High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,
His proud imaginations thus displayed:—
  “Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven!—
For, since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigour, though oppressed and fallen,
I give not Heaven for lost: from this descent
Celestial Virtues rising will appear
More glorious and more dread than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate!—
Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven,
Did first create your leader—next, free choice
With what besides in council or in fight
Hath been achieved of merit—yet this loss,
Thus far at least recovered, hath much more
Established in a safe, unenvied throne,
Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer’s aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell
Precedence; none whose portion is so small
Of present pain that with ambitious mind
Will covet more! With this advantage, then,
To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in Heaven, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,
Surer to prosper than prosperity
Could have assured us; and by what best way,
Whether of open war or covert guile,
We now debate. Who can advise may speak.”
  He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,
Stood up—the strongest and the fiercest Spirit
That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.
His trust was with th’ Eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,
He recked not, and these words thereafter spake:—
  “My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not: them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need; not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest—
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend—sit lingering here,
Heaven’s fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his ryranny who reigns
By our delay? No! let us rather choose,
Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once
O’er Heaven’s high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the Torturer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear
Infernal thunder, and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his Angels, and his throne itself
Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps
The way seems difficult, and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe!
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our porper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? Th’ ascent is easy, then;
Th’ event is feared! Should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction, if there be in Hell
Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned
In this abhorred deep to utter woe!
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,
We should be quite abolished, and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential—happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being!—
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.”
  He ended frowning, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods. On th’ other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane.
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed
For dignity composed, and high exploit.
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low—
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began:—
  “I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope
Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.
First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable: oft on the bodering Deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,
Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest insurrection to confound
Heaven’s purest light, yet our great Enemy,
All incorruptible, would on his throne
Sit unpolluted, and th’ ethereal mould,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate
Th’ Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;
And that must end us; that must be our cure—
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can
Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger whom his anger saves
To punish endless? ‘Wherefore cease we, then?’
Say they who counsel war; ‘we are decreed,
Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse?’ Is this, then, worst—
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With Heaven’s afflicting thunder, and besought
The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames; or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? What if all
Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Or racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.
War, therefore, open or concealed, alike
My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile
With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye
Views all things at one view? He from Heaven’s height
All these our motions vain sees and derides,
Not more almighty to resist our might
Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.
Shall we, then, live thus vile—the race of Heaven
Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here
Chains and these torments? Better these than worse,
By my advice; since fate inevitable
Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
The Victor’s will. To suffer, as to do,
Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust
That so ordains. This was at first resolved,
If we were wise, against so great a foe
Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.
I laugh when those who at the spear are bold
And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear
What yet they know must follow—to endure
Exile, or igominy, or bonds, or pain,
The sentence of their Conqueror. This is now
Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit
His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,
Not mind us not offending, satisfied
With what is punished; whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.
Our purer essence then will overcome
Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;
Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed
In temper and in nature, will receive
Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain,
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight
Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting—since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.”
  Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason’s garb,
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,
Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake:—
  “Either to disenthrone the King of Heaven
We war, if war be best, or to regain
Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then
May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
The former, vain to hope, argues as vain
The latter; for what place can be for us
Within Heaven’s bound, unless Heaven’s Lord supreme
We overpower? Suppose he should relent
And publish grace to all, on promise made
Of new subjection; with what eyes could we
Stand in his presence humble, and receive
Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne
With warbled hyms, and to his Godhead sing
Forced hallelujahs, while he lordly sits
Our envied sovereign, and his altar breathes
Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers,
Our servile offerings? This must be our task
In Heaven, this our delight. How wearisome
Eternity so spent in worship paid
To whom we hate! Let us not then pursue,
By force impossible, by leave obtained
Unacceptable, though in Heaven, our state
Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek
Our own good from ourselves, and from our own
Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess,
Free and to none accountable, preferring
Hard liberty before the easy yoke
Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear
Then most conspicuous when great things of small,
Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse,
We can create, and in what place soe’er
Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain
Through labour and endurance. This deep world
Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst
Thick clouds and dark doth Heaven’s all-ruling Sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,
And with the majesty of darkness round
Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar.
Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell!
As he our darkness, cannot we his light
Imitate when we please? This desert soil
Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;
Nor want we skill or art from whence to raise
Magnificence; and what can Heaven show more?
Our torments also may, in length of time,
Become our elements, these piercing fires
As soft as now severe, our temper changed
Into their temper; which must needs remove
The sensible of pain. All things invite
To peaceful counsels, and the settled state
Of order, how in safety best we may
Compose our present evils, with regard
Of what we are and where, dismissing quite
All thoughts of war. Ye have what I advise.”
  He scarce had finished, when such murmur filled
Th’ assembly as when hollow rocks retain
The sound of blustering winds, which all night long
Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull
Seafaring men o’erwatched, whose bark by chance
Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay
After the tempest. Such applause was heard
As Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased,
Advising peace: for such another field
They dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fear
Of thunder and the sword of Michael
Wrought still within them; and no less desire
To found this nether empire, which might rise,
By policy and long process of time,
In emulation opposite to Heaven.
Which when Beelzebub perceived—than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat—with grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer’s noontide air, while thus he spake:—
  “Thrones and Imperial Powers, Offspring of Heaven,
Ethereal Virtues! or these titles now
Must we renounce, and, changing style, be called
Princes of Hell? for so the popular vote
Inclines—here to continue, and build up here
A growing empire; doubtless! while we dream,
And know not that the King of Heaven hath doomed
This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat
Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt
From Heaven’s high jurisdiction, in new league
Banded against his throne, but to remain
In strictest *******, though thus far removed,
Under th’ inevitable curb, reserved
His captive multitude. For he, to be sure,
In height or depth, still first and last will reign
Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part
By our revolt, but over Hell extend
His empire, and with iron sceptre rule
Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven.
What sit we then projecting peace and war?
War hath determined us and foiled with loss
Irreparable; terms of peace yet none
Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given
To us enslaved, but custody severe,
And stripes and arbitrary punishment
Inflicted? and what peace can we return,
But, to our power, hostility and hate,
Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow,
Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least
May reap his conquest, and may least rejoice
In doing what we most in suffering feel?
Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need
With dangerous expedition to invade
Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege,
Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find
Some easier enterprise? There is a place
(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven
Err not)—another World, the happy seat
Of some new race, called Man, about this time
To be created like to us, though less
In power and excellence, but favoured more
Of him who rules above; so was his will
Pronounced among the Gods, and by an oath
That shook Heaven’s whole circumference confirmed.
Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learn
What creatures there inhabit, of what mould
Or substance, how endued, and what their power
And where their weakness: how attempted best,
By force of subtlety. Though Heaven be shut,
And Heaven’s high Arbitrator sit secure
In his own strength, this place may lie exposed,
The utmost border of his kingdom, left
To their defence who hold it: here, perhaps,
Some advantageous act may be achieved
By sudden onset—either with Hell-fire
To waste his whole creation, or possess
All as our own, and drive, as we were driven,
The puny habitants; or, if not drive,
****** them to our party, that their God
May prove their foe, and with repenting hand
Abolish his own works. This would surpass
Common revenge, and interrupt his joy
In our confusion, and our joy upraise
In his disturbance; when his darling sons,
Hurled headlong to partake with us, shall curse
Their frail original, and faded bliss—
Faded so soon! Advise if this be worth
Attempting, or to sit in darkness here
Hatching vain empires.” Thus beelzebub
Pleaded his devilish counsel—first devised
By Satan, and in part proposed: for whence,
But

Well, as you say, we live for small horizons:
We move in crowds, we flow and talk together,
Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces,
So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,--
Yet know so little of them; only seeing
The small bright circle of our consciousness,
Beyond which lies the dark.  Some few we know--
Or think we know. . .  Once, on a sun-bright morning,
I walked in a certain hallway, trying to find
A certain door: I found one, tried it, opened,
And there in a spacious chamber, brightly lighted,
A hundred men played music, loudly, swiftly,
While one tall woman sent her voice above them
In powerful sweetness. . . Closing then the door
I heard it die behind me, fade to whisper,--
And walked in a quiet hallway as before.
Just such a glimpse, as through that opened door,
Is all we know of those we call our friends. . . .
We hear a sudden music, see a playing
Of ordered thoughts--and all again is silence.
The music, we suppose, (as in ourselves)
Goes on forever there, behind shut doors,--
As it continues after our departure,
So, we divine, it played before we came . . .
What do you know of me, or I of you? . . .
Little enough. . . We set these doors ajar
Only for chosen movements of the music:
This passage, (so I think--yet this is guesswork)
Will please him,--it is in a strain he fancies,--
More brilliant, though, than his; and while he likes it
He will be piqued . . . He looks at me bewildered
And thinks (to judge from self--this too is guesswork)

The music strangely subtle, deep in meaning,
Perplexed with implications; he suspects me
Of hidden riches, unexpected wisdom. . . .
Or else I let him hear a lyric passage,--
Simple and clear; and all the while he listens
I make pretence to think my doors are closed.
This too bewilders him.  He eyes me sidelong
Wondering 'Is he such a fool as this?
Or only mocking?'--There I let it end. . . .
Sometimes, of course, and when we least suspect it--
When we pursue our thoughts with too much passion,
Talking with too great zeal--our doors fly open
Without intention; and the hungry watcher
Stares at the feast, carries away our secrets,
And laughs. . . but this, for many counts, is seldom.
And for the most part we vouchsafe our friends,
Our lovers too, only such few clear notes
As we shall deem them likely to admire:
'Praise me for this' we say, or 'laugh at this,'
Or 'marvel at my candor'. . . all the while
Withholding what's most precious to ourselves,--
Some sinister depth of lust or fear or hatred,
The sombre note that gives the chord its power;
Or a white loveliness--if such we know--
Too much like fire to speak of without shame.

Well, this being so, and we who know it being
So curious about those well-locked houses,
The minds of those we know,--to enter softly,
And steal from floor to floor up shadowy stairways,
From room to quiet room, from wall to wall,
Breathing deliberately the very air,
Pressing our hands and nerves against warm darkness
To learn what ghosts are there,--
Suppose for once I set my doors wide open
And bid you in. . . Suppose I try to tell you
The secrets of this house, and how I live here;
Suppose I tell you who I am, in fact. . . .
Deceiving you--as far as I may know it--
Only so much as I deceive myself.

If you are clever you already see me
As one who moves forever in a cloud
Of warm bright vanity: a luminous cloud
Which falls on all things with a quivering magic,
Changing such outlines as a light may change,
Brightening what lies dark to me, concealing
Those things that will not change . . . I walk sustained
In a world of things that flatter me: a sky
Just as I would have had it; trees and grass
Just as I would have shaped and colored them;
Pigeons and clouds and sun and whirling shadows,
And stars that brightening climb through mist at nightfall,--
In some deep way I am aware these praise me:
Where they are beautiful, or hint of beauty,
They point, somehow, to me. . . This water says,--
Shimmering at the sky, or undulating
In broken gleaming parodies of clouds,
Rippled in blue, or sending from cool depths
To meet the falling leaf the leaf's clear image,--
This water says, there is some secret in you
Akin to my clear beauty, silently responsive
To all that circles you.  This bare tree says,--
Austere and stark and leafless, split with frost,
Resonant in the wind, with rigid branches
Flung out against the sky,--this tall tree says,
There is some cold austerity in you,
A frozen strength, with long roots gnarled on rocks,
Fertile and deep; you bide your time, are patient,
Serene in silence, bare to outward seeming,
Concealing what reserves of power and beauty!
What teeming Aprils!--chorus of leaves on leaves!
These houses say, such walls in walls as ours,
Such streets of walls, solid and smooth of surface,
Such hills and cities of walls, walls upon walls;
Motionless in the sun, or dark with rain;
Walls pierced with windows, where the light may enter;
Walls windowless where darkness is desired;
Towers and labyrinths and domes and chambers,--
Amazing deep recesses, dark on dark,--
All these are like the walls which shape your spirit:
You move, are warm, within them, laugh within them,
Proud of their depth and strength; or sally from them,
When you are bold, to blow great horns at the world
This deep cool room, with shadowed walls and ceiling,
Tranquil and cloistral, fragrant of my mind,
This cool room says,--just such a room have you,
It waits you always at the tops of stairways,
Withdrawn, remote, familiar to your uses,
Where you may cease pretence and be yourself. . . .
And this embroidery, hanging on this wall,
Hung there forever,--these so soundless glidings
Of dragons golden-scaled, sheer birds of azure,
Coilings of leaves in pale vermilion, griffins
Drawing their rainbow wings through involutions
Of mauve chrysanthemums and lotus flowers,--
This goblin wood where someone cries enchantment,--
This says, just such an involuted beauty
Of thought and coiling thought, dream linked with dream,
Image to image gliding, wreathing fires,
Soundlessly cries enchantment in your mind:
You need but sit and close your eyes a moment
To see these deep designs unfold themselves.

And so, all things discern me, name me, praise me--
I walk in a world of silent voices, praising;
And in this world you see me like a wraith
Blown softly here and there, on silent winds.
'Praise me'--I say; and look, not in a glass,
But in your eyes, to see my image there--
Or in your mind; you smile, I am contented;
You look at me, with interest unfeigned,
And listen--I am pleased; or else, alone,
I watch thin bubbles veering brightly upward
From unknown depths,--my silver thoughts ascending;
Saying now this, now that, hinting of all things,--
Dreams, and desires, velleities, regrets,
Faint ghosts of memory, strange recognitions,--
But all with one deep meaning: this is I,
This is the glistening secret holy I,
This silver-winged wonder, insubstantial,
This singing ghost. . . And hearing, I am warmed.

     *     *     *     *     *

You see me moving, then, as one who moves
Forever at the centre of his circle:
A circle filled with light.  And into it
Come bulging shapes from darkness, loom gigantic,
Or huddle in dark again. . . A clock ticks clearly,
A gas-jet steadily whirs, light streams across me;
Two church bells, with alternate beat, strike nine;
And through these things my pencil pushes softly
To weave grey webs of lines on this clear page.
Snow falls and melts; the eaves make liquid music;
Black wheel-tracks line the snow-touched street; I turn
And look one instant at the half-dark gardens,
Where skeleton elm-trees reach with frozen gesture
Above unsteady lamps,--with black boughs flung
Against a luminous snow-filled grey-gold sky.
'Beauty!' I cry. . . My feet move on, and take me
Between dark walls, with orange squares for windows.
Beauty; beheld like someone half-forgotten,
Remembered, with slow pang, as one neglected . . .
Well, I am frustrate; life has beaten me,
The thing I strongly seized has turned to darkness,
And darkness rides my heart. . . These skeleton elm-trees--
Leaning against that grey-gold snow filled sky--
Beauty! they say, and at the edge of darkness
Extend vain arms in a frozen gesture of protest . . .
A clock ticks softly; a gas-jet steadily whirs:
The pencil meets its shadow upon clear paper,
Voices are raised, a door is slammed.  The lovers,
Murmuring in an adjacent room, grow silent,
The eaves make liquid music. . . Hours have passed,
And nothing changes, and everything is changed.
Exultation is dead, Beauty is harlot,--
And walks the streets.  The thing I strongly seized
Has turned to darkness, and darkness rides my heart.

