With these words Hector passed through the gates, and his brother
Alexandrus with him, both eager for the fray. As when heaven sends a
breeze to sailors who have long looked for one in vain, and have
laboured at their oars till they are faint with toil, even so
welcome was the sight of these two heroes to the Trojans.
  Thereon Alexandrus killed Menesthius the son of Areithous; he
lived in Ame, and was son of Areithous the Mace-man, and of
Phylomedusa. Hector threw a spear at Eioneus and struck him dead
with a wound in the neck under the bronze rim of his helmet.
Glaucus, moreover, son of Hippolochus, captain of the Lycians, in hard
hand-to-hand fight smote Iphinous son of Dexius on the shoulder, as he
was springing on to his chariot behind his fleet mares; so he fell
to earth from the car, and there was no life left in him.
  When, therefore, Minerva saw these men making havoc of the
Argives, she darted down to Ilius from the summits of Olympus, and
Apollo, who was looking on from Pergamus, went out to meet her; for he
wanted the Trojans to be victorious. The pair met by the oak tree, and
King Apollo son of Jove was first to speak. “What would you have
said he, “daughter of great Jove, that your proud spirit has sent
you hither from Olympus? Have you no pity upon the Trojans, and
would you incline the scales of victory in favour of the Danaans?
Let me persuade you—for it will be better thus—stay the combat for
to-day, but let them renew the fight hereafter till they compass the
doom of Ilius, since you goddesses have made up your minds to
destroy the city.”
  And Minerva answered, “So be it, Far-Darter; it was in this mind
that I came down from Olympus to the Trojans and Achaeans. Tell me,
then, how do you propose to end this present fighting?”
  Apollo, son of Jove, replied, “Let us incite great Hector to
challenge some one of the Danaans in single combat; on this the
Achaeans will be shamed into finding a man who will fight him.”
  Minerva assented, and Helenus son of Priam divined the counsel of
the gods; he therefore went up to Hector and said, “Hector son of
Priam, peer of gods in counsel, I am your brother, let me then
persuade you. Bid the other Trojans and Achaeans all of them take
their seats, and challenge the best man among the Achaeans to meet you
in single combat. I have heard the voice of the ever-living gods,
and the hour of your doom is not yet come.”
  Hector was glad when he heard this saying, and went in among the
Trojans, grasping his spear by the middle to hold them back, and
they all sat down. Agamemnon also bade the Achaeans be seated. But
Minerva and Apollo, in the likeness of vultures, perched on father
Jove’s high oak tree, proud of their men; and the ranks sat close
ranged together, bristling with shield and helmet and spear. As when
the rising west wind furs the face of the sea and the waters grow dark
beneath it, so sat the companies of Trojans and Achaeans upon the
plain. And Hector spoke thus:-
  “Hear me, Trojans and Achaeans, that I may speak even as I am
minded; Jove on his high throne has brought our oaths and covenants to
nothing, and foreshadows ill for both of us, till you either take
the towers of Troy, or are yourselves vanquished at your ships. The
princes of the Achaeans are here present in the midst of you; let him,
then, that will fight me stand forward as your champion against
Hector. Thus I say, and may Jove be witness between us. If your
champion slay me, let him strip me of my armour and take it to your
ships, but let him send my body home that the Trojans and their
wives may give me my dues of fire when I am dead. In like manner, if
Apollo vouchsafe me glory and I slay your champion, I will strip him
of his armour and take it to the city of Ilius, where I will hang it
in the temple of Apollo, but I will give up his body, that the
Achaeans may bury him at their ships, and the build him a mound by the
wide waters of the Hellespont. Then will one say hereafter as he sails
his ship over the sea, ‘This is the monument of one who died long
since a champion who was slain by mighty Hector.’ Thus will one say,
and my fame shall not be lost.”
  Thus did he speak, but they all held their peace, ashamed to decline
the challenge, yet fearing to accept it, till at last Menelaus rose
and rebuked them, for he was angry. “Alas,” he cried, “vain braggarts,
women forsooth not men, double-dyed indeed will be the stain upon us
if no man of the Danaans will now face Hector. May you be turned every
man of you into earth and water as you sit spiritless and inglorious
in your places. I will myself go out against this man, but the
upshot of the fight will be from on high in the hands of the
immortal gods.”
  With these words he put on his armour; and then, O Menelaus, your
life would have come to an end at the hands of hands of Hector, for he
was far better the man, had not the princes of the Achaeans sprung
upon you and checked you. King Agamemnon caught him by the right
hand and said, “Menelaus, you are mad; a truce to this folly. Be
patient in spite of passion, do not think of fighting a man so much
stronger than yourself as Hector son of Priam, who is feared by many
another as well as you. Even Achilles, who is far more doughty than
you are, shrank from meeting him in battle. Sit down your own
people, and the Achaeans will send some other champion to fight
Hector; fearless and fond of battle though he be, I ween his knees
will bend gladly under him if he comes out alive from the
hurly-burly of this fight.”
  With these words of reasonable counsel he persuaded his brother,
whereon his squires gladly stripped the armour from off his shoulders.
Then Nestor rose and spoke, “Of a truth,” said he, “the Achaean land
is fallen upon evil times. The old knight Peleus, counsellor and
orator among the Myrmidons, loved when I was in his house to
question me concerning the race and lineage of all the Argives. How
would it not grieve him could he hear of them as now quailing before
Hector? Many a time would he lift his hands in prayer that his soul
might leave his body and go down within the house of Hades. Would,
by father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I were still young and
strong as when the Pylians and Arcadians were gathered in fight by the
rapid river Celadon under the walls of Pheia, and round about the
waters of the river Iardanus. The godlike hero Ereuthalion stood
forward as their champion, with the armour of King Areithous upon
his shoulders—Areithous whom men and women had surnamed ‘the
Mace-man,’ because he fought neither with bow nor spear, but broke the
battalions of the foe with his iron mace. Lycurgus killed him, not
in fair fight, but by entrapping him in a narrow way where his mace
served him in no stead; for Lycurgus was too quick for him and speared
him through the middle, so he fell to earth on his back. Lycurgus then
spoiled him of the armour which Mars had given him, and bore it in
battle thenceforward; but when he grew old and stayed at home, he gave
it to his faithful squire Ereuthalion, who in this same armour
challenged the foremost men among us. The others quaked and quailed,
but my high spirit bade me fight him though none other would
venture; I was the youngest man of them all; but when I fought him
Minerva vouchsafed me victory. He was the biggest and strongest man
that ever I killed, and covered much ground as he lay sprawling upon
the earth. Would that I were still young and strong as I then was, for
the son of Priam would then soon find one who would face him. But you,
foremost among the whole host though you be, have none of you any
stomach for fighting Hector.”
  Thus did the old man rebuke them, and forthwith nine men started
to their feet. Foremost of all uprose King Agamemnon, and after him
brave Diomed the son of Tydeus. Next were the two Ajaxes, men
clothed in valour as with a garment, and then Idomeneus, and
Meriones his brother in arms. After these Eurypylus son of Euaemon,
Thoas the son of Andraemon, and Ulysses also rose. Then Nestor
knight of Gerene again spoke, saying: “Cast lots among you to see
who shall be chosen. If he come alive out of this fight he will have
done good service alike to his own soul and to the Achaeans.”
  Thus he spoke, and when each of them had marked his lot, and had
thrown it into the helmet of Agamemnon son of Atreus, the people
lifted their hands in prayer, and thus would one of them say as he
looked into the vault of heaven, “Father Jove, grant that the lot fall
on Ajax, or on the son of Tydeus, or upon the king of rich Mycene
himself.”
  As they were speaking, Nestor knight of Gerene shook the helmet, and
from it there fell the very lot which they wanted—the lot of Ajax.
The herald bore it about and showed it to all the chieftains of the
Achaeans, going from left to right; but they none of of them owned it.
When, however, in due course he reached the man who had written upon
it and had put it into the helmet, brave Ajax held out his hand, and
the herald gave him the lot. When Ajax saw him mark he knew it and was
glad; he threw it to the ground and said, “My friends, the lot is
mine, and I rejoice, for I shall vanquish Hector. I will put on my
armour; meanwhile, pray to King Jove in silence among yourselves
that the Trojans may not hear you—or aloud if you will, for we fear
no man. None shall overcome me, neither by force nor cunning, for I
was born and bred in Salamis, and can hold my own in all things.”
  With this they fell praying to King Jove the son of Saturn, and thus
would one of them say as he looked into the vault of heaven, “Father
Jove that rulest from Ida, most glorious in power, vouchsafe victory
to Ajax, and let him win great glory: but if you wish well to Hector
also and would protect him, grant to each of them equal fame and
prowess.
  Thus they prayed, and Ajax armed himself in his suit of gleaming
bronze. When he was in full array he sprang forward as monstrous
Mars when he takes part among men whom Jove has set fighting with
one another—even so did huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans, spring
forward with a grim smile on his face as he brandished his long
spear and strode onward. The Argives were elated as they beheld him,
but the Trojans trembled in every limb, and the heart even of Hector
beat quickly, but he could not now retreat and withdraw into the ranks
behind him, for he had been the challenger. Ajax came up bearing his
shield in front of him like a wall—a shield of bronze with seven
folds of oxhide—the work of Tychius, who lived in Hyle and was by far
the best worker in leather. He had made it with the hides of seven
full-fed bulls, and over these he had set an eighth layer of bronze.
Holding this shield before him, Ajax son of Telamon came close up to
Hector, and menaced him saying, “Hector, you shall now learn, man to
man, what kind of champions the Danaans have among them even besides
lion-hearted Achilles cleaver of the ranks of men. He now abides at
the ships in anger with Agamemnon shepherd of his people, but there
are many of us who are well able to face you; therefore begin the
fight.”
  And Hector answered, “Noble Ajax, son of Telamon, captain of the
host, treat me not as though I were some puny boy or woman that cannot
fight. I have been long used to the blood and butcheries of battle.
I am quick to turn my leathern shield either to right or left, for
this I deem the main thing in battle. I can charge among the
chariots and horsemen, and in hand to hand fighting can delight the
heart of Mars; howbeit I would not take such a man as you are off
his guard—but I will smite you openly if I can.”
  He poised his spear as he spoke, and hurled it from him. It struck
the sevenfold shield in its outermost layer—the eighth, which was
of bronze—and went through six of the layers but in the seventh
hide it stayed. Then Ajax threw in his turn, and struck the round
shield of the son of Priam. The terrible spear went through his
gleaming shield, and pressed onward through his cuirass of cunning
workmanship; it pierced the shirt against his side, but he swerved and
thus saved his life. They then each of them drew out the spear from
his shield, and fell on one another like savage lions or wild boars of
great strength and endurance: the son of Priam struck the middle of
Ajax’s shield, but the bronze did not break, and the point of his dart
was turned. Ajax then sprang forward and pierced the shield of Hector;
the spear went through it and staggered him as he was springing
forward to attack; it gashed his neck and the blood came pouring
from the wound, but even so Hector did not cease fighting; he gave
ground, and with his brawny hand seized a stone, rugged and huge, that
was lying upon the plain; with this he struck the shield of Ajax on
the boss that was in its middle, so that the bronze rang again. But
Ajax in turn caught up a far larger stone, swung it aloft, and
hurled it with prodigious force. This millstone of a rock broke
Hector’s shield inwards and threw him down on his back with the shield
crushing him under it, but Apollo raised him at once. Thereon they
would have hacked at one another in close combat with their swords,
had not heralds, messengers of gods and men, come forward, one from
the Trojans and the other from the Achaeans—Talthybius and Idaeus
both of them honourable men; these parted them with their staves,
and the good herald Idaeus said, “My sons, fight no longer, you are
both of you valiant, and both are dear to Jove; we know this; but
night is now falling, and the behests of night may not be well
gainsaid.”
  Ajax son of Telamon answered, “Idaeus, bid Hector say so, for it was
he that challenged our princes. Let him speak first and I will
accept his saying.”
  Then Hector said, “Ajax, heaven has vouchsafed you stature and
strength, and judgement; and in wielding the spear you excel all
others of the Achaeans. Let us for this day cease fighting;
hereafter we will fight anew till heaven decide between us, and give
victory to one or to the other; night is now falling, and the
behests of night may not be well gainsaid. Gladden, then, the hearts
of the Achaeans at your ships, and more especially those of your own
followers and clansmen, while I, in the great city of King Priam,
bring comfort to the Trojans and their women, who vie with one another
in their prayers on my behalf. Let us, moreover, exchange presents
that it may be said among the Achaeans and Trojans, ‘They fought
with might and main, but were reconciled and parted in friendship.’
  On this he gave Ajax a silver-studded sword with its sheath and
leathern baldric, and in return Ajax gave him a girdle dyed with
purple. Thus they parted, the one going to the host of the Achaeans,
and the other to that of the Trojans, who rejoiced when they saw their
hero come to them safe and unharmed from the strong hands of mighty
Ajax. They led him, therefore, to the city as one that had been
saved beyond their hopes. On the other side the Achaeans brought
Ajax elated with victory to Agamemnon.
  When they reached the quarters of the son of Atreus, Agamemnon
sacrificed for them a five-year-old bull in honour of Jove the son
of Saturn. They flayed the carcass, made it ready, and divided it into
joints; these they cut carefully up into smaller pieces, putting
them on the spits, roasting them sufficiently, and then drawing them
off. When they had done all this and had prepared the feast, they
ate it, and every man had his full and equal share, so that all were
satisfied, and King Agamemnon gave Ajax some slices cut lengthways
down the ****, as a mark of special honour. As soon as they had had
enough to cat and drink, old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest
began to speak; with all sincerity and goodwill, therefore, he
addressed them thus:-
  “Son of Atreus, and other chieftains, inasmuch as many of the
Achaeans are now dead, whose blood Mars has shed by the banks of the
Scamander, and their souls have gone down to the house of Hades, it
will be well when morning comes that we should cease fighting; we will
then wheel our dead together with oxen and mules and burn them not far
from t

