"napoleon" poems
Look in the mirror
Look at the clock
Look at the time
It never has stopped
It only goes forward
It's a one way walk
See how you have been growing
You ask yourself, "where have the days been going?"
Time can only progress
Yes, the river of life is always flowing
We lived cabins
And castles and caves
We came from Adam and eve
We evolved from apes
From Socrates and Homer
To Napoleon and Alexander the Great
The minds that desired knowing
And the enlightened ones glowing
People can only advance
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Revolutions and rebellions
Riots and revolts
Great discoveries
A key, a kite and a lightning bolt
Great writings and inventions
Innovations from inspiring jolts
Improvement was showing
To the future the world was going
Humanity only began to develop
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Religions and sciences
Economics and politics
Television and radio
Monarchies and dictatorships
Tanks and machine guns
Atomic bombs and battle ships
We went from arrow shooting and spear throwing
The muskets needed reloading
To nuclear weapons
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Exploring new lands
To find the world wasn't flat
To find silver and gold
And buried artifacts
To establish new territories
And expand the map
The searching ship kept rowing
As civilization went on growing
Accomplishments of the past
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Boats and rail roads
Fair trade and industry
World wide markets
Over land and sea
To keep out nations going
And stablize the economy
But now every country has money that they're owing
And the land that they're owning
Is has evolved
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Social reforms
Counter cultures fight
They protest strongly
For equal civil rights
The world's in constant change
Every day turns into night
Every opening has its closing
And then it comes back again
As long as there's someone hoping
Yes the river of life is always flowing
We put people into space
We have fought for equality
Created a world from nothing
And advanced technology
We've struggle to go to where we are
And continue to go strongly
The opportunities fate has been bestowing
We look forward to see what is ahead
The memories and mysteries the hourglass is holding
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 2:40 PM UTC
Misogyny,
The hatered, objectification, and sexualization of women
His hands were too big for my eight year old body
My stomach turned in ways I could only describe as "icky"
I screamed until I could no longer feel any breath left in my lungs
"Stop it! Please! I don't like this game. Daddy stop!"
Time slows
Seeming like an eternity
Every touch was like a sparkler
Burning while tracing the path his fingers left on my body
When he was finally done
I gathered my thoughts and prayed to God to save me
When I went to the bathroom to clean up
I saw his handwriting on the mirror
Scrawled across it was a verse saying Hell was my only destiny
My body is not a bag of bones for you to play with and the burry
Poisonous words foam from your mouth like rabid dogs You pick pieces of my pride from your teeth
You think it’s okay to mess with women
To make them feel vulnerable
Just because you have a Napoleon Bonaparte complex That does not give you the right to steal our self-esteem To make up for the lack of your own
You say “Well maybe YOU shouldn’t have worn those slutty heals,
Or that dress,
Or your hair that way.”
You say “Maybe YOU should have done something
to avoid being a target.”
You say “Stop being so disrespectful.
I just wanted to see your ****
You have a real flair for excuses
So excuse me when I tell you
You will regret messing with a woman like me
You see, I keep my heart strapped to my steel-toed combat boots
And an army of mistreated women of speed-dial
We will hold you captive and make our war paint from your blood
As ransom notes fall from your mouth
With the words “I’m sorry” scrawled across them I hate to break it to you
But those words won’t sew up the open wounds you left us with
When you came in to *** in and steal our innocence
The thing you don’t seem to realize is
You might have taken our innocence
But that’s not what we are made of
We consume strength for breakfast,
Courage for lunch,
Wisdom for dinner,
And guys like you for a midnight snack.
We’re not just warriors
Were survivors
What you do to us doesn't define us
Were not broken
Were beautiful
And the more I think about it
You’re just dogs chained to a tree
While I’m the person
Who’s going to put your treachery to sleep.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC
The human mind is an interesting thing
Mine is very
As it tends to wander
I mean
Explore
I have been told by an authority
My wife
That she's never seen one like it
Although how she can see a mind
I don't know
She has seen a lot in her life
Both with and before me
She was a Travel Agent
She's been to Turkey
I like turkey
I made an interesting stuffing for turkey once
It was during my time in the seafood retail business
In a fish market
It, the stuffing I mean, had shrimp, scallops and crayfish in it
My wife didn't like it much, she's of Irish heritage
She's been to Ireland too
Twice
Once in college and once with her family
Ireland is where Delorian made his cars in the 1980s
Before he was arrested for trafficking in *******
I have not been to Ireland
I have been to France, Belgium and England
I stayed in Waterloo Belgium for two weeks
In the 80's
When I was 25
Waterloo is where Napoleon was finally vanquished
Beaten by an Englishman
They have a monument, the lion, on top of a big hill there
I had to climb it twice
The first time I forgot my camera
I got a new camera recently
A Pentax
I have had several since Waterloo
The camera hasn't been anywhere interesting
Just my back yard
I use it to take pictures of birds
At our feeder
In the big maple tree
On the ground
There is even a turkey that comes in our yard
My wife's been to Turkey
She was a Travel Agent
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 11:11 AM UTC
Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?
