s dead
seventeen lay heavier on the heart than lead.

Swept in on the sixth of the first
Icy winds sluiced on dripping fleecy snow showers
I saw a raging storm coming with vile foreboding nursed
Staple in peace in love in goodwill laid a fitting banquet for all hours
Rewards for toil and strive in minds attuned and goodness versed

I knelt supplicant before my Lord
Laid my just heart bare and without fear or dread
laid a ringing vow as in warmth or bellowing thundering cold
I rest in the forethought I am girded to sail sun's flames un thread
For no blooded being can justly state I harmed or injured in my fold

I will walk this vale of tears
Meet with demons and the ****** of the outer worlds
Face the volcanoes in hell and shame blazing red lava ingots
I will not cower before deadly serpents or baulk at icy frozen walls
If I fall I will stand again an again till God's time uneaten by maggots

I implored my Faithful Lord
Take me down grind and cast me asunder and bereft
If this be ordained that an innocent soul pays an unjust price
The darkest storm has raged wild and furious a depraved joy theft
My God upholds me and holds that truths and honesty never a vice



Copyright@LaurenceA.2ndOct2018.Allrightsreserved.

I had this thought when I was younger,
That I had to know who I was and who I wanted to be,
By a certain time in my life.
That, when a stranger asked me to tell them about myself
I should have a designated answer in the form of linguistic description.
Full disclosure of self.
I'd listed in my mind hobbies, character traits, intellectual preferences.
All things that, when put together,
Would produce a vision of who I was as a person.
I was a complete profile from top to bottom.
Inside and through.
Adding to and refining back qualities of what made me as I went along.
Fine tuning the presentation of me to society.

I thought I had it down.
Picked through with a fine tooth comb.
No boring aspect refurbished, no overbearing flaw unchecked.

Then one day
I was in a place that housed people milling around,
Same as any other day.
And as I sat next to a fountain feeding some birds,
Like I was prone to do on the pleasant weathered days.

A little boy came up an sat down next to me.
I didn't think anything of it and just smiled at him.
He lingered beside me for a few minutes.
And I noticed he seemed to be staring at me
With a quizzical look on his sun bright face.
I continued to dole out pieces of my left over lunch
And he giggled just a slight.
Now I was curious to know why this little guy
With anything at all to do other than sit next to me,
Was laughing.

I finally turned toward him intent on asking what was so funny,
When he stated before I could utter a word

"You're the nicest lady I ever saw"

I was initially a little gobsmacked as to the bold declaration.
It made me snort a bit.
Shaking my head, I pondered to him

"What would make you say that?"

He innocently replied with a grin that...

"You feed the birdies and they don't even say thank you. That makes one a really nice lady! "

Well color me stupefied there.
This little boy, in his little statement, awed me.
He didn't know me or who I was or where I've come from
And in just that one action he witnessed of me
Feeding those little flying creatures,
He determined me a nice person.

And it swelled me more intensely than any praise over an achievement,
Any congratulations of a job well done,
Any compliment of artistic ability.

And as he got up to run off to wherever he came from,
I sat there contemplating...

Of all the things I thought of myself up until this point,
Just being myself with no preconceived notion or projection,
I felt more transparent in that little boys observance,
Than anything else in my whole life.
That led me to wonder why in the world I had bothered
To ever worry about and plan around who I wanted people to see me as.
I began thinking all of my preparing and analyzing,
All of the forethought I put into me as a person.
Kind of went out the window.

Because if a complete stranger could see through me so easily,
With just a mindless action like that,
Then what did people really see beyond my presentation,
Of me?
Not that who I projected myself to be was false, just honed
To show the best parts of me always.
But then, what are the best parts of me which other people rarely see?
Maybe the things about myself I thought of as "works in progress"
Were already fully bloomed and beautiful already.
Maybe I was just so conditioned to think they weren't?

So as I laid on my couch later that night
And aimlessly thought of the events of the day,
I made a plan to have no more plans.
To keep my list of everything about me I had written over the years,
But put it somewhere only to serve as a reminder to me.
I'd try, from here on out, to just be me
Freely.

The only regret I had of that encounter though,
Was that I didn't get to tell that little mind changer

Thank you...


*© NDHK

Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because there’s no way to know where the hell I will go!

Ech day me comëth tydinges thre,
For wel swithë sore ben he:
The on is that Ich shal hennë,
That other that Ich not whennë,
The thriddë is my mestë carë,
That Ich not whider Ich shal farë.



These are Medieval poetry translations of poems written in Old English (i.e., Anglo-Saxon English) and Middle English.



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English poem circa 960-990 AD)      
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

To my people, he's prey, a pariah.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, surrounded by fens.
Here, bloodthirsty men roam this island.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
Whenever it rained, while I wept,
the bold warrior came; he took me in his arms:
good feelings for him, but the end was loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your infrequent visits
have left me famished, deprived of real meat!
Do you hear, Eadwacer? A wolf has borne
our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.



Cædmon's Hymn
(Old English poem circa 658-680 AD)          
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Now let us honour heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the might of the Architect and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father.
First he, the Eternal Lord,
established the foundation of wonders.
Then he, the First Poet,
created heaven as a roof
for the sons of men, Holy Creator,
Maker of mankind.
Then he, the eternal Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master almighty!



How Long the Night
Middle English poem circa 13th century AD      
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



Pity Mary
Middle English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD    
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Now the sun passes under the wood:
I rue, Mary, thy face—fair, good.
Now the sun passes under the tree:
I rue, Mary, thy son and thee.



Fowles in the Frith
Medieval English Lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!



I am of Ireland
Medieval Irish Lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of holy charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland.



Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar [1460-1525]
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.



Now skruketh rose and lylie flour
Medieval English Lyric, circa 11th century AD
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Now skyward the rose and the lily flower,
That will bear for awhile that sweet savor:
In summer, that sweet tide;
There is no queen so stark in her power
Nor no lady so bright in her bower
That dead shall not glide by:
Whoever will forgo lust,
in heavenly bliss will abide
With his thoughts on Jesus anon,
thralled at his side.



IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion

Impressionum plurium librum laudat
Librarius; scortum nec non minus leno.

Novelties
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.



Brut
(circa 1100 AD, written by Layamon, an excerpt)          
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Now he stands on a hill overlooking the Avon,
seeing steel fishes girded with swords in the stream,
their swimming days done,
their scales a-gleam like gold-plated shields,
their fish-spines floating like shattered spears.

Layamon's Brut is a 32,000-line poem composed in Middle English that shows a strong Anglo-Saxon influence and contains the first known reference to King Arthur in English.



The Maiden's Song aka The Bridal Morn
anonymous Medieval lyric
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The maidens came to my mother's bower.
I had all I would, that hour.

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Now silver is white, red is the gold;
The robes they lay in fold.

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Still through the window shines the sun.
How should I love, yet be so young?

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.



Westron Wynde
Middle English lyric, circa 1530 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Western wind, when will you blow,
bringing the drizzling rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!

The original poem has 'the smalle rayne down can rayne' which suggests a drizzle or mist.



This World's Joy
(Middle English lyric, circa early 14th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



I Have Labored Sore
(anonymous medieval lyric circa the fifteenth century)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have labored sore          and suffered death,
so now I rest           and catch my breath.
But I shall come      and call right soon
heaven and earth          and hell to doom.
Then all shall know           both devil and man
just who I was               and what I am.



A Lyke-Wake Dirge
(anonymous medieval lyric circa the 16th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Lie-Awake Dirge is 'the night watch kept over a corpse.'

This one night, this one night,
every night and all;
fire and sleet and candlelight,
and Christ receive thy soul.

When from this earthly life you pass
every night and all,
to confront your past you must come at last,
and Christ receive thy soul.

If you ever donated socks and shoes,
every night and all,
sit right down and slip yours on,
and Christ receive thy soul.

But if you never helped your brother,
every night and all,
walk barefoot through the flames of hell,
and Christ receive thy soul.

If ever you shared your food and drink,
every night and all,
the fire will never make you shrink,
and Christ receive thy soul.

But if you never helped your brother,
every night and all,
walk starving through the black abyss,
and Christ receive thy soul.

This one night, this one night,
every night and all;
fire and sleet and candlelight,
and Christ receive thy soul.



Excerpt from 'Ubi Sunt Qui Ante Nos Fuerunt? '
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1275)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where are the men who came before us,
who led hounds and hawks to the hunt,
who commanded fields and woods?
Where are the elegant ladies in their boudoirs
who braided gold through their hair
and had such fair complexions?

Once eating and drinking gladdened their hearts;
they enjoyed their games;
men bowed before them;
they bore themselves loftily …
But then, in an eye's twinkling,
they were gone.

Where now are their songs and their laughter,
the trains of their dresses,
the arrogance of their entrances and exits,
their hawks and their hounds?
All their joy has vanished;
their 'well' has come to 'oh, well'
and to many dark days …



Is this the oldest carpe diem poem in the English language?

Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms' to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within …
what hope of my help then?

The second translation leans more to the 'lover's complaint' and carpe diem genres, with the poet pointing out to his prospective lover that by denying him her favors she make take her virtue to the grave where worms will end her virginity in macabre fashion. This poem may be an ancient precursor of poems like Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress.'



Ich have y-don al myn youth
(Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously …
And oh what grief it has brought me!

Ich have y-don al myn youth,
Oftë, ofte, and ofte;
Longe y-loved and yerne y-beden -
Ful dere it is y-bought!



GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Three Roundels by Geoffrey Chaucer

I. Merciles Beaute ('Merciless Beauty')  
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.



II. Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign, —
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.



III. Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I'm escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I'm escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I'm escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.



Welcome, Summer
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you've banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights' frosts.
Saint Valentine, in the heavens aloft,
the songbirds sing your praises together!

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you've banished Winter with her icy weather.

We have good cause to rejoice, not scoff,
since love's in the air, and also in the heather,
whenever we find such blissful warmth, together.

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you've banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights' frosts.



CHARLES D'ORLEANS

Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms' twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet—please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you're far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain—
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms' twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I'll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms' twin chains!



Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can only hazard guesses.
But they rear like prancing steeds
raked by brilliant spurs of need,
Young lovers.



Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
    Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
    To give my lady dear;
    But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
        Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
    And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
    Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
    Her worth? It tests my power!
    I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
        For it would be a shame for me to stray
    Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
    And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
    Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
    And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
        As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
    Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
    Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier—
    God keep her soul, I can no better say.



Winter has cast his cloak away
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter has cast his cloak away
of wind and cold and chilling rain
to dress in embroidered light again:
the light of day—bright, festive, gay!
Each bird and beast, without delay,
in its own tongue, sings this refrain:
'Winter has cast his cloak away! '
Brooks, fountains, rivers, streams at play,
wear, with their summer livery,
bright beads of silver jewelry.
All the Earth has a new and fresh display:
Winter has cast his cloak away!

This rondeau was set to music by Debussy in his Trois chansons de France.



The year lays down his mantle cold
by Charles d'Orleans (1394-1465)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The year lays down his mantle cold
of wind, chill rain and bitter air,
and now goes clad in clothes of gold
of smiling suns and seasons fair,
while birds and beasts of wood and fold
now with each cry and song declare:
'The year lays down his mantle cold! '
All brooks, springs, rivers, seaward rolled,
now pleasant summer livery wear
with silver beads embroidered where
the world puts off its raiment old.
The year lays down his mantle cold.



SIR THOMAS WYATT

Whoso List to Hunt ('Whoever Longs to Hunt')  
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Whoever longs to hunt, I know the deer;
but as for me, alas! , I may no more.
This vain pursuit has left me so bone-sore
I'm one of those who falters, at the rear.
Yet friend, how can I draw my anguished mind
away from the doe?
                               Thus, as she flees before
me, fainting I follow.
                                I must leave off, therefore,
since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Whoever seeks her out,
                                     I relieve of any doubt,
that he, like me, must spend his time in vain.
For graven with diamonds, set in letters plain,
these words appear, her fair neck ringed about:
Touch me not, for Caesar's I am,
And wild to hold, though I seem tame.



In the next poem the Welsh 'dd' is pronounced 'th.'
Cynddylan is pronounced KahN-THIHL-aeN.

Stafell Gynddylan ('The Hall of Cynddylan')  
Welsh englynion circa 1382-1410
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire and a bed,
I will weep awhile then lapse into silence.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire or a candle,
save God, who will preserve my sanity?

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire, lacking light,
grief for you overwhelms me!

The hall of Cynddylan's roof is dark.
After the blessed assembly,
still little the good that comes of it.

Hall of Cynddylan, you have become shapeless, amorphous.
Your shield lies in the grave.
While he lived, no one breached these gates.

The hall of Cynddylan mourns tonight,
mourns for its lost protector.
Alas death, why did you spare me?

