Our band is few, but true and tried,
  Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
  When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
  Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us,
  As ****** know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
  Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
  Within the dark morass.

Wo to the English soldiery
  That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
  A strange and sudden fear:
When waking to their tents on fire
  They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
  Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
  A mighty host behind,
And hear the ***** of thousands
  Upon the hollow wind.

Then sweet the hour that brings release
  From danger and from toil:
We talk the battle over,
  And share the battle's spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout,
  As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gathered
  To crown the soldier's cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
  That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
  On beds of oaken leaves.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon
  The band that Marion leads--
The glitter of their rifles,
  The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
  Across the moonlight plain;
'Tis life to feel the night-wind
  That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp--
  A moment--and away
Back to the pathless forest,
  Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
  Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with Marion,
  For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
  With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
  And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
  And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,
  For ever, from our shore.

SAPPHO'S POEMS FOR ATTIS AND ANACTORIA

Most of Sappho's poems are fragments but the first poem below, variously titled "The Anactoria Poem, " "Helen's Eidolon" and "Some People Say" is largely intact. Was Sappho the author of the world's first 'make love, not war' poem?

Some People Say
Sappho, fragment 16 (Lobel-Page 16 / Voigt 16)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some call these the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say—
the one I desire.

Nor am I unique,
since she who so vastly surpassed all mortals in beauty
—Helen—
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
departed for distant Troy,
abandoned her celebrated husband,
turned her back on her parents and child!

Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsemen and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or their columns of infantry parading in flashing armor.



Ode to Anactoria or Ode to Attis
Sappho, fragment 94 (Lobel-Page 94 / Voigt 94)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So my Attis has not returned
and thus, let the truth be said,
I wish I were dead...

'Honestly, I just want to die! '
Attis sighed,
shedding heartfelt tears,
inconsolably sad
when she
left me.

'How deeply we have loved,
we two,
Sappho!
Oh,
I really don't want to go! '

I answered her tenderly,
'Go as you must
and be happy,
trust-
ing your remembrance of me,
for you know how much
I loved you.

And if you begin to forget,
please try to recall
all
the heavenly emotions we felt
as with many wreathes of violets,
roses and crocuses
you sat beside me
adorning your delicate neck.

Once garlands had been fashioned of many woven flowers,
with much expensive myrrh
we anointed our bodies like royalty
on soft couches,
then my tender caresses
fulfilled your desire...'

Unfortunately, fragment 94 has several gaps and I have tried to imagine what Sappho might have been saying.



The following are Sappho's poems for Attis or Atthis...

Sappho, fragment 49 (Lobel-Page 49 / Voigt 49)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I loved you, Attis, long ago...
even when you seemed a graceless child.

2.
I fell in love with you, Attis, long ago...
You seemed immature to me then, and not all that graceful.

(Source: Hephaestion, Plutarch and others.)



Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131 / Voigt 130)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andrómeda...


Sappho, fragment 96 (Lobel-Page 96.1-22 / Voigt 96 / Diehl 98)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Attis, our beloved, dwells in distant Sardis, but her thoughts often return here, to our island, and how we honored her like a goddess, and how she loved to hear us singing her praises. Now she surpasses all Sardinian women, as, after sunset the rosy-fingered moon outshines the surrounding stars, illuminating salt seas and meadows alike. Thus the dew sparkles, the rose revives, and the tender chervil and sweetclover blossom. Now oftentimes when our beloved goes wandering abroad, she is reminded of our gentle Attis; then her heart assaults her tender breast with its painful pangs and she cries aloud for us to console her. Truly, we understand all too well the distress she feels, because Night, the many-eared, calls to us from across the dividing sea. But to go there is not easy, nor to rival a goddess in her loveliness.



Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I compete with that ****** man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his 'eloquence' …
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you...



Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.
My heart races at the sound of your voice!
Your laughter? ―bright water, dislodging pebbles
in a chaotic vortex. I can't catch my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.
My ******* glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.
I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,
despite my poverty.



The following poems by Sappho may have been addressed to Attis or Anactoria, or written with them in mind…

Sappho, fragment 22 (Lobel-Page 22 / Diehl 33,36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Sappho, fragment 34 (Lobel-Page 34 / Voigt 34)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the Moon's splendor,
the stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.



Sappho, fragment 39
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're merely mortal women,
it's true;
the Goddesses have no rivals
but You.



Sappho, fragment 5
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're eclipsed here by your presence—
you outshine all the ladies of Lydia
as the bright-haloed moon outsplendors the stars.

I suspect the fragment above is about Anactoria, since Sappho associates Anactoria with Lydia in fragment 16.



Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2.1A)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaving your heavenly summit,
I submit
to the mountain,
then plummet.

Sappho associates her lovers with higher elevations: the moon, stars, mountain peaks.



Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever! —
as long as you sleep in my sight.



Sappho, fragment 102 (Lobel-Page 102 / Voigt 102)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother, how can I weave,
so overwhelmed by love?



Sappho, fragment 147 (Lobel-Page 147 / *** 30)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!

'From Dio Chrysostom, who, writing about A.D.100, remarks that this is said 'with perfect beauty.''―Edwin Marion ***



Sappho, fragment 10
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I lust!
I crave!
**** me!



Sappho, fragment 11 (*** 109)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You inflame me!



Sappho, fragment 36 (Lobel-Page 36 / *** 24 & 25)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I yearn for―I burn for―the one I miss!