It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The **** of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!
Shh! These are chess people you play with,
Still figures of ivory.
The mud squirms with throats,
Stepping stones for French bootsoles.
The gilt and pink domes of Russia melt and float off
In the furnace of greed. Clouds, clouds.
So the swarm ***** and deserts
Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.
It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!
So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.
It thinks they are the voice of God
Condoning the beak, the claw, the grin of the dog
Yellow-haunched, a pack-dog,
Grinning over its bone of ivory
Like the pack, the pack, like everybody.
The bees have got so far. Seventy feet high!
Russia, Poland and Germany!
The mild hills, the same old magenta
Fields shrunk to a penny
Spun into a river, the river crossed.
The bees argue, in their black ball,
A flying hedgehog, all prickles.
The man with gray hands stands under the honeycomb
Of their dream, the hived station
Where trains, faithful to their steel arcs,
Leave and arrive, and there is no end to the country.
Pom! Pom! They fall
Dismembered, to a tod of ivy.
So much for the charioteers, the outriders, the Grand Army!
A red tatter, Napoleon!
The last badge of victory.
The swarm is knocked into a cocked straw hat.
Elba, Elba, bleb on the sea!
The white busts of marshals, admirals, generals
Worming themselves into niches.
How instructive this is!
The dumb, banded bodies
Walking the plank draped with Mother France's upholstery
Into a new mausoleum,
An ivory palace, a crotch pine.
The man with gray hands smiles --
The smile of a man of business, intensely practical.
They are not hands at all
But asbestos receptacles.
Pom! Pom! 'They would have killed me.'
Stings big as drawing pins!
It seems bees have a notion of honor,
A black intractable mind.
Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything.
O Europe! O ton of honey!
7.8k
somebody knew Lincoln somebody Xerxes
this man:a narrow thudding timeshaped face
plus innocuous winking hands, carefully
inhabits number 1 on something street
Spring comes
the lean and definite houses
are troubled. A sharp blue day
fills with peacefully leaping air
the minute mind of the world.
The lean and
definite houses are
troubled.in the sunset their chimneys converse
angrily,their
roofs are nervous with the soft furious
light,and while fire-escapes and
roofs and chimneys and while roofs and fire-escapes and
chimeys and while chimneys and fire-escapes
and roofs are talking rapidly all together there happens
Something,and They
cease(and
one by one are turned suddenly and softly
into irresponsible toys.)
when this man with
the brittle legs winces
swiftly out of number 1 someThing
street and trickles carefully into the park
sits
Down. pigeons circle
around and around and around the
irresponsible toys
circle wildly in the slow-ly-in creasing fragility
—. Dogs
bark
children
play
-ing
Are
in the beautiful nonsense of twilight
and somebody Napoleon
6.4k
We do **** culture in uhmerica.
What is uhmerican culture anyway?
I'll explain:
it's like,
irrationalized entitlement,
moral decadence on every side
of every fence &
sick narcissistic pride
to be parasitic,
a louse *******
the life out of
the whole **** planet.
Men who have
everything
still die from depression.
Women who call
freedom co-decency
bold faced oppression.
**** first question later.
Hermits complaining
about the rain when
they know **** well
they don't even go outside.
Everyone lies to
everyone lies to
everyone lies to
everyone lies to
everyone.
See?
It's a cycle.
A spiral.
Maybe it'll go quiet
into the night, or
maybe it'll ignite
the whole **** planet.
Has anyone else noticed
the rise and fall of
Napoleon & the Romans?
How every worldwide empire dies?
In a fiery gust of embarassment
that was the special from the start.
I've grown numb
to the disgust I felt
towards everyone else &
the fact that they're all
kind of beyond helping.
Now I'm just waiting
for it all to fall apart.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 3:58 PM UTC
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no on like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air—
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square—
But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!
He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s.
