I am loud,
Demanding attention.
I know when I am being charming
Because I try.
I put on my impressing face
And do my impressing hair
And speak my impressing words.
I tell you my embarrassing drinking stories
And everything else about me
That you probably shouldn’t know.

I am not good at being quiet
Because that’s not who I am.
I am not the sweet girl
Who will leave you with a smile
And a touch
And a glance
Or a single word.
There is nothing of this fashion of romance
About me.

I am the girl who will point out your flaws,
And take you outside to see the stars,
And remind you how human you are,
And what a wonderful thing that is.

I am the girl who will talk about science,
And music and theology and history,
And point out constellations, laughing,
When you don’t know the big dipper’s name.

I am the girl who will make witty references,
To classic literature and science fiction,
And will tell you stories of how I once,
Made a gingerbread replica of a lighthouse.

I am the girl who will stand on a table,
And sing at the top of my lungs on the highway,
And act like a chicken or quail or velociraptor,
Or nuzzle your face like a lion to make a point.

I am the girl who takes too many shots
And then coaxes you to bed on a Russian liver,
And knows all the right places to bite, and tease,
And follows with exceptionally coherent pillow-talk.

I am not a thin silk scarf on the wind.
I am not a thing hard to capture.
You would not spend a perilous journey
Through a wild, perfumed jungle,
Searching for my slender garments
Hung beside a pool
As I wail to the breeze.

Rather, I am the bird who flies overhead
Making too much noise
Distracting from the trail ahead.
A bird whose plumage proves
What an interesting life it must be…
What a colorful life for me…
Perpetually strange
The lone comic relief.

I am many things.
But I am not quiet.
Of this I am sure.

There's no fulfillment in impressing  everybody,
So what's the point of trying to do so,
Maybe life would be easy,
Because you'd have no opponents,
But really,living your life impressing people and trashing your own views,
Is as good as being dead,
I won't waste my life living that way.

A Scots fashion student has been snapped up by design house Calvin Klein after impressing them with his stylish menswear collection.

The Glasgow School of Art already counts leading fashion designers Louise Gray, Pam Hogg and Jonathan Saunders amongst its celebrated former-students.

Now final year fashion design student Jonathan Douglas, 24, from Ballater, has been added to this illustrious list after being plucked by the US clothing company following an interview with them in January.

Jonathan who showcased his designs alongside ten other students from his course said: “I was told by email that after I graduate I will relocate to Amsterdam to work for Tommy Hilfiger Calvin Klein as part of their first ever European graduate creative programme. I was really excited but I’ve just tried to remain calm and continue to work on things for the show today.”

Jonathan can’t wait to live in Amsterdam to spend ten months with each label, then look at the business side of things.

He said: “My aim was to work for a global brand that had a truly global reach because as a designer it will push me to learn about fashion as a global industry. Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein have always been labels with a true heritage that I’ve admired and they always try to innovate as well.”

He added: “The beauty about fashion is that you can travel, there are no boundaries and there are different people with different cultures - and fashion translates across that.”

Jonathan, who has a business degree, and has interned for Victoria Beckham, Carolina Herrera and Lacoste, was also awarded a schools and colleges British Fashion Council and Top Man award earlier this year.

He said of his fashion: “It’s quite creative but still staying within menswear silhouettes.

“It’s a contemporary menswear collection, forward thinking with clean line silhouettes contrasting with crazy textures. I’ve used foiling, hand painting with silicon paint and collaborated with print design too. It’s quite monochromatic. I think we are encouraged here to push the boundaries of our designs and think outside the box a bit because we don’t want to create something that has been produced before.”

Amongst his more adventurous pieces, Jonathan has designed a see through lightweight top with silicon painted shorts.

But despite his new job with a major label Jonathan isn’t planning to get his designs places on the latest celebrities.

He explained: “I’m not a big celeb fan. It’s a great way to promote fashion but it’s not my main focus.”Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/red-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/white-formal-dresses

There is no end,
in this big galaxy.
Never stop impressing me,
with lots of magical things.

Full of mystery,
that excites me.
And the gravity,
holding me back from you.

You attract me,
like a black hole.
You make me feel alive,
like the stars in the sky.

It's Friday evening from life's cares we'll have a brief leave taking
And lets go to the Basy Pub for hour of merry making
In confines of the Settlers Bar the voice of mirth is ringing
And Pete Atkinson from Dublin Town an Irish song is singing.

The Mckelvey men father and son are talking of horse racing
They know the horses inside out from form and race card tracing
Has Vo rogue gone over the hill, can Horlicks race to glory
Can Almaarad come bouncing back and go down in history?

Phil Cronin go back down the years he flick back through life pages
To friends he knew in Millstreet Town he has not seen for ages
Big Jerry Shea and Mister O, James Manley hale and hearty
And Johnny Sing from Millview Lane the life of every party.

Brave Harry the brave English man the one as tough as leather
You'll only see that man in shorts no matter what the weather
A man of elephantine strength yet gentle and kind hearted
And he has taken life's hardest blow since his son this world departed.

Big **** Kissane the Kerry man he doesn't like Maggie Thatcher
And he feels that for Union bashing that few in history could match her
Still he won't go back to Kenmare to weather wet and hazy
He'd much prefer Mt Evelyn it's nearer to the Baysy.

**** Kelleher and Phil Schofield well into greyhound breeding
They talk of how greyhounds should be schooled and for them proper feeding
Two greyhound trainers and of late their reputations growing
And Millstreet Town keep racing on when others dogs are slowing.

Vin Schofield a Manchester Man he does love Man United
And every time United win he feel proud and delighted
But United not doing well of late of late they're not impressing
And this too much for him to take he find it all depressing.

Galway's Matt Duggan and Westmeath's Sean Fay the hurling game debating
On the first sunday of September who will be celebrating
Can Westmeath make the big break through or will Galway flags be waving
Or will Tipperary still be champs their reputation saving?

And Marty Kerins from Mayo a good and happy fellow
I've never met him in bad mood I've always found him mellow
He love the Bayswater Hotel he say there is none better
And to be kept from Settlers Bar he'd have to be in fetter.

And **** O Shea from Dublin his friends are in the many
And he doesn't have one enemy and he doesn't deserve any
He's given homes to Homeless souls and he's easily moved to pity
And good a man as ever came to live in this great City.

The amazing J D Ellis his name and fame keep spreading
And he has bounced back from the floor and for the top he's heading
Still he is easily stirred up and Garry Carter does the stirring
And el tigre he begins to growl the cat's no longer purring.

It's friday evening from life's cares we'll have a brief leave taking
And where better than the Basy Pub for hour of merry making
In Confines of the Settlers Bar the voice of mirth is ringing
And Pete Atkinson from Dublin Town an Irish song is singing.