2.
While you learn,
I burn.

3.
While you discern your will,
I burn still.

According to Edwin Marion ***, this fragment is from the Etymologicum Magnum.



Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

Pollux wrote: 'Sappho used the word beudos for a woman's dress, a kimbericon, a kind of short transparent frock.'



Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.

Phrynichus wrote: 'Sappho calls a woman's dressing-case, where she keeps her scents and such things, grute.'



Sappho, fragment 47 (Lobel-Page 47 / Voigt 47)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.

The poem above is my favorite Sappho epigram. The metaphor of Eros (****** desire)  harrowing mountain slopes, leveling oaks and leaving them desolate, is really something―truly powerful and evocative. According to Edwin Marion ***, this Sapphic epigram was 'Quoted by Maximus Tyrius about 150 B.C. He speaks of Socrates exciting Phaedus to madness, when he speaks of love.'



Sappho, fragment 130 (Lobel-Page 130 / Voigt 130)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.



Sappho, unnumbered fragment
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be swept
aside
must be wept.



Sappho, fragment 138 (Lobel-Page 138)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
smile,
reveal your eyes' grace...

4.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' acceptance.

5.
Darling, let me see your smiling face;
favor me again with your eyes' grace.



Sappho, fragment 38 (Incertum 25, *** 36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I flutter
after you
like a chick after its mother...

From the 'Etymologicum Magnum' according to Edwin Marion ***.



In the following poem Sappho asks Aphrodite to "persuade" someone to fall in love with her. The poem strikes me as a sort of love charm or enchantment…

Hymn to Aphrodite (Lobel-Page 1)
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor!
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress and beguiler!
I implore you, dread mistress, discipline me no longer
with such vigor!

But come to me once again in kindness,
heeding my prayers, as you did so graciously before;
O, come Divine One, descend once more
from heaven's golden dominions!

Then with your chariot yoked to love's
white consecrated doves,
their multitudinous pinions aflutter,
you came gliding from heaven's shining heights,
to this dark gutter.

Swiftly they came and vanished, leaving you,
O my Goddess, smiling, your face eternally beautiful,
asking me what unfathomable longing compelled me
to cry out.

Asking me what I sought in my bewildered desire.
Asking, 'Who has harmed you, why are you so alarmed,
my poor Sappho? Whom should Persuasion
summon here? '

'Although today she flees love, soon she will pursue you;
spurning love's gifts, soon she shall give them;
tomorrow she will woo you,
however unwillingly! '

Come to me now, O most Holy Aphrodite!
Free me now from my heavy heartache and anguish!
Graciously grant me all I request!
Be once again my ally and protector!

'Hymn to Aphrodite' is the only poem by Sappho of ****** to survive in its entirety. The poem survived intact because it was quoted in full by Dionysus, a Roman orator, in his 'On Literary Composition, ' published around 30 B.C. A number of Sappho's poems mention or are addressed to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It is believed that Sappho may have belonged to a cult that worshiped Aphrodite with songs and poetry. If so, 'Hymn to Aphrodite' may have been composed for performance within the cult. However, we have few verifiable details about the 'real' Sappho, and much conjecture based on fragments of her poetry and what other people said about her, in many cases centuries after her death. We do know, however, that she was held in very high regard. For instance, when Sappho visited Syracuse the residents were so honored they erected a statue to commemorate the occasion! During Sappho's lifetime, coins of ****** were minted with her image. Furthermore, Sappho was called 'the Tenth Muse' and the other nine were goddesses. Here is another translation of the same poem...



Hymn to Aphrodite
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rainbow-appareled, immortal-throned Aphrodite,
daughter of Zeus, wile-weaver, I beseech you: Hail!
Spare me your reproaches and chastisements.
Do not punish, dire Lady, my penitent soul!
But come now, descend, favor me with your presence.
Please hear my voice now beseeching, however unclear or afar,
your own dear voice, which is Olympus's essence —
golden, wherever you are...
Begging you to harness your sun-chariot's chargers —
those swift doves now winging you above the black earth,
till their white pinions whirring bring you down to me from heaven
through earth's middle air...
Suddenly they arrived, and you, O my Blessed One,
smiling with your immortal countenance,
asked what hurt me, and for what reason
I cried out...
And what did I want to happen most
in my crazed heart? 'Whom then shall Persuasion
bring to you, my dearest? Who,
Sappho, hurts you? "
"For if she flees, soon will she follow;
and if she does not accept gifts, soon she will give them;
and if she does not love, soon she will love
despite herself! '
Come to me now, relieve my harsh worries,
free me heart from its anguish,
and once again be
my battle-ally!



Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!


Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
The Pleiades are gone;
Now half the night is spent,
Yet here I lie ... alone.



Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2 / Voigt 2)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, Cypris, from Crete
to meet me at this holy temple
where a lovely grove of apple awaits our presence
bowering altars
  fuming with frankincense.

Here brisk waters babble beneath apple branches,
the grounds are overshadowed by roses,
and through the flickering leaves
  enchantments shimmer.

Here the horses will nibble flowers
as we gorge on apples
and the breezes blow
  honey-sweet with nectar ...

Here, Cypris, we will gather up garlands,
pour the nectar gracefully into golden cups
and with gladness
  commence our festivities.


Sappho, fragment 58 (Lobel-Page 58)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Virgins, be zealous for the violet-scented Muses' lovely gifts
and those of the melodious lyre ...
but my once-supple skin sags now;
my arthritic bones creak;
my ravenblack hair's turned white;
my lighthearted heart's grown heavy;
my knees buckle;
my feet, once fleet as fawns, fail the dance.
I often bemoan my fate ... but what's the use?
Not to grow old is, of course, not an option.

