"mandrake" poems
Picnic
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My friends laugh elsewhere on the beach
while I sit here, alone, counting the waves,
writing and rewriting your name in the sand ...
Confession
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Your image overwhelmed my vision.
As the long nights passed, I became obsessed with your visage.
Then came the moment when I quietly placed my lips to your picture ...
Rain
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Why shiver alone in the rain, maiden?
Embrace the one in whose warming love your body and mind would be drenched!
There are no rains higher than the rains of Love,
after which the bright rainbows of separation will glow with the mysteries of hues.
My Body's Moods
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I long for the day when you'll be obsessed with me,
when, forgetting the world, you'll miss me with a passion
and stop complaining about my reticence!
Then I may forget all other transactions and liabilities
to realize my world in your arms,
letting my body's moods guide me.
In that moment beyond boundaries and limitations
as we defy the conventions of veil and turban,
let's try our luck and steal a taste of the forbidden fruit!
Moon
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
All of us passengers,
we share the same fate.
And yet I'm alone here on earth,
and she alone there in the sky!
Vanity
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
His world is so simple, so very different from mine.
So distinct—his dreams and desires.
He speaks rarely.
This morning he wrote: "I saw some lovely flowers and thought of you."
Ha! I know my aging face is no orchid ...
but how I wish I could believe whatever he says, however momentarily!
Keywords/Tags: Perveen Shakir, Urdu, translation, Pakistan, love, passion, picnic, beach, vision, confession, rain, rainbow, hues, forbidden fruit, body, *** orchid, mrburdu
What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch
What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ...
Both worlds grow obscure.
Published by ByLine, Mandrake Poetry Review, Poetically Speaking, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Little Brown Poetry, Little Brown Poetry, Triplopia, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, PW Review, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mindful of Poetry, Poetry on Demand, Poet’s Haven, Famous Poets and Poems, and Bewildering Stories
May 17, 2020
May 17, 2020 at 11:29 PM UTC
I bent down to her ear and said
Thank you for all you’ve done
Not just for
NY
But for the World
She looked at me expressionless from her chair
I don’t think that she understood nor cared
Then I handed her a little
Bag
Containing two lipsticks
And two pencils
I think she threw the pencils on the floor and
Wondered aloud
Why was everyone giving her pencils?
She did not notice that of the two that I gave her
one was stamped in gold
With the one word
Hustler
And on the other, two
Strictly
Business
I made no suggestions nor references
I didn’t smirk
I must have appeared a bit sweet
A treacly aberration
It doesn’t matter
I had selected two perfect reds in LA
One a bit more blue
and one
a classic vampish carmine
Blood red can be a challenge even against
pale
pale
Skin.
Standing in the lift
Fully attuned
she caught me
not merely looking into her eyes
But seeing what I saw
A death’s head?
I hate when I’m caught doing that
Under the fluorescent light
She was dog rough
Pasty with sad sunken eyes
I was thrown, but by what exactly
Her magpie distress?
Her etheric calamity?
Her puffy, aging face?
We sat and spoke for a while later that night
She did not recognize me at all and apologized
maybe it was the next day
that the three of us had lunch
Everyone in good spirits
The mandrake’s screams
Forgotten with smiles and a wink
Memory bamboozled and
Make-up duly applied
She took out the lipstick
And redrew the lines
She liked the shining black case
with the little black ribbon for a pull
She told our companion sitting on a stoop
smoking cigarettes
I like your friend and
I wondered does she realize
that we already know one another?
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 3:52 PM UTC
Mandrake the Magician
now you see him
and now you don't
you will marvel at this magic
while the villains won't
**** he is gone
or changed in an illusion
he can read your mind
and cause constant confusion
the bad guys will lose
crushed by his friend Lothar the King
the strongest man alive
wearing his fez and a golden ring
Mandrake waves his magic wand
to hypnotize the evildoers
while his lady the Princess Narda
applies the skewers
Theron, Hojo and Bradley the chief
keep him protected from harm
with Magnon, Lenore and Karma
at his home Xanadu keeping warm
the villains are many and rotten to the core
Cobra, Brass Monkey and evil Deleter
even the Enchantress Aleena must scurry
Ekardnam his twin in the mirror retreater
so you may try as you might
to remain evil and mean
but Mandrake and his crew
will make you come clean
Gomer LePoet ...
