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Lis Jul 2012
The light upon the sun shines in the reflection of who we are...
We reflect against the waters
shining who and what we hide from reality
and the world...
Flowers flowing against the graceful waters of the Earth
imitate peace and competition
against two kingdoms that we forcefully share...
Lyn-Purcell Aug 2018
✿⊰✲⊱✿
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...
This marks the last chapter of the Gala series!
I do hope everyone enjoyed it, I had a blast writing it.
Thank you so much everyone for the support!
It truly means to the world to me,
To Queen Donna and King Dean of Vesian,
I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Congratulations again on your marriage
and to the Great Lady of Haikus, happy belated birthday!
Tomorrow, I'll be sure to put it all in a collection for
you. I hope you enjoyed the series! ^-^
Stay blessed everyone and much love!
Queen Lyn ***
Nana Yaw Ofori May 2019
Archers up, down below the arrows go
Kingdoms rise, deep deep below Kingdoms fall.
When the conquerors rose to claim the mighty throne,
When the songs were sang to the brave knights,
And the marching band crusading around town,
The innocent wail in shriek; "Mercy, oh king! Mercy!"

Mighty Powers up, may the force be with you.
Power commands, soldiers obey.
When the coverage is wide and loud,
When heroes return home to their families,
And the universe get bright and red,
A thousand women cry, they cry to be spared; "please don't **** me, please!"

Sons of the realm rise, bow down o' ye commoners!
Grace glide the above, battle struggles below.
When the affluent sneezes, it's the low that catches the flu.
When poverty is a disease and the rich have the antidote,
A million pry the streets, begging to be cured;" help, Lords,help!"
About the injustice in the world.
Valsa George Mar 2018
‘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
As one who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused
Betwixt the world destroyed and world restored,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes.
Thus thou hast seen one world begin, and end;
And Man, as from a second stock, proceed.
Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive
Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine
Must needs impair and weary human sense:
Henceforth what is to come I will relate;
Thou therefore give due audience, and attend.
This second source of Men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgement past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
With some regard to what is just and right
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace;
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,
Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock,
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,
With large wine-offerings poured, and sacred feast,
Shall spend their days in joy unblamed; and dwell
Long time in peace, by families and tribes,
Under paternal rule: till one shall rise
Of proud ambitious heart; who, not content
With fair equality, fraternal state,
Will arrogate dominion undeserved
Over his brethren, and quite dispossess
Concord and law of nature from the earth;
Hunting (and men not beasts shall be his game)
With war, and hostile snare, such as refuse
Subjection to his empire tyrannous:
A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled
Before the Lord; as in despite of Heaven,
Or from Heaven, claiming second sovranty;
And from rebellion shall derive his name,
Though of rebellion others he accuse.
He with a crew, whom like ambition joins
With him or under him to tyrannize,
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boils out from under ground, the mouth of Hell:
Of brick, and of that stuff, they cast to build
A city and tower, whose top may reach to Heaven;
And get themselves a name; lest, far dispersed
In foreign lands, their memory be lost;
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tower
Obstruct Heaven-towers, and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit, to rase
Quite out their native language; and, instead,
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown:
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud,
Among the builders; each to other calls
Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage,
As mocked they storm: great laughter was in Heaven,
And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din:  Thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased.
O execrable son! so to aspire
Above his brethren; to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given:
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.
But this usurper his encroachment proud
Stays not on Man; to God his tower intends
Siege and defiance:  Wretched man!what food
Will he convey up thither, to sustain
Himself and his rash army; where thin air
Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross,
And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
To whom thus Michael.  Justly thou abhorrest
That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty; yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires,
And upstart passions, catch the government
From reason; and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free.  Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgement just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom:  Tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice, and some fatal curse annexed,
Deprives them of their outward liberty;
Their inward lost:  Witness the irreverent son
Of him who built the ark; who, for the shame
Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
Servant of servants, on his vicious race.
Thus will this latter, as the former world,
Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last,
Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw
His presence from among them, and avert
His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth
To leave them to their own polluted ways;
And one peculiar nation to select
From all the rest, of whom to be invoked,
A nation from one faithful man to spring:
Him on this side Euphrates yet residing,
Bred up in idol-worship:  O, that men
(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown,
While yet the patriarch lived, who ’scaped the flood,
As to forsake the living God, and fall
To worship their own work in wood and stone
For Gods!  Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
To call by vision, from his father’s house,
His kindred, and false Gods, into a land
Which he will show him; and from him will raise
A mighty nation; and upon him shower
His benediction so, that in his seed
All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys;
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes:
I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldaea, passing now the ford
To Haran; after him a cumbrous train
Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude;
Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who called him, in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents
Pitched about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain
Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land,
From Hameth northward to the Desart south;
(Things by their names I call, though yet unnamed;)
From Hermon east to the great western Sea;
Mount Hermon, yonder sea; each place behold
In prospect, as I point them; on the shore
Mount Carmel; here, the double-founted stream,
Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons
Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills.
This ponder, that all nations of the earth
Shall in his seed be blessed:  By that seed
Is meant thy great Deliverer, who shall bruise
The Serpent’s head; whereof to thee anon
Plainlier shall be revealed.  This patriarch blest,
Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call,
A son, and of his son a grand-child, leaves;
Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown:
The grandchild, with twelve sons increased, departs
From Canaan to a land hereafter called
Egypt, divided by the river Nile
See where it flows, disgorging at seven mouths
Into the sea. To sojourn in that land
He comes, invited by a younger son
In time of dearth, a son whose worthy deeds
Raise him to be the second in that realm
Of Pharaoh. There he dies, and leaves his race
Growing into a nation, and now grown
Suspected to a sequent king, who seeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them slaves
Inhospitably, and kills their infant males:
Till by two brethren (these two brethren call
Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim
His people from enthralment, they return,
With glory and spoil, back to their promised land.
But first, the lawless tyrant, who denies
To know their God, or message to regard,
Must be compelled by signs and judgements dire;
To blood unshed the rivers must be turned;
Frogs, lice, and flies, must all his palace fill
With loathed intrusion, and fill all the land;
His cattle must of rot and murren die;
Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss,
And all his people; thunder mixed with hail,
Hail mixed with fire, must rend the Egyptians sky,
And wheel on the earth, devouring where it rolls;
What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain,
A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down
Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green;
Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,
Palpable darkness, and blot out three days;
Last, with one midnight stroke, all the first-born
Of Egypt must lie dead.  Thus with ten wounds
The river-dragon tamed at length submits
To let his sojourners depart, and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice
More hardened after thaw; till, in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismissed, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass,
As on dry land, between two crystal walls;
Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand
Divided, till his rescued gain their shore:
Such wondrous power God to his saint will lend,
Though present in his Angel; who shall go
Before them in a cloud, and pillar of fire;
By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire;
To guide them in their journey, and remove
Behind them, while the obdurate king pursues:
All night he will pursue; but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch;
Then through the fiery pillar, and the cloud,
God looking forth will trouble all his host,
And craze their chariot-wheels: when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;
On their embattled ranks the waves return,
And overwhelm their war:  The race elect
Safe toward Canaan from the shore advance
Through the wild Desart, not the readiest way;
Lest, entering on the Canaanite alarmed,
War terrify them inexpert, and fear
Return them back to Egypt, choosing rather
Inglorious life with servitude; for life
To noble and ignoble is more sweet
Untrained in arms, where rashness leads not on.
This also shall they gain by their delay
In the wide wilderness; there they shall found
Their government, and their great senate choose
Through the twelve tribes, to rule by laws ordained:
God from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets’ sound,
Ordain them laws; part, such as appertain
To civil justice; part, religious rites
Of sacrifice; informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destined Seed to bruise
The Serpent, by what means he shall achieve
Mankind’s deliverance.  But the voice of God
To mortal ear is dreadful:  They beseech
That Moses might report to them his will,
And terrour cease; he grants what they besought,
Instructed that to God is no access
Without Mediator, whose high office now
Moses in figure bears; to introduce
One greater, of whose day he shall foretel,
And all the Prophets in their age the times
Of great Messiah shall sing.  Thus, laws and rites
Established, such delight hath God in Men
Obedient to his will, that he vouchsafes
Among them to set up his tabernacle;
The Holy One with mortal Men to dwell:
By his prescript a sanctuary is framed
Of cedar, overlaid with gold; therein
An ark, and in the ark his testimony,
The records of his covenant; over these
A mercy-seat of gold, between the wings
Of two bright Cherubim; before him burn
Seven lamps as in a zodiack representing
The heavenly fires; over the tent a cloud
Shall rest by day, a fiery gleam by night;
Save when they journey, and at length they come,
Conducted by his Angel, to the land
Promised to Abraham and his seed:—The rest
Were long to tell; how many battles fought
How many kings destroyed; and kingdoms won;
Or how the sun shall in mid Heaven stand still
A day entire, and night’s due course adjourn,
Man’s voice commanding, ‘Sun, in Gibeon stand,
‘And thou moon in the vale of Aialon,
’Till Israel overcome! so call the third
From Abraham, son of Isaac; and from him
His whole descent, who thus shall Canaan win.
Here Adam interposed.  O sent from Heaven,
Enlightener of my darkness, gracious things
Thou hast revealed; those chiefly, which concern
Just Abraham and his seed: now first I find
Mine eyes true-opening, and my heart much eased;
Erewhile perplexed with thoughts, what would become
Of me and all mankind:  But now I see
His day, in whom all nations shall be blest;
Favour unmerited by me, who sought
Forbidden knowledge by forbidden means.
This yet I apprehend not, why to those
Among whom God will deign to dwell on earth
So many and so various laws are given;
So many laws argue so many sins
Among them; how can God with such reside?
To whom thus Michael.  Doubt not but that sin
Will reign among them, as of thee begot;
And therefore was law given them, to evince
Their natural pravity, by stirring up
Sin against law to fight: that when they see
Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak,
The blood of bulls and goats, they may conclude
Some blood more precious must be paid for Man;
Just for unjust; that, in such righteousness
To them by faith imputed, they may find
Justification towards God, and peace
Of conscience; which the law by ceremonies
Cannot appease; nor Man the mortal part
Perform; and, not performing, cannot live.
So law appears imperfect; and but given
With purpose to resign them, in full time,
Up to a better covenant; disciplined
From shadowy types to truth; from flesh to spirit;
From imposition of strict laws to free
Acceptance of large grace; from servile fear
To filial; works of law to works of faith.
And therefore shall not Moses, though of God
Highly beloved, being but the minister
Of law, his people into Canaan lead;
But Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call,
His name and office bearing, who shall quell
The adversary-Serpent, and bring back
Through the world’s wilderness long-wandered Man
Safe to eternal Paradise of rest.
Mean while they, in their earthly Canaan placed,
Long time shall dwell and prosper, but when sins
National interrupt their publick peace,
Provoking God to raise them enemies;
From whom as oft he saves them penitent
By Judges first, then under Kings; of whom
The second, both for piety renowned
And puissant deeds, a promise shall receive
Irrevocable, that his regal throne
For ever shall endure; the like shall sing
All Prophecy, that of the royal stock
Of David (so I name this king) shall rise
A Son, the Woman’s seed to thee foretold,
Foretold to Abraham, as in whom shall trust
All nations; and to kings foretold, of kings
The last; for of his reign shall be no end.
But first, a long succession must ensue;
And his next son, for wealth and wisdom famed,
The clouded ark of God, till then in tents
Wandering, shall in a glorious temple enshrine.
Such follow him, as shall be registered
Part good, part bad; of bad the longer scroll;
Whose foul idolatries, and other faults
Heaped to the popular sum, will so incense
God, as to leave them, and expose their land,
Their city, his temple, and his holy ark,
With all his sacred things, a scorn and prey
To that proud city, whose high walls thou sawest
Left in confusion; Babylon thence called.
There in captivity he lets them dwell
The space of seventy years; then brings them back,
Remembering mercy, and his covenant sworn
To David, stablished as the days of Heaven.
Returned from Babylon by leave of kings
Their lords, whom God disposed, the house of God
They first re-edify; and for a while
In mean estate live moderate; till, grown
In wealth and multitude, factious they grow;
But first among the priests dissention springs,
Men who attend the altar, and should most
Endeavour peace: their strife pollution brings
Upon the temple itself: at last they seise
The scepter, and regard not David’s sons;
Then lose it to a stranger, that the true
Anointed King Messiah might be born
Barred of his right; yet at his birth a star,
Unseen before in Heaven, proclaims him come;
And guides the eastern sages, who inquire
His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold:
His place of birth a solemn Angel tells
To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night;
They gladly thither haste, and by a quire
Of squadroned Angels hear his carol sung.
A ****** is his mother, but his sire
The power of the Most High:  He shall ascend
The throne hereditary, and bound his reign
With Earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the Heavens.
He ceased, discerning Adam with such joy
Surcharged, as had like grief been dewed in tears,
Without the vent of words; which these he breathed.
O prophet of glad tidings, finisher
Of utmost hope! now clear I understand
What oft my steadiest thoughts have searched in vain;
Why o
Late, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts,
Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts,

Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlews call,
I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall.

So--your happy suit was blasted--she the faultless, the divine;
And you liken--boyish babble--this boy-love of yours with mine.

I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past;
Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last.

'Curse him!' curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage?
Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard's age.

Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? yet perhaps she was not wise;
I remember how you kiss'd the miniature with those sweet eyes.

In the hall there hangs a painting--Amy's arms about my neck--
Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck.

In my life there was a picture, she that clasp'd my neck had flown;
I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone.

Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake?
You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthlier make.

Amy loved me, Amy fail'd me, Amy was a timid child;
But your Judith--but your worldling--she had never driven me wild.

