she is a rendering in darker inks of lighthearted subjects
the eloquently illustrated surrealistic seduction of the heart
demure yet ravishing sexualization
the ideal of beauty offering itself up like a sacrifice
at the alter of some wanton hedonistic temple to gods of lust
she looks up at me from her practiced good girl gone naughty dream
and tells me that she wants me
wants it all to be perfect
like in the paris magazines
wants it all to be crafted in perfumed perfection
near to goddess as human can be
she is rendered in darker inks
but i am captivated by the lovely
entranced by the beautiful
enraptured by the perfection
as only darker inks can be

The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing --
Memories growing, ring on ring,
A series of weddings.

Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,
Truer than women,
They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history --

Full of wings, otherworldliness.
In this, they are Ledas.
O mother of leaves and sweetness
Who are these pietàs?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but chasing nothing.

The courtesan and poet Zuo Fen had two cats Xe Ming and Xi Ming. Living in her distant court with only her maid Hu Yin, her cats were often her closest companions and, like herself, of a crepuscular nature.
      It was the very depths of winter and the first moon of the Solstice had risen. The old year had nearly passed.
      The day itself was almost over. Most of the inner courts retired before the new day began (at about 11.0pm), but not Zuo Fen. She summoned her maid to dress her in her winter furs, gathered her cats on a long chain leash, and walked out into the Haulin Gardens.
      These large and semi-wild gardens were adjacent to the walls of her personal court. The father of the present Emperor had created there a forest once stocked with game, a lake to the brim with carp and rich in waterfowl, and a series of tall structures surrounded by a moat from which astronomers were able to observe the firmament.
      Emperor Wu liked to think of Zuo Fen walking at night in his father’s park, though he rarely saw her there. He knew that she valued that time alone to prepare herself for his visits, visits that rarely occurred until the Tiger hours between 3.0am and 6.0am when his goat-drawn carriage would find its way to her court unbidden. She herself would welcome him with steaming chai and sometimes a new rhapsody. They would recline on her bed and discuss the content and significance of certain writings they knew and loved. Discussion sometimes became an elaborate game when a favoured Classical text would be taken as the starting point for an exchange of quotation. Gradually quotation would be displaced by subtle invention and Zuo Fen would find the Emperor manoeuvring her into making declarations of a passionate or ****** nature.
       It seemed her very voice captivated him and despite herself and her inclinations they would join as lovers with an intensity of purpose, a great tenderness, and deep joy. He would rest his head inside her cloak and allow her lips to caress his ears with tales of river and mountain, descriptions of the flights of birds and the opening of flowers. He spoke to her ******* of the rising moon, its myriad reflections on the waters of Ling Lake, and of its trees whose winter branches caressed the cold surface.

Whilst Zuo Fen walked in the midnight park with her cats she reflected on an afternoon of frustration. She had attempted to assemble a new poem for her Lord.  Despite being himself an accomplished poet and having an extraordinary memory for Classical verse, the Emperor retained a penchant for stories about Mei-Lim, a young Suchan girl dragged from her family to serve as a courtesan at his court.
      Zuo Fen had invented this girl to articulate some of her own expressions of homesickness, despair, periods of constant tearfulness, and abject loneliness. Such things seemed to touch something in the Emperor. It was as though he enjoyed wallowing in these descriptions and his favourite A Rhapsody on Being far from Home he loved to hear from the poet’s own lips, again and again. Zuo Fen felt she was tempting providence not to compose something new, before being ordered to do so.
      As she struggled through the afternoon to inject some fresh and meaningful content into a story already milked dry Zuo Fen became aware of her cats. Xi Ming lay languorously across her folded feet. Xe Ming perched like an immutable porcelain figure on a stool beside her low writing table.
Zuo Fen often consulted her cats. ‘Xi Ming, will my Lord like this stanza?’

“The stones that ring out from your pony’s hooves
announce your path through the cloud forest”

She would always wait patiently for Xi Ming’s reply, playing a game with her imagination to extract an answer from the cinnamon scented air of her winter chamber.
      ‘He will think his pony’s hooves will flash with sparks kindling the fire of his passion as he prepares to meet his beloved’.
      ‘Oh such a wise cat, Xi Ming’, and she would press his warm body further into her lap. But today, as she imagined this dialogue, a second voice appeared in her thoughts.
      ‘Gracious Lady, your Xe Ming knows his under-standing is poor, his education weak, but surely this image, taken as it is from the poet Lu Ji, suggests how unlikely it would be for the spark of love and passion to take hold without nurture and care, impossible on a hard journey’.
       This was unprecedented. What had brought such a response from her imagination? And before she could elicit an answer it was as though Xe Ming spoke with these words of Confucius.

“Do not be concerned about others not appreciating you, be concerned about you not appreciating others”

Being the very sensible woman she was, Zuo Fen dismissed such admonition (from a cat) and called for tea.

Later as she walked her beauties by the frozen lake, the golden carp nosing around just beneath the ice, she recalled the moment and wondered. A thought came to her  . . .
       She would petition Xe Ming’s help to write a new rhapsody, perhaps titled Rhapsody on the Thought of Separation.

Both Zuo Fen’s cats came from her parental home in Lingzhi. They were large, big-***** mountain cats; strong animals with bear-like paws, short whiskered and big eared. Their coats were a glassy grey, the hairs tipped with a sprinkling of white giving the fur an impression of being wet with dew or caught by a brief shower.
       When she thought of her esteemed father, the Imperial Archivist, there was always a cat somewhere; in his study at home, in the official archives where he worked. There was always a cat close at hand, listening?
       What texts did her father know by heart that she did not know? What about the Lu Yu – the Confucian text book of advice and etiquette for court officials. She had never bothered to learn it, even read it seemed unnecessary, but through her brother Zuo Si she knew something of its contents and purpose.