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 12:02 PM UTC
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the pollen is blinding, as the stems are dividing.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the vines are protecting, and the thorns are injecting.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the roots are now squealing, for they possess human feeling.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the Genesis 30:16 is no mistake, *** was traded for mandrake.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the magic lies in the blossom, feigning you just like an opossum.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the cloud now has you choking, for them you had to start smoking.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the petals are now closing, around you who's rigor frozen.
The flowers of evil are spreading and spreading,
the nectar just took your last breath, so enjoy the dance of death.
(Curt A. Rivard Sr.)
Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 4:55 PM UTC
Foster the light nor veil the manshaped moon,
Nor weather winds that blow not down the bone,
But strip the twelve-winded marrow from his circle;
Master the night nor serve the snowman's brain
That shapes each bushy item of the air
Into a polestar pointed on an icicle.
Murmur of spring nor crush the cockerel's eggs,
Nor hammer back a season in the figs,
But graft these four-fruited ridings on your country;
Farmer in time of frost the burning leagues,
By red-eyed orchards sow the seeds of snow,
In your young years the vegetable century.
And father all nor fail the fly-lord's acre,
Nor sprout on owl-seed like a goblin-sucker,
But rail with your wizard's ribs the heart-shaped planet;
Of mortal voices to the ninnies' choir,
High lord esquire, speak up the singing cloud,
And pluck a mandrake music from the marrowroot.
Roll unmanly over this turning tuft,
O ring of seas, nor sorrow as I shift
From all my mortal lovers with a starboard smile;
Nor when my love lies in the cross-boned drift
Naked among the bow-and-arrow birds
Shall you turn cockwise on a tufted axle.
Who gave these seas their colour in a shape,
Shaped my clayfellow, and the heaven's ark
In time at flood filled with his coloured doubles;
O who is glory in the shapeless maps,
Now make the world of me as I have made
A merry manshape of your walking circle.
1.7k
Writing prompt of the hour: mandrake
oh poison, what poison doth whisper in my ear
race through my veins like molten metal
cause the hottest summer to season in my mind
echoes a terrible trembling in my tingling limbs
it is mandrake, oh such deadly shade of night
that raises me to the floor luring my knees to my face
in unequalled gross distortions
oh mandrake, thou art a shade so deadly
as to make the blackest night quiver
now this poison makes strange ineluctable rhythms
gradually and patiently enter my body, my thoughts
like a gradual orchestral cadence of static melody
subtly wisping around my whole being.
destructive mandrake now scampers in my blood
becomes inseparable and lives in me
in fiery flocks of hallucinated concepts.
it fires through my body like burning sulphur
this mandrake, this poison
that has prolonged persistence
makes an experience of antediluvian treachery
from another time, not of this time, this present, this now
this here
mandrake has embalmed me to
the red roguish clay
I die ghastly from a writing prompt
mandrake, mandrake, deadly nightshade
fuqing mandrake
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 3:56 PM UTC
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devils foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till Age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return'st wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
1.5k
If only a little eye of newt,
or mandrake root, or hemlock bark,
could turn these loathsome suitors
into lovers handsome, tall and dark.
They paste their unappealing photos
next to profiles trite and silly,
and send flirtations cut-and-pasted
into the ether willy-nilly.
Don’t you know my time you’ve wasted?
I have no interest in your wooing.
Instead of listing your opinions
there are things you should be doing:
Learn to listen, read more books,
lose 15 lbs and use some manners.
Answer emails, learn to cook,
travel widely, study language.
Say what you mean, do what you say,
you’ll find a date without delay.
I haven’t found the witches’ brew
that will turn boys into men.
'Til then with dating I am through,
and bitter missives I will pen.
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 10:47 AM UTC
Bursts of desires only shows
How much terrestrial my soul
Became rude and even ******
Was it mingled with all so called human?
