"omnes" poems
Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut
mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum
Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros
autem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem
Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de
quibus suadeo vos sic habeo.
S. Ignatii Ad Trallianos.
And when this epistle is read among you, cause that
it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans.
The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The ‘potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.
At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the ‘potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
4.7k
*
arcanum arcanarom, argumentum ad hominem
animal disputans, dixi.., animal bipes implume
cessante causa cessat et effectus, damnant quod non inteligunt
audiatur et altera pars, hominus libenter quod volunt credunt
multi famam, consientiam pauci verentur
boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere
bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter
non omnes qui habent citharam sunt citharoedi
currente calamo, cave quid dicis, quando, et cui
gigni de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti
**
..love always...*
عرفان بن يوسف © AH 14/03/1432
**
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 11:28 AM UTC
The sky was ablaze like glass in the church;
recumbent on stone floors / we had knocked out
the windows to let in only the blind light,
the blind arches that pointed heavenward, now yawning
narcoleptic houses of God grasping at sky and god
somehow / we captured daylight in our hands / we were
yearning for ourselves again between long hours of waiting
we believed in gods that breathed that great sky, we believed
in the breadth of cosmos more dazzling
than the church doors that we blew asunder
in that latter architecture where we decided the height
& breadth of the pillars in their proportions like
the proportions of man, exhausted & exaggerated,
man exalted, exaudi, exaudi, voca meam quam olim Abrahim
praises to all our lords on high, we sang in drunk
communion hailing, our communion with one another,
all of us there on the stone flags, hands in hands
we beat at the chests of each other, the eyes of each other
(we were just kids beating off to one thing or another)
and it was *** and chaos between those stone walls, it captured
us, bewildered us, those yawning heavens under the church ceiling,
the one that blazed with the dazzling color of windows
covered in dust like our skin the way it crept along the stone
and we craved it and the way that it seemed to creep,
the sky seemed to creep above us, seethed with light
some days we didn’t know which way was light, up
or lower down, it was usually easy to tell after you came
but we exhausted our voices, exaudi exaudi orationem meam
believing that something would hear us—we heard ourselves
more clearly in the throes of ****** nothing was more alive
more human, than anything, than anything that sang like that blazing
sky/ so we tossed ourselves forward into lightward, lightness
dazzling ourselves with light / it was the summer of everything closing /
the bewildering truth of our own god in cells and precious molecules
we made god in the throes of ****** worshipping in the dazzling sky
we had to propel ourselves forward, it was our stunning captivation
with that dazzling maze of flesh on the yearning sky, hands
searching inscrutably for hands, for god in the feverish sky, god
who doesn’t live in the sky, the god who climbs
with us, the god who screams in our ****** with us,
exaudi, exaudi, orationem meam, ad te omnes caro veniet…
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:46 AM UTC
"O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.
Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis;
obumbrata
et velata
mihi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.
Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!"
Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
*And what of this hour, dark and beautiful
In her insistence.
She visits in the nights of sleepless lull,
Object of insolence!
She questions this very earth, ***** and dull
And devoid of sense.
Her words are as sweet as pain ever gets:
“End it all, die and cry the tears life forgets”*
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 4:37 PM UTC
Novis te cantabo chordis,
O novelletum quod ludis
In solitudine cordis.
Esto sertis implicata,
Ô femina delicata
Per quam solvuntur peccata !
Sicut beneficum Lethe,
Hauriam oscula de te,
Quae imbuta es magnete.
Quum vitiorum tempegtas
Turbabat omnes semitas,
Apparuisti, Deitas,
Velut stella salutaris
In naufragiis amaris...
Suspendam cor tuis aris !
Piscina plena virtutis,
Fons æternæ juventutis
Labris vocem redde mutis !
Quod erat spurcum, cremasti ;
Quod rudius, exaequasti ;
Quod debile, confirmasti.
In fame mea taberna
In nocte mea lucerna,
Recte me semper guberna.
Adde nunc vires viribus,
Dulce balneum suavibus
Unguentatum odoribus !
Meos circa lumbos mica,
O castitatis lorica,
Aqua tincta seraphica ;
Patera gemmis corusca,
Panis salsus, mollis esca,
Divinum vinum, Francisca !
1.2k
I
When the world freezes over,
The soft glow of the computer screens will leak against a sky-black universe
When everything goes on without us,
Stop-lights and streetlamps will light the way
For all the people who don’t look there
The beast in the pit
When the stores will always be empty,
Vegas will ****** no one with her lights,
A blinding light
II
Green-glow and blue-shine will cry out
From their boxes in vain, to
The glowing black-blue swirl of
Cosmic magnificence!
Humanity’s ancient projections will whimper and beg
The interstellar paradise ingentis so unexplored
For desperate affection and faces,
drooling.
III
When the bottom falls off…
When the bell tolls for thee…
When the plug comes out from the wall….
