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The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity. . . .

A window, holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire

Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the Jews.
Their thick palls float

Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt-out
Germany.
They do not die.

Grey birds obsess my heart,
Mouth-ash, ash of eye.
They settle.  On the high

Precipice
That emptied one man into space
The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.

It is a heart,
This holocaust I walk in,
O golden child the world will **** and eat.
"Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny, mooning around as usual! He will never make his way."
Letter of George Keats, 18--


Night falls; the great jars glow against the dark,
Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling snake,
Writhing eternally in smoky gyres,
Great ropes of gorgeous vapor twist and turn
Within them. So the Eastern fisherman
Saw the swart genie rise when the lead seal,
Scribbled with charms, was lifted from the jar;
And -- well, how went the tale? Like this, like this? . . .

No herbage broke the barren flats of land,
No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,
Nor were there any brooks on either hand,
Only the dry, bright sand,
Naked and golden, lay before the seas.

One boat toiled noiselessly along the deep,
The thirsty ripples dying silently
Upon its track. Far out the brown nets sweep,
And night begins to creep
Across the intolerable mirror of the sea.

Twice the nets rise, a-trail with sea-plants brown,
Distorted shells, and rocks green-mossed with slime,
Nought else. The fisher, sick at heart, kneels down;
"Prayer may appease God's frown,"
He thinks, then, kneeling, casts for the third time.

And lo! an earthen jar, bound round with brass,
Lies tangled in the cordage of his net.
About the bright waves gleam like shattered glass,
And where the sea's rim was
The sun dips, flat and red, about to set.

The prow grates on the beach. The fisherman
Stoops, tearing at the cords that bind the seal.
Shall pearls roll out, lustrous and white and wan?
Lapis? carnelian?
Unheard-of stones that make the sick mind reel

With wonder of their beauty? Rubies, then?
Green emeralds, glittering like the eyes of beasts?
Poisonous opals, good to madden men?
Gold bezants, ten and ten?
Hard, regal diamonds, like kingly feasts?

He tugged; the seal gave way. A little smoke
Curled like a feather in the darkening sky.
A blinding gush of fire burst, flamed, and broke.
A voice like a wind spoke.
Armored with light, and turbaned terribly,

A genie tramped the round earth underfoot;
His head sought out the stars, his cupped right hand
Made half the sky one darkness. He was mute.
The sun, a ripened fruit,
Drooped lower. Scarlet eddied o'er the sand.

The genie spoke: "O miserable one!
Thy prize awaits thee; come, and hug it close!
A noble crown thy draggled nets have won
For this that thou hast done.
Blessed are fools! A gift remains for those!"

His hand sought out his sword, and lightnings flared
Across the sky in one great bloom of fire.
Poised like a toppling mountain, it hung bared;
Suns that were jewels glared
Along its hilt. The air burnt like a pyre.

Once more the genie spoke: "Something I owe
To thee, thou fool, thou fool. Come, canst thou sing?
Yea? Sing then; if thy song be brave, then go
Free and released -- or no!
Find first some task, some overmastering thing
I cannot do, and find it speedily,
For if thou dost not thou shalt surely die!"

The sword whirled back. The fisherman uprose,
And if at first his voice was weak with fear
And his limbs trembled, it was but a doze,
And at the high song's close
He stood up straight. His voice rang loud and clear.


The Song.

Last night the quays were lighted;
Cressets of smoking pine
Glared o'er the roaring mariners
That drink the yellow wine.

Their song rolled to the rafters,
It struck the high stars pale,
Such worth was in their discourse,
Such wonder in their tale.

Blue borage filled the clinking cups,
The murky night grew wan,
Till one rose, crowned with laurel-leaves,
That was an outland man.

"Come, let us drink to war!" said he,
"The torch of the sacked town!
The swan's-bath and the wolf-ships,
And Harald of renown!

"Yea, while the milk was on his lips,
Before the day was born,
He took the Almayne Kaiser's head
To be his drinking-horn!

"Yea, while the down was on his chin,
Or yet his beard was grown,
He broke the gates of Micklegarth,
And stole the lion-throne!

"Drink to Harald, king of the world,
Lord of the tongue and the troth!
To the bellowing horns of Ostfriesland,
And the trumpets of the Goth!"

Their shouts rolled to the rafters,
The drink-horns crashed and rang,
And all their talk was a clangor of war,
As swords together sang!

But dimly, through the deep night,
Where stars like flowers shone,
A passionate shape came gliding --
I saw one thing alone.

I only saw my young love
Shining against the dark,
The whiteness of her raiment,
The head that bent to hark.

I only saw my young love,
Like flowers in the sun --
Her hands like waxen petals,
Where yawning poppies run.

I only felt there, chrysmal,
Against my cheek her breath,
Though all the winds were baying,
And the sky bright with Death.

Red sparks whirled up the chimney,
A hungry flaught of flame,
And a lean man from Greece arose;
Thrasyllos was his name.

"I praise all noble wines!" he cried,
"Green robes of tissue fine,
Peacocks and apes and ivory,
And Homer's sea-loud line,

"Statues and rings and carven gems,
And the wise crawling sea;
But most of all the crowns of kings,
The rule they wield thereby!

"Power, fired power, blank and bright!
A fit hilt for the hand!
The one good sword for a freeman,
While yet the cold stars stand!"

Their shouts rolled to the rafters,
The air was thick with wine.
I only knew her deep eyes,
And felt her hand in mine.

Softly as quiet water,
One finger touched my cheek;
Her face like gracious moonlight --
I might not move nor speak.

I only saw that beauty,
I only felt that form
There, in the silken darkness --
God wot my heart was warm!

Their shouts rolled to the rafters,
Another chief began;
His slit lips showed him for a ***;
He was an evil man.

"Sing to the joys of women!" he yelled,
"The hot delicious tents,
The soft couch, and the white limbs;
The air a steam of scents!"

