"Are the gods angry?"
she said with a laugh
as Vesuvius rumbled
with warnings advance.

I cuffed her behind,
but gently, and laughed:
"Lady bring me more wine
for my morning repast."

I had sup'd with old Pliny
just the evening before.
Admiral of the fleet
anchored safely offshore.

My vineyards are fruitful,
a source of fine wines.
and the olives, when pressed,
make a spread that's divine.

My Villa is handsome,
and I own many slaves.
so you see I've no use
for their Jesus who saves.

The top of the mountain
disappeared in a blast
Our homes are laid siege to
with pumice and ash.

The women are screaming
I hear a child cry.
I hear prayers vainly offered
to an uncaring sky.

The air is quite thick
My lungs are oppressed.
My Villa is burning
along with the rest.

With a cloth on my mouth,
I race to the shore,
hoping, dear Pliny,
to see you once more.

I look on with horror
as burning stone blocks my path
I crouch by a wall
as my last moments pass.


* * * * *
The Archeologist tutted
"Well, who have we here?
"Clearly no slave
from this ring it appears."

" I am Lucius Flavius."
My Lemure would remind.
but I'm like a statue
and mute for all time.

She was standing on the balcony of the forty second floor, The breeze swayed her Lucius ***** blonde hair as i crept up behind her.
"You'll freeze to death." I said as i pulled off my jacket and wrapped it around her soft shoulder's.
She stood quiet for a moment.
"Thank's." She responded in a depressing voice.
Her fragrance was breathtaking, Reminding me of a new born flower.
"You know you don't have to run anymore." I spoke softly in her ear.
"But i do." She responded.

~Tamerial is dead.~ I thought to myself.

"He is out there. Watching me."
Her body trembled for a moment.
"I know he is still alive."

To be possibly continued.....

Walking the road I lost in woods
Feet became light, eyes had a glow, moon was bright
Cool wind touched my hair
I saw Alice, she said : "Beware"

When I have woken, after dawn has broken
I took the pill for that magic thrill
I sat on window for the cigarette blow
I was in place where I don't want to go.

Lucius D. Luuk

You don't really need me, do you?

Oh, you enjoy being with me.
You enjoy kissing me.
You enjoy having me at your side.
You enjoy playing the games that lovers play.
Perhaps you love me.
But you don't really need me, do you?
What I mean is
you don't lie awake at night thinking of me
you don't leave your homework unfinished because
your mind is tormented by the thought of Lucius
you don't go to sleep at night wishing my arms were around you.

You have your friends.
You have your home.
You have your mother and your father.
You've never been really lonely.
You've never really suffered.
You've never wanted to drive your car off a cliff or
put a bullet through your head.
You've never ached with all your heart.
You've never wanted anyone completely and forever.

But don't feel bad.
It's not your fault.
I should have known.

We lived in a house a cleric built
In fifteen sixty-three,
Deep in a copse of Roman Elms
A grand and mighty tree,
The place was Tudor, half timbered,
And it creaked in every storm,
The wind was rattling through the eaves
Before we both were born.

We saw it up in the window of
The Realtor, going cheap,
It needed some TLC because
Its look would make you weep,
It badly needed a paint job and
Some timbers plugged with tar,
The years of rot had disfigured it,
‘Are you interested?’ ‘We are!’

Dead leaves had cluttered the downstairs rooms
And damp had swelled the floor,
The leadlight windows were dark with gloom
There were rats down in the store,
We worked and slaved on it, Jill and I,
Till it soon became a home,
Nestling in a hollow that
The locals called a combe.

I’d lie awake in the poster bed
That had been since Cromwell’s day,
The beams and curtains were overhead
And the wind would make them sway,
While Jill slept soundly, I still could hear
The wind sough through the trees,
Come rattling up to the shutters and
Slip gently past the eaves.

But then some nights, I’d hear some muttering
Down there by the elms,
Like ghosts of soldiers, loud and stuttering
Underneath their helms,
And then I’d hear the sound of marching
To a Roman beat,
There wasn’t even a pavement but
It sounded like a street.