You strayed independent across my unlaid path
impressing me with a hideaway around the thistles
where inlay thigh flints spark like butterfly wings
fused to outstretched but still flimsy present glinting
loose eyes a smoky incense close to gleam igniting
potent tinder sax on a beneficent Burns' night portent
whispering wick lit slivers of be live next to me glen scent
fluttering and roaming through saliva kissed gloaming
a light shaved window opening a misty eyed gap
opportune as a mysterious space between maps

crossed with aye formations and melted highlands
I slide into a bonnie loch when you return my glance
smooth as a swan stroking shallow into deep meeters
the swirl of bagpipes barely rippling the surface meters

a proud union betwixt us found expression
unflagging love notes ** streamed passion
red into sky blue twitchy nerves lend fingers
fondling unfurled clouds into catchy dance rings
retracing steps into tempestuous hearts I rose
so dryads can black watch temptation intertwine
painted inside as I woad your Pictish tartan

only now the pedestal wobbles a little
but you don't fall to my arms
brave destiny's turn is fickle
and straight on without being toppled
you hesitate but give no nod to lead
no quick look behind you as I hoped
shying awry to continue walking
the hot moment runs past cold
safe as before inhibitions land
like icicles on my fanciful back

upstanding Meissen men often talk
of perfection showing no cracks
and chuckled as they left their mark
in crossed swords kilned with clay ores
giving a porcelain lion soft pause
for thought about a heart out clause
and about lifting any kilt or unstuck thought
to keep established ruling embarrassment
but is that parley risking nought?
the mane's trimmed short
too correct to tip the hat
to a potential welcome
down falls harassment
south of the borderline
sad that no one can put
that man lass
yes
moment together again
but ever slow drifting apart
the dream mist
goes on

SAPPHO'S POEMS FOR ATTIS AND ANACTORIA

Most of Sappho's poems are fragments but the first poem below, variously titled "The Anactoria Poem, " "Helen's Eidolon" and "Some People Say" is largely intact. Was Sappho the author of the world's first 'make love, not war' poem?

Some People Say
Sappho, fragment 16 (Lobel-Page 16 / Voigt 16)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some call these the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say—
the one I desire.

Nor am I unique,
since she who so vastly surpassed all mortals in beauty
—Helen—
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
departed for distant Troy,
abandoned her celebrated husband,
turned her back on her parents and child!

Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsemen and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or their columns of infantry parading in flashing armor.



Ode to Anactoria or Ode to Attis
Sappho, fragment 94 (Lobel-Page 94 / Voigt 94)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So my Attis has not returned
and thus, let the truth be said,
I wish I were dead...

'Honestly, I just want to die! '
Attis sighed,
shedding heartfelt tears,
inconsolably sad
when she
left me.

'How deeply we have loved,
we two,
Sappho!
Oh,
I really don't want to go! '

I answered her tenderly,
'Go as you must
and be happy,
trust-
ing your remembrance of me,
for you know how much
I loved you.

And if you begin to forget,
please try to recall
all
the heavenly emotions we felt
as with many wreathes of violets,
roses and crocuses
you sat beside me
adorning your delicate neck.

Once garlands had been fashioned of many woven flowers,
with much expensive myrrh
we anointed our bodies like royalty
on soft couches,
then my tender caresses
fulfilled your desire...'

Unfortunately, fragment 94 has several gaps and I have tried to imagine what Sappho might have been saying.



The following are Sappho's poems for Attis or Atthis...

Sappho, fragment 49 (Lobel-Page 49 / Voigt 49)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I loved you, Attis, long ago...
even when you seemed a graceless child.

2.
I fell in love with you, Attis, long ago...
You seemed immature to me then, and not all that graceful.

(Source: Hephaestion, Plutarch and others.)



Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131 / Voigt 130)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andrómeda...


Sappho, fragment 96 (Lobel-Page 96.1-22 / Voigt 96 / Diehl 98)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Attis, our beloved, dwells in distant Sardis, but her thoughts often return here, to our island, and how we honored her like a goddess, and how she loved to hear us singing her praises. Now she surpasses all Sardinian women, as, after sunset the rosy-fingered moon outshines the surrounding stars, illuminating salt seas and meadows alike. Thus the dew sparkles, the rose revives, and the tender chervil and sweetclover blossom. Now oftentimes when our beloved goes wandering abroad, she is reminded of our gentle Attis; then her heart assaults her tender breast with its painful pangs and she cries aloud for us to console her. Truly, we understand all too well the distress she feels, because Night, the many-eared, calls to us from across the dividing sea. But to go there is not easy, nor to rival a goddess in her loveliness.



Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I compete with that ****** man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his 'eloquence' …
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you...



Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.
My heart races at the sound of your voice!
Your laughter? ―bright water, dislodging pebbles
in a chaotic vortex. I can't catch my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.
My ******* glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.
I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,
despite my poverty.



The following poems by Sappho may have been addressed to Attis or Anactoria, or written with them in mind…

Sappho, fragment 22 (Lobel-Page 22 / Diehl 33,36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Sappho, fragment 34 (Lobel-Page 34 / Voigt 34)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the Moon's splendor,
the stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.



Sappho, fragment 39
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're merely mortal women,
it's true;
the Goddesses have no rivals
but You.



Sappho, fragment 5
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're eclipsed here by your presence—
you outshine all the ladies of Lydia
as the bright-haloed moon outsplendors the stars.

I suspect the fragment above is about Anactoria, since Sappho associates Anactoria with Lydia in fragment 16.



Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2.1A)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaving your heavenly summit,
I submit
to the mountain,
then plummet.

Sappho associates her lovers with higher elevations: the moon, stars, mountain peaks.



Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever! —
as long as you sleep in my sight.



Sappho, fragment 102 (Lobel-Page 102 / Voigt 102)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother, how can I weave,
so overwhelmed by love?



Sappho, fragment 147 (Lobel-Page 147 / *** 30)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!

'From Dio Chrysostom, who, writing about A.D.100, remarks that this is said 'with perfect beauty.''―Edwin Marion ***



Sappho, fragment 10
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I lust!
I crave!
**** me!



Sappho, fragment 11 (*** 109)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You inflame me!



Sappho, fragment 36 (Lobel-Page 36 / *** 24 & 25)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I yearn for―I burn for―the one I miss!

2.
While you learn,
I burn.

3.
While you discern your will,
I burn still.

According to Edwin Marion ***, this fragment is from the Etymologicum Magnum.



Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

Pollux wrote: 'Sappho used the word beudos for a woman's dress, a kimbericon, a kind of short transparent frock.'



Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.

Phrynichus wrote: 'Sappho calls a woman's dressing-case, where she keeps her scents and such things, grute.'



Sappho, fragment 47 (Lobel-Page 47 / Voigt 47)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.

The poem above is my favorite Sappho epigram. The metaphor of Eros (****** desire)  harrowing mountain slopes, leveling oaks and leaving them desolate, is really something―truly powerful and evocative. According to Edwin Marion ***, this Sapphic epigram was 'Quoted by Maximus Tyrius about 150 B.C. He speaks of Socrates exciting Phaedus to madness, when he speaks of love.'



Sappho, fragment 130 (Lobel-Page 130 / Voigt 130)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.



Sappho, unnumbered fragment
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be swept
aside
must be wept.



Sappho, fragment 138 (Lobel-Page 138)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
smile,
reveal your eyes' grace...

4.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' acceptance.

5.
Darling, let me see your smiling face;
favor me again with your eyes' grace.



Sappho, fragment 38 (Incertum 25, *** 36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I flutter
after you
like a chick after its mother...

From the 'Etymologicum Magnum' according to Edwin Marion ***.



In the following poem Sappho asks Aphrodite to "persuade" someone to fall in love with her. The poem strikes me as a sort of love charm or enchantment…

Hymn to Aphrodite (Lobel-Page 1)
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor!
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress and beguiler!
I implore you, dread mistress, discipline me no longer
with such vigor!

But come to me once again in kindness,
heeding my prayers, as you did so graciously before;
O, come Divine One, descend once more
from heaven's golden dominions!

Then with your chariot yoked to love's
white consecrated doves,
their multitudinous pinions aflutter,
you came gliding from heaven's shining heights,
to this dark gutter.

Swiftly they came and vanished, leaving you,
O my Goddess, smiling, your face eternally beautiful,
asking me what unfathomable longing compelled me
to cry out.