Confucius was once asked what were the qualifications of public office. ‘Revere the five forms of goodness and abandon the four vices and you can qualify for public office’.
       For the life of her Zuo Fen could not remember these five forms of goodness (although she could make a stab at guessing them). As for those vices? No, she was without an idea. If she had ever known, their detail had totally passed from her memory.
       Settled once again in her chamber she called Hu Yin and asked her to remove Xi Ming for the night. She had three hours or so before the Emperor might appear. There was time.
        Xe Ming was by nature a distant cat, aloof, never seeking affection. He would look the other way if regarded, pace to the corner of a room if spoken to. In summer he would hide himself in the deep undergrowth of Zuo Fen’s garden.
       Tonight Zuo Fen picked him up and placed him on her left shoulder. She walked around her room stroking him gently with her small strong fingers, so different from the manicured talons of her colleagues in the Purple Palace. Embroidery, of which she was an accomplished exponent, was impossible with long nails.
       From her scroll cupboard she selected her brother’s annotated copy of the Lun Yu, placing it unrolled on her desk. It would be those questions from the disciple Tzu Chang, she thought, so the final chapters perhaps. She sat down carefully on the thick fleece and Mongolian rug in front of her desk letting Xe Ming spill over her arms into a space beside her.
       This was strange indeed. As she sat beside Xe Ming in the light of the butter lamps holding his flickering gaze it was as though a veil began to lift between them.
       ‘At last you understand’, a voice appeared to whisper,’ after all this time you have realised . . .’
      Zuo Fen lost track of time. The cat was completely motionless. She could hear Hu Yin snoring lightly next door, no doubt glad to have Xi Ming beside her on her mat.
      ‘Xe Ming’, she said softly, ‘today I heard you quote from Confucius’.
      The cat remained inscrutable, completely still.
      ‘I think you may be able to help me write a new poem for my Lord. Heaven knows I need something or he will tire of me and this court will cease to enjoy his favour’.
      ‘Xe Ming, I have to test you. I think you can ‘speak’ to me, but I need to learn to talk to you’.
      ‘Tzu Chang once asked Confucius what were the qualifications needed for public office? Confucius said, I believe, that there were five forms of goodness to revere, and four vices to abandon’.
       ‘Can you tell me what they are?’
      Xe Ming turned his back on Zuo Fen and stepped gently away from the table and into a dark and distant corner of the chamber.
      ‘The gentle man is generous but not extravagant, works without complaint, has desires without being greedy, is at peace, but not arrogant, and commands respect but not fear’.
      Zuo Fen felt her breathing come short and fast. This voice inside her; richly-texture, male, so close it could be from a lover at the epicentre of a passionate entanglement; it caressed her.
      She heard herself say aloud, ‘and the four vices’.
      ‘To cause a death or imprisonment without teaching can be called cruelty; to judge results without prerequisites can be called tyranny; to impose deadlines on improper orders can be thievery; and when giving in the procedure of receipt and disbursement, to stint can be called officious’.
       Xe Ming then appeared out of the darkness and came and sat in the folds of her night cloak, between her legs. She stroked his glistening fur.
       Zuo Fen didn’t need to consult the Lu Yu on her desk. She knew this was unnecessary. She got to her feet and stepped through the curtains into an antechamber to relieve herself.
       When she returned Xe Ming had assumed his porcelain figure pose. So she gathered a fresh scroll, her writing brushes, her inks, her wax stamps, and wrote:

‘I was born in a humble, isolated, thatched house,
and was never well versed in writing.
I never saw the marvellous pictures of books,
nor had I heard of the classics of earlier sages.
I am dimwitted, humble and ignorant . . ‘

As she stopped to consider the next chain of characters she saw in her mind’s eye the Purple Palace, the palace of the concubines of the Emperor. Sitting next to the Purple Chamber there was a large grey cat, its fur sprinkled with tiny flecks of white looking as though the animal had been caught in a shower of rain.
       Zuo Fen turned from her script to see where Xe Ming had got to, but he had gone. She knew however that he would always be there. Wherever her imagination took her, she could seek out this cat and the words would flow.

Before returning to her new text Zuo Fen thought she might remind herself of Liu Xie’s words on the form of the Rhapsody. If Emperor Wu appeared later she would quote it (to his astonishment) from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.

*The rhapsody derives from poetry,
A fork in the road, a different line of development;
It describes objects, pictures and their appearance,
With a brilliance akin to sculpture and painting.
What is clogged and confined it invariably opens up;
It depicts the commonplace with unbounded charm;
But the goal of the form is of beauty well ordered,
Words retained for their loveliness when weeds have been cut away.

Coloring my silence with the inks of divine song I write, whispering to awaken souls. Dabbling in a masterpiece of rainbow delight.
I dance, ponder, and dream making a stage for written word to perform.
My gratitude pours out to readers eyes who gather
as words cascade from heart into a waterfall of graceful prose.
And as I feel peace cradling my crafted verse, I smile bonding with energies to share on a vellum canvas inside forever tomorrows.

StarBG © 2017

Ilion Gray:
http://hellopoetry.com/-ilion-gray/
my personal call sign, Kronos/Cronus
Obviously the Titan among the writers of the Hello Poetry,
He has probably the highest viewership, and most commented amongst the poets.
It becomes very evident after reading his work why he is the Titan of poets,
And reading his poem is like historical masters revisited among mortals.

Harlon Rivers:
http://hellopoetry.com/-harlon-rivers/
my personal call sign, Poseidon
Poseidon was very fitting with Harlon River,
due to the symbolic nature of the water in their names.
I have only read few of this gentleman's work,
But I can assure you his work is very much a gift to the audience,
And like Poseidon that gift is fire to humanity.

