The lily’s withered chalice falls
Around its rod of dusty gold,
And from the beech-trees on the wold
The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter,—hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk
Are blown into a snowy mass:
The roses lie upon the grass
Like little shreds of crimson silk.

There is no doubt about it:
You have always loved me.
A leonine love.
A love that swells in the womb and the heart
From the very first twinkle in the eye.

Hit play.

Your eyes are swampish,
Mistrustful and marinated in cheap wine,
Shot through with blood, preserved in your own saltwater.
Those alligator eyes
That watch your girls,
Watch your girls board a train and draw away
Into the rest of their lives.
Leaving you stewing in twelve years’ worth of regret.

Years ago,
I used to pinch your forearms -
Watch the skin crepe up
Between my four year old fingers.
Thin blood. Tired skin.
Silently you eat your breakfast of pills and toast at the kitchen counter.
Throw in a horrid hacking cough to remind us you’re still here.
You always write everything down.
As if to tattoo it into your memory.

If you’ve locked the door behind you, it’ll be alright.
If you’ve got half a bottle left.
If you’ve left no trace on the bathroom carpet.
If you’ve woken up in the morning.
You can feel my eyes watching you.

You spend your days watching
Daytime TV, eating salad cream sandwiches and
Hit the bottle at a safe distance from noon.
Safe enough.
Your lipsticks have gone stale,
Now it’s porous skin, sweat stains, grey hair.
I find you poring over bank statements and local newspapers.
Scouring for a job, you say,
And clippings of your daughters
At school functions, clasping exam results.
You keep them in a cereal box that we covered in paint
Age five. We’re in double figures now.
I get drunk on weeknights.

Rewind.

Hold me.
Ball of flesh and screams
And you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.

if fire is your element,
and
this is your year,
and
if
you wanted to be an asteroid in the night galaxies
to find a place to land
and
if
she
  was your rebellion,
and
if
your rebellion never meant that you could land on
me:
the water that could soothe you,
   the ambush of esoterica,
     the place where you could lay your paranoia to sleep,
        the resistance you denied entrance to,

then -
you could have just said
so.

Judy Judy Kansas cutie / it starts in the heartland / Tornado = social change through manipulated crisis / Toto the only free agent / Dorothy struck on her head by the closing window of virtual possibility / She realizes that hope'n'change have reached the prairie / Alice in Wonderland Hollywood / Kansas as futurist narrative / Star Wars pre-dated / It's a Wonderful Mythic Life / Miss Gulch as Henry Potter / Witchery in bitchery: Hillary 2016 / Scarecrow as Celtic bog-sacrifice victim / Tinman as ****** therapy client / Did that hurt? No - it felt wonderful ! / Bible-belt Pentecostal subtexts: "the anointing" / obsolete leonine monarchies / Louis Quatorze the Sun King /  enlightenment through concussion / the tyrant must be resisted from the heartland / populist progressives plot stealthily to justify their rule through the wizardry of science / the tyrant utilizes tech to manipulate the credulous / green state fascism / journey out of ontic inevitability into the futurist nightmare / eco-mammon bailouts / infantile mental midgets ruled by witch-tyrants = One World Munchkinland / Dorothy as redeemer-Messiah / Dorothy as Mary Poppins / America exports populist prophecy to the greater world / Glinda the Matriarch-Goddess / Glinda as transcendent Wisdom / the Anti-witch antidote / Patriarchy creates "special effects" subterfuge / flying monkeys: shock-troops of the witch / simian social justice warriors / Obama as Witch of West AND Wizard simultaneously / flying monkeys: brown-shirt armies of new multi-culti order / George W. Bush was the the witch the house ("Hope & Change') fell on / Over the Rainbow: somewhere beyond ****** identity grievance-mongering / There's no place like the Restoration of All Things

He moved forward through the darkness towards the light of the chariot.  But as Enkidu moved, he remained doubtful.  Was this another illusion?  Is this the right thing to do?  What will the result of this be?  Will I lose myself as I know it?

These doubts and questions there born, changed his trajectory and led him away from the chariot and towards a staircase.  Schismatic thoughts confined to conflict served as a remembrance of the unsolved.

Being moved to the top of the lighted staircase he heard the voice of a woman calling to him.  He passed through the doorway at the top, being lit as it was with brown and green hues, seemingly shimmering across a liquid to be reflected upon the door.  

The scene dissolved and he found himself starting to make out the edges of a forest, a place that he felt a certain resonance with.  

“Why is this so familiar?”

He wondered....Instant realization took hold of his form as he saw the place of his birth....but not from the same time that he lived.  There seemed to be an overlap between the realms of the jeweled garden of the gods, with the cedar forest.  

This was a place untouched by time,
as though its vegetation aged and made wine.

