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1.

One Day the Amarous Lisander,
By an impatient Passion sway'd,
Surpris'd fair Cloris, that lov'd Maid,
Who cou'd defend her self no longer ;
All things did with his Love conspire,
The gilded Planet of the Day,
In his gay Chariot, drawn by Fire,
War now descending to the Sea,
And left no Light to guide the World,
But what from Cloris brighter Eves was hurl'd.

2.

In alone Thicket, made for Love,
Silent as yielding Maids Consent,
She with a charming Languishment
Permits his force, yet gently strove ?
Her Hands his ***** softly meet,
But not to put him back design'd,
Rather to draw him on inclin'd,
Whilst he lay trembling at her feet;
Resistance 'tis to late to shew,
She wants the pow'r to sav -- Ah!what do you do?

3.

Her bright Eyes sweat, and yet Severe,
Where Love and Shame confus'dly strive,
Fresh Vigor to Lisander give :
And whispring softly in his Ear,
She Cry'd -- Cease -- cease -- your vain desire,
Or I'll call out -- What wou'd you do ?
My dearer Honour, ev'n to you,
I cannot -- must not give -- retire,
Or take that Life whose chiefest part
I gave you with the Conquest of my Heart.

4.

But he as much unus'd to fear,
As he was capable of Love,
The blessed Minutes to improve,
Kisses her Lips, her Neck, her Hair !
Each touch her new Desires alarms !
His burning trembling Hand he prest
Upon her melting Snowy Breast,
While she lay panting in his Arms !
All her unguarded Beauties lie
The Spoils and Trophies of the Enemy.

5.

And now, without Respect or Fear,
He seeks the Objects of his Vows ;
His Love no Modesty allows :
By swift degrees advancing where
His daring Hand that Alter seiz'd,
Where Gods of Love do Sacrifice ;
That awful Throne, that Paradise,
Where Rage is tam'd, and Anger pleas'd ;
That Living Fountain, from whose Trills
The melted Soul in liquid Drops distils.

6.

Her balmy Lips encountring his,
Their Bodies as their Souls are joyn'd,
Where both in Transports were confin'd,
Extend themselves upon the Moss.
Cloris half dead and breathless lay,
Her Eyes appear'd like humid Light,
Such as divides the Day and Night;
Or falling Stars, whose Fires decay ;
And now no signs of Life she shows,
But what in short-breath-sighs returns and goes.

7.

He saw how at her length she lay,
He saw her rising ***** bare,
Her loose thin Robes, through which appear
A Shape design'd for Love and Play;
Abandon'd by her Pride and Shame,
She do's her softest Sweets dispence,
Offring her ******-Innocence
A Victim to Loves Sacred Flame ;
Whilst th' or'e ravish'd Shepherd lies,
Unable to perform the Sacrifice.

8.

Ready to taste a Thousand Joys,
Thee too transported hapless Swain,
Found the vast Pleasure turn'd to Pain :
Pleasure, which too much Love destroys !
The willing Garments by he laid,
And Heav'n all open to his view ;
Mad to possess, himself he threw
On the defenceless lovely Maid.
But oh ! what envious Gods conspire
To ****** his Pow'r, yet leave him the Desire !

9.

Natures support, without whose Aid
She can no humane Being give,
It self now wants the Art to live,
Faintness it slacken'd Nerves invade :
In vain th' enraged Youth assaid
To call his fleeting Vigour back,
No Motion 'twill from Motion take,
Excess of Love his Love betray'd ;
In vain he Toils, in vain Commands,
Th' Insensible fell weeping in his Hands.

10.

In this so Am'rous cruel strife,
Where Love and Fate were too severe,
The poor Lisander in Despair,
Renounc'd his Reason with his Life.
Now all the Brisk and Active Fire
That should the Nobler Part inflame,
Unactive Frigid, Dull became,
And left no Spark for new Desire ;
Not all her Naked Charms cou'd move,
Or calm that Rage that had debauch'd his Love.

11.

Cloris returning from the Trance
Which Love and soft Desire had bred,
Her tim'rous Hand she gently laid,
Or guided by Design or Chance,
Upon that Fabulous Priapus,
That Potent God (as Poets feign.)
But never did young Shepherdess
(Garth'ring of Fern upon the Plain)
More nimbly draw her Fingers back,
Finding beneath the Verdant Leaves a Snake.

12.