K Balachandran:
http://hellopoetry.com/-k-balachandran/
my personal call sign, Zues
After thinking and pondering,
K Balachandran is the Zues of hello poetry.
His work is always top notch,
And it has so much layer of meaning in his ink.
I admire his compassion in his work,
And his generous response.

Nat Lipstadt:
http://hellopoetry.com/-nat-lipstadt/
my personal call sign, Apollo
Nat is this exciting charismatic youthful writer like Apollo,
And his vigor is unmatched with his writing.  
His writing is passionate,
And has such strength.
It is so hard not to notice his work,
But when you do read his work,
You will know why I had him as Apollo of Hello Poetry.

Soul in Torment:
http://hellopoetry.com/-soul-in-torment/
my personal call sign, Hermes
His work is like a trickery,
When you think you got it,
You see another layer in his work.
To read his 10w poem,
As simple as it may seem,
You will do double take to see more meaning  in 10w.

Timothy:
http://hellopoetry.com/-timothy/
my personal call sign, Dionysus
Probably the most festive,
and warm poems you will ever read.
Timothy not only write awesome poems,
But also gives lot of positive feed back to many.
More I thought about Timothy's work,
It just made sense to have him as Dionysus.

KMae:
http://hellopoetry.com/-kmae/
my personal call sign, Gaia
Another Titan among the Hello Poetry,
And like Gaia, KMae is like the Mother Earth of poets.
Her wisdom and knowledge is vast,
And her writings are warm and very expressive.

Shaqila:
http://hellopoetry.com/-shaqila/
my personal call sign, Athena
Her 10w is so amazing,
I became Dumbfounded by her work,
Because it's so thought provoking.
She has vast repertoire of her style,
and it is unmatched by many I have read.
I can only wonder now a days how she is doing,
Since she has been Mia for awhile now.

Olivia Kent:
http://hellopoetry.com/-olivia-kent/
my personal call sign, Hestia
Very down to earth,
And calm resting of poets.
If you want a ink with purity,
Check her work out!

Sally A Bryan:
http://hellopoetry.com/-sally-a-bayan/
my personal call sign, Hera
Her work has so much strength,
And love with thoughtfulness,
It felt only right to align her with Hera.
Highly recommend to those who seek love and warmth,
And very hospitable response as well.

CA Guilfoyle :
http://hellopoetry.com/-ca-guilfoyle/
my personal call sign, Artemis
Just like Artemis,
And her work is untamed beauty.
Graceful and amazing to read,
Her work is innocent,
But very strong.
Try to catch her work,
But beware, her newer inks are harder to come.

Jasmine:
http://hellopoetry.com/-jasmine-9/
my personal call sign, Aphrodite
Her work is elegant,
And quite beautiful.
Has a perfect feminine quality about her writing,
And gives lovely expression that empowers love!

Noose:
http://hellopoetry.com/-the-noose/
my personal call sign, Hade
Always great with darkness,
And convey disparity like no other,
Hade perfectly convey Noose's work.
If you ever want to read decay at it fullest glory,
Noose has this covered for you.

Atul 'Drona' Kaushal
http://hellopoetry.com/-atul-drona-kaushal-1/
My personal call sign, Cupid
Probably one with most profound love poetry I've read
And his work is dedicated love poems.
His work are marvel to gaze upon,
And strong display of Eros.
Highly recommend for those who like to read love poems,
If not, check his best poem of all "Angel?"

Pradip Chattopadhyay
http://hellopoetry.com/-pradip-chattopadhyay/
My personal call sign, Helios
In my eyes poet Pradip seem to be the sun of the poets,
Always filled with bright energy.
Very mystical in this poet's ink of ray.
If you want a poem that will brighten your day,
I recommend Pradip's poems!

just like a shooting star across the sky
just like a sunshine peeks behind the green leaves
with its rays and bright lights all over my dull eyes
just like a warm coffee in a rainy days
just like the pigeons that fly happily on the big blue sky
my world stops when you smile at me
and the time stands still when you look at me
and i'm so over with inks
and papers
and words
because you are too beautiful to describe
and my love for you can't be contained in thousand words.

memories,
captured in a moment.
on a single paper,
remembering in the silent,
inks fade, doesn't last forever,
together we are broken,
but we can see it in this small paper,
these happiness and enjoyment.

smoke and ghosts,
utter emptiness.

the moon drifting
in a smouldering sea
of grey inks.

winter faded like old parchment, drawn in charcoal
the trees waited for the inevitable colours of spring.
your voice coloured silence and left me standing
away from the crowd with my head inclined to yours,
listening to you, the shadows swept away and your
voice like the moonlight, the blue inks of the sea.
i watched you unwind night skies and the night stars
that burnt in the rivery realms of lost ruins and whispering
dreams, fell like dead men before your passion and there
was no reasoning with what you believed and you had
no compassion for the world. hatred fired up before
my forgiveness and you could not forgive. how many  
oceans scattered their flowers and light, how many
armies fell before the burning amber of your eyes?

He looked at her,
Her hands were caked with black inks,
Filled with words she will never utter through her mouth,
How effortlessly she twists her hair into messy bun,
How she never ever wears make-up,
Daring enough not to conceal her beautiful imperfections,
How she clung books tightly to her chest,
Like a shield defensing her,
And how she walks confidently, yet stares on the ground afraid to have any eye contact,
I can't help but get attracted more and more by her quirkiness,
Every ******* time she passes by me.

