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Dapple-throned Aphrodite,
eternal daughterf God,
snare-knitter! Don't, I beg you,

cow my heart with grief! Come,
as once when you heard my far-
off cry and, listening, stepped

from your father's house to your
gold car, to yoke the pair whose
beautiful thick-feathered wings

oaring down mid-air from heaven
carried you to light swiftly
on dark earth; then, blissful one,

smiling your immortal smile
you asked, What ailed me now that
me me call you again? What

was it that my distracted
heart most wanted? "Whom has
Persuasion to bring round now

"to your love? Who, Sappho, is
unfair to you? For, let her
run, she will soon run after;

"if she won't accept gifts, she
will one day give them; and if
she won't love you -- she soon will

"love, although unwillingly..."
If ever -- come now! Relieve
this intolerable pain!

What my heart most hopes will
happen, make happen; you your-
self join forces on my side!
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
.i'm in luck, they're selling it at under 11 quid right now,
stock dry - gone in an instant - laphroaig like -
but not as smoky - but smoked scotch it it
at £10.34 - oh the little joys of having little money to spend -
you end up less picky and less hoarder and
the junk yard.


na głowe sypano mi, tak popiół:
     popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
           popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
                 popiół! a obiecano mi *****!

                  (not my words... lao che's dym)...

me, beer, cigarette, outer-suburbia -
police whizz past, silent with flare
or screaming toddler and Odysseus' 20 sirens
with wax in the ears of oaring company
akin to Ajax'ς vitality -
along the way, my neighbour (who's mother
killed my cat.. listen, i know he had
heart problems, he was on aspirin -
but kidneys, even if complicated are not
real problem, felines take longer to ****
than do the no. 2, pigeons don't have kidneys -
they're always of an **** diet of diarrhoea;
write like Aristotle sometimes,
forget the facts, be wrong, get it wrong,
never put a glass cup into the waterfall of
poetic cascades - get it wrong, be wrong -
get to know yourself - it's not that dumb
to be predictable in yourself -
if you allow self-predictability you will
see certain social events as being pointless -
you'll see friends and "friends" -
self-predictability is a verb, compounded -
i already know i'll make references to grammar
and it being missing in philosophy -
no, not coherence and appropriate arrangement -
i mean undoing the box of thing-in-itself
and the subsequent tennis with a brick wall,
to surprise yourself when something is unearthed,
a little piece of the puzzle - simulating awe,
the genesis of all that's to come, even awe from a yawn
and boredom... it's here somewhere... i'll karate
catch it with chop sticks.... (looking around)...
i don't know, might be a moth or a fly...

Antichrist: or a summary of Antisemitism - a variant of,
or at least a concentration - mainly confiscated
by Christianity - prime complaint:
a democracy of Anointed One (Messiahs) -
obviously a manifested justifiable practice of Antisemitism -
the throng of Golgotha intelligence quotient -
Jew v. Jew, and one convert from the delusional
4 x 4 (in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy
                                         spirit... hold on!
                                    i make four gestures... and make a fifth
                 with Romeo and Juliet talking -
St. Matthew-Luke-Mark-and-John... penta penta pent-up
pentagon - evidently there's a pentagrammaton somewhere:
ah! i b l i s.                       Surat no. via Rumi - 7:143 - veils and
the one - reward in heaven - more veils, gardens veils,
grapes in heaven veils - stomach a veil - hunger a veil -
rewards in heaven also veils - the poem?
praise be Jesus - and Jason and the Argonauts - and whoever
wanted a strawberry flavoured pastiche to lick tears off -
love's apocalypse, love's glory -
         well bloodhound eyes say it all - droop drool -
droop & drool... Jack & Jill... went up the hill, and passed
the Grimm Bro. baton to Hanzel und Gretyl in the 100m x4
relay of Disney Limps - then rabbinical literature to sober up -
Albotini's Sulam HaAliyah (Ladder of Ascent, formerly Jacob's
ladder - to be: Ladder of Skip-rope; Oxford, hello! yes,
can you please consider un-hyphenating what is desirably
a compound worthy word in the practice of German?          )?
is a bracket necessary anywhere and i missed it?
Antichrist - or a very strange form of antisemitism -
be like a Jew, congregate applauding in the right corner: Jesus -
in the blue corner: Crux Golgothia.
export from Portugal - the said book -
key principle (kefitzah) jumping or skipping (dilug) -
and this being applied to the one practice of mystic Judaism -
the ****** gematria; hishtavut (stoicism) -