Then Cloris her fair Hand withdrew,
Finding that God of her Desires
Disarm'd of all his pow'rful Fires,
And cold as Flow'rs bath'd in the Morning-dew.
Who can the Nymphs Confusion guess ?
The Blood forsook the kinder place,
And strew'd with Blushes all her Face,
Which both Disdain and Shame express ;
And from Lisanders Arms she fled,
Leaving him fainting on the gloomy Bed.

13.

Like Lightning through the Grove she hies,
Or Daphne from the Delphick God ;
No Print upon the Grassie Road
She leaves, t' instruct pursuing Eyes.
The Wind that wanton'd in her Hair,
And with her ruffled Garments plaid,
Discover'd in the flying Maid
All that the Gods e're made of Fair.
So Venus, when her Love was Slain,
With fear and haste flew o're the fatal Plain.

14.

The Nymphs resentments, none but I
Can well imagin, and Condole ;
But none can guess Lisander's Soul,
But those who sway'd his Destiny :
His silent Griefs, swell up to Storms,
And not one God, his Fury spares,
He Curst his Birth, his Fate, his Stars,
But more the Shepherdesses Charms ;
Whose soft bewitching influence,
Had ****'d him to the Hell of Impotence.
George Cheese Mar 2017
I filled my garden
with smiles
that grew and grew

and grew and grew,
so that maybe
one day
I could pick a smile
from the treetops
and place it on
your lips
and mine.
When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair

Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaur’s hoofs over the hard turf
As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon.
“He is a charming man”—”But after all what did he mean?”—
“His pointed ears…. He must be unbalanced,”—
“There was something he said that I might have challenged.”
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon.
Mike T Minehan Oct 2012
They're a funny lot, some of these poets,
feisty feminists, dreamers, anti-money,
and even some who are very self-defecating
about themselves.
And then there's the literary, learned allusion lot,
and some who've got their eye on eternity, that's what,
and others who rub too much turps on the **** of their imagination.

But it's the long-winded poets who make me squirm,
and for god’s sake, give me a bottle of red wine when the ones
with blue-rinse hair get up to have their turn.
They're terribly nice, but they need an echidna
stuffed right up you know where - at least once, if not twice.

And give me another bottle of the red, even if it's rough,
or better still a whole case of that stuff,
just to protect me from those who bleed too much in poems.
Psychoanalytic stuff makes me paralytic
and I have to stifle groans.

But most of all, I like the poets with their tongues on fire,
the ones who lick lightening before they write
and who throw a sizzling poem down
like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

I like poems marsh mellow soft and bitter-sweet, too,
and those oozing with the juice. And if a poem's loud and flash,
so what? I like a bit of swagger, with shameless **** and ***.
And sometimes, I just like words that rhyme with licorice,
Dionysius, Priapus, Bacchus and preposterous!

Also, what the ****, a poem can even give offense.
Poets sometimes need to do this to stop indifference.
They call this poet's license, but really,
indifference is the only hell from which
us poets need deliverance.
Mike T Minehan Oct 2012
Love.
Of course, the great spirit said that word
when he set down the majesty of mountains
thus, spread curling softness through the seas,
sending little creatures wriggling, crawling, mewling, howling,
oh ye little fish and fowl, doodled up the dinosaurs,
a lumbering jurassic joke, then unleashed leviathan
from just a speck, and made some others walk *****.

Love.
That word we need to hear
and the word that hurts so much.
It comes crowned with garlands, glistening
with the dew of pleasure. And underneath, the horn thrusts up
Dionysius and Venus, processions of Priapus, frenzied satyriasis
blind Baccus, luscious Pan and Zeus.
Ah yes. The juice.

Love.
And who has not recklessly ignored this word
or squandered it on abandoned, neon nights
that paled before the coming of cold mornings,
and who has not held back this word
from loved ones,
cowards of commitment,
circumcelliate, averruncate and absquatulate?

Love.
That little, mighty word that dominates our lives.
But what can we require of life and how can we survive
indifference in the barren waste and stay alive outside
without its whisper, without its cry and shout? And how can we aspire
to ecstasy without the tumult and whirlwind of its desire,
without its warmth, without its fire? So, we must turn again
to love's softness and love's pain. Again. And yet again.

Love.
It's easy, really. So go on, say it.  
It's time. Why not?  It's for the mothers and the lovers,
the fathers, it's for all the children who blindly seek.
It's for the teenagers and trembling old and the outcast and the isolate.
Even the soldier with the gun. Especially. It's for everyone.
The grave is lonely, deep and cold. By giving love before it's too late
those soft wings of the dove of peace unfold.
Love is the playmate. Enjoy, reciprocate.
This is the message I communicate.
dorian Jun 2016
i.