I think I figured out why I don't like pencils
They have advantages, I admit
I draw a hundred times better with them
And write fifty times neater than with
My usual plethora of pens
The colors and textures of the ink
Only a small part of my reason
I think I don't like pencils because they are
Impermanent
And smudge too easily
Ink only smudges when wet, and soft
Then it bleeds color all over the white expanse
It is set on
Inks and graphite, they don't mix in my head
The graphite is always too grey for me
Too dull when I use it
The inks give me the paint of gods
To shower in bold all that I deign to
And then pencils wear down,
Far too quickly for my hand
I need to scribble fast and hard
The pen stands much more solidly
And for me the pencil is too subtle and gentle
Not nearly enough vivacity

It’s nearly two in the morning and the place is finally quiet. I can’t do early mornings like I reckon he does. Even a half-past nine start is difficult for me. So it has be this way round. I called Mum tonight and she was her wonderful, always supportive self, but I hear through the ‘you’ve done so well to get on this course’ stuff and imagine her at her desk working late with a pile of papers waiting to be considered for Chemistry Now, the journal she edits. I love her study and one day I shall have one myself, but with a piano and scores and recordings on floor to ceiling shelves . . . and poetry and art books. I have to have these he said when, as my tutorial came to a close, he apologised for not being able to lend me a book of poems he’d thought of. He had so many books and scores piled on the floor, his bed and on his table. He must have filled his car with them. And we talked about the necessity of reading and how words can form music. Pilar, she’s from Tel Haviv, was with me and I could tell she questioned this poetry business – he won’t meet with any of us on our own, all this fall out from the Michel Brewer business I suppose.

This idea that music is a poetic art seems exactly right to me. Nobody had ever pointed this out before. He said, ask yourself what books and scores would be on the shelves of a composer you love. Go on, choose a composer and imagine. Another fruitless exercise, whispered Pilar, who has been my shadow all week. I thought of Messiaen whose music has finally got to me – it was hearing that piece La Columbe. He asked Joanna MacGregor to play it for us. I was knocked sideways by this music, and what’s more it’s been there in my head ever since. I just wanted to get my hands on it. Those final two chords . . . So, thinking of Messiaen’s library I thought of the titles of his music that I’d come across. Field Guides to birds of course, lots of theology, Shakespeare (his father translated the Bard), the poetry and plays of the symbolists (I learnt this week that he’d been given the score of Debussy’s Pelleas and Melisande for his twelfth birthday) . . . Yes, that library thing was a good exercise, a mind-expanding exercise. When I think of my books and the scores I own I’m ashamed . . . the last book I read? I tried to read something edifying on my Kindle on the train down, but gave up and read Will Self instead. I don’t know when I last read a score other than my own.

I discovered he was a poet. There’s an eBook collection mentioned on his website. Words for Music. Rather sweet to have a relative (wife / sister?)  as a collaborator. I downloaded it from Amazon and thought her poems were very straight and to the point. No mystery or abstraction, just plain words that sounded well together. His poetry mind you was a little different. Softer, gentler like he is.  In class he doesn’t say much, but if you question him on his own you inevitably get more than the answer you expect.  

There was this poem he’d set for chamber choir. It reads like captions for a series of photographs. It’s about a landscape, a walk in a winter landscape, a kind of secular stations of the cross, and it seems so very intimate, specially the last stanza.

Having climbed over
The plantation wall
Your freckled face
Pale with the touch
Of cold fingers
In the damp silence
Listening to each other breathe
The mist returns

He’s living in one of the estate houses, the last one in a row of six. It’s empty but for one bedroom which he’s turned into a study. I suppose he uses the kitchen and there’s probably a bedroom where he keeps his cases and clothes. In his study there is just a bed, a large table with a portable drawing board, a chair, a radio/CD, his guitar and there’s a notice board. He got out a couple of folding chairs for Pilar and I and pulled them up to the table.

Pilar said later his table and notice board were like a map of himself. It contained all these things that speak about who he is, this composer who is not in the textbooks and you can’t buy on CD. He didn’t give us the 4-page CV we got from our previous tutor. There was his blue, spiral-bound notebook, with its daily chord, a bunch of letters, books of course, pens and pencils, sheets of graph and manuscript paper filled with writing and drawings and music in different inks. There was a CD of the Hindemith Viola Sonatas and a box set of George Benjamin’s latest opera and some miniature scores – mostly Bach. A small vase of flowers was perilously placed at a corner . . . and pinned to his notice board, a blue origami bird.

But it was the photographs that fascinated me, some in small frames, others on his notice board, the board resting on the table and against the wall. There were black and white photos of small children, a mix of boys and girls, colour shots of seascapes and landscapes, a curious group of what appeared to be marks in the sand. There was a tiny white-washed cottage, and several of the same young woman. She is quite compelling to look at. She wears glasses, has very curly hair and a nice figure. She looks quiet and gentle too. In one photo she’s standing on a pebbly beach in a dress and black footless tights – I have a feeling it’s Aldeburgh. There’s a portrait too, a very close-up. She’s wearing a blue scarf round her hair. She has freckles, so then I knew she was probably the person in the poem . . .

I’ve thought of Joel a little this week, usually when I finally get to bed.  I shut my eyes and think of him kissing me after we’d been out to lunch before he left for Canada. We’d experimented a little, being intimate that is, but for me I’m not ready for all that just now; nice to be close to someone though, someone who struggles with being in a group as I do. I prefer the company of one, and for here Pilar will do, although she’s keen on the Norwegian, Jesper.

Today it was all about Pitch. To our surprise the session started with a really tough analysis of a duo by Elliott Carter, who taught here in the 1960s. He had brought all these sketches, from the Paul Sacher Archive, pages of them, all these rows and abstracts and workings out, then different attempts to write to the same section. You know, I’d never seen a composer’s workings out before. My teacher at uni had no time for what she called the value of process (what he calls poiesis). It was the finished piece that mattered, how you got there was irrelevant and entirely your business and no one else’s. So I had plenty of criticism but no help with process. It seems like this pre-composition, the preparing to compose is just so necessary, so important. Music is not, he said, radio in the head. You can’t just turn it on at will. You have to go out and find it, detect it, piece it together. It’s there, and you’ll know it when you find it.

