"pollux" poems
castor and pollux
the twins from the milky way
argue in my head.
© Matthew Harlovic
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
Saturn Venus & Mars
If you live in the Northern Hemishpere of this universe,
go out any night this week an hour or so after sunset,
and look at the western sky to catch a planetary triple play
starring Venus, Saturn and Mars. The first thing skywatchers
will see — weather permitting — is the planet Venus,
slightly north of west, in the constellation Gemini.
Look for Gemini's twin first magnitude stars,
Pollux and Castor, just above Venus. As the sky gets darker,
the planet Mars can be spotted to Venus' left as it appears
in the constellation Leo very close to the bright,
first magnitude star Regulus. Further still to the left,
will be Saturn shining in the western part of the constellation Virgo.
The sky map below shows how to spot all three planets.
Venus, Mars and Saturn are all currently appearing,
slightly north of the ecliptic, the path the sun appears to follow
over the year, shown in green in the sky map. This occurance inspired
the poem that follows.
Good morning my love, hope that you slept well,
while you were away my dear, all the night sky fell,
the only stars that remain, are the stars in my eyes,
when I gaze upon your face, the tears my heart cries,
for I can only dream a dream, of you in my world,
and wish that I could kiss, those sweet lips so curled,
I also wish that you, would think of me this way,
holding you in my arms, is my wish each and every day ....
Gomer LePoet...
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM UTC
December, 1870
After the beef was gone,
after the pork and the lamb,
and the fowl and the fish
and the dogs, and the cats,
and the rats in the gutter,
the butchers turned to the zoo.
We ate the wolves.
We ate the wolves
broiled in sauce of deer,
the antelope truffled and terrined.
We ate the camels
with breadcrumbs and butter,
and when they were all gone,
we sharpened our knives
and primed our guns
and came back for the elephants.
The gunsmith Devisme did the deed,
hurled an explosive ball
through each of their docile heads.
They fell like mountains,
like the pillars of Dagon
pulled down by mighty Samson,
and then we hacked them up
and carted them away to the kitchens,
to feed the wealthy and the rich
in the clubs of bright Paris.
Dec 29, 2011
Dec 29, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
I am but a single
dry dead leaf
laying beneath an endless willow tree
around the waters bend
close to the toadstool pow-wows
only inhabited by the faeries.
& the moon- she still shine,
captured but by a sphere, yet so free
her light may breathe
a chilling, frigid touch
between the memories you
have buried so deep.
So please do not fret your wondrous mind
over all of your insecurities,
though she may shine with a chilling reminder
I promise that in your eyes
a beautiful soul
is all she sees.
As my mind races I feel
I am unable to describe
the exact emotion you
have gently
injected into my mind.
My eyelids grow heavy
my minds afloat to space
all that is left in my world as I know it,
is the perfection on your face
You see darling,
I am a hija de la luna;
the stars will align with
Castor & Pollux
Cancer, Aphrodite, & Fortuna.
They greet me as old friends,
join me in my nights of fantasy.
tell me darling what do these strange constellations mean?
Oh how I pity thy cataracts
eyes white & glassy
but I promise the warmth will melt your frozen gaze
& in time, you will see.
The horizon shifts as I do to you,
how long do you wish to be at sea?
Alas, you know my poison
doubt seeps into my skin
like an 80 patch.
Through thick & thin,
even on the sorest of feet
I will skip merrily along your path.
Round my head I gaze,
The sky has been stained
with fuchsia & clementine
among the blues.
tell me again, how may I find your presence within the hues?
Wrap yourself within my blanket
of ease & security.
Trust me with your life or not,
for I want to be
there, when you most
need me
You cannot help
you are a broken bird
I cannot deny my psyche as it worries
*does a dove not care about her nest back home
when she soars above
the sea?*
Next to the beating arrhythmia
you try hold dear ‘twixt your ribs
my favourite poem of yours has changed
where I will weave a small nest
dream of your lips
& the sound of rain.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC
Watch me closely, God,
though you’ve seen it all before.
