ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

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

Book I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The moon called upon my madness anew,
I closed my eyes and fought against the chains
That kept me waiting, waiting here for you.

You gulped down my world without so much a chew,
Enveloped everything with your scent, became my raving bane.
The chains, the chains garlanded in lilac and rue,

Alone keep me from going moonlight-mad, so they do.
The gentle ice face of the mother moon keeps penetrating my brain.
That kept me waiting, waiting here for you.

This is the stage set for the heavenly wars Ares loves to brew,
The battle fought over our love so strong that left it slain.
The chains, the chains garlanded in lilac and rue,

The chains, the chains made of silver came askew,
Like your hands in mine and whatever feelings may still remain,
That kept me waiting, waiting here for you.

My madness has awoken the moon-bird blue,
Soon it will fly down and cut through the silvery veins.
The chains, the chains garlanded in lilac and rue,
That kept me waiting, waiting here for you.

With designers like Iman Ahmed, HSY and Sania Maskatiya all showing, it was standing-room only at the venue. Many of the crowd of fashion insiders and socialites ended up sharing seats, with the chivalrous Zaheer Abbas giving his seat to Iman Ahmed after her show and sitting on the floor himself. So much for designer egos!

It was an evening that lived up to its billing.

Iman Ahmed may not be a designer who makes her clothing easily available, but in fashion terms she reaches heights that few other designers can reach. Her “Sartorial Philology and the New Nomad collection” was breathtaking.

The best fashion shows have a narrative — the clothes, styling, music and progression of the outfits blend seamlessly into a whole that portrays the designer’s artistic vision.

It’s hard not to gush about Iman Ahmed’s show last night because it was exactly what a fashion show should be.

Starting with a series of outfits in white and gradually adding tribal colours, Iman used fringing, embroidery and a range of fabrics to great effect. From the inspired detailing to the juxtaposition of texture and silhouette, this was a class act. The tribal white-dotted makeup and beaten silver accessories added further depth to Iman’s stunning layered ensembles.

Levi’s uninspired showing of their new 501 jeans and other stock provided the audience with a pause to process the previous collection. It’s difficult to make a interesting fashion week presentation out of high street wear and something that Levis struggles with.

They used better music than they did at their autumn show but the styling was still painfully lacking. They did manage to make everyone sit up and take notice at the end of their show though — Wasim Akram walked the ramp as their showstopper amid cheers from the admiring audience.

Somal Halepoto was next, with collection that looked distinctly amateur. She seemed to be aiming for a bright kitschy collection but ended up looking merely tacky. The shiny, synthetic-looking fabrics and gaudy embroidery were particularly woeful. Somal’s digital neon animal prints and some of the harem pants were funky but the rest of the collection had little to recommended it.

YBQ’s LalShah collection, meanwhile, was in a different league. An ode to 3 Sufi Sindhi saints, the collection was as much about the artistic impression it made on the ramp as it was about the clothes. The distinctly theatrical presentation relied on the slow beat of sufi music and plentiful accessories for much of its impact.

YBQ sent his models down the ramp in huge pagris, holding flags on poles and garlanded with prayer beads. He used only three colours - red depicting rage, white for peace and black for mourning. Most of the outfits were draped red jersey tunics or gowns with white lowers, braided belts and black turbans.

Rubya Chaudry wore a black gown with red roses but otherwise the outfits were all about subtle plays with drapery and cut. From jodhpur style chooridarsto asymmetrical draping, the outfits had interesting touches but needed all that heavy styling to make an impact. HSY was YBQ’s showstopper and added glamour to the theatrical presentation that he had choreographed.

Wardha Saleem was first up after the break and her Lotus Song collection showed how this talented young designer has been upping her game over recent years.

She used digital flamingo prints, 3D embroidery, gota embroidery and lasercutting in a pretty formal fusion collection. The detailing on the collection was simply stunning. Wardha used gota in delicate patterns that gave her outfits shimmer and paired this with three dimensional embroidery. The outfits featured flowers, fish, elephants and birds picked out in silk thread and beads.

She showed a variety of shift dresses, jackets, saris, capes and draped dresses. The styling was also great fun – the models wore shoes featuring spikes and 3D flowers while the multi-talented Tapu Javeri provided some gorgeous jewellery and music for the show. While there was nothing groundbreaking about her silhouettes, this was a beautiful collection that showed skill and artistry.

Sania Maskatiya, who presented her luxury pret on Day 1, now showed her lawn collection for AlKaram. As far as designer lawn goes, this is something of a dream collaboration.

Textile and print are Sania’s forte and she uses print extensively in her luxury pret. In this collection for Al-Karam she has taken print elements from her pret collections throughout the year including the Sakura, Lokum and Khutoot collections.

The prints are different from those used in her Luxe pret but are based on the same principals. She’s even used the paint splash embroidery from this season’s Khayaat collection in one of the outfits. Designer lawn should be affordable way to wear a designer’s aesthetic and this Sania Maskatiya Al Karam collaboration certainly is.

As for the show itself, showing lawn is always tricky on the ramp. Sania pulled it off with an upbeat presentation using fast music and trendy cuts, throwing a few conventional shalwar kameez in the mix. She fashioned the lawn into jackets, kaftans and draped tunic, using the sort of cuts that are a hallmark of her pret. It’s not how most people wear lawn but it was a great way to show off the prints on the ramp.

Naushaba Brohi’s Inaaya burst onto the fashion scene last year with a spectacular collection. Following up on a dramatic debut is difficult but Naushaba proved that she is not a one hit wonder with this collection. Inaaya’s SS15 collection continued with the theme of using traditional Sindhi crafts in contemporary wear. Naushaba used both touches of Rilli and some stunning mirror work in her collection.

What makes Inaaya noteworthy is the way that she takes unsung traditional crafts that we’ve seen badly used and gives them a high fashion twist. Standout pieces included a bolero with unusual mirror work and a rilli sari that glittered with tiny flashes of mirrors.

Although the collection included many beautiful outfits, there was a lack of focus. The simple tunic with a rilli dupatta didn’t work with knotted purple evening wear jacket. The inability to make a definitive statement let down an otherwise accomplished collection.

Naushaba added a characteristic touch at the end of her show. She’s committed to social responsibility and supports local craftswomen with her brand. Accordingly, Inaaya’s showstopper was Mashal Chaudri of the Reading Room Project along with Naushaba’s daughter Inaaya. She held up a plaque saying “I teach therefore I can” while Inaaya wore a T-Shirt with the slogan “super role model”.

HSY brought the evening to a close with a high-speed presentation of his Hi-Octance menswear collection. The unusual choreography featured the models zipping along the catwalk, pausing briefly on their second round. The energetic presentation complemented a collection of sharp suits and jackets, leavened with quirky polka dot shirts and bold stripy ties.

There was the requisite shirtless model in distressed jeans and an ice-blue jacket but also some appealing suiting fabrics. HSY used only Pakistani fabrics and included solid colours as well as self-checked and striped suits. This was wearable, classy menswear presented creatively.

Day 3 was undoubtedly the best day of TFPW so far. Iman Ahmed undoubted takes the laurels but she was ably supported by HSY, Wardha Saleem, Inaaya, Sania Maskatiya and YBQ.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

Destiny’s games are stranger than
most games invented by man
and Draupadi’s swayamvara is for sure
amongst the strangest tales ever told

A truly blazing beauty is she,
a princess like no other
a rare fiery spirit has she
This daughter of Agni

The drums announce the happy news
today she shall choose
from amongst this gathering of kings
the one who she shall espouse

a prophecy has already foretold
that she is to be Arjuna’s bride
the swayamvara is but a test to tempt
that expert archer out from where he hides

every king from every land
is here to attempt
to win her hand
but no sign of the one she wants

but the contest has been announced
and hence must be begun
a test truly fit to try
the Gods themselves

on the ceiling
a revolving platform
on the platform
a jewel studded fish

on the floor a vat of oil
lying beside a great bow and shafts
the fish is mirrored
in the oil

the the target lies
in the fish’s ruby red eye
but a challenge fit for kings
cannot be so trouble-free!

