"pitiless" poems
Build me a slow boat to Timbuktu via China
Heave down a fleecy cloud and let me float to Nirvana
Hunt me a unicorn and let me ride to the Enchanted Forest
Find me a giant eagle and let it lift me to Outer Mongolia East
'please don't leave me here amongst demons with human faces'
Show me a Church and I'll show you a hall full of Sinners
Point out a wife and I'll reveal a liar and a fake and none dimer
Call a Doctor and its a Monster who betrayed the Hippocratics
That Government Boss is a cruel heinous snake without ethics
'please don't leave me here amongst demons with human faces'
See that Preacher and see a spineless hypocrite back-stabber
That lover was nothing but a sick deranged false **** twister
My dear acquaintance a heartless corrupted shyster unhinged
A Newsagent full of pitiless, gloomy, vile, psychotic joy-suckers
'please don't leave me here amongst demons with human faces'
That friend of years a bloodsucking Judas who betrayed and stole
Uncles who rained terror with sadistic pleasures in parts unwhole
Show me nieces and find two-faced ******* with poisons in veins
Neighborhoods full of silent killers and Rapists of truthful genes
'please don't me leave here amongst demons with human faces'
A vicars' daughter wielding angst axes better than a viking
The pathetic Moors zombies tearing flesh on masters beholding
The dead-eyed Arabs salivating madly or at daggers drawn
Contemptible Men-kids with pin ****** used as King's pawns
'please don't leave me here amongst demons with human faces'
Build me a cottage in rolling green fields with blue skies
Find me a fair maiden with a true heart and warming smiles
Show me a place that holds fairness and justice real and dear
A world with humanity we're all sisters and brothers for care
'please don't leave me here amongst demons with human faces'
[email protected] August2018
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 11:44 PM UTC
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
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self-congratulatory nonsense as the
famous gather to applaud their seeming
greatness
you
wonder where
the real ones are
what
giant cave
hides them
as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades
as
the fools are
fooled
again
you
wonder where
the real ones are
if there are
real ones.
this self-congratulatory nonsense
has lasted
decades
and
with some exceptions
centuries.
this
is so dreary
is so absolutely pitiless
it
churns the gut to
powder
shackles hope
it
makes little things
like
pulling up a shade
or
putting on your shoes
or
walking out on the street
more difficult
near
damnable
as
the famous gather to
applaud their
seeming
greatness
as
the fools are
fooled
again
humanity
you sick
************
13.9k
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
It is the 30th day of the months in Kenya
State and corporate capitalist have now paid their workers
Wages or salaries or stipends or emoluments all being remunerations
While the rural bourgeoisie and urban bourgeoisie have also paid ex-gratia
To relatives come over-aged workers who have declined retiring
For the fear of looming starvation if at all they go home, where they were born,
Nonetheless; proceed they receive will do nothing whatsoever
As it will be stifled by the monster of desperate consumerism;
So fat and gullible in this tiger of land in the region called Kenya;
The terror peddling rent, courtesy of ruthlessness of the landlord
Bills of electric power in their full monopolistic gear
Bills of water devoid of quality, indifferent dysentery monger
Wages for maid who keep on usurping the food of my child; milk
Bills for gas, all of it redolent of comprador bourgeoisie in fashion,
Hotel and bar bill - a surreptious one, as the bar girl only knows
Airtime and renewal, TV channels and other screen capitalistic ploys
Family trip to local resort in a feat of foolish consumerist venture,
Money to the old mother at home and, sometimes depraved but patient father
ARV’s money to my *** aids stricken sister at the village, my aunt also
Tuition fees for my son at the kindergarten, who goes to schools but learns nothing
fees balance which my wife has to pay at the tailor to ransom out her dress,
M-Pesa and M-Swari loan repayment, this only for Kenyan 30th dayers
They know the agony of dealing with Kenyan mega-capitalist safaricom ltd.
This consumerism and **** consumerism,
It is the menacing bane of the Kenyan poor
It is the avaricious tube which siphons back
The hard earned money from pockets of the poor
Back to despotic account of the pitiless world pigshotry.