So it’s really difficult now sitting here with the beginnings of a composition in front of me not to think about what was revealed today, and want to try it myself. And here was a composer who was willing to share what he did, what he knew others did, and was able to show us how it mattered. Those sheets on his desk – I realise now they were his pre-composition, part of the process, this building up of knowledge about the music you were going to write, only you had to find it first.

The analysis he put together of Carter’s Fantasy Duo was like nothing I’d experienced before because it was not sitting back and taking it, it was doing it. It became ours, and if you weren’t on your toes you’d look such a fool. Everything was done at breakneck speed. We had to sing all the material as it appeared on the board. He got us to pre-empt Carter’s own workings, speculate on how a passage might be formed. I realised that a piece could just go so many different ways, and Carter would, almost by a process of elimination choose one, stick to it, and then, as the process moved on, reject it! Then, the guys from the Composers Ensemble played it, and because we’d been so involved for nearly an hour in all this pre-composition, the experience of listening was like eating newly-baked bread.  There was a taste to it.

After the break we had to make our own duos for flute and clarinet with a four note series derived from the divisions of a tritone. It wasn’t so much a theme but a series of pitch objects and we relentlessly brainstormed its possibilities. We did all the usual things, but it was when we started to look beyond inversion and transposition. There is all this stuff from mathematical and symbolic formulas that I could see at last how compelling such working out, such investigation could be . . . and we’re only dealing with pitch! I loved the story he told about Alexander Goehr and his landlady’s piano, all this insistence on the internalizing of things, on the power of patterns (and unpatterns), and the benefit and value of musical memory, which he reckoned so many of us had already denied by only using computer systems to compose.

Keep the pen moving on the page, he said; don’t let your thoughts come to a standstill. If there isn’t a note there may be a word or even an object, a sketch, but do something. The time for dreaming or contemplation is when you are walking, washing up, cleaning the house, gardening. Walk the garden, go look at the river, and let the mind play. But at your desk you should work, and work means writing even though what you do may end in the bin. You will have something to show for all that thought and invention, that intense listening and imagining.

Your commitments and word
Are inks stained on cold skin
Taken without pain sacrificed,
Easily washed away in water:
Simple imitations...
That at its essence
Mock the sanctity and identity
of actual tattoos.

/
When you are growing as a poet
your pain is pining to born a poetry
where there are too many clouds of emotions gathering,
also a pensive mood longing
then the thunder of thoughts growing,
your paper is awaiting for the first word
as I was waiting for you, my love
when you were coming slowly
then words of rain raining,
automatically,
randomly

When the first raindrop pings on the pond
even you don't know when it will be stopped
how far it will be covered
which path it will be taken
even its density,
dignity,
or the diversity

Your first word inks on the paper
you don’t know when it will be finished
which way the words will be taken
even you don't know
its size or style,
its fashion or the scheme

Either it's a long or a short
or even a sonnet or a verse
even its rhyming
or the rhythm

You should not think about its length
of course words grow as long as
the metaphors can travel
through its thoughts of cohesion
and its feelings moving
naturally,
poetically

You should not count the words
or even you can't stop within a limit
it makes your thoughts imperfect
rather you can tell totally
about the life,
or can tell about
the love easily
or beyond the life spontaneously

The words can grow 3,5,7
lines for a haiku
or even it goes for a mile for an epitaph
or more for an epic  

Poetry executes through words
words come from thoughts
thoughts come from the emotions
and ends with the wisdom
/
@ Musfiq us shaleheen

i.

her dress laced with
icicles, winter streams,
on her head she
wore a bluebell hat.

her hair wild roses,
her little hands gathered love like
wild roses, until her
cheeks melted like wild
roses, and everything of
her was the rose wild wind and
the silvery song of the moon.

ii.

winter wove it's dull aches,
it's rose powder rains, its
clouds of dream around
her, but she refused to believe
in the scrolled iron gates of winter
where nothing would open into
the garden of her dreams and
she was left a wood sprite,
magical as freezing midnight
cloud-like in her roses and
blanched cheeks, a snow-rose,
deeply beautiful.


iii.

pale as a midnight cloud,
the flowerbeds soft stars
of february, moments of

ice, tears, tears of a doll
in the frost.


iv.

love, surreal and ceramic,
pink blossom kisses on your
cheeks and your cherry-white lips
winter harness of bells and softest
leather.

v.

clouds sing of roses, winter sinks
like a dark rose, magical inks, rose-
girl, roses, dark thorn of black,
muse in the hedgerow, singing
of a long forgotten world. wounded
bird, drawn of paper and the ringing,
ringing air.

Doodling doodling
You keep on doodling
Why aren't you working?
Remember, you're not the king

Stealing minutes
Spreading inks
Overflowing wits
Can't lose this habit

*~Unfinished~

my feelings are the splattered inks
bold, italics
threatening to spill
weighing on every meaning
words could carry
scrambled up, juggled
those who’ve yet to feel
shall not speak
and pray tell, words
do you realize what you amount to?
what’s behind was for a reason, a person
clear as day, solid reverie
what lies beneath shan’t remain between the lines
and if it reaches you, we’re alike

the sea, rushing,
its blue inks dissolving
in pools.

a cloud whispers
fragments of a dark song
to the sky.

the waves crashing,
crashing, crashing….

"INKS OF TRUTH"

A dedication

For Soul Survivor

''~~~~~~
There's A City called Hello Poetry
And in this city,
Lives A Woman of many colours
A Poetess with a kind heart
A Poetess of Class
A Woman that loves to care for all
She's a kind soul
Meandering through this city,
She has a heart devoid of hate

* A Motherly nature
Always hoping everyone is well
Find this woman and
Appreciate her
For her heart is pure
And Soul too kind
Have you heard about Soul Survivor
Or call her Catherine Jarvis?
She is the woman
She is a Mother
A Mother of Hello poetry
Find her now and appreciate her*

Ovi Odiete©

Dedicated to Soul Survivor

Ink and rabies flows in our veins. Copper cogs hold our eyes into place, and we can see the undulating liquors flowing like waters in a transparent waterbed, rolling back and forth with gravity.