A street that clattered with cobblestones
To the sound of chariot wheels,
I’d stare on out from the window-sill
To see what night reveals,
But nothing moved in the shady wood
To make those strangest sounds,
I searched and searched in the daylight, through
Those ancient wooded grounds.

Then one day digging a garden patch
I came across a stone,
That held a funny inscription on
The face, that smacked of Rome,
I think it mentioned a Lucius
From Legion Twenty-Nine,
I pried it out of the ground and then
I knew what I would find.

He lay there still in his breastplate
With his helmet and his sword,
His sandals still on his feet and tied
On tight, with a rotted cord,
The skull stared up at me in dismay
As if to say, ‘Who’s there?
You’ve broken into my endless sleep,
Invaded my despair.’

I swiftly covered him over so
That Jill would never see,
A sight to give her the nightmares that
I knew would come to me,
But then I settled his stone upright
That he might rest in bliss,
And that was the end of the mutterings,
From that day until this.

David Lewis Paget

Cyprian, from Cyprus
Named for the trees of his kingdom
Prince or king
Livia, envy or blue
Beautiful daughter of king Divaro
Ruler of the kingdom
In the four seas
Lucius, the light
He has a way with words
King or prince
Hilaria, cheerful
Accurate for such a child
Who only smiles
But daughter of which king
Nero, strong and aptly named
Impossible strength in a lithe body
Prince or king
And of which kingdom
Aurelia, the golden child
Men have gone insane for her
Of which king
Felix, the lucky
Rumors to carry the
Tears of the water sprite
King or prince or thief
Avita, ancestral
Sister of Cyprian
But who us the king
Cato, how wise
The brother of Hilaria
A prince is revealed
Dulcia, a wonder
Lost in translation
Daughter of which king
Of which kingdom
The diviners of the south
The scholars of the north
The ocean people of the west
The skilled hunters of the east
Or maybe the mountain dwellers

My shadow's brighter than I am.
I think I'm fadin'.
But the Moonlight,
She keeps me down
She warms my heart
Embraces my soul,
Her light.
She pierces through me.
I want to feel her
Want to hold her,
In my hands.
But,
So far she is from me.
I am doomed for whole my life,
Here, somewhere in universe, on this rock.
Drinking rain and eating dirt.
Eternally standing.
I saw when she was born,
From the stone she was divided.
I don't want to think about it.
The moment,
The one in which she will be vanishing.
What will I do here alone,
In this nothingness?
For that moment,
Now I shed the tear
'Cause I'll watch her disappear.
The Moonlight bright,
Only her I've seen the light.

Lucius D. Luuk

In the same rhythm,
Sea moves,
Divides the shore.

Though, he loved the sky.
Every night he would be here
And he would make love with stars,
On the slay.
They loved him.
Sky took him away.
One of them then he was.
But I haven't seen his shine for a long time.
It was same as the one in his eyes when he left,
Griefly pale.

In the same rhythm,
Sea moves,
Divides the shore.

Lucius D. Luuk

draft enclosed below... prior to?