And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair—
Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty’s gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scap of paper in the hall or on the stair—
But it’s useless of investigate—Macavity’s not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
“It must have been Macavity!”—but he’s a mile away.
You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macacity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibit, or one or two to spare:
And whatever time the deed took place—MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
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JE ME SOUVIENS (I REMEMBER) by Céline Leduc 12/2013
I REMEMBER is the motto of Quebec
I remember the English colonized me.
I forget I colonized First Nations.
I remember multiculturalism is bad.
I forget it allowed me to keep my culture.
I remember the Church is my downfall
I forget it was Louis XIV and Napoleon politics
I remember my language matters
I forget I imposed language on First Nations.
I remember my culture
I want others to forget their culture
Quebec’s new motto should be
I FORGET -- J’OUBLIE
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 9:45 AM UTC
Off she went all dressed up to meet the guy she swiped left upon.
Five feet 10 his profile said but that's where all the lies began!
In she walked in her killer heels, eyes wide and bright to look for him.
But not a sign of him to see had he stood her up? How dare he!
Then at the bar worst for wear she saw his face and balding head.
How had he aged so much, so soon from the photos that made her swoon.
Well the truth aired and shots were fired, Napoleon's descendant had clearly lied!
The CEO of a successful business would be up at 5 for the newspaper deliveries.
His holiday home was a caravan, in the **** of Wales where no one went.
His hair had gone south long ago and his belly was chasing it now as well.
But in all of this, had she lied? Was she 48 or 55?
Had those lips been rendered too? With botox and the wrinkles smoothed.
At 48 or 55 that dress had some riples inside.
The parts Spanx can't control, where age and love handles roll.
She stayed they drank. Then drank again and laughed and talked of other things.
They danced made shapes for all to see like watching a form of epilepsy.
They left at one her shoes in hand, holes in her tights, lipstick smeared upon his cheek and a room to find to seal the deal.
Promises made to meet again and drink and dance and meet their friends.
Next week he was sat at the very same bar, watching the door for her enterance!
She? Oh no, nowhere to be seen. Across the town at another scene. This time an accountant, chartered too!
But we all know it isn't true.
Fairytale endings nowhere to be seen. Just nights of ****** and living the dream.
All in all is this all that they want? Repeating the cycle over again.
With another fool in fancy dress?
Viewed from the bottom of an empty glass.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 8:49 PM UTC
THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer.
The leather law books of Alexander's father fill a room like hay in a barn.
Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books.
The rain beats on the windows
And the raindrops run down the window glass
And the raindrops slide off the green blinds down the siding.
The boy Alexander dreams of Napoleon in John C. Abbott's history, Napoleon the grand and lonely man wronged, Napoleon in his life wronged and in his memory wronged.
The boy Alexander dreams of the cat Alice saw, the cat fading off into the dark and leaving the teeth of its Cheshire smile lighting the gloom.
Buffaloes, blizzards, way down in Texas, in the panhandle of Texas snuggling close to New Mexico,
These creep into Alexander's dreaming by the window when his father talks with strange men about land down in Deaf Smith County.
Alexander's father tells the strange men: Five years ago we ran a Ford out on the prairie and chased antelopes.
Only once or twice in a long while has Alexander heard his father say "my first wife" so-and-so and such-and-such.
A few times softly the father has told Alexander, "Your mother ... was a beautiful woman ... but we won't talk about her."
Always Alexander listens with a keen listen when he hears his father mention "my first wife" or "Alexander's mother."
Alexander's father smokes a cigar and the Episcopal rector smokes a cigar and the words come often: mystery of life, mystery of life.
These two come into Alexander's head blurry and gray while the rain beats on the windows and the raindrops run down the window glass and the raindrops slide off the green blinds and down the siding.
These and: There is a God, there must be a God, how can there be rain or sun unless there is a God?
So from the wrongs of Napoleon and the Cheshire cat smile on to the buffaloes and blizzards of Texas and on to his mother and to God, so the blurry gray rain dreams of Alexander have gone on five minutes, maybe ten, keeping slow easy time to the raindrops on the window glass and the raindrops sliding off the green blinds and down the siding.
3.9k
Men have been great,
from birth till death,
from Jesus to Napoleon,
Men have been great.
But what is it that makes men 'Great'?
Is it compassion and heart?
Passion and intensity?
Ferocity and battles?
humility and wisdom?
It depends on who you ask.
Fame perhaps, makes these men great,
thats something they all have in common.
A positive reputation in the eyes of someone,
be it a follower, a supporter, a believer.
What is 'greatness'?
such a good question.
