"kingdoms" poems
721
Behind Me—dips Eternity—
Before Me—Immortality—
Myself—the Term between—
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray,
Dissolving into Dawn away,
Before the West begin—
’Tis Kingdoms—afterward—they say—
In perfect—pauseless Monarchy—
Whose Prince—is Son of None—
Himself—His Dateless Dynasty—
Himself—Himself diversify—
In Duplicate divine—
’Tis Miracle before Me—then—
’Tis Miracle behind—between—
A Crescent in the Sea—
With Midnight to the North of Her—
And Midnight to the South of Her—
And Maelstrom—in the Sky—
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Brave men fighting
Knights crawling
Strong men dying
Kings crying
Emperors imploring
Kingdoms falling
Empires collapsing
Poets writing
Musicians performing
Paintings begging
Statues Kneeling
For a glimpse of your eyes
--Hisham
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 8:30 PM UTC
Even at my age,
I see mountainous lands in the sky,
Languishing among towering clouds,
A lofty empire, lost kingdoms,
Perhaps a strange magical realm,
Thriving with dwarves and giants,
Maidens in towers awaiting rescue,
Where lone horse warriors wander,
Maybe observing us, far below.
Must be a poetic creative thing,
Or simply the child deep within,
Viewing through the eyes of the man,
Dreaming ancient days of long ago,
When the child yearned to be grown,
To know all there is to know,
Never appreciating escapism,
The chance to drift within time,
Ponder upon distant, aerial, worlds.
Or maybe I’m just a dreamer,
That and nothing more, hmm,
Telling myself, I am a poet,
A procrastinating creative spirit,
In love with the trappings of art,
The child asleep within wisdom,
Languishing among towering clouds,
I see mountainous lands in the sky,
Even at my age.
©Paul M Chafer 2015
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 5:08 AM UTC
she ruled kingdoms three
the land were prisoners roam free
she spent her time staring at walls
making worlds which would never fall
the chieftain came in and bowed at her feet
'My Queen,the enemy has left us no option -
surrender or retreat.'
Aghast,bewildered and tensed she paced the court
'Oh dear! did they sink our boat?'
'Your majesty, will you please tell how to act in such a situation?'
'You fool! how am I supposed to answer when I am the Queen of Procrastination!'
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 10:03 AM UTC
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We ***** together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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I.
the emperor
sleeps in a palace of porphyry
which was a million years building
he takes the air in a howdah
of jasper beneath saffron
umbrellas
upon an elephant
twelve foot high
behind whose ear
sits always a crowned
king twir-
ling an
ankus of
ebony
the fountains of the emperor’s
palace run sunlight and
moonlight and the emperor’s
elephant is a thousand years old
the harem of
the emperor
is carpeted with
gold cloth
from the
ceiling(one
diamond timid
with nesting incense)
fifty
marble
pillars
slipped from immeasurable
height,fall,fifty,silent
in the incense is tangled a cool moon
there are thrice-three-hundred
doors carven of chalcedony and
before every door a naked
****** watches
on their heads turbans of a hundred
colours
in their hands scimitars like windy torches
each
is
blacker than oblivion
the ladies
of the emperor’s
harem are queens
of all the earth and the rings
upon their hands are from mines
a mile deep
but the body of
the queen of queens is
more transparent
than water,she is softer than birds
2.
when the emperor is very
amorous he reclines upon
the couch of couches and
beckons with
the little
finger of his left
hand
then the
thrice-three-hundredth
door is opened by the tallest
****** and the queen
of queens comes
forth
ankles
musical with large pearls
kingdoms in her ears
at the feet of
the emperor a cithern-
player squats with
quiveringgold
body
behind
the emperor ten
elected warriors with
bodies of lazy jade
and twitching
eyelids
finger
their
unquiet
spears
the queen of queens is dancing
her subtle
body weaving
insinuating upon the gold cloth
incessantly creates patterns of sudden
lust
her
stealing body ex-
pending gathering pouring upon itself stiffenS
to a
white thorn
of desire
the taut neck of the citharede wags
in the dust the ghastly warriors
amber with lust breathe
together the emperor,exerting
himself among his pillows throws
jewels at the queen of queens and
white money upon her nakedness
he
nods
and all
depart through the bruised air aflutter with pearls
3.
they are
alone
he beckons,she rises she
stands
a moment
in the passion of the fifty
pillars
listening
while the queens of all the
earth writhe upon deep rugs
11.2k
.