The hall of Cynddylan trembles tonight,
atop the shivering rock,
lacking lord, lacking liege, lacking protector.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire, lacking mirth, lacking songs.
My cheeks are eroded by tears.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire, lacking heroes, lacking a warband.
Abundant, my tears' rains.

The hall of Cynddylan offends my eyes,
lacking roof, lacking fire.
My lord lies dead, and yet I still live?

The hall of Cynddylan lies shattered tonight,
without her steadfast warriors,
Elfan, and gold-torqued Cynddylan.

The hall of Cynddylan lies desolate tonight,
no longer respected
without the men and women who maintained it.

The hall of Cynddylan lies quiet tonight,
stunned to silence by losing its lord.
Merciful God, what must I do?

The hall of Cynddylan's roof is dark,
after the Saxons destroyed
shining Cynddylan and Elfan of Powys.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight:
lost, the race of the Cyndrwyn,
of Cynon and Gwion and Gwyn.

Hall of Cynddylan, you wound me, hourly,
having lost that great company
who once warmed hands at your hearth.



A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

3.
Often the deed-dodger avoids ventures,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

Winfrid or Wynfrith is better known as Saint Boniface (c. 675-754 AD). This may be the second-oldest English poem, after 'Caedmon's Hymn.'



Franks Casket Runes
anonymous Old English poems, circa 700 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fish flooded the shore-cliffs;
the sea-king wept when he swam onto the shingle:
whale's bone.

Romulus and Remus, twin brothers weaned in Rome
by a she-wolf, far from their native land.



'The Leiden Riddle' is an Old English translation of Aldhelm's Latin riddle Lorica ('Corselet') .

The Leiden Riddle
anonymous Old English riddle poem, circa 700 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dank earth birthed me from her icy womb.
I know I was not fashioned from woolen fleeces;
nor was I skillfully spun from skeins;
I have neither warp nor weft;
no thread thrums through me in the thrashing loom;
nor do whirring shuttles rattle me;
nor does the weaver's rod assail me;
nor did silkworms spin me like skillfull fates
into curious golden embroidery.
And yet heroes still call me an excellent coat.
Nor do I fear the dread arrows' flights,
however eagerly they leap from their quivers.

Solution: a coat of mail.



If you see a busker singing for tips, you're seeing someone carrying on an Anglo-Saxon tradition that goes back to the days of Beowulf …

He sits with his harp at his thane's feet,
Earning his hire, his rewards of rings,
Sweeping the strings with his skillful nail;
Hall-thanes smile at the sweet song he sings.
—'Fortunes of Men' loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Here's one of the first Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems to employ a refrain:

Deor's Lament
(Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen island dungeon
after Nithad had fettered him,
many strong-but-supple sinew-bonds
binding the better man.
   That passed away; this also may.

Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths
but even more, her own sad state
once she discovered herself with child.
She predicted nothing good could come of it.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have heard that the Geat's moans for Matilda,
his lady, were limitless,
that his sorrowful love for her
robbed him of regretless sleep.
   That passed away; this also may.

For thirty winters Theodric ruled
the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand;
many knew this and moaned.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have also heard of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he held wide sway in the realm of the Goths.
He was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his kingdom might be overthrown.
   That passed away; this also may.

If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious,
bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening,
soon it seems to him that his troubles are endless.
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
This I will say for myself:
that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop,
dear to my lord. My name was Deor.
For many winters I held a fine office,
faithfully serving a just lord. But now Heorrenda
a man skilful in songs, has received the estate
the protector of warriors gave me.
   That passed away; this also may.



'The Wife's Lament' or 'The Wife's Complaint' is an Old English/Anglo Saxon poem found in the Exeter Book. It's generally considered to be an elegy in the manner of the German frauenlied, or 'woman's song, ' although there are other interpretations of the poem's genre and purpose. The Exeter Book has been dated to 960-990 AD, making it the oldest English poetry anthology, but of course the poem may have been written earlier.

The Wife's Lament
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I draw these words from deep wells of my grief,
care-worn, unutterably sad.
I can recount woes I've borne since birth,
present and past, never more than now.
I have won, from my exile-paths, only pain.

First, my lord forsook his folk, left,
crossed the seas' tumult, far from our people.
Since then, I've known
wrenching dawn-griefs, dark mournings … oh where,
where can he be?

Then I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,
full of unaccountable desires!
But the man's kinsmen schemed secretly
to estrange us, divide us, keep us apart,
across earth's wide kingdom, and my heart broke.

Then my lord spoke:
'Take up residence here.'
I had few friends in this unknown, cheerless
region, none close.
Christ, I felt lost!

Then I thought I had found a well-matched man -
one meant for me,
but unfortunately he
was ill-starred and blind, with a devious mind,
full of murderous intentions, plotting some crime!

Before God we
vowed never to part, not till kingdom come, never!
But now that's all changed, forever -
our friendship done, severed.
I must hear, far and near, contempt for my husband.

So other men bade me, 'Go, live in the grove,
beneath the great oaks, in an earth-cave, alone.'
In this ancient cave-dwelling I am lost and oppressed -
the valleys are dark, the hills immense,
and this cruel-briared enclosure—an arid abode!

The injustice assails me—my lord's absence!
On earth there are lovers who share the same bed
while I pass through life dead in this dark abscess
where I wilt, summer days unable to rest
or forget the sorrows of my life's hard lot.

A young woman must always be
stern, hard-of-heart, unmoved,
opposing breast-cares and her heartaches' legions.
She must appear cheerful
even in a tumult of grief.

Like a criminal exiled to a far-off land,
moaning beneath insurmountable cliffs,
my weary-minded love, drenched by wild storms
and caught in the clutches of anguish,
is reminded constantly of our former happiness.

Woe be it to them who abide in longing.



'The Husband's Message' is another poem from the Exeter Book. It may or may not be a reply to 'The Wife's Lament.' The poem is generally considered to be an Anglo-Saxon riddle (I will provide the solution) , but its primary focus is on persuading a wife or pledged fiancée to join her husband or betrothed and fulfill her promises to him.

The Husband's Message
anonymous Old English poem, circa 960-990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See, I unseal myself for your eyes only!
I sprang from a seed to a sapling,
waxed great in a wood,
                           was given knowledge,
was ordered across saltstreams in ships
where I stiffened my spine, standing tall,
till, entering the halls of heroes,
                   I honored my manly Lord.

Now I stand here on this ship's deck,
an emissary ordered to inform you
of the love my Lord feels for you.
I have no fear forecasting his heart steadfast,
his honor bright, his word true.

He who bade me come carved this letter
and entreats you to recall, clad in your finery,
what you promised each other many years before,
mindful of his treasure-laden promises.

He reminds you how, in those distant days,
witty words were pledged by you both
in the mead-halls and homesteads:
how he would be Lord of the lands
you would inhabit together
while forging a lasting love.

Alas, a vendetta drove him far from his feuding tribe,
but now he instructs me to gladly give you notice
that when you hear the returning cuckoo's cry
cascading down warming coastal cliffs,
come over the sea! Let no man hinder your course.

He earnestly urges you: Out! To sea!
Away to the sea, when the circling gulls
hover over the ship that conveys you to him!

Board the ship that you meet there:
sail away seaward to seek your husband,
over the seagulls' range,
                          over the paths of foam.
For over the water, he awaits you.

He cannot conceive, he told me,
how any keener joy could comfort his heart,
nor any greater happiness gladden his soul,
than that a generous God should grant you both
to exchange rings, then give gifts to trusty liege-men,
golden armbands inlaid with gems to faithful followers.

The lands are his, his estates among strangers,
his new abode fair and his followers true,
all hardy heroes, since hence he was driven,
shoved off in his ship from these shore in distress,
steered straightway over the saltstreams, sped over the ocean,
a wave-tossed wanderer winging away.

But now the man has overcome his woes,
outpitted his perils, lives in plenty, lacks no luxury,
has a hoard and horses and friends in the mead-halls.

All the wealth of the earth's great earls
now belongs to my Lord …
                                             He only lacks you.

He would have everything within an earl's having,
if only my Lady will come home to him now,
if only she will do as she swore and honor her vow.



Are these the oldest rhyming poems in the English language? Reginald of Durham recorded four verses of Saint Godric's: they are the oldest songs in English for which the original musical settings survive.

Led By Christ and Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By Christ and Saint Mary I was so graciously led
that the earth never felt my bare foot's tread!

In the second poem, Godric puns on his name: godes riche means 'God's kingdom' and sounds like 'God is rich' …

A Cry to Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
Saintë Marië Virginë,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarenë,
Welcome, shield and help thin Godric,
Fly him off to God's kingdom rich!

II.
Saintë Marië, Christ's bower,
****** among Maidens, Motherhood's flower,
Blot out my sin, fix where I'm flawed,
Elevate me to Bliss with God!

Godric also wrote a prayer to St. Nicholas:

Prayer to St. Nicholas
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Saint Nicholas, beloved of God,
Build us a house that's bright and fair;
Watch over us from birth to bier,
Then, Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there!



Another candidate for the first rhyming English poem is actually called 'The Rhyming Poem' as well as 'The Riming Poem' and 'The Rhymed Poem.'

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and graciously provided its radiant engine.
I was gladdened with glees, bathed in bright hues,
deluged with joy's blossoms, sunshine-infused.

Men admired me, feted me with banquet-courses;
we rejoiced in the good life. Gaily bedecked horses
carried me swiftly across plains on joyful rides,
delighting me with their long limbs' thunderous strides.
That world was quickened by earth's fruits and their flavors!
I cantered under pleasant skies, attended by troops of advisers.
Guests came and went, amusing me with their chatter
as I listened with delight to their witty palaver.

Well-appointed ships glided by in the distance;
when I sailed myself, I was never without guidance.
I was of the highest rank; I lacked for nothing in the hall;
nor did I lack for brave companions; warriors, all,
we strode through castle halls weighed down with gold
won from our service to thanes. We were proud men, and bold.
Wise men praised me; I was omnipotent in battle;
Fate smiled on and protected me; foes fled before me like cattle.
Thus I lived with joy indwelling; faithful retainers surrounded me;
I possessed vast estates; I commanded all my eyes could see;
the earth lay subdued before me; I sat on a princely throne;
the words I sang were charmed; old friendships did not wane …

Those were years rich in gifts and the sounds of happy harp-strings,
when a lasting peace dammed shut the rivers' sorrowings.
My servants were keen, their harps resonant;
their songs pealed, the sound loud but pleasant;
the music they made melodious, a continual delight;
the castle hall trembled and towered bright.
Courage increased, wealth waxed with my talent;
I gave wise counsel to great lords and enriched the valiant.

My spirit enlarged; my heart rejoiced;
good faith flourished; glory abounded; abundance increased.
I was lavishly supplied with gold; bright gems were circulated …
Till treasure led to treachery and the bonds of friendship constricted.

I was bold in my bright array, noble in my equipage,
my joy princely, my home a happy hermitage.
I protected and led my people;
for many years my life among them was regal;
I was devoted to them and they to me.

But now my heart is troubled, fearful of the fates I see;
disaster seems unavoidable. Someone dear departs in flight by night
who once before was bold. His soul has lost its light.
A secret disease in full growth blooms within his breast,
spreads in different directions. Hostility blossoms in his chest,
in his mind. Bottomless grief assaults the mind's nature
and when penned in, erupts in rupture,
burns eagerly for calamity, runs bitterly about.

The weary man suffers, begins a journey into doubt;
his pain is ceaseless; pain increases his sorrows, destroys his bliss;
his glory ceases; he loses his happiness;
he loses his craft; he no longer burns with desires.
Thus joys here perish, lordships expire;
men lose faith and descend into vice;
infirm faith degenerates into evil's curse;
faith feebly abandons its high seat and every hour grows worse.

So now the world changes; Fate leaves men lame;
Death pursues hatred and brings men to shame.
The happy clan perishes; the spear rends the marrow;
the evildoer brawls and poisons the arrow;
sorrow devours the city; old age castrates courage;
misery flourishes; wrath desecrates the peerage;
the abyss of sin widens; the treacherous path snakes;
resentment burrows, digs in, wrinkles, engraves;
artificial beauty grows foul;
the summer heat cools;
earthly wealth fails;
enmity rages, cruel, bold;
the might of the world ages, courage grows cold.
Fate wove itself for me and my sentence was given:
that I should dig a grave and seek that grim cavern
men cannot avoid when death comes, arrow-swift,
to seize their lives in his inevitable grasp.
Now night comes at last,
and the way stand clear
for Death to dispossesses me of my my abode here.