I’ve got the universe up my sleeve
and it’s itching for a sleight,
if you’re willing to be conned.
The stardust filling Aquarius
has poured for countless millennia
and it won’t brim the bottomless cup
of your oceanic blues.
That’s the warm-up for Lepus
who, lean and polar-white, leaps
out from my flipped-over cap
and is chased by the steel-plied
Orion’s hankering for roast hare.
Hunger-driven this heaven hunter
has a saggy belt; his sword’s tip drags,
slicing Gemini in two,
but twins can’t be parted long
and divinely grasping Pollux clasps
Castor’s pause anew.
Conjoined, they bow together
under showers of milky petals
kissing no-longer
furrowed brows till black
velvet curtains fall
and are followed by your eons of
endearing applause.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:41 AM UTC
Light breaks through the littered cinerescent clouds as I watch from a Windex streaked window
Tangerine incandescence fighting it's way through as dusk approaches
Warm rays caress my face through shadows of the evergreens that line the street
As if a reflection of a giant brass *** was being cast into my living room
Fragments of dust filter through the clementine colored air
sitting cross legged on an old Persian rug covered in dog fur
A weather beaten Japanese maple scratches its fingers on the window
The stellar jays bask in this rare gift, hopping from branch to branch
The inevitable gloom and grey catching up
Ashen warfare surging on a daisy farm
A sense of malevolence runs through the clouds
A split screen between the high spirits and the melancholy
The Castor and Pollux of the skies
Like a giant wondrous creamsicle threatened of being swallowed up by the smoke
This contention sends them blissfully unaware of the eclipsing nightfall that is upon them
Twilight enraptures the heavens, ending in nebulous sovereignty
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 9:57 PM UTC
mild, so mild in the night
to travel with the earth
amongst an early starlit bloom,
muddy fields fill the air
with pubescent June.
goslings waddle, fuzzy scurries.
mother, father,
enlarge and hiss
protecting their long months work,
now free from pipping shells.
so cool is the night while
laying hidden in uncut fields.
chilling winds dance atop feral growth.
sanctuary for outward gazing,
through to unknown worlds.
there is no envy from a distance.
breath feeds wonder, spilling over
into this vessel, so soon to be forgotten.
spoiled from within, the unborn,
rotten. a shell too hard to crack.
there is no nest for that sacred sibling.
forgotten by mother and father.
their failed incubation, rotting.
lost amongst the stars
but within the field of all.
Apollo sings to Pollux and Castor
stroking somber tones from Lyra.
"Greet the voiceless into forever;
attach to them their rightful wings",
"chirp, chirp, chirp"
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 1:33 AM UTC
We walk atop the clouds,
above the oceans, that have swallowed,
the crowns that we had once worn,
wave, after wave, dragging the sands into her tables.
Look upon the sky of black,
where the thousand stars reside,
while in the dark, they harmoniously spin,
the seven brothers of the Alpha and Omega.
Brothers, once united strong,
have grown apart with seas in between,
now look at one another with discrimination and disgust,
eyes now containing anger, and fists clenched with iron.
The comets, they fill my pupils,
my heart now filled with stone,
as we walk the path of good and evil,
and watch Castor and Pollux cut each other's throats.
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 10:29 PM UTC
GEMINI:
The creases on your palms are
valleys full of quicksand; your hands
have sunken through my skin and
into my bones. You opened your fists in
mid-autumn and by mid-winter, our heart lines,
our lifelines, had fused. Dear Pollux, sometimes
I wonder how you could not know that
on those cold February nights, it is not
puffs of air that escape your Cupid’s bow, but rather
wisps of fetal star, swirling and curling up and up
into new constellations—ones depicting
Cleopatra and Antony
Paris and Helen
you and I.
