"humours" poems
The cram of stars in the navy-night
blue-light of summer solstice.
The majestic zodiac sprawled
across the ever-stretching sky.
Ancient definitions of myth
star-stories of pre-determined fate
mapped in the moment and place
of our birthing; such fantasies
such imaginings of stellar systems
and mankind’s significance.
Heavens and humours; rules and rights
from Gods to kings and subjects
All settled in an ordered Universe
until, curiosity, ingenuity and invention
observation and record, rigor and Science
with its license to question freedom.
© M.L.Emmett
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 8:55 AM UTC
is it love
or the parasite ?
my pilot bulk
aims for relief
it pursues this via
your romantic correction
in public arena
a library stair
(i never prior encountered you)
one step as foreigner
the approach
and upon a swift internal pendulum
i make witless incisions
hurried mended sentences
directed stuns
invasive
i demand the compromise
of your company
hastily push at boundaries and
you're not so accommodating
but
on a further occasion
same building
we exchange a battering of conversation
that
then
matures
into barter-like use of language
despite my harassments
a civil cultivation is unearthed
tongue within this intelligence effort i lessen
loosen my demanding appearance
disregard my dignity
a skin suit about the ankles
you're open in a vein of similarity
you flesh out your own controls
we've progressed quickly
there's an aped conduct
and flashing attitudes
this time we share table space
a nearby café
we have become quite unmanned
repeated meet ups
upon humours we adjust small habits
and shake on perceptions where we overlap
it becomes
more an overlay of rationalities
than resented promises
fast time passes and
i move into your living space
i pick a wildflower
and put it in the tiny vase on your dining table
we agree on its colour
we agree on a book to make our bible material
we agree on the pitch of the tinnitus we share
the clothes i am to wear
i switch to your diet
and you cease taking medications
we sleep on your lawn like children
and bring down the night sky for comfort
during the day we wear our sleep
like a lubrication for our chores
and go about our productivity
in genuine partnership
yet
i feel we're just out of reach
of some dark harm
we are an excellent sample pair
it is all vital
we grow stronger the more we quiz it
recycling our **********
refine our agreements
await further impulses
and come closer to plug
so..
do we please love
or simply indulge a parasite ?
Nov 23, 2021
Nov 23, 2021 at 10:28 PM UTC
--I. M. Edward John Henley (1861-1898)
Where are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.
Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours--friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.
The curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the revellers high and low?
The clashing swords? The lover's call?
The dancers gleaming row on row?
Into the night go one and all.
Envoy
Prince, in one common overthrow
The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:
As dust that drives, as straws that blow,
Into the night go one and all.
2.6k
after witty humour, which spawned slapstick... slapstick can only spawn the last of the known humours... the offensive type, the 'get me out of this straithjacket of everything's fine apathy,' the ugly humour... rude humour... i take oaths humour... i rather write a swear word to oil up than degrade myself with thesaurus usage humour.
why is poetry such a ***** of coding
daily activity...
who needs poetry if the everyday is intact?
atheism didn’t **** god...
it merely killed the logic of myth....
atheism is far worse than mythology...
it just regurgitates facts
to make you submit to them
without the necessary philosophical awe of
finding them interesting...
poetry isn’t dead... it’s a *****
which is worse than death where i come from...
there’s ezra with his fountain comparison:
‘i ****** in it... and put pigmenting chlorine in it -
you **** in it... streaks of blue... i think
that’s called cubism in france.’
did i say alcoholism was engineered by the nazis
for the bomb sarcasm?
cheap humour you say... ah well slapstick was invented
after sarcasam...
i heard the new best anti-ageing cream was butter rather than l’oreal -
there are too many stages in the differences of women,
i quite like the summer spring autumn winter thing going...
it’s like this thing that’s happening right now...
christian nations censor words... like **** cultish **** of the brothel...
and islamic nations invoke words... like kefir (sour milk,
not quite youghurt), dawah... adhan salat abraham...
one party censors words for excess *****
saying: ‘we don’t like swear words in accomplished spelling,
we like dyslexia and **** teen **** graphic...’
sounds about right...
the other party says: ‘we hate censoring ***** words,
that’s doubly censoring,
censor ***** words get more dirt out of it...
we invoke the power of arabic to teach koran latin for
the knobs!’
problem sorted... we’re all power brokers of spelling /
punctuation / arithmetic -
that’s what i don’t get,
the ratio of the two languages...
all you have in the digits A to Z is spelling and punctuation...
but what you have in the digits ZERO to NINE
is so much more...
is grammar a castle that’s keeping certain functions out?
in mathematics you have +, x, obelisk, -, square root, etc.
but in linguistics you have this permament reminder:
SPELL RIGHT FROM WRONG AND RITE FROM THONG.
well... ****** me timbers...
i think i just spotted a lumberjack chequers tweed jacket.