***Ancient games
tell tales of dust. ||| A story drawn
from the lips of two poets.***
~~~~~
It's the wits that **** not Queens of ivory or ***ink. ***
Charged with coal strokes, scraping up the lies.
Pawns & Knights slip between the grasp of the sun, leaking into* lion jaws of Leo.
Shifting these granite plates, ignoring the Rooks common price of aslant.
Here we have slain kin, crescent traitors that backstab the night and battlefield.
Closed doors and trap floors, trade me a tie, swindling your tactic ruts.
Reality never got the noose around our necks, check turned into manslaughter, and kingdoms ripped asunder by the roar of Jupiter
Get up, get up, get away from these liars, they can't have your rank or your fire.
Peak a notion, this match is spared by a luft.
Toss away the pride buried 'neath your dusty skin, it don't matter no more if death has you by the lips.
Silence is a language too in our eyes of earth.
Take my hand, knott your soul into this downfall, and brace yourself for the wreckage in our bones.
The Sword of Sorrows will fall 'pon your shoulders, not to slay thee, but to dub thee a new day.
The drums of war will knit the lyrics in the sky,
singing:
"The mighty sharpen their fangs, the weak sharpen their wisdom"
~~~~~
I'm tired of your wishbones, and golden scales, give me the hard-earned truth.
Hot coals of honesty may you tread upon, shadow-bitten remorseful may you be, don't stray off the course of Ursa major.
The North star isn't the one I follow
It's the moon with all of it's phases,
Eclipsing and crescent, tipping the sky with it's beauty.
Now let this sink further than any soul has ever sunk,
no man could ever
*rule the moon.
~~~~~~
***Shoot on command,
C
h
e
c
k
m
a
t
e***
~~~~
You could drag me to hell and back and those words wouldn't mean anything.
Let this downfall become a downfell,
Because last I checked
"Wolves worship the moon"
and I have broke it's reflection in the water
*Just
by
throwing
s
t
o
n
e
s
.*
.
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 3:19 PM UTC
Power is indeed a corruptive force,
Through all of mankind’s history
This has always been true.
Emperors, Kings, Potentates,
Popes, Presidents and Despots too.
Gathering near the Throne are the
Eager Courtier leeches reaching to
touch the anointed one’s robe.
Declaring their undying loyalty,
In the process selling their souls.
Their rewards, a speck of personal power,
Castles and new riches of gold.
Like their Master, the entitled ones
will lie and cheat, while ignoring
The principals of right and good.
Believing “Decency” is but a
poor man’s word, Never uttered
within the hearing of the Ruler.
Never a considered artifact of
absolute power.
The slaves, serfs, the common people
Matter not, but to serve the Ruler.
The power elite will start needless wars,
or offer up sacrificial lambs, all to distract
the unrest of the common man.
They will suppress human rights,
free speech and defame, banish
or imprison their detractors.
All merely smoke and mirrors to conceal,
Controlling agendas of personal greed.
From ancient times down to today
This cycle repeats. Now we are living
our own Textbooks history of tomorrow.
Kingdoms and Nations have perished
From this kind of poisonous corruption,
Needless to say, it will happen again.
Perhaps it already is.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 9:15 PM UTC
***
***
~ ♡ ~
A
dark day
has befallen the
Court of Hello Poetry
How it saddens me to see
the good Queens and Kings
to suffer at the hands of jealous
enemies who seek to destroy others
and their Kingdoms. Though she was
exquisitely dressed, she had a humble
heart; many had a good word about her,
though I did not get to meet her, though I
did not see her, I could see the light she
had shine in the hearts of others. She
had a wonderful smile but invaders;
false Kings and Queens spewed
nothing but abuse, and it
made her surrender
her crown
~ ♡ ~
I
could only
watch as she
grabbed the ends of
her silk skirts and run out
of the bustling halls, tears down
her soft face. I could not reach
her but at the dawn, from the
balcony, I saw the ship sail
away, towards the sunset
into the unknown. How
my heart is so
heavy
~ ♡ ~
To
see a
true artist,
a true queen
leave forever. At
seeing her tears, her
crying soul staining the
floral marble floors, and the
invaders feeling satisfied at
her pain and her 'destruction'
Those who dare to denounce
are never Kings or Queens.
To be so jealous, so insecure
and think you led her to
her 'destruction'
~ ♡ ~
I
will say
this - you may
have won the battle
but you will NEVER
win the war. Because the
true Kings and Queens will
band together, we will stand
together to protect our haven for
we see, we know who the true artists
are. I will continue to shed tears of pain
and sorrow for the loss of this artist, but
I will always hope that when the sun rises
she will return to us once more. She will
never leave our minds, she has touched
so many hearts. Her legacy, her reign,
her kingdom will always stand
eternal, will stand immortal
now and always.
