What pretence
What a show
With your elegant voice
And your golden smile
Lifting hands in prayer
Showing the world you care
What no one sees
Are the demons that lurk
The hidden secrets
The bony skeletons
You fail to present
In the darkness
When you lay down to sleep
The YOU that no one sees
Peek out to come and play
What pretence
What a show

The silence of desire
Hidden in quiet moans
Of those secret passions
Going unheard tonight

Fingers delicately exploring
Places of invisible needs
Pretence of a silent stranger
Imagination of *******

Breathing growing faster
Anticipation of his touch
Releasing the waterfall
Inside her wanted dreams

Still must I hear?—shall hoarse FITZGERALD bawl
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch Reviews
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my Muse?
Prepare for rhyme—I’ll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let Satire be my song.

  Oh! Nature’s noblest gift—my grey goose-quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen! foredoomed to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with Verse or Prose;
Though Nymphs forsake, and Critics may deride,
The Lover’s solace, and the Author’s pride.
What Wits! what Poets dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemned at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which ’twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet’s shall be free;
Though spurned by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar to-day; no common theme,
No Eastern vision, no distempered dream
Inspires—our path, though full of thorns, is plain;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.

  When Vice triumphant holds her sov’reign sway,
Obey’d by all who nought beside obey;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
Bedecks her cap with bells of every Clime;
When knaves and fools combined o’er all prevail,
And weigh their Justice in a Golden Scale;
E’en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of Shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe,
And shrink from Ridicule, though not from Law.

  Such is the force of Wit! I but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
Still there are follies, e’en for me to chase,
And yield at least amusement in the race:
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame,
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game:
Speed, Pegasus!—ye strains of great and small,
Ode! Epic! Elegy!—have at you all!
I, too, can scrawl, and once upon a time
I poured along the town a flood of rhyme,
A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame;
I printed—older children do the same.
’Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print;
A Book’s a Book, altho’ there’s nothing in’t.
Not that a Title’s sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
This LAMB must own, since his patrician name
Failed to preserve the spurious Farce from shame.
No matter, GEORGE continues still to write,
Tho’ now the name is veiled from public sight.
Moved by the great example, I pursue
The self-same road, but make my own review:
Not seek great JEFFREY’S, yet like him will be
Self-constituted Judge of Poesy.

  A man must serve his time to every trade
Save Censure—Critics all are ready made.
Take hackneyed jokes from MILLER, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A man well skilled to find, or forge a fault;
A turn for punning—call it Attic salt;
To JEFFREY go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:
Fear not to lie,’twill seem a sharper hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, ’twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling—pass your proper jest,
And stand a Critic, hated yet caress’d.

And shall we own such judgment? no—as soon
Seek roses in December—ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff,
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that’s false, before
You trust in Critics, who themselves are sore;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By JEFFREY’S heart, or LAMB’S Boeotian head.
To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced,
Combined usurpers on the Throne of Taste;
To these, when Authors bend in humble awe,
And hail their voice as Truth, their word as Law;
While these are Censors, ’twould be sin to spare;
While such are Critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
’Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun;
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike,
Our Bards and Censors are so much alike.
Then should you ask me, why I venture o’er
The path which POPE and GIFFORD trod before;
If not yet sickened, you can still proceed;
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.
“But hold!” exclaims a friend,—”here’s some neglect:
This—that—and t’other line seem incorrect.”
What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden—”Aye, but Pye has not:”—
Indeed!—’tis granted, faith!—but what care I?
Better to err with POPE, than shine with PYE.

  Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days
Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise,
When Sense and Wit with Poesy allied,
No fabled Graces, flourished side by side,
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And, reared by Taste, bloomed fairer as they grew.
Then, in this happy Isle, a POPE’S pure strain
Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain;
A polished nation’s praise aspired to claim,
And raised the people’s, as the poet’s fame.
Like him great DRYDEN poured the tide of song,
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong.
Then CONGREVE’S scenes could cheer, or OTWAY’S melt;
For Nature then an English audience felt—
But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
When all to feebler Bards resign their place?
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
When taste and reason with those times are past.
Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
Survey the precious works that please the age;
This truth at least let Satire’s self allow,
No dearth of Bards can be complained of now.
The loaded Press beneath her labour groans,
And Printers’ devils shake their weary bones;
While SOUTHEY’S Epics cram the creaking shelves,
And LITTLE’S Lyrics shine in hot-pressed twelves.
Thus saith the Preacher: “Nought beneath the sun
Is new,” yet still from change to change we run.
What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
The Cow-pox, Tractors, Galvanism, and Gas,
In turns appear, to make the ****** stare,
Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air!
Nor less new schools of Poetry arise,
Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize:
O’er Taste awhile these Pseudo-bards prevail;
Each country Book-club bows the knee to Baal,
And, hurling lawful Genius from the throne,
Erects a shrine and idol of its own;
Some leaden calf—but whom it matters not,
From soaring SOUTHEY, down to groveling STOTT.

  Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew,
For notice eager, pass in long review:
Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,
And Rhyme and Blank maintain an equal race;
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;
And Tales of Terror jostle on the road;
Immeasurable measures move along;
For simpering Folly loves a varied song,
To strange, mysterious Dulness still the friend,
Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
Thus Lays of Minstrels—may they be the last!—
On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.
While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
That dames may listen to the sound at nights;
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner’s brood
Decoy young Border-nobles through the wood,
And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;
While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
Forbidding Knights to read who cannot spell,
Despatch a courier to a wizard’s grave,
And fight with honest men to shield a knave.

  Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan,
The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a Felon, yet but half a Knight.
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace;
A mighty mixture of the great and base.
And think’st thou, SCOTT! by vain conceit perchance,
On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though MURRAY with his MILLER may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade,
Let such forego the poet’s sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
And sadly gaze on Gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted Muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo’s venal son,
And bid a long “good night to Marmion.”

  These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the Bards to whom the Muse must bow;
While MILTON, DRYDEN, POPE, alike forgot,
Resign their hallowed Bays to WALTER SCOTT.

  The time has been, when yet the Muse was young,
When HOMER swept the lyre, and MARO sung,
An Epic scarce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hailed the magic name:
The work of each immortal Bard appears
The single wonder of a thousand years.
Empires have mouldered from the face of earth,
Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth,
Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor Bards, content,
On one great work a life of labour spent:
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the Ballad-monger SOUTHEY rise!
To him let CAMOËNS, MILTON, TASSO yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field.
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked BEDFORD for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in Glory’s niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A ****** Phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
Arabia’s monstrous, wild, and wond’rous son;
Domdaniel’s dread destroyer, who o’erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e’er knew.
Immortal Hero! all thy foes o’ercome,
For ever reign—the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled Metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doomed the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique in Mexico, and Prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville’s, and not so true.
Oh, SOUTHEY! SOUTHEY! cease thy varied song!
A bard may chaunt too often and too long:
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare!
A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkeley-Ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
“God help thee,” SOUTHEY, and thy readers too.

  Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,
That mild apostate from poetic rule,
The simple WORDSWORTH, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May,
Who warns his friend “to shake off toil and trouble,
And quit his books, for fear of growing double;”
Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of “an idiot Boy;”
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the “idiot in his glory”
Conceive the Bard the hero of the story.

  Shall gentle COLERIDGE pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still Obscurity’s a welcome guest.
If Inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a Pixy for a muse,
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to elegize an ***:
So well the subject suits his noble mind,
He brays, the Laureate of the long-eared kind.

Oh! wonder-working LEWIS! Monk, or Bard,
Who fain would make Parnassus a church-yard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy Muse a Sprite, Apollo’s sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak’st thy stand,
By gibb’ring spectres hailed, thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age;
All hail, M.P.! from whose infernal brain
Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command “grim women” throng in crowds,
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds,
With “small grey men,”—”wild yagers,” and what not,
To crown with honour thee and WALTER SCOTT:
Again, all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease:
Even Satan’s self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper Hell.

Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir
Of virgins melting, not to Vesta’s fire,
With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flushed
Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are hushed?
’Tis LITTLE! young Catullus of his day,
As sweet, but as immoral, in his Lay!
Grieved to condemn, the Muse must still be just,
Nor spare melodious advocates of lust.
Pure is the flame which o’er her altar burns;
From grosser incense with disgust she turns
Yet kind to youth, this expiation o’er,
She bids thee “mend thy line, and sin no more.”

For thee, translator of the tinsel song,
To whom such glittering ornaments belong,
Hibernian STRANGFORD! with thine eyes of blue,
And boasted locks of red or auburn hue,
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick Miss admires,
And o’er harmonious fustian half expires,
Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author’s sense,
Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence.
Think’st thou to gain thy verse a higher place,
By dressing Camoëns in a suit of lace?
Mend, STRANGFORD! mend thy morals and thy taste;
Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be chaste:
Cease to deceive; thy pilfered harp restore,
Nor teach the Lusian Bard to copy MOORE.

Behold—Ye Tarts!—one moment spare the text!—
HAYLEY’S last work, and worst—until his next;
Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
Or **** the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same,
For ever feeble and for ever tame.
Triumphant first see “Temper’s Triumphs” shine!
At least I’m sure they triumphed over mine.
Of “Music’s Triumphs,” all who read may swear
That luckless Music never triumph’d there.

Moravians, rise! bestow some meet reward
On dull devotion—Lo! the Sabbath Bard,
Sepulchral GRAHAME, pours his notes sublime
In mangled prose, nor e’en aspires to rhyme;
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms,
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.

  Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings”
A thousand visions of a thousand things,
And shows, still whimpering thro’ threescore of years,
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.
And art thou not their prince, harmonious Bowles!
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls?
Whether them sing’st with equal ease, and grief,
The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf;
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells,
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingled from Ostend;
Ah! how much juster were thy Muse’s hap,
If to thy bells thou would’st but add a cap!
Delightful BOWLES! still blessing and still blest,
All love thy strain, but children like it best.
’Tis thine, with gentle LITTLE’S moral song,
To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere Miss as yet completes her infant years:
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain;
She quits poor BOWLES for LITTLE’S purer strain.
Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine;
“Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”
Such as none heard before, or will again!
Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,
By more or less, are sung in every book,
From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook.
Nor this alone—but, pausing on the road,
The Bard sighs forth a gentle episode,
And gravely tells—attend, each beauteous Miss!—
When first Madeira trembled to a kiss.
Bowles! in thy memory let this precept dwell,
Stick to thy Sonnets, Man!—at least they sell.
But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe,
Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe:
If ‘chance some bard, though once by dunces feared,
Now, prone in dust, can only be revered;
If Pope, whose fame and genius, from the first,
Have foiled the best of critics, needs the worst,
Do thou essay: each fault, each failing scan;
The first of poets

the thin wall
of pretence
is the barrier
between us

for what we lie
for what we pretend
when all we wanted
was to be happy

but alas we never learn
as we once again lie
not to anyone else
but to ourselves

Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,
While yet our England was a wolfish den;
Before our forests heard the talk of men;
Before the first of Druids was a child;--
Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild
Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude.
There came an eastern voice of solemn mood:--
Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine,
Apollo's garland:--yet didst thou divine
Such home-bred glory, that they cry'd in vain,
"Come hither, Sister of the Island!" Plain
Spake fair Ausonia; and once more she spake
A higher summons:--still didst thou betake
Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won
A full accomplishment! The thing is done,
Which undone, these our latter days had risen
On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know'st what prison
Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and frets
Our spirit's wings: despondency besets
Our pillows; and the fresh to-morrow morn
Seems to give forth its light in very scorn
Of our dull, uninspired, snail-paced lives.
Long have I said, how happy he who shrives
To thee! But then I thought on poets gone,
And could not pray:--nor can I now--so on
I move to the end in lowliness of heart.----

  "Ah, woe is me! that I should fondly part
From my dear native land! Ah, foolish maid!
Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade
Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields!
To one so friendless the clear freshet yields
A bitter coolness, the ripe grape is sour:
Yet I would have, great gods! but one short hour
Of native air--let me but die at home."

  Endymion to heaven's airy dome
Was offering up a hecatomb of vows,
When these words reach'd him. Whereupon he bows
His head through thorny-green entanglement
Of underwood, and to the sound is bent,
Anxious as hind towards her hidden fawn.

  "Is no one near to help me? No fair dawn
Of life from charitable voice? No sweet saying
To set my dull and sadden'd spirit playing?
No hand to toy with mine? No lips so sweet
That I may worship them? No eyelids meet
To twinkle on my *****? No one dies
Before me, till from these enslaving eyes
Redemption sparkles!--I am sad and lost."