me - is it still 20 quid for an eighth?
Sim (my neighbour) - yeah, but these days
                                       they sort of cheat,
                                       you'd get an eighth nibbled on,
                                       twenty for a tenth?!
me - ******, well, we can't expect it to not happen,
         we had coin debasement - clippings of silver
         keratin with Siliqua, third stage and
         all encoded authority is gone: Thomas and Anne
         till death and nail clippings be fraud unison in
         the depart (or when narration extinguishes
         a character, the character is worth nothing -
         the narrator wakes up - all the characters run
         like phantom-hares into nonexistence -
         phantom! thin air!
politeness said: only one **** at the wacky wee ö wee
(umlaut O / double oh, 007 - 00'7 - double u... oh!
                                 i get it!                             Jamie Oliver!)
DEI.GRA.REG.FID.DEF.
   "   (-tia) (-ina)(-ei)(-ensor) -
all that would have been clipped - authority of visage -
the courtesan only knew the mint in silver
and the mint in the flesh - hence clipping of coin
to erase the authority from the holy authority of words -
in the beginning - but once dei.gra.reg.fid.def.jpeg /
                                   dei.gra.red.fid.def.gif.

that ****** moth is here somewhere! there it is! catch it!
                                                             ­   catch it!
SLAM!          and the job is done )                                      ).
i really waiting a bus stop pretending to wait for a bus
toking on a joint - joint is mix tobacco and wee wee
and spliff is pure? i forgot the slang - haven't been
addicted to it in years.
Sim - yeah, that's how it is. work in central london -
         have to get up early in the morning.
         corporate finance - no that's a commercial firm,
         corporate finance - McDonald's, etc.
me - oh cool waiting for  ghost bus - never get paranoid
         then?
(police cars whizz by)
Sim - n'ah, a perfectly decent area, got stopped once,
          three years ago.
and the price goes to the laziest narrator in history - absolutely
no engagement with characters - it's too real, everyone's
lying - this is the second time i spoke to my neighbour properly
in the past.. ooh 2002... 14 YEARS - it's not even funny -
no amount of marijuana will make you feel comfortable -
you can mate and make Kingston handshakes and what not -
this is purity of absurdity and western isolation,
we went against the maxim: no man is an island on purpose,
not by chance like Robinson Crusoe -
at least Crusoe had a talking Friday - we have a ghost
of Michael Faraday on Friday - ******* disco blink blink -
poet... or alt.: the narrator complex - inhibitions toward
character craft and pseudo-schizoid symptom -
believing in ghosts is easy, fiction writers and their ghosts
and abortions, hardly a way to escape from that -
poetry: rebellious narration - just anything with narration,
modern fiction is read like a chess match between deep blue
and Kasparov - or Pavlov v. Jezebel playing gynaecologist.

blank.... blank... wait for the atoms trilled R to make
their toady presence felt -
the more pricier the whiskey the more pristine water,
i.e. you get drunk more easily -
anyone that smokes marijuana and thinks
they're clever are stupid; how many people are out there that are
stupid!
- resounding hearsay-hooray!
drugs, ******, crack, blow, marijuana, ****, ***,
  cannabis, dope, ******, mary-jane, 13, M - herb shake -
Humphrey saying to Bogart - that joint.
as said in Saudi
Arabic - a Ferrari G.T.I. and MeKubalim HaMitbodedim
                  )
                                  -chism - schism - sky - ski -
                                  cha cha, cha cha - kilo or 100th -
                                  1000 thd. - hundredth a thousandth -
                                  - where then the acute,
                                  timber from Czechs -
                                  kebab from Mesopotamia -
                                  and the Trojan horse to boot -
                                 chatter - chopper whopper -
                                 astoikism - not chew off
                                 curve into cherish but
                                 cravat chew in -
                                 Slavic mining zed - czarna
                                 ciasność - blackened claustrophobia.
a Buddhist clap
                   immersion -
left handed the right hand claps against air
                  )             )              )               )            ) ) )            )
a night at the Opera, right handed the left hand claps against air
(                       (        (            (               (          ( ( (            (
scimitar Luna - so they said, would like an audience with the
further unmentioned mention -
you're mates with neighbours who over 14 years you only
spoke to the count of thumb and index on occasion -
and thus necessarily high -
i was going to write something really important before
i finalised this draft... but i forgot what it was...
got almighty this whiskey is good...
i'm smoking salmon and pickling reindeer hooves and antennas;
a bit like practising Chinese miracle medicine with
whale blubber and Mongolian nostril hairs.