I am reminded of Tithonus, adored by Dawn with her arms full of roses,
who, overwhelmed by love, carried him off beyond death's dark dominion.
Handsome for a day, but soon withered with age,
he became an object of pity to his ageless wife.



Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely ******.

2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …

It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.



Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131)
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...

2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...



Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your ******* and abuse them!



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?



Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.



... a sweet-voiced maiden ...
—Sappho, fragment 153, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have the most childlike heart ...
—Sappho, fragment 120, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s ecstatic brilliance.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s splendor.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anointed yourself
with most exquisite perfume.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 138, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
           smile,
reveal your eyes' grace ...

4.
Turn to me,
favor me
with your eyes’ indulgence

Those I most charm
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Those I charm the most
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight.
The hours drone on
as I moan here, alone.
—Sappho, fragment 52, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once again I dive into this fathomless ocean,
intoxicated by lust.
—Sappho, after Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did this epigram perhaps inspire the legend that Sappho leapt into the sea to her doom, over her despair for her love for the ferryman Phaon? See the following poem ...

The Legend of Sappho and Phaon, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was an ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks of Leukas
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon ...

but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.

In Menander's play The Leukadia he refers to a legend that Sappho flung herself from the White Rock of Leukas in pursuit of Phaon. We owe the preservation of those verses to Strabo, who cited them. Phaon appears in works by Ovid, Lucian and Aelian. He is also mentioned by Plautus in Miles Gloriosus as being one of only two men in the whole world, who "ever had the luck to be so passionately loved by a woman."

Sappho, fragment 24, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1a.
Dear, don't you remember how, in days long gone,
we did such things, being young?

1b.
Dear, don't you remember, in days long gone,
how we did such things, being young?

2.
Don't you remember, in days bygone,
how we did such things, being young?

3.
Remember? In our youth
we too did such reckless things.

Sappho, fragment 154, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
The moon rose and we women
thronged it like an altar.

2.
Maidens throng
at the altar of Love
all night long.


Even as their hearts froze,
their feathers molted.
—Sappho, fragment 42, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice beguiles me.
Your laughter lifts my heart’s wings.
If I listen to you, even for a moment, I am left speechless.
—Sappho, fragment 31, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 57
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1a.
That country ***** bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!

1b.
That country ***** bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art
is hiking her dress
to reveal her ankles' nakedness!

2.
That hayseed ****
bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!

3.
That rustic girl bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking the hem of her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!

Keywords/Tags: Sappho, ******, Greek, translation, epigram, epigrams, love, ***, desire, passion, lust

MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
’Tis not Love disturbs thy rest,
Love’s a stranger to thy breast:
He, in dimpling smiles, appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears;
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding ‘frown’.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire!
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool Indiff’rence thrills us.
Would’st thou wand’ring hearts beguile,
Smile, at least, or seem to smile;
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips—but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse:
She blushes, curtsies, frowns,—in short She
Dreads lest the Subject should transport me;
And flying off, in search of Reason,
Brings Prudence back in proper season.
All I shall, therefore, say (whate’er
I think, is neither here nor there,)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were form’d for better things than sneering.
Of soothing compliments divested,
Advice at least’s disinterested;
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of Flatt’ry free;
Counsel like mine is as a brother’s,
My heart is given to some others;
That is to say, unskill’d to cozen,
It shares itself among a dozen.

  Marion, adieu! oh, pr’ythee slight not
This warning, though it may delight not;
And, lest my precepts be displeasing,
To those who think remonstrance teazing,
At once I’ll tell thee our opinion,
Concerning Woman’s soft Dominion:
Howe’er we gaze, with admiration,
On eyes of blue or lips carnation;
Howe’er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe’er those beauties may distract us;
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love;
It is not too severe a stricture,
To say they form a pretty picture;
But would’st thou see the secret chain,
Which binds us in your humble train,
To hail you Queens of all Creation,
Know, in a word, ’tis Animation.

At ***** ****'s and Sloppy Joe's
We drank our liquor straight,
Some went upstairs with Margery,
And some, alas, with Kate;
And two by two like cat and mouse
The homeless played at keeping house.

There Wealthy Meg, the Sailor's Friend,
And Marion, cow-eyed,
Opened their arms to me but I
Refused to step inside;
I was not looking for a cage
In which to mope my old age.

The nightingales are sobbing in
The orchards of our mothers,
And hearts that we broke long ago
Have long been breaking others;
Tears are round, the sea is deep:
Roll them overboard and sleep.