  Thou, Carian lord, hadst better have been tost
Into a whirlpool. Vanish into air,
Warm mountaineer! for canst thou only bear
A woman's sigh alone and in distress?
See not her charms! Is Phoebe passionless?
Phoebe is fairer far--O gaze no more:--
Yet if thou wilt behold all beauty's store,
Behold her panting in the forest grass!
Do not those curls of glossy jet surpass
For tenderness the arms so idly lain
Amongst them? Feelest not a kindred pain,
To see such lovely eyes in swimming search
After some warm delight, that seems to perch
Dovelike in the dim cell lying beyond
Their upper lids?--Hist!             "O for Hermes' wand
To touch this flower into human shape!
That woodland Hyacinthus could escape
From his green prison, and here kneeling down
Call me his queen, his second life's fair crown!
Ah me, how I could love!--My soul doth melt
For the unhappy youth--Love! I have felt
So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender
To what my own full thoughts had made too tender,
That but for tears my life had fled away!--
Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day,
And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true,
There is no lightning, no authentic dew
But in the eye of love: there's not a sound,
Melodious howsoever, can confound
The heavens and earth in one to such a death
As doth the voice of love: there's not a breath
Will mingle kindly with the meadow air,
Till it has panted round, and stolen a share
Of passion from the heart!"--

                              Upon a bough
He leant, wretched. He surely cannot now
Thirst for another love: O impious,
That he can even dream upon it thus!--
Thought he, "Why am I not as are the dead,
Since to a woe like this I have been led
Through the dark earth, and through the wondrous sea?
Goddess! I love thee not the less: from thee
By Juno's smile I turn not--no, no, no--
While the great waters are at ebb and flow.--
I have a triple soul! O fond pretence--
For both, for both my love is so immense,
I feel my heart is cut in twain for them."

  And so he groan'd, as one by beauty slain.
The lady's heart beat quick, and he could see
Her gentle ***** heave tumultuously.
He sprang from his green covert: there she lay,
Sweet as a muskrose upon new-made hay;
With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes
Shut softly up alive. To speak he tries.
"Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I
Thus violate thy bower's sanctity!
O pardon me, for I am full of grief--
Grief born of thee, young angel! fairest thief!
Who stolen hast away the wings wherewith
I was to top the heavens. Dear maid, sith
Thou art my executioner, and I feel
Loving and hatred, misery and weal,
Will in a few short hours be nothing to me,
And all my story that much passion slew me;
Do smile upon the evening of my days:
And, for my tortur'd brain begins to craze,
Be thou my nurse; and let me understand
How dying I shall kiss that lily hand.--
Dost weep for me? Then should I be content.
Scowl on, ye fates! until the firmament
Outblackens Erebus, and the full-cavern'd earth
Crumbles into itself. By the cloud girth
Of Jove, those tears have given me a thirst
To meet oblivion."--As her heart would burst
The maiden sobb'd awhile, and then replied:
"Why must such desolation betide
As that thou speakest of? Are not these green nooks
Empty of all misfortune? Do the brooks
Utter a gorgon voice? Does yonder thrush,
Schooling its half-fledg'd little ones to brush
About the dewy forest, whisper tales?--
Speak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails
Will slime the rose to night. Though if thou wilt,
Methinks 'twould be a guilt--a very guilt--
Not to companion thee, and sigh away
The light--the dusk--the dark--till break of day!"
"Dear lady," said Endymion, "'tis past:
I love thee! and my days can never last.
That I may pass in patience still speak:
Let me have music dying, and I seek
No more delight--I bid adieu to all.
Didst thou not after other climates call,
And murmur about Indian streams?"--Then she,
Sitting beneath the midmost forest tree,
For pity sang this roundelay------

          "O Sorrow,
          Why dost borrow
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?--
          To give maiden blushes
          To the white rose bushes?
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

          "O Sorrow,
          Why dost borrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?--
          To give the glow-worm light?
          Or, on a moonless night,
To tinge, on syren shores, the salt sea-spry?

          "O Sorrow,
          Why dost borrow
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?--
          To give at evening pale
          Unto the nightingale,
That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?

          "O Sorrow,
          Why dost borrow
Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?--
          A lover would not tread
          A cowslip on the head,
Though he should dance from eve till peep of day--
          Nor any drooping flower
          Held sacred for thy bower,
Wherever he may sport himself and play.

          "To Sorrow
          I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
          But cheerly, cheerly,
          She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
          I would deceive her
          And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

"Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept,--
          And so I kept
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
          Cold as my fears.

"Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: what enamour'd bride,
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,
        But hides and shrouds
Beneath dark palm trees by a river side?

"And as I sat, over the light blue hills
There came a noise of revellers: the rills
Into the wide stream came of purple hue--
        'Twas Bacchus and his crew!
The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills
From kissing cymbals made a merry din--
        'Twas Bacchus and his kin!
Like to a moving vintage down they came,
Crown'd with green leaves, and faces all on flame;
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
        To scare thee, Melancholy!
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly
By shepherds is forgotten, when, in June,
Tall chesnuts keep away the sun and moon:--
        I rush'd into the folly!

"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,
        With sidelong laughing;
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued
His plump white arms, and shoulders, enough white
        For Venus' pearly bite;
And near him rode Silenus on his ***,
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass
        Tipsily quaffing.

"Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye!
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your bowers desolate,
        Your lutes, and gentler fate?--
‘We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing?
        A conquering!
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:--
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
        To our wild minstrelsy!'

"Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye!
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left
        Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?--
‘For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
        And cold mushrooms;
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;
Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth!--
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
To our mad minstrelsy!'

"Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent,
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,
        With Asian elephants:
Onward these myriads--with song and dance,
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance,
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles,
Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files,
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil
Of ******, and stout galley-rowers' toil:
With toying oars and silken sails they glide,
        Nor care for wind and tide.

"Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes,
From rear to van they scour about the plains;
A three days' journey in a moment done:
And always, at the rising of the sun,
About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn,
        On spleenful unicorn.

"I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown
        Before the vine-wreath crown!
I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing
        To the silver cymbals' ring!
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce
        Old Tartary the fierce!
The kings of Inde their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
        And all his priesthood moans;
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.--
Into these regions came I following him,
Sick hearted, weary--so I took a whim
To stray away into these forests drear
        Alone, without a peer:
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.

          "Young stranger!
          I've been a ranger
In search of pleasure throughout every clime:
          Alas! 'tis not for me!
          Bewitch'd I sure must be,
To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.

          "Come then, Sorrow!
          Sweetest Sorrow!
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:
          I thought to leave thee
          And deceive thee,
But now of all the world I love thee best.

          "There is not one,
          No, no, not one
But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;
          Thou art her mother,
          And her brother,
Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade."

  O what a sigh she gave in finishing,
And look, quite dead to every worldly thing!
Endymion could not speak, but gazed on her;
And listened to the wind that now did stir
About the crisped oaks full drearily,
Yet with as sweet a softness as might be
Remember'd from its velvet summer song.
At last he said: "Poor lady, how thus long
Have I been able to endure that voice?
Fair Melody! kind Syren! I've no choice;
I must be thy sad servant evermore:
I cannot choose but kneel here and adore.
Alas, I must not think--by Phoebe, no!
Let me not think, soft Angel! shall it be so?
Say, beautifullest, shall I never think?
O thou could'st foster me beyond the brink
Of recollection! make my watchful care
Close up its bloodshot eyes, nor see despair!
Do gently ****** half my soul, and I
Shall feel the other half so utterly!--
I'm giddy at that cheek so fair and smooth;
O let it blush so ever! let it soothe
My madness! let it mantle rosy-warm
With the tinge of love, panting in safe alarm.--
This cannot be thy hand, and yet it is;
And this is sure thine other softling--this
Thine own fair *****, and I am so near!
Wilt fall asleep? O let me sip that tear!
And whisper one sweet word that I may know
This is this world--sweet dewy blossom!"--Woe!
Woe! Woe to that Endymion! Where is he?--
Even these words went echoing dismally
Through the wide forest--a most fearful tone,
Like one repenting in his latest moan;
And while it died away a shade pass'd by,
As of a thunder cloud. When arrows fly
Through the thick branches, poor ring-doves sleek forth
Their timid necks and tremble; so these both
Leant to each other trembling, and sat so
Waiting for some destruction--when lo,
Foot-fe

Well, as you say, we live for small horizons:
We move in crowds, we flow and talk together,
Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces,
So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,--
Yet know so little of them; only seeing
The small bright circle of our consciousness,
Beyond which lies the dark.  Some few we know--
Or think we know. . .  Once, on a sun-bright morning,
I walked in a certain hallway, trying to find
A certain door: I found one, tried it, opened,
And there in a spacious chamber, brightly lighted,
A hundred men played music, loudly, swiftly,
While one tall woman sent her voice above them
In powerful sweetness. . . Closing then the door
I heard it die behind me, fade to whisper,--
And walked in a quiet hallway as before.
Just such a glimpse, as through that opened door,
Is all we know of those we call our friends. . . .
We hear a sudden music, see a playing
Of ordered thoughts--and all again is silence.
The music, we suppose, (as in ourselves)
Goes on forever there, behind shut doors,--
As it continues after our departure,
So, we divine, it played before we came . . .
What do you know of me, or I of you? . . .
Little enough. . . We set these doors ajar
Only for chosen movements of the music:
This passage, (so I think--yet this is guesswork)
Will please him,--it is in a strain he fancies,--
More brilliant, though, than his; and while he likes it
He will be piqued . . . He looks at me bewildered
And thinks (to judge from self--this too is guesswork)

The music strangely subtle, deep in meaning,
Perplexed with implications; he suspects me
Of hidden riches, unexpected wisdom. . . .
Or else I let him hear a lyric passage,--
Simple and clear; and all the while he listens
I make pretence to think my doors are closed.
This too bewilders him.  He eyes me sidelong
Wondering 'Is he such a fool as this?
Or only mocking?'--There I let it end. . . .
Sometimes, of course, and when we least suspect it--
When we pursue our thoughts with too much passion,
Talking with too great zeal--our doors fly open
Without intention; and the hungry watcher
Stares at the feast, carries away our secrets,
And laughs. . . but this, for many counts, is seldom.
And for the most part we vouchsafe our friends,
Our lovers too, only such few clear notes
As we shall deem them likely to admire:
'Praise me for this' we say, or 'laugh at this,'
Or 'marvel at my candor'. . . all the while
Withholding what's most precious to ourselves,--
Some sinister depth of lust or fear or hatred,
The sombre note that gives the chord its power;
Or a white loveliness--if such we know--
Too much like fire to speak of without shame.

Well, this being so, and we who know it being
So curious about those well-locked houses,
The minds of those we know,--to enter softly,
And steal from floor to floor up shadowy stairways,
From room to quiet room, from wall to wall,
Breathing deliberately the very air,
Pressing our hands and nerves against warm darkness
To learn what ghosts are there,--
Suppose for once I set my doors wide open
And bid you in. . . Suppose I try to tell you
The secrets of this house, and how I live here;
Suppose I tell you who I am, in fact. . . .
Deceiving you--as far as I may know it--
Only so much as I deceive myself.

If you are clever you already see me
As one who moves forever in a cloud
Of warm bright vanity: a luminous cloud
Which falls on all things with a quivering magic,
Changing such outlines as a light may change,
Brightening what lies dark to me, concealing
Those things that will not change . . . I walk sustained
In a world of things that flatter me: a sky
Just as I would have had it; trees and grass
Just as I would have shaped and colored them;
Pigeons and clouds and sun and whirling shadows,
And stars that brightening climb through mist at nightfall,--
In some deep way I am aware these praise me:
Where they are beautiful, or hint of beauty,
They point, somehow, to me. . . This water says,--
Shimmering at the sky, or undulating
In broken gleaming parodies of clouds,
Rippled in blue, or sending from cool depths
To meet the falling leaf the leaf's clear image,--
This water says, there is some secret in you
Akin to my clear beauty, silently responsive
To all that circles you.  This bare tree says,--
Austere and stark and leafless, split with frost,
Resonant in the wind, with rigid branches
Flung out against the sky,--this tall tree says,
There is some cold austerity in you,
A frozen strength, with long roots gnarled on rocks,
Fertile and deep; you bide your time, are patient,
Serene in silence, bare to outward seeming,
Concealing what reserves of power and beauty!
What teeming Aprils!--chorus of leaves on leaves!
These houses say, such walls in walls as ours,
Such streets of walls, solid and smooth of surface,
Such hills and cities of walls, walls upon walls;
Motionless in the sun, or dark with rain;
Walls pierced with windows, where the light may enter;
Walls windowless where darkness is desired;
Towers and labyrinths and domes and chambers,--
Amazing deep recesses, dark on dark,--
All these are like the walls which shape your spirit:
You move, are warm, within them, laugh within them,
Proud of their depth and strength; or sally from them,
When you are bold, to blow great horns at the world
This deep cool room, with shadowed walls and ceiling,
Tranquil and cloistral, fragrant of my mind,
This cool room says,--just such a room have you,
It waits you always at the tops of stairways,
Withdrawn, remote, familiar to your uses,
Where you may cease pretence and be yourself. . . .
And this embroidery, hanging on this wall,
Hung there forever,--these so soundless glidings
Of dragons golden-scaled, sheer birds of azure,
Coilings of leaves in pale vermilion, griffins
Drawing their rainbow wings through involutions
Of mauve chrysanthemums and lotus flowers,--
This goblin wood where someone cries enchantment,--
This says, just such an involuted beauty
Of thought and coiling thought, dream linked with dream,
Image to image gliding, wreathing fires,
Soundlessly cries enchantment in your mind:
You need but sit and close your eyes a moment
To see these deep designs unfold themselves.