it's not about loving your enemies -
this love sinister must be invoked as: making your
enemies bearable.

i'm sure i had something concerning poetry and narration -
ah! it was... poetic compensation -
a.d.h.d. narration - attention deficit hyperactive disorder -
true - all psychiatric terms are metaphors -
at least outside the psychiatric realm -
poetry as a.d.h.d. meaning: shrapnel narration -
a custard pie of missing characters -
poetry: i.e.: the inability to believe in ghosts
or write characters - claustrophobic or agoraphobic narration?
a mix of both - poetry - the inability to conjure
Ouija fancies - poetry, the over-specialised gift for
narration, but an inability to invent characters -
poetry, the truth of the narrative, and the truth of un-invented
characters, poetry: the ability to narrate, coupled
with the inability to create characters -
fiction and the dumb narrator - poetry and the exquisite
narrator - fiction and the exciting characters -
poetry and the God - our focus is based on that vector,
or bias to that vector - fiction and the Oscars -
narrator and director - when to change from first person
to third person - again Burroughs was right -
images 50 years ahead of writing - a bit obvious,
nothing spectacular with that phrase -
lightning and the sons of thunder: 12 of them -
made the tetragrammaton less spoken and swear words
fucken-uppen censored so the crucifix and **** could
collide - a fine fine excuse - the Boeing 747 first
and later the quasi-sonic broom shoo' 'mm -
poetry as fiction disguised when fiction was given
a seance with pure narratives - splinter group:
philosophy's juggling with pronouns esp. the plural deviation
from first person as if to proper punctuation -
psychiatry and the theory of pronoun usage -
poetry and the pronoun rōnin (macron = umlaut -
count to two, or prolong - reasonable man / **** sapiens, pre-noun pro-adjective / adjective attache-noun, noun counter-noun es duo-adjective, Kellogg's sunrise cockle-doodle-dip-in-tartan-chess) -
only poetry mediates the parallel vectors of prose-fiction and philosophy - it consolidates the use of pronouns, art of poetry alone -
pure narration we're talking about,
the narrator and characters of its fancy,
philosopher and dialectical placebos (character equivalence)
with self-conscious moments, mono-pro-noun - alone i name -
the sacred squash wall of lecturing an invisible audience -
rummaging epitaphs in a graveyard along with birth dates
and live by dates - yes, that sacred we philosophers use -
an entire theatre was summoned to continue in appearing
sensible when writing without fictive apparitions -
enabling a fluidity in pronoun use, without sensible letter
writing, as in dear sir,
                                       me in reverse, thank you.
w
RF Aug 2013
When I have the dream
that I am pulling him
from the castle, by such
crude force, and I dream that
Otto, my dawn compatriot,
has him by the collar
face down
I feel myself out of that
assumed body, still present in
the scene – and each time
I recourse to the knowledge
that the lake has a great depth,
an unknown depth at its deepest point
So when the ripples are subsiding
When Otto stands in that detumescent
pose, I look very simply and solemnly
at the water, and my outside self
just above
is revelling in recourse to
the lake's unknown depth.
The beast I am
cannot know the serenity in that great depth

With that in mind
I long to plunge him, to
plunge my surrogate frame into
that beautiful water
among the weeds, the trout and
the body
And dive
in nervous equanimity
to that depth
to know that fact
and to hold my arm out
through the deep
as a line to the surface

but I am conscious of
the approaching light
so we leave, Otto and I,
the morning sun warming
us, releasing the dew;
I know I will return
to the cold room
to erase all the lines;
spent
after the relentless
****** of a man many citizens
of my nation
suppose to be perfectly innocent

In another vision
I emerge onto the lakescene
in a slender junk
my white drapery
and my precious oaring
does much to disturb
the Guineverean twilight;
close to the bank
where the fog has receded
there are orbs
I am younger
than I have been
for some time now
and just as each movement
that I am making
in my elegant junk
strikes me as being unique
I am faced with his image
over again
in the same humour
the likeness
over again
they could not find the body
in the deep lake

