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Elioinai Oct 2014
April 7th
Late one night as I walked the shore,
There came to me whispers, whispers of lore,
And there, her tail sparkling amid moonlit foam,
Arose such a lady, of mermaid kingdom,
She sang to her sisters, sang of her lover,
With tears in her eyes, the voice of a mother,
His valor was great, and his gilded gills strong,
But to quarrel with men, was where he went wrong.
One day as he swam, he met with a ship,
Swollen boards, barnacles, iron bolts rusted,
A pirate ship, not to be trusted,
And captive on board, were children for Haiti,
Who cried for their homeland, their hearts feeling weighty.
Their African voices, and African songs,
The voice of a mother, for her child she longs,
The prince’s heart broke, and he wept for his cousins,
Bound for a life of back breaking strife,
He could not leave them and return to his wife.
“From whence have you came?” His voice through a crack,
“In Fanga and Dmindi our feet were entrapped,
Our hands roughly shackled, and lips cruelly slapped.
Oh Fanga of bananas sweet, where blue sky that river meets,
Oh Dmindi, great bronze walled city, now ransacked and devoid of pity.”
“My Family!” cried the Merman, “Just a day offshore you are!”
“If I could get you back . . . do you think you’ve traveled far?”
“We cannot see the sun, don’t know when our sorrow begun.”
“Wait”! One says, “They’ve fed us twice. Two days ago we were cast off.
Surely we could travel back, and if not, in Africa we’d rather rot,
Than in this sinking, stinking ***.”
So the sea prince called his creatures many, whales and dolphins,
Turtles and sharks, in the sun they made their marks.
The Pirates on board became perplexed!
The sea was soupy, their course upset!
What could they do, with this onset?!
The Captain snarled and shook his braids,
“Of no man or beast am I afraid!”
And on his rifle his callused hand laid,
“Let war on these creatures now be made!”
Every Pirate with his gun! The captain now was having fun!
Bullets hit the water, but very few found their marks,
For there was but little marks to see, except the tracks of swimming sharks,
The sailors groaned, what magic is this?
What has happened to the fish?
That they would around our boat amass, where do we go? Oh, alas!
The day grew later and so sign was seen,
The pace was kept, for the shore they were bound,
If this keeps up, we’ll run aground!
With half-fish leading, in the front he swam
He encouraged his army, and called to his friends
“Toward Cote’d  Ivoire  we are a sailing,
Do not let your hearts be failing.”
(No pirate could hear his voice, this was the half-man’s special choice)
“I shall take you not to a harbor, but to an island inhabited by few,
With food in abundance and canoe trees for you.”
That night as the stars rose, he sang them to sleep,
In their own mother tongue, no more did they weep.
For they were surrounded by magic of love,
Love of the keeper of the sea, a father himself.
But then in the morning, the morning of slaughter.
He let his tail slip above the bright water,
The Captain roared with guffaws of cruel laughter.
“To arms again my men!” He cried,
And on that day the Merman died,
For with his dark blue back exposed,
The Captain knew the enemy he loathed,
His aim was sharp, and his propellants deadly,
A shot rang out among the medley
Of orca chants, and dolphin chirps,
And at once clouds moved across the sun.
As purple blood stained the water, the Captain shouted “We have won!”
But the race toward land didn’t slow one knot,
The outcome wasn’t changed by a single shot.
The great fish knew that their command hadn’t died and the death of their king,
Though for sure they cried, His body was dead but his word was alive.
Two porpoises left to carry his body, away to a grave, to lay with his family
To the Castle of Coral their burden did bring, to sisters to mourn and his dirge to sing,
They wrapped his long body, laid him in a cave,
Cursed the old Captain, oh **** the cold Knave!
And brothers did leave to do that hard deed, and carry the prince’s wish out.
They swam in a swarm to the creaky old Roger,
In the night they did find her,
Her crew in a bother,
And climbed they the boards that held her together,
Soon she was taken, the pirates all killed
And prisoners unshackled, as the Merman had willed
(some mermen did die, in the scuffle preceding, but most wore protection,
Their brother’s fate heeding)
The sun did arise, in the brilliant sky,
A Hero’s day! The African’s cry.
The mermen guided the vessel to shore,
And of the Queen’s story there was little more,
Except that now she sings in the evenings,
As she raises her girls and little menlings,  
No one will she find to replace her Prince,
No such lonely valor has she ever seen since.
So she sings to her sisters, under full moon waves
And calls to her cousins, on land that are slaves
That saviors will come, their own lives the cost
And vengeance will fall, happiness is not lost.
April 7th, 2012
Please forgive my unresearched work of fiction
No ethnocentrism implied, mermaids are the cousins of all humans
I

Who would be
A merman bold,
Sitting alone
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne?

II

I would be a merman bold,
I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
        Laughingly, laughingly;
And then we would wander away, away,
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
        Chasing each other merrily.

III

There would be neither moon nor star;
But the wave would make music above us afar--
Low thunder and light in the magic night--
        Neither moon nor star.
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
     All night, merrily, merrily.
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,
Laughing and clapping their hands between,
     All night, merrily, merrily,
But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine;
Then leaping out upon them unseen
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
     Laughingly, laughingly.
O, what a happy life where mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.
Al Drood Feb 2020
So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2020
Jottings from David Bagerow's "Quickie"

Shame on she, the selfless *****
Who caused your temperature to fire,
caressed your sandy, sweated brow
To rivers of desire,
Tho she fled at poignant time
To leave you in the lurch.
Best you weave your magic touch
And promise her, the church.
Then woo her and caress her
In your happy, carefree way
Then at that moment of exultance,
Laugh and run away.

David Lessar's "To an Unread Poet"

Dave, You are right ,of course, once committed you raise an expectation and once that expectation is released to the world you are obliged to maintain face...but that damnable thing called "Life" intervenes and totally stuffs up the programme. Take the current interlude of coronavirus...the whole world has been taken by the scruff of the neck and jammed, inconveniently and complaining, into seclusion, all systems ground to a halt, production lines vacated, malls and city centres deserted, blown newspaper cascading across the deserted pavement...a testament to mans ultimate frailty when his house of cards collapses, without a whimper.
So you see, as life intervenes...we are excused from maintaining face.
But fear not, like McArthur, we shall return.
Cheers mate M.

Fawn's "Happy Trails"

Were it not the touch profound
That doth caress my feathered ear
Would thou wish a thousandfold
That I should shed a tear?

A glistened tear suspended there
in iridescent light,
While you, my love, with parted lips
Await, the ruby night.

Victoria's "Wherefore Art Thou"

Strides, he does, through corridors of lust bound lessers,
through forests of small penised dwarfs, through canyons of would be's who could be.....just to countenance the promise within your words....Dear Vix!

Terry O'Leary's "Sweet Butterfly"

You enter the portals of entomology where bugs, flies,butterflies and moths are the true rulers of the planet.
A world vastly magnified by compound eyes, of lightening lifetimes and vivid, saturated colour. A world where life and death are synonomous with the culmination of a single ****** union and the reproduction of a batch of precious pearly eggs. Yea Brother thee hath entered the portal...rejoice!
M.

Fun with Terry O'Leary

"Buried in the Sand" by Terry O’Leary

A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.

He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.

The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

"A Rebuttal" by Marshalg

So Hood lied low, despite the show ensueing without help,
One would have thought a British sort would spring forth with a yelp!

Would spring ***** to help deflect contusions which occurred
When beggar Clump adorned the dump confusing all deferred.

Whilst sister Ant, attired in scant, ran forth on spindly legs
And brother Frog with shaggy dog said "****" and drank the dregs.

It all became too much, as such, a meelee did ensue,
So all called HALT and as one did BOLT...to the local for a brew!

Phew...that was FUN & hard work!
M.

Singing the Devil's Song*

There is no Makers formula
This life depends on chance,
The way you play your given cards
Depicts your daily dance.

Oh dogma flows in utterance
From pulpits far and wide
From those who claim to understand
Eternity's vast hide.
From those who hold damnation
As a weapon from on high,
From those who claim a judgement
As their finger points to sky.
The good, the bad are absolute,
The right bedevils wrong,
Redeemed shall live eternally
The bad shall singe for long.

Old men stand in pulpits
Across this Sunday's land
To threaten with damnation
If you should cross God's hand.
"Belief" is now their catchword
Abomination's wrong
Is to seek to proffer proof of claim
....to Sing the Devil's Song.

So gather all ye faithfull
Go listen to your man,
Sing the Gospel loud and long
And pay your tithe, as planned.
...But should you find you're dying
From cancer's frozen claw
And the the Godly fail to sweep you
To eternity's gold door?
Remember my clear message
Your life depends on chance,
You live within your own good sphere
....There is no Maker's Dance.

Marshalg
After an overdose of Pulpit hogwash.
10 March 2013

Singing the Song of Angels:
A Response to Marshal Gebbie's "Singing the Devil's Song"
By Luca Anselm
There’s a church in the city with pillars of stone
And windows like sea-glass, still and alone,
A fountain, and cloisters of ivy, away
From the noise of the street, and the hum of the day.
There my father would tell me of Christ, how he died
Surrounded by soldiers and thieves, crucified,
How he wept for the women, and fell in the sands,
And loved those who hammered the nails in his hands.  

Marshal, dear poet, you have heard the priests tell
Of a god who left heaven to walk into hell?
Of a god who wept softly for men he had known?
Of a god who dripped blood in a garden alone?
Of a god who sent men with book and with sword
With eyes bright as fire for love of their Lord,
With limbs dressed in black, on altars of stone
By windows of sea-glass, still and alone?

So they give up their lives for a lie, as we say,
And toiled for centuries, long as each day--
And our money built palaces, lofty and tall
With frescoes and candlesticks, gold on the wall--
They preach with words awful and deadly and free,
Of gorgons and hell-fire, worms and the sea,
Of the last day of judgment, and mankind amassed
By the wailing of angels and bright trumpet blasts…

But Marshal, they preach something sweeter and kind--
Of a mother’s soft love, of a father resigned,
Of a still, soft voice, that comes with a light,
And gives hope to the hopeless, and conquers the night.
Of charity, piety, sweetness and love
Like fiery ***-cakes, but soft as a dove,
Spicy as Christmas, solemn and grand--
(Like throne-rooms or magic or the roar of the strand)
Then you wake, and the house smells of peppermint-pine,
And a child is laid in the crèche, now a shrine.  

And all that I long for, dear Marshal, you see,
Are the gold-blooming gardens that soar by the sea,
The mountains and dragons, the prophets and kings
And Icarus falling with fire-fraught wings,
The grey-shifting sea-lanes, the flutter of sails,
Temples on mountaintops, graves in the vales,
And Dido who bleeds from her breast as she cries
For her Love, and stares helplessly into the skies.
But more than the shadows of worlds that might be
Of fairies or phantoms or rocks by the sea,
Dear Marshal, I long for who made me a man.
And would love and give glory as best as I can.

But these days oh! sad days, the loss and the shame
In which all of my loveliness falls into flame--
Where gardens have withered, and sails have been furled,
And kings plodded off in the dust of the world.
Our cities rise higher, and burn through the night
And rear into heaven with noise and with light,
The palisades echo with horns and sound
And the churches with voices and quarrels resound.
But the statues sit silent, and some say they cry
For the shame of the sins against children. Oh! My God, Why?

And those old men—well—they taught me the loveliest things
Of my gardens of gold, and the sunsets of things,
They told me of kindness, and honor, a way
That winds to the West, where the end of the day
Breaks bright like fresh bread, and crimson like wine,
And the sun sets to purple and green in the brine.

And still I remember their words and their songs
And the churches which taught me so well and so long--
Though I’ve turned my head, to the lands where the sun
Will rise again brighter when starlight is spun,
Somewhere fresher and pale, where the cold and the air
Spreads the dew like a lawn paved of crystal, and there,
In the meadows of silver, with light in my eyes,
I will honor my god in the dome of the skies.

Marshal Gebbie's poem "Singing the Devil's Song" inspired this. It's in anapestic tetrameter, for you metric buffs. If you haven't, you should absolutely check out Marshal's stuff--it's awesome and poetry-inspiring--seriously amazing. Thanks again, Marshal!