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 9:35 AM UTC
I’ll split the hairs, I’ll split an atom
And never leave the bedroom.
I most identify with December,
Not because of the crushing temperature
But the lack of cosmic dawdling
Is no more mesmerizing than a frozen phoenix.
And as she arrives by train from Phoenix,
I study who she appears to be, the atoms
Composing her auburn hair with dawdling
Authenticity shout “Take me to the bedroom!”
While the wedge of geese in this temperature
Head to the Southern Hemisphere’s December.
The common chill of this morning in December
Prevents us from rising from out the covers like a phoenix,
And our blankets like ash defend us from the temperature
That stills the vibrations of the atmosphere’s atoms.
I curse the insulated walls of the bedroom,
Trapping in heat and discouraging our dawdling.
A rafter of turkeys outside my window are dawdling,
Printing their runes on the documents of December
Between the thickets surrounding the bedroom
While the sun, golden like the plumage of a phoenix,
Awakens in my bones every dormant atom,
Instilling in me courage to brave the temperature.
I follow her, dressed, from the bedroom
And her footsteps serve to punctuate the temperature
Like the smoldering beak of a phoenix
Too busy being risen for dawdling.
She leaves, by train through the chill of December,
Me daydreaming of fission. The splitting of an atom.
I’ll split an atom daily, safely within the bedroom
And sleep through December’s pitiless, hollow temperature,
Waking only for dawdling until Spring is a phoenix.
Mar 24, 2010
Mar 24, 2010 at 10:16 PM UTC
the dark approaches as if it is an ineluctable storm
created by thoughts falling like dominoes
or explodes into existence in a breath
detonated by a word innocently spoken
an eclipse constructed of your fears
like locusts eating all the light
with hooks and claws they grasp the air
pulling it up from your lungs
fighting blind against attacks from every side
weapons fall from your trembling grasp
I still see you dimly, enveloped in despair
you no longer see me at all
I have become a phantom, intangible
dispersed into powerless anguish by your terror
my voice is only a murmur to you
a far-off echo, indistinct
defenses and barriers you have labored on
transform into spun glass latticework
shattering through them without knowing
shards left embedded in your skin
stumbling blindly in the darkness
you are swallowed whole into the void
once more you are ripped away
imprisoned in the Stygian, pitiless hole
the emptiness turns its gaze to me
mocking laughter blisters my flesh
I can only wait and call to you
how long till you return
to me
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 10:36 PM UTC
men and their egos (I turned twenty this summer) are
inseparable
insufferable
begrudgingly
they admit “guess you were right”
believing that will make them heroes,
by full on confessing they are ********
I turned twenty in the summer
my tan legs in cutoffs (it’s summer) drives them to madness,
accused, you are pitiless, for their dreams of you involve ransom
still, you
search and quiet plead like Abraham, to the heated air,
while listening to Whitney Houston and Ed Sheeran,
(on your earbuds just so nobody knows your weakness)
for just that one good man in the township of
***** and Gomorrah
my mother bitter sneers good luck with that,
forgetting I am now twenty years
so old, so advanced,
that my hopes and aspirations are no longer those
the ones in my high school yearbook
my poetry fills pages,
a human urban renewal,
laying out a city of hope
recalling that ***** and Gemorrah were destroyed
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 11:49 AM UTC
*A church mouse’s despondent muse
Is like a fuse
Melting as soon as it features in its brain
It does potentiate a pitiless migraine.
Bubbly spring in its step
A misstep
Seemingly a rare occurrence
Like a snow ball in hell, perchance.
A truce
With Zeus
To spare it
Bedeviling suited for a society’s #misfit.*
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 3:17 AM UTC
High school life makes me quite weary, history can be quite dreary,
More than once the class has given me a cause to snore,
While I sat there, fingers drumming, some modern tune I started humming,
I didn’t see the teacher coming, coming in the classroom door.
Normally, she was quite cheerful, humming from the classroom door,
But today she gave a roar.
All the class sat still and silent, knowing that she could turn violent,
And all fearing lasting indent that she could leave upon their head.
