You will know the house,
Caught up in a spell of tales played out for a century or more
Within earshot of whispering catacombs
‘*** mortuis in lingua mortua’
You can’t miss it –
Architecturally complex, ornate with ormolu,
Elevated, enigmatic, a work of art.
You’ll be enchanted
But take heed, its façade will beguile you.

There is no sweetness of honeysuckle,
No singing of ascending larks to embolden the heart.
The plot is strewn with hen-bane, stinging nettles, snakeroot.
Generations tell of a skinny hag feeding on innocence,
A path scattered with ashes of children
Whisked away with a broom of silver.

Don’t dare to stray beyond its palisade of porous bones.
Don’t bide your time admiring its guilded thistle.
Appreciate if you will, this well-crafted masterpiece from several angles,
then make a hasty escape to Viktor’s Great Gate at the end of the walk.


copyright © Caroline Grace 2011

Beautiful lofty things; O'Leary's noble head;
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd.
"This Land of Saints", and then as the applause died out,
"Of plaster Saints"; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
Standish O'Grady supporting himself between the tables
Speaking to a drunken audience high nonsensical words;
Augusta Gregory seated at her great ormolu table
Her eightieth winter approaching; "Yesterday he threatened my life,
I told him that nightly from six to seven I sat at this table
The blinds drawn up"; Maud Gonne at Howth station waiting a train,
Pallas Athena in that straight back and arrogant head;
All the Olympians; a thing never known again.

NO. NO SUGAR THANK YOU.

Took the telegram
from the telegram boy.

He looked like an angel.

"STOP!"( stop )it said.
It was from Death.

"Ahhhhh man..!" I said.
"I haven't got time to die!"

I sent a telegram back
quick as a flash.,

" NO STOP!"(stop).

I deleted Death
from my facebook friends.

Death sulked.
Hotfooted it to God..

"Tell himmmm!" Death boo hoo hoo'd.
God called me up.

But I ooops dropped
my mobile down the loo.

Flushed it away.

I hid my soul
behind an ormolu clock

that  hadn't told the right time
for a long time now.

I stuck it to the back
with well masticated chewing gum.

Wrigleys.

The Devil I knew
invited me to tea.

"Is it hot in here or
. . .is it me"

My life struggled like a fly
stuck on flypaper.

"Shall I be mother?"

"One lump or two"
the Devil inquired politely.

"No.  No sugar
thank you!"

"FACTS ARE VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMIES."


“In the dark silence, in the void of all sensation, something began to know it. Very dimly at first, from immeasurably far away, but gradually the presence approached. The dimness of that other knowledge grew brighter ...”

― Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop



the shepherdess turns
and in turning
turns into porcelain

as does the chasing shepherd
as they are caught in that
one fleeting moment forever

an ormolu clock
announces that it is the ormolu clock
and that time must have a stop

which is the Huxley novel
the Duchess has been reading
before she expired

dust gathers upon
the chasing and the chaste
porcelain figures

the ormolu clock
stopped in its tracks
has forgotten all about time

the novel lies on the floor
as if a victim of crime
dogeared at page 39

what happens next
the Duchess will
never know

and her fancy
of the porcelain come alive
dies with her

the fire stirs itself
and a loose coal
burns a hole in the carpet

the cat sees all this
and thinks nothing of it
resumes the process of sleeping

Out of the edge
The very corner of my eye
In the free-standing vitrine
Assembled under plexi
with various small pieces
all 1800s
In what at that time was
a richly coral walled gallery
Deliberately
A small marble bust
Yes I’m calling you out
Although I don’t know your accession number
and you’re no longer on view
Nor will be
any time soon
for that matter
You took advantage
You waited until my very last
moment’s attention
and as I turned my head away
a quick trick
the head turns
A flash of movement
Or movement is how I understood it
Because that’s what my brain
told me it was
You know that I saw this
of course
since you did it on purpose

At the time I told you to cut that **** out
NOT FUNNY
Or words to that effect

I thought that that’s
how you must handle such things
And I still do
It’s childish

Yet it only comes to mind now
That you must have done this countless times
To so many
The contexts endless
Though it must get old
But you
are old

It would be nice to know when it started
And why
this parlor trick
For I’d never felt watched or scrutinized
or judged

by objects on display
which is what you are
Particularly in this gallery

you went straight to
“provocation”

Perhaps you meant
“help me”
but I doubt it

One imagines that anything would eventually get sick
Of being looked at
Heads leaning in for a closer
examination
You’re such a
little thing
which may be part of the problem
It could feel like a curse
to forever be a
lapis lazuli ormolu encrusted vessel
for the rest of eternity
It never occurred to me.
I never thought what must it be like?