I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

                                    In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

II

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.

III

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

                              You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
    You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
    You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
    You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
    You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The ****** flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

V

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

    Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

To Jenny came a gentle youth
   From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
   By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
   And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been
   A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
   Of many loves had she
From scarcely sixteen years above:
Among them sundry troopers of
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
   Had bluffed the Biscay wave;
And Jenny prized her gentle one
   For all the love he gave.
She vowed to be, if they were wed,
His honest wife in heart and head
   From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust
   In Jenny knew no bound,
And Jenny kept her pure and just,
   Till even malice found
No sin or sign of ill to be
In one who walked so decently
   The duteous helpmate’s round.

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,
   And roamed, and were as not:
Alone was Jenny left again
   As ere her mind had sought
A solace in domestic joys,
And ere the vanished pair of boys
   Were sent to sun her cot.

She numbered near on sixty years,
   And passed as elderly,
When, in the street, with flush of fears,
   On day discovered she,
From shine of swords and thump of drum,
Her early loves from war had come,
   The King’s Own Cavalry.

She turned aside, and bowed her head
   Anigh Saint Peter’s door;
“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;
   “I’m faded now, and ****,
And yet those notes—they thrill me through,
And those gay forms move me anew
   As in the years of yore!”…

—’Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn
   Was lit with tapers tall,
For thirty of the trooper men
   Had vowed to give a ball
As “Theirs” had done (fame handed down)
When lying in the self-same town
   Ere Buonaparté’s fall.

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”
   The measured tread and sway
Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”
   Reached Jenny as she lay
Beside her spouse; till springtide blood
Seemed scouring through her like a flood
   That whisked the years away.

She rose, and rayed, and decked her head
   To hide her ringlets thin;
Upon her cap two bows of red
   She fixed with hasty pin;
Unheard descending to the street,
She trod the flags with tune-led feet,
   And stood before the Inn.

Save for the dancers’, not a sound
   Disturbed the icy air;
No watchman on his midnight round
   Or traveller was there;
But over All-Saints’, high and bright,
Pulsed to the music Sirius white,
   The Wain by Bullstake Square.

She knocked, but found her further stride
   Checked by a sergeant tall:
“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;
   “This is a private ball.”
—”No one has more right here than me!
Ere you were born, man,” answered she,
   “I knew the regiment all!”

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”
   Upspoke the steward free;
“We lack sufficient partners still,
   So, prithee let her be!”
They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,
And Jenny felt as in the days
   Of her immodesty.

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;
   She sped as shod with wings;
Each time and every time she danced—
   Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:
They cheered her as she soared and swooped
(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped
   From hops to slothful swings).

The favorite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”—
   (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—
“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow dow,”
   Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”
“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”
“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),
   She beat out, toe and heel.

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,
   And Peter’s chime told four,
When Jenny, *****-beating, rose
   To seek her silent door.
They tiptoed in escorting her,
Lest stroke of heel or ***** of spur
   Should break her goodman’s snore.

The fire that late had burnt fell slack
   When lone at last stood she;
Her nine-and-fifty years came back;
   She sank upon her knee
Beside the durn, and like a dart
A something arrowed through her heart
   In shoots of agony.

Their footsteps died as she leant there,
   Lit by the morning star
Hanging above the moorland, where
   The aged elm-rows are;
And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge
To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge
   No life stirred, near or far.

Though inner mischief worked amain,
   She reached her husband’s side;
Where, toil-weary, as he had lain
   Beneath the patchwork pied
When yestereve she’d forthward crept,
And as unwitting, still he slept
   Who did in her confide.

A tear sprang as she turned and viewed
   His features free from guile;
She kissed him long, as when, just wooed.
   She chose his domicile.
Death menaced now; yet less for life
She wished than that she were the wife
   That she had been erstwhile.