And so, all things discern me, name me, praise me--
I walk in a world of silent voices, praising;
And in this world you see me like a wraith
Blown softly here and there, on silent winds.
'Praise me'--I say; and look, not in a glass,
But in your eyes, to see my image there--
Or in your mind; you smile, I am contented;
You look at me, with interest unfeigned,
And listen--I am pleased; or else, alone,
I watch thin bubbles veering brightly upward
From unknown depths,--my silver thoughts ascending;
Saying now this, now that, hinting of all things,--
Dreams, and desires, velleities, regrets,
Faint ghosts of memory, strange recognitions,--
But all with one deep meaning: this is I,
This is the glistening secret holy I,
This silver-winged wonder, insubstantial,
This singing ghost. . . And hearing, I am warmed.

     *     *     *     *     *

You see me moving, then, as one who moves
Forever at the centre of his circle:
A circle filled with light.  And into it
Come bulging shapes from darkness, loom gigantic,
Or huddle in dark again. . . A clock ticks clearly,
A gas-jet steadily whirs, light streams across me;
Two church bells, with alternate beat, strike nine;
And through these things my pencil pushes softly
To weave grey webs of lines on this clear page.
Snow falls and melts; the eaves make liquid music;
Black wheel-tracks line the snow-touched street; I turn
And look one instant at the half-dark gardens,
Where skeleton elm-trees reach with frozen gesture
Above unsteady lamps,--with black boughs flung
Against a luminous snow-filled grey-gold sky.
'Beauty!' I cry. . . My feet move on, and take me
Between dark walls, with orange squares for windows.
Beauty; beheld like someone half-forgotten,
Remembered, with slow pang, as one neglected . . .
Well, I am frustrate; life has beaten me,
The thing I strongly seized has turned to darkness,
And darkness rides my heart. . . These skeleton elm-trees--
Leaning against that grey-gold snow filled sky--
Beauty! they say, and at the edge of darkness
Extend vain arms in a frozen gesture of protest . . .
A clock ticks softly; a gas-jet steadily whirs:
The pencil meets its shadow upon clear paper,
Voices are raised, a door is slammed.  The lovers,
Murmuring in an adjacent room, grow silent,
The eaves make liquid music. . . Hours have passed,
And nothing changes, and everything is changed.
Exultation is dead, Beauty is harlot,--
And walks the streets.  The thing I strongly seized
Has turned to darkness, and darkness rides my heart.

If you could solve this darkness you would have me.
This causeless melancholy that comes with rain,
Or on such days as this when large wet snowflakes
Drop heavily, with rain . . . whence rises this?
Well, so-and-so, this morning when I saw him,
Seemed much preoccupied, and would not smile;
And you, I saw too much; and you, too little;
And the word I chose for you, the golden word,
The word that should have struck so deep in purpose,
And set so many doors of wish wide open,
You let it fall, and would not stoop for it,
And smiled at me, and would not let me guess
Whether you saw it fall. . . These things, together,
With other things, still slighter, wove to music,
And this in time drew up dark memories;
And there I stand.  This music breaks and bleeds me,
Turning all frustrate dreams to chords and discords,
Faces and griefs, and words, and sunlit evenings,
And chains self-forged that will not break nor lengthen,
And cries that none can answer, few will hear.
Have these things meaning?  Or would you see more clearly
If I should say 'My second wife grows tedious,
Or, like gay tulip, keeps no perfumed secret'?

Or 'one day dies eventless as another,
Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied,
And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'?
Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous,
And beauty shines in vain'?--

                                These things you ask for,
These you shall have. . . So, talking with my first wife,
At the dark end of evening, when she leaned
And smiled at me, with blue eyes weaving webs
Of finest fire, revolving me in scarlet,--
Calling to mind remote and small successions
Of countless other evenings ending so,--
I smiled, and met her kiss, and wished her dead;
Dead of a sudden sickness, or by my hands
Savagely killed; I saw her in her coffin,
I saw her coffin borne downstairs with trouble,
I saw myself alone there, palely watching,
Wearing a masque of grief so deeply acted
That grief itself possessed me.  Time would pass,
And I should meet this girl,--my second wife--
And drop the masque of grief for one of passion.
Forward we move to meet, half hesitating,
We drown in each others' eyes, we laugh, we talk,
Looking now here, now there, faintly pretending
We do not hear the powerful pulsing prelude
Roaring beneath our words . . . The time approaches.
We lean unbalanced.  The mute last glance between us,
Profoundly searching, opening, asking, yielding,
Is steadily met: our two lives draw together . . .
. . . .'What are you thinking of?'. . . My first wife's voice
Scattered these ghosts.  'Oh nothing--nothing much--
Just wondering where we'd be two years from now,
And what we might be doing . . . ' And then remorse
Turned sharply in my mind to sudden pity,
And pity to echoed love.  And one more evening
Drew to the usual end of sleep and silence.

And, as it is with this, so too with all things.
The pages of our lives are blurred palimpsest:
New lines are wreathed on old lines half-erased,
And those on older still; and so forever.
The old shines through the new, and colors it.
What's new?  What's old?  All things have double meanings,--
All things return.  I write a line with passion
(Or touch a woman's hand, or plumb a doctrine)
Only to find the same thing, done before,--
Only to know the same thing comes to-morrow. . . .
This curious riddled dream I dreamed last night,--
Six years ago I dreamed it just as now;
The same man stooped to me; we rose from darkness,
And broke the accustomed order of our days,
And struck for the morning world, and warmth, and freedom. . . .
What does it mean?  Why is this hint repeated?
What darkness does it spring from, seek to end?

You see me, then, pass up and down these stairways,
Now through a beam of light, and now through shadow,--
Pursuing silent ends.  No rest there is,--
No more for me than you.  I move here always,
From quiet room to room, from wall to wall,
Searching and plotting, weaving a web of days.
This is my house, and now, perhaps, you know me. . .
Yet I confess, for all my best intentions,
Once more I have deceived you. . . I withhold
The one thing precious, the one dark thing that guides me;
And I have spread two snares for you, of lies.

What is ..... with ......
All this ... " ATTITUDE " ... ?!?
  
It seems ... The ... " In Thing " ...
to simply be ... " Rude " ... !?! ...  
  
People in ... " The World " ...
are now .... So Crude .... !!!!!!!
  
Girls now walk streets ...
with arses ... in view ...  
  
" Prostitution's " ... RIFE ...  
But this ... " Isn't New " ... !!!!!!
  
So ....
If you have ... " A Bad Attitude " ... !!! ...
May I ask ... " What's wrong with you ? " ...
  
Do you feel ... " Misled " ... ???
Are you feeling ... " Upset " ... ???
  
Do you feel that your life ... ?
is just a .... " Pretence " .... ?
  
Do you feel as if ... ?
You'd be ... Better off ... DEAD ... !!!!!
  
Well ... if you do ... ?
It's Not Just ... YOU ... !!!!!
  
But it's ... NOT COOL ... !!!
to act the ... " Fool " ...  
and live your life ...
with .... ATTITUDE .... !!!!!
  
If life's ... " So Rough " ...
and you wanna ... " Act Tough " ...  
  
Get in ... THE RING ... !!!!!
Try on ... some gloves ...  
and if it ... " Suits " ...
Make WAR ... NOT Love ... !!!
  
I riSE ... abOVE ...
This ... " Attitude Stuff " ...  
  
But ... " Many suggest " ...
I'm ... " Billy Goat gruff " ...  
  
This ain't ... " Call My Bluff " ... !!!!!
  
But I guess it's cos' ... ???
I'm NOT ... " White Enough " ...  
to be .... " So Cool " ....
and ... NOT ... Wear Cuffs ...  
  
Presumption can make ... ???
People give ... ATTITUDE ... !!!
  
So .....
Don't just ... " Assume " ...
cos this might be ... ?
Your ... LAST MISTAKE ... !!!!
  
" Attitude " ... that arises ...
because of ... " Assumption " ...
can leave men with ... " Truncheon " ...
Without their ... Heart Function ... !!!
  
cos' Attitude ... quelled ...
will then reach ... COMBUSTION ... !!!!!
  
So ....
  
PLEASE ... Don't Assume ...
when you enter ... " A Room " ...  
  
Read this ... CLOSELY ... !!!
cos' when you ... Assume ...
  
You just make an ... " *** " ...
of ... Both You and Me ... !!! ...  
  
Did you ...  
Read it ... CLOSELY ... ???  
  
Break that word into ... " Three " ...
  
*** ...
" U " ...
and then ... ME ...  
  
Reminds me of a word ...
Yes ... " That Word " ... His - story
  
Just look at ... News Stories ...
and you ... Surely ... MUST SEE ... ?!?
  
Attitude's ... runnin" ....
on streets ... TOO FREELY ... !!!!!  
  
Even on terraces ... in Italy .... !?!
  
Inter ... or ... A.C.  
which fans ... can it be ... ???
  
I'm told these fans ...  
... " Attitude " ...
FRIGHTENS POLICE ..... !!!!!  
  
So .....
When they're ... Supposed ...
to use ... BRUTALITY ...  
  
They'd rather not use it ...
but ... bring it to ... " Me " ... ?!?
  
Kind of like people ...
who do ... " Poetry " ...
  
From trying to act ...
Like ... They Like ... what I read  ... !!!
Until I write words ...
That DISTURRRBBBB ... " Their Chi " ... !!!
  
Attitude ... ISN'T ME ... !!!
Come on ... Don't You See ...
  
My name is ... " Big Virge " ...
Friends call me ... " Big V " ...  
  
But ....
Unless i've told you ...
  
You'd better use ... VIRGIL ... !!!
  
Unless you are ready ...
to fall at ... " That Hurdle " ...  
  
This Isn't ... " The National " ...
My Poetry's ... " Rational " ...  
  
as are ... " My Thoughts " ...
which ... CANNOT ... be bought ... !!!!!
  
So ....
Ideas that you ... " Court " ...
of ... Any such .... " Sort " ....  
  
Take my advice ....
it's time to ... ABORT ... !!!!!
cos' ... Attitude's RIFE ...
when my temper ... " Runs short " ... !!!!!
  
So .... maybe it's time .... ?
to leave you ... " This Thought " ...  ???
  
Attitudes' ... Crude ...
and is something for ... FOOLS ...  
who think ... Being Rude ...
is now ... The New ... " COOL " ... ?!?
  
Well ....  
Check out ... This view ... !!!
  
You're NOT ... being cool ... !!!
You're acting ... THE FOOL ... !!!
  
Now ....
If you're a ... " Female " ... ?
  
PLEASE ... Refuse to use ...  
This ... " Needless Abuse " ... !!!
  
But ....
If you're a ... " Male " ... ?
  
Just be a ... " Cool Dude " ...  
and just do ... " What's Right ... !!!
  
REMOVE ... !!!
  
... " Attitude " ... !!!!!!

A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

        The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.


The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To Such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
         But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, ‘twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned ***** of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father’s state,
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
         Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe’s island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris’ woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.


COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
wild
beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
glistering.
They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
their hands.


         COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
And the ***** sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rights begin;
‘T is only daylight that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne’er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
That ne’er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat’, and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

                              The Measure.

         Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some ****** sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that’s against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

         LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer’s ****,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts. TTis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be ? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I’ll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen
                 Within thy airy shell
         By slow Meander’s margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
         Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
         That likest thy Narcissus are?
                  O, if thou have
         Hid them in some flowery cave,
                  Tell me but where,
         Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
         So may’st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven’s harmonies!


         COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earthUs mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I’ll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.QHail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell’st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
         LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is addressed to unattending ears.
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
         COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
         LADY. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth.
         COMUS. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
         LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
         COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
         LADY. To seek i’ the valley some cool friendly spring.
         COMUS. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
         LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick return.
         COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
         LADY. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
         COMUS. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
         LADY. No less than if I should my brothers lose.
         COMUS. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?
         LADY. As smooth as ****’s their unrazored lips.
         COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i’ the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you find them.
         LADY.                          Gentle villager,
What readiest way would bring me to that place?
         COMUS. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
         LADY. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot’s art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.
        COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
******, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise,
I can c

Why do we feign such rapturous delight,
in pretence to others that all is alright,
what if the soul is quietly suppressed,
cloaked in darkness, hidden and repressed,

Are we ashamed to drape the veil,
to retreat into darkness and embrace the pale,
truth can be found from deep in a frown,
so why wear the clothes and tears of a clown.

© H V Swan

the Islam of Malcolm X isn't the Islam of today... it isn't really the prescription of Nietzsche had before the Heraclitus flux took sway and said: waterfall or lottery... it really, really, really doesn't matter. the Islam of the 1960s isn't the Islam of today... too tinged with Sieg Heil... although less the Ave Caesar salute and more akin to: who's up for ****, *******? the Islam has changed... if i was wise enough i'd have converted, to mind you... but i thought: putting my faith by only having a library of only one book... i thought... n'ah... that's a bit extreme, can i at least have a comic book strip to add to that massive library? no? oh well, no, sorry, at least one book mentions several authors who tried to imitate but failed on the last hurdle, at least i can revise that, and completely erase the two extensions that borrowed from Hinduism; 'cos' like it ******* mattered.. don't test me, i'm anticipating death like  suicide-vest child... come on! let's start the Slavic crusade!

perhaps it's not about not thinking certain thoughts,
or feeling certain emotions...
but perhaps it just is...
i say, we need the Sophists these days to
apply the fishing-net tactic to deciphering or
simply selectively reflecting our vocabularies...
strait-jacket vocabularies are there in plain sight...
i mean... wait a minute...
i jumped from jazz into pop music on the headphones,
from Miles Davis' *kind of blue defining
moment of the flamenco sketches right into the bog
of one direction - so i guess this is where
the antidote for art being too subjective comes in...
well, they sorted that problem already...
objectivity in art is around us as we speak,
it means "artists" that are manufactured,
art in the age of mechanical reproduction
(Walter Benjamin), it means more props than artists,
the problem got solved, it means reaching an
autocratic plateau of plugging in and sharing
a non-individualistic stream of emotion,
the opposite of democracy is autocracy, it isn't
despotism... i don't know why democracy doesn't
understand that it's ugly sister (autocracy)
is the enemy and not a Genghis Khan style of government...
democracy in the form of autocracy is a failed
attempt at Utopia... it suggests the system is perfect...
it means the institutions go about their daily business
like children in the playground who ******* and wet
themselves (the bankers), and still not one does anything
about it... what was once a demo tape of a indie band
becomes an automatic big seller big grosser E.P.,
just because the tragedy came, and they drove the touring
bus off a bridge in Sveeden... *******...
you ain't fighting dictators, you're fighting your change
from democracy into autocracy... where things
seem so perfect they can hardly ever change,
they're automated, they're not demographically sound...
sure, i'm the clown, i'll juggle a few big words around...
but in term of art? well, pop music has reached
the limit of what "philosophers" argued against...
to be frank... jealousy got to them that argued
for counter-productive constraints...
now they rebel against this objective construct of
artists in the shadows, writing text and tune and needing
some amateur to perform... and where do you
seek their rebellion? in the subjectivity they once
argued against: that famous Rage Against the Machine
protest against the X-factor...
so wait, first you argue against the subjectivity
of the artistic expression, then you postulate the non-existence
of the self: countered as the dasein for all subjectivity,
then you miss artistic objectivity with the karaoke
and what comes as the **** utopia with French
euthanasia tourists in Switzerland and Belgium...
you missed the argument you favoured, i.e.
artistic objectivity, i.e. performers, not people who write
the hit singles, Hiroshima Karaoke,
well, aren't we all objective now, that we have to source
our feelings in the expressions we once made angst against?
odd, isn't it? you never knew how well established
the counter argument became...
it's pop culture, it's evidently going to become viral...
but you see the power of subjective art...
it spreads like an infection, no point arguing against it...
objectivity in art is already a well established
virus, it doesn't really bite into your soul,
it bites, but you just get the odd body chicken ****...
that's what i mean about how a self-assured-without-a-self
democracy morphs into autocracy...
the fake Utopia of the well-established social
institutions actually being bankrupt, starting
with the post-colonial charity companies,
lying sharks and interest rates at 2000% per annum
i'm starting to think of Islam... leeches and hypocrites...
so your pointless critique of the subjectivity of the arts
became your most sling-shot friction strained weapon
to aim at the industry of art objectified,
in the age of mechanical reproduction true art = dodo...
it's on its way out... i hardly think that
50 years from now you'll find someone as idiotic
as me writing poetry for the love of the **** thing...
you'll get Utopian plateaus, anaesthetic democracy in
the realm of humanism, and hanging over you
autocracy... immovable foundations, cos' everything's
just perfect, time to invade another Libya where
some genius ensured the people knew their place
and who kept order on the pretence of
keeping weapons of mass destruction and
dog leashes... but there you will be ****-strapped going
huh? i thought subjectivity in art was bad?
n'ah mate, that's the only thing that made art good...
you got your ******* Karaoke, live with it!
the English Renaissance of the 1960s ain't coming back,
even if you gave Belfast back to the Dublin crew...
i say we need another Protagoras to get
the vocabulary inflation up to speed...
i say devalue the words self, ego... and make the
psychologists bums..
i say devalue the words nation, british and hamburger
to make the anglophile influence on Europe
a bit like sniffing a mortar of ******* off a penny...
i say reestablish the virtues of Japanese feudalism,
scare depressed teenagers with the words:
your only way out is by Hara Kiri.
something must come from a poem like this...
i have rage... you reason with it...
i'm not going to reason a calm into my heart with the words
i just wrote... n'ah... n'ah n'ah... that ain't happening...
it only took one needle in a haystack to give me prompt...
the ailments of subjectivity in art...
that got me, bull's eye reddened mad...
you ain't turning me into Darwinian grey matter!
this is democracy at its most despotic...
let me try democracy first, before i join the legion of dentists
with happy middle-class lives in autocracy...
can't blame ****** in this guise of organising people,
'cos' there just ain't no ******...
that got me hot wired and hired to argue...
first they say: art deserves no subjectivity...
fair enough: 1 man draws a rhombus a 1000 men draw a square...
but now that we can finally see objectivity being applied
to art, we only get pop: **** jazz, classical, rock and speedy-indie...
we get manufacture... as you once hated those with
personal intention to add to the democratic demographic,
now you turn against them for disturbing the status quo...
well, happy are those that come to the sun's repeat jargon
and happily doubt the roundabout...
because criticising art as subjectively orientated
really spared you art having ascribed objectivity to its cause
of attaining mechanical reproduction,
and the subjective placebo... neither thinking nor feeling
anything deeper than nervous yoga twitching dances...
spare me the ******* details if you come up with
a more accurate historical pinpoint.

.
     I stare down at the plate of toast and beans
     wondering why this was never part of my dreams.
     Looking for the future with an illusional pretence,
     hoping good apples will fall on my side of the fence.

And as the fork dances slow
around the legumes in spirals,
the tedium of a wasting life
bears the burden and scars
of missed opportunities in paralysis
and the colour of once bright lights
          glow black,
shining a shadow into the void
covering the bruises
that were once achievements of worth,
     now tender patches
          of failure.
I drop the fork ...

     … pushing away the plate and leaving food uneaten,
     my desire for its nutrition fought and beaten,
     Looking at the apple tree with sombre regret
     maybe its fruit will fall and save me yet.

And disappointment
is worse than anger,
it begins with the stench of loss
the nasal whiff of
what if …

And what if the little apple tree
drops all its fruit down to me?
Would I recognise fortune on my side
or fear the illusions and run to hide?


© Pagan Paul (17/02/18)

life is never what it seems to be, always reoccuring with a thought as put upon the length of arms that revolutionize this thought. . .for those that can be bought,
is day like today less then feeling of want to rot, because so simple as a breeze brought down your temperment to be pleased. . .caught in a storm, that has outlasted
longer then your heart to feel content and warm, to feel the essence of a breath among a group of bad breaths, in other words, to breath among a group of brothers and sisters
from whom you can gain so much. But life is never what it seems to be, instead you look yourself in the mirror pointing at me, you, fool. Glowing from ragging frustration,
the toll blows for you unsurpassable deflation, because it is not for your hand that grows for the motion, to pick which ******* **** you want to lotion. Spearing the reasons,
the ego is your hero, born to work zero, and trusted with such hand to uphold all by command. To twist on the ****, that opens your door, to circumstances i certainly care less
the **** to continue to explore. But with this slight little mention, please pay close attention because this song is a *****. At least to explain the message, my whole is a
whole that takes life time to experience and grow, and appreciate the things that stoop all the levels around me, no barrier, no door, just genuine life experience to bring me
to come to this point to explain to the world something within the self, that is described by astute persons, for whom these ideas carry on to fulfill an immense part of
something that is casually slipped in and never thought about because it is told within reason that humanity cannot be without such astute person's idealogy. For **** sake my
friend, if your have many common sense, think of the common thing that has driven you to come to the conclusion that you have come to about anything. Everything is absolute and
existent and is evoked through the means. . .from the time of your dissapating freedom, as kids, not as adults, because look at how adults are this days. They teach their kids,
and they let others teach their kids, but the kids never get the feeling of being free. I promiss you, that cry or emotion you have experienced due to lack of friendliness from a
neighboring ****, it is an instillement that sparks up many motions of your life to believe into bizarre things the world portrays. For myself, I find the starting point of my
when I first breathed my first sensible air, when I walked in my own two feet without guidance as to where my eyes were seeing. How can a mind be so tender, lost by the misconformed
train thogh after train thought. That is why I find schooling such a fascinating ruthless thing that can be broken into several fashions as to why is that case. But not even
reason to fashion an answer that I know will and is definetly can be viewed to abhold a societal dismark of "wF"is wrong with that guy's mind. He must be **** casing a storm to
bring an ideaology of thought or some **** religion, but that's what so funny to me. I find everything in life comedic, non concerning except at times if I feel similar to
someone adjacent because that is their essence in my prescence, and I feel the need to comfort it, to bring back the importance of that self. The part of life I find so comedic,
how bits and bits and everything with **** have all so many fascinating
things to learn from, the progression of one's mind never attains self worth in the world with something interfering. That something interfering for example, is me personally
writing what is can be taken as pointless and presenting my writing to you how I say I do. But did I say how I am presenting this writing, absolutely not. So brings the funny,
that school teaches the aspect of disfigurament of a person's essence. This thing is a complete oblivion to everything and anything, that because even though I did not specify
how I tone myself on this paper, there is the predicament to assume that I am very angry deranged person who but pokes charasmatically at something no one can grip, because he
is portraying me the image the way I was bred to see. But then it is so **** funny, you can also take my words describing
all that I intend to explain and stick them against me to simplify your circumstances as to the causitive feeling your experiencing, and maybe the confusion that I am creating
noting a significant point that I do write intentionally without any figurative wording, just simply talking about this to evoke a presence of an essence within you that is hindered,
by what type of **** everybody is wearing, where they are starring, who is ******* and adoring, and who's simply the **** because they don't fit in a deranged group, developed by
ego-centric level stingers, who but want either good for you, or it is the drive to profit from you everything. That is, words blah blah, can take stroll
on one day's role and make no complete sense, and all they did were live the sense of a tangled mind that fostered on what has been in some form, taught, over
what you can call a lively existence, considering how much traumatizing headaches this could cause, and resembled among a group of similar constituents with similar reasons
as to whatever the situation might be. I could point this out within one sentence, but it wouldn't hold any deeper understanding of this essence, so instead I decide with all
my reasoning and tremendous experience that even to some, even at this gritty expertisians who grease up the world to guess everything based on study and reasoning by other humans,
who believe all these ideas are shifters to the mind but always stem the relentless, functioning without any perspectives open to the idea that mold humans into one spatial and far better
so called community, which in all it's case has lost the essence to preserve the self without a ***** on the back. That ***** of course is the communal ****, that builds from a
trigger of words, then they teach the brain as if it is known how to be as a functioning unit. The amount doesn't matter, the amount that is thought brings hope, but the most
amount to the self is the function of you, like I feel I function amongst anyone because I have come to terms and realize what really important things I have learned from my life.
My life to some is gripping, only because it sounds unbelievable, but of that life I found the same driving forces that drive madness even today, and has been reaccuring for as
long as some form of expression has been. And in all humiliation of humanity, or as I consider it digression of being self around the bounds of comfortability, it has been
a grand experience to see many a people transgress from the point of my meeting them with a continuous contact to the point of now, and then, and future plausible. But then
and future plausible for me stand out as notions needless of evocations due to the fact that the self is a dwindling factor hung by a rope to swing the way the self first portrayed
to me, and then to the direction away from the first encountered mind. But in all, without senseless ignorance, I do understand these things are studied for a reason, for a reason
that is workable to be as they are for some variables do affect person's in many different way. That is why, the sense of one roof and too many aloof is but a big spoof. With
sensibility, how can forging something into your life help you to achieve greatness within self to portray it in a manner plausible. The only way is as a current flows, so do
the gulls.