When my corpse lies interred and the worms eat my limbs,
whom will Death delight then, with his dark feast and hymns?
Let men's bones become one,
and then finally, none,
till there's nothing left here of the evil ones.
But men of good faith will not be destroyed;
the good man will rise, far beyond the Void,
who chastened himself, more often than not,
to avoid bitter sins and that final black Blot.
The good man has hope of a far better end
and remembers the promise of Heaven,
where he'll experience the mercies of God for his saints,
freed from all sins, dark and depraved,
defended from vices, gloriously saved,
where, happy at last before their cheerful Lord,
men may rejoice in his love forevermore.



aaa

Exeter Book Gnomic Verses or Maxims
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dragon dwells under the dolmen,
wizened-wise, hoarding his treasure;
the fishes bring forth their finned kind;
the king in his halls distributes rings;
the bear stalks the heath, shaggy and malevolent.

Frost shall freeze,
fire feast on firs;
earth breed blizzards;
brazen ice bridge waters;
waters spawn shields;
oxen axe
frost's firm fetters,
freeing golden grain
from ice's imprisonment.

Winter shall wane,
warm weather return
as sun-warmed summer!

Kings shall win
wise queens with largesse,
with beakers and bracelets;
both must be
generous with their gifts.

Courage must create
war-lust in a lord
while his woman shows
kindness to her people,
delightful in dress,
interpreter of rune-words,
roomy-hearted
at hearth-sharing and horse-giving.

The deepest depths
hold seas' secrets the longest.

The ship must be neatly nailed,
the hull framed
from light linden.
But how loving
the Frisian wife's welcome
when, floating offshore,
the keel turns homeward!
She hymns homeward
her own husband,
till his hull lies at anchor!
Then she washes salt-stains
from his stiff shirt,
lays out new clothes
clean and fresh
for her exhausted sailor,
her beloved bread-winner,
love's needs well-met.



THE WANDERER

Please keep in mind that in ancient Anglo-Saxon poems like "The Ruin" and "The Wanderer" the Wyrdes function like the Fates of ancient Greek mythology, controlling men's destinies.

The Wanderer
ancient Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"The one who wanders alone
longs for mercy, longs for grace,
knowing he must yet traverse
the whale-path's rime-cold waters,
stirring the waves with his hands & oars,
heartsick & troubled in spirit,
always bending his back to his exile-ways."

"Fate is inexorable."

Thus spoke the wanderer, the ancient earth-roamer
mindful of life's hardships,
of its cruel slaughters & deaths of dear kinsmen.

"Often I am driven, departing alone at daybreak,
to give my griefs utterance,
the muffled songs of a sick heart
sung to no listeners, to no living lord,
for now there are none left alive
to debate my innermost doubts.

Custom considers it noble indeed for a man
to harbor his thought-hoard,
keep it close to his chest,
slam the doors of his doubts shut,
bind sorrow to silence & be still.

But the weary-minded man cannot withstand Wyrdes,
nor may his shipwrecked heart welcome solace, nor any hope of healing.
Therefore those eager for fame often bind dark thoughts
& unwailed woes in their breast-coffers.

Thus, miserably sad, overcome by cares & separated from my homeland,
far from my noble kinsmen, I was forced to bind my thoughts with iron fetters,
to confine my breast-hoard to its cage of bone.

Long ago the dark earth covered my gold-lord & I was left alone,
winter-weary & wretched, to cross these winding waves friendless.

Saddened, I sought the hall of some new gold-giver,
someone who might take heed of me, welcome me,
hoping to find some friendly mead-hall
offering comfort to men left friendless by Fate.

Anyone left lordless, kinless & friendless
knows how bitter-cruel life becomes
to one bereft of protectors,
pale sorrows his only companions.

No one waits to welcome the wanderer!

His only rewards, cold nights & the frigid sea.

Only exile-paths await him,
not torques of twisted gold,
warm hearths & his lord's trust.

Only cold hearts' frozen feelings, not earthly glory.

Then he longingly remembers retainers, feasts & the receiving of treasure,
how in his youth his gold-friend recognized him at the table.

But now all pleasure has vanished & his dreams taste like dust!

The wanderer knows what it means to do without:
without the wise counsels of his beloved lord, kinsmen & friends.

The lone outcast, wandering the headlands alone,
where solitariness & sorrow sleep together!

Then the wretched solitary vagabond
remembers in his heart how he embraced & kissed his lord
& laid his hands & head upon his knee,
in those former days of grace at the gift-stool.

But the wanderer always awakes without friends.

Awakening, the friendless man confronts the murky waves,
the seabirds bathing, broadening out their feathers,
the ****-frost, harrowing hail & snow eternally falling…

Then his heart's wounds seem all the heavier for the loss of his beloved lord.

Thus his sorrow is renewed,
remembrance of his lost kinsmen troubles his mind,
& he greets their ghosts with exclamations of joy, but they merely swim away.

The floating ones never tarry.

Thus care is renewed for the one whose weary spirit rides the waves.

Therefore I cannot think why, surveying this world,
my mind should not contemplate its darkness.

When I consider the lives of earls & their retainers,
how at a stroke they departed their halls, those mood-proud thanes! ,
then I see how this middle-earth fails & falls, day after day…

Therefore no man becomes wise without his share of winters.

A wise man must be patient,
not hot-hearted, nor over-eager to speak,
nor weak-willed in battles & yet not reckless,
not unwitting nor wanting in forethought,
nor too greedy for gold & goods,
nor too fearful, nor too cheerful,
nor too hot, nor too mild,
nor too eager to boast before he's thought things through.

A wise man forbears boastmaking
until, stout-hearted, his mind sure & his will strong,
he can read the road where his travels & travails take him.

The wise man grasps how ghastly life will be
when all the world's wealth becomes waste,
even as middle-earth already is, in so many places
where walls stand weather-beaten by the wind,
crusted with cold rime, ruined dwellings snowbound,
wine-halls crumbling, their dead lords deprived of joy,
the once-hale host all perished beyond the walls.

Some war took, carried them off from their courses;
a bird bore one across the salt sea;
another the gray wolf delivered to Death;
one a sallow-cheeked earl buried in a bleak barrow.

Thus mankind's Maker laid waste to Middle Earth,
until the works of the giants stood idle,
all eerily silenced, the former joys of their halls."

The wise man contemplates these ruins,
considers this dark life soberly,
remembers the blood spilled here
in multitudes of battles,
then says:

"Where is the horse now? Where, its riders?
Where, the givers of gifts & treasure, the gold-friend?
Where, the banquet-seats? Where, the mead-halls' friendly uproars?

Gone, the bright cup! Gone, the mailed warrior!
Gone, the glory of princes! Time has slipped down
the night-dome, as if it never were!

Now all that remains is this wall, wondrous-high,
decorated with strange serpentine shapes,
these unreadable wormlike runes!

The strength of spears defeated the earls,
lances lusting for slaughter, some glorious victory!

Now storms rage against these rock-cliffs,
as swirling snows & sleet entomb the earth,
while wild winter howls its wrath
as the pale night-shadow descends.

The frigid north sends hailstones to harry warriors.

Hardships & struggles beset the children of men.

The shape of fate is twisted under the heavens
as the Wyrdes decree.

Life is on loan, wealth transitory, friendships fleeting,
man himself fleeting, everything transitory,
& earth's entire foundation stands empty."

Thus spoke the wanderer, wise-hearted, as he sat apart in thought.

Good is the man who keeps his word to the end.
Nor should a man manifest his breast-pangs before he knows their cure,
how to accomplish the remedy with courage.



The Dream of the Rood
anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem, circa the tenth century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Listen! A dream descended upon me at deep midnight
when sleepers have sought their beds and sweet rest:
the dream of dreams, I declare it!

It seemed I saw the most wondrous tree,
raised heaven-high, wound 'round with light,
with beams of the brightest wood. A beacon
covered in overlapping gold and precious gems,
it stood fair at the earth's foot, with five gemstones
brightening its cross-beam. All heaven's angels
beheld it with wonder, for it was no felon's gallows…



Beowulf
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 8th-10th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

LO, praise the prowess of the Spear-Danes
whose clan-thanes ruled in days bygone,
possessed of dauntless courage and valor.

All have heard the honors the athelings won,
of Scyld Scefing, scourge of rebellious tribes,
wrecker of mead-benches, harrier of warriors,
awer of earls. He had come from afar,
first friendless, a foundling, till Fate intervened:
for he waxed under the welkin and persevered,
until folk, far and wide, on all coasts of the whale-path,
were forced to yield to him, bring him tribute.
A good king!

To him an heir was afterwards born,
a lad in his yards, a son in his halls,
sent by heaven to comfort the folk.
Knowing they'd lacked an earl a long while,
the Lord of Life, the Almighty, made him far-renowned.

Beowulf's fame flew far throughout the north,
the boast of him, this son of Scyld,
through Scandian lands.

…

Grendel was known of in Geatland, far-asea,
the horror of him.

…

Beowulf bade a seaworthy wave-cutter
be readied to bear him to Heorot,
over the swan's riding,
to defense of that good king, Hrothgar.

Wise men tried to dissuade him
because they held Beowulf dear,
but their warnings only whetted his war-lust.

Yet still he pondered the omens.

The resolute prince handpicked his men,
the fiercest of his folk, to assist him:
fourteen men sea-wise, stout-hearted,
battle-tested. Led them to the land's edge.

Hardened warriors hauled bright mail-coats,
well-wrought war gear, to the foot of her mast.
At high tide she rode the waves, hard in by headland,
as they waved their last farewells, then departed.

Away she broke like a sea-bird, skimming the waves,
wind-borne, her curved prow plowing the ocean,
till on the second day the skyline of Geatland loomed.

…



In the following poem Finnsburuh means 'Finn's stronghold' and Finn was a Frisian king. This battle between Danes and Frisians is also mentioned in the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. Hnaef and his 60 retainers were house-guests of Finn at the time of the battle.

The Finnesburg Fragment or The Fight at Finnsburg
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Battle-bred Hnaef broke the silence:
'Are the eaves aflame, is there dawn in the east,
are there dragons aloft? No, only the flares of torches
borne on the night breeze. Evil is afoot. Soon the hoots of owls,
the weird wolf's howls, cries of the carrion crows, the arrow's screams,
and the shield's reply to the lance's shaft, shall be heard.
Heed the omens of the moon, that welkin-wanderer.
We shall soon feel in full this folk's fury for us.
Shake yourselves awake, soldiers! On your feet!
Who's with me? Grab your swords and shields. Loft your linden! '



'The Battle of Brunanburh' is the first poem to appear in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Aethelstan and Edmund were the grandsons of King Alfred the Great.

The Battle of Brunanburh or The Battle of Brunanburgh
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 937 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her Aethelstan cyning, / Aethelstan the King,
eorla dryhten, / Lord over earls,
beorna beag-giefa, / bracelet-bestower,
and his brothor eac, / and with him his brother,
Eadmund aetheling, / Edmund the Atheling,
ealdor-lange tir / earned unending glory:
geslogon aet saecce / glory they gained in battle
sweorda ecgum / as they slew with the sword's edge
ymbe Brunanburh. / many near Brunanburgh…



The Battle of Maldon
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 991 AD or later
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

…would be broken.

Then he bade each warrior unbridle his horse,
set it free, drive it away and advance onward afoot,
intent on deeds of arms and dauntless courage.

It was then that Offa's kinsman kenned
their Earl would not accept cowardice,
for he set his beloved falcon free, let it fly woods-ward,
then stepped forward to battle himself, nothing withheld.

By this his men understood their young Earl's will full well,
that he would not weaken when taking up weapons.

Eadric desired to serve his Earl,
his Captain in the battle to come; thus he also advanced forward,
his spear raised, his spirit strong,
boldly grasping buckler and broadsword,
ready to keep his vow to stand fast in the fight.

Byrhtnoth marshalled his men,
teaching each warrior his task:
how to stand, where to be stationed…



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, 'God is gracious! '

The poem has also been rendered as 'Adam lay i-bounden' and 'Adam lay i-bowndyn.'




I Sing of a Maiden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.

He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.

He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.

He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.

Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



WIDSITH

Widsith, the 'wide-wanderer' or 'far-traveler, ' was a fictional poet and harper who claimed to have sung for everyone from Alexander the Great, Caesar and Attila, to the various kings of the Angles, Saxons and Vikings! The poem that bears his name is a thula, or recited list of historical and legendary figures, and an ancient version of, 'I've Been Everywhere, Man.'

Widsith, the Far-Traveler
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 680-950 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Widsith the wide-wanderer began to speak,
unlocked his word-hoard, manifested his memories,
he who had travelled earth's roads furthest
among the races of men—their tribes, peoples and lands.
He had often prospered in the mead-halls,
competing for precious stones with his tale-trove.
His ancestors hailed from among the Myrgings,
whence his lineage sprung, a scion of Ealhhild,
the fair peace-weaver. On his first journey, east of the Angles,
he had sought out the home of Eormanric,
the angry oath-breaker and betrayer of men.