She that holds the diamond necklace dearer than the golden ring,
She that finds a winter sunset fairer than a morn of Spring.

She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life,
While she vows 'till death shall part us,' she the would-be-widow wife.

She the worldling born of worldlings--father, mother--be content,
Ev'n the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent.

Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground,
Lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound.

Cross'd! for once he sail'd the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride;
Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died.

Yet how often I and Amy in the mouldering aisle have stood,
Gazing for one pensive moment on that founder of our blood.

There again I stood to-day, and where of old we knelt in prayer,
Close beneath the casement crimson with the shield of Locksley--there,

All in white Italian marble, looking still as if she smiled,
Lies my Amy dead in child-birth, dead the mother, dead the child.

Dead--and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband now--
I this old white-headed dreamer stoopt and kiss'd her marble brow.

Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate tears,
Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet's dawning years.

Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall'n away.
Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day.

Gone the tyrant of my youth, and mute below the chancel stones,
All his virtues--I forgive them--black in white above his bones.

Gone the comrades of my bivouac, some in fight against the foe,
Some thro' age and slow diseases, gone as all on earth will go.

Gone with whom for forty years my life in golden sequence ran,
She with all the charm of woman, she with all the breadth of man,

Strong in will and rich in wisdom, Edith, yet so lowly-sweet,
Woman to her inmost heart, and woman to her tender feet,

Very woman of very woman, nurse of ailing body and mind,
She that link'd again the broken chain that bound me to my kind.

Here to-day was Amy with me, while I wander'd down the coast,
Near us Edith's holy shadow, smiling at the slighter ghost.

Gone our sailor son thy father, Leonard early lost at sea;
Thou alone, my boy, of Amy's kin and mine art left to me.

Gone thy tender-natured mother, wearying to be left alone,
Pining for the stronger heart that once had beat beside her own.

Truth, for Truth is Truth, he worshipt, being true as he was brave;
Good, for Good is Good, he follow'd, yet he look'd beyond the grave,

Wiser there than you, that crowning barren Death as lord of all,
Deem this over-tragic drama's closing curtain is the pall!

Beautiful was death in him, who saw the death, but kept the deck,
Saving women and their babes, and sinking with the sinking wreck,

Gone for ever! Ever? no--for since our dying race began,
Ever, ever, and for ever was the leading light of man.

Those that in barbarian burials ****'d the slave, and slew the wife,
Felt within themselves the sacred passion of the second life.

Indian warriors dream of ampler hunting grounds beyond the night;
Ev'n the black Australian dying hopes he shall return, a white.

Truth for truth, and good for good! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Just--
Take the charm 'For ever' from them, and they crumble into dust.

Gone the cry of 'Forward, Forward,' lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.

Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!

'Forward' rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of 'Forward' till ten thousand years have gone.

Far among the vanish'd races, old Assyrian kings would flay
Captives whom they caught in battle--iron-hearted victors they.

Ages after, while in Asia, he that led the wild Moguls,
Timur built his ghastly tower of eighty thousand human skulls,

Then, and here in Edward's time, an age of noblest English names,
Christian conquerors took and flung the conquer'd Christian into flames.

Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great;
Christian love among the Churches look'd the twin of heathen hate.

From the golden alms of Blessing man had coin'd himself a curse:
Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter, which was crueller? which was worse?

France had shown a light to all men, preach'd a Gospel, all men's good;
Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the light with blood.

Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begun--
Crown'd with sunlight--over darkness--from the still unrisen sun.

Have we grown at last beyond the passions of the primal clan?
'**** your enemy, for you hate him,' still, 'your enemy' was a man.

Have we sunk below them? peasants maim the helpless horse, and drive
Innocent cattle under thatch, and burn the kindlier brutes alive.

Brutes, the brutes are not your wrongers--burnt at midnight, found at morn,
Twisted hard in mortal agony with their offspring, born-unborn,

Clinging to the silent mother! Are we devils? are we men?
Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again,

He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers
Sisters, brothers--and the beasts--whose pains are hardly less than ours!

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell how all will end?
Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend.

Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past,
Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last.

Ay, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise:
When was age so cramm'd with menace? madness? written, spoken lies?

Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn,
Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, 'Ye are equals, equal-born.'

Equal-born? O yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat.
Charm us, Orator, till the Lion look no larger than the Cat,

Till the Cat thro' that mirage of overheated language loom
Larger than the Lion,--Demos end in working its own doom.

Russia bursts our Indian barrier, shall we fight her? shall we yield?
Pause! before you sound the trumpet, hear the voices from the field.

Those three hundred millions under one Imperial sceptre now,
Shall we hold them? shall we loose them? take the suffrage of the plow.

Nay, but these would feel and follow Truth if only you and you,
Rivals of realm-ruining party, when you speak were wholly true.

Plowmen, Shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still could find,
Sons of God, and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind,

Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar;
So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher.

Here and there a cotter's babe is royal-born by right divine;
Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine.

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! once again the sickening game;
Freedom, free to slay herself, and dying while they shout her name.

Step by step we gain'd a freedom known to Europe, known to all;
Step by step we rose to greatness,--thro' the tonguesters we may fall.

You that woo the Voices--tell them 'old experience is a fool,'
Teach your flatter'd kings that only those who cannot read can rule.

Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place;
Pillory Wisdom in your markets, pelt your offal at her face.

Tumble Nature heel o'er head, and, yelling with the yelling street,
Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet.

Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope,
Break the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down the *****.

Authors--essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part,
Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of Art.

Rip your brothers' vices open, strip your own foul passions bare;
Down with Reticence, down with Reverence--forward--naked--let them stare.

Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer;
Send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure.

Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism,--
Forward, forward, ay and backward, downward too into the abysm.

Do your best to charm the worst, to lower the rising race of men;
Have we risen from out the beast, then back into the beast again?

Only 'dust to dust' for me that sicken at your lawless din,
Dust in wholesome old-world dust before the newer world begin.

Heated am I? you--you wonder--well, it scarce becomes mine age--
Patience! let the dying actor mouth his last upon the stage.

Cries of unprogressive dotage ere the dotard fall asleep?
Noises of a current narrowing, not the music of a deep?

Ay, for doubtless I am old, and think gray thoughts, for I am gray:
After all the stormy changes shall we find a changeless May?

After madness, after massacre, Jacobinism and Jacquerie,
Some diviner force to guide us thro' the days I shall not see?

When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Republics fall,
Something kindlier, higher, holier--all for each and each for all?

All the full-brain, half-brain races, led by Justice, Love, and Truth;
All the millions one at length with all the visions of my youth?

All diseases quench'd by Science, no man halt, or deaf or blind;
Stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body, larger mind?

Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue--
I have seen her far away--for is not Earth as yet so young?--

Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion ****'d,
Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till'd,

Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles,
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles.

Warless? when her tens are thousands, and her thousands millions, then--
All her harvest all too narrow--who can fancy warless men?

