Picasso
you give us things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind

you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity

(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or

between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whispers.)
Lumberman of the Distinct

your brain’s
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest

bodies lopped
of every
prettiness

you hew form truly

boasting of the god of love's attentions,
this magicweaver lures her prey--
conjures forth her whim
seeking quench of fickle thirst within
attempting avenues of guile
numerously failed, and baits another heart
to suit her object's mate,
whose favors hail from Shiva
unto dominion everywhere,
  except at forest hut where Rama--
with Sita --honeymoons in exile
having snapped the cosmic dancer's massive bow
to win her for his wife, yet bound
by family word to wilderness
  in elder-shade of mystic eagle
guarded by their builder,
brother Lakshmana, in whose absence Kamavalli comes
to woo the godlike archer for her own.

little bells on anklets ring--
from creeper snagged
as if in venery yearning,
urgent vines would find their way to rest on skin
and squeeze in verdant rooting underform
prancing by, playfully demure
to enter subdued greenery
of Panchvati's gated yard
to catch the stoic Rama's eye
in invitation flashing for his gaze:
a sculptured form of flawless grace
nubile teeth shining from the forest dark,
a smile unassuming of callipygean sway
beneath the flitting lashes of her iris' swell

baffled there he stirs to praise her openly
as perfect--
despite his inner-goddess-for-a-wife he keeps inside--
with tripping words
welcomes and blesses this new girl,
exalting her with blushing queries,
sylvan surging rush to know
interrogate her mystery,
rapt in wide-eyed wonder verging beatific breath--
but learning of her lineage...
begins to plot their deaths.

banter light,
flirtations with a hidden, cosmic weight to pun against,
his praise asserts its hold
pretending bachelorhood;
his kindly, transauthentic voice resists
and in a sympathetic, skillful tone, promulgates
a drama to entice her eager mind--
ironic fancies of domestic bliss
flow from Rama, subtle jests
become her plight obsessing
into darkness embered with her lust
to truly claim him as her love,
her grandiosity defused in simple
entertainment quipping of their castes
and then with sudden burst entranced in luminescent rays of stunning rustic glow
from cottage comes his wife to claim her presence known.

the blow is dealt: Manmatha lays Kamavalli's fate: to self-disintegrate

jealousy to deafen gods, in cave retreat
to nurse her spite, surrounded in a dance
of serpent flails to sate her woe,
and only feed in ouroboros knotslip pulse
a lump-filled throat of gulping incite forward zest salacious
pungent flare of earth identity of fang and blood
the cry to shudder down a wolfine howl
in blast of animal, from screaming womanhood
the swoon precipitate-- vast height, abysmal fall
on being spurned by one who led her on
into delusion wrapped in sham an alter self
she met in bed a thousand cravings razing sanity
into a hate for moon, for elements themselves,
railing at Manmatha's haze infernal globe within and out
projecting Rama's face transfixing her inept
in wracking convulse whine of every cell,
her being sweating out imagined arms,
palms of his to cup her, lift from hellish pit of stifled longing never known 'til volcanically regrown--
in new love's throws an innocence of honest
selfhood found in him, bizarrely enemied in Lila's
killing spree of ego-dolls of lotus costume tracing all
searching through his fresh phantasm for her quelling salve
his diamond ******* targets for her soul
his broadness engirthing her to moan until her last in ecstasy
unknown asura-brew untold invented only now forever lost,
the moment fondled vastly gone,
his chest but gossamer instead of flesh
the emerald shoulder glimmer fake
the boundless confidence exuded in his
tender skin's encapsulated sinew strength
merely thought on causing pelvic quake
repeating there an apparition for her nearly endless letting out
he comes for her a demon double of her making
demi-god creator-demon vision for her writhing,
abandoned to the ambrosia torment he provides
wailing at the cavern sky her prison boudoir den
enscaled with slither pile coat of snakes, masturbatory wake of swooning still again

through to dawn..
in which psychotic break decides:
Soorpanaka births herself anew--
possession of her goal, or suicide.
the dewy spectra shines reflection of the choice;
rave committal forms its mould--
exhaustion hatches colorspray of plots,
braving mutilation to abduct,
lies and bribes surmounting each before
in ****** propositions to her ever widened bed,
else demonic armies loosed,
infatuate Ravana's heart
with illusory snare of golden Sita's rumored wares
to get her man alone and hew derision
with her desperate charm, by cantrip or war
spawned from deeper lairs of a broken,
fallacious heart, toward matrimony
or destruction bent













.

THE HOUSE OF DUST
A Symphony

BY
CONRAD AIKEN

To Jessie

NOTE

. . . Parts of this poem have been printed in "The North American
Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review". . . . I am
indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode called "The Screen Maiden"
in Part II.


     This text comes from the source available at
     Project Gutenberg, originally prepared by Judy Boss
     of Omaha, NE.
    
THE HOUSE OF DUST


PART I.


I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night!  Good-night!  Good-night!  We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride.  We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for?  Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.


II.

One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.

One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.

Looking down from a window high in a wall
He sees us all;
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,
Searching the sky, and going our ways again,
Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees
What we are blind to,-we who mass and crowd
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.

The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.
The yellow lamps wink one by one again.
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.


III.

One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand,
With wave upon slowly shattering wave,
Turned to the city of towers as evening fell;
And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;
And saw how the towers darkened against the sky;
And across the distance heard the toll of a bell.

Along the darkening road he hurried alone,
With his eyes cast down,
And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people,
With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . .
And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown
Here in the quiet of evening air,
These empty and voiceless places . . .
And he hurried towards the city, to enter there.

Along the darkening road, between tall trees
That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked.
Behind him, sea-gulls dipped over long grey seas.
Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked.
And death was observed with sudden cries,
And birth with laughter and pain.
And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies
And night came down again.


IV.

Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.

They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,
And some strange shadows threw.

And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,
Restlessly moving in each lamplit room,
From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire;
From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.

And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought,
Combing with lifted arms her golden hair,
Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night;
And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death
As she blew out her light.

And there was one who turned from clamoring streets,
And walked in lamplit gardens among black trees,
And looked at the windy sky,
And thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze
And birds in the dead boughs cry . . .

And she hurried back, as snow fell, mixed with rain,
To mingle among the crowds again,
To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street;
And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream,
With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet.

And one, from his high bright window looking down
On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town,
Hearing a sea-like murmur rise,
Desired to leave his dream, descend from the tower,
And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries.


V.

The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . .
It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls
Down golden-windowed walls.
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,
We do not remember the red roots whence we rose,
But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while
We shall lie down again.

The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,
Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . .
One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,
We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;
But whether he lives or dies we do not know.

One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;
The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow.
He sings of a house he lived in long ago.
It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;
The house you lived in, the house that all of us know.
And coiling slowly about him, and laughing at him,
And throwing him pennies, we bear away
A mournful echo of other times and places,
And follow a dream . . . a dream that will not stay.

Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;
Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;
In broken slow cascades.
The gardens extend before us . . .  We spread out swiftly;
Trees are above us, and darkness.  The canyon fades . . .

And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,
Vaguely and incoherently, some dream
Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .
A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;
Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.

We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;
We reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;
We close our eyes to music in bright cafees.
We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.
We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays.

And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.


VI.

Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city's feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.

The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.

Rain with a shrill sings on the lapsing waves;
Rain thrills over the roofs again;
Like a shadow of shifting silver it crosses the city;
The lamps in the streets are streamed with rain;
And sparrows complain beneath deep eaves,
And among whirled leaves
The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
From wall to remoter wall,
Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
And close grey wings and fall . . .

. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
Voices about me rise . . .

Voices clear and silvery, voices of raindrops,-
'We struck with silver claws, we struck her down.
We are the ghosts of the singing furies . . . '
A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
Weaves to a babel of sound.  Each cries a secret.
I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.

'I am the one who stood beside you and smiled,
Thinking your face so strangely young . . . '
'I am the one who loved you but did not dare.'
'I am the one you followed through crowded streets,
The one who escaped you, the one with red-gleamed hair.'

'I am the one you saw to-day, who fell
Senseless before you, hearing a certain bell:
A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'
'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,
Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'

'I am the one who suddenly cried, beholding
The face of a certain man on the dazzling screen.
They wrote me that he was dead.  It was long ago.
I walked in the streets for a long while, hearing nothing,
And returned to see it again.  And it was so.'


Weave, weave, weave, you streaks of rain!
I am dissolved and woven again . . .
Thousands of faces rise and vanish before me.
Thousands of voices weave in the rain.

'I am the one who rode beside you, blinking
At a dazzle of golden lights.
Tempests of music swept me: I was thinking
Of the gorgeous promise of certain nights:
Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,
Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,
And turned, as she reached the door,
To smile once more . . .
Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,
Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon
On a night in June . . .
She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;
She dances in dreams over white-waved water;
Her body is white and fragrant and cool,
Magnolia petals that float on a white-starred pool . . .
I have dreamed of her, dreaming for many nights
Of a broken music and golden lights,
Of broken webs of silver, heavily falling
Between my hands and their white desire:
And dark-leaved boughs, edged with a golden radiance,
Dipping to screen a fire . . .
I dream that I walk with her beneath high trees,
But as I lean to kiss her face,
She is blown aloft on wind, I catch at leaves,
And run in a moonless place;
And I hear a crashing of terrible rocks flung down,
And shattering trees and cracking walls,
And a net of intense white flame roars over the town,
And someone cries; and darkness falls . . .
But now she has leaned and smiled at me,
My veins are afire with music,
Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light;
I shall dream to her secret heart tonight . . . '

He rises and moves away, he says no word,
He folds his evening paper and turns away;
I rush through the dark with rows of lamplit faces;
Fire bells peal, and some of us turn to listen,
And some sit motionless in their accustomed places.

Cold rain lashes the car-roof, scurries in gusts,
Streams down the windows in waves and ripples of lustre;
The lamps in the streets are distorted and strange.
Someone takes his watch from his pocket and yawns.
One peers out in the night for the place to change.

Rain . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain,
It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water,
Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street.
The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops.
Remote and hurried the great bells beat.

'I am the one whom life so shrewdly betrayed,
Misfortune dogs me, it always hunted me down.
And to-day the woman I love lies dead.
I gave her roses, a ring with opals;
These hands have touched her head.