The wilds had been  ushered towards instant life and growth after the creation of it.  The woman's call to him gained a lower octave of tone, as if a man was joining in the song.

A thought spawned from elsewhere initiated recognition within Enkidu.

Humbaba had a consort!  

The voices were so similar, as if from the union of anima and animus with the exception that the male voice was half as dense as it was supposed to be.  The thing giving most of its weight seemed lost, as if trying to come from a place that wasn’t.  

It was the death song of Humbaba, as sung along by his consort's chorus.  
        
The environment changed
its form once again to replicate the moment
Gilgamesh slayed the great monster Humbaba.  

This however was actually a transgression of the divine order of things, the demon being a way to help keep humanity from putting the world out of balance and destroying or forgetting about nature.

A large many armed and many winged being with a leonine face appeared.

*“Do you remember why you died hero?...Yes, it was because you incurred the wrath of the gods, and the unseen womanly wrath of me.  You took my consort before he could plant his seed in me.  You took my present and my future, so we, the divine, did the same for you.  You broke my union and yet you know nothing of union...Of a sacrifice of self?  You know nothing ...but I can teach you.  In order to learn though I need you to do but one thing...The only fitting thing.  Join me, lose yourself in me and empty yourself of yourself of fear and into my womb. Be the other side in a divine love circuit, and in this way I may birth another protector of the realm, one born of the originals murderer, and one of divine order.  Fitting no?”

Mr Earth meets Madame Fire,
A stable man of intellect,
Charisma very much intact,
A logical fellow,
Manners of perfection noted,
Meditating on his issues,
Sometimes rather pessimistic,
Very sensual,
Rather ****** by design,
Tested waters thoroughly,
Before strolling into my bright light,
Not giving into love initially,
Can feel jealousy bite,
But **** he won't admit it,
There was another poet born on his special day,
Philip Levine,poetry must be written in the stars,

Madame Leo,
So dramatic,
Writes with mental pen of magic,
An uncomplicated soul,
Like him, She strives to be the best,
Loves to take central place in his affection,
Offers adoration as well as admiration,
This strong honest leader,
Likes to dominate,
With patience in care,
A masterpiece in passion,
This leonine lady will cross the ocean to find him,
So she can share her tender touch,
Whenever the time is right,
A four star combination with lots of light hearted love!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

Aftermath!

Wind blew away.
Tumbled trees.
Across the road were slain.
Trees deceased.
One or few.
Caught by the branches.
Felled.
Chaos in diversion's drench.
Liken to flowers on tender stems.

Trains deceased for hour of rush.
As leaves and rainfall both did gush.
Muddles of puddles.
Leonine wind.
Did the holy roar.
Sent from heaven or forced from hell.

Today the weather she presents no passion.
Slight chill in her heart.
Sun in her eye.
Storm forced out.
Fear did die.
Silent clouds drift through blue skies.
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

i see him straightening the
ruffle of his native clothing,
putting words of truth
inside the empty parentheses
of mendacities -

it is through his leonine eyes
that i see the pointlessness
of men. through the
TV's hoarse static i can hear
his voice occupy the space
of obligation without swerving
to paths made available for ease
without clear trudge.
    sir, you make it painless
to conceive these cutting truths -
death trembles in these taut attestations. in half-lighted periphery i can see the shadows
threatening to cast us into damnation, and it is in the bright ray of your speech that i have started to uncover the beasts
  and their diminutive language.

dark as dark these ploys could be,
  now that they are whiter than
  ever with their transparencies,
you have handed these people
  flames to torch effigies
   and use their glare to light
  the intransigent paths
    to this nation's true calling!

    spare us from the debaucher
of this once sacred land, the contortionists   of these ill fates.
and preserve our just tillage
  over these archipelagos!
save us from the vertigo of these
   mangled, twisting roads!
give our speech obdurate
   magnitude so we can hammer down
the lies thrown at us and cast them away together with their wretched demagogues!

    let us once more, be brave
    to withstand the eye of storms
    and emerge wizened like
     trees in the summer of
    our old, resplendent memories
     where everything is
   and nothing
         is speaking loosely
   of something far from our hands
     to hold, like
   prosperity,
        or effulgence - altogether!

I remember you, resplendent
in white and gold, like a ****** bride,
but (as you said) with no such intent,
adventuring off – I was ill in bed
or I’d have been with you – to make mischief
in the jasmine-scented Cairo night.

And I remember you, rosy with wine,
in a long blue gown, with blazing hair outspread,
fast asleep in the back of a London taxi.
I had such ado to wake you,
while another friend stood by,
holding your golden child.

And when you finally surfaced,
you staggered, baby on arm, up the steps,
refusing help, to your front door;
we watched, our hearts in our mouths,
till you found the lock, and vanished inside.