If you could solve this darkness you would have me.
This causeless melancholy that comes with rain,
Or on such days as this when large wet snowflakes
Drop heavily, with rain . . . whence rises this?
Well, so-and-so, this morning when I saw him,
Seemed much preoccupied, and would not smile;
And you, I saw too much; and you, too little;
And the word I chose for you, the golden word,
The word that should have struck so deep in purpose,
And set so many doors of wish wide open,
You let it fall, and would not stoop for it,
And smiled at me, and would not let me guess
Whether you saw it fall. . . These things, together,
With other things, still slighter, wove to music,
And this in time drew up dark memories;
And there I stand.  This music breaks and bleeds me,
Turning all frustrate dreams to chords and discords,
Faces and griefs, and words, and sunlit evenings,
And chains self-forged that will not break nor lengthen,
And cries that none can answer, few will hear.
Have these things meaning?  Or would you see more clearly
If I should say 'My second wife grows tedious,
Or, like gay tulip, keeps no perfumed secret'?

Or 'one day dies eventless as another,
Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied,
And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'?
Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous,
And beauty shines in vain'?--

                                These things you ask for,
These you shall have. . . So, talking with my first wife,
At the dark end of evening, when she leaned
And smiled at me, with blue eyes weaving webs
Of finest fire, revolving me in scarlet,--
Calling to mind remote and small successions
Of countless other evenings ending so,--
I smiled, and met her kiss, and wished her dead;
Dead of a sudden sickness, or by my hands
Savagely killed; I saw her in her coffin,
I saw her coffin borne downstairs with trouble,
I saw myself alone there, palely watching,
Wearing a masque of grief so deeply acted
That grief itself possessed me.  Time would pass,
And I should meet this girl,--my second wife--
And drop the masque of grief for one of passion.
Forward we move to meet, half hesitating,
We drown in each others' eyes, we laugh, we talk,
Looking now here, now there, faintly pretending
We do not hear the powerful pulsing prelude
Roaring beneath our words . . . The time approaches.
We lean unbalanced.  The mute last glance between us,
Profoundly searching, opening, asking, yielding,
Is steadily met: our two lives draw together . . .
. . . .'What are you thinking of?'. . . My first wife's voice
Scattered these ghosts.  'Oh nothing--nothing much--
Just wondering where we'd be two years from now,
And what we might be doing . . . ' And then remorse
Turned sharply in my mind to sudden pity,
And pity to echoed love.  And one more evening
Drew to the usual end of sleep and silence.

And, as it is with this, so too with all things.
The pages of our lives are blurred palimpsest:
New lines are wreathed on old lines half-erased,
And those on older still; and so forever.
The old shines through the new, and colors it.
What's new?  What's old?  All things have double meanings,--
All things return.  I write a line with passion
(Or touch a woman's hand, or plumb a doctrine)
Only to find the same thing, done before,--
Only to know the same thing comes to-morrow. . . .
This curious riddled dream I dreamed last night,--
Six years ago I dreamed it just as now;
The same man stooped to me; we rose from darkness,
And broke the accustomed order of our days,
And struck for the morning world, and warmth, and freedom. . . .
What does it mean?  Why is this hint repeated?
What darkness does it spring from, seek to end?

You see me, then, pass up and down these stairways,
Now through a beam of light, and now through shadow,--
Pursuing silent ends.  No rest there is,--
No more for me than you.  I move here always,
From quiet room to room, from wall to wall,
Searching and plotting, weaving a web of days.
This is my house, and now, perhaps, you know me. . .
Yet I confess, for all my best intentions,
Once more I have deceived you. . . I withhold
The one thing precious, the one dark thing that guides me;
And I have spread two snares for you, of lies.

Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn
From his displeasure; in whose look serene,
When angry most he seemed and most severe,
What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone?
So spake our father penitent; nor Eve
Felt less remorse: they, forthwith to the place
Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell
Before him reverent; and both confessed
Humbly their faults, and pardon begged; with tears
Watering the ground, and with their sighs the air
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek.
Thus they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood
Praying; for from the mercy-seat above
Prevenient grace descending had removed
The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh
Regenerate grow instead; that sighs now breathed
Unutterable; which the Spirit of prayer
Inspired, and winged for Heaven with speedier flight
Than loudest oratory:  Yet their port
Not of mean suitors; nor important less
Seemed their petition, than when the ancient pair
In fables old, less ancient yet than these,
Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha, to restore
The race of mankind drowned, before the shrine
Of Themis stood devout.  To Heaven their prayers
Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate: in they passed
Dimensionless through heavenly doors; then clad
With incense, where the golden altar fumed,
By their great intercessour, came in sight
Before the Father’s throne: them the glad Son
Presenting, thus to intercede began.
See$ Father, what first-fruits on earth are sprung
From thy implanted grace in Man; these sighs
And prayers, which in this golden censer mixed
With incense, I thy priest before thee bring;
Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed
Sown with contrition in his heart, than those
Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees
Of Paradise could have produced, ere fallen
From innocence.  Now therefore, bend thine ear
To supplication; hear his sighs, though mute;
Unskilful with what words to pray, let me
Interpret for him; me, his advocate
And propitiation; all his works on me,
Good, or not good, ingraft; my merit those
Shall perfect, and for these my death shall pay.
Accept me; and, in me, from these receive
The smell of peace toward mankind: let him live
Before thee reconciled, at least his days
Numbered, though sad; till death, his doom, (which I
To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse,)
To better life shall yield him: where with me
All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss;
Made one with me, as I with thee am one.
To whom the Father, without cloud, serene.
All thy request for Man, accepted Son,
Obtain; all thy request was my decree:
But, longer in that Paradise to dwell,
The law I gave to Nature him forbids:
Those pure immortal elements, that know,
No gross, no unharmonious mixture foul,
Eject him, tainted now; and purge him off,
As a distemper, gross, to air as gross,
And mortal food; as may dispose him best
For dissolution wrought by sin, that first
Distempered all things, and of incorrupt
Corrupted.  I, at first, with two fair gifts
Created him endowed; with happiness,
And immortality: that fondly lost,
This other served but to eternize woe;
Till I provided death: so death becomes
His final remedy; and, after life,
Tried in sharp tribulation, and refined
By faith and faithful works, to second life,
Waked in the renovation of the just,
Resigns him up with Heaven and Earth renewed.
But let us call to synod all the Blest,
Through Heaven’s wide bounds: from them I will not hide
My judgements; how with mankind I proceed,
As how with peccant Angels late they saw,
And in their state, though firm, stood more confirmed.
He ended, and the Son gave signal high
To the bright minister that watched; he blew
His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps
When God descended, and perhaps once more
To sound at general doom.  The angelick blast
Filled all the regions: from their blisful bowers
Of amarantine shade, fountain or spring,
By the waters of life, where’er they sat
In fellowships of joy, the sons of light
Hasted, resorting to the summons high;
And took their seats; till from his throne supreme
The Almighty thus pronounced his sovran will.
O Sons, like one of us Man is become
To know both good and evil, since his taste
Of that defended fruit; but let him boast
His knowledge of good lost, and evil got;
Happier! had it sufficed him to have known
Good by itself, and evil not at all.
He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite,
My motions in him; longer than they move,
His heart I know, how variable and vain,
Self-left.  Lest therefore his now bolder hand
Reach also of the tree of life, and eat,
And live for ever, dream at least to live
For ever, to remove him I decree,
And send him from the garden forth to till
The ground whence he was taken, fitter soil.
Michael, this my behest have thou in charge;
Take to thee from among the Cherubim
Thy choice of flaming warriours, lest the Fiend,
Or in behalf of Man, or to invade
Vacant possession, some new trouble raise:
Haste thee, and from the Paradise of God
Without remorse drive out the sinful pair;
From hallowed ground the unholy; and denounce
To them, and to their progeny, from thence
Perpetual banishment.  Yet, lest they faint
At the sad sentence rigorously urged,
(For I behold them softened, and with tears
Bewailing their excess,) all terrour hide.
If patiently thy bidding they obey,
Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveal
To Adam what shall come in future days,
As I shall thee enlighten; intermix
My covenant in the Woman’s seed renewed;
So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace:
And on the east side of the garden place,
Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbs,
Cherubick watch; and of a sword the flame
Wide-waving; all approach far off to fright,
And guard all passage to the tree of life:
Lest Paradise a receptacle prove
To Spirits foul, and all my trees their prey;
With whose stolen fruit Man once more to delude.
He ceased; and the arch-angelick Power prepared
For swift descent; with him the cohort bright
Of watchful Cherubim: four faces each
Had, like a double Janus; all their shape
Spangled with eyes more numerous than those
Of Argus, and more wakeful than to drouse,
Charmed with Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed
Of Hermes, or his ****** rod.  Mean while,
To re-salute the world with sacred light,
Leucothea waked; and with fresh dews imbalmed
The earth; when Adam and first matron Eve
Had ended now their orisons, and found
Strength added from above; new hope to spring
Out of despair; joy, but with fear yet linked;
Which thus to Eve his welcome words renewed.
Eve, easily my faith admit, that all
The good which we enjoy from Heaven descends;
But, that from us aught should ascend to Heaven
So prevalent as to concern the mind
Of God high-blest, or to incline his will,
Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer
Or one short sigh of human breath, upborne
Even to the seat of God.  For since I sought
By prayer the offended Deity to appease;
Kneeled, and before him humbled all my heart;
Methought I saw him placable and mild,
Bending his ear; persuasion in me grew
That I was heard with favour; peace returned
Home to my breast, and to my memory
His promise, that thy seed shall bruise our foe;
Which, then not minded in dismay, yet now
Assures me that the bitterness of death
Is past, and we shall live.  Whence hail to thee,
Eve rightly called, mother of all mankind,
Mother of all things living, since by thee
Man is to live; and all things live for Man.
To whom thus Eve with sad demeanour meek.
Ill-worthy I such title should belong
To me transgressour; who, for thee ordained
A help, became thy snare; to me reproach
Rather belongs, distrust, and all dispraise:
But infinite in pardon was my Judge,
That I, who first brought death on all, am graced
The source of life; next favourable thou,
Who highly thus to entitle me vouchsaf’st,
Far other name deserving.  But the field
To labour calls us, now with sweat imposed,
Though after sleepless night; for see!the morn,
All unconcerned with our unrest, begins
Her rosy progress smiling: let us forth;
I never from thy side henceforth to stray,
Where’er our day’s work lies, though now enjoined
Laborious, till day droop; while here we dwell,
What can be toilsome in these pleasant walks?
Here let us live, though in fallen state, content.
So spake, so wished much humbled Eve; but Fate
Subscribed not:  Nature first gave signs, impressed
On bird, beast, air; air suddenly eclipsed,
After short blush of morn; nigh in her sight
The bird of Jove, stooped from his aery tour,
Two birds of gayest plume before him drove;
Down from a hill the beast that reigns in woods,
First hunter then, pursued a gentle brace,
Goodliest of all the forest, hart and hind;
Direct to the eastern gate was bent their flight.
Adam observed, and with his eye the chase
Pursuing, not unmoved, to Eve thus spake.
O Eve, some further change awaits us nigh,
Which Heaven, by these mute signs in Nature, shows
Forerunners of his purpose; or to warn
Us, haply too secure, of our discharge
From penalty, because from death released
Some days: how long, and what till then our life,
Who knows? or more than this, that we are dust,
And thither must return, and be no more?
Why else this double object in our sight
Of flight pursued in the air, and o’er the ground,
One way the self-same hour? why in the east
Darkness ere day’s mid-course, and morning-light
More orient in yon western cloud, that draws
O’er the blue firmament a radiant white,
And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?
He erred not; for by this the heavenly bands
Down from a sky of jasper lighted now
In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;
A glorious apparition, had not doubt
And carnal fear that day dimmed Adam’s eye.
Not that more glorious, when the Angels met
Jacob in Mahanaim, where he saw
The field pavilioned with his guardians bright;
Nor that, which on the flaming mount appeared
In Dothan, covered with a camp of fire,
Against the Syrian king, who to surprise
One man, assassin-like, had levied war,
War unproclaimed.  The princely Hierarch
In their bright stand there left his Powers, to seise
Possession of the garden; he alone,
To find where Adam sheltered, took his way,
Not unperceived of Adam; who to Eve,
While the great visitant approached, thus spake.
Eve$ now expect great tidings, which perhaps
Of us will soon determine, or impose
New laws to be observed; for I descry,
From yonder blazing cloud that veils the hill,
One of the heavenly host; and, by his gait,
None of the meanest; some great Potentate
Or of the Thrones above; such majesty
Invests him coming! yet not terrible,
That I should fear; nor sociably mild,
As Raphael, that I should much confide;
But solemn and sublime; whom not to offend,
With reverence I must meet, and thou retire.
He ended: and the Arch-Angel soon drew nigh,
Not in his shape celestial, but as man
Clad to meet man; over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flowed,
Livelier than Meliboean, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old
In time of truce; Iris had dipt the woof;
His starry helm unbuckled showed him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his side,
As in a glistering zodiack, hung the sword,
Satan’s dire dread; and in his hand the spear.
Adam bowed low; he, kingly, from his state
Inclined not, but his coming thus declared.
Adam, Heaven’s high behest no preface needs:
Sufficient that thy prayers are heard; and Death,
Then due by sentence when thou didst transgress,
Defeated of his seisure many days
Given thee of grace; wherein thou mayest repent,
And one bad act with many deeds well done
Mayest cover:  Well may then thy Lord, appeased,
Redeem thee quite from Death’s rapacious claim;
But longer in this Paradise to dwell
Permits not: to remove thee I am come,
And send thee from the garden forth to till
The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil.
He added not; for Adam at the news
Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discovered soon the place of her retire.
O unexpected stroke, worse than of Death!
Must I thus leave thee$ Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both.  O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
;t even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet! from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world; to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?
Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild.
Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign
What justly thou hast lost, nor set thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine:
Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes
Thy husband; whom to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.
Adam, by this from the cold sudden damp
Recovering, and his scattered spirits returned,
To Michael thus his humble words addressed.
Celestial, whether among the Thrones, or named
Of them the highest; for such of shape may seem
Prince above princes! gently hast thou told
Thy message, which might else in telling wound,
And in performing end us; what besides
Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair,
Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring,
Departure from this happy place, our sweet
Recess, and only consolation left
Familiar to our eyes! all places else
Inhospitable appear, and desolate;
Nor knowing us, nor known:  And, if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries:
But prayer against his absolute decree
No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth:
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
This most afflicts me, that, departing hence,
As from his face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed countenance:  Here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he vouchsafed
Presence Divine; and to my sons relate,
‘On this mount he appeared; under this tree
‘Stood visible; among these pines his voice
‘I heard; here with him at this fountain talked:
So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory,
Or monument to ages; and theron
Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers:
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or foot-step trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recalled
To life prolonged and promised race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory; and far off his steps adore.
To whom thus Michael with regard benign.
Adam, thou knowest Heaven his, and all the Earth;
Not this rock only; his Omnipresence fills
Land, sea, and air, and every kind that lives,
Fomented by his virtual power and warmed:
All the earth he gave thee to possess and rule,
No despicable gift; surmise not then
His presence to these narrow bounds confined
Of Paradise, or Eden: this had been
Perhaps thy capital seat, from whence had spread
All generations; and had hither come
From all the ends of the earth, to celebrate
And reverence thee, their great progenitor.
But this pre-eminence thou hast lost, brought down
To dwell on even ground now with thy sons:
Yet doubt not but in valley, and in plain,
God is, as here; and will be found alike
Present; and of his presence many a sign
Still following thee, still compassing thee round
With goodness and paternal love, his face
Express, and of his steps the track divine.
Which that thou mayest believe, and be confirmed
Ere t