The eye, itself, must not be looked upon
its reflection in the oil is the map to strike
not an easy feat to accomplish
only the best dare try this

for the failures
there is ridicule and humiliation
for the winner
this beautiful handmaiden

every eye that sees
looks on amazed
at her -a rare jewel
with some secret fire set ablaze

her eyes hot embers
her hair wisps of flame
Krishnaa-the dark skinned
like the fiery coal that is by ashes hid

in every heart she rouses
an uncontrollable passion
stunned, they stand as statues
incapable of any action

the desire to win her
is a great motivator
and while all try
none seems worthy

every king that rises
falls unable to bear
the weight of the bow
let alone string and employ it!

then rises Karna
truly a great archer
surely he will win her
says everyone in their mind

but before he even touches
the bow he is stopped
by the beautiful Draupadi
he is humiliated

“who is this false king
who dares to assume that
the high-born Draupadi will condescend
to marry a low-born sutaputra?”

silenced and insulted
Karna resumes his seat
but a desire for retribution
is in his mind-a tiny seed

the one who rises next
is clothed as a Brahmin
but his proud gait and muscled arms
are that of a Kshatriya

respectfully he picks up the bow
strings it with love
with arms upraised and face turned below
he launches the arrow

it strikes the eye
which falls to the ground
the Brahmin has won!
he is garlanded by Draupadi

their eyes meet
in silent acceptance of
their magnetic attraction
a scorching passion

a stunned silence in the hall
and then hell breaks loose
kings rant and princes protest
how can a princess marry a priest

they rise together
up in arms
and are routed
by the Brahmin and his brothers

with the Brahmins Draupadi goes
to their hut-a humble abode
with folded hands they stand outside
as the eldest calls, “Look mother, see what we’ve got!”

a gentle voice replies from within
“whatever be it, share it
amongst yourselves,
it equally belongs to all of you”

“Mother, what have you said
what a dilemma we are in
you-we have never disobeyed
and yet to obey would be a sin!”

The mother comes out and is aghast
at what she has done
her order once given cannot be revoked
by convention

in the midst of all this
turmoil and confusion
Krishna arrives
with his beatific smile

“Dear aunt, I am your brother’s son
your troubled brow betrays
some confusion
can this child offer you some consolation?”

“God bless you my child
I’ve heard your praise
You are wise, so advise
how this quandary can be resolved

with hasty words
i have told my sons
to share this woman
and doomed her to a life of debauchery”

“Do not worry aunt
this isn’t a problem at all
this woman in her past life
has gained a boon of five husbands

the boon was given
by Mahadeva himself
and besides a mother’s order
is always supreme

let all five of your sons
wed Draupadi
in the karmic logic
it isn’t an iniquity

Dear Draupadi listen
these men are none other
than the valourous Pandava brothers
your hand was won by Arjuna

it is your destiny
to be the spouse of all of them
and do not worry
worldly laws are not here applicable”

Hearing this was
a stealthy listener-
Draupadi’s brother
now both overjoyed and dismayed

in confusion
he approaches his father
and apprises him
of the matter

both father and son are
unsure whether to rejoice
that the Pandavas are alive
or curse their loved one’s predicament

plagued by mixed emotions
they are restless
then Vyaasa comes
to their relief

the kind sage shares his wisdom
that the marriage is inevitable
part of the Grand Plan
mortal laws must not interfere

a woman having
more than one man as spouse
isn’t always an immorality
they may fearlessly proceed

and so it is
that the marriage was celebrated
Draupadi became the
accidental polyandrist!

-Vijayalakshmi Harish
23.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

Ch. 1.

1.

Behold, thou art dark and comely, my love;
richly hath the sun favoured thee,
delighting in thy presence.
Let me savour thy kisses of wine;
for in the gardens of the temple
the lotus furls open,
wild bees fall asleep on her face.


2.

Lilies and jasmine bloom
in the garden of my love;
falls of wisteria,
carpets of thyme.
Let us lie in the shade of the olives
to gaze on the sky.


3.

For many hours my love slept
  beneath the cedars,
couched on cool swathes of linen,
like the Lord of Midnight enthroned on a cloud.
Long tresses of willows shivered to cool his face.
I called his name but he heard me not,
being entranced in slumber,
deep in the thrall of dreams;
therefore I shall let him awaken when he please.




Ch. 2.

4.

A warm breath of nard is my master, my king,
A great golden deity haloed with stars.
Behold, the noble bearing of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
In my dearest dreams he standeth before me
out of my reach, gesturing for me to follow,
calling unto me like the very embodiment of love.


5.

Night comes softly, o daughters of Jerusalem,
My king's desirous eyes have grown heavy with sleep.
His black hair ripples about his face
  like curtains of smoke,
gold bracelets entice my gaze to
the sinews of his arms.
Like roses unfurling, so open the lips of my love,
  I burn for their flavour,
yet awaken him not till he please.





Ch. 3.

6.

Out of the forest I came, with my
maidens and minions;
with carpets of hibiscus strewn at my feet.
Columns of frankincense curved into the air,
burning from lamps of copper and gold.
From the broad slopes of Edom
my soul's love stopped to observe us.
I felt his warm gaze upon me,
so soft a look as touched like caresses of hands.
I am weary with desire, my lord and king,
Bring me the looks of thine eyes, dark as midnight,
That regard me with touches of silk.


7.

Though I may stand with my legion before thee,
an army behind me,
The west wind roars to my left,
the east to my right,
a million strong with all my banners, warriors
and standard-bearers,
still my delight were only to serve thee,
see how I tremble with awe by thy side.


8.

Behold, my ladies, the noble bearing of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
My king is a custodian of the sanctity of love,
see those arms with the strength to smite
yet full of the will to embrace.
Nightly cometh he to my chambers,
whispering of love,
with the stealth of a lion,
as meek as a lamb.




Ch. 4.

9.

Preparing for my beloved,
I have put on my mantle of midnight sky
garlanded with stars.
My black locks are hung with beads of gold,
my neck is anointed with sandalwood and rose.
Come, my ladies,
Bring me my white chargers,
my sedan lined with silks from Lebanon,
my heralds and cavalcades of guards;
My beloved king awaits my pleasure.






10.

When I am in the embrace of my beloved,
He is worlds of landscapes of desire,
he is all the earth, air and sky to me.
His eyes shineth as my sun and moon,
his broad chest becometh as the
cool desert dunes by night,
where I may rest my head.
Go safely in thy dreams, beloved king,
with sentinel angels, to roost with the doves.




Ch. 5.

11.

Such a turmoil of a dream
hath troubled me, my sisters,
I dreamed that my love approached my window,
Calling unto me through the
rosewood trefoils of the lattice.
Forgetful of our tryst I answered him not,
all oils and fine trappings were put away,
mine eyes were full of slumber.
When finally I rose from my bed
   he had gone.


12.

Overwrought and afraid,
I went out in the streets,
  calling unto my beloved,
receiving no answer and calling again.
  The night watchmen came and found me,
they smote me and denounced me as pagan,
calling me harlot and worshipper of false idols,
harshly they beat me with flails
and threw me into the darkest cellars
of the palace of Solomon.


13.

Awakening at last,
I felt a warm breeze,
It was my love's breath upon my face.
Let all the world suspend in time,
let hate, rage and darkness flee as a shadow,
otherwise let me die here in the arms of my king.
There is but this one hour, one place,
in one lingering moment,
When my soul's love and I are conjoined
in the petals of love.




Ch. 6.

14.

Midnight has fallen in the gardens
  of the temple of Solomon.
The moon communes with her sister in the lake,
painting the magnolias with mother-of-pearl,
turning her buds into silver doves.
Passion and beauty intertwine in my love's garden,
Like the twisted trunks of the fig trees of Judea.
Behold, my beloved,
thou art more comely even than the moon.
Come and walk with me
in the balmy air of night.


15.

Only through the love of another may
a soul come to know of itself.
My king is mine and I am his;
The sun and moon each taketh their
turn in the sky,
the shepherds go sure-footed
over their hills and valleys,
the merchants go their ways in the
spice markets of Lebanon,
while he and I are lost in one another's eyes.




Ch. 7.

16.

Love's weariness hath overcome me,
beloved lord and king.
Bring me thy pleasant fruits, thy tender words,
Lie betwixt my *******; my hair shall
be thy curtain,
these arms shall be as thy cocoon.
Let the tides cease their turning
and the winds give pause to hold their breath.
Awaken not my dearest love, until he please.


17.

Even in sleep,
such beautiful eyes hath my beloved;
his eyelashes rest upon his cheek
like the feet of a butterfly on a lily.
Come, my sisters, we shall make him
a bed of hemp and poppies,
with fruit of the lotus,
that he may languish beside me
for many days and nights.




Ch. 8.

18.

Filling my days and dreams,
here is a man with the grace of a young hart,
whose honeyed voice speaketh mantras of desire.
Arise and follow me, beloved, for my vineyards
are ripe with luscious fruits,
the doves beat their wings and fly from the cots.
Emerging from the amber of sunrise,
with a swirling of veils,
summer dances into the season of our love.


19.

Lying amid the twisting vines
My love and I are deep in each other's embrace
and his lips taste of roses heavy with dew.
I am a queen of the Red Sea,
an orchid from a sacred garden,
and my kingdom reacheth to the farthest hills.
None but my love shall pass the boundary
where my vines bear the sweetest fruit,
nor taste their heady wine.


20.

The gates of my vineyard are wrought of
iron clad with gold,
taller than cedars, decorated with
the royal insignia,
guarded by three score watchmen,
by day and night.
While other men are kept without
and the foxes are driven back by dogs,
see how swiftly they open for thee.




Ch. 9.

21.

Behold, the noble stature of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
In the sanctity of love
we may walk in the realm of paradise,
undisturbed by the foibles of men.
Come beloved, awaken,
the new dawn opens as wide and fresh
as infant eyes.
Come run with me through the spice hills
  and gardens of Lebanon.