And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin

Enid removes her glasses
wipes them
on the hem
of her skirt

tries to clean off
the smeariness
she breathes on them
they cloud up

she wipes them again
I watch her
near the wall
of the playground

after lunch
waiting for her
are they better now?
she asks me

I look through them
the view is magnified
a million times
one big blur to me

yes that's better
I say
giving them
back to her

and watching
as she puts them
back on
pushes the wire arms

over her ears
then pulls the hair
over her ears again
is it all right now?

she asks me
sure I can see your eyes
clear as day
she nods

and looks
at the playground
and the other kids at play
why do some boys

call me four eyes?
or ugly bucket?
she asks
some kids are just finks

ignore them
I tell her
I can't help it
if I have to wear glasses

or am ugly
she says
intelligent people
wear glasses

and hey you're not ugly
I think you are
quite a pretty girl
as they go

she looks at me doubtfully
and then at the kids
and look Mrs M
wears glasses

and she's a teacher
and bright
Enid sighs and sits
on the steps

leading down
into the playground
even my dad thinks
I'm ugly

she says softly
you're old man
wouldn't know prettiness
if it came up

and introduced itself
I say
she smiles
do you think

I'm ugly?
I frown and peer at her
look I'm no expert
being a 9 year old kid

like you
but you can be
my Maid Marion
to my Robin Hood any day

could I?
she says
sure you could
she smiles wider

and says
thank you Benny
and walks down
into the playground

and goes play skip rope
with a couple of girls
by a wall
and I walk

down into
the playground
feeling six feet tall.

Etta James, oh the lady could sing.
Sarah Vaughn,when I hear Anita Baker in away it's Sarah.
If you never knew one of the two.
You would swear they was one.

Billy Eckstein, during his time.
Mister B, was smoother then Billy Dee Williams.
And he had away of mastering a song.

Which we saw when David Ruffin came along.
Who was a rival to Sam Cooke?
A master of the coolest romantic hooks.

He might have been a little different.
Except Chuck Berry can't be deny his dues.
Johnny B Goode, is nationally known.

The color country boy in his song could play.
Yes, he had to change the word to suit the segregation days.
But Johnny B was African American in everyway.

Who doesn't believe that when you see Morris Day?
That he owe his style to Cab Calloway.

The role of an African American diva could be trace to Lena Horne.
Or maybe actress Freddi Washington.
Or opera star Marion Anderson.
Who sometimes don't get recognition like they should.
Almost like Dorothy Dandridge doesn't.

Still they played on like Josephine Baker.
Who like George Washington Carver faces hostility and problems?

We still trying to educate people about Charles Drew.
Who fame is traced to the blood floating within you?

Against the greatest of odds.
They adapted and blazed a trail.
Through the roughest of times.
They was determine to be.

Who doesn't know Little Richard?
Who borrowed heavily off of gospel singer Billy Wright?
And soon was creating truth within his lyrics.
Until others came along and water them down.

We know truth still is avoided by them.
Except for the man that sung about a hound.
Which wasn't at all about a dog.
But about a cheating man.
Sung beautifully by Big Mama Thorton.

But then no man plays the guitar better.
Then Marva Collins or Rosetta Throphe.
Yes, these women could play.

Some people will never understand Malcolm X contribution.
Except, he left many that's seen today.
Just notice the way he never revisted the prison in any negative way.

We marched.
We protested.
And some of the best controversial stars comes from the musical side.

For no other side of music can touch the blues with truth.
Well, I guess country do.
But the blues takes many forms.

Could be about leaving.
Could be about loving.
Or that stuff you do in the dark with your love.

It could be the howlin'.
It might be the scoffin'.
It could be the chasin'.
But like many styles of music.
Some knows they was creating babies.

Which leads us to Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass.
Where the Love TKO and Let's Get It On still is the songs.

It's an African American tradition of the past.
That affects the future too.
For stars of yesterdays.
Are seen in stars of today.

A Legacy.
And we know legacies doesn't fade.

I cannot look at you, Mme Cotillard.
You are too Paris to me, too Parisian. Far too French.
Much different from Français je sais.  
Your voice, when speaking what i know,
Remains elegantly mischievous; playfully mysterious.
I cannot look at you, Mme Cotillard.
The bags under your eyes, i know.
They're blue with longing wonder.
They are so French. I know because i've kissed
Their cheeks in greeting, both left and right.
I see them in my mirror and say "bonjour, comment ça va?"
I cannot look at you, Mme Cotillard.
I know your face too well.
It reminds me of the photos i've thrown away
Je ne sai quoi.
I cannot look at you,
Mme Marion Cotillard.

He's running to catch you, Marion
at the end of the dock
stretched out over cyan waters.

His hand arched out like vellum over dry bone
reaching for his dream
hoping that when he reaches the end
he finds something other than a requiem.

Marion Gaslight

kicked in with malfunction hair.
Spliced.
Sociopathic residue drip to the commuter of the world.
Spliced.
How do you love your warmth.
Plunder.
All and well now.
We'll just wait it out in our arms.



Garrett jOhNsOn

Marion Carrion, she was a tease,
She really knew how to flirt,
Would shake her hips and her moving bits
That were hidden under her skirt.
She’d beckon me out to the hockey field
And raise her skirt to the knees,
Said I could look at her secret nook
For only a simple ‘Please.’

She had all a woman’s mysteries
Although she was only a girl,
And knew the power of her nether bits
Would put my mind in a whirl.
So she showed her thighs with her flashing eyes
And then would have shown me more,
While I would share with a candid air
That I knew what she had in store.

Out there on the side of the hockey field
In the shade of the only bush,
We’d hide behind, so my hand could find
Whatever would make her flush.
I thought that I was the favoured one
While playing about with her toys,
But then I found on the soccer ground
She was sharing with all of the boys.

That moment of disillusionment
I thought would have broken my heart,
But I was tough and had seen enough,
There were other girls in the park.
So I thank Marion Carrion now
For her retrospect revelation,
She taught me well on the road to hell
And saw to my education.

David Lewis Paget

Mrs. Richart said,
     Go home tonight
     and do your freaking homework.
     Do it right, do it good.
     Or you get a bad grade.

