"rancour" poems
PARNELL'S FUNERAL
UNDER the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy -- but I name no more --
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
7.7k
Fought
One, Twenty-two skidoo.
Cantankerous mad filamous
She,
That of her,
Me.
Piñata, stretched balloon
Over my big fleshy
******
Tea and cakes,
Painted my nails
Painted my lips
Like candy.
Gold trinkets,
Pour like mercury out of my ear.
Ouch! I cried
My feet in hot sandy
Dreams.
Flying peacocks tickle
My *****
Oranges roll on chalk board tables
Over stale rye bread.
***** dribbles out like mucus
And a runny nose.
Toilet paper and rusty water.
********** on you.
Stocking lover.
Fetish cover.
Woman pusher.
Mellifluous ****
Look at my skin.
Pink, beige, peach, red
Porous, greasy, bacteria ridden hide.
**** me like seppuku,
Smother, suffocate me with
Red jelly jam.
Lubricate your finger with black
Cancerous ash.
Stick it in my naval,
Unravel my umbilical cord
Like so many filaments of my heart.
Tear your flesh
You auto *********
Rip your liver
And force feed it
Corn and maize
Hay and grass
Emory my nails against
Red barn walls
Until bare skin fundamentals
Kisses with salty lips
Inflame my ravishing
Pig stomach.
Kick my shin you
Everything,
Wake up you stupid
*****
Void can be blue skies,
Oceans call for suicide.
Kiss me with delight,
Raspberries tattooed
In my *****
Strawberry cream
Vanilla, milk,
Ponderous infinity,
Cotton, dough
Honey and sage.
Caustic gastric
You and not me.
Feel my legs,
Touch my thighs,
Lick my lips,
Give me anything
Not direct.
Tie me up in complexities.
**** my head up.
Put me in a dream,
Make me happy.
Blair Butterfield 2004
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 7:09 AM UTC
Before the thaw, my feet will be rooted
Into this nation’s primordial freeze
My muscles and bones will be acquainted with malaise
The sun’s altruism will be refuted
Before the thaw, I will struggle to find consciousness
The frost will leak through the bedroom window
And don the facade of a blanket
The door will prove to be bottomless
Possibilities will seem unachievable
The brain will itch for what it can not have
Buses will limp through congestion
And the blizzards may feast on the feeble
You may want to write of your misery
But your automation will halt in cataclysm
Because someone held a door open
For the gust that billows bitterly
Gastric emissions will become tangible
As smouldering wastes contrast against the sky with rancour
The wispy whites, marginalized into *****
And the world remains infallible
I will lack the tools of incision
To enact my life’s revisions
I will weep for my unguided millions
While I saunter into oblivion
After the thaw, I will smile
My expatriate soul will run in the whimsical wind
Of the morning dayspring that will march unto me
I will stand over a kingdom of honey-filled tiles
After the thaw, the arks will converge
Into the straits of the Bermudian Sea and the
Elusive Caspian Forest, where I will learn to love again
While bidding farewell to winter’s dirge
In the waking world, I will ***** a limestone castle
Where entropy will rule and the mind’s domain
Is left susceptible to perennial reverence
The sea, coloured true, nesting a fairgrounds vessel
In this Great Revision, gargantuan skyways
Will show the world how exiguous we are
That we must not wait for exodus to come
Should we fear to waste away
Into icebergs
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 5:35 PM UTC
YOU gave, but will not give again
Until enough of paudeen's pence
By Biddy's halfpennies have lain
To be "some sort of evidence',
Before you'll put your guineas down,
That things it were a pride to give
Are what the blind and ignorant town
Imagines best to make it thrive.
What cared Duke Ercole, that bid
His mummers to the market-place,
What th' onion-sellers thought or did
So that his plautus set the pace
For the Italian comedies?