Sepia Sown

Sepia sown as best it can
Where you and I, as one, once ran
Across, beyond a savored sea
Where lust became reality.
Where spiraled lust, entwined, entrenched
Left you gasping, pale, en benched...
a figment of a thought, now lost
Forever..at what cost, what cost?
M.

Addenum to "obituary" by V

So no one notices, at all
When golden greys of aged fall?
Except perhaps, for those who stay
To blend with every ordinary day

Plus you and I as time flies by
And too, those starlings flocking high.
That old man loitering in street,
Who eyes the million passing feet.
And she too at corner store,
Toothless face and wrinkled maw,
Exchanging cigarettes for coin
(With surreptitious scratch of groin).
Mailman, fat, long, loop mustache
Complaining long and rather harsh,
That they, gone, without a word,
Should vanish into air...absurd!

Someone in their every day
Feels the absence in the way
Details don't fall into place
And warmth is absent from the face.
M.

The Kraken Arises

From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILIPPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.

Part of My Job (A love Poem) by Nat Lipstadt

A little embarrassed by all the attention but great to hear from you Sweetheart...all fine and dandy, here...except for being forbidden to go to the beach and the park..and anywhere else except in cases of dire need..(And on punishment of prison time if caught out!)...but hey, I'm not really complaining...All for he common good, aint that right?
M.

Bridges Burnt....

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.

M.
SE Reimer's words float before me in his impassioned poem "Bridges"
allowing me to wallow in this, my own dark tangential refrain.
M.

Perchance, in a Bus Shelter

Here I sit amidst the ruin of a white winters' day
Convulsive rain and harsh wind outside, contribute tumult.
And in here, in this small shelter, there is a tension in the air.

We two sit apart, uncommunicative, remote and quite detached.
Not for any reason other than the fact that we are strangers,
We have never met, nor are we ever likely to.
She has an elegance and a stylish angularity whilst I am bald, bearded, unfashionable and somewhat overweight.
She is singularly indifferent to my presence, whilst I am uncomfortable with the circumstance that placed us in this small proximity.
We would, in truth, rather both be elsewhere.

I break the ice in throwing her a small smile and complain about the weather,
Her eyes flick across my face and immediately resume their distant focus on the rain,
She adjusts her seating to face,ever so slightly, askance.
Her choice of course, to assume an air of indifference or superiority...or adopt a measure of defense..or perhaps a combination of a bit all three.  
Regardless... I wipe my backside in exactly the same manner as does she, I  am definitely no less a person for my dumpy demeanor and friendly overture
And I really feel that I don't have to share my space with coldness and impertinence,
Better, I think, to be wet and content with my own company
..So, donning my cap and jacket, I stride out into the deluge to leave the remote and uncommunicative young woman alone and dry with her thoughts.

And then....
Howling rain and shards of wind
Pelt me as I walk
Along the foreshore wild and white
As hovered seagulls squark.
When all at once she's by my side
Walking pace for pace,
Her linen suit a sodden mess
Hair plastered to her face.

"Thought I ought to make it right"
She told me with a smile
I threw my coat upon her back
And walked another mile.
We called into a coffee shop
And sat down by the fire
And sipped a steaming latte
As she told her story dire,

"The cancer's all but killed me
My husband's left the home,
The baby's gone to mother
And I'm facing death alone."
We quietly spoke for ages
I held her hand in mine
Then suddenly she stood to leave
And thanked me for my time.

I sat there in a stupor
Recalling how it played
And felt the guilt impact on me
For judgements I had made.
Those callow, shallow judgements
Made in ignorance, my friend,
Will haunt me as she girds herself
To boldly meet her end.

Marshalg
On a bleak and blustery cold winters day.
Titirangi
5th September 2010

The Old Café by Steve Yocum

It's my go to place,
has been for years,
The Wildwood Café,
an eclectic tiny place
with a mix of old dinette
tables and mismatched chairs.
the cutlery also unmatched
and well used, old photos
and signs adorn the walls
and there is usually a line
of people waiting patiently
on benches outside.

Best of all there is this pleasant
girl, always wearing a welcoming
smile, who seems to know us all.
She knows my order by heart,
Ham and eggs over medium,
a half ration of potatoes, home baked
slice of bread, well toasted, well buttered,
home made salsa on the side, a cup of
"hot" Black English Tea. Tall water no ice.

If I arrive between the busy times, she may
sit down at my table and we talk a while,
It's not a big thing, just chitchat, I'm old
enough to be her grandfather, it's the
dessert before my meal served with genuine
friendliness and unforced civility, not often
encountered in these strange days and times, it's a slice of small town America at it's purest best, she and folks like her help sustain my belief that basic human decency is far from dead.

The food is always good, but it's the comforting embrace of familiarity and
simple warm kindness that assures my frequent return.
It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those.
written by Steve Yocum

It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those

Marshal Gebbie
  That old world touch suits you Stevo,
When I come visit your beautiful state of Oregon, We shall partake this delightful repast in the company of your fair maid.... and we shall tip her well!
M.

Scoot the Streak
One must believe in something be he misanthrope or gambler
In tomorrows omniscience or the future proof of God
The penance in a drunk's decay sets self destruct's imposer
Wether speaker phone's on disconnect or cellphone's in the bog.

Conveyance of a threat to adherents of St Selfwise
Show atheist's are proof here, in belief of disbelief,
Haunted by the images painting painful retribution
Picture sympathetic **** star's allocated hand relief.

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the caliber we now reserve for Saints
A paradox regarded as autistic fascination
In a one act play of living disregarding all restraints.

Deliberately indicative of fraternal heat's expression
Notebook at the ready and deep frowning at the brow,
Question definition's collage of confusion's contribution
Do we sit it out pretending or just catch the late bus now?

Marshalg
13 February 2014
© 2014 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie
Written by

victoria  Intriguing work...so I search the comments for help... Ah
0
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary  Marshal, I kinda like this (I read it several times since yesterday)... but I'm still not sure what it says... maybe I'll down a shot tonight and try again... ;-)) Terry
0

3 replies

Feb 2014
Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie   A confession Terrance.. I was half cut when I wrote it!
I have no idea what it means.
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   :-)) Great... I'll be back in a bit... T
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   Well, in the meantime I've had a few shots... now I think I know what it means... hic°°.... hope I remember in the morning... ;-)) Terry
Feb 2014

Pradip Chattopadhyay
Residues
By the night one long dark road
the houses are deep in slumber.

Lucky I'm alive and awake,
can see the stars
in their vast magnitude of silence
gentle and not drunk
have love to count upon
filled with a will to live
feeling I'm almost done.

Having a life is a great reward
and with the residues
gets more valuable.

I won't cry over the lost years
would rather think
have been blessed with enough.

The stars grow blurry dots
as I slip into dreams.

I had a once upon place
and I'm grateful.

With dewy eyes
I hurry to the warmest space
beside her.

You slip into your years well, Pradip.
Your woman must relish your peace, your contentment.
Cheers mate
M.


Tony Grannell
Autumn's Sonneteer
Behold, upon yon ivy bunch, my darling blackbird sings;
I know not why nor shall I try to understand such things.
For born this morning on a song, pray hark, her sweet refrain;
to chance a sigh, oh, dare not I, for this is God's domain.

Out of the night the art of song in tuning in the day;
unknowed afore or evermore such music on display.
'Tis love begad, a lover's song, a diva, I declare,
in soaring o'er both vale and moor, this morning's love affair.

In wonder's charm, this precious bird in song to comfort me.
Alone I stroll, no proffered soul to share my company.
Yet rare this morn, in splendours all, true love like none afore;
let passions roll, in song extol, in verse the morn's rapport.

Be succour in such music found for autumn ails me so,
when summer's run, the harvest done, to rest my scythe and ***.
Of idle lands and nowt ado, to wait without employ.
Yet, hail the sun, my kingdom won, when sings that bird of joy.

Behold her charm and charmed, I am while autumn leaves still fall.
'Tis life anew, a sweeter brew when hear the songstress call.
Though winter’s nigh, with strength and will, we’ll bear our pain and fear;
'tis all to do, good hearts and true, sings autumn's sonneteer.

Written by
Tony Grannell  62/M/Spain

Marshal Gebbie  I stood out at the rock wall and gazed at the splendour of Autumn in Taranaki, as I read, aloud, your sonnet.
...and my heart sang.
M.

Dr Peter Lim
When?
When is the when
of when?  
rampant still is the ravage
which will not relent-

the claustrophobic shut-in
hearts toward gloomy moods they bend
no happy voices of kids heard outdoors
the green fields do not comfort lend-

the downcast look, the sinking feeling
are the joys and delights of yesterday years all spent?
the spectre of pain brings bitterest tears
in the faces of every continent-

oh, when is the when
of when?
such a wash-down
we could never comprehend.

Marshal Gebbie:  But isn't that the way, Dr Pete? Mankind builds his castles in the air, thrusts out his chest and proclaims himself, King of all!
...to be decimated, in an instant, by a microbe of infinitesimal stature. Oh! the fragility of it all.
Life cometh, life goeth....but somewhere, down the track, life shall come again.
M.


Al Drood
The Merman of Orford Ness

So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Al Drood
Written by
Al Drood  M/North Yorkshire

Marshal Gebbie:  Tones here of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
An original work in time honoured rhyme and metre.
I devoured every syllable..Bravo!
M.

G Alan Johnson
Kafka's Bug

When I shed the last skin
last year
there was left a hardened shell
protecting a patched up heart
and a petrified husk
of a soul.

You can throw your bombs
if you wish
and they will hurt inside
but I will just eat them
and **** them out
flushed and forgotten.

Sometimes my antennae
come out in a social setting
and people look at me
with an odd expression
or look off into space
a kind of awkward acceptance,
(the ones that know me).

My mandibles will at times
spit out a divine stupidity
a slacker kind of opinion
and no amount of saliva
can dissolve it
so it sits in the heavy air
stinking like a butterfly corpse.

It was an attempt
at transformation
that failed
(I'm too weak with ego),
and I'm glad that I tried
otherwise I would always wonder.

Vincent Price in a cheap suit
and a lost puppy daydream
a world full of flies, wasps and failed caterpillars
patient spiders and polished leeches...
and all I can do is write.
Written by
G Alan Johnson  65/M/USA

Response by Marshal Gebbie

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
Pandemic Poems: Unclaimed bodies, There’s ain’t no anonymity in heaven.

There are more poems inside me, but I intuit it is longer fair to impose on you by sharing more.  The deep seeded infection of my spirit waxes and wanes, and there is no antidote, and unlike the virus itself, there never will be, a future cure, an inexpensive replacement cost for the spirit spent, the time and futures spirited away.

Perhaps you recall I was one mile away from Ground Zero on September 11th.  Rarely do I walk there.

The coronavirus poetry inserts itself unaided, never asking permission, a like minded, but a contra-cousin to the coronavirus.

I live in New York City, the epicenter where now, close to 800 die daily.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on Hart island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives.  In recent days, though, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day.^^

Each dies with no last words, no Kaddish recited, Last Rites, too late, no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah or Om Namo Narayanaya.  Each one, a numbered pine coffin, and each one will have at the very least, a poem of their own, so help me god.

Buried side by side in large trench, room plenty for new arrivals,
I hear the banging, protesting, resisting, this is not the way, I was promised, my ears left pounding!  Hillel, the great scholar in this dream, reminds that “the time is short, and the work is great.”          

He paraphrases, though, “the bodies many, the poems too few.”

There ain’t no anonymity in heaven, but I’ll reconfirm that with you later.

Written by
Nat Lipstadt

Marshal Gebbie
God! It's harrowing to feel the raw spirit in a New York City man's soul.

You speak for the dead, the ailing and the fearful.

You speak for beggar in the street, the broker, quaking in his plenty, imprisoned on the 14th floor.

You speak for the cop, in face mask, on 24th and Vine, doing, as always what he must, with authority.

And you speak for the White Clad Angels who carry the dead to Hart Island and who forgive you, your fear and safer seclusion.