What makes men 'great'?
Another good question.
The time has come
to ponder on this final question,
"Can I too be great?"
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 8:14 AM UTC
My fingertips will never let me forget the scent of stale cigarettes.
I was a fool in London. All the friends I made had better accents than me.
I dreamed of Bulgaria and Brazil.
I walked through mud. I waited for French tides.
I trudged in heavy water waders.
My hands built a house with stones older than the country on my passport.
The etching of cement on my boots still reminds me what we carried there.
We drove along tired volcanoes and craggy cliffs in the dark.
I never learned how to drive manual.
We flew further south. I dried out in the sun.
The glands of Spanish streets pulsated
citrus mist into the air, my lungs.
I never did remember the difference between limon and lime.
We stayed in a haunted castel but missed Halloween.
The upper peninsula, where Napoleon dreamed of a better dinner.
We moved to Shangri-La. Even in Eden, people still snore.
But there were cakes laced with flowers. And I was over the moon.
Then, a dreamscape. The closest to the Arctic I’ve ever been.
We ate deer for dinner. I baked Danish pies. I slept supine in a smoke-filled yurt. It was all peace. It was all over.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:49 PM UTC
If Napoleon had read
Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'
he would stay in bed all day long
with Josephine instead of waging war in Russia.
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 9:22 PM UTC
Gravity is negligible
Ground below disappears
Stars are within reach
And our energy grows
Even Einstein envies us
Because time stops
When we are together
Control is needless
With full confidence
we make every desire reality
Even Atlas envies us
Because the world lies
In the palm of our hands
When we are together
As brave warriors
We boldly crash
Every border ahead
For a higher cause
Even Napoleon envies us
Because we are the masters of power
When we are together
The melody of
Our melded bodies
Is the only thing we hear
Even Mozart envies
The perfectly composed symphony
When we are together
Moral vanished
Rationality forgotten
Our psyche ruled by Id
Even Freud envies us
because pleasure is the only drug we use
When we are together
The fantasy is real
As is the breathing
Mine and yours
Deep and passionate
Even Nietzsche envies us
Because the Übermensch becomes alive
When we are together
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 5:27 PM UTC
When Napoleon walks into my house, he doesn’t shake my hand
Instead he nods, clears his throat, and says my other name, “Thien.”
“Chu,” I say. He sniffs the air like a K-9 from Denmark,
presses his lips into a line, like one found on a blank page,
like one found on a mirror, and like one found in McDonalds.
He smells the smoke from the Marlboro lights on my black-Tee shirt.
I reach into the pocket of my trousers, searching for cologne:
Tommy; ocean; breeze. It’s lost. I mutter, “son-of-a-bi—”
Chu stares, tries to punish me. I want to laugh, want to shrug.
“Anh-Thien,” says a young voice. I close my eyes. And see my cousin.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:04 PM UTC
Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings
When far away upon a barbarous strand,
In fight unequal, by an obscure hand,
Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!
Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red,
Or ride in state through Paris in the van
Of thy returning legions, but instead
Thy mother France, free and republican,
Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place
The better laurels of a soldier’s crown,
That not dishonoured should thy soul go down
To tell the mighty Sire of thy race
That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty,
And found it sweeter than his honied bees,
And that the giant wave Democracy
Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.
2.8k
EVERY year Emily Dickinson sent one friend
the first arbutus bud in her garden.
In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson
remembered a friend with the gift of George
Washington's pocket spy-glass.
Napoleon too, in a last testament, mentioned a silver
watch taken from the bedroom of Frederick the Great,
and passed along this trophy to a particular friend.
O. Henry took a blood carnation from his coat lapel
and handed it to a country girl starting work in a
bean bazaar, and scribbled: "Peach blossoms may or
may not stay pink in city dust."
So it goes. Some things we buy, some not.
Tom Jefferson was proud of his radishes, and Abe
Lincoln blacked his own boots, and Bismarck called
Berlin a wilderness of brick and newspapers.
So it goes. There are accomplished facts.
Ride, ride, ride on in the great new blimps-
Cross unheard-of oceans, circle the planet.
When you come back we may sit by five hollyhocks.
We might listen to boys fighting for marbles.
The grasshopper will look good to us.
So it goes ...
2.6k
159
A little bread—a crust—a crumb—
A little trust—a demijohn—
Can keep the soul alive—
Not portly, mind! but breathing—warm—
Conscious—as old Napoleon,
The night before the Crown!