where do you. . .come from. . .so many leagues unbeknownst among my dreams.
life is never what it seems. . .until i met your eyes.. . that built
my stongest implication, dire in desire to live a life inspired. . .
but then so is, to dream upon what tends on building motivation. . .
life is beautiful sensation. . .
from the first rainfall with you meeting outside spontaneous realm. . .
we fought the solemn wind to calm our cumbered spirits. . .taking flight,
fighting what might have been. . .semeless to even entertain. . .lost in
each others warmness. . .everything we built tended harmless.

now see how we have. . .related to each other's hearts. . .left the scrutinity
at obscurity prolonged on scale of mirror. . .where it has always belonged.
now it's just time darling
i promiss it wont be long until our roots bind the maximum strong.

from even across the plains, and mountain long trip stains. . .i feel
less pain. . .from what's the phrase non loose then gain, consorting time
absorbing each other's essence in rhyme.
the deepest of sensation of you. . .the meekest of me, makes me be the simple thing
that i've reconnected to . . .to realize, the sensation of you. . .from our first
encounter, i felt deep into your eyes. . .what agree's none behind with lies. . .
you evoked the deepest motion within my sphere of emotion not to betray myself within
this realm and dark frivolous potion. . .for my first set of emotion set on your tone behind
this potion. . .

i face you eye for an eye of every day until i die, but will ever will i die. . .not with you
never. . .darling angel, angel you are my expressive tone to call you so. . .nothing more
is the essense of you that you seem to implore, how busy life must be. . .we need feel free
to good ridance from this fee that life doesn't instill our good griefs beyond simple joys and beliefs. . .
for simply darling we are each other's heart beats, if it's simple smell of you
i will carry out my deeds in hell. . .beneath on hearth this earth, where all of us have been given
birth. . .but sent to spend what is driven by multipolluted cord, the time in blunt approach from
the thing that planted our roots. . .

how i feel you is simply too rich for some dirt to enrich you. . .i simply love and cherish
every bit of your essence, it has lifelong presence that even doing what they call
reminiscing, can't surpass living without missing what they have been reminiscing. . .
i cherish you beyond what little faith can teach about having bigger faith, when all my hopes
ride faithful slopes without elongated stops and rope bearing hopes. . .
my life i see to the extent to remorse only what some feel beyond scope of too openly. . .
but how can i retreat on what i can't stop to feel to protect you from, to their heads we are getting closely. . .
how in the scope of your first essence, can i give up to give way to ruin such pure essence. . .

i understand the world makes a feeling for such pure feeling is counted by blessings. . .
and in order for us to make it, that thought i feel senseless baking . . .constant roll of assorted
reasons for why we bleed to them treasons . . .for how can i express, how simple love doesn't
just digress, or something with time you invest. . .it's simply have been a joy of building
together a foundation for our nest. . .**** the rest. . .**** the pest. . .the world is the best
when sleepers are put to rest and the spark of commune are dwellers dwelling on these mischivers'
locked up chest. . .
to find out that darling. . .you simply are a joy to give me whole, that i'm not uninspired troll
reluctant to breath beside the one he placed his greed upon. . .or her, or it. . but all the essence
is closed and beat, by some known with ideals humanity can't consider too farfetched to bare to grit. . .
and sway to the essence that i hold in my glances. . .are as simple as these branded constructed norms
that most tend to manipulate and distort to one contorted form. . . .so all can bend into one socket for 365
degree view that most tend to agree. . .but never really see.

i know it's many there with this essense around the breeze of an aura, that simply are stranded too far apart by such horror.. .
to relent their essence with their prescence. . .to whom Barbarians find the essence is planted full on messes.
but how can we relate to such things darling. . .when the first glow of your essence showed me life full
of memories by the smile in your eyes, glowing beauty of any sort. . .i feel the world will someday . . .
take flight. . .in my way, but **** that. . .i'm to speak when my message is too simple, provoked only by the
thought, "protect the world its miser mother has been beaten". . .i can never relent, the message that is never
but to contradict what's life has not eaten. . .because of the times put to squares, living life, fostering a step back, into recluce. . .these biches wont even
say cause their too ****. . .to figure out that there's a worrior to stump them pleaded sheets out of wood. . .
i say this out for your sarcasm, elongated this song a bit to give you big ******. . .so when you repose, you
think nothing but what side are the pro's. . .and enter them into oblivion, grasping each by the billion, how
can i repose for i know, without one word it is and has been always come down to the special chosen million. . .

because my darling, i feel the miser that this essence in me you inspire, is up and target for no good. . .for
these pleaded fockers granted themselves unrelentless priveleges for centuries, changing diepers to giving
blood diamond marriages. . .riding on what they call prestine carriages. . .oh what,you don't recognize this
what the world has come to building from everybody's demise. . .feeding on high rise. . .splitting cots in the
rots, most alluded with plots and continued building upon the essence of you, keeping you stewed, brewing up a flu. . .
to this day when i met you. . .
will never cease your memory by only that it was circumstance. . .romance among thieves denying our chance to dance. . .
with one glance, their world just plopped a chance. . .for i know they know who im refering to, without a glance
i'm sure they feel my stance just to look **** eyed puking. . .**** blocking their world to rocking, while else where goes to foster under
this ugly monster. . .stooped on a porch ******* their air, without any underwear. . .haha must be due to how
much pull goes to their hair. . .how do i, they feel ****** diddlidy ****, what, is this person a human or a
restored frame of mind living. . .i can't be what's in my eyes to be believing, but i simply am retarted man. . .
a ******* rough psychological fighting bluff, to them i would. . .but trust me, how could i in my life, i
never could.. . .fall to false pretention, that life is a great invention, that my desire's are for simple
hires. . .for i know my life evolves around that which your first essence, darling, we built stronger everyday
to our future of what we call present. . .

life with you, i simply can't resent. . .but figure out what's best
to make what we don't need to make. . . because the essence uproots life's shrivel of what they call romances. . .
rooting upward from the seed we planted on the day people deside to bleed
all over the notion, that this emotion they conquered stems from shot of elixir handed down from the heavens by
some they call cupid fixer. . .relentless, they push through many dances. . .all so strained and constricted by many
glances, restricting their free essence to feel in whole their life is shot down by simple messes. . . .
but you, none taken, broken and mistaken. . .how can simple things be so. . .when you know my essence for you is
far greater then what one instance can remark for the whole, i feel simply. . .protect you from their hole and
bind you with my essence that strives in whole. . .even through tormenting lonely dances. . .when i saw the world an ugly form. . .
nowhere to want to run to, or feel
resentment.. . where's life going to go. . .if my essence in a whole feeds you. . .away to their
mysterious goal. . .i wouldn't have the patience to ***** their abnormal pretence, as if life is sweet with
such mysterious fowl. . .create little thought to create bigger picture, many aditions just create tensities
among those who bicker, loosing control each time only quicker. . .that's why it's never lesser to speak for the lesser
dresser, or the person they showed you, that looked like he ******* told you, but instead they made the mistake
to grow lower. . . cowering even bolder. . . what **** is the point of that. . .to say it none meeker as if its meant to outcast the bleeker
. . .i'm not that so. . .to scowl like fowl crackhead, loosing self reliance to gr

I though he carried the light
where words would illuminate
driving me to a euphoric ******
a man without a face or a trace
unhindered in a double live and lies
a bubble of psychotic psychic surety
his passion was an addiction
my reservations moved a notch
addicted to a body of ideology
the stances of philosophical terms
uncovering ancient possibilities
the unfelt mysteries of history
veiled in icicles of pretence and lies
as if a Marxist, a closet bourgeoise
The stoicism of present bargains
questioning Socrates and morality reasons
a fatal dose ,examining the unexamined
as colourful as his mind blew my inner glow
he was lost in sad and low dialogues
afraid to face the earthly shallow shadows
yet his spirits moved deep within mine
and it paralysed and fed on my energy
and his delusion became my seduction
but he woke my inner poetic tongue
letting it caress all his inner wounds
A shadow hiding behind Frankenstein’s
a sly monster who lied to my eyes
ghosting in with the a pen that weakens
romancing with letters of a fiery doom
a penpal whom I met within my lowest
but whose words lay in a deep unending quarry
his warmth I could never ever tell
his kiss only a draft on the dewy grass

IN SILENT PRETENCE
Between words,
that stifilled my being,
oceans of my emotions
stole the pieces  
of my soul.  
Feeling the feelings  
for healing is  
the attitude for my being.  
Silent echoes says  
love is the sea of no end.
To carry the words
i heard on my back,
is like the lizard  
that lives in a house  
but it doesn't mean  
it's the owner of the house.
Even as the snail drags
its shell along,
even so the tortoise
walks around with its shell.
As the snake sheds  
its scale in due season,
even so the heart
vehemently rejects and
expunge  every pressure
of words messing with it.  
Even as the chameleons
changes its colour
to suit itself,
so the unstable mind
changes because it is fickle.
Though in silent pretence
the heart remembers,
but like the elephant
it never forgets the hurts
only the heart can feel.
Like that child who  
in a hurry cuts  
the underground yam  
while standing,
must sit down patiently  
to uproot it.
©2021,Emeka Mokeme .

He didn't like what he'd become
pretence filled his soul
wanted to be someone else
reality left him cold

He never owned a problem
blamed everything on others
always hiding in shame
cowering under covers

Learning to manipulate
wanted the advantage
his veins filled with hate
often with a bloodied leakage

Grievances held years
spewing out in fjords
causing many others tears
on hurting he would gorge

Until one day his actions
were brought to book
when he lost his only son
this forever change his look

Bitterness ran rife within
no stone remained unturned
a shrivelled heart left bleeding
was what his actions earned

Your pretence;
Is the best offence.
Your smile tight; shoulders tense,
Your facade I can sense,
Yet your act- you do commence!
Your love for him is indeed intense;
So why ******* me with your lens-
That sees him whence,
You look at me; Thence,
Your act kills me with suspense,
And fills me with utter annoyance-
Because you fell for my twin, his charm, his innocence;
And all I’ll ever be is his resemblance;
And all I’ll ever be is his remembrance!

Your pretence;
Is the worst offence.
It breaks through all my defence*
I wish I could erase the difference;
I wish I could fill his absence!
Because he will always be your first preference.
You kiss me and then cry in silence;
Totally unaware of my mind’s violence.
And here I sit as the audience,
Seeing your flawless performance!
Our story exists because he lacks existence,
Yet he’ll live through my face, my body’s presence.
So don’t be selfless and enjoy your deliverance;
For I’ll be him so that you can end your sentence.

Please stop pretending that you love me;
When he’s the only one you see.
I’ll be whatever you want me to be;
Just be yourself and set the actress free.

A laugh is not a pretence
I wanted to tell you that, Urooj
And maybe to myself too
Because I know you saw peeps
Of the vacancy
Nestled in my skin
And I too was acquainted
With your queer sorrow
That rises and falls
With a schedule of its own
We saw the jolly winds flirt with olden trees
And heard many a strange talks
In golden fields of youthful wheat
And mustard flowers alive

But we ran too, didn’t we?
I pointed to the slender tree far, far away
Count as I go, I said
And count you did as I rushed
Rushed clumsily on
My feet twisting in troughs
Eye-lashes fighting dust
Twenty, you shouted, as the tree grew
But I barely heard
my body singing a battlefield

You stumbled through the ploughed soil
Hardened through suns
Crushing the remnants of harvested wheat
beneath the flat soles of your sandals
(who wears those to a field?)
Then more
Through soft, chestnut soils
Trying not to damage the baby onions
And I laughed through my burning lungs
A smoke piled up in me
Yearning to gnaw all away

And we licked the gusts singing gossips
Of sour, raw mangoes
Then relished the cool water that
You forced the earth to puke
(I still don’t get how that hand-pump worked)

And I know you sneaked along a wilted rose
From your sister’s grave
And wept, quietly sniffing
Seeing her in all the birds I pointed out
All the leaves dried to immortality
In my notebook
I too treaded through rows of childish guava trees
And struggled to will my ghosts away
I too got stranded in the insolent rays
of the dusty sun

But we joked still, didn’t we?
And when, on the way home,
I reminded you stories
Of the silly children we once lived
Your laugh glimmered all around
And mine mimicked

And the radio was ****
So we swam in our own private silences
Got lost in the rowing birds
And I know, at some point,
All the dead days
And all the rotten mangoes
Seated themselves in the car
Along with us and our shackled beasts
And the villages and the stalls and empty fields
Ran past in silence

But we had laughed
When the restless winds nearly sent me
Tumbling down the tree
And we had laughed when
The freshly-watered soil tried
To **** us under
And a laugh is not a pretence
Urooj, a laugh is not a pretence.
I wonder if we know.

