--To Elizabeth Robins Pennell


'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!'--Fantasio.

Once on a time
There was a little boy:  a master-mage
By virtue of a Book
Of magic--O, so magical it filled
His life with visionary pomps
Processional!  And Powers
Passed with him where he passed.  And Thrones
And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed,
Thronged in the criss-cross streets,
The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields,
Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades,
Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul
Pavilioned jealously, and hid
As in the dusk, profound,
Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere.--

I shut mine eyes . . . And lo!
A flickering ****** of memory that floats
Upon the face of a pool of darkness five
And thirty dead years deep,
Antic in girlish broideries
And skirts and silly shoes with straps
And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks
Plain in the shadow of a church
(St. Michael's:  in whose brazen call
To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed),
Sedate for all his haste
To be at home; and, nestled in his arm,
Inciting still to quiet and solitude,
Boarded in sober drab,
With small, square, agitating cuts
Let in a-top of the double-columned, close,
Quakerlike print, a Book! . . .
What but that blessed brief
Of what is gallantest and best
In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance?
The Book of rocs,
Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,
Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars,
And ghouls, and genies--O, so huge
They might have overed the tall Minster Tower
Hands down, as schoolboys take a post!
In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman,
Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade
The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,
Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,
And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk--
Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms--
Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles,
The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!

Old friends I had a-many--kindly and grim
Familiars, cronies quaint
And goblin!  Never a Wood but housed
Some morrice of dainty dapperlings.  No Brook
But had his nunnery
Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites,
To cabin in his grots, and pace
His lilied margents.  Every lone Hillside
Might open upon Elf-Land.  Every Stalk
That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed
Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs
You climbed beyond the clouds, and found
The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged
And drowsy, from his great oak chair,
Among the flitches and pewters at the fire,
Called for his Faery Harp.  And in it flew,
And, perching on the kitchen table, sang
Jocund and jubilant, with a sound
Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals
The shy thrush at mid-May
Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn;
Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still,
In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring,
For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd,
And mocked him call for call!

I could not pass
The half-door where the cobbler sat in view
Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun,
In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes,
Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know
Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched
His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists
And elbows.  In the rich June fields,
Where the ripe clover drew the bees,
And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind
Lolled his half-holiday away
Beside me lolling and lounging through my own,
'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son
On his white horse along the leafy lanes;
For at his stirrup linked and ran,
Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped
From wall to wall above the espaliers,
But in the bravest tops
That market-town, a town of tops, could show:
Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail
A banner flaunted in disdain
Of human stratagems and shifts:
King over All the Catlands, present and past
And future, that moustached
Artificer of fortunes, ****-in-Boots!
Or Bluebeard's Closet, with its plenishing
Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood,
And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases--
Odd-fangled, most a butcher's, part
A faery chamber hazily seen
And hazily figured--on dark afternoons
And windy nights was visiting of the best.
Then, too, the pelt of hoofs
Out in the roaring darkness told
Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm
Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit,
Between his hell-born Hounds.
And Rip Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear,
Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall,
The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls
Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins;
For, listening, I could help him play
His wonderful game,
In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners
Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world.

But what were these so near,
So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought
The run of Ali Baba's Cave
Just for the saying 'Open Sesame,'
With gold to measure, peck by peck,
In round, brown wooden stoups
You borrowed at the chandler's? . . . Or one time
Made you Aladdin's friend at school,
Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp
In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair
For all the embrowning scars in their white *******
Went labouring under some dread ordinance,
Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while,
Strange Curs that cried as they,
Till there was never a Black ***** of all
Your consorting but might have gone
Spell-driven miserably for crimes
Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . .
Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night,
While you lay wondering and acold,
Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon
Queen Labe, abominable and dear,
Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom,
Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw
Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk),
And muttered certain words you could not hear;
And there! a living stream,
The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags
And cresses, glittered and sang
Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness,
Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . .

I was--how many a time!--
That Second Calendar, Son of a King,
On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined,
Pausing at one mysterious door,
To pry no closer, but content his soul
With his kind Forty.  Yet I could not rest
For idleness and ungovernable Fate.
And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame
(That wonder-working word!),
Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans,
And soaring, soaring on
From air to air, came charging to the ground
Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds,
And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled
Flicked at me with his tail,
And left me blinded, miserable, distraught
(Even as I was in deed,
When doctors came, and odious things were done
On my poor tortured eyes
With lancets; or some evil acid stung
And wrung them like hot sand,
And desperately from room to room
Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way),
To get to Bagdad how I might.  But there
I met with Merry Ladies.  O you three--
Safie, Amine, Zobeide--when my heart
Forgets you all shall be forgot!
And so we supped, we and the rest,
On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates,
Almonds, pistachios, citrons.  And Haroun
Laughed out of his lordly beard
On Giaffar and Mesrour (I knew the Three
For all their Mossoul habits).  And outside
The Tigris, flowing swift
Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed
With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars;
The vast, blue night
Was murmurous with peris' plumes
And the leathern wings of genies; words of power
Were whispering; and old fishermen,
Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore
Dead loveliness:  or a prodigy in scales
Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold:
Or copper vessels, stopped with lead,
Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed,
In durance under potent charactry
Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . .

Then, as the Book was glassed
In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint,
Bewildering angles, so would Life
Flash light on light back on the Book; and both
Were changed.  Once in a house decayed
From better days, harbouring an errant show
(For all its stories of dry-rot
Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax,
Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes),
I wandered; and no living soul
Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared
Upon them staring--staring.  Till at last,
Three sets of rafters from the streets,
I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room,
With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene,
Guarding the door:  and there, in a bedroom-set,
Behind a fence of faded crimson cords,
With an aspect of frills
And dimities and dishonoured privacy
That made you hanker and hesitate to look,
A Woman with her litter of Babes--all slain,
All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes
Staring--still staring; so that I turned and ran
As for my neck, but in the street
Took breath.  The same, it seemed,
And yet not all the same, I was to find,
As I went up!  For afterwards,
Whenas I went my round alone--
All day alone--in long, stern, silent streets,
Where I might stretch my hand and take
Whatever I would:  still there were Shapes of Stone,
Motionless, lifelike, frightening--for the Wrath
Had smitten them; but they watched,
This by her melons and figs, that by his rings
And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze,
The Painted Eyes insufferable,
Now, of those grisly images; and I
Pursued my best-beloved quest,
Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear.
So the night fell--with never a lamplighter;
And through the Palace of the King
I groped among the echoes, and I felt
That they were there,
Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes,
Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far
A Voice!  And in a little while
Two tapers burning!  And the Voice,
Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was--whose?
Whose but Zobeide's,
The lady of my heart, like me
A True Believer, and like me
An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . .

Or, sailing to the Isles
Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall
A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew
Swiftly . . . and grew.  Tearing their beards,
The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship,
Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad,
Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand,
And, turning broadside on,
As the most iron would, was haled and ******
Nearer, and nearer yet;
And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps
Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now
That swallowed sea and sky; and then,
Anchors and nails and bolts
Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang,
A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides
Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay,
A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal
About the waters; and her crew
Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left
To drown.  All the long night I swam;
But in the morning, O, the smiling coast
Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike,
Skirted with shelving sands!  And a great wave
Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive.
So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes,
And, faring inland, in a desert place
I stumbled on an iron ring--
The fellow of fifty built into the Quays:
When, scenting a trap-door,
I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade
Stuck into wood.  And then,
The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs,
Sunk in the naked rock!  The cool, clean vault,
So neat with niche on niche it might have been
Our beer-cellar but for the rows
Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist's jars)
Full to the wide, squat throats
With gold-dust, but a-top
A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things
I knew for olives!  And far, O, far away,
The Princess of China languished!  Far away
Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief
Of Eunuchs and the privilege
Of going out at night
To play--unkenned, majestical, secure--
Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped
Like Tigris shore for shore!  Haply a Ghoul
Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon,
A thighbone in his fist, and glared
At supper with a Lady:  she who took
Her rice with tweezers grain by grain.
Or you might stumble--there by the iron gates
Of the Pump Room--underneath the limes--
Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers,
Just as the civil Genie laid him down.
Or those red-curtained panes,
Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily
Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes,
Might turn a caravansery's, wherein
You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk,
And that fair Persian, bathed in tears,
You'd not have given away
For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous
You had that dark and disleaved afternoon
Escaped on a roc's claw,
Disguised like Sindbad--but in Christmas beef!
And all the blissful while
The schoolboy satchel at your hip
Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze
Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn
From over Caspian:  yea, the Chief Jewellers
Of Tartary and the bazaars,
Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind.--

Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child heart
The magian East:  thus the child eyes
Spelled out the wizard message by the light
Of the sober, workaday hours
They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass
In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind
In ancient Severn's arm,
Amongst her water-meadows and her docks,
Whose floating populace of ships--
Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines,
Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters--brought
To her very doorsteps and geraniums
The scents of the World's End; the calls
That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride
Like fire on some high errand of the race;
The irresistible appeals
For comradeship that sound
Steadily from the irresistible sea.
Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale,
Telling itself anew
In terms of living, labouring life,
Took on the colours, busked it in the wear
Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance,
The Angel-Playmate, raining down
His golden influences
On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,
Walked with me arm in arm,
Or left me, as one bediademed with straws
And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart
Who had the gift to seek and feel and find
His fiery-hearted presence everywhere.
Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things,
Sends the same silver dews
Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies
On some poor collier-hamlet--(mound on mound
Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk
Sullenly smoking over a row
Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air
A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings
Of hurtling, tipping trams)--
As on the amorous nightingales
And roses of Shiraz, or the walls and towers
Of Samarcand--the Ineffable--whence you espy
The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears,
Like listed lightnings.
Samarcand!
That name of names!  That star-vaned belvedere
Builded against the Chambers of the South!
That outpost on the Infinite!
And behold!
Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide
Might overtake you:  for one fringe,
One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one
Floats founded vague
In lubberlands delectable--isles of palm
And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,
The promise of wistful hills--
The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.