Nov 24, 2015
Nov 24, 2015 at 8:49 PM UTC
You play the Cool Piper every Concert Noon
Change your Clothes; And the Tempo changes you
Why couldn't have I heard you Guys that soon
So I could strangle the Technocrat blue?
HA! I jest. Rarely do Gum-Humours speak
But when they do they leave a Mark aside
I guess this is no time to act so meek
When Spain's Wild Brother calls us for a Ride
And what a Ride! Many Blokes hitch a tug
Collecting Hot Dames they only knew for yonks
It's a Crazy Menu; But quite a hug
Some choose a Bellow; Others a Honky-Tonk.
Long Sonnet Short, your Music is the Boom
Clean your Pipe well and hope to see you soon.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 4:39 PM UTC
To Gods acre caught in the storm
Of the angels immolation harried
Like welcome strangers to the feast of
The good shepherd, the world
The flesh, the devil take the hindemost
Vigilantly stalking Earthly tears
Encrusted jewels upon Hells vestment,
The harbinger of death wearing a garland
Of skulls fashioned off of Heavens tomb
Splendiferously graven upon lonelinesses
Stoop spirited as shooting stars the
Pitched candles of sovereignties saintly hands
Resting between lives enlightening the broken
Lamp of truth purging the liasing humours of
Illuminous damnation unfrocking priests
Under colour of nothingness epitomising
Faiths elixer yonder the gate of unfoldenment
Breaking butterflies on the wheel
Of rightousness unabating delving the vale
Deciduously to show the cloven hoof woe betide
The levity of Man Friday billowing in the
Teeth of the wind.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
Zero One and modern blight
Travel at the speed of light.
We wondered on the Wandering Jew,
Or, in lieu,
Orthon, Urian or Lilitu.
We trepanned our empty skulls,
Searched our humours,
Were touched by Rulers!
Now troubling symptoms of want and need,
Have blighted growth of yesterseed.
Patient Zero left no lead.
East fingered West
(and vice versa)
Was Ireland really the cause of cholera?
Did Blacks languish in Tuskegee squalor?
We christened Mary, but drank the water.
Fracked Incubus and Succubus
From son and daughter.
Patient Zero left the slaughter.
We deprived women of their tea
To cure wandering womb hysteriae.
Deviances and leaking lesions
Were headwaters of women's *****
Patient Zero has no season.
The barber sensed it might be smell,
So our widened streets became a sulfurous hell.
And wastelands swelled
Where curled cats dwelled.
(no talk of Michelangelo)
II
Our children's blight has a techno name,
Like the rose, IT smells the same.
With zero tolerance I lay blame
On screens and phones and video games.
The world wide box stores flipped their lids,
Touching all who crawl the social grids;
From the base of Mammon's pyramid.
Now Jake believes he's a gangsta dude
Since posting whatever on You Tube.
Nothing to gain, nothing to lose:
No services rendered but expects what's due.
Inflated egos are a system symptom,
Clearing firewalls, reaching children.
Patient Zero is no phantom.
There is no tale of rat or flea
As cause of lost immunity.
There is no open sore to fester,
The Selfie is the X-ray picture.
Patient Zero is so much quicker.
In our gel of techno bliss,
On our elliptic petrie dish,
Bathed in more than we could wish,
Patient Zero will finish,
And with that whimper
All vanish.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 8:53 AM UTC
Where perils cut
Do sorrows bleed?
Does pain depend upon
the laying of our scene
or are the plagues upon the race
a universal theme?
The winds are wanting
change and haunting
all the sleeping’s
most pleasant dreams.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
Normality cursed me upon open eyes,
I enjoyed the lucid madness, as what
Was seen in the maddening times that
Was better to the normality of boring now.
