"meo" poems
In nineteen hundred forty-nine
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai-shek's army ran away
They were waiting there in Thailand yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way
First they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting ***** to send to The Man
Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Rai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief brain
He took it to town on the choochoo train
Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA
The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope grand scale and how
Chief of border customs paid
By Central Intelligence's U.S. A.I.D.
The whole operation, Newspapers say
Supported by the CIA
He got so sloppy & peddled so loose
He busted himself & cooked his own goose
Took the reward for an ***** load
Seizing his own haul which same he resold
Big time pusher for a decade turned grey
Working for the CIA
Touby Lyfong he worked for the French
A big fat man liked to dine & *****
Prince of the Meos he grew black mud
Till ***** flowed through the land like a flood
Communists came and chased the French away
So Touby took a job with the CIA
The whole operation fell in to chaos
Till U.S. Intelligence came into Laos
I'll tell you no lie I'm a true American
Our big pusher there was Phoumi Nosovan
All them Princes in a power play
But Phoumi was the man for the CIA
And his best friend General Vang Pao
Ran the Meo army like a sacred cow
Helicopter smugglers filled Long Cheng's bars
In Xieng Quang province on the Plain of Jars
It started in secret they were fighting yesterday
Clandestine secret army of the CIA
All through the Sixties the Dope flew free
Thru Tan Son Nhut Saigon to Marshal Ky
Air America followed through
Transporting confiture for President Thieu
All these Dealers were decades and yesterday
The Indochinese mob of the U.S. CIA
Operation Haylift Offisir Wm. Colby
Saw Marshal Ky fly ***** Mr. Mustard told me
Indochina desk he was Chief of ***** Tricks
"Hitchhiking" with dope pushers was how he got his fix
Subsidizing traffickers to drive the Reds away
Till Colby was the head of the CIA
January 1972
10.1k
…These men are worth your tears:
You are not worth their merriment.
-Wilfred Owen, “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”
When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean? Paradise Lost? Probably not
Nor Saint Paul speaking on the Field of Mars
The Kalevala, Hagia Sophia
With its pendentives lifting up our prayers
Horatius fighting to defend his bridge
And Wilfred Owen dying bravely on his
Lord Tennyson and Idylls of the King
Chapultepec, Henry V, Becket
The paratroops at Arnhem, Saint Thomas More,
His King’s loyal servant, but God’s first
The Stray Dog poets of Saint Petersburg
The brave last stand of Roland at Roncesvalles
Lewis and Tolkien and glasses of beer
Montcalm and Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham
Hildegard von Bingen, Siegfried and the Rhine
Magna Carta, HMS Hood, the Thames
The Grove of Daphne, “The Old Rugged Cross”
Beatrix Potter and her little pet rabbit
El Cid, Anne Frank, John Keats, Saint Benedict
“I Have a Dream,” Dostoyevsky, and Greene
Viktor Frankl, Dag Hammarkskjold, and Proust
Good Chaucer’s naughty pilgrims telling tales
The Gettysburg Address, Willie and Joe
Stern Saint Augustine of North Africa
Wodehouse writing a jolly bit of fun
Saint Corbinian and Bavaria
The ancient glories of Byzantium
Pius XII contra the bombs and lies
The 602nd TD Battalion
Saint Joan, the Prado, and Robert Frost
And far, far more.
When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean?
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 4:06 PM UTC
I, too, saw God through mud, -
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.
Merry it was to laugh there -
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of ******
I, too, have dropped off Fear -
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging light and clear
Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;
And witnessed exultation -
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.
I have made fellowships -
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,
By Joy, whose ribbon slips, -
But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.
I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.
Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling of a flare
And heaven but as the highway for a shell,
You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
2.2k
Through the darkness I part the Veil,
And walk the hidden paths,
In the brightness beyond the pale,
I see what none have seen.
There's danger here in the world beyond,
In the gleam beyond the gloom.