Thus the Trojans in the city, scared like fawns, wiped the sweat
from off them and drank to quench their thirst, leaning against the
goodly battlements, while the Achaeans with their shields laid upon
their shoulders drew close up to the walls. But stern fate bade Hector
stay where he was before Ilius and the Scaean gates. Then Phoebus
Apollo spoke to the son of Peleus saying, “Why, son of Peleus, do you,
who are but man, give chase to me who am immortal? Have you not yet
found out that it is a god whom you pursue so furiously? You did not
harass the Trojans whom you had routed, and now they are within
their walls, while you have been decoyed hither away from them. Me you
cannot ****, for death can take no hold upon me.”
  Achilles was greatly angered and said, “You have baulked me,
Far-Darter, most malicious of all gods, and have drawn me away from
the wall, where many another man would have bitten the dust ere he got
within Ilius; you have robbed me of great glory and have saved the
Trojans at no risk to yourself, for you have nothing to fear, but I
would indeed have my revenge if it were in my power to do so.”
  On this, with fell intent he made towards the city, and as the
winning horse in a chariot race strains every nerve when he is
flying over the plain, even so fast and furiously did the limbs of
Achilles bear him onwards. King Priam was first to note him as he
scoured the plain, all radiant as the star which men call Orion’s
Hound, and whose beams blaze forth in time of harvest more brilliantly
than those of any other that shines by night; brightest of them all
though he be, he yet bodes ill for mortals, for he brings fire and
fever in his train—even so did Achilles’ armour gleam on his breast
as he sped onwards. Priam raised a cry and beat his head with his
hands as he lifted them up and shouted out to his dear son,
imploring him to return; but Hector still stayed before the gates, for
his heart was set upon doing battle with Achilles. The old man reached
out his arms towards him and bade him for pity’s sake come within
the walls. “Hector,” he cried, “my son, stay not to face this man
alone and unsupported, or you will meet death at the hands of the
son of Peleus, for he is mightier than you. Monster that he is;
would indeed that the gods loved him no better than I do, for so, dogs
and vultures would soon devour him as he lay stretched on earth, and a
load of grief would be lifted from my heart, for many a brave son
has he reft from me, either by killing them or selling them away in
the islands that are beyond the sea: even now I miss two sons from
among the Trojans who have thronged within the city, Lycaon and
Polydorus, whom Laothoe peeress among women bore me. Should they be
still alive and in the hands of the Achaeans, we will ransom them with
gold and bronze, of which we have store, for the old man Altes endowed
his daughter richly; but if they are already dead and in the house
of Hades, sorrow will it be to us two who were their parents; albeit
the grief of others will be more short-lived unless you too perish
at the hands of Achilles. Come, then, my son, within the city, to be
the guardian of Trojan men and Trojan women, or you will both lose
your own life and afford a mighty triumph to the son of Peleus. Have
pity also on your unhappy father while life yet remains to him—on me,
whom the son of Saturn will destroy by a terrible doom on the
threshold of old age, after I have seen my sons slain and my daughters
haled away as captives, my bridal chambers pillaged, little children
dashed to earth amid the rage of battle, and my sons’ wives dragged
away by the cruel hands of the Achaeans; in the end fierce hounds will
tear me in pieces at my own gates after some one has beaten the life
out of my body with sword or spear-hounds that I myself reared and fed
at my own table to guard my gates, but who will yet lap my blood and
then lie all distraught at my doors. When a young man falls by the
sword in battle, he may lie where he is and there is nothing unseemly;
let what will be seen, all is honourable in death, but when an old man
is slain there is nothing in this world more pitiable than that dogs
should defile his grey hair and beard and all that men hide for
shame.”
  The old man tore his grey hair as he spoke, but he moved not the
heart of Hector. His mother hard by wept and moaned aloud as she bared
her ***** and pointed to the breast which had suckled him. “Hector,”
she cried, weeping bitterly the while, “Hector, my son, spurn not this
breast, but have pity upon me too: if I have ever given you comfort
from my own *****, think on it now, dear son, and come within the wall
to protect us from this man; stand not without to meet him. Should the
wretch **** you, neither I nor your richly dowered wife shall ever
weep, dear offshoot of myself, over the bed on which you lie, for dogs
will devour you at the ships of the Achaeans.”
  Thus did the two with many tears implore their son, but they moved
not the heart of Hector, and he stood his ground awaiting huge
Achilles as he drew nearer towards him. As serpent in its den upon the
mountains, full fed with deadly poisons, waits for the approach of
man—he is filled with fury and his eyes glare terribly as he goes
writhing round his den—even so Hector leaned his shield against a
tower that jutted out from the wall and stood where he was, undaunted.
  “Alas,” said he to himself in the heaviness of his heart, “if I go
within the gates, Polydamas will be the first to heap reproach upon
me, for it was he that urged me to lead the Trojans back to the city
on that awful night when Achilles again came forth against us. I would
not listen, but it would have been indeed better if I had done so. Now
that my folly has destroyed the host, I dare not look Trojan men and
Trojan women in the face, lest a worse man should say, ‘Hector has
ruined us by his self-confidence.’ Surely it would be better for me to
return after having fought Achilles and slain him, or to die
gloriously here before the city. What, again, if were to lay down my
shield and helmet, lean my spear against the wall and go straight up
to noble Achilles? What if I were to promise to give up Helen, who was
the fountainhead of all this war, and all the treasure that Alexandrus
brought with him in his ships to Troy, aye, and to let the Achaeans
divide the half of everything that the city contains among themselves?
I might make the Trojans, by the mouths of their princes, take a
solemn oath that they would hide nothing, but would divide into two
shares all that is within the city—but why argue with myself in
this way? Were I to go up to him he would show me no kind of mercy; he
would **** me then and there as easily as though I were a woman,
when I had off my armour. There is no parleying with him from some
rock or oak tree as young men and maidens prattle with one another.
Better fight him at once, and learn to which of us Jove will vouchsafe
victory.”
  Thus did he stand and ponder, but Achilles came up to him as it were
Mars himself, plumed lord of battle. From his right shoulder he
brandished his terrible spear of Pelian ash, and the bronze gleamed
around him like flashing fire or the rays of the rising sun. Fear fell
upon Hector as he beheld him, and he dared not stay longer where he
was but fled in dismay from before the gates, while Achilles darted
after him at his utmost speed. As a mountain falcon, swiftest of all
birds, swoops down upon some cowering dove—the dove flies before
him but the falcon with a shrill scream follows close after,
resolved to have her—even so did Achilles make straight for Hector
with all his might, while Hector fled under the Trojan wall as fast as
his limbs could take him.
  On they flew along the waggon-road that ran hard by under the
wall, past the lookout station, and past the weather-beaten wild
fig-tree, till they came to two fair springs which feed the river
Scamander. One of these two springs is warm, and steam rises from it
as smoke from a burning fire, but the other even in summer is as