'I bound her to me in all soft ways,
I bound her to me in a net of days,
Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word.
How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?
There is no use: we cry: and are not heard.

'They cover a body with roses . . . I shall not see it . . .
Must one return to the lifeless walls of a city
Whose soul is charred by fire? . . . '
His eyes are closed, his lips press tightly together.
Wheels hiss beneath us.  He yields us our desire.

'No, do not stare so-he is weak with grief,
He cannot face you, he turns his eyes aside;
He is confused with pain.
I suffered this.  I know.  It was long ago . . .
He closes his eyes and drowns in death again.'

The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,
The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls.
We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;
And at last a silence falls.


VII.

Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
The golden lights go out . . .
The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn,
In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn,
We lie face down, we dream,
We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem
To stare at the ceiling or walls . . .
Midnight . . . the last of shattering bell-notes falls.
A rush of silence whirls over the cloud-high towers,
A vortex of soundless hours.

'The bells have just struck twelve: I should be sleeping.
But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you.
The woman is dead.
She died-you know the way.  Just as we planned.
Smiling, with open sunlit eyes.
Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .'

He folds his letter, steps softly down the stairs.
The doors are closed and silent.  A gas-jet flares.
His shadow disturbs a shadow of balustrades.
The door swings shut behind.  Night roars above him.
Into the night he fades.

Wind; wind; wind; carving the walls;
Blowing the water that gleams in the street;
Blowing the rain, the sleet.
In the dark alley, an old tree cracks and falls,
Oak-boughs moan in the haunted air;
Lamps blow down with a crash and ****** of glass . . .
Darkness whistles . . . Wild hours pass . . .

And those whom sleep eludes lie wide-eyed, hearing
Above their heads a goblin night go by;
Children are waked, and cry,
The young girl hears the roar in her sleep, and dreams
That her lover is caught in a burning tower,
She clutches the pillow, she gasps for breath, she screams . . .
And then by degrees her breath grows quiet and slow,
She dreams of an evening, long ago:
Of colored lanterns balancing under trees,
Some of them softly catching afire;
And beneath the lanterns a motionless face she sees,
Golden with lamplight, smiling, serene . . .
The leaves are a pale and glittering green,
The sound of horns blows over the trampled grass,
Shadows of dancers pass . . .
The face smiles closer to hers, she tries to lean
Backward, away, the eyes burn close and strange,
The face is beginning to change,-
It is her lover, she no longer desires to resist,
She is held and kissed.
She closes her eyes, and melts in a seethe of

We marched to the words of "We Shall Overcome"
courting justice to walk by our side,
seared into memory with the heat of sun

brothers and sisters, arms linked one to one
beneath that day star's unblinking eye,
we marched to the words, "We Shall Overcome."

We swore an oath to forego the gun,
to carry only freedom's cry
beneath the impassive afternoon sun,

through bludgeon and cudgel one by one,
each truncheon summoning others to rise,
to join in the words "We Shall Overcome."

As we embraced, the marching done,
a crosshairs trained a ******’s eye
to wrench malice from the indifferent sun

to hew a path in blood and bone,
to rend flesh
                     and a rasping
                                              fatal sigh . . .
in the fading caress of the afternoon sun.

Beneath the eternal arc of the sun,
again we will muster side by side,
a sanctified chorus, whose song will be sung,
let our marching echo "We Shall Overcome.”

Copyright © 2018 Gary Brocks

U.S. NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM / LORRAINE HOTEL
Site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thursday, 4 April 1968.

"We Shall Overcome”, an anthem, title and refrain, of the American Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th century.

The river forks at big stone eddy
rending currents meandering course,  
its silence speaks not with forked tongue
as kismet's swirling eddies abide
     as if time immemorial;
     a river naturally cleaved
in two separate distinct directions
befallen destiny  without a choice


Spinning round and round in big stone eddy,
time just drifting by in the throes
of doubt — high water rising
beyond the bounds of earth
taking drowning souls up to the sky


Choking on a mouthful of unanswered questions,
suffocating on the parting words left unsaid;
distilling life into poetry hew from being —
trickling out like the spilled out sky —
taken down to the empty riverbed
leave lay' til it's all washed away,
in the music of the pourin' down rain


Freedom embodies metaphysical incarnations
riding the prevailing currents it can't control
Gravity-gathered  down to the shoreline,
manifest reclamation after the deluge,
from somewhere far above the high-water mark


Swallowed by all the darkness woe betides,
thinking you carry such a weight to hold...
It seems all got a handful of sand to toss
up into the wind to seed the clouds
The totality of eclipsing silence grows
that rent the stillness of a dream
of peace on an eroding shoreline


In an Eddy of Expectations & Disappointment
dark waters will ebb and flow,
imponderable as drowning hope,
leaving it all out there to dry after the rain

       believing in your heart —
        the best is yet to come


  Jesse Stillwater ... November 2018

Computer Dog-gone it Bow Wow
Queen of Sheba and Shiba Inu
  The doggy treat paws ring
my bell ring my bell
Looking at my eyes of Apple
will always tell how many
times you're going to App me
Please I don't have time for
games outcrop me or
do not cop out
Paws of  digging some
INC. of Instagram

Uncle Sam took my stocks
and bonds Eyes to my map
diagram
Eyes of the Apple rotten mail
Webby Ms. Debby deleted it

One Nighty gown
Nighting Gale
He's always doing on eye story
(Spy Eye) July 4th  cheese and
******* male
Old news her Eyes Ms. Firecracker
New computer demands
A silence of the Lamb Hector -
Eyes at her doorway
Save my butterfly
The hacker has too many free time

Newsstands on the corner
Eyes of more crime
That computer trucker
Clicks away his I apple
CD covers
The computer I crown thee

Eyes to the doorway
CLICKS City Chicks
Don't want me anyway

All Commands
We know the game
money hands what
a commuter

The web of the eye’s
All we see are walnuts
and apple pies
The computer always on the rise
No computer wiz will get fired?
Like Jeopardy computer high
investment commodity
Steve Jobs the winner
Apples and techno cars
and comedians

Apple web got married gown
Kleinfeld's wed whites computer
to curve their enthusiasm
Jerry Seinfeld made a switch
Steven Universe webby podcast  
eyes crystal witchcraft

Macintosh gold rush floppy disk
Took  a big money crash risk

“New” invention thinking
All pluses
Einstein Web Star
Mass VIP pass
Too many copycats
Brownstone coffee
I pad happy Ireland lads
Ballerina no sleeping beauty
Pancake needed to get work done
Up in the Robin hood Penthouse
Apple Museum
International of excellence
She is so Apple Lisa
the picture with sad smiles of
Mona Lisa

Apple webby

2. SUNDAY bye STAR the news Steve Jobs
Gave a web forecast Hazy hackers
Eyes stormy computer crashes
Computer laptop Cafes surfing
and best beer hubs reading what
on the news with Steve Jobs
Apple I for an Eye
and his last patent Mac OSX Dock
was well granted the day of his death

The big Apple how he started it.
The city never Sleep’s.
I had you fooled?
On April Fools day 1976 Steve
Wozniak and Steve Jobs made history

So robotic computerized
Pixar Animation
studio environment
where excellence to
(Robotic Perfection)
Innovation on an
impossible mission

Hi, Sirprize to your husband bills
Apple web of desires chills
Going through a computer maze
graphically cool sin paired to win

Her brain shines eyes still clicking
Godly animation

Now you were rich
enough to take a vacation
Eyes went up to the heights
No more fighting interface and
Xerox his baby loaded up
like a Paradox my
cream cheese lox
Apple Jubilee coffee
she could soften anybody
Until you love the
Software apple
the product of computer sky?
Robin’s Risque eyes
deeply web- bye
Tower upload.

The best Apple eye reload
ferocious love suitcase of
computer products flight
Megababes Queen we
are the Champion
and hardware prowl like a
Smart crime no yellow tape
That sophisticated owl moon
computer ***** cried Wolfie
She was howling Apple selfie
eyes red fire has driven

Supermoon so blessed
caress nuanced
Word’s spat cheetah cat
Web milk me the succession
Apple Web goodbye never
Buying Xerox stocks forever
Macintosh Floppy Disk
New world tasks
“Love” 1/2 Grain “Orient Express”
she spoke like the speeding link.

He got hooked what a
((Chrome Apple))
Uncivilized phone silverized
or Clone senior citizen or exotic
black cheetah list
Hew-let Packard flavor
couldn’t resist what an enterprise.

It’s all in the Apple eyes

I Apple of her eyephone we
need earplugs (Adam and Eve)
have some nifty spark plugs
Hub purr personalities
eye’s “Software”
Cat’s Eye has nine lives
of responsibilities
Love of art computer theater

He’s Stocks her sweet candy
but he had the
  Einstein's eyes such mass and gravity
a good set of lungs webcomic

Her silk detailed blouse
got caught in his apple martini
Extra news story read all about it!
Carriage rider what a glider
took her baby-computer
traveler soft hand
met her Gulliver travel

He computerized her love clicks
Gave her new baby chicks
more living to do on Google
I rather have my Moms Kugel

i get to be ridiculous, i'm an artist, it's only that my ridiculousness doesn't border with the Vatican City, or Switzerland that it's deemed "weird" (symbol use, also know as passing on misnomers, ~ - that's ambiguity, a stranger punctuation construct from the hyphen), it's weird because i'm attired in familiar clothing to an Essex loafer, i don't have the currency to buy fancy Pompidou mascara or lipstick and stroll with other drag queens at gay pride... i'm back-of-the-woods type of guy, on the Cartesian Libra heavyweight to the side of 'i think' than on the pigeon-**** weight side of 'i am' - mathematically speaking that's like 2 + 1 = 3 - "schizoid" thinking coupled to non-schizoid behavioural patterns therefore means... an increased threshold capacity for experiencing pain.