    whiskey, always with the whiskey...
                         there was, some, "pressing" matter,
to give me over to grief...
     a grief that was never going
to be a grief...
                  more, a, bewildering in situ...
something unavoidable...
                        like finding respectable
homosexuals akin to douglas murray...
             ah! that's what it was...
watching the premier of rammstein's song
ausländer? thoughts?
                 "teaching" colonialißation in reverse?
truly... france, england,
   perhaps even spain...
                              teaching...
good teachers...
                   they were always going
to be good teachers...
                     the only colonialißm
the germans ever ventured to address was
of their neighbours...
       ****** choice...
                   oh but i'm pretty sure
you would come back from Warsaw
with a homogeneity nausea sickness...
   i know i do...
         every single time,
   the homogeneous ethno-representation
is nauseating...
       even though, i'm stepping back
into a throng, of, "my own" people...
   i lived on the outskirts of loon'don for far
to long, i don't see an ivory beauty,
the pearls of Ghana,
      or some ***** and blue indian,
i start to "worry"...
                              i once traveled to
Cheltenham... and it, felt,
     like i was walking through Warsaw...
i don't even know whether i was surprised,
or whether i was experiencing the same
homogeneity nausea sickness...
                    each step of passing through
the city, i wanted to puke...
                         well not out an aversion
to being white among whites...
                        i guess i'm just the remains
of the globalist narration of so many
different people living in close proximity...
hub...
             as if revising a city akin to Rome...
when once in a year, gladiator slaves would
come for a month of festivity,
and the whole world was revelead
  with all its faces and hues...
                    but the germans know this...
inverted colonialißm -
         of being "colonialißed"...
                         i'm pretty sure the folk
in Warsaw are less understanding
     to the chocolatiers of Brussels...
                          because, as far as i am concerned...
Brexit, really, really came...
        when... the privileged status
of former British Empire citizens put to
question, a sudden surge in the floodgates
being opened for the former iron curtain countries,
you could have told these Pakistanis,
these Indians...
         don't worry... these people have come...
but... don't think they'll stay...
some will...
                   but most of them come
from an environment of homogeneity...
perfect example...
              a flight from Warsaw to Stansted...
talk about "racism",
     talk about "multiculturalism"...
i said jack ****, i just listened to the debate
behind me between a "racist" man
and a youg, impressionable young woman,
who cited the book why i don't talk
to white people about racism...
            i came here aged 8...
            and as a first generation expatriate...
oh yes, i can use the term...
which is weird...
since if i really didn't sink into this tongue
i'd call myself an immigrant...
just like the english immigrants
to h'america or australia call themselves,
the alternative: expatriate...
               the "racist" cited an evolutionary
predisposition as to why same attracts same,
a contradiction of magnets,
but, then again, we're not talking magnets,
but people...
               i'm dissociated with my "fellow"
ethno-centered peoples...
       sure... memories of childhood friends,
digging holes and playing a game
of throwing marbles into them...
hide & seek at night...
   kicking each other in the ***...
                     my memory bank reaches
as far back as being aged 4...
so... yeah... i have a lot to work with...
   again... i woke about how else to describe
that supermarket cashier from yesterday,
how she wanted to become a paramedic...
how her perfect skin,
   without a bout of hay fever looked
radiant...
                            the words:
       like a lake of milk,
                                       illuminated by
a full moon in a night of frozen constellations
of stars, or perhaps only her love spots
   of moles.

    well... that's that... now i'm ready to cite
and translate some Horace...     

sunt quibus in satura videar nimis acer et
  ultra legem tendere opus; sine nervis altera
quidquid conpusui pars esse putat similsque
    meorum, mille die versus deduci posse.
Trebati, quid faciam? praescribe.
              <quiescas>
       <ne faciam, inquis, omnino versus?>
<aio.>
              <peream male, si non optimum
erat; verum nequeo dormire.>
    <ter uncti transnanto Tiberim,
            somno quibus est opus alto,
                   inriguumque mero sub noctem
corpus habento. aut si tantus amor
                             scribendi te rapit,
          aude Caesaris invicti res dicere,
multa laborum praemia laturus.>
   <cupidium, pater optime, vires
deficiunt; neque quivis horrentia pilis
agmina nec fracta pereuntis cupside Gallos
aut labentis equo describit volnera Parthi.>
<attamem et iustum poteras et scribere
fortem, Scipiadam ut sapiens Lucillius.>
      <haud mihi dero, *** res ipsa feret:
nisi dextro tempore Flacci verba per
attentam non ibunt Caesaris aurem:
      cui male si palpere, recalcitrat undique
tutus.>
<quanto recitus hoc quam tristi laedere
versus *** sibi quisque timet,
                           quamquam est intactus
        ed odit.>
                  <quid faciam?      