Soon  I will be done with the ledger of my adolescence
The sun is still in his puberty, though older than me
The moon is still in her perfection, a blessed queen
I have bejeweled you with the sweat of my love
And have garlanded your beauty with rubies and pearls….
Today you are the ocean of love,
And I the sunny heat of summer.
You came that day, Expecting for your arrival
Sun poured shower of anguish on my amethyst Panjabi
Out of the blue You appeared like an expected spring
In her colorful curcuma domestica costumes.
Your locks  under the veil of spring’s yellow umbrella
Still counting the days, the nights, the ongoing time,
Sometimes my heart in quest of a Time –machine….
We took  the weight off our feet under a Blessed tree
I touched your hand joining my two palms
The cold current of  spring was soaring  there
My ill-fated heart could not Kiss your "Petals of Blood"
I drowned, I drowned in my own made ocean……..

St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
    The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
    The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
    And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
    Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
    His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
    Like pious incense from a censer old,
    Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet ******'s picture, while his prayer he saith.

    His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
    Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
    And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
    Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
    The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
    Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails:
    Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
    He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

    Northward he turneth through a little door,
    And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue
    Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;
    But no--already had his deathbell rung;
    The joys of all his life were said and sung:
    His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
    Another way he went, and soon among
    Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.

    That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
    And so it chanc'd, for many a door was wide,
    From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
    The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide:
    The level chambers, ready with their pride,
    Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
    The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
    Star'd, where upon their heads the cornice rests,
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their *******.

    At length burst in the argent revelry,
    With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
    Numerous as shadows haunting faerily
    The brain, new stuff'd, in youth, with triumphs gay
    Of old romance. These let us wish away,
    And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
    Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
    On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.

    They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve,
    Young virgins might have visions of delight,
    And soft adorings from their loves receive
    Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
    If ceremonies due they did aright;
    As, supperless to bed they must retire,
    And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
    Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

    Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
    The music, yearning like a God in pain,
    She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
    Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
    Pass by--she heeded not at all: in vain
      Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
    And back retir'd; not cool'd by high disdain,
    But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sigh'd for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.

    She danc'd along with vague, regardless eyes,
    Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
    The hallow'd hour was near at hand: she sighs
    Amid the timbrels, and the throng'd resort
    Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
    'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,
    Hoodwink'd with faery fancy; all amort,
    Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

    So, purposing each moment to retire,
    She linger'd still. Meantime, across the moors,
    Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
    For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
    Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implores
    All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
    But for one moment in the tedious hours,
    That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss--in sooth such things have been.

    He ventures in: let no buzz'd whisper tell:
    All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
    Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous citadel:
    For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
    Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
    Whose very dogs would execrations howl
    Against his lineage: not one breast affords
    Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

    Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
    Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
    To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
    Behind a broad half-pillar, far beyond
    The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
    He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
    And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand,
    Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!

    "Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;
    He had a fever late, and in the fit
    He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:
    Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
    More tame for his gray hairs--Alas me! flit!
    Flit like a ghost away."--"Ah, Gossip dear,
    We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
    And tell me how"--"Good Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."

    He follow'd through a lowly arched way,
    Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
    And as she mutter'd "Well-a--well-a-day!"
    He found him in a little moonlight room,
    Pale, lattic'd, chill, and silent as a tomb.
    "Now tell me where is Madeline," said he,
    "O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
    Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously."

    "St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve--
    Yet men will ****** upon holy days:
    Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve,
    And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
    To venture so: it fills me with amaze
    To see thee, Porphyro!--St. Agnes' Eve!
    God's help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
    This very night: good angels her deceive!
But let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to grieve."

    Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
    While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
    Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
    Who keepeth clos'd a wond'rous riddle-book,
    As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
    But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
    His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook
    Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

    Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
    Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart
    Made purple riot: then doth he propose
    A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
    "A cruel man and impious thou art:
    Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
    Alone with her good angels, far apart
    From wicked men like thee. Go, go!--I deem
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem."

    "I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,"
    Quoth Porphyro: "O may I ne'er find grace
    When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
    If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
    Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
    Good Angela, believe me by these tears;
    Or I will, even in a moment's space,
    Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears,
And beard them, though they be more fang'd than wolves and bears."

    "Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
    A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
    Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
    Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
    Were never miss'd."--Thus plaining, doth she bring
    A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
    So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
    That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.

    Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
    Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide
    Him in a closet, of such privacy
    That he might see her beauty unespy'd,
    And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
    While legion'd faeries pac'd the coverlet,
    And pale enchantment held her sleepy-ey'd.
    Never on such a night have lovers met,
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

    "It shall be as thou wishest," said the Dame:
    "All cates and dainties shall be stored there
    Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
    Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,
    For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
    On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
    Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
    The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead."

    So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
    The lover's endless minutes slowly pass'd;
    The dame return'd, and whisper'd in his ear
    To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
    From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
    Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
    The maiden's chamber, silken, hush'd, and chaste;
    Where Porphyro took covert, pleas'd amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

    Her falt'ring hand upon the balustrade,
    Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
    When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid,
    Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware:
    With silver taper's light, and pious care,
    She turn'd, and down the aged gossip led
    To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
    Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd and fled.

    Out went the taper as she hurried in;
    Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
    She clos'd the door, she panted, all akin
    To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
    No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
    But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
    Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
    As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

    A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
    All garlanded with carven imag'ries
    Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
    And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
    Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
    As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
    And in the midst, '**** thousand heraldries,
    And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.

    Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
    And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
    As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon;
    Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
    And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
    And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
    She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
    Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

    Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
    Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
    Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
    Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
    Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
    Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-****,
    Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
    In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

    Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
    In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay,
    Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
    Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
    Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
    Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain;
    Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
    Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

    Stol'n to this paradise, and so entranced,
    Porphyro gaz'd upon her empty dress,
    And listen'd to her breathing, if it chanced
    To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
    Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
    And breath'd himself: then from the closet crept,
    Noiseless a

1
Who will honor the city without a name
If so many are dead and others pan gold
Or sell arms in faraway countries?


What shepherd's horn swathed in the bark of birch
Will sound in the Ponary Hills the memory of the absent—
Vagabonds, Pathfinders, brethren of a dissolved lodge?


This spring, in a desert, beyond a campsite flagpole,
—In silence that stretched to the solid rock of yellow and red mountains—
I heard in a gray bush the buzzing of wild bees.


The current carried an echo and the timber of rafts.
A man in a visored cap and a woman in a kerchief
Pushed hard with their four hands at a heavy steering oar.


In the library, below a tower painted with the signs of the zodiac,
Kontrym would take a whiff from his snuffbox and smile
For despite Metternich all was not yet lost.


And on crooked lanes down the middle of a sandy highway
Jewish carts went their way while a black grouse hooted
Standing on a cuirassier's helmet, a relict of La Grande Armée.


2
In Death Valley I thought about styles of hairdo,
About a hand that shifted spotlights at the Student's Ball
In the city from which no voice could reach me.
Minerals did not sound the last trumpet.
There was only the rustle of a loosened grain of lava.


In Death Valley salt gleams from a dried-up lake bed.
Defend, defend yourself, says the tick-tock of the blood.
From the futility of solid rock, no wisdom.


In Death Valley no hawk or eagle against the sky.
The prediction of a Gypsy woman has come true.
In a lane under an arcade, then, I was reading a poem
Of someone who had lived next door, entitled 'An Hour of Thought.'


I looked long at the rearview mirror: there, the one man
Within three miles, an Indian, was walking a bicycle uphill.


3
With flutes, with torches
And a drum, boom, boom,
Look, the one who died in Istanbul, there, in the first row.
He walks arm in arm with his young lady,
And over them swallows fly.


They carry oars or staffs garlanded with leaves
And bunches of flowers from the shores of the Green Lakes,
As they came closer and closer, down Castle Street.
And then suddenly nothing, only a white puff of cloud
Over the Humanities Student Club,
Division of Creative Writing.


4
Books, we have written a whole library of them.
Lands, we have visited a great many of them.
Battles, we have lost a number of them.
Till we are no more, we and our Maryla.


5
Understanding and pity,
We value them highly.
What else?


Beauty and kisses,
Fame and its prizes,
Who cares?


Doctors and lawyers,
Well-turned-out majors,
Six feet of earth.


Rings, furs, and lashes,
Glances at Masses,
Rest in peace.


Sweet twin *******, good night.
Sleep through to the light,
Without spiders.


6
The sun goes down above the Zealous Lithuanian Lodge
And kindles fire on landscapes 'made from nature':
The Wilia winding among pines; black honey of the Żejmiana;
The Mereczanka washes berries near the Żegaryno village.
The valets had already brought in Theban candelabra
And pulled curtains, one after the other, slowly,
While, thinking I entered first, taking off my gloves,
I saw that all the eyes were fixed on me.


7
When I got rid of grieving
And the glory I was seeking,
Which I had no business doing,


I was carried by dragons
Over countries, bays, and mountains,
By fate, or by what happens.


Oh yes, I wanted to be me.
I toasted mirrors weepily
And learned my own stupidity.