You will not look,
You will stare.
Eyelids - hanging like abandoned bridges
Skin - blue with the afterglow still clinging to what it caught.
Sweating through your bottom
Until you expire, and – then, we will cower away from the great
For thine…
IV
et misurent pulverem super capita sua et clamaverant flentes et lugantes dicentes vae vae civitas magna in qua divites facti sunt omnes qui habent naves in mari de pretiis eius quoniam una hora desolata est
User error… user error… user error… user error… user error…
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
Captain
Is such an abrasive term
Call me zebra instead
Call me every other weekend
Salute the system
Or form a mutiny
As disciples of Moby ****
Just be sure rank and file
Are futile
Everything now is beautiful
Rainbirds
Caged in your barbed-wire heart
Jaded feather friends
In migration
Tasting shapes
And drawing blood
From artistic wings
As freedom of flyway must
Still belong to the rule
Everything now is beautiful
Hopscotch
On sorted sidewalks
Ride the escalator instead
Up one floor
To the mezzanine
That panders to
The perversions of quiet girls
Innocence outshines
Experience
When the hemisphere is
Short on lifeboats
And late for school
Everything now is beautiful
The missing world
Beneath our feet
Is what the ocean
Tells us about ourselves
"From swerve of shore
To bend of bay"
Check the notes
In the margin
Postcards and maps
Depicting these dazzle ships
And the angry waters
They chart
Are always of
Skinny-dipping
Sea vessels
Her mons and ponds
Face-up
And full frontal
Everything now is beautiful
Dove taking
Swan keeping
We've power against dreams
We've articles of war
So this line is expendable
An anguish languish
Deep deep down
Turning with the wave
Against the sound
Where we sailed on from one love
To find another
As usual
Omnes una manet nox
(One night is awaiting us all)
Aug 26, 2020
Aug 26, 2020 at 3:08 PM UTC
O, Lord forgotten please accept
Me upon my mission bereft,
I look to the stars in darkness and cry,
And teeming with demons I ask you why,
And how I can be rid of myself,
How may I ask you for help?
Please remain with me where others have left,
Please linger with me as I conquer each step,
Forgive my wrath, forgive my hatred,
Please stay in my destitute heart, my Savior.
In all my life I shall remember my words,
About the others who walk with the heard.
Nunquam animadverto paradisum,
Omnes perdes qui scitus I,
In nomine Patris et Filii,
Et Spiritus Sancti.
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 7:27 PM UTC
Martial Epigrams
You ask me why I've sent you no new verses?
There might be reverses.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me to recite my poems to you?
I know how you'll "recite" them, if I do.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I choose to live elsewhere?
You're not there.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I love fresh country air?
You're not befouling it there.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You never wrote a poem,
yet criticize mine?
Stop abusing me or write something fine
of your own!
—Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
He starts everything but finishes nothing;
thus I suspect there's no end to his *******
—Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
You alone own prime land, dandy!
Gold, money, the finest porcelain—you alone!
The best wines of the most famous vintages—you alone!
Discrimination and wit—you alone!
You have it all—who can deny that you alone are set for life?
But everyone has had your wife—
she is never alone!
—Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
You dine in great magnificence
while offering guests a pittance.
Sextus, did you invite
friends to dinner tonight
to impress us with your enormous appetite?
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Coq au vin
by Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but are you merely an éclair to the greedy?
2.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but are you **** Amaro to the greedy?
Amaro is an after-dinner liqueur thought to aid the digestion after a large meal.
3.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but are you an aperitif to the greedy?
4.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but they’re pimps to the seedy.
Ad cenam invitant omnes te, Phoebe, cinaedi.
mentula quem pascit, non, **** purus **** est.
Keywords/Tags: Martial, translation, Latin, epigram, verse, recite, wit, discrimination, country, air, dandy, wine, wife, dinner, appetite
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 1:02 AM UTC
In public,
I wear it well —
A mask of smiles,
Words sharp and light,
Jokes like armor,
Eyes that never seem to waver.
You see the me I've crafted —
But not the pain,
Not the struggles,
Not the tears,
Not the humiliations I've endured.
All of it — covered, hidden by:
Persona, protege me ab ulterius hominibus qui de me ridebant, semel ostendi infirmitatem meam, et ideo omnes non solum curaverunt, sed etiam me contumeliis affecerunt.
But with the mask,
All seems like fine, smooth glass —
Perfect, flawless,
Untouched.
Yet beneath that glass,
Cracks grow deeper,
Thin lines of truth,
Splitting under pressure.
Waiting for the moment
It all will break —
And when it breaks,
Will they see me?
Or just the shattered pieces?
Will they reach out,
Or step on the shards?
Will I be free,
Or filled with insults of my weakness?
And so, I wear the mask.
Mar 13, 2025
Mar 13, 2025 at 3:50 AM UTC