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"lethe" poems
For Max O cruel, drunken soul, darling tigress, Come to my heart, you lethargic beast! I long for my trembling hands to caress Your thick and glossy fleece. In your petticoats filled with your scent To bury my poor, aching head, Inhaling your flowery fragrance; The sweetness of love now dead. I wish to sleep, to dream perchance As sweetly as death’s embrace, Without remorse, my tongue will dance On your coppery body and face. To bury my sobbing for hours Nothing equals your bed’s abyss, On your lips lies oblivion’s power And Lethe flows in your kiss. Like one resigned to meet his end, I’ll face my fate delighted; Docile martyr, innocent condemned, Whose fervour with pain is ignited. I shall **** to drown my malice,   With nepenthe and hemlock blessed; Placing my lips upon the chalice Of your pointed, heartless breast.
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Apr 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017 at 9:08 AM UTC
Translation: Lethe (Baudelaire)
As the voice of a dead man might sing From the depths of his tomb, For you, Mistress, my tuneless voice rings False in my heart’s catacomb. Open your soul and hear the knell Of my mandolin strings: This song I wrote, for you, which tells Of cruel and childish things. I will sing of your eyes, onyx and gold, Purged of every shadow, Then the Lethe of your breast, the cold Styx of your hair’s dark flow. As the voice of a dead man might sing From the depths of his tomb, For you, Mistress, my tuneless voice rings False in my heart’s catacomb. Then I will praise, above all Flesh that heaven did bless Whose opulent perfumes recall Nights long and sleepless. Finally, I will speak of the kiss Of your sweet red lip, Oh, how my martyrdom is bliss, – My angel! – My Whip! Open your soul and hear the knell Of my mandolin strings: This song I wrote, for you, which tells Of cruel and childish things.
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Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 10:01 AM UTC
Translation: Serenade (Verlaine)
It was deep April, and the morn Shakespeare was born; The world was on us, pressing sore; My love and I took hands and swore, Against the world, to be Poets and lovers evermore, To laugh and dream on Lethe's shore, To sing to Charon in his boat, Heartening the timid souls afloat; Of judgement never to take heed, But to those fast-locked souls to speed, Who never from Apollo fled, Who spent no hour among the dead; Continually With them to dwell, Indifferent to heaven and hell.
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It was deep April
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit- man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam- ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcнa Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage- teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? Berkeley 1955
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A Supermarket In California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit- man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam- ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcнa Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage- teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? Berkeley 1955
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Dear diabolic debutante / Spawn of the unfathomable abyss of blackness / Daughter of dreadful dead desire / Black-shrouded sinister sister of celestial gloom before whose imperious gaze the heavens fall silent / Whip-lash girl-child of the graves whose pallid visage kindles the myriad infernal fires / Autocratic vampiress of lunar doom whose winding-cloth enfolds the thousand horrors of blood-drenched nightmare / Thou that wanderest the cypress-crested hills of funereal necropolises / Whose icy glance cracks the ungraven tombstones of utter desolation / Empress of night and madness / Who stalks the locked and shadowed hallways of unhallowed thought / Whose burial-boat glides the still waters over Lethe’s silent depths to the unglimpsed isle of eternal mourning / Whose parapets tower above the fiefdoms of quotidian banality / Whose flying buttresses overlook the Stygian waters of the forgotten drowned denizens of damnation / Whose unshackled dungeons open to worlds of regal splendor / Whose spires pierce dark skies where oblivion buries the ruined cities of revelry under the drifting clouds of leaden time / Oh maiden of melancholic alchemy whose petrified passions transmute base metal into pure gold… May the gibbous moon of equinox shine its baleful eye upon you; may you tread in sacramental calm the winding starlit paths of somnolent cemeteries; may my unmixed metaphors unveil in delirium their parabolic mysteries before the smoldering altar of your uninterpretable allegory; may the favor of your scorn forever lay me out, embalmed, undead, on the cold stone of merciless reality. Behold: in cryptic script of spectral apparition, in tracery of coded illumination, amidst the dawning rays of torment I write thine unknown name on the threshold of daylight. And from within the mortared wall of self I speak forth from my sepulcher the Sibylline utterance, unsought, unheard, undreamt: JUST WANTED TO SAY ‘HI’ !