From nails, mucous membrane,
Lungs, liver, bowels, and spleen
Whose house is made? Mine.


So what else is new?
I am not my own friend.
Time cuts me in two.


Monuments covered with snow,
Accept my gift. I wandered;
And where, I don't know.


8
Absent, burning, acrid, salty, sharp.
Thus the feast of Insubstantiality.
Under a gathering of clouds anywhere.
In a bay, on a plateau, in a dry arroyo.
No density. No harness of stone.
Even the Summa thins into straw and smoke.
And the angelic choirs fly over in a pomegranate seed
Sounding every few instants, not for us, their trumpets.


9
Light, universal, and yet it keeps changing.
For I love the light too, perhaps the light only.
Yet what is too dazzling and too high is not for me.
So when the clouds turn rosy, I think of light that is level
In the lands of birch and pine coated with crispy lichen,
Late in autumn, under the hoarfrost when the last milk caps
Rot under the firs and the hounds' barking echoes,
And jackdaws wheel over the tower of a Basilian church.


10
Unexpressed, untold.
But how?
The shortness of life,
the years quicker and quicker,
not remembering whether it happened in this or that autumn.
Retinues of homespun velveteen skirts,
giggles above a railing, pigtails askew,
sittings on chamberpots upstairs
when the sledge jingles under the columns of the porch
just before the moustachioed ones in wolf fur enter.
Female humanity,
children's snots, legs spread apart,
snarled hair, the milk boiling over,
stench, **** frozen into clods.
And those centuries,
conceiving in the herring smell of the middle of the night
instead of playing something like a game of chess
or dancing an intellectual ballet.
And palisades,
and pregnant sheep,
and pigs, fast eaters and poor eaters,
and cows cured by incantations.


11
Not the Last Judgment, just a kermess by a river.
Small whistles, clay chickens, candied hearts.
So we trudged through the slush of melting snow
To buy bagels from the district of Smorgonie.


A fortune-teller hawking: 'Your destiny, your planets.'
And a toy devil bobbing in a tube of crimson brine.
Another, a rubber one, expired in the air squeaking,
By the stand where you bought stories of King Otto and Melusine.


12
Why should that city, defenseless and pure as the wedding necklace of
a forgotten tribe, keep offering itself to me?
Like blue and red-brown seeds beaded in Tuzigoot in the copper desert
seven centuries ago.


Where ocher rubbed into stone still waits for the brow and cheekbone
it would adorn, though for all that time there has been no one.


What evil in me, what pity has made me deserve this offering?


It stands before me, ready, not even the smoke from one chimney is
lacking, not one echo, when I step across the rivers that separate us.


Perhaps Anna and Dora Drużyno have called to me, three hundred miles
inside Arizona, because except fo me no one else knows that they ever
lived.


They trot before me on Embankment Street, two hently born parakeets
from Samogitia, and at night they unravel their spinster tresses of gray
hair.


Here there is no earlier and no later; the seasons of the year and of the
day are simultaneous.


At dawn ****-wagons leave town in long rows and municipal employees
at the gate collect the turnpike toll in leather bags.


Rattling their wheels, 'Courier' and 'Speedy' move against the current
to Werki, and an oarsman shot down over England skiffs past, spread-
eagled by his oars.


At St. Peter and Paul's the angels lower their thick eyelids in a smile
over a nun who has indecent thoughts.


Bearded, in a wig, Mrs. Sora Klok sits at the ocunter, instructing her
twelve shopgirls.


And all of German Street tosses into the air unfurled bolts of fabric,
preparing itself for death and the conquest of Jerusalem.


Black and princely, an underground river knocks at cellars of the
cathedral under the tomb of St. Casimir the Young and under the
half-charred oak logs in the hearth.


Carrying her servant's-basket on her shoulder, Barbara, dressed in
mourning, returns from the Lithuanian Mass at St. Nicholas to the
Romers' house in Bakszta Street.


How it glitters! the snow on Three Crosses Hill and Bekiesz Hill, not
to be melted by the breath of these brief lives.


And what do I know now, when I turn into Arsenal Street and open
my eyes once more on a useless end of the world?


I was running, as the silks rustled, through room after room without
stopping, for I believed in the existence of a last door.


But the shape of lips and an apple and a flower pinned to a dress were
all that one was permitted to know and take away.


The Earth, neither compassionate nor evil, neither beautiful nor atro-
cious, persisted, innocent, open to pain and desire.


And the gift was useless, if, later on, in the flarings of distant nights,
there was not less bitterness but more.


If I cannot so exhaust my life and their life that the bygone crying is
transformed, at last, into harmony.


Like a Noble Jan Dęboróg in the Straszun's secondhand-book shop, I am
put to rest forever between tow familiar names.


The castle tower above the leafy tumulus grows small and there is still
a hardly audible—is it Mozart's Requiem?—music.


In the immobile light I move my lips and perhaps I am even glad not
to find the desired word.

The blessed damozel leaned out
  From the gold bar of heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
  Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
  And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
  No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
  For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
  Was yellow like ripe corn.

It seemed she scarce had been a day
  One of God’s choristers;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
  From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
  Had counted as ten years.

(To one it is ten years of years.
  . . . Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o’er me—her hair
  Fell all about my face . . .
Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves.
  The whole year sets apace.)

It was the rampart of God’s house
  That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
  The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
  She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in heaven, across the flood
  Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath the tides of day and night
  With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
  Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers, newly met
  ’Mid deathless love’s acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
  Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
  Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself and stooped
  Out of the circling charm;
Until her ***** must have made
  The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
  Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of heaven she saw
  Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
  Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
  The stars sang in their spheres.

The sun was gone now; the curled moon
  Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
  She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
  Had when they sang together.

(Ah, sweet! Even now, in that bird’s song,
  Strove not her accents there,
Fain to be harkened? When those bells
  Possessed the midday air,
Strove not her steps to reach my side
  Down all the echoing stair?)

“I wish that he were come to me,
  For he will come,” she said.
“Have I not prayed in heaven?—on earth,
  Lord, Lord, has he not prayed?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
  And shall I feel afraid?

“When round his head the aureole clings,
  And he is clothed in white,
I’ll take his hand and go with him
  To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,
  And bathe there in God’s sight.

“We two will stand beside that shrine,
  Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
  With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted melt
  Each like a little cloud.

“We two will lie i’ the shadow of
  That living mystic tree
Within those secret growth the Dove
  Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
  Saith His Name audibly.

“And I myself will teach to him,
  I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing here; which his voice
  Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
  Or some new thing to know.”

(Alas! We two, we two, thou say’st!
  Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old.  But shall God lift
  To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
  Was but its love for thee?)

“We two,” she said, “will seek the groves
  Where the lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens, whose names
  Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
  Margaret, and Rosalys.

“Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
  And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame
  Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
  Who are just born, being dead.

“He shall fear, haply, and be dumb;
  Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
  Not once abashed or weak;
And the dear Mother will approve
  My pride, and let me speak.

“Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
  To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
  Bowed with their aureoles;
And angels meeting us shall sing
  To their citherns and citoles.

“There will I ask of Christ the Lord
  Thus much for him and me —
Only to live as once on earth
  With Love—only to be,
As then awhile, forever now,
  Together, I and he.”

She gazed and listened and then said,
  Less sad of speech than mild —
“All this is when he comes.” She ceased.
  The light thrilled toward her, filled
With angels in strong, level flight.
  Her eyes prayed, and she smil’d.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
  Was vague in distant spheres;
And then she cast her arms along
  The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
  And wept. (I heard her tears.)

She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

She looked over his shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice,
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been,
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a ****-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are *****, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining *******
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.

How far is it?
How far is it now?
The gigantic gorilla interior
Of the wheels move, they appall me ---
The terrible brains
Of Krupp, black muzzles
Revolving, the sound
Punching out Absence! Like cannon.
It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other.
I am dragging my body
Quietly through the straw of the boxcars.
Now is the time for bribery.
What do wheels eat, these wheels
Fixed to their arcs like gods,
The silver leash of the will ----
Inexorable. And their pride!
All the gods know destinations.
I am a letter in this slot!
I fly to a name, two eyes.
Will there be fire, will there be bread?
Here there is such mud.
It is a trainstop, the nurses
Undergoing the faucet water, its veils, veils in a nunnery,
Touching their wounded,
The men the blood still pumps forward,
Legs, arms piled outside
The tent of unending cries ----
A hospital of dolls.
And the men, what is left of the men
Pumped ahead by these pistons, this blood
Into the next mile,
The next hour ----
Dynasty of broken arrows!

How far is it?
There is mud on my feet,
Thick, red and slipping. It is Adam's side,
This earth I rise from, and I in agony.
I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming.
Steaming and breathing, its teeth
Ready to roll, like a devil's.
There is a minute at the end of it
A minute, a dewdrop.
How far is it?
It is so small
The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles ----
The body of this woman,
Charred skirts and deathmask
Mourned by religious figures, by garlanded children.
And now detonations ----
Thunder and guns.
The fire's between us.
Is there no place
Turning and turning in the middle air,
Untouchable and untouchable.
The train is dragging itself, it is screaming ----
An animal
Insane for the destination,
The bloodspot,
The face at the end of the flare.
I shall bury the wounded like pupas,
I shall count and bury the dead.
Let their souls writhe in like dew,
Incense in my track.
The carriages rock, they are cradles.
And I, stepping from this skin
Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces

Step up to you from the black car of Lethe,
Pure as a baby.