When did the measure of your worth become a brand?
Banded sneakers, streaking vibrance,
vibrating mobile nuzzled in hand.

These do not make you.

Backward cap, for a new era,
sagged pants, swagger stance
for this hoodlum hoody wearer.

These do not make him.

Gucci bags and other tags,
designer purse, cursing contraband,
fake names make her gag.

But these do not make her.

They say don't judge a book by it's cover,
so why a person by their assets?
if it were asserted by another...

Belongings do not a person make.

Kindness, courage, compassion, heart,
personality, wisdom,
even a love of art.

These a person make.

Take some time to introspect,
inspect the way you see yourself,
You'll be happier for it I expect.

You make the person.

"Hark! Lakshman! Hark, again that cry!
                 It is, — it is my husband's voice!
             Oh hasten, to his succour fly,
                 No more hast thou, dear friend, a choice.
             He calls on thee, perhaps his foes
                 Environ him on all sides round,
            That wail, — it means death's final throes!
                 Why standest thou, as magic-bound?


             "Is this a time for thought, — oh gird
               Thy bright sword on, and take thy bow!
           He heeds not, hears not any word,
               Evil hangs over us, I know!
           Swift in decision, prompt in deed,
               Brave unto rashness, can this be,
           The man to whom all looked at need?
               Is it my brother that I see!


           "Oh no, and I must run alone,
               For further here I cannot stay;
           Art thou transformed to blind dumb stone!
               Wherefore this impious, strange delay!
           That cry, — that cry, — it seems to ring
               Still in my ears, — I cannot bear
           Suspense; if help we fail to bring
               His death at least we both can share"


          "Oh calm thyself, Videhan Queen,
               No cause is there for any fear,
           Hast thou his prowess never seen?
               Wipe off for shame that dastard tear!
           What being of demonian birth
               Could ever brave his mighty arm?
           Is there a creature on earth
               That dares to work our hero harm?


           "The lion and the grisly bear
               Cower when they see his royal look,
           Sun-staring eagles of the air
               His glance of anger cannot brook,
           Pythons and cobras at his tread
               To their most secret coverts glide,
           Bowed to the dust each serpent head
               ***** before in hooded pride.


           "Rakshasas, Danavs, demons, ghosts,
               Acknowledge in their hearts his might,
           And slink to their remotest coasts,
               In terror at his very sight.
           Evil to him! Oh fear it not,
               Whatever foes against him rise!
           Banish for aye the foolish thought,
               And be thyself, — bold, great, and wise.


           "He call for help! Canst thou believe
               He like a child would shriek for aid
           Or pray for respite or reprieve —
               Not of such metal is he made!
           Delusive was that piercing cry, —
               Some trick of magic by the foe;
           He has a work, — he cannot die,
               Beseech me not from hence to go.


           For here beside thee, as a guard
               'Twas he commanded me to stay,
           And dangers with my life to ward
               If they should come across thy way.
           Send me not hence, for in this wood
               Bands scattered of the giants lurk,
           Who on their wrongs and vengeance brood,
               And wait the hour their will to work."


           "Oh shame! and canst thou make my weal
               A plea for lingering! Now I know
           What thou art, Lakshman! And I feel
               Far better were an open foe.
           Art thou a coward? I have seen
               Thy bearing in the battle-fray
           Where flew the death-fraught arrows keen,
               Else had I judged thee so today.


           "But then thy leader stood beside!
               Dazzles the cloud when shines the sun,
           Reft of his radiance, see it glide
               A shapeless mass of vapours dun;
           So of thy courage, — or if not,
               The matter is far darker dyed,
           What makes thee loth to leave this spot?
               Is there a motive thou wouldst hide?


           "He perishes — well, let him die!
               His wife henceforth shall be mine own!
           Can that thought deep imbedded lie
               Within thy heart's most secret zone!
           Search well and see! one brother takes
               His kingdom, — one would take his wife!
           A fair partition! — But it makes
               Me shudder, and abhor my life.


           "Art thou in secret league with those
               Who from his hope the kingdom rent?
           A spy from his ignoble foes
               To track him in his banishment?
           And wouldst thou at his death rejoice?
               I know thou wouldst, or sure ere now
           When first thou heardst that well known voice
               Thou shouldst have run to aid, I trow.


           "Learn this, — whatever comes may come,
               But I shall not survive my Love,
           Of all my thoughts here is the sum!
            Witness it gods in heaven above.
         If fire can burn, or water drown,
             I follow him: — choose what thou wilt
         Truth with its everlasting crown,
             Or falsehood, treachery, and guilt.


         "Remain here with a vain pretence
             Of shielding me from wrong and shame,
         Or go and die in his defence
             And leave behind a noble name.
         Choose what thou wilt, — I urge no more,
             My pathway lies before me clear,
         I did not know thy mind before,
             I know thee now, — and have no fear."


         She said and proudly from him turned, —
             Was this the gentle Sita? No.
         Flames from her eyes shot forth and burned,
             The tears therein had ceased to flow.
         "Hear me, O Queen, ere I depart,
             No longer can I bear thy words,
         They lacerate my inmost heart
             And torture me, like poisoned swords.


         "Have I deserved this at thine hand?
             Of lifelong loyalty and truth
         Is this the meed? I understand
             Thy feelings, Sita, and in sooth
         I blame thee not, — but thou mightst be
             Less rash in judgement, Look! I go,
         Little I care what comes to me
             Wert thou but safe, — God keep thee so!


         "In going hence I disregard
             The plainest orders of my chief,
         A deed for me, — a soldier, — hard
             And deeply painful, but thy grief
         And language, wild and wrong, allow
             No other course. Mine be the crime,
         And mine alone. — but oh, do thou
             Think better of me from this time.


         "Here with an arrow, lo, I trace
             A magic circle ere I leave,
         No evil thing within this space
             May come to harm thee or to grieve.
         Step not, for aught, across the line,
             Whatever thou mayst see or hear,
         So shalt thou balk the bad design
             Of every enemy I fear.


         "And now farewell! What thou hast said,
             Though it has broken quite my heart,
         So that I wish I were dead —
             I would before, O Queen, we part,
         Freely forgive, for well I know
             That grief and fear have made thee wild,
         We part as friends, — is it not so?"
             And speaking thus he sadly smiled.


         "And oh ye sylvan gods that dwell
             Among these dim and sombre shades,
         Whose voices in the breezes swell
             And blend with noises of cascades,
         Watch over Sita, whom alone
             I leave, and keep her safe fr

(Hypnos- God of Sleep
Eros- God of Love
Nyx- Goddess of Night)

ME:
I closed my eyes
And met 3 strangers
Whose names I knew but,
Could not express.
They stood with grace and prowess,
Each one grander than the next.
They petitioned me to ask them,
Anything at all,
So I asked them about dreams,
Given to us by gods.

HYPNOS:
A weak internal monologue,
Lapsing into night.
They sleep and breathe
So slowly,
They sleep; and breathe so deep.

EROS:
Their dreams I clouded,
Tinged, with crimson haze.
They long for one another,
They long;
To find each other.

NYX:
The dream ends now!
As my darkness overwhelms.
They no longer need to think,
They drink;
As to forget.

ME:
Pretence keeps up my dreaming,
Innerspeaker of my thoughts,
Past tense reveals it all:
Groundskeeper
To my soul.

An arrow from your quivers
Surely would do the job,
Of a thousand
Quarts of liqour
Or novocaine, or god.

NYX:
When you see light
You will see clearly,
The truth of misery.
Though I know nothing of such light,
The darkness lives in me.

EROS:
Soon your day will come,
To feel as all the rest.
The burning fire of passion,
Bellowing wild,
A fire without smoke.

HYPNOS:
And now as you awake,
Arise! Dear sir, go forth,
Knowing of what you learned,
In this episode,
This dream.

When in Bohemia, she screams about
Her pastures green, but not too loud
So never have I known, that the world listens too
As a comedian, I see she belongs
But never conforms, to the song of
This nomad world, I'm glad she found it too
So run! She wants to run again
You vagabond, you're well-spent

Bohemian tendencies says, “you can't stay long”
“These kinds of commons, you won't ever get along”

Armenian, it’s such a release
Materialistic animosity
The speed of life has no value, like dollar signs
I loved an alien, who dabbled in art
Of all visage, enema of the heart
Wanderer, she's spent so much but there's that bliss in the air
So smile! It's all sorts of worthwhile
To see a world and not fret so much

Bohemian tendencies says, “be spectacular
Before the nebula men steal your fur”

In the Caribbean, you dream a kite
As your taxi, you can't walk all the time
Travel hills of puce-mauve sands, the world in trance
A true deviant, the thinking of
All dreaming thoughts, and loves begot
Tinkerer, what will we do when our brains run dry?
Oh, no! Don't think about the end
To love a life in due pretence 

Bohemian tendencies says, “think fair, live now”
“The world is watching with distaste of time in doubt”

As a chameleon, should she go alone?
The world is cold, except for times in colour
Her world in dance, she'll do without me
When in Bohemian, the first I've seen
Of pastel stencils through her happi-
Ness-tled in her loft home of the wind
There she goes! Ain’t she a lovely wing?
I hope she finds a world that sings

Bohemian tendencies says, “to love and to hold
But to let go, for treasures can mold”

There she goes
There she goes
There she goes

After all, we're not savages. We're English.
And the English are the best at everything.
                                                     ­       (Piggy)
The hovelled huts
Near  school house ditches
Hardly sheltered starving children.
Emaciated, pale and ghastly,
Three million lost.
Exports defined them,
Imports denied them,
The world was told their hunger
Was the wrath of God.
For seven hundred years
Untolled Rachels wept;
Twice as long
As Jews were kept
Enslaved in pagan Egypt.
This was Ireland,
Not Auschwitz.

Beneath the banners of
Labour and Freedom,
Toiled the innocents.
Eyes burning from hot peppers,
Bodies weak and wrecked
From boarding;
Skin separated by flogging
Thousands of Cypriots.

Over soup and sandwiches
A demarcation's drawn,
So Hindus now face Muslims
Seeking their new homes.
Three million displaced
During lunch,
Brain salad served up on a hunch
By a line
Drawn by one man.
This wasn't Treblinka,
But Pakistan.

Millions fenced in labour camps
In what they called  
The Dark Continent.
The torture was horrendous,
With random executions.
Think the worse, you're still not there,
Think ravenous dogs and mutilation,
**** and human degradation.
Eyes gouged out, ears cut off,
This was Kenya,
Not Warsaw.

Sir Winston wore
His crocodile shoes,
Feigning the blues,
While blocking friendly supplies;
Letting three million hungry die.
His callousness was cruelly matched
When delivering Mahatma's epithet:
“Has Gandhi not starved yet?”
This was Bengal,
Not Dachau.

Their ****** count adds up.
Their new policy was errant:
Imprison all the peasants.
It was racist to the Nth degree,
A million desperate detainees
To exile when they're freed.
But half died on their knees
In Malay,
Not Buchenwald.


The Boer War and Apartheid
Were blessed with Royal Assent.
In Amritsar Brits opened fire,
To cut down Innocents.

This isn't just in history,
It's happened all too recently.

Argentina's watery graves
Gurgle from The Belgrano,
Sunk by Royal torpedoes
For a rock of sheep.
Such was the work
Of a band of brothers,
To fly their flag
Over Falkland waters?

There's no denying
The atrocities
Of her maternal
Ferocities.
The Spinners
Wrapped their glories
Furled in Jack's war stories.
The winners
Have detoured their crimes,
Enjoin us denouncing
**** times;
But the sun hasn't set
On Empire fires:
China, India, Kenya, Aden,
Ireland, Africa,
All invaded.
All degraded.
Imperialism is not benign,
The legacy lives on
In Palestine.

Under pretence
Of flag and king,
The English are
Best at everything.