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Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
Ω Gothic Postcard Ω
Dear diabolic debutante / Spawn of the unfathomable abyss of blackness / Daughter of dreadful dead desire / Black-shrouded sinister sister of celestial gloom before whose imperious gaze the heavens fall silent / Whip-lash girl-child of the graves whose pallid visage kindles the myriad infernal fires / Autocratic vampiress of lunar doom whose winding-cloth enfolds the thousand horrors of blood-drenched nightmare / Thou that wanderest the cypress-crested hills of funereal necropolises / Whose icy glance cracks the ungraven tombstones of utter desolation / Empress of night and madness / Who stalks the locked and shadowed hallways of unhallowed thought / Whose burial-boat glides the still waters over Lethe’s silent depths to the unglimpsed isle of eternal mourning / Whose parapets tower above the fiefdoms of quotidian banality / Whose flying buttresses overlook the Stygian waters of the forgotten drowned denizens of damnation / Whose unshackled dungeons open to worlds of regal splendor / Whose spires pierce dark skies where oblivion buries the ruined cities of revelry under the drifting clouds of leaden time / Oh maiden of melancholic alchemy whose petrified passions transmute base metal into pure gold… May the gibbous moon of equinox shine its baleful eye upon you; may you tread in sacramental calm the winding starlit paths of somnolent cemeteries; may my unmixed metaphors unveil in delirium their parabolic mysteries before the smoldering altar of your uninterpretable allegory; may the favor of your scorn forever lay me out, embalmed, undead, on the cold stone of merciless reality. Behold: in cryptic script of spectral apparition, in tracery of coded illumination, amidst the dawning rays of torment I write thine unknown name on the threshold of daylight. And from within the mortared wall of self I speak forth from my sepulcher the Sibylline utterance, unsought, unheard, undreamt: JUST WANTED TO SAY ‘HI’ !
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Serendipities torrential deluge Of dulcet applause reigning In the divine dynasty of Empiricisms arcane lore, Heavens most high of heirachies Beyond the veil Drowning in altruistic Reflexive salutations; The regnant patent mutitioning Of the waters Lethe from Serpens poisened chalice of saints Evoking the advent vigil of Dusts chaldean dreams, The sabbatical ordination The fatal ravens annunciation Heralding valediction Convening betwixt and between Gates of ivory and horn Arraigning the apostolic conclave. ELEETE J MUIR.
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Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 9:35 AM UTC
The Ephemeral Compassionate Leave of Transmigration.
Seeing we never found gay fairyland (Though still we crouched by bluebells moon by moon) And missed the tide of Lethe; yet are soon For that new bridge that leaves old Styx half-spanned; Nor ever unto Mecca caravanned; Nor bugled Asgard, skilled in magic rune; Nor yearned for far Nirvana, the sweet swoon, And from high Paradise are cursed and banned; -Let's die home, ferry across the Channel! Thus Shall we live gods there. Death shall be no sev'rance. Weary cathedrals light new shrines for us. To us, rough knees of boys shall ache with rev'rence. Are not girls' ******* a clear, strong Acropole? -There our oun mothers' tears shall heal us whole
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A New Heaven
At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An ****** vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies (Her casement open to the skies) Irene, with her Destinies! Oh, lady bright! can it be right— This window open to the night! The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice-drop— The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully—so fearfully— Above the closed and fringed lid ’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid, That, o’er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall! Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees! Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all-solemn silentness! The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie For ever with unopened eye, While the dim sheeted ghosts go by! My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep; Soft may the worms about her creep! Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold— Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o’er the crested palls, Of her grand family funerals— Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood many an idle stone— Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne’er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin! It was the dead who groaned within.
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The Sleeper
At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An ****** vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies (Her casement open to the skies) Irene, with her Destinies! Oh, lady bright! can it be right— This window open to the night! The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice-drop— The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully—so fearfully— Above the closed and fringed lid ’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid, That, o’er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall! Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees! Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all-solemn silentness! The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie For ever with unopened eye, While the dim sheeted ghosts go by! My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep; Soft may the worms about her creep! Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold— Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o’er the crested palls, Of her grand family funerals— Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood many an idle stone— Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne’er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin! It was the dead who groaned within.