I used to chase the florescent thoughts
That floated around, giggling at the touch
As it tickled senses in my deepest doors.
She danced with me in imaginary dance.
I was like a bunny jumping, swaying around
Giggling to ones self for invisible feet would
I be standing upon, never realizing I was tripping
Over my own size tens, what a humours trip.
Madness is an inviting friend, alone, but so many
Voices around madness has its purpose, as I have
Thoughts not my own, I laugh, at incoherent moments
Are they mine, there's, or yours never alone.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 2:45 PM UTC
Lying cold and prone in corpescent repose
Stripped bare of all earthly clothes
No flattering gown or suitcoat fine
Nor soul from sightless eyes does shine
All cajolery and wisdom long since fled
Biles and humours and all machinery dead
The fresco of person in living years painted
With frowsty breath and ideas blood-tainted
Has, in joining this burgeoning army, crumbled
As cheek-rouge faded, the persona humbled:
Under wakeful eyes the snail is known by its shell
But the naked and the dead know each other well.
Jan 24, 2010
Jan 24, 2010 at 6:35 AM UTC
Like the king of a rainy country, am I!
Rich, but weak, young with an agèd eye -
The grovelling of his old tutors he scorns,
The company of dogs leaves him forlorn.
Nothing can bring him joy, no hunt nor falconry,
Nor the mortal jousts before his balcony,
From his favourite jester no ***** tale
Can redden the cheek of one so pale.
His ornate chamber has become a tomb -
And courtesans, scantily-clad, to whom,
Though royal favours inspire their provocation;
This skeletal youth finds no temptation.
Flamel himself could forge no plan
To extract the dark humours from this man.
In the baths of blood from days of yore,
He finds no properties to restore
This dazed corpse in whose veins once red -
Now flows the green waters of Lethe instead.
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017 at 9:26 AM UTC
i wish i could purge my heart
letter by letter
bleed my love out
through leeching keystrokes
find some kind of therapy to
release these good bad humours
or reach even further back into history
for truly archaic remedies
love is no great sin
so there’s no bread and salt
to feed the lepers, no coin to pay for the service
if only ridding myself
of this disease of devotion
to an unknowing you
were as simple as sleeping
with salted tomatoes
(love apples, as they were once known)
and pennies to press
into the palms of the loveless
who slip through the night
soaking up discarded emotion
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 6:48 AM UTC
kiss the angry rash at my throat
where the fires of melancholy
that burn inside me
have licked upward
like a witch burning
a witch
who burns herself
from the inside out
Mar 28, 2019
Mar 28, 2019 at 5:08 PM UTC
you’re not adams apple
the fruits from tree of the knowledge
of good and evil
in the centre of the garden of eden
in genesis
yet at you
the round oranges of this afternoon-town
i stare
and my pate gradually
becomes pregnant
the wind that comes after
having a touch of your lips
puts the waging of its tail on my forehead
and my guava-leaf begins to melt
thus my hardware-business is going
into liquidation
the physician to the king is telling
it’s the symptom of an awful fever attended with
the morbidity of the three humours of the body
used… and used… and used…
your smile has not yet become
stupid
so from where the lamp-posts of the
town start
there are the cutlets
and the bolster
they are not the only ones
to utter the last words
about the pill
i’m too
in this summer
trying to decorate
the gate of my cage like wedding ceremony
if any silent dew-drop comes
to prepare and feed me
my birth-day frumenty
but i’ve no tongue
at all
all over the face there are only the eyes
and to the fate of my staring-at
has ever
so much blessings been available
Sep 10, 2010
Sep 10, 2010 at 5:36 PM UTC
I have a schoolboys sense of humour,
Oh yes it's true, it's not just rumour,
I always laugh at bums and willys,
It's immature and very silly,
I cannot help my humours taste,
I try to keep it above the waist,
Yet down the slippery slope I slide,
This 'Carry-On" sense of humour of mine,
Farts, poos, **** the crudest jokes,
Belong much more to bad *** blokes,
Double meaning things that people say,
Is my specialist subject anyway,
Even though I know it's daft,
I do enjoy a ****** laugh :)
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 5:24 PM UTC
There's this ********** incoherence...
and obsessive cut and paste of mind.