Widsith, rich in recollections, began to share his wisdom thus:

I have learned much from mighty men, their tribes' mages,
and every prince must live according to his people's customs,
acting honorably, if he wishes to prosper upon his throne.

Hwala was the best, for awhile,
Alexander the mightiest, beyond compare,
his empire the most prosperous and powerful of all,
among all the races of men, as far as I have heard tell.

Attila ruled the Huns, Eormanric the Goths,
Becca the Banings, Gifica the Burgundians,
Caesar the Greeks, Caelic the Finns,
Hagena the Holmrigs, Heoden the Glomms,
Witta the Swæfings, Wada the Hælsings,
Meaca the Myrgings, Mearchealf the Hundings,
Theodric the Franks, Thyle the Rondings,
Breoca the Brondings, Billing the Wærns,
Oswine the Eowan, Gefwulf the Jutes,
Finn Folcwalding the Frisians,
Sigehere ruled the Sea-Danes for decades,
Hnæf the Hockings, Helm the Wulfings,
Wald the Woings, Wod the Thuringians,
Sæferth the Secgan, Ongendtheow the Swedes,
Sceafthere the Ymbers, Sceafa the Lombards,
*** the Hætwera, Holen the Wrosnas,
Hringweald was king of the Herefara.

Offa ruled the Angles, Alewih the Danes,
the bravest and boldest of men,
yet he never outdid Offa.
For Offa, while still a boy, won in battle the broadest of kingdoms.
No one as young was ever a worthier Earl!
With his stout sword he struck the boundary of the Myrgings,
fixed it at Fifeldor, where afterwards the Angles and Swæfings held it.

Hrothulf and Hrothgar, uncle and nephew,
for a long time kept a careful peace together
after they had driven away the Vikings' kinsmen,
vanquished Ingeld's spear-hordes,
and hewed down at Heorot the host of the Heathobards.

Thus I have traveled among many foreign lands,
crossing the earth's breadth,
experiencing both goodness and wickedness,
cut off from my kinsfolk, far from my family.

Thus I can speak and sing these tidings in the mead-halls,
of how how I was received by the most excellent kings.
Many were magnanimous to me!

I was among the Huns and the glorious Ostrogoths,
among the Swedes, the Geats, and the South-Danes,
among the Vandals, the Wærnas, and the Vikings,
among the Gefthas, the Wends, and the Gefflas,
among the Angles, the Swabians, and the Ænenas,
among the Saxons, the Secgan, and the Swordsmen,
among the Hronas, the Danes, and the Heathoreams,
among the Thuringians and the Throndheims,
also among the Burgundians, where I received an arm-ring;
Guthhere gave me a gleaming gem in return for my song.
He was no gem-hoarding king, slow to give!

I was among the Franks, the Frisians, and the Frumtings,
among the Rugas, the Glomms, and the Romans.

I was likewise in Italy with Ælfwine,
who had, as I'd heard, commendable hands,
fast to reward fame-winning deeds,
a generous sharer of rings and torques,
the noble son of Eadwine.

I was among the Saracens and also the Serings,
among the Greeks, the Finns, and also with Caesar,
the ruler of wine-rich cities and formidable fortresses,
of riches and rings and Roman domains.
He also controlled the kingdom of Wales.

I was among the Scots, the Picts and the Scrid-Finns,
among the Leons and Bretons and Lombards,
among the heathens and heroes and Huns,
among the Israelites and Assyrians,
among the Hebrews and Jews and Egyptians,
among the Medes and Persians and Myrgings,
and with the Mofdings against the Myrgings,
among the Amothings and the East-Thuringians,
among the Eolas, the Ista and the Idumings.

I was also with Eormanric for many years,
as long as the Goth-King availed me well,
that ruler of cities, who gave me gifts:
six hundred shillings of pure gold
beaten into a beautiful neck-ring!
This I gave to Eadgils, overlord of the Myrgings
and my keeper-protector, when I returned home,
a precious adornment for my beloved prince,
after which he awarded me my father's estates.

Ealhhild gave me another gift,
that shining lady, that majestic queen,
the glorious daughter of Eadwine.
I sang her praises in many lands,
lauded her name, increased her fame,
the fairest of all beneath the heavens,
that gold-adorned queen, glad gift-sharer!

Later, Scilling and I created a song for our war-lord,
my shining speech swelling to the sound of his harp,
our voices in unison, so that many hardened men, too proud for tears,
called it the most moving song they'd ever heard.

Afterwards I wandered the Goths' homelands,
always seeking the halest and heartiest companions,
such as could be found within Eormanric's horde.
I sought Hethca, Beadeca and the Herelings,
Emerca, Fridlal and the Ostrogoths,
even the wise father of Unwen.
I sought Secca and Becca, Seafola and Theodric,
Heathoric and Sifeca, Hlithe and Ongentheow,
Eadwine and Elsa, Ægelmund and Hungar,
even the brave band of the Broad-Myrgings.
I sought Wulfhere and Wyrmhere where war seldom slackened,
when the forces of Hræda with hard-striking swords
had to defend their imperiled homestead
in the Wistla woods against Attila's hordes.

I sought Rædhere, Rondhere, Rumstan and Gislhere,
Withergield and Freotheric, Wudga and Hama,
never the worst companions although I named them last.
Often from this band flew shrill-whistling wooden shafts,
shrieking spears from this ferocious nation,
felling enemies because they wielded the wound gold,
those good leaders, Wudga and Hama.

I have always found this to be true in my far-venturing:
that the dearest man among earth-dwellers
is the one God gives to rule ably over others.

But the makar's weird is to be a wanderer. [maker's/minstrel's fate]

The minstrel travels far, from land to land,
singing his needs, speaking his grateful thanks,
whether in the sunny southlands or the frigid northlands,
measuring out his word-hoard to those unstingy of gifts,
to those rare elect rulers who understand art's effect on the multitudes,
to those open-handed lords who would have their fame spread,
via a new praise-verse, thus earning enduring reputations
under the heavens.



Lent is Come with Love to Town
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1330
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Springtime comes with love to town,
With blossoms and with birdsong 'round,
Bringing all this bliss:
Daisies in the dales,
Sweet notes of nightingales.
Each bird contributes songs;
The thrush chides ancient wrongs.
Departed, winter's glowers;
The woodruff gayly flowers;
The birds create great noise
And warble of their joys,
Making all the woodlands ring!



'Cantus Troili' from Troilus and Criseide
by Petrarch
'If no love is, O God, what fele I so? ' translation by Geoffrey Chaucer
modernization by Michael R. Burch

If there's no love, O God, why then, so low?
And if love is, what thing, and which, is he?
If love is good, whence comes my dismal woe?
If wicked, love's a wonder unto me,
When every torment and adversity
That comes from him, persuades me not to think,
For the more I thirst, the more I itch to drink!

And if in my own lust I choose to burn,
From whence comes all my wailing and complaint?
If harm agrees with me, where can I turn?
I know not, all I do is feint and faint!
O quick death and sweet harm so pale and quaint,
How may there be in me such quantity
Of you, 'cept I consent to make us three?

And if I so consent, I wrongfully
Complain, I know. Thus pummeled to and fro,
All starless, lost and compassless, am I
Amidst the sea, between two rending winds,
That in diverse directions bid me, 'Go! '
Alas! What is this wondrous malady?
For heat of cold, for cold of heat, I die.



'Blow, northerne wind'
anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Blow, northern wind,
Send my love, my sweeting,
Blow, northern wind,
Blow, blow, blow,
Our love completing!



'What is he, this lordling, that cometh from the fight? '
by William Herebert, circa early 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who is he, this lordling, who staggers from the fight,
with blood-red garb so grisly arrayed,
once appareled in lineaments white?
Once so seemly in sight?
Once so valiant a knight?

'It is I, it is I, who alone speaks right,
a champion to heal mankind in this fight.'

Why then are your clothes a ****** mess,
like one who has trod a winepress?

'I trod the winepress alone,
else mankind was done.'



'Thou wommon boute fere'
by William Herebert, circa early 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Woman without compare,
you bore your own father:
great the wonder
that one woman was mother
to her father and brother,
as no one else ever was.



'Marye, maide, milde and fre'
by William of Shoreham, circa early 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mary, maid, mild and free,
Chamber of the Trinity,
This while, listen to me,
As I greet you with a song...



'My sang es in sihting'
by Richard Rolle, circa 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My song is in sighing,
My life is in longing,
Till I see thee, my King,
So fair in thy shining,
So fair in thy beauty,
Leading me into your light...



To Rosemounde: A Ballade
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Madame, you're a shrine to loveliness
And as world-encircling as trade's duties.
For your eyes shine like glorious crystals
And your round cheeks like rubies.
Therefore you're so merry and so jocund
That at a revel, when that I see you dance,
You become an ointment to my wound,
Though you offer me no dalliance.

For though I weep huge buckets of warm tears,
Still woe cannot confound my heart.
For your seemly voice, so delicately pronounced,
Make my thoughts abound with bliss, even apart.
So courteously I go, by your love bound,
So that I say to myself, in true penance,
'Suffer me to love you Rosemounde;
Though you offer me no dalliance.'

Never was a pike so sauce-immersed
As I, in love, am now emeshed and wounded.
For which I often, of myself, divine
That I am truly Tristam the Second.
My love may not grow cold, nor numb,
I burn in an amorous pleasance.
Do as you will, and I will be your thrall,
Though you offer me no dalliance.



A Lady without Paragon
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hide, Absalom, your shining tresses;
Esther, veil your meekness;
Retract, Jonathan, your friendly caresses;
Penelope and Marcia Catoun?
Other wives hold no comparison;
Hide your beauties, Isolde and Helen;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Thy body fair? Let it not appear,
Lavinia and Lucretia of Rome;
Nor Polyxena, who found love's cost so dear;
Nor Cleopatra, with all her passion.
Hide the truth of love and your renown;
And thou, Thisbe, who felt such pain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Hero, Dido, Laodamia, all fair,
And Phyllis, hanging for Demophon;
And Canace, dead by love's cruel spear;
And Hypsipyle, betrayed along with Jason;
Make of your truth neither boast nor swoon,
Nor Hypermnestra nor Adriane, ye twain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.



A hymn to Jesus
by Richard of Caistre, circa 1400
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Jesu, Lord that madest me
and with thy blessed blood hath bought,
forgive that I have grieved thee,
in word, work, will and thought.

Jesu, for thy wounds' hurt
of body, feet and hands too,
make me meek and low in heart,
and thee to love, as I should do...



In Praise of his Ugly Lady
by Thomas Hoccleve, early 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Of my lady? Well rejoice, I may!
Her golden forehead is full narrow and small;
Her brows are like dim, reed coral;
And her jet-black eyes glisten, aye.

Her bulging cheeks are soft as clay
with large jowls and substantial.

Her nose, an overhanging shady wall:
no rain in that mouth on a stormy day!

Her mouth is nothing scant with lips gray;
Her chin can scarcely be seen at all.

Her comely body is shaped like a football,
and she sings like a cawing jay.



Lament for Chaucer
by Thomas Hoccleve, early 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas, my worthy master, honorable,
The very treasure and riches of this land!
Death, by your death, has done irreparable
harm to us: her cruel and vengeful hand
has robbed our country of sweet rhetoric...



Holly and Ivy
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nay! Ivy, nay!
It shall not be, like this:
Let Holy have the mastery,
As the manner is.

Holy stood in the hall
Fair to behold;
Ivy stood outside the door,
Lonely and cold.

Holy and his merry men
Commenced to dance and sing;
Ivy and her maidens
Were left outside to weep and wring.

Ivy has a chilblain,
She caght it with the cold.
So must they all have, aye,
Whom with Ivy hold.

Holly has berries
As red as any rose:
The foresters and hunters
Keep them from the does.

Ivy has berries
As black as any ill:
There comes the owl
To eat them as she will.

Holly has birds,
A full fair flock:
The nightingale, the poppyinjay,
The gentle lark.

Good Ivy, good Ivy,
What birds cling to you?
None but the owl
Who cries, 'Who? Who? '



Unkindness Has Killed Me
anonymous Middle English poem,15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Grievous is my sorrow:
Both evening and morow;
Unto myself alone
Thus do I moan,
That unkindness has killed me
And put me to this pain.
Alas! what remedy
That I cannot refrain?



from The Testament of John Lydgate
15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behold, o man! lift up your eyes and see
What mortal pain I suffer for your trespass.
With piteous voice I cry and say to thee:
Behold my wounds, behold my ****** face,
Behold the rebukes that do me such menace,
Behold my enemies that do me so despise,
And how that I, to reform thee to grace,
Was like a lamb offred in sacrifice.