I wonder if it's really that easy.
I'm 16, a Pikachu, and born in Marion, Illinois.
I've been going to school here my whole life, and
I'm the only ginger haired Pikachu here.
I live in a ****** little house,
Down the road from the park, in Marion...
An now I'm sitting here
Writing this poem thing.

I'm not too sure what's true to be seen,
or heard, or told, at my age of sixteen.
I guess I am what I be. And what I be,
could it be, what I see? I see trees,
and bees...and other people...no. That
can't be right. Unless I looked in a mirror...
Now I look, and I see a girl. A girl who
likes to eat, sleep and have fun.  She
loves being with friends and being in
love.  She cares deeply about her friends
and would do everything in her
willpower to help them in need.
I guess looking a bit like a
Pikachu doesn't change the fact that
she's just as good as other people.
So will my page thing be
good that I write?
Being me, it won't be like a
Jigglypuff, Absol, Vulpix or Mew...
Definitely not Mew...
But it will be
a part of you, Mrs. Richart,
and my friends.
Because you all are good.
Better than good.
You are great, amazing, and beautiful,
All put together......gramaziful!
You're gramaziful!
Though, sometimes perhaps you
have your moments....
And so do I...
But still.
We are all graaziful
in our own special way.

     This is my poem thing for English II.

Inspire me. ****** me. Serenade me.
Send to me ******* rhythms and let
the ****** hymns play... And then the songs play as we lay.
Frank Sinatra has us on the road, Irma
Thomas telling us to be ourselves...
Love me like Aretha has never loved a
man, move me like Nina Simone, just
you and I alone. Dinah Washington says I should teach you, Etta James
warning me not to tear your clothes.
Let's play some Sarah Vaughn and
Fontella Bass. Ease me with some Diana
Krall and Dianne Reeves, swing motion
with Chris Boti. Tell me you love me Inside Out as does Shara Nelson. Let's
fall in love to Cassandra Wilson. Let us go the jungle and listen to the
bears sing, the legends of love lore...
Sing and groan; Some Isaac Hayes,
Barry White, Teddy Pendergrass,
Marvin Gaye, James Ingram, Gary
Taylor... Let them play, let them sing. And some love bees; some Betty
Wright, Angela Winbush, Regina Belle,
Sade, Marsha Ambrosius... Tone it
down on a spunky blue with some
Meshell Ndegeocello, Janet Jackson,
Laurnea, a bit of Floetry, some Incognito and Karyn White. Max it up with some Maxwell, Rahsaan,
Ralph Tresvant, Glenn Jones and Tevin
Campelle. Let's jazz it up with some Fourplay,
Brian Culbertson, Quincy Jones, Euge
Groove and Marion Meadows... Lounge
and spice it up with some Prince Alec,
Hed Kandi and Kalliope. Funk it up with some Rick James, Ten
City, Brothers Johnson and Billie
Ocean... Let us ****** and swim in the
love ocean. Making love in a Time Machine,
fading through timeless scenes
listening to stimulating music
searching for a combine that is our
fusion
Biting on some dust and swallowing colour
lush are the strips that are dripping
from the trees of chemistry
dancing to music lively, singing to
blues puzzling
beating to jazz dubbing, responding to ethereal loungy sound
music and our souls will be one
in a time machine, learning
combinations orchestrated through the
ages
We will evolve and be sages Until time linear is more sincere and
eternity for us is here. Let the music play, my bed will be a
time machine, shut never your ears
listen to the music that does play and
wipe them tears
all the drama you've been through all
these years in a second we'll be naked and
climbing stairs
we'll be invited to the kingdom of
Romance and Serindipity
You can be the Queen, I'll be King
Poetry painting neverending pictures surreal
in a world ethereal and the real will dull
feel
and forever you and I will be, if we
journey in the musical time machine.

'If' is the core to life; an infinity of possibility.  Only two things can render the passion stagnant:
          fear and negligence, addictions to comfort.
                                                                                        Addictions to slavery.
But if the 'lie' is removed from life, we are left with the 'f', we are left to be free.

Freedom itself is infinity, for an idea never dies.
It goes on and grows on, the hope shining in your eyes.

Yet freedom is not achieved in a flash, to stay with you forevermore.  It must be sustained,
                   it must be fed.
                           It is not easy.
But what does ease bring, in the end?:  temporary satisfaction hoarded with dormant passion

(passion and possibility)

Work - hard, grueling, exhausting labor - leads to the ultimate ease,
             a satisfying ease that you feel
                                                                   you deserve.

And that is the greatest freedom.

Upon a dale of dandelions
running his tongue 'tween stems and leaves
to pluck the carpel
tunnel
syndrome of nectar.
Pollinating without any bird
or bee
paying the slightest
attention.

Freedom was close to me.  
She never did want me to see.
A pain undone
That nobody could bear to run.
  
I went to a few concentration camps.
There were several big lamps.
They searched in the dark black nights.
They held all my frights.
  
Then came my pebbles.
One was round and marble smooth.
There was no dull for its color shone
I bid farewell to the dullness of life and the dullness of prison.
  
Size was fair in my twisted little game.
Pebble One.                           Pebble Me.
Pebble Two.                           Pebble Brother.
Pebble Three.                        Pebble Mother.
Pebble Four.                          And Pebble Father.
One was found.                     I saved my life.
Two was found.                     Welcome Brother.
Three was found.                  Hello, Mother.
  