The looking glass in my mother’s washroom no longer
displays emerald orbs; they have been melted down
from a solid to a liquid to a stacking, twirling vapor
that I can no longer see, nor feel. But the thing about you,
Dear Pollux, is that somehow, though it is beyond me how,
you have captured her scalloping memory and turned
everything to smoky quartz—
you reflect the placidity I hope she found.
The sinkhole in my abdomen that mother dearest created has
been gorged with your quicksand, and I am gluttonous for you. There’s
a part of me that thinks you to be the eighth wonder of the world
with your wide eyes and your slight dimples and your
ability to generate earthquakes in my bones with a
snap of your fingers. But Pollux, sweetheart, there’s a nagging
suspicion I have that deems you to be the eighth deadly sin—
your lips branding my neck;
your hands burrowing through the flesh of my hips;
the pearls you create from the grains of sand I carry.
I oftentimes wonder how you figured out the secret of
melting my amethyst crested core.
Your horoscope will tell you that you are wishy washy, but
I will tell you that you are dynamic and paramount. You
will be told that today “you must wrestle your past before
communicating with your future,” and I shall roll my eyes and
tell you that the only thing you must wrestle is my affection.
Your fate is not in the stars, Pollux, darling;
your fate has nothing to do with the Year of the Pig or
the Gemini constellation that is so ruled by Mercury—
the fortune tellers we made in elementary school were
accurate representations of coincidence.
You will find your destiny in
the palms of your hands and I will
find my destiny within you.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 1:26 AM UTC
Premature, they died at birth. Twin brothers and I too am their brother.
They were born 5 years before me. Jared Scott and Trevor Alexander. I was born with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, and they were so small they could fit in the palm of your hand.
They were kept in glass boxes: incubators humanizing glass bodies shattering aliens in fabricated wombs. Clear tubes ran from each nostril to machines with numerical equations that simulate abnormal infant’s breathing pattern. Their hearts were UFO’s, unidentifiable, black hole brain matter with lungs like space vacuums.
“They came too soon.” I was told
Possibly cremated, I can’t remember what my parents said.
When I was younger, I thought babies couldn’t die.
*****
Upon my birth, my parents gave me the twin’s middle names: as if some fusion of sunlight and stardust could manifest into a third being, still stuck on earth with the cord around his neck.
Cortex in cortex. Conjoined astronauts sharing intersections of skin, fluids, and bone. We are of flesh and blood, yet I did not know them. They are more than childern, but intersteller beings, cellestials and heavenly bodies.
Twin constellations, Gemini, comparable to Castor and Pollux themselves. Their fates were left up to the stars, but they were not spaceships, they were meteorites burning out in unearthly fires. Without a fighting chance, their flames were stifled.
“Mayday.mayday……….. Mothership.is………………………crashing…..… ……………Mother……board.short-circuiting……………..……… Firing 3rd……….. ……thruster…… Firing………….. 5th.thruster……… 10 minutes ..till…...…….…... ………………………………………..impact……………………………………….……
recharging ……….......flux.capacitors……………………..Oxygen..Nitrogen…..…..
……………..Burning……………..… up in atmosphere……………..….5.mintues.till ..impact…………………Suffocation…........Fuel.exhaustion…………1 minute…….
………….45…...seconds………….Depletion..............30.seconds………….............................................................................................................................................
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Planetary. Collision……… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………15.seconds…………………………………………………………... ………………………… Planetary. Collision……………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………...………The sun is so bright …………….…………………………………………………………..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
A Winter’s Tale
*It was a Winter’s tale
you told as soft,
fluffy snow,
fell around us.
Your eyes danced excitedly
with the laughter in your heart,
as you announced,
“we are, all of us,
miracles;
tied together
as one.
And when we die
we fill the sky
with our light.
We become the stars.”
Castor,
Cassiopeia
Cepheus.*
~~~~~~
“Do you believe in miracles?”