You speak also for we, who watch and sorrow from afar your agony, in our own fear and seclusion.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
raw is the word, oft need to lie down midday to escape the the viral infection of every outlet we use to pass these days. don’t know when i’ll go outside again, because the virus kills and wounds in horrible ways... thank u MG for the kind appreciation natty

Sally A Bayan
Conduits
In distance and in proximity...in despair
and joy...in existing and in dying...in the
bliss of love reciprocated, and in the pain
of love unrequitted...verses dance and call,
awaiting......

poetry has its own pulse, its own heartbeat,
it calls, taps the shoulders any moment,
awake, or adrift, it just can't be ignored...
even in a tangled, or weird circumstance,
it sparks like a bulb or a comet, curving
in a rainbow...riotous some days, teasing, fleeing,
then, turning up at unexpected times and places.

in every bit and breath of life, in every seed,
in every drop of dew, in every ember burning,
there is poetry birthing, growing...

deep within us flows green, purple, red,
glum gray, darkened inspirations...fleeting,
but, when time is ripe, they linger long,
giving us time to capture them all
.............................................
we sense them...we give space
we speak them, or we write them,
:::::::we are conduits:::::::


Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 11, 2020

Marshal Gebbie

  A touch, so light,
So sensitively slight
As to be caress,
In dead of night


Don Bouchard
And then
We become old men
And old women, and

We look back wistfully, and
We look forward hopefully, and

We wonder....


Written by
Don Bouchard  60/M/Minnesota

Marshal Gebbie
  Slipped betwixt the then and now
Methinks, with finger on the brow,
Thee needs a shot of earthy ***
And a wanton ****, to rub your tum.
Thee needs a cheery pick me up,
Some hairy mates to help you sup
Elixir from the joy of life
To salve tomorrows' threat of strife.
Cheers mate M.
0
Tommy Randell
From a young man's parlance, tripping from an old man's tongue; Right On, brother, Right On!
"I'm a mermaid," she said as she kissed me.
Ah! her kiss made me drunker than wine.
I'd been longing for the ocean in her blue eyes,
it was calling to the diver in mine.
She whispered, "I've got just a little bit of magic
from my home in this big blue lagoon--
join me tonight for a swim in the moonlight,
I'll make some magic for you."

The full moon was rising in Paradise
as I made my way down to the shore.
There I dove right into the water,
I just couldn't stand it anymore.
Here she comes, swimming up to meet me--
wraps her self around me like a glove.
As long as I live I never could tell
the magic of a mermaid in love.

Goddess of the crystal blue ocean,
sharing your mysteries with me.
When I'm with you I can breathe underwater
and swim beside you under the sea.
If I could stay here under the surface,
I would never go back to dry land!
Goddess of the crystal blue ocean,
Meet me here whenever you can.

The spell would be broken by sunrise,
but her "little bit of magic" was no lie.
We soared, freed by love, underwater,
free as two birds in the sky.
All too soon the sky began lightening,
the moon and the stars took their flight.
Our kisses were mingled with tears at the shoreline
where we promised to meet every night.

Goddess of the crystal blue ocean,
sharing your mysteries with me.
When I'm with you I can breathe underwater,
and swim beside you under the sea.
If I could stay here under the surface,
I would never go back to dry land!
Goddess of the crystal blue ocean,
make me a real merman.
This is a song I wrote some time ago. I can't read it without hearing it as a song--
Copyright  2010 by Michael S. Simpson. All rights reserved.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
perchance an epic was necessary, to consolidate the scattered thinking, and indeed, once a certain life, and was lived with a cherishing heart, the heart broke, and life turned from adventures to a more studious approach, and in here, a comfort was found, never before imagined explorations - of course sometime a tourist in the arts does come, but such tourists quickly fade, and the pursuit becomes more enshrined - to levitated towards epics is perhaps the sole reason for the cherished memory of some - and how quickly all can revolve around a searched for theme, after many incorporations were minded - as one to have travelled the Mediterranean, another to have been eaten by the great mandarin silkworm of the library of Kangxi - heading along the silk route with spices - indeed the great mandarin silkworm of the library of emperor Kangxi; as i too needed a bearing - to inspect the trickster of lore and the godly blacksmith of the north.

by instruction - an accumulation of the the zephyrs
into a vector, headed north,
toward the gluttonous murk of ice, jesting
with aches to the bulging and mesmerised crescendo
of adrift stars captured in the tilting away -
to think of an epic, to keep out-of-time of
spontaneity and thistle like swiftness in the last
days of summer, that Mercury brings the new
tides of the tetravivaldis -
   brought by the λoγος of a γoλας -
for reasons that satisfy the suntan copper of
the ***** - the λoγος of a γoλας - yet not toward
Monte Carlo or any hideout of money well invested
and greedily spent for a charm -
no, north bids me welcome from afar -
this norðri fløkja, this    ᚾᛟᚱᛞᚱᛁ       ᚠᛚᚢᚲᛃᚨ -
by my estimate, i could not take the nonsense
of numerology of a certain specialisation,
i took what was necessary, i pillaged the temple
of Solomon, perhaps that the dome of the rock
might stand - with its glistening dome and
its sapphire mosaics - i don't belong among
palm trees and date trees - hence i turned to
deciphering and subsequently encrypting -
as i have already with *ᚱᚨᛒᛖ
:
the journey of an Æsir through a birch forest
on a horse.
                    with this method in mind:
(a) ᚾᛟᚱᛞᚱᛁ       (b) ᚠᛚᚢᚲᛃᚨ:

(a)
the need to acquire possessions accumulating
into an estate, is a journey encountered
day by day, although a journey on ice

(b)
cattle only thrive near water,
auruchs did not, and hence illuminated
their way to extinction,
         by way of the Æsirs' harvest
(to eat up diversity of life, and create
a godless world of man).

my escape route came from ᚠ - mirroring שִׂ
although the former standing, the latter sitting
down, although the former fathomable
to my pleasure, the latter unfathomable
to ascribe numbers to letters for patterns -
i seek no patterns, hence my sight turned to
the northern sights, and meanings amplified.
                
the greeks were intended to explore abstracts,
having stated a triangle
they invented the ² symbol and what not,
it was because
they didn't bother extracting a phonetic unit
from something definite,
they classified such endeavours barbarian,
what reasonable greek of 13% reason and
87% reality would extract alpha from
the sound you made when
saying ansur (ᚨᚾᛋᚢᚱ) - i.e. attention -
i.e. deriving a definite sound differentiation
for alphabetical rubrics from a definite thing
(in whatever classification that might be)?
the greeks used the alphabetical rubric of
crafting a definite sound from an indefinite thing,
so they said: acronym, aardvark, assumption,
                       α                 α      α     α,
then they said α² - there are no antonyms -
but indeed there were, hence the Trojan nation
settling in the boot, that's Italy,
the Romans escalated the greek theory
beyond taking out a definite sound distinguished
from other distinguishable sounds,
abstracting what the alphabetic sound assured
a list under alpha: assumption, advantage,
acorn, etc. -
the latins were the first atomist after the greeks,
the greeks believed in atoms, but had no
microscopes to prove atoms existed,
such scientific faith found no parallel;
the latins ensured this was true,
ending with castrato sing-along -
the latins furthered abstracting sounds from
definite orientation which the greeks did
working from ice into iota,
the latins just sang i, i, i -
of course chiral behaviourism of such dissection
emerged - hatch a plan, plan a chisel -
it's very piquant i mind to let you know -
the greeks abstracted nouns in order to create
the alphabet, the barbarians still used
proper nouns to speak proper, the greeks
thus created synonyms and antonyms to add
to the spice of life - after all,
not deriving definite alphas from
cursors that acknowledged points of origins
created diacritical stressing like comma and
semis of colon and macron, not deriving them
from definite things, shunning a helpful
vocabulary bank to an unhelpful vocabulary
banked: synonyms and antonyms the Gemini's
birth of rhetoric;
but the latins were rejected with their atomic theory
of pronunciation, since they became laden
with diacritics - punctuation marks of a different sort,
you can measure a man sprint one hundred metres,
but is that also measuring a man to say
mān or män or mán? i know that the slavic ó = u
given the scalpel opening the ensō to craft a parabola -
but it's not necessarily an accent debate
but a punctuation debate... the emergence of
the diacritic symbols above the letters is due
partly to their joy of the popes listening to
castrato operas and the fact that the romans
went too far... hence the chiral nature of certain
symbols when dittoing - the barbarians used
definite things to assert definite sounds -
the greeks used indefinite things to assert definite
sounds - mind you, if the romans became too
abstract with their little units that became engraved
with punctual accenting, then the greek letters
became laden with scientific constants as necessarily
fathered, unchanging in the pursuit of Heraclitus' flux -
for example... Pythagoras and the hypotenuse:
                            σ / κ² = α² + β² -
           or?
                             c² (ć) = a² (ą) + b² / š (bubble beep
                                                           bop barman backup hop
                                                           of shackled kakah
                                                           or systematic oscillation
                                                           for bzz via burp);
πρ² is still more stable
                                 than what the latin alphabet allows -
hence why greek phonetic encoding was used in
science, and latin phonetic encoding was used in music,
can't be one or the other - added to the fact that
latin encoding had too many spare holes with
the evolution of numbers, and greek didn't have them,
hence β-reduction in lambda calculus and F-dur and A#

the one variant of the grapheme (æ) they didn't include
among expressions: graphite and grapheme
was the variant - gravitating to an entombing
of the excess aesthetic - geresh stress -
somehow the twins match-up to a single womb:
àé vs. áè: V vs. Λ - Copernicus wrote over all
of this with the flat earth uselessness
in terms of navigation - flat earth is useless...
huh? flat earth is the only system that gave
Columbus the chance to explore the new world -
no flat earth no Columbus -
that satellite named Luna was no tool
in navigating across the Atlantic - believe me
i'm sure -
                  or that grapheme (æ) varied like statistics
or like the characters in the book of genesis
that famous adam und eve (kim and kanye):
chances came, chances went:
it was still a draw on the tongue tied decipher:
àè and áé proved another notation for plurality
was necessary, not at the beginning of the word,
but after, hence the possessive article 's,
we could have parallelism, there was a crux,
how once the chiselling of letters came about,
more economic to chisel in a V than a U,
both the same, much easier though...
almost barbaric i might say...
sigma (Σ) enigma rune e (ᛖ) - this compass
is a ******* berserker, god knows if it's
mount Everest or the Bermuda Δ

but one thing is for certain, never you mind how
a language is taught unless you mind it,
not that conversational athenian is really what
i'm aiming at - but a lesson is a lesson nonetheless,
out of interest something new,
richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi,
and what preceded him, namely pan-slavism,
just when the polish-lithuanian commonwealth
did a little Judaic trick of its own,
although snorkelling in the waters of not writing
history for less a time than israel -
you can't beat ~2000 under water - although
you could if your little tribe had an einstein
among them, or proust or spinoza, then
you could effectively become a whale, popping
an individual out from the rubble to say a polite
'hello' and 'when will the dessert be served?'
but indeed, learning a language on your own,
how to learn from scratch, the greek orthography,
and why omicron and not omega,
the give-away? sigma - purely aesthetic reason,
                             νoμισματων

                             nomismaton

omicron                                                 omega

                 you write omicron at the front
                 and omega at the back
                 pivot letter? two: σ     μ &
                 νoμι-                                -ατων
                      ­                     |
                 anything here  
                 will use o            and anything
                                              here uses ω

alike to sigma:
                          χωρας (choras, i.e. country)

sigma (ς) not sigma (σ), i.e. digitalising languages
without a clear connectivity of letters,
block-a-brick-block-a-brick-digit-digit-digit
you learn that handwriting is gone,
two options, your own aesthetic reasons now,
remember, some paired for the ease of handwritten
flow - digitalised language changes the aesthetics,
you make your own rules (considering exceptions
of oh mega mega, ergo revision -