Ulysses now left the haven, and took the rough track up through
the wooded country and over the crest of the mountain till he
reached the place where Minerva had said that he would find the
swineherd, who was the most thrifty servant he had. He found him
sitting in front of his hut, which was by the yards that he had
built on a site which could be seen from far. He had made them
spacious and fair to see, with a free ran for the pigs all round them;
he had built them during his master’s absence, of stones which he
had gathered out of the ground, without saying anything to Penelope or
Laertes, and he had fenced them on top with thorn bushes. Outside
the yard he had run a strong fence of oaken posts, split, and set
pretty close together, while inside lie had built twelve sties near
one another for the sows to lie in. There were fifty pigs wallowing in
each sty, all of them breeding sows; but the boars slept outside and
were much fewer in number, for the suitors kept on eating them, and
die swineherd had to send them the best he had continually. There were
three hundred and sixty boar pigs, and the herdsman’s four hounds,
which were as fierce as wolves, slept always with them. The
swineherd was at that moment cutting out a pair of sandals from a good
stout ox hide. Three of his men were out herding the pigs in one place
or another, and he had sent the fourth to town with a boar that he had
been forced to send the suitors that they might sacrifice it and
have their fill of meat.
  When the hounds saw Ulysses they set up a furious barking and flew
at him, but Ulysses was cunning enough to sit down and loose his
hold of the stick that he had in his hand: still, he would have been
torn by them in his own homestead had not the swineherd dropped his ox
hide, rushed full speed through the gate of the yard and driven the
dogs off by shouting and throwing stones at them. Then he said to
Ulysses, “Old man, the dogs were likely to have made short work of
you, and then you would have got me into trouble. The gods have
given me quite enough worries without that, for I have lost the best
of masters, and am in continual grief on his account. I have to attend
swine for other people to eat, while he, if he yet lives to see the
light of day, is starving in some distant land. But come inside, and
when you have had your fill of bread and wine, tell me where you
come from, and all about your misfortunes.”
  On this the swineherd led the way into the hut and bade him sit
down. He strewed a good thick bed of rushes upon the floor, and on the
top of this he threw the shaggy chamois skin—a great thick one—on
which he used to sleep by night. Ulysses was pleased at being made
thus welcome, and said “May Jove, sir, and the rest of the gods
grant you your heart’s desire in return for the kind way in which
you have received me.”
  To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Stranger, though a still
poorer man should come here, it would not be right for me to insult
him, for all strangers and beggars are from Jove. You must take what
you can get and be thankful, for servants live in fear when they
have young lords for their masters; and this is my misfortune now, for
heaven has hindered the return of him who would have been always
good to me and given me something of my own—a house, a piece of land,
a good looking wife, and all else that a liberal master allows a
servant who has worked hard for him, and whose labour the gods have
prospered as they have mine in the situation which I hold. If my
master had grown old here he would have done great things by me, but
he is gone, and I wish that Helen’s whole race were utterly destroyed,
for she has been the death of many a good man. It was this matter that
took my master to Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight the
Trojans in the cause of kin Agamemnon.”
  As he spoke he bound his girdle round him and went to the sties
where the young ******* pigs were penned. He picked out two which he
brought back with him and sacrificed. He singed them, cut them up, and
spitted on them; when the meat was cooked he brought it all in and set
it before Ulysses, hot and still on the spit, whereon Ulysses
sprinkled it over with white barley meal. The swineherd then mixed
wine in a bowl of ivy-wood, and taking a seat opposite Ulysses told
him to begin.
  “Fall to, stranger,” said he, “on a dish of servant’s pork. The
fat pigs have to go to the suitors, who eat them up without shame or
scruple; but the blessed gods love not such shameful doings, and
respect those who do what is lawful and right. Even the fierce
free-booters who go raiding on other people’s land, and Jove gives
them their spoil—even they, when they have filled their ships and got
home again live conscience-stricken, and look fearfully for judgement;
but some god seems to have told these people that Ulysses is dead
and gone; they will not, therefore, go back to their own homes and
make their offers of marriage in the usual way, but waste his estate
by force, without fear or stint. Not a day or night comes out of
heaven, but they sacrifice not one victim nor two only, and they
take the run of his wine, for he was exceedingly rich. No other
great man either in Ithaca or on the mainland is as rich as he was; he
had as much as twenty men put together. I will tell you what he had.
There are twelve herds of cattle upon the mainland, and as many flocks
of sheep, there are also twelve droves of pigs, while his own men
and hired strangers feed him twelve widely spreading herds of goats.
Here in Ithaca he runs even large flocks of goats on the far end of
the island, and they are in the charge of excellent goatherds. Each
one of these sends the suitors the best goat in the flock every day.
As for myself, I am in charge of the pigs that you see here, and I
have to keep picking out the best I have and sending it to them.”
  This was his story, but Ulysses went on eating and drinking
ravenously without a word, brooding his revenge. When he had eaten
enough and was satisfied, the swineherd took the bowl from which he
usually drank, filled it with wine, and gave it to Ulysses, who was
pleased, and said as he took it in his hands, “My friend, who was this
master of yours that bought you and paid for you, so rich and so
powerful as you tell me? You say he perished in the cause of King
Agamemnon; tell me who he was, in case I may have met with such a
person. Jove and the other gods know, but I may be able to give you
news of him, for I have travelled much.”
  Eumaeus answered, “Old man, no traveller who comes here with news
will get Ulysses’ wife and son to believe his story. Nevertheless,
tramps in want of a lodging keep coming with their mouths full of
lies, and not a word of truth; every one who finds his way to Ithaca
goes to my mistress and tells her falsehoods, whereon she takes them
in, makes much of them, and asks them all manner of questions,
crying all the time as women will when they have lost their
husbands. And you too, old man, for a shirt and a cloak would
doubtless make up a very pretty story. But the wolves and birds of
prey have long since torn Ulysses to pieces, or the fishes of the
sea have eaten him, and his bones are lying buried deep in sand upon
some foreign shore; he is dead and gone, and a bad business it is
for all his friends—for me especially; go where I may I shall never
find so good a master, not even if I were to go home to my mother
and father where I was bred and born. I do not so much care,
however, about my parents now, though I should dearly like to see them
again in my own country; it is the loss of Ulysses that grieves me
most; I cannot speak of him without reverence though he is here no
longer, for he was very fond of me, and took such care of me that
whereever he may be I shall always honour his memory.”
  “My friend,” replied Ulysses, “you are very positive, and very
hard of belief about your master’s coming home again, nevertheless I
will not merely say, but will swear, that he is coming. Do not give me
anything for my news till he has actually come, you may then give me a
shirt and cloak of good wear if you will. I am in great want, but I
will not take anything at all till then, for I hate a man, even as I
hate hell fire, who lets his poverty tempt him into lying. I swear
by king Jove, by the rites of hospitality, and by that hearth of
Ulysses to which I have now come, that all will surely happen as I
have said it will. Ulysses will return in this self same year; with
the end of this moon and the beginning of the next he will be here
to do vengeance on all those who are ill treating his wife and son.”
  To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Old man, you will
neither get paid for bringing good news, nor will Ulysses ever come
home; drink you wine in peace, and let us talk about something else.
Do not keep on reminding me of all this; it always pains me when any
one speaks about my honoured master. As for your oath we will let it
alone, but I only wish he may come, as do Penelope, his old father
Laertes, and his son Telemachus. I am terribly unhappy too about
this same boy of his; he was running up fast into manhood, and bade
fare to be no worse man, face and figure, than his father, but some
one, either god or man, has been unsettling his mind, so he has gone
off to Pylos to try and get news of his father, and the suitors are
lying in wait for him as he is coming home, in the hope of leaving the
house of Arceisius without a name in Ithaca. But let us say no more
about him, and leave him to be taken, or else to escape if the son
of Saturn holds his hand over him to protect him. And now, old man,
tell me your own story; tell me also, for I want to know, who you
are and where you come from. Tell me of your town and parents, what
manner of ship you came in, how crew brought you to Ithaca, and from
what country they professed to come—for you cannot have come by
land.”
  And Ulysses answered, “I will tell you all about it. If there were
meat and wine enough, and we could stay here in the hut with nothing
to do but to eat and drink while the others go to their work, I
could easily talk on for a whole twelve months without ever
finishing the story of the sorrows with which it has pleased heaven to
visit me.
  “I am by birth a Cretan; my father was a well-to-do man, who had
many sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he
had purchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father Castor son of
Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honour
among the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity, and the valour of his
sons) put me on the same level with my brothers who had been born in
wedlock. When, however, death took him to the house of Hades, his sons
divided his estate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave
a holding and little else; nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry
into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on
the field of battle. It is all over now; still, if you look at the
straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough
and to spare. Mars and Minerva made me doughty in war; when I had
picked my men to surprise the enemy with an ambuscade I never gave
death so much as a thought, but was the first to leap forward and
spear all whom I could overtake. Such was I in battle, but I did not
care about farm work, nor the frugal home life of those who would
bring up children. My delight was in ships, fighting, javelins, and
arrows—things that most men shudder to think of; but one man likes
one thing and another another, and this was what I was most
naturally inclined to. Before the Achaeans went to Troy, nine times
was I in command of men and ships on foreign service, and I amassed
much wealth. I had my pick of the spoil in the first instance, and
much more was allotted to me later on.
  “My house grew apace and I became a great man among the Cretans, but
when Jove counselled that terrible expedition, in which so many
perished, the people required me and Idomeneus to lead their ships
to Troy, and there was no way out of it, for they insisted on our
doing so. There we fought for nine whole years, but in the tenth we
sacked the city of Priam and sailed home again as heaven dispersed us.
Then it was that Jove devised evil against me. I spent but one month
happily with my children, wife, and property, and then I conceived the
idea of making a descent on Egypt, so I fitted out a fine fleet and
manned it. I had nine ships, and the people flocked to fill them.
For six days I and my men made feast, and I found them many victims
both for sacrifice to the gods and for themselves, but on the
seventh day we went on board and set sail from Crete with a fair North
wind behind us though we were going down a river. Nothing went ill
with any of our ships, and we had no sickness on board, but sat
where we were and let the ships go as the wind and steersmen took
them. On the fifth day we reached the river Aegyptus; there I
stationed my ships in the river, bidding my men stay by them and
keep guard over them while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from every
point of vantage.
  “But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and
ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their
wives and children captive. The alarm was soon carried to the city,
and when they heard the war cry, the people came out at daybreak
till the plain was filled with horsemen and foot soldiers and with the
gleam of armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would
no longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The
Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced
labour for them. Jove, however, put it in my mind to do thus—and I
wish I had died then and there in Egypt instead, for there was much
sorrow in store for me—I took off my helmet and shield and dropped my
spear from my hand; then I went straight up to the king’s chariot,
clasped his knees and kissed them, whereon he spared my life, bade
me get into his chariot, and took me weeping to his own home. Many
made at me with their ashen spears and tried to kil me in their
fury, but the king protected me, for he feared the wrath of Jove the
protector of strangers, who punishes those who do evil.
  “I stayed there for seven years and got together much money among
the Egyptians, for they all gave me something; but when it was now
going on for eight years there came a certain Phoenician, a cunning
rascal, who had already committed all sorts of villainy, and this
man talked me over into going with him to Phoenicia, where his house
and his possessions lay. I stayed there for a whole twelve months, but
at the end of that time when months and days had gone by till the same
season had come round again, he set me on board a ship bound for
Libya, on a pretence that I was to take a cargo along with him to that
place, but really that he might sell me as a slave and take the
money I fetched. I suspected his intention, but went on board with
him, for I could not help it.
  “The ship ran before a fresh North wind till we had reached the
sea that lies between Crete and Libya; there, however, Jove counselled
their destruction, for as soon as we were well out from Crete and
could see nothing but sea and sky, he raised a black cloud over our
ship and the sea grew dark beneath it. Then Jove let fly with his
thunderbolts and the ship went round and round and was filled with
fire and brimstone as the lightning struck it. The men fell all into
the sea; they were carried about in the water round the ship looking
like so many sea-gulls, but the god presently deprived them of all
chance of getting home again. I was all dismayed; Jove, however,
sent the ship’s mast within my reach, which saved my life, for I clung
to it, and drifted before the fury of the gale. Nine days did I
drift but in the darkness of the tenth night a great wave bore me on
to the Thesprotian coast. There Pheidon king of the Thesprotians
entertained me hospitably without charging me anything at all for
his son found me when I was nearly dead with cold and fatigue, whereon
he raised me by the hand, took me to his father’s house and gave

Hey lovey-dovey christian, run and get your NIV
Read to me some verses, read them just for me
-
Show me how you live, "not by bread alone" [1]
But by every single Word, from God's Holy Throne
-
Especially if it's written, black words on paper white
Read them from the NIV, yes-sir-ee you fight the Fight!
-
Do you have a problem? Can't you find the verse?
Why oh is that? Your "bible" is accursed

[1] Matt AND Luke 4:4

++++

Matthew 12:47 -- removed in the footnotes
Matthew 17:21 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."
Matthew 18:11 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost."
Matthew 21:44 -- removed in the footnotes
Matthew 23:14 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."
Mark 7:16 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."
Mark 9:44 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
Mark 9:46 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
Mark 11:26 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses."
Mark 15:28 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors."
Mark 16:9-20 (all 12 verses) -- There is a line separating the last 12 verses of Mark from the main text. Right under the line it says: [The two most reliable early manuscripts do not have Mark 16:9-20] (NIV, 1978 ed.) The Jehovah's Witness "Bible" also places the last 12 verses of Mark as an appendix of sorts.
Luke 17:36 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left."
Luke 22:44 -- removed in the footnotes
Luke 22:43 -- removed in the footnotes
Luke 23:17 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"(For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)"
John 5:4 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had."
John 7:53-8:11 -- removed in the footnotes
Acts 8:37 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. It's deletion makes one think that people can be baptized and saved without believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Sounds Catholic. What are you NIV readers missing?
"And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
Acts 15:34 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there still."
Acts 24:7 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took him away out of our hands,"
Acts 28:29 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves."
Romans 16:24 -- COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. What are you NIV readers missing?
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."
I John 5:7 -- Vitally important phrase COMPLETELY removed [also deleted from the Jehovah's Witness "Bible"]. In the NIV it says,
"For there are three that testify:"
Compare the NIV reading with the following Jehovah's Witness reading--
"For there are three witness bearers,"
What are you NIV readers missing? What does the real Bible say?
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag.