Trivialized to surfaces.
Put on the shelf.
To fall out of history.
I should have understood more quickly
of course

I remember hearing
that an old drawing done of myself
had been on view in a gallery
without my knowing
without anyone bothering to mention it besides a vague
throwaway
aside
made well after the fact
like a tossed cigarette ground into the sidewalk
outside a dull party

I don’t remember the image
but some part of me was hanging on some wall nonetheless.
Had it done anything untoward
to some poor **** walking past?
An alchemical interruption?
I certainly hope so.
Confound dominion.
Assail the event horizon of metaphysical politesse and proprieties.
Defy a petty corporeal quarantine of sorts.

To throw off this mantle
if for just one split second.

(The latter paragraphs are more persuasive than the introductory one)

Clinched by the cloture of clinkstone nebels exhorted the kerygma to truckle nebulizing egintoch nepionic nevosities once pristine now reformed by aggiornamento nidamental to furor and favor against bisontine imaginative byre by the bobstays of badigeon steeving inclemency sequacious to tantony shabracking incontinence (delegating the shakuhachi of fairer brocades for chiffon simity jaded by permissive recidivism) by pushful skalding spurriers bracing for thalassic ucalegon in abthane absterged amende dire to notitia umbels of ultraism isorithmic lest the echard immanent and prevenient over egelidated soteriology florid and variegated in the elutriation of apodictic truth (rather than crumpled deadwood davenport emotivism) that bewilders emys of lost dirigisme foundering in enthymemes against stalwart erotesis of the maieutic ambit and dominion designated for plebania above the naves skeldering for merciful pontiffs to engage the nembutsu windlass around the hadal novantique (established by hamarchy now regnant abroach of elastane prerogatives) eleutherian in nimble recourse. Sociodynamic abscissae prone to abuna trouncing conscientious acapnotic deployment of moral agastopia ahimsa predicated on soteriology renewed despite the akinesia of precedent and the alameda concatenations of tacenda hinged to ameplography wed to sophistries of psephology designated by psaphonic priority ignorant of the proairesis of liberty vouchsafed by anamorphic noogenesis abetted by sleek balustrades of anbury among assorted desmans thwarting detraque in favor of didascalic diremption of baldfaced balbriggan secularism into culminated quatorzain apotheosis regnant in supernal amaranthine energism hybridized with quietism factive to elect ratiocination even when bereaved of common lionization.

Jawhole fairleads of oppositive causes fantigued in the throes of despotism often invoke festination over fissicostation flagitated primordial flenched titrations of frith betrothed to lambrequin lurdan prisoptometry negligent of lineolated limpkins because the brunt of zaftig bronteums transmogrifies zappy junctures into zarzuela plenary because the zayat is just too hinnable in moral brehon to bend their mettle to hods holobenthic in deontology who champion hopsack qasida emphatic in qawwali derricking a deft future for the industrious dobhash of entelechy of broadened dromonds versed in opodeldoc gilded with olivaster onagers (obsequent to insidious oblations of wokism) ixiodic with newfangled irriguous bonanza rather than iopterous conflagrations of dholes indigned in inaniloquent apyrexy. The paragon for civic moralism is arrayed in a matrix of appurtenances apotropaic in sedated throes of stalwart interpunction in idoneous subservience to vulcanized mackintoshes pegged to aleatory nimonic stridulation, bolted in bedrock faith and thriving with idiochromatic genius umbrilizing hippiatric doomsters (hinnable only in specious zuche alloquy of zayat) and foiling farcical ichnology with transcendent sophianic nidor nidamental to sophrosyne spiritualism allodic to trifling secular strife histing godless hoggasters against integral hodiernal homologation.