~ ♡ ~
***
***
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 9:37 AM UTC
‘LOVE’ – What mystique power it wields
In what myriad guise it wraps!
At times a sweet ache so coy to reveal
Or a sudden urge, hard to unveil
Sometimes a deep sensation
A strong surge of emotion
Permeating every atom
Pervading from top to bottom
It heightens the pulse
And makes every nerve convulse
It has left kingdoms fall asunder
And many a mighty man - surrender
Often, like dew drops falling from above
Or the warbling notes flowing out from the grove
It leaves the heart go upbeat in prosody
Changing every sensation into rhapsody
As beams of silver cast by the moon
Or the cold touch of spray in the horrid heat of noon
It soothes, embalms and thrills the heart
Filling the void and leaving no dearth
Love sublime, sure like a candle lit
Consumes itself, and never dwindles a bit
It dispels the gloom and dissipates the fright
Invigorating the soul and healing every hurt
As brilliance to stars, fragrance to flowers
Music to flute or shade to bowers
Love is to Man, freeing him from all sores
Bestowing him the strength to meet all throes
Love can neither be beguiled nor disguised
Nor be stifled or be construed
Love puts all other things into place
And hems life with a lovely lace
Love is all we seek and too scarce to find
A magic thread by which hearts are bound
Hark! It is love that makes the world spin around
And cures all the ills that surround
Oh! Love thou virtues I will defend
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 8:57 AM UTC
✿⊰✲⊱✿
The air filled with laughter and cheers, leaving me
and Ainhara on the hill
"Oh dear," my handmaid smiles. "It appears it will be a long night.
Parting Paul from our sweet Esshi will prove difficult."
"Difficult but not impossible," I chime. "Come, Ainhara,
let us enjoy the rest of the night!"
'My wish came true tonight,' I beam.
'I will always remember this fantastic gala...' as I enter
the main dining hall with all my friends from near and far,
all my friends of many cultures as we join in laughter, in
glee, ever hopeful for the future of our thriving Kingdoms.
With every sip of wine, every nibble of the fine
dishes, all of our bonds have strengthened.
So now, let us be like the lanterns,
and rises together, sailing through the horizons
to touch the Heavens above.
Eager for the adventures ahead...
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 6:50 PM UTC
No country’s history makes us proud.
It is mere exploitation and colonization.
the poor were suppressed and oppressed.
The rich reveled in utmost luxury
And the weak lived in extreme penury.
The kings were fond of eulogy
And the poets excelled themselves in their elegy.
In the countries like India, the money was looted
the temples were plundered, and the system was blundered
And her progress was greatly hindered
Slowly the kings and kingdoms vanished
the so called democracies and socialism flourished
the bureaucracy and plutocracy replaced autocracy
Corruption and criminality maintained their status quo
After Independence, a new class emerged in India.
They became the rulers in the name of democracy.
There have been un-imaginable scandals
Money reached the Swiss bank like pearls in the ocean
India is a poor country but the Indians are rich
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 3:59 AM UTC
One windy day the storm clouds came and blew the pages away. A book about presumptuous children who were lost in mediocrity. As the flickering reel of images flashes with burning waves, memories riddled with shame sunk into the ocean of flames. That is when the seducer of old cast his soul into me, into a river he fell, into the rivers of hell.
From page to page the pen runs red with ink, as we drift into the darkness will you remember me? The final chapter is left for you to read, I close my eyes and say your name, then conjure you a king. Next to a fire wrapped in a blanket a beautiful smile follows a kiss. A flickering light across her face, with poison on her lips. He slumped to the ground gasping for air, then death took his breath.
The serpent of false dreams forces men to crawl. A misplaced faith brings misery as kingdoms and nations fall. Into the burning windmill, the windmill of spinning dreams. As it burns a hole in your soul, will you believe what you see?
Apr 19, 2013
Apr 19, 2013 at 12:50 AM UTC
Underneath the leaves of life,
Green on the prodigious tree,
In a trance of grief
Stand the fallen man and wife:
Far away the single stag
Banished to a lonely crag
Gazes placid out to sea,
And from thickets round about
Breeding animals look in
On Duality,
And the birds fly in and out
Of the world of man.
Down in order from the ridge,
Bayonets glittering in the sun,
Soldiers who will judge
Wind towards the little bridge:
Even politicians speak
Truths of value to the weak,
Necessary acts are done
By the ill and the unjust;
But the Judgment and the Smile,
Though these two-in-one
See creation as they must,
None shall reconcile.
Bordering our middle earth
Kingdoms of the Short and Tall,
Rivals for our faith,
Stir up envy from our birth:
So the giant who storms the sky
In an angry wish to die
Wakes the hero in us all,
While the tiny with their power
To divide and hide and flee,
When our fortunes fall
Tempt to a belief in our
Immortality.
Lovers running each to each
Feel such timid dreams catch fire
Blazing as they touch,
Learn what love alone can teach:
Happy on a tousled bed
Praise Blake's acumen who said:
"One thing only we require
Of each other; we must see
In another's lineaments
Gratified desire";
This is our humanity;
Nothing else contents.
Nowhere else could I have known
Than, beloved, in your eyes
What we have to learn,
That we love ourselves alone:
All our terrors burned away
We can learn at last to say:
"All our knowledge comes to this,
That existence is enough,
That in savage solitude
Or the play of love
Every living creature is
Woman, Man, and Child."
5.9k
I have sought knowledge,
And knowledge did I receive.
I’ve read of kings and queens that rise and fall,
Kingdoms that have rules the world,
Just to crumble like dust.
Wars that have literary ripped countries apart,
And separate families by walls concrete and tears.
But knowledge doesn’t come without a price.
It has opened my eyes,
And I know everything is not as it seems.
I see people who masquerade around,
Hiding their true face.
And now the question comes to you.
Who are you truly,
Who is that broken spirit inside,
That you have hid?
Beaten and oppressed,
Never to see the light of day,
Forced into hiding because of…
You.
You left yourself there,
And let you rot.
Because you never finished the fight.
You let the insults beat you down,
And instead of resisting, you gave up.
Caved in,
Curled up,
Forever chained to you past.
You bare a burden on your back,
A shadow the makes you never forget.
Scars across your heart,
Designed for you to never forget.
Who am I to accuse you of this?
Because I have searched.
And because this is me.
And in the end,
When the curtains close and the lights dim,
And the masks come off,
Who will you be?
A shadow of your former self,
Carried by the strings of those who you allowed to control you?
But then my journey’s through,
I’m just a mad man with a pen.
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 6:01 PM UTC
[From Fragments, The Following...]
... so it was that the Urth bled less. The Birch Moot was becalmed by the Anvil Cloud of Impending Deluge.
The Young Gods made sport of Their Names, and aimed to Oblique the colony of clever flesh
groping at the tender roots of an insipid devastation. The First Ones had vanished.
But Time was born and the Mortal Whirl released the Hounds of Change. Transition fused -
with the Eternal; and the offspring of unloved Spirits, roamed the Tangible. All Suffering was amplified
in the diamond lungs of a divine corpse, dreaming.
... for when the iron heart of The Cast Out was retrieved, the Legion of Heaven poured unseemly Grace upon the Fathoms
and the High King of Doubt, forced his blade ' Nimue '
into the soft palette, of the First Mouth. The Stars were born and The Void overheard the First Naming.
A solid drizzle of enchantment cloaked the oaken Yggdrasil
and The Pattern unleashed the folly of Pattern
to mask the virtue of succinct Chaos. The Children of The Lower Sky ate their Masters and thereby swollen -
gathered in the underbrush of the Fecund.
They came to Know Regret by Answering Prayers. The Kingdoms of Wane were waning in the fearsome riot of Creation
and not a boy, a man from no woman
and no woman
a man.
... the siege lights of the petty stars, babbled in the wake of yawning eruption and nullification. the ****** theater of blood
was made Holy by way of forcing camels into eyes of needles in constant dystopian joy.
... and that's how the rain gets in.
[ From the ' Kingdoms Of Wane ', a Lost Tome from Antiquity and Dada ]
What ?
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 7:07 PM UTC
Folds of water
Layers of dirt
Bubbling foam
A vast body
wrapping itself around the Earth
Schools of life
Clumps of Color
This is where it thrives
The souls of creatures
A potpourri of lives
The might of the ocean
The strength of the Sea
No one can match
No one could hardly believe
its ability
to devour kingdoms
Engulf islands and make them its own
Drag them down
Yank them by their legs, shatter their bones
Drag them down
Til they ultimately can descend no more
I can almost hear the primordial sea deity bellow
With a voice so deep
It shocks, explores
and shakes your soul
An immense
Deep bass tone.
It strikes more than just a powerful chord
“Come back to me”
“Return to your mother’s womb, down here, down low”
“You belong to me, my right, my property!”