His eyes gleamed, and he wet his lips,
The rafters shook with cheers,
As he sang of woman, who is man's slave
For all unhonored years.

"Whether the wanton laughs amain,
With one white shoulder bare,
Or in a sacked room you unbind
Some crouching maiden's hair;

"This is the only good for man,
Like spices of the South --
To see the glimmering body laid
As pasture to his mouth!

"To leave no lees within the cup,
To see and take and rend;
To lap a girl's limbs up like wine,
And laugh, knowing the end!"

Only, like low, still breathing,
I heard one voice, one word;
And hot speech poured upon my lips,
As my hands held a sword.

"Fools, thrice fools of lust!" I cried,
"Your eyes are blind to see
Eternal beauty, moving far,
More glorious than horns of war!
But though my eyes were one blind scar,
That sight is shown to me!

"You nuzzle at the ivory side,
You clasp the golden head;
Fools, fools, who chatter and sing,
You have taken the sign of a terrible thing,
You have drunk down God with your beeswing,
And broken the saints for bread!

"For God moves darkly,
In silence and in storm;
But in the body of woman
He shows one burning form.

"For God moves blindly,
In darkness and in dread;
But in the body of woman
He raises up the dead.

"Gracile and straight as birches,
Swift as the questing birds,
They fill true-lovers' drink-horns up,
Who speak not, having no words.

"Love is not delicate toying,
A slim and shimmering mesh;
It is two souls wrenched into one,
Two bodies made one flesh.

"Lust is a sprightly servant,
Gallant where wines are poured;
Love is a bitter master,
Love is an iron lord.

"Satin ease of the body,
Fattened sloth of the hands,
These and their like he will not send,
Only immortal fires to rend --
And the world's end is your journey's end,
And your stream chokes in the sands.

"Pleached calms shall not await you,
Peace you shall never find;
Nought but the living moorland
Scourged naked by the wind.

"Nought but the living moorland,
And your love's hand in yours;
The strength more sure than surety,
The mercy that endures.

"Then, though they give you to be burned,
And slay you like a stoat,
You have found the world's heart in the turn of a cheek,
Heaven in the lift of a throat.

"Although they break you on the wheel,
That stood so straight in the sun,
Behind you the trumpets split the sky,
Where the lost and furious fight goes by --
And God, our God, will have victory
When the red day is done!"

Their mirth rolled to the rafters,
They bellowed lechery;
Light as a drifting feather
My love slipped from my knee.

Within, the lights were yellow
In drowsy rooms and warm;
Without, the stabbing lightning
Shattered across the storm.

Within, the great logs crackled,
The drink-horns emptied soon;
Without, the black cloaks of the clouds
Strangled the waning moon.

My love crossed o'er the threshold --
God! but the night was murk!
I set myself against the cold,
And left them to their work.

Their shouts rolled to the rafters;
A bitterer way was mine,
And I left them in the tavern,
Drinking the yellow wine!

The last faint echoes rang along the plains,
Died, and were gone. The genie spoke: "Thy song
Serves well enough -- but yet thy task remains;
Many and rending pains
Shall torture him who dares delay too long!"

His brown face hardened to a leaden mask.
A bitter brine crusted the fisher's cheek --
"Almighty God, one thing alone I ask,
Show me a task, a task!"
The hard cup of the sky shone, gemmed and bleak.

"O love, whom I have sought by devious ways;
O hidden beauty, naked as a star;
You whose bright hair has burned across my days,
Making them lamps of praise;
O dawn-wind, breathing of Arabia!

"You have I served. Now fire has parched the vine,
And Death is on the singers and the song.
No longer are there lips to cling to mine,
And the heart wearies of wine,
And I am sick, for my desire is long.

"O love, soft-moving, delicate and tender!
In her gold house the pipe calls querulously,
They cloud with thin green silks her body slender,
They talk to her and tend her;
Come, piteous, gentle love, and set me free!"

He ceased -- and, slowly rising o'er the deep,
A faint song chimed, grew clearer, till at last
A golden horn of light began to creep
Where the dumb ripples sweep,
Making the sea one splendor where it passed.

A golden boat! The bright oars rested soon,
And the prow met the sand. The purple veils
Misting the cabin fell. Fair as the moon
When the morning comes too soon,
And all the air is silver in the dales,

A gold-robed princess stepped upon the beach.
The fisher knelt and kissed her garment's hem,
And then her lips, and strove at last for speech.
The waters lapped the reach.
"Here thy strength breaks, thy might is nought to stem!"

He cried at last. Speech shook him like a flame:
"Yea, though thou plucked the stars from out the sky,
Each lovely one would be a withered shame --
Each thou couldst find or name --
To this fire-hearted beauty!" Wearily

The genie heard. A slow smile came like dawn
Over his face. "Thy task is done!" he said.
A whirlwind roared, smoke shattered, he was gone;
And, like a sudden horn,
The moon shone clear, no longer smoked and red.

They passed into the boat. The gold oars beat
Loudly, then fainter, fainter, till at last
Only the quiet waters barely moved
Along the whispering sand -- till all the vast
Expanse of sea began to shake with heat,
And morning brought soft airs, by sailors loved.

And after? . . . Well . . .
The shop-bell clangs! Who comes?
Quinine -- I pour the little bitter grains
Out upon blue, glazed squares of paper. So.
And all the dusk I shall sit here alone,
With many powers in my hands -- ah, see
How the blurred labels run on the old jars!
***** -- and a cruel and sleepy scent,
The harsh taste of white poppies; India --
The writhing woods a-crawl with monstrous life,
Save where the deodars are set like spears,
And a calm pool is mirrored ebony;
***** -- brown and warm and slender-breasted
She rises, shaking off the cool black water,
And twisting up her hair, that ripples down,
A torrent of black water, to her feet;
How the drops sparkle in the moonlight! Once
I made a rhyme about it, singing softly:

Over Damascus every star
Keeps his unchanging course and cold,
The dark weighs like an iron bar,
The intense and pallid night is old,
Dim the moon's scimitar.