Asking me what I sought in my bewildered desire.
Asking, 'Who has harmed you, why are you so alarmed,
my poor Sappho? Whom should Persuasion
summon here? '

'Although today she flees love, soon she will pursue you;
spurning love's gifts, soon she shall give them;
tomorrow she will woo you,
however unwillingly! '

Come to me now, O most Holy Aphrodite!
Free me now from my heavy heartache and anguish!
Graciously grant me all I request!
Be once again my ally and protector!

'Hymn to Aphrodite' is the only poem by Sappho of ****** to survive in its entirety. The poem survived intact because it was quoted in full by Dionysus, a Roman orator, in his 'On Literary Composition, ' published around 30 B.C. A number of Sappho's poems mention or are addressed to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It is believed that Sappho may have belonged to a cult that worshiped Aphrodite with songs and poetry. If so, 'Hymn to Aphrodite' may have been composed for performance within the cult. However, we have few verifiable details about the 'real' Sappho, and much conjecture based on fragments of her poetry and what other people said about her, in many cases centuries after her death. We do know, however, that she was held in very high regard. For instance, when Sappho visited Syracuse the residents were so honored they erected a statue to commemorate the occasion! During Sappho's lifetime, coins of ****** were minted with her image. Furthermore, Sappho was called 'the Tenth Muse' and the other nine were goddesses. Here is another translation of the same poem...



Hymn to Aphrodite
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rainbow-appareled, immortal-throned Aphrodite,
daughter of Zeus, wile-weaver, I beseech you: Hail!
Spare me your reproaches and chastisements.
Do not punish, dire Lady, my penitent soul!
But come now, descend, favor me with your presence.
Please hear my voice now beseeching, however unclear or afar,
your own dear voice, which is Olympus's essence —
golden, wherever you are...
Begging you to harness your sun-chariot's chargers —
those swift doves now winging you above the black earth,
till their white pinions whirring bring you down to me from heaven
through earth's middle air...
Suddenly they arrived, and you, O my Blessed One,
smiling with your immortal countenance,
asked what hurt me, and for what reason
I cried out...
And what did I want to happen most
in my crazed heart? 'Whom then shall Persuasion
bring to you, my dearest? Who,
Sappho, hurts you? "
"For if she flees, soon will she follow;
and if she does not accept gifts, soon she will give them;
and if she does not love, soon she will love
despite herself! '
Come to me now, relieve my harsh worries,
free me heart from its anguish,
and once again be
my battle-ally!



Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!


Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
The Pleiades are gone;
Now half the night is spent,
Yet here I lie ... alone.



Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2 / Voigt 2)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, Cypris, from Crete
to meet me at this holy temple
where a lovely grove of apple awaits our presence
bowering altars
  fuming with frankincense.

Here brisk waters babble beneath apple branches,
the grounds are overshadowed by roses,
and through the flickering leaves
  enchantments shimmer.

Here the horses will nibble flowers
as we gorge on apples
and the breezes blow
  honey-sweet with nectar ...

Here, Cypris, we will gather up garlands,
pour the nectar gracefully into golden cups
and with gladness
  commence our festivities.


Sappho, fragment 58 (Lobel-Page 58)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Virgins, be zealous for the violet-scented Muses' lovely gifts
and those of the melodious lyre ...
but my once-supple skin sags now;
my arthritic bones creak;
my ravenblack hair's turned white;
my lighthearted heart's grown heavy;
my knees buckle;
my feet, once fleet as fawns, fail the dance.
I often bemoan my fate ... but what's the use?
Not to grow old is, of course, not an option.

I am reminded of Tithonus, adored by Dawn with her arms full of roses,
who, overwhelmed by love, carried him off beyond death's dark dominion.
Handsome for a day, but soon withered with age,
he became an object of pity to his ageless wife.



Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely ******.

2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …

It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.



Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131)
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...

2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...



Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your ******* and abuse them!



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?



Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.



... a sweet-voiced maiden ...
—Sappho, fragment 153, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have the most childlike heart ...
—Sappho, fragment 120, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s ecstatic brilliance.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s splendor.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anointed yourself
with most exquisite perfume.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 138, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
           smile,
reveal your eyes' grace ...

4.
Turn to me,
favor me
with your eyes’ indulgence

Those I most charm
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Those I charm the most
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight.
The hours drone on
as I moan here, alone.
—Sappho, fragment 52, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once again I dive into this fathomless ocean,
intoxicated by lust.
—Sappho, after Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did this epigram perhaps inspire the legend that Sappho leapt into the sea to her doom, over her despair for her love for the ferryman Phaon? See the following poem ...

The Legend of Sappho and Phaon, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was an ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks of Leukas
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon ...

but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.

In Menander's play The Leukadia he refers to a legend that Sappho flung herself from the White Rock of Leukas in pursuit of Phaon. We owe the preservation of those verses to Strabo, who cited them. Phaon appears in works by Ovid, Lucian and Aelian. He is also mentioned by Plautus in Miles Gloriosus as being one of only two men in the whole world, who "ever had the luck to be so passionately loved by a woman."

Sappho, fragment 24, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1a.
Dear, don't you remember how, in days long gone,
we did such things, being young?

1b.
Dear, don't you remember, in days long gone,
how we did such things, being young?

2.
Don't you remember, in days bygone,
how we did such things, being young?

3.
Remember? In our youth
we too did such reckless things.

Sappho, fragment 154, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
The moon rose and we women
thronged it like an altar.

2.
Maidens throng
at the altar of Love
all night long.


Even as their hearts froze,
their feathers molted.
—Sappho, fragment 42, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice beguiles me.
Your laughter lifts my heart’s wings.
If I listen to you, even for a moment, I am left speechless.
—Sappho, fragment 31, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 57
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1a.
That country ***** bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!

1b.
That country ***** bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art
is hiking her dress
to reveal her ankles' nakedness!

2.
That hayseed ****
bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!

3.
That rustic girl bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking the hem of her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!

Keywords/Tags: Sappho, ******, Greek, translation, epigram, epigrams, love, ***, desire, passion, lust

morning dew drops on your collar
impressing me with the zealous way the seasons drastically measure the moment it takes me
to reach forwards and brush it off
liquid winter falling onto a ***** cement
the initials 'F T' written jaggedly into the cold stone of asphalt
i wait for it to disappear, for the flicker of everything gone to fade from my vision
but it passes too quickly
i look back up and there's no one around
the street is empty and the capricious wind has ceased
a sucker for patterns i walk into a fabric store and feel my hand linger on the erratic linens
fingers paused on the peach organza sprawled like a pink bubblegum sea
and i am swept into the manic fantasies of wearing the sheer tissue-like textile into
the abdomen of your sweaty palm and sinking like a sticky sweet stripe
until you put your hand in your pocket and i spend a year inside melting
into the every thread and curve of your jean until it is nothing but disgusting sugar
everything i could be when i am hidden from sight in the dark caverns of denim pants
who knew the tongue in cheek joke would be nothing but my tongue in your mouth
touching all the way up your gums  
find me sweltering beneath the uvula wondering if i could go back
to the time i found that girl with the mountain logo sweatshirt who whistled between her teeth and hummed all the reasons i should skin my knee and kiss the salty wound because there's no greater pleasure than knowing you don't have to wait for that morning dew drop to fall from their ******* collar

I've been missing
authentic selflessness
devoted kindness
and the soft laughter
you let out
when I used to do things
like try to cheer you up

I've been missing
fiery conversations
deep and vibrant
they used to dance across my face
every time I had a stollen space
alone
with your voice

I've been missing
grace within strangers
the signs of simplicity in nature
The way you'd stuff me into your
envelope embrace
and those hearty compliments
that  I used to save up for calloused
malnourished days

I miss
you impressing my brother
with your dutifulness
and natural peace,
showing big bright flecks of acceptance
in your eyes

I miss
the lightness I would feel
the second I pulled into our parking lot
and saw your muddy shoes outside
our place

I miss
noticing the yellow parts of the day
brought by your soothing spontaneity

I miss
laying my wild heart down at night
and being able to close my eyes
without wasp anxiety
stinging the lining of my stomach

I miss sleep and
the way I used to be with you.
Pure     beautiful     lovely                and utterly unique

My fantasies turned blonde in ‘seventy-six.