Time wore to six. Her husband rose
   And struck the steel and stone;
He glanced at Jenny, whose repose
   Seemed deeper than his own.
With dumb dismay, on closer sight,
He gathered sense that in the night,
   Or morn, her soul had flown.

When told that some too mighty strain
   For one so many-yeared
Had burst her *****’s master-vein,
   His doubts remained unstirred.
His Jenny had not left his side
Betwixt the eve and morning-tide:
   —The King’s said not a word.

Well! times are not as times were then,
   Nor fair ones half so free;
And truly they were martial men,
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.
And when they went from Casterbridge
And vanished over Mellstock Ridge,
   ’Twas saddest morn to see.

Arrest! Arrest! The menace menaced me again! A slick thin criminal hasty in the night! Here it is! Here it is! A drama at last! News! News! A crime! A love story! A betrayal! See it here! See it large! He burnt the very image in my brain! Proof! Proof! Evidence at last! Delusions, that are sane! Stop now! Stop here! No more! I'm caving in! Fold! I fold! No more bets! No more bets! The winners here! The winners here! A thousand hours or more and the winners here! Oh a tragic loss! A loss! Pull out your cameras! A loss! A steal! A crime! Arrest! Arrest! The menace menaced me again!

driven at night ive seen sights that make life look less like leisure,

and more like self harm for group super pleasure,

your not at the edge of this,

unless you get that sub-dom affection looking like special effects,


I  accelerate slow, park, put on the the light, around a quarter to four.



she tapped her nail , amplified by the glass,

a note smeared the window misting, she stared over my coffee flask, intimately into my cocked submission,

her emaciated wrist has this diamond bracelet, it's shaking, as she points directions beyond restaurants and offices,

one too many cocktails slipped by this ruling consciousness,

now she invites in my taunts of a 30ish nihilist, "shh, just drive us".

snorting coke off the plastic payment dish,

using the twenty shes paying me with,

hooked up to my rhythm,

nobody is left not menaced, in a rolling evolution into avarice,

isn't the skyline marvelous,

the ad-hoc sprawl, minerals raw,

rear view see her chewing her face off,

directions useless, i'll let you out here, I believe you,

wave the fair, but leave the door, i need the air.

Inconclusive patterns
Form indented regularity
In flowing drifts
A panoply of tropical orchids
In my mind
A menaced distortion
Straining forward
Like an isolated image
In an old photograph album
Disclosing only the fragments
Of an insoluble puzzle
Its atmospherics of frequency
Disturbs me somewhat
It is identical to hidden speech
Or the resistance to time
Of exclamatory reminders
Of forward motion
That momentarily fascinates
Then falls through a hole
In a central vortex of vision
This is the architectonics
Of a thought
That can never be articulated

my paris begins with
those early days
as a conscious flaneur
i recall the couple
seated opposite me
on the metro
when i was still innocent
of its labyrinthine complexity
slim pretty white girl
clad head to toe in denim
smiling wistfully
while her muscular black beau
stared through me
with fathomless orbs
and one of them spoke
almost in a whisper
qu'est-ce-que t'en pense
and it dawned on me
yes the young parisienne
with the distant desirous eyes
was no less male than me

dismal movies
in the forum des halles
being screamed at in pigalle
and then howled at again
by some kind of madman
or vagrant who told me
to go to the bois de boulogne
to meet what he saw
as my destiny
menaced
by a sinister skinhead
for trying on tessa's
wide-brimmed hat
getting ****** in les halles
with sara
who'd just seen
dillon as rusty james
and was walking in a daze
sara again with jade
at the caveau
de la huchette jazz cellar

cash squandered
on a gold tootbrush
two tone shoes
from close by
to the place d'italie
portrait sketched
at the place du tertre
paperback books
by symbolist poets
but second hand volumes
by trakl and deleve
and a leather jacket
from the marche aux puces
porte de clignancourt
losing gary's address
scrawled on a page
of musset's confession
walking the length
and breadth of the rue st denis,
what an artist's paradise
(as juliette once wrote me).

Brothers share one life
menaced by the great bull's horns
they are sons of Zeus

together they run
forever in the night sky
Castor and Pullox

May I just say.
It feels quite peaceful to be this delighted.
The way you make me feel.
It is so wonderful to be with you.
I feel more accepted for who I am,
Isn't that how someone would want to feel?
You make me feel accepted
for what's happened in my life,
the good and bad.
I'm quite thrilled to call you mine,
to call you my boyfriend.
I feel comfortable to be around you and with you,
there hasn't been a time where you have ever made me feel uncomfortable in any situation.
Can I just say,
It is ridiculous how jubilant you make me.
You always have me smiling from ear to ear.
Just looking at you, makes me
smile like crazy, it's kind of ridiculous.
I've never felt so,
satisfied in my life before.
When I'm with you I feel more,
Confident in myself, confident in us.
I feel energetic in all the stuff that we do together.
You make me feel pleased.
You make me feel so calm and relaxed around you.
I feel reliable in you and I.
I feel so interested in you and the way you do things.
You make me feel affectionate.
You make me feel so eager to the next time I see you.
I feel anxious with you.
You make me feel so hopeful in everything now.
You make me feel good about a lot of things.
You give me good feelings, they're really special feelings.
It's nice how you haven't ever made me feel,
Lifeless,
menaced,
and unhappy.
You're the best thing that has came into my life.
You managed to turn everything around,
when everything was all horrible.
My feelings for you grow each time we speak,
each time we see each other,
each time we kiss.
I think it's so cute and adorable when you kiss my cheek or my forehead.
I'd do the same to you but I don't want it to be weird if I were too.
I love everything about you,
your taste in music is amazing,
you are so sweet,
kind and caring,
I love how you will open doors and let me go first,
even though I think you deserve to go first at times,
I love how you don't mind to go see movies together
or to go out to get something to eat,
I love how you don't mind paying for things for me.
And one day, I will return the favor over to you.
I'll take you out to places,
pay for your things,
just like you have done for me,
and how you do for me.
I really like you.
I like you a lot, actually.
I hope you stay with me no matter how difficult things can get,
or how difficult things will get at times.
You make me so happy,
I hope I make you happy
like you make me.
I'd say you're quiet the **gentleman for me.

Through the laden flights of ***-stewed gulls -
Deepening in red rosaries to poltroon,
Contaminated by an urgent wish,
The sun-soaked merry bandits blew.

Each to each, and, mingling with that sweaty palm,
Dolorous eyes sad-greeted the fleeing dawn.
Pancreas then, the earth-girdled Titan swam,
Anon the rising tide to stem.

Dentist the night, repair to dance-floored beams,
And rising melodiously ever anew to pine,
Sweet ***** dreaming of her saw-toothed chemise
Saw the fine end to the upstart king.

Curtains swayed against my pearly doom
Not brightly was your plainting song
Palpitating in earthly measures anew
Or seeking once more the mighty to appease.

O David, in thy glance the silver moth did live
Long dawns. An enemy of the swordfish,
He menaced us so long. And now?
Sporadic is the demise of depth!

A silver sea, or rather a sea with a fine multitude of
silver points
Caressing my eyes like toothless counterpoint to the
stately blue.
It gave a floor to a weening being of prancing gait and
measured thighs.

She smiled.

And the sea broke and roared, as ever,
and I heard it once more.
I saw too the sky, which had sufficient blue.
  Cooled by the sea,
warmed by the setting rays and mild air, the body
luxuriated in perfect
temperature.  She did not smile, but perhaps she did..
My body, I mean.

We came away, from there, as from all places to meet
another need.
of darkness and quiet.  Foamed the elements of slaking
portions of
mysterious
substance.  Surrendered to the moving body without
real life.
  Borne along on a
stream of liquid desire residing in another's
breast.
  Relinquishing her to a
perfect nothingness like lead or caviare.
        Oh, and who awaited me?  She was imprisoned
but beautiful
and I thought
quite happy.  I don't think she even wanted to come
to me,
or so it seemed.  But she was happier too outside,
in the waning sun.
  Mainly she had been safe and free.
     And there's an end of this day, which roamed
whither it would,
for I did not attempt to chain it.  Now I flee it.

1558

Of Death I try to think like this—
The Well in which they lay us
Is but the Likeness of the Brook
That menaced not to slay us,
But to invite by that Dismay
Which is the Zest of sweetness
To the same Flower Hesperian,
Decoying but to greet us—

I do remember when a Child
With bolder Playmates straying
To where a Brook that seemed a Sea
Withheld us by its roaring
From just the Purple Flower beyond
Until constrained to clutch it
If Doom itself were the result,
The boldest leaped, and clutched it—

They must not hear of
things that have gone on,
under this roof,
during these hours,
they would scream at the top of their lungs,

You do not want to know,
pressing intentions
why his waist bulges over his belt,
why his face is so red,
a murky sky,
eyes slits in ebony stone.

she is gone,
someone must know why,
others are left to guess and to gossip,
hens clucking,
you must not know,
what they whisper with thickened tongues,

There is a kind of pride,
in being the one that sees and knows,
nervous,
menaced by petty stimulants,
Events become like a sepsis,
webbed,
sickness  multiplying,

years kind pass like temporary paralysis,
fear is  a currency,
sometimes.