Warless? war will die out late then. Will it ever? late or soon?
Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead world the moon?

Dead the new astronomy calls her. . . . On this day and at this hour,
In this gap between the sandhills, whence you see the Locksley tower,

Here we met, our latest meeting--Amy--sixty years ago--
She and I--the moon was falling greenish thro' a rosy glow,

Just above the gateway tower, and even where you see her now--
Here we stood and claspt each other, swore the seeming-deathless vow. . . .

Dead, but how her living glory lights the hall, the dune, the grass!
Yet the moonlight is the sunlight, and the sun himself will pass.

Venus near her! smiling downward at this earthlier earth of ours,
Closer on the Sun, perhaps a world of never fading flowers.

Hesper, whom the poet call'd the Bringer home of all good things.
All good things may move in Hesper, perfect peoples, perfect kings.

Hesper--Venus--were we native to that splendour or in Mars,
We should see the Globe we groan in, fairest of their evening stars.

Could we dream of wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite,
Roaring London, raving Paris, in that point of peaceful light?

Might we not in glancing heavenward on a star so silver-fair,
Yearn, and clasp the hands and murmur, 'Would to God that we were there'?

Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the immeasurable sea,
Sway'd by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known to you or me.

All the suns--are these but symbols of innumerable man,
Man or Mind that sees a shadow of the planner or the plan?

Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere?
Well be grateful for the sounding watchword, 'Evolution' here,

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good,
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

What are men that He should heed us? cried the king of sacred song;
Insects of an hour, that hourly work their brother insect wrong,

While the silent Heavens roll, and Suns along their fiery way,
All their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles a day.

Many an aeon moulded earth before her highest, man, was born,
Many an aeon too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn,

Earth so huge, and yet so bounded--pools of salt, and plots of land--
Shallow skin of green and azure--chains of mountain, grains of sand!

Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by,
Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye,

Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro' the human soul;
Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless outward, in the Whole.

                                                *

Here is Locksley Hall, my grandson, here the lion-guarded gate.
Not to-night in Locksley Hall--to-morrow--you, you come so late.

Wreck'd--your train--or all but wreck'd? a shatter'd wheel? a vicious boy!
Good, this forward, you that preach it, is it well to wish you joy?

Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the Time,
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?

There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street.

There the Master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily bread,
There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead.

There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor,
And the crowded couch of ****** in the warrens of the poor.

Nay, your pardon, cry your 'forward,' yours are hope and youth, but I--
Eighty winters leave the dog too lame to follow with the cry,

Lame and old, and past his time, and passing now into the night;
Yet I would the rising race were half as eager for the light.

Light the fading gleam of Even? light the glimmer of the dawn?
Aged eyes may take the growing glimmer for the gleam withdrawn.

Far away beyond her myriad coming changes earth will be
Something other than the wildest modern guess of you and me.

Earth may reach her earthly-worst, or if she gain her earthly-best,
Would she find her human offspring this ideal man at rest?

Forward then, but still remember how the course of Time will swerve,
Crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve.

Not the Hall to-night, my grandson! Death and Silence hold their own.
Leave the Master in the first dark hour of his last sleep alone.

Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic Squire,
Kindly landlord, boon companion--youthful jealousy is a liar.

Cast the poison from your *****, oust the madness from your brain.
Let the trampled serpent show you that you have not lived in vain.

Youthful! youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school,
Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool.

Yonder lies our young sea-village--Art and Grace are less and less:
Science grows and Beauty dwindles--roofs of slated hideousness!

There is one old Hostel left us where they swing the Locksley shield,
Till the peasant cow shall **** the 'Lion passant' from his field.

Poo
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
Soren Knight Aug 2014
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.
Mahesh Hegde Dec 2013
Aim
Last night I had a dream.
I was standing on a planet named ALONE. It was just a lonely planet widout any sun and moons. It consisted of kingdoms. And I was on a tower of one of such kingdoms. The day was perfectly imperfect as always. And the night came succeeding to boil all the intricate frivolous thoughts running through my mind. Wind was cooler than usual. And its blowrate was gradually increasing. Suddenly I saw a white dot far ahead in the sky. It was getting brighter and was protruding lines of white. Wind ravished the people all around the planet. There faar ahead something had happened and the white dot was now like ripped off into small white dots and was kept intact in a spherical manner by some force. It was a scene depicting many planets coming into existence.
Then something clicked my mind. Maybe there a world had arised like ours but very very far from this planet. But there, is not just a planet, but many of them with luminous bodies succumbed into it.
One day I will travel there.
I got up from sleep. Now I knew that goals are always far. You just have to try and be determined..
jdmaraccini Apr 2013
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?
© JDMaraccini 2013
Vidur Khanna May 2016
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!
THE PROLOGUE.

Our Hoste saw well that the brighte sun
Th' arc of his artificial day had run
The fourthe part, and half an houre more;
And, though he were not deep expert in lore,
He wist it was the eight-and-twenty day
Of April, that is messenger to May;
And saw well that the shadow of every tree
Was in its length of the same quantity
That was the body ***** that caused it;
And therefore by the shadow he took his wit,                 *knowledge
That Phoebus, which that shone so clear and bright,
Degrees was five-and-forty clomb on height;
And for that day, as in that latitude,
It was ten of the clock, he gan conclude;
And suddenly he plight
his horse about.                     pulled

"Lordings," quoth he, "I warn you all this rout
,               company
The fourthe partie of this day is gone.
Now for the love of God and of Saint John
Lose no time, as farforth as ye may.
Lordings, the time wasteth night and day,
And steals from us, what privily sleeping,
And what through negligence in our waking,
As doth the stream, that turneth never again,
Descending from the mountain to the plain.
Well might Senec, and many a philosopher,
Bewaile time more than gold in coffer.
For loss of chattels may recover'd be,
But loss of time shendeth
us, quoth he.                       destroys