the first time i smoked marijuana
(and i didn't know how to roll
a joint of marijuana and tobacco)
was the happiest time of my life,
i exercised a lot, practised Roman bulimia
unconsciously - no pills, nothing,
******* down my throat, later
i trained the *suprahyoid and the infrahyoid
muscles so well that
i could just throw the chocolate bars up,
trained them so well as if i was gagging
on a *****... but to keep a body image,
well, you know, to look **** (add sarcasm
with the italics) you have to do what women
do, for me it was a Roman Bulimia,
for them, dieting - it was weird owning
a different body from the one i own now,
c.c.t.v. Narcissus-shadow stalker was all a craze back then,
too much self-conscious ******* wrapped in
a ***** and sent to a daycare centre -
it feels great these days, drinking 70cl of whiskey
a night, and why would i be bragging without
a bowler hat and a cane a butterfly prim
on my neck and a neat suit?
i read Bulgakov, that'll do, i have an operatic
cat at this moment, i've never heard so many variations
of meow after the doors to the garden are closed
and he's told to remain indoors after 9p.m.,
he sits on the bathroom windowsill and wants
to be nannied in the lap while someone smokes
downstairs... 'fella, same fresh air down here as up there'...
it's more of a fox than a cat...
he matured to be ~10 kilograms, and so's a mature fox,
i know, i weighed one, cutting a work's pay for
some sanitary worked one night
when i was eager to buy a few beers... mature foxes
~10 kilograms minus 21 grams (you know, the
Higgs' boson of soul, alejandro gonzález iñárritu -
but why add ñá so close? it's -nia- anyway,
so Mexico or e ** ** **, the Mexican Hew, huh?
ah... Habana!)
swear to god, never heard so many variations...
where was i? ah, adapting Bach's polyphony within
poetry, could have been a king david, but i smashed
my lyre... i never liked the cheap one-man tennis
and a brick wall of poetry within claim of stiffening repeats:
rhyme... bounce... rhyme... Bunsen! rhyme... bounce...
rhyme... Bunsen! ya-d'ah ya-d'ah ya-d'ah...
a carousel in Golders Green where all the payots
flew off and made french pastry curls... cinnamon... mm.
and two books i wish i'd written -
closed society and it's allies, the alt. to Popper's
antonym based yawn-epic - Karl, falsifier -
and anger and restlessness, the alt. to a Danish
epic by Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling -
alt. say it as it is - ******* is like a bow-tie event,
a moth a butterfly event - the ******* was
there for a reason, pleasure from *******
when your *** partner was "feeling tired",
men and women are both libido struck sometimes
to extremes, they mentioned f.g.m. but didn't mention
m.g.m., with ******* you ain't chasing, you ain't
playing the dating game - circumcision gave
women the upper hand, the toy machine of manhood,
you have ******* for a reason, it's not in line with
ancient Hebraic laws where you have to do 613 things
to obey... and with ******* you're less likely to
go Boko Haram cuckoo and steal girls for their ******* -
i believe the fabled conversation between Zeus and
Hera is necessary - women derive more pleasure
from ***... but men derive more pleasure from life -
well, if you have *******, see the image problem?
i'm dressed... you're undressed... i have two capacities
and a tool to curb my libido, you have jack and a stockpile
of nukes - with a cigar smoking duke on percussion
that only takes one press and the whole orchestra starts
up with a crescendo rather than a build-up.
oh right... the first time i started smoking marijuana i
was 21... i remember it clearly, i don't know how i managed
to roll a joint... Edinburgh 2007, Montague Street,
i rolled one... smoked it... lay on the floor...
and giggled my way through Daft Punk's album human
after all - giggled and danced horizontally...
solipsism at it's finest... later i met a girl who said that
*** after marijuana was so much better than sober...
i beg to disagree... given that solo moment,
and ******* prostitutes drunk, esp. in Amsterdam,
where i don't have to feel any English sensibilities on the matter.

Thus did the Trojans watch. But Panic, comrade of blood-stained
Rout, had taken fast hold of the Achaeans and their princes were all
of them in despair. As when the two winds that blow from Thrace—the
north and the northwest—spring up of a sudden and rouse the fury of
the main—in a moment the dark waves uprear their heads and scatter
their sea-wrack in all directions—even thus troubled were the
hearts of the Achaeans.
  The son of Atreus in dismay bade the heralds call the people to a
council man by man, but not to cry the matter aloud; he made haste
also himself to call them, and they sat sorry at heart in their
assembly. Agamemnon shed tears as it were a running stream or cataract
on the side of some sheer cliff; and thus, with many a heavy sigh he
spoke to the Achaeans. “My friends,” said he, “princes and councillors
Of the Argives, the hand of heaven has been laid heavily upon me.
Cruel Jove gave me his solemn promise that I should sack the city of
Troy before returning, but he has played me false, and is now
bidding me go ingloriously back to Argos with the loss of much people.
Such is the will of Jove, who has laid many a proud city in the dust
as he will yet lay others, for his power is above all. Now, therefore,
let us all do as I say and sail back to our own country, for we
shall not take Troy.”
  Thus he spoke, and the sons of the Achaeans for a long while sat
sorrowful there, but they all held their peace, till at last Diomed of
the loud battle-cry made answer saying, “Son of Atreus, I will chide
your folly, as is my right in council. Be not then aggrieved that I
should do so. In the first place you attacked me before all the
Danaans and said that I was a coward and no soldier. The Argives young
and old know that you did so. But the son of scheming Saturn endowed
you by halves only. He gave you honour as the chief ruler over us, but
valour, which is the highest both right and might he did not give you.
Sir, think you that the sons of the Achaeans are indeed as unwarlike
and cowardly as you say they are? If your own mind is set upon going
home—go—the way is open to you; the many ships that followed you
from Mycene stand ranged upon the seashore; but the rest of us stay
here till we have sacked Troy. Nay though these too should turn
homeward with their ships, Sthenelus and myself will still fight on
till we reach the goal of Ilius, for for heaven was with us when we
came.”
  The sons of the Achaeans shouted applause at the words of Diomed,
and presently Nestor rose to speak. “Son of Tydeus,” said he, “in
war your prowess is beyond question, and in council you excel all
who are of your own years; no one of the Achaeans can make light of
what you say nor gainsay it, but you have not yet come to the end of
the whole matter. You are still young—you might be the youngest of my
own children—still you have spoken wisely and have counselled the
chief of the Achaeans not without discretion; nevertheless I am
older than you and I will tell you every” thing; therefore let no man,
not even King Agamemnon, disregard my saying, for he that foments
civil discord is a clanless, hearthless outlaw.
  “Now, however, let us obey the behests of night and get our suppers,
but let the sentinels every man of them camp by the trench that is
without the wall. I am giving these instructions to the young men;
when they have been attended to, do you, son of Atreus, give your
orders, for you are the most royal among us all. Prepare a feast for
your councillors; it is right and reasonable that you should do so;
there is abundance of wine in your tents, which the ships of the
Achaeans bring from Thrace daily. You have everything at your disposal
wherewith to entertain guests, and you have many subjects. When many
are got together, you can be guided by him whose counsel is wisest-
and sorely do we need shrewd and prudent counsel, for the foe has
lit his watchfires hard by our ships. Who can be other than
dismayed? This night will either be the ruin of our host, or save it.”
  Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. The sentinels
went out in their armour under command of Nestor’s son Thrasymedes,
a captain of the host, and of the bold warriors Ascalaphus and
Ialmenus: there were also Meriones, Aphareus and Deipyrus, and the son
of Creion, noble Lycomedes. There were seven captains of the
sentinels, and with each there went a hundred youths armed with long
spears: they took their places midway between the trench and the wall,
and when they had done so they lit their fires and got every man his
supper.
  The son of Atreus then bade many councillors of the Achaeans to
his quarters prepared a great feast in their honour. They laid their
hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they
had enough to eat and drink, old Nestor, whose counsel was ever
truest, was the first to lay his mind before them. He, therefore, with
all sincerity and goodwill addressed them thus.
  “With yourself, most noble son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon,
will I both begin my speech and end it, for you are king over much
people. Jove, moreover, has vouchsafed you to wield the sceptre and to
uphold righteousness, that you may take thought for your people
under you; therefore it behooves you above all others both to speak
and to give ear, and to out the counsel of another who shall have been
minded to speak wisely. All turns on you and on your commands,
therefore I will say what I think will be best. No man will be of a
truer mind than that which has been mine from the hour when you,
sir, angered Achilles by taking the girl Briseis from his tent against
my judgment. I urged you not to do so, but you yielded to your own
pride, and dishonoured a hero whom heaven itself had honoured—for you
still hold the prize that had been awarded to him. Now, however, let
us think how we may appease him, both with presents and fair
speeches that may conciliate him.”
  And King Agamemnon answered, “Sir, you have reproved my folly
justly. I was wrong. I own it. One whom heaven befriends is in himself
a host, and Jove has shown that he befriends this man by destroying
much people of the Achaeans. I was blinded with passion and yielded to
my worser mind; therefore I will make amends, and will give him
great gifts by way of atonement. I will tell them in the presence of
you all. I will give him seven tripods that have never yet been on the
fire, and ten talents of gold. I will give him twenty iron cauldrons
and twelve strong horses that have won races and carried off prizes.
Rich, indeed, both in land and gold is he that has as many prizes as
my horses have won me. I will give him seven excellent workwomen,
Lesbians, whom I chose for myself when he took ******—all of
surpassing beauty. I will give him these, and with them her whom I
erewhile took from him, the daughter of Briseus; and I swear a great
oath that I never went up into her couch, nor have been with her after
the manner of men and women.
  “All these things will I give him now down, and if hereafter the
gods vouchsafe me to sack the city of Priam, let him come when we
Achaeans are dividing the spoil, and load his ship with gold and
bronze to his liking; furthermore let him take twenty Trojan women,
the loveliest after Helen herself. Then, when we reach Achaean
Argos, wealthiest of all lands, he shall be my son-in-law and I will
show him like honour with my own dear son Orestes, who is being
nurtured in all abundance. I have three daughters, Chrysothemis,
Laodice, and lphianassa, let him take the one of his choice, freely
and without gifts of wooing, to the house of Peleus; I will add such
dower to boot as no man ever yet gave his daughter, and will give
him seven well established cities, Cardamyle, Enope, and Hire, where
there is grass; holy Pherae and the rich meadows of Anthea; Aepea
also, and the vine-clad slopes of Pedasus, all near the sea, and on
the borders of sandy Pylos. The men that dwell there are rich in
cattle and sheep; they will honour him with gifts as though he were
a god, and be obedient to his comfortable ordinances. All this will
I do if he will now forgo his anger. Let him then yieldit is only
Hades who is utterly ruthless and unyielding—and hence he is of all
gods the one most hateful to mankind. Moreover I am older and more
royal than himself. Therefore, let him now obey me.”
  Then Nestor answered, “Most noble son of Atreus, king of men,
Agamemnon. The gifts you offer are no small ones, let us then send
chosen messengers, who may go to the tent of Achilles son of Peleus
without delay. Let those go whom I shall name. Let Phoenix, dear to
Jove, lead the way; let Ajax and Ulysses follow, and let the heralds
Odius and Eurybates go with them. Now bring water for our hands, and
bid all keep silence while we pray to Jove the son of Saturn, if so be
that he may have mercy upon us.”
  Thus did he speak, and his saying pleased them well. Men-servants
poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the
mixing-bowls with wine and water, and handed it round after giving
every man his drink-offering; then, when they had made their
offerings, and had drunk each as much as he was minded, the envoys set
out from the tent of Agamemnon son of Atreus; and Nestor, looking
first to one and then to another, but most especially at Ulysses,
was instant with them that they should prevail with the noble son of
Peleus.
  They went their way by the shore of the sounding sea, and prayed
earnestly to earth-encircling Neptune that the high spirit of the
son of Aeacus might incline favourably towards them. When they reached
the ships and tents of the Myrmidons, they found Achilles playing on a
lyre, fair, of cunning workmanship, and its cross-bar was of silver.
It was part of the spoils which he had taken when he sacked the city
of Eetion, and he was now diverting himself with it and singing the
feats of heroes. He was alone with Patroclus, who sat opposite to
him and said nothing, waiting till he should cease singing. Ulysses
and Ajax now came in—Ulysses leading the way -and stood before him.
Achilles sprang from his seat with the lyre still in his hand, and
Patroclus, when he saw the strangers, rose also. Achilles then greeted
them saying, “All hail and welcome—you must come upon some great
matter, you, who for all my anger are still dearest to me of the
Achaeans.”
  With this he led them forward, and bade them sit on seats covered
with purple rugs; then he said to Patroclus who was close by him, “Son
of Menoetius, set a larger bowl upon the table, mix less water with
the wine, and give every man his cup, for these are very dear friends,
who are now under my roof.”
  Patroclus did as his comrade bade him; he set the chopping-block
in front of the fire, and on it he laid the **** of a sheep, the
**** also of a goat, and the chine of a fat hog. Automedon held the
meat while Achilles chopped it; he then sliced the pieces and put them
on spits while the son of Menoetius made the fire burn high. When
the flame had died down, he spread the embers, laid the spits on top
of them, lifting them up and setting them upon the spit-racks; and
he sprinkled them with salt. When the meat was roasted, he set it on
platters, and handed bread round the table in fair baskets, while
Achilles dealt them their portions. Then Achilles took his seat facing
Ulysses against the opposite wall, and bade his comrade Patroclus
offer sacrifice to the gods; so he cast the offerings into the fire,
and they laid their hands upon the good things that were before
them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, Ajax made a
sign to Phoenix, and when he saw this, Ulysses filled his cup with
wine and pledged Achilles.
  “Hail,” said he, “Achilles, we have had no scant of good cheer,
neither in the tent of Agamemnon, nor yet here; there has been
plenty to eat and drink, but our thought turns upon no such matter.
Sir, we are in the face of great disaster, and without your help
know not whether we shall save our fleet or lose it. The Trojans and
their allies have camped hard by our ships and by the wall; they
have lit watchfires throughout their host and deem that nothing can
now prevent them from falling on our fleet. Jove, moreover, has sent
his lightnings on their right; Hector, in all his glory, rages like
a maniac; confident that Jove is with him he fears neither god nor
man, but is gone raving mad, and prays for the approach of day. He
vows that he will hew the high sterns of our ships in pieces, set fire
to their hulls, and make havoc of the Achaeans while they are dazed
and smothered in smoke; I much fear that heaven will make good his
boasting, and it will prove our lot to perish at Troy far from our
home in Argos. Up, then, and late though it be, save the sons of the
Achaeans who faint before the fury of the Trojans. You will repent
bitterly hereafter if you do not, for when the harm is done there will
be no curing it; consider ere it be too late, and save the Danaans
from destruction.
  “My good friend, when your father Peleus sent you from Phthia to
Agamemnon, did he not charge you saying, ‘Son, Minerva and Juno will
make you strong if they choose, but check your high temper, for the
better part is in goodwill. Eschew vain quarrelling, and the
Achaeans old and young will respect you more for doing so.’ These were
his words, but you have forgotten them. Even now, however, be
appeased, and put away your anger from you. Agamemnon will make you
great amends if you will forgive him; listen, and I will tell you what
he has said in his tent that he will give you. He will give you
seven tripods that have never yet been on the fire, and ten talents of
gold; twenty iron cauldrons, and twelve strong horses that have won
races and carried off prizes. Rich indeed both in land and gold is
he who has as many prizes as these horses have won for Agamemnon.
Moreover he will give you seven excellent workwomen, Lesbians, whom he
chose for himself, when you took ******—all of surpassing beauty.
He will give you these, and with them her whom he erewhile took from
you, the daughter of Briseus, and he will swear a great oath, he has
never gone up into her couch nor been with her after the manner of men
and women. All these things will he give you now down, and if
hereafter the gods vouchsafe him to sack the city of Priam, you can
come when we Achaeans are dividing the spoil, and load your ship
with gold and bronze to your liking. You can take twenty Trojan women,
the loveliest after Helen herself. Then, when we reach Achaean
Argos, wealthiest of all lands, you shall be his son-in-law, and he
will show you like honour with his own dear son Orestes, who is
being nurtured in all abundance. Agamemnon has three daughters,
Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa; you may take the one of your
choice, freely and without gifts of wooing, to the house of Peleus; he
will add such dower to boot as no man ever yet gave his daughter,
and will give you seven well-established cities, Cardamyle, Enope, and
Hire where there is grass; holy Pheras and the rich meadows of Anthea;
Aepea also, and the vine-clad slopes of Pedasus, all near the sea, and
on the borders of sandy Pylos. The men that dwell there are rich in
cattle and sheep; they will honour you with gifts as though were a
god, and be obedient to your comfortable ordinances. All this will
he do if you will now forgo your anger. Moreover, though you hate both
him and his gifts with all your heart, yet pity the rest of the
Achaeans who are being harassed in all their host; they will honour
you as a god, and you will earn great glory at their hands. You
might even **** Hector; he will come within your reach, for he is
infatuated, and declares that not a Danaan whom the ships have brought
can hold his own against him.”
  Achilles answered, “Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, I should give you
formal notice plainly and in all fixity of purpose that there be no
more of this cajoling, from whatsoever quarter it may come. Him do I
hate even as the gates of hell who says one thing while he hides
another in his heart; therefore I will say what I mean. I will be
appeased neither by Agamemnon son of Atreus