Where was Four?
I would bother to save my Father.
There it was.
My hidden rocks.
One, two, three and four.
  
Some say that there is tricky feat called a cheat.
That is not what I am.
To cheat means one is beat.
  
I am not what beat is.
I am what a treat is.
Mother shall have her house.
Brother shall boast in his bed.
I will have all the bread.
Father will have freedom that is not forlorn.
  
The pebbles are what kept us alive.
It is as if we are stuck under a beehive.
One came out to sting.
With that sting it took every single thing.
  
The Russians came after many years.
I would have cried but I had no tears.
My life was fuller.
My soul gained strength.
Marion B.  
Had the strength to know when to flee.

1
Marion Island, 2011 and 2008


The fur seal courts the king penguin
runs after it,
as if the penguin were a desirable female seal
and then fails
(it’s just not possible physically;
and hey, the girl says NO!)
and then tears the bird to bits
and eats it

(if you can't ***** it
you eat it)

maybe that fur seal is a loser
chased out by other dominant seals
all female seals taken for the season
and so tries in desperation
to gain entry into a penguin

2
like other losers
many life-forms do it, it seems
insects, spiders, worms, frogs
birds and fish – they just do it…
chaotic with testosterone,
exiled from female receptacles
where you pour in *****

i helped a lady
take her groceries to her house today.
it was the same lady
i watched cross the street
it was the same lady
i didnt hear walk into the corner store behind me.
it was the same lady
i let the door fall onto.
i couldnt hear her.

she ended up ahead of me on the sidewalk.
grocery bags on the pavement.
phone on her ear.
i walked by her.
she apologized
said she was trying to get help.
we walked together.
she told me 'help' was on the patio
drinking a beer.
she asked where i lived
and i said a street over.
she said she hoped she'd see me around.
and i said maybe not, im going home for the summer.

she asked if i was getting out of the rat race
im too young for the rat race.

she thanked me a lot
and said
'some good karma will come your way
im a firm believer in that'

me too
i said.

i walked home and thought
i should write a poem about
that conversation.
about giving a second chance
about being a kind person.
about karma.

usually when something like this happens
i write the minute i get home

but i didnt.

i realized, i dont think i can write
about happy things
because when they happen
they always ferment until
they're not what they were.

it was a quick high
a genuine moment.
if karma is real
and that woman is right
either im the devil himself
or theres a big check
with my name on it.

before i started writing
i googled seasonal depression symptoms

apparently not talking to anyone between the months of february and may every year is still a horse with no name.

how do you **** a love
you made yourself.

i leave this town in a week
and i feel as broken
and confused
as the **** i tried to leave

all i want to do is jump in the river
to see if i can really swim
and figure it out from there.

Read the fourth stanza whichever way you want to, one column, two columns, one full stanza, etc.
Freedom was close to me.  
She never did want me to see.
A pain undone
That nobody could bear to run.
  
I went to a few concentration camps.
There were several big lamps.
They searched in the dark black nights.
They held all my frights.
  
Then came my pebbles.
One was round and marble smooth.
There was no dull for its color shone
I bid farewell to the dullness of life and the dullness of prison.
  
Size was fair in my twisted little game.
Pebble One.                           Pebble Me.
Pebble Two.                           Pebble Brother.
Pebble Three.                        Pebble Mother.
Pebble Four.                          And Pebble Father.
One was found.                     I saved my life.
Two was found.                     Welcome Brother.
Three was found.                  Hello, Mother.
  
Where was Four?
I would bother to save my Father.
There it was.
My hidden rocks.
One, two, three and four.
  
Some say that there is tricky feat called a cheat.
That is not what I am.
To cheat means one is beat.
  
I am not what beat is.
I am what a treat is.
Mother shall have her house.
Brother shall boast in his bed.
I will have all the bread.
Father will have freedom that is not forlorn.
  
The pebbles are what kept us alive.
It is as if we are stuck under a beehive.
One came out to sting.
With that sting it took every single thing.
  
The Russians came after many years.
I would have cried but I had no tears.
My life was fuller.
My soul gained strength.
Marion B.

Lincoln green robin
hoodwinking the
greedy rich

Feeding the poor
robin red breast
flaunting credentials
robbing the lady
marion
the little birds of their
flimsy
filmy honor

Little boy little
man-child john
little mowgli
conquering the jungle
conquering the tiger
riding imperious
the stark grey brown elephant

And backscratching bear
sleeping in the greensward
dancing with milady
tucking into supper of
fast arrowed stag

Hung out and dried
between devil trees
and huts afire

Across the brittle
yellow beach into
the deep blue sea

I'll hold the window
in place
you ***** it
to the wall
my father said

he had the seriousness
of a professional
his dark hair and eyes
firm
rock like

I took a *****
and proceeded
to ***** the window frame
to the wall

my father
was engaged
in the work

I was thinking of Marion
the blonde
who sang
with a band sometimes
who I met some nights
over a drink

and she talked
about music
and how she
had a good relationship
with her father
and how she'd say
Daddy can I go
out dancing?
and he'd say
yes my crazy daughter
and she laughed

I sat there
just listening
seeing her
blue eyes shine
and her body pause
with life

and I asked
what about me
and you and bed?  

you mean ***?
she said

well yes
I said  

O my
I can't sleep
with anyone
not until I marry them
she said
that's like opening
a Christmas present
before Christmas
can't be done

so I put that idea away
and we just talked
and drank
and she sang
a few of the songs
she sang with the band
doing that wiggly dance
she did

her blonde hair sprayed
like a huge bouquet
of flowers

is it firmly in?
my father asked
you need a good *****
to hold it in place

yes that's what I
was thinking
I said
pushing the thought
of Marion
out of
my 17 year old head.