It will not come again, withoute dread,

No more than will Malkin's maidenhead,
When she hath lost it in her wantonness.
Let us not moulde thus in idleness.
"Sir Man of Law," quoth he, "so have ye bliss,
Tell us a tale anon, as forword* is.                        the bargain
Ye be submitted through your free assent
To stand in this case at my judgement.
Acquit you now, and *holde your behest
;             keep your promise
Then have ye done your devoir* at the least."                      duty
"Hoste," quoth he, "de par dieux jeo asente;
To breake forword is not mine intent.
Behest is debt, and I would hold it fain,
All my behest; I can no better sayn.
For such law as a man gives another wight,
He should himselfe usen it by right.
Thus will our text: but natheless certain
I can right now no thrifty
tale sayn,                           worthy
But Chaucer (though he *can but lewedly
         knows but imperfectly
On metres and on rhyming craftily)
Hath said them, in such English as he can,
Of olde time, as knoweth many a man.
And if he have not said them, leve* brother,                       dear
In one book, he hath said them in another
For he hath told of lovers up and down,
More than Ovide made of mentioun
In his Epistolae, that be full old.
Why should I telle them, since they he told?
In youth he made of Ceyx and Alcyon,
And since then he hath spoke of every one
These noble wives, and these lovers eke.
Whoso that will his large volume seek
Called the Saintes' Legend of Cupid:
There may he see the large woundes wide
Of Lucrece, and of Babylon Thisbe;
The sword of Dido for the false Enee;
The tree of Phillis for her Demophon;
The plaint of Diane, and of Hermion,
Of Ariadne, and Hypsipile;
The barren isle standing in the sea;
The drown'd Leander for his fair Hero;
The teares of Helene, and eke the woe
Of Briseis, and Laodamia;
The cruelty of thee, Queen Medea,
Thy little children hanging by the halse
,                         neck
For thy Jason, that was of love so false.
Hypermnestra, Penelop', Alcest',
Your wifehood he commendeth with the best.
But certainly no worde writeth he
Of *thilke wick'
example of Canace,                       that wicked
That loved her own brother sinfully;
(Of all such cursed stories I say, Fy),
Or else of Tyrius Apollonius,
How that the cursed king Antiochus
Bereft his daughter of her maidenhead;
That is so horrible a tale to read,
When he her threw upon the pavement.
And therefore he, of full avisement,         deliberately, advisedly
Would never write in none of his sermons
Of such unkind* abominations;                                 unnatural
Nor I will none rehearse, if that I may.
But of my tale how shall I do this day?
Me were loth to be liken'd doubteless
To Muses, that men call Pierides
(Metamorphoseos  wot what I mean),
But natheless I recke not a bean,
Though I come after him with hawebake
;                        lout
I speak in prose, and let him rhymes make."
And with that word, he with a sober cheer
Began his tale, and said as ye shall hear.

Notes to the Prologue to The Man of Law's Tale

1. Plight: pulled; the word is an obsolete past tense from
"pluck."

2. No more than will Malkin's maidenhead: a proverbial saying;
which, however, had obtained fresh point from the Reeve's
Tale, to which the host doubtless refers.

3. De par dieux jeo asente: "by God, I agree".  It is
characteristic that the somewhat pompous Sergeant of Law
should couch his assent in the semi-barbarous French, then
familiar in law procedure.

4. Ceyx and Alcyon: Chaucer treats of these in the introduction
to the poem called "The Book of the Duchess."  It relates to the
death of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the
poet's patron, and afterwards his connexion by marriage.

5. The Saintes Legend of Cupid: Now called "The Legend of
Good Women". The names of eight ladies mentioned here are
not in the "Legend" as it has come down to us; while those of
two ladies in the "legend" -- Cleopatra and Philomela -- are her
omitted.

6. Not the Muses, who had their surname from the place near
Mount Olympus where the Thracians first worshipped them; but
the nine daughters of Pierus, king of Macedonia, whom he
called the nine Muses, and who, being conquered in a contest
with the genuine sisterhood, were changed into birds.

7. Metamorphoseos:  Ovid's.

8. Hawebake: hawbuck, country lout; the common proverbial
phrase, "to put a rogue above a gentleman," may throw light on
the reading here, which is difficult.

THE TALE.

O scatheful harm, condition of poverty,
With thirst, with cold, with hunger so confounded;
To aske help thee shameth in thine hearte;
If thou none ask, so sore art thou y-wounded,
That very need unwrappeth all thy wound hid.
Maugre thine head thou must for indigence
Or steal, or beg, or borrow thy dispence
.                      expense

Thou blamest Christ, and sayst full bitterly,
He misdeparteth
riches temporal;                          allots amiss
Thy neighebour thou witest
sinfully,                           blamest
And sayst, thou hast too little, and he hath all:
"Parfay (sayst thou) sometime he reckon shall,
When that his tail shall *brennen in the glede
,      burn in the fire
For he not help'd the needful in their need."

Hearken what is the sentence of the wise:
Better to die than to have indigence.
Thy selve neighebour will thee despise,                    that same
If thou be poor, farewell thy reverence.
Yet of the wise man take this sentence,
Alle the days of poore men be wick',                      wicked, evil
Beware therefore ere thou come to that *****.                    point

If thou be poor, thy brother hateth thee,
And all thy friendes flee from thee, alas!
O riche merchants, full of wealth be ye,
O noble, prudent folk, as in this case,
Your bagges be not fill'd with ambes ace,                   two aces
But with six-cinque, that runneth for your chance;       six-five
At Christenmass well merry may ye dance.

Ye seeke land and sea for your winnings,
As wise folk ye knowen all th' estate
Of regnes;  ye be fathers of tidings,                         *kingdoms
And tales, both of peace and of debate
:                contention, war
I were right now of tales desolate
,                     barren, empty.
But that a merchant, gone in many a year,
Me taught a tale, which ye shall after hear.

In Syria whilom dwelt a company
Of chapmen rich, and thereto sad
and true,            grave, steadfast
Clothes of gold, and satins rich of hue.
That widewhere
sent their spicery,                    to distant parts
Their chaffare
was so thriftly* and so new,      wares advantageous
That every wight had dainty* to chaffare
              pleasure deal
With them, and eke to selle them their ware.

Now fell it, that the masters of that sort
Have *shapen them
to Rome for to wend,           determined, prepared
Were it for chapmanhood* or for disport,                        trading
None other message would they thither send,
But come themselves to Rome, this is the end:
And in such place as thought them a vantage
For their intent, they took their herbergage.
                  lodging

Sojourned have these merchants in that town
A certain time as fell to their pleasance:
And so befell, that th' excellent renown
Of th' emperore's daughter, Dame Constance,
Reported was, with every circumstance,
Unto these Syrian merchants in such wise,
From day to day, as I shall you devise
                          relate

This was the common voice of every man
"Our emperor of Rome, God him see
,                 look on with favour
A daughter hath, that since the the world began,
To reckon as well her goodness and beauty,
Was never such another as is she:
I pray to God in honour her sustene
,                           sustain
And would she were of all Europe the queen.

"In her is highe beauty without pride,
And youth withoute greenhood
or folly:        childishness, immaturity
To all her workes virtue is her guide;
Humbless hath slain in her all tyranny:
She is the mirror of all courtesy,
Her heart a very chamber of holiness,
Her hand minister of freedom for almess
."                   almsgiving

And all this voice was sooth, as God is true;
But now to purpose
let us turn again.                     our tale
These merchants have done freight their shippes new,
And when they have this blissful maiden seen,
Home to Syria then they went full fain,
And did their needes
, as they have done yore,     *business *formerly
And liv'd in weal; I can you say no more.                   *prosperity

Now fell it, that these merchants stood in grace
                favour
Of him that was the Soudan
of Syrie:                            Sultan
For when they came from any strange place
He would of his benigne courtesy
Make them good cheer, and busily espy
                          inquire
Tidings of sundry regnes
, for to lear
                 realms learn
The wonders that they mighte see or hear.