All that time I watched with worry; - wishing I had thought to scurry
Out the door in fit and flurry - flurry from the pending dread -
From the sure and ceaseless source of impending dread -
I hid ‘neath my desk instead.
And the roaring, raving, ranting teacher started in on chanting;
Save me - brave me couldn't handle this kind of class;
Now I sat there, my mind wandering, all my thoughts were set on squandering
All she spoke, my brain was pondering, my attention couldn’t last -
As she spoke my brain was pondering and my attention couldn’t last -
I could never hope to pass.
All around me kids were shaking, but no move toward freedom making,
I began to wonder if they had a clue what was in store;
Maybe they had heard her coming, while I had been busy humming,
Fingers on the desk were drumming, drumming so I wouldn’t snore
Maybe they had had a warning - of whatever was in store; -
I hoped that she wouldn’t roar.
Sitting there in constant terror, worried I would make some error,
And thus bring about her wrath upon my mortal head;
But she made no move to strike me, showed no sign she planned to spite me
I doubted that she’d think to bite me, maybe growl at me instead?
This thought made me shiver slightly, i’d rather her roar instead -
At least I could keep my head.
She began to motion towards me, I knew it wasn’t to award me,
Perhaps she had noticed that i wasn’t wide awake?
Either way, She’d given order, so i began my journey toward her
Maybe some day I’d adore her? How many classes would it take?
How much of her pitiless lecturing would it take?
My own life was now at stake.
Now that I had done her bidding, she was at her desk, just sitting,
Watching me with those eyes and her never blinking stare;
Never once her gaze shifted, the corners of her mouth weren’t lifted
It was as if a sense of humor had never been formed there -
As if her face had never shown the signs of laughter there -
I pretended to not care.
All the while, my thoughts racing, I was at her mercy, pacing,
The room of classmates I was facing, but they had begun to snore;
i thought she was a fluke in staffing, until i heard her laughing
Now her sullen, cold, and serious mood I had no reason to deplore -
Those heartless hoards of homework were no reason to deplore -
I was scared of her no more!
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 5:43 PM UTC
Know this—I am well acquainted with the wolf,
Well versed in his ways, his demeanor,
His dispassionate relentlessness,
His pitiless focus on hunt and hunted,
His workaday disdain of pity.
There are those who would laud the mythical Spartan lad
Who hid the wolf beneath his cloak,
Affecting some gallant stoicism
As the beast consumed him without restraint,
But I say to you that is a mere romantic fallacy,
A wanton failure to apprehend the true moral.
I have learned that there is no accommodation,
No covenant to be reached with the wolf,
And any attempt to do so is merely to invite destruction,
And so I choose to engage him openly, without reservation,
Rolling tail-over-teacup in the streets,
Attempting to hold his jaws open with bare hands
While those who find such battle unseemly and uncouth
Jeer and hoot from porch and portico.
No matter, for I will continue to meet the cur on my terms,
For staid suffering in the hopes
Of reaching some accord with the beast
Is the not the act of the noble sage:
It is the mock heroics of the coward,
The sad acquiescence of the simpering fool.
Mar 20, 2018
Mar 20, 2018 at 2:02 PM UTC
Thank Heaven! the crisis—
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last—
And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know,
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly,
Now in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:—ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness—the nausea—
The pitiless pain—
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain—
With the fever called “Living”
That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated—the terrible
Torture of thirst,
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:—
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst:—
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground—
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed—
For man never slept
In a different bed;
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses—
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies—
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie—
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast—
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,
Now in my bed
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead—
And I rest so contentedly,
Now in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead—
That you shudder to look at me.
Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie—
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie—
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
4.4k
I have shared in my time the human illusions,
the muddy foolishness and craving passions.
But something years ago pulled me out of the tide-wash;
I cannot even pretend to be one of the people.
I stand here with open eyes in the clear air growing old.
Watching with interest and considerable nausea,
this time of the demagogues, the shifts of power,
and the pitiless wars that prepare for the fall.
But also the enormous unhuman beauty of things;
rock, sea and stars; fool-proof and permanent.