A modest lot—A fame petite—
A brief Campaign of sting and sweet
Is plenty! Is enough!
A Sailor’s business is the shore!
A Soldier’s—balls! Who asketh more,
Must seek the neighboring life!
2.5k
On love and astral travelling,
Through the stars we're wandering,
On the universe we're pondering,
My eternal love, Napoleon,
Intangible man, but full of fun,
Our jewelled cloak of stars,
We've journeyed from afar,
Shape shifting, glittering,
On love and astral travelling,
I'm no Carlos Santana,
I have no scarlet bandana,
I am the oestrogen,
Old Josephine,
Where haven't we been?
I have no testosterone,
You're my "Yes, master!" Napoleon---
On love and astral travelling,
Sentimentally wandering,
Are you Angelus or Incubus?
Reminiscing, reflecting,
Comical groupies for loving,
On love and astral travelling......
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 12:30 AM UTC
Cakes & Ale
I woke up in a bakery they do start early, the aroma of bread
is wonderful, they were also making cakes whipping creams.
Napoleon cakes and Danish pastry, black forest gateau and other
pastries I have as a child looking through the windows of bakery
shops admired. Too much, I walked outside and lit a *** inhaled
deeply and the tobacco soothed my mind, giving me a feeling of
fullness. It was only then I remembered I have diabetes, a heart
problem and have not smoked for 15 years. Has it been worth it
this forgoing of the good thing in life; I’m not sure, it may extend
my life for a few more years of pain and misery, will I die regretting
the cakes I didn’t eat and the **** I didn’t smoke?
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 4:09 PM UTC
JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.
The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.
Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.
Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The Woolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.
The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.
The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...
The mob ... kills or builds ... the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.
I am born in the mob-I die in the mob-the same goes for you-I don't care who you are.
I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother-I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother-I die for you and I **** you-It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:
One more arch of stars,
In the night of our mist,
In the night of our tears.
2.4k
Cakes & Ale
I woke up in a bakery they do start early, the aroma of bread
is wonderful, they were also making cakes, whipping creams.
Napoleon cakes and Danish pastry, black forest gateau and other
pastries I have as a child looking through the windows of a bakery
shops admired. Too much, I walked outside and lit a *** inhaled
deeply and the tobacco soothed my mind, giving me a feeling of
fullness. It was only then I remembered I have diabetes, a heart
problem and have not smoked for 15 years. Has it been worth it
this forgoing of the good thing in life; I’m not sure, it may extend
my life for a few more years of pain and misery, will I die regretting
the cakes I didn’t eat and the **** I didn’t smoke?
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 3:04 AM UTC
Anglophilia
An early passion
one cannot say
when or why
perhaps his father's admiration
or was it his mother's apprehension
for them
Leaves of sweet ruby tea
hot ginger pasties
glory of candle skinned ladies
the warm eyes and cold hearts
what lovely cats you have
Avon flows, its quiet cenote waters
surrounding the poetical urns
Cheery children
noses against windows
those of shopkeepers
that smothered
Napoleon
Yes, Avon flows
the timely midnight trains
to a myriad country stations
all the many
noble selfish
ideals
Joy of bright roses
in a small garden below
where the Keats still play
Adam and Eve
and hear the City's pride
its mechanical soul
sing its hollow lonely tune again
Oh, where did all the angels go?
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
Edgar Lee Masters. 1869–
Silence
I HAVE known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence for which music alone finds the word,
And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities—
We cannot speak.
A curious boy asks an old soldier
Sitting in front of the grocery store,
"How did you lose your leg?"
And the old soldier is struck with silence,
Or his mind flies away
Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.
It comes back jocosely
And he says, "A bear bit it off."
And the boy wonders, while the old soldier
Dumbly, feebly lives over
The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
The shrieks of the slain,
And himself lying on the ground,
And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
And the long days in bed.
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist.
But if he were an artist there would he deeper wounds
Which he could not describe.
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of a deep peace of mind,
And the silence of an embittered friendship,
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech,
There is the silence of defeat.
There is the silence of those unjustly punished;
And the silence of the dying whose hand
Suddenly grips yours.
There is the silence between father and son,
When the father cannot explain his life,
Even though he be misunderstood for it.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
There is the silence of Lincoln,
Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
And the silence of Napoleon
After Waterloo.
And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc
Saying amid the flames, "Blesséd Jesus"—
Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those who have not lived
The great range of life.
And there is the silence of the dead.
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences,
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death?
Their silence shall be interpreted
As we approach them.
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 2:24 AM UTC