A THIN LINE THAT DAWNS
( for Marion )

The Future a landscape I
needs must

travel through to
understand the moment and

what it brings
what I can take from it

what I can take it
to.

This the Loveless Land
that has to be

known and
left behind.

Here, Loneliness
rears up

sheer, impassable

now a cliff face
now a chasm.

I journey to a me
I am

yet to be

who knows this time
as a past

she has travelled through
and arrived at a self

fashioned from
a certain sadness

the what's gone wrong
the what's gone is gone.

Happiness that
constant construct

we create and
re-create

so that a self
emerges even from a grief

and that this present loss
is now but a place on a map

an X that
marks a spot

treasure being
the understanding

that I own
I an emotional alchemist

turning loss to gold

to make me
the me I am

the horizon
a thin line

that dawns

A THIN LINE THAT DAWNS
( for Marion )

The Future a landscape I
needs must

travel through to
understand the moment and

what it brings
what I can take from it

what I can take it
to.

This the Loveless Land
that has to be

known and
left behind.

Here, Loneliness
rears up

sheer, impassable

now a cliff face
now a chasm.

I journey to a me
I am

yet to be

who knows this time
as a past

she has travelled through
and arrived at a self

fashioned from
a certain sadness

the what's gone wrong
the what's gone is gone.

Happiness that
constant construct

we create and
re-create

so that a self
emerges even from a grief

and that this present loss
is now but a place on a map

an X that
marks a spot

treasure being
the understanding

that I own
I an emotional alchemist

turning loss to gold

to make me
the me I am

the horizon
a thin line

that dawns

Brandon Bless you brother for your Holy Spirit filled poems.
Bless you Elsa , for your heart and God is using your poems.
Bless you Just Melz, Marion,Nicole,Dark and beautiful  too.
Wolf Spirit,DC Raw,Ignatinus, David, Timothy, Joshua..
Joe Kevin, Gary L, Traveler, Mike Hauser, Anto MacRuaridh.
Soulsurvivoe, weeping willow,Hilda.Emma, MargotDylan.
I want to name each and everyone of you that I follow/
Beth St Claire, Nicole, Elizabeth Squire,Mark Cleavenger.
Forgotten Heart, Haley Madison, Eudora, Ann M Johnson.n
Vanessa Gatley, Beryl Dov, Mercie B, Paul Butters, Emma.
Nateive Son,Dopperganger, Cecil Miller,My cup overrunth.
Sweetpea, Frank Ruland, olestory teller, Ridicule, Tivonna.
Carolin, Anu, Nicole Dawn. plus so many more inspires me.
Please forgive me if you are not on here I love you all.
Everyone of you inspires me , I see your courage and your love.
May Christ always bless you all abundantly with his blessings.
I see the courage in all of you whom have my life here on HP.

~for Marion~

all poets are junkyard scavenger connoisseurs

who wear suits to Manhattan faculty afternoon tea parties,

broken-in jeans to Brooklyn midnite poetry slams,

regalers, tall tale storytellers, subway words pickpockets

of the  extra-ordinary,

claiming innovations but from all saints stolen,

insights inside other's waste,

refusing to acknowledge the true owner's title

by fusing other's refuse.

the original recyclers,

junkyard dog liars,

willful sufferers of the plague of overhearing,

exceptional excerpters of the gems of coal dust noise,

"Connoisseur of old thoughts
Bound in new gilt bindings"*


them's me.


~

12:37am may eighth

Alright so if you walk in to my bedroom
Pressed in the far corner is my bed
The headboard against the left wall
And, if you’re lying in it, the left side against an interior wall of the house
On that wall, the one on the left side of the bed, is a painting that came with the house
It is a long rectangle
I would describe its artistic value to be
Obligatory-Motel-Room-Painting
Blocks of color and weird squiggly bits
Not a picture of anything as much as a tool to bring the end table and the drapes together with the sheets
It’s on canvas stretched around a wooden frame
Nailed into the top bar of that wooden frame, dead center, is a jagged piece of metal
Normally you’d just put a nail in the wall and center that bit on the nail there you go
But this house has those paper thin walls that a nail with an ant on would tear through like Robin Hood sliding down a royal banner out a castle window with Maid Marion under his arm
So you can’t just hang the painting on the wall
But the room has crown molding
So instead of a nail in the wall
There is a string tied to the jagged piece of metal that extends up the center of the wall to the top
Where the string is tied to a fishing hook that is clipped into the crown molding

All this is to say is that sometimes when I lie in bed alone in my thoughts or otherwise
I reach my hand up and push the painting
Like a brother in the backseat being told not to touch his little sister I just kind of give it a poke
And I watch it swing from side to side
Or rather I expect to watch it swing like a marble on a string in a pendulum prop at a CEO’s desk
Side to side
Evenly
But it doesn’t
It wobbles while it sways
Like how at Disneyland
The Tea Cup Ride
The cups spin in circles while they go in circles
The painting wobbles while it sways back and forth
And I just don’t get it
Like I don’t understand at all
See I’m a smart conceited man so this gets on my nerves
And I know that if I spent my junior year of high school, first trimester, third period paying attention to Mrs. Whatever’s physics class instead of eating turkey sandwiches in the back with Sean then falling asleep that I’d be able to tell you exactly why this happens
But I got hungry at like 9am back then and I can’t help that I didn’t give a **** so I can’t explain it