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"Under the flag Of each his faction, they to battle bring Their embryon atoms." - Milton WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow, Lethe's **** and Hermes' feather; Come to-day, and come to-morrow, I do love you both together! I love to mark sad faces in fair weather; And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder; Fair and foul I love together. Meadows sweet where flames are under, And a giggle at a wonder; Visage sage at pantomine; Funeral, and steeple-chime; Infant playing with a skull; Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull; Nightshade with the woodbine kissing; Serpents in red roses hissing; Cleopatra regal-dress'd With the aspic at her breast; Dancing music, music sad, Both together, sane and mad; Muses bright and muses pale; Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; - Laugh and sigh, and laugh again; Oh the sweetness of the pain! Muses bright, and muses pale, Bare your faces of the veil; Let me see; and let me write Of the day, and of the night - Both together: - let me slake All my thirst for sweet heart-ache! Let my bower be of yew, Interwreath'd with myrtles new; Pines and lime-trees full in bloom, And my couch a low grass-tomb.
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A song of opposites
1730 “Lethe” in my flower, Of which they who drink In the fadeless orchards Hear the bobolink! Merely flake or petal As the Eye beholds Jupiter! my father! I perceive the rose!
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Lethe in my flower
(Rock Lake, Canada) In this country there is neither measure nor balance To redress the dominance of rocks and woods, The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds. No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention, No word make them carry water or fire the kindling Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being. Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants a vacation Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice; Away from the labeled elms, the tame tea-roses. It took three days driving north to find a cloud The polite skies over Boston couldn't possibly accommodate. Here on the last frontier of the big, brash spirit The horizons are too far off to be chummy as uncles; The colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance. Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions And night arrives in one gigantic step. It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little. These rocks offer no purchase to herbage or people: They are conceiving a dynasty of perfect cold. In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for. I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here. The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened. Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas; The pines blot our voices up in their lightest sighs. Around our tent the old simplicities sough Sleepily as Lethe, trying to get in. We'll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn.
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Two Campers In Cloud Country
broadview hotel breathing in the trick mirror of sunday moonlight lethe, my dear absolver you tell me glass only breaks and never flows and the river vanishes, too before my eyes like ghosts in the morning and cursed wine plucking mental pictures from the jaws of drink
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May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 9:36 AM UTC
trick mirror
How far is it? How far is it now? The gigantic gorilla interior Of the wheels move, they appall me --- The terrible brains Of Krupp, black muzzles Revolving, the sound Punching out Absence! Like cannon. It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other. I am dragging my body Quietly through the straw of the boxcars. Now is the time for bribery. What do wheels eat, these wheels Fixed to their arcs like gods, The silver leash of the will ---- Inexorable. And their pride! All the gods know destinations. I am a letter in this slot! I fly to a name, two eyes. Will there be fire, will there be bread? Here there is such mud. It is a trainstop, the nurses Undergoing the faucet water, its veils, veils in a nunnery, Touching their wounded, The men the blood still pumps forward, Legs, arms piled outside The tent of unending cries ---- A hospital of dolls. And the men, what is left of the men Pumped ahead by these pistons, this blood Into the next mile, The next hour ---- Dynasty of broken arrows! How far is it? There is mud on my feet, Thick, red and slipping. It is Adam's side, This earth I rise from, and I in agony. I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming. Steaming and breathing, its teeth Ready to roll, like a devil's. There is a minute at the end of it A minute, a dewdrop. How far is it? It is so small The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles ---- The body of this woman, Charred skirts and deathmask Mourned by religious figures, by garlanded children. And now detonations ---- Thunder and guns. The fire's between us. Is there no place Turning and turning in the middle air, Untouchable and untouchable. The train is dragging itself, it is screaming ---- An animal Insane for the destination, The bloodspot, The face at the end of the flare. I shall bury the wounded like pupas, I shall count and bury the dead. Let their souls writhe in like dew, Incense in my track. The carriages rock, they are cradles. And I, stepping from this skin Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces Step up to you from the black car of Lethe, Pure as a baby.