Still the lamps blaze within those halls,
Where poppies heap the marble vats
For girls to tread; the thick air palls;
And shadows hang like evil bats
About the scented walls.

The girls are many, and they sing;
Their white feet fall like flakes of snow,
Making a ceaseless murmuring --
Whispers of love, dead long ago,
And dear, forgotten Spring.

One alone sings not. Tiredly
She sees the white blooms crushed, and smells
The heavy scent. They chatter: "See!
White Zira thinks of nothing else
But the morn's jollity --

"Then Haroun takes her!" But she dreams,
Unhearing, of a certain field
Of poppies, cut by many streams,
Like lines across a round Turk shield,
Where now the hot sun gleams.

The field whereon they walked that day,
And splendor filled her body up,
And his; and then the trampled clay,
And slow smoke climbing the sky's cup
From where the village lay.

And after -- much ache of the wrists,
Where the cords irked her -- till she came,
The price of many amethysts,
Hither. And now the ultimate shame
Blew trumpet in the lists.

And so she trod the poppies there,
Remembering other poppies, too,
And did not seem to see or care.
Without, the first gray drops of dew
Sweetened the trembling air.

She trod the poppies. Hours passed
Until she slept at length -- and Time
Dragged his slow sickle. When at last
She woke, the moon shone, bright as rime,
And night's tide rolled on fast.

She moaned once, knowing everything;
Then, bitterer than death, she found
The soft handmaidens, in a ring,
Come to anoint her, all around,
That she might please the king.

***** -- and the odor dies away,
Leaving the air yet heavy -- cassia -- myrrh --
Bitter and splendid. See, the poisons come,
Trooping in squat green vials, blazoned red
With grinning skulls: strychnine, a pallid dust
Of tiny grains, like bones ground fine; and next
The muddy green of arsenic, all livid,
Likest the face of one long dead -- they creep
Along the dusty shelf like deadly beetles,
Whose fangs are carved with runnels, that the blood
May run down easily to the blind mouth
That snaps and gapes; and high above them there,
My master's pride, a cobwebbed, yellow ***
Of honey from Mount Hybla. Do the bees
Still moan among the low sweet purple clover,
Endlessly many? Still in deep-hushed woods,
When the incredible silver of the moon
Comes like a living wind through sleep-bowed branches,
Still steal dark shapes from the enchanted glens,
Which yet are purple with high dreams, and still
Fronting that quiet and eternal shield
Which is much more than Peace, does there still stand
One sharp black shadow -- and the short, smooth horns
Are clear against that disk?
O great Diana!
I, I have praised thee, yet I do not know
What moves my mind so strangely, save that once
I lay all night upon a thymy hill,
And watched the slow clouds pass like heaped-up foam
Across blue marble, till at last no speck
Blotted the clear expanse, and the full moon
Rose in much light, and all night long I saw
Her ordered progress, till, in midmost heaven,
There came a terrible silence, and the mice
Crept to their holes, the crickets did not chirp,
All the small night-sounds stopped -- and clear pure light
Rippled like silk over the universe,
Most cold and bleak; and yet my heart beat fast,
Waiting until the stillness broke. I know not
For what I waited -- something very great --
I dared not look up to the sky for fear
A brittle crackling should clash suddenly
Against the quiet, and a black line creep
Across the sky, and widen like a mouth,
Until the broken heavens streamed apart,
Like torn lost banners, and the immortal fires,
Roaring like lions, asked their meat from God.
I lay there, a black blot upon a shield
Of quivering, watery whiteness. The hush held
Until I staggered up and cried aloud,
And then it seemed that something far too great
For knowledge, and illimitable as God,
Rent th
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An ****** vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night!
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice-drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully—so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringed lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all-solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep;
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals—
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.
Jill. Fred phoned. He can't make tonight.
He said he'd call again, as soon as poss.
I said (on your behalf) OK, no sweat.
He said to tell you he was fine,
Only the crap, he said, you know, it sticks,
The crap you have to fight.
You're sometimes nothing but a walking *******.

I was well acquainted with the pong myself,
I told him, and I counselled calm.
Don't let the ******* get you down,
Take the lid off the kettle a couple of minutes,
Go on the town, burn someone to death,
Find another ****, giver her some hammer,
Live while you're young, until it palls,
Kick the first blind man you meet in the *****.

Anyway he'll call again.

I'll be back in time for tea.

Your loving mother.
Feelings are full of meanings.
Abandonment and pleadings.
Heart beatings.

Feelings are just sweepings
swept up off the floor from
pain frozen beings.

Feelings release the pain.
Which overreaches and falls.
Pain palls.

A dark cloud of dust
emerges to cloak
the feelings to black.

Feelings like seedlings
grow in the sun. Eclipsed,
the sun and feelings turn dark.

Bright, feelings ultimately
turn to gloom
Happiness vs sadness

Who wins?
© JLB
735

Upon Concluded Lives
There’s nothing cooler falls—
Than Life’s sweet Calculations—
The mixing Bells and Palls—

Make Lacerating Tune—
To Ears the Dying Side—
’Tis Coronal—and Funeral—
Saluting—in the Road—
Micheal Wolf Jan 2014
Sign there son
You will be paid
Take the shilling
Europe awaits!
Grab your rifle
Grab your sack
Tell your mum you'll be back

Meet new friends
Palls together
All aboard and off to The Somme
They were just kids together alone

First the smell
Then the noise
Far from what you left at home
Then the shells begin to fall
Like nothing you had seen before

You're wet and cold and in a hole
Shaking with fear not the cold
Your friend just passed in a puff of smoke
His head was first, then his *****
His legs are spread across the floor

Then another explodes next to you
The smoke clears and the Sarge smiles at you
Like a statue painted red
He doesn't know he's already dead

Mother Mother! Others scream
But cries and wails no one hears
None of this can be real
You're just a boy and soiled with fear


Fifty years past then more
At night you still hear the screams and cannons roar
Like yesterday but years before
It didn't end all the wars

They made a sequel a bigger cast
Not your turn now to carry the flag
With one arm you can't do that
And your lungs still burn from the gas

Once again the generals cried
"Come on lads, we need you now, come and sign the Sgts form"
But was Tommy on the top once more?
Or did they use anothers name, to sign your precious lives away.