Bjorn, Benny, flickas, sailed  from East to West.

Santa Lucia never shone so blessed

as she did in my private Euro-mix.

Perfect pop longs for that feminine fix.

Cassette wheels whirred –  branding, then impressing

grooves upon the brain; my thrall confessing

love for Nordic light (in Disco metrics).

The names still strike flames, kindling bright renown:

Frida, Agnetha  –  your longships linger

Your Viking faces sacked my harbor town.

portaging hope to this shipwrecked singer,

enwreathing smiles to reach our further shore.

I Do… (times five – and will forevermore).

Even though it’s new
the wires of your cage door
still rattle.
Cold inside, you demand
a constant 71 degrees.
Pop and techno
hit me in the face
like that puff of air
at the eye doctor:
                  jarring
distracting
                     slightly painful.

Peculiar keepsakes on display;
like that odd family photo
ridiculously large
lunging its welcome
from the foyer wall.
Your plump daughters wearing ringlets
and uncertain smiles
hang between your
arrogant head.
                                         You.
              Everywhere.
A shrine.

We sit outside with mixed drinks
you talk about your neighbor
the sushi king and how
this neighborhood
means you’ve irrevocably arrived.
Meanwhile, I am bored.
                Terribly

                            terribly
bored.  

You keep talking,
although I was not
finished with that
                          sentence
                  yet.

I am watching your words
drop like dead leaves
you point at them with one hand
and cover my mouth
with the other
But getting drunk,
laid, and rich
are not my super powers.
And I can’t dumb
my vocabulary
down
                        any lower.  
              

I turn to look
at the front door behind us
and nearly choke on the
claustrophobia
in my throat.
It’d be a really great offer
               if I didn’t have a soul.
Water from your lawn
runs down
the cul-de-sac
lined with desolate
         cages.
I escape to the driveway
where my gas gauge
is empty
but my wings?
My wings
              are fully extended.

When needs aren't being met through expectation of a future that will be far away behind us ..
When times had flash before my eyes and there's was no turning back to the present time of tomorrow dust..

But my own back was wondering if i was always against leaving
when always grieving on how much to the existed moment feeling that there's  was also much more needing
without it or without you it would not suggested to be believing ..

Pointed where I had envy the moment of  how the way your carelessly cared for the moment we shared ..
But without a doubt, there's was nothing wrong on how we dare to shared about how we never truly believed that it something that would  left us despair ..

As it was only the time to be nearer was seeking to how much existing memories you were to me, but as a dream we were only reaching for the moment we hope to hear of meeting, yet it somewhere I liked to be ..
Yet it stills found greater thing to remember where it ongoing hours ago.. I can't help but wonder if it is that you've  wanted if said don't ever let me go..  

As small a stop sign it can be but it never stop impressing on how much you mean to me ..
When all I can see even if it isn't you and I when there isn't one moment like this I'm dying to tried ..

I’ll be here whenever you’re near because here is whenever it begins again.
Seeing this never ends is a time worth spending it all over as long when it’s over then.

Don't be enticed by the attraction of a crowd.  It's more important to walk alone, than to show-off, be rude and loud.
Don't allow your peers, to constantly pressure you, because they say you're not their friend.  Watch the amount of trouble they cause, especially, in the end.
Life is given, to gain much knowledge, in this very large world.  Not to mess around, and be funny, impressing every boy and girl.
Don't get left behind, watching your so called "Friends" get promoted.  They will be the ones to laugh at you, while you are being demoted.

Why’d you get locked up then lad?
Oh. I’m locked up?
I know you. You won’t escape lad
Escape from where?

(Jackie Wilson at her majesties pleasure 1884, West Denton, Newcastle)

The sweat rolled off Dominic’s nose.

Its ‘movement’

movement

movement

Uniting.

Meditation takes a person out
from themselves
so far out, without any need
for any additional charge, toll, or need, that when you come back,
even if it’s within
the same body,
you feel

and the glow comes back
on-coming traffic smiles, dead less grace
the worst, and 7am

chess
without a game.
a drool.
an intricacy within
mirage.
hope in the sorry soft gas explosions
and death was heavy enough to fly and give
But not in the normal way
one second, and even joy spills
and the cabbies have begun to scream and break down at each other
even though it’s not a full moon
too many people squashed on a tight balcony
drinking us all away
too many hands
not dancing
it all away


Slugs emigrate across concrete when the soil is wet.
When you wonder why they’ve left.
Its pouring
and you think you recognise a name scrawled in the wet trail.

Single, intimate, observations.

And reasons for the evening to be near.
It will be worth it! – I’LL SEE YOU! –
And now we are allowed to be glorious without price.
And now it’s sad as hell.
And the trees know that.
But the squirrels never do.
And now those words don’t matter.
And now we are allowed.
And now we go.

And the laminate floor
has the weight of a cross.
And the thing is,
you know

(It’s all softly bombed)
Not in a horrific
or knowable
way.

But in God’s good loving
loving
loving
******* for ya.

We’re finally rubbed out.

Crucifying.
And uncrucifying.

Eyes are useless here.

Blackness first.
THEN that soft
‘soft’

dripping.

easy blackness.

Meditating, sat middle
the pentagram of a small flat.
blue white board marker, on ‘easy wipe’ wood flooring.

And if I wake, I can wipe all the lines out.

SO, it went the same.
blue colour of cityscape coming-black light flashing always
across the distance from balcony
a beautiful stillness.
Waves first. Sea. The complete sea. Swimming.
ego. Ego swimming. Ego going down. Hello! And ha!
And no more jokes.
And isolation.
And no more months.
But there were gushes.
Gushes of experiences in, and outside, with individual breathes
and the proximity of love, coming closer
like a germinating hand
guiding you down
into the oceans private concert

Not too close to the expensive parts, or the bad parts,
or anywhere too pristine.
Christ, that’d be
a joke. It’d be funny
and then the surgeon would come and operate
on you;
lifting you out whilst you’re asleep

And it would go like this:

Cancer: Hey! What’s going on?!
Get off! I’ve paid my
rent and don’t wet the bed
anymore,

Surgeon: Don’t care.
Come here...
Oh for **** sake you’re making my day long.
I don’t get paid
for this.
Cancer: Oh yes you do handsome.
Surgeon: Oh yeah!

rest on the long side of your bed.
‘What’d you do at the weekend?’
Where’d you go?

...

banter broke down into spider web
substance
before fading completely, as thoughts begin
to disappear and fly down
into heavier states
from outside you saw a man still dressed
in formal office attire
tie hanging undone around a white shirt, shoes kicked off
beside strange markings on a polished floor. From in,
the understandings
are quite different
fly gently, like a loved one retiring from life
as the single light bulb watches from your ceiling
tensing one last second time in hesitation
then blowing you out with a blink.  

looked into the well where life is buried
and reached down
arms lengthened like dusty pieces of ham down a hole
touching the foetus as it crawls back up,
and up through the highway lines of his veins,
like a rabbit hunts wolves,
like the peach reacts to your bite.