There’s a way with words
   us  ancient boys

Cannot comprehend.

All of us, so transfixed
by spires black
in white skies

That the night seems
almost

sublime.

The way
we held them by the throat
in the hours

Dionysus had us by the neck.

Strung us up by cigarette smoke

Lets not go to bed yet –

    Dawn and her ****** chariots

Needs to know we
succeeded.

Wash out the spots from our foreheads,
boys,
let not the God’s
see
we
won
the battles
they could not.


ii.

I wake up
one morning
on a beach,
naked in the sunlight.


If this was paradise lost,
I’d have the nerve
to call myself an angel.

The ****** thrill of it;

[Burn me, beautiful, blazing sunlight,
give a kiss to your old,
Jail bird
lover.]


iii.

How many times did
we fall down that ******* rabbit hole?

I’ve ripped out my gold teeth one by
one
and ****** the apple with my tongue.

I’ve torn holes in the ceiling of heaven

And still

Your arms have stained me.

I shiver at the thought of it;

Cracked nights,

Erecting temples in honour
of
Eros.

When the thunder beats,
I cry because I know
Priapus is here
to slay me.


iv.


there’s a white sheet
over my balcony, now.

I milked the columns
till my bones ached

And my body
was bruised with dirt.

I’ve beat myself
till the milk ran
dry
and still,
  that God demands
I scream.

v.

      [later]
The ocean can see me weeping, darling
but the forest,
the forest
can still still hear me
moan.
Donall Dempsey Jan 2016
GREEN SILENCE

Dust settles
on the ladybird.

She sits on the window sill
dead to the world

pretty
as paste jewelry

courted by a terra cotta
Priapus

chatting her up
unaware that she is

dead.

She remains deeply
unimpressed

by his ability
to keep it up.

A fly lands on the very
tip top of his tumescence.

It's enough to make
a dead ladybird laugh.

The dance of net curtains
animates the moment.

Outside the silence
is stained green

by chestnut leaves
flirting with the sun.
Rayénari Das Jun 2021
I'm going to tell you an story:

At first
There was only
Fractals
And mysterious forces
That they wove them
On the delicate canvas
From the void.

Galactic Star Beings
Whose fingers and limbs
They danced in a swing
Dictated by the music of heaven

And there, in the middle of the fire of creation
Cosmic little seed, sigh
Hidden in the subsequent emulsion
From the juices of god
Spilling over
Free humanity
That barely light
Runs
Perpetual
Between the shelves of time
Drawing footsteps of all sizes
In all hemispheres,
distributed
Through latitudes, sown at the tip of Oz and the sword
Of a complex zoology
That of the human animal
Fire thief
Polyphonic heron of storms
Seabird that augurs stars

Because we are built
With feathers
That threw the phoenix and the albatross
On the holy land.

And bloom right in the middle
At the beginning of the war
When everything succumbs
And the ruin falls to pieces.

Little rainbow seed, your serpent tongue
Invoke the circular prayer of your abdomen
A sacred energy

Possessed in the word
You undress
Oracle of ******
Emitting a little moan
Barely cat

And overshadowed the man in his misery
Contemplate gods that understand nothing
Rejoice in tumultuous ecstasy
Of his exacerbated human games
Oh for the being of creation
The whole cosmos!

Sanctus and lux aeternam, in paradisum
No requiem bears your name, no bullet
Plus all my poems
No grave my epitaph
And i have died
More than a thousand times

Shake is to infinite prison of bones
The sacred words of the alseid
And the naiad of moisture
How jubilant
He gave his most beautiful flower to Priapus

And you who did not want to lose yourself
In the labyrinth of the Minotaur
When you offer
Your blood on lotus leaves
Worshiping Polyphemus, the lotus eaters
And to the cyclops in the same way
And me sitting in the middle of the odyssey
With headphones on
And the lost look
Thinking
When will the war happen?
When will the war happen?
When will the war happen?