When oh when will all the madness end
For The Somme took away your friends
Only poppys now remain
Over fields where Britains youth lies slain
Tommy s  British WW1 soldiers were called that as the example name on recruitment forms was..
Tommy Atkins
Fay Slimm Apr 2017
The comforting warmth of another
breathing alongside,

closed eyes,

drowsily gliding
over waves
of sensuous dreams,

untidy covers
askew with contented

sonorous sighs.


Competing with birdsong at dawn
palls a little
when wet lips and cold nose

lather your ears
in a  pawing ecstatic four-footed

wake-up call.

Pets never sleep where they should.
Simon Obirek Apr 2014
Los Angeles
Griffith Park,
June 2009,
we got out of our concrete cage
and into the untamed wild.

We tried to escape the amber streetlights
because they polluted the sky;
twinkling stars
winking aeroplanes and
startling skylines
covered in the midnight blue.
I walked with you,
in lockstep,
we avoided the cracks
in the pavement.

We found a quiet place,
just you and I,
the sky cleared
and I didn’t want to blow my cigarette palls
into the sky
as I feared
they would block your view.
Jacob Dunstan Apr 2020
Sheets of linen, palls of grey
Old bathroom walled
Scrawled dismay

School of halls, rooms of beige
Sheets of linen, palls of grey

Old bathroom walled
Stalls, dismay.
Memories of waiting for my father to finish up work as a teacher, I'd spend afternoons pensive, wandering about the mostly deserted schoolgrounds. There was a hymn like repetition to it all.
Jack Baxter Feb 2012
Spacemen, cavorting, ridiculous jollity,
Fuzzing stars buzzing in the fabric
Space-time, folding, holding on
Spin, seven, nine, four,
Okay,
Just try to hold on.

Spinning lights flee by feeling
Hurry on Sunday
Slow
Circles.

Why? Why?
Why?
Why? Why?

You have no air.
You didn’t listen.
You had a warning…

Strap yourselves into the spin
Dazed and conned
Fused into your seat
Dancing in madness
Whistles, flutes and shakers
Unsettle your
Muted rhythm.

We sing for blessed distortion
Then drop away
Away
Who did
and
Why?

Why? Oh, God…

Bridge.

Wonder threw four bidden streets
and re-jet, the Prince Palls,
Ash on faced the walls.

Bridge.

Why? Why?
Why?
Why? Why?

Causes her arm.
Cause is her harm.
Cause is arm.
Arms are the cause of her harm.

Then-

Bridge.

Then-

Begin again…

You should not have done that.
JP Goss Sep 2013
It seems so far away
My youth preserved that precious little thread
Convinced a price I’d never pay
Convinced I’d never be dead
I thought my skin iron armor
A shield to all the shifting forces
The forces that nature threw at me
Until I saw life at its sources
And for lasting life, was my loudest plea
Never before
Have I seen so visceral a scene
Until I witnessed life escape, stripped to its very core
And on that pavement, so impressive a rouge sheen
Tears shed from my iris
Like I could change the horror
And shrieking like my efforts pious
Calling life, to my side I implore her
For him, I beg her company
For me, I’m no source of council
Though I cry, don’t trouble me
For I’m not the one that woman killed
I can’t express my grief
No petty conglomerate
Could afford me relief
For I’m not the one that woman killed
His blood was steaming
On that September road
By the sidewalk, dun and grey
Like life between its anti and node
I can only cry so much
Before it no longer matters
And it becomes another event, such and such
And its significance becomes a thought, to the floor it clatters.
Don’t cry for me, though I’m rife with ill
I don’t need it
I’m still alive
I’m not the one that woman killed
Think about that body rushed away
On determined heels
To the hospital, on precious time played
His fate, despite man, sealed
I’m not there, no fruit to give
My presence not by his dying side
Though he screams to the empty, futile air
My efforts can’t discourage his departure nigh
Though the sun may rise
Thougt the babe born
Though the shoot will rise
I will still morn
His loss, the rotting human soul
That sits in a wooden box, rested in the solemn hearse
Carried off by the bearer of palls
And buried deep beneath the earth
I’ll lament the loss, I’ve lost it
So very suddenly placed, without abet
This event so caustic
I’m face to face with death
But I’m not the one you should morn
Despite the tears streaming from my face
I’m not the one with the greatest of ills
I’m not the one you should be praying for
For, I’m not the one who that woman killed.
R Arora Nov 2017
We all have bad days,
And just now must be mine,
What are you smiling at,
Haven't you had thine?

Rejections and failures,
And numerous palls of sadness,
I've pulled through these before,
I have got the finesse!

Although some confidence gets undermined,
And my fate is, apparently,
In the hands of you- an imbecile;
But I am still okay to walk on.
Surprise, surprise! I am not dying.

One day the tables will turn,
And I want you to feel what I feel.
I am not looking at revenge,
For neither are you made of steel.

I think I will let go of it,
And the time shall move on,
For that's what it does best.
As for me,
Skilled sailors were never made by the seas
That were the smoothest.

Patience is the key.
Inspired by Chase Goehring's 'A Capella'.
November poem done!
The lighthouse at Le Cap de Grace
Was damp and dark at best,
The rain would sweep in from the south,
The wind rage from the west,
But nature’s torments could not match
The storms that formed within,
For deep inside its battered walls
Were palls of mortal sin.