                                       χoρας,

but still the sigma rule, others esp. o mega
you stamp on them like βλαττια, i.e. cockroaches -
κατσαρίδα                 not         κατςαρίδα

all perfectly clear when you explore plato's
dialogue from the book Θηαετητυς (as you might
have noticed, the epsilon-eta project is still
in the storage room of my imagination) -
but indeed in the dialogue, between socrates
and the "hero" of the book theaetetus -
a sample, without an essay on the theory
of knowledge -
socrates: ...'tell me theaetesus, what is Σ O?'
theaetetus: yes, my reply would be that it is
                    Σ and O.
socrates: so there's your account of the syllable,
                isn't it?
theaetetus: yes.
socrates: all right, then: tell me also what your
                  account of Σ is.
                                                             ­   (etc.
or as some might say, a shrug of the shoulders,
a hmmpf huff puff of hot air, impractical interests
and concerns - well, better the impractical
problems than practical problems, less feet
shuffling and nail-biting moments with your
tail between your legs and an army of
intellectuals working out what went wrong
and how history will solve everything by
the practical problems repeating themselves) -
you know that inane reaction - others would just say
Humphrey Bogart and nonetheless get on with it.

some would claim i was begot a second time,
not in the sixth month period of the aqua-flesh,
how did i actually related to the life aquatic,
for nine months i was taught to hold my breath,
however did this happen?
a miracle of birth? ah indeed the miracle of
a crutch for a woman - spinal deformities -
9 months, sort to speak, in water or some other
fluid - merman - a beastly innovation -
next you'll be telling me beyond this life
we turn into centaurs, given the Koran's promise -
you'd need the appetite of a breeding horse
to satiate the 72 - or thereabouts - martyr or
no martyr - 72? that's pushing it -
or as they say among children - a chance playground
without swings or sandpits, but very careless
gravitational pulling toward a certain direction;
nonetheless, they might have that i did indeed
settle of a sáttmáli                  ᛋᚨᛏᛏᛗᚨᛚᛁ
                  við         ­                  Vᛁᛞ
                  tann                         ᛏᚨᚾᚾ
                  djevul                      ᛞᛃᛖVᚢᛚ -
the hands you see, fidgety -
     hond handa grammur burtur    úr   steðgur
     ᚻᛟᚾᛞ  ᚻᚨᚾᛞᚨ  ᚷᚱᚨᛗᛗᚢᚱ   ᛒᚢᚱᛏᚢᚱ  ᚢᚱ   ᛋᛏᛖᛞᚷᚢᚱ
         the hands give an ardent pursuit
                                                 away from rest -
well not that my poems will ever reach
the islands in question - and indeed an
uneducated guess propels me - what does it matter,
λαλος babbler meant anything, indeed λαλος,
language as my own, is a language that i can
understand - and should anyone omit
disparities - a welcome revision would never tease
nor burn my eyes - but the phonetic omission
peeved me off: woad in water, ventricles in a
variety of entanglements - it's just not there -
and indeed, orthographically, if there are no more
optometric involvements of omicron's twin -
then the stance is with you to use whichever pleases,
i can't tell the difference, unless i was a pedantic
student, aged 70, with a granddaughter i wanted
to be wed teasing a millimetre's worth of
phonetic differentiation between the two -
POTATO PA'H'TAYTOE TOMATO TA'H'MAYTOE -
linguistically one's american and the other
is british, which looks like greek and latin
upside-down and in a mirror: pəˈteɪtəʊ, təˈmɑːtəʊ;
or as the spaghetti gobblers would put it:
the tetragrammaton is working on their
texan drawl (dwah! ripples in china) -
or the high-society new england ******* *******
coo with a cuckoo's load of clocks -
before being sent off to england for a respectable
education, something en route Sylvia Plath -
but not to ol' wee scoot land - ah nay - well
perhaps for a year and then talk of north european
barbarism of a deep friend pizza and mars bar.

and when descartes finished with christina
queen of sweden, she became an animate portrait
of feminine attempts at philosophising,
she was basically ostracised from society,
well, not society per se, she didn't become a stray
dog, but she forgot certain functions of
the upper tier - lazily modern man decides
to hide phenomena from understanding
individual instances, with the kantian guise
of a noumenon, hence cutting his efforts short -
indeed queen christina of sweden was ostracised
by society - only after descartes finished educating her;
and indeed to most people a little bit of sloth
equates to an amputation of some sort -
yet only with the x-files' season 2 episode 2
i've learned of the effects of prolonged alcohol
"misuse", that little boxing match in my liver?
it's not a pain as such, it's actually a hardening
of soft tissue - with prolonged alcohol exposure
soft tissue organs harden, notably the liver -
and it's not a pain, it's a hardening.
but indeed queen christina of sweden was ostracised
by her tier of socialites - i'm glad diogenes
didn't get to her, but then again a bit of cloth
goes a long way this far north -
yet unlike the encounter with napoleon by hegel
diogenes' encounter with alexander lasted longer -
which tells you the old method does no service
to a little bit of material accumulation -
but perhaps the acumen was briefer when you were
ably living in a barrel - and to think, as only
that being the sole expression, not so much
a body without organs as stated in the thesis
of anti-oedipus by deleuze and guattari -
a consideration for a body without limbs - prior
to a footprint an imprint on the mind -
carelessly now, a diarrhoea of narration -
how rare to find it - perhaps this idea of epic
poetry is a default of writing per se -
with this my whatever numbered entry i seize
to find escape in it - a lack of ambition -
a loss of spontaneity that's a demanded mechanisation -
by volume, by inaneness - to reach a single
technique accumulative zenith, and then back
into the ploughing, rustic scenery and the
never-bored animals - i rather forget such escapades -
and there i was dreaming of a grand
runic exploration - some imitable game -
some scenic routes - yet again -
Cody Edwards May 2010
Up from the deep
Water breaks in diagonal sheets.

The skies careen off and away
Red arrays.

Universe of musculature
A foot in a sandy detour.

Indirect to purpose
Skin and flow.

Dries on the gilded bank
Wild hair set flat.

A thousand atmospheres taken
Into a single ozone breath.

After a time, stoops
By the multiform to look.

Stones heavy-
Light enough to carry.

To the mouth wide
And bitten dry.

The water wears everything
So the teeth can split.

A fortnight of spite
And the treacherous bite.
He returns to the sea
With a headful of light.
© Cody Edwards 2010
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
a bit like listening to
enya's take on the lord of the rings
soundtrack...
who, the ****, wouldn't
wish to drown, listening
to these Celtic mermaids?
i know i would...

the lunch?
salad....
  cherry tomatoes, fresh pepper,
fresh chillies...
      guacamole with chillies...
god, infused with lime...
greek goat's cheese...
           crunch iceberg lettuce...
and?
****... must have missed somethng...
well...
there was also prosciutto...
like i once said:
i hate bacon...
    prosciutto?
             give me a bucket-load
and i'll play the chipmunk...

   god i hate bacon...
ugh...
     it's lile eating gorilla turds
with a comparison
to what tuna steaks will never be,
and what smoked
salmon slices share with
prosciutto...

the bits that make a whiskey...
smoked salmon...
           if the Japanese will not
entertain salt in their sushi?
**** it...
we'll smoke the ******* out...

what a glorious statement of
attaching oneself to hubris...
  and the Celtic mermaids?
one question:
can i drown, right here and now?!
i want to drown!
i want to turn into a merman!
i want to cry!
oh god... for all eternity!
i want to cry!
i want to cry when
beauty is expressed so piquantly!

i want to be acknowledged
my by second mother, art,
who would never dare
to engage in the ancient greek
ritual of placing two coins
over my eyes to pay
Charon...

             oh sweet Celtic mermaids
from a missing Odyssey!
I.R.A.: punch the grieving
paw of the Anglican lion
surrendering
with a take on dentistry!

i want to drown...
   you songs turn the salty
seas into sugary fountains!
   i want to drown!
embraced by your voices
in the choir or the echoing
chambers of oyster shells!

   i never liked sushi to begin
with...
either the north sea smoked salmon
slices...
or the Baltic Sea raw herrings...

                 the English?
leave them...
   congregating on the money...
surmounting there sphere of influence,
the Atlantic Ocean that becomes
a pond...
   leave them... bestow a leverage of
stalling them...
         keep them comfortable...
keep them exclusionary...
  keep them: 50+ years too late...
that will buy us time...

           keep them sifting through rat ****...
we need them disorientated,
looking at a cul de sac,
rather than a road with, other, road
genesis injunctions
of what life, twist and burden turn
we have to share...

         now... i don't cry because
i'm sad...
      i cry... when beauty is made
sacrificial...
             and since so few cry at beauty?
i have to cry...
because?
  whatever is being regurgitated
mainstream?
   does not gravitate me
to the necessary emotional stratum...

all i can think of is...
  
               Celtic mermaids of Ireland...
and drinking buddies of Scottish
trans-gender kilt highlanders,
Welsh longbow men spies
   of Swansea...
   and the English?
guess it's just a case of talking:
"right across the... 'pond'"...
     like ******* are...
pond people my ******* god...

          i would have feigned the delusion
of... a shared tongue = a shared
cultural reference!
but in sudoku?!

   linear + sq. ≠ diagonal -

England and the U.S. and Australia?!
a dog barking up the wrong tree...
it always was, it always will be...

          i'll rephrase my concept
of England and America...
   being "specially" connected...
what? like retards?!

                        Pontius Pilate:
i'm washing my hands clean of the affair...

ask a Swiss... what he might have felt
about **** Germany!
no?
                           no what?!

      this country already constituted
a perfected allowance to deem my
ethnicity equivalent to vermin,
rats.... foxes...

     well... better this commentary
stays underground...
i wouldn't want some, ******,
reading this sort of wording;

mind you, he, it, she, they,
might forget it 10 minutes later.      

god, i hate bacon...
   but prosciutto?
                            as long as it's combined
in a salad...
  with fresh veg., and greek
goat's cheese...
    no, *******, problem!

SPRING ONIONS!
Olivia Kent May 2014
Just pebbles on a lonely shore.
Eroded by a constant ebb and flow.
Once were rough around the edges,
Quartz stones,embedded far within.
Bring forth the merman, who chips away with all his heart.
Only happens at midnight you know.
The merman, breaks the pebbles down, retrieves their gifts of crystalline dreams.
Requests permission from Neptune, the father of the seas.
To find a lonely mermaid, to be betrothed to him, so mer  folk can continue, to ever live and breed.
Free to rave those wild seas.
In love, they breed on rugged beaches, discreetly out of eye -shot of the eyes of man and beast.
(C) Livvi
A little nonsense!
Writing such a mixture today **
Look out, my pens alive x
I prayed with light voices, but a burdened heart;
You are not here--that I am supposed to know of.
But still, my mind cannot accept that we are now apart.
I am despaired by my own hands, by my own love;
Your images keep shrouding me--you keep haunting me.
Your portraits shout your name, but none of ‘em is truthful;
They reject my bliss, though they told me I was beautiful.
I keep looking for you in the shades: but all I find is blueness,
And as daylight grows mature, I feel but scarce and clueless;
I am entrapped by my own wishes, and I can no longer write.
Ah, ‘tis over now--I should declare;
I walk home and sleep, and decide I should no more be in love--
Some sheer charms I might better not be.

I was running across the moors, and secretly hoped I would find thee there;
Thee with thy own giggles and mockery and childish wishes;
Thee with a resemblance of moonlit skies on thy face.
Thee with a thousand arches in thy brown eyes;
Eyes that were genuine, hopeful; with spirits that would not die.
And those lithe hands; and thy handful of full lips;
Thou always startled me within thy black jacket,
Yes, that black jacket with gruesome naughty little pockets,
Thou always asked me to chase around the bogs;
While peering naively into the hidden summer spider webs.
Thou woke me up with thy morn noises;
Thou wanted to tell me a tale of castles, friendship, and promises.
Thee with a thousand smiles, hopes, and legitimate fears;
Thee with the sweetness of a moonbeam, thee with one hundred kisses.
Thou wert like a lonesome butterfly at first;
And on a shiny day I but caught thee;
and weaved my colourful love onto thy plain nest.
Thou shined again, and I felt but merited;
As time passed, I grew hungrier for thee--and always delighted;
Thou wert a summer to a pleasant summer itself;
Thou made my heart warm, and my seasons magnified.
Even my lavenders were stupefied by thy cleverness;
They were warm always, to welcome and greet thee at night.
Ah, my darling, my half spirit, my sweet;
Thou owned the second spare of my green light;
Thou wert my frost at conned summers, and mild winters;
Thou wert the white snow I played with--and its evening rainbow!
Ah, and at times--thou wert like a nature among yon shrieking green grass;
I smiled always, as I entrapped thee within my clear glass.