i guess this would be the perfect time
to write a translation before disclosing the draft...
well... it's Horace...
          who did Dante take to walk him
through hell?           wasn't it Virgil?
only a naive-****-show of a man would
take with him a Greek poet akin to Homer,
or Sappho...
       well... not exactly...
not if poetry attracts poetry...
     James Joyce decided upon Homer,
but i'm not a James Joyce...
if Dante desired to take Virgil as his guide...
i've decided upon Horace...
  and here's the translation:

some say, that in the art of satire i am too acute,
that i go beyond established confines (of the art),
the others, that i write without talent and that
the poems i write in a simialr vein,
can be written into their thousands, every day.
Trebati (a serbian name, etymological
meaning: to need;
point of conjecture... well... if the medieval
world is to be made concise...
and the etymology of slav, implying slave...
it... only appears to hold true for the southern
slavs... the balkan region...
  as far as i am concerned,
the northern slavs... didn't exactly
make it to slave status,
the southern slavs might have been
of the roman empire...)
       Trebati: what do you counsel?
say something!
     stop writing!
            therefore throw my poems
into a corner?
           yes!
         to the executioner, that might be best,
  but then what do during the night,
when it's impossible to fall to sleep?
   rub your body with oil,
thrice swim the length of the Tiber,
in the evening drink some wine -
          you'll thus banish insomnia;
and if still, you have an irresistible desire
to write, then write for the sake of passing
  the victorious deeds of Caesar for posterity;
a generous reward you will receive.
   willingly, but my strengths are modest,
for me to sing about the death of the Gaul
javelin throwers with their broken spears,
or the wounded Parthian,
                      when he's dragged by a horse.
celebrate then, because of this,
   his bravery, his sense of justice, his wisdom,
just like...

  ****! another googlewhack!

                 lucyliusz w scypiadzie
       https://tinyurl.com/y5u7uelu

       just like... Lucius in Scythia.
           maybe i will not tempt, when the right
time comes. the time isn't right, Caesar's ear will
not succumb to the compliments whispered
by Flacci...
           do not stroke the steed in time,
    which will with its hoof kick.
better that than by reproach via a poem
      of these mediocrities,
     like the clown Pantolabus or the grandson
of Nomentano -
        who without blame, and even as
being untouched, hates.
                               and what of it?
        
hell: now the draft...