Two lighthouse keepers kept the light,
Both Jon and Jacques De Vaux,
They tended to the light above
While she would wait below,
The dusky, husky buxom witch
With lips of honey dew,
Who loved the lighthouse keepers,
Not just one, but even two.

Below was but a single bed,
She said that they must share,
They watched her eagerly each night
Her tend and brush her hair,
For then she would turn round to them
And indicate her choice,
She’d merely point at one of them,
Not even use her voice.

And then the chosen one would smile
His brother often curse,
For he would share her bed that night
The other fare much worse,
For he would lie inside the store
On coils of hempen rope,
And lie awake and listening,
No sound would give him hope.

But often she would cry aloud
In passion through the night,
While Jon or Jacques would stop his ears
And think, ‘It’s just not right.’
But she ruled this *******
With silken hand and glove,
And they would never question it
While working up above.

She only ever favoured each
For just a single night,
She knew to show a favourite
Would seem to them like spite,
And thus the nightly balance kept
Their tempers both in check,
She fed on their desires, and they
In turn showed her respect.

The winter storms came in to stay,
The waves beat down below,
The wind beat at the lighthouse glass
And one would have to go,
Above to guard that precious light
To keep the ships from harm,
But who would go aloft would cause
The brothers both alarm.

For he who stayed would taste the charms
Of Elspeth for that night,
It might not be his turn, and that
They both thought wasn’t right,
A rising tide of anger fed
By storms and mute dismay,
Turned brother against brother when
One had to go away.

One night the light went out, and Jon
Said, ‘Jacques, go up above,
Your turn it is to light the light
While I stay with our love.’
But Jacques refused his brother’s plea
And said, ‘No, you can go,
You had the bed of love last night,
I’m staying down below.’

The night was dark and moonless and
There wasn’t any light,
While out there in the darkness rode
A freighter in the night,
It drove up on the reef, its bow
Then battered in their door,
And pinned their husky, dusky witch
In blood pools on the floor.

The lighthouse at Le Cap de Grace
Is damp and dark at best,
The rain will sweep in from the south,
The wind rage from the west,
Two lighthouse keepers keep the light
And share the only bed,
The half love that they long for now
Is well and truly dead.

David Lewis Paget
Neal Emanuelson Feb 2015
The mirror, consistent bystander, a defiled savior that returns
An arid eyeful of the misery masquerading in skin
The promises, unturned in the ragged nails
Of hands amongst the worn blades, desiccated with blood.
Night prefaced by sleep endeavors to hold a zephyr to never wake
Keeping a window parsed with misguiding lexis when solitary
Escapism writes itself on panes in palls of a routed exhale
The walls, sordidly stained with parody of preaching truths
Openhanded to the sheer erosion of missing self-misuse
And as the dawn reveals the path out redemption's door
The fetter of morning's mourning reminds its prisoner of its tethered grip.

©  2013
wordvango May 2017
often there is an echo
to what happens now
foreshadows cast a long darkness
the pause palls gives one a hint
the mercury in the bulb
goes higher when
and we ignore defy look away
no  the instruments
can't be trusted  
this time
as our plane circles a spiral we feel
the same as level minds
and crash headlong
the river rushes by
feet get wet
the trees on the shore bent downstream
a precedent
but we go on in definite
ignorance a human thing
that evolutionary flaw  of
near-sightedness a myopic
kaleidoscopic happy thing turned back to make us
colored like fools
in "fake news"
William M Head Jul 2016
Phoenix I
I set myself aflame to purge myself of sin
The fire sears me deep beneath my *****'s skin
Yet cannot heal the scars that bleed the heart within
I seek for peace of mind to still my sorrow's din
Alone I've wandered years a Cain of restless path
Blind from acid tears beset by storms of wrath
But neither miles or time can my missteps rescind
The faith of Job is lost drowned in scalding rain
The ghosts of dreams abound of **** by folly slain
They weep and shriek for grace but rot forsaken in their graves
The shame of failure galls the spirit shrinks and twists
As hope of living palls and perseverance proves a *****
Still I travel on refusing to give in
With strength of will near gone I find my inward wind
Though an orphan scorned by luck I am of phoenix grain
However oft I fall to dust from blaze of bones I rise again
jiminy-littly Dec 2019
ESCUTCHEON:  Tuesday September 17th, 2019 at 09:41 PM writes:

oh please…no more fluff for the stuffy…blah, blah, blah

REPLY:
its so dank in here – do you mind moving over?

ESCUTCHEON:
have to go anyway, its late and kinda artsy for fancy yum yums like me ... so derivative like.

REPLY:
ha, ha, ha ya mean so loosely fitting that it ‘palls me *****’.   cheerios girls, as the Telegraphers say

ESCUTCHEON:
cornflakes, potatoes, silk chiffon ribbons, any french layer cake will do for you lot…btw working me times table

REPLY:
since you (men)tion it, hee, hee, kah, kah, (cough)(spits out loose tooth).

ESCUTCHEON:  
rolls around with five men until sparkling clean.  Just like all the men *** known, T. Hee (she wahnts five x =’s 45)

REPLY:
leave it alone pal (3plus10)

ESCUTCHEON:  
yeah or just leave. this restaurant is for invertebrates and finger stats and rind rats

cafe french is stupid. and quit pointing that thing at me
it feels like two flutes in the back

i **(p)e everyone just turns out to vote (for me!) (aside to self – how does one thought supersede another (self to aside – withering like self-replicating worms - it's sequential, isn’t it?))(parens within parens)

huge thugs. good work all. take 5 (6-1=3)

REPLY:
he's drunk.

ESCUTCHEON:  
blood everywhere

meh, just on the napkin...thank g-d

Geesh, Im surprised he could keep (alive) that long  (plus 0 minus 0)

Comment awaiting approval.