But as for my children, I would have them
keep their distance from the thickening center,
corruption never has been compulsory.
When the cities lie at the monster's feet
there are left the mountains.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 11:52 AM UTC
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
3.1k
Il pleure dans mon coeur (“It rains in my heart”)
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town;
Heavy languor and dark
Drenches my heart.
Oh, the sweet-sounding rain
Cleansing pavements and roofs!
For my listless heart's pain
The pure song of the rain!
Still it rains without reason
In my overcast heart.
Can it be there's no treason?
That this grief's without reason?
As my heart floods with pain,
Lacking hatred, or love,
I've no way to explain
Such bewildering pain!
Published by Better Than Starbucks
Paul-Marie Verlaine (1844-1896) was a French poet and a prominent figure in the Symbolist and Decadent poetry movements. Verlaine has been called "one of the most purely lyrical of French poets." Keywords/Tags: Verlaine, French, translation, rain, languor, heart, treason, reason, pain, hatred, love, Arthur Rimbaud
Ophélie (“Ophelia”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
... while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by ...
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide ...
Far-off, in the woods, we hear the strident bugle’s cry.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
This albescent phantom, has rocked here, to and fro.
For a thousand years, or more, in her gentle folly,
Ophelia has rocked here when the night breezes blow.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
Has passed, an albescent phantom, down this long black river.
For a thousand years, or more, in her sweet madness
Ophelia has made this river shiver.
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 2:13 AM UTC
14th Feb 2014
They are all around us,
within, without, above, behind and before us;
Fanning the flames of the famous, the wealthy and fortunate
with secret agendas and infamous fame of their own.
I throw a stone
send it crashing through houses of glass; I see their
comings and goings in the Grove of Bohemia;
drinkers and liars; role-playing fraternity fools.
There are rules.
It takes more than just peeing at trees to be properly manly;
secrecy more than life is at stake when the fodder is human,
throw off your cares to the punitive furnace of hate.
Such ill-fate
that begets our world leaders, hatched out of a tangible darkness;
parasitic, calamitous, venomous world-gobbling evil
Mammon, devourer of souls, will preside at the feast.
And the Beast,
Fourth Beast of Daniel, squats at the head of the table,
fabled for pitiless torture of souls in transgression,
slavers and gloats over innocence lost and despoiled.
Feb 14, 2014
Feb 14, 2014 at 11:07 AM UTC
Have you stared into the eyes of another?
And found yourself out of breath, out of time
Where your heart beats with a flutter
In the realm of beauty, in the face of divine
Where the world begins to slow
All aggression set aside
As the purest of thoughts consumes you
You have found love and I say it with pride.
How blackened must a heart be
To see it as unclean
To mutilate our most beautiful of feature
And do it all in the name of that unseen
Is it feral in its nature?
Is there not but lust they see?
Within their own hearts they know its joy
But in the hearts of my brothers they call it blasphemy
What fear is it that besieges them?
That crept into there mind at night
So that they may stand behind the powerful
To revel in there hatred to revel in there spite.
But do they think they face fragility
A surrender of all that is right
The truth of love is that it will always endure
That is its beauty that is its might.
Know that they are driven by fear
To that their cowardice bound
But I have seen the unity of love
No greater power can be found
Know that oblivion beckons
But it will be them who answer the call
But reach out your hand to meet them
And at last into this pit they will fall.
The world may seem black
Pitiless and cruel
But know there are some who will always stand beside you
Be assured it is the privilege of us all.
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 3:52 PM UTC
She knelt by the dark grey marble headstone
once again on the anniversary
of the day she had happily buried her husband
six feet down in the ground
eight years since she had caused his demise
for a man she did despise!
As the widow gloated behind a false facade
the same figure watched
behind her the deceased husband stood
turning could not see him
thinking once again how good and thrilling
never a suspected killing!
No idea her good life would come to an end
as supernatural forces gathered
this time he followed her back to a plush car
the long dead husband was back
what had changed to allow him the power
to be back at this hour!