We smoked and ate apple pie as the autumn tattooed
We snapped small pieces off
then ate the mites.

And then when the well filled we made our arms lassoes;
that churned the grain,
turning the quietness into storm,
and back to parts of spring.

You hesitate, touching the ape
like a clown who’s just tossed his life into the air, and juggles it,
like dead poems and hot boiling yeast.
you looked further into the well and found the figments of the ‘Narwhal’
the sea creature with a prominent horn
that shoots from its head-

Early sea farers
used to think the horned mammal was a type of
magical being
it birthed the idea of unicorns
you let the water well mix and join
as we drink coffee today, and the night is less silent
than that of star of apples and gloom
each tarantula that scatters in the red stars of sand is welcome;
and the honey man and honey woman flicker,
through numberless bank checks and bills as knocks arrive
knock after knock after knock
into long vibrational hum

All that remains
is the bursting punch
near the bottom
of oceanic well

As it tightens your grip into the follicle hibernating bears
that speak eloquent words whilst we eat;
the deep groan of munching hands
in the well helps our arms
pull up the glowing carcass as it turns back
into us within our hands, it speaks easily and slow, telling each
servant surrounding
the hole that they should:

‘Dance casually, dance inside my red eyes’.

Some take advantage of melody, as a trust that funds satellites of globe,
as if no one ever dreamed or broke the yoke of more pleasurable things;
one of your arms
is like the way that a crab crawls past over my nose and into our future home

another asks that you aren’t so violent in February
and that the month is a counting mouth that multiplies zero
beside the arms reaching for a pyramidic beauty
under the ***** shell; aborting its children like blood in the snow,
without humanistic style, more in tune with time
than the army of water lifting your throat up,
spits- that poke at us with antlers, undeterred, no legged, mating in the sand

After a while, otherness takes over, and will comes.
And emotion is long shattered,
easing out,
playing skin game and dissipating need, where all will and human comes back
it takes a while.

And our gender has nothing to do with just lust
We are the almost completely blind, as the cliché remembers
Gender is
the lack of gender and the freedom of paradigm
whilst hands are upon love,
And more night(s) turn within us.
dream like bright black stars.

Weekends. Week. Work. Corporations dancing like butterflies on fire. Gone.
Gone
Gone
Gorgeous

nothingness
apart from its face and voice
speaking

“Heyy, how’s it going?”
Projection
No
“Yes... Lover,
Yes yes yes!”
“No.”
skull now linked to the lips of a home
“Correct, correct, correct...” The intangible
darkness, over and over

a rushing
and uncontrollable
heaviness of fire.

foxes in back alleys salute
the black sky with a mongrel scream
and all the animals of the world are linked for a split minutiae,
recognising and respecting the breach;

“You’re hurting... mmmmuh-” Dominic tried to say
in the onslaught.

Converging planes that came from the lips of the spirit crowning his mind.

“You’re not Juuu, Juh Juah Juh.”

He tried to say for the next few hours, as the sun spread down
on the city
and felt a deep
empathy for another one
of its children
attempting to free
itself.

“No.”

how right you are...” The spirit said
as Dominic’s head slumped from exertion.

“You see...” The spirit said seeping into his bones
and killing him;
paramedics zip
the bag
over his face.

“You see...” The voice says again
knocking the lights off
and flinging you
by your throat

Each one letting you
go

landscape sick in multiple elements of confused colour,
parts of buildings, art: growing up in the horizon, new structures
made by thoughts, old flowers inside limbs,
smoking.

“What...” The spirit
said.

sigh at the strange place,
without looking around.
blossoms of mind and traffic
circulated
characters
on a schizophrenic island

two flies ****** invisibly
and grow from the unseen smallness of their passion
and become an instant world
in the Red Mountains.

“What’s up?” Dominic say gloomily,
laugh a little.

“You’re meant to be screaming...
And yes...
Yet another ******* month
without hitting
target.” The nightmare says,

No incorporeal speech
no anger
anymore.

She might have been about twenty five,
dressed in a shade of grey
change
that covered her genitalia
and ******* from ankle up to neck

get used to it all.
raise your chin to the sky and try to blink away from the constant lick
of the beast growing
from yourself, or lover, or day

And grow the chimera
throughout numberless
stages
like a beautiful clay
that cant decide

Finally the meer-hawk looked like a Dickensian peasant
with an intricate smile, dressed all in jail rags
stinking of sweat, *****, and time.
And then we change
again

And her black hair scooped down
into the blackening sand
where the grains accepted her slim weight
through out itself

She was tired and fed up of the back-world today
She left her contract looking around upstairs
and accepted the hit
on her targets

A transference of types in the quaking room.
A quick drop of laughter flys
into the lil bear or a lot; and a snap and a lot of hunger
for us all...

The master of the basement was mostly machine.

The front of his face that we run towards
is a centred and hovering engine
at the far end of the shadow
room
and the stench
from its thought.

a farce and enough
to turn you away
from a really good
steak.

no walls

no matter

a car mouth approaches naked.

dead cats know this, as they lay purring still, licking their paws still,
misery knows,forgetting, and the coldness of the street gave birth

to numberless seedy neon lights
flickering away from the wall less walls
once more

and you know, we
all
have a prayer
that comes
out
here was
mine:

might as well let you know
whilst we’re at it
that this one comes
out, in some accent~~
but is how it’s meant to go

“...as if to prae
inside the rain
as if to move
the moon with small hands
ah cross the yard
and lucky sky

I live in that playce me lass
with ya quiet weiyht
upon me own
of ya li’l voice
that taeks it away

Ya-renuf ta bring
al me Gods back
an pin ‘em te tha walls

Enough ta mayke
al’ me angels breathe
heavy
for even an ounce
of ya grace

Ave begged at tha hands
of jesus Christ
for that tayste
of yeh
me sweet bonny lass
an ya the only lass
‘ahve evva met
that mayde us feel
like ah cuhd heal
without bein less

An I’m lookin at ya now
with al me luv
an ah divent need
ney where to ruhn
as am ah freed dog

and in ya charms

An ‘av ney-where left to luk
but I’ll kip alreet the neet pet
cos ya by me side

an in me arms.”

But now it is rather late my friend, and
we all know how long old accents last,
mine, I cherish, I will say it when cursing
and gone
when lit among friends and when
impressing
new jobs, that I shall leave, such is
my
way
and
i may
see you
again.

Changing buses at Flamingo and Decatur,
a Sister ogles my comped leather jacket,
while braceros mill about across the street,
awaiting any drive-by job offer.

This is the Vegas never seen from the Strip;
a town of cheap gifts and off-the-books labor,
where paychecks disappear in Dollar Loan Centers,
every cranny packing a local's casino.

A hundred taxis queue outside the Palms,
like pilot fish seeking ectoparasites upon a shark.
Inside the thousand dollar escorts hustle
overextended gamblers busting hard 16's at the tables.

I told the Sister I'd won the jacket. Impressing
her that anyone would ever be a winner,
watched her intentionally cross the street
to invite a bracero out to breakfast.

The 103 bus downtown ran late.
Leaving my losing parlay tickets on the bus,
I walk through the parking lot of despair,
the casino's glass doors awaiting me.

What do you do at 3am when you're tired and bored and its raining?

Maybe this is punishment.
For eating those grapes before you paid for them in Sainsburys.
Or that time you forgot who Buzz Aldron was, or when you took pleasure at beating a five year old at Cluedo.
She started crying, and even then, you still
would not relinquish your title.
Maybe its for that time
You were accidentally racist  to the chinese guy taking your order.
Or when you forgot to buy your mum a birthday card, or when you made fun of your best friend for not being taller.
Or when you said, 'Maybe
selective breeding in humans,
Is not such a bad thing after all.'