He walked briskly into a dull light

A soreness on the bridge of he and his being

Strength and Grace has left the eyes

And a long locked up flame is menaced by the cold

Leather hangs from the ghostly gladiator

Sacredness fumbling into degradation

A peaceful generation takes the younger duty

And washes away this beastly frame

His heart was drowned by the greyness

No more a beautiful engine

The dawn is taken

A darkened robbery

This struggling old guard

Forged with secrets behind the eyes

A final humble word

And a mind is done tonight

I am from my grandmother,who snuck out of the house to smoke camel non-filtered

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from the pine tree with a water hose tied on it, where I imagined  I was Indiana Jones.

I am from the woods, where the cicadas sang at night.

I am from the kudzu that blanketed the trees and menaced the garden.

I am from the apple trees in the front yard, whose fruit                         never turned red.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from my grandfather’s plaid pockets, where he would pull out                     suckers.

I am from my father’s mustang that i crashed into the driveway.

I am from my great-grandfather’s picture, proudly displayed on the              wooden mantle.

I am from my grandmother’s bible stories, in the back bedroom where she read every night.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from Highway 494, where the trees were leveled to build subdivisions.

I am from the soft red clay and moist brown earth of the backyard.

I am from the moonlight I could see from the top of my house late at night.

I am from the sweltering heat and uncut grass in the front yard.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from the small cemetary past the corner store, where my grandfather      lies next to my grandmother,

and my father next to her.

I am from Uptown New Orleans, where my daughter learns her A.B.C’s in the back bedroom

where she prays every night

I am from the brown bag from the Shell station that i fill with suckers, and sneak to her when her mom isn’t watching.

I am from the picture of us dancing at a music festival, her on my shoulders, displayed proudly on the wooden mantle.

I am not from from anywhere, in the middle of town

Menaced by a triumphant chanting of lament
Entrancing the soul of Hades’ kin
Missed eruptions of the sensory nerves
Onomatopoeic of hollow gongs
Resonating, maimed through the indescribable facets of
Your  forgotten youth.

Morning came.
The sun, though wanly yet,
From out the clouds did creep,
And chilled but more the coldness in each heart.

Night had passed.
Their craft its course had set;
They roused themselves from sleep,
Despairingly aware this was the start.

*
And then within their ******* a wondrous joy:
“We are alive. Our pained heartbeat
Is Freedom’s precious blood;
Though fugitive, we plant our feet
On this uncertain road.
Reprieve, we pray, these victims of Hanoi.”

But what inexorable dream did drive
Them to this pass? Utopia . . .?
Can desperation so
Produce a mass myopia?
Or did they simply show
A crass and rude desire to stay alive?

Freedom they sought and yet from freedom fled;
Their sorrow spent, alike their gold,
(Why give up gold for strife?)
Bewilderment assailed the old,
The rest were for their life
Content, who measured wealth by rice and bread.

This is no refuge for the older men.
Here Mammon reigns. Who dares offend
Its promissory trap?
The tree retains a bitter blend
That yet within its sap
Contains the best of threescore years and ten.

No sanctuary this; no lotus land
With blossoms sweet. Another scent
The fragrant harbour bears.
Its airs defeat their loud lament
And gives voice to their fears:
Retreat or here remain to make a stand.

Accumulated wealth; decay of man;
The evidence is all around:
This is cold comfort farm.
No penitents do here abound;
No charity; no charm.
“Dispense with it” some said “and change our plan.”

But still they stayed, and still more of them came
In constant hope: some few sanguine,
Some cynical, some scared;
The misanthrope and the benign,
Each really ill-prepared
To cope, alas, when menaced tongues declaim:

“You are not wanted here! You have no right
Our aims to thwart. We have our own
Philosophy to fill
An empty heart. Leave us alone
To line our pockets still.
Depart! Desist! This scene offends our sight.”

And whither shall they go when doors are locked
to them and barred? Another land?
Another sea serene
Yet still as hard? Forever banned;
Regarded as obscene;
Ill-starred, kept out, each avenue but blocked.

The days lay heavy on them, and the weeks
Marked mournful time; and endless nights
Of sleepless hours compose
No rest sublime. But lawful rights
And liberties opposed
By crime whose legal putrefaction reeks.

Pity those huddled masses in their hive
Of human pain. What choice had they
Beyond their selfish dream
To hope again? Perhaps to pray,
Or, with a piteous scream,
Complain once more: “We merely want to live!”

Was it not ever so, since the first dawn?
Did not our Lord (perchance, too, theirs)
Enjoy the same disdain?
(The same reward?) For what compares
With crucifix and pain
Of sword and scourge, save that one is reborn.

*

Winter brought
Another wakening day;
The menace of that dream:
Demoralizing symbol of their fears.

In the Spring
The well-tide of their gay
And sacrificial stream:
The flower must die before the fruit appears.

black storms rage in his eyes

fierce, frightening dust devils

making silent apocalyptic statements  

while searching for identity

recording the sound of color

black, white, red, green, blue

experiencing a drift of thought

as if floating in a dream

menaced suddenly by vowels

distorted, disconnected in delirium

he perceives a frequency in the air

like disturbed hidden speech

or a dream that cannot find

its alternative

and whose function it is

to study drug wasted features

of a skeletal torso

or to recall the unrelieved

immobility of time and place

to write the color of sound

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.


The day had gone
from dry to drizzle to

wet.


It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

Just raw money I gather from this job
Though mirthfulness is not depraved quite yet
I still face fear in the face of the mob
The clouds seem darker once this job is set

The menaced eyes parading me around
This only leads me to be successful
And while I can't say I have higher ground
Thus far, it's not having been so stressful.

The mob comes flocking in at crack of dawn
Awaiting for the food they seek that day
They always bite the hand that feeds them, brawn
I haven't cared enough to go away

Yes, giving food to them can be quite hard
But it at least beats not being a bard

Love, given over to stone,
Encoffinated warmth of sun,
Shielded from the prickled infiltrations
Of a many-menaced world.
But here we live too with porous beauty,
Here we kneel with bulwark of shoulders,
Then fall without a twitch to the wind.

There's the morning.
eggs coffee and rising sun
and there's the night,
the void filling
storm.
here i am on the verge
of it all,
stable and un-
menaced in an
open market, the blanket
of action, delirious
in attempts and not
half bad-
the steadiness of rocks,
the cadence
of ridges
through air

Encountering a Fawn on a Rainy Morning in August

                                 leaped
The mother deer                  the farmer’s new fence
With her accustomed elegance and grace
Her fawn, confused, abandoned in the field
Held still, and pondered a new mystery

For a motorist, the asphalt is The Way
Menaced by mysterious fields and woods
For a deer, its fields and woods are The Way
Menaced by mysterious dark asphalt