And all my days it waits for me,
The calling in my blood,
And through the years I walk the paths,
That very few have seen,
The Veil grows thin as years go by,
In the gleam beyond the gloom.
Through the darkness I return again,
From those fair hidden paths,
And as I walk I learn to talk,
Like I once knew I could,
For few have been beyond the veil,
In the gleam beyond the gloom.
~In the Gleam Beyond the Gloom by Bethany "Lorekeeper" Davis, March 5, 2015
My attempt at translating it into Latin:
Velum parte post umbram,
Et ambulate per semitae occultae,
In splendóribus supra pallidus,
Non video quid viderim.
Non est hic mundus extra periculum,
In splendóribus post umbram.
Et omnibus diebus meis memet maneat
Vocatio in sanguine meo,
Et per annos ambulate semitae,
Valde pauci, quas vidi,
Velum crescit tenuis quod eunt anni,
In splendóribus post umbram.
Per tenebras revertentur
Ex his latet semitas occultae,
Et ego ambulo illis loquela,
Scientes semel ego potui,
Pauci abierunt trans velum,
In splendóribus post umbram.
And a translation of that Latin from an academic translation site:
And the hanging for the part after the shadow,
And walk by the ways of the hidden God,
In the brightness of beyond the pale,
I do not see what I saw,
He is not here the world is out of danger,
In the brightness after the shadow.
The call waits for me,
In my blood, and all my days,
And I will walk you through the years, the highways,
Very few men, that I have seen,
As the years go by the thin veil of the increases,
In the brightness after the shadow.
From these things it is hidden by the darkness,
They shall come again the paths of the hidden God,
And I, I walk the angels have speech,
Yet knowing that once I was able to,
They went to the other side of the veil of the few,
In the brightness after the shadow.
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 5:48 AM UTC
Tantum tempus temporis
quoniam aliena femina in meo cubiculo dormivit;
ecce illi quantum dulce somnus est.
Quanta etiam libera somnia sunt.
In alia aetate mundum certe rexit
vel optimo regi in matrimonio fideliter ducta est
qui iuxtus flumen psalmos luce lunae scripsit.
**** me iri foras egressum et spatiatum
Nihil occurit hic, nihil umquam fit.
Praeterea si incedat iam volat me narrare;
habeo nihil, praecipue erga quicquid erat.
Viam cepi aviam
qua celeres non superant;
dignis praemia sunt
qui verbum veritatis distinguere possunt.
Hospes solus me docere potuit
praeclaram orem iustitiae contemplari
et videre oculum pro oculo, et dentem pro dente.
Nisi duo homines in mansionem,
Est nullus in viso; verem exspectant,
proinde quasi ver plaustro accederet.
Mundus deleretur ea nocte
sed meae amicae aequum esset;
illa meo cubiculo dormiret *** revenirem.
Meridiano me promoveo
adhuc in obscura parte viae;
in angustos corruere
et constans manere non possum.
Alius mea ore dicit
sed solum meo animo audit,
calcas omnibus etiam tibi feci
quibus tamen careo.
Ego et ego
In creatione quo ingenium alicuius
nec alicui ignoscit nec excolit.
Ego et ego
unus alteri dicit nullus et videre
imaginem meum et vivere possit.