The inner force
1- Believe
He couldn't believe that
He could imagine in fact
That can be the weakest
Convert to be the strongest
The kind waves that carry ships
Can be overlapped and damaged them
The fire that warm people
Can harm and hurt them
The boy lost his mother
His father was confused
He tried to heal his son from bad temper
His son cried a lot
And stayed alone at his room
His father asked many doctors
He went to a lot of physiologists
They advised to get new friend
For good luck, the boy found a small cat
They would be friends for all times
His father suddenly married one
He introduced her as she was kind
As she had two children
Son and daughter that would be fun
He refused that marriage
He insisted at his opinion
The woman appeared as she was kind
She dealt him as an angel
But he refused that deal
The kind can look at inner
Heart or self at inner
The father had wild desire
He married and got her in
After while she brought her kinder
She dealt him with her best
At the beginning, at the first
After that,
She appeared her solid heart
And began to hurt him for reason or not
She got very anger
When he studied and her children not
She hurt him
He had to wash the dishes
Before he went to school
After his return he must sweep
As well as clean the flat  
When he complained to his father
She lied on him and got him as a guilt
He was punished by his father
He remarked that when he complained
She wore naked dress
And mothered his father in obvious
Then they closed their room
After that he would be punished
He always ate at the kitchen
He ate the residual and bad food
He slept also at it
While her children ate well
Slept at their beds
Dressed well and did their home works
Without any annoy or disturb
His father lived in another planet
When he saw his son's hair cut in bad way
His step mother punished him by this way
His father didn't ask
What was happened at any way?

2 the cat
Once, when she found him playing with the cat
She lifted her up
She warned him at loud
She threw it in strong
The cat screamed at aloud
The cat fell without movement
He cried and tried to get her
Safe
He found his step mother’s heart solid
He called her a devil
She became in anger
She went and lifted her
She threw her out of the window
They were at the third floor
The cat downed without movement
The boy screamed a lot
The neighbors didn't get help
As they knew that she was worst
And his father ordered them in rigid
Don't give advised
When she tried to get his son straight
She hurt him badly
He could move heavily
He stayed waking and crying
She approached and hurt him strongly
Ordering not to get any sound
As his father would be coming
He lied silent
Till the silent covered
Every inch of the land
He opened the flat's door
And put a shoe before it
Preventing it from closing
He descended quickly
But his movement was silently
He thought that she had devil’s spirit
With millions legs and hands
Like octopus which stretches legs
And catches his victim and eats
Those could watch him
So he was been feared
Of disappeared and hidden ghost
He carried the dead cat
As the thoughts he felt
He got up to the flat
He found its door closed
He knocked it softly
As fearing of getting her up
When he disappointed
To get the door opened
He fell down crying
He curved around himself
He crawled into land
He was crying and wishing
To get die at that moment
He lifted her face up
He prayed to his God
Asking him to get himself dead
As the cat was dead
He looked frustrate
His father dealt him badly
His step mother dealt as a slave
He couldn’t open his mouth
Or even tried to give a breath
Of opposite that would be assigned
Of not satisfying to her plan
He finally got up

3-The chickens’ home
He ascended the stairs
He reached the last floor
He opened the chicken room’s door
He slept hanging his cat
Covering with hens over his chest
Over all his members
So he tried to get warm
In spite of the cold
He got up according to pick up
The chickens’ beaks
At his lips and face
He laughed for a moment
When he saw the cat without move
He cried and lifted her at the hill of chaff
He ascended and knocked the door
Ordering the chickens not to touch her
After he cleaned his clothes as he could
From their stools
She opened the door and released a high sigh
His father came with astonishment
When he saw his son at that manner
He laughed and tried to hang him
Forgetting to ask him
Where he was
Forgetting to show him his pathos
The wife screamed and wandered,”
Oh! Bad one
In spite of hurting him
You laughed at him”
The father ran and returned
He caught a stick
He hurt him in strong
The neighbors looked
His step sister and brother watched
He got up with big sad
When he stole out
He ascended with inner sad
His horizon was collapsed and closed
He expected everything wrong
He expected his future lost
When he opened the chicken’s door
He laughed at loud
He found the cat in fight position
With chickens those attacked
He carried her and celebrated
He danced and jumped a lot
He forgot his hurt and pain
He kissed her a lot
Then he hid
At his bag
When he was out
Her step mother kissed his father
She also kissed her children
When they ascended
His father called at him
He tried to kiss his son
He screamed and said,”
You are not my father
I wish one of us was dead”
That was bad wish
That son wanted to be achieved
There was some fault
Man could be remarked
Or all would be lost
He cried and ran
His step brother and sister took the bus
While he went on foot
The father hesitated
Then he went to his work as he thought
He was late
The boy went to school in sad
4- School manager
When he was at classroom
He got the cat out
He put it in desk
Ordering not to make a sound
At every inch
There were haters or lovers
For anyone had alive
For his luck, his classmates saw her
Who hated him
They laughed at loud
They might bassps with remarked
The teacher ordered him to go the manager
The manger called his father
He was coming on the following day
The manager told the boy to let the cat
As it was not permitted
It would get great noisy
It would chatter the mind
It would decrease the concentrate
The father looked
He talked to his boy
You must obey
All you will be punished
The boy refused saying she is my soul
She is my only family
My sister, mother
The manager interrupted,”
And here is your father”
The boy looked and laughed
“my father was dead”
The boy interrupted
Then he bowed to the land
Crying and screaming
The teachers, workers some pupils
Entered
The sound was sufficient to get up the dead
He said at loud
He said in clearest and repeated
‘’my father was dead”
She interrupted,”
He is a live
He is kind “
He screamed,”
You are liar
All of you are liars
He didn’t pay any attention
To any harm occurred
The only thing he is clever at
Obeying her wife and follow her
As he is the small kid
Especially when she dressed
In naked”
The attendants loved
He completed,”
If this cat was hurt
If this cat didn’t bring the class with me,
You will not see me”
The cat had a mind
She looked as proud
Of that speech was telling
The manger let his father to take him
And tried to get him calm
Otherwise he will be in
Physic hospital”

5-The punishment
The boy returned with anger’s father
He told his wife
To get that boy in moderate
He told her everything
The father returned his work
As his wife advised
His father advised her to deal with kind
She said,” She will return his mind”
She looked at him
She said,’’ so, for this
You would sell all things
Father, lovely mother your brother
And sister
Your manager
Boy let that devil away”
He said with loud,” no!”
She said, “You will be devil
You will enter the hill
He wandered, “why?”
She said, “As you didn’t obey me
Let her go or you will not know
Her way”
He screamed,”no!”
This scream vibrated wall
This scream wake up deepest sleeping
She laughed and said,” Oh boy! You feared me!’’
She completed,” let her or”
She went towards her
She lifted her
And threw it at the floor
She stroke her head
At the solid floor
Trying her to dead
The boy could not stand
The boy could not stop
He pushed his step mother away
In spite of his will
In spite of his polite
But he wanted to save his love
She got up
She threw the cat at the floor
She downed without movement
She stood in front of him
She caught his clothes
Saying,” Oh! Hero!
You will see your deserve!”
She threw him towards the wall
His head was strongly hurt
He fell unconscious
She dragged him to the kitchen
She brought a sharp knife
She put a steel rod
Which was used in grill
She said,”Mrs.
Who begged, was my neighbor
Advised her to bring you
To work with her
But she wanted some decorate”
Occurring at your body
She completed,”
I will cut your *******
Then I will get your eye blind”
The cat was hardly nearest
For his good or bad luck
When she saw her
She laughed and said,”
Let’s begin with this mad”
She caught her and brought the knife
The moment between death and life
The moment between day and night
Equals blink
The boy’s mind was returned
The boy got up and hurried
He forgot his headache
He threw his step mother out
She laughed as mad
She said with loud laugh
The neighbors swore she was mad
As they heard her mad
Laugh
She prepared towards him
After putting the rod on furnace
To get it red and hot
She faced the boy
With sudden move
She downed him
She prepared the knife
To be ready to cut his hand
To look petty  
To get mercy
To get a lot of money
He screamed
He called
“You are the devil”
She laughed and said,”
Am i
I will take your eye!”
He screamed, he prayed,”
Oh! God help, help!
No power like you God!”
She laughed and said, “Where is he?
He could not save you
As there was nobody
Except me and you!”

6-The reward
She said, “Oh! Idea”
She threw the knife out
She got the hot rod out
Saying, “Well, I will let you
Blind
As I have mercy
I would not let you hurt
Watching your hand cutting”
She approached, approached
She caught the hot rod
She was confident
But suddenly something was up
Something was on her face
Something hurt her strong
She was the cat
She didn’t let her
Until the blood got out of her eyes
The cat moved towards the hot rod
Forgetting his hot
She hardly lifted it up
Hardly caught it
With her weak mouth
She became so strong
She put it at her tongue
Till it was burned
She couldn’t talk
She was dead after days
His father apologized to him
He didn’t tell his father
As he was not believed
The cat lived at home
As faith and strong one

I pulled down vicious KKK flyers,
listened to members amplify hate.
Their harmful words only frustrate,
hoping to cease their cruel desires.

Harassment at work occurred
hablas ingles? a lady replied.
I let the racist remark subside,
when I realized I was not heard.

Being bullied at school would soon follow.
A boy shout the Spanish slur at me,
write vile notes for all to see.
Slashed my tires with archery arrows.

I never thought that they would presume,
I was an illegal immigrant.
Their logic absent,
only based on looks they assume.

I once saw my Brother in a Mirror
Begged half-score on a Verse; Now it came True
And so it did with my Attitude falter
Neglected the Duty I had for you
This I wanted Gold. God was indeed Frustrate
For the Trailing Ignorance I commit
My "I" the Traitour; In me such self-hate
For Pop's Face-Memos I saw in Good Bid
I was wrong. If the Clock-Father can reverse
And mend my Riches to renourish you
The Ethyl on your Hair; The Lamp on your Nurse
And all Bumps mended on your Friendship true.
You are the Technocrat sworn to a Vow
That you Love me Un-Conditioned somehow.

The Phoenix
(To Love and Lose Part 2)
by Ryan Kinney

It started with a broken heart. Through the crack seeped liquid fire. It engulfed me, burning away all that I was. The flames shall purify me. Boil me down to my base components, and then rebuild me. From the ashes will rise a new entity.

Who am I?

Following my divorce I began an identity quest dubbed The Phoenix. It is my own personal trial by fire. Fire is the essence of life itself. As it destroys it also creates. I will create a new life from the remnants of my former, a persona not defined by another.

Chapter 1-The Quest

Depression and Suicide
“…my life before you was very chaotic and unstable. You were the stability I needed and the foundation on which I built my life.  I never doubted that you would always be there for me. You were my rock. Of all the people that had disappointed me you never let me down. Yet you did, You pulled the rug out from under me without warning and the foundation upon which I built my entire life crumbled…” –email correspondence to Lisa; Nov. 21, 2008

It took four months to undo ten years of my life. A debilitating depression overwhelmed me. I never saw anything in my life, but Lisa. What did I have left without her? What would I do? Darkness clouded my heart.

A rusty blade in my hand. A message in blood written on the broken mirror.
I lay in the tub, leaking crimson life. In my haze I barely make out the words.
What does my final message to the world say? I cannot remember why it hurt so much.
In a few minutes it won’t matter anymore. What the hell did I write?
I can only think of one thing that torments me enough to drive me to this darkness.
Trailing down in letters, clotting on the wall…
“I loved you.”

This revolving drama played on a loop in my mind. I was lost, a walking corpse. All I felt was cold hollowness.
“All that is left is emptiness, an empty house, an empty soul.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
I so badly just wanted the hurt to stop. In my tunnel vision existence I was oblivious to those whose hearts bled for mine. All my substance and passion was gone. Lisa took my heart with her and left nothing inside. Without her my existence seemed meaningless. The cloaked figure smiled, offering me the almost irresistible temptation of sweet release.
“Do I give in to the darkness? Let it consume me”-journal excerpt
Ultimately, though, there came a day when I awoke from the fog. I was living outside myself watching this unknown drone on a worthless trek. One phrase finally broke through the shell.
“What a waste!”
The Phoenix was born in that moment. The match was struck to light the way on the difficult road to recovery.
“The pieces of my soul are on the floor for everyone to trample on.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
I was in over my head. I needed help. A therapist helped at first, but the relationship quickly cheapened because I was essentially paying for a friendship. Antidepressants proved to work too well. I have a manic level of natural intensity. Lexapro ignited fireworks inside my brain. Both, however, gave me the nudge I needed to help myself. Eventually, I grew beyond the need for crutches. A previously unrecognized army of supporters each lent their kindling to the fires. One day at a time I battled my inner demons until I was ready to accept happiness again.
“You will be amazed on how much of the original Ryan is back. Why? Because I'm over my depression about change because something I feared more came to fruition.  I lost you.  I'm doing my best to survive from that, but my past fears now seems trivial and meaningless in comparison.”-email correspondence to Lisa; Sept. 8, 2009

Denial and Desperation
“Run, Run away Ryan. Open another book, turn on the TV, surf the Net. Delve into your fantasies and escape reality. It’s how you survived your childhood…”-journal excerpt; Oct. 2, 2008
The cracks in my facade were beginning to show. I shielded myself in delusions. I lied to myself to soften the full scope of Lisa’s betrayal. I more than lied. I was absolutely sure. I trusted her with my life. I trusted a lie. I was living a lie. I betrayed myself more than she ever did. The realizations came in shards, each piece punching holes in my heart.
I wallowed in self-pity and desolation.
I yearned so badly to feel some warmth, anybody’s warmth.