Satan is love and love is Satan
You are one and the same,
In texture, scent and beauty,
You all blend into one
Commanding three quarters
Of heaven’s loyalty
Ninety percent of human allegiance,
The church and the mosque are your marionette
All the temples are your domain,
African Shrines are your beautiful turf
As synagogues thrive from your love.

Satan, this sonnet is for you
My lyrical dedication to your glory,
An Ode of all odes to you Satan
As for you will reign
In the natural systems
As the sole queen of my heart
Your regal time in my love-sphere
Will infinitely pullulate in times to come,

Of your nature I know not
Of your abode I know not
Whether you are in ethereal
Or in the realms of hell
I know not but to your glory,
Of your race I know not
Notwithstanding your black label,
But your glory and mighty I know
You reign the earth and the heaven
With unmatched stature, unprecedented
Your foes forlornly left minus option
But only to desperate wistfulness,

Your works are a tor among mountains
In seas, oceans, landmasses and heavenly systems,
You designed colonialism at Berlin conference
You inspired slavery in the powers that be
You inspired heart of apartheid among Israelis
Against the foolish Palestinians,
You masterminded forceful occupation
Of the oil wells and Lands of Palestine by Israelis,
You designed Apartheid in South Africa
And nascent racial hatred in America
That saw death in Ferguson and the poor lad
A ****** Treyvvon who is better dead!
And it all went all without simple fetter
My dear sweet heart, the one and only one,
Satan the dearest Lucifer Alias Ibilis,

Your accolades are unique
And true Spectacle of spectacles,
They stand garlanded out of the rest
To sure glory of my dear little dove,
The flower of my heart,
Was the gift of nuclear power
to the stoogish Einstein your protégé?
Was the gift of *** to the Irish Scientists
Your efforts and sweat of your brow?
Is Ebola your latest tool in depopulation move?
Will you spare the black souls my dear love?

My heart misses you dear little love,
Where and when can we meet?
For us to have our light moment
To have a heart to heart chat
In the fullness of flowery flora
And monkey Fauna of Africa,
Can we meet on the **** shores
Of warm and elegant Lake Turkana?
The beacon of natural beauty
On which human sorrow melts
Into the mellifluous warmth
Of your love and delicacy of you romance,
I look forward dear for this day,
On which I will be swallowed
Into your softly touch and caresses
As your warm kisses land on my lips
I will softly moan to the warmth in you love.

Can I come along with my friends, dear sweetie?
For they are unhappy and proscribed to a legal corner
In this dark abyss of African political culture
They are Lesbians and gays, drug dealers,
Polygamists and polyandrous ones,
The laws of the day have pigeonholed them,
Let them come to your table for a treat
On buckers and Nyama Choma of he goats,
For truly they are your current brainchildren
Forlornly isolated by black primitivity.


I will sing to you all lyrics my dear
As your works are marvelous and wonderful
They crystallize into a power of powers
I will sing to you; ‘the poem to Satan’ of dear Marx,
And ‘evil’s idol’ in the glory of your love,
Will sing for you ‘the night in the forest’
And ‘Ode to my mother’ of Adolf ******
As I shower your reign with classical lyrics,
In praise of your power on human heart,
None else calls the tune of human piety
As you powerfully do my dear lollipop.

I am now tired
And the lamp of my house now faintly goes
As my heart yearns for sleep
Into which I will dream
The blissful dreams
Propelled by the sweet scent
The sole outfit of your lovely reign.

I keep such music in my brain
No din this side of death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell.

My dreaming spirit will not heed
The roar of guns that would destroy
My life that on the gloom can read
Proud-surging melodies of joy.

To the world’s end I went, and found
Death in his carnival of glare;
But in my torment I was crowned,
And music dawned above despair.

Sings a small boy whose hair is tousled by the wind,
As too the folds of his mother’s peplos and the robes of clouds,
When Greece gathers in silence like the stillness for a deposed crown,
And all Athens around, the song of eiresione for firstfruits of Autumn,
Singing boys with the olive branches of colored wool and garlanded gourds,
A fall-bird to wander the Ionic sky, foretelling of new sunrise.
How that joyful ancient voice still haunts the songbird of sunset.

God visited our house last Sunday
a bright papaya orange butterfly
welcomed Him,
fluttering in loops like a kite
as He stepped out of His car

Embracing our dear friend Jon from
New Jersey
He entered our pagoda
indeed, not as a guest but
as an embodiment of God

The early afternoon was garlanded
in loving, intimate, animated conversation
and a delectable lunch was served to our
beloved  brother
This was topped off with nectar sweet
chocolate coconut prasadam

Everything from matters of the spirit
to soul stirring S.R.F. devotional songs
chanting sublimely
suffused our heavenly day

Even the backyard birds turned out
in large numbers
their cocky red, brown and
sky blue heads
peeking curiously through
the patio door
craned to catch a glimpse
of our divine companion

Jon, His mellow, prayerful eyes
blessing all His gaze fell upon
leaned back comfortably in
the recliner chair
like a long lost friend
returning home ~

MANY ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about.  There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone
An ancient image made of olive wood --
And gone are phidias' famous ivories
And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep:  a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left:  all triumph would
But break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say? That country round
None dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be found
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous ivories
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound
A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of air
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their tread
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
III
Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast ****** out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
We, who seven yeats ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.
Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.
Violence upon the roads:  violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias' daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her *****.

As evening falls,
The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls
Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving,
Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.
How shall we live to-night, where shall we turn?
To what new light or darkness yearn?
A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;
And one by one in myriads we descend
By lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,
Through half-lit halls which reach no end. . . .

Take my arm, then, you or you or you,
And let us walk abroad on the solid air:
Look how the organist's head, in silhouette,
Leans to the lamplit music's orange square! . . .
The dim-globed lamps illumine rows of faces,
Rows of hands and arms and hungry eyes,
They have hurried down from a myriad secret places,
From windy chambers next to the skies. . . .
The music comes upon us. . . it shakes the darkness,
It shakes the darkness in our minds. . . .
And brilliant figures suddenly fill the darkness,
Down the white shaft of light they run through darkness,
And in our hearts a dazzling dream unwinds . . .

Take my hand, then, walk with me
By the slow soundless crashings of a sea
Down miles on miles of glistening mirrorlike sand,--
Take my hand
And walk with me once more by crumbling walls;
Up mouldering stairs where grey-stemmed ivy clings,
To hear forgotten bells, as evening falls,
Rippling above us invisibly their slowly widening rings. . . .
Did you once love me?  Did you bear a name?
Did you once stand before me without shame? . . .
Take my hand: your face is one I know,
I loved you, long ago:
You are like music, long forgotten, suddenly come to mind;
You are like spring returned through snow.
Once, I know, I walked with you in starlight,
And many nights I slept and dreamed of you;
Come, let us climb once more these stairs of starlight,
This midnight stream of cloud-flung blue! . . .
Music murmurs beneath us like a sea,
And faints to a ghostly whisper . . . Come with me.

Are you still doubtful of me--hesitant still,
Fearful, perhaps, that I may yet remember
What you would gladly, if you could, forget?
You were unfaithful once, you met your lover;
Still in your heart you bear that red-eyed ember;
And I was silent,--you remember my silence yet . . .
You knew, as well as I, I could not **** him,
Nor touch him with hot hands, nor yet with hate.
No, and it was not you I saw with anger.
Instead, I rose and beat at steel-walled fate,
Cried till I lay exhausted, sick, unfriended,
That life, so seeming sure, and love, so certain,
Should loose such tricks, be so abruptly ended,
Ring down so suddenly an unlooked-for curtain.

How could I find it in my heart to hurt you,
You, whom this love could hurt much more than I?
No, you were pitiful, and I gave you pity;
And only hated you when I saw you cry.
We were two dupes; if I could give forgiveness,--
Had I the right,--I should forgive you now . . .
We were two dupes . . . Come, let us walk in starlight,
And feed our griefs: we do not break, but bow.

Take my hand, then, come with me
By the white shadowy crashings of a sea . . .
Look how the long volutes of foam unfold
To spread their mottled shimmer along the sand! . . .
Take my hand,
Do not remember how these depths are cold,
Nor how, when you are dead,
Green leagues of sea will glimmer above your head.
You lean your face upon your hands and cry,
The blown sand whispers about your feet,
Terrible seems it now to die,--
Terrible now, with life so incomplete,
To turn away from the balconies and the music,
The sunlit afternoons,
To hear behind you there a far-off laughter
Lost in a stirring of sand among dry dunes . . .
Die not sadly, you whom life has beaten!
Lift your face up, laughing, die like a queen!
Take cold flowers of foam in your warm white fingers!
Death's but a change of sky from blue to green . . .