I should twist this story away, and welcome him;
Welcome whoever shines through my love--in reality, and in dreams.
I know I hath to celebrate him behind the furnace;
I shall smile sweetly and charm him by my maiden’s face.
He hath a lovely aura as the unheeded stars;
And his steps are awkward, but stately as the moon’s.
He hath smooth and virile advantages about him;
He hath a weather, but still he hath not thy playful air.
He is serious, thou art more festive and thoughtful;
He is cordial, but I findeth him at times uninnate and insoluble.
Ah, Immortal, he liveth but in a cold bubble away from me;
And so you know, the love of him is but a love of pain;
Sometimes I want to find thy face in his poetry;
Sometimes I want to see again, but your fairness.
Thy heart is, as thou hath figured, widespread within me;
It ambushes me and glides me around like a cheeky star;
But as thou gazed into me,
I found that thy charms were absolute;
I pampered this notion of thee--as I still do;
Thou wert my nymphic and immortal dream;
Thou art my sane and insane ambition;
Thou art my sand, my boats, my sails!
Thou art the sea worth a thousand miles;
And I care not what foul and fuzziness thy soul might carry;
I shall purify thee, I shall endorse thee, I shall welcome thee into my lonely heart!
Ah, Immortal, I am but a spoiled of ruins and wreckage now;
As I woke up t'is very morn, I knew I wouldst not see you tomorrow.
And guess now--how shall I define our once glossy, faint Sofia?
I do not want to pronounce to Sofia, ah, our very dwellings, a goodbye;
I shall never pronounce such; and on t’is I shall care for thy sayings not--
As telling such wouldst indeed be a remarkable lie.
Instead, I should dream again, of being by your side;
I shall be the terrified mermaid--but thee--my gentle merman;
We shall swim across the sea and startle the aquatics by our depth;
And thereon I shall dream of myself cherishing you--and holding you in my arms;
As I pray and bow and submit the rhapsodies of my heart, all day and night.

Ah, but where is Immortal, Immortal, Immortal;
Without whom my heart is bleak; and winters are hard.
Ah, Immortal; by whom rains are pretty, and colours are magnificently saturated;
By whom storms are no more storms, and no more downpours are petty;
By whom lakeside houses are not cold, and slippery rocks are not frightful;
By whom birch trees shall sing, and honey bees shall farm away for hours.
Ah, Immortal, by whom my poetry stays alive, and fed tranquilly by yon earth;
Immortal, by whose lullabies I fall asleep among the midnight’s icy hearth.
Immortal, whom my heart values, and urges me to love;
Immortal, by whose side debris are whole, and ruins picture unity;
Ah, Immortal, by whose singing melodies are songs, and rhythms are but poetry.
Immortal, Immortal, Immortal, by whose words--the entire worlds are but Sofia;
And all merit and grace but belong to the romantic Bulgaria.
Immortal my entire darling; who taught me to see how the moon teases the sun;
And how the latter becomes fainted but mirthful, at t’is very realisation.
Ah, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal, by whose absence I feel but frightened.
Ah, Immortal, do you think I should hurry--shall I fleet and run?
I shall meet thee again tonight, around the corner by the lake;
Before such an eve grows genuine--causing the day to turn fake.
I should meet thee before everything is but feasted and pierced;
And I shall bringeth thee my midnight poems and soliloquy;
I shall embrace thee by my myths, and relish thee within my solitude.
I shall make thee remain by my side, and keep shady thy burly night;
I shall, perhaps, make thee my mirth itself--I shall keep thee warm, and safe, and bright.
Ah, Immortal, one who was always aired by my fresh recitations;
One who was entrenched in my tales of craze, atrocity, and vanity;
One who cried by me like a selfish child--but at times, became the radiance itself.
Ah, Immortal, one within whose palms the moon is transparent;
And the harmony of night becomes more possible;
Ah, my darling Immortal, who was once infatuated with my nights--and 'twas apparent;
Oh, my darling, my own darling, my very darling--how I hath only words to play with!

Where is but Immortal, Immortal, Immortal,
My jokes cannot sleep, and even my eyes choose to stay awake.
My heart feels absurd, as it is not calmed and soothed by him;
Even as I can sleep no more, I am but unable to edify him in my dreams.
Ah, where is my Immortal--for as I scurry outside, I cannot locate him;
While he is but the golden lock I need to deliberate my heart.
Ah, my husband, who owns but the charms heartbeat cannot describe;
Ah, Immortal, by thy words--thou knoweth, vanished worlds are real to me today.
The rush of your blood still, knowingly, flows within my breath;
You look like that little lad proudly standing by yon bridge faraway.
Immortal, my little sound, my eager song, my profound lilac;
How shall you ever know what you mean to my heart?
To me, you are more than any gold, brown silver, nor white bronze;
You are my tears, my growth, and the height of my winter;
You own the youth and throne my heart hath always longed for.
Ah, Immortal, no matter how hard thou hath defeated--and perhaps, betrayed me;
Thou art still more immortal than a thousand suns outside;
And more mature than t’is benighted winter as it already is.
Ah, Immortal, 'tis hath grown silent again, and I need to greet my lavish worlds;
But for you know--your scent shall remain better than the sun's on its own, and more lively.
Ah, Immortal, and while those winds shriek, and hop, and wail;
‘Tis your voice still, that I but imagine in my *****;
And while their spread and take rule of their wings;
Thou shalt remain by prince, my ruler--the one I choose to be my king.

My heart hath borne thee since I was in her womb;
My mother's chaste womb--and there, just there--
I had but been formed by her sheepish threads.
Ah, and thus I heart her like t’is-but not as much as I heart thee, perhaps;
If I doth dream of her; it meaneth I'd but dream of thee;
And thou knoweth--my dreams of winter shall be but one about thee;
About thee--my vigour, my shadow in my traces, my vengeful spirit.
Ah, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal; my century of blessings, my time
and poetry of such an endless eternity.
Ah, Immortal, in whose heart there was purity;
And in whose love I felt reified, and no such tyranny,
Ah, and t’is loss of thee perhaps means a life of illness;
A time of neglect, but a loss of my valid youth.
I want not to age, for thou art, thyself, young and ageless and immortal;
I want to dwell but only in yon Paradise of thee;
And be fueled solely but thy desire, and not anyone else's.
Ah, Immortal, I want to feel but the flavour of thy skin;
And be engrossed but against thy stomach.
I want to be thy lily, and thy novel rose that shall never wither;
Ah, Immortal, I want to be little again; and thy most awesome lavender.

And thy blame--such as t'is one, shall mean a brawl to my destiny;
And its glam is but my fiery--while insuperable--destruction.
As I promised thee--I shall not be weary, I shall not be sad;
But never shall I love, never shall I be satisfied.
Ah, Immortal, I shall never agree to love again;
I want to keep my love for thee; for whom I shall advocate my youth,
I want never to share my trembling love with anyone else.
As I hath loved thee just now, perhaps I shall love thee forever;
Ah, Immortal, as how it usually is, thou shall be the sailor-
And ever the painter, in our very own colloquial poetry!

Immortal, my grace, my perambulations, my ecstasy;
Immortal, my good, my one, my irrepressible;
I hath fulfilled thy wishes, at least at present, to bear t'is alone;
But for you know, that life without thee is no Paradise;
And even when I am dead, perhaps my soul shall never lie;
I shall wander the earth still--to look for thee, my tears and my lost love;
And insofar as thou remaineth away, I shall too stay on earth; and never ascend above.
MJ L Jun 2014
The ocean wasn’t blue enough for you
My man of  seaweed eyes
And waves would dance and cry for you
But you swam below the surface

I tosed a coin into the well
And you flipped it back to me
A silly game of ask and tell
(I wish we could’ve touched)

The earth wasn’t hard enough for me
The girl with broken lungs
And birds would fly and cry for us
But I hide behind the window