Vox ultima Crucis
from The Testament of John Lydgate,15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

TARRY no longer; toward thine heritage
Haste on thy way, and be of right good cheer.
Go each day onward on thy pilgrimage;
Think how short a time thou hast abided here.
Thy place is built above the stars clear,
No earthly palace wrought in such stately wise.
Come on, my friend, my brother must enter!
For thee I offered my blood in sacrifice.



Inordinate Love
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shall say what inordinate love is:
The ferocity and singleness of mind,
An inextinguishable burning devoid of bliss,
A great hunger, too insatiable to decline,
A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness, blind,
A right wonderful, sugared, sweet error,
Without any rest, contrary to kind,
Without quiet, a riot of useless labor.



Besse Bunting
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In April and May
When hearts be all a-merry,
Bessie Bunting, the miller's girl,
With lips as red as cherries,
Cast aside remembrance
To pass her time in dalliance
And leave her misery to chance.
Right womanly arrayed
In petticoats of white,
She was undismayed
And her countenance was light.



The spring under a thorn
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At a wellspring, under a thorn,
the remedy for an ill was born.
There stood beside a maid
Full of love bound,
And whoso seeks true love,
In her it will be found.



The Complaint of Cresseid against Fate
Robert Henryson,15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O sop of sorrow, sunken into care,
O wretched Cresseid, now and evermore
Gone is thy joy and all thy mirth on earth!
Stripped bare of blitheness and happiness,
No salve can save you from your sickness.
Fell is thy fortune, wicked thy fate.
All bliss banished and sorrow in bloom.
Would that I were buried under the earth
Where no one in Greece or Troy might hear it!



A lover left alone with his thoughts
anonymous Middle English poem, circa later 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Continuance
of remembrance,
without ending,
causes me penance
and great grievance,
for your parting.

You are so deeply
engraved in my heart,
God only knows
that always before me
I ever see you
in thoughts covert.

Though I do not explain
my woeful pain,
I bear it still,
although it seems vain
to speak against
Fortune's will.



Go, hert, hurt with adversity
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Go, heart, hurt with adversity,
and let my lady see thy wounds,
then say to her, as I say to thee:
'Farewell, my joy, and welcome pain,
till I see my lady again.'



I love a flower
by Thomas Phillipps, circa 1500
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

'I love, I love, and whom love ye? '
'I love a flower of fresh beauty.'
'I love another as well as ye.'
'That shall be proved here, anon,
If we three
together can agree
thereon.'

'I love a flower of sweet odour.'
'Marigolds or lavender? '
'Columbine, golds of sweet flavor? '
'Nay! Nay! Let be:
It is none of them
that liketh me.'

(The argument continues...)  

'I love the rose, both red and white.'
'Is that your perfect appetite? '
'To talk of them is my delight.'
'Joyed may we be,
our Prince to see
and roses three.'

'Now we have loved and love will we,
this fair, fresh flower, full of beauty.'
'Most worthy it is, so thinketh me.'
'Then may it be proved here, anon,
that we three
did agree
as one.'



The sleeper hood-winked
by John Skelton, circa late 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

With 'Lullay! Lullay! ' like a child,
Thou sleepest too long, thou art beguiled.

'My darling dear, my daisy flower,
let me, quoth he, 'lie in your lap.'
'Lie still, ' quoth she, 'my paramour, '
'Lie still, of course, and take a nap.'
His head was heavy, such was his hap!
All drowsy, dreaming, drowned in sleep,
That of his love he took no keep. [paid no notice]



The Corpus Christi Carol
anonymous Middle English poem, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He bore him up, he bore him down,
He bore him into an orchard brown.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

In that orchard there stood a hall
Hanged all over with purple and pall.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

And in that hall there stood a bed
hanged all over with gold so red.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

And in that bed there lies a knight,
His wounds all bleeding both day and night.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

By that bed's side there kneels a maid,
And she weeps both night and day.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

And by that bedside stands a stone,
'Corpus Christi' written thereon.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.



Love ever green
attributed to King Henry VIII, circa 1515
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If Henry VIII wrote the poem, he didn't quite live up to it! - MRB

Green groweth the holly,
so doth the ivy.
Though winter's blasts blow never so high,
green groweth the holly.

As the holly groweth green
and never changeth hue,
so am I, and ever have been,
unto my lady true.

Adew! Mine own lady.
Adew! My special.
Who hath my heart truly,
Be sure, and ever shall.



Pleasure it is
by William Cornish, early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pleasure it is,
to her, indeed.
The birds sing;
the deer in the dale,
the sheep in the vale,
the new corn springing.
God's allowance
for sustenance,
his gifts to man.
Thus we always give him praise
and thank him, then.
And thank him, then.



My lute and I
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At most mischief
I suffer grief
Without relief
Since I have none;
My lute and I
Continually
Shall both apply
To sigh and moan.

Nought may prevail
To weep or wail;
Pity doth fail
In you, alas!
Mourning or moan,
Complaint, or none,
It is all one,
As in this case.

For cruelty,
Most that can be,
Hath sovereignty
Within your heart;
Which maketh bare
All my welfare:
Nought do you care
How sore I smart.

No tiger's heart
Is so perverse
Without desert
To wreak his ire;
And me? You ****
For my goodwill;
Lo, how I spill
For my desire!

There is no love
Your heart to move,
And I can prove
No other way;
Therefore I must
Restrain my lust,
Banish my trust
And wealth away.

Thus in mischief
I suffer grief,
Without relief
Since I have none,
My lute and I
Continually
Shall both apply
To sigh and moan.



What menethe this?
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

WHAT meaneth this! when I lie alone
I toss, I turn, I sigh, I groan;
My bed seems near as hard as stone:
What means this?

I sigh, I plain continually;
The clothes that on my bed do lie,
Always, methinks, they lie awry;
What means this?

In slumbers oft for fear I quake;
For heat and cold I burn and shake;
For lack of sleep my head doth ache;
What means this?

At mornings then when I do rise,
I turn unto my wonted guise,
All day thereafter, muse and devise;
What means this?

And if perchance by me there pass,
She, unto whom I sue for grace,
The cold blood forsaketh my face;
What means this?

But if I sit with her nearby,
With a loud voice my heart doth cry,
And yet my mouth is dumb and dry;
What means this?

To ask for help, no heart I have;
My tongue doth fail what I should crave;
Yet inwardly I rage and rave;
What means this?

Thus I have passed many a year,
And many a day, though nought appear,
But most of that which I most I fear;
What means this?



Yet ons I was
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once in your grace I know I was,
Even as well as now is he;
Though Fortune hath so turned my case
That I am down and he full high;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he that did you please
So well that nothing did I doubt,
And though today ye think it ease
To take him in and throw me out;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he, in times past.
That as your own ye did retain:
And though ye have me now out-cast,
Showing untruth in you to reign;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he that knit the knot
The which ye swore not to unknit,
And though ye feign it now forgot,
In using your newfangled wit;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he to whom ye said,
'Welcome, my joy, my whole delight! '
And though ye are now well repaid
Of me, your own, your claim seems slight;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he to whom ye spake,
'Have here my heart! It is thy own.'
And though these words ye now forsake,
Saying thereof my part is none;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he that led the cast,
But now am he that must needs die.
And though I die, yet, at the last,
In your remembrance let it lie,
That once I was.



The Vision of Piers Plowman
by William Langland, circa 1330-1400
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Incipit liber de Petro Plowman prologus

In a summer season when the sun shone soft,
I clothed myself in a cloak like a shepherd's,
In a habit like a hermit's unholy in works,
And went out into the wide world, wonders to hear.
Then on a May morning on Malvern hills,
A marvel befell me, of fairies, methought.
I was weary with wandering and went to rest
Under a broad bank, by a brook's side,
And as I lay, leaned over and looked on the waters,
I fell into a slumber, for it sounded so merry.
Soon I began to dream a marvellous dream:
That I was in a wilderness, I wist not where.
As I looked to the east, right into the sun,
I saw a tower on a knoll, worthily built,
With a deep dale beneath and a dungeon therein,
Full of deep, dark ditches and and dreadful to behold.
Then a fair field full of fond folk, I espied between,
Of all manner of men, both rich and poor,
Working and wandering, as the world demands.
Some put themselves to the plow, seldom playing,
But setting and sowing they sweated copiously
And won that which wasters destroyed by gluttony...



Pearl
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1400
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pearl, the pleasant prize of princes,
Chastely set in clear gold and cherished,
Out of the Orient, unequaled,
Precious jewel without peer,
So round, so rare, so radiant,
So small, so smooth, so seductive,
That whenever I judged glimmering gems,
I set her apart, unimpeachable, priceless.
Alas, I lost her in earth's green grass!
Long I searched for her in vain!
Now I languish alone, my heart gone cold.
For I lost my precious pearl without stain.



Johann Scheffler (1624-1677) , also known as Johann Angelus Silesius, was a German Catholic priest, physician, mystic and religious poet. He's a bit later than most of the other poets on this page, but seems to fit in …

Unholy Trinity
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Man has three enemies:
himself, the world, and the devil.
Of these the first is, by far,
the most irresistible evil.

True Wealth
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is more to being rich
than merely having;
the wealthiest man can lose
everything not worth saving.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose lack 'reasons'
and merely sways with the seasons;
she has no ego
but whoever put on such a show?

Eternal Time
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eternity is time,
time eternity,
except when we
are determined to 'see.'

Visions
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Our souls possess two eyes:
one examines time,
the other visions
eternal and sublime.

Godless
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God is absolute Nothingness
beyond our sense of time and place;
the more we try to grasp Him,
The more He flees from our embrace.

The Source
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water is pure and clean
when taken at the well-head:
but drink too far from the Source
and you may well end up dead.

Ceaseless Peace
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unceasingly you seek
life's ceaseless wavelike motion;
I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed.
Whose is the wiser notion?

Well Written
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Friend, cease!
Abandon all pretense!
You must yourself become
the Writing and the Sense.

Worm Food
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No worm is buried
so deep within the soil
that God denies it food
as reward for its toil.

Mature Love
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes.
Mature love, calm and serene, abides.

God's Predicament
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell,
or He would have to join them in hell!

Clods
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A ruby
is not lovelier
than a dirt clod,
nor an angel
more glorious
than a frog.



The original poem below is based on my teenage misinterpretation of a Latin prayer …

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

… qui laetificat juventutem meam …
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
… requiescat in pace …
May she rest in peace.
… amen …
Amen.

I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem. From what I now understand, 'ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam' means 'to the God who gives joy to my youth, ' but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Vulgate Latin Bible (circa 385 AD) .

Keywords/Tags: Middle English, rhyme, medieval, epigram, lament, complaint, weight, soul, burden, burdened, heaviness, plague, plagued, exit, death, manner, fen, torment, hell, when, where, how, why

I had that recurring dream again last night.
Awakening with a start.
Perspiration was
Pouring down my face.
The car, the children,
Molly my wife.

The heavy truck spinning in front
on the icy new York   freeway.
Explosions so loud they deafened me.
Then the silence the total quietness
as they drifted away.
And i was left alone.

I moved out of the tiny inner-city cottage.
Is was now over  two years ago
but I just left it the way it was.
The kid's toys strewn on the floor.
Bread and cookies on the table.
I would never return there,  never.
Not even to get my beloved alto sax.
the key for me to making a living.

I followed the cop every day?
The one that pulled me from the wreck.
I did not know why i did this,
Sure she was pretty enough.
But that was not it.

I was once told that if you save
Someone's life they belong to you.
Well, she could have his life.
He did not want it anymore.

She entered the bank
He saw the robbery before she did.
The robber lifted his weapon before
She had time to move.
Without fear or forethought,I jumped
in front of her
and took a bullet for her.

It was in the arm straight in and out.
She put three in the perp,
dropping him dead.
before he could fire another shot.

I fell down she held me in her arms.
As I was bleeding out.
Why did you do that, she said
I would have been killed.
That's why
I whispered.

She visited me in hospital
Brought me grapes
I hate ******* grapes.

She had no idea who I was
When the car wreck happened
I was covered in blood and EMS
Ran me to the hospital.
Names don't stay with people
Only faces.

When I got out of the hospital.
She appeared at my rented room door.
With a coffee and doughnuts
I don't talk much since…..well just since.
Who the **** are you she asked
A God ******  Angel.
I said I don't think God dams his angels.

She seemed to like me.
**** knows why
I wasn't nice to her.
She started looking for me on her shift.
Grabbing a coffee and suggesting dates.
I told her no offense lady
don't arrest me.
But I don't date anymore.

But she was a New York cop.
and a woman,
******* relentless.
She said she would make life hell for me
If I didn't take her for a date.
******* women.