Whatever pasture made its green bed,
has serial murdered...
painted...with head and heels, a lifetime of
tumbling.
Bipedal...the fallacy of bragging rights since
birth.
There's too much to engender without choice,
involuntary antipodes of mind...variations on
madness pawn their humours at storm-crossed
gates.
Strewn...the scrap metal of such limbs.
Oct 31, 2013
Oct 31, 2013 at 8:35 PM UTC
it is hard to translate emotions
into words and be wholly honest
our humours swirl ambivalently,
like vagabond alphabets which
have not found their words
as if insufficient time has
lapsed after the meteoric
impact of feeling, for the dust
to settle and for the words to cool
from the heat of the present tense
and all we can cough out is
soot: scorched and subjective,
a hurried attempt at translating
a restless disquiet into lexical entities -
ordered, grammatical.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 7:23 AM UTC
Times between night and mornin,
Just when the chill about sets in,
Limbs frantically search for that crumpled quilt
Increasing warmth and ahh sweet grogginess.
A dream floats in my blank sleep
You and me tootling along a forgotten, familiar street
In a battered old Hyundai Santro?? it is.
Twenty years of acquired cobwebs melt
Evoke fond memories and unexplored possibilities
Overlaid with a wild imagination, the images move in slow motion
Me driving, your gaze surveying the landscape
You are older and plumper, I have a beer belly and a bald patch
There is not much to say, or too much to say but no time.
Four Eyes frequently lock and search for something
Knowing it but daring not to say.
Your sultry liquid voice breaks into a song, an old Urdu ghazal,
Of obscure origin and meaning,
The notes glide and acquire shapes in your husky abused throat,
Silvery quicksilver, flowing, and always round at the edges
Unfettered and undisturbed by the bumpy ride and noisy springs
Brings whole of creation in the Battered old Hyundai Santro Still.
The vocal vibrates and resonates in my bones and skull and in my soul
Stimulates humours I didn’t know exist
Eyes lock again, a mild smile is exchanged,
We understand each other
Know the limits and improbabilities
Its not going to be in this life time dear.
Let’s seal it with a kiss
An embrace exchanged over the gear levers and handbrakes
Oblivious to the barreling old Hyundai Santro
Your tiny ******* and Pantene scented hair
Your lips still perfect, soft, warm, moist and downy at the corners,.
Unfamiliar yet so familiar.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 1:35 AM UTC
Yes I know my sense of humour is dark,
But if you didn’t want to know then you should not have asked.
Yes it offends, that’s the aim of the game.
But it’s all in jest, done in humours name.
No you don’t like it, but why should I care?
If you don’t like me or my humour then stay over there.
Because when you whine about it I will fail to care.
When you complain about it you will get aired.
I don’t involve myself in your pathetic goings on,
Never at all, not even once.
So stay out of my life and mind your own for once.
I’ll never be interested in your life, so leave it you ponce.
You’re a fully grown man, that I can see.
But a pathetic little boy you will always be.
You want to give your opinion but really there’s no need,
We’d get more useful info from talking to a tree.
Your mind is tiny but your voice is loud.
You have nothing to say but you say it so proud.
I don’t care what you think and I never will,
So stop flapping your gums and keep them still.
Call whomever you like and feel you need,
Bring your army to little old me.
I will politely ask you all to leave,
And when you don’t I’ll call the police.
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 6:04 AM UTC
It was an unknowing spot
In the fight between good and evil
As many such places are
The walls won’t keep you safe
Or protect you
There are no talismans at work
The humours
Swirl
One night upon descending the stairs
My heel
Caught my hem
My hands both full
A cigarette in one and wine in the other
I began to fall
It would have been a tumble
I was leaning severely to the left
No balance likely
one foot in the air
Going nowhere good
At the foot of the stairs
Yes
There was a dreadful man
His arms opening wide
His legs spread
Ready to catch my calamity
I tried to prepare
An impossibility about to occur
And how would it end?
Me on the floor, wine stained and puddled
In the arms of
And yet
I felt a push on my side
Straightening me out
Pushing me over
Up and down
Tip top
I lowered my foot, set free by my dress
And with both hands still fully occupied
Stepped down the stairs in quiet saucy triumph
He was awful
That night I knew that there were indeed angels.