You sent me a bottled message
I tossed it back to you unopened
A silly game of hide and seek
(I wish I could’ve found you)
Thus did he speak, and they all held their peace throughout the
covered cloister, enthralled by the charm of his story, till presently
Alcinous began to speak.
  “Ulysses,” said he, “now that you have reached my house I doubt
not you will get home without further misadventure no matter how
much you have suffered in the past. To you others, however, who come
here night after night to drink my choicest wine and listen to my
bard, I would insist as follows. Our guest has already packed up the
clothes, wrought gold, and other valuables which you have brought
for his acceptance; let us now, therefore, present him further, each
one of us, with a large tripod and a cauldron. We will recoup
ourselves by the levy of a general rate; for private individuals
cannot be expected to bear the burden of such a handsome present.”
  Every one approved of this, and then they went home to bed each in
his own abode. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn,
appeared, they hurried down to the ship and brought their cauldrons
with them. Alcinous went on board and saw everything so securely
stowed under the ship’s benches that nothing could break adrift and
injure the rowers. Then they went to the house of Alcinous to get
dinner, and he sacrificed a bull for them in honour of Jove who is the
lord of all. They set the steaks to grill and made an excellent
dinner, after which the inspired bard, Demodocus, who was a
favourite with every one, sang to them; but Ulysses kept on turning
his eyes towards the sun, as though to hasten his setting, for he
was longing to be on his way. As one who has been all day ploughing
a fallow field with a couple of oxen keeps thinking about his supper
and is glad when night comes that he may go and get it, for it is
all his legs can do to carry him, even so did Ulysses rejoice when the
sun went down, and he at once said to the Phaecians, addressing
himself more particularly to King Alcinous:
  “Sir, and all of you, farewell. Make your drink-offerings and send
me on my way rejoicing, for you have fulfilled my heart’s desire by
giving me an escort, and making me presents, which heaven grant that I
may turn to good account; may I find my admirable wife living in peace
among friends, and may you whom I leave behind me give satisfaction to
your wives and children; may heaven vouchsafe you every good grace,
and may no evil thing come among your people.”
  Thus did he speak. His hearers all of them approved his saying and
agreed that he should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken
reasonably. Alcinous therefore said to his servant, “Pontonous, mix
some wine and hand it round to everybody, that we may offer a prayer
to father Jove, and speed our guest upon his way.”
  Pontonous mixed the wine and handed it to every one in turn; the
others each from his own seat made a drink-offering to the blessed
gods that live in heaven, but Ulysses rose and placed the double cup
in the hands of queen Arete.
  “Farewell, queen,” said he, “henceforward and for ever, till age and
death, the common lot of mankind, lay their hands upon you. I now take
my leave; be happy in this house with your children, your people,
and with king Alcinous.”
  As he spoke he crossed the threshold, and Alcinous sent a man to
conduct him to his ship and to the sea shore. Arete also sent some
maid servants with him—one with a clean shirt and cloak, another to
carry his strong-box, and a third with corn and wine. When they got to
the water side the crew took these things and put them on board,
with all the meat and drink; but for Ulysses they spread a rug and a
linen sheet on deck that he might sleep soundly in the stern of the
ship. Then he too went on board and lay down without a word, but the
crew took every man his place and loosed the hawser from the pierced
stone to which it had been bound. Thereon, when they began rowing
out to sea, Ulysses fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike
slumber.
  The ship bounded forward on her way as a four in hand chariot
flies over the course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curveted
as it were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark blue water
seethed in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a
falcon, swiftest of all birds, could not have kept pace with her.
Thus, then, she cut her way through the water. carrying one who was as
cunning as the gods, but who was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of
all that he had suffered both on the field of battle and by the
waves of the weary sea.
  When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to
show. the ship drew near to land. Now there is in Ithaca a haven of
the old merman Phorcys, which lies between two points that break the
line of the sea and shut the harbour in. These shelter it from the
storms of wind and sea that rage outside, so that, when once within
it, a ship may lie without being even moored. At the head of this
harbour there is a large olive tree, and at no distance a fine
overarching cavern sacred to the nymphs who are called Naiads. There
are mixing-bowls within it and wine-jars of stone, and the bees hive
there. Moreover, there are great looms of stone on which the nymphs
weave their robes of sea purple—very curious to see—and at all times
there is water within it. It has two entrances, one facing North by
which mortals can go down into the cave, while the other comes from
the South and is more mysterious; mortals cannot possibly get in by
it, it is the way taken by the gods.
  Into this harbour, then, they took their ship, for they knew the
place, She had so much way upon her that she ran half her own length
on to the shore; when, however, they had landed, the first thing
they did was to lift Ulysses with his rug and linen sheet out of the
ship, and lay him down upon the sand still fast asleep. Then they took
out the presents which Minerva had persuaded the Phaeacians to give
him when he was setting out on his voyage homewards. They put these
all together by the root of the olive tree, away from the road, for
fear some passer by might come and steal them before Ulysses awoke;
and then they made the best of their way home again.
  But Neptune did not forget the threats with which he had already
threatened Ulysses, so he took counsel with Jove. “Father Jove,”
said he, “I shall no longer be held in any sort of respect among you
gods, if mortals like the Phaeacians, who are my own flesh and
blood, show such small regard for me. I said I would Ulysses get
home when he had suffered sufficiently. I did not say that he should
never get home at all, for I knew you had already nodded your head
about it, and promised that he should do so; but now they have brought
him in a ship fast asleep and have landed him in Ithaca after
loading him with more magnificent presents of bronze, gold, and
raiment than he would ever have brought back from Troy, if he had
had his share of the spoil and got home without misadventure.”
  And Jove answered, “What, O Lord of the Earthquake, are you
talking about? The gods are by no means wanting in respect for you. It
would be monstrous were they to insult one so old and honoured as
you are. As regards mortals, however, if any of them is indulging in
insolence and treating you disrespectfully, it will always rest with
yourself to deal with him as you may think proper, so do just as you
please.”
  “I should have done so at once,” replied Neptune, “if I were not
anxious to avoid anything that might displease you; now, therefore,
I should like to wreck the Phaecian ship as it is returning from its
escort. This will stop them from escorting people in future; and I
should also like to bury their city under a huge mountain.”
  “My good friend,” answered Jove, “I should recommend you at the very
moment when the people from the city are watching the ship on her way,
to turn it into a rock near the land and looking like a ship. This
will astonish everybody, and you can then bury their city under the
mountain.”
  When earth-encircling Neptune heard this he went to Scheria where
the Phaecians live, and stayed there till the ship, which was making
rapid way, had got close-in. Then he went up to it, turned it into
stone, and drove it down with the flat of his hand so as to root it in
the ground. After this he went away.
  The Phaeacians then began talking among themselves, and one would
turn towards his neighbour, saying, “Bless my heart, who is it that
can have rooted the ship in the sea just as she was getting into port?
We could see the whole of her only moment ago.”
  This was how they talked, but they knew nothing about it; and
Alcinous said, “I remember now the old prophecy of my father. He
said that Neptune would be angry with us for taking every one so
safely over the sea, and would one day wreck a Phaeacian ship as it
was returning from an escort, and bury our city under a high mountain.
This was what my old father used to say, and now it is all coming
true. Now therefore let us all do as I say; in the first place we must
leave off giving people escorts when they come here, and in the next
let us sacrifice twelve picked bulls to Neptune that he may have mercy
upon us, and not bury our city under the high mountain.” When the
people heard this they were afraid and got ready the bulls.
  Thus did the chiefs and rulers of the Phaecians to king Neptune,
standing round his altar; and at the same time Ulysses woke up once
more upon his own soil. He had been so long away that he did not
know it again; moreover, Jove’s daughter Minerva had made it a foggy
day, so that people might not know of his having come, and that she
might tell him everything without either his wife or his fellow
citizens and friends recognizing him until he had taken his revenge
upon the wicked suitors. Everything, therefore, seemed quite different
to him—the long straight tracks, the harbours, the precipices, and
the goodly trees, appeared all changed as he started up and looked
upon his native land. So he smote his thighs with the flat of his
hands and cried aloud despairingly.
  “Alas,” he exclaimed, “among what manner of people am I fallen?
Are they savage and uncivilized or hospitable and humane? Where
shall I put all this treasure, and which way shall I go? I wish I
had stayed over there with the Phaeacians; or I could have gone to
some other great chief who would have been good to me and given me
an escort. As it is I do not know where to put my treasure, and I
cannot leave it here for fear somebody else should get hold of it.
In good truth the chiefs and rulers of the Phaeacians have not been
dealing fairly by me, and have left me in the wrong country; they said
they would take me back to Ithaca and they have not done so: may
Jove the protector of suppliants chastise them, for he watches over
everybody and punishes those who do wrong. Still, I suppose I must
count my goods and see if the crew have gone off with any of them.”
  He counted his goodly coppers and cauldrons, his gold and all his
clothes, but there was nothing missing; still he kept grieving about
not being in his own country, and wandered up and down by the shore of
the sounding sea bewailing his hard fate. Then Minerva came up to
him disguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien,
with a good cloak folded double about her shoulders; she had sandals
on her comely feet and held a javelin in her hand. Ulysses was glad
when he saw her, and went straight up to her.
  “My friend,” said he, “you are the first person whom I have met with
in this country; I salute you, therefore, and beg you to be will
disposed towards me. Protect these my goods, and myself too, for I
embrace your knees and pray to you as though you were a god. Tell
me, then, and tell me truly, what land and country is this? Who are
its inhabitants? Am I on an island, or is this the sea board of some
continent?”
  Minerva answered, “Stranger, you must be very simple, or must have
come from somewhere a long way off, not to know what country this
is. It is a very celebrated place, and everybody knows it East and
West. It is rugged and not a good driving country, but it is by no
means a bid island for what there is of it. It grows any quantity of
corn and also wine, for it is watered both by rain and dew; it
breeds cattle also and goats; all kinds of timber grow here, and there
are watering places where the water never runs dry; so, sir, the
name of Ithaca is known even as far as Troy, which I understand to
be a long way off from this Achaean country.”
  Ulysses was glad at finding himself, as Minerva told him, in his own
country, and he began to answer, but he did not speak the truth, and
made up a lying story in the instinctive wiliness of his heart.
  “I heard of Ithaca,” said he, “when I was in Crete beyond the
seas, and now it seems I have reached it with all these treasures. I
have left as much more behind me for my children, but am flying
because I killed Orsilochus son of Idomeneus, the fleetest runner in
Crete. I killed him because he wanted to rob me of the spoils I had
got from Troy with so much trouble and danger both on the field of
battle and by the waves of the weary sea; he said I had not served his
father loyally at Troy as vassal, but had set myself up as an
independent ruler, so I lay in wait for him and with one of my
followers by the road side, and speared him as he was coming into town
from the country. my It was a very dark night and nobody saw us; it
was not known, therefore, that I had killed him, but as soon as I
had done so I went to a ship and besought the owners, who were
Phoenicians, to take me on board and set me in Pylos or in Elis
where the Epeans rule, giving them as much spoil as satisfied them.
They meant no guile, but the wind drove them off their course, and
we sailed on till we came hither by night. It was all we could do to
get inside the harbour, and none of us said a word about supper though
we wanted it badly, but we all went on shore and lay down just as we
were. I was very tired and fell asleep directly, so they took my goods
out of the ship, and placed them beside me where I was lying upon
the sand. Then they sailed away to Sidonia, and I was left here in
great distress of mind.”
  Such was his story, but Minerva smiled and caressed him with her
hand. Then she took the form of a woman, fair, stately, and wise,
“He must be indeed a shifty lying fellow,” said she, “who could
surpass you in all manner of craft even though you had a god for
your antagonist. Dare-devil that you are, full of guile, unwearying in
deceit, can you not drop your tricks and your instinctive falsehood,
even now that you are in your own country again? We will say no
more, however, about this, for we can both of us deceive upon
occasion—you are the most accomplished counsellor and orator among
all mankind, while I for diplomacy and subtlety have no equal among
the gods. Did you not know Jove’s daughter Minerva—me, who have
been ever with you, who kept watch over you in all your troubles,
and who made the Phaeacians take so great a liking to you? And now,
again, I am come here to talk things over with you, and help you to
hide the treasure I made the Phaeacians give you; I want to tell you
about the troubles that await you in your own house; you have got to
face them, but tell no one, neither man nor woman, that you have
come home again. Bear everything, and put up with every man’s
insolence, without a word.”
  And Ulysses answered, “A man, goddess, may know a great deal, but
you are so constantly changing your appearance that when he meets
you it is a hard matter for him to know whether it is you or not. This
much, however, I know exceedingly well; you were very kind to me as
long as we Achaeans were fighting before Troy, but from the day on
which we went on board ship after having sacked the city of Priam, and
heaven dispersed us—from that day, Minerva, I saw no more of you, and
cannot ever remember your coming to my ship to help me in a
difficulty; I had to wander on sick and sorry till the gods
delivered me from evil and I reached the city of the Phaeacians, where
you en
Denel Kessler Apr 2016
I am a borrower
collecting things that shine
all stashed in cracks and hidey-holes
where the rafters meet the roof
in the basement floorboards
lift one and you'll see
the treasures I've collected
two gorgeous glassy eyes
seven gilded antique buttons
a bouquet of sweetly fragrant lilies
a gleaming jar of pixie dust
three noble barristers
an Irishman netting butterfly dreams
a sorceress of the endless prairie
windmills like soldiers all in a line
the saddest porcelain doll
a small brown bear
trains screaming by on underground rails
a sprinkling of desert blooms
six jack-in-the-boxes so I'm always surprised
the hairless stuffed dog that bit me as a child
a Rickenbacker bass softly riffing the blues
a farmer's Ovation to accompany my woes
seashells that sing the ocean breeze
a merman from the Northern seas
tucked away in every space
packed within each sweet hollow
these simple pleasures I have borrowed
Poetic T Jul 2014
She was a creature of the sea
Half woman,
Half fish,
She wanted more to see, Than the fish of the deep,
She had seen the ships that sailed on by
Those that had sunken to the depths,
Tasted sailors hearts
As they sunk to the deep.
She had a Taste for those up above
But her father forbid it,
As she had tasted human flesh
She had been seen stripping it from the bone,
For the ships that sank
Where her doing to the depths they fell.
She enjoyed them warm,
Hearts,
Eyes,
Tongues,
Which she ripped out
With there drowning screams,
Then the let overs she feed to her
Friends of the deep.
She asked the witch, who knew her evil heart,
She said you have the hunger
I will help this once, a spell cast.
Black eels magic,
Eye of man,
Merman's gills,
Black death oil spilt,
What was once fish, make woman complete,
She woke upon a shore
A prince came upon, His heart she heard,
Then did awake, what is your name
She went to talk, but no voice did speak,
The witch had tricked her,
Curses spoke with no voice to speak.
She was taken to a castle, fed and dressed
Her clothes showed her womanly figure
Her ******* turned many a mans head,
For those that insulted,
There corpse thrown in to the deep,
But with one thing missing,
A hole where a heart did once beat.
She was of too ways she fell in love,
But the heart that beat smelled divine
hunger,
craving,
Hearts beat,
A kiss would seal his fate, but the witch
Had taken the voice of the siren of the deep,
She used her womanly ways
There was more than one way to hook a man
With out speech.
So she did what she did and he was hooked
At sea they were to wed
Not one kiss had pasted there lips
But the day had come dressed in white
This sinful woman of the deep,
Vows were said
Man to woman,
Woman to man,
In life and death you are no both wed,
The kiss tasted sweet, she could taste it
She felt the heart beat against her *****
And to the bedroom they did retreat,
Lust and passion a new experience
To make love in water was wet
To be dry and wet beneath Satin sheets
He took her deep, she was in two hearts
As they came together screams heard
No worries to those outside
There vows were sown or at least you think
For the moment of ecstasy as both did explode
Under the sheets
She took his heart and devoured it whole
The look of fear left frozen on his face.
The ship did scream all through the night
As one after another, beats did stop there beat.
She went to the hull punched through with ease
Sea water filled as it sank to the deep,
Others finished what was started
But Ariel was holding her love in her arms
A tear on cheek, but not of love
Because royalty tasted better than any other
Stripped to the bone
His skeletal form lost to the deep.
She was now back in true form,
She was a princess a hunter of the deep
One last heart she did taste
Corrupt as hers
The witch had betrayed,
Now her essence is
Devoured,
Consumed,
Her power now Ariels
Beware the princess of the deep.
You told me you were a cowboy;
I called you John Wayne.
You said you were off to work;
there were dragons to be slain.
You taught me how to swim;
I believed you were a merman.
You fixed a creaky door;
"my favourite handyman".

