"hadrian" poems
The attendees are told, in a manner befitting a high mass
You have been finally set free,
(Although, in truth, free is a very large and entirely vague word),
And the message is sent forth from all comers in all corners:
Vendor and visionary alike,
German socialists who left university to ride boats for Greenpeace,
First lieutenants doing their level best
To appear at ease in civilian polos and khakis,
But no matter the vessel,
The message is still the same.
The tyranny of cables and storage space is dead,
It is all but shouted from the lecterns,
(Although it is noted, in small print and sotto voce
That there are certain requirements
In terms of hardware and licensing)
And it is stated by Those Who Know
In tones which neither brook nor invite contradiction,
That they have surmounted, all Hadrian-like,
The alpine divide separating mere data and magic.
Two or three blocks down the street from the convention center,
In a narrow storefront housing an exhibition of ether-only comics
Which have broken the nettling constraints
Of editors and syndication,
There sits, under a somewhat opaque
And slightly scratched piece of plexiglass,
A yellowing comic strip of uncertain vintage,
In which a frowzy cat,
Free of the constraints of panels, gender, and standard grammar,
Is the recipient of a mouse-tossed brick
Whose flight, unfettered by physics, probablility, indeed time itself
Ends striking its mark right between the x’s of the eyes
The projectile itself an inexplicable alchemy
Of confusion, mirth, frustration
And the impossibility of an undeniably pure love.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 9:29 AM UTC
Forgive me, my love
I could only stand-horror struck
I watched, yet I didn’t, the crocodiles of the raging Nile maul your ****** corpse
My love, my love forgive me
That wretched day; that cursed hour, the very hour of our return
To see you breathe your last was akin to feeling a knife in my back
They had to hold me down
The hated guards who couldn’t save you
Forgive me, please, forgive me
I can do nothing more than carve your face into cold marble now
Antinous forgive me, forgive me please
I couldn’t save you; no one could
Antinous, forgive me
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 10:13 PM UTC
Maybe those afternoons,
were meant for,
that simple meeting,
amidst the quiet,
breviloquent chatter,
raw, uncompromising,
blissful uninhibited emotion.
Resounding cups,
mismatched china,
jasmine, rose, lavender tea,
celestial gardens,
plants; leaf-bearing
chinking lipped tea cups,
saucers pooling.
Immaculately intricate,
of Hadrian Denaruis silver,
an eighteenth century delight,
for ladies; un salon de thé,
sound waves wander as tea diffusers,
ritual & routine,
friendship & freedom.
© Sia Jane
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 7:02 PM UTC
Loading my hadron collider
With hampering Hadrian Wall.
What on earth am I doing!?
I know nothing at all.
I add some tea to my sugar,
Putting the kidneys in stone.
Getting chased down by a cougar -
My wishful thinking at home.
Feeling betrayed by my conscience,
The time is quarter to three.
In a world full of pretence,
I prefer to be free.
October 2013
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 9:53 AM UTC
Elizabeth, the ****** Queen, left vacant the English throne.
Her Scottish Stuart cousin came and claimed it for his own.
Two nations with one monarchy joined in the Union Jack.
The Scottish lost their nationhood and now they want it back.
Saint Andrews’ Flag of Bonnie Blue will have to be unfurled
if Scotland votes to take its place among nations in the world.
Quebecois and Basques today are eagerly looking on
to see if Scots will vote to tell the English to be gone.
Hadrian’s Wall will, once more, mark where their dominion ends.
Remove your subs from Scapa Flow; your lease is at an end.
There still remains a problem which, just now, occurs to me.
If the English take their Pound with them, what is our currency?
It’s true we’re rich with North Sea oil and better off than Spain.
Yet how do we do business if the Sterling won’t remain.
We need a new “Gold” standard based upon the single malt!
Who needs pounds when we have ounces stored in barrels and in vaults?
So pour me a “MacCallan” on the day the rent comes due.
Hand me a glenfiddich and I’ll purvey food to you..
Our creditors will be well pleased with hints of bog and peat.
We won’t dilute our currency as Scots men drink it neat.
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 8:24 AM UTC
i don't have a low self-esteem,
or precursors to justify
usage of internet paraphernalia;
i don't have a phone,
i don't use dating applications;
if anything i'm looking
at the hurts of globalisation
from a village perspective;
and to me, it all just looks like:
cow took a **** cow didn't take a ****
cow bowed on all fours to sleeps
to keep a patchwork of grass
dry from the rain... cow slept standing...
back then you just had to walk to
the next village to ***** in the gene pool...
now you're expected to travel to paris
for genetic diversity and a love story
worthy of the boredom of writing
hunting the digression of dating:
is monday the 12th of July good for you
and the imaginary caveman? no?
i thought so... watching rain in England
in sunglasses kinda precursors
naturalised use of sarcasm, given
the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's:
an army of Scots just jumped the wall
like 110m hurdle sprinters! what we to do?!
what we to do?! wait for the Mongols...
ah ha.. all in all.. good luck
and *cheerio(h)! ol' chap! bowler hats ahoy!
bop bop... like bloated frogs bopping along
to Sherlock looking at an aquatic snail trail
deciphering Cluedo.*
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 3:14 PM UTC
I built the playhouse
To withstand
The seige of time.