Angry sat next to the wife who murdered him
driven back to his own home
familiar items brought back good memories
from when he lived here
now a ghost haunting the house he loved
before down the stairs shoved!
Whether there is a heaven or a place called hell
he had prayed so very hard
from a dark pitiless limbo it changed to hope
now with a new man argued
started by the woman who had meant so much
now he would loath to touch!
****** to the floor berating of him was bored
scrambling to her feet ran
up those familiar stairs shouting more abuse
pursued by this enraged man
like a replay saw her violent death as she fell
her neck broken he could tell!
Instantly was at peace free no longer in turmoil
a tunnel so bright he could see
looking down at her lifeless body he passed on
but a faceless evil took her soul
engulfing it for that overdue journey to hell
righteousness had created this spell!
Jutsice it seems had at last been done!
The Foureyed Poet.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 2:52 PM UTC
I was last on the register, so
as soon as I said
that I was still there
everyone stood up and left.
Katie was still there
and she pointed at me and
asked me if I was coming tonight.
I said that guessed not and she asked me
If I knew that she wasn’t
my girlfriend.
I didn’t answer so she informed me
that I wasn’t allowed to be jealous that
she goes to parties that I don’t.
I asked, ‘what party?’ and she rolled her eyes
and left. I walked out of the classroom alone and
wondering what the hell just happened.
James saw me across the yard
and shouted
if I was coming tonight.
I told him to **** off
and walked quicker
every time he tried to
call me back.
A few kids on the bus
swore at me through
the open window, their
middle fingers and crude words
working together in pitiless tandem.
I turned up the volume
in my ipod
and kept on walking.
It carried on snowing. It had been
three days now and three times
we had been called to assembly
so the headmaster could announce
which schools had been closed for the day.
That morning he was
proud to tell us
that we were the only school
in the area
to still be open.
The snow was four inches deep
and rising and grey and dangerous.
Through the frosted windows
in the front door I could see
my keys. I kicked the wall
and nearly shattered my toes.
I climbed over my gate to the back of my house.
For a while I thought about
breaking a window.
The cat found me and pawed me shins
and I told her I was sorry,
but I couldn’t let her in the house.
I sat in a frozen plastic chair
and looked across the white
and green garden. The cat
joined me, and sat on my lap,
her body as close to me as possible.
I zipped her up inside my jacket
so only her head poked out and
we sat there,
watching cartoon’s on my ipod.
Batman fought The Joker again, and
Gumball finally got to kiss Penny.
The Joker escaped again
and Gumball realised
that it was all a dream.
It got cold and dark and eventually
both the cat and I fell asleep.
My mother shook me awake
and unzipped my jacket to let the cat out.
She asked me if I had a good day at school, and
I rubbed my eyes
and told her that
I couldn’t remember.
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 10:53 AM UTC
Sometimes in April
When the rain pours
And makes mud of the earth.
I think of Brenda Fassie’s “Too Late For Mama”
Lingering on my sister’s vibrato
An attempt to forget that,
Once again,
A family member had lent us their back.
My three sisters and I huddled,
Under the night sky,
Singing.
A mild prayer to keep us from shivering.
A ‘let us find the mercy of a couch”
But it rained hard.
We used our limbs as umbrellas.
Laughed loud and sloppily
To hide our shame
Sometimes in April.
I think about the wet ground
How it felt against our feet.
How poverty turned into homeless.
Into needy.
Into “don’t cry, we’ll be okay soon”
Into my mother being a beggar
And us, just open mouths.
Wrestling with the pitiless relatives
Who call us out of our shared last names.
Sometimes
I think
Haven’t we lost enough
Haven’t we known an empty hand
Haven’t we despaired enough.
No shelter to speak of
Just a song to keep us warm
And the rain does not care. (Neither do the people)
It comes.
In April.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 5:38 PM UTC
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.
Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried--Adieu!
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.
2.1k
Usually
When I’m feeling down, I
bust out a box of colored pencils and
bust a vein on the paper.
But now
I dig through the box,
and I just can’t find those bright colors.
I assure myself that they’re there.
I know that they’re there.
I want
I need
I beg
for them to be there.