LEAVE A REPLY
(On the Top 50 Best Cafés of the World according to the Telegraph)
Marshal Gebbie Jul 2023
Pacing in soft falling rain along a path seldom taken.
Preoccupied by thoughts, perturbed by the direction of my concerns.
How, in the epic of everyday normality, the excesses of humanity at large intercede, intrude on the peace of mind. Intrude on the grace of the green and peaceful rurality, in which I walk.

Insanity runs riot in some of the most , otherwise, passionately beautiful locales on the planet.

It manifests in the slaughter of unsuspecting innocents sitting down for a breakfast in the quiescent early morning light of old Kiev.
The monstrosity emanating directly from the mind of the mania driven, 70 year old, balding man in the Kremlin.

Carnage, death and unspeakable outrage and sorrow. Both young and old contorted, suddenly, in the stench of cordite and smoking rubble. Dreams, dreamt, just yesterday, obliterated forever.

Incandescent rage of vengeance ignited in the eyes of the beholders, a rage that will endure in a livid hatred that will perpetuate for centuries.

And of course, every day now, in the palaces of Pyongyang, Beijing, Paris, Washington, London, Delhi, Tel Aviv. Iran and Moscow, old men in expensive suits ruminate, sip rare old whisky and plot strategies on the nuclear chessboard. Moves that have the capacity of determining the endgame.

The fate of all life on earth.

In the meantime, the planet, fed up with the excesses of humankind, is reacting in melting the ice floes of Antarctica and the North Pole, swelling the oceans to engulf, warming the seas to create the emergence of devastating cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes.

Man is awakening to regions of expanding drought, vast and repetitive deluges of rainfall causing landfall and huge areas of catastrophic flooding, Encroachment of coastlines and the threat of inundation of vast low lying population areas, coastal cities and essential infrastructure, airports, power stations and arterial highways.....and then there are the wildfires, ever expanding, ever increasing in frequency and the continental choking palls of smoke.

Pondering these things, as I walk this country path in the falling rain, perhaps the greatest concern that causes my brow to furrow, is that largely, my fellow man turns the other way, preferring to put these things out of his mind. leave it to someone else to sort out. Place it all in the too hard basket.....and this attitude, I'm afraid, percolates to the top.
Concentrate on getting the votes, it will all sort itself out just so long as WE WIN THE NEXT ELECTION.

And so it goes on now, indeed.... A Whiter Shade of Pale.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
.i can assure you, i don't speak with the same language i write with, being  bilingual, and not some peacock polymath, i do not use this language in my private life... hence? i don't have to play a privacy game, akin to the schizophrenic internet / "real world" (internet banking / shopping?) scenario... i just switch my language... English remains intact online and among strangers... and it's not many English speakers will learn the western Slavic tongue, either... win win.

the "miracle" cure of english
psychiatry, composed of
a speaking, "therapy"?
why isn't the old concept
of pen-palls ever revived?
   can we allow, space, for patients?!
can't we allow for
                 a laps of time?
why was Anne Sexton,
Sylvia Plath, "prescribed" writing
cures...
     mild coal miners of ink?
who the hell needs talking cures?
is talking really any medium
for the allowance of a, "cure"?
i can't believe in talking therapy...
too much nuance,
too many deviating ******
expressions...
         and... **** me!
   the implosion of the psychiatric
practice of dogmatic
   regression-ism...
i.e. implanting false memories
into someone...
i've had that... wunderbar
practice!
  don't **** someone with
pharmacology... instead?
   implant fake memories into them!
with a passive form of
persuasion!
     talking therapy is CRAP!
*******!
       ****-HIT-THE-FAN!
**** MY BIG TOE PRETENDING
IT TO BE A *******
8 YEAR OLD'S PHALLUS!
  *****-****-mother!
what do i believe in?
  talking will not solve it...
    writing?
        to see the face of god,
is to also appear within the medium
of a reciprocation allowing
itself an audience of a shared
experience...
        there was never any talking
therapy...
  to begin with...
          talking sometimes requires
the art of sophistry,
rhetoric, to begin the architecture
of a "solipsistic" membrane...
  writing doesn't suppose this
coordinate, since it presupposes it...
   talking is for idiots,
writing, for those who retain
an article of faith, within the confines
of the multi facet theater
of doubt, without an outright
operatic "inconvenience" of negation...
who thought that talking therapy,
or CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy)
would ever work?
   if the basis of CBT is solely
focusing on the quick-hand of
speech?
  if CBT is to work, you'd also need
a SLP (speech-language pathologist)...
supposedly psychiatrists
are learned listeners,
quasi-priests,
   in the secular confessional
booths of sinless confessions...
and yet...
english teachers,
giving grades to pseudo essays,
listen more,
   to their pupils,
having to relax to some miles davis
in the meantime...
     talking "therapy"
is absolute *******...
     if this pseudo-medical profession
becomes nothing more than
corner-street drug pushers,
doesn't escape the "talking cure"...
and doesn't revert back
to pen-pall ergonomics,
   a Hippocratic oath,
beginning with, patience?
   **** them...
              CBT begins with an exchange
of writing...
   speaking to one another
is the last resort...
    an exchange of writing is
allowed a leisure "activity" of
engagement in one's own
periphery...
               allowance...
   not without the stress of...
       the allocated time,
     and the necessary "socialism"
of minding others,
of the similarity of shared problems...
   for a hyperventilating heart,
to drop a heart-shaped stone
into the sea of contradictory emotions...
and wait for
   the oysters to spawn.
Kyle Jul 2018
To the grave
The incessant marching continues
In the grand parade the audience pile in one by one, all watching what is but a mirror
The General with a resolute calm leads his colonels into the fray, they bear his palls as they remain steps ahead of their Lieutenants who follow the procession
The Majors hold the privates who weep, knowing soon they may be promoted, and the enlisted stay far away from the exercise, still too green, not yet hazed into the brotherhood
It is in this display a man has chance to join the brotherhood
He watches the quiet never ending promotion of life, as some take their responsibility with grace and others as boys
It is the duty of the young man, our "Private", to turn and face the inevitable, knowing what is to come
Watching the pallbearers pass he who knows sees soon himself
Watching the Colonels frown knowing his youthful smile shall soon turn to such
And when giving the general his final salute, knowing it is not just to that fallen hero, but to each in his own time
Deadly in lethal assaults
Stinging life to death
Ushering in a gory season
In palls of black smoke.