when all seems bleak upon the blank
plateau and the calm seas of
thought being voided -
    i tend to find scraps of language worth
keeping,
  odd bits of letters no written,
      interrupted narratives -
conversations never had - or pivoting
upon an alternative choice of words,
never mind...
    i acquired english and made myself
its father -
              audacious, i agree -
but psychopathic? i hardly think so.
              to out-speak a native means:
doubling down - standing ground -
digging trenches...
                 i have made english into
the equivalent of an armchair,
    sitting pretty, sitting cosy,
   in some shady part of an east london
pub: peering into the stage, attempting
to differentiate the actors from the props
and the props from an: authenticity.
trick is... well, i can't read in my native tongue
when in england...
  which is why i am extremely anticipating
the december hiatus impeding...
immersed in an environment filled with
the nativspreschen - notably from
devices such as the radio and the t.v. -
   i can digest a book in my nativspreschen
with as much ease as:
  spreading butter on a slice of bread...
        but that's because when in england:
i'm wholly dedicated to the language,
   perhaps not the culture which i mimic -
but i have allegiance to that ******* comfy
armchair that's the english language.
- i remember this one incident of being
thrown out from a local pub on the grounds
that i "launched a glass pint in rage across
the pub floor" - xenophobia tickle -
                 i spoke too much like oliver reed
to one schizophrenic and some other lost soul...
a few days later i tap the shoulder
    of one of the bar mistresses and ask her
if she's feeling o.k., if you want
a depiction of constipation, you should have
seen her, she has harbouring a hedgehog in
her *** by that point...
          a complete ******* of a pub anyway...
you see, even with an acquired accent,
if the question is asked: where you from,
and you say: not from around here,
   even if you've lived here pretty much
all of your life: you're not puritanical enough...
mind you... i'm the pedigree breed,
surrounded by mongrels...
                 i am, but a mongrel of the soul
nurturing an adopted tongue, while
   "trying" my hardest to forget my native tongue...
*******, i'm not going to turn into
a terrorist, which, by the way,
english society has bred...
                  polish is not omnipresent -
it's not the king-quack-**** sitting on
the throne of hippo-******* that's
the meridian - you have you dream,
taken from the spanish -
       die ***** von sonnezunge
ständig suchen  für die mond:
       die schlaflosigkeitreich -
the empire of (the) sun-tongue -
perpetually looking for the moon -
  insomniac empire.
      hell, have it, maybe by having it
you can have your, little elaborations
of the dream fabric...
             point being:
my native tongue is an equivalent of
the iron maiden by comparison...
       the merovingian was wrong:
you truly wipe your *** with silk
by speaking english...
                notably by introducing the
amputee R's worth of trill to sound old-school
and a knowledge of latin always helps...
but nothing quiet comes across
as speaking the native tongue better than
the natives...
        i think that's called ambition...
      or a heckling of some sort -
a heckling where no one is staged or is
telling a joke...
                   a bit like being generous
to the turk and his predicament...
  he owns a store, the local council comes
to him, he literally has a caravan outside the store...
and he's worrying about employing
lawyers to solve the matter, he doesn't
know what the problem is...
two bottles of wine and some coca cola
and i peer outside: ah!
         so i tell him: you're obstructing
an item of public property...
  the simple answer is that you have to
revise your makeshift caravan shanty and
expose that bench...
did i get a thank you, or a free bottle of
whiskey... turks... what do you expect,
  he thanked me by increasing the price of beer...
if people older than me have no
standards of etiquette - why even expect
any study of ethics? you first learn aesthetic,
then you learn etiquette,
    and then comes ethics...
         you think i bought anything from
him ever again? loser.
     - became a corporate ***** -
but then again at 16 quid a litre of ms. amber scot,
i can't complain.
                  - but come one,
you've been given free legal advice and
you can't even repay a debt of being given
advice... ah... i see...
it would have made the proprietor look
                     stupid, i.e.: d'uh! a bench!
funny you should ask (without even asking):
whenever i go back to poland i feel grounded...
nay, cushioned - after all i am not there
to visit my countrymen as such,
   more or less imbued with a sense of
proximity to my neighbours,
  the germans, the czechs, the white russians,
lithuanians and the ukrainians....
               and to read a book...
but mostly about feeling the vicinity of
the neighbours...
                      and inhale a breath of
authenticity, in historical terms...
                     because back in england -
  well i have a patriotism for the language:
but not the people -
                    the language i can cherish -
the people mean diddly-squat to me...
  after being barred from a pub on false accusation,
well... expect any different?
                if only i were black,
i could call that racism...
                        alas, i have the ****** luck
of the irish...
                 then again...
                                       none of this even matters
beyond a squabbling defaced impression
of a memory...
                              it still stands:
i'm comfortable writing, since i deem
english to be an armchair -
               but the nativspreschen i find
as an iron maiden...
            although when wholly immersed
in an environment when the only words
in english you hear are: weekend, etc. -
                     there's this aura of oddity that
surrounds me:
         either i'm a ghost among the living -
or i'm alive, immersed in ghost town...
i can never tell...
                           all in all:
continental air is so refreshing having spent
an entire year on an island...
   the almost complete lack of moisture,
the crispness of dry cool,
           the crackling of the foot on snow
in imitation of walking on egg shells -
  and the mere snow - notably falling crisply
during the night...
            islanders are a very strange people...
whether the british, the icelanders,
the maltese, the cypriots, the irish,
                        you name them...
                      islanders have this knack at
believing themselves to be superior
to kontinentalvolk -
       notably when it comes to the basic
etiquette of tourism...
                  in was in paris, twice...
each time i had the luck of a fellow tourist
who spoke french...
                                     once it was this
italian girl, another a canadian girl with
russian roots: a pole's luck, i guess.

Drifting out of consciousness
Her voice like a lullaby
Lucius hair and lipstick
She cleverly hides behind..
Pulls me in and I am lost
To roam this tragic dream
Where everything is how I want it
Yet nothing is as it seems
For the flowers start to wilt
The sky from blue to gray
My dreams turn to nightmares
The second she walks away

From misty mountains,
Through steep ravines,
Around massive boulders,
And over the green plains,

A river flows to ocean.
River, A unity of tiny droplets.