Ink and rabies flows in our veins. They came with togetherness, in the same pen, passed along, gently, from one hand to another, a friendly enough gesture, cultured, combined, colluded into a single consciousness of tactful inks together, tactful links together, a single solvent.

They were once separate towns...separate people...until Radii Ink and Yuli Rab were together...

Allusions of Inspiration
--Jacob Dexter Coffey--

To strive or slay-- question my thought,
The sleep eternal-- 'tis which I fought//

I trouble through the dual choice of tree,
Decide in wood of yellow fall-- which path will be?//

Tick-thud-in thought- a pain of mind,
From the deed done- now sound will bind//

Can think I not with rap-tap-tapping on the door?!
Is it a caw and crow again once more!?//

Out-out- brief challenge of the soul,
The stupid stranger- heartless- fueled by coal//

The trek through story of the fake,
The triggers put all things at stake//

Resist the trickery of Death and Man,
For he will surely betray all he can//

The riders- harbingers of apocalypse,
The horsemen out the seal as open it rips//

The untold portend of yet to happen,
Dystopia of burning books and a futuristic den//

Crimson capes and men of steel,
Slinging spiders- super speed- mutants in a fantasy so real//

Cameras watching with no privacy,
We turn on ourselves in the future destined to be//

The epic tale of bearing no sword against beast,
Then celebrate with a bountiful feast//

Directing death- divided district devolution,
Dictatorship to demolish over-population or revolution//

And swish and flick of age old oak,
Concealing magicks from the eyes of mortal folk//

The tragic tale of lovers true,
Dream to die rather than unite house of red and blue//

Burning bright in rotting night,
Iron immortal eyes with symmetrical bite//

A scarlet alpha letter to curse thy name,
Illegitimate life and local negative fame//

The sparkling thirst of blood in stone cold skin,
The fight with fur borne beasts will not reach fin//

A man of sonnets- from script to theatre talent flew,
To dictation adding words-words-words two-thousand new//

A women locked her mind and skill away with antisocial tone,
Nameless arts with punctuation by dash and riddle unknown//

Another woman wrote of girls and loves,
But denied herself the gift of white dress and doves//

A peaceful New Englander with flawless inks,
A name of winter's harsh bite that sinks//

The fiction scientist that will foretell,
He said we all will be free only with the knell//

The man of the grotesque and gore,
Filling heads with horror and gruesome lore//

The speakers and tellers and sharers of tale,
Impression and inspire each time without fail//

Teetering on something significant,
but the words haven't been molded;
just some idea that was formed
in the attic of an old comic book store
when I was inspired by the artwork
of that Liefeld guy who inks dysmorphia.
-
The definition of ******* seems to be something
that fits like a drunken tattoo in a hard to see area.
You need a couple mirrors, your arms start to ache
and you never really do get a good look at it.
Now you have to explain to casual intimate partners
that you think it's the first Megazord, not a little devil.
-
I recently did a math problem that took up an entire page;
it was my first time doing something like that.
The pacing of math classes gives me an anxiety like I can't believe.
The word prerequisite give me an anxiety like I can't believe.
Sweaty, cold, fetal, this can't really be a normal reaction, right?
I think Montessori might have messed with my wiring.
-
I can hear my mom shuffling about on her walker.
I think she must be feeding a cat, or cleaning up puke;
the spectrum of caring.
Holly is in heat and howling.
I can't find my Proventil, it tastes so much better than the other brands.
I think I might just have some fruity pebbles.

i.

summer, with her golden
light and bluebell valleys
sweeps the senorita skies
and shady groves.

ii.

the sea rushes to the sand,
relentless waves surrender
crashing on the rocks
where the raucous gulls glide.

iii.

the moon-sky of summer’s
warm nights brings sweet dreams
and lavender fields, stars
of slumber, ropes of
gold thread like
embroidered silk.


iv.

the white clouds
woven from the rain
hide the sun which
waits for the blue inks
of a summer sky.

v.

small, the bird
painted
on the sky.

vi.


i am jealous of your legs,
crazy in love with your love,
swept up in your arms
while i wait for you to
claim me as your own.

love me i cry out,
i am yours, i am yours,
forever.

and i wish i was sad enough or hurt enough or broken enough to actually feel something, and not just emptiness after emptiness after emptiness.

blushes
tips, brushes and spills and the willingness of physics
dip the quill
blending a full face of colours trippy
tipping my crown, my head,
my thinker becomes      creation winning
inks
i wink   faithfully lacy    into the universe    pirouettes and eddies
tinkering
i divide myself    couple and quad and oct..
flood my breeding into the cosmos
spoon-feeding      peddling out into the mutter
the great relax of the creative meddle

I searched for these words up in the attic
with narrow ribbons of enlightenment streaming
through all-too-small windows
igniting the drifting dust specks on fire,
and on the streets in the gutters
that were gloom-spattered with murky water lunging
towards the grated storm guards
as if they were salvation.
I scrounged through soaked and disintegrating cardboard boxes
bearing the letters L O S T A R T S
and old, musty and molded trunks
that had broken locks and missing keys.
I dug them out of  soft-cloth linens, carefully selected them
from heaping mounds of scrap
-like sifting through a junk yard-
to find those precious bits of silver,
sweet iridescent bubbles
encasing so delicately words like
"language" and "cellar."
I gathered these knic-knacks and baubles
and I alighted them with utmost care
through winding black back streets in my little burlap bag
to my borrowed safe-haven room. And without
turning on the lights,
the door was shut and stopped and I was perched
with great secrecy,
cross-legged upon my bird's nest of a bed,
daintily extracting each little orb
and examining them and all their wonder.
Tri-dimensional little things, that, no matter how you turned them,
seemed always to be a bi-dimensional halo of pale, golden light.
They shone, each minute embryo, like an old-time city lamp,
before such evil things as electricity came
and robbed them of a candle's beauty.
And its core, as is true with humans, is its most glorious aspect.
There is a transparent ocean in there,
with roiling waves that spin the currents
and coax every particle to circulate.
And caught in the eye of that undersea tornado are flecks of glitter,
so tiny that you would not be aware of them at all
were it not for the magnificent glimmer that they sparked,
magnifying and throwing back the fainter glow
of that ethereal encircling band.
Pixies that danced at the autumn festival.