~~~~~~
*No,
not really.
There is no reason
for our existence
and yet,
we are tied together
in countless ways.
I believe our light
returns to the star stuff
from which we were born.
Andromeda,
Gemini
Pleiades...*
~~~~~~
*I believe
in you;
light’s miracle
found twinkling
in your smile.
Tempting me
the way Benny
enticed Joon.
The way Peter Lake
kissed Beverly Penn.*
~~~~~~
*No,
I don’t believe in miracles.
But, I believe
in the miracle
that is
Cassiopeia,
Pollux,
Cepheus....
The light
I found in you.*
11.23.14
https://youtu.be/lNy4UNY5KW8
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 2:58 PM UTC
GULA
Castor and Pollux
joined forever at the hip.
I could split myself
into two halves just
so they could each get a taste.
I will etch into
both their ribs and lungs
so when they exhale, it’s my
name that warms their breath.
ACEDIA
I have done nothing
but consult oracles to
find a solution
and like Oedipus
I will sit here on my throne
to repeat fathers'
sins. Dear God, am I
the miasma that reeks here?
Would I change, if so?
LUXURIA
Eros and Psyche
have yet to match us, dear boys.
In confessional,
I speak of the flesh-
bruised like rotting fruit, marks
of desperate youth.
Heads bowed in prayer,
this is Dionysiac
ritual madness.
AVARITIA
Will Hades greet me?
If I spit coins from my mouth,
will the ferryman
take pity on me?
He must know my odyssey.
This is déjà vu,
a fable passed down
by generations. A hymn,
Homeric and worn.
IRA
Adonis river
runs red like veins filled with blood.
The anemones
for my two brothers,
a crown for each of them to
decorate their heads
before guts are spilled.
I know this will end in war,
no glory for me.
INVIDIA
Heroes never die,
they say. So was Heracles
jealous of Linus?
To know forever,
to escape the throes of death
sounds like Hell to me.
What lives on except
curses and their tragedy?
I am no hero.
SUPERBIA
I will take my fire,
let it blaze until I die.
Prometheus would
have been proud of me.
Maybe from this, I will kindle
something from the heat:
Write poems in ash,
for the ones I have scalded,
or the ones I love.
(Maybe those two things
are not unlike after all.
Maybe so, maybe not.)
Mar 26, 2018
Mar 26, 2018 at 1:35 PM UTC
Watching the shadows of headlights play off my front walk
From the inside of your car
No one inside, and I'm too scared to be alone
So you stay and wait with me for peace of mind
We recline our seats because we know it will be a while
I let my fingers wander over to the radio
Where I turn on "American Pie"
And we sit there, reclined
For eight and a half minutes, just singing along
And interchangeably talking about life
If someone saw us, reclined together
They would think it was something more than that
But it was just a simple moment in pure bliss
Holding hands, nothing more
"Would you like to go camping with me in a pop up camper?"
"Well how could I? I can't sleep in the same bed as you, dear."
"No, not now. Like in a few years. I want to see the grand canyon. And I would like for you to come with me to see it"
It all sounded so sweet, how could I say no?
I would love to go back there with you
And do all the things I couldn't do the first time around
Maybe we could walk out on to the glass platform together
And lay out and watch the stars
As I point out constellations
One by one
Castor and Pollux
Orion
Sagittarius
The Pleiades
Perhaps one day we will sit in that same spot in your car
Reclined together, holding hands, listening to "American Pie"
Reminiscing on the day we dreamed about everything we could be
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 4:33 PM UTC
Il y a bien huit milliards d'années lumière
Huit cents millions de lustres
Huit cents mille siècles
Huit cents quatre-vingt-huit ans
Huit mois
Huit jours
Huit heures
Huit minutes
Et huit secondes
Nous étions le même corps
La même lune mathusalémique
En orbite autour de Saturne
Puis le grand horloger des Dioscures
Dans son grand égarement
Nous a déclarés péchés capitaux,
Luxure et gourmandise,
Et nous a séparés. Tu te souviens ?