I can make a confession
that I am alone on this trip
confident, though
quite old
with my husband long departed
this is a confessional piece
about when we went to the lake
and I swam
and he was watching
and we were quite young
and I thought I might marry him
and I did
and after the drying off
and the drink of water
he was telling me about Ludwig, looking out over the Starnbergersee
with his mournful eyes
I cannot say if I loved him now
I cannot say if 'summer surprised us' as the poem said
he liked the poem
his mother was named Marie
and our house had a wonderful garden
so that poem was evocative, I suppose
you could read it that way
I didnt open my body again

I often wonder if the silence
owes something to my
nightly ritual
my method of calm:
I lie very still in the dark
burrowed into the sheets
and I imagine each being
reposing in the uniform rooms
the light outside almost without colour
within, it is only I,
repeated throughout each room
and each room's little boxed being, I am
luming over the bodies
to extinguish any little vestiges
in those cognisant minds –
the memories falling;
dim petals around me
every time my hand
on a bright body
the sssssss sound
that leads to the inevitable blossom
that is falling around me
Michael W Noland Apr 2013
Gonna be
What i'm gonna be

Doesn't matter
How you sing it

I have to be
Fluid and free

It doesn't matter

Where the breeze
Takes it

They are gonna see
What they wanna see

It doesn't matter to me

They are gonna think
What they wanna think

With only half the story

It doesn't ******* matter

I'm gonna be big one day
Get stuck in a cave

And i'm gonna sing one day
Into your blades

A slave to the pain
We will float away in a daze
Of my ways straying
Through the stains
Of my disdain

And of my profanity

Happily
******* clad

For all to see

The worn scars
Of moonbeams
Puncturing my heart
With fresh starts

And of parts grown
Big enough to impart

Mourning

Oaring throw the dark

From broken homes
Of loneliness
And atonement

To your unknowing
Unto mine

Bigger
Blacker
Cloud of nine

Pull me closer
Track the mileage

See me through
Or see me out

Just shut
Your ******* mouth

hear it out

The wind
It blows

A cinder of thought

The grin
From whispers

Tickling to talk

The clock
It spins

In predictable sections

But the hand
It slows

In lesser lessons

Be a friend
Be an enemy

Just don't disrupt
The creative energy

Take me

Take me down the stream

Make me
Make me see again

But forgive me
Forgive me now

I will leave you there
Crying out

For crying out loud
From emptied stares

We can laugh
When its way back there

And nothings as barren
As it seems

Gonna be big one day
Gonna get stuck in a cave

Gonna sing to you one day
Sing to your blades

Gonna slave to your pain

And we

We will still be

Okay
Seán Mac Falls Feb 2016
A lone, lorn traveler
In silence and memory,
Writes to one flame at night
In a room where no answering
Appears, only shadows speak
With out lips to endear.  A lone
Traveler has time sutured to will
Cast in a tomb of what might have
Been.  He scrawls on chalky sheets
In the mausoleum of murk and dream,
His flame was once a face, real as now,
Filled with light unlike the later seasons
Of split rooms crowding.  So much of life
There once was to be lived, her flesh, burnt
Fertile, her eyes knowing promise, her blood
Red rains of hair, endless sojourns beyond myth
Or fable, a thousand barks, her swains over ocean
Silenced by her lips of love for you, only, a lone traveler,
Captain of all oaring ships launched from the plain shores
Of loss under a cliff so high, where his once long devoted
Before wrote a vow of love to all his follies, fates, travails
And gave her hand, to bloom of youths so glorious.
Carl Miller Feb 2019
My bedroom ceiling, I've noticed, is not perfectly smooth
A vast little land with little bumps, bruises, stains, and holes
I like to lie and think of the little battles that took place there
Just above My restless head while the nightlights sway and soothe

My brother sleeps across the room, loud, roaring, and snoring
Enough to keep Me up past midnight, enough to make Me scream
Every hiccup, belch or restless motion, tosses him up like an upset ocean
And as I lie there, growing tired, I begin to find his noises boring

My canine ears enjoy eavesdropping
On animals, cars, people and things
An airplane soaring, a gondolier oaring
The neighborhood dog growling and barking, or My sister's movie night popcorn popping

My stuffed pets lie, awake with Me too
They won't drift off to sleep until I do
I hold My stuffed dog, Rover, to My chest
Trying to sleep, at My father's behest

There will be evenings, just like this one, where I climb into bed, and lie awake at night
Where sleep will cleverly evade Me, and dreams will ignore My every plea
But blessed am I, to be safe in My bed, safe in My home, safe with My family
There's always a chance, that You can drift off to sleep, as soon as You turn out the ceiling's light
Written 02/06/19

Everyone has nights where they can't fall asleep. I wrote this late one of those nights. And this poem transcends My every thought when I think of drifting off to sleep. Feel free to give this one a read if You're feeling sleepless. God Bless.