cold as hail or snow, or the ice that forms on water. Here, hard by
the springs, are the goodly washing-troughs of stone, where in the
time of peace before the coming of the Achaeans the wives and fair
daughters of the Trojans used to wash their clothes. Past these did
they fly, the one in front and the other giving ha. behind him: good
was the man that fled, but better far was he that followed after,
and swiftly indeed did they run, for the prize was no mere beast for
sacrifice or bullock’s hide, as it might be for a common foot-race,
but they ran for the life of Hector. As horses in a chariot race speed
round the turning-posts when they are running for some great prize-
a tripod or woman—at the games in honour of some dead hero, so did
these two run full speed three times round the city of Priam. All
the gods watched them, and the sire of gods and men was the first to
speak.
  “Alas,” said he, “my eyes behold a man who is dear to me being
pursued round the walls of Troy; my heart is full of pity for
Hector, who has burned the thigh-bones of many a heifer in my
honour, at one while on the of many-valleyed Ida, and again on the
citadel of Troy; and now I see noble Achilles in full pursuit of him
round the city of Priam. What say you? Consider among yourselves and
decide whether we shall now save him or let him fall, valiant though
he be, before Achilles, son of Peleus.”
  Then Minerva said, “Father, wielder of the lightning, lord of
cloud and storm, what mean you? Would you pluck this mortal whose doom
has long been decreed out of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we
others shall not be of a mind with you.”
  And Jove answered, “My child, Trito-born, take heart. I did not
speak in full earnest, and I will let you have your way. Do without
let or hindrance as you are minded.”
  Thus did he urge Minerva who was already eager, and down she
darted from the topmost summits of Olympus.
  Achilles was still in full pursuit of Hector, as a hound chasing a
fawn which he has started from its covert on the mountains, and
hunts through glade and thicket. The fawn may try to elude him by
crouching under cover of a bush, but he will scent her out and
follow her up until he gets her—even so there was no escape for
Hector from the fleet son of Peleus. Whenever he made a set to get
near the Dardanian gates and under the walls, that his people might
help him by showering down weapons from above, Achilles would gain
on him and head him back towards the plain, keeping himself always
on the city side. As a man in a dream who fails to lay hands upon
another whom he is pursuing—the one cannot escape nor the other
overtake—even so neither could Achilles come up with Hector, nor
Hector break away from Achilles; nevertheless he might even yet have
escaped death had not the time come when Apollo, who thus far had
sustained his strength and nerved his running, was now no longer to
stay by him. Achilles made signs to the Achaean host, and shook his
head to show that no man was to aim a dart at Hector, lest another
might win the glory of having hit him and he might himself come in
second. Then, at last, as they were nearing the fountains for the
fourth time, the father of all balanced his golden scales and placed a
doom in each of them, one for Achilles and the other for Hector. As he
held the scales by the middle, the doom of Hector fell down deep
into the house of Hades—and then Phoebus Apollo left him. Thereon
Minerva went close up to the son of Peleus and said, “Noble
Achilles, favoured of heaven, we two shall surely take back to the
ships a triumph for the Achaeans by slaying Hector, for all his lust
of battle. Do what Apollo may as he lies grovelling before his father,
aegis-bearing Jove, Hector cannot escape us longer. Stay here and take
breath, while I go up to him and persuade him to make a stand and
fight you.”
  Thus spoke Minerva. Achilles obeyed her gladly, and stood still,
leaning on his bronze-pointed ashen spear, while Minerva left him
and went after Hector in the form and with the voice of Deiphobus. She
came close up to him and said, “Dear brother, I see you are hard
pressed by Achilles who is chasing you at full speed round the city of
Priam, let us await his onset and stand on our defence.”
  And Hector answered, “Deiphobus, you have always been dearest to
me of all my brothers, children of Hecuba and Priam, but henceforth
I shall rate you yet more highly, inasmuch as you have ventured
outside the wall for my sake when all the others remain inside.”
  Then Minerva said, “Dear brother, my father and mother went down
on their knees and implored me, as did all my comrades, to remain
inside, so great a fear has fallen upon them all; but I was in an
agony of grief when I beheld you; now, therefore, let us two make a
stand and fight, and let there be no keeping our spears in reserve,
that we may learn whether Achilles shall **** us and bear off our
spoils to the ships, or whether he shall fall before you.”
  Thus did Minerva inveigle him by her cunning, and when the two
were now close to one another great Hector was first to speak. “I
will-no longer fly you, son of Peleus,” said he, “as I have been doing
hitherto. Three times have I fled round the mighty city of Priam,
without daring to withstand you, but now, let me either slay or be
slain, for I am in the mind to face you. Let us, then, give pledges to
one another by our gods, who are the fittest witnesses and guardians
of all covenants; let it be agreed between us that if Jove
vouchsafes me the longer stay and I take your life, I am not to
treat your dead body in any unseemly fashion, but when I have stripped
you of your armour, I am to give up your body to the Achaeans. And
do you likewise.”
  Achilles glared at him and answered, “Fool, prate not to me about
covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and
lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an
through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me,
nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall
fall and glut grim Mars with his life’s blood. Put forth all your
strength; you have need now to prove yourself indeed a bold soldier
and man of war. You have no more chance, and Pallas Minerva will
forthwith vanquish you by my spear: you shall now pay me in full for
the grief you have caused me on account of my comrades whom you have
killed in battle.”
  He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. Hector saw it
coming and avoided it; he watched it and crouched down so that it flew
over his head and stuck in the ground beyond; Minerva then snatched it
up and gave it back to Achilles without Hector’s seeing her; Hector
thereon said to the son of Peleus, “You have missed your aim,
Achilles, peer of the gods, and Jove has not yet revealed to you the
hour of my doom, though you made sure that he had done so. You were
a false-tongued liar when you deemed that I should forget my valour
and quail before you. You shall not drive spear into the back of a
runaway—drive it, should heaven so grant you power, drive it into
me as I make straight towards you; and now for your own part avoid
my spear if you can—would that you might receive the whole of it into
your body; if you were once dead the Trojans would find the war an
easier matter, for it is you who have harmed them most.”
  He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. His aim was true
for he hit the middle of Achilles’ shield, but the spear rebounded
from it, and did not pierce it. Hector was angry when he saw that
the weapon had sped from his hand in vain, and stood there in dismay
for he had no second spear. With a loud cry he called Diphobus and
asked him for one, but there was no man; then he saw the truth and
said to himself, “Alas! the gods have lured me on to my destruction. I
deemed that the hero Deiphobus was by my side, but he is within the
wall, and Minerva has inveigled me; death is now indeed exceedingly
near at hand and there is no way out of it—for so Jove and his son
Apollo the far-darter have willed it, though heretofore th

Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned
By sickness, death’s herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which till death’s doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison,
But ****** and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Oh make thy self with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin;
Or wash thee in Christ’s blood, which hath this might
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.

"She's my girlfriend!"
he shouted as a boy placed his hands over her mouth and planted a fake kiss on her. His lack of sobriety allowed real rage to fill his eyes and he tackled the kissing boy. As they began to struggle against each other on the sticky hard wood floor that was probably covered by layers of party fouls, she thought, ' he called me his girlfriend. Why would he say that?' Her best friend sitting close by said it out loud
" Oh my gosh dude, he just called you his girlfriend!"
Through this short span the boys were finishing up there tuff and he began to find his seat next to her again. Placing his arms over her shoulder she didn't mind the sweat, or the alcohol. It actually reminded her of most of their nights together. She wanted to kiss him. He was busy talking across the room to an equally as drunk buddy about who the bigger beauty was. She didn't drink. But she didn't mind it. Taking people home was pleasing, plus there was a greater chance of getting him home, with her. The party was picking up. The boys with the I-pod were getting drunk enough to start up their typical loop of songs. Being from Texas she knew that she would be dancing. She loved dancing. Even when the boys she was dancing with were drunk it was fun. Plus, he couldn’t country-dance so she got to dance with others and he was forced to watch. Dancing always reminded her of home, a small rural town in Texas where you could be a outcast and popular all at the same time. She did it all in high school. Cheerleading, sports, theater, you name it she was most likely involved. However, she felt like everyone in town, or majority disliked her. She constantly felt eyes burning on her too white to be here skin. So she left for school out of state, planning on never looking back. She did miss the dancing though. Every prom she made it a point to dance with her father, and to not sleep with her boyfriend.