You could soar with the sunrise
and dive like the moon.
You knew everything there was to know,
and you were a Christmas day tycoon.

But I've never seen you ride a horse,
and fantasy makes you yawn,
I can swim for myself,
And I heard you were proven wrong?

Diving hurts your back,
and soaring's not my thing.
But you'll always be my superstar,
no matter how we're growing.
For my dad, even though I now accept that he can't fly.
Carolin Nov 2015
Your a fairytale. A merman
with pretty scales. A fantasy
a man that looks really fancy.
The eyes you have look crystal
blue. They make me want to
take a dip in them cause they
remind me of the deep blue sea.
And oh God the way you look
at me just makes me want to
stare at your pretty face for an eternity. Your eyes hold the
best of poetry. I saw love in
them the first time you turned towards me. Your beauty made
my skin blush from the inside
out and flowers bloom in every
corner of the room we were
standing in. I'm lucky to be
with a man like you. A man
that looks like the portraits
I have hung up on my
bedroom walls* ~
The lighthouse keeper and his son, one day
Were out on the rocks, by a blue-water bay

As the sea, their bare feet was laving,
They saw a mermaid, they first thought was bathing;

With long dark hair and eyes of green;
Like the mist of a loch, that sings.

She was struggling and sick, in the foamy sea
So they took her to the lighthouse, above the lea.

She begged and pleaded, to die in the sea;
But there in the lighthouse, she seemed fated to be.

A clawfoot bathtub  became her home,
And there she stayed, never to roam.

Some children taught her some words and rhymes.
To help her to pass all the weary time.

The lighthouse keeper thought she was his own,
Though from the sea, she was merely loaned.

Sometimes a midnight, would find him there
Combing her damp and tangled hair.

In her long confinement, he was the one
Kept her sane, since she could not run.

They had long discussions until daybreak,
Entirely by looks and gestures they'd make;

She taught him secrets no man had ever heard;
How she could still the sea, with inaudible word

And how she could tell by the look of the moon
If spring would come early, or winter too soon.

And how the waves, did murmur below
If the weather be rough, or the hard winds blow.

How she'd loved and lost one merman that
Had gotten too close, to a fisherman's net.

They'd had a child, by the madman's reef;
Was eaten by sharks, and how they'd grieved.

He fancied that someday, he'd like a kiss,
For kissing a mermaid, seemed like rare bliss

But something forebade him, to come that near;
So he was content, just stroking her hair.

One day he found her, dead in her tub;
Her heart had broken, all for his love.

No mermaid can tell human men of her heart,
Or else they'll spend their lives far apart,

It's a law of the sea, older than time;
So this be the end, of the mermaid rhyme.
Sarah Michelle Jun 2014
He
nearly died today
because his 30 second-old love
couldn't stay,
The ruby red
bird winged
Merman of His Dream.

His heart attacked
his very own watered lungs,
The tears
which stopped his heart
like a sneeze.

He prayed, "Please."

The hospital bed Lord didn't reply,  and
He felt the plump nurses were
telling him
lies.
Return of the sad, lonely, strange Frenchman of my daydreams.
Farihah F Dec 2013
She laughs, he smiles.
The black forest taste he could only taste at the peak of light beams
Her laugh seems similar, quite similar.
Her haha's outcasted the glooms and dooms
Just as the black forest melted on his taste buds when sun rays streaked upon his shoulder blades.

She cracked a joke, he laughs and nods
Intellectual is what they might say
A brainy maniac she is, who could co-host a sitcom
His Friday nights would now only be filled with her wits
Replacing all the beers and stouts for a while
His once bumpy and rocky throat is nil compared to the highly raised cheekbones visible during a good laugh

But one day she cried.
The guilt he carries overshadowed his sympathy.
Her big swollen eyes
Her pinkish and warm face which was covered in dribble
Hadn't he known?
All those time he made somersaults, he was drown deep below
He could breakthrough,
but was too mesmerized by the mermaid's blinking fishtail and scaly skin.

And she saved him
From being turned into a merman
Only then he was back to square one
Where her laughters, her jokes and her sobs are actually his sugar crush, his Gatsby gold
As always, she was after all, his soul saver.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
The Blue Men of the Minch



It is told that In poor weather or big seas, the Blue Men would come for you.  They would haul themselves—embodiments of storm and high water, malicious mermen—onto the deck, ready to pull you down. But then, they would  give you a single chance. The leader will throw you a line of verse and, one by one, everyone on board, from the skipper down, needs to offer a reply in like rhythm and meter. If by some chance all can answer poetically, the ship is freed and the Blue Men, those slimy *******, slide away to find another victim.

http://celticqueens.blogspot.com/2011/02/blue-men-of-minch.html

----------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------

Sept.­ 25th, 2012
2:51 AM

Thus it is in the real world.
Cancer, death, betrayal, disillusionment,
("Whatever," he snickers)
Rises up quick, bitterly blatant and obvious,
Pulls you down slow, enhanced by a phony lover/friends in disguise,
Eager, learned, in the ways of drowning you,
Testing you all, all of us poets,
Under fire, under siege, facing inevitable defeat.

Yes, you too, a poet.

You misheard.
It's not the poetry in motion,
But in emotion, where you too can win
A noble peace prize.

On certain days,
In uncertain times,
We are all Olympic athletes, poet laureates.
Some train all their lives for the seminal,
Most of us, wholly unprepared for the eventful,
Or worse, the tempered draining of the uneventful.

In the place where anger and fear commingle,
When the battery is dead, the only pole negative,
When sounds of life energy discharging skin-tingle,
In the hour, when the unemployed wake and walk,
Their past and future human debts crowding all other thoughts,
When the parent-less child cries out to the sound of no answer,
When we ask, why is my bed empty of love,
The Blue Merman are visiting and vesting,
Recruiting on your campus for new graduates.

Small, half consolations is all that's left on the table,
Single words, trite phrases of repetition,
why me,
Yield no comfort,
sate not, deafen and infect ache.

So commandeer the words hidden within,
Sort them by rhyme and meter,
Answer the critics, bend them over to your way,
Write your own poetry, fearing no ones judgement,
Put your self out there,
I have so many times.
Death, betrayal, disillusionment,
Regular visitors in the upstate prison cell of my head,
Are all greeted with new poems of old words,
Sent packing, but confident in their inevitable return,
I write defensively between their visits,
Best prepared, a good offense is eloquent literacy.

You offer me Xanax,
I offer you this.

Your endless supplies of potent, bitter pills,
No match for recombinations of Webster's diction,
All of us lesser poets of a higher degree.
Fresh out of inspiration so I dug this one out of the sewing box. Understanding takes work, time, reflection, most I suspect will read and discard....not bother to chew on it....I write defensively between their visits. Best prepared, a good offense is eloquent literacy.
DAEJR Aug 2014
You see, I know this guy,
with bright and gentle eyes—
sunflowers against blue skies . . .
A true angel in disguise.

He’s known since before he could fly
that he wasn’t like the other guys,
or the him in their minds, that decoy,
that never dreams of kissing a boy
for the purest joy. . .

No, he’d have to strengthen those wings
not to tangle in the strings
that sting, and cling, and sling,
to save his prince—
his king.

A feathered, armored knight,
he soars with grace and might.
In a weary world of fright,
he’d invite any height –
loyal beyond first light.

And you see, there I was, drowned in muddy water,
with gills choked on death’s slobber,
****** by the wave’s merciless slaughter
of hope, that bled and foamed atop the marauder,
and lost like the sea king’s youngest daughter,
I, a merman bobbed below the knight’s shadow.

He saw the faintest blush
of my lost soul and rushed
to grace me from my grave, flushed
and bathed me amid the rainbows in the waterfall, hushed
my toxic tears, that cursed and gushed,
and pecked my lips, as sweetly as a thrush.

His feathers fluffed, my scales standing on edge.
I nested in the angel’s white down hedge
till my heart and soul was nursed to fledge.
Our skin taught with tingly warm bumps, an intimate pledge.
I a he fell in love with he a him, and love became our kedge.

So you see, while my worries ebb and flow like the moon’s tide,
bringing questions of where a bird and fish can reside,
I trust in him I can confide, never to hide, but cast my fears aside.
We’ve already broken the surface where the air and water collide,
we need not the world far and wide,
we need only to carry each other inside
our arms, and together glide,
feathers and scales side by side.
A tale of feathers and scales.
M Clement Apr 2013
A werewolf in London
and a deadite in my basement
Ghosts in my TV
as Predators hit the Pavement

Engineers face the stars
On distant planets far
As Aliens bleed green
Leaving armor charred

The king of Lizards
sets foot in San Diego
With a Chupacabra
dwelling in Mexíco

Zombie Redneck Torture families
Say goodbye to the cashpot
Merman flopping forward, determined
A man's face really hits the spot

I have a hotpocket for lunch
And an appetite for destruction
Let's turn on the TV
And use it for one function
Dave Cortel Oct 2018
i was the land you once loved
and you were the voyager i admired
i remember you kissing
every part of me
with those steps of yours
making voices through rocks
as if singing with the ocean.
i was sleeping
when you explored my body
and i
felt the mixed
tenderness and roughness you
exerted while indulging yourself
in between my legs.
you fell in love
with the beauty i had
and all the flowers i
always bear in my land.
you knew i was pure
like a virg¡n that was so thirsty
for a miracle of rain and flood.
the trees, the fruits, the flowers,
all went thanking the gods
when they had seen you
exploring the untouched.
you appeared from nowhere
like a merman from a sea
that made my body aroused.
for a long long time
my soul was asleep
waiting for a knight
to kiss the purity
that my body had.
or perhaps,
waiting for another soul
to live in me and indulge itself
on exploring the parts
yet to be explored.
after all,
you were a voyager
just another voyager
yet the first voyager
who skirred my flesh
and treasures
just for your
self-indulging expedition
and you...
you never came back.
Stanley Wilkin Jan 2016
She noticed the basking shark was wounded,
weeping vaginal blood.
The tall man in a fedora whispered as he passed.
Whipped by exploratory waves, she blushed.
The horizon was a hazy green line dipped in red.
She had been there since morning
searching for love,
and found it
from a six-pack merman offering solace
as he rode on the silvery
back of a ray.
As he approached, the sun at his back,
she moaned and threw out her arms
like a supplicant.

Complete at last, the sand grasping at
her shoeless feet, she sank
towards the earth’s distant core
using her arms as uncertain ballast.

She awoke with a shiver
brushed away the sand
and headed back home.
The shark had turned belly-up,
scavenged by seagulls.

Another day-dream enjoyed in the
empty hours between lunch and dinner
between her third cup of tea
and fourth cigarette,
her children snoozing in
the back bedroom. Half-slumbering
in a town barked at by bothersome seagulls
where an unencumbered sun
set on a postcard shoreline.
Planning the rows of petunias to be
planted by the hedge,
making shopping lists,
writing novels, never to be published,
staring out of her windows at the sea
she waited for her husband’s return,
tedious evenings of T.V.
and coition under the brightly coloured duvet.
The waves that overwhelmed her, flooding her senses,
were her own. The man
in the fedora had made her smile.
****** fantasy loneliness housewife
Confession:
I'm not entirely a boy.
I'm in between genders right now.
Somewhere found in the cracks and crevices
underneath our ever crumbling binary.