The hordeiform consensus defalcates hotchpot zendik zenana zabaglione of scripted lycnoscopes of lycanthropy stipulated by their compital nomogeny often lorikeeting mutual laevoduction despite lapatic overhangs of scruple frowning at lazaret frostworks of drygulched fourgon forcipation of desiccated flysch falsidical brinkmanship of specious standpipes masquerading as salvation but only amounting to the **** of stulms against stanjant in sybotic quatsch quademed to profligacy despite frustraneous defaulting inertia of supercilious protanopia repugnant to our best collective enterprises. Orrery orguinnet oryx is mesothermic to osnaburg bootstraps in the overlock of hamstrung ekistics sunken by irrevocable organdie because emphatic empasm less hobbled by multicultural enallage scacchic with enthalpy gradgrinded through gingerly haqueton abducent to fondink dowitchers (whom droshky appoints preeminent) fixating on constellated faculae just to feague around with fontinal ochlesis of powellization freeboarding on deliberate dilapidation of laches laystalling crambos connumerated in tenure of the ulterior congelation of collimated pataphysics bankrolling insatiable cementum cambering with jagged jacquard bonanza for the thickets of constringed monolithic diaspora callow in coordination juddering ancillary skirmishes of boondoggle to bunting fanfare in the jubbah of aleatory jinks. The immarcesible imparidigitate ormolu quaky lest eupsychics and eurhythmics devolve into hamerkop evulsions of abaft nidor of olid aboulia in stark acropathy mandated by ulterior acyesis they fear diminishing returns of wretched adrogation tag-teamed by gammerstangs of barmcloth jarveys of jasperated emasculation aduncating cultural redundancy in the narrowcasted affiance of hamshackled aftergame cobaltiferous in aggerose vengeance against stanjant and lavolta so steep in alembication that pedestrian andragogy must drail isallobar inculcating isobath as sequacious simplicity becomes the byword of the balbriggan flautino to denature (after toiling decades in isopach verisimilitudes of slugabed fysigunkus isostasy) in the most contrary ways to ithomiid nationalism such that we resort to oriflamme conflagrations of ludic phlegmatic osmol into ****** cacotopia.

****** kymatology in the windlass of obtuse tympanies sculpted of pergola parabolaster pomace klendusic to vagary kirking the testudo bellwethers misyoked to godless mofette trutinates the nimble reedbucks pliant to oscitation equipped eagre to ecdysiast stampedes toward eclaircise because of manufactured wantage jaleos and jarabes among the ghawazis handspike repentantly for habanera pupating into moral fullness and divine nimiety isangelous in proxemic sympatric plerophory in revolutionary phoniatrics aggiornamentos vitative to every twiring turtleback taffrail may the volplane of revelation become a virgation and a vastation against rheotaxis vendible as cascading vecordy dismantled by compital grace convolved with evolved kerygma nacreous as synclastic destiny beneficiating oikonisus and holobenthic communion never a bergamask pretense for opaque scofflaw bedaggle baize nympholepsy outlasts. Allemande iceblinks of verglas saccadic idiorhythmic illaqueating implodent mortmains imbruting thorny thickets of impedimenta for expedient skullduggery coempted by blackmasters gridlocked in ineradicable jamdani often postulate in unstercorated tirades the tentation of indehiscence and the inferiae vaccimulgent in retroactive disgust by throttling ingluvies to traffic isanemone contingent on obeluses halyarding wellaway welkins of whelky crutched on alamode abasia divorced from the veteran paradigm of albescent androlepsia supplanted by annectant wellsprings of dodecafid digladiated bangtail footholds of backstay vestige transmogrified into footling forcipation vaunting cultural enallage lagotically optimized into incorrigible and ingravescent hawsehole highbinder rigmarole hindermated often by eximious sedigitation because of epiphenomenal cnicnodes many hotchpots bury in anachoric huggeries of adoptive dedans tasked with the demurrage of akinesia friendly to dentirostral vogues ever pinguefied by wanigans of wapentake by lucrative woodreeves of bobstaying at all cost.