Pride of the world, like a phoenix I rise
towering over darkness and hatred
scarred though our hearts be, but
un-cowed, unfurls my spirit, leading
aspirations to the skies and beyond.

We are Americans and Europeans
and Africans and Asians, divided

in religion and race, but here we meet
as one world, here we will bridge
heaven and earth and hew a passage
through boulders of bigotry into
the lands of brotherhood and peace.

May I for my own self song’s truth reckon,
Journey’s jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care’s hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship’s head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet’s clamour,
Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
The mews’ singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
    Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.
This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
Abides ’mid burghers some heavy business,
Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft
Must bide above brine.
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then
Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now
The heart’s thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
Moaneth alway my mind’s lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence
Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there’s no mood-lofty man over earth’s midst,
Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;
Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful
But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight
Nor any whit else save the wave’s slash,
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing.
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart’s blood. Burgher knows not—
He the prosperous man—what some perform
Where wandering them widest draweth.
So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,
My mood ’mid the mere-flood,
Over the whale’s acre, would wander wide.
On earth’s shelter cometh oft to me,
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,
O’er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
My lord deems to me this dead life
On loan and on land, I believe not
That any earth-weal eternal standeth
Save there be somewhat calamitous
That, ere a man’s tide go, turn it to twain.
Disease or oldness or sword-hate
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after—
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
That he will work ere he pass onward,
Frame on the fair earth ‘gainst foes his malice,
Daring ado, …
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain ’mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life’s-blast,
Delight mid the doughty.
    Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches,
There come now no kings nor Cæsars
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
Howe’er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe’er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No man at all going the earth’s gait,
But age fares against him, his face paleth,
Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
Lordly men are to earth o’ergiven,
Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,
Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
And though he strew the grave with gold,
His born brothers, their buried bodies
Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