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Getting There
How far is it? How far is it now? The gigantic gorilla interior Of the wheels move, they appall me --- The terrible brains Of Krupp, black muzzles Revolving, the sound Punching out Absence! Like cannon. It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other. I am dragging my body Quietly through the straw of the boxcars. Now is the time for bribery. What do wheels eat, these wheels Fixed to their arcs like gods, The silver leash of the will ---- Inexorable. And their pride! All the gods know destinations. I am a letter in this slot! I fly to a name, two eyes. Will there be fire, will there be bread? Here there is such mud. It is a trainstop, the nurses Undergoing the faucet water, its veils, veils in a nunnery, Touching their wounded, The men the blood still pumps forward, Legs, arms piled outside The tent of unending cries ---- A hospital of dolls. And the men, what is left of the men Pumped ahead by these pistons, this blood Into the next mile, The next hour ---- Dynasty of broken arrows! How far is it? There is mud on my feet, Thick, red and slipping. It is Adam's side, This earth I rise from, and I in agony. I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming. Steaming and breathing, its teeth Ready to roll, like a devil's. There is a minute at the end of it A minute, a dewdrop. How far is it? It is so small The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles ---- The body of this woman, Charred skirts and deathmask Mourned by religious figures, by garlanded children. And now detonations ---- Thunder and guns. The fire's between us. Is there no place Turning and turning in the middle air, Untouchable and untouchable. The train is dragging itself, it is screaming ---- An animal Insane for the destination, The bloodspot, The face at the end of the flare. I shall bury the wounded like pupas, I shall count and bury the dead. Let their souls writhe in like dew, Incense in my track. The carriages rock, they are cradles. And I, stepping from this skin Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces Step up to you from the black car of Lethe, Pure as a baby.
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Bring to me a strong *** By which my soul's sorrow will be forgot: Filled with an ****** divine So that Woman may be driven from my mind. For I no longer want This stream inspiring a heartly haunt, That once flows will not stop 'Til my heart's blood drains to its last drop, And so drained, then breaks. Leaves me with an art held for its own sake. So bring me forth this draught, Deepest as ever one from Lethe quaffed. From my broken heart charm This fair Image of the earth's Fairest Form That ever my heart has held, That ever my reveling heart has swelled. Alas, seems never shall be My mind's eye, my heart, my soul ever free Of this tort'rous torment. Left with naught to do, only lament. Away I cannot chase The mind numbing beauty of her face. 'Tis all in vain it seems For such a draught appears only in my dreams. My sight did so invest, Bringing damning pain abreast. No longer can delight Be brought forth from sights seen in any light. Had she only known how My heart, once free, only beat for her now And with but a smile Assuaged that murd'rous pain but for a while I would then know relief, That most bittersweet pain, the "joy of grief."
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Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 11:17 PM UTC
Everything Forgotten is Never Truly Forgot
Sunken eyes, broken thoughts, air with difficulty enters the lungs. Dry mouth, lacrimation of no purpose, the pillow full of nails  she is resting upon. The body, a ship stricken by a wave war. Slow disintegration, remains are battling the seven seas of sorrow. Like a painting  uncovered, black sheets cover the rays of the sun from the soul. Resident of a lucid dream, mumbling to the wind that blows regrets down to the river between Hypnos and the Underworld, to carry a message to the hearts with locked doors. A message of no words but incoherent perceptions, lost unknown connections and strangled hopes.
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Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 11:12 PM UTC
Lethe
Fill for me a brimming bowl And in it let me drown my soul: But put therein some drug, designed To Banish Women from my mind: For I want not the stream inspiring That fills the mind with--fond desiring, But I want as deep a draught As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaff'd; From my despairing heart to charm The Image of the fairest form That e'er my reveling eyes beheld, That e'er my wandering fancy spell'd. In vain! away I cannot chace The melting softness of that face, The beaminess of those bright eyes, That breast--earth's only Paradise. My sight will never more be blest; For all I see has lost its zest: Nor with delight can I explore, The Classic page, or Muse's lore. Had she but known how beat my heart, And with one smile reliev'd its smart I should have felt a sweet relief, I should have felt ''the joy of grief.'' Yet as the Tuscan mid the snow Of Lapland dreams on sweet Arno, Even so for ever shall she be The Halo of my Memory.