-Carl
Seán Mac Falls Jun 2017
.
A lone, lorn traveler
In silence and memory,
Writes to one flame at night
In a room where no answering
Appears, only shadows speak
With out lips to endear.  A lone
Traveler has time sutured to will
Cast in a tomb of what might have
Been.  He scrawls on chalky sheets
In the mausoleum of murk and dream,
His flame was once a face, real as now,
Filled with light unlike the later seasons
Of split rooms crowding.  So much of life
There once was to be lived, her flesh, burnt
Fertile, her eyes knowing promise, her blood
Red rains of hair, endless sojourns beyond myth
Or fable, a thousand barks, her swains over ocean
Silenced by her lips of love for you, only, a lone traveler,
Captain of all oaring ships launched from the plain shores
Of loss under a cliff so high, where his once long devoted
Before wrote a vow of love to all his follies, fates, travails
And gave her hand, to bloom of youths so glorious.
.
Mike Adam Apr 2016
water boatman oaring
surface tension

lotus floating
tadpole below
snail mudsliding

koi refracting

frog jumps in

SPLASH!
Penelope Winter Jul 2017
S oaring over cotton clouds, so close you can feel them
E levation rising, even the peaceful feel butterflies
V ery little leg room, time to pace the aisles
E astward we fly, the Atlantic waves wave from below
N othing compares to watching the Sun rise from a front row seat in heaven

H ow magical, and powerful, to glide with the wings of an industrial bluebird
O ver mountains and skylines, even skyscrapers become building blocks, leaving nothing left to be awed
U ltraviolet rays weave by on their way to scorch soft skins
R estless temper tantrums of rebellious winds cause turbulence

F lying with my head in the clouds
L iterally
I think of how many miles each passing minute puts between us
G ently but surely this machine pulls me away from your embrace
H ow long these next few weeks will last
T il I see you, back home, again

- p. winter
A quick poem during a long, seven hour flight away from home...
T R S Mar 2018
Joy jostled just jitters
Kidding, kindness kindled
Lots, lowered lifted, leaving life, leaving love
Missing mindful mana, making mindbreak messes
Nothing nestles, nothing nests, Nothing needs no nowhere
Only owning our own oars, oaring on
People pawn past pieces
Quit quiting, queerly quizing
Row, Row roundly rays round
Softly shade. Sowing softness, sounds slick, so supple
Take timid, take trouble.
Dennis Willis Feb 2019
I've got a vibe
I've got an energy source

Thrumming
and humming
and summing

Additive waves
helloing
in ever higher
notes

Letting them run
through
me

No panic no friction
and they do not stretch me out

Clenching on time
ages you fiercely

Upstream and downstream
equally wet

Dealing the difference
'twixt analogs 'n' ions

I am time
hardening

into now
that fragile all

and I am not
my mind
on some absent minded
tether
skittering vaguely
about what appears to be
my actual life
partially oaring
itself
to sure



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis
Orakhal Jun 2020
The subtle cuts high sail
Nips to the heel of a trepid surge
A courtesy bends in its open fern
Recoiling its claim into remembrance
Heaping pose on the dead dark glut
Neath its oaring heave

In base the bluff kerbs no intent to a swift swallow
Perching its down on the widows yern
Its close fervent smish haps placid
Again the blighty moor
Stone as cold in its nest of negation

Pressing her pulse to symphatic  nuture
Her tempered tender tongues its way
Taming its shrew to the cain of Eel and arrow
Its slip , sharp across the eery veil of guilting
Pierces deep to the dull *****
Birthing its pangs upon the sickly clad
Thickened to stew in slithe and slither


Ruse
Hollows pale
Filling every mercy to its brim
Belting its breath to a brazin bow of command
Its fleet stale as marrow
Plunder its slackened writ
Steadfast on beam
Her Blood Red Compass

— The End —