Like Hadrian,
I dismayed the border people.
Starlight shone through
Crescent moons
Like the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.
Children shrieked and wailed
Against those walls
As nomads in northern China,
Or Philistines in Jeruselum.
But time is a formidable outsider,
And my small walls would tumble
To the blasts of tempus trumpets.
My hand runs lovingly across
Your names on those
Memorial Walls.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 11:49 AM UTC
They say a picture is worth
A thousand words
But without the words
And stories behind it
A picture is meaningless
-Hadrian Veska
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 12:30 AM UTC
How can something that brings so much joy
turn around and cause such pain
It takes you out to bask in sunshine
yet leaves you naked in the rain
It fills your stomach with dainty butterflies
and ***** you in with its **** pout
then the moment you let your guard down
it pulls your guts right out
It leaves a gaping cavity
and an ache inside your chest
makes you feel your very worst
after feeling your very best
Where once you were king of the world
now you only want to hide
building walls that would make Hadrian proud
you lock yourself inside
But alas we are too stupid
our optimism too sublime
because we tell ouselves in a year or two
"it'll work out different this time"
Only it doesn't.
Jul 5, 2010
Jul 5, 2010 at 2:53 PM UTC
The Celtic Cross
Around my neck is often seen
An ancient sign
Of where I go and, too, have been
The cross more ancient
Than the Christ oft signified
A mere expedient
To Rome when Jesus died
Although I wear it in His name it further goes
To those whom Hadrian so feared he built his wall
The land where rivals are the thistle and the rose
Where the blood of all my forbears once did fall
As their mingling souls in Heaven thence arose
The stones within the mist cast silent pall
Cori MacNaughton
8Mar99
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
The Pictish Faeries
by Michael R. Burch
Smaller and darker
than their closest kin,
the faeries learned only too well
never to dwell
close to the villages of larger men.
Only to dance in the starlight
when the moon was full
and men were afraid.
Only to worship in the farthest glade,
ever heeding the raven and the gull.
The invincible Roman legions were never able to subdue the Scottish Picts, and eventually built Hadrian’s Wall to protect themselves! Did the Picts give rise to our myths of fairies, elves and leprechauns? Keywords/Tags: Picts, Scots, Scottish, fairies, glade, raven, gull, King Arthur, Arthurian, Morgause, Merlin, round table, knights, England, stone, Excalibur, chivalry, Camelot, Saxon
Apr 16, 2020
Apr 16, 2020 at 9:59 PM UTC
An artist should never
confuse themselves with art.
They are merely a vessel,
From which art pours.
Sometimes they are empty
And other times full.
- Hadrian Veska
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 11:25 PM UTC
*when i was in St. Petersburg i must have picked up a Rasputin virus, a Siberian gnat bite... **** you not; the only misery i have is that my counterfeiting assailants were, at best, middle class, and not aristocratic.*
no, honestly, after reading the style magazine
with all its smooch bravado of resentment and care...
i hash-tagged myself: yep it's trending...
i've just about finished a 70cl bottle of whiskey *******
around with Dylan Thomas and St. George... draco ex cymru.
but still it hits me, encoding sounds was never so hard...
those clouds of sunset look so much better
and multi-coloured when they do with sunglasses... i don't
know what's in these sunglasses but i'm picking out pinks
and purples... which i can't make out without
the sunglasses... an L.S.D. trip or what?
i wrote this faster than you'll read it, given the skim- aspect
of literature, immediate journalistic recycling...
they still love Shakespeare, don't know why,
don't ask me why, it's an affair of the english
education system... well... ploy...
conspiracies are welcome posthumously
and adequate intellectual material....
was it Marlowe or John Dee the Elizabethan era
double O 7 alchemist to blame? never seen oxygen
paired up like that! must be a crucifix miracle!
desecrate christ subsequently desecrate all
remnants of royal authority, **** into the crown
of the governor of Liechtenstein: what?
i need the loo! the idea of you teaching me manners
is like you teaching me Hadrian's is synonymous
with qin shi Huang's rattle; rattle meaning
the broken spines of the bricklayers who levelled
the ground around them with cement...
and still the Mongol horde came!