Désormais tu es Epiméthée, Titan qui réfléchit après coup
Et moi Janus, bifrons ou quadrifrons, dieu des portes et des entrées
Aux visages qui se dévisagent
Et nous continuons sur la même orbite
En fer à cheval
Toi intérieure, moi extérieure
Et inversement
Tous les quatre ans
Jusqu'à la fin des temps.
Si l'on en croit Newton
"Deux corps s'attirent en raison directe de leur masse
Et en raison inverse du carré de leur distance "
Je suis comme toi couvert de cratères
Castor, Idas, Lynceus et Phoibe
Et chaque seconde me rapproche
De tes merveilleuses boursouflures
Pollux et Hilairea.
Ad libitum nous échangeons nos orbites jumelles
Et poursuivons notre ballet gravitationnel
Entre cosinus et sinus,
Constante et tangente,
Exponentielle et dérive,
En attendant la mutuelle collision,
La chevauchée céleste de nos hypoténuses
Sans jamais perdre de vue la donnée mathématique :
La primitive de x au carré
Vaut un tiers de x au cube
A une constante près.
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 5:52 AM UTC
One day I realized something:
That I love stars a lot
But they're so hard to find
(At least that's what I thought)
I traveled to the library
And I checked out lots of books
And read them all quite thoroughly
From there I went to look
That night was cold and windy
(I was unsure if I would stay)
But Cassiopeia then appeared
To me and showed the way
She showed me Ursa Minor
And Orion, standing strong
She showed me all the Milky Way
And I began to hear their song
The Seven Sisters called to me
And Pollux showed his light
Oh, there were many things I saw
That cold and windy night
I still love stars an awful lot
And above me I still look
I try to show the light I know
That they gave, and I then took
Feb 9, 2018
Feb 9, 2018 at 9:10 AM UTC
I always point you out, don't I? I have a story to tell
about two star-crossed brothers. One was born
mortal, the other a god- they found their home
in each other. The mortal one died, went to hell-
and the god cried out in agony, and, Olympus watching, fell.
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 7:49 PM UTC
Night disturbed
by calling birds
in a cacophony
as stars twinkle brightly
I sit lost in the night
Orion stands guard
Perseus as well
Taurus and Lepus, graze
Auriga rides nearby
Castor and Pollux, Gemini shines
Streaking shooting stars
satellites drifting in their orbit
green and red lights
of the occasional plane
season the heavens
All these high above
while we watch
in the darkness
lost in the universe
that we can see
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 9:58 AM UTC
You were my starlight,
like a shining sirius,
illumining my empty voids,
and filling me with light.
You gave me form,
you gave me shape,
you made me more
than just dark matter.
You made me matter.
You were so bright,
beaming with light,
like Castor to Pollux,
I could see you shine
from the depths of space
All those years we had,
all those laughs we made,
all those suns we watched
cool and slowly fade away.
I never thought that
it could happen to you,
never thought you
would leave me,
like a supernova.
One day here,
and the next, gone.
So I am left alone,
left in my darkness,
like a supermassive
black hole.
Jul 2, 2016
Jul 2, 2016 at 10:58 PM UTC
Quick to St Rita’s cold creaking pews
where throats were blessed
No rainbow’s bones caught
but walking reverie punished
with Alocoque’s Sacre Coeur
smothers communards’ ashes
27 May 1871
Ate Pollux, forty francs for his trunk,
rats from 60 centimes
bread adulterated, catacombs’ milled
bone meal commons ate,
where Sacre Coeur
raised up Commune began
Eugene Varlin, bookbinder
union organizer shot twice
Twenty to thirty thousand died thus
De Goncourt observes
solution brutal but next revolution
deferred a generation
Here beginning returned to,
only memory can go forward.
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC