ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

Sully suffers from a stutter,
simple syllables will clutter,
stalling speeches up on beaches,
like a sunken sailboat rudder.

Sully strains to say his phrases,
sickened by the sounds he raises,
strings of thoughts come out in knots,
he solves his sentences like mazes.

At night, he writes his thoughts instead
and sighs as they steadily rush from his head.

She spoke
with half-smoked cigarettes
and lilting cursive scribbled over last night’s letter’s return address,
her bags packed with only a backless dress.
Nails dripping black and red
blood and paint indistinguishable
in the darkness of the winding alleyways
zigzagging her heart.
She was truly, unendingly lost
in the mazes of her mind
as she traveled backwards with a string
lazily trailing after broken stilettos.
Yesterday’s rain still dripping from empty window sills
and illuminated by lanterns lit with fireflies
found solace in her silent tears
for they were companions,
cut from the same paper-thin cloth.
Maybe a goddess had worn it once,
but those days were long gone
when she lit it aflame with a cigarette
fresh from her lips.
Desire was never a question —
this she had learned from the fire
overtaking her overflowing mind —
and yet it was soundlessly spoken
on empty bottles
not yet broken and swept up by the sea.
Only the blind man could see her now
just as the deaf girl heard her cries
and thus she remained unanswered.
This, however, she did not mind
for being lost was no longer not a choice.

Honeycomb mazes
And sweet honey hazes
Thickly sweet, mind glazes
Confused, smoke blazes
Making a home unconscious races
Falling asleep in honeyed cases
Trusting those honeyed faces
Gold drips away from honeyed places
And left with confined spaces
Wax rooms, so smooth
And no longer honeyed, but true.
*wake up

I once was on an endless journey
Of turning left and right,
There was bramble all around me, only
Nothing not alike.

Though none were up above me
I could not see the sky,
All except my inner strength,
I had been left alone to die.

Deserted by the moon and stars,
I was even without light,
But desperate to be free again,
I braved the endless night.

Time escaped me, also
I traveled a day, a week, a year,
But my body never weakened,
Nor hunger did I fear.

Even if I neared the end
I had no way to be sure,
So, I promised myself it was close ahead,
Just one more set of turns.

But the exit never greeted me
And disappointment, it grew strong
I had broken so many promises,
My credibility was gone.

I could no longer reassure my mind,
So I faced the truth instead,
I prepared myself for eternity –
And an endless path ahead.

M_
mnd
maks
mze
ot
o
strigh
lnes

Rainbows sit high
Imagination glides down their backs
and it scars hearts
after reaching a high, nothing matches that
Missing something now.
The paint, it trickles down and melts eyes
its canvas pain, it paints it gray.

To my fickle sea.
Poking holes in wishes you receive
The colors of the bay, they float away
Black and White is an infinite abyss
Lose yourself in the grace of it.
No in between,
just keep your eyes wide
you'll see nothing.
The sand at your feet
The glass and rocks that glaze the earth,
always find a way to cut their grace.
Don't pray too hard for me.

Search through your garden
the size of a thumbtack
the flowers rise over your head.
Trees of candy cane sprout before your eyes
You can't see what another sees,
no one to know what you know.

Taking a step inside an orchids stem
and tip-toeing down through the veins of its petals
the purple and gold
they all bleed through your mind.
Form and shape the world which you dance along,
thoughts of blowing breezes send your thoughts along their way
into this endless sea.

Watch the lines write themselves into darkened corners.
The bright and shining sun could change your world.
Swirling and spiraling staircases send you downwards without a thought,
no stopping the whirl-pool once your slipping under.
An octopus would take you in
and with every one of his eight arms he caresses your pain away
showing real effort in his cause

those who impress, settle at unrest

Watch as the berries erupt and bloom
crawl along the lines
mazes of blue
and red know there is no way to succeed.
Watch as the bumblebees sneeze with their noses covered in yellow dreams.
they pack it in with their toes in teams

A great glass lake, to skate along
the ripples
She falls along each crease,
stumbling and tumbling between each droplet.

The clouds fly high above her head,
they gaze upon her flowing gown.
They cry sad tears when they see her eyes
drowning her futures in their skies,
flowing and crashing and thrashing.

With an umbrella, float away
above the days when everything
turned out wrong.

The great glass lake serves true,
until you skip the rock of inferiority along its reflection.
The shatter will fly all about.
That is the point at which it ends
Everything you know is then contradicted and compromised
Your own description shattered

Stones drop from high heights
out of clouds with heavy hearts
waiting to smash this dream.

Great glass lake shines on.

A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

        The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.


The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To Such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
         But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, ‘twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned ***** of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father’s state,
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
         Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe’s island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris’ woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.


COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
wild
beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
glistering.
They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
their hands.


         COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
And the ***** sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rights begin;
‘T is only daylight that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne’er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
That ne’er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat’, and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

                              The Measure.

         Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some ****** sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that’s against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

         LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer’s ****,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts. TTis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be ? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I’ll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen
                 Within thy airy shell
         By slow Meander’s margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
         Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
         That likest thy Narcissus are?
                  O, if thou have
         Hid them in some flowery cave,
                  Tell me but where,
         Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
         So may’st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven’s harmonies!


         COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earthUs mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I’ll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.QHail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell’st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
         LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is addressed to unattending ears.
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
         COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
         LADY. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth.
         COMUS. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
         LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
         COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
         LADY. To seek i’ the valley some cool friendly spring.
         COMUS. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
         LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick return.
         COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
         LADY. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
         COMUS. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
         LADY. No less than if I should my brothers lose.
         COMUS. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?
         LADY. As smooth as ****’s their unrazored lips.
         COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i’ the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you find them.
         LADY.                          Gentle villager,
What readiest way would bring me to that place?
         COMUS. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
         LADY. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot’s art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.
        COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
******, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise,
I can c

There are unintended mazes in your words,
fire brimmed hoops that I must jump
perfectly through,
in order to keep you happy.
Every other word I say is a trigger
pulled,
and I will watch as you flinch,
and prepare your attack.
I am growing so tired,
of being sensored
and cautious.
I am so sick,
of this maze.

Honest to god, I love people. As a teenager, you might catch me saying otherwise in times of frustration or lack of hope for the human race, but in all actuality, I love people. The sheer fact that all of us are immensely different yet so innately similar never ceases to turn my mind upside down and possessing the ability to fall in love with strangers has made me, in turn, fall in love with writing about them.
Walk down the street and find somewhere to sit, now observe. You see an old man pass by, walking his jubilant puppy and almost instantly, your brain is making judgments about him. Maybe his wife passed away and the puppy is his only company and now he is walking her trying to calm her down but it isn't working because she's a puppy, and well, energy is an expanse for them. But wait, now an elderly lady approaches them and kisses the man on the face. Strike one. The dog lifts up a leg and leaves its scent on a tree. Strike two. Now, the dog lays down and is panting like crazy, but from here you can tell that its fur is already graying. Strike three. You thought you knew everything about him, when really, you didn't have a clue.
That's the beauty of mystery - the guessing game and the eventual strike out. You're amazed at the fact that you know so much about humans, and yet, at the same time, so little. All of us are walking contradictions and labyrinths within ourselves. It's a shame, really, how most people don't explore their own personal mazes - but there's one thing all of us do love to do: explore everyone else's.

I am Alice in
Wonderland.
Wandering around
wondering what this
is all about.

All these mazes,
all these changing faces...
Where is my shining horse
that will lead me
to the right course?

Here I am he says!
But I do not see all the pieces yet...

So I stumble!
And I fall...
and I hear myself call
what is the meaning to this all?

But then the clouds part.
The only sound
my beating heart...
and I see the light
so ever beautifully bright

And my shining horse
runs up to stand beside me
and I let him guide me
all the way
to The Way
up, up, and away

and we fly,
so high,
above the night sky,
and I let go of my fears
and I feel the tears
stream down my face
as we arrive at your place

and I hear myself yell
to break this spell
I'm here!
I'm here!
Have no fear!
I see you!
I see you!
and I take your hand
and you take mine,
forever now
our lives intertwined.

Beauty out in the open, light falls on linoleum tiles like heel-worn stones
Windows to a sunny world sit at the end of locker-lined tunnels, beckoning beyond fluorescent mazes
Clotted with conversation, upperclassmen stroll like the elderly
Young blood doge or cling to the sides, scared of the critical runway that is us

Windows to a sunny world sit at the end of locker-lined tunnels, beckoning beyond fluorescent mazes
Eyes from all sides, thinking nothing yet are supplied by our own thoughts
Young blood doge or cling to the sides, scared of the critical runway that is us
Finding refuge in educational terrariums, an ecosystem that saves me from the weight

Eyes from all sides, thinking nothing yet are supplied by our own thoughts
Finding solace in stairwells, sealed off by doors and hold awkward opportunities
Finding refuge in educational terrariums, an ecosystem that saves me from the weight
Clanging like a child’s cry releases stress like floodgates, another trip into the shark tank

Finding solace in stairwells, sealed off by doors and hold awkward opportunities
Open doors that are actually closed; they are like aquariums – no tapping on the glass please.
Clanging like a child’s cry releases stress like floodgates, another trip into the shark tank
The longer I stay the more I wish to leave, away from substituted confrontations


Open doors that are actually closed; they are like aquariums – no tapping on the glass please.
Prejudice like heavy rain beats at my skin and soaks my clothes - but I know it was I who brought the downpour
The longer I stay the more I wish to leave, away from substituted confrontations
Must comparisons be so obvious when I walk alone, unprotected? They are lucky to have such equals to act as parents; they hold each other’s hands to keep from drowning

Prejudice like heavy rain beats at my skin and soaks my clothes – but I know it was I who brought the downpour
They pull like vultures at flesh; I am not allowed to wrap myself in hurricanes while out in the open
Must comparisons be so obvious when I walk alone, unprotected? They are lucky to have such equals to act as parents; they hold each other’s hands to keep from drowning
Ignorance is bliss, they say, and truth that is here – the less you know the less hate you bear the weight of.

They pull like vultures at flesh; I am not allowed to wrap myself in hurricanes while out in the open
Look down, one foot – and then the other!
Ignorance is bliss they say, and truth that is here – the less you know the less hate you bear the weight of.
Anger and sadness, guilt and fear turn like Viewmaster slides lit up by the sun

Or am I on my own here? Each boy's path runs along each other like long-exposure stars, leaving streaks between the darkness.

i find myself in mazes,
built inside my mind
after every winding path
you are the only one i find
i try and convince myself
that things like trees and clouds
are the same they were before
but after you touched them
somehow they are just not
and never will be again
my thoughts of you
are bright morning colors
that awake me
from my life in black and white
i see you everywhere, in crowds,
and in figures, in the night
i wait for you in meadows
full of buds that never die
because they hold a promise,
to bloom when you arrive.

The Story
by Kamal Nasser
translation by Michael R. Burch

I will tell you a story ...
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It is the story of my country, a handful of refugees.
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour between them
and a few promises of relief ... gifts and parcels.
It is the story of the suffering ones
who stood waiting in line ten years,
in hunger,
in tears and agony,
in hardship and yearning.
It is a story of a people who were misled,
who were thrown into the mazes of the years.
And yet they stood defiant,
disrobed yet united
as they trudged from the light to their tents:
the revolution of return
into the world of darkness.

Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian poet and Palestinian Christian, who due to his renowned integrity was known as "The Conscience." He was a member of Jordan's parliament in 1956. He was murdered in 1973 by an Israeli death squad whose most notorious member was future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak (born Ehud Brog) later ruled as Israel’s tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His adopted Hebrew name Barak means "lightning." As a younger man, Brog/Barak was a member of a secret assassination unit that liquidated Palestinians in Lebanon and the occupied territories. In the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, which was part of the larger Operation Wrath of God, he disguised himself as a woman in order to assassinate Palestinians. The raid resulted in the deaths of two women, one of them an elderly Italian. Two Lebanese policemen were also killed, along with the poet Kamal Nasser.

Nasser was the PLO's most prominent Christian and he enjoyed "great appeal" in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq "both as a distinguished poet and likeable personality." He was the “conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” according to Nazih Abul-Nidal, who worked with him on the magazine Filastin al-Thawra. Nasser “had the most democratic outlook of all Palestinian leaders at the time,” he recalls. He respected opposing views, admired the commitment of young people, and was a major recruitment asset for the Palestinian revolution. “That is why he was put high on the hit-list.” The previous year, the Israelis had murdered another renowned Palestinian writer and activist in Beirut, Ghassan Kanafani, by *****-trapping his car. Nasser’s successor, Majed Abu Sharar, was also assassinated by Israelis, in Rome in 1981 while attending a conference in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Keywords/Tags: Kamal Nasser, Palestinian, Palestine, PLO, Conscience, Ramallah, Christian, religion, poet, Arab, Arabic, Arab Spring, betrayal, conflict, courage, devotion

☺☻☺☻

When painters who paint about painting
meet writers who write about writing,
self-conscious redundancy
bordering lunacy
ends in esthetic in-fighting.

These modernists, right about nothing
(mostly nihilists mad about something)
are so lost in the process
they vent all their excess
in metacognition: dull writing.

You poets who muse about musing –
unaware you are reader-abusing,
provide a terrific
verbose soporific,
yet not of the hearer’s own choosing…

I long for some righteous verbosity –
but I’m stifled by all the pomposity.
This dull erudition,
“sub-metacognition”,
is but an artistic atrocity.

You thinkers who think about thinking
drag my spirit far lower than sinking.
What we want is a Word
which we haven’t yet heard –
so till then I’ll just drink about drinking.

I don't know what to say
right now.
The simplicity of this page haunts me
It's too easy
I'm used to more options
Endless confusion
Charts spotted with lines and dots and angles
and rights and wrongs and yes's and no's
Mazes with corners and rigid edges
like life is allowed to be put into boxes
like breaths and thoughts and the surface of tears
dripping like melting glass from an eyelash
are meant to be stuffed into sharpness
without the blessing of shadows
not gradual
like
the snap of electricity through an outlet
frying all the atoms in its path.
I'm cold, it's dark,
I whisper.

An immense circle of thoughts was clouding
my brain in this room of reconfigured dimensions,
the spinning ceiling fan whirling into a windmill,
the ******* floors breaking into a wave of sharpened
metaphors, the expressionless curtains filled with fear
and crashing scenery, a dark hollow surface converging
in a rhythm of insane beats, imprisoned noted drumming,
disentangled sentences, shattering subjects, compressed
conjunctions and compounds accelerating into an eternity
of uncolored existences, as I stare at the isolated sky,
swollen stars diverging in a broken pattern of faded worlds,
the breathless moon sunken in a domain of interchangeable
languages, meaningless mazes, chopped consonants,
crumbling dreams, everything shifting in a sea of diminishing
whirlpools, while I drifted into a realm of uncaged thoughts,
a crushing cycle of unbalanced worlds, dizzy and senseless
paragraphs bleeding into timeless realities.  My eyes are
plummeting and shackled in drumbeating rhetoric, lost logos,
swallowed pathos, enveloped ethos, rainless cheeks, cloaked chests,
handcuffed arms, square root hips disassembling into deferred
depictions, distilled dreams, shadowed feet hardly more than a
poetic sound, a sore scrawled letter stretched in ragged angles,
stinging, helpless horizons.  I gazed at the shattered glass on
the kitchen floor, how its cracking vibration rumbled inside
my veins, how its impossible syllables blazed my soul,
the burning air around my inner being suffocating in Saturn,
vanishing in Venus, exploding on Earth, every ****** debris
splitting in horrid labyrinths, a screaming depth hidden in
disguise.  I glanced around at the broken wall where
my drunken dad fists where imprinted, the mangled wood
hanging in drugged vowels, the rotten symmetry disappearing
in chalky chambers, roughly lined hues declining without a trace,
as I reflected on the series of events that transpired, the way I
could hear the slamming door raging inside my vessel,
enflamed flaming verbs hovering in high rhymes,
hardened adjectives, destroyed derivatives, disintegrating
equations, the way his bladed feet dragged across the floor,
every reverberating step drowning the sunken space between us,
unwritten surroundings trapped in the atmosphere, confined in a
cloud of inconsolable galaxies, the raging fire stained ***** bottle
wedged between his grubby hands, as I could smell the reeking
breath sifting out of his mouth onto my monotonous flesh,
the same ruthless flow traveling in stuttering nouns, drowning
my heart in Neptune, while I listened to his blazing bloodshot
words, You are nothing without me!  You are worthless!  
You are just a filthy *****!  I wish you would die!  The rising
diction clenched every part of my frame, the way I could breathe
in the asphalt in his tasteless lips, a dying aroma that made me feel
like I was a featureless street seeping into underground dungeons, undone, a destroyed beauty shotgunned.

I would not always reason. The straight path
Wearies us with its never-varying lines,
And we grow melancholy. I would make
Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit
Patiently by the way-side, while I traced
The mazes of the pleasant wilderness
Around me. She should be my counsellor,
But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs
Impulses from a deeper source than hers,
And there are motions, in the mind of man,
That she must look upon with awe. I bow
Reverently to her dictates, but not less
Hold to the fair illusions of old time--
Illusions that shed brightness over life,
And glory over nature. Look, even now,
Where two bright planets in the twilight meet,
Upon the saffron heaven,--the imperial star
Of Jove, and she that from her radiant urn
Pours forth the light of love. Let me believe,
Awhile, that they are met for ends of good,
Amid the evening glory, to confer
Of men and their affairs, and to shed down
Kind influence. Lo! they brighten as we gaze,
And shake out softer fires! The great earth feels
The gladness and the quiet of the time.
Meekly the mighty river, that infolds
This mighty city, smooths his front, and far
Glitters and burns even to the rocky base
Of the dark heights that bound him to the west;
And a deep murmur, from the many streets,
Rises like a thanksgiving. Put we hence
Dark and sad thoughts awhile--there's time for them
Hereafter--on the morrow we will meet,
With melancholy looks, to tell our griefs,
And make each other wretched; this calm hour,
This balmy, blessed evening, we will give
To cheerful hopes and dreams of happy days,
Born of the meeting of those glorious stars.

  Enough of drought has parched the year, and scared
The land with dread of famine. Autumn, yet,
Shall make men glad with unexpected fruits.
The dog-star shall shine harmless: genial days
Shall softly glide away into the keen
And wholesome cold of winter; he that fears
The pestilence, shall gaze on those pure beams,
And breathe, with confidence, the quiet air.

  Emblems of power and beauty! well may they
Shine brightest on our borders, and withdraw
Towards the great Pacific, marking out
The path of empire. Thus, in our own land,
Ere long, the better Genius of our race,
Having encompassed earth, and tamed its tribes,
Shall sit him down beneath the farthest west,
By the shore of that calm ocean, and look back
On realms made happy.

                        Light the nuptial torch,
And say the glad, yet solemn rite, that knits
The youth and maiden. Happy days to them
That wed this evening!--a long life of love,
And blooming sons and daughters! Happy they
Born at this hour,--for they shall see an age
Whiter and holier than the past, and go
Late to their graves. Men shall wear softer hearts,
And shudder at the butcheries of war,
As now at other murders.

                          Hapless Greece!
Enough of blood has wet thy rocks, and stained
Thy rivers; deep enough thy chains have worn
Their links into thy flesh; the sacrifice
Of thy pure maidens, and thy innocent babes,
And reverend priests, has expiated all
Thy crimes of old. In yonder mingling lights
There is an omen of good days for thee.
Thou shalt arise from midst the dust and sit
Again among the nations. Thine own arm
Shall yet redeem thee. Not in wars like thine
The world takes part. Be it a strife of kings,--
Despot with despot battling for a throne,--
And Europe shall be stirred throughout her realms,
Nations shall put on harness, and shall fall
Upon each other, and in all their bounds
The wailing of the childless shall not cease.
Thine is a war for liberty, and thou
Must fight it single-handed. The old world
Looks coldly on the murderers of thy race,
And leaves thee to the struggle; and the new,--
I fear me thou couldst tell a shameful tale
Of fraud and lust of gain;--thy treasury drained,
And Missolonghi fallen. Yet thy wrongs
Shall put new strength into thy heart and hand,
And God and thy good sword shall yet work out,
For thee, a terrible deliverance.

Birthdays from childhood
Are full of celebrations, is understood.

It was not any different for me
Till the unusual plea!

For my 13th birhday
The first time I gave away!

Instead of getting gifts
I contributed to the orphans by giving gifts...

Now I look back to those days
On how happy were they in all ways

I have given tones of gifts
To my fellow companions

But nothing can equalize the happy faces
Of the orphans in their mazes.

Even today I relish
The small gifts I bestowed
To those unknown orphans,,,
Is what which makes my life today
With a brimming hurray!

The way they valued my gifts
No matter how small
They looked at me tall,
And gave the happiest call
Which I would never forget at all!

Those were the real happy days of mine
Which are valued as divine
And will never decline
But I do hope will combine
To give more hapiness: for I define:-
We make a living by what we get
And make a life by what we give!.

Get up out that bed
Slip out that depression
Everyday you wake up is a blessing
Life ain't over

Pick your head up smile
Get it together
Sitting around miserable
Ain't gone make it no better
Tuff times don't last
they only make you better
Life ain't  over it

So he cheated on you?
Your friends turned they backs on you ?
Life ain't over

Social media got you tripping
Like you ain't worth ****
But in reality
The ones stunting
Be broke as ****
Life ain't over

The world is changing
You just now seeing the facts
Life ain't over
Ain't no app to get it back

You was put here for a reason
They only here for a season
Life ain't over

Make a deference today
Life ain't over
**** how they see it
do it your way
Life ain't over

You keep your eyes on the prize
But give God the praises
He's with you at all times
Even when life throws you mazes
Life ain't over

-Lynn Browning

Lynn Browning ©

I
A body of white walls
houses familiarity

Somehow even familiarity
distorted itself
beneath raw cinder blocks
doused white enough
that I could see
the eyes of the past
the eyes of the future
looking back at me,
the eyes of the present

Must journey
behind the white walls
into the familiar unknown

For there is something there

Beyond walls
so very high

They
only crumble,
only die

For there is something there

I must look now
through the deep crevices
deep through my mind

For there is something there

Do I find?

I see people
I see minds
Beyond the white walls
looking back
at I

Why oh why
must I continue?
looking forward
only to
look back again

I am stuck,
encased inside
eternity

Only looking back
to find
a way out
a way out
of me

Me
I have always
been my own infinity

Inside, a prisoner
handcuffed to
the white walls
I am shackled here,
alive
kicking

Death
here in the
eternal infinity

Great intellects
dead,
killed by me

I am my own infinity

I must **** me
I will be free
no longer shackled

I am my own infinity
I am my own uncertainty
I am my own familiarity

It is me
I am my own infinity

The white walls
close in on me,
my own infinity

I do not want to change myself
I do not want to change me

I change
I die

Death’s kiss might be sweet
death’s kiss may free me,
finally

Yet
I cannot accept it
I will not

I just want to be me
but I am everyone else
and they are me
my own infinity

Everything that is
is so very much
everything that is’nt

Beyond the white walls
are nothing you see

White walls
everywhere

White walls
everything

Encasing all
of us

It is here,
it is here

The white walls
shackle us,
shackle us
to
reality,
society


There is forever
no infinity
in me

The familiarity
tastes of death
mistaken for
reality
society

The burning truth

The familiarity
the distorted familiarity
that
is
reality
society

We rely on each other
So much we shoot
each other

We are not strong
We are not smart

We can be
We can’t be

If we break
the shackles
If we keep
the shackles

I am in pieces
I am shattered like glass

I cannot do this
I cannot presume

Death’s kiss
seems sweeter than ever
(forever lost in my own infinity)

You see we
build ourselves up
so
the white walls
eat us up

until we are part of
the white walls
until we are part of
the unknown familiarity

Can I break
through?

want to
need to
break through

White walls
oh,
white walls

I’ve been punching
for so long

I am tired,
I am weary

Resisting,
rebelling

Far too long

White walls,
White mazes

Around
my infinite
familiarity


I cannot
make it out
of myself

So I
walk,

So I
walk,

This great
maze of my
soul

Humorous,
I call it a
great maze

I only walk
in circles

Forever in cycle

I’ve felt the
tears,

Fallen onto
the white walls

Hard
to tell
if they
are clear
or just another
drop of paint

Mind
loops back
on itself,
(always does)

Losing it
(finally insane)


A mad man
I am

A new coat
to adorn

Darker

Darker

Darker

Cracks,
crevices
the white walls
emit abysmal black paint

So-cold
oil,
(called paint)
I will make darkness burn
It stings,
makes a statement
deep within me

Have you ever
felt pain?

Have you ever
felt life?

Walls
I have forgotten
what color
infinity was

Happiness,
feels
so white
but
burns
so dark

Have you ever
felt dark?


Dark feels me
as I
wander,
wither

In
white darkness

II
Out of
walls,
like ghosts
come the hounds

Hounds of the world!
is this all you are?

Animals
who eat away the
stone
rubble
of my soul

Is that what I’ve
become?

Only
stone?
rubble?

White,
raw stone
crushed,
unbroken
by the
organized animals
mistaken to be ourselves

Somehow still shackled
to white darkness
I’ve felt it
I feel it
it feels me

As if to caress
something so bare-beautiful
as a women,
disrobed in the
eternal darkness
of countless midnights

Spent down beneath
the infinity of
blacks,
purples
and blues

Laying in the
leaves of grass
I am
looking at the holes
of the black galaxy
that shoot their beams
back into the
familiar infinity
of my soul itself

For there is something there

There always never always was
something there

I can hear the hounds
once again
prancing
dancing their way
down the halls of
white walls

The white walls that were always never always
there

I walk through them
like such a ghoul
and see
so much of
every nothing
White walls
they melt like
glue

No support

No support

No support

For this life,
for all who may be
in this life

Have nothing
only others

They only
have the other souls,

For they have lost
their own lives
replaced them with
others

Ayn Rand, were you right?
Ayn Rand, were you right?

I’m searching for something
I’m searching for nothing

Where are you?
Individual?

My soul
it pours out
it fills the droughts
of this eternal infinity

But does reason flow?

I only need reason
all I wanted it was


NO!

NO!

NO!

Reason where are you?

The individual,
where are you?

Only descending into
further into madness

I must live!

I must thrive!

I will break this
structure of society

I will shatter
the layers of
humanity,
the layers of
society,
the layers of
reality

I spit lightning
I inhale thunder

Ever before
more alive

Life is  an  amazingly  wonderful   maze,  when   you  t h i n k  about it.
You                                  start   at  the  entrance  n a i v e   and  unaware
of what lies within.         It's  easy to c h e a t in this maze, if  you choose
to walk the e d g e          until  you  get to the  end,  but h o n e s t l y it's
more exciting  just          to  j u m p right  in.  Sure,  you   may  run  into
dead ends                        every   once in awhile,  e v e r y o n e  has  their
dead ends, but it's           easy  for  you to  turn back around, r e t r a c e
your steps and go                             on.   At    times,   the   maze   makes
you   want  to  pull   your  hair        out,  but   for   the  most   part,  you
respect  the  challenge    that it        offers you.You begin to  r e a l i z e
that l i f e                                            isn't  about   finishing  the   m a z e          
it's  about        the path you take to get there. It's  about  The  t h i n g s
you do on       your way  there. It's about all  of the amazing  p e o p l e  
you  meet       while you're travelling.  I think people   forget   that quite
a   bit,   so       the next time you see someone racing through their maze
trying   as       hard as they can to reach the end, remind them that  they
are    only       doing  themselves  a  disservice.   Remind  them that  l i f e
is      what       make of it
                  **You

Wandering down a twisted maze,
I can't find the doorknob,
The ten watt bulbs are flickering
I do not know which wall is which.
I sting, I itch.
I am burning, its stifling,
I'm dying in this maze.