R.
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
i must be in one of those... "moods"...
    i must be in such circumstances follow an almost
ritual: the beauty of life...
coupled with the "fairness" of it...
notably when sharing it with people:
of a more... "south of the border"...
a more sour invitation to it...

                  my "free will": my... what little is it...
when someone else might: rest assured...
express his or her... "alternative"...
                      this a choice...

the wine has ran! down into the gob that
sometimes forgets to thirst...
and when not thirsting... does the unpardonable...
shelters itself in the abodes of ruining
patterns of shadow devoid of bodies...

drinks! listens to scandinavian pagan songs...
tiresome... tiresome those byzantine chants...
for all their worth: but enough is enough...
it would be the most precious time...
to translate some Horace...
   such be my need for solace -
but translation itself is hardly a comfort...

                       the cut-off reads...
   at *** tonantis annus hibernus Iovis
        imbris nivisque (conparat)...
       tonantis - thunderer
     hibernus - wintry
               annus - annum - year...
        imbris - growth...
        nivisque - snow... the cut-off is already:
as always crude...
                                    the whiskey is here!
and the romance of powder...
cheeks and roses! but we might as well
begin: from a beginning...

  beatus ille qui procul negotiis, ut prisca gens
mortalium, paterna rura bobus exercet suis
solutus omni faenore
    neque excitatur classico miles truci
  neque horret iratum mare
                       forumque vitat et superba civium
potentiorum limina.
   ergo aut adulta vitium propagine
altas maritat populos at in reducta valle
     mugientum prospectat errantis greges
inutilisque falce ramon amputans feliciores
insertit aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris
aut tondet infirmass ovis.
              vel *** decorum mitibus pomis caput
autumnus agris extulit,
         ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pita
certantem et uvam purpurae,
    qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater Silvane,
tutor finium.
           libet iacere modo sub antiqua ilice,
modo in tenaci gramine:
labuntur altis interim ripis aquae,
           queruntur in silvis aves fontesque
lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,
                             somnos quod invitet levis
.

thus listening to some of what the british
patriots have to offer...
i'd call them the demeaning "natives"...
but then i have on offer...
scottish nationalism
and welsh nationalism...
not to mention the irish: but i'll mention them...
english nationalism...
      hmm...

solution: repatriation... of the "invaders"
of Brimingham...
i know what deportation looks like...
on the weekend that Dianna was
"repatriated": her coffin was towed...
the home office came knocking...
    father doing a runner...
         visiting grandfather broke up his affair
with sober -
'nice com-pew-ter' said the home office
grey...
i was left in tears and punching
the wall...
       so much for integration...
          did my best lizzy... the paperwork...
"got in the way"...
            doesn't matter: the kosovans came
in 1999 circa etc.
     the canines are out...
                  where is my, mosque?
                          where is my kebab stash?
beside the 2004 tsunami...
          
home is where: i have a sparrow's worth
of fear: and perhaps a heart...
when i land in warsaw and try to escape it...
i land in warsaw: i'm a native of these parts:
am i "at home"...
i'll walk you down route 25 bus
past all the babylon and i'll tell you:
nothing like it!
dodo among the peacocks...
humpty-dumpty and sacred cows brigade...
that's not quiet me... but...
         touch 'em with a two metre long
****** if you must!
      
   my affairs with england...
was supposed to be a stop-over...
further argentina... h'america...
     the bleach baptism: ha! ha! h'america!
in search of a great-grandfather...
   guess this is "home"...
sure as ****... warsaw isn't!
      
                   and these concerns...
i will not sing the: god save the queen...
i'd rather whistle to: the british grenadiers fife
& drum... on a scale of: a *****... a nilly...

italy is being "invaded"
germany is being "invaded"
denmark is being "invaded"....
england and france are being "invaded"...
no guns, no tanks... no blitzkrieg?
"invasion"? or just slacking and slurrping
a neo-liberal old liberal pompous brat affair?
sleep more sleep a more dire sleep...
wake up when it's all over...
in the hands of the other...

   an invasion: an "invasion"... no tanks...
just the stories of sorrow from knife-crime
statistics... collateral and human shields...
such concerns...
if it's not the invaders it's the romanians
picking lettuce or the polacks
on construction sites...
but i am as much an exile as anywhere...
and i don't really have a high degree of concern
for my "tribe": either...

   the slow warfare of economic ruin concerning
a town that was sizing up a status of city...
with two metallurgy theatres of operation...
gone: gruzy... heaps of rubble...
           hersch! herr hersch!
     how iz zis evens pozziblah?
               i don't mind the invaders...
marry one: then i might...
   have a little calipso moment and count:
the number of shades of cinnamon,
copper, bronze and cherokee...

                      whiplash... i must be daft...
not to have learned a thing or two from
the **** and the ******... to have to learn
a new: "thing or two" from the... liberals
with their: no tanks, no planes, no microwaves,
no l.s.d. "freedom's freedom" policy!