The baby deer then found an open gate
The motorist found his way to Wal-Mart

September 29th 2022 Philosophy

The spavined strumpets of aleatory nimonics stranded in the dimpled pelargic mythos of the nebelwerfers of scansorial elitism burroling the stokehold of pragmatic lurch useful for the progeny of powellisation interned by potichomania for balefires against the throbbing thremmatology of the strickle of jabirus vexed by stunsail argumentation of sumpter sidelong in oblique ginglymus to such a grave extent the thalwegs of contemplation daver in marauded orbit around ceraceous and cespitous thaumaturgy manacled by subservience in sequacious filagersion honing upon stereopsis for nomenclators of high squarson brigadoon fidelity to finessed wheals brackling away at tattermedalion squalor in squirmish facade of brockfaced brockens of wasserman to infiltrate against banjolins the pedigree of berceuse mendaciloquence that the branchiform sedigitation of all sesquiplicated sondage in the barnstorm of whelky during the subterfuge of wallfish cofferdams entrenched in boskets of the deepest regard of bathmism that we might fetch the canicular and cannular talents of susceptible bonhomie to retrace the elemental supralunar chrysopoetics of the transubstantiation of all stellions beyond provincial jansky and above fracklings of disrepute to array never a protervity of loimic stiction but always a sovenance of the highest fidelity to bellarmine briquets that can be sustained by mediagenic diffusion of volplanes of vulpecular vasotribes thereby careworn of future plight by preterition and chronobiology superfused for sporrans calculated for bonanza rather than retching with carpology. In the sustainable calculus of stanhopes and standpipes against the nivellated carnage of many a nivial hotspot grandiose with bruxomania rarely plodged by the subsultus of virgation nor flummoxed into glochidate barbs against the cephaligation of turmoil subduplicated by the gnomics of rebarbative betise flagrant upon caballine taunts of persiflage of percocted vexililogy curmudgeons of companionway spurtle upon cibophobias yearning for yeeps trouncing yaffs in a suitable mascon that trounces the pentapolis for its misfire of finicky stoichometry gradate in the traipse of ginglymus rotated succinctly by a minor machinule degradation of venostastis that the wens of wanchancy never vex or vitiate the providence of prattle of umbrageous stultification whelkied by the patriolatry of foreign observers of the brocade of balbriggan springhares reticulated by grimgribbers of jaunty jabberwocky levying murage with murengers against the trident spodium of overwrought negotiosity spinescent in capacity to deturpate never with a carnassial intent the tribuloid fictions vaccimulgent by reedbucks who learn from stockinette harbingers the calculus of specular redintegration and redhibition that fewer in number are those scollardical taunts of poststructuralism and many more rancorous attempts at chrematistic nurture above camouflets of the vees of vecordy singulting melancholy upon the canzone of cadrans mobilized by motile wafture into cavernous applause that we might witness the secundine generation waft rather than wamble through its throes of goatish goliardy deposed by gonfaloniers of stridor rather than brackle over truculent developments of the lurch of wainage and wantage burroling the constative prisoptometers of tritanopia leveraged by finifugal finesse of stricklers of sifflation that the saffron glow of refulgence is contingent upon the biotaxy and biocenosis of evolved human trust in the stirpiculture of many fascinated disciplines into a chaptalized chapbook of enlightenment above the murky morass of snallygasters of casemate. With an improvident regisseur domineering by the labile fears of neuropynology that understates the mainlined efforts of the nervure against the nesh nessberries of overindulgent popinjays straggling through the stench of sprag winzing in fumatoriums of maieutic latency bored by the tedium of the laveers of the propriety of neolagnium restive because of plumeopicean nidor frowning upon the badigeon of baedekers becoming centripetal to all harmonized gambados seeking the same terminus against the vexatious simultagnosia of the graft between crevices of paltripolitan wrox and the bailivated society we govern better by the rhombos of rhizogenic answers to papaverous problems of chaetophorous vengeance wagered by the groundlings of kyphosis in their idiosyncratic bascules of stentorian elocution that the taxidermy of selenodesic traipses through barnstorms of plurrennial wastelots of cachalots suborned only by the betise and bezique of portentous diestrus fledgling in its inadequacies of torment to roodge any subservience to carpology or any allegiance to the miscegenation of the political yaffingales of plemyrameters overcapacitated by misyoked fears meeting inclement rhigosis that the fortunes of cimelia rather than the boggarts of cimex might enchant future generations to supplant history with a calculated cecutiency that never avoids the boygs of boskets carping by cymaphens of the semaphores of all wheelhouses of wheaten inventions that we might witness the historicity never of sesquiplicated subduplicated biocenosis gorging on the gorgonization of internecine ignorance of varsal velocious cynegetics that the stranded victims of spathspey only in ceremony rather than in supernumerary contemplation that the vigorish vagantes and newels among the badigeons might thrive despite turmoil and the jugodi of broadcloth happenstance devolved upon popular cynography rather than annealed by the ballicatter of avenged samara and samarra that find requital in the wedeln modality rather than nodality of propriety in purpresture rather than crassified demassification of the slore of poltophagous crimogenic procrypsis simileter to all shortsighted gambits of a farsighted batrachian fidelity to nektons suspended among the stunsails of the wager of man to better himself. Because of the motile capacity of thaumaturgy of the wafting baedekers circulated with superfusion incidental to its warped dimensions against thalwegs of strigine configuration that boltropes of emacity swindle from the registry of the coffles of bailivated marivaudage scanscorial in its own moulin capable of entombing the cenote of even the most strident efforts of the nembutsu of gonfaloniers to issue cheer instead of malinger with precipitogenic intimidations of spinescent spiraculated pickelhaubes of porbeagle insights collated from sublime authority because the world awaits not a faineant corpse of morigeration upon the shend of sheol crepitating in heavenly judicature rather than the juggins of notoriety of crambos and crampons that cadge licentiousness that we might all marvel at synechdocial capacities against baryecoia weaponized by a modern bacillicide by blesboks whose candent semaphores of whittled stepneys of swank picaresque by degrees of leverage and largesse taxed by stenometers of pycnostyle elevated because of pyretology that the eventual harbinger of piscary reconnaissance is worth the awaited junctition of all sociogenesis captivated by the selfsame rapture of the chaptalized discovery of a greater biocenosis brockened to rejoice upon decisive conquest rather than backfire in mekometers of coquelicot carnage. The vees of veepstakes admonished by prevenience in vitrail that the fewer casualties of macropicide slangwhanging the brocade of the insular rhotacism of the cannular heist of springald necrologues deposed by cardophagous lies about necrophages so immunized in their stanjant stolinicity boltroped by annealed wheals of endeavor cavorted with portfires of yuzbashi above the petty pedestrian concerns of the spavineds of vauriens of varietism that they can jolt even the jolterheads and surprise with rudenture even the most poikilothermic negotiosities to truckle with a hint of truculence to spare the world from starvelings on the outskirts of spirketti that the scarfskin of the collective endeavors of the ventrad vanguard might resemble the coalition of forbearance for the broadest bronteum of ptarmic awakening ever enjoyed by the vigilance of men and the simity of women against the phallocrats twinged with meritodespotism. When we steeve our way past the mazut of balkanized mazopathia in mercedary wainage rarely taxed by the forefront of  considerate myopia we might celebrate the kalamkari spathspeys in their inordinate caution developed into a nympholepsy splendor of refulgent thrills demassified for the curglaff of generosity upon the crumpled brannigans of wizened applause upon the heyday of saturnalia that the whittawers of willowish repute might barnstorm yet again past the precipice of indecency naively wagered never by the sageships of conciliabule capacity to wheedle their way through their attempts at bacillicide regardant always of the caudles of the past commiseration of privileged cribbles of bathmism rather than repugnant spathodea of retorted pelargic barbarism congealed in oppositive valor to enchant only a regelation of nightjars vigilant in sciatheric darkness that the sondage of siffilated barnstorm might jar the very foundations of heaven and earth that the welkins of those whelking might find the couveuse of attempted blatternophones of past decorum the stridor of many taunted nightmares rather than the precipice of the most copulated acclaim ever registered in the foundries of men above the carcasses of subternatural plebeian mythos that stagnates the world rather than ameliorates it into congenial harmony of concordat against interregnum. The suretyship of so many strictions that the sprahl of sprachgefuhl intermittent with janitrices of stanjant jansky beblubbered by the maudlin sentiments of the many recklings ignorant of stockinette despite the nephroliths against nervifolious demise pregnant with absolution rather than replete with gullywashers of metaplasm in the exposure of ragmatical soteriology jaunty only to elective privilege rather than preserved by the conformed chapbooks of catechumen that our fears incumbent on catastrophism always brackle against the truculence of truckling masses of corpses of infirmity that gimcracks of the pentapolis exalt above the treasury of life itself inviolable. The caverniloquys of the jobbernowls of jolterhead infamy regardless of the purpresture of imperious strigrine secrecy embossed upon the pogroms of caudles rarely commiserating with any enchantment of wanchancy brockfaced in its geopolitical fanfire of the portfire of perendination that swashbuckles with the freebooter flarmeys of past coquelicot catalfalque notoriety always a kilmarge to the boondoggles of syndicalism arrayed in satnav ratomorphism that we might storge our present culture with the heyday of glamour intransigent to the chronobiology of preterition always glozing with glottogonic piecemeal dashpots against catastrophism even when done with metaplasm against metapolitics we can fight together with a unified brigade and sodality against the carping objectionable trends of a momentary amnesia so refulgent it overpowers every other inclination that the solfatara of weatherboards of wethers might convene upon the sumter of clochards becoming vagarish rather than prurience becoming simileter to a popular culture ****** of cisvestism upon the scarpetti of crambazzled crampons of senicide rather than the registries of seismotic impetus roundhousing through jobbled configurations of nimonic harbinger to etch themselves indelibly upon the sociogenesis of bellarmine among men and eutrapely among every other facet of attention never too calcimine with calvous calvers that the bolar of our existence depends on the synclastic momentum of the cynegetic valor rather than porlecking insecurities of babirusa of baboonery. The silkaline improvidence of the many boondoggles of lacking stolonicity or a casemate lockjaw jawhole internment of castrametation created by the pourparler of powellisation entombed in the liturgy that laments the past rather than accelerates the amelioration of the future might wilt because of wilding accidia rather than bonzoline acrasia because those people of nevosity that barnstorm against the nivial haunts of the lionized precipitogenic groundprox of naivety derived never from svedberg of swag of gromatic completion that alleviates all wambling grognards of desperation that we might fetch a new epoch superior to the one we have inherited by our callous poikilothermic poivrades of carnage and carnassial deprivations created by stagnant recession rather than optimized reflation because it behooves us all collectively to inseminate the future for the nitids of troilism rather than argue and pander to the bifids of blackmasters nidificating suboptimal steeves of the bobbinet to storge the inoculated beerocracy davering against the best interests of principality rather than the mainline of bayaderes of bargemasters locked into combat with stevedores from other dimensions of cordial conduct and contact that we no longer cower out of polyphiloprogenitive goals or teleonomic insufficiencies but that we brook and embraced age of praxeology above ragtaggers of retchination that the brassage of squamation can supervise into fluency rather than lurch into internecine schmeggegy that remains and always will be the cynosure of schwerpunkt in domestic manifestation of regal impetus above the detritus of defenestration. We should muster an assault against the plodges of kistvaens and the carnassial carnifician yeltings of wights of widgeons that the wicket of campanile shortsightedness might recoil upon its very foundations of ineptitude to become sempervirent in the sashays of surahs contemplated by the magnality of both mahouts and sansculottes to together forge ahead in commonplace articles of enchantment rather than the reliction of ideation in the swamp menaced by vinegaroons rather than elevated by picaroons who thrive even against snallygasters of importunate jawholes that crave a schoenabatic portfire to distract people from the rudenture of rubefaction in such a finicky way as to alleviate the coacervation of cespitous and cepivorous disdain. The faineant world orbiting around cynosures enjoying sinecures that the balbriggan springhares of reticulose pleonexia designed by veilleuses of brachet serectrium asterongue popularity designated with crass balizes of only bakelite answers of echopraxia to every dented quidlibertarian fascination with their quisquilous periergia floundering because the bathmism of elite pedigree imposes the steepest murage against avenged cachalots that their beziques of betise immolated by the discernment of the capable against the brazen incompetence of hortatory disdain that the thermolysis of sacrilege becomes a better portfire than protective jaundice designated by gamidolatry to perform intorted gambados to soothe the idiosyncratic jobbernowls whose incapacity to subduplicate societal quandaries and correctly weigh the subreption of jannock provides a paralytic inertia to fasten schadenfreude above the tympany of macarism because the catastrophism against the metaplasm correctly brazen rather than cordial only to inauthenticity always bristles at the perendination of evil skullduggery that it might eventually fade from the brocades of supercilious elitism that uses pundonors against mercedary enrichments. Many a time ago already elapsed by the portfire of skalds of jimswingers of sarangousty predicating their vehemence on axiomatic psyiurgic morkins the casualties of many a conflict witnessed by the depredation of morale even when sustained by the puckery of whipstaffs that the fewterers of modern taste deranged by their ginglymus constrained by their thalwegs that sejugate raltention from comprehension might find it incumbent to celebrate never a saiga that berates the many nightjars of saki but rather to entomb novelty because of the pickelhaubes of portbeagles flummoxed by their evaporating fortunes always avenge those who stand in the way of nivial and nivellated securiform and scalariform dementia that is the senicide of many a monocular cause witnessed by barbaric cyclops so intorted in the most pedestrian of antics that his incapacity to even see single borts from the boschveldt and singular leaps among the varsal capacity of proselytism that his ineptitude staggers the stenometers of the most dismal apprehension of his wagered capacity for any kind of stamina in any discipline. These poltophagous idiosyncrasies enjoyed by the oppositive acclaim of those pourparlers of castrametation designed by jabirus preventing stirpiculture of chrysopoetics for cachalots guarded by the blackguard of the ventrad camarilla rather than spayed by the cespitous vinegaroons of poikilothermic aims to plumeopicean ragtaggers entrapped by vapulation rather than informed of bonanza that we might starkly refrain from endorsing majoritarian lewdness as the new credo of a reborn republic constituted around the mahouts of idealism and the magnalities of those who posture in support of the noosphere rather than entangle themselves in the wase of imposture only because catalfalques angry of coquelicot politics might find the calcariferous disdain of pollarchy too much of an enormity to stomach with a stomacher. In the secundine revival of riveted artifacts of sometimes galeanthropic velleity that the skalds of scavons always maraud around to deprive of vehemence the maladroit malaise of the junctition of clitter and clinkstone because of a widespread malcontent that the sedigitated sidestep by every careful lurch on the bobbinet common to resourceless bodaches that we might witness the dying wish of the stellions to become the hamparthia of entire nations cribbling with propriety the bathmism centripetal to the public morale rather than the vacillation of internecine political balkanization in the barnstorm against the security of gonfaloniers to thrive without synsematic declension because of misappropriated vilipended ignorance widespread among those that clamber insistently and with insolence against the gravity and gravitas of the pundonors of cadastre rather than a sublime lackaday morose regret of saturnism waged by sideration in thick boschveldt to depose and derange many. Many tarry because of the umbrage of ultrageous litigation enthusiastically brought with coemption of the celebrated vanguard baldric retinue jolting the enthusiastic boltrope wegotists into the braxy of their shakuhachi of shantung bucentaurs and shenangos emboldened by the vicissitude of the collective remnants of the shambles of sottoportico to assemble with the borts in their possession the wilding zalkengur of absolution rather than the faltering groundprox of phugoid and mugient demands of bolar that laveer silently in the slithers of a puckery night scaffolded by the dashpots of insular providence against termagants of negaholic deprivations of lifestyle and pedigree because of the bradyseismic subsultus against the moya of carpology that is axiomatic in its retched mistetches of ceratoid configuration around the ballaster of schadenfreude enthusiastic in its moribund capacity to disembrangle the better soldiers from the recklings of morose enchantment with lugubrious toil flummoxing all propriety in regard for the sanctiloquence of the present never to result in a future martyrdom of saturnism that would assuredly wipe out the blemishes of portfire from the memory of a disheveled Earth into a shambolic configuration that would result in a nivial morigeration to nivellated conditions of egestuous sejugated cephaligation of nebelwerfers rather than primiparas always lachrymose in regret now pregnant with reactionary desires to coerce change rather than wamble in the ginglymus of sesquiplicated triage around petty boundaries of shakuhachi inviting balbriggan disgrace. In the trismus of crackjaw siderism ennobled by baldric syntalities elective of belletrist in their formative cadges of procatalepsis and jarvey of the intorted blunge of degenerative capacities for meharis combustible only in camouflets of prestige that skirpettis contain by the skinters of springhares of denouement carefully managing larithmics to optimize the mantissa never of a vagarish vagantes venostasis of mottled pternology megacerine because of meleagrine despots of sedigitated attempts to provoke casualties of corbels in the neorama of many sinecures of simultagnosia extorted endlessly by vaccimulgent reedbucks of sinister racemation that the phugoid eutrapely and bellarmine capacity to trounce the sudd that creates the rebarbative bosket of embattled retrenchment in survival ethos because of the macropicide and yirds of many a poikilothermic wretchock of morality to denounce as a denizen of unholy chaptalization that the chaomancies of chabouks between the pleiromorphy of convictions and the moulin of lickerish fascinations of beerocracy of beeskeps of yaraks a commonplace deturpation that finally the pomace of regalia might sustain the mainsail cardimelech and cardiognost capacity of piscary urbacity finicky of any desultory castrametation wagered by sinturong of piscifauna negligent of agapism that their fortuitist regard for humane sanctiloquence that already perished from the Earth might be revived by the vasotribes of the whipstaff of declared decorum vanquishing all tantrels of gambados of gamidolatry so pickelhaube in their dereliction of picaroons that vinegaroons capable like jerboas disguised in the thickets of the night will depose their serendipity and revoke their citizenship from the habitations of the woubits of hell rather than the brevets of widgeons of animadversion propining in every saccadic misyoke of endeavor to find a commonplace destination agreeable beyond the bifids of internecine thalwegs of sejugation rather than assimilation.