And got their color
To utilize its aptitudes of adaptability
Yes it was
A merchant
Pure miser
No love to flourish so far
Awaiting a breeze in equatorial heat
A desert of remnants
Ashes and bones
A carbon valley so visible
No possibility to burn again
Roots of poisonous plants has assembled forces
Yet love transforms them into honey
A mandrake for love has been bought
By a longing parent
A mother
A goddess of love
To heal all, all, all…
Wounds manlike creatures
Commissioned to dismay the cosmic spark
As in a fertile soil sowed
In a flesh
The body
The human body they call
And to decay it
For eternity and a day more
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 18, 2012 at 7:40 AM UTC
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
1.4k
In the silent mornings or in the silent nights
there is a hunch there is a thigh there is a panther
I try to catch your shoulders using a violin
as a butterfly net
but if your hair chimes it's because it's dreaming
if your eyelid blossoms it's because of the wind
if your hand howls it's because it's night
if your ears sleep it's because they're famished
if your shoes laugh it's because they're thinking
and if your shoulders take flight it's because it's very late
If your hand falls silent it's because it's a seashell
if your veins race it's because of the mandrake
if the thigh listens it's because there are still leaves
if the blood foams it's the fault of the umbrellas
If your frock screams it's because it's dying
if your shadow flickers it's because it's burning
if your fingernail sits on the curtains it's because they're violet
if your foot whinnies it's because of the clouds
if the lungs fall asleep it's because it's dark
and if your shoulders choke
it is assuredly because of the trees.
Gellu Naum, Vasco da Gama and other pohems, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 7:08 AM UTC
I hear the shriek of the mandrake
As my future dies
Kiss me under the cherry tree
So we can be lucky
A universal sponge absorbing fennel
Waiting for the mind’s revival
Cooperating with my enemies
Hanging by the cemetery cypress tree
The naked and cunning chameleon
Tries to show his true colors
As Cain the unicorn says,
“Have a good line”
She wears a necklace of opal
It ruins her spiritual insurance policy
Born from the foam of an underwater church
She emerges with St. Christopher
As the future Buddha’s laugh at fate
They pick the road narrow and straight
I hear the shriek of the mandrake
As my future dies
So kiss me under the cherry tree
I want to be lucky
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till Age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find’st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
1.2k
Masquerading as a prisoner lonesome
there in the confine of Robben island
in guise lived a magician
who played tricks with
word's connotation
violated their limitation
he stretched to boundlessness
the boundary of 'hope'
further deepened the deep
depth of 'determination'
lifted 'belief' so high
to the heaven's nearby
he also boxed
the ears of 'apartheid'
he did a deed splendid
though Mandrake was not
alas, his name but
just Mandela nevertheless
***
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 4:28 AM UTC
Tremble
by Michael R. Burch
Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.
Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******
juts.
Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.
Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.
Published by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC—Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals (Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse
Keywords/Tags: Tremble, predator, raptor, hawk, eagle, falcon, talon, beak, wing, preen, preened, preening
Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch
Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way
and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say
we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal and Poetry Life & Times
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 5:25 AM UTC
The ****** queen
Ate seedless grapes,
Eyeless potatoes
And mandrake.
She washed it down
With honeyed wine,
Then went to bed
A ****** crying.
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 3:30 PM UTC
Reflections on the Loss of Vision
by Michael R. Burch
The sparrow that cries from the shelter of an ancient oak tree and the squirrels
that dash in delight through the treetops as the first snow glistens and swirls,
remind me so much of my childhood and how the world seemed to me then,
that it seems if I tried
and just closed my eyes,
I could once again be nine or ten.
The rabbits that hide in the bushes where the snowflakes collect as they fall,
hunch there, I know, in the concealing snow, yet now I can't see them at all.
For time slowly weakened my vision; while the patterns seem almost as clear,
some things that I saw
when I was a boy,
are lost to me now in my advancing years.
The chipmunk who seeks out his burrow and the geese now preparing to leave
are there as they were, and yet they are not; and though it seems childish to grieve,
who would condemn a blind man for bemoaning the vision he lost?
Well, in a small way,
through the passage of days,
I have learned some of his loss.
For, as a young boy I endeavored to see things most adults could not—
the camouflaged nests of the hoot owls, the woodpecker’s favorite spots.
But now I no longer can find them, nor understand how I once could,
and it seems such a waste
of those far-sighted days,
to end up near blind in this wood.
Keywords/Tags: reflections, loss, vision, childhood, eyesight, perceptiveness, acuity, age, aging, cataracts, blindness, days, years, decades, near-sighted, far-sighted
What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch
What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ...
Both worlds grow obscure.