A malignant virus in mutations
Felling the dwarfs and the giants.

A viral deadly irritant
As spectra visitant
On dastard assignment
Rumbling ominously
In devouring voices of death
In global face menace
Bringing down powers
In eerie harvest.

Oh grim reaper
Oh angel of mortals
Preying on mortals
Harvesting death as grains
Fulling its cart of wagons
With indignant cadavers.

Woe unto you scorpion
Afflicting the people
New Year, New Hope
Routing victory over adder
That stings at dawn.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2021
chukkie choke:

baha / ars
replica - res cog.
pap.                                502 error message bypass, now for
                            the actual content:

in my years as a hermit i could really appreciate
any and all interactions on the internet,
esp. those ones that were exchanged in a written
medium...
at school we never managed to get a programme
going: of having pen-palls in either Germany
or France...
i guess it would have been sort of: nice...
                since emerging from my hermit state
going back among people, into the workforce...
i'm finding... conversations over the internet:
unnerving... seriously unnerving:
all this walking on eggshells from time to time...
you never know who'll end up talking to...
in my training as a steward at football matches...
a scenario:
i'm paired up with someone pitch-side...
for an hour the hypothetical person in a hypothetical
scenario is going-on-about
how the team i support are ****...
London rivalry between the east and the north...
the east and the west...
i'd love to see a time when West Ham meet up
with Millwall: if i were totally honest...
but the training states...
talk to the person that's ******* you off...
first... before seeking help from your supervisor...
on the internet there's that easy button
to press: the block button...
not even at school was i able to be liked by
everyone... so... no surprises...
i much preferred being: reasonable than being
liked... nice lesson to learn in your
formative years...
that's the hypothetical scenario...
in real life?
me and Danny stood pitch-side about two weeks
ago at Craven cottage...
he supports Arsenal, i told him: i "support" West Ham...
the old West Ham when they could play
really good football against the high tier
teams... while at the same time
underestimating the teams below them...
he was ashamed of Arsenal, or rather: didn't care...
i told him... it's not like i could ever be
a fanatical supporter... have the team's scarf...
have the team's jersey, know the chants...
i just like watching the game... the per se closure
and opening...
local patriotism, for me... is a borderline between
London & Essex...
both get beef from the rest of England...
esp. Devonshire... western *******...
always the pompous ones...
but it's never a local patriotism that could
be translated to a support for a football team...
what an alien concept.... no... not even the need
for the people to have it: it's more effective than
religion... it's for the rich, it's for the poor...
the intelligent and perhaps the less so...
not my place to discuss the need for people to support
football teams: if they're happy...
i'm also very happy on the job
when i hear them chanting, being so engaged...
considering that i attended Catholic Mass when i was younger:
i had to... to attend a Catholic primary school
i needed to attend mass... have my first communion...
pretend to go to a confession: where i lied...
i had to think up of something...
by a Catholic high school...
i "forgot" to get confirmed... all the other peers
were confirmed in at Brentwood...
i was reading up on the Gnostic Heresies...
my mind was made up then and there...
so seeing the lack of energy of the crowd in a church
as mass... comparing that to... the energy at a football
match?! wow... people need to feel something:
however trivial it might be...
better it be as trivial as a football match...
year in, year out...
it's good to know people can simulate a passion
for something...
they splinter up into their local patriotism...
yet at the same time: if they're called up...
they rally up together...
my second shift at Fulham i was actually smiling at
their passion...
impossible to fault it...
right...
               in my hermit years i would really cherish
exchanges on the internet...
then i was banned, excluded, banned somewhere
else... probed...
i knew the gig was up...
someone who had beef with me didn't resort to
allowing me elaborate, so that we could establish
a discussion... the first mistake of sorting out
a hostile situation...
currently?! A SOCIETY OF ******* SOCIOPATHS
AND LITTLE DESPOTS! CRY-BABIES!
with Danny we ended up talking about
his interests and passions... mostly crypto-currency...
he asked me for mine: music, mainly...
and cycling... he too was an avid cyclist once
before crashing into a tree...
but mainly talk of crypto-currency...
oddly enough we remained in-earnest throughout...
taking out time as a hermit allowed me
to become extroverted when otherwise
i wouldn't be...
i still like periods of introversion but i never
managed to have too much capacity for small-talk...
i guess spending time alone for over a decade
has allowed me to learn this skill...
time alone can teach you all manner of things...
your observational skills, esp...
a heightened sense of alertness...
although i have to say... initial small-talk is still
as painful as ever... the nicety of greeting people...
o.k. o.k. let's get it sorted...
we're not here for coffee... let's get into our roles...
then it's a breeze...
oddly enough i love the cushion of hierarchy...
why?! ha ha...
i can easily cover my back... do the Pontius Pilate
like... it's a ritual of pouring myself a glass
of milk... i am responsible for so little it would seem...
passing down the message to a supervisor is
a silent giggle in tow...
i grant myself all the benefits of returning to people:
it's so impossible to live without people:
esp. in a professional environment,
in undertaking a role...
in giving a cigarette one minute,
then asking the same person if they can bring you
a free bottle of water, which they willingly bring...
it's impossible to live alone...
i'm not implying having friendships,
i'm more prone to the allegiance to a professional
relationship with people: in stating boundaries:
in keeping them...
i was supposed to go on a date with this fellow
worker tomorrow, she texted me that she's not
up for it, a bout of flu: or is it flute?
no problem, get well, blah blah etc.
maybe some other time...
also a learning curve... first experience solipsism:
a thought experiment of an actual
condition that plagues autistic boys & girls...
then return to interaction... refreshed...
yet what i've experienced on some platoforms:
no one should experience...
people are unable to talk, "all of a sudden"?
they need to be supervised?
how about the block button? if that's ultimately
necessary?
society doesn't have to become this: rigid authority
seeking...
sometimes when writing... hell...
writing is primarily nuances / nuanced...
it seriously can't be taken literally...
a poetry platform: em... metaphor?!
listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations (BMV 988)
on my part a statement:
I'M THINKING ABOUT EATING YOU...
what harm?
said recipient only identified that statement
as referring to cannibalism...
sure... i was thinking of... the eloquence of
Hannibal Lecter... i might have been thinking
of cannibalism for the fun of...
the unknowable comparison:
closer to beef, or closer to chicken,
closer to mince beef or steak meat?
prawn?
             a texture that combines... almonds with
butternut squash?
do i look like a cannibal?
i heard that cannibals have really small teeth...
milk-teeth... and if the cannibal
is of an African disposition: their teeth are
not the ebony-envy... but that they're yellow...
like the teeth of a piglet aunt up north...
well... there's also the Kuru disease of New Guinea...
killer protein... killer proteins are also mentioned
in cases of Alzheimer...
Alzheimer being therefore something akin to...
an acne resurrection attack (acne, being dead
white blood cells) of brain cells... last time i heard
the brain was mostly fat... so... protein eating up fat...
or...
hours later... i was ******* to photographs
of Alexis Texas' *** being eaten... literally...
this one guy had his entire face... enclosed in between
her ****-cheeks, almost like a face-hugger
scene from the film alien...
well... i filter out ******* when i'm tense...
the sound is ever hardly on...
mostly photographs...
   is it so terrible to ******* to pictures of women
getting pleasured?
on the rare occasion that i manage to find
a pregnant girl *******...
i'll put the sound on... or...
hardly a need for scented candles & a comfortable
chair...
more like... take a ****, take a ****... *******...
take a shower... a Lester Burnham in reverse...
at the end of the time... today's closed chapter...
i sometimes try a morning routine
but i limp off since it feels like...
the sort of **** that might be associated with
having your beer spiked with a ******...
- i used to love internet interactions...
now... it's like an agreed observation i shared
with my grandfather... i'd love to chat...
but... over the phone?
i need to see your face, i need to see your hands...
i need to be invited by your idiosyncratic
gesticulations! over the phone it always felt like:
oh, you have a voice? well done...
there's clearly a scale of escalation...
one user does not agree with another user...
options available?
1. block them...
2. talk to them... clarify the problem...