And all of that was to say that I spend most of my daily energy trying to feel normal
Trying to be a sane person
Waking up all five days of the work week on time
Showering and brushing my teeth
Taking my kid to school and not forgetting to pick him back up after work
Not taking shots on my lunch breaks
And we all have the internet
And we all like poetry
So we’ve all heard the phrase “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting diff…and you know where I’m going
I’ve been in therapy since I was eight
Been on all the medications
Kept myself alive even when I didn’t want to
Worked a job long enough to get promoted a couple times
Live a real life, with real consequences
And every once in a while if I’m not looking too hard
I start to feel like a normal
Like a sane person
Like someone who is of his right mind
And then all of it gets undone by a ****** painting hanging on a string in my bedroom
Because I know what it means about me to push that painting and expect it swing every time and to every time watch in shock as it wobbles while it sways

The perimeter was limiting,
the interior more inhibiting
and the Islander lived alone,ambitions dissipated,sun dried,dessicated,he waited for the ship to come,
he lived on coconuts and *** and Wrigleys spearmint chewing gum and two tonne of cargo from the hull of the ship that nearly pulled him to his death.

He was blinded by the sun and sand,so carried lightly in one hand a parasol (made in Taiwan)
not one known to complain,he found it hard to explain to his companion,
a turtle he'd named Marion,in honour of his life and his poor departed wife
just how he felt,
but he knelt before the sea creature,which, though he didn't know it then
would feature in a hot cooked stew somewhere in the distant future.

Sad to tell that the Islander spent eighteen years on his Island hell and went quite insane
thought the sand was rain and bathed in it twice weekly
leaking fluids from his skull he swam out to the rotting hull and danced a jig on the ancient deck,
both man and wreck sank deep below where only sharks and shellfish go and the sea ****** both to their sad demise.

No stone marks the resting place,no words remark on who lies there,but the Island stares out to the sea and knows the turtle was eaten for tea
and Islands never forget.

That day, the sun as bright as yellow-white,
the day Robinhood met Cinderella
on the fairgrounds at Montezuma
and Cervantes  white steed was neighing
tied to the fence
and both them,
)Robin and Cindy(
at the same time
went over to try and calm him
and Cervantes tilted ( a bit high  drunk stupored )
he was. Spilt the horse's water
all over both of them.
Cinderella's white shirt
became transparent.
Nubs soft curves
all apparent.
Robin stood,
impressed by the display before him.
Then, Maid Marion showed up,
grabbed Robin by the scruff of his neck.
And Cervantes saw Don Quixote
approaching.
Quickly he threw
the horses blanket
over Cinderella's beauty.
He whispered in her ear,
I know this abandoned windmill
near, we might
have a tilt or two,
Cinderella lost a shoe running
to the horse to mount
with Cervantes
whipping reins and dust flied
as they disappeared
to never ever be
seen again.

My father
and I
went in
the canteen
on the building site

having completed
one row
of windows

we had our sandwiches
he went to buy
two mugs
of strong tea

I sat and thought
of Marion who
I’d been with
the night before

blonde
lively
a singer
with this band
who bubbled
and danced

and I said
you have
a great figure

O do I?
she said
when a young man
tells me that
I wonder
what his intentions are
she added

and usually
they involve
getting me
in the sack
and doing things
my Daddy
would not have
approved of

no no
I was just saying
I said
going red

I was just looking
as a kind of
artistic viewpoint
like you were
a model for Renoir
or someone

didn't that guy
paint **** women?
she said

sure
some of the time
I said

well then
what kind of model
would I be?
she said
the type
that shows off
her ****?

no no
I said
going redder
the decent kind
no other kind
what have entered
my mind

she sang
a few bars of
Don't Sit Under
The Apple Tree
and sat
on my knee

and my pecker
stirred wastefully

and she talked
of her next gig
and did this
kind of ****
shaking jig

and my father
brought the two mugs
of tea and sat down
at the table with me

and thoughts of
Marion
and my pecker
went away
until I saw her
later that day.

All five.
I ask her can you tell that I'm alive
She  say i can tell when you rise
I'm like..like what the sun
She say no like Shawn Marion when he was young
The Matrix ..
I say girl I'm your Neo
Be my Trinity
One hand on your chest I can make your heart beat...
Let me inside and watch you expand
Girl I can help you breathe
Or take your breath away
Oh the sweetness of your taste
Consuming treats with no tooth decay
This girl is my wife
We ignite the night like gun fights
My touch ignites her senses take her to new heights
Starship enterprise
Explore the frontier
Of her inner thighs
As a kid I dreamt of this, dreamt of her..
Dreamt of love, Dreamt complete freedom
Sharing my inner most thoughts
Express with all five senses I give my heart

ERIN MORAN FROM HAPPY DAYS
HAS SUDDENLY PASSED AWAY
FONZIE IS GRIEVING BADLY
CHACHI IS EXTREMELY SAD
MARION IS HEART BROKEN
AND RALPH IS VERY MAD


HAPPY DAYS WAS A GREAT SHOW
AND WHAT AN INCREDIBLE CAST
IT WILL STAY IN OUR MEMORIES
AND LIVE IN OUR HEARTS
AND THERE IT WILL ALWAYS LAST