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Jim Davis Apr 2017
In the last
three decades,
after we became one,
I touched
amazingly beautiful things,
horribly ugly things,  
unbelievably wondrous things

I touched nature's majesty;
hued walls of the Grand Canyon,              
crusty bark of the
Redwoods and Sequoias,
live corals of the
Great Barrier Reef,
dreamlike sandstone of the Wave

I touched magical and strange;
platypus, koalas and
kangaroos Down Under,
underwater alkali flies and
lacustrine tufa at Mono Lake,
astral glowing worms
in the Kawiti caves

I touched holy places;
Christianity's oldest churches,
the Pope's home in the Vatican,
Hindu and Sikh temples and
Moslem mosques in India,
Anasazi's kivas of Chaco canyon,
Aboriginal rocks of Uluru and Kata Tjuta

I touched glimmers of civilization;
uncovered roads of Pompeii,
fighting arenas of Rome,
terra cotta armies of Xian,
sharp stone points of the Apache,
pottery shards from the Navajo,
petroglyphs by the Jornada Mogollon

I touched fantastical things;
winds blowing on the
steppes of Patagonia,,
playas and craters of Death Valley,  
high peaks of the Continental Divide,
blazing white sands of the  
Land of Enchantment

I touched icons of liberty
and freedom;
the defended Alamo,
a fissured Liberty Bell,
an embracing Statue of Liberty,
the harbor of Checkpoints
Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie

I touched glorious things
made by man;
the monstrous Hoover Dam,
an exquisite Eiffel tower,
a soaring St Louis Arch,
an Art deco Empire State Building,
the sublime Golden Gate Bridge

I touched sparks from history;
the running path of an
Olympic flame just off Bourbon,
the last steps of Mohandas Ghandi
at Birla House before Godse,
******'s Eagle's nest and the
grounds over Der Führerbunker

I touched walls of power;
enclosed rings of the Pentagon,
steep steps of the
Great Wall of China,
untried bastions of
Peter and Paul's fortress,
fitted boulders of Machu Picchu

I touched strong hands;
of those conquering
Rommel's and ******'s hordes,
of cold warriors of
Chosin Reservoir,  
of forgotten soldiers of Vietnam,
of terrorist killers of today

I touched memories of war;
the somber Vietnam memorial,
the glorious Iwo Jima statue,
the cold slabs at Arlington,
the buried tomb of USS Arizonians,
Volgograd's Mother Russia  

I touched ugly things;
shreds of light in
Port Arthur's prison,
horrible smelly dust
in the streets from 9/11,
ash impregnated dirt
in the pits at Auschwitz

I touched oppressed freedom;
open ****** plazas
of Tiananmen Square,
smooth pipe and concrete
of the Berlin Wall,  
tall red brick walls
of the Moscow Kremlin

I touched constrained freedom;
heavy ankle and
wrist slave chains
in the South,
little windows
in Berlin's Stasi prison,
haunted cells in Alcatraz  

I touched remnants of madness;
wire and ovens of Auschwitz,
stacked chimneys and
wooden bunks of Birkenau,        
Ravensbruck, and Dachau,
the tomb of Lenin,
toppled Stalins

I touched hands of survivors;
of Leningrad's siege,
of German POWs and
of Russian fighters
of Stalingrad's battle,
of Cancer's scourges  

I touched grand things;
deep waters of the Pacific and Atlantic,
blue hills of Appalachia,
towering peaks of the Rockies,
high falls of Yosemite Valley,
bursting geysers of Yellowstone,
crashing glaciers of Antarctica and Alaska    

I touched times of adventure;
abseiling and zipping in Costa Rica,
packing Pecos wilds and Padre isles,
flying nap of earth Hueys to Meridian,
breaking arms in JRTC's box,
fighting Abu Sayyaf, and Jemaah
Islami in Zamboanga City

I touched through you;
wet sand beaches of  Mexico and Jamaica,
mysterious energy of the monoliths of Stonehenge,
rarefied air in front of the
Louvre's Mona Lisa,
ancient wonders of Giza,
Egypt's tombs and pyramids

We shared soft touches;
drifting in Bora Bora's
surreal waters,
joining hands camel trekking the
Outback's dry sands,
strolling along Tasmania's
eucalyptus forest trails

basking in swinging hammocks
under Fiji's bright sun,
scrambling in
Las Vegas' glittering and
red rock canyons,
kissing under the
Taj Mahal's symphony of arches

We shared touching deep waters;
propelled in gondolas
through the city of canals,
Drifting atop Uru cat boats on Lake Titticaca,
Swooping in jet boats
up a wild river in Talkeetna

Racing in speed boats
around Sydney's great harbour,
skimming in pangas in Puerto Ayora,
paddling the Kennebec for
East's best petroglyphs,
cruising Salzbergwerk's underwater lake