I gave in and said I would join her
At the blues club nearby.
We got there at 10 pm after her shift
She looked ******* hot.
Not like a ******* cop anymore.
The blues were playing
I heard the alto sax wailing
It cried tears
like my soul was feeling.
But my souls eyes were dry.

She saw the tears welling in my eyes
And held me to her soft breast.
Tell me what it is
Is it me she asked?
I was just silent.

The owner of the club saw me.
He said, Tony
where the ******* been man.
It's been two years since you came here.
We miss your sax wailing boy.
He said where's your sax?
Don't you have it anymore?
I shook my head it was a lie
But I had my reasons.

He grabbed the alto sax
from the band playing.
Make it weep Tony.
My heart needs to hear you play man.
I moved quietly to the stage.
And the room went silent.
Just as if the Angel Gabriel
was going to wail his horn.

They remembered me they stood up
and clapped for five minutes.
Blues people don't change.
They just get ******* older.

I said nothing.
But played nature boy.

Peggy got up and took the mike
She wept the words as I played.
Tears falling down
her old sad blackface.

……..There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered
very far, very far
Overland and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he…….

My cop was crying too.
She said I don't cry ever see.
I am a cop I see ****.
Who the **** are you she said?
But I let the sax wail for my words.
It poured my sadness into the night.

She got my full name from Peggy.
She says that boy needs a woman.
But then a woman is Peggy's
answer to all men's problems.

She run the info though the computers
at the precinct.
those ******* things
Know every leak you ever take.

She saw the car wreck
the body bags.
Me, covered in blood.
She knew it all.
I was exposed.

She even found my mother in law's place.
And went there.
She said he's heartsick honey.
He won't go home.
Won't let anyone in.
He blames himself.
He's never cried once
It's eating him inside.

She said I can't find him
Do you know where he is?
He's over at the cemetery.

She missed her shift change over.
And went to the Park Lawn
I  was kneeling by a family
grave talking to my kids.

She went to me and slipped
Her arm around me
,I turned my head
Into her breast.
she kissed my head.
and I wept and wept.
I sobbed like my alto sax wailed.

She kissed my eyes.
Let it out, honey
Let it all go
Don't stop let it go
.
She drove us to my house
The mess was on the floor.
The stale food stank.
It was in a mess a disaster.
The kid's toys spread everywhere.
My sax on the hall table.
saying nothing
she started cleaning it up.

She said quietly.
Did I not save your life right?
I  said yes you did.
And you saved mine right
I said yes I did.
She said
Unless we both say  that
we're even stevens.
You know what it means.

He nodded
Yeah...I know.
It means
We belong to each other now.
You got it straight McGraw she quipped.

Two years later
Tony came back from his gig
at the blues club.
He had a recording contract in his pocket.
The money would come in real handy
What with their second baby
coming in a few months.
Kids were pricey little buggers.

Once upon a very old time,
In a perfectly ordinary forest,
Created solely for my words in rhyme,
There lived a very smart tortoise, modest and earnest.

In this same forest of the mind,
There lived a vivacious hare,
She was so stunning, all animals she could spellbind,
And wherever she went, she spread love in the air.

It so happened that the tortoise, our protagonist,
Found himself having an intimate crush
On the hare and if you get my drift,
He wanted to live a life with her, lavish and lush.

So he decided that to her he would propose,
And try to woo her with his intelligence and brains,
To marry her was his ultimate purpose,
He would surely convince her of his pros and gains.

But to his utmost horror, she rejected him downright,
And looked at him in pure disgust,
“no”, she said, “ you can’t win my love’s right,
because it is not for you that I lust.”

But persistent, and smart, he threw a challenge of love,
To her straight to the face,
“will you agree to marry me, my pure white dove,
if ever I beat you in a race?”

The hare agreed readily to the proposition,
Amused to think she could win without a care,
Alas, she didn’t know what the tortoise knew about the situation,
For he had read the story of the tortoise and the hare.

As soon as the race started, away she zipped,
While the tortoise slowly followed behind,
“He’s lost!”, she thought, “ his cream has been whipped!!...”
but the tortoise had something else in mind…

Half way through the race the hare began to tire,
“Oh!” she thought, “for the tortoise I’m still way far ahead…”
so into the hollow of a tree she did retire,
to have a nap in nature’s comfortable bed.

She was still sleeping blissfully when the tortoise reached her,
And saw her asleep in the hollow,
He could have won the race and won his love so dear,
But though he had knowledge, his mind was narrow.

“She’s the girl I love”, he thought,
we should be on equal terms, I shouldn’t get an unfair chance,
and without any fortitude and forethought,
he took a rash decision without a second glance.

“hey! Wake up! The race is still on! Don’t stop!”
his bellowing voice awoke the hare,
she nimbly bounded away, refreshed from the pitstop,
leaving the tortoise to stand and stare.

Obviously, the tortoise lost and well,
What happened after, I know not,
I hear he spent the rest of his life brooding in his shell,
But all this teaches an important lesson about love, does it not???

You change my mind like a massive industrial factory.
Because flowers.
Supposing friendly.
What if therefore.

You crush my forethought in your mandible machinery
For after yellow.
Beside a lake.
Through crimson humility.

I melt under your molten supervision on the grandest scale
Melodic franchise.
Hypothesize sunbeams.
And if replace me.

You reorient my viewpoints on your conveyor belt of
liquidated mellow
jurisdiction.

I'm always playing catch up
I fly behind the 8 ball
A step behind
Or two
Or three
For thought escapes me
When I close my eyes
And imagine a next step
Or two
Or three
And for this lack
I spend my days fixing
And rebuilding
Rather than growing
Moving ahead
I just live in the present
And I'm falling behind

Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave:
Yours was not an ill for mending,
'Twas best to take it to the grave.

Oh you had forethought, you could reason,
And saw your road and where it led,
And early wise and brave in season
Put the pistol to your head.

Oh soon, and better so than later
After long disgrace and scorn,
You shot dead the household traitor,
The soul that should not have been born.

Right you guessed the rising morrow
And scorned to tread the mire you must:
Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,
But men may come to worse than dust.

Souls undone, undoing others,--
Long time since the tale began.
You would not live to wrong your brothers:
Oh lad, you died as fits a man.

Now to your grave shall friend and stranger
With ruth and some with envy come:
Undishonoured, clear of danger,
Clean of guilt, pass hence and home.

Turn safe to rest, no dreams, no waking;
And here, man, here's the wreath I've made:
'Tis not a gift that's worth the taking,
But wear it and it will not fade.

You wouldnt like me when I'm drunk
Or perhaps you'd like me too much

Push pins sting
As they slide into my skin
But after long enough
They go numb
Can hardly notice the blood anymore
Second
Third
Fourth skins are shed
Leaving a raw innocence in it's place
Uninhibited by restraints
Such as logic
Or forethought
Blinders on too tight
Choking out anything that would be
Scandalous in daylight
A deafening scream
That's part siren song
Vice grip fingers
Holding on for too long
The Devil's wife has come to dance
Please walk away
Or I promise we'll both hate me sober

I
Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor ****** of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smile the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace;
That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest tone,
When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned hood;
With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;
With the marches of the brave;
And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.

Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
"Pass in, pass in," the angels say,
"In to the upper doors,
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise."

Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames,
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence.
Forms more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind
Sings aloud the tune whereto
Their pulses beat,
And march their feet,
And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled,
He shall no task decline;
Merlin's mighty line
Extremes of nature reconciled,
Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,
Mold the year to fair increase,
And bring in poetic peace.
He shall nor seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;
Wait his returning strength.
Bird that from the nadir's floor
To the zenith's top can soar,
The roaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length.
Nor profane affect to hit
Or compass that, by meddling wit,
Which only the propitious mind
Publishes when 'tis inclined.
There are open hours
When the God's will sallies free,
And the dull idiot might see
The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;
Sudden, at unawares,
Self-moved, fly-to the doors,
Nor sword of angels could reveal
What they conceal.

II
The rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs;
Balance-loving Nature
Made all things in pairs.
To every foot its antipode;
Each color with its counter glowed:
To every tone beat answering tones,
Higher or graver;
Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
Leaf answers leaf upon the bough;
And match the paired cotyledons.
Hands to hands, and feet to feet,
In one body grooms and brides;
Eldest rite, two married sides
In every mortal meet.
Light's far furnace shines,
Smelting ***** and bars,
Forging double stars,
Glittering twins and trines.
The animals are sick with love,
Lovesick with rhyme;
Each with all propitious Time
Into chorus wove.

Like the dancers' ordered band,
Thoughts come also hand in hand;
In equal couples mated,
Or else alternated;
Adding by their mutual gage,
One to other, health and age.
Solitary fancies go
Short-lived wandering to and ire,
Most like to bachelors,
Or an ungiven maid,
Nor ancestors,
With no posterity to make the lie afraid,
Or keep truth undecayed.
Perfect-paired as eagle's wings,
Justice is the rhyme of things;
Trade and counting use
The self-same tuneful muse;
And Nemesis,
Who with even matches odd,
Who athwart space redresses
The partial wrong,
Fills the just period,
And finishes the song.

Subtle rhymes, with ruin rife
Murmur in the hour of life,
Sung by the Sisters as they spin;
In perfect time and measure they
Build and unbuild our echoing clay.
As the two twilights of the day
Fold us music-drunken in.

Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine;
  Refresh your recollection,
And sit a moment, to define
  His means of self-protection.

How truly fortified is he!
  Where is the beast his double
In forethought of emergency
  And readiness for trouble?

Recall his figure, and his shade--
  How deftly planned and clearly
For slithering through the dappled glade
  Unseen, or pretty nearly.

Yet should an alien eye discern
  His presence in the woodland,
How little has he left to learn
  Of self-defense! My good land!

For he can run, as swift as sound,
  To where his goose may hang high--
Or ****** his head against the ground
  And tunnel half to Shanghai;

Or he can climb the dizziest bough--
  Unhesitant, mechanic--
And, resting, dash from off his brow
  The bitter beads of panic;

Or should pursuers press him hot,
  One scarcely needs to mention
His quick and cruel barbs, that got
  Shakespearean attention;

Or driven to his final ditch,
  To his extremest thicket,
He'll fight with claws and molars (which
  Is not considered cricket).

How amply armored, he, to fend
  The fear of chase that haunts him!
How well prepared our little friend!--
  And who the devil wants him?

For instance, recall daisies,
or if you have not seen one, so much the better.
Paint me a crass picture and sleep
on the shallow crevasse. Stilt through
the orchard and search there: nothing still.
Even the nothingness is form-fitting, and thus,
your vestigial image of daisies. Mold something
out of the vacuity, and there a retrograde sculpture
will wind back to clay. Cornerstones have your name,
and your name even so, has taciturnly placed stones.

Stones. These tiny bodies that lay, undemanding,
scourged by the rapid passage of a carriage.
I wait there, with them, still thinking of daisies.
I know of a child, cylindrically obtuse, in front of the mirror.
Have you seen yourself in the hazy windows
of the Metro? What do you see? I still see daisies.
Or people with heads of daisies. But remember your
forethought of daisies? They are nothing. I am a beheaded daisy
in the lackadaisical wind of Summer. There is nothing to gain
here but the sadness of cold passing. And the child that I am speaking
of, his name, Magno. Sturdy like the rucksack he’s carrying,
lovelessly trundling altogether with the pipes and the
handrails, almost signaling the alarm without warning.

This uncared-for sultry evening decides to splinter
itself against the masses. Again, the daisies appear to me,
this time, in heady form rogue with peripatetic fragrance.
Magno used to unearth daisies and give them to her
mother when he was stiflingly young – he hustled through
the carefully placed furniture. Whatever happened to him,
I know not. And just like the daisies we have come to know now,
trains that do not belong to anyone, and the daisies too, that go
unheard of and unknown to the behest of the city,
have gone into the subtle beginning of everything
that once started in itself, the form of splendor. Nothing.

If charged particles are not guilty of existence, why would anyone be? Man who holds book or man who holds gun, the choice is neither obvious or attenuated. Reactionary causes rash tactlessness. Still, proof must be exposed. Who will avenge a payback unpunished? How to take satisfaction in evening the score, when so many more will fall before any justice will cure the lure to revenge? It depends, on how charged particles defend, or how you decipher foe from friend. Call upon prudence, or we shall see no end. Precaution is canniness in your own circumspection. Please use forethought for neither the neutron or proton are happy with these electrons.