Ye martial pow’rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
The dreadful scenes and toils of war I write,
The ardent warriors, and the fields of fight:
You best remember, and you best can sing
The acts of heroes to the vocal string:
Resume the lays with which your sacred lyre,
Did then the poet and the sage inspire.
  Now front to front the armies were display’d,
Here Israel rang’d, and there the foes array’d;
The hosts on two opposing mountains stood,
Thick as the foliage of the waving wood;
Between them an extensive valley lay,
O’er which the gleaming armour pour’d the day,
When from the camp of the Philistine foes,
Dreadful to view, a mighty warrior rose;
In the dire deeds of bleeding battle skill’d,
The monster stalks the terror of the field.
From Gath he sprung, Goliath was his name,
Of fierce deportment, and gigantic frame:
A brazen helmet on his head was plac’d,
A coat of mail his form terrific grac’d,
The greaves his legs, the targe his shoulders prest:
Dreadful in arms high-tow’ring o’er the rest
A spear he proudly wav’d, whose iron head,
Strange to relate, six hundred shekels weigh’d;
He strode along, and shook the ample field,
While Phoebus blaz’d refulgent on his shield:
Through Jacob’s race a chilling horror ran,
When thus the huge, enormous chief began:
  “Say, what the cause that in this proud array
“You set your battle in the face of day?
“One hero find in all your vaunting train,
“Then see who loses, and who wins the plain;
“For he who wins, in triumph may demand
“Perpetual service from the vanquish’d land:
“Your armies I defy, your force despise,
“By far inferior in Philistia’s eyes:
“Produce a man, and let us try the fight,
“Decide the contest, and the victor’s right.”
  Thus challeng’d he: all Israel stood amaz’d,
And ev’ry chief in consternation gaz’d;
But Jesse’s son in youthful bloom appears,
And warlike courage far beyond his years:
He left the folds, he left the flow’ry meads,
And soft recesses of the sylvan shades.
Now Israel’s monarch, and his troops arise,
With peals of shouts ascending to the skies;
In Elah’s vale the scene of combat lies.
  When the fair morning blush’d with orient red,
What David’s fire enjoin’d the son obey’d,
And swift of foot towards the trench he came,
Where glow’d each ***** with the martial flame.
He leaves his carriage to another’s care,
And runs to greet his brethren of the war.
While yet they spake the giant-chief arose,
Repeats the challenge, and insults his foes:
Struck with the sound, and trembling at the view,
Affrighted Israel from its post withdrew.
“Observe ye this tremendous foe, they cry’d,
“Who in proud vaunts our armies hath defy’d:
“Whoever lays him prostrate on the plain,
“Freedom in Israel for his house shall gain;
“And on him wealth unknown the king will pour,
“And give his royal daughter for his dow’r.”
  Then Jesse’s youngest hope: “My brethren say,
“What shall be done for him who takes away
“Reproach from Jacob, who destroys the chief.
“And puts a period to his country’s grief.
“He vaunts the honours of his arms abroad,
“And scorns the armies of the living God.”
  Thus spoke the youth, th’ attentive people ey’d
The wond’rous hero, and again reply’d:
“Such the rewards our monarch will bestow,
“On him who conquers, and destroys his foe.”
  Eliab heard, and kindled into ire
To hear his shepherd brother thus inquire,
And thus begun: “What errand brought thee? say
“Who keeps thy flock? or does it go astray?
“I know the base ambition of thine heart,
“But back in safety from the field depart.”
  Eliab thus to Jesse’s youngest heir,
Express’d his wrath in accents most severe.
When to his brother mildly he reply’d.
“What have I done? or what the cause to chide?
  The words were told before the king, who sent
For the young hero to his royal tent:
Before the monarch dauntless he began,
“For this Philistine fail no heart of man:
“I’ll take the vale, and with the giant fight:
“I dread not all his boasts, nor all his might.”
When thus the king: “Dar’st thou a stripling go,
“And venture combat with so great a foe?
“Who all his days has been inur’d to fight,
“And made its deeds his study and delight:
“Battles and bloodshed brought the monster forth,
“And clouds and whirlwinds usher’d in his birth.”
When David thus: “I kept the fleecy care,
“And out there rush’d a lion and a bear;
“A tender lamb the hungry lion took,
“And with no other weapon than my crook
“Bold I pursu’d, and chas d him o’er the field,
“The prey deliver’d, and the felon ****’d:
“As thus the lion and the bear I slew,
“So shall Goliath fall, and all his crew:
“The God, who sav’d me from these beasts of prey,
“By me this monster in the dust shall lay.”
So David spoke.  The wond’ring king reply’d;
“Go thou with heav’n and victory on thy side:
“This coat of mail, this sword gird on,” he said,
And plac’d a mighty helmet on his head:
The coat, the sword, the helm he laid aside,
Nor chose to venture with those arms untry’d,
Then took his staff, and to the neighb’ring brook
Instant he ran, and thence five pebbles took.
Mean time descended to Philistia’s son
A radiant cherub, and he thus begun:
“Goliath, well thou know’st thou hast defy’d
“Yon Hebrew armies, and their God deny’d:
“Rebellious wretch! audacious worm! forbear,
“Nor tempt the vengeance of their God too far:
“Them, who with his Omnipotence contend,
“No eye shall pity, and no arm defend:
“Proud as thou art, in short liv’d glory great,
“I come to tell thee thine approaching fate.
“Regard my words.  The Judge of all the gods,
“Beneath whose steps the tow’ring mountain nods,
“Will give thine armies to the savage brood,
“That cut the liquid air, or range the wood.
“Thee too a well-aim’d pebble shall destroy,
“And thou shalt perish by a beardless boy:
“Such is the mandate from the realms above,
“And should I try the vengeance to remove,
“Myself a rebel to my king would prove.
“Goliath say, shall grace to him be shown,
“Who dares heav’ns Monarch, and insults his throne?”
  “Your words are lost on me,” the giant cries,
While fear and wrath contended in his eyes,
When thus the messenger from heav’n replies:
“Provoke no more Jehovah’s awful hand
“To hurl its vengeance on thy guilty land:
“He grasps the thunder, and, he wings the storm,
“Servants their sov’reign’s orders to perform.”
  The angel spoke, and turn’d his eyes away,
Adding new radiance to the rising day.
  Now David comes: the fatal stones demand
His left, the staff engag’d his better hand:
The giant mov’d, and from his tow’ring height
Survey’d the stripling, and disdain’d the fight,
And thus began: “Am I a dog with thee?
“Bring’st thou no armour, but a staff to me?
“The gods on thee their vollied curses pour,
“And beasts and birds of prey thy flesh devour.”
  David undaunted thus, “Thy spear and shield
“Shall no protection to thy body yield:
“Jehovah’s name———no other arms I bear,
“I ask no other in this glorious war.
“To-day the Lord of Hosts to me will give
“Vict’ry, to-day thy doom thou shalt receive;
“The fate you threaten shall your own become,
“And beasts shall be your animated tomb,
“That all the earth’s inhabitants may know
“That there’s a God, who governs all below:
“This great assembly too shall witness stand,
“That needs nor sword, nor spear, th’ Almighty’s
  hand:
“The battle his, the conquest he bestows,
“And to our pow’r consigns our hated foes.”
  Thus David spoke; Goliath heard and came
To meet the hero in the field of fame.
Ah! fatal meeting to thy troops and thee,
But thou wast deaf to the divine decree;
Young David meets thee, meets thee not in vain;
’Tis thine to perish on th’ ensanguin’d plain.
  And now the youth the forceful pebble slung
Philistia trembled as it whizz’d along:
In his dread forehead, where the helmet ends,
Just o’er the brows the well-aim’d stone descends,
It pierc’d the skull, and shatter’d all the brain,
Prone on his face he tumbled to the plain:
Goliath’s fall no smaller terror yields
Than riving thunders in aerial fields:
The soul still ling’red in its lov’d abode,
Till conq’ring David o’er the giant strode:
Goliath’s sword then laid its master dead,
And from the body hew’d the ghastly head;
The blood in gushing torrents drench’d the plains,
The soul found passage through the spouting veins.
  And now aloud th’ illustrious victor said,
“Where are your boastings now your champion’s
  “dead?”
Scarce had he spoke, when the Philistines fled:
But fled in vain; the conqu’ror swift pursu’d:
What scenes of slaughter! and what seas of blood!
There Saul thy thousands grasp’d th’ impurpled sand
In pangs of death the conquest of thine hand;
And David there were thy ten thousands laid:
Thus Israel’s damsels musically play’d.
  Near Gath and Edron many an hero lay,
Breath’d out their souls, and curs’d the light of day:
Their fury, quench’d by death, no longer burns,
And David with Goliath’s head returns,
To Salem brought, but in his tent he plac’d
The load of armour which the giant grac’d.
His monarch saw him coming from the war,
And thus demanded of the son of Ner.
“Say, who is this amazing youth?” he cry’d,
When thus the leader of the host reply’d;
“As lives thy soul I know not whence he sprung,
“So great in prowess though in years so young:”
“Inquire whose son is he,” the sov’reign said,
“Before whose conq’ring arm Philistia fled.”
Before the king behold the stripling stand,
Goliath’s head depending from his hand:
To him the king: “Say of what martial line
“Art thou, young hero, and what sire was thine?”
He humbly thus; “The son of Jesse I:
“I came the glories of the field to try.
“Small is my tribe, but valiant in the fight;
“Small is my city, but thy royal right.”
“Then take the promis’d gifts,” the monarch cry’d,
Conferring riches and the royal bride:
“Knit to my soul for ever thou remain
“With me, nor quit my regal roof again.”

I now delight
In spite
Of the might
And the right
Of classic tradition,
In writing
And reciting
Straight ahead,
Without let or omission,
Just any little rhyme
In any little time
That runs in my head;
Because, I’ve said,
My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed
Like Prussian soldiers on parade
That march,
Stiff as starch,
Foot to foot,
Boot to boot,
Blade to blade,
Button to button,
Cheeks and chops and chins like mutton.
No! No!
My rhymes must go
Turn ’ee, twist ’ee,
Twinkling, frosty,
Will-o’-the-wisp-like, misty;
Rhymes I will make
Like Keats and Blake
And Christina Rossetti,
With run and ripple and shake.
How pretty
To take
A merry little rhyme
In a jolly little time
And poke it,
And choke it,
Change it, arrange it,
Straight-lace it, deface it,
Pleat it with pleats,
Sheet it with sheets
Of empty conceits,
And chop and chew,
And hack and hew,
And weld it into a uniform stanza,
And evolve a neat,
Complacent, complete,
Academic extravaganza!

The magic of summer twilight casts a spell
In ink blue incantations and honeysuckle dew.

Each shadow stretched out like the years,
That spread deeper and darker, stronger too.

As the mystery of day's last light is cast afresh,
Gentle glows, fearfully goes our sacred time.

Hidden there we lose and find ourselves,
In the murmur of the evening breeze, our lullaby.

It sends us, brings us to a mystic place
In which we all relive each memory's hew.


Tom Lefort July 2023

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs
That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn--thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in His ear.

                       Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantasting carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here--thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summit of these trees
In music;--thou art in the cooler breath
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship;--nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes: and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak--
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated--not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
Ere wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

  My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me--the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
For ever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die--but see again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses--ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her ***** yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death--yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne--the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own *****, and shall have no end.

  There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;--and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities--who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

A governor it was proclaimed this time,
When all who would come seeking in New Hampshire
Ancestral memories might come together.
And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow,
A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen off,
And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has gone.
Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a by-road
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
They were at Bow, but that was not enough:
Nothing would do but they must fix a day
To stand together on the crater’s verge
That turned them on the world, and try to fathom
The past and get some strangeness out of it.
But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain,
With clouds low trailing and moments of rain that misted.
The young folk held some hope out to each other
Till well toward noon when the storm settled down
With a swish in the grass. “What if the others
Are there,” they said. “It isn’t going to rain.”
Only one from a farm not far away
Strolled thither, not expecting he would find
Anyone else, but out of idleness.
One, and one other, yes, for there were two.
The second round the curving hillside road
Was a girl; and she halted some way off
To reconnoitre, and then made up her mind
At least to pass by and see who he was,
And perhaps hear some word about the weather.
This was some Stark she didn’t know. He nodded.
“No fête to-day,” he said.

“It looks that way.”
She swept the heavens, turning on her heel.
“I only idled down.”

“I idled down.”

Provision there had been for just such meeting
Of stranger cousins, in a family tree
Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch
Of the one bearing it done in detail—
Some zealous one’s laborious device.
She made a sudden movement toward her bodice,
As one who clasps her heart. They laughed together.
“Stark?” he inquired. “No matter for the proof.”

“Yes, Stark. And you?”

“I’m Stark.” He drew his passport.

“You know we might not be and still be cousins:
The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys,
All claiming some priority in Starkness.
My mother was a Lane, yet might have married
Anyone upon earth and still her children
Would have been Starks, and doubtless here to-day.”

“You riddle with your genealogy
Like a Viola. I don’t follow you.”

“I only mean my mother was a Stark
Several times over, and by marrying father
No more than brought us back into the name.”

“One ought not to be thrown into confusion
By a plain statement of relationship,
But I own what you say makes my head spin.
You take my card—you seem so good at such things—
And see if you can reckon our cousinship.
Why not take seats here on the cellar wall
And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?”

“Under the shelter of the family tree.”

“Just so—that ought to be enough protection.”

“Not from the rain. I think it’s going to rain.”

“It’s raining.”

“No, it’s misting; let’s be fair.
Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?”

The situation was like this: the road
Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up,
And disappeared and ended not far off.
No one went home that way. The only house
Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod.
And below roared a brook hidden in trees,
The sound of which was silence for the place.
This he sat listening to till she gave judgment.

“On father’s side, it seems, we’re—let me see——”

“Don’t be too technical.—You have three cards.”

“Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for each branch
Of the Stark family I’m a member of.”

“D’you know a person so related to herself
Is supposed to be mad.”

“I may be mad.”

“You look so, sitting out here in the rain
Studying genealogy with me
You never saw before. What will we come to
With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees?
I think we’re all mad. Tell me why we’re here
Drawn into town about this cellar hole
Like wild geese on a lake before a storm?
What do we see in such a hole, I wonder.”

“The Indians had a myth of Chicamoztoc,
Which means The Seven Caves that We Came out of.
This is the pit from which we Starks were digged.”

“You must be learned. That’s what you see in it?”

“And what do you see?”

“Yes, what do I see?
First let me look. I see raspberry vines——”

“Oh, if you’re going to use your eyes, just hear
What I see. It’s a little, little boy,
As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun;
He’s groping in the cellar after jam,
He thinks it’s dark and it’s flooded with daylight.”

“He’s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this
I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,—
With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug—
Bless you, it isn’t Grandsir Stark, it’s Granny,
But the pipe’s there and smoking and the jug.
She’s after cider, the old girl, she’s thirsty;
Here’s hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely.”

“Tell me about her. Does she look like me?”

“She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times
Over descended from her. I believe
She does look like you. Stay the way you are.
The nose is just the same, and so’s the chin—
Making allowance, making due allowance.”

“You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!”

“See that you get her greatness right. Don’t stint her.”

“Yes, it’s important, though you think it isn’t.
I won’t be teased. But see how wet I am.”

“Yes, you must go; we can’t stay here for ever.
But wait until I give you a hand up.
A bead of silver water more or less
Strung on your hair won’t hurt your summer looks.
I wanted to try something with the noise
That the brook raises in the empty valley.
We have seen visions—now consult the voices.
Something I must have learned riding in trains
When I was young. I used the roar
To set the voices speaking out of it,
Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing.
Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.
I’ve never listened in among the sounds
That a brook makes in such a wild descent.
It ought to give a purer oracle.”

“It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:
The meaning of it all is out of you;
The voices give you what you wish to hear.”

“Strangely, it’s anything they wish to give.”

“Then I don’t know. It must be strange enough.
I wonder if it’s not your make-believe.
What do you think you’re like to hear to-day?”

“From the sense of our having been together—
But why take time for what I’m like to hear?
I’ll tell you what the voices really say.
You will do very well right where you are
A little longer. I mustn’t feel too hurried,
Or I can’t give myself to hear the voices.”

“Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?”

“You must be very still; you mustn’t talk.”

“I’ll hardly breathe.”

“The voices seem to say——”

“I’m waiting.”

“Don’t! The voices seem to say:
Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
Of an acquaintance made adventurously.”

“I let you say that—on consideration.”

“I don’t see very well how you can help it.
You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.
You see they know I haven’t had your name,
Though what a name should matter between us——”

“I shall suspect——”

“Be good. The voices say:
Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber
That you shall find lies in the cellar charred
Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it
For a door-sill or other corner piece
In a new cottage on the ancient spot.
The life is not yet all gone out of it.
And come and make your summer dwelling here,
And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,
And sit before you in the open door
With flowers in her lap until they fade,
But not come in across the sacred sill——”

“I wonder where your oracle is tending.
You can see that there’s something wrong with it,
Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice
Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir’s
Nor Granny’s, surely. Call up one of them.
They have best right to be heard in this place.”

“You seem so partial to our great-grandmother
(Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.)
You will be likely to regard as sacred
Anything she may say. But let me warn you,
Folks in her day were given to plain speaking.
You think you’d best tempt her at such a time?”

“It rests with us always to cut her off.”

“Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain’t no names quite like the old ones though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too ******* the new comers,
But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort.
I should feel easier if I could see
More of the salt wherewith they’re to be salted.
Son, you do as you’re told! You take the timber—
It’s as sound as the day when it was cut—
And begin over——’ There, she’d better stop.
You can see what is troubling Granny, though.
But don’t you think we sometimes make too much
Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,
And those will bear some keeping still about.”

“I can see we are going to be good friends.”

“I like your ‘going to be.’ You said just now
It’s going to rain.”

“I know, and it was raining.
I let you say all that. But I must go now.”

“You let me say it? on consideration?
How shall we say good-bye in such a case?”

“How shall we?”

“Will you leave the way to me?”

“No, I don’t trust your eyes. You’ve said enough.
Now give me your hand up.—Pick me that flower.”

“Where shall we meet again?”

“Nowhere but here
Once more before we meet elsewhere.”

“In rain?”

“It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain.
In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains?
But if we must, in sunshine.” So she went.

This day winding down now
At God speeded summer's end
In the torrent salmon sun,
In my seashaken house
On a breakneck of rocks
Tangled with chirrup and fruit,
Froth, flute, fin, and quill
At a wood's dancing hoof,
By scummed, starfish sands
With their fishwife cross
Gulls, pipers, cockles, and snails,
Out there, crow black, men
Tackled with clouds, who kneel
To the sunset nets,
Geese nearly in heaven, boys
Stabbing, and herons, and shells
That speak seven seas,
Eternal waters away
From the cities of nine
Days' night whose towers will catch
In the religious wind
Like stalks of tall, dry straw,
At poor peace I sing
To you strangers (though song
Is a burning and crested act,
The fire of birds in
The world's turning wood,
For my swan, splay sounds),
Out of these seathumbed leaves
That will fly and fall
Like leaves of trees and as soon
Crumble and undie
Into the dogdayed night.
Seaward the salmon, ****** sun slips,
And the dumb swans drub blue
My dabbed bay's dusk, as I hack
This rumpus of shapes
For you to know
How I, a spining man,
Glory also this star, bird
Roared, sea born, man torn, blood blest.
Hark: I trumpet the place,
From fish to jumping hill! Look:
I build my bellowing ark
To the best of my love
As the flood begins,
Out of the fountainhead
Of fear, rage read, manalive,
Molten and mountainous to stream
Over the wound asleep
Sheep white hollow farms
To Wales in my arms.
Hoo, there, in castle keep,
You king singsong owls, who moonbeam
The flickering runs and dive
The ****** furred deer dead!
Huloo, on plumbed bryns,
O my ruffled ring dove
in the hooting, nearly dark
With Welsh and reverent rook,
Coo rooning the woods' praise,
who moons her blue notes from her nest
Down to the curlew herd!
**, hullaballoing clan
Agape, with woe
In your beaks, on the gabbing capes!
Heigh, on horseback hill, jack
Whisking hare! who
Hears, there, this fox light, my flood ship's
Clangour as I hew and smite
(A clash of anvils for my
Hubbub and fiddle, this tune
On atounged puffball)
But animals thick as theives
On God's rough tumbling grounds
(Hail to His beasthood!).
Beasts who sleep good and thin,
Hist, in hogback woods! The haystacked
Hollow farms ina throng
Of waters cluck and cling,
And barnroofs cockcrow war!
O kingdom of neighbors finned
Felled and quilled, flash to my patch
Work ark and the moonshine
Drinking Noah of the bay,
With pelt, and scale, and fleece:
Only the drowned deep bells
Of sheep and churches noise
Poor peace as the sun sets
And dark shoals every holy field.
We will ride out alone then,
Under the stars of Wales,
Cry, Multiudes of arks! Across
The water lidded lands,
Manned with their loves they'll move
Like wooden islands, hill to hill.
Huloo, my prowed dove with a flute!
Ahoy, old, sea-legged fox,
Tom *** and Dai mouse!
My ark sings in the sun
At God speeded summer's end
And the flood flowers now.

I INSPIRED THIS SHOW, BUT THROUGH EMAILS, CAUSE SINCE DAD DIED
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO BURY THAT OLD KODGER, YA SEE I KNOW DAD HELPED
A LOT OF PEOPLE, BUT TREATING ME LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY, LIKE THE WAY
HE DID, WASN'T HELPING ME, I WAS TRYING TO BUILD MY LIFE, AND LIKE
NORMAL KIDS, I ARGUED WITH MY PARENTS, AND DAD, DESPITE HELPING
MY BROTHER AND MOTHER, AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
AND FAMILY, HE REALLY NEVER HELPED ME, IN THE SAME WAY, HE SHOULD'VE
TRIED TO FIGURE OUT WHY I WAS FIGHTING HIM, I DON'T WANNA HEAR HIS
VOICE IN DEATH, SAYING, SHUT UP DUMMY, TO EVERYONE ELSE DAD HELPED THEM
TO ME, DAD LOOKED LIKE, THE OLD GRUMBLE *** FATHER, ON THE WONDER YEARS, IT LOOKED LIKE, HE WANTS TO TEASE, THERE ARE WAYS, FOR DAD
TO BREAK, HIS PRECIOUS ROUTINE, TO BE A BETTER FATHER TO ME, HEW
SEEMED TO THINK THAT I WANTED TO BE A LITTLE SHY BOY TO HIM, BACK THEN
IT FUCKEN MADE ME SCARED OF DAD, IN A WAY, AND ALL THAT TRIGGERED OFF
WHEN I TOLD THEM, YOUR NOT MY REAL PARENTS, TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH
DAD WAS A LITTLE SHY BOY, CAUSE HE SO NAIVE, THINKING I WANTED TO
BE TREATED LIKE A COOL KID, OR A MANS KID TO A FIGHT, I DID ALL THAT
TO TRY AND EXPLAIN TO DAD, THAT, I DON'T WANT TO BE A COOL KID TO HIM
DAD WAS SQUARE, VERY SQUARE, AND DESPITE ME TRYING TO UNDERSTAND
HIM, I STILL THINK DAD WAS SQUARE, NOW, I KNOW PAT ISN'T MY DADDY, BUT
HE HELPED ME MORE THAN DAD DID, LIKE SHOWING ME HOW TO BE COOL
DAD DIDN'T WANNA BE COOL, BUT I HATED DADS DISCIPLINE, RIDUAL, LIKE
TRYING TO STOP ME FROM BEING A BIG MANS KID, PLAYING SHOWS IN MY ROOM
EVERY TIME I SQUABBLED WITH DAD, I HATED HOW, HE WAS TRYING TO GET
THE L;AST FUCKEN WORD, I TRIED TO BE A COOL KID TO DAD, BY JOKING LIKE
A COOL KID DOES, BUT MAYBE DAD WAS WORRIED ABOUT THE TEASING LIKE
ALL PARENTS, YEAH, LIKE ALL KIDS, I HATED, BEING THE YMCA'S DIRECTORS SON
BUT, THIS WAS DADS LIVELIHOOD, I CAN'T STOP DAD, TRYING TO BE A GOOD FATHER, LATELY, I HEAR DADS VOICE SAYING, SHUT UP DUMMY, I AM NOT DUMB
I AM A NORMAL PERSON, WITH A SLIGHT INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY, AND DAD
TREATING ME LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY, MADE ME FEEL, LIKE A REAL LOSER, WELL
NOW DAD, HAS TO YA KNOW PROVE HIMSELF TO ME, AND BUDDHA WITH ADVICE
FROM ME, PUT DAD IN LISA CAMPBELL'S ******, AND HIS FATHER IS DAVID
CAMPBELL, TO TRY AND SHOW, ME, WHAT DAD WAS DOING, CAUSE, I REALLY
HATED, BEING TREATED LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY LIKE THE WAY DAD TREATED ME LIKE ONE, IT WAS SHOWING, THAT DAD WAS IN FAVOUR, OF THE HORRIBLE
TEASING THAT WAS HAPPENING, I THINK MY VOICES, HAVE MORE PROTECTION
THAN DAD, EVER COULD, I KNOW DAD, DROVE ME TO BASKETBALL GAMES
AND TO FRIENDS HOUSES, BUT THIS SQUABBLING WITH HIM AND MUM, GARBAGE
I REALLY HATED, I HATE BEING TREATED LIKE DAD, AROUND MY HOUSE, I HATE
BEING TREATED LIKE A COOL KID TO A TEASE, TO ANYONE, I HATE TEASING
FUCKEN LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU BIG OLD FOGIE, DAD, ALL YOU WERE DAD
IS AN OLD FOGIE, AND DESPITE ME TRYING TO REACH OUT TO YOU, YOU
STILL WANTED EVERYONE ELSE TO LIKE YOU, AND CARE ABOUT ME, I WALKED
AROUND CIVIC ALL NIGHT, CAUSE NATURALLY I WAS WORRIED ABOUT GOING
HOME AND BEING TREATED LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY, SO I HUNG AROUND THE
CIVIC, TRYING TO BE A YOUNG DUDE, I TOLD DAD TO **** A LEMON, IN THE
NOTION, DAD WILL SAY, I DON'T WANT TO TEASE, BRIAN, BUT, WHAT IS WRONG
WITH ME HAVING AN IMAGINATION, IT'S BETTER THAN DADS ****** NOTION
OF ME BEING TOO SHY FOR THE REAL WORLD, CAN'T DAD MISS THE FUCKEN
NEWS, TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND, HIS SON, AS OPPOSED TO TRYING TO SQUABBLE WITH ME, I KNOW DAD HELPED, BUT I HATED DAD DOING ALL THIS
HE WAS A REAL ******, YEAH I WAS NICER TO MY MATES, BUT DAD WAS
TO ME AN OLD GRUMBLE ***, AND I THOUGHT DAD WAS A LITTLE SHY BOY,
ALL BECAUSE, I DESTROYED HIS AURA, THIS SHOW EXPLAINS, HOW I VISIONED
DAD BEFORE ALL THIS LITTLE SHY BOY CRAP, A NICE MAN WHO HELPS HIS
KIDS HANDLE THE REAL WORLD, BUT IN THE 80S, I VISIONED DAD, AS A
STUPID OLD KODGER, WHO IS SCARED, OF HIS KIDS GETTING TEASED
TAKING MY FOOTY AWAY, CALLING ME DUMMY, TRYING TO TREAT ME LIKE AN
ADUKT, NOBODY WANTS TO BE, STOPPING ME FROM BEING A YOUNG DUDE
IN THE WRONG WAY, I KNOW DAD TRIED TO HELP, BUT, I HATED BEING TREATED
LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY LIKE THAT, I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE LIKE IT'S ONE BIG
ADVENTURE, DAD, MOVE FUCKEN ON TO DAVID AND LISA CAMPBELL'S FAMILY
WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS, STOP SAYING SHUT UP DUMMY, LET ME BE COOL, YO ****

The softest parts of you
Bend in the air
Of eyes and feather like bones
The closed (open) mouth syndrome
That penetrates the disconnected sounds of worlds
Thrown at each other in the dark
A kind hew of melancholy that surrounds you
As I am numb everywhere
That you have touched and the long withering hand
That reaches out to me no longer shows the details of
Lost nights that glistened against your face
And your twisted alphabet is now left
To burn on the embers of faded ghost memories

A blank empty canvas
Pure as the winter's snow
Open as but a vast window
Seeing deep into it's soul.

The mind ticks in emotional frustration
Relics of imagination fly and form
Particles of atomic consciousness
Gathers and flows like an Astro storm.

White wash covers the surface
The first invocation soothing and mild
Then images gather before the eyes
Like a raging storm, fierce and wild.

The pallet is filled with rainbow mixtures
Here one joins to the alchemist's dream
Establishing upon board, paper or canvas
The unfoldment of the creative stream.

Brush in hand, Like an ancient wand
One casts the horizon like a spell
Summoning, coaxing, those tides within
Where the possession conquered, flowed and fell.

Dashes here, strokes there
Balancing the tones within each hew,
The thoughts so fast, mind captured
Projections all of that inner you.

Murky and shapeless at the start
But shadows enhance, inward glance
Light engulfs and shines but through
The eyes captured to the romance.

The artist gallant before his glory
Yet! Never fulfilled by its view
Playing upon its essence and structure
He draws upon images new.

One here becomes the timeless Shaman
Working the magic of natures way
Gathering the similarities and imbuing with fire
Elevating ever the thought to the creative day.

Or like a modern mystic
Grasped tight in spiritual bliss
subduing into but representations
The reflections of the heaven's kiss.

But all in all the artist is
whether by paint, sculpture, acrylic or oil
A voyager of the main stream existence
His vision of his own scared soil.

The goal is not unlike any science
To acquire that bridge of untold reason
For artist down throughout the ages
Have awakened the soul to its season.

The emotions arise, fly, excite
Those creatures of the inspirational mind
Poets, musicians, painter, writers
By what ever character there we find
All artists, All Magicians.

Alisdaire O'Caoimph

Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook
And the rope of the Black Election,
'Tis the faith of the Fool that a race you rule
Can never achieve perfection:
So 'It's O, for the time of the new Sublime
And the better than human way,
When the Rat (poor beast) shall come to his own
And the Wolf shall have his day!'

For Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Beam
And the power of provocation,
You have cockered the Brute with your dreadful fruit
Till your fruit is mere stupration:
And 'It's how should we rise to be pure and wise,
And how can we choose but fall,
So long as the Hangman makes us dread,
And the Noose floats free for all?'

So Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Coign
And the trick there's no recalling,
They will haggle and hew till they hack you through
And at last they lay you sprawling:
When 'Hey! for the hour of the race in flower
And the long good-bye to sin!'
And for the lack the fires of Hell gone out
Of the fuel to keep them in!'

But Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Bough
And the ghastly Dreams that tend you,
Your growth began with the life of Man,
And only his death can end you.
They may tug in line at your hempen twine,
They may flourish with axe and saw;
But your taproot drinks of the Sacred Springs
In the living rock of Law.

And Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Fork,
When the spent sun reels and blunders
Down a welkin lit with the flare of the Pit
As it seethes in spate and thunders,
Stern on the glare of the tortured air
Your lines august shall gloom,
And your master-beam be the last thing whelmed
In the ruining roar of Doom.

I’m trying to recall a poem or a prayer that I recited
while walking through the woods of my hometown.
It occurs to me that I’ll never get it back.
I suppose such things are meant to be transient,
spoken out loud and left to drift,
But I am determined to capture some of it.

So. Here in the woods
Branches droop heavy and black with berries.
I pluck to gather them and make of my hands
two cups from which saltwater spills.
I see a vision of the old and the new,
the here to come and the hereafter,
overlaid on the thick pine stumps.
That which has passed is not yet gone.
Like trees, we grow on the rotten bones of giants.
There is no king of the once and future,
Nay, nor queen. Only the rough tumult
of life that continues, and abates, and continues.