Amonges other thinges, specially
These merchants have him told of Dame Constance
So great nobless, in earnest so royally,
That this Soudan hath caught so great pleasance
               pleasure
To have her figure in his remembrance,
That all his lust
, and all his busy cure
,            pleasure *care
Was for to love her while his life may dure.

Paraventure in thilke* large book,                                 that
Which that men call the heaven, y-written was
With starres, when that he his birthe took,
That he for love should have his death, alas!
For in the starres, clearer than is glass,
Is written, God wot, whoso could it read,
The death of every man withoute dread.
                           doubt

In starres many a winter therebeforn
Was writ the death of Hector, Achilles,
Of Pompey, Julius, ere they were born;
The strife of Thebes; and of Hercules,
Of Samson, Turnus, and of Socrates
The death; but mennes wittes be so dull,
That no wight can well read it at the full.

This Soudan for his privy council sent,
And, *shortly of this matter for to pace
,          to pass briefly by
He hath to them declared his intent,
And told them certain, but* he might have grace             &
Yashri Nov 2015
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
My take on the ocean. I have an uncanny connection with the Sea.
I feel it is the epitome of strength. I just love it. I don't know how something so huge and vast can be so personal to me. Ironic.
Mother fish sees her eggs devoured
by alligator that gulps everything on the sand
save her own eggs and children.

Mother fish cries her eyes out
and seems not to be heard
neither by the heaven,
nor by the sea (their common abode),
that bore them, and now assists to her boredom
indifferently and silently,

which silence she condemns and curses.
She goes to the beach; she weeps
and seeks revenge in vain.
Now she sees a python that creeps
from the bush around the beach.

The creature she has never seen before,
as immense as the world,
eyes first the alligator
whose blood becomes as cold
as the ice under the sea.

They stare at each other
like someone intruder,
at a home where he is not wished as guest,
who faces the anger
of the owner who would not him host
but from there him usher out.

They look at each other
with sulks on their ugly faces
and fear as each one faces
this kind one for the first time.
However intimidations from each party
can’t touch the other party.

The cold war ends and becomes hot:
The Python and the alligator
get ready to come at each other
like warriors of different kings
ready to defend their kingdoms’ colors,
ready to defend the pride of their lords,
and ready to die for their honour
though they’d prefer to live
unnoticed and live longer.

Furious, the python throws her head up,
her dart flies like flash out and in
between the jaws of horrible sight,
and the beast tests she’s still unrivaled in
cruelty. She gets ready to attack.
As for the alligator, all her muscles she does check,
her arms dig into the sand,
And she flies to crunch the enemy.

She bites hard the neck of the python,
yet her teeth can’t tear the strong scales
of the mammoth reptile.
The python pretends to be provoked;
She wildly crawls and coils around the alligator
and holds tight her body from the tail to the head.
And alligator’s jaws, strong to weaker preys,
become useless.

Her mouth opens wide and starts to swallow the alligator
as the latter did when she chewed the eggs and children of the fish.
From distance the fish watches, admires
and enjoys the scene as the python
seems to be her avenger.

In the end the whole body of the fallen fighter
disappears into the trunk of the strange predator.
Then the fish wonders, “Am I avenged
or this strange creature merely needed food
as did the poor alligator
when she thought to rule over
our lives and made my children her food,
causing my eyes to shed floods of tears,
that she did not notice ‘cause mixed
with the waters?
And she ignored the mightier one existed.”

In conclusion the fish realizes
were herself or her children the first seen by the python,
they would face the same fate as the alligator she cursed
and that alligator’s killer may not be by the Maker blessed.
The most powerful predator
cannot be of the fauna liberator.

The greatest warriors
fight to shed the blood of their victims.
Only their aim they follow,
and they turn deaf their ears to the tears
of any fellow.
And as the fish thinks of this predator,
no ****** war winner will rule better
than a beaten dictator.
Poem for reflection
abcdefg Dec 2011
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.
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.
XPY Mar 2018
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.
Who are you?
How will you make yourself?
© KMH 2018
Paul Hansford Jun 2016
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.
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."
Skye Marshmallow Oct 2017
I feel comfort in the familiarity
Of being lost
Peculiar in its irony
Its definition reversed by my falling in love
With the freedom of not being found
Sometimes it's more peaceful
Living quietly without the sound
Of homesickness in your ear
Eyes wistfully on the clouds
Thoughts pondering in head
Soft promises vowed
To a place not seen again
It feels to me like exciting exploration
Sights locked in mind
All these complex illustrations
Of trees, streams, crumbling walls
That otherwise would of went unseen
All these beautiful kingdoms
Adorned by the falling leaves
Of this year's autumn
How could I not fall for that?
glaze Jun 2013
As I pass
kingdoms of green
the softest blade I've ever touched
home now to lakes
swelling at the lowest points
flat and soaring across pastures
but as I look in I see only mud

Beneath a night sky
not blue but unforgiving coal
I ask
When will I look past and see the stars beyond the sky?
Has ever the earth moved as I caught a strangers eye?

Water, unforgiving black, is this it?
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.
Seán Mac Falls Nov 2014
Deep in a garden I lay,
As when before— a world I had made,

I was born on wooded shores,
When sounds of the forest stood calling

And all that day of my youth—
I combed with branches pointing anew,

Grasses, green took to flame
And timber— tall, called out my name,

As a winged seed I spun afar,
Which led me to dreams new under stars,                          

Wildflowers I left unpicked—
Have painted true my world ever since,

All my time spent— sun raining,
O what kingdoms a child can make.
Leon Labastide Aug 2013
iHonor the history of my ancestors
And their ***** love songs: Nyabinghi
Crossing the Atlantic  with their creative minds
Rooted into their backbones was creative; Black men and women of today
A generation of;  
Bobo Shanti!
Baganda
Niger Congo
Sierra Leone
Bushmen
Kings and Queens of Africa

iHonor my history
But, my history is in Him
The King of Kings

Dreams hanging on a tree!
Kings and Queens hanging form a  rope nailed to a tree!
They were auctioned off a d sold in corner stores like Bodegas!
Please don’t forget about your ancestors when you speak about History!
He was rejected in the time of earthly kings and Queens
He was rejected in the time of Exodus
He was rejected in the time of redemption songs/ Babylon!

He was rejected at birth
He was rejected for calling Himself
"I am thee I am"
His purpose killed Him
He was rejected, but his purpose lives.

iHonor the King of Kings for being the sacrificial lamb of all Mortars
iHonor Him

Some kings rule their kingdoms surrounded by luxury
this king held a Bible in his hand
stood tall before Nations
with a single dream!
No luxuries!