“you shall carry my bones up from here” (Genesis50:25)
yea Little nymph of numbers has six teeth each with ******-chic epiphanies
protrusion of epiphyses thirsty for a fresh bonejuice deathblast
stringy strung theoroized skelecoded out arieal fractal sonix
lix hits antigravity dreambeats chew on infra-red-infractures
to explosively burn constellations out into dust bowls all heavily cranio-******
up with a soul narrowed down to a skelleconex technoillogical prototype
a freshly teased nanoNymph_2.0 osteo-tissue paper thin prototype
designed to bemuse, amuse and be a muse to forgotten infinite epiphanies
endlessly download digitisternums, clavicles whatever desired by the cranio- ******-
enough to risk phantom organic pain in time to playback biofeedback turnt up to deathblast
It’s the artificial cardiaudio arteries show featuring manibrium marrow leakage from infra—red-infractures
and six skinny feminine femora to sing blackened covers of diva demeter love sonix
diamond data mapped thick with smokey persephone bloodkiss shadow sonix
peruse the meanderings of the nanoNymp2.0 a double(triple) pianissimo prototype
fragile: prone to falling (ie) misunderstanding sharp blades pulled from infra-red-infractures
***** bonebuzzed off nothingness nectar numb drunken epiphanies
triangulated ossification between 1st 2nd and 3rd eyes lead up to deathblast
fossilized iconoclastic forethought will achieve status of cranio-******
this poem has no need to lobotomize fetal craniotomies; it’s all cranio-******
betwixt BANG BANG banging is clatter clix scatter bone-dance sonix
electricity sings in the key of major deathblast
crack open a bone on a nanoNymph skelleconex system and a replacement will be sent of the latest prototype
well calculated little nanoNymph’s all programmed  to know as why approached one, X approached ∞ -of cracked open epiphanies
triangle shaped fire, ▲shaped heart, equilateral to a dead sea, sacred geometric infraRed-infractures
biowired endless visions of these infraRed-infractures
Anthrenusverbasci (carpet beetles) eat away at bleached bone clean cranio-******
vertebrae of the Ouroboros eating itself epiphanies
grinding jaws brittle scurvy romantic-suicide die sonix
son of nyx an erubus have mercy installation psychopomp prototype
bring on one more broken septum to end =sempiternal deathblast
“bone of my bones” (genesis2:23) indeed; bring on an ablazed deathblast
fragmented spiraled and inside out infraRed-infractures
every one ends up broken, every bone of every prototype
smashed open coronal suture in everyone cranio-******
thanatos shadow between eros supraorbital sonix
godless and wandering without but epiphanies
soulless nanoNymph burns into dusty nothingness of a prototype
and the emptiness of silence is the deathblast sonix
some exposed spine litter vallies of dry bone epiphanies

Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor ****** of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest-tone,
When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned flood;
With the pulse of manly hearts,
With the voice of orators,
With the din of city arts,
With the cannonade of wars.
With the marches of the brave,
And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.

Great is the art,
Great be the manners of the bard!
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number,
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme:
Pass in, pass in, the angels say,
In to the upper doors;
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to Paradise
By the stairway of surprise.

Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames;
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence.
Things more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind
Plays aloud the tune whereto
Their pulses beat,
And march their feet,
And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled
He shall no task decline;
Merlin's mighty line,
Extremes of nature reconciled,
Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,
Mould the year to fair increase,
And bring in poetic peace.

He shall not seek to weave,
In weak unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;
Wait his returning strength,
Bird, that from the nadir's floor,
To the zenith's top could soar,
The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length!

Nor, profane, affect to hit
Or compass that by meddling wit,
Which only the propitious mind
Publishes when 'tis inclined.
There are open hours
When the god's will sallies free,
And the dull idiot might see
The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;
Sudden, at unawares,
Self-moved fly-to the doors,
Nor sword of angels could reveal
What they conceal.

Things get broken
Hearts
Minds
It's no-one's fault
It never is
Not really
Butter fingers and distraction
Without malice or forethought
Things
Like hearts and minds
Slip
And shatter on hard contact with reality

Living a life from moment to moment
Devoid of feeling and shame. A person is fervent
Full of passion and craze,
That life holds no meaning and phase.
In stochastic rhythm, embedded in wit,
One finds a serious hymn, that life has bit
In illogical fit, from the **** of reason and fate.

Fate where man loses his name,
To a more sinister and manipulative beast,
That seeks to tame his composure;
And quell him with an abundance of exposure
So the soul of the next can feast.
It is not radiation or something of ill will,
But a being more accepting, that eats the source of thrill.
For what is the beast, but the evolution of progression
The child of reason and though. That brings evolution
To the forethought of man with intent to pursue in full
The need to place ban on the will of human
So that the transition can be quelling and soothe.

Revel in space, yet not darkled, still
the **** and span of things that breeds
airlessness; The trees are evenly cut,
and their overgrowth seems like a forethought.
Where I am from, we eat fish with
our bare hands and our furniture, from bodies
of sandalwood, crushed with the scent of
peregrines. The morning makes you conscious
of space, and altogether the height of trees
syncopates to a nauseating stillness. In the awning
hours, leaves punctuate the ground – the cicada
with its machinistic song prowls, spills like
water from a broken vase toppled by me
years younger, raw, agile, deftly windless,
  wounded in love, lovingly wounded,
perhaps if there is a word for it, then let me
have my way, easily fraught with its meaning:
   a casualty. Sometimes the timeworn folks
would light cigarettes underneath the canopy
of a mango tree to banish ants and send them back
  to their queens – roosters in their wrinkled stations
croon in stasis, a song for the somnolent. I become
what the seasons evict. Constancy. Rearing weight
and gravity from nocturne. Tears are communal.
They make us aware of the weight of the Earth.
Somewhere, a funebre stilts through the silence,
and the jangle of little pieces spells out fortuity,
men in huddles mending pain by the sleight of hand,
a toss of a card, spinning in its imaginary axis: fate,
   feigned and fine-tuned to belief that it is controllable,
a variable, or a tabulation marred by frailty. From where
I am from, people stride through the streets naked,
soldering baskets filled with fruits gossamer from the
harvest, children suckling their mothers, the music of sweeping
metastasizes throughout the afternoon, and the same clouds
contort themselves to afford wry proposition: it is a day tender
with wonder, its allure overwrought, its sheen unremarkable.
  The funebre leaves with a necessary abundance of absence.
All the leaves depart from their mothering boughs,
  collapsing on the dreary back of the loam like penitence.
Like how once when you were young, you tinkered with
the fresh scab of your wound and felt the pain confine
  itself there, a part of you, that has now healed, but is still
      available for the world to break once again.

drowned the Earth suddenly.

  underneath honest light,
                                  all
   submerged. this cataract of feeling —
waters pursue beginnings. cradling them
to unknown ends, washed by the shore.
        gluttonously the night swallowed
all — parliament of birds warble no longer.
             midnight, the   Moon
claws the supple skin of organized stone
  displaced
               where all the edges bloom
forth torrid froth of dappled light which kills no less than a brief life of matchflame. tenuous spar of wind on
the unserious twilight; bulge of death
in the stream — a body haul, rafting
  in compost; stench of all topple like
resins held loose in vats. rat **** becomes
           as inviting as moulding bread;
tantric music for no instrument, hoarse
cries unbeheld —

            until the flesh no longer flounders
pressed against sleep-shaped youngness
hewn lissome in the hours of no succor,

       modeling silence in the thrill of
this enthusiastic space,
           hands scouring muddied
  obscure, atremble,
      shadowless hours fill stomachs with
the plump word of rescue yet none
  of these fingers unwished the
ingenuity of dull gods — this twilight
  nor twinight could ever grive
in forethought, striking bells to signal birds
         to arrive again so we could feast
in  silver  fish, with bare hands scaled to callouses,
    
      looking at it twice-over, this battered yolk
of whiteness, with deeds of the viridian
   now atrill in new fragile woodworks

       lurching and
         ameliorating as we all
    stutter and sing
       haunts dabbing open
  lips of small wounds that
   wish to shut quietly,   almost
every threat of gray     or pummel of
   wind startles the flyblown ornate,
  
   hurrying us back to cornerless homes
where all photographs washed away,
    very few hang
               swayed by verdure
  of the gradual throne of sea
        curving perpetually the several stars
we have ignored for a while,
     where everything quite begins
    again to enthrall with a melodic
  leitmotif of the most tender of
       instances loose
            in mouths
                 and in endless recall
                  
                                               breathless—

My happiness comes from me ask my friends and the world around me blossoming in a spark of crimsony red moon glow on forethought walks through the shivering lenses of percept that trickle down our backs as we enlighten ourselves with all that is in between and unseen.

It is as if our aged limbs were caressed into a symphony of leverages and their shapes. We cannot be cadavers. We are arms of cheer and picture jasper, adolescent googled-eyes gathers with virile fixations on our partners as we prey on the map lines subtly employing our eyes as we dart across each dimple, pimple, freckle, and gently worn rash lines.

These are the dogs of our incessant barking. Idling for sincerity, as actors swiftly press Winter into us while our limbless diction presents our inadequacy Rd upon our ugly and I'll-tempered neighborly-things. Aliens of the afternoon, first floor agony and karmas standard for living in a reduced climate One.

Wearing down the hooves, undulates from Pepperdine mark trails with breaking breads and twigs and bones. Undulates from another world, behoofed and bemoved, curdling their sappy reselling a of drat and unkindly remarks. And we have begun to wonder when evolution will kick-in. When will the military come for them at the doors and vacate is all from our nontoxic lie-shrouded apartment complexes, condos, and cabins. Slaughter numbers of letters and integers right out in the street; loonies in the town square and the moose are crying.

"Impulse is master",
said the learned man.
"It brings disaster
to a pondered plan."

But what about choice?
That's what I've been taught.
Trying speech, no voice
came, instead forethought

echoed through my head:
speak, and you'll be trapped!
I sat, mute as lead;
the man, smiling, clapped.

Prometheus
Meaning forethought
Champion of human intellect
eternally tormented

Civilization
fire and clay formations
Cultural Titan
Eternally tormented

Forethought
Ravens pluck out his eyes
Locked cage abided by time
Eternally tormented

Atlas
Endurance and strength
Holder of the skies
Eternally tormented

Endurance and strength
Skilled in math philosophy and astronomy
Hard enduring
Eternally tormented

Two
Eternally tormented

written in her voice...

When did sixteen
lose its sheen,
become so complicated?

when did the monsoon season
of transposition from girl to woman
begin, and when does it end?

when can I make my electrons
do their magic at my bidding,
like making my mum,
see me as I see myself?

don't know the answers,
don't know what made this girl think,
these equations had solutions

and when did sixteen,
become so complicated?

do I ask too much to make this straight,
I am one of just a billion teen girls
            with the same name,
knowing this doesn't help me
solve my mysteries unique, makes it somewhat worse,
how, was being sixteen,
young, but not never old enough
always a balloon misdirection, free floating, so confusing?

when I close my eyes
hear my private poetry ghost
insisting, listening to what I can't confess, even
to my diary, so I tell an
electronic stranger

(which is crazy, dangerous)

leaves me somehow relieved,
it seems impossible but he reads me,
even sees me, in my words
sees, and just, listens with every-word-attention

now he sees me as I want to be seen,
and I wonder, is he for real,
touchable, human skin and bone?

living in my skyscraper city,
I am surrounded,
pegged in a place where
sadly, where there is no dusk,
the lights too bright and 24 on,
and pressures of all kinds..make me
desire simple low lights,
that have quiet country lanes...with clears signs, known destinations

no more life exams please
especially, those that for me, were chose,
please, no goals parentally prescreened,
all, the nice and the mean,
let them meet me with pleasured randomness

so I can decide what seventeen will bring

my poem ghost sees me
far away, in other cities,
where my spirit
may have  lived once before,
in other bodies, other times,
where I heard the walls exclaim,
where once I prayed for sun
instead, brought thunderstorms,
monsoons of a different kind...
even with their knowledge past and forethought,
still I don't understand

when did sixteen,
lose its sheen, rain,
become so complicated?

algebra insufficient,
calculus trajectories,
don't intersect and
the future fortune tellers
seem to have better answers,
ones I like, they,
even tell me questions
didn't know to ask

what am I good at?

when will I be certain of
the difference tween love and  
sixteen emotional contusions that
bruise but don't scar?

when will my body speak,
informing me this trial of
the growing pain is over, done?

all these complications,
none that I chose,
do not patronize,
they are hard,
all I seek is the simplicity,
not the sympathy,
of knowing
when will
come the resolutions?

*when I turn seventeen?

Gumdrops in Candyland, teardrops in soup;
Tomato red, I spin my head;
And jump now through the hoop.

In the rain I walked, in the rain we kissed;
Paper hats, playful chats;
Forgetting what I missed.

Forethought for me, an afternoon with you;
Flick the light, to day from night,
More love, your love, I do.

Ill will indeed
to plot to plan
anothers end
would you please
think
of other things
not for me
but for you
unless it's just
for fun.

Love is a difficult thing to explain.
But then again, love can be difficult.
Love is choosing sushi over chow-mein.
Just because you know its their favorite.