Yes, Its definitely punishment for that.

But maybe its for all the litter you've dropped, inadvertently or on purpose.
Or for last week when you accidentally kicked the cat, or for stealing those library books,
For swearing at kids
and blaspheming at the dinner table,
Christ!
Maybe its for nicking your brothers chips, even when you're not really that hungry.
For halfhearted apologies handed out like office stationary, for scoffing at most modern art.
For not revising when you
Really, really should
...But telling your parents you are.

But even with all of this, isn't the punishment, just a little bit too harsh?

Well now you are sarcastic, and bitter and pessimistic at least 90% of the time.
And you do hide the fact that you quite like country music, and that you have a blanket with sleeves (and you genuinely use it) and that you're really rather patriotic at heart.
And you didn't say all that stuff when you should have.
And you said all that other stuff you didn't mean
And you spend far too much of your time
Invested in impressing the people you're never going to see again.

And you realize all of this... at three o'clock in the morning, alone but for the fading of the rain.

And you swear to yourself, with all the fervour of a tired insomniac. That tomorrow.
There. Will. Be. Change.
But in the cold, harsh light of nine o'clock the same day. Six hours after you fell asleep. You resign yourself to the fact that last nights punishments can all be absolved, by a nice warm cup of tea.
And despite what you say
at 3am when you're tired and bored,
listening to the sound of the rain.
You will always be a pessimistic idiot, with delusions of grandeur.
That watches too much American TV.

Gorse burnt
bird skeleton
laying beneath
stark, white, crumbly
just calcium
a proto-fossil
that lacks the hardness
derived from
aeons encased
in mud
becoming stone
but this one
will never be
its future is dust
mingled with sand

Close by lies
a golf ball
a wayward one
that strayed
from links
to dune
to deform
in the blaze
become blackend
and split
the skin peeled back
opened to reveal
the tight-wound
elastic strands
fused together
yet penetrable
with persistent
small fingers
and unravelled
in exploration
to be left
in an untidy
forgotten pile
once the sac
at the core
is retrieved
within which
thick white paint
to sqeeze forth
and daub
on wall or fence
or kerbstone

This was the day after
fire had torn
through a thicket of gorse
that I and one or two
others had found ablaze
burning red and yellow and orange
hissing and spitting in protest
radiating heat in aromatic miasma
impressing all senses together
and knowing our civic duty
had run breathless
two streets inland
to fire red telephone box
to dial three nines
and deliver the news and wait
for fire red fire engine
to thunder by with shrilling bell
then to follow on, running back
to observe and to claim
with pride our part
in the resolution of danger
only to face accusation
that we must be responsible
for starting the conflagration
our shock and earnest denials
not entirely convincing
even when we protested that
had we been the culprits
then reporting the matter
would be the last consideration
instead, we were told
we'd clearly done the deed
so we could call out the brigade
and though nothing in the end
came of it, I was left convinced
that adult thought patterns
left much to be desired
and were far too convoluted
too suspicious, too impenetrable
to be ever worth adopting

That episode taught me
the magnificence of gorse ablaze
that discoveries were to be
made in the aftermath
that doing the right thing
wasn't always to be advised
that overly suspicious
too officious firemen
were fishing for payback
that if I were to be judged
guilty of the offence
when I was innocent of it
then I had a credit awaiting
in the bank of misdemeanor
so in due course
I made my withdrawal
and lit the gorse
in assembly at school
we were told we should
not hide our light
under a bushel
but I, not knowing
what a bushel was
lit mine under a bush
I did it only once
and though I had a brief
flirtation with Fraid
Her power scared me too much
no great damage was done
no human life lost
or placed in danger
save possibly mine

Cynthia Pauline Jones, 19/10/13

it's been a while since I wrote "a day in the life" or even
those little diatribes about the girls I like
but tonight the keys on my keyboard feel shorter, somehow
more eager to go down
and I'm tired
but it's good to write.

I'll start with monday I guess because that's when today started
I don't know how I keep this up and survive, but
I'm pretty sure I've been sleeping three nights a week for
months now.
it's like... haha... a year after polyphasing I need to make up for lost time.
Monday was Dana's parents ("parental") anniversary, it says in
the pink striped box, on the week view, of my calendar
I don't remember getting up but I started the clock at 10am sharp with
"remove sets and 5 easy steps from current"
no, never mind, I remember it now
(I checked my texts)
Damian invited me to breakfast, Tuneup, I said 8:45
he said he'd be there earlier. I got there at 8:30, before him
and sat in the back room. read the cached news items on my iPad. ate
a breakfast burrito with bacon, smothered, green
because I didn't want him to see me eating, again,
a burrito with the chili inside.
but he sat in the other room with… someone I can't remember
(I heard them, grabbed my coffee and switched seats)
he had kids, though. so we talked about kids. and they talked about kids
I don't really care about describing work any more.

Dana's mad at me, now, definitely– if it's 10am on Monday
It may have started last night… I don't know. She's mad because I work all day
and she has off
not that I know what we'd do to celebrate.
I went to Northern New Mexico College… impressed Sandy... Sandy something.
Impressed Damian by impressing Sandy, and as we drive back from Española
I realize that he's somehow grown into a larger part of my life than I thought would happen
and I'm almost wondering now if
when we leave from here
Dana will be enough to fill it.

It had snowed over the weekend, the mountains above Santa Fe were red with blood and the
valley spread out beneath us was white like… "white people", and it was (I think, should have been)
dark by the time I got home.

Dana had cleaned everything… and she never cleans everything, but she was so mad
and I was mad. hell. I was mad. because I don't want to be this person either
I mean, of course I do
can we ever be anyone, but who we want to be?
but more than this person I wanted to be somebody who suffers, and suffers for something good
and I knew that I could righteously suffer for this trip and for Damian and not have to suffer
for whatever person I might be afraid of becoming.

So when I told her I was going to work all night, she was even more upset and then we were
leaving for her christmas party but I realized that I have no interest in Starbucks or
the people she works with and she had no interest in me right then so I told her I would stay and
I guess at least she only texted me three or four times furiously.

and I… worked. I could tell you how. but I don't care.
and she came home. mad.
but Jones and Katy came over later, it was my idea
and I tried to install my new electronic sensor gadget while they three
sat on the bed and read poetry
(Katy and Jones had broken up earlier that day)

and after they left… at maybe three, Dana was being nicer to me
and I held her some, and we made out, but I
worked
but maybe, this time, it was a little more ok.