This king was rejected!
He was shot!
Here comes the dream killers
A voice of a black Panther cried
“what their; guns, bats & smoke bums”
Have mothers clenching their young's
Running down to avenues unknown
To street that are paved with hopeless dreams and  goals

Because of  Dr. Martin Luther King and His Dream
Mothers were crying, digging graves with their finger nails.
Bering their dreams and aspiration into graves!
grave yards became over populated
With creative minds and dreams!

iHonor  Dr Martin Luther King Jr, for dreaming & believing
That whites & blacks will  become  one Nation under the King of Kings
iHonor Him

To my generation and to generation to come,
Where is creativity today!
Creativity was lost, unable to find!
So different things start to shape the mind
Creativity is something we watch on TV
Creativity has become an illusion
what a poor substitution

The mind is a beautiful thing to waste!
Creativity is in the wave pool of our minds
Mothers read to your young  from the womb
Bring creativity and dreams back to life

Doctor Seuss was creating a world of creativity in the minds of our  generation!
I think I can, I think I can was another book that brought creativity to life!

If a Cat can wear a hat
A fox can wear  socks
A boy by the name of Sam I Am, love green eggs and ham!
He can eat it in a box, with a fox!
In a house with a mouse!
With a goat on a boat!
So, who are you to tell me I'm not a "who"
Doctor Seuss created the Who's and the Who Ville!
Therefore I am a Who!
Who are you!

iHonor black mothers and fathers for being
present and never absent/ for being super heroes of monsters in closets.

iHonor my black people for uniting together from the 1960's to 2013
iHonor Mrs. King
iHonor Dr. Martin Luther King
iHonor the King of kings
iHonor all those individuals that made it possible for us to vote today
iHonor you all!
iHonor!
Ryan Galloway Jul 2015
She was resting her head on her inclined hand
Searching outside of the window for that slowly fading land
It was once so easy to recall on a whim
When she was that long gone idealistic kid
That place in which she could shape the clouds by hand
Paint the sky's with a gentle kiss
Holding civilians made of stuffing and cotton
Tied together by dandelion stems
Living in kingdoms built of sticks
Collected from the dark forest
That lay behind her childhood home
That land that was always close at hand to run to in times of pain
She slowly draws back from the clouded window pane
Only now realizing her loss
Yet in this moment her hand is disturbed from its rest
By the minuscule fingers of her little kid
A girl with hair glowing red
From the sun filtering through the chilled late August winds
In those eyes she saw it
The thing she thought she had lost
It wasn't as far as it seemed
That kingdom beyond the sea.
moondust Oct 2016
to the little girl
who sits by the tv screen,
watching encantadia
lireo is where you belong,
your palms big enough
to hold the kingdoms of sapiro,
lireo, hathoria, and etheria in
your hands, keeping
the brilyantes of air, water, earth
and fire in the four chambers of
your heart to keep peace
in our world.
you are an amihan,
open to the truth of
an entirely different continent
coexisting with the mortal world
that you know,
never letting death keep you
from closing in on yourself
like an abandoned cathedral;
you are soft and gentle in
all the ways she tries to lead,
dangerous in the way
cassopeia's prophecy was fulfilled,
bringing the ruin of hathoria.
do not be afraid when
pirena comes, rage and
hade! hade! hade! against the beating
of the earth against your feet,
stealing the holy fire in your heart.
it will keep burning, arrows aimed
and the war won and you will
get it back.
you will get it back.
ilantre ivi e corre?
ilantre ivi hasne masne?
the people wonder.
you are a descendant of the
diwatas powerful and
almighty in the elements
of the world you hold close;
under your reign,
corre will return,
masne will start its journey.
kingdoms will be brought
to their knees.
you will never forget
the land where you came from
mingling with the magic
in your veins
you are one of many
a lot of things you can never compromise.

*ivi esna adelan e...
for my sister—you will go places someday.

brilyantes = gems
sapiro, lireo, hathoria, etheria = the four kingdoms in encantadia
lireo = kingdom of royalty
amihan (wind) = queen of lireo
pirena = amihan's sister
hade! hade! hade! = a warcry used in etheria
corre = love
masne = peace
ilantre ivi e corre? = where is the love? in enchanta
ilantre ivi hasne masne? = where is the peace?
diwata = fairies
ivi esna adelan e... = this is the promised land... in enchanta
preservationman Sep 2014
Eyes on Ancient times in going back and intriguing the mind
Hercules pillar being his strength
Challenging all odds
A man being his own mode
Hercules strength in conquering evil
Deceit of destruction confined to the Devil
The Greek Gods that sit above
They have spiritual divined powers thereof
The Gladiators have come to attack
But the Greek Gods have Hercules back
The pillars of evil Kingdoms have steadily come down
The rattle of the chains and the demons that remain
Hercules the conquer with the strength of solid bound
A man of force with the lean sound
Hercules stands on a throne with lightening bolts on both sides
The sun casts a shadow with the man of victory
It’s Hercules labours of sustaining history
The mystery of challenges of an unknown tomorrow
The enemy being defeated in sorrow
Hercules legacy with having moral of morrow and eyes keen like a sparrow.
You're a staircase of kingdoms.
A bacteria, hosted by tolerance.
A protist, without an identity of your own.
A fungus, risky and thriving on what once was.
A plant, needy for growth that flowers ambition
     but wilts your respect.
An animal, a robotic hunting machine that thinks it can think.
apollota Jul 2017
I wonder,
how many kingdoms
have I blown to dust
to get where I am?
-=-
I haven't written in a while, however I'd like to start again. It's 2 am, this thought crossed my mind and I couldn't get it out. How much of life have I missed out on because of my anxiety and depression? I imagine the percentage is quite high. I want to start going outside more, putting my dusty camera to use. Perhaps this short poem will give me the courage to do so.
-=-
2017-07-24
In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned  in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy,
then in their height.


Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
         Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!
         For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;
Tempered to the oaten flute,
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.
         But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear.
         Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
RHad ye been there,S . . . for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
         Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. RBut not the praise,”
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
RFame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.”
         O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood.
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea,
That came in Neptune’s plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory.
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
         Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, Rmy dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain.
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:—
RHow well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as, for their bellies’ sake,
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped:
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
         Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf **** the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the ***** freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise,
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled;
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
         Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That Sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
         Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey:
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Seán Mac Falls Apr 2015
( Sonnet )*

Deep in a garden I lay,
As when before— a world I had made,

I was born on wooded shores,
When sounds of the forest stood calling

And all that day of my youth—
I combed with branches pointing anew,

Grasses, green took to flame
And timber— tall, called out my name,

As a winged seed I spun afar,
Which led me to dreams new under stars,

Wildflowers I left unpicked—
Have painted true my world ever since,

All my time spent— sun raining,
O what kingdoms a child can make.
Sofia Paderes Jul 2014
Beloved,
lay down your arms, and
come run back into Mine instead.
There is no need for you
to fight this battle on your own, when
I’m here, and

I love you.

Before the kingdoms and golden cities,
before the earthquakes and the hailstorms,
before the stars knew their hymns
and the planets their dance,
I loved you.

Beloved,
I made you
to love you.