From "Bird's Nest In Your Hair" by Brian Jobe
May 21, 2017
May 21, 2017 at 10:03 PM UTC
I sat in the refectory
for the first time
a monk was reading
from some book
on Queen Mary Tudor,
Deus videt in corde meo,
visitors sat in the center table
surrounded by monks
and no one spoke
except the monk reading
from a high platform
his voice in monotones,
and she spread herself
on the bed
legs wide
and said
enter my port,
Hugh talked of singing
in unison as if I wasn't
as if he hadn't chanted
like a cow in labour,
he should knoweth that
whoever undertakes
the government of souls
must prepare himself
to account for them
Benedict said,
I watched the monk
limp along the cloister
head bowed
and carrying a *****
head to one side,
bell rang from bell tower
God's voice Dom Charles said
picking apples
in the abbey orchard,
she spoke in that soft tone
she had velvety silky
and kissed me over and over,
Dieu ne se trompe pas
the French monk said
clipping the hedge
by the garden wall
and passing me
the clippings,
tolled bells rang out
across the cloister garth
and George spoke
of priesthood at some time,
the scent of incense
as I entered the church after Terce
and sunlight in the high windows,
Gott im Mauerwerk
the Austrian monk said
rubbing fingers down
the brickwork in the cloister
feel Him he added
and I did,
it is not enough to possess
a good mind but to use it well
Gareth said by the abbey beach
quoting Descartes,
Dom Joseph(dear Bunny)
smiled his broad smile
like a sun rising at dawn,
the abbot tapped
on the table
and the reader
ceased reading
and prayers were said,
after Lauds
I made my way
for black coffee
and brown bread.
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 2:45 PM UTC
Dom Frederick
talked of his book
on the old abbey
as we cleared weeds
from the abbey garden,
hyacintho caelum
et album nubes,
summer sun on the heads
and hoes in our hands,
a single sunbeam
is enough to drive away
many shadows said Francis,
there she lay
and welcoming me in
and so I lay with her,
amplius lava me
ab iniquitáte mea
et a peccáto meo
munda me,
Hugh sat in the novice's room
glum faced and turning
a pencil between fingers
talking of Dom George
and his knitting,
touching the rough bricks
of the cloister wall with fingers
as I passed by
on my way to the church,
dans l'amour de Dieu
nous sommes sauvés
the French monk said
as he showed me
how to lay
the priestly garments,
fingers on smooth cloth
silk soft as her flesh,
a broken spirit
is the true sacrifice
Dom Charles said
quoting a psalm
as he breathed on an apple
and then polished it
on a cloth,
no matter how thin
you slice it
there will always be
two sides Gareth said
quoting Spinoza
talking of his student days,
fiducia a Dio
the Italian monk said
and he sliced an apple
for us both to taste,
enter me slowly
she said
my husband is far away
he will never know,
His glory covers the heavens
and the stars were His gems
and the moon His medallion,
George said as we sat
in the gardens for repose
I cannot stay here
much longer
the nights are too cold
and my bones complain,
Dom Robert spoke
of butterflies and said
the Red Admiral was his favourite
and he showed me
as it fluttered by
in the cloister garth,
His spirit breathes
and the waters flow
the Good Book
Hugh said
says so.
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 2:41 AM UTC
Evening chill in cloister,
moon in one corner of the garth,
stars sprinkled like dust,
what you do not see
and believe is faith
Augustine said,
I smelt the evening air,
sharp, chilling,
as I walked the cloister
from the novice room
to my cell Dom Jame's
voice in my ears,
words on plainsong,
Latin language,
study he said until it sticks,
and she had me
between her and within her
as a flower in a vase,
no one heals himself
by wounding another
Ambrose said,
I breathed the air as I stood,
a monk walked past
head down eyes
on the cloister floor,
I fingered the rosary
in the pocket
of my black jeans,
felt the silver plated Christ
with my thumb,
the clock tower
chimed a quarter,
echoed the area,
without love, deeds,
even the most brilliant,
Theresa said, count as nothing,
moon glow, stars as dust,
Dixit Dóminus Dómino meo,
bell tolled from bell tower,
orange bricks, seemly darker,
sede a dextris meis,
hold me she said
I felt her warm skin
against warm skin flower fresh,
arms about my body,
my ship in her harbour,
the French monk
placed flowers
by the Holy Virgin's feet
in the cloister
lit by moon's light,
I walked the stairs to my cell,
one step at a time,
Hugh walked past,
glum as a whore's ***
eyed me as he went,
in my cell the Crucified
is high on the wall,
aged by years,
I sign the sign of the cross,
I am at sea,
like one
in deep ocean's toss.
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 4:05 AM UTC