The New Girls
Upon Lisa’s departure I sought to quench my loneliness in the convenient woman around me. For a moment’s time, they took pity on me.
Rebound-I immediately sought solace in the arms of a good friend. She’s always shown me nothing but love and idolization. I was ashamed for disrespecting her and our friendship. I knew full well that our brief encounters were all that would ever be between us.
Crazy Chick-She was a brute of a woman, yet conversely, very maternal and comforting. She had a unique talent for forcefully ripping out my raw emotions, breaking through the masks. As she said, though, “I’m not Lisa.” Pathetically, that’s exactly what I wanted.
One Night Stand-ups-Several brief encounters fed my addiction for attention. Like a ****** with a needle, my appetite grew. Desperation was becoming my scarlet letter.
“…but it did seem that the thing we are most proud of and the thing we are most ashamed of are but the front and the back of the same coin. They torture and thrill all at once.”-Grotesque; Natsuo Kirino
I felt guilty and *****, yet loved for but an instant. These experiences were very cathartic. I had completely lost the ability to cry, feel pain, rage, or joy. They were the prefect drug, just so that I may feel again. Without these women to reopen the wounds, the numbness would have consumed me.
“Every angel has a little devil inside them.”-Manda; 2009
What attracted me to these women was mock chivalry. Each had their own “hard luck” story. So ingrained in me is the comic book ideal of heroism that I constantly seek to rescue the damsel in distress. Women will always be my kryptonite. However, as Crazy Chick put it, “ When is it time for you to be rescued?” The divine irony is, it was they who saved me.
It too, was not to last. A long period of isolation followed, as the women grew tired of babysitting me. Another lie to myself, a band-aid on a wound desperately needing stitches.

The Crush
Hers was the first light I allowed to pierce the darkness. She did more to heal me than any who said, “Yes.” Her secret, she said, “No.”
It has always been my curse to be eternally misunderstood and underestimated. I could see her scars bled the same as mine, although hers had begun to clot long ago. I am attracted to those who have a depth chiseled by adversity.
I identified with her. Her intelligence far exceeded my own, an Einstein in a circus. My eyes saw straight to her soul, seeing only the gorgeous woman she was on the inside. My friends would point out my eyes would sparkle whenever I spoke of her.
Yes, I loved her, but only in transition. We came from different worlds, but met as wounded soldiers on the battlefield. She was the catalyst to open my eyes. A sweet smile for my shredded soul.
“A worn beaten heart trapped in by bars.” From “Painless” by Tracy Reed
She held the key to my self-imposed imprisonment. My growing frustration with her opened the door for my transformation. For all her grace, all her amazing potential, she was wasting away in the same feeding trough as me.
“You can do better.”
Then it hit me…
“I can do better!”
I began to rebuild my empire. My never-queen rejected me…
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The Emotional Spectrum
“Stuck in a prison of abstract ideas and overpowering emotions.”-Zach; mypsace blog
Shock
1) ‘I don’t love you anymore.”
2) Letter…”I can’t wait until my divorce is over!”
3) Ryan-“So I guess this means we’re getting a divorce.”
Lisa-“Well, yeah. You knew that.”
4) “Ryan, they’re together, and have been.”
5) “I’m moving out.”
6) “By the State of Ohio, I hereby grant this dissolution.”-Judge; Dec. 30, 2008

Six bullets to my heart, six separate, devastating phrases that brought about Armageddon. I gave her a decade of my meager existence, nearly half my life. She threw me away like garbage, and couldn’t have been happier.

Fear
As the gun smoke drifted, I clutched my breast. I was frozen in horror that I’d lose myself along with her. Fear, you see, was the beginning of the end for our marriage.
I never dealt well with change. When we bought our house, the combat that ensued left me crippled. I ultimately built myself into a comfort zone again. “I don’t know what I want to do” was always an excuse for me. I lay stagnant and complacent with no true purpose or direction.
It was Lisa that first took action. She sought to elevate us from the ranks of lower middle class into which we were born. I fought her, determined to lay docked in the doldrums. “Leave me alone in my bubble.” I made attempts, but with each failure became depressed. She became frustrated and took matters into her own hands. It is obvious she loved me then. She worked effortlessly to give us a better life.
I was blind to the truth and in time Lisa lost sight of her motives. She plodded on, mechanically, no longer sure of why. She drove herself to extreme exhaustion, afraid, that if she stopped, for even a moment, she’d realize it was all for naught. She lost faith in our combined, bright vision.
So, she did the only thing she knew how. She ran away, straight to another as miserable as her. She kept running, further and further, taking greater risks. All just to not have to feel her own hollowness.
She left and my phobia ended there. What followed was a newfound fear. “I don’t know what I want to do” became “What the hell do I do?” I was afraid I was doomed to be alone the rest of my life.

Sadness
“Are you ok?”
“We’re worried about you.”
“How are you, Ryan?”…

“MISERABLE!”-Ryan

I always speak the truth. I’ve never felt so surrounded and alone in all my life.

Anger
“Like koi in a ***** pond, you can see your rage barely hiding below the surface.”-Erin Kompik
The most intense rage fueled The Phoenix. I lashed out at everything. Everyone was burned. I was ******* and the world would pay. The spectacle burned so bright it threatened to eradicate all that I was.
“I can feel bitterness and anger coming. I am fighting for control over the anger”-journal excerpt; Oct. 1, 2008
“The seams in my heart leak nothing, but hostility.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
“I’ve become a monster. I once loved someone so hard I would die for her. Now all I can feel is scorn and hate. My heart is twisted and black. I fear I will become the bitter man my father is. I hate myself for being so.”-journal excerpt; Sept. 30, 2008
Who was I so angry with? For all the hurt I felt from Lisa, I was most angry at myself. How could I let this happen? How could I have been so blind? My blood boiled as I berated myself. The loss I suffered left my heart festering with hatred, as nothing but fire and volatility overtook it.
“The red light of rage is violent action without consideration of consequence. It is uncontrollable. So I will unleash it.”-Final Crisis, Rage of the Red Lanterns
Then, the root of another anger broke through the fury.
“I know that you may not see it now, but time really will heal these wounds.”-Michelle Kinney
She was right. I had absolved myself of my original rage. I had forgiven her. I could forgive myself. I couldn’t be held responsible for another’s irresponsibility. The anger dissipated into the smoke. It left behind a few flickers, but I’ll not extinguish them yet. I still have a use for that rage.
“Do not be afraid to expose the darkness. Only by bringing it to the light can it ever truly be resolved.”-audio journal excerpt; Aug. 16, 2009

Love and Happiness
During my marriage, hers was the only love I let myself feel. Then, she took it with her when she left. I felt scorned and unwanted, a refuse of human waste.
I was wrong. I am a man that seeks love as an end all for my existence. Lisa unlocked my caged heart. Over the next decade I cultivated relationships with countless individuals. There was more love in my life than I ever realized. They were there when she wasn’t. My parents sacrificed everything to give me a life and family they never had. Lisa’s family had become my permanent family. She divorced me. I did not divorce them. All my friends gave all they could. Even my harsh enemies stepped off the battlefield, for they understood the casualties of this war. All of them, a shining sea of compassion, poured their hearts into mine. Their light overcame the darkness. When I finally crawled out of the pit, they got me to my feet.
“For them, I must continue.”-Naoko Takeuchi
I had to be strong. I owed it to them to survive. They gave me their love to fill in my missing pieces. For all I had been given, I could never give up or give in.
“I am meant for greatness. I am meant for happiness, for joy, for me.”-Zach; myspace blog

Chapter 2-Evolution

Picking up the Pieces
“I need to be out there.
Living.
Looking for my own life…
I need to open my mouth.
I need to be heard.
I need to live.
You’re gone…
I’m not.”
-Goth Girl Rising; Barry Lyga.
It was time to rebuild that which had been broken. My life was fragmented chaos. I needed an order to the chaos, or more to my tastes, organized chaos; anarchy with purpose. I learned to become a master strategist. The civil war I waged on myself demanded a general.
STEP 1-Stabalize finances.
My pact with the devil to keep my beloved home required emptying the coffers completely. How delicious the irony that I wound up working the same long weeks as Lisa.  Hard work and sacrifice were absolute necessities if I was ever to afford to live again. It was Lisa that taught me that. The only difference, I must never lose sight of why. Money is not the reason for existence. I simply needed enough to achieve my goals.
“Money is nothing.  It is an imaginary concept.  Its only value is what we put into it.  While often a necessary evil to survive, it is not important.  The only possession of true value is time.”- The Most Valuable Possession; 2009
STEP 2-Tear down the Mausoleum.
My home had become a testament to a dead marriage. Lisa’s five day moving notice threw a grenade into my living space. It was disheveled and disorganized. It was no longer Ryan and Lisa’s. I had to reclaim it as my own. Out of respect for our past, I kept a few pieces of Lisa as a constant reminder. I will never forget where I’ve been.
“Your spirit helped build this place and it still flows through its walls.”-email correspondence to Lisa; Nov. 21, 2008
Physically putting my environment in order likewise put my mind into an order. As I rebuilt my home, it became the new foundation for my life. The Phoenix had a place to perch.
STEP 3-Know Happiness again.
“I seem to find that my great periods of change, evolution, and growth precede an ultimate betrayal from someone I’ve let close to my heart. Is survival mode the only way I can fuel my passion? Where do I find the love that ignites my will, yet does not drive me to complacency?”-audio journal; Aug 13, 2009
The answer, I needed to love myself again. I could not rely on someone else to complete me. I had to become independent, to be ok with being alone. I deserved to be happy, to be loved, above all, by myself.
This was going to be hard.

Breaking Codependency
Not having another physical body in the house left a void. Without another heartbeat close to mine, I stopped sleeping at night. My appetite was lost and I started shedding pounds. With my depression receding, I awoke to find I was living in a desolate wasteland. What would I do in this solitary confinement?
Utilizing survival skills my mother taught me, I used it. Ever the artist, I took the pieces and created an existence. Then I improved it, again and again. Loneliness is a disease that attacks only if you let it. I had to learn to accept myself, before I could expect anyone else to. I used the loneliness to redefine and rediscover myself. I would not rely on anyone to do for me. My honor and respect for my loved ones demanded I do for myself. The stifling quiet, the sleepless nights taught independence. The silence used to frustrate and anger me. Now, I use it for peaceful reflection and meditation. Th

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam’d?  since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear”st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell?  before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap’d the Stygian pool, though long detain’d
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare:  Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So  thick a drop serene hath quench’d their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil’d.  Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow’d feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit:  nor sometimes forget
So were I equall’d with them in renown,
Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace;
Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note.  Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature’s works to me expung’d and ras’d,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits
High thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv’d
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only son; on earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind in the happy garden plac’d
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall’d love,
In blissful solitude; he then survey’d
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seem’d
Firm land imbosom’d, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.
Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our Adversary?  whom no bounds
Prescrib’d no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heap’d on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head.  And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new created world,
And man there plac’d, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience:  So will fall
He and his faithless progeny:  Whose fault?
Whose but his own?  ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood, and them who fail’d;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do appear’d,
Not what they would?  what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil’d,
Made passive both, had serv’d necessity,
Not me?  they therefore, as to right belong$ ‘d,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-rul’d
Their will dispos’d by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
I form’d them free: and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves; I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain’d
$THeir freedom: they themselves ordain’d their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-deprav’d:  Man falls, deceiv’d
By the other first:  Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none:  In mercy and justice both,
Through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel;
But Mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine.
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill’d
All Heaven, and in the blessed Spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus’d.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his Father shone
Substantially express’d; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appear’d,
Love without end, and without measure grace,
Which uttering, thus he to his Father spake.
O Father, gracious was that word which clos’d
Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace;
, that Man should find grace;
For which both Heaven and earth shall high extol
Thy praises, with the innumerable sound
Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne
Encompass’d shall resound thee ever blest.
For should Man finally be lost, should Man,
Thy creature late so lov’d, thy youngest son,
Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though join’d
With his own folly?  that be from thee far,
That far be from thee, Father, who art judge
Of all things made, and judgest only right.
Or shall the Adversary thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine?  shall he fulfill
His malice, and thy goodness bring to nought,
Or proud return, though to his heavier doom,
Yet with revenge accomplish’d, and to Hell
Draw after him the whole race of mankind,
By him corrupted?  or wilt thou thyself
Abolish thy creation, and unmake
For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
Be question’d and blasphem’d without defence.
To whom the great Creator thus replied.
O son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,
Son of my *****, Son who art alone.
My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,
All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all
As my eternal purpose hath decreed;
Man shall not quite be lost, but sav’d who will;
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me
Freely vouchsaf’d; once more I will renew
His lapsed powers, though forfeit; and enthrall’d
By sin to foul exorbitant desires;
Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand
On even ground against his mortal foe;
By me upheld, that he may know how frail
His fallen condition is, and to me owe
All his deliverance, and to none but me.
Some I have chosen of peculiar grace,
Elect above the rest; so is my will:
The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warn’d
Their sinful state, and to appease betimes
The incensed Deity, while offer’d grace
Invites; for I will clear their senses dark,
What may suffice, and soften stony hearts
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.
To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,
Though but endeavour’d with sincere intent,
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
And I will place within them as a guide,
My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear,
Light after light, well us’d, they shall attain,
And to the end, persisting, safe arrive.
This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more,
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,
Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heaven,
Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to destruction sacred and devote,
He, with his whole posterity, must die,
Die he or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?
Which of you will be mortal, to redeem
Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?
And silence was in Heaven: $ on Man’s behalf
He ask’d, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,
Patron or intercessour none appear’d,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg’d to Death and Hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renew’d.
Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy winged messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?
Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost;
Atonement for himself, or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;
Behold me then:  me for him, life for life
I offer: on me let thine anger fall;
Account me Man; I for his sake will leave
Thy *****, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.
Under his gloomy power I shall not long
Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess
Life in myself for ever; by thee I live;
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,
All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid,
$ thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.
Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;
I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show
The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes;
Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave;
Then, with the multitude of my redeemed,
Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return,
Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud
Of anger shall remain, but peace assured
And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more
Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.
His words here ended; but his meek aspect
Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love
To mortal men, above which only shone
Filial obedience: as a sacrifice
Glad to be offered, he attends the will
Of his great Father. Admiration seized
All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend,
Wondering; but soon th’ Almighty thus replied.
O thou in Heaven and Earth the only peace
Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou
My sole complacence! Well thou know’st how dear
To me are all my works; nor Man the least,
Though last created, that for him I spare
Thee from my ***** and right hand, to save,
By losing thee a while, the whole race lost.

Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem,
Their nature also to thy nature join;
And be thyself Man among men on Earth,
Made flesh, when time shall be, of ****** seed,
By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room
The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.
As in him perish all men, so in thee,
As from a second root, shall be restored
As many as are restored, without thee none.
His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit,
Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce
Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,
And live in thee transplanted, and from thee
Receive new life.  So Man, as is most just,
Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die,
And dying rise, and rising with him raise
His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.
So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death, and dying to redeem,
So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroyed, and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.
Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume
Man’s nature, lessen or degrade thine own.
Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss
Equal to God, and equally enjoying
God-like fruition, quitted all, to save
A world from utter loss, and hast been found
By merit more than birthright Son of God,
Found worthiest to be so by being good,
Far more than great or high; because in thee
Love hath abounded more than glory abounds;
Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt
With thee thy manhood also to this throne:
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,
Anointed universal King; all power
I give thee; reign for ever, and assume
Thy merits; under thee, as head supreme,
Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce:
All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide
In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.
When thou, attended gloriously from Heaven,
Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send
The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaim
Thy dread tribunal; forthwith from all winds,
The living, and forthwith the cited dead
Of all past ages, to the general doom
Shall hasten; such a peal shall rouse their sleep.
Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge
Bad Men and Angels; they, arraigned, shall sink
Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full,
Thenceforth shall be for ever shut.  Mean while
The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring
New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,
And, after all their tribulations long,
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.
Then thou thy regal scepter shalt lay by,
For regal scepter then no more shall need,
God shall be all in all.  But, all ye Gods,
Adore him, who to compass all this dies;
Adore the Son, and honour him as me.
No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all
The multitude of Angels, with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung
With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled
The eternal regions:  Lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground
With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold;
Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence
To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven
Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream;
With these that never fade the Spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams;
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright
Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,
Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.
Then, crowned again, their golden harps they took,
Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side
Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet
Of charming symphony they introduce
Their sacred song, and waken raptures high;
No voice exempt, no voice but well could join
Melodious part, such concord is in Heaven.
Thee, Father, first they sung

I'm slowly becoming a cynic
People, human beings frustrate me.
I've even begun to frustrate myself,
Regrets pile on top of one another,
and like inertia they can't seem to stop.
It would seem I am human.

A coffee shop afternoon can say it looms significant
In the steamer’s sweet humidity
And the idle legs pace for more
I hear the whispers of world-changers and gossip mix
Local color of a quiet little town.

Sit humble and lean, a fixture ‘till showtime
And ask lines around just we’ve they’ve been
And who they’ve seen.

There’s a poetry in the patron, come
My gaze permits and intervenes
Its narrative and scheme, in lover’s hand enweaved.

Graphite plays its frustrate part the writer
Seated far, far in a blissful nadir
Bristles in his pony tail like drawers end to no avail.

AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD Wherein, by occasion of the untimely death of
Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of this whole world is
represented THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY

     When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
     Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one
     (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
     It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
     And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,
     May lodge an inmate soul, but 'tis not his)
     When that queen ended here her progress time,
     And, as t'her standing house, to heaven did climb,
     Where loath to make the saints attend her long,
   She's now a part both of the choir, and song;
   This world, in that great earthquake languished;
   For in a common bath of tears it bled,
   Which drew the strongest vital spirits out;
   But succour'd then with a perplexed doubt,
   Whether the world did lose, or gain in this,
   (Because since now no other way there is,
   But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,
   All must endeavour to be good as she)
   This great consumption to a fever turn'd,
   And so the world had fits; it joy'd, it mourn'd;
   And, as men think, that agues physic are,
   And th' ague being spent, give over care,
   So thou, sick world, mistak'st thy self to be
   Well, when alas, thou'rt in a lethargy.
   Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then
   Thou might'st have better spar'd the sun, or man.
   That wound was deep, but 'tis more misery
   That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.
   'Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,
   But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.
   Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast
   Nothing but she, and her thou hast o'erpast.
   For, as a child kept from the font until
   A prince, expected long, come to fulfill
   The ceremonies, thou unnam'd had'st laid,
   Had not her coming, thee her palace made;
   Her name defin'd thee, gave thee form, and frame,
   And thou forget'st to celebrate thy name.
   Some months she hath been dead (but being dead,
   Measures of times are all determined)
   But long she'ath been away, long, long, yet none
   Offers to tell us who it is that's gone.
   But as in states doubtful of future heirs,
   When sickness without remedy impairs
   The present prince, they're loath it should be said,
   "The prince doth languish," or "The prince is dead;"
   So mankind feeling now a general thaw,
   A strong example gone, equal to law,
   The cement which did faithfully compact
   And glue all virtues, now resolv'd, and slack'd,
   Thought it some blasphemy to say sh'was dead,
   Or that our weakness was discovered
   In that confession; therefore spoke no more
   Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.
   But though it be too late to succour thee,
   Sick world, yea dead, yea putrified, since she
   Thy' intrinsic balm, and thy preservative,
   Can never be renew'd, thou never live,
   I (since no man can make thee live) will try,
     What we may gain by thy anatomy.
   Her death hath taught us dearly that thou art
   Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.
   Let no man say, the world itself being dead,
   'Tis labour lost to have discovered
   The world's infirmities, since there is none
   Alive to study this dissection;
   For there's a kind of world remaining still,
   Though she which did inanimate and fill
   The world, be gone, yet in this last long night,
   Her ghost doth walk; that is a glimmering light,
   A faint weak love of virtue, and of good,
   Reflects from her on them which understood
   Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,
   The twilight of her memory doth stay,
   Which, from the carcass of the old world free,
   Creates a new world, and new creatures be
   Produc'd. The matter and the stuff of this,
   Her virtue, and the form our practice is.
   And though to be thus elemented, arm
   These creatures from home-born intrinsic harm,
   (For all assum'd unto this dignity
   So many weedless paradises be,
   Which of themselves produce no venomous sin,
   Except some foreign serpent bring it in)
   Yet, because outward storms the strongest break,
   And strength itself by confidence grows weak,
   This new world may be safer, being told
   The dangers and diseases of the old;
   For with due temper men do then forgo,
   Or covet things, when they their true worth know.
   There is no health; physicians say that we
   At best enjoy but a neutrality.
   And can there be worse sickness than to know
   That we are never well, nor can be so?
   We are born ruinous: poor mothers cry
   That children come not right, nor orderly;
   Except they headlong come and fall upon
   An ominous precipitation.
   How witty's ruin! how importunate
Upon mankind! It labour'd to frustrate
Even God's purpose; and made woman, sent
For man's relief, cause of his languishment.
They were to good ends, and they are so still,
But accessory, and principal in ill,
For that first marriage was our funeral;
One woman at one blow, then ****'d us all,
And singly, one by one, they **** us now.
We do delightfully our selves allow
To that consumption; and profusely blind,
We **** our selves to propagate our kind.
And yet we do not that; we are not men;
There is not now that mankind, which was then,
When as the sun and man did seem to strive,
(Joint tenants of the world) who should survive;
When stag, and raven, and the long-liv'd tree,
Compar'd with man, died in minority;
When, if a slow-pac'd star had stol'n away
From the observer's marking, he might stay
Two or three hundred years to see't again,
And then make up his observation plain;
When, as the age was long, the size was great
(Man's growth confess'd, and recompens'd the meat),
So spacious and large, that every soul
Did a fair kingdom, and large realm control;
And when the very stature, thus *****,
Did that soul a good way towards heaven direct.
Where is this mankind now? Who lives to age,
Fit to be made Methusalem his page?
Alas, we scarce live long enough to try
Whether a true-made clock run right, or lie.
Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow,
And for our children we reserve tomorrow.
So short is life, that every peasant strives,
In a torn house, or field, to have three lives.
And as in lasting, so in length is man
Contracted to an inch, who was a span;
For had a man at first in forests stray'd,
Or shipwrack'd in the sea, one would have laid
A wager, that an elephant, or whale,
That met him, would not hastily assail
A thing so equall to him; now alas,
The fairies, and the pigmies well may pass
As credible; mankind decays so soon,
We'are scarce our fathers' shadows cast at noon,
Only death adds t'our length: nor are we grown
In stature to be men, till we are none.
But this were light, did our less volume hold
All the old text; or had we chang'd to gold
Their silver; or dispos'd into less glass
Spirits of virtue, which then scatter'd was.
But 'tis not so; w'are not retir'd, but damp'd;
And as our bodies, so our minds are cramp'd;
'Tis shrinking, not close weaving, that hath thus
In mind and body both bedwarfed us.
We seem ambitious, God's whole work t'undo;
Of nothing he made us, and we strive too,
To bring our selves to nothing back; and we
Do what we can, to do't so soon as he.
With new diseases on our selves we war,
And with new physic, a worse engine far.
Thus man, this world's vice-emperor, in whom
All faculties, all graces are at home
(And if in other creatures they appear,
They're but man's ministers and legates there
To work on their rebellions, and reduce
Them to civility, and to man's use);
This man, whom God did woo, and loath t'attend
Till man came up, did down to man descend,
This man, so great, that all that is, is his,
O what a trifle, and poor thing he is!
If man were anything, he's nothing now;
Help, or at least some time to waste, allow
T'his other wants, yet when he did depart
With her whom we lament, he lost his heart.
She, of whom th'ancients seem'd to prophesy,
When they call'd virtues by the name of she;
She in whom virtue was so much refin'd,
That for alloy unto so pure a mind
She took the weaker ***; she that could drive
The poisonous tincture, and the stain of Eve,
Out of her thoughts, and deeds, and purify
All, by a true religious alchemy,
She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou knowest this,
Thou knowest how poor a trifling thing man is,
And learn'st thus much by our anatomy,
The heart being perish'd, no part can be free,
And that except thou feed (not banquet) on
The supernatural food, religion,
Thy better growth grows withered, and scant;
Be more than man, or thou'rt less than an ant.
Then, as mankind, so is the world's whole frame
Quite out of joint, almost created lame,
For, before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption ent'red, and deprav'd the best;
It seiz'd the angels, and then first of all
The world did in her cradle take a fall,
And turn'd her brains, and took a general maim,
Wronging each joint of th'universal frame.
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then
Both beasts and plants, curs'd in the curse of man.
So did the world from the first hour decay,
That evening was beginning of the day,
And now the springs and summers which we see,
Like sons of women after fifty be.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
This is the world's condition now, and now
She that should all parts to reunion bow,
She that had all magnetic force alone,
To draw, and fasten sund'red parts in one;
She whom wise nature had invented then
When she observ'd that every sort of men
Did in their voyage in this world's sea stray,
And needed a new compass for their way;
She that was best and first original
Of all fair copies, and the general
Steward to fate; she whose rich eyes and breast
Gilt the West Indies, and perfum'd the East;
Whose having breath'd in this world, did bestow
Spice on those Isles, and bade them still smell so,
And that rich India which doth gold inter,
Is but as single money, coin'd from her;
She to whom this world must it self refer,
As suburbs or the microcosm of her,
She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how lame a ******* this world is
....

We seem to never get the timing right

                    when I look at you
                                                      you look at away
                   when you see me
                                                      I hide away

        does this mean that we can never meet half-way?

                  When I'm in deep slumber
                                                      you're alive and kicking
                  Your talkativeness fill up
                                                       the bubbling silence in our talks

                               Do you think of me like I think of you?
                               or am I just a passing thought?

                               Do I frustrate you like you frustrate me?
                                             or am I just
                                                               your friend?

I miss the way you used to talk to me.
I miss you used to respect me,
and my opinion.
I miss feeling like we were inseparable.
I miss you and I,
I miss me.

You used to look at me,
and I wouldn't see any anger or resentment.
I used to not just seem to frustrate you.

I feel really alone right now.
I just want you to see me how you used to
So then maybe I wouldnt be such a stranger to myself.

It is really hard, being broken, damaged goods.
Ruining everything in your path.
I am sorry I am such a burden now.
I am sorry I am such a disappointment.

Take heed of loving me;
At least remember I forbade it thee;
Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste
Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs and tears,
By being to thee then what to me thou wast;
But so great joy our life at once outwears;
Then, lest thy love by my death frustrate be,
If thou love me, take heed of loving me.

Take heed of hating me,
Or too much triumph in the victory;
Not that I shall be mine own officer,
And hate with hate again retaliate;
But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror
If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate;
Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,
If thou hate me, take heed of hating me.

Yet, love and hate me too;
So, these extremes shall neither’s office do;
Love me, that I may die the gentler way;
Hate me, because thy love is too great for me;
Or let these two themselves, not me, decay;
So shall I live thy stage, not triumph be;
Lest thou thy love and hate and me undo,
To let me live, O love and hate me too.

Your eyes smoulder with an imagination that is even bolder than I could have dreamed and colder than this toxic air we've been forced to breathe.

You write poetry across your face to form a Gas mask of rythym, blocking out the hate yet sealing in ideas that might frustrate you.

You hear the birds in the trees and you read the articles in every magazine, you take in information like the bees to the Queen.

Your thoughts radiate an aura surrounding your entire body, you bleed history and pop culture facts, you need the written word like an addict needs their cigarette packs.

You're empathetic to your core, you feel what everyone else does so you hide yourself in your mind until you can categorize the emotions from the lies.

I know you can feel the love in your heart even through all the cracks, like a weathered and torn apart roadmap but you're taped together perfectly and even with a few wrong turns you always find your way back to me.