We touched scrumptious things;
Beignets and chicory coffee at DuMonde's in the Big Easy,
Hot *** with sesame sauce
in the walled city of Xian,
Peking duck, dimsum, scorpions,
snake and starfish on Wangfujing Snack Street

We touched delicious things
Crawfish heads and tails at JuJu's shack
and ten years at Jeanette's,
Langoustine at Poinciana's, Fjöruborðinus and Galapagos,
Cream cheese and loch bagels
at Ess-a' s in the Big Apple

I touched your hand riding;
hang loose waves of Waikiki,
a big green bus in Denali's awesomeness,
clip clopping carriages of Vienna, Paris,
Prague, New Orleans, Krakow,
Quebec City, and Zakopane,
the acapella sugar train of St Kitts

We shared touching on paths;
the highway 1 of Big Sur,
the Road of the Great Ocean,
the bahn to Buda and Pest,
the path to the North of Maine,
the trail of the Hoh rainforest,
and time after time, the way home

Yet,
I could spend
the next three decades,
in simple bliss,
having need for
touching nothing,
other than you!

©  2016 Jim Davis
A poem I wrote last year for my wife!  Posted now since it matches the HP' theme for today - "Places"
Maria Apr 2016
The sunlight catches itself in the reflection of lacustrine mirrors
and lingers to watch the day fall
until shadows chase them into cool waters,
deep where a girl is laughing beneath the surface, clinging to
something beautiful and wild; an animal that sings at the bottom of the lake,
waiting for a lover to catch ankles with.
Trading shackles for wrists,
it cries briefly while you hold your breath.
And then, the sky is light again,
and the water clear of any life.
not rewritten just a fitting name
The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand
That lay impounding the Pacific swell,
Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.

Lacustrine man had never been assailed
By such long-rolling opulent cataracts,
Unless Racine or Bossuet held the like.

He did not quail. A man who used to plumb
The multifarious heavens felt no awe
Before these visible, voluble delugings,

Which yet found means to set his simmering mind
Spinning and hissing with oracular
Notations of the wild, the ruinous waste,

Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprang
In an unburgherly apocalypse.
The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.
jonchius Sep 2015
entering year 2000
rewinding vhs tape
installing napster client
anticipating victorious gore
bursting dot-com bubble
blocking tomorrow's nostalgia
commemorating festival tragedy
examining supersonic concorde
watching election coverage
recounting inconvenient truths
puzzling interface design
booing nuc-u-lar president

rising black monolith
editing non-linear encyclopedia
feeling inaugurally bushed
reliving century's dawn
unchanging state flag
processing royal massacre
escaping insane asylum
sensing impending collapse
perusing city guide
collapsing contemporary structures
initiating quixotic peacekeeping
ignoring conscription threats

entering year 2002
reporting unfortunate pearl
relaxing shotgun porch
exploding roadside bombs
addressing thousand followers
hugging financial meltdown
writing resembling skylines
shocking archipelagic bursts
processing theatrical disaster
tightening homeland security

entering year 2003
proliferating elegant telegnosis
rejecting freedom fries
blazing wartime trails
toppling dictatorial statue
unfurling "mission accomplished"
handling continental blackout
ejecting coronal masses

entering year 2004
flashing multiple sobriquets
populating dorm-roomy website
high-grossing aramaic movie
generating tunnel vision
rushing national anthem
parading goth athletes
letting games begin
accepting soviet passports
continuing obscure flumadiddle
lunar-eclipsing world series
two-terming republican regime
declining personality cult
glowing orange revolution
eroding periglacial drumlins
inundating lacustrine basins
exciting geomorphological processes
enduring tumultuous tsunami

entering year 2005
blasting "galvanize" repeatedly
unforgiving cyclonic scenario
printing controversial drawing
sketching cartoon prophet
overturning hurricane alphabet
rigging medal count
preparing new horizons
rejecting flash sites

entering year 2006
setting plutonian destination
synchronizing new horizons
sighting stellar foison
maintaining feudal system
emerging microblogging service
reading ancient tweets
rotating golden statue
mounting social debt
protesting planetary demotion
forecasting catastrophic recession
executing "innocent" dictator

entering year 2007
declining share prices
building ruby railroad
lifting presidential term-limits
perpetuating oil-rich dictatorships
falling interstate bridge
slugging giant bonds
clothing blackwater mercenaries
disappearing internet personalities
unforgiving writers strike

entering year 2008
stealing variable thunders
relaxing domain names
letting games continue
exploding sunrise propane
requesting birth certificate
electing another suit
disappointing orthodox republicans
microblogging maximal meltdown

entering year 2009
inaugurating new president
encountering bear markets
cackling risible laughter
dying pop king
deleting neolithic internet

entering year 2010
collapsing presidential palace
prospering cinematic avatar
pronouncing eyjafjallajökull effortlessly
"kettling riot police
flaming cop cruiser"
blasting text-based vuvuzelas
leaking diplomatic cables
fading pre-twitter memories
self-immolating street vendor