Here on the holly branch the spines sharpen.
The red berries have not ripened from black.
On the thorns I see blackberries still **** and red,
not yet sweet with concentrated sunshine.
I see the skulls of snag trees, the knothole eye sockets
where woodpeckers find their mealy dinners
and feast on the beetles and worms –
which shall in their turn one day feast on me.
So it goes, as it should be, as it will.
My vision shows oak giants long passed,
toppled and timbered an age before my time.
A thousand years hence they shall rise again.
Fear not; the axes of men wreak havoc,
but may only interrupt the flow, not halt it.

Again I stoop to pluck the fruit
And form two cups of my hands
From which juice flows like water.
The ocean licks the sweat from my skin
And I see a vision of the old woods,
the old ways, the elder magick
That will grow from seed tomorrow.
Hew my limbs in history, bury them in timber.
Let the barrow-mounds be a nursery
Where the thornbush harvest grows.

There tears coalesced and sorrow bent
Them unto the bed of leaves now fallen.
Like mourning moments frozen until the
Sun rose and the earth was watered on,
Slowly it stood tall again.

As time evaporated into dusk and
Mourning hew hung onto each emotion.
Again captured bending in captured
Breath, and once again it bent with the
Emotion frozen once again.

This bar has seen the past as it has been washed clean by today.
Known the scars of fights past lingered in the moment only to  see it replay.

Old friends and past faces we've known together so many years now  I stand alone.
This bar is part of my soul as a ghost I remain long after my life and these doors come to a close.

To the raised glass and closing time dance .
Are waters have seen many a storm tomorrow will be no different my friends.  

Amber the whiskey gold held to light the pint glasses perfect hew .
Time has left us all fragmented time breaks the soul ,time is all that is the history of me and you.

A toast to the nights they paint magic without canvas my thoughts a evergreen signs of neon cast the best ******* shadows my dear.

This bar stands eternal a ghost as myself .
The fog holds mystery but none for you .

Closing time has come .

Cherish your thoughts for it's all we truly ever own my friends .

For her sundered from space and time
at the dawn of phenomenon,

not the little pettinesses of our world:

and
a portal to the unknown beyond -

the sky flaming red at dusk,
still in the lake the late summer hill
little a bloom in the bush hidden,
even shy a smile devoid of guile,

little every joy here;

Thought they,
faint of heart she was:
but every swoon carried her across
the world of the river of lights

In Her presence dawned on this
forlorn our earth -

Beauty since the beginning of time
exuberant in the hills
in the plumes and vales
and in the cruel hearts of men;

And grandeur, of the kind
unbeknown before, as the king
her father sewed up an empire vast;

And perfection in works
unknown before -
in every weave and hew;

All that men ascribed to her
father the great.

any word
she sent her roots into my spring
it took sweat and days of work
to cut her down

for me to ***** out
of her limbs
take her naked winter
around

to the side of the river
overlooking the valley below
many days of toiling sweat
to work and tame her

split her hew and splice her
into my roof my walls my shelter
place her pieces as rafters to hold the
cold out the rain at bay

she never cried, nor protested
I felt like I was ****** nature.
She made me home.

Am I in Love?

At night, laying sleepless,
I bemoan the treacheries of life
with my love
and appreciation....
And though,
in my dark,
and cavernous foundations;
Roar the pillars of stone,
and shake them.

Waked,
by curiosity,
and interest,
I stare intently at you,
and though I cannot see,
You are there.
Tangible,
by my creativity,
and invisible,
by my negativity.
And through the secret game
that to many, has forbidden name
we speak.

Fear,
and pride,
my greatest hatreds,
now run through me,
though the game of
Predator, and Prey.
I am the prey,
of myself,
in the black vapors
of my confusion,
you two rought me
with confusion
elaborate,
and woe,
despicable.
My thoughts now strand
off into many divisions,
all joining together,
to reveal my fear,
of disappointing you.

The thing we connect through bings,
and so we remain in contact, it seems.
But ever, we thought beautiful
I am marred, and proved untruthful.
You do not deserve me,
but somehow
in this void-feeling heart of mine,
I sense you care.
I care.

Am i in love?

My Mind craves you,
and I put much emphasis on that,
for that, might,
just might,
be my undoing.
Should I look to the East,
to find you, riding, in
shining, and metallic armor,
And see only dust clouds
roam aimlessly from North to South.
But I hear banners, in the West,
all risen high,
as high hopes,
and high spirits,
to guide them.
This, is what I've waited for,
for years,
as do we all.
But my misinterpretations,
now lead the banners,
with silver swords,
bearing the name of hate.
with this,
I deserve only
to lay my head down,
lamely, for you to hew it
from me, and call it,
Victory.

This, I forsee,
this unsensible
and crazed
sight,
that passes through me,
and guides me
to all darker paths of light.
So that I may be dimmed,
and in a cycle refrained,
I should, as a doomsayer,
say my doom,
and I, as a fool,
should subconciously make that true.

This is what I see.
I fear, for you,
and fear,
for me.

I burden all, though a child
and my will is heavy, upon you,
and wild, is my desires
and should you penetrate my curtains,
you should see,
the cold bitterness, of my truth.

But all the while,
mind and soul crave you,
and body revives,
slowly,
but surely.
I sense love,
and my stomach churns,
knowing I shall hang my head
in Guilt.

Am I In Love?

I don't eat no beef
No **** no lamb no swine
Only on the verdurous etch
Doest I within my thine I dine

I don't eat Jellie and sauces slick with ill
Confounded with animal ****

Nor powders and honeys dripping and grime
Spent with the wretch of genocide's time

I don't hunt for game or trophy ****
I don't glorify **** or bile or swill

I don't bow to the customs and conventions of now
Now matter what serve of the demonic a sow

I don't **** my brother or sister for food
It's not blood on my hands that's reddened and hued
So why take the life of an innocent babe?
An animal born here of terrestrial habe?
What for the taste of delicious a flesh?
To accompany sauce Cantonese wan szech?
Or is it to sate gastronomy?
That bloodies the hands of you and me?
That forces the carnivore?
To act the ****** *****?
And ***** an animal innocent and bright
Is this self deified act requite?
What do you proclaim to be?
To ****** an animal's right to be?
A god with insight and power so great?
To forsake your right to heaven with hate?
Or a devil or demon anon?
To justify your sleepy murderous throng?
Or merely a human who follows the lead?
Of our common culture's bane banal creed?
So what is it that drives you to the deed exact?
To cut the throat of creatures in act?
Are you saying that murders ok?
And you'd enact this upon your own whether or may?
If you could knock or whack a human for merely the taste of its flesh?
And not because their discord did not mesh?
With your idea of what justifies life?
And end a being forever of strife?
Is it ok for aliens to prey?
Upon our earthen developments stay?
And enslave our species to sate their gut?
To fawn and feed and slupper and glut?
Because they have a higher IQ?
Or more dextrous fingers with which to hew?
Are you sure you want to be an unthinking one?
Of the masses maraud and to the deed done?
As somnambulist reaching with a laden gun
And end life forthwith no winner or won
Unless you count dinner to the taste of your tongue
Trained since a child to sing the song sung
Of the glory of meat as to salivate and savour
As if bowing to the idea of what will crave ya
Haven't you ever heard of an acquired taste?
Well couldn't we now apply this with grace?

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces,
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins. . . . '
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister mass, we ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, with word upon murmured word,
We flow, we descend, we turn. . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves on among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good night! good night! good night! we go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride.  We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky.
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light.  They have shaken a burden of hours. . . .
What did we build it for?  Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

// --------''_//
//-----------//''''''//
//-----''''¡_~~~····¡
                         //~~~~//
               //  ''''//
     X''''
(you are here)

we are on a switchback trail
going nowhere? hear this tale
this is a tragic tearful vale
there will be great storms and hail
you may stumble upon shale
but in the end you can prevail

i don't pretend to be a seer
but i won't give you a *** steer
ask any seasoned mountaineer
climbing K2 it's a bear
you need to know
the way that's clear
or you'll be cryin' in your beer

the switchback trail may be slow
you'll be turning to and fro
but to get high you must start low
don't resist! go with the flow!

you have a backpack. yes, it's true
with things that we will all acrue
if you have weights you may be blue
shuffling off the burdened hew
you can find a way that's new!

some will try to climb straight up
they may find a bitter cup
the fall is greater from the top
too fast, the fall will never stop
'til you hit bottom with a plop!

so let us find the narrow way
listen to what i have to say
you will find it if you pray
you'll have valleys come what may
the winds will make you
bend and sway
you may not find the peak today

but when you do... hip hip hooray!


soulsurvivor
(C) 6/22/2015

The smell of death burns the lungs
Of a hundred thousand innocents
Steel on steel, minds on minds
Destiny is out of your hands
And you're the only one standing
A million women are still weeping
Their sons who shall never wake
What is it that you'll still take?

Do you think you are still alive?
Give up all your pathetic chores
Surrender yourself to the sword
Lay your heart down to the God of War

Sticks and stones can **** you now
Even though you escape somehow
Don't tell me it was all mistakes
You bloodied all the pools and lakes
But hey now blame the God of War
I only know what I speak for
Your demons are out in daylight
Your lust for blood you can't deny

And do you think you're still alive?
Come now all of your heartsores
Surrender yourself to the sword
Lay your heart down to the God of War

A war inside your head is on
And you've been barely holding on
Revenge is all that you crave for
Denial is all that you stand for
You took the lives, you stabbed and swiped
And You killed till your heart felt awe
But hew now blame the God of War
I only know what I speak for

I know that you're aren't alive
You've been my minion all this time
You had but been a big wild boar
Your heart has me, the God of War

sheathe thee
still earth         in thy raiment so pale and daunting
a face i cup and hew with lips as cool as the wind
i've broken slander and maleficence that droops
so witless of the boorish plucking youth
do so i, kiss with excellent flavor, this season dewed in frost
meandering carefully my soul in a bolt of fluffing flakes

I name you Pygmalion
because between
my skin and delusion
you have carved
an ivory woman. You
have carved her
with your eyes. But
for all your looking,
you can’t see, little
blind man, that
I have no need
of Aphrodite’s blessing.
In the strength
of my spine
and the flash
of my teeth
and the skill
of my hands, hands
you did not hew,
I hum with
power, ferociously
alive.
The only thing of mine
you will ever be king of,
King Pygmalion,
is the likeness
you sculpt
in your dreams.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night!  Good-night!  Good-night!  We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride.  We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for?  Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.