Published by ByLine, Mandrake Poetry Review, Poetically Speaking, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Little Brown Poetry, Little Brown Poetry, Triplopia, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, PW Review, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mindful of Poetry, Poetry on Demand, Poet’s Haven, Famous Poets and Poems, and Bewildering Stories
Apr 12, 2020
Apr 12, 2020 at 12:59 AM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 12:53 PM UTC
My heart is about
to leave, ready to ascend
then hover away
on the dusked wings of
her before my woe-hardened
rib cage could shatter
her. An exodus
of the chosen ****** is her
new purpose to find
peace in the embrace,
the horizon's snowy clouds.
I would go after
her, but I'm rooted
here; this mandrake soil does not
let me depart, so
I let her set sail
and ask to be the very
sight of me; just to
watch over you while
you're about to blaze the new
path... From here, her bird's-eye view.
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 12:55 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC
But why, apt this centred Sidhe decide
In her own Verbs your Best Herbiage enchant
And mix the addled *** O' Mandrake hide
Then by Best Pour that Mantra she'll incant:
"Impart this Softling! Nee' Life concentrate!
Rose-Round vye Princey-Noose to Shape betroth!
Reform Adonis! To Makeroose State!
Swell this Fruit from the Garden of Naboth!"
By Fruit she meant Grape. Which tempted the Fig
To feign its **** for your barrows be sweet
Which, even a wee, expand your Heart big
Praising one day your Late Romance repeat.
Even she of her Onerous Chants aware
Hugged dear Naboth his Murdered Earth laid bare.
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 8:51 AM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 6:39 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 4:33 PM UTC
There is no awakening. Outside the cave
Light shadows in the sun, a blinding
Muck veils desolation in the vein-bled,
Good men, stumps of the naked forests,
And bird song drowned by the droning dead,
Ignoble, this is no country for old men.
In the open, all lie freely, lacquered clean
Sunning social graces, shine pornographic,
Know truth is real yet, embalmed by speakers,
Pages, their flame a cross, churning in a mire,
Our glass cities run time mendaciously silent;
The euphony of the untruths, the bent sign.
In Catatonia words are watered but never
Change, sapped of meaning, seasons fall
By the handy green, the spring leaves, tipped
Off balance scaled to autumns teeming news;
The barren shores, breaks, bless the vacuum
Tubes, and pray a curse, fawn the head lamps.
In the homeless land anxious creatures divide.
The concrete utterance is picked to rubble.
The stones ground into sand and we ringing
In delight, moving mandrake, mobile cadavers,
Orbit to satellite are digging babylon down
In the false hood, ****** by the mortar.
The ruin architects mark, fork millions
Of tongues in tributary, as does a great
River from a stony source. The sterling
Feed their stock with tainted food, plants
Regenerate the mangled codex twining-tare;
Throws the babe with baptismal waters.
In the soulless land children peak abandoned,
They fall on temple steps by the golden mean.
We pattern the sky in the bold fabric of pity
And mercy but the strands fade out running;
Our cruel and only kind would rend the stars,
Would fallow Elysium, bleed gold to the vein.
How did we end mortal under the divining
Sun? Down base our provident ways watching?
We wave in fealty to the dominion of spins
And shadow, gussied Gods so proudly made,
Desolate, vain, air escaping to whisper;
We are sailing from Byzantium.
Jun 5, 2012
Jun 5, 2012 at 2:32 AM UTC
Withered Old Man,with a Gnarled Old Stick
Seeks the Old Root Man, Mandrake for to Take
Sorrel and Wolfs Bane, Night Shade and Jace
He Scours the Woods for Potions to Make
His hunts through the caves, for Crystals so Clear
Lapis lazuli Azure Stone, Dug from Earth So Rare
Bones of Hart strung with Sinew and Nuggets of Copper
Bones Carved with Ancient Signs and Wizardry
Wand of Willow, Feather of Owl,
In Darkest Night with Hooded Cowl
Arcane Language made to Howl
Calling Down the Soul, of the ******
With Enchantment the Soul is Sent
On Evil Missions So Hellbent
To Wither the crops and curse the Fowl
Of those in Hatred flesh embowled
T'is heard he moves as a Dark Shadow
Lending Fear to weakened Brow
A Pox upon your beating Heart
A knot within your Bowels
But many among the Land
See an old man with a Withered hand
Who hunts the woods and hills
Finding things to heal your Ills.....JMF 11/26/14
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 10:17 PM UTC