It was my seven birthday,
They called me menaced and shut my mind down with their own imagination
Too young, too devil to born they said
I came to the point where no one to believing
Said it was too young to think out of the cage
They was sad when I said I want to be me
They said you want to be you, then you lose me
What even I try to forgive when my mind hard to forget
See, the light ever tried to blind me down,
But I said put the light on, more
And **** me
And when will you see I’m trying?
When is the right time to finding me?
The sky is open, same like the wound on my chest
The wound on my arm,
The wound on my heart,
You know you cant see but you kept crafting of it
Hate me hate more if that could make you get the me more
I want to ******* **** it all the way down
But do you see me now?
All the scars was the painless art soul
They draw me, they create me
**** they talked braved me
To the point I hate seeing you smile
To the latest blood from my razor will be my last tears
I hope not to be the one you concern
I hope not to be the one you played
The drama inside your brain,
I’m not the actor
Keep pushing my head down
I’m showing you the hell from it.
I’m showing you the part of me
Which I keep in a hush hush **** my head
They wont tell a lie, they wont find a way.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

DREAM SEQUENCE

Flighty mind slowly taking it's toll,quest for simple rest having eluded even the best

Finding flowing rhythms a constant quest ,searching constantly for a moment's contentment

Minds energy backwashed onto a mellowing brain,we want but are left oppressed

Finding seclusion is the ultimate solution ,bodies needing this simple investment

Splashing memories make bad bedfellows ,mellowed mind traded for distressed

Daily drama deliberately dealt with ,caressing ourselves to crash,not wanting to be menaced

Fantasy fiddling on the edge with reality ,playing roundabout as our emotions are caressed

Create a phantom with pharmaceuticals with no guidelines to follow, searching for a method

Broad imaginations bridled must be put on idle to receive repose ,holding back becomes harder to accept

Wash away the wisdom of the day ,try to find that neutral space ,blacking out to much reality ,just needing the noises to be deafened . R.C.