A toss up between a proud queer girl,
and a fairy gay boy.
Yes sir,
But not a man.
Along the lines of
Prince and Princess,
Both King and Queen.

Don't call me a *** or **** -
Call me Genderfuck.
A concept you can't quite pinpoint,
At least it's an accurate depiction of your ignorance.

Genderpunk;
an identity wrapped up in style.
Androgyne -
A word that is not entirely girl
Not entirely boy,
But has elements of both.

I'm pushing away from women
when people put it on me.
It's dysphoric and uncomfortable.
So I run towards guy,
Phonetically and conceptually.

I want something other than human,
Not exactly person,
Alien, celestial or ethereal being
of which there is no words necessary.
Something...other.

But Agender rejects the concept entirely.
And I do not want to abandon the idea
that there is a word out there for me.
A community like me.

And before I hear any rhetoric about
having 'too many labels',
Let me just say:
If cats have taught me anything,
There is a huge difference between
Being put in a box,
And putting yourself in a box.

My ideal gender is something like feeling
part women, part dude -
not entirely male -
and part non-binary,
All simultaneously.

This may come as a surprise
But I do not deny my lady-like qualities.
I see strong, realistic female
representation
And I rejoice.
I feel part of that team.

I experience sexism and misogyny,
and I recognize how others perceive me;
as a girl.

Well in the context of a ******* girl relationship
Girlfriends doesn't seem that bad.
Being a butch lesbian,
or gay girl -
a feminine boy,
bisexual guy.
Though, I'm never a man.

Just something dancing along the edges,
Picking and choosing the flowers I am drawn to.
Ultimately something queer.

I want more access to words,
different types of non-binary,
A broader third category.
Six, Eleventh and,
Twentieth gender options.

Otherwise I'm caught gendering myself, always.
God or Goddess?
Mermaid or Merman?
Sure there's also merperson, merbabe,
godev, princev...

Referring to oneself - zeself?
As a magical being works.
Fae, Faerie,
Fae, Fem(me), Faer
pronouns would be cool
I just don't want to fully surrender
to being a girl.

Even though I know
there's no shame in it,
it still feels wrong,

It's misgendering
when I'm called "Miss" or "She".
I feel like crawling out if my skin
when I'm being forced into anything
womanly

Even though I have no
real quarrel with the concept.
I'm just uncomfortable with pronouns
and all the words around it.

I am anti-girl, negagirl,
the opposite of female
but not necessarily guy.
I am running away from cis-ness,
Cis-ciety.

And that's okay,
It's absolutely alright to feel this way.
The world told you what you were entirely
Based on your reproductive organs,
And doesn't that just sound a little funny?

Being trans doesn't have to mean
being at war with your body.
It doesn't mean you're born into a special group
A cool club, where others are barred access.

It means thinking critically
and wanting to redefine, redesign,
The way you are seen,
The way you see yourself,
and reclaim something
that was taken from you.

Folx, gender is fun.
It is fluid, and it changes,
it ages,
It starts to mean different things.

What you feel for now
doesn't have to be forever.
Move past the boundaries
others have set for you.

I encourage you to find your own
Trans doesn't have to be right
or wrong for you,
That's up to you to discover.
Just know you have options.

There's 7 billion people on this planet
So that's the possibility for 7 billion genders
And sexes.
Yes, that's a spectrum too.

***** and ***** are not the only thing
That defines you.
Think critically about the things
people have force fed you.

As for me,
I am a different breed of dude.
Not dad or father,
nor lady or daughter.

I fit with brother, guy, sir & gentlemen.
Call me fae, goth, punk, merhunk
and royalty.

Today I am a blank slate
A canvas I always have the potential to recreate.
Call me Damon.
That is my gender of the day.
Tanisha Jackland Jan 2017
I am lost
in the tide
of you.
The ebb and flow
of you,
will be
the death
of me, yet.
Sara Brummer Aug 2020
Fire, ice, air, all in liquid form,
sunken rigs and ancient dwellings,
secret serenity of tides,
oceanic greenhouse equal to all
planets where sunset flares
like Saturn’s rings, coral cathedrals,
rosy as ****** dreams, sun dissolved
in pices, hurrying to the depths
of darkness, mists cold as dawn.

And you, my Merman, god
of the day, skimming the surf,
helmet gleaming, blowing
your horn of departure.
You create the pleats and
furrows, seagulls pulling
in your wake. You catch
the light that kindles
the Atlantic, just as it
sets fire to my heart.
Lendon Partain Mar 2013
Troglodytism. get betwixt thy cave **** rats. amass!!! beyond the wooded canvas of life.
and lay beside thy corpse of agony
in the pits of all foul'd demon beknownst to thou's angst.

there lay the chalice of life.
Oh to lay in the darkness'
o' to bask in the decadence of no light.

Anti heat
forth go ye unto distraction.
To over sensual
to photopic cancer
all bio centric failure that reveals itself in the concord of vestige

only one

only one who's skin, brines to salt. Only one who's writhed on the depth of the cave
sub terrain.
Becoming convoluted
with ulcers. In the brain.
Stomach
esophagus.
Till veins squelch the blood from oxygen as gills. Sea water.
till muscle over sinews, Myomeres.
till acts of mycotic deprecations elude your own grey. Destruction.
And sap what is left
the bends corrode all health.
You eek out a full metabolism.
You finish all hopes with each loathsome meal intake.
death.

Oysters take over.
They create their home
shell of man.
Disabled to a merman, made, morose.
Barnacles infest recesses,
chasms that held mountains of bountiful moral.
Filled till bursting in the case fit for a brain,
but these ocean vermin walk the tightropes of this goblins neural bag.
Tearing each synapse.
Like the innards of a necrotic recluse.

I am the dying vagabond of the ocean.
Finally succumbing to its ethereal pitch covered floor,
where no reflections mourn for me
and ghost wail me no remorse,
as I metamorphose.
Into, detritus.
Ksjpari Aug 2017
A man rightly called an Oxymoron
Now is angry, now sad, now happy on
The same thing – he takes piton
To handle us – later I knew ******.
Anurag is my principal, a true merman
Treats all equally – good or bad of John.
Tried to understand when called upon.
Talking to him is like dealing with silicon.
Full of respect and encouragement shown
For anybody if needed; angry on python
Trying hit him at back. Never confused on
Any topic, asks if not notified – an Amazon
Of Maths flows from him – my Hero, my trigon.
I am developing a new style of writing poetry where ending words of a line rhyme with one another, at least in last sound. I named it Pari Style. Hope readers will like it. Thanks to those invisible hands and fingers which supported and inspired me to continue my efforts in my new, creative, artistic and innovative “Pari” style. Thanks for your inspiring, kind, soft fingers.
OnwardFlame May 2018
Your eyes light up in your face
Like warm blue pools I could bathe right into
I told you today just as I was leaving
That when you experience
That when I give you
Pleasure

You sing.
You open your mouth, that way you do
And your moans are made up of--
A slippery glass coated in butter
That I bite into
Like I can't have enough of it.

I was concerned your silence might mean
Silence
Teetering and drifting down into the sand
Of the beach where I left my tank top on
The sun scalding and tanning me
Leaving little raised bumps behind
Like all the times
I thought back on how
Things would never be the same
Between my family and I
Again.

It is nearly the Chicago summer
I remember the night we met
Before I wore a cape and thought not too much
Not too.

Your lips twitch when you respond
A little buzz of joy, stability, and the fear
Of the wild cards life might bring
I see you juggle them among a flurry of guitars
And the stars you reach up for
But can't quite reach
Not right this moment.

Though limbs long for height
Or expansion
I hope to encourage you
To see what is all around you
In a sea of color
In a parade of limelight
In a veil of simplicity, sincerity
Your integrity resides among it.

I watch you reach
Glimmer and croon on your stage
I seldom am a part of the audience
Eyes usually on me
But I'm glad to be a part of your audience
And that is something that I can proclaim
To be a first.
Adam Struble Jun 2014
the fish in the flow
the impure vessel
baptism of love in the darkness
the moon and the ego
orbit in illusion- are worshipped ill
stripped and displayed on the pedestal of self
bound and loathing in the shadow
and who tied the knots?
the architect of your indolence
now put the little minnow back in the water
and see if he swims or sinks
and the splash- a whale
right out of the blue-  a merman
emerged from underneath the illusion of separation
look into your own mysteries and your own demons
self awareness is fearless flow
i am clothed in the love of brothers
my placenta is wet and red on the floor
the question is simple
the answer is in your heart
the answer you give is boldly wrong
right in your very make up
instinct gives us sense and direction
trust the path of your heart
listen to the light inside and you will always be on the path
the black rose Jan 2019
beautiful pearly skin,
a head full of hair
with strands that dance to the beat of the waves.
stature equipped with light movements so swift,
i have not seen but i can tell your eyes are true.
out of the blue,
visiting shores
you reappear.
a simple peek,
dive in the deep
then disappear.
where did you go?
it seems like you were never here.
i think i saw a mermaid-man lol. it was probably just a regular man but my mind over-exaggerates everything so here’s a poem.
Olivia Kent Mar 2015
Living on the road of empty hearts and broken homes.
Got married with a curtain ring.
Ten years ago last Wednesday.
The bride wore royal blue, fashionable thing to do.
She crawled along in heels so high.
Snotty nose sniffing the sky.
Child one came along, I think she said his name was John.
Hated school had no friends.
Hated everyone.
Not her only son.
There after came a daughter,
A pretty gal they named Sapphire.
A gem of a name for a shabby chick.
Soon weighed down with a band of cold.
Got married to a Mormon, who thought he was a merman.
Believed together the two of them had some kind of future.
Played at architecture building castles in the sky.
And playing on the for sure (foreshore) beside the sea of obsolete dreams.
Delivered to the two of them a childish whim.
A child who grew and developed an addiction to sin.
He loved tea and coffee,wine, women and song.
From the broken home he was gone.
The sky castles evaporated,
Family dreams disintegrated.
Dissolution of dreams.
Welcome to austerity.
(c) Livvi
Charles Vorpal Oct 2021
Suddenly, I was a unicorn
With silver fur and eyes
My mane and tail bright blue
And of course, an ivory horn

Then, I was entrusted a duty
Of the greatest significance
I must officiate the wedding
Between twilight and sunset

Under cheering delighted stars
The lovers' carriage descended
With orchestral accompaniment
By the winds and the waters

A giant, fluffy purple puppy
Guided the wonderful brides
Towards my podium of petals
In this iridescent cathedral

Before this divine couple
I was so small, and so short
Yet, they are not intimidating
I felt bliss, and very blessed

With the help of a blue cloud
I gently crowned the goddesses
Deepest pride swelled within me
I proclaimed their eternal bond

Fireworks shimmered and sparkled
As they fed each other honey cake
Seeing them kissing passionately
Is truly the most touching scene

An elven queen suddenly kissed me
And now I am a shark-tailed merman
Getting ready for a new nuptials
Between adventure and mystery
Based on the Inktober prompt: KNOT
danny Sep 2017
Waves crash against the shore,
Bronzed Goddess laid bare,
I know you're looking,
I never care.

I feel your shadow
on my skin,
"Yes you can oil my back"
Lean forward, begin.

Coarse hands at work
Warm hands for play,
Looking forward to the splash
You can swim in my bay.

Lying beside me
Tilt my shades to view,
Your buoy propping up,
'Bout time you grew.

Taken in your arms,
greasy protection from the rays,
Secluded beach,
Sand for days and days.

Storming my own sand castle,
no need for a bucket,
my merman on the towel,
"Here's my clam, now **** it."

Matching the motion of the ocean,
Sand angel underneath,
they can hear my moans,
from the lighthouse to the deep.

All over tan,
no visible line,
Claim your salty liquid
as mine all mine,

Nature the best place to ***
I think as I grown,
You're wet from your swim,
Could never get this wet playing on my own.
Lyla while sunbathing at the beach, ***** a stranger

— The End —