the 3. option of making a complaint...
we're talking about platforms!
anyone can publish... that's the idea!
and they can publish anything they deem fit
within the platform's regulations...
i'm backing up my argument...

come to think of it... i trust people in real
life more than i do online...
it used to be the complete opposite...
people online how become hyper-sensitive:
authority riddling their own, ahem...
"safety"? oh... i see them...
later in life... the sort of Sarah Everard types...
frothing at the mouth... authoritarian:
getting other people's accounts suspended
online... invisibly "powerful"...
little despots, pseudo-sociopaths... mimics...
echo chamber half-wits...
yet in the great big world...
gullible little children...
it's that same joke...
a wannabe-sociopath meets a real-life sociopath...
their first date is always their last, date...
there's always a hierarchy...
there's always something in place
for whatever karma can be translate as:
in terms of... lessons to learn / to be learned...
it's always too late...
that microcosm of a build up...
people never go over the edge over things
of great importance...
it's always the little things that push them
over the edge... thereby? making
their lives all the more grandiose...

i could have been pushed over the edge
a few times...
we're talking about platforms...
not publishers... at the same time...
we not talking internet service providers...
we're not talking about
electrical companies, are we?
so if we're not talking publishers...
we're not talking internet service providers...
electrical companies...
this one where: he said, she said, behind closed
doors? **** it, publish everything!
i think this a way to implore these mediums
to take into account:
their absolute inauthenticity when caving
to one party's demands / concerns...
without fully exploring the other side of the story...

last time i checked... i checked out
as a minor presence on a platform... 3K views:
my highest grossing poo'em...
now?! in at 41K... i've recently been to
Wembley Stadium for the Women's FA cup final...
in attended... 43K... well... then...
i have perspective what circa 40K looks like in real life...
it doesn't matter what it reads on a screen...

tomorrow i'm going to paint my room,
refresh it... take all the books out... clean them...
take out the vinyls... the compact disks...
i just can't wait for the 14th of December...
i hope the woman who does my mother's
manicure / pedicure brings her one year old
daughter with her... and all the albums i lent her...
oh i don't care if her friend with a Scandinavian
physique / physiognomy comes along...
who's looking for dating...
i just care that she bring that little bundle
of joy with her...
planning ahead is never right...
you plan ahead: you're bound to come against
disappointments...

a flu, for example...

but i'd love to play with an onomatopoeia and
the basic foundations of speech with this
rugrat... (furgrat chimpy - a googlewhack...
oops)....
   obviously i wouldn't be thinking about
vowels and consonants...
i'd be thinking about syllables... about Katakana...
they say MA-MA first, no?
i'd love to explore her response to syllables,
syllables come first, as what's to be deciphered first...
sounds or gurgling are not exactly
qualification to make distinction of vowel or consonant...
man begins speaking / man becomes understandable
via the system of syllabary...
much later... the atomic vision of A... B'eh / beta...
for that matter... Na: that's sodium / natrium...
since my serious date bailed on me this coming
Monday... the 14th... that's Tuesday...
i'm really hoping for a date with this lady barely
a year old,
i'll put on some vinyl and we'll pretend to talk,
or... we'll end up talking a little.

— The End —