And Guidobaldo, when he made
That grammar school of courtesies
Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbino's windy hill,
Had sent no runners to and fro
That he might learn the shepherds' will
And when they drove out Cosimo,
Indifferent how the rancour ran,
He gave the hours they had set free
To Michelozzo's latest plan
For the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whoSe end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By ******* at the dugs of Greece.
Your open hand but shows our loss,
For he knew better how to live.
Let paudeens play at pitch and toss,
Look up in the sun's eye and give
What the exultant heart calls good
That some new day may breed the best
Because you gave, not what they would,
But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!
December
2.2k
she
Eats mine emotions
And mars my veriest heed
Her arms is a fortress,a congenial devotion
The cannibal of whom I find peace
But certainly,the no creed
I inhere to●
■
Her
Breath speaks severity
But of fortune prudence and quietude
She sinks me the depths of her whims
Yet,ludicrously of null whips
■
Her
Eyes eclipse blunt my sights
And rancour the rhymes of my visions
But then,she is the fair breed of gleams
A pleasant hue of sparkles I beseige
■
Her
Tender tongue carriers coals
Of undying vengeance
Of which every touch trembles
Yet even as so
It feels finer than rosy Arabian night breezes
■
But
Her crest which be the counsel
Of which the wildest devilry passions is seeked
Chides and macerate my mastered pettings
■
Yet
She sets tables in her thighs
And serve the most but motley affections
■
She is despotic but decent
SADIST
©Historian E.Lexano
®Recalcitration With Excellent
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 3:29 AM UTC
I
Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
II
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy--but I name no more--
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
1.7k
Sundays--none would see me
at that corner of the distant park
seated on a shaking wooden chair
under the same, bald and desolate tree--
Sundays (provided they don't rain)
I don't listen to the radio or watch TV
a notebook or a volume of Keats on my lap
I'll be alone in my chosen sanctuary-
Sundays (the faithful win me
over-- hearts have to be comforted--verily)
I take leave of wearisome life and society
with only me as company--
Sundays--time for reflection
from banal ties I set myself free
the toxic air of the public-square
I shun away---nature is harmony--
Sundays---age is sober and looks back
without rancour but with tranquillity
there were mistakes, harshness and folly
hidden pages from an old book reopened by memory-
Sundays--one follow another--how many
would (I wonder) still welcome me?
the young have their lush songs to sing
their most treasured dreams are yet to be-
This is Sunday--the sky is blue and pretty
happy kids are at frolic in the inviting green field
life in all its facets I've known and experienced
in this simple poem I've written my life-history.
Sep 7, 2017
Sep 7, 2017 at 12:17 AM UTC
The problem with phantoms, rings so clear
Like fear, they don't just go away
The more is learnt of the world, the smaller it becomes
The less of open space is felt.
The mnemonist lives in a pretty tale
And heads the way off rocky shores
For, oft a fool will come along
And wilful, bash his mind on reef.
Spill then thee, cantankerous spirit
Thy guts of ill-placed rancour
For in puny efforts to uproot
Fresh soil turned is...fresh soil turned.
The more we feed on empty words
The larger grows that aching void
Engulfing all but esurience
Engorged thus, thee will choke.
A mere gesture of goodwill
And extending act of kindness
Will conquer every wicked sentiment
And leave thee broken ... in thy own mess.
So, thy tiresome pictures on the wall, we see
Paint on, dear artist, paint on
These very merry parties, ye assemble
Will ken thy sharp and twisted ire.
Push on, weary soul, try to find thy heart
Thee seest not thy efforts fall in vain,
Fail to latch, for thy error sits too tall
In the absence of saving grace.
So caught up in thyself, art thee
Thine eye too bright upon the prize
That thou did not see thy plot at play
Thy goest yet on; breaching full redemption.
Weave thus thy tale and clothe thy mind
For, in this act, thy mind doth shut
So ill-fitting thy own garish attire
Seams must needs split eventual.