I went to breakfast, again
went to Patricia's, felt sad.
Came home, again. drove Dana to work, again.
Checked Ryan's mail box to see if I'd missed our delivery.
spent an hour and a half on Skype with Jeff, Connor listened...
I want to say admiringly

and then we took more adderall and started writing code and things got
a little fadey for a few hours, but I was ok because I am always ok and Connor
is really good at this, really– I mean. Connor is really good. and I want him to be happy.
and to try and tell him this I bought him burgers at five star (in Devargas, where we saw Todd)
and offered to give him my car.
we dropped off Katy's phone at Connor's house and came back here, took more drugs and tried to write but
it's getting over our heads now, and I'm feeling soft and strange
but soon Dana is off work and she seems, even, happy now
as we drive to Ben Sobol's birthday, where I gave him a book
and allowed myself to entertain, for a few minutes, the thought that Ryan might come to Lima. but we had to
come home

because I know I might be tired by now, know I was once before.

and tomorrow there is so much to do.

but sleep wouldn't come and I started writing my thoughts out, about instagram and privacy
and, to Damian, about whether compiling .less was worth it in the long run
and, thinking, who will argue with me like this when santa fe is done?
and then Dana and I had *** and now is the part where I sleep so hard it hurts but I keep thinking and it feels nice instead.
and so it's four am now, and I write.

and write. caught up on time.

still trying to catch my breath, from the ***– I've had a whole pack of cigarettes today, haha, maybe I'm
suffering myself to death
but mostly it doesn't even hurt, I just can't breathe, and my heart races to break free of my chest
(to go where it will be better kept).

so I wrote this because I looked down at my feet on the berber carpet lit by the rope light under our bed and I was afraid
that I might never again know what it was like to look down at something like that,
soft, orange, warm. home.
and with Dana, falling asleep to my left.


we leave for lima two weeks from today.
I told Ryan last night that it's because it's too easy here, because everything's been done
but it's a cruel thing to say… I think… when no one has it easy here, nobody has what they want
in fact it seems like almost everyone, not just here, spends most of life trying to get this
while we see our satisfaction only as an imperative to throw it away.
but.
hey. I guess I said I'd
like to die a poet
and now it's looking that way.

and I guess the reason I keep standing outside, the reason I texted Rachel from Danny's porch is that I've always
left every place with a plan to come back to
all those Rachel's fire escapes.
but I've never yet looked back, and certainly never gone home.
so the question, as I see it now is:
am I always going forward because I've always been running away?
or is it just impossible to go back to where you came?

because I am happy here. and this, for the first time, does not feel like an escape
so I'm scared it will turn out like one anyway.

It's all so bitter and dull but it's an obsession that i've come to love

It fuels my fire and I can't stand not having it

I think I might need an intervention cause this is getting out of control

What am I gonna do? Can I cope with this for much longer?



I am addicted to this sweet little thing called poetry.

The sweet slew of words all mashed up in one big stew that we all can then enjoy.

From the bittersweet love poems to the hysterical funny ones.

They all inspire us to explore our own creativity and pour our hearts out.

Whether it's on stage, or in a collection. It is truely my favorite art form.

It doesn't take much effort but it does consume quite a lot of your precious time.

But it's worth every second wasted putting pencil to paper.

Your poems are your gospel. So preach them like they've never been preached before.

Even if it's impressing a crowd, or impressing a random stranger who reads them.

It still is inspiring and I love everything about it.

Some people thing of it as a hobby, but I think of it as a lifestyle.

A lifestyle that I want to embrace and soak up until i'm blue in the face.

Because poetry changed my life for the better.

And that's all that matters.

Gave energy and time
Rose gladly to inspire.
Aiding a brother's climb
Exiting worldly mire.
Music flowed out in rhyme
Entreating to aspire.

Building box, bench or plane
Impressing with his skills.
Riding, paddling, flying
Daily seeks nature's thrills.

A painful obsession with impressing
Is controlling me.
Tickling my throat to move,
To beg for your attention.

I'm far too worried with
What sounds better,
Hey or hello?
Or is hello too stiff?
Maybe hi...
There's no words I could write or say
To undo that last goodbye.

But figuring out
What to say
Is wasting the entire night away
And you're already leaving
And I'm still, already choking
I'm so scared I'm
Bumming a drag or two.
I thought I said I'd stopped smoking.
I guess it's hard when smoke-filled lungs
Are right at home with thoughts of you.

I wish I could let the impression
That impressing matters
Swim free.
But I'm caught up
In a dead sea
Of thickening greetings
Thought up too quickly.

♪♥♫♥♫♥♪♥♫♥♫

My fantasies turned blonde in ‘seventy-six.

Bjorn, and the flickas sailed  from East to West.

Santa Lucia never shone so blessed

as she did in my private Euro-mix.

Perfect pop longs for that feminine fix.

Cassette wheels whirred –  branding, then impressing

grooves upon the brain; my thrall confessing

love for Nordic light (in Disco metrics).

The names still strike flames, kindling bright renown:

Frida, Agnetha  –  your longships linger

Your Viking faces sacked my harbor town.

portaging hope to this shipwrecked singer,

enwreathing smiles to reach our further shore.

I Do… (times five – and will forevermore).

Weren't we just the most beautifully ****** up creatures?
Living under the impressing of distopian reality
Kissing necks & sleeping in the stars
The care of no real tangible fault with the lust of a child
Impulse and rage, sat like birds on our tongues
Leaning in to wisper secrets of a secret society
One we had built through tiers on ocean front properties
No language of change, filled with a brief affair
Living on this off topic planet
A non sequitur palace in our dreams
Weren't we just the most beautifully ****** up creatures?
I wouldnt give a minute of it up for the world

Poems about Laughter, Giggles and Smiles



Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when

all that it knows
is: O, because!



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes―
I can almost remember―goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much".

So more than "much", much more than "all".
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother's there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father's back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother's tender smile
will leap and follow after you ...



Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

We’d like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his doddering progress through the scarlet house
to tell his mommy "boo-boo!," only two.

We’d like to think his reconstructed face
will be as good as new, will often smile,
that baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,
that God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.

We do not want to hear that he will shave
at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s
lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new operation costs a billion tears,
when tears are out of fashion. O, beseech
some poet with more skill with words than tears
to find some happy ending, to believe
that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries ...

Or look inside his courage, as he ties
his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes
on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and smiling says, "It’s me I see. Just me."

He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures.
Your pity is the worst cut he endures.

Originally published by Lucid Rhythms



Laughter from Another Room
by Michael R. Burch

Laughter from another room
mocks the anguish that I feel;
as I sit alone and brood,
only you and I are real.

Only you and I are real.
Only you and I exist.
Only burns that blister heal.
Only dreams denied persist.

Only dreams denied persist.
Only hope that lingers dies.
Only love that lessens lives.
Only lovers ever cry.

Only lovers ever cry.
Only sinners ever pray.
Only saints are crucified.
The crucified are always saints.

The crucified are always saints.
The maddest men control the world.
The dumb man knows what he would say;
the poet never finds the words.

The poet never finds the words.
The minstrel never hits the notes.
The minister would love to curse.
The warrior never knows his foe.

The warrior never knows his foe.
The scholar never learns the truth.
The actors never see the show.
The hangman longs to feel the noose.

The hangman longs to feel the noose.
The artist longs to feel the flame.
The proudest men are not aloof;
the guiltiest are not to blame.

The guiltiest are not to blame.
The merriest are prone to brood.
If we go outside, it rains.
If we stay inside, it floods.

If we stay inside, it floods.
If we dare to love, we fear.
Blind men never see the sun;
other men observe through tears.

Other men observe through tears
the passage of these days of doom;
now I listen and I hear
laughter from another room.

Laughter from another room
mocks the anguish that I feel.
As I sit alone and brood,
only you and I are real.

I wrote this poem either my first or second year in college, around age 18 to 19. It remains largely the same, with only minor changes.



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron―
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.

And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful―
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea


Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.



See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn't seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there and burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are―that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For loveliness remains in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book's.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.

Originally published by Writer's Digest's―The Year's Best Writing 2003



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch


Love Sonnet XI
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
I stalk the streets, silent and starving.
Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me
from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor.

I long for your liquid laughter,
for your sunburned hands like savage harvests.
I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles.
I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole.

I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty,
to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face,
to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade.

I pursue you, snuffing the shadows,
seeking your heart's scorching heat
like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue.



The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.