Yes, perhaps 'tis true.
Everywhere I go-with all t'ese dwindling thoughts on my mind-
'tis always the same shadows that roam, and moan-
before my eyes: and t'eir never-ending business.
Crawling on t'eir lips,
poisoning t'eir bosoms, chins, and hips-
but unrelenting in their unfolded shades;
with a swamp of bruises like mazes-tangled mazes;
likening them to spoiled, yet uncherished, little pearls.
How despairing-such views I obtaineth, on my every journey!
But shalt there still be space for us, to be outstanding;
to understand this world from a pair of eyes
glistening like unquestioning gentleness; but learning simultaneously
its unvivid perspectives
with such comprehension t'at is crystal clear;
such wit t'at is far from recklessness and greed-
salutations that are pure, and distant from any blighting threats
of equivocation? For t'is world is, in spite of its minuteness,
was framed and brought into life from
awesome darkness, abysmal cells of lifelessness
and hateful ambiguity.
How terrifying!
And often have I enforced myself to wandereth into those shades,
with unmolested poems boiling up in my brains-
and t'ose windy thoughts toppling out into th' paper
on my hand,
jostling through my veins like some ghastly, furious power
t'at's unseen, invisible as it is to th' human eye-
frail and susceptible to th' weather's surly temptations-
and entrapping me in the shrieks of its wondrous grot-
so I could never wane it any further, in my guileless brambles.
How I have dreaded t'ose sights-and t'eir dormant treachery! Lessons of
guilt, teaching of such guilty flakes of harm
and abomination! And how in my following quietude have I pondered-
t'at t'is would be just a balmy prelude to some far bigger strains of
mockery, obstinacy, and destitution. Hark to how those powers
shall arise! And that will indeed be th' abjuration of our splendidness-
everything shalt stop at a halt-everything will become flawed,
and no more poems shalt be liberated-from living souls, and t'eir undamaged
blood, as t'ey still are now! How I shiver at t'ose possibilities, as soon as our
latent enemies be on th' loose-free in t'eir ruthlessness, traces of dark,
unperturbed miseries, and brutal savagery.
And shalt we shine no more-like those summer flowers that are waiting for us-
to be fed daily like th' hungry morning doves;
with their thorns as sharp as love, and innocent gladness
in the arms of their lips-'tis but a scent so dear to the heartbeat
of oureth salubrious mornings.
But t'at danger, danger indeed! And its eyes of glaring monstrosity!
And 'tis just of substantial profoundness t'at we should be
cautious-yes, cautious, my dear fellows, towards t'ose signs
of th' upcoming storm-th malevolent storm of human rage, t'at shalt attack us
one day-at one perilous night, unpredicted and unexpected is its fate-
especially when all th' battling footsteps areth
peaceful in their slumbers-and no more palms dancing around
piles of paper-in th' holy procurement of continual wealth.
How t'at moment shalt be our early Armageddon-awakened shalt be
all rivers of terrors, and waves of hatred. How t'is beautiful solitude shalt end-
in th' fierce burning, brimming death of t'at flame-credulous shalt we be,
disempowered from th' heat-which shalt bring us but our dead feet.
Thus I but sincerely hope t'at gloom shalt not conquer our race-
the noblest of all creatures on earth-on t'is dull earth, fatigued as it is
from all th' uniformed battles, hatred, and anger-t'at untiringly sneer
at th' faces of those dying soldiers.
Peace, peace, my dear mates!
Ought to realize thou now-t'at swords shalt shed blood only if instructed.
So tranquility is but in oureth hands-yes, we are but th' key to our own salvation,
and since it is so, shalt we move forward and be the charms of t'is world's
new foundation: for it is our own life that we shalt save.
Peace, my friends, shalt but break all t'ese unseen boundaries amongst us,
and enrich our fathom of t'eir unspoken presence; so t'at th' small world is but
th' most dwelling of comfort, and aught but ease to our hearts-
our very dear, dear hearts in t'is life.

Ruby red slippers, rich with passionate love
for you, dear state, as I search your land,
grazing the colors, the life, and the mystery
of weeds choking gravestones, tangling the dead.
But you, dear state, yourself is so gentle.

Kansas, you stretch to ****** my curls;
to stroke my tender cheek with a
flock of sunflowers, blooming vivid gold and
a mizzle of musicality, too high, too loud for me.

Your screams of country overwhelm me.
Why you, dear state, never treat us to
tangles of concrete nor mazes of glass?

Kansas, your heaven gives me migraine.

So many unsolved mazes
Hid under their fake faces.

Above my home where the dark clouds
curl into the sky clinging for a home to
rest their sleepy depiction, shadowed
trees hum sweet lullabies, lonely leaves
breathe in the sad song of fallen dimensions,
letting its lifeless view roll upon their frame,
the chilled breeze sailing in the skyline,
as I scramble my way out of a filthy dumpster,
a mountain of disintegrating mess covering
my broken body, hovering flies surrounding
sticky strips of spaghetti, moldy mashed potatoes,
and moldy chicken *** pies, while my mind sunk
into traveled thoughts, bruised hands pressed against
the creases in my forehead, allowing my existence
to feel the stranded scars streaming in various mazes,
dull eyes flushed with a burning disorder, aching cheeks
and chests nestled in darkening chamber corners, buried
hips and thighs uprooting in somber blades of grass,
thorned, torn, and destroyed in different worlds.  As I stood
on the slippery pavement staring at the ruffled scenery
in my sight, spinning streetlights thickening into slouched
positions, screaming sidewalks spilling sadness and madness
in the drenched air, razor-edged buildings inching into crushed
centimeters, jumbled meters, ****** yards.  I replayed the sober
images in my head, the way my young brown-skinned mom said
I would never amount to anything, how I could hear the raged
noun ****** sift into the distance, its flaming mechanics
accelerating into screeching sounds, the way she hurled
her fists at my smashed face, every vibrant language
breaking apart, slamming shut into closed infinites,
snagged contractions and gerunds diverging into
shuddering double spaced negatives, the way she threw
my lingering body inside the trash dumpster, her sharp
scarlet words, You are no son of mine, ricocheting off
savage surfaces, sparking my soul in a calamity
of choking diction.