As for evil and
Stairs
Years later the winds began to change
I sat above on the second floor with
a wine glass and a full bladder
I decided it’s time
Watch your step
I was slow
Cautious
Looking straight into the darkness
And despite just two steps down
total
I fell
The arc of red wine
Flew across the gallery hitting the north wall
Already hung
Yes wine on the wall
Between the paintings
Me on the floor
But the glass still in hand
I began to think
That there is something here.
Unseen.
Something’s around.
Dec 30, 2018
Dec 30, 2018 at 1:02 PM UTC
Who owns the sunset?
Who is mistress of the stars?
Do the navigators of fortune
Sit at a table and boast?
Are the humours four fine sisters?
Can it be that I am
Master of all these things?
Do I hold the yet untwined
Ball of string of the future in my hands?
My hands. My hands of no strength,
My hands of no extraordinary skill,
My hands that arrive at eternity unclean.
These fingers that are whole
In spite of broken spirits
Are treated as the fingers
Of perfection.
Of blamelessness.
Of forgiveness.
The threads of time
Are dusty in my fingers.
A fine mist of sediment
Crumbles at my touch.
Delicate stars are loosened
And burn out in my sight.
Reaching up I return
This future to the hands
In which It belongs.
Stars and light dance down
Into my eyes, and I know
Who owns the sunset.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 9:55 PM UTC
Sober thoughts crowd my mind
Happiness I cannot find
Gloomy weather, gloomy mind
Black bile, one of the archaic humours
Rhyming aptly with tumours
Cancerous thoughts within my mind
Pensively I look for salvation
Maybe a cheery salutation
But my melancholic mind keeps me as a brooder
I vent my spleen, searching for the vaccine
Annoyance acting as a screen for the truth
That all I want to do is scream and scream and scream.
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 11:20 PM UTC
Who owns the sunset?
Who is mistress of the stars?
Do the navigators of fortune
Sit at a table and boast?
Are the humours four fine sisters?
Can it be that I am
Master of all these things?
Do I hold the yet untwined
Ball of string of the future in my hands?
My hands. My hands of no strength,
My hands of no extraordinary skill,
My hands that arrive at eternity unclean.
These fingers that are whole
In spite of broken spirits
Are treated as the fingers
Of perfection.
Of blamelessness.
Of forgiveness.
The threads of time
Are dusty in my fingers.
A fine mist of sediment
Crumbles at my touch.
Delicate stars are loosened
And burn out in my sight.
Reaching up I return
This future to the hands
In which It belongs.
Stars and light dance down
Into my eyes, and I know
Who owns the sunset.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 9:55 PM UTC
confirm your love
she talked
i asked how ?
she said confirm
i do not have enough
knowledge to swim
at oceans of your love
you know i am not sailor
or captain of navy of your heart
i am only one who likes your smart
i am not that pilot of planes swarm of your head
which knows the truth or who making fault
i am only wondering of your look
i am not farmer who grows the plants
of your eyes which are growing of your look
spreading fruits of hope and love
at my heart
i am only visiting the rose of your cheeks
i am not humours of your sweet souls
i am only remarking the sweet berry of your lips
i am diving at the ocean of your love
save me, help ,help
Sep 18, 2019
Sep 18, 2019 at 3:59 AM UTC
After you crush and partook my humours
A feeling station has built for doomers
Named it after your dead corse cuticular
Opposite to their black church for stumer
Where Inferno requiem strum for whoever
All about our transgressions watched by zoomer
Nay alas thee sayeth, Nay alas thee sayeth
Nay alas thee sayeth, Nay alas thee sayeth
Nay alas thee sayeth, Nay alas thee sayeth
You play sympathy for the devil
So I am flibbertigibbet as usual
Whose birth was foretold
Who own merfolks griffon
Wherefore good well has burnt the evil
I want you best mine own old-old
Nay alas thee sayeth, Nay alas thee sayeth
Nay alas thee sayeth, Nay alas thee sayeth
Nay alas thee sayeth, Nay alas thee sayeth
Apr 3, 2017
Apr 3, 2017 at 1:29 PM UTC