No lovesick lad ever poured out his heart
To a Scantron®©™ card and its suave machine
Posed seductively in brushed aluminum
In a smoky corner of the faculty commons

Or with a thundering Number Two scribed
A manifesto that menaced the world
(But bubbled carefully within the squares)
And ground it through a Scantron®©™ 888

For indeed

Moses brought not Scantron®©™ down from Sinai
To teach God’s laws through an electric eye

Striding down a Chicago sidewalk,
under the El,
I came across a croaked rat,
splayed out on its back
with a surprised expression,
amid rocky chunks of construction debris
apparently dropped from the skyscraped heavens.

Had it been scurrying about,
the vermin would have startled, menaced,
repulsed on a visceral level.
But in the stillness and repose of death,
the taxidermied-looking rat
came across as sympathetic,
an unwitting victim of a random fate.
It could have been any of us.

Its eyes bulged, its limbs seized.
I almost stopped and snapped a picture,
tweeted the tragedy out,
before thinking better of it.
People instinctually reject rats, like clowns.
I thought about scooping the piteous corpse up
with an alt weekly, tossing it into a dumpster,
giving it a little dignity. But I was in a hurry
and it was just a rat, after all.

Pounding the pavement with purpose,
I did a sign of the cross,
and prayed a little valediction.

On Sunday the world was
wonderful,
brightly colored,
so full of hope and purpose.

On Monday my mind menaced me
with painful memories
accompanied by
terrible mood swings.

Tuesday was exhausting
and empty.
I was a shell of apathy.

With enough caffeine,
Wednesday was
magnificent for me.

Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday
seemed to be ok.

Sunday seemed to stray
halfway into
a very dark place.

Then when Monday returned
my heart burned
partly in pain
and partly in rage.

meat packed tightly underneath. infrastructure. teeth rotting all the time. bacteria drinking spinal fluid.  botanicals bloom out of reach. menaced by health. worms.

Obscene whining - of infernal discordant music
Worn, with a strange lust
Whilst the floods menaced Earth
Like A Tibetan Mandala
All colours dazzling
Seeking the formless fire......   For Lust's sake
                                                     Let us Lust
                                                     For smoke's sake
                                                     Let us Smoke,....
The leeches of boredom
The pythons of poverty
The born and the unborn
Flamed up into mania's nameless Nature
Pure being - unveiled from the Matrix
The four walls of our Prison
Part of the Veils of matter
The ultimate reality appears out of oblivion
One super-subtle whisper
Slipping back to the Ancients
Like Faust to the Brocken
For ever driven darkly onward

There is nothing higher
There is nothing more
What is lost
Eternity can never restore...

Gypsy

It was January 4th 1778, and once again the General had not slept well. He rose before dawn and as was his practice, he wandered down to the southern banks of the Schuylkill River.  Valley Forge had been particularly cold since New Year’s Day, and he was awaiting any word about new supplies being smuggled out from the friends his Army still had in Philadelphia.

The Congress had recently been moved and sheltered in York which was about seventy miles due West of his current position in Valley Forge.  The British had taken Philadelphia and were rumored to be encamped in the heart of the city.  Many residents had fled the Capitol just before the British arrived.  Fresh off their success at the Battle of Brandywine, they did not receive the warm welcome that they were expecting when they entered the city.  According to European standards, when you capture the capitol city of your enemy, the war is then over.  The problem with Philadelphia however was that this was not Europe — and Washington was no ordinary General.

Standing alone by the river’s bank, the General thought he saw something move in the tall grass to his right.  His first instinct was to draw his cap and ball pistol, but for a reason unexplained, he did not.  He called out in the direction of the movement, but no sound was heard.  As he turned to walk back to his tent, he saw a branch move and heard the same sound again.  Slowly, a figure about six feet tall emerged from the river brush.  As he walked slowly toward where the General now stood, it was clear this was no combatant, either Colonial or British — this was an Indian.

He walked directly up to the now still Washington and extended his hand.  He said his name was Tamani, and he and his people were living on three of the islands located in the middle of the Schuylkill River about two miles East of where they were now. The Lenape were a branch of the Delaware Tribe that had originally migrated South from Labrador.  They had populated almost all of southeastern Pennsylvania and especially those lands that bordered the Delaware River.  

The British had inflicted tremendous cruelty on the Lenape during their march toward Philadelphia and had driven the entire tribe from almost all of their ancestral lands.  The Colonists had been much kinder and had in fact been interacting peacefully with the Lenape back to the time of William Penn.

Tamani spoke very good English, and General Washington knew how to ‘sign.’  Sign was the universal language spoken by almost all of the indian tribes and was conveyed with a complex series of hand gestures.  After Tamani saw that the General could understand his words, he discontinued his ‘signing.’  Tamani told the great American leader that his people had been driven from their native lands along the banks of the Delaware and were now in hiding inside the treeline of three remote islands just a short distance down the Schuylkill.  

They would leave and go ashore every night to hunt pheasant and deer but always be back before dawn so the British scouts would not discover them.  Tamani was bitter and angry about what the British had done to his people, and he was also upset that the British had commandeered many of the Colonists homes in the city. The displaced were now living in rustic shacks along the banks of both the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and many of these Colonists were his friends.

General Washington asked Tamani if he had seen any British troops in the last several days.  Tamani said he had not and in fact had not seen any Red Coats any further west than Gladwyne or Conshohocken.   Washington asked Tamani how he could know this for sure.  Tamani said that he and his two sons knew of all British troop movements because there was a secret path on the other side of the river that ran all the way from Valley Forge to the falls at Gray’s Ferry.  Gray’s Ferry is where the British had a built a bridge that floats (Ferry) across the river this past winter, and it was their primary way to cross into the city from all directions South.

Washington was more than intrigued.  He asked Tamani how many members of his tribe knew about this secret trail.  Tamani said just he and his two sons.  Tamani had two sons and a daughter by his wife Wasonomi, but only the two boys had been down the 17-mile trail that paralleled the river on the far bank.  He also said that the trail could not be seen from the water because it was so heavily covered with native Sassafras and Poplars.

The dense brush made the northern bank impossible to see from either a boat or when viewed from a quarter mile away on the southern shore.  By keeping this trail a secret — Washington thought to himself — even the Indians knew that loose words sometimes trump the loudest canon.

Washington told Tamani that the only information he had received was from the few brave horse mounted scouts that had tried to infiltrate the city at night. They would then flee before morning with whatever local knowledge the remaining loyalists to the revolution could provide.  Lately, he had been losing more men than had been returning.  

Tamani told the General that by using the trail, he could pass totally unseen into the city on any night and return along the same route without the British noticing.  From where the trail ended at Grays Ferry, he and his oldest son had climbed the tall poplars and watched British troop movement both in and around the city.  The General now extended his own hand to Tamani and said: I need you to do something for me.

I need you to take me along this path and show me what you have seen. Tamani stood frozen for a moment as if he didn’t believe his own ears.  Here was the Great General of the American Army, the greatest general that he had ever heard of, wanting to make the 17-mile trip to Philadelphia virtually alone and unprotected by his troops.  Washington also told Tamani that he could tell no one of his plan.  

To ensure this, General Washington took the plume from his Tricorn Hat and presented it with great ceremony to Tamani.  He said: Tamani,  you and I are now brothers, and we must keep between us what only brothers know.  Tamani sensed the importance of the moment and handed Washington a small pouch from the breechcloth he was wearing.  Inside was the Totem of his family’s ancestry.  It was a small stone with a Turtle inscribed on one side and a spear on the other.  The General took the stone in both of his hands and placed it over his heart.  Both men agreed to meet again along the river’s bank at dawn of the second day.

For most of two days, Washington thought about his narrow escape at Brandywine and how these British had menaced him all along the Delaware River to this isolated field so far from where he wanted to be.  He had heard from one of his own scouts that there was British dissension within some of Howe’s troops, but he wanted to see firsthand what he might be facing.  At daybreak on the second day, he walked to the riverbank again.  This time he again saw no life or activity only a small fox with her yearling kits heading down the steep bank to drink.  