knew a girl named Faith
who had none at all
husky breath, taut body
aligning laughter with anyone in sight
sotto voce-
fading into the carriage of the night
rolling within the mazes she chooses

she's a tall tower squishing my chest
tabi heels from margiela
give her all my love but it's never enough
takes it all and serves it to everyone
else
crosses for earrings
knew a girl named Faith
and i love her

Rain showers, mazes uncovered
Dancing like a little child with a toy
Reclaimed as the drizzles recovers
Pouncing  jumps like a kangaroo

The winter burns as the fire blaze
Warmed by the ambience of the logs
Reflections denuded, secrets unearthed
Times lost bouncing like a ball

Bare and **** in the cool mist and fog
A shadowy phantom arises me
An Orion exhibit, my alpha constellation
Carving me out of the hidden cave

I
A body of white walls
houses familiarity

Somehow even familiarity
distorted itself
beneath raw cinder blocks
doused white enough
that I could see
the eyes of the past
the eyes of the future
looking back at me,
the eyes of the present

Must journey
behind the white walls
into the familiar unknown

For there is something there

Beyond walls
so very high

They
only crumble,
only die

For there is something there

I must look now
through the deep crevices
deep through my mind

For there is something there

Do I find?

I see people
I see minds
Beyond the white walls
looking back
at I

Why oh why
must I continue?
looking forward
only to
look back again

I am stuck,
encased inside
eternity

Only looking back
to find
a way out
a way out
of me

Me
I have always
been my own infinity

Inside, a prisoner
handcuffed to
the white walls
I am shackled here,
alive
kicking

Death
here in the
eternal infinity

Great intellects
dead,
killed by me

I am my own infinity

I must **** me
I will be free
no longer shackled

I am my own infinity
I am my own uncertainty
I am my own familiarity

It is me
I am my own infinity

The white walls
close in on me,
my own infinity

I do not want to change myself
I do not want to change me

I change
I die

Death’s kiss might be sweet
Death’s kiss may free me,
finally

Yet
I cannot accept it
I will not

I just want to be me
but I am everyone else
and they are me
my own infinity

Everything,
everything

Beyond the white walls
are nothing you see

White walls
everywhere

White walls
everything

Encasing all
of us

It is here,
it is here

The white walls
shackle us,
shackle us
to
reality,
society

There is forever
no infinity
in me

The familiarity
tastes of death
mistaken for
reality
society

The burning truth

The familiarity
the distorted familiarity
that
is
reality
society

We rely on each other
So much we shoot
each other

We are not strong
We are not smart

We can be
We can’t be

If we break
the shackles
If we keep
the shackles

I am in pieces
I am shattered like glass

I cannot do this
I cannot presume

Death’s kiss
seems sweeter than ever
(forever lost in my own infinity)

You see we
build ourselves up
so
the white walls
eat us up

until we are part of
the white walls
until we are part of
the unknown familiarity

Can I break
through?

want to
need to
break through

White walls
oh,
white walls

I’ve been punching
for so long

I am tired,
I am weary

Resisting,
rebelling

Far too long

White walls,
White mazes

Around
my infinite
familiarity

I cannot
make it out
of myself

So I
walk,

So I
walk,

This great
maze of my
soul

Humorous,
I call it a
great maze

I only walk
in circles

Forever in cycle

I’ve felt the
tears,

Fallen onto
the white walls

Hard
to tell
if they
are clear
or just another
drop of paint

Mind
loops back
on itself,
(always does)

Losing it
(finally insane)


A mad man
I am

A new coat
to adorn

Darker
darker
darker

Cracks,
crevices
the white walls
emit abysmal black paint

So-cold
oil,
(called paint)
I will make darkness burn
It stings,
makes a statement
deep within me

Have you ever
felt pain?

Have you ever
felt life?

Walls
I have forgotten
what color
infinity was

Happiness,
feels
so white
but
burns
so dark

Have you ever
felt dark?


Dark feels me
as I
wander,
wither

In
white darkness

I can feel the loneliness deep inside
the half-shaped moon, stripped, scorched, destroyed,
shifting, scrambled diction, hazy nonfiction, drifting
consonants and vowels lingering in meaningless
frames, confined in a sleepless state, searching for
its missing outer being to make it complete,
quivering in solemnness, struggling for freedom
and perfection, conflicting science crumbling without
reason, evaporating equations swallowed into unfamiliar
places, sunken history tumbling into the depths of the abyss,
disconnected from the great milky clouds and glorious
sun, its wandering metaphors hovering in some unknown
distant kingdom, in the depths of a solitary dungeon, dying
of its creative invention, broken sounds sluggishly surfacing
for air, fading shadows seeping further out into the inner wave
of Saturn, its decaying reflection changing between time
and space, rising and falling in forgotten eternities,
declining in rhyme and harmonizing patterns,
as shattered lovers diminish apart from one another,
locked away in frigid and featureless mazes, drowned galaxies
floating in sinking outer spaces, vivid blackness surrounding
its sunken design, lost languages falling apart into split and hidden
dimensions, swimming in stuttering syllables across the crimson seas.

I

There was an ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away.

I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all."

Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?

x*x + 7x + 53 = 11/3

But something whispered "It will soon be done:
Bands cannot always play, nor ladies smile:
Endure with patience the distasteful fun
For just a little while!"

A change came o'er my Vision - it was night:
We clove a pathway through a frantic throng:
The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright:
The chariots whirled along.

Within a marble hall a river ran -
A living tide, half muslin and half cloth:
And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan,
Yet swallowed down her wrath;

And here one offered to a thirsty fair
(His words half-drowned amid those thunders tuneful)
Some frozen viand (there were many there),
A tooth-ache in each spoonful.

There comes a happy pause, for human strength
Will not endure to dance without cessation;
And every one must reach the point at length
Of absolute prostration.

At such a moment ladies learn to give,
To partners who would urge them over-much,
A flat and yet decided negative -
Photographers love such.