But the deeper I dig
The more I find
blackness, darkness, jet black ebony
murky, swarthy swaths of shadowy slate
perilous, pitiless pitch
somber, sober sable
I keep digging.
Aug 9, 2011
Aug 9, 2011 at 8:01 PM UTC
When I am old,
And sadly steal apart,
Into the dark and cold,
Friend of my heart!
Remember, if you can,
Not him who lingers, but that other man,
Who loved and sang, and had a beating heart, --
When I am old!
When I am old,
And all Love's ancient fire
Be tremulous and cold:
My soul's desire!
Remember, if you may,
Nothing of you and me but yesterday,
When heart on heart we bid the years conspire
To make us old.
When I am old,
And every star above
Be pitiless and cold:
My life's one love!
Forbid me not to go:
Remember nought of us but long ago,
And not at last, how love and pity strove
When I grew old!
1.9k
Spleen
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The roses were so very red;
The ivy, impossibly black.
Dear, with a mere a turn of your head,
My despair’s flooded back!
The sky was too gentle, too blue;
The sea, far too windswept and green.
Yet I always imagined―or knew―
I’d again feel your spleen.
Now I'm tired of the glossy waxed holly,
Of the shimmering boxwood too,
Of the meadowland’s endless folly,
When all things, alas, lead to you!
Paul-Marie Verlaine (1844-1896) was a French poet and a prominent figure in the Symbolist and Decadent poetry movements. Verlaine has been called "one of the most purely lyrical of French poets." Keywords/Tags: Verlaine, French, translation, spleen, roses, ivy, despair, sky, sea, blue, green, red, black, holly, boxwood, Arthur Rimbaud
Ophélie (“Ophelia”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
... while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by ...
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide ...
Far-off, in the woods, we hear the strident bugle’s cry.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
This albescent phantom, has rocked here, to and fro.
For a thousand years, or more, in her gentle folly,
Ophelia has rocked here when the night breezes blow.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
Has passed, an albescent phantom, down this long black river.
For a thousand years, or more, in her sweet madness
Ophelia has made this river shiver.
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 2:17 AM UTC
Don't be my child, don't step on broken glasses
Don't be fooled by all of those sweet promises
I've been through a lot of regrets
Memories that I love to bury and simply forget
Treasure my child, my words of wisdom
I have a lot of story to tell when I enter the kings kingdom
Wounded by those pitiless pawns, knights and bishops
Terrorized by a rook and the queen killed all of my hopes
Listen well, don't act so stupid my innocent child
The world is full of jungle and really so wild
I was bitten by spiders, lions and snakes
To recall what I've been through still make my body shakes
My child, look at all my deep scars
Think thrice always, don't fully rush to reach the stars
Else you'll wished upon it to bring you back to where you start
Because you've led your life to a maze and welcome the dark
My dear sage, all your words are of true wisdom
But let me take my own course of freedom
I may feel the deepest sorrow like hell
But at the end like you I will have a great story to tell
written: October 8, 2014 at 10:45 pm PH time
Mysterious Aries
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 3:21 AM UTC
Who put the “sub” into “subversion” and “subculture”?
Was it the same people
Who built schools:
Those prisons
Where kids are tortured
And brainwashed
Into being “good” conforming citizens –
Factory fodder
Trained to sit in lines
Labouring at meaningless tasks,
Questioning nothing?
So still we are ruled
By Tory Grandees and Brussels Bureaucrats
Keeping us in our place:
Social Control
Over Job Centre slaves.
It’s the same the whole world over:
The rich wallowing in luxury
While the poor starve to death
Exposed to pitiless winds.
For once words fail me
About our Unfair World.
Children dying everywhere
While fatcats feed in a frenzy.
No wonder people talk of Revolution
And terrorist plots.
Our air is full of carbon
While trees are cut
Down
For seas of palm oil.
We need to reconsider
What we do
In all our ways.
Enough is enough.
It’s time to nurture nature
As denizens of Planet Earth.
Paul Butters
© PB 23\11\2018.
Nov 23, 2018
Nov 23, 2018 at 6:35 AM UTC