My Feelings
by Dolqun Yasin, a Uyghur poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The light sinking through the ice and snow,
The hollyhock blossoms reddening the hills like blood,
The proud peaks revealing their ******* to the stars,
The morning-glories embroidering the earth’s greenery,
Are not light,
Not hollyhocks,
Not peaks,
Not morning-glories;
They are my feelings.

The tears washing the mothers’ wizened faces,
The flower-like smiles suddenly brightening the girls’ visages,
The hair turning white before age thirty,
The night which longs for light despite the sun’s laughter,
Are not tears,
Not smiles,
Not hair,
Not night;
They are my nomadic feelings.

Now turning all my sorrow to passion,
Bequeathing to my people all my griefs and joys,
Scattering my excitement like flowers festooning fields,
I harvest all these, then tenderly glean my poem.

Therefore the world is this poem of mine,
And my poem is the world itself.



Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


How can I compete with that ****** man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his "eloquence,"
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you ...


Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.

My heart races at the sound of your voice!
Your laughter?―bright water, dislodging pebbles

in a chaotic vortex. I can't catch my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.

My ******* glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.

I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,

despite my poverty.



Sometimes the Dead
by  Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must ...



Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go―
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.

They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their warm laughter’s the wine ...
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion ...

and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” ...
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...

and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune ...
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.

And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their hearts are unreadable runes
to be wiped clean, like slate, by the dark hand of fate
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...

You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it were something you loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light
of the stars winking gently above ...

Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.

I rather vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with presumably a lot of office parties). This would have been after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the upper-level managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time.

Keywords/Tags: Laugh, Laughs, Laughter, Giggle, Giggles, Smile, Smiles, Humor, Light Verse, Friendship


Published as the selection “Poems about Laughter, Giggles and Smiles”

if my brilliant mind
is not enough for you,
than you are simply
not worth impressing.

Hire me.
I'll be the best person at the job.
I work hard.
Always on time.
Never late.
Through impressing without overtime.
In other words, I get the job done.
Yes, I'm the one.
Just hire me.

I accept my ninty day probationary period.
And will make it through it.
My ability to do will leave you ready to hire me.

I'll be the prototype of a good employee.
Yes, others will envy me.
Especially when you becomes the better part of me.

A man I looked up to
Once told me to be careful,
That maybe I could be too much.
Too bold
Too strong
That men may not feel comfortable.
But you see
Women in my world have never been gentle,
Always burnt with too much fervour
To care that you might melt.
You think it is an insult,
That you can coerce me into being more submissive
By the threat of offending men.
Like somehow I am nothing
With the absence of a man's desire.
Like everything about me
Should be channelled into impressing a man
I am yet to meet.
But you don't know that inside I am smiling.
Inside a fire in me burns brighter at hearing
That sometimes my strength makes them uncomfortable.
I am not here so men who tell me I'm prettier when I have less voice,
So men who think it's okay to intimidate me
Whenever they see fit,
In whatever form they wish,
Can feel less unsettled by this supposed threat to their masculinity.
I hope my mind,
My bones and my blood,
Make your safety net
Of a society that breeds and feeds male egotism
A little less secure.
I am not here for your comfort.
I am not here to feed the monster of misogyny inside of you.

Do not tell me to douse my fire
And extinguish these flames
Just because you,
Men like you,
Cannot handle the heat.

This poem is about a night out on the beer which almost went horribly
wrong



I put out my hand and touched the face of God,
. . .bit of a surprise, really, I was expecting my Hod.
Lying on the floor, thinking it was my bed,
Coated in *****, face down, arms spread.
I've ****** my trousers, shat my keks,
A natural reaction, to twenty three pints of Becks.
Stumbling through Cambridge, I can't find the Site,
I know it's around here, first left or third right. . .
Crashing through hedges, I've forgot how to walk,
I can't ask for directions, I'm unable to talk.
So, I'll go no further, here I'll sit tight,
Sneak back to the caravan, when dawn sheds her light.

I didn't feel the cold, the damp creeping through,
Best shirt, Purple Chino's and I'm missing a shoe.
It's my dancing outfit, for impressing and posing,
Ideal for the Nightclub, not alfresco dozing.
The temperature plummets, I'm giving it "Big Zeds"
Dreams of warm women and petal-strewn beds,
Breathing gets shorter, body starts to shut down,
I'm sweating buckets, beginning to drown.

Ronnie, the Night-watchman, knows I must be in trouble,
In an hour and a half, I'm due back on the shovel,
To keep the lads happy, with bricks and fresh Pug
And barrows of concrete, poured into trenches I dug.
Under an Elm Tree, thirty yards from the job,
Ronnie catches sight of this prone Northern yob.
He doesn't panic, just yet, he knows what to do,
He's seen it before, when a body turns blue.
Those First-Aid Classes, when he told us he was fishing. . .
Vital signs are checked, I'm in the Recovery Position.
Ron holds my nose, lifts my head off the floor,
. . .then he kissed me , in a way , that I'd never been kissed before.

they always say confidence is key
but what if the lock is broken
always saying that the perfect image makes you liked
continuously impressing yourself
to hopefully fulfill the void of having the image of somebody else

I used to speak French
to protect myself.
impressing those around me
with grammatically incorrect insults
hidden behind a smile
to make them think I just
said something beautiful.

C’est la vie.

My mother lied to me.
My father hid his lie from me.
My brother thought he was lying to
me when he was really
telling me the truth.

I used to draw blood in order
to feel something when in
actuality I was feeling
everything.

I have a notebook, a pen
and a bag of pretzels; the
tunnels of light to escape these
walls.

A wall I can’t see.
Strangers I don’t trust.
Friends I send away…

Maybe I should have spoken
Spanish, that way more
people would have been
able to call my bluff.

Funny.
I prefer Spanish food over French.
Save for Wine – Tequila makes me sick.

I hate teenagers.
I’ve discovered this in the past year.

Maybe it’s time to learn a new language.

We're living in a world
Where fake is the new trend
A world where
Falling leads to crash land
A world where
The devil gives you a helping hand
And in this world
Depression is my new friend

How can a friend
Break or bend,your trust
Whereas I'm looking for someone
To mend my heart
If lies were money
Everyone would spend their millions
They say 'If life gives you lemons'
Wait! What if mine gave me melons

Look at me,I'm not perfect
But at least I'm real
Got to stay strong
Mentality on steel
Wait for my soul to recover
Rather to heal
They disturbed my innocence
And then I broke her virginity seal
It was ill...

The killing
The blood spilling
All by one cause,ignorance
The dressing
The people impressing
Leads to one thing,arrogance
The pretending
Mixed with smiley sending
Makes me lose my,tolerance
My silence
My wise license
Will lead to my fame,2legance

Sometimes
Even if the disruption of the innocent
Leads to corruption of the imagrant
The caption of the happy moments
Will create the adaptation of the youth
At the moment

Back in the day of the fifties music scene.
You had rivals of opposite back grounds.
But similar in many ways.

Whether it was country , or the blues.
You have rivals impressing you.

Chuck Berry, with his oddity sound.
Had Buddy Holly , with his similar odd sound.

Say LittleRichard and think Jerry Lee Lewis.
Two of the baddest piano players that was original.

And we know Elvis had no rival of his style.
Although for some reason they think it was Fabians.
Who were far from it?

The Beatle during the sixties had the Rolling Stones.
While the Temptations had the Impressions.
And the Lovin' Spoonful had the Rascals.

We, see things that reminds you of twins.
Sometimes, it pays to be different.
To let your personality come shining through.

Which we know music usually do.
It soothes the savage beast.
Unless it part of a music called rage.

Or maybe even rap.
But this just a matter of opinion.