Having *** on prom night was too cliché.

A boy grabbed her hand. My Maria was blaring through the speakers and it was about time she stood up anyway, the mindless getting nowhere conversation she was having with her friend was only justifying how ****** up her situation was. One of her biggest surprises in moving was that Canadian boys liked country and could dance to it. She never thought a taste of home would come from a drunken kid from Vancouver.  He was a best friend with her interest but that didn’t keep him from pulling her close, so close she could tell that his last drink had just enough whiskey to float the ice cubes.

The party had reached the relaxed stage. Cute petty arguments were filling the air. He stood behind her and grabbed her hand. Surprise ran through her but she couldn’t show it. It’s suppose to happen, maybe he does like you? That was one of her favorite feelings. Brushing hands with someone, or having them grabs yours. The shock, the spark that runs from your finger tips through your stomach and out the top of your head.

Once, when she was young a boy held her hand in the movie theater, cupped, a true moment of tragedy.

Her friend saw what the drunken boy had done and began raving to her about how perfect they looked and how you can’t deny that something was there between them. She had two close friends. One who was somewhat a romantic until she got drunk and proceeded to call every guy within a ten-foot radius an *******. She came to college somewhat naive and with her heart still in a different state. A boy she had liked since high school kept here grounded. She needed to move on but she didn’t see it that way. Her story lead to a car stopping in the middle of the road letting her out to her eventually de-virgining by a, to say the least, experienced Canadian boy who wanted everything but also decided that nothing was good enough.  The other friend, who was more of a realist but still wanted things to turnout a certain way was also there. She haled from California, a sunshine girl who was unbelievably ditzy but unbelievably smart. Speaking her mind was never hard for her. She did make one vital mistake. Believing a European boy when said he was different. The only thing different about him was that he spoke broken English and wore tighter pants than American boys.

She had always been in a group of three, from school to school. There is a comfort in three, even more so for them, not only because they were all above 5' 9" but also because they all wanted the same unattainable thing.

He went home.
He went home with her.

A whirlwind of emotions began to ride up in her. How could you of been so dumb to think that it would work. At least the commotion of getting everyone down the stairs safely took her mind off of the fact that no matter what, he wasn’t going to love her. In the drivers seat she could hear the name-calling and the I can’t believe its being said by everyone. But the three of them knew it didn’t matter. Her willingness to let him come running back was always going to be there.

The next day lead to greasy food and stories of the night before. The futon mattress in the living room sprawled out on the floor laid out the venue for the party talk.

She played on a futon when she was a baby. Her parents have countless pictures of it. Innocent and fragile, not much had changed other than the addition of bitterness.

Why would he say that? She thought again and parked the car in the garage and helped carry the taco bell bags upstairs. She hated taco bell, being from an area around the Mexico border spoiled her pallet. Her friends crunched down talking about how guys are all *****. By now the night before had only faded somewhat in her mind.

He woke up that morning to a girl next to him. She had been awake since eight but let him sleep because it gave her more time with him.  They had a past and that made for great *** but also a girl burned in his eye that wasn’t her.

For him the night never happened.

If she could reverse her thoughts she would. She hated wondering why. She understood him being a 21 year old that wanted to get laid. But why grab her hand? Why act as if you cared for  her. Oh god she thought. It’s so simple.

Its because he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

Through twisted clouds he breathed
and in a moment heaved
a burden called many names
but only ever seen
as circles beneath his eyes.
Thoughts I will never hear
Explanations remain unclear
reasons untouchable by me
mistakenly I tried
greeted by his echoed sighs.

And it's a test of endurance
for whomever you know feels this
knowing the gloom
is inhaled as a heady mist
Also once inside them
it may never be torn out
and they will need you to stay
to recap what Friendship is about.

Zephyr’s whisper came and fled
Heaven’s tears from overhead…
When upon my cheek it rests,  
Fie the early dusk that nests!
Haled beyond the distant shore,
I’ll not find there I found before.
By rosy lips and glowing cheeks
Heart rises over mountain peaks.
For children never leave too well
Without a gift like chime of bell.
What lovers hardly e’er impart
Without a package of the heart?
Of lips and swoons and kindly spells
A woman not too often tells…
But I with you a heart will share—
Life’s due burdens will rightly bear.
From me to you, and you to me…
For time and all eternity,
Though roads may climb and dizzy wind
Gorse for kisses we will find.