As evening falls,
The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls
Tremble and glow . . . the music breathes upon us,
The rayed white shaft plays over our heads like magic,
And to and fro we move and lean and change . . .
You, in a world grown strange,
Laugh at a darkness, clench your hands despairing,
Smash your glass on a floor, no longer caring,
Sink suddenly down and cry . . .
You hear the applause that greets your latest rival,
You are forgotten: your rival--who knows?--is I . . .
I laugh in the warm bright light of answering laughter,
I am inspired and young . . . and though I see
You sitting alone there, dark, with shut eyes crying,
I bask in the light, and in your hate of me . . .
Failure . . . well, the time comes soon or later . . .
The night must come . . . and I'll be one who clings,
Desperately, to hold the applause, one instant,--
To keep some youngster waiting in the wings.

The music changes tone . . . a room is darkened,
Someone is moving . . . the crack of white light widens,
And all is dark again; till suddenly falls
A wandering disk of light on floor and walls,
Winks out, returns again, climbs and descends,
Gleams on a clock, a glass, shrinks back to darkness;
And then at last, in the chaos of that place,
Dazzles like frozen fire on your clear face.
Well, I have found you.  We have met at last.
Now you shall not escape me: in your eyes
I see the horrible huddlings of your past,--
All you remember blackens, utters cries,
Reaches far hands and faint.  I hold the light
Close to your cheek, watch the pained pupils shrink,--
Watch the vile ghosts of all you vilely think . . .
Now all the hatreds of my life have met
To hold high carnival . . . we do not speak,
My fingers find the well-loved throat they seek,
And press, and fling you down . . . and then forget.

Who plays for me?  What sudden drums keep time
To the ecstatic rhythm of my crime?
What flute shrills out as moonlight strikes the floor? . .
What violin so faintly cries
Seeing how strangely in the moon he lies? . . .
The room grows dark once more,
The crack of white light narrows around the door,
And all is silent, except a slow complaining
Of flutes and violins, like music waning.

Take my hand, then, walk with me
By the slow soundless crashings of a sea . . .
Look, how white these shells are, on this sand!
Take my hand,
And watch the waves run inward from the sky
Line upon foaming line to plunge and die.
The music that bound our lives is lost behind us,
Paltry it seems . . . here in this wind-swung place
Motionless under the sky's vast vault of azure
We stand in a terror of beauty, face to face.
The dry grass creaks in the wind, the blown sand whispers,

The soft sand seethes on the dunes, the clear grains glisten,
Once they were rock . . . a chaos of golden boulders . . .
Now they are blown by the wind . . . we stand and listen
To the sliding of grain upon timeless grain
And feel our lives go past like a whisper of pain.
Have I not seen you, have we not met before
Here on this sun-and-sea-wrecked shore?
You shade your sea-gray eyes with a sunlit hand
And peer at me . . . far sea-gulls, in your eyes,
Flash in the sun, go down . . . I hear slow sand,
And shrink to nothing beneath blue brilliant skies . . .

     *     *     *     *     *

The music ends.  The screen grows dark.  We hurry
To go our devious secret ways, forgetting
Those many lives . . .  We loved, we laughed, we killed,
We danced in fire, we drowned in a whirl of sea-waves.
The flutes are stilled, and a thousand dreams are stilled.

Whose body have I found beside dark waters,
The cold white body, garlanded with sea-****?
Staring with wide eyes at the sky?
I bent my head above it, and cried in silence.
Only the things I dreamed of heard my cry.

Once I loved, and she I loved was darkened.
Again I loved, and love itself was darkened.
Vainly we follow the circle of shadowy days.
The screen at last grows dark, the flutes are silent.
The doors of night are closed.  We go our ways.

Winds of May, that dance on the sea,
Dancing a ring-around in glee
From furrow to furrow, while overhead
The foam flies up to be garlanded,
In silvery arches spanning the air,
Saw you my true love anywhere?
Welladay! Welladay!
For the winds of May!
Love is unhappy when love is away!

Clearing ivy,
pulling up handfuls of
choking bindweed,
uncovering delicate
wildflowers in
neglected garden corners,
and there’s this
tiny bird
lying in the dirt.
Feathers sparkle
pretty and golden,
as fairytale light
falls through
parted vines.
Surely dead,
but then
- like Snow White
surfacing from
magic apple-induced
dormancy -
the bird moves,
woken by the kiss
of sunlight and
being witnessed,
and seems to breathe.
A gloved finger’s
exploratory, leathery ****,
a moment to realise,
then disgust,
sharp recoil.
A wing lifts;
gleaming feathers
parting reveal the
crawling mechanics inside,
the writhing, parasitic mess
behind the sick illusion,
the briefly faked miracle
of something
like life.

Away over a fence,
Union bunting
***** erratic and jarring
in a neighbour’s garden.
In a stuffy town hall,
the town band is practising
God Save The Queen, but
still can’t keep time.
Our betters wave to us from
high palace balconies
and golden coaches, and we
cheer them for it.

There’s such hunger, such
pain and desperation out there,
you can feel it, if you
forget to stop yourself.
There’s so much tragedy and injustice,
you have to go numb or go crazy.
There’s no future we can see,
and the past has been rewritten
to reflect the views
of focus groups,
fascists and fantasists.

And there’s a bird
lying in the dirt,
garlanded by fragrant petals,
feathers flashing like jewels,
so dead
it looks like
it’s breathing.

The Eve of St. Agnes


I.

  ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
  The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
  The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
  And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
  Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told         5
  His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
  Like pious incense from a censer old,
  Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet ******’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

II.

  His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;         10
  Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
  And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
  Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
  The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
  Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:         15
  Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,
  He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

III.

  Northward he turneth through a little door,
  And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue         20
  Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor;
  But no—already had his deathbell rung;
  The joys of all his life were said and sung:
  His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:
  Another way he went, and soon among         25
  Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.

IV.

  That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
  And so it chanc’d, for many a door was wide,
  From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,         30
  The silver, snarling trumpets ’gan to chide:
  The level chambers, ready with their pride,
  Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
  The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
  Star’d, where upon their heads the cornice rests,         35
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their *******.

V.

  At length burst in the argent revelry,
  With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
  Numerous as shadows haunting fairily
  The brain, new stuff d, in youth, with triumphs gay         40
  Of old romance. These let us wish away,
  And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
  Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
  On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.         45

VI.

  They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,
  Young virgins might have visions of delight,
  And soft adorings from their loves receive
  Upon the honey’d middle of the night,
  If ceremonies due they did aright;         50
  As, supperless to bed they must retire,
  And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
  Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

VII.

  Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:         55
  The music, yearning like a God in pain,
  She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
  Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
  Pass by—she heeded not at all: in vain
  Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,         60
  And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain,
  But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.

VIII.

  She danc’d along with vague, regardless eyes,
  Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:         65
  The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs
  Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort
  Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
  ’Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,
  Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,         70
  Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

IX.

  So, purposing each moment to retire,
  She linger’d still. Meantime, across the moors,
  Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire         75
  For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
  Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores
  All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
  But for one moment in the tedious hours,
  That he might gaze and worship all unseen;         80
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.

X.

  He ventures in: let no buzz’d whisper tell:
  All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
  Will storm his heart, Love’s fev’rous citadel:
  For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,         85
  Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
  Whose very dogs would execrations howl
  Against his lineage: not one breast affords
  Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.         90

XI.

  Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
  Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
  To where he stood, hid from the torch’s flame,
  Behind a broad hail-pillar, far beyond
  The sound of merriment and chorus bland:         95
  He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
  And grasp’d his fingers in her palsied hand,
  Saying, “Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;
“They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!

XII.

  “Get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish Hildebrand;         100
  “He had a fever late, and in the fit
  “He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:
  “Then there ’s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
  “More tame for his gray hairs—Alas me! flit!
  “Flit like a ghost away.”—“Ah, Gossip dear,         105
  “We’re safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
  “And tell me how”—“Good Saints! not here, not here;
“Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.”

XIII.

  He follow’d through a lowly arched way,
  Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume;         110
  And as she mutter’d “Well-a—well-a-day!”
  He found him in a little moonlight room,
  Pale, lattic’d, chill, and silent as a tomb.
  “Now tell me where is Madeline,” said he,
  “O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom         115
  “Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
“When they St. Agnes’ wool are weaving piously.”

XIV.

  “St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes’ Eve—
  “Yet men will ****** upon holy days:
  “Thou must hold water in a witch’s sieve,         120
  “And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
  “To venture so: it fills me with amaze
  “To see thee, Porphyro!—St. Agnes’ Eve!
  “God’s help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
  “This very night: good angels her deceive!         125
“But let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.”

XV.

  Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
  While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
  Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
  Who keepeth clos’d a wond’rous riddle-book,         130
  As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
  But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
  His lady’s purpose; and he scarce could brook
  Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.         135

XVI.

  Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
  Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart
  Made purple riot: then doth he propose
  A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
  “A cruel man and impious thou art:         140
  “Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
  “Alone with her good angels, far apart
  “From wicked men like thee. Go, go!—I deem
“Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.

XVII.

  “I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,”         145
  Quoth Porphyro: “O may I ne’er find grace
  “When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
  “If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
  “Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
  “Good Angela, believe me by these tears;         150
  “Or I will, even in a moment’s space,
  “Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen’s ears,
“And beard them, though they be more fang’d than wolves and bears.”

XVIII.

  “Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
  “A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,         155
  “Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
  “Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
  “Were never miss’d.”—Thus plaining, doth she bring
  A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
  So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,         160
  That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.

XIX.

  Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
  Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide
  Him in a closet, of such privacy         165
  That he might see her beauty unespied,
  And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
  While legion’d fairies pac’d the coverlet,
  And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.
  Never on such a night have lovers met,         170
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

**.

  “It shall be as thou wishest,” said the Dame:
  “All cates and dainties shall be stored there
  “Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
  “Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,         175
  “For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
  “On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
  “Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
  “The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
“Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.”         180

XXI.

  So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
  The lover’s endless minutes slowly pass’d;
  The dame return’d, and whisper’d in his ear
  To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
  From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,         185
  Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
  The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste;
  Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

XXII.

  Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,         190
  Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
  When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,
  Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:
  With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
  She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led         195
  To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
  Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled.

XXIII.

  Out went the taper as she hurried in;
  Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:         200
  She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin
  To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
  No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
  But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
  Paining with eloquence her balmy side;         205
  As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

XXIV.

  A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
  All garlanded with carven imag’ries
  Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,         210
  And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
  Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
  As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;
  And in the midst, ’**** thousand heraldries,
  And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,         215
A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

XXV.

  Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
  And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,
  As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
  Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,         220
  And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
  And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
  She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,
  Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.         225

XXVI.

  Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
  Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
  Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
  Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
  Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:         230
  Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-****,
  Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
  In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

XXVII.

  Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,         235
  In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,
  Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d
  Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
  Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
  Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;         240
  Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
  Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

XXVIII.

  Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,
  Porphyro gazed upon her em

Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfall
About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head
In gracious fostering union garlanded,
Her tremulous smiles, her glances’ sweet recall
Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;
Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shed
On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led
Back to her mouth which answers there for all:—

What sweeter than these things, except the thing
In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:—
The confident heart’s still fervour: the swift beat
And soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing,
Then when it feels, in cloud—girt wayfaring,
The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?

How far is it?
How far is it now?
The gigantic gorilla interior
Of the wheels move, they appall me --- The terrible brains
Of Krupp, black muzzles
Revolving, the sound
Punching out Absence! Like cannon.
It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other.
I am dragging my body
Quietly through the straw of the boxcars.
Now is the time for bribery.
What do wheels eat, these wheels
Fixed to their arcs like gods,
The silver leash of the will ----
Inexorable. And their pride!
All the gods know destinations.
I am a letter in this slot!
I fly to a name, two eyes.
Will there be fire, will there be bread?
Here there is such mud.
It is a trainstop, the nurses
Undergoing the faucet water, its veils, veils in a nunnery, Touching their wounded,
The men the blood still pumps forward,
Legs, arms piled outside
The tent of unending cries ----
A hospital of dolls.
And the men, what is left of the men
Pumped ahead by these pistons, this blood
Into the next mile,
The next hour ----
Dynasty of broken arrows!
How far is it?
There is mud on my feet,
Thick, red and slipping. It is Adam's side,
This earth I rise from, and I in agony.
I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming.
Steaming and breathing, its teeth
Ready to roll, like a devil's.
There is a minute at the end of it
A minute, a dewdrop.
How far is it?
It is so small
The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles ---- The body of this woman,
Charred skirts and deathmask
Mourned by religious figures, by garlanded children.
And now detonations ----
Thunder and guns.
The fire's between us.
Is there no place
Turning and turning in the middle air, Untouchable and untouchable.
The train is dragging itself, it is screaming ---- An animal
Insane for the destination,
The bloodspot,
The face at the end of the flare.
I shall bury the wounded like pupas,
I shall count and bury the dead.
Let their souls writhe in like dew,
Incense in my track.
The carriages rock, they are cradles.
And I, stepping from this skin
Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces
Step up to you from the black car of Lethe, Pure as a baby.

There is no lord within my heart,
Left silent as an empty shrine
Where rose and myrtle intertwine,
Within a place apart.

No god is there of carven stone
To watch with still approving eyes
My thoughts like steady incense rise;
I dream and weep alone.

But if I keep my altar fair,
Some morning I shall lift my head
From roses deftly garlanded
To find the god is there.

Thou spinster of the silken night
Why slide beneath that sylphen cloud,
Why hide the blush of pallid cheek
To mask your secret smile in shroud ?

Pale crescent love of velvet void
A vivid splash of pinprick gems,
Suspended in black solitude
Such  beauty midst celestial friends.

Lovers kiss beneath your spell
Hand in hand they stroll the lane
Garlanded in silver light,
Ensnared within your crescent’s reign.


Thou siren voice doth wax and wane
These very oceans sing your song,
As seabirds ply your ebbing tides
And global winds blow clear and strong.


Lunar light threads through tree boughs
Casting lurid shadows bare,
Causing wolves to crouch and howl
At living, moonbeam shards in air.


Oh sister of the silent night
Feel the haunting call of owl,
Scan the forest’s shadowed light,
Gild the snow clad mountain’s cowl.


Thou spinster of the silken night
Rest thy secrets in thy soul,
Fade as shadows blend  to day,
Relenquish all to sun's control..



Marshal Gebbie
Victoria Park Tunnel
14 January 2011

By night, these figures mute, in the whispers
come alive, guardian deities to ancient shrines:
tonight, though, after aeons by the gates, alert,
they begin to wonder, who do they guard?
Gods no longer visit these their abodes on earth.

Tall statues, of somber stone, much garlanded,
dusty, layered in withering flowers of neglect;
Out of season now, but the shadows at noon
are wet in tears, this longest day of deep sorrow
who did they fight for, to be remembered for?

Long has she suffered, matron, deity, enthroned
in the shrine, but trodden of the earth, cuffed
at her home, weighed down of custom, wearing
tradition on her bangle and ankle and bearing
honour in her veil, invisible shadow of the race.

Like the mythical stream of the distant lore,
has this ancient river, at last found her desert?
To that man holding the book in his hand,
thundering to the empty skies, I ask, what law
do you uphold when the jungle invades the land

by Siegfried Sassoon
1886-1967

In me past, present, future meet
To hold long-chiding conference.
My lusts usurp the present tense
And strangle Reason in his seat.
My love leaps through the future’s fence
To dance with dream-enfranchised feet.

In me the cave-man clasps the seer,
And garlanded Apollo goes
Chanting to Abraham’s deaf ear.
In me the tiger sniffs the rose.
     Look in my heart, kind friends, and tremble,
     Since there your elements assemble.

Jasmine flows in lemon scented tendrils
Wafting on breeze in honeysuckle air,
Drifting in promise of delicacy hovering
Caressing pubescent delights from despair.
Delicate flavours of spearmint and juniper
Tilt in a torment of honeyed delight,
Garlanded avenues sweet and deliciously
Titivate nostrils till sensuous night.

Amorous airs in the warm summer evening
Poignantly poised in the lingering scent,
Romantically touching the tremble of senses
Released in a sigh of exquisite content.

M.
22 August 2015

In ragged feet, I rushed across the bridge-
Gleaming periwinkles flourished in the distant fields
Reflecting the cloud-free sky,
Golden sunflowers pitted the hills like pus. In the distance,
Fringed with yellow and red, stood a tent
And within was the warlord, aged now and grizzled,
His parchment skin and toothless smile a rebuke
To his youthful triumphs.
His guards parted. I entered
Into a swirling fog of scent
A floor covered in bright-coloured carpets.
Gesturing, the old man bade I move closer
And, belly swollen by hunger, I slowly advanced.
Touching my forehead with a wrinkled finger
He said: “You are my successor.”

I ate well for months.
I was given my own guards,
My own beautiful tent.
Even though only a boy
I received several lovers.
Those around me always listened
To my words. They obeyed.
Every other day, beneath the pubescent
Glare of the early sun,
I hunted deer and lions, protected
By a hundred archers. Every day
I dined on venison.

The old king rarely left the camp.
Late morning he donned his shimmering,
Armour, reflecting shards of brilliant light,
And for an hour reviewed his warriors
On the nearby heath, soured by winds. He,
A wretched old man wrapped in ermine.
After, as a whim, sending them off to die,
Dribbling from his lips, beneath sunken cheeks
And rheumy eyes, at the end of his creeping
Days. Returning to his tent, swaddled
By remembrances. Impotent in body and mind.

We played cards together once a month
Surrounded by slaves. The candelabras burst
With perfumed radiance: musicians played
Soothing songs on cymbals, drums and flutes.
Girls danced; swinging, pirouetting,
Leaping in the excited manner of newly-born fawns.
The air grew heavy with dust.
The air grew pungent with odour.
Scattered around were dishes of date and melon.