england big... big O england...
big o: O and exclaimation mark: O! england...
i am not wed to your daughters...
nor the father or grand fairy pater to
them either...
               i didn't bring a mosque!
i didn't bring a flag!
i didn't bring a suntan that retains its
glue in winter!
i didn't bring anything...
beside... there's this idea of a nation...
and there's that...
of a diaspora... which of course...
you had... but didn't...
when... the "proselytes" decided that:
an english diaspora is not:
in our vision... what would become
the invested: hope and character to build
as a grand, u. s. of a.....
so much for the "motherland and the fathertongue"...
or the "fatherland and the mothertongue"...
whittle ol' england...
whittle ol' bargain: and more!

i brought sauerkraut and a poppy-seed cake...
the german might as well have brought
the former... but it's hardly an argument:
the "invaders" from the east brought their own food...
shame... seeing you gobbling down a curry
and a kebab...
who am i to complain?
i eat them too! i have an arsenal of spices
that would most likely compete with
the nuke arsenal of russia!

                      i didn't "integrate" you didn't
"integrate"... i have your tongue as a dearest: polly...
who doesn't want a *******?
that h.p. sauce is genius?
              well... and cricket? but i'll eat your
gob-*****... you will not eat mine...
so you have your bangladeshi "invaders"...
your friday night: chinese take-away and soho...
ahem... "soho"... chinatown...

who's to be complaining?!
exotica! ex-o-tica!
                     shrimp **** and watermelon *****:
requiring... ***** extensions to **** around
with: **** jamai... can oh she cancan but not
in the parisian "sense"...
          
        well... given that this was supposed
to be a translation of Horace...
here's my ****** translation of latin...
it's not a curry... it's not a mosque...
it's not a burning flag it's not a turban...
it's not a roman catholic on a pike...
dying a death more formidable than
a crucifixion...
i'm guessing a viking settling in york:
with something of a believable
scandal when sense of humour is concerned...

i can't promise stale: hardly any poetry...

fortunate he, who from the city's uproar from afar,
free like people of older date,
    with oxen ploughs the fief of hereditary role,
oblivious to either profit or toll,
he doesn't know, what is the **** of a battle horn,
he doesn't tremble, when the sea grieves a vengence,
shuns away from the forum's uproar,
        he doesn't, like customers - who -
                 protrude under the doubling of the wealthy.
he prefers the lush shrubs of grapevines -
with shoots wed to the stump of a poplar tree,
overseeing, leading herds of roaring cows
into and among pastures on the slopes
of mountainous valleys...
             hunt boars... interlock with beef...
                  so as to have a noble variety of fruit,
from pressed plasters: honey sieved into amphorae
or clipper woolly sheep of the herd.
                - and when golden autumn above
the fields - donning a wreath of harvested wheat:
raises its head -
with what kind of ecstasy / delight...
tears the sight of grafted pears...
                   and bunches in clusters of purple -
should for Priapus and Silvanus,
     watchman's bordering copper, bring forth:
the first gifts.
     how pleasant to rest upon cushioning grass
or under a an old and shady oak:
where fluvial trends in precipitious stance
of banks errodes...
                     where the birds' graceful nagging...
foliage murmurs, streams of water incessant:
thus a dream make... unexpectedly
.

estrada: tempus...
                            auditores? lemures!
stage: time...
            the audience? ghosts!
that's bound to happen... binding oneself
to a Horace...
       with what's already available...
the stage: the audience....
and beside: the audience: time...
        well... i rather enjoy entertaining...
a stage of time: and the audience of ghosts...
than have to resort / retort to
the latter "debacle"...

             i, didn't... bring an "invaders"...
detail... lucky for me...
of the german the zeppelin and the ******...
you didn't even have to taste
anything by the leftover mongol...
that crimea became the capital of
the diaspora... that the mongol became known
as the tartar...
                                      chebureki...

endear me! have you humpty-dumpties!
your sacred cows!
your mosques! your chinatown!
your frizzy and your froth!
your angst your liberals and your
huguenots!
your passive-aggresive secular "christianity"
tingling with **** atheism...
"your"... Birmingham!
"your"... Loon'don...
                            
             clywed y çymraeg!
                                    éist clann gàidhli!

seobheith!
           no heidegger: no "there"...
                        anois!
              
        YMA!
                                     YMABODAU!
i leave Wstminster to the porky-pies...
who with and with: "who":
where else?!

— The End —