Someone called about the success
Why is it so wide and not nearest?
Someone cried as he fell down
He said frustrate is knowing only me
Can’t go wide, can’t forget me
He visited me every time, every moment at day
And smiled with a yellow smile as he knew he bothered me
But he didn’t say, he greeted and put an arrow
Of his aim to fall me at low bottom
When I scream, he laughs says he wants to look me
To see my face when I didn’t get my aim
The failure is bad and its taste gets the same
No one could help except my God
Except power to dismiss that worst
To look smile as nothing has occurred
To get him anger to fill his spirit
Of frustrate feeling as he wishes in his dream
Dream at a wake, at sleep you win the game
And the frustrate was filled by frustrate and they will gain
Fight, but a way of my way

Frustration, aggravation, confusion, and irritation.
I don’t understand why you make me feel this way.
Do you try to irritate, to aggravate?
Do you frustrate and confuse to amuse you?
Games that you play are getting in the way.
We could be so good, but the games that you play…
Make me want to get as far away as I can from you.
Always underfoot, always within hearing, I cannot understand
Why you think this is so endearing.
You need to stop and think about what you are killing.
It is a chance at a great romance, but you would rather play your games.
Go away, Little Man, until you can understand.
Perhaps then there will be room for you, but don’t expect me to wait.
I can find someone else who won’t frustrate, aggravate, confuse, or irritate.
Yeah!

Settle down please.
Today you will be trained in Level 1 crucifixion.

First, the nail. Please pass the bag along once you have taken one nail each.

You can rely on these nails.
Each one is forged by hand, hammered out and shaped with skill.
'You can nail it with one nail,' as they say.

Nails can be used to fasten almost anything to wood. Choosing the right nail for the job can make a big difference in hold power. As there is no need to conceal the nail head and we require maximum holding power, we have chosen common nails for the job. When the nail is temporary and will be pulled out again, as with crucifixion work, we have found that a double-headed or duplex nail is the best choice. However, due to cut backs, we have reverted to the common flat headed nail.

Experience and common practice calls for driving the nail through the thinner limb into the thicker timber. For maximum holding power, the length of the nail is such that it passes almost, but not quite, through the thicker timber. 

Take a careful look at the illustrations provided. As depicted, for best results lay the condemned on the crossbeam and bind the arms in place on the timber before nailing. I refer you to your ropes and knots training last week.

One nail is sufficient for each upper limb if placed between the forearm bones above the wrist. You will find that some limbs will have been subject to a break beforehand. If this is the case, we advise that you use additional rope to bind the limb to the cross beam and that you select a site for the nail further up the arm if necessary.

Now you are ready to secure the feet. Place the feet together one over the other. Hold them in place while a colleague drives one nail through both feet. Please hold them steady and resist any attempt by the condemned to frustrate your task. Keep steady pressure on the feet while your colleague hammers the nail home.

Before lifting the crixiform into the hollow, ensure each nail has been driven in securely. Once you and your supervisor are satisfied, lift the cruciform in one swift movement ensuring the base slides neatly into the hollow. Two or possibly three of you are needed for this.

This is the greatest test for your handiwork. The impact of the timber landing at the base of the hollow will cause the body to jar under its own weight and place additional strain on the nail. In the event that a nail comes loose, you are advised to lift the cruxiform out and to use a second nail on the unsecured limb.

In most cases this will not be necessary and the condemned will hang securely long enough to allow the body to die, even if this takes several days.

Once death has been confirmed using the accepted method, lift the cruxiform down, remove the nails and inspect them for damage. If deemed reusable, rinse and dry them before storage.

If there are no questions you will now each be assigned to an experienced colleague to assist with a crucifixion. If at any time you feel that you are likely to *****, please use the bucket provided. There's no shame in this, the first time can be quite shocking; there is usually more blood flow than you initially expect. However, you will soon learn how to complete the exercise with skill and professionalism. I have complete faith in you.

Please keep your nail, you'll need it later.

I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man’s disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man’s firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
  Thou Spirit, who led’st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought’st him thence        
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature’s bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
  Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven’s kingdom nigh at hand              
To all baptized.  To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan—came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown.  But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office.  Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove                    
The Spirit descended, while the Father’s voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty Peers,                    
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:—
  “O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,
This Universe we have possessed, and ruled
In manner at our will the affairs of Earth,                
Since Adam and his facile consort Eve
Lost Paradise, deceived by me, though since
With dread attending when that fatal wound
Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve
Upon my head.  Long the decrees of Heaven
Delay, for longest time to Him is short;
And now, too soon for us, the circling hours
This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we
Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound
(At least, if so we can, and by the head                    
Broken be not intended all our power
To be infringed, our freedom and our being
In this fair empire won of Earth and Air)—
For this ill news I bring: The Woman’s Seed,
Destined to this, is late of woman born.
His birth to our just fear gave no small cause;
But his growth now to youth’s full flower, displaying
All virtue, grace and wisdom to achieve
Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear.
Before him a great Prophet, to proclaim                    
His coming, is sent harbinger, who all
Invites, and in the consecrated stream
Pretends to wash off sin, and fit them so
Purified to receive him pure, or rather
To do him honour as their King.  All come,
And he himself among them was baptized—
Not thence to be more pure, but to receive
The testimony of Heaven, that who he is
Thenceforth the nations may not doubt.  I saw
The Prophet do him reverence; on him, rising                
Out of the water, Heaven above the clouds
Unfold her crystal doors; thence on his head
A perfet Dove descend (whate’er it meant);
And out of Heaven the sovraign voice I heard,
‘This is my Son beloved,—in him am pleased.’
His mother, than, is mortal, but his Sire
He who obtains the monarchy of Heaven;
And what will He not do to advance his Son?
His first-begot we know, and sore have felt,
When his fierce thunder drove us to the Deep;              
Who this is we must learn, for Man he seems
In all his lineaments, though in his face
The glimpses of his Father’s glory shine.
Ye see our danger on the utmost edge
Of hazard, which admits no long debate,
But must with something sudden be opposed
(Not force, but well-couched fraud, well-woven snares),
Ere in the head of nations he appear,
Their king, their leader, and supreme on Earth.
I, when no other durst, sole undertook                      
The dismal expedition to find out
And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed
Successfully: a calmer voyage now
Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once
Induces best to hope of like success.”
  He ended, and his words impression left
Of much amazement to the infernal crew,
Distracted and surprised with deep dismay
At these sad tidings.  But no time was then
For long indulgence to their fears or grief:                
Unanimous they all commit the care
And management of this man enterprise
To him, their great Dictator, whose attempt
At first against mankind so well had thrived
In Adam’s overthrow, and led their march
From Hell’s deep-vaulted den to dwell in light,
Regents, and potentates, and kings, yea gods,
Of many a pleasant realm and province wide.
So to the coast of Jordan he directs
His easy steps, girded with snaky wiles,                    
Where he might likeliest find this new-declared,
This man of men, attested Son of God,
Temptation and all guile on him to try—
So to subvert whom he suspected raised
To end his reign on Earth so long enjoyed:
But, contrary, unweeting he fulfilled
The purposed counsel, pre-ordained and fixed,
Of the Most High, who, in full frequence bright
Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake:—
  “Gabriel, this day, by proof, thou shalt behold,          
Thou and all Angels conversant on Earth
With Man or men’s affairs, how I begin
To verify that solemn message late,
On which I sent thee to the ****** pure
In Galilee, that she should bear a son,
Great in renown, and called the Son of God.
Then told’st her, doubting how these things could be
To her a ******, that on her should come
The Holy Ghost, and the power of the Highest
O’ershadow her.  This Man, born and now upgrown,            
To shew him worthy of his birth divine
And high prediction, henceforth I expose
To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay
His utmost subtlety, because he boasts
And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng
Of his Apostasy.  He might have learnt
Less overweening, since he failed in Job,
Whose constant perseverance overcame
Whate’er his cruel malice could invent.
He now shall know I can produce a man,                      
Of female seed, far abler to resist
All his solicitations, and at length
All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell—
Winning by conquest what the first man lost
By fallacy surprised.  But first I mean
To exercise him in the Wilderness;
There he shall first lay down the rudiments
Of his great warfare, ere I send him forth
To conquer Sin and Death, the two grand foes.
By humiliation and strong sufferance                        
His weakness shall o’ercome Satanic strength,
And all the world, and mass of sinful flesh;
That all the Angels and aethereal Powers—
They now, and men hereafter—may discern
From what consummate virtue I have chose
This perfet man, by merit called my Son,
To earn salvation for the sons of men.”
  So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven
Admiring stood a space; then into hymns
Burst forth, and in celestial measures moved,              
Circling the throne and singing, while the hand
Sung with the voice, and this the argument:—
  “Victory and triumph to the Son of God,
Now entering his great duel, not of arms,
But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles!
The Father knows the Son; therefore secure
Ventures his filial virtue, though untried,
Against whate’er may tempt, whate’er ******,
Allure, or terrify, or undermine.
Be frustrate, all ye stratagems of Hell,                    
And, devilish machinations, come to nought!”
  So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned.
Meanwhile the Son of God, who yet some days
Lodged in Bethabara, where John baptized,
Musing and much revolving in his breast
How best the mighty work he might begin
Of Saviour to mankind, and which way first
Publish his godlike office now mature,
One day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading
And his deep thoughts, the better to converse              
With solitude, till, far from track of men,
Thought following thought, and step by step led on,
He entered now the bordering Desert wild,
And, with dark shades and rocks environed round,
His holy meditations thus pursued:—
  “O what a multitude of thoughts at once
Awakened in me swarm, while I consider
What from within I feel myself, and hear
What from without comes often to my ears,
Ill sorting with my present state compared!                
When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing; all my mind was set
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do,
What might be public good; myself I thought
Born to that end, born to promote all truth,
All righteous things.  Therefore, above my years,
The Law of God I read, and found it sweet;
Made it my whole delight, and in it grew
To such perfection that, ere yet my age
Had measured twice six years, at our great Feast            
I went into the Temple, there to hear
The teachers of our Law, and to propose
What might improve my knowledge or their own,
And was admired by all.  Yet this not all
To which my spirit aspired.  Victorious deeds
Flamed in my heart, heroic acts—one while
To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke;
Then to subdue and quell, o’er all the earth,
Brute violence and proud tyrannic power,
Till truth were freed, and equity restored:                
Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first
By winning words to conquer willing hearts,
And make persuasion do the work of fear;
At least to try, and teach the erring soul,
Not wilfully misdoing, but unware
Misled; the stubborn only to subdue.
These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving,
By words at times cast forth, inly rejoiced,
And said to me apart, ‘High are thy thoughts,
O Son! but nourish them, and let them soar                  
To what highth sacred virtue and true worth
Can raise them, though above example high;
By matchless deeds express thy matchless Sire.
For know, thou art no son of mortal man;
Though men esteem thee low of parentage,
Thy Father is the Eternal King who rules
All Heaven and Earth, Angels and sons of men.
A messenger from God foretold thy birth
Conceived in me a ******; he foretold
Thou shouldst be great, and sit on David’s throne,          
And of thy kingdom there should be no end.
At thy nativity a glorious quire
Of Angels, in the fields of Bethlehem, sung
To shepherds, watching at their folds by night,
And told them the Messiah now was born,
Where they might see him; and to thee they came,
Directed to the manger where thou lay’st;
For in the inn was left no better room.
A Star, not seen before, in heaven appearing,
Guided the Wise Men thither from the East,                  
To honour thee with incense, myrrh, and gold;
By whose bright course led on they found the place,
Affirming it thy star, new-graven in heaven,
By which they knew thee King of Israel born.
Just Simeon and prophetic Anna, warned
By vision, found thee in the Temple, and spake,
Before the altar and the vested priest,
Like things of thee to all that present stood.’
This having heart, straight I again revolved
The Law and Prophets, searching what was writ              
Concerning the Messiah, to our scribes
Known partly, and soon found of whom they spake
I am—this chiefly, that my way must lie
Through many a hard assay, even to the death,
Ere I the promised kingdom can attain,
Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins’
Full weight must be transferred upon my head.
Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed,
The time prefixed I waited; when behold
The Baptist (of whose birth I oft had heard,                
Not knew by sight) now come, who was to come
Before Messiah, and his way prepare!
I, as all others, to his baptism came,
Which I believed was from above; but he
Straight knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed
Me him (for it was shewn him so from Heaven)—
Me him whose harbinger he was; and first
Refused on me his baptism to confer,
As much his greater, and was hardly won.
But, as I rose out of the laving stream,                    
Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence
The Spirit descended on me like a Dove;
And last, the sum of all, my Father’s voice,
Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his,
Me his beloved Son, in whom alone
He was well pleased: by which I knew the time
Now full, that I no more should live obscure,
But openly begin, as best becomes
The authority which I derived from Heaven.
And now by some strong motion I am led                      
Into this wilderness; to what intent
I learn not yet.  Perhaps I need not know;
For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.”
  So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise,
And, looking round, on every side beheld
A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades.
The way he came, not having marked return,
Was difficult, by human steps untrod;
And he still on was led, but with such thoughts
Accompanied of things past and to come                      
Lodged in his breast as well might recommend
Such solitude before choicest society.
  Full forty days he passed—whether on hill
Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night
Under the covert of some ancient oak
Or cedar to defend him from the dew,
Or harboured

No weapon formed against me shall prosper,
Because He who protects me is the greatest,
And He puts to shame anything that tries to make my life miserable,
He allows trials to strengthen me but never to defeat me,
Nothing will frustrate my life for He is the greatest,
His joy is my strength,
His love my armour,
His favour my hope
No matter what the enemy plots,he can never succeed because my Protector is greater.

What's wrong with you?
Who do you think you are?
Look, he thinks he's tough,
he thinks he knows everything
Seriously who does he think he is
Do you think you're Prince Regent
You think you're a hard man, yeah!
How dare you, how ****** dare you
You wanna mess with us, do you, big man

Don't you know who we are!
We the business, we're more than you
We ****** rule the ******* ****** world
We rule your ***, we make and bend the law
We take and we give, we are the ****** *******
We block and you're finished, no ****** ****, no life
We come from the South, East, West  and ****** North
We are gangsters and we got the contacts and the contracts
When we say jump, you ask, how ****** high should I jump

Look this ****** small geezer playing with us
How dare you making us feel frustrated and stupid
We'll got all kinds of mind **** ready to do your head in
How dare you not play ball, a woman set up to wind you up
Now we're not getting inside gossip and juicy stories to use
Now all the women waiting eagerly to hear bedroom gossip
are all disappointed cause you are not following the ****** plot
We can't bend your head and frustrate you and stress you out
You ****** small man, you're not even tall and you wanna diss us.

Who are you you little ******
We spend all our valuable time taunting you
We try and depress and torment you and you laugh
What do you want, do you wanna mess with People's Power
We can make you disappear if we want, do you know that big boy
We put all kind of moves on yer and yet you struts like a king
We harass your ****** mind and try to demoralize you
Listen sunshine you better stop being such a ******* smart ***
You think you ******* know everything, making us look stupid.