entering year 2011
"enervating nine-point quake
propagating harbor wave
inundating nuclear plant
irradiating unclear fates"
raging mid-eastern spring
throwing body asea
locating trojan asteroid
penetrating financial throughfare
resonating oral amplifier
blazing verdant material

entering year 2012
rising chubby dictator
gentrifying weird twitter
exploding next month
intriguing "fake" passport
proliferating single-hued avatars
surging sandy cyclone
inhabiting alternate universe
manipulating another election
rigging people's ballots
perpetuating manipulated world
fulfilling megalomaniac urges
surviving previous apocalypse
surviving another baktun

entering year 2013
descending rogue meteor
encoding festival weekend
obfuscating's very own
approving snow den
searching yaya island
soaking wet veld

entering year 2014
missing plane geometry?
annexing peninsular territory
printing powdered medication
forecasting meteoric boomtime
prevailing monochromatic identity
avoiding aviation accidents
determining auspicious date
revising deactivation plans
reliving years 2000-2014
Wedgwood blue , ethereal body of    
my Spring temptress  .. Sacred byways of her southern lacustrine dweller
Mourning dove wail , Muscovy duck banter
Shore cherubs prattle in the cattails , zephyrs filled-
with lake whispers
Smooth stones skipped over the kelpies
looking glass
Invisible helpers slay the lunatic bastardization
of day
Copyright April 5 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Spilling from your body
The overflow to drain
Washing
to
the
wayside
Sediments of grain
Separation to feed again
David Betten Apr 2017
CORTÉS                            
            Friend, you must look upon our advent here
            Not with unease, but as a world of good.

AGUILAR     [simultaneously] . . . but as a world of good.
            My potent monarch rules beyond the seas,
            And rumors tease his ears of Mexico.
            I come to you as his ambassador,

MALINALLI      [simultaneously] . . . to you as his ambassador,
            With gifts I must in person grant your lord,
            And bring him tidings that will save his life.

TEUHTLILLI
            [aside] (Fresh off the boat, and asks for audience!)
            My ruler also is a busy king,
            Like yours, and he will send for his desires.

            MALINALLI     [simultaneously] . . . he will send for his desires.
            He’s locked in caucus from his island throne:
            The teeming, lacustrine metropolis
            Of Mexico, called also, “Cactus Rock,”

AGUILAR         [simultaneously] . . . called also, “Cactus Rock,”
            Whose minions by the millions stir with drive,
            And fructify the land on floating farms.

CORTÉS
            A land with gold in hand?

TEUHTLILLI                                  By heaps and mounds.

CORTÉS
            “Why ask?” you’ll ask. I ask because I know
            That precious metal heals an arrant heart.
            My men are languishing from that complaint.

TEUHTLILLI
            We have the cure to purge bad-hearted men.
            [aside] (By god, his helmet flashes on my mind:
            Dead ringer to the one our war god wears.)
            [to him] May I, sir, as a token of goodwill,
            Present my lord your brilliant helm?

CORTÉS                                                     You may,
            If you return it filled with grains of gold.
            We’ll test by trial if this New World’s veins
            Are worth the circulation of the Old.
            Come sir, we’ll further parley by the fire.
            Escort this minister to my retreat.
                                           Exit Alvarado, Sandoval, Teuhtlilli, and servant.
            Well now, young lady. What whelp have we here?

AGUILAR           Your name, child.

MALINALLI           Malinalli.

AGUILAR             Ah, Malina.

CORTÉS        Well! Marina, then.
            I’ll sponsor you, in my kind custody.
            Mellifluous and honey-throated dame,
            Your golden tongue must buy us a good name.                  *All exit.
From my play in verse, thefloralwar.com
Breathing in the fresh air near  the trees of serpentine purple,
To inhume  the dolour of my  dejected loneliness..
In the   distressing ire I am that   lacustrine,,
Listening the soft lay in the beautiful lea..
People know, my wounds are   plumbless,,
No tears in my  orbs  ,   seems I am    mage....
People  here are  serpents  who  don't  slay,,
But  are  giving  the  bad  sempiternal   gashes...
Now  look  at  my   stygian  tenebrous  visage,,
From which poesy is flowing with a plashing sound...
You,,  know   their  life   was  in   pitch_dark,,,
Now is lucent and niveous, orgulous!! what I did,,
Those  toys  of  clay   rend   me   savagely,,,
Now my vermilion  ichor exhibits the beautiful limn.
People  of  this  era  are  pitiless,, my  dear!!!
Are deceiving ere and after, not caring for eld..
The poem is about the present world, where  only selfish people live. They can harm anyone  for their own purposes. They are the Snakes who don't care for the old age... They will always give you everlasting wounds

— The End —