It's the I'm sorry's when your not,
and the thank you's even when your mad.
It's the little presents you buy without forethought.
And the little love notes you discover.

It is the passionate love making,
and the fierce make up ***.
It's the "I think your beautiful"'s when your clearly aging.
It's also the connection and the reminiscing of stories you share.

All the roads are closed. Silence metastasizes through the stretch of EDSA. Cold seeps in bone. Sun still flagellates.
        Oscillate through sound space and whitewashed walls. Seismic grunt of jeepney awakens the signs: no avatars, yet. The night was as deep as any lover, a fine blistering moon glares through lit rivers.
   Nothing exists except heads of tacks and maimed populace ambulating across roads sequined with ermine light. The disquiet approximates   the lightness of
buildings in repair. Scaffolds, ubiquitous lovers,
    clouds explode into white, and everything else like pain, pales in comparison with the slow twitch of everything.
     Today there will be no siren nor
   simultaneous joust of cyclists in perpetual motion— just you contending
   against hues of all graffiti:
Cataract of anguish. News of killing.
    Incarnadine trees netted with aureoles burning bright in solstices. Penumbral undulation of
           forethought and afterthought.
   Dislimned – all; you, left
       in polaroid taken in solitary shutter,
    in pursuit of light.

I left the table feeling gross,
nauseous and swollen
and altogether overwhelmed.
My ring finger traced the curves
of my arms, twisted into the
light hairs running over like
infinite eddies of shallow streams.
The world reeled around me,
nightmarish carousels careening
through the dark,
spinning around and throughout
my head, my mind,
every single sentient thought.
Life had gotten too much
for me to handle, though,
suicide never quite worked.
Feet dragged across the ground,
rubbing the wooden surfaces
and creating friction,
creating heat.
I felt hot and
restrained there,
like too much of me-
far too much of me to hold in-
was cramped into that tiny corner.
I needed a way out,
an escape route
from the fire burning all around me,
carousel on fire and
carnival flaming
to the ground.
There was no panic in
the destruction, though
it lacked the methodical touch.
There was no reason to
panic or to worry about it
as all had come to go
as it pleased and had planned
without any great
forethought of my own.
I wanted to burn down my temple,
turn the offerings to ash
and destroy all my gods and idols
that I had collected.
I itched and scratched
at a sensation unable to be traced,
of a small hovering
caught within the air
trapped within the hairs
upon my goose prickled arms.
I took my pillars in my hands
and smashed them to the ground,
satisfied at the crumbled
limestone and pretense
that lay scattered around me.
"This is what I need,"
I told myself calmly,
"total destruction.
Revolution."
And so as I had
revolted myself at the table
my mind revolted against
my body as my soul
revolted against my mind,
making the itch to scratch
a greater prickling feeling
than before.
Needles, hot and heavy,
traced the outlines of my arms,
felt the ridged contours
of my spine.
There were eyes on me
as materiality caused my body
to revolt against my soul,
making me disgusted
and fat in my indulgence.
I was bloated and needed
to be punctured,
to release the pressure.
I felt stabs all across me,
causing screams to erupt
from my mouth in almost-pleasure
and surely pain.
Pricking against me
were knives and daggers
where needles had been.
I felt the pressure recede,
the great angry mass
of rotting fluids within
spilling out of the holes poked
within my body,
mind,
and soul.
They had broken through,
broken me down,
revealed the decomposed
and near-dead individual within.
Suicide hadn't worked
and neither had ignoring it.
"Total desctruction,"
I repeated,
"total destruction."
And so I jumped
on his back, clawing at his face,
his chest,
kicking his stomach
as he punched my top.
My finger bent
in a happy sort of violence,
and I was all too pleased
with my feigned surprise.
He fled, retreated
to his cave of
lonely, musky isolation
and delusional regret
as I ran,
up the stairs and past the curves,
flying into what
was once my bedroom
and grabbing for my coat,
the one without my last name.
Putting it on,
I walked slowly to
the back door,
unlocking it gingerly,
as though the key might ignite
into millions of different colored fireworks
at any second wasted.
I descended the steps
in the way a monarch does
in his last hours,
the way a priest might as he
watches his house-
no,
his whole religion
crash to his feet.
Calm.
Demure
with the knowledge that
this world was not meant
to support it this long.
And so
the spirits of frustration,
the roasted spine and
too-afraid shadow flew out of
the debris before me,
to be caught in the
forever kinking and
knotting curls upon my head,
an infinite mess of
paradoxical equations
to be fully examined
by no one but themselves.
These ghosts of myself
hastened my flight,
spirited me off
on a mad run down the street,
ring finger throbbing from the scars of war,
I soon discarded this itch as I had
the last one,
as my ring finger was meant to be ****,
unadorned and
free of any promises
that it knew it could never keep.
A car stopped and picked me up,
drove off to a familiar place
full of smoke and magic,
friends that felt
about as sick as I had.
We partook in the
mystic rituals, knowing
they meant very little,
anymore.
We drove around,
watching the steam before the headlights
dance in the dark like
overjoyed spirits making love.
The road seemed endless
as the lines rolled into
then out of view,
forever reeling in
infinite streams of shallow
yellow on black.
Finally, our priestess departed
and I was given a new place to sleep
and not made to sit at
a table like before.
My ring finger smiled in agreement
as we figured our new place
in a world without religion,
bodies,
minds,
or souls,
carousels to mock us,
or flames to ******.
No threat of anger and destruction
boiling over within myself
to erupt on everyone around.
Just
stark sheets,
clean walls,
the drumming
in my legs,
and the throbbing
freedom held within
my ring finger
as it traced the curves
of my arms.
I left consciousness feeling clean,
refreshed and renewed
and altogether reborn.

I don't remember when it started,
The need to baby sit the world.
It gets so tiring sometimes,
A tremendous burden to bear.

The constancy of forethought,
The conscientious words of harmony.
Seek it first to make it last.  
Maker of Peace wherever you go.

The leaves dance for the breeze,
birds hop and glide from tree to tree.
Cicadas throaty song and the crickets cracking chirps,
the vibrations sent into my ear
in a humming tornado swirl.
Life moves with ease, if you let it.

A memory recalled and the scene brought back
found in the sleek motion of a pouncing cat.
Shown to forethought, brought under the light
a recollection lost to the wind
lit in hollow tones of hazy purple.

Nuzzled between the layers in those forgotten days,
Life will pass with ease, if you let it.

Turn turn turn,
the globe on it's rotating limb it turns.
Light shines, line fades,
time aches but quickens its pace.

The flame it should burn the blurred heat
rises in mist all around,
I can't i can't i can't
feel the flame forming, lashing at my feet.

The shoreline night breeze sends my bones
shivering and knocking and aching,
can someone tell me why
the horizon will not stop shaking?

A look above,
breath found within the shining eye
of the crowded moon, behind a blooming star
their retreating dance in tempo with the lights
as they shake and dim.

Clear and vacant eyes,
Cleared out and left to rot
in the twisting tumbling weeds
of memories you thought you had forgot.

Mirrored thought full breach horizon
Yearning drawing bridging cry
Intimate complete attraction
Now the moment true imply
Cast aside mendacious forethought
Resolute round purpose fly
Epiphanic thought emerging
Doubts foul gibbous banish say ....
Insp’ration resolute within here
Bursting forth bright intellect
Loosing dogs full purpose forward
Encroaching far reach treaded path
Resolute’ness biting grasping
Endless boundless seeming lost
Blazing purposeful grasp grimly
Energise strong inner soul
Capa’bil’ity strong purpose
Clear thought con’quering foul
Abandon dissolute mist darkness
Intersperse directive steer
Levelling where once lay mountains
Onward pushing prancing laugh
Voices raised fair joyous chorus
Ethereal reaching hands entwine
Yearning warmth transcending distance
Over hill and Moorland track
Understand where strength in thought lay
Accomplishment find perfect peace

On tattered wing of memory
Came the pallid Ghosts of Autumn,
Those solemn gaunt's of Autumn
Swept swiftly in to chill the day,
Their faces long and glum
And coats long and gray.
Down to take the valleys Czardom
Claiming night and claiming day
Rode the gaunt, gray Ghosts of Autumn.

Those thrones were overtaken
From the sundered Summer Devils,
The lordly Devil's of Summer.
And we have not mistaken
We who live in the lands of Almer
Know the cost of war is taken
From father, son and daughter.
As we await the return of the forsaken
Crimson Devil's of Summer.

For soon will come the chilling
Ancient Kings of Winter
Those savage Kings of Winter
And no blood will thus be spilling
As our logs turns to cinder,
As the Kings will then be killing
For vanity and splendor,
The shades of Fall will they be conquering
Those ageless, Kings of winter.

And from the Gaunt's essence
Shall rise the Maids of Spring,
Evergreen and supple Maids of Spring.
To pass the Winter King's defense,
Sans iron and thunder, these lovely things
Will woo and exhaust their frozen senses
Then silence and ****** the Winter Kings.
And Almer lands will grant happy commends
To the glorious Maids of Spring.

Yet these are but forethought's;
Soft now approach the Ghosts of Autumn
Those mild, soulful and solemn
Beautiful wraith's of Autumn.
Soon Almer shall be sought
By Kings, Maid's, and the Devil's Ransom
Our hearts shall ever be owned, but ne'er bought
And we will pay our lords so handsome.
For now our land shall be rendered and wrought
By those gray gaunt Ghosts of Autumn.

The saddest day, it was yesterday.
Smoky sullen pushy congested lightless sky day.
Wrecked and weathered, gluey, obtuse and penned with
Melancholy and wanton desire. Wanting on and selling off

The Vampires and wretched thieves hibernating back in coach,
Seated in peacock-scoundrel dress. There's was the rudimentary
Yet pertinent foulness of childlike hatred, but they wore it under
Coarsely fitting suits to cover their hefty bags of ginormous fat.

Fatty ***** to scrutinize. Fatty ***** to wallow in the throes of
Dark fatty dementia.
Purses of alabaster filled with hemoglobin. Obfuscating zilch.
Scurvy on the arms, reptiles in their ears, and a million miles of
Stenchy, noisome, in glut. Wallowing, heavy and anti-professional.

Loff-less, un-catchy, unkempt, and in a clamor.
Boarish and obtrusive.
Gushy of anguish and the uncomfortable hide of rhino
Replaced for the swill excrement vetted porcine hocks of a
Kaleidoscope rich, aftermarket slug-pact for the bowels of
This century's egoes. Heavy on the cheeses, Cheetos, and Pathos.

In the hutch, a gaily brimming sunswept valley chimes
With the fruitful gaiety around the crowned Pantone TX1333 and Sienna heads that does keep. Homes are heavier, heaving the shrills.
Archaic muted cries of childhood, upsetted tummies serving at the Sighs of Lucifer. There are scoundrels here and in the underwear and in The water and under the water.

Frogs moo, chimney's weep, most other's Mother's have done true **** Jobs keeping their reared up to par with the others to avoid being Other'd. And our own language isn't being kept. It's undoing itself atop The bridges of mouths and the ridges of jawlines, and they have faded Swiftly, and no surrogate or custodial colloquialism has lived up to the Shadows and forethought of our greatest grandparents. And what has Your Jesus brought you except uncertainty, foul-play, and foul players And despondent and boarish chicas.

So now there you have this: brevity.
Another soft-tipped dactylic hand for undertaking.
By the end of days there will be the licking of butts,
Poor movies with Salma Hayek, and the lot of children's books
No children, not even these triplets will remember their fine names:

Tee, Bee, and Cee.
Crocus and sourdough lilies
Brimming over the nostril opera's of
These adopted gospels.
Only the ramparts of our literary apartheid and totally ******
Sexualness in kids and dults of all ages.

Bass rattles the roofing of the warehouse
Tonight we are truly alive
The alcohol and synthetic drugs course through our blood
Three people stuffed in a cubicle
Snorting lines of coke and adderall from the screen of a smartphone
A truly modern menagerie
The image of a woman confined to my mind
Searching desperately though eternal chasms
Tunnel vision and weary eyes
I don't know when the nights end
or begin
It's a psychosis that developed within me many years previous
The product of a generation with no forethought
Each pill popped was one less worry of the future
Synapses destroyed with such nonchalance
Enjoy the looming sadness

We, doomed to repeat
You, doomed to relive

Each shot to the arm takes it's toll
The toll may not be obvious now but in your twilight...
The wrinkles shall show and the scars continue to glow,
punctures in your flesh allow me to know.

I saw your mind decay before my eyes
Your body emaciated, your legs so fragile
I wish you hadn't experienced life to such a degree
I wish you had stopped me.

But alas, I stand here with my company
Another line
Another
One more
Level the score
One more pill and another tab
One more drag before I pass it back

To replicate my Mother and my father.