I wear a mask
so nobody will see
what lies behind
my eyes.

I live in a semblance of
normality,
but reality plays tricks,
pretence is the lie I live.

My ever changing facade
reveals what I want the world
to see
to understand.

But it’s not me.

Precious few know me,
or see me in all my
weakness,
because I hide
that which would frighten.

It’s easier to exist
in a world where expectations
are met,
and I can be the man
they want me to be.

So here I am.
I look just like you.
Just please don’t try
to remove my mask.

"CALL down the hawk from the air;
Let him be hooded or caged
Till the yellow eye has grown mild,
For larder and spit are bare,
The old cook enraged,
The scullion gone wild.'
"I will not be clapped in a hood,
Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,
Now I have learnt to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.'
"What tumbling cloud did you cleave,
Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,
Last evening? that I, who had sat
Dumbfounded before a knave,
Should give to my friend
A pretence of wit.'

"Order, Order !
We will have ORDER !!!
Order in the court !
or, the doors to this court
will be closed to cohorts !"

" Order "... is the call
within... our courts of law

Well here's...
Big Virges'... view...
of how these laws
will... Surely... be used...
and what... these laws...
will finally... Do... !!!

You see...

" Order's "...
being... " Summoned "...
in the... " Lords "...
and in... " The Commons "...

and... " The Cure "... to...
Current Problems ...
is seen as ... " Martial Law "... !!!

Police will now ... ENFORCE ...
without ... " Probable "... cause ... !!!

" Stops "... and ...
" Searches "...

upPED on ... Corners ...

What's their purpose ... ?
... " Public Order "...

But .....
Cameras on streets ... ?

CCTV ...... !?!

Isn't that meant to ...
" Keep The Peace "... ?!?

" OKAY, they're there
to make movies !
So, what's the deal ?
Can you paint the scene ? "

"Sir, move along please
your act's been seen,
our decision, you'll receive,
once you've been screened,
at the end of the week,
with your, Charge Sheet !
When it comes, answer truthfully,
because any deceit, may well
result in penalties, with no release,
especially if, we have to cheat
by using, yes, our editing team !"

You see ...
That's the ... " Trick "... !!!

So ... take these words ... " IN "...
and ... Read them ... CLOSELY ...
cos' these words ... Run DEEP ... !!!

Our lives ... BELIEVE ME ... !!!
are now on ... " Floppys' " ...
... Micro-Chips ...

and Drives named ... (C:)

So ...
What is humanity's ... destiny ... ???

Technology ....
Patrolling ... our streets ...

Armies ... of police ... !!!

Freedoms. .................................................... obsolete .... !!!!
for those ... wanting ... Peace ...

Sounds like a movie ...
I've seen of ... Armies' ... ???

" OH NO ... it's T3 !!! "

" ORDER is "... The Key ...

Restriction of ... Rights ...
to simply be ... FREE ... ?!?

NOT TO TAKE ...
Violence ... from our streets ... !!!!!

I'm YES ... A Supporter
of ... " Public Order "...

Let partying tribes ...
INDULGE in ... " Good Vibes "...

But .....
What kind of party ... ?
sees people ... Pull Knives ... !?!
or call for ... " Gunfights "... ?!?!?!?

But let's ...
NOT TELL ... " Lies "... !!!

Crime is ... on the rISE ... !!!

Crimes of ... ALL TYPES ... !!!
from ... Corporate Crimes ...
to young ... " Homicides "... !!!!

But .....
Ask yourself ... " WHY "... ?

Is it because ... ?
The young are now ..................................... Lost ....... ?!?

or ....
Could it be ... THIS ... ???

Highlighting ... Young Fights ...
as if .... EVERY NIGHT ...
Another kid ... DIES ... !!!

May simply ... "FIT IN"...
with Agendas ... Contrived ...
to simply ... Keep Minds ...
AFRAID ... and ... " DENIED "...
of living ... their lives ...
just like the ... " Rich Guys "...

" Directors "... who Earn ... ?
from ... " Fraudulent "... work ...

How many of them ?
will face ... " Stop and Search "... ?!?

Those in ... Governments ...
and ... " Corporate "... Hybrids ...
whose parties are ... "PRIVATE"... !!!!

with much ... " Nicer Climates "...

ENJOYING ... themselves... !!!
because of ... " Their Wealth "...
with women who ... " Sell "...
Their bodies like ... " SHELL "... !!!!
have done with ... " Oil Wells "... !!!!!

" Take Time ".....................................
Think it ... through..................................

But ....
Here's some more clues ....
as to why ... I Now Choose ...
to ... " Today "... take this view ...

Youth have died ... " Early "...
For YEARS ... on streets ...

But back then ... WEREN'T Worthy... ?!?
of ... PRIMETIME TV ...

But Now ... THEY ARE ... !?!

Terrorists .... are at Large ... !!!
is now the ... BENCHMARK ...

That's what's being ... " Used "...
to fill .... TV News ....

and ... " Sadly "... ABUSE ...
our LOST ..... WaYwArd ... youth ... !!!

Will .... " Eton "...
and ... " Harrow "...
REALLY SEE ... " Stop and Search "... ?!?!?

It seems ...
kind of ... " shallow :"...
to think ... They'll ... " Concur "...

Do ... " The Rich ...
have a ... THIRST ... ?
to walk with ... What HURTS ... !?!

Guns and Knives .....
amongst the ... " Rich Types "... ???

Why would they ... do that ... !?!
in ... " Daddy's New Pad "... !!!!!!

I guess what i'm saying ...
is ... " Stop and Search "... BLATANT ... !!!!!

is MOSTLY ... for blacks ... !!!!!!

"Well, blacks do the killing !
Which is shown now, to millions !
Everyday, all over the place !
So, answer that Virge !"

is what ...
" They "... will say ... !!!

Those who feed ... LIES ...
into minds and ... " Numb Brains "...

Those who ... DON'T THINK ...
BEYOND Links ... in the ... " Chain ".... !!!

The ... " New Order "... Preys ...
on ... Ignorant Strays ... !!!...

NOT those ... on streets ... !!!
but those who ... Compete ...
for a piece of ... " Their Cake "...

that has a ... FOUL TASTE ... !!!!!!

"ORDER ORDER !!!
We will have ORDER !!!"

" Must have ORDER ?
Man, just hold your corner ! "

Who exactly are ... " They "... ???
to treat people like ... " Game "... !?!

What makes you think ... ?
that they can train ...
the brain of a ... " Pig "...
to actually ... THINK...
and NOT behave ...
like some ... " Supremacist "... !!!
who's just ... Too **** ... QUICK ...
to suspect a kid ...
because of his ... Colour ... !!! ? !!!

" RACIST Mother F..... !!!!! "

"Order ... ORDER ...
You're out of order !!!"

" OUT OF Order ?!?
Are you a Coc' Snorter ?
I'm not a Big Baller,
or Gangsta' shot caller !
I'm just a straight talker
who's CRISP, just like Walkers',
when airing my views, about
Real Issues, that clearly confuse
and are used to abuse, our right to,
yes, choose, when and with whom,
we choose to make moves !

How would you like ?
to have THAT, done to you ?

My name AIN'T, Jack Horner !
Why should I be cornered ?
Searched and questioned
in the name of nonsense ! "

It's all a pretence,
to turn people against,
those they ... Don't Hate ... !!!

but ... each day ...
have to face,

from ... Council Estates ...
within the ... UK ...
to Projects ... They Blame ...
in the ... United States ...

These issues relate ...
and yes ... Correlate ... !!!

So .....
DON'T MAKE ... Mistakes ... !!!
and ... Mis-Read ... " The Game "...

What's happening ... There ...
is coming ... BEWARE ... !!! ...

Just think of it ... " This Way "...
George ... and ... Tony Blair ...........

They told you ... A WAR ...
was coming ... For SURE ... !!!!!

So ...
What'd you think ... NOW ... ?!?

Has ... THE WAR ...
Reached ... " Your Door "... ?!?

Or ...
Do you feel ... " Clowned "... ?

Or ...
Are you ... like me ... ?

A ... " Public "... ENEMY ... !!!

Who'll face men in ... " Gowns "...
because ... when I speak ...
I do so ... FREELY ... !!!! ...

and ... NO ...
WILL NOT ... Stand down ... !!!

" Order "...
is the call ...
as I said ... Before ... !!!

But ....
What is it ... for ... ???

for the ... " Weak "...
and the ... " Poor "...

NOT TO ... Fight anymore ... ?!?

or simply for ... " Borders "...
to keep them from ... " Hoarders "...
and ... " Midnight Marauders "... !!!!!!!

and TRUE LIFE ... Reporters ...
whose views they want ... "cornered"... !?!

because of ...
Their call ... to ... ENFORCE ...

.... " Public Order ".....

Listen Here :

https://soundcloud.com/user-16569179/public-order

There was death and gore,

During the second world war.

Many people died in extreme violence,

Killed before they could call out to loved ones.

Young men were trained to ****,

Often against their morals and will.

So when I see your 1940s weekend -

Your 'war was fun and cosy' pretence,

Your clichéd polyester and fibre glass mockery,

Aiming to re-enact a mostly imagined happy-go-lucky camaraderie -

Forgive me for not joining in,

As I happen to feel it a cardinal sin,

To idealise and romanticise a decade,

Made up of austerity, rationing and air raids.

I've read a little social history,

The 1940s were not idyllic or crime-free,

Just as now, there were heroes and villains,

Among the soldiers and civilians.

Heroism abounded but so did black marketeering,

There were brave sacrifices but also racketeering.

City-wide black-outs were a gift,

To those who would rob and grift.

Your jolly nostalgic tribute is an annual celebration,

Celebrating your own fabrication,

Of a time when the machinations of war and a crazed ideology,

Saw the near extinction of an entire ethnic minority.

I do not wish to be a party pooper,

But don't just step into the fake shoes of a fictional trooper,

Please occasionally remove your rose-tinted glasses,

To remember that beyond your nostalgic narrative of the routines of the masses,

People lived with the daily fear,

Of the likely deaths of people they held dear.

The words that I speak,
are they my own?
Or do I try to hide?
things unknown....

Do I at times,
even make sense?
Or, when I say I'm fine
is it all a pretense?

Do I even wish
to be understood?
Maybe not, because
I know, I never would...

When I can't recognise who I am
When I can no longer keep up the show
and I break down in my pretence,
Don't let me go.

When I push you away
And tell you I don't need you anymore
Show me your anger
But don't let me go.

I'll scream out my silence
And peak when I'm low
But when I'm in my ditch
Don't let me go

I'll say I love the height
But I'm afraid to look below
Don't let me take the fall
Don't let me go.

When I don't know my own mind
And make my lies come true
I know the one thing I'll do
Is hold on to you

Maybe it's a lot to ask for
Maybe I'm overstepping here
But just believe in me
When things aren't that clear

I'm sorry for the words I said
Your hurt is their echo
But I hope and hope that through everything
You won't let me go.

I'm coated in wax
Your flame laced words too close.

You melt my outer shell
Revealing the cracks in my intricate mask.

Panic seeps through
The promise of exposure bittersweet.

I embrace
Change my colour and form to simplify.

But you stop
No longer curious for the truths hidden inside.

Brushed aside
Just a pretence of care you need for my sympathy vote.

Once again
Half exposed, only to the harshness of reality.

The fires out
I owe you nothing.