Seeketh truth and truest, thy find's a trove
But sadder yet's the day, indeed
All vouch that in thy heavy plunder
Its value now plain conferred.
Treasure trinkets, happy hoops
Whatever be thy favour's currency
When day is done and swift sea smoothes
Revered will always be...saving grace.
Star Toucher, 17 February 2013
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 4:49 AM UTC
I walk with weary eyes
Tired of seeing, no longer willing to hear
My head spins from the smoke of your conflagration
Burn me down from the inside out
Lungs of ice trap the filth
Make sure the essence becomes my own
I try to scream but cough out words of rancour
A whirlwind of smoke and embers
My ashes block the sun
Nothing can grow here
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 9:08 PM UTC
she
Eats mine emotions
And mars my veriest heed
Her arms is a fortress,a congenial devotion
The cannibal of whom I find peace
But certainly,the no creed
I inhere to●
■
Her
Breath speaks severity
But of fortune prudence and quietude
She sinks me the depths of her whims
Yet,ludicrously of null whips
■
Her
Eyes eclipse blunt my sights
And rancour the rhymes of my visions
But then,she is the fair breed of gleams
A pleasant hue of sparkles I beseige
■
Her
Tender tongue carriers coals
Of undying vengeance
Of which every touch trembles
Yet even as so
It feels finer than rosy Arabian night breezes
■
But
Her crest which be the counsel
Of which the wildest devilry passions is seeked
Chides and macerate my mastered pettings
■
Yet
She sets tables in her thighs
And serve the most but motley affections
■
She is despotic but decent
SADIST
©Historian E.Lexano
®Recalcitration With Excellent
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 9:35 AM UTC
Space to make change an indelible part of life
Encourage the stagnant side to enliven its speech
Flourishes of energy folding in on one another
Pecking, their beaks marking time with biting tongues
Sqeamish reminders of circus clowns vying for laughs
Staring eyes and red painted smiles freakishly scaring
The innocent rosy cheeked wondrous audience
Clapping the skin from their fingers while querelous
Adults sit bored hoping to borrow a new time zone
Spot checking the interest of those encroaching their space
Space to make change an indelible part of life
To fool the viewer of the showcased goods before their
Sell by date, when holding onto stagnation pales the hand of change
Quell the nausea that preludes sickness leaving that vile taste
Rancour alongside a grinning mass of stained teeth borrows
Sweating it out with flailing words of ignorant abandonment
Scorching hot tears racing one another, dripping from lowered
Eyelashes, coaxing the seeping colour coated debris to release
To wash away the dirt, leaving streaks of diluted aftermath
Space to make chnage an indelible part of life
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 5:37 PM UTC
are not attractive to the man she adores
but that is the only reason she adores him
in the first place
she would not consider him a catch or a man or the love of her life
if he got up early to take a train to the field she lays in
or often called upon her, not only with the
sweetness and charm he retains
but with eagerness and pleasantry, both sincere as a fox craves
a good bird in his jaw, but with spright instead of haste
and with the devotion of rapture without rancour
his eyes are like a tray of a kitten’s sharp teeth
latching onto the pretty bird of his fancy,
and all of her hope infused in her blood only accumulates
as he sinks in for more sorrow
‘til the last grind that never does seem to come
he tries to peel parts of her he doesn’t like
she lets him
a fruit without any husks is not safely kept and often rotten
to grow, you must protect yourself from damage, yet allow yourself
to be bruised enough for simple sweetness
that lays sincerely inside
Sep 5, 2012
Sep 5, 2012 at 12:48 PM UTC
Romance, in the dark:
Liberty and it's words
World's away, sour was its marvel...
Has the opus of starkness, been heard?
World?
Save a flower, another power
Get it, on the chaste ... early?
Letting misery have its word, is still a lover...
Rage...
Has the cause of law, by the toe...
Lots of luck, to a music to face...
Sit with my sweet, sweat is the only woe...