I found these words for you,
broken and perfect and shining,
and collected them on a shelf where I could view them
before I handed them over to you.
I collected them with you in mind.
Can’t you tell?
I found words like “lustrous” and “lust”
because they reminded me of you.
I arranged them sporadically,
and smiled to see “alabaster princess”
sitting unintentionally before my eyes.
And how you are my Alabaster Princess.
But oh dearest-mine, be wary of how you find these words.
Use them sparingly, and do not tarnish them.
Keep them like nuns keep themselves: ******.
If you must write them,
then write them in pretty hand-made inks,
and decorate each letter with dips and swirls, each letter a flourish.
And if you must utter them,
say them quietly, and in simple complementary sentences.
You can be Kennedy for a day,
or speak softly and let them be their own big stick.
Keep them uncommon, like you are uncommon,
and know when the repetition of weaker words can make them herculean.
Guard these words with all your strength:
with that sword hanging deftly on your wall,
with that letter-opener on your kitchen table,
with that pocket knife in your favorite pair of jeans.
Those words will save us one day,
once the world has reverted back to an aristocracy.
With that noble face of yours and this clever brain of mine, love,
we’ll con them into making us their master,
gold and land or no.
even if the sole things we own are our names.
And we’ll teach them again how to speak,
with all the sweetheart mightiness of poetry that speech was intended to have.
And we will learn to bow with all the eloquence of B.C. bible writing.
Machiavelli never saw rulers like us.

We’ll cry like the Devil on a Sunday morning
for the alteration in our names from D’evil,
and whomever first declared “they’re there yonder to get their ***!” shall know my wrath
(although that may have been me).
Parlez vous Français?
Non.
These words that I pillaged
from the mouths of great stone grave monuments,
I hope that you will remember them well.
I hope that you will pour over them
and gaze at them in all of the bedazzled stupor that I did.
And once upon a time,
when children loved to read
and sought the same type of affection that I have at last found in you,
when even the Greek gods were playing with pens and devising an alphabet,
I sat there on rocky shore, seasoning with saltwater,
drawing with my toe under the waterline,
your face.
Pretty as a picture,
and worth a thousand words.

Hex Birthright in Hellenika

The Celestial Spirit of Vernarth began to walk through the Castellum del Horcodising, after the parapsychological regression in the conclusive auction and purge of him. He was looming at the Horcondising Keep; here all toilet modules, food, and medicines were well equipped, except for the inks and writing papers that were totally exhausted. Here you can see his mother Luccica, who was in a position to scribble and write on an upstairs deck, and in the other hand, she had a rosary of liberation, which anonymously appears before her purging in the presence of the protervative spellings that still wander through the cells and bedrooms of the Castellum del Horcondising. Her mother is seen twisted over the voices that polished the eight moons that she had designed for her son Vernarth from the very machicolations of the Castellum, but now with a rosary of liberation. It was clearly seen in the leaves written by her, which said that “My son abandoned his weapons, now in fluids of holy water, symbolizing real chimeras by the projections, to those who read his life verses in our Castellum, in Gaugamela and Patmos ”. Vernarth, mostly Hellenic, awaits to manifest healings for all creation, dumping water from moon storms on Rhodes, and lighting Matacan wall light at the door of the Messiah stand.

Vernart says: “my adolescent look, she has to be reborn with that of my father Bernardolipo; a whole Chamberlain, making himself free and a supporter of the baronies that were part of the servants of my servants…! Although now to climb his cabinet I have to raise my knees higher before his amplified step, calling us all and trying to be closer to a new bell to call us to dinner, as an entity of pride of architecture defined by his pen, ink, and white sheet that I mention. The mother I have to mention; My mother Luccica, rests not condemned or corrupted before her flesh, rather perfectly united to her spirit that envelops her free of sin, so that her company would be of complete solitude in our Castellum, we will continue to be in conformity with the spirit because our mansion is a beautiful spirit of vicissitudes, life, and peace, that our esplanade holds hunger and coldly indifferent to loneliness, cooling and pleasing the company of its own cold, rising from the first rays of the day, as well as rising from the first pinches of graduated ink, agreeing in the corrals where my father already lived according to his life among debtors, mortifying what he has not been able to mount on his steeds that inhabit his senses, leaving not so far to greet them in the mornings free of errors of not greeting, even When the minimum space is left to think of him as a joint-heir. Because the laments sob and others are born in the virginity of the light of the world with other lines Luccica can scarcely write, writing her co-age spirit, manifesting itself foolishly in suffering perfection; manifesting itself as everyone's delight, although ringing with anger at not freeing itself from glorious freedom. Not all sing to the tune of the disability of putting the strength of the grapheme of posterity, rather we blind ourselves by putting hope, but of patience that we arm ourselves by losing our courage to have it. Our will is of the magnitude of saints when doubt and fear entertain us, according to all the things and purposes that irreversibly will surprise us. I do not know where I have to walk here in this tower ?, because I know that myths of the unknown will fall according to the fact that I am his son, being the first-born of all men in the world, speaking of who among many intercede before tribulation or anguish, that strips me of all spirit still asking for it and justifying that I keep talking about them, but that I have been gone for a long time. For this reason, venerated mother, wake up from this frozen cell of the courtesy tower, because I am jealous and I believe that neither death nor life will fill the dead suspended in your room, which support more lives with their angels adorning their bindings and paragraphs, with principalities that are increasingly so distant more than imminent to come to please you. When your name is tried in real vices to increase, they are being stripped of the sons of the principality in which they shine from afar, but with our feet dancing on despotic brilliance, and not of the hollow that still does not fill my heart for you”