So you have lived your life, ever chasing
after the next rainbow; a leonine spirit,
shimmering in air made lambent by your fire.

For years you were my icon, my aspiration,
but each of us must be true to her own nature;
it’s the kobbolds of earth give wings to the sea-goat’s foot.
‘The words of Saturn are harsh after the songs of Apollo’:
You, that way. I, this way.

At the Nassau County Medical Center We nurses were put on alert;
A truck hit a small car on the L.I.E. leaving someone in a world of hurt.
Our “John Doe” was being air lifted and we heard the copter drone near.
One look at his face and I knew he was gone from this world of Love and Fear.
Yes, we all knew it was Harry from his unmistakable leonine mane;
The charts had him labeled as “John Doe” but we knew who it was just the same.
The doctors, like heroes, were fighting to bring Harry back from the grave
But his heart had been pierced by a sliver of glass; there was no way that he could be saved.
Had his heart failed him, there on the roadway, or had he been killed in the crash.
I couldn’t feel mad at the trucker who did what he could at the last.
We found a gold watch in his pocket. “Harry F. Chapin” engraved.
A man who had fought to save others but who himself could not save.

i have already something
  new and sublime to say
  about love.
as two people on the bench
   where the birds are
unashamedly perching right by,
  pecking on the cheek of the world
soon enough now, the hand of
   which mad drivel shall tear
   this photograph in two
  and with a hand on the knee
   as a gentle stamp to
  a reaching-for-and-out epistle,
  we are far away,

and love is as sad as the
   flower that has grown
weary of waiting for the sun
   to fulminate altogether with
    its eyes staring in the
   veranda of hope wide-awake.
  and love is as short as the
   sudden jolt of bones, atremble,
  as though you have fallen
    completely into,
   but have only fallen out,
  partially, one foot first
    out the yawning door
  and into the heavy premises
of a heart's trying forgetfulness.
  to have heard once, the call
   of a tame voice through
   the wild hand of trouble's immensity, and to have held it
   once so shortly bold thereafter,
  with leonine eyes i see only
  a small distance i cannot seal
    with one kiss. i need a hundred more of you and a thousand more of this before i can fill your nebulosity with a million star-like
   kisses traced only by the
   white hand of time that continues to punctuate our
   sentences right even before
   our lips quiver to speak them
  softly like how i first sank
  in you and you in me, a flotsam
   of memories.

i have something new to show
   about love with mine eye's
  unresting shutters capture
moments held loose like a mother's
   frail child,
this photograph with your hand
   on my knee,
  cleaved into worlds from the
  silence of our eyes and
  only longing
     speaks so much the straightforward,
     we are far away.

I see it, right there.
That faint glimmering in your eyes.
It’s hope,
It’s inspiration,
No wait, it’s love?

It’s everything.

I see everything in your eyes.
I see long nights,
Early mornings, and
Sweet memories.

I see Leonine taking his first steps,
I see Luna on her first day to school,
I see two hands ring clad interlocked.

I see us,
And to me,
That’s everything.

Do you see it?
That sparkle in your eyes when you look at me.
I see it,
And I love it.

I love everything,
I love you,
I love us.

My one and only,
My love,
My everything.

That’s what I see.

You used to read out our horoscopes
over lazy breakfasts with the Sunday rags.
We'd giggle at "romance in unexpected places",
mock "finances are on the rise",
the new moon always "brings profound changes",
and you'd say "hey, it's all just a load of rot".
While I'd sip my coffee in silent acquiescence,
I'd be secretly hoping that perhaps it was not.

When the stars aligned and brought about our conjunction
who could have foreseen what the fates had planned?
If only we'd known then what we know now,
we'd have seen the danger of uniting two sheep-headed rams.
Those signs of fire mistaken for warmth,
now signs of a love burnt out,
all that's left are dying embers
and my thoughts, full of doubts.

Fate, you had eleven other signs to choose from,
my bad luck you sent one like me.
Where-oh-where was soft, gentle Pisces?
Or dreamy-wet Aquarius?
Sweet, virtuous Virgo promising so much loving.
Or a well-balanced Libran stuck on her fence.
I have taken a Capricorn so, so capricious
or even a narcissistic Scorpio.
I mean, at the end of the day
how many times can you be stung?

No doubt you're now reading the stars over breakfast
with some more 'compatible' sign:
A two-faced, backstabbing Gemini,
a flat-headed Taurean bullock ***-machine,
a free-loving, hairy Sagittarian,
that oh-so-perfect-fence-balancing Libran,
or maybe some gorgeous, leonine Leo
has you wrapped up in his golden, free-flowing mane.

But I hope that when the Zodiac finally stops spinning,
your roulette wheel of life comes to rest on black,
and you land up with an ill-tempered decapod,
a hard-shelled, crustaceous, side-walking crab.