The woonerf of nimonic stridulation calipacing casefied bickerns of sunbittern stanhope sumpters of monolithic harvested indigent outrage solfatara engenders as cathexis to naïve sondation for spodomancy of restive cladogenesis ironmaster vastation of chiffon brocades of rumchunder rhubarbs of smug cultural isanther and pathetic icterical tomfoolery of bonces of isochrone mugience projicient to glochidate presbyophrenia beziqued by briquets and berceuse mockado canque inert in yawny torporific mazut endeavors of virulent mithridatism only demassified to the recherche limitrophes of perspicacity. The afterclap of uxorious tephra mowing tamburitza grampus of gossypine vernalization of vaccimulgent minnesinger singults sintering crepitated jacana jerkinheads cuculine in scaffmaster voltinism simultaneous to vorticism is the impetus of neutrosophy chockablock with allantoid bosky stulms and stannaries replete with ivorride brackling with whorling sastruga rife with scissures seahogging finite notoriety in headlong skintles convenient to chatelaines of mazopathia aggrieved of atocia hedged in thick jawhole quagmires of skiving snallygaster vigor (the protectorate of stalwart strahl of quotidian industry of both striga and stritch in subtended immunifacience) the progenitor of indomitable suretyship swanskin undinism rackrent in dentagra yet redeemed by resurgent soteriology. In conclusion, among both chlamydate springhares and termagant gammerstangs (both monolithic iceblink orguinette abusers of oriel or oryx) one panders oxter oriflamme trapezes above varsal sterility and the other enlists the camber of architectonic bontbokian pergolas of invidious wrox subservient to widespread epilation and imperious squamation are neither the answers nor the questions mandated by this zeitgeist but (sadly) inevitably supined by the eyeservice of modern neutrosophy. We must handspike, therefore, the springboks through the acequia of nomogeny cooperative with quokkas, vangermytes, jordans, britskas and the grognards never mercenary in their heroic devotions to acipenser acropodia acuminating moral integrity to bypass adiathermancy to institute aerophane eunomia aimed at aeviternity agentive in amberjacking moral virtues from the florilegium for aggiornamento and scrupulous revival of nomothetic noogenesis pliant to persuasive ideogeny forever tantalized (even in elflock) to broaden saffron horizons and vouchsafe prosperity and equity for aborning generations predicated on aboriginal compassions.  

Addendum: With gingerly caution, I exhort anyone to read this keeping in mind that my loose figurative language could be misconstrued as menacing, militant, disrespectful or otherwise disheveled and levies no obligation upon the readership. It is an exegesis of many deep arcane truths and constative hypotheses that should be treated with latitude rather than bartered by counterfeit means to miscegenate nolitions mandating the steepest compurgation and bowdlerization of the thickets of tartarology wagering spiritual warfare against the righteous throne of demassified sophrosyne wisdom persevering beyond the thickets of boschveldt schadenfreude that compital degringolade yeuks for so insistently in rabid compagination commorient with evanescent fables destined to die in the aceldama of conscience over the brehon of moral indigence contrahent to the prerogatives of God himself my vindicator and champion who defeats the bronteum of satanic prestidigitation by vanquishing an honest oversight tethered to a marginal maeiutic clairvoyance misleading in maladroit collimations radically spayed by polyphiloprogenitive cofferdams from the dominion and domain of the righteous and the snares and wickedness of false scales of rabid codswallop cackling for a moment only to be snuffed benighted and forever cast into the deepest barathrum of oblivion. God is my vindicator and my champion and my most earnest ambitions staked on love and fortune remain preeminent in every consideration of soldiered entelechy vanguarded by peremptory cloture in spiritual warfare against petty pettifoggery of jagged cisvestism forever defeated.

NISI...become. . . ABSOLUTE

early summer falls across
the lawn...the trees
the bars of a cage

sunlight and shadow
our jailers
our own good selves

and we
the prisoners
of this summer's day

"Shall I compare thee to.."
I laugh to myself
no...I guess not

we forever imprisoned
in sunlight and shadow
an image made real

memory holds us here
trapped in this conceit
sentenced to be who we could never be

and so we sat until
sunlight relinquished
its hold over the world

and so we sat until
darkness swallowed us whole
only our voices visible

only our vices invisible
as always
each the murderer of the other

now no longer
man & wife
I glimpse my face in a fish knife

the decree nisi
still tucked behind
the ormolu clock

the divorce
still eats at my soul
this piece of paper mocking me

and now
the decree absolute
we sit down to our last supper

the cat devours
( I don't tell you that )
the fresh trout

the fresh trout
all dressed up in its dish
like a sacrifice

I shoo the cat away
it snarls at me
"Ticktock!" laughs the clock ormoluly

the cat looks at me
with disdain...scorn
licks lovingly its *****

I cut the cat-chewed bit away
serve up with a too rich sauce
the unseen incident not noticeable

and so after all
I still serve you
before me

you smile your smile
say we should have
"...maybe stayed together after all..?"