After twenty minutes, the General turned to walk away when he heard a whistle coming from the same bush as before.  He approached cautiously and there stood Tamani, but he was not alone.  He had two young men with him that looked to be about a year apart in age.   These are my two Sons, Miquon and Yaqueekhon, Tamani said, as he pointed downriver.  It is just the three of us who know the way along the river that leads to where your enemy sleeps.  Washington greeted both young braves by touching them on both shoulders and then turned to Tamani and said:.  I would like to take the path to the British, and I would like to take it tonight.

Tamani said that he and his two sons would be ready and waiting and that they could leave as soon as the sun was down.  Washington said he would like to leave earlier than that and that he would meet them where the river turns when it is the deer’s time to drink.  During the winter months that would roughly be 4:00 in the afternoon.   With that, the three native men turned away and disappeared into the trees.

Tonight, Washington would alert his men that he would be working and then sleeping at the Isaac Potts House, (better known as Washington’s Headquarters), instead of in his field tent which was his usual practice. He needed to be alone so he could slip away unnoticed along Valley Creek to where the Schuylkill turned and where he would then meet his three new friends.

The General had been spending most of his nights with his troops sleeping in his field tent high atop Mount Joy.  It was here that he was provided with the best views to the east toward Philadelphia.  He had felt guilty about sleeping in the big stone headquarters with the comfortable bed and fireplace for warmth when so many of his men froze.  Tonight though, there would be no sleep and no guarantee of what the morning might bring.  

With all the risk and challenge set before him, he approached it like every battle he had fought up until now.  This would be a fight for information and one that just possibly might allow him to formulate a timetable and a plan for his next attack.  He lit the candle in his bedroom window — as was his practice — and locked the door from the outside.  He then slipped out the side door of the big stone house and headed for the bank. It was now 3:45 in the afternoon and already starting to get dark.

As the General arrived at the bend in the river he saw two canoes pulled up on the bank and covered with branches of pine.  Standing off in the trees, about fifty feet from the two craft, were Tamani and his two sons.  Tamani greeted Washington as his brother.  He explained that they would take the two small boats downriver for what the whites called five miles, and then cross to the other side to begin their walk.

Washington was in a canoe with the older of Tamani’s two sons Miquon.  They paddled quietly for over an hour until Tamani ‘signed’ back something that Miquon quickly understood. From where they were now, on the right (south) side of the river, he signaled for them to head directly across the Schuylkill to the bank on the far side.  This was what the Delaware Tribe had always referred to as Conshohocken.  

As they reached the far bank, Tamani’s two sons quickly hid the canoes in the underbrush.  As Washington started to walk toward Tamani, Miquon took a satchel out of the first canoe and handed it to the General.  For your feet, said Miquon.  Washington opened the satchel and found a large pair of Indian leggings with Moccasins attached at the bottom.  These will help you to walk faster, said Tamani, as Washington sat on a log, removed his boots, and strapped them on.  In two more minutes, the four men were walking east on the hidden trail just ten feet from the north bank of the Schuylkill River.  They had 12 miles still to go, and the surrounding countryside and river were now almost totally covered in darkness.

I say almost, because there were a few flickering lights from lanterns on the far southern bank.  The four men listened for sounds, but heard nothing, as the lights faded and then disappeared as they progressed downstream.  Miquon told his father that they needed to get to the British War Dance before the moon had passed overhead (roughly midnight), and his father grunted in agreement.  Washington wondered what this British War Dance could possibly be but figured that he would wait for a more appropriate time to ask that question.

For two hours, the four men walked in silence.  The only sounds that any of them heard were the breathing of the man in front and the ripples from the approaching current.  The occasional perch that jumped in the dark while hunting for food kept them alert and vigilant as they continued to visually scan the far bank. The going was slow in many places, but at least the terrain was flat and well worn down.  Someone used this path on a regular basis, and the General couldn’t help but wonder not only who that might be but when they had last used it.

Tamani stopped by a large clump of rocks at the river’s edge and reached behind the smallest of the boulders.  He pulled out a well-worn leather satchel and laid it on the ground in front of the other three men.  Miquon reached inside and handed a small ball which was lightly colored to the General.  Pinole, Miquon said as he placed it within Washington’s open hand. Pinole, you eat, Miquon said again.  Tamani looked at the slightly perplexed General and said, Pinole, it’s ground corn meal and good for energy, you eat!  With that, the General took a bite and was surprised that the taste was better than he had expected.  

They lingered for no longer than five minutes on the trail and were again quickly on their way.  Washington marveled at the speed and efficiency of his Indian guides and again thought to himself: "The Indian Nations would have been very hard to beat if they could ever have come together as one force.  We could learn much from them."

The moon was almost directly overhead when Tamani raised his right arm directing the others behind him to stop.  There were lights up ahead and voices could now be heard in the distance.  Tamani told the General: One more mile to ferry crossing.  With that they proceeded at a much slower pace while increasing the distance between each man.  Tamani and Miquon had made this trip many times, but this was the first time that Yaqueekhon had been this far.  For Washington, the feeling of being back in his beloved Capitol, coupled with his hatred of the British, had his senses at a high level.  He felt an acute awareness overtake him beyond that of any previous experience.

Looking across the river toward ‘Grays Ferry’ reminded Washington of the many times he had played along the Rappahannock River in Virginia as a boy.  He moved to ‘Ferry Farm’ in Virginia when he was still young and when his father Augustine had become the Managing Partner of the Accokeek Iron Furnace.  Those days along the Rappahannock were some of the happiest of his life, and he secretly longed for a time when he could mindlessly wander a river’s banks once again — but not tonight!

Miquon now pointed to a tall clump of trees directly ahead.  They were right along the river’s edge and there were large branches that protruded out as much as twenty feet over the water.  Tamani said: We climb.

From this location, the four men climbed two different trees to a height of over forty feet.  Once situated near the top they secured their packs, looked off toward the North, and waited.  From this position they could clearly see Market Street and all of the comings and goings in the center of town.  Washington noticed one thing that gave him pause … he didn’t see any British soldiers.  Tamani told the General in a hushed tone that almost all of the soldiers were in German’s Town (Germantown) with only a small detachment left in the center of the city for sentry duty and to watch.

Why Germantown Washington asked?  This had been the site of our last battle, and he was surprised more troops had not been positioned in the center of town to protect the Capitol.  Too much food and drink, Tamani said.  It took Washington a minute to process the words from before. The British War Dance.  The Indians also had a sense for satire and irony.

                               The British Had Been Celebrating

Is it possible, the General wondered, that the British could still be celebrating their last victory at the Battle of Germantown, and could they have let the King’s military protocol really slip that far? Washington knew that General Howe was under extreme criticism for his handling of the war so far, and there were rumors that he might now be headed back to England to defend himself before parliament.

                                    When The Cat’s Away …

Washington’s impression of what he was now facing immediately changed.  He believed he was now charged with defeating a British force that had tired and lost faith in the outcome of the war.  In their minds, if capturing the new American Capitol had not turned the tide, and men were willing to freeze and starve in an isolated woods rather than surrender, then this cause was almost certainly lost. In that mood they decided to party and celebrate in a fait accompli.

                           A Revolutionary ‘Fait Accompli

For three more hours, they observed Philadelphia in its vulnerable and seemingly de-militarized state.  Many of the houses were empty as the residents had left when the outcome of the Battle of Brandywine was made known.  Washington closed his eyes, and he could see Mr. Franklin walking down Market Street and talking with each person that he passed.  He then saw a vision from deep inside of himself showing that this scene would be recreated soon.  The British couldn’t last in the demoralized state that they were now in. He knew now that it was more important than ever, for he and his men, to make it through the rest of the long cold winter, and into the Spring campaign of 1778.

Washington signaled to Tamani that it was time to go.  Before he left, he asked if he could borrow the Chief’s knife.  After climbing down the big poplar, he walked around to the side of the tree that was facing Philadelphia and inscribed these immortal words  — WASHINGTON WAS HERE!

All the way back along the trail, Washington was a different man than before.  If he had ever had any doubts about the outcome of the war, they were now vanished from his mind.  He asked Tamani and his two sons if they would continue to monitor the trail for him on a weekly basis.  They said that they would,and would he please keep their secret about being encamped on the three islands in the middle of the Schuylkill River.  They also pledged their help as scouts, in the coming spring campaign, against what was left of the British.

Washington pledged both his secrecy and loyalty to the Lenape Tribe and continued to meet with Tamani along the banks of Valley Creek until the winter had finally ended.  The constant updating of information that Washington had originally seen with his own eyes allowed him to formulate a plan that would drive the British from the America’s forever.  He was forever grateful to the Lenape people, and together they kept a secret that has remained unknown to this very day.

With all the rumors of where he slept, or where he ate, there is one untold rumor that among Native People remains true.  Along a dark frozen riverbank, in the company of real Americans, the Father of Our Country stalked the enemy. And in doing so …

                                            He walked !



Kurt Philip Behm

THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.