You better watch out, you better watch ****** out
Cause ain't no Santa coming for you, we are the Rulers
And we hate you and your big ******* ****, you ain't got *****
You are costing us ****** money, time and energy, you effin ****
Do you know some of us sit all day thinking up ways to get at you
Do you know some wait in the ****** cold to watch you all day
You think its easy having to think up nonsensical things to write
Or making up all kinds of scenarios all because of you *******
You think you are superman, Atlas and Einstein rolled into one!

Do you, George, Answer me George.....answer Me!!!

You, my dear, are a mystery.

I often leave deep crescents on the palm of my hand— leaving them throbbing a shade of crimson— whenever i get frustrated. And, well, I would be lying if I said that you didn't ever frustrate me. Hell, you frustrate me all the time.

You're a mystery not craving to be solved, but nonetheless still leaves everyone wanting to be able to find the answer to a question—unexplainable by any thing besides you.

You're a mystery and I'm just someone who wants to unravel you.

Polished off the filler rods
now lifes got me dreaming
soley about the silver lining
the spooning of the woman on the moon
Keep mapping the schematic, the big move
heading straight to the oil soaked cash
Ready again to make the great dash
This time I'll save my dimes
for those unavoidable hard times
I'll pile it under my matress
a secrete stash thats all mine
Work my *** to the bone
by welding up a storm
Sitting all leathered up
on my light weaver throne
To meditate and consentrate
on 13 times the suns bright
Keep the eyes focused and fixate
count to ten when the mechanics frustrate
Troubleshoot the lines of life
fix the issue then
collect the lute.

Sax,
   clarinet,
      grade 8,
scales,
   sight reading,
      frustrate.

Super rock,
   teaching,
      french cafe,
logic,
   preaching,
      don't go that way!

Camp,
   sociology,
      tech,
music,
   general,
       respect.

cleaning,
   brother,
      size,
love,
   loss,
      surprise.

feet,
   freedom,
      modelling,
workout,
   fear,
      not bothering.

Perhaps Bread or Boon, Wine or Concubine
Will satisfy your Thirst for Hunger's sake
That Tomorrow lends her Hand for your Define
Are what your Efforts took to form your Make
See? How persistent that Winged ****** goes,
Pointing his Heads to where they don't belong
Or, at least, what the Dogma-Tribe bestows
Out of their Tent the Patriarch breathes strong
Really? Such Oppressive Moves they decide
To tell whether the Tune was Right or not
That Worm, called Ego, from Adam's Bite, Pride
Twisted Futures which their Love has forgot.
Easily that my Wheels can just frustrate
To know what's Right, but realise too late.

Like all days, I wonder.
I wonder what you're thinking.
If you're thinking of me.
If that's a stupid thing to think.

Like all days, I wonder.
I wonder if I stop you.
Stop you from whatever you're doing.
Because the thought of me gave you butterflies.

Like all days, I wonder.
I wonder if I frustrate you.
If you're frustrated that I haven't kept in touch lately.
Maybe we're both too stubborn to start the conversation.

Like all days, I wonder.
I wonder if I make you smile.
From a memory you don't want to forget.
There are so many of those that you could recall.

Like all days, I wonder.
I wonder if I haunt you.
Just as much as you've been haunting me.
We're both ghosts haunting what we hope is still there.

Like all days, you wonder.
You wonder if I wonder about you, too.
If I'm just as flustered with these thoughts as you are.
Maybe we've been sharing these feelings all along.

Like all days, we wonder.

I think of her often, for thoughts are all I have—not a single memory. She died before I was the age of two.

From what little that I heard, there was little reason to view her in a good light, but now I can see something admirable about her.  After all, this woman endured so much, and the odds seemed stacked against her. Incredibly, between the ages of eleven and sixteen—at least five times—this poor Lithuanian girl crossed the Atlantic in attempts to get into America. Twice, she was turned away. Some may not have had high regard for her, including her own son—my father—but I can see a heroic nature, a survivor, through and through. Just a toddler when she died, I missed out in knowing her. Throughout the years, I really had only gathered bits and pieces of information while trying to know better about her. It has been like constructing puzzle in which the pieces fit here and there, but the gaps are too big to cover.

This woman that I write about is my paternal grandmother. Out of all my grandparents, her story is the one that stands apart, an amazing, heart wrenching and most thought provoking portrait. Evoking emotions of anger, sadness and sympathy, I find it a rich tale of a poor woman.

This has been in the works for quite a while now—in my head, that is. I pictured what I wanted to say, the words playing out in my mind.  What a story it is, too, a tremendous one of sorrow and struggle, of need for love and acceptance, of perseverance and strength of the human spirit. Yet things get complicated when they come from my mind to the page, as I try translating my vision down into words. Before long, like a snake, hesitation surely comes slithering through, as it quickly snuck its way within, fueling my fear, a fear of disapproval and rejection by two people who are now dead and have been for some time—my father and my grandmother.  

And while writing, I imagine what my audience thinks—critics in my head abounding before I even finish. Well, I am the first to stand in line for that.  It’s kind of scary relating such things. I am not sure I am doing the story any justice.  I’m not sure I’ve captured the essence of it well.    

And who would want to read this anyway? Is it too long and of no significance to anybody but myself? I have my doubts. Celebrities do this all the time, and people just eat that stuff up.  I think we all just want to relate to what others have to say about themselves. But it does bare you—your thoughts, your secrets, your soul, —and it feels a bit unnerving, to say the least.  

So, naturally, I still drag my feet. If she were here right in front of me right now, what would my grandmother think? Would she throw the papers in an old fashioned stove—in the fire—as she angrily did to my father’s flowers?  I can only imagine my father as a child—in an impoverished scene that I only have sketchy knowledge of—with his young heart being crushed and shamed, his sign of affection and desire to please his mother, drastically rejected. In return for his small token of love, my father’s mother was furious that her boy spent a few coins on something perceived as useless, a waste of good money. Away like trash, they went. Like the flower story, would my father be ashamed and angry that I revealed some family history for others to read, stuff that he would rather have kept quiet?

This is why I am mentioning no names. Nothing is sugar coated—it is what it is—often not very pretty. Yet this is not intended as an exposé or a smudge on any family members. A slam on my father and grandmother is surely not my intent—far from it.  Rather, it is my offering of affection. It is my little bouquet of flowers to a history that includes me as a part of it.

Like those flowers of long ago, I’ve so wanted to scrap this story in the garbage. Often seeming like a knotted mass of yarn, I have had to work and work to get a smooth flow.  Like a sculptor, I wanted a fine piece of clay to emerge into form, but the chunks, lumps and bumps just frustrate me to no end.

It’s complicated to relate it all. It is revelation about my father’s origins which hold no real pride for him.  There was much pain and shame associated with his mother’s mental illness, his distant father, his broken home and lack of a solid, safe family structure, his constant poverty and fight for survival—the list goes on and on  As I unravel this tale, I continue to fight with the many tangles. As I try to find the face, I feel that my sculpted story is left wanting. So I continue to chip away.

Dishonoring? Embarrassing? I hope it this tale is not.  I envision an admirable purpose instead of the pain and the shame, redeeming the pride that was lost. My father’s origins are mine, too, and they help me to know myself better, and my father—to build that better, more complete puzzle of my grandmother.

Much of what I heard was unflattering terms. From a young age, I knew she was mentally ill. But what did that mean anyway?  Well, to my father she was crazy and nuts, not a good mother. No, she wasn’t mother of the year. Clearly, she had a temper and was known to instigate fights—with her husband, with one of her sisters. When my young father was physically disciplined it was by her, and it was probably quite harsh. If I didn’t like her, it was due to all that I heard. And when I had problems with my father, who had a bad temper, too, I probably felt that the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree.  

But in spite of all the remarks, I grew to have great sympathy for my grandmother. It makes me wonder how mistreated she was as a child.  My father deemed her as neglectful, not in tune to her children’s needs. It is obvious to me that she was in lack, herself.

So what was she really like? I very much wanted to understand her, to be able to relate with her. I don’t know—perhaps, it is because I root for the underdog.  Often, I felt like one, too. And Lithuania is the perfect underdog, under the thumb of Russian rule until much recently.  Perhaps, it was because my dad’s dislike for where he came from made me all that more interested to discover what his roots were all about.  

History often repeats itself—what has shaped my father had a strong influence on me. Like my father, I grew angry and bitter from the upbringing I had. Getting a similar brunt of problematic parenting made for a tough go of things.  I could have easy said, “Who gives a ****?” I could have been thoroughly disgusted about my dad’s old baggage that I had to handle—all the wreckage of rage and shame that became dumped into the next generation.  I evolved from a more sensitive, inquisitive child to one who battled between the feelings of hate and love, painfully clawing my way out of the emotional garbage and with the terrible stench of it.  

Thankfully, the war is over. I am enjoying the peace.  
  
With insight, I grew to understand my father, to accept what he was—capable of good and bad. I can relate quite well in that sense, for I made plenty of mistakes that I wish that I could do differently, ones that hurt others as well as me.  I could not deny that, in my dad, there was a wounded man who could not really figure that out—not until he was much older. I saw a man who was remorseful, and humbled by his costly mistakes. I was able to heal from some of my wounds with that forgiving perspective, though it was not easy and did not come overnight.

Unlike my dad, I’m surely a talker and I ask questions, perhaps my father’s worst nightmare in that sense——he had to have at least one child who always wanted to know things about him and who he came from. That means both sides of my family. Perhaps, I was born that way, with a tremendous sense of wonder. Curiosity always got me, and I am much too hungry to remain clueless about my more secretive father.

Maybe that’s good. Maybe it’s bad. It involves risk which can lead to a boatload of hurt. Where do we come from? What were your parents like? What were your grandparents like? When where they born? When did they die? Do you have any pictures?  Can you go any further than them?  Sometimes, the answers aren’t what you want to hear.  

It’s nice to belong to something, to somebody. It isn’t always possible or realistic to relate to one’s family, I wanted to belong. Not just to my mom’s side did I want to identify—I wanted to fully belong—to both sides.

My mom and dad both had common backgrounds, both coming from poverty and chaos. The fallout from my mother’s unstable father created a similar unease within her childhood home. Yet her family actually seemed like it existed. I knew all of my mother’s seven younger sisters and five younger brothers, as well as all nineteen cousins. We used to visit mom’s parents in Detroit fairly often. My best knowledge of life in this unfamiliar, yet close by, city—my native city—arose through this connection. I heard stories of grandmother’s German immigrant parents and learned of my grandfather’s Polish and Prussian roots, part of his family’s rise from poverty to wealth—to poverty once more.

Born in the latter part of the nineteenth century, my father’s parents were much older than my mom’s. Impoverished Lithuanian immigrants, my dad’s parents surely wanted to be Americans. My grandmother really had to fight to even be on American soil, and my grandfather sought out citizenship and became naturalized. I have likely seen them both, but had no relationship at all. I heard that my dad’s mom came over our house for Thanksgiving dinner—a rare visit—and she died not long after.

My grandfather died the following year, when I was closer to three. Possibly having a primitive, early memory of this man, I am told my dad had him over the house once.  I have a vague recollection of sneaking into the living room, when I was supposed to be in bed, and got a smack on my behind from my dad, crying in protest as I walked past an older man starring at me. But I’ll never know for sure if that is even a real memory.

Since my grandfather was a supporter of the Communist party—a big taboo in those days with the McCarthy era and the Cold War—my dad was mortified and afraid to mention it.  I doubt I’ll ever know much about this grandfather. My father found only one photo of him in his wallet while trying to claim belongings from his flat after the man died. My father eventually gave it to me, and I was shocked by one of the most bizarre photos I ever had seen. In it, my dad’s father was photographed with a woman that my father cannot identify, but the likeness between her and me is so uncanny. I look more like this woman than I do my own mother, but I cannot say if she is even related. My dad knew almost nothing about his father’s family except that he came from a big one back in Lithuania.

Family must have been like foreign word to my father. I can see why. Since boyhood, my dad lived apart from his dad, and they became more strangers than father and son. My dad even admitted that he hardly understood his own father because of his thick, Lithuanian accent. My dad’s background still remains more like shadows in the dim light.  I don’t clearly remember my father’s older brother— out of the two that he had—because I only saw him three or four times. Since my father cut ties with his younger brother, I hadn’t laid eyes on him. Not even a picture was available. When my estranged uncle called on the phone to try to talk to my dad, I would speak to him, instead. One to be sympathetic, I never got why my dad wouldn’t bother with his brother, though the call usually involved asking for money. I was pretty much told that he was a no-good ***, plenty to keep me fairly leery of him. His first wife kicked my uncle out.  Most of his six sons—just as unknown as their father was to me—wanted nothing to do with him. No doubt, the guy was an odd and deeply tormented man, yet we both wanted to meet one day. If I remember one thing he said, that was it, and I agreed. This did seem unlikely, for I didn’t want to stir up the hornet’s nest, not creating more friction than there was.

Years later, that wish came true. One day my dad did get a picture of his brother from the older brother. Much later on—several months after my dad died—I was able to meet this troubled man when he was dying in the hospital and had tubes down his throat. unable to speak to me any more.  

My mom was my source in finding out about my grandmother, but she knew little.  She admits she didn’t know what to say to her mother-in-law, being young and not very savvy when it came to making conversation. What she remembered about my grandmother was that she was very quiet and often stared out from the position of an obscure woman in a room full of people. My mom thought her “spooky”. My mom recalls that my dad said that she smoked down her cigarettes the nub, burning and blackening the tips of her fingers.  She even might have started a small fire in her sister’s waste basket with a burning cigarette.

There is one thing that sticks out that my mother recalls that is sweet. What my grandmother asked my mother shows her humanity: “Do you love my son? “ It shows a woman who has genuine feelings, has desires, and caring. I could see the love that she had for my father when I heard that she brought his boots to school in bad weather, and he was embarrassed by the look of her—rolled down socks and an old fur coat.  I doubt, though, he ever heard the words of “I love you”, as my father did not say these things to his children.

Near the end of his life, when my father was getting dementia, I knew the time was short for us to talk and now was the moment to ask questions. “I know so little about your childhood”, I told him. He said there was nothing worth mentioning, and when I probed him a bit, he told me, “We were the lowest of the low”. It saddens me that the pain was still very much there.

What my parents couldn’t or didn’t tell me, I learned from a few other relatives. I called up my dad’s cousin—who lives in Las Vegas—with plenty of apprehension, never having met her, and not knowing if she’d want to talk with me. Slowly, I sensed her grow from suspicious of my intent to warming up to me a bit. She said she liked my father, but “he could have been nicer to his mother”. This cousin told me that he avoided her a lot, and she felt my grandmother was aware. My dad’s younger brother did, too, I am told. My mom related to me that once when my grandmother would knock on their door back in their flat in Detroit, in their early years of marriage, my dad told her not answer the door to prevent her visit.