Rancour, is a secret advantage
For a salt, illustrious
We take to times, for a legend:
In the past, today's pain is ours to discuss
Sly homage
Of cares wish, to a meager fare
Found in reason's call, to a bodings wage
Realize me, with a meandering voice, that has a new care:
The promise of a carried lip
With time to see, the climate we stir
Rages own, a harrowing trip
To us finally, from the other side of love's world...?
Apr 5, 2025
Apr 5, 2025 at 2:01 PM UTC
I want to run away,
away from where they want me to stay,
away from a world where everybody is living astray,
a world where the rich may overstay,
but where the poor are kept away..
a world where devilish persons are given love instead of hate,
a world where the poor and weak are being left with their old same fate..
they said
'In humanity have faith'
what is humanity?
where is sympathy?
All we are doing is hailing money,
instead of healing the needy..
we are living in a world where even animals are getting their rights..
but where the poor ones are still kept out of sights..
they who spend their nights without lights,
they who accept their fate without fights,
they who live their entire life without delights..
they who no matter what the day is,live their lives with every kind of frights..
Saving a life is more than ending your life with drugs..
Giving someone one more reason to live is more than being thugs..
Billions of people out there screaming for succour,
Yet all we do is show rancour..
We are all human beings,
Are we humiliated when giving the poor ones awnings?
Are the rich ones the only ones worthy of blessings?
Are they all gonna have the old same endings?
Rich,not everybody can be,
but everybody deserves the door to a happy life's key..
whether we're talking about a poor man or a rich man,
or a poor woman or a rich woman,
we are all human beings,
then what is preventing us from being human?
Be the light to guide those who can't see in the dark..
because it could have been you,
like it could have been me,
They can be saved by you..and me!
Together we can make them become who they deserve to be..
a somebody instead of a nobody..
I ain't running away because i still have faith in humanity..
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 11:38 AM UTC
Threading tapestries
the tethered sparrow
laments the absent scream.
Imbrued admissions
of his Oedipal anguish
clenched in callous fist
spills claret. Erubescent sobriquets
and uterine trauma
blot leaves, and the pale palour
first kissed, then rouged by rancour,
a blush rose
blooming faintly
in the shade of vitriol.
Jun 26, 2018
Jun 26, 2018 at 7:35 PM UTC
We carry with us our memories and our scars,
strewn across our beings like the clear night is, with stars
and like sailors in the wilderness, they give us a sense of who we are,
which direction we are going, where we came from and how far.
Drops in the ocean, we reach out for our anchor,
that thread that ties us to ourselves, our idioms and our rancour
but when the storm clouds gather on the night of the new moon
I tie myself to the mast, submissive to the jostling gloom.
I catch a glimpse through Lightning bolts, the darks fiery reprieve,
those scarry looming shadows of all the souls whom had to leave,
I'm stunned, abandoned to the whim of whipping waves,
on the tide of all those memories that have formed how I behave.
This is my new scar, but it's not one bourne from pain,
it's one that can sense the morning after midnight's rampant rain,
a mountain emerging from the ocean, to make it's mark in air,
before the wind comes round a-roaring and sinks it without a care.
Aug 29, 2019
Aug 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM UTC
no count of years may still the hand of fate
but yet the kindly sunrise eases pain
as those who fought arise to fight again
with little rancour and without debate
for once removed the horrors cease to grate
on any soul and there’s no longer strain
when each of us can see the future plain
and know that we’re the owners of the state
this is the promise made by those who sleep
beneath our soil whose lives gave ours full worth
that a bright morning would our people see
not as a flock of tired and hungry sheep
but as a folk in fullest time of mirth
enjoying every taste of liberty
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 9:27 AM UTC
The past
is never
finished business
a scourge
an invisible bridge
that crosses over
to the present-- bolder
than the self itself
screams to unseat reason
its anger would not compromise
even with the sanest advice
restless in every season