There comes a welcome summons - hope revives,
And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken.

Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -
Much like a waving field of golden grain,
Or a tempestuous ocean.

And thus they give the time, that Nature meant
For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,
To ceaseless din and mindless merriment
And waste of shoes and floors.

And One (we name him not) that flies the flowers,
That dreads the dances, and that shuns the salads,
They doom to pass in solitude the hours,
Writing acrostic-ballads.

How late it grows! The hour is surely past
That should have warned us with its double knock?
The twilight wanes, and morning comes at last -
"Oh, Uncle, what's o'clock?"

The Uncle gravely nods, and wisely winks.
It MAY mean much, but how is one to know?
He opens his mouth - yet out of it, methinks,
No words of wisdom flow.

II

Empress of Art, for thee I twine
This wreath with all too slender skill.
Forgive my Muse each halting line,
And for the deed accept the will!

O day of tears! Whence comes this spectre grim,
Parting, like Death's cold river, souls that love?
Is not he bound to thee, as thou to him,
By vows, unwhispered here, yet heard above?

And still it lives, that keen and heavenward flame,
Lives in his eye, and trembles in his tone:
And these wild words of fury but proclaim
A heart that beats for thee, for thee alone!

But all is lost: that mighty mind o'erthrown,
Like sweet bells jangled, piteous sight to see!
"Doubt that the stars are fire," so runs his moan,
"Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!"

A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!
And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?

Nay, get thee hence! Leave all thy winsome ways
And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:
In holy silence wait the appointed days,
And weep away the leaden-footed hours.

III.

The air is bright with hues of light
And rich with laughter and with singing:
Young hearts beat high in ecstasy,
And banners wave, and bells are ringing:
But silence falls with fading day,
And there's an end to mirth and play.
Ah, well-a-day

Rest your old bones, ye wrinkled crones!
The kettle sings, the firelight dances.
Deep be it quaffed, the magic draught
That fills the soul with golden fancies!
For Youth and Pleasance will not stay,
And ye are withered, worn, and gray.
Ah, well-a-day!

O fair cold face! O form of grace,
For human passion madly yearning!
O weary air of dumb despair,
From marble won, to marble turning!
"Leave us not thus!" we fondly pray.
"We cannot let thee pass away!"
Ah, well-a-day!

IV.

My First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest -
So plural-plural, I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned!

My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd
And plausible deceivers.

My First to get at wisdom tries -
A failure melancholy!
My Second men revered as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom flies
To depths of frantic folly.

My First is ageing day by day:
My Second's age is ended:
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended.

My Whole? I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men -
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes -

A flashing light - a fleeting shade -
Beginning, end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made
Or wit devised! Go, seek HER aid,
If you would read my riddle!

what does it take to ruin someone and for them to ruin you?
I can look in your eyes and see what is true, I can
break into your motives and see why you do it, I can
take a flame to the glacier and melt your ice down, but
in my ears beating my burning heart sounds like a thunderous
cry, etching your name on my soul, when you leave there can be nothing,
I can never be whole, my mind is a solver, I crawl into blank spaces
and find underneath them the hidden, dark mazes- without the problem
there can be no solution, only when you are there can I have absolution-
you are a lock to my key that will melt- constantly forming-
into something I've lost. Every day has a morning- but the night destroys
day and the dark is afraid- I am only for you, now, forever and always
(at least til the next, when I fall in the hallways)
my heart is not open, it is a strong focused beam-
to bring light to your days, and bring hope to your dreams.

The road was long and rough
It was a passageway of words
A parade of letters and prose
The touch of invisible pleasure
I moulted like a snake in season
I dreamt on a cruiser of reign as we
opened my pandora box in the cave

The road was smooth and right
It was a third eye paradise of seers
A mire of misery and blowing wind
The tears flew like fireflies on heat
I met the shrinks of souls in salt bed
I waved the rain as it washed my sins
On that sight of the pandora box

The road of wrongness and rightness
It was an unfolded augury of life
An awakened sleeper roared in dreams
The days when I touched the skies
I took the broken house and mended
I saw the clouds as bright as crimson
Inside the box when I met my twin

The road of love, lust, love, longness
It was when the ember coal was wild
A blaze of soul collision and resonance
The days when doubt taunted in mazes
I wrested my mind and the heart knew
I tested the precipice and intuition led
Inside the unconditional pandora box  

The road where I hid and felt alive
It was a paradise of shining trees
A place where our loneliness merged
The safest heaven on barren lands
I saw my warrior and he shielded
I sat as he ran away with fear and pride
On that very opened pandora box

The road of unforgotten forever
It was a triangulation of continents
An immersion of difference and indifference
The open table of a scarce connective mess
I shed my naive bed and hardened
I shut the wild untwisted world
On that very inevitable pandora

Are you fatigued?
Do you have irritable bowel syndrome?
Are there irreconcilable differences in your life?
Are you Homophobic...

"I climb 1,576 stairs"
"But I have a lot of gay friends"
once we've reached the top,
there are no two quarters for the lens.

What's driving us, this feeling, this wander?

Could you imagine,
If kind was ****** compassion.

Could you imagine,
If kind has no reaction.

What a day, what a day, what a day, what a day;
it will be.

Like children lost in corn mazes.......

filled with glee.

Hollow are those shallow times,
don't you
forget
about me.

What a day, what a day, what a day, what a day;
it will be.

Luckily those prickly vines, are fading fantastically.


TRF
         sometimebforehalloween

Each life contains mazes which can never be finished twice
Don't try to steal other's when you have your own skies
And if you can't fly at the sky
Remember, not all birds can fly
Different ways are being offered in each of our life
Always pick the road where you can feel comfy and high
We have our own tracks that deserve footprints on their own
In every corner, there'll be turns so it's fine to slow down the road

**All other mazes are already being explored
Who will travel in your maze if you won't?