Scots looked at Hadrian's accomplishment and laughed
drunk with a lullaby. the Mongols stretched their
tongues saying: if Europe and Iraq to be ours,
we have to climb that, no arrow will crumble it
even if shot at the cracks! i love walls, esp. if they're
like Malbork castle of red brick... once owned by
Teutonic knights... i end up playing abstract chess with
their brickwork, a strange arithmetic...
girlfriend? what for? have you heard of the aces movement?
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 3:41 PM UTC
And what of your hopes
and all of those dreams?
“I wrote them on the bathroom wall”
We were new and drunk then
There was no ecstasy of light
Nor agony of night
Just the grey in between
I saw you again
A century ago
Down by the river
trying to wash all your sins away
your ******* formed high and round
seducing those poor, fractured souls
In the cutting sky
And the splitting clouds
The brutal death
And sweet rebirth
Life after death
After life
Open your new born eyes
What do you see?
You never meant to fall at Hadrian's Wall
the stones made gleaming
Worn through a million treacherous days and nights
10,000 bloodied soldiers fell for you
though such a death was harsh
the gateway through hell was wicked
You never meant to go so ruthlessly
Now what of your hopes
And all of those dreams?
Did you write them on the bathroom wall?
Words of a prophet
Lost in translation
You remind me now
A thousand years later
A few years older
When you were rooted deep
your branches reaching farther than the sky
Shading those Kings and their Queens
They didn’t know
How could they
I made my nest inside your chest
You didn't want more
Heaven it seemed was easy
As easy as a soft breeze on a warm summer’s night
I tried to hold you in your pain
but you cracked your core
and broke your limbs
When you fell
Silently
I released you to river Jordan
She took you quickly
And left me on the bank
I saw you in a dream not long after
Might have been a thousand years ago
you simply waved
No long goodbyes for us
They never were
My eyes are not the same
Remember when we loved?
Our passion raised
lips parched and bleeding
From the hunger and the wanting
I’ll wait for you on the other side
Never could live as long as you
But long enough it sure has been
And good enough it seems to me
My hopes and dreams are gone for now
Written Somewhere on a bathroom wall
Jun 7, 2016
Jun 7, 2016 at 11:25 AM UTC
Don't seek knowledge, seek truth.
For only in truth can wisdom be obtained.
-Hadrian Veska
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 12:49 AM UTC
If you walk with a purpose
Your feet will never tire
-Hadrian Veska
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 10:21 AM UTC
A man without internal conflict
Is either a simpleton,
Or heavily indoctrinated
-Hadrian Veska
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 9:46 PM UTC
I chased love for so long
Only to realize,
It isn't something you catch
But rather,
Something you get caught by.
- Hadrian Veska
Dec 27, 2016
Dec 27, 2016 at 12:20 AM UTC
People look for hidden meanings in writings and art, asking why at every turn.
They forget however, that art does not need to have its own meaning.
What something means is an opinion
In the eyes of the beholder.
The true purpose of art is to make the viewer feel something, to inspire them.
And sometimes the things that seemingly have no meaning inspire us the most.
-Hadrian Veska
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 11:11 PM UTC
From Publius to Marcus
Marcus, I owe you an apology:
I named you Antinous to Gaius’s Hadrian,
Not in jest, but with a curse to the gods,
Wishing ruin on your treacherous shade.
...
This farm, this land, was my charge
Long before you donned your Janus mask,
Feigning peace while sowing strife,
A weevil gnawing at the heart of my grain.
...
You bring chaos to these fields,
A blight worse than drought or rot,
Corrupting Gaius with your impious charm,
His fields now fallow under your shadow.
...
While I toil, bone-weary, in the searing heat,
Tending your fields and mine,
Sweat and soil my offering to kin and gods,
You claim the harvest I’ve sown.
...
My altars brim with piety,
The Capitoline triad blesses my soul and soil,
Yet you, sweet Antinous, reap my plenty,
Lazing in the shade of my labor’s fruit.
...
No more. I sever ties with you and this land.
Keep these fields—a fitting pyre for your folly.
I forge you a parting gift: a wreath of thorns,
Culled from the ruin you’ve wrought.
...
Woe to your plow, doomed to rust,
While I seek new fields to tend.
My seeds will bloom under noonday sun,
Your name forgotten, your shadow undone.
Signed, PERTINAX
Jun 17, 2024
Jun 17, 2024 at 11:57 PM UTC
The moment we conquer our mortality,
Is the moment we stop being human,
And become the very things,
That we taught ourselves to hate.
- Hadrian Veska
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 12:08 AM UTC
You can say or you can do, but not both.
That is why wise men speak so little.
- Hadrian Veska
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 2:28 AM UTC
Be proud of your humility
But humble of your pride
- Hadrian Veska
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
What is man
But the culmination
Of sin and circumstance
-Hadrian Veska
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 3:47 PM UTC
Anger is not an emotion
It comes from the inability
To handle other emotions
-Hadrian Veska
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 5:42 PM UTC