“Return to the world below.”
“Come back home.”
Under the Sea
What's deep beneath?
The iridescent water
The clouds of foam
Conquered by monsters?
Down there,
Do sirens roam?
We aren't aware
We do not know
Enigmatic waves
Rows of fossils
Caked in dirt
A haven for aquatic raves
A museum holding remnants
telling the story of the Mother Earth
This is the Sea
Take a swim sometime and feel its rhythm
Listen to its story
Flow with the sea’s entrancing beat
I have faith and I believe
That the sea is a world of its own
Accentuated sometimes by its powerful voice or melodious hum
No less mighty than the world above.
Let's keep this beautiful wet world untouched
to keep it as it is, the world we love
©SHREYA DRISTI
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 12:59 AM UTC
Witness the unknown
Reach the unforeseen
Travel,to live
Penniless and Excited.
Burn the midnight oil
Drifting through subconscious visions
Toil, for such majestic realms
Penniless and Excited.
When hunger strikes
Kingdoms, rather Dynasties, fall
For the ever growing appetite
A man hunts
Penniless and Excited.
That sweet spot, a special place
Where love is felt
To live, love
Penniless and Excited.
Travel.
Dream.
Hunt.
Love.
Penniless and Excited!
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 5:09 AM UTC
Air is perfume-light
Elbows sank in my pillow
I wake from slumber
Chamber door opens
Handmaiden brings good tidings
from outer Kingdoms
Holds a silver tray
With scones, jam and honey for
some chamomile tea
Steaming hot china
which I blow and gently sip
I hum in delight
Come, some scrambled eggs
With toast and ice-cold fresh fruits
Lemon slice in tea
The handmaiden speaks
As she opens the curtains
The sun shines brightly
Many ships have docked
My kingdom grows in strength
and in its beauty
Another handmaid
Holding a tray of pure gold
I see its contents
White and gold letters
Written by your regal hands
Kingdoms near and wide
Handmaids open them
So many sweet messages
Blessings and congrats
While sipping my tea
I ask for my page and quill
Write with golden ink
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 12:04 PM UTC
In my backyard, the deep sauce
of sun-gold air swivels lazily,
stirred by the occasional bumblebee.
I’m entertained by the idea of anything beyond this.
No continents, no glitter-splashed ocean.
The softened world settles into itself,
transforming from its usual busyness.
Squash lounges in the garden and
preschool train operators maneuver Thomas
through his wooden kingdom.
They move trees and buildings around their set and we,
still fascinated with the cucumber in the garden,
don’t look up from skimming our fingers through grass,
changing our own soil kingdoms with the sweep of a hand.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 10:33 PM UTC
A Rock there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;
Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights;
And one coy Primrose to that Rock
The vernal breeze invites.
What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature’s chain
From highest heaven let down!
The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;
The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true.
Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall:
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.
* * * * * *
Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
I gave this after-lay.
I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied;—mightier far,
Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope,
Is God’s redeeming love;
That love which changed-for wan disease,
For sorrow that had bent
O’er hopeless dust, for withered age—
Their moral element,
And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.
Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called
Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose
Our threescore years and ten.
To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just,
Before and when they die;
And makes each soul a separate heaven
A court for Deity.
5.4k
Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms,
Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows,
Over the cities with their factory darkness,
Over the lands where peace is still a power,
Over all these and all this planet carries
A power broods, invisible monarch, a stranger
To some, but by many trusted. Man's a believer
Until corrupted. This huge trusted power
Is spirit. He moves in the muscle of the world,
In continual creation. He burns the tides, he shines
From the matchless skies. He is the day's surrender.
Recognize him in the eye of the angry tiger,
In the sign of a child stepping at last into sleep,
In whatever touches, graces and confesses,
In hopes fulfilled or forgotten, in promises
Kept, in the resignation of old men -
This spirit, this power, this holder together of space
Is about, is aware, is working in your breathing.
But most he is the need that shows in hunger
And in the tears shed in the lonely fastness.
And in sorrow after anger.
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A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages ***** and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 11:31 AM UTC
Made, Made, Made,
We are made into what we are.
We are made
Into monsters,
Into dreamers;
Believers.
We make ourselves;
Make each other.
We make our kingdoms
and our own personal Hells.
We are the queens of our realms
And the kings and princes
We are the villains
The rabble-rousers
The Revolutionaries.
We are the killers
Of our enemies
Of our own
Of the land.
We are made into what we are
And oftentimes,
It is not our fault.
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 1:17 PM UTC