If it wasn’t for this cousin’s mother, my grandmother’s sister, as well as two of her daughters, the poor woman would have been quite lonely—though I’m sure loneliness defined her. I am glad they took an extra interest in my grandmother. They would take her out for coffee or have her over.  This sister “felt sorry for her”, the Las Vegas cousin told me.  I’m glad, but she “felt sorry for her? I hope it was more than that.

Considering all what she went through, I am wondering what went through my grandmother’s head. Did this woman ever feel loved? If she did, it must have been like a glass of water in a desert.

Another of my dad’s cousins, from another sister of my grandmother’s, helped me out. Her family stories filled in some gaps, but what she couldn’t tell me records did. The records seemed to prove the stories correct, as some family stories can be more fiction than fact.

I did my own research, as well as get records from others, and finally hired a genealogist. I verified that my grandmother was born in 1892 in a village in Lithuania, not ever knowing the exact date. Loss began early in her life, as her father died of small pox when she was four months old. He was twenty six, and he wasn’t even married a year. Records show this bit of oral history to be almost spot-on.  My parents made a single visit to my grandmother’s youngest sister, and this great aunt told me that my grandmother lost her father at six months old. My dad never knew his real grandfather died, thinking his youngest aunt had a different father. He was surprised to find out that his mother was the one set apart from the others.

So my great grandmother was left a widow with a baby to care for all on her own. This would have been bad for both, so this gr

Oh God, the Most Merciful and Compassionate:

Please grant us the grace and opportunity to be your instrument in the mercy and compassion that you epitomize. May You grant us peace in our lifetime and frustrate those who seek to cause discord and sow hatred in your name.

Please enlighten our collective conciousness. May we be continually reminded that we are all on this Pale Blue Dot together. Please help us to grow out of this petty and useless tribalism and nationalism that are invoked far too often to justify violence.

May You grant us all a desire to strive for peace and have mercy on us for our many sins against each other.

Amen

All conflicts are resolved via coercion, implied or applied,
of the dominant party over the denied (Niebuhr).
Not news at the 2nd St. jail. But the Constitution
provides for moderation, persuasion and elections
as way stations, stopgaps, safe havens before the decision's taken
to go to war. Civil war, daily low intensity warfare is unavoidable
      when
chambers of commerce and large corporations wrestle naked
and who are the 1% controlling 25% of the wealth, name names,
hold a french revolution over it. This space I write from's
safe, comfortable but what about a Taco Bell cashier with 4 kids x 3
      men
who came and went when they found how human her bleeding and
      complaining was, how voluble, not faked.

This obtains when you consider Niebuhr: "That the limitations of the human imagination, the easy subservience of reason to prejudice and passion, and the consequent persistence of irrational egoism, particularly in group behavior, make social conflict an inevitability in human history, probably to its very end." (emphasis mine)

                         respiratory tract infection, hunger pains

Popper drops by: "Their story that democracy is not to last forever is as true, and as little to the point, as the assertion that human reason is not to last forever, since only democracy provides an institutional framework that permits reform without violence, and so the use of reason in political matters. It is clear that this attitude must lead to a rejection of the applicability of science or of reason to the problems of social life - and ultimately to a doctrine of power, of ******* and submission."

                                           split lip, fever blister

Cynical nihilist Niebuhr: "Educators who emphasize the pliability of human nature, social and psychological scientists who dream of 'socializing' man and religious idealists who strive to increase the sense of moral responsibility, can serve a very useful function in society in humanizing individuals within an established social system and in purging the relations of individuals of as much egoism as possible. In dealing with the problems and necessities of radical social change they are almost invariably confusing in their counsels because they are not conscious of the limitations in human nature which finally frustrate their efforts. So persistent are the moralistic illusions about politics in the middle-class world, that any emphasis upon the second point will probably impress the average reader as unduly cynical. In America our contemporary culture is still pretty firmly enmeshed in the illusions and sentimentalities of the Age of Reason."

                                            terror, runny nose

An apoplectic Popper: "And being a typical historicist, he accepts the judgment of history as a moral one; for [Heraclitus] holds that the outcome of war is always just: 'War is the father and king of all things. It proves some to be gods and others to be mere men, turning these into slaves and the former into masters . . . One must know that war is universal, and that justice -- the lawsuit -- is strife, and that all things develop through strife and by necessity.'"

                                 lonely physics, national purpose

Poppa Popper proceeds: "Sweeping historical prophecies are entirely beyond the scope of scientific method. The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity. This prophetic wisdom is harmful, the metaphysics of history impede the application of the piecemeal methods of science to the problems of social reform. We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets."

                                    fatal heart attack, fatty acids

Reinhold, while drinking orange juice: "Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by power. Since political conflict, at least in times when controversies have not reached the point of crisis, is carried on by the threat, rather than the actual use, of force, it is always easy for the casual or superficial observer to overestimate the moral and rational factors, and to remain oblivious to the covert types of coercion and force which are used in the conflict."

                                          alphabugs, antibiotics

Doc Wheeler runs the 2nd St. jail keeping the High School Dropout
      Prevention Program
breathing. The Sheriff's Dept. provides guards, a metal detector, one
      man with a gun (encased),
door buzzer (in out), sign in sheet, breakfast and lunch. None too
      clean, not too tidy.

Niebuhr goes nuts: "All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. While no state can maintain its unity purely by coercion neither can it preserve itself without coercion. The inability of human beings to transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their fellow men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of the process of social cohesion."

                                 3 hots and a cot, circle with a dot

Popper replies: "Instead of aiming and finding what a thing 'really' is, and defining its 'true nature,' science aims at describing how a thing behaves in various circumstances and especially whether there are any regularities in its behavior. It sees in our language, and especially in those of its rules which distinguish properly constructed sentences and inferences from a mere heap of words, the great instrument of scientific description, not as names of essences. To those philosophers who tell him that before having answered the 'what is' question he cannot hope to give an exact answer to any of the 'how' questions, the scientist will reply, if at all, by pointing out that he prefers that modest degree of exactness which he can achieve by his methods to the pretentious muddle which they have achieved by theirs."

            "when making an axe handle, the pattern is not far off"

Niebuhr nods: "The problem which society faces is clearly one of reducing force by increasing the factors which make for a moral and rational adjustment of life to life; of bringing such force as is still necessary under responsibility of the whole of society; of destroying the kind of power which cannot be made socially responsible; and of bringing forces of moral self-restraint to bear upon types of power which can never be brought completely under social control."

       Popper and Niebuhr were married yesterday at the 2nd St. jail
                      under the federal Freedom of Marriage Act

Dear PrttyBrd

I read your poetry specifically your poem " I saw the words" and I thought it was so amazing. I have spent days analyzing and reveling in your words when I have had free time. All of the contrasting ideas flowed so perfectly and created such an amazing image. Personally I love how you used such different emotions and ideas and brought them together in each stanza with " I saw the words on a page". Your words have inspired me to feature your poetry on the dear blank challenge and I sincerely hope more people will read your poems.

I saw the words on a page
And read their joy
Their hope
Their heart

I saw the words on a page
And it ripped my world apart

These two stanza are incredibly well written. To me they show the power that words can have and how simitaniously a few words can give both hope and joy and yet destroy your world. These stanzas give amazing description in their few words and are very powerful representations of the power poetry or words have over people.

I saw the words on a page
Penned before my heart was yours

I saw the words on a page
Of how your love for her endures

These two short lines portray more than a paragraph could! They leave the meaning and exact emotions secret to you ( PrttyBrd) and allow a sense of mystery for the reader and yet at the same time I felt a sense of imagery reading this as if I were there reading these words. To me it portrayed longing and unrequited love and yet the beauty is that it may be different for everyone.

I saw the words on a page
Kept with all your special things

As a poet words are so incredibly special to me, they mean hate, love, longing or sorrow. And so words are one of my most special things. Even if words are not as important to someone reading this this stanza is incredibly unique. You hold the image together by stating it is about words yet you never mention what these words are allowing the reader to form their own interpretation which makes this poems every sentence that much more special and personal to all of us.

I saw the words on a page
Read dreams of wedding rings

I saw the words on a page
Of a dream you never spoke

I saw the words on a page
They made my own begin to choke

I tried and tried to think up something to write for these stanzas. Of the incredible emotions, the metaphors and illusions, the personification and language and nothing I wrote could give it justice and so all I can say is that it is absolutely fantastic!

I saw the words on a page
Of a time when love was true

This stanza adds even further to the exquisite mystery of what these words might me, who they talk about ect. To you Prtty Brd they may be a character of imagination, or a memory re-lived, but the fact that you keep that keep this rather than frustrate me, made it that much more perfect. Of a time when love was true is also such a powerful line as it adds to memory and has the reader think back or imagine a time of true love, a simpler time that we all yearn for.

I saw the words on a page
And read what she means to you

I saw the words on a page
You claim love never dies

I saw the words on a page
Now I see it in your eyes

This is an absolutely stunning few stanzas and I could go on for hours about what this means to me and how I interpret it but I would hate to have others read it with my views in mind and I would much rather prefer they learn the meaning for themselves. What I will talk about is the last stanza ...now I see it in your eyes" to me this is such a perfect representation of when you suddenly learn something and you realize it was their all along. For example if you learn someone loves someone, after you learn this you can remember all the times they looked with longing and you wonder how you never saw it before. Maybe that's just me though. Either way I found this revaltion in your poems and the fact that it connected what to me are so common emotions to things not as common such as. "And read what she means to you" a wonderful contrast

I saw the words on a page
You know my hearts allure

It can be scary and terrifying to open your heart to another and to open your darkest secrets and allures to someone because I matter what there is always the fear that they might tell, or hate, or judge, or fear you. Therefore I commend your bravery dear PrttyBrd if this is a true memory.

I saw the words on a page
I know that she holds yours

I saw the words on a page
I see what you can't deny

I saw the words on a page
Your love for me belied

It can be hard when someone loves another and refuses to love you despite your emotions towards them which is what I feel this is about. But you managed to create these intricate emotions in but a few words, and I find it hard to explain but somehow you managed to create this while at the same time not outright stating it, leaving it open to opinion. So perfect!

I saw the words on a page
And read their joy
Their hope
Their heart

I saw the words on a page
And it ripped my world apart

These are the same two stanzas at the beginning, (though since you wrote this clearly you knew that) anyway I thought that it was perfect way to wrap up the poem. It tied everything back together into your original view and brought back our original interpretations. Though these words are the same they are at the same time shockingly different. Now that we have seen all the words and emotions. We are changed by your poem and our original impressions are changed as we attempt to figure out what the "words" were.

I saw the words

Perfect! This simple line was such a plain, yet creatively unique way to end a fanspectierfectical poem. That's right, it's not a spelling mistake, I loved your poem so much it needed its own word to explain how outstounding it was. Thank you PrttyBrd.

We are a sum of all of our choices
Of all our experience and echoing voices
Voices in our head that tell you what to do
Voices outside that are nagging at you
Voices of people who tell you you're wrong
Frustrate you and break you until you're long gone
You're inherently good; you were born to be kind
But society ***** and it changes your mind
You're inherently good; you were born just that way
You were born to be good, you were born to be great
You're inherently good, so lay down your arms
'Cause a baby never did you any harm, did it?
*A baby never did you any harm.

You make me frustrated -
Frustrated that when I look at you
And think to say I love you,
The word falls short
Like the shortness of breath you cause
When your eyes connect with mine

It frustrates me that
You make me feel
What no dictionary has a proper word for.
So how then will I convey
The stutter of my heart
When you whisper my name,
Making all the world just fall away,
Till it's just you and me?

Tell me how I'm supposed to let you know
That I'm nauseous with bliss when you walk my way
And that I'm shivering and rubbing and holding myself
In a futile attempt to escape the cold
That comes when you're gone?
Tell me how I'm supposed to, in one phrase,
Light the understanding of your consciousness
Like you light my life with your presence,
Getting you to see that I don't just love you,
But that you frustrate me?

my mother was born a gardener

and my father became one

through patient snap peas and

angry red tomatoes

he seeded and watered and waited

while my mother grew hibiscus in the mountains

and plums in the shade

i was born a painter

but its tank me years to pick up a paintbrush

and my brother was born a poet

but i sincerely doubt that he’ll ever show it

i mix my paints on my palette of flowers

and my brother goes to meetings at banks

My other attended the only Agricultural High School available to her within a 40 mile radius of her South Philadelphia home. This was not a coincidence.

My father attended the best athletic conference in his affluent suburban community. This was.

She started out watering plants in fast food joints, arranging flowers for junior proms in the poorest neighborhoods of the city. When my father met her, she only ate lettuce and seeds because that was all she could manage to put in her body.

My father kneeled to the ground, saw the soil beneath her fingernails, and fell in love.

I can only love men who garden. I can only be a daughter of the earth because of them.

I don’t like terrariums because they frustrate me. Life trapped behind glass, that I cannot touch, or feel, or smell. I cannot water, I cannot fathom to even slightly disturb their existence, no matter how desperately I want to.

I’m getting my hands ***** touching old soil. I wipe it on my skirt before I touch the sweat on the back of my neck. I’m planting forget-me-nots and basil. I don’t even know if those go together. But I am putting them deep in the ground and it occurs to me that in a few weeks, I might not even remember them. They might die and become some stupid memory, a part of my dinner party story vernacular, Or maybe waiting for them will change me, will allow me to commit as a meditation on earthen peace.

How do you dislike me?  Let me count the ways.
At least half of what I do and half of what I say
Seems to irritate and frustrate you.  
My deeds mistrusted and misunderstood
As something other than selfless good.
Your suspicion steals a narrow view
Of how I would prefer to spend my time.
So the sentence precedes the crime
And love is shackled in its gaol,
A prisoner with no parole,
Once found guilty, condemned for all,
And nothing can now avail.
Imagined crimes will never fade
And penance be ne’er truly paid.

I go to great heights to prove myself
Anger is kept inside, it is too personal for the world's eyes

I exercise caution with each interaction
My presence is barely felt
A gentle reminder that life is not always gentle

I am a pronoun in the vast language of people
Many worries can eat away at a heart, so I choose just one

I am an incarnation of an idea that even I cannot pinpoint
My intention is to be happy
I shudder at the cliche

I am not conservative, although I may seem that way
It is an attempt to blend in
Complications, bumps in the road
These frustrate, even infuriate, me

I require absolutes. Uncertainty destroys
Robot life would be magical
Emotion is for the weak

I try not to preach, only listen
Ideas are nothing more than words strung together
These strings become puzzles for your enjoyment