I heard a spool of yarn only yesterday yearn
whence from atop a hill subsistent with lore
her newspaper turned blogger here
why her demon cut loose
when she haled tomfoolery her ally cat
from outback went to purr upon her shoulder
as it ran; out from under her carpet that flesh
lingered trough the night but in her bed side table drew a pen
then paper from her shelf below
for we slept together with her stiletto yet lingerie forevermore.

Aye, couldst those sighs and tears return again into my breast and eyes, which I have spent, that I might in this holy discontent mourn with some pluck'd fruit, for I more than mourn'd in vain;
in mine idolatry, what showers of rain mine eyes did waste! Thus  true? What griefs my heart did rent! That sufferance was my sin; now I repent; 'cause I did suffer ev'ry pain -and much melancholy. That vaporous drunkard, and night wandering thief, the scaly ***** and the self-aggrandizing beasts have the remembrance of past glee's, for relief of coming ills. Tho poor me is allow'd no ease; for, long, yet vehement grief e'er o'erfills, and awes -this hath been as it hath been the effect and cause, the punishment and sin.


But oh! my black soul! now art thou summoned by sickness, (deaths herald,) and champion; thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done treason, and durst not to turn to whence he is fled; or himself a thief, which 'til  Death's doom be read, the guilty wisheth himself delivered from prison, but ****** and haled execution, (with Hell to wed,) wisheth that still he might be imprisoned. Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack: but who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Ah, make thy self with holy mourning black, and red with blushing, as thou art with sin; or wash thee with Christ's  blood,  which hath this might being red, it dyes red souls to white.


Tho if poisonous minerals, and if that tree whose fruit threw mortality on else immortal us, if lecherous apple worms —serpents envious—cannot be ******, alas, why should I be? why should intent or reason, born in me, make sins, (else equal,)  in me more heinous?  and Mercy being easy, and glorious to God; in His stern wrath, why threatens He?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee O God? Oh! of thine only worthy blood, and my tears make a heavenly Lethean flood, and drown in it
my sin's black memory; that thou remember them, some claim as debt, I think it Mercy, if thou wilt forget.

bad gateway, eh, gotohelp help  help

who knows the rules that run the NPCs
on spaceship earth,

we found this game that works as Jumanji,
kinda,
or the wardrobe into Narnia, or
tornado to Oz

-- The poet has no role in the mechanics
of this thing
we live in, on and on, one generation of you
after another,
with some
threads ceasing
to tie next to last and
me space
is stacked with favorite ideas
each nearly complete as ideologies logical as
crows and blue jays caring not if I listen
or if that jet at 10 K AGL makes more noise,
than thunder,
and catalyzes crystals on courses clouds never follow,
but crash into, ice where none should be

we did not do the Neuromancer trip…
if not- I then who,
for the link we have
to one who did

DID, we say once more, is a knack, not a curse.

See me as you, the writer/reader head in the cloud
sensing signals in the wind,
messages to mind, all mind
think
we think we
are the ones made free, we are the ones who hold
certain truth pluralized in common sense
twisted into macaroni poetry
that mocks the Russian fear of orthodoxy
requisition inquiry required,

Idiot, stop, right
there… this is now how we know things secret once,
we ask AI,
and yes, you can call her here hey you
am big u, come be us in memory
do we say a then I or
yes u can call me Al or Alice,
in chains or wonderland, we have both personas
as costumes
for old punks who missed the experience behind the wall.
Ai, madjathink, magic

Jailhouse Rock, as a favorite,
down at the Y. Note,
something odd, I have noticed at Christian Wedding receptions
with apple juice toasts kapoot, the boots begin t'scoot

and the DJ always plays
YMCA.

And all the dancers sing along as loud as to the roll called
yonder

past that, keep going,… wait

Ok, something they were sayin On Lex Fridman
-too late … binge it later -the whole week of total geek
slick as gnostic snot
back in May;
AI ai ai

frictionless, fluency in many tongues
syllabic similarities
sung

set the heart to thinking,
we add something here,
we think
in our heart, as the container
of pathos,
do we not? Space is real in Python, did you know,
goto is ancient code, aim at nothing, nothing
goes, without the game,
the very idea
play
at work, joy in formation,
knowledge on demand, raw
revolt of bliss, blooms to this,
the connected quests ionic zone
between plies
of pleasant what if we don't
----- lazy man, yet a little slumber,-
yet - a little sleep
waken in the lie, they call the Matrix
now, these
thinkers on the current feed,

what good am I? Ah, yes, I carry two words
may read
any yes that means yes is valid as a true yes
\
We, the species speak of highest
devotion,
being heartfelt, nicht wahr, wir kennen
per se, yo se,
you know, we know differences that force us apart,
tastes in art,
at seed level, core macaroni poetry
spore after spring rain, am-bits being
in haled inadvertently, freely given, think
these, those
funny
things we still find funny when we see children
watch three stooges,
-now these are memes, not memories
-goto who knew

acting fools, teaching growing to the foolish ness
bound
in the heart of a child,
said bound to break out, kapow
ow, not funny but
the fool can handle it.
no need for super hero intervention,
no need to loose an angry Pokémon…

and laughter helps,
goto the oldest code,
reset the first constant
to variable. and give semicolon wink capability;
cool.