But does it?
Do they?

You could be picked up,

Find yourself in a bathtub,
Playing with a smiling toddler,
Then discarded into a garden,
And end up in a Lucius mango!

Or,

End up in the veins of a person,
Strapped in to a chair,
And watched by a panel who,
Would solemnly mark down,
The time of their last breath!

I'm much freer when I write
Than when I talk
Gonna rest a few days
Maybe a fox on my walk

Todd means fox
Thomas means the Twin
The Buddha remains still
Exoplanets spin

Guilt is uncomfortable
Memories within
St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Quaint for grace and sin

My friend Mark
Something went wrong
Casa Roble High School
Mr. Harry Wong

           Dylan Songs

GOING ABOUT ITS BUSINESS

'Oh wall! I'm amazed you haven't collapsed
under the weight of drivel you're holding up! '

the graffiti laughs
in self mockery.

'Happy the man who is sleeping with you
tonight.I'd be much happier if I were! '

another wall
mutters to itself jealously.

'You ask, beautiful girl
how many kisses I've snatched?
I've snatched these ones and...
I'm not the only one to do so.'

yet another wall
kisses 'n' tells
in a red on yellow voice.

In the silence
the wallls are shouting
(a babble of voices)          

Time is smiling.

'I came here.
Had a ****
- then I went home! '

another announced
in a who-gives-a-fk manner.

'Lucius is stuffing it
into Caesu's mouth

a drunken scrawl
pronounces

amongst the inns of
THE ELEPHANT...THE LITTLE EAGLE
THE MERCURY & APOLLO.

It is the 23rd
August

AD 79

Mount Vesuvius
hasn't yet exploded.

Pompeii
dozes

in the lazy sun
of this

new morning

going about
its business.



The Pompeian graffiti still exists in all its extraordinary ordinariness and just goes to show that humans will be humans no matter what peroid of history we come to rest in. Most of it could be...now. And it amazes me that their 'now' is little different than our 'now.' People will be people. It is the day before the explosion and Pompeii is just being Pompeii and hasn't yet stepped into the history that will surround and preserve it. How fragile we all are and life is and how alive and fluent are their voices. Only history is static.



This 'exchange' dug up from the long ago when time is history and myth combined is worth more than gold and the voices that come back could well be our own.

NOTHING CHANGES

In the lost city
of Ur

a fragment
survives

The father/son
divide.

The conversation is
a confrontaton.

startling in its simplicity.

Father: 'Where have you been? '

Son: 'Nowhere! '

Seems like there's nothing
new under the sun.

Nothing...
...changes.

***

THE STONES SPEAK IN A GRAFFITI VOICES

“You...have got me pregnant! ”

“You...are a mediocre man! ”

“I hope your ulcerous pustules
open and burn more than ever before! ”

An ordinary day
in Pompeii

then all is
forgotten

as Vesuvius
enters history.

GOING ABOUT ITS BUSINESS

'Oh wall! I'm amazed you haven't collapsed
under the weight of drivel you're holding up! '

the graffiti laughs
in self mockery.

'Happy the man who is sleeping with you
tonight.I'd be much happier if I were! '

another wall
mutters to itself jealously.

'You ask, beautiful girl
how many kisses I've snatched?
I've snatched these ones and...
I'm not the only one to do so.'

yet another wall
kisses 'n' tells
in a red on yellow voice.

In the silence
the walls are shouting
(a babble of voices)          

Time is smiling.

'I came here.
Had a ****
- then I went home! '

another announced
in a who-gives-a-f**k manner.

'Lucius is stuffing it
into Caesu's mouth

a drunken scrawl
pronounces

amongst the inns of
THE ELEPHANT...THE LITTLE EAGLE
THE MERCURY & APOLLO.

It is the 23rd
August

AD 79

Mount Vesuvius
hasn't yet exploded.

Pompeii
dozes

in the lazy sun
of this

new morning

going about
its business.