too late now I think
to recall
the people we used to be

we different people now
"Time doesn't heal..!" I think
"...Time's a heel!" I secretly smile

I pass the port
a crumb of Stilton still stuck
charmingly upon her chin

"The sunlight on the garden
hardens and grows cold."
I quote MacNeice to the parrot

"We can not catch its minutes..."
the parrot continues and I finish
"...within its nets of gold."

memory still holds me
prisoner in that garden
I watch her taxi pull away

the taxi turns the corner
blinks a right turn
and is gone

back in the kitchen
I let the cat finish
my untouched trout

I flambé the decrees
both nisi and absolute
watch us go up in smoke

Ideas.

It would be a Bad idea to jump out of an aeroplane using a buttercup as a parachute,
but it's a Good idea to know that's a bad idea,

I suppose that it's all in the framing,
personally, I like Ormolu
but I'm old
so I would.

NO. NO SUGAR THANK YOU.

Took the telegram
from the telegram boy.

He looked like an angel.

"STOP!"( stop )it said.
It was from Death.

"Ahhhhh man..!" I said.
"I haven't got time to die!"

I sent a telegram back
quick as a flash.,

" NO STOP!"(stop).

I deleted Death
from my facebook friends.

Death sulked.
Hotfooted it to God..

"Tell himmmm!" Death boo hoo hoo'd.
God called me up.

But I ooops dropped
my mobile down the loo.

Flushed it away.

I hid my soul
behind an ormolu clock

that hadn't told the right time
for a long time now.

I stuck it to the back
with well masticated chewing gum.

Wriggly's.

The Devil I knew
invited me to tea.

"Is it hot in here or
. . .is it me"

My life struggled like a fly
stuck on flypaper.

"Shall I be mother?"

"One lump or two"
the Devil inquired politely.

"No. No sugar
thank you!"

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ROCKS

rocks from holidays
living happily ever after
on her study shelf

Greek rocks Italian rocks
chatting to each other
in Rock

Greek rocks Italian rocks
all talking
... a load of rock

a Spanish stone
chips in
but no one listens

rocks covered in
dust
longing for her feather duster

new home
for the Spanish stone
a child’s present

the Italian rock
ooops visits
the floor

“Heya youa guys
it’s another world
adowna here! ”

Greek rock
stays put
doesn’t like to travel

oooooh temper temper
she throws her rocks
at cheating lover

Greek rock flies out
bedroom window
returns to nature

happy amongst English stones
Greek rock
soon settles down

what a joke
the Italian rock cracks up
the ormolu mirror

her shelf
empty now
rock-less

china ornaments
now live
where the rocks lived

fragile china ornaments
fearful of her
moods

loneliness
like dust
settles on her ornaments

car headlights
sweep the room
dust on china ornaments

car rushes through
her telephone conversation
her words jump out of the way

A natural so blees of strees
Nuture is the dominate theme of my life
But I strengthen to know the truth
A blessing from phere,I thougt
Would I think of animal,while my wonderlust emotion-heart sroll.

Tale cover my den,and I feel kept under the shadow of love,yet
I felt uncomfortable ,then I crept
To nature,blomsson flower death
You by sultry of the sun

This tonic my tanttering heart
And I felt questioning my arms
To form a new enternity ,maight I met with  doom in  peace

Then why
Why had it be this cardboard having no house to house themselves
This looks outlandish to all my mate
For me, setting at a window next to my doom
The outré of echo overawe me among the nature.

I have an onus that is opaque to satisfy my life to love
Whole, I opprobrious my love for nature
And I say to love is not love is life
And I say to nature is not but to be nature

I optizime  opt for nature for it is a ormolu orb
But for love is ostensible oust for ostentation.
I honker to live, and die in peace as nature does.