“When I die, twenty years from now,” he began, smiling,
Popping a date into his mouth. “You will be king.
And rule as I ruled. A celebrated warrior and judge.
A killer of thieves, destroyer of cities. When old,
As I now am old, you too will seek a successor-
A ragged, hungry boy born to rule, who one day
Walks into your home.”

The king dipped a date into goat’s milk.
He watched me as an owl watches a mouse,
His moist lips smacking audibly. “But that will
Be many years from now.” He continued.
He smiled again, the smile of a torturer.

Within the year I lead his armies,
Rampaging across the wild, blasted plains
And to the walls of distant cities
Leaving piles of bones. I returned
With wagons full of gold, dragging behind
A thousand slaves. The king meanwhile
Lounged in his garlanded tent eating sweets,
Hoarding his growing wealth, washed and perfumed
By half-naked handmaidens.

After two years I planned his death,
And claimed the kingdom for myself.

When spring came the mountain rain fell, the rivers overflowed,
The sun was a yellow bud,
My armies rested on the hills
Polishing their weapons with dew.
The king had ordered veal that day cooked in spices
From the east. He drank watered wine.
The multitude of slaves sang love songs with pitiful voices.
I stole into his tent at twilight.
He lay asleep on his divan, bloated and belching.
A warbler burbled in the trees,
A jay cackled from bushes by the water’s edge.
I lifted my knife and softly approached
His slumbering form. He opened his eyes and smiled
As I buried it in his chest.

I sit on a throne surrounded by my
Endlessly-victorious regiments, king of a thousand lands, eating
Fruits from India, chewing fragrant leaves from the furthest isles where the sun
Burns forever. I have grown fat.
I have grown old. I look out towards the bridge,
Cracked, worn, covered with vines, vexed by the
Rivers surging tides. I search the horizon
For a ragged boy bringing in his unblemished soul
My death.

"Right before Sai Baba comes out there is a rush of anticipation and excitement that sweeps through the air. Birds flutter, monkeys scamper, as if all of nature is pining for a glimpse of the Lord. Swami floated in doing His Divine dance. His feet graced the majestic red carpet garlanded with fragrant petals. I watched mesmerized as He moved closer, all the time praying, “Swami please bless this, I don't want to have to do this again!”

Sai Baba stopped next to two women on my left and granted them padanamaskar. Then, He turned to me. I lifted the bag hoping for a simple Blessing. To my astonishment and wonder of wonders, Sai Baba proceeded to open the bag and placed His Divine hands inside the bag looking for the opening in the blanket. Sticking my hand inside the bag too, I attempted to help Him open it. It was a comical scene and the devotees witnessing this unusual interaction laughed merrily. After a few moments, He suddenly stopped, stared piercingly into my eyes and said, “That's all right, you keep, you keep.”
He blessed the objects again touching each item on the tray while simultaneously visibly inhaling deep breaths and charging them with pure Shakti (power). What Bliss!

There were two other women sitting to my right. Swami approached them and inquired, “Where are you from?” “Australia,” they replied. They asked Swami for an interview. Baba asked when they were leaving. They said, “Tonight, Swami.” Then Swami did something that baffles me to this day. He answered them but directed the answer to me. He bent down very close to my face. I could see the fiery red veins of His Shiva eyes flashing like lightning flames so much power emanated from them. I knew that I was gazing into infinity, time crystallized and ceased to exist in those few moments.

Looking point blank at me, Sai Baba said, “Yes, I will see you before you go!” Then He stepped back and started to wave His hand in that familiar circular manner. I could distinctly feel a strange wind blowing around us. From the ether, silvery white ash known as vibhuti poured forth! This ethereal ash has curative restoring powers. Sai Baba is frequently seen materializing vibhuti; it is a natural expression of His Divinity. Swami gave the two women some vibhuti, He gave me some of this sacred ash and the two other women to my left. After this awesome Darshan, I was in an altered state for the rest of the trip."
~Sai Rapture, P. 54, 55, By Sonya Ki Tomlinson

Paste link below for song and video
**http://www.sairapture.com/om-jai-jai-guru.html

And darkest the night when all seems
lost, parts thick the blanket of fog;
Desiccated to the bone when
moonless in agony,
go emptied of Spirit the skies,

Broken in Her temples,
desecrated in the shrines
veiled, chained, burned at stake;
Scattered lays She,
as hope among the stars.

Among a thousand tribes risen,
to burst forth again,
Diana and Ishtar, Athena and Brigid,
crimson the rays that flood
regnal the horizon in waves;

Who casts time in the thrall of Her dice
fire cannot burn, nor weapons hurt,
who measures worlds in Her strides,
the black rose, Mistress of the night,

Garlanded in skulls of a thousand such
who know not Her might
whose hands sewn Her garment great
trampled death under Her thunder trail
Here She comes the ancient One:

The stillnesses of the aeons before
the world-times which stir in Him adorned of
skulls of all the forms that ever arose,
who knows of what age when first He walked here?
Staff in hand, for who walks His path is but
Him, garlanded in beads native to heights
of the times before time, clad of the ash
burned of tenses, master of dance, in whose
drunken steps rise, these universes vast:
auspicious, three-eyed the Lord of all.

I now know why the universe does not distinguish the days
Any more than we would a grain of sugar in a jar
I have dreamt and in that dream I awoke
To the language of everything I did not understand
I heard in its muffled voice, an infinite joke
As I smelt the sea thousands of miles inland.
I slept and in that sleep I saw me, as I’d once been:
Transformed from the dead, and free from transgression
I swam garlanded in the sea, and renewed by its briny waves,
The days had stretched forever along the coast
But I did not know then that nothing would last
How every atom that was me would accelerate through a new host
And that only dreams and memories could transport me
Back to the tang of the sea that day, and the scent of blossom
Yet I think that I finally understand now the reticence of the stars
To tell not of a future but reflect only their past.

Where do you walk to, Senora, across

mist-wet beaches moments before dawn?

Shy waves are savouring their lone time.

The sun, a truant kid behind the clouds.

Fisher-boats quivering in their dreams.


Where do you walk to, in your free

glowing tunic, garlanded of fresh flowers,

silken moist hair caressing the winds?


Now the leaves are awakening to stretch

in the breeze, now gold is abundant.

The trees have shot bird arrows of love

slow darting into the horizon blue. Not

enough answer, the Smiling tiara turn gaze

I and you won’t be
Two unfamiliar women of our land.
I’ll not leave you to the radio
To swallow up our history,
We’ll have phone calls and photographs
Transported between seasons and changes
And barracks of old classics
Drilled in between our conversations.

You don’t leave the land, abstract-
Smell or your braced triangular family
But I, your daughter, a nomad
Demands change, unbuckled knees,
Thunder and lightning than a
Frozen damp lake.
I don’t know if this absurd let you down
Being a floating female disc
Without a silver hanging off her neck.

Your cotton sarees and senseless arguments,
Modest gestures and peripheral smiles
Walked miles with me.
My uncivilized ways and half assembled days
Somehow compromised your 7pm calls.
You didn’t declare an ownership
Or terrified me with protection
But your roots branches and leaves
Held me with an irresponsible luck.

You did want to walk with me,
Comprehend your traditions and family tree
But you grew obsessed over my books,
My anglicized friendships and father’s ways.
I don’t want us to wrap up stories
Let us be ‘us’, flesh and blood
Without English comprehensions,
Fork and Spoon-
The world is desperate to squeeze in between
‘us’.

I want to sit next to you every eve
Even when I’m miles apart
Sip your ginger tea and gossip with Leela
And I know you have more of
Mukundan, MT and Padmarajan
Jolted in between your memories
Wanting to be told, to be felt.

Retreating monsoons, half naked veranda
‘Shifting houses’ and ice cream spoons you lost
Bridged the gaps of a dysthymic brain.
Your diary and worn-out scribbles
Lifted an awkward silence, I ignored.
And I know there are plenty of
Conversations
Separated by a trigger.

Your four loud aunts and their-
Disproportionate-pinches,
The main house and its innumerable doors
And the single toilet your grandad possessed
Will always be ‘our stories’ with mango pickle
And little almonds
I recollect as your curfew years.

You need not worry, I will not-
Sit with bubbles in my mouth.
I can pinch your cousins and
Exchange few golden bangles.
I can walk the temple lanes with your-
Mother, silken skirts and jingling anklets.
And I know the family recipes,
The exact nicknames and garlanded gossips.
There will be days, get-togethers and
Photographs
Added into your prized collection.

A subconscious music flooded my psychology
When chlorine water, light-lit-days,
And flirtatious silly men
Swung in fine tune next to me.
There was always a detached-attachment
That translated a traditional ghost
Who announced a corner for itself
Somewhere exact I cannot pin point.

Let us not freeze the prologue
We can walk door by door
Between generations and blue window panes
In a coordinated tune guided by-
Voices of our ancestors.
The genes inside me needs a
Second hand journey
With-out an altered you and me.