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Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl
I drown and glimpse Poseidon's kingdom I fall and I am lifted by the winds of Anemoi My heart looks into medusa eyes And I run freely about the lair of Eris I clutch the moon in the wake of Hecate as the war is waged against Selene's solar bounty Lethe guides my hand into ignorance Ponos holds my head high in the face of my deepest fear Theia bares Eos to me and I offer the reddest rose for she is the light that lets Helios reign
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Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 9:36 AM UTC
Chasing Helios
Why, When words calmly manifest the intimacy, Our hearts render them asunder. In just a sliver of time. How, When surrounded by souls dimly lit, Do I feel as a death moth fluttering near a lamp. Ceaselessly eternal. What, Can my lips say when my heart is burnt by fire. What words? When all are mean. Where, Are the seconds of every day gone? Swallowed; Except in frivolous pursuit or meaningless drudgery When, Could I raise my arms up without fear of falling, Or be swept by Lethe.
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Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 11:39 AM UTC
Detachment
I slipped into oblivion And for a minute or two I held hands with death What separated us was nothing but murky water; Hade's Lethe My fingers reached up Or was it down? They intertwined with his He bent his Cimmerian face through the separating waters His night colored lips briefly rested against mine But not for long enough I loitered on his doorstep just long enough for my heartbeat to recede, my breath to become shallow~ And then I awoke I crashed up through the pressing weight of the deep, black water Death's sweet embrace was broken
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Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 5:50 AM UTC
Dancing With Death~ the night I attempted suicide
And after, there is only a gaping emptiness the familiar ache The desire to drown myself in soft things Fill my pockets with pebbles and all the poems my muses will never read And wade into the Lethe To the place of the first breath after momentary pain The liminal gasp between sighs The first touch after a long absence Body awakening to memory. *Welcome weary traveller, you are safe here. Dwell. Abide. The scrounging scratching crawl you call a life withdraws. Here, Float in the fingers of sunlight through glass The murmur of breath against hair The glimpse of ripples from a water-strider’s gait. Here, You are small and safe You suffer no harm nor cause it Your existence has curled in on itself   And blooms with the sunrise. Here, Your presence is a fleck on a robin’s egg The bruise of teeth on a petal An eyelash in sand Lost, lingering, and longing.* The Lethe plucks the pebbles and poems into the current Your likeness billows with ink in the wake Adrift, I clutch at your fading hand But rising, find I do not know this face Left only with a flicker Of a stranger’s arms around my waist.
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Aug 12, 2021
Aug 12, 2021 at 9:05 PM UTC
And After
Montgomery! true, the common lot Of mortals lies in Lethe’s wave; Yet some shall never be forgot, Some shall exist beyond the grave. “Unknown the region of his birth,” The hero rolls the tide of war; Yet not unknown his martial worth, Which glares a meteor from afar. His joy or grief, his weal or woe, Perchance may ’scape the page of fame; Yet nations, now unborn, will know The record of his deathless name. The Patriot’s and the Poet’s frame Must share the common tomb of all: Their glory will not sleep the same; ‘That’ will arise, though Empires fall. The lustre of a Beauty’s eye Assumes the ghastly stare of death; The fair, the brave, the good must die, And sink the yawning grave beneath. Once more, the speaking eye revives, Still beaming through the lover’s strain; For Petrarch’s Laura still survives: She died, but ne’er will die again. The rolling seasons pass away, And Time, untiring, waves his wing; Whilst honour’s laurels ne’er decay, But bloom in fresh, unfading spring. All, all must sleep in grim repose, Collected in the silent tomb; The old, the young, with friends and foes, Fest’ring alike in shrouds, consume. The mouldering marble lasts its day, Yet falls at length an useless fane; To Ruin’s ruthless fangs a prey, The wrecks of pillar’d Pride remain. What, though the sculpture be destroy’d, From dark Oblivion meant to guard; A bright renown shall be enjoy’d, By those, whose virtues claim reward. Then do not say the common lot Of all lies deep in Lethe’s wave; Some few who ne’er will be forgot Shall burst the ******* of the grave.
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Answer To A Beautiful Poem, Written By Montgomery, Author Of “The Wanderer Of Switzerland,” Etc., Entitled “The Common Lot.”