Emerging from the last lights of the Castellum del Horcondising, Vernarth bids farewell to his reign, leaving his mother Luccica in the company of three Angels who mined him with the amber mistletoe, of sallow light. However, she will remain frosted on her desk with ink at night and by day, so that when the day ceases, she will draw ink from the darkest night to continue writing that she can already be without Him! Near the Halleniká Necropolis in Rhodes, a statue of Peltasts stood, shielding the site where the “Vas Auric” Auric Medallion would sporadically rest, which came between the bilges, now inside the Eurydice. It came predestined with sacred amber garments alloyed, to make up for the between Peltast mediators who guarded them, to deliver it to its Commander Vernarth.

The Apostle Saint John says: “The Sephardim like us in exile did not see reasons restored in our union and tradition, we resembled a diaspora that did not derive voluntarily, according to events that occurred in my case in Judah at the hands of the Romans. The Alexandrian Jews form on my part certain Israelites dispersed in my prayers, leaving us where the radiance of our faith makes sense and dispensed power to us. My economy is to create the furniture that will inhabit laborious houses in the Staurós histos, even among those Jews and mercenary soldiers, freeing themselves from prejudices and clothing that represented them alone and fragile, being sensible by the diaspora. The world separates itself from the matter cell, clinging to the consciousness of the unity of dispersed Mosaicism as a sacrificial cult, to cater to those who write history more distant than a synagogue without a Rabbi. When bad winds blew there, they often made the situation worse for those scattered in a foreign land. At the end of the Hellenistic era, we had Jews in Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Phenicia, Pontus, north of the Black Sea, Cappadocia, the rest of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Cyrenaica, Carthage, Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. Now I in Rhodes with the Vas Auric, to trace the true effigy of Judas Thaddeus, my co-religious in pursuit of an intellectual and theological religious activity of edifying centers of prayer and universal unification, here in the Necropolis of Hallenikka, where some Davidian Psalm will be in more regions of here documented in precession, and as a reciprocal religion to Hellenic situationism. Its religiosity is felt, it even remains open in proselytism that causes the indefiniteness of the half-convert and that implies a risk for the identity of the Jewish religion as the support of a people with not a little original conscience "

He sings The Delphic Sibyl: “He bears the crown of thorns of the Coronation of Jesus, which also happened in the Praetorium, and as in previous cases to the scene represented in the corresponding neutral. In Eritrea Stauros, rather Herophile, if chaste and Delphic clairvoyant and apologetic, her vernacular artery made her a native of Marpeso, Troyana-Troade. As in fantasies of being the daughter of a Nymph and a Shepherd. Her elegy was escorting her to the Duodecim Evangelii, from Samos she is docking towards Patmos at the foundations of the Megaron. With the same polygon of the Sistine Chapel, in the quattrocento, where Vernarth had assistance in the parapsychological Regression of the Quattrocento Duodecim Evangelii, announcing that Vernolatry would be part of his Apologetic life, inspiring prophecies with the Iaspis Parables, commending scholarship after the grave that He was in the forest of Apollo Smintheus, returning to his origins in a sinkhole in Mount Coric. The idiomatic cross was its interlaced fractal, with threads and kashmar pole, surrounding the crossed palisades with linen threads, and Koiné to display the cross in the hestion or towards the Staurós or cross, in the capital event of the material instrument of execution for the man who falls into no man's land "

all i've been able to think about lately
is a poem written by fingers on a keyboard
attached to a left hand not yet responsible
for being blistered with cigarette burns
or lifting can or shot or handle to lips
with which to stain -- barley, hops,
potatoes, rice, and alcoholic love.
and i've been thinking about how i felt
after i read a poem written the night
before by a left hand now singed
and swollen, and guilty of lifting
many such apparatuses bearing
many such inks to blot out
mistakes and scribble over
all the misjudged words
that have spilled from
lips stained with barley,
hops, potatoes, and rice.
and i've been thinking about
the content of that poem,
and about how differently
i thought of it two nights ago,
before i got my own matching
business card with a followup
appointment for next week,
and a matching warning
to allow 24 hours notice
before changing the day
or time of an appointment
in order to avoid being charged;
and with it came the opportunity
to write my own poem about it:
Christina M., LMFT,
Wed, 4-17-13 at 4:00 PM,
and it has a sacramento street
address with a phone number
i have no intention of calling.
and i've been thinking about
how i met with her today,
and what we spoke of,
how i told her about drugs,
and how i told her about drinking,
and how my grades have been slipping,
and how i realized that
my poem is his poem,
just eleven months too late.
and that's why i told her about
this party i went to this weekend,
and how i'm passive, and i have trouble
speaking up for myself when i need to,
and how we sang until i left the room,
and how i went outside in the cold
after i came back inside to notice
something i wasn't expecting
to make me sad, but did.
and this person with whom
i have another appointment next week,
and most likely the week after that,
for however many weeks it takes,
told me that it helps to tell a person
how you're feeling without
gluing strings to the information,
or getting upset, or lying,
and so i guess this is an attempt,
albeit one made out of cowardice
and impatience, and some desire
for there to be an easier way
to tell a boy i've loved him
ever since i found this stupid website,
filled with his stupid words,
and his stupid poem about
a stupid girl he used to date,
that clinically broke open
my amygdalae and upon them
tattooed every feeling
of which i was never sure.