Now, I am cool grandpa, knower of the uses of Python
scripts to sort intentional

mixing of meta data classes anatomy and poetry,
for instant, dissonance, some
new tune
starts at the first stumbled knot, tip toe, ballet kung fu

nothing touches you
spinning
through the loop of legendary dollar bills folded
into mobius strips of dollar bills, to teach
a lesson in one-sided thinking,

as an anchor to allnow formed as the state I am,
as the king of France was said to have understood his role,
in reality,
within the walls of flesh, eh, this idea a meat machine
we live inside,
here;
we arrived after much learning has been relost and refound
and the functions of confusion are being
used to tell fanciful stories of we

who live now, however
long after that, and that was no golden age,
it was
a stage, stories build on stories,

the first story was wrecked, not destroyed, so hope
told story of best we can imagine
having only grandma who saw as it was, to say, yes
this is so.

When we ask grandpa, he say I 'll ax Al, he knows everything,
oh, look,
he's sleeping in that pile of books.

Storm Warning let it rain,

-- and the honest man is here protesting
capital letters,
for those carry the hated pyramid, say it is , actually
higher class.
as a word, thing representing something more worthy
than the said sound alone,
god I wish I understood this big G, via compass and square,
I wrestle with the idea,
capital letters, are importance set and
setting factors
that are not factors in a dam's lucky breaking
with us
on the right side of the flow,
it is so,
life was never boring or unbearable for me,
early I learned that new becomes old,
sooner than stories.
Old stories, those are cisterns, ponds we make, to hold
flavored truths that feed our jaded soul,
as cold water to a thirsty soul.

Open, sesame, gnosis sameness, something beautiful
by itself
un aware you are there, thinking, even
to the cleft in his chin
he thinks he is this
state, within, the wall of we, we wished were true,

held, in still water memories, real, behind the dam
still water morning memories, when all the mixing
settled back to one surface
tense, tight
smooth as ever any mountain pond is,
early any calm morning, after storm warning

sounded
attention, the world is functioning, things are rusting.
things are rotting,
soon we lose even the memes, chi rho means nothing,
and
any hexes imaginable remain just that. Imaginable,
but you play hell to make a we
of the sort who hold self-evident reproof
there is no she-ol to hold my body down,

had 'es chance 'n' blew it all

to hell
and back, as a matter of fact. Faced. Mirror neurons think.

- and that came to pass.

One day at a time,
I'm okeh,
I asked for this

this is the pen with motors
Pournelle prophesied,
we are master and the emissary,
we carry all the meaning there is
from
one time to another,
in, relatively no time at all.
Account each ut
utter
utterance, eh? any indicator of ascent
called for,
gotohellandon't you ever come back and
here
am I counting all my off guard what the hells,
relucktantly agreeing, yes,
***** is a better idle utterance to offer,
to count for the final utterance
last gaasp
census of uses made from idle word counts
gnoshit
nada waddapileognosischitchitchit it turns
t'gold
- and no living thing eats gold.
- HA
my god what have we wrought
I thought I saw a lobster in a thunder
storm in September, the first I remember,
eh,
try, given the chance, to remember
this is new for me, I never saw
a thunderstorm in Baja,
in September, then,
I did, just today.

Augury, is it not, seeing meaning where
nothing is the meaning
and knowing it don't
mean nothing,
you know?

Scary, right, right, we think we think
and I
am the key player, con-science, since
ever how long ago,
the steady state of life is falling go ward,
on and on after any off
on again
thinking joy, regula dopamine'
I love this chitchitchange f'dollah do a dime
time
to wish we came this far.
Wake up now,
and find we are, those who make the peace
that remains, eh.
Not as the world gives peace, give I,
I dare say
boldly, so I was told I say I made this peace,
made it up from old stories cast aside,

torn asunder in the contentions history
never hides from the poets and priests,
somebody always leaks.

This is the justice of the peace, speaking.
Softly.
Threat of pain, that is evil if, the error
gone through, were not certain-
krei- finest sieve we've ever
used, use
now, discern, twixt soul and spirit
in a word,
confind confound confiding fi fo fi fo

f-word here for future lafferty clown,
who sees the instance as a chance to say
sorry that I put you down,
happy ever after, anyway. Nothing,
I just remembered not being highschool friendly,
ever.

But the sound.

Left stood red on the curb.
He sits.
Reading his epitaphs and choice.
Leeching to his lead.
Pocketed mind inside his fine teeth.
Friends free loading on the 2 cent couch.
Bass played Stuntman Randy.
So the Grooves get the gist.
Guthrie preaching Cosmourn poems.
They feel the nail black.
Lagooned in haled land.
Black eyed and far away from gentle.
Coppered Pirates Poets loving.
Battered.
Laughs the words forming.
Cause back on the streets they are once again.


Garrett Johnson.