Montgomery! true, the common lot Of mortals lies in Lethe’s wave; Yet some shall never be forgot, Some shall exist beyond the grave. “Unknown the region of his birth,” The hero rolls the tide of war; Yet not unknown his martial worth, Which glares a meteor from afar. His joy or grief, his weal or woe, Perchance may ’scape the page of fame; Yet nations, now unborn, will know The record of his deathless name. The Patriot’s and the Poet’s frame Must share the common tomb of all: Their glory will not sleep the same; ‘That’ will arise, though Empires fall. The lustre of a Beauty’s eye Assumes the ghastly stare of death; The fair, the brave, the good must die, And sink the yawning grave beneath. Once more, the speaking eye revives, Still beaming through the lover’s strain; For Petrarch’s Laura still survives: She died, but ne’er will die again. The rolling seasons pass away, And Time, untiring, waves his wing; Whilst honour’s laurels ne’er decay, But bloom in fresh, unfading spring. All, all must sleep in grim repose, Collected in the silent tomb; The old, the young, with friends and foes, Fest’ring alike in shrouds, consume. The mouldering marble lasts its day, Yet falls at length an useless fane; To Ruin’s ruthless fangs a prey, The wrecks of pillar’d Pride remain. What, though the sculpture be destroy’d, From dark Oblivion meant to guard; A bright renown shall be enjoy’d, By those, whose virtues claim reward. Then do not say the common lot Of all lies deep in Lethe’s wave; Some few who ne’er will be forgot Shall burst the ******* of the grave.
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I walked through life with a rude and fresh arrogance: I was taught it when I was still a big fish in a small pond, When I still had a can-do-it-all attitude, when the dance Was life, and the tune was want, and the performer, fond, Moved like anything. Anyone. Save Lethe, who dulled me, Who pulled me under waves when I cursed the sea, When I thought, to time immemorial, I had the energy To do anything, go anywhere, be anything I wanted to be - I lived off borrowed time, and borrowed fire, And borrowed, all of my once blazing desire Fed no one, but lost dreams - I reap the harvest now: I should have been a doctor, and I plough My lack of care and decision, my blind turning, and the resulting salt, I trudge through the compost of other unfinished deeds, never to halt - I never knew the meaning of a battery, even when it ran down; My phone recharges at night, and I simply squint and frown, Trying to make sense of a world sensible to girl who used to dream; Sleeping through waking, as though nothing would be as it would seem.
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Sep 13, 2021
Sep 13, 2021 at 6:31 PM UTC
FortnightForFatigue Poem #1
A forest pathway I follow Through a distant misty hollow To a far place where thoughts unwind That's buried deep within my mind To the smooth banks of a clear stream In this fair dream within a dream My River Lethe gently calls And to her depths, my spirit falls In her sweet waters, I forget This life of sorrow and regret Perhaps this river, flowing free Will pull me to the endless sea Where Nereids live within the caves So deep beneath its swirling waves And lifetimes pass in depths pristine As sun glints through aquamarine And there one senses pure delight As currents dance in pearly light So to the sea where dolphins play On this river, I'll drift away. Note: Lethe, from Greek mythology, is pronounced: 'Leethee'.'
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Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 1:10 AM UTC
My River Lethe
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
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2.5k
Ode On Melancholy
High above and brave; Taunting the waters below. With this bridge we have conquered Open spaces And Time opens its wings To let us pass without aging. Who ages on the bridge? No one. Children are arrested in a state Of wondrous apprehension. The old forget gravity's pull On their brittle bones. It is a marvelous thing that connects Our world to Middle Earth and Rivendell; the great Castle of Gormenghast, Narnia and The fathomless depths of Cthulu; the Temples of the Oracles; the lost rock Walls of the Necropolis; the emerald Towers of Oz; the Memorial to Krypton In the Fortress of Solitude; the waters of Lethe; the expanse of Midgard and the Rainbow Bridge; Mount Olympus; Daedelus' Labyrinth; the Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Paridisio; the dark Forest's of Pan; and the broad field's of Chiron. And the galaxy of stars, of worlds destroyed And created by your Will, that shapeshifter Of Prima Materia that stretches out in The limitless space that is your mind. This ancient construction of arched Rock, mankind's greatest achievement That draws the curious, the adventurous Without verdict or punishment, and gives Them the ability to walk on air, defeating The current of death that rushes Obliviously below.
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Oct 23, 2010
Oct 23, 2010 at 4:12 PM UTC
The Bridge