Let that sink in and resonate in your heart
like a steady, low drum.
I made you
to love you.
I made you
to love you.
I made you
to love you,
because

What good is the universe
in all its splendor and colors
to which names have not yet been given,
what good are the heavens and the seas,
the skyscraping mountains and lowest valleys,
what good is anything in all creation that was and will be
if you
are not there
for Me
to love?

So I formed you.
I patterned your image after Mine,
I took dust and spoke life
to create a beautiful, beautiful you, and the
reason you love is because
I first loved you.
Love is what stitched you together, beloved,
and that Love
runs deeper than any ocean or river, because even
on that worst day,
the day you fell,
the day you told me that
My love wasn’t good enough
that I
wasn’t good enough,
I loved you.
I never left your side even
when you were in sun scorched lands
and your hands
were bleeding from the fruitless labor of
trying to get
to where I am,
you never had to earn my affection or my
consideration, I was
thinking of you
the entire
time, because for Me,
Heaven
wouldn’t be heaven
without you in it.

So I came.
I pursued you
even if it meant watching My beloved
scream false accusations and spitting lies
at My face
even if it meant having nails and thorns
driven into My flesh
even if it meant facing death, but
I overcame it
for you
I took the blame
for you
I carried all the crosses you have and will ever carry
for you
I tore the veil and shook the earth
for you, because I
love
you.

Beloved,
My love
is stronger
than anything
you will ever encounter, and
this is the same Love that
courses through your veins, and so the same
strength that enables you
to receive power
to receive healing
to receive victory in My name.

Beloved,
fear not.

Don’t call me that.

You--

Don’t deserve anything.
Are worthless.
Impure.
Weak.
Everything I put my hand to is kissed by death,
I was meant for no more but failure.
I can’t do anything.
I can’t do.
I can’t.
I--


Lies.
I crucified all that.
You are--

still the same and always will be!
Despite what You did
I keep going back
back
back
My love for You is like
the morning mist,
like flowers that soon wither,
like shores that always,
no matter how strong the tide,
push the waves away,
and I am ashamed.
I am only man.


And I am God.

But—

I am God.

But—

I am God.

Beloved,
take life and death
angels and demons
the present and the future
the highest of heights and the darkest of depths
take every power and everything else you could possibly imagine,
and they still wouldn’t be
even close to a fraction enough to separating you
from My love.

You are right.
You don’t deserve it,
but I love you anyway.
Since the beginning of time,
all you’ve done is pursue everyone and
everything else but Me,
but I love you anyway.
You’ve done nothing but fall short,
but My love carries you past that, beloved.
You are Mine.
Let Me be yours.

You are Mine. I am Yours.
I am yours. You are mine.
You are chosen. I am chosen.
You are My child. I am Your child.
I will never leave you. You will never leave me.
My love for you knows no end. Your love for me knows no end.
Heaven and earth will pass away but, Heaven and earth will pass away but,
I will stay the same. You will stay the same.

Beloved,
why
are you so
afraid?

I’m not anymore.

I have overcome. You have overcome.
You have overcome. I have overcome.
The war has already been won. The war has already been won.

I love you. I love You.
I love you. I love You.
I love you. *I love You.
A spoken word duet about His radical love.
Dandy Dec 2013
A hand around a cold, dead, arm
waning fragile and thin
Impressions of fingers on flesh,
twisted, crooked, bent
Across railroad tracks this sack is
dragged, heaved, yanked-

Like saddlebags;
you walk with dead bodies attached to your hips
You still have yet to question this
I wonder though, if you did,
would you see how much dead is attached to me?

Everyone has a Past
and like Death, it asks to stay
Asks you to hold it's hand along the way
To help it across mountain peaks and swamp trenches
This thing, it even asks to sit with you on park benches
There are a thousand empty wooden pews, but still,
you let it sit, and this,
this is where it will not quit

-Yanking still, across garbage piles and sidewalk cracks,
it even begins to ride piggyback
Again, you don't question
What do you see?
Nothing, darkness, it's numbed you,
blinded you physically
It builds it's palace atop your spine,
and evermore straddles between lines of harm and lie
Breathing in pure battle cry

DDD
*(11/26/2013)
Inspired by the song "Dead Body Moving" by The Devil Makes Three.
Written in Atlanta, Georgia.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2014
Deep in a garden I lay,
As when before— a world I had made,

I was born on wooded shores,
When sounds of the forest stood calling

And all that day of my youth—
I combed with branches pointing anew,

Grasses, green took to flame
And timber— tall, called out my name,

As a winged seed I spun afar,
Which led me to dreams new under stars,

Wildflowers I left unpicked—
Have painted true my world ever since,

All my time spent— sun raining,
O what kingdoms a child can make.
Rosaly Kimble Nov 2017
Kingdoms tumble daily. But why is my fall now? I've ruled for so little, yet my rule is strong. I thought it was happy, this kingdom of mine, and I it's ruler sat back and smiled. I spent money, spent time, and showed great patience, but how come I see all of this has been wasted? My kingdoms not happy and it's all my fault. I should have seen it coming, I showed have showed some strength, I should go there and take my throne back.. But here I am, in the woods in the rain, with all of the other kinds who's reins have come to an end. I soon must watch a new king be crowned. I can not fight, I can not struggle, I must sit here and watch as my work turns to rubble. With each passing day, and each chilly night. I sit alone on my log. With my eyes open wide, while a new king steps in, and the inside of me dies
It was silk that handkerchief
that she kept in her slim red velvet sleeve
that windy night whist out riding
she did loose that hanky to the wind wild and free

Holding on to her mighty black beauty
she did let her chief fly with the wind
and as moonlight fell
it did land upon a still pond

A frog still breathing the breath of flies
dead in eyes did adorn himself
making the silk handkerchief his cloak
claiming all the kingdoms of the world

He claimed dark magic for his evil empire
bathed those so foolish to follow his lies
from spore to twenty ages past
he was their glory, for a thousand years to pass

Oh his sick blindness was his ignorance
making baby skinned lamp shades
as death by his hands came so easily
by suicide he'd die in a shallow cowards grave

The lady of the midnight rides
oh she did hear of his wicked deeds
so she made a black clothed thing
a dragonfly, with the heart of fire

It was sent to that time
oh to that dark age with jagged wings
it did put hate in a box
to save fit for another day

That silk handkerchief
oh did he know it's worth
pudding disdain is now the frog
and to our shame, so is this world

By Christos Andreas Kourtos aka NeonSolaris
Seán Mac Falls Oct 2015
( Sonnet )*

Deep in a garden I lay,
As when before— a world I had made,

I was born on wooded shores,
When sounds of the forest stood calling

And all that day of my youth—
I combed with branches pointing anew,

Grasses, green took to flame
And timber— tall, called out my name,

As a winged seed I spun afar,
Which led me to dreams new under stars,

Wildflowers I left unpicked—
Have painted true my world ever since,

All my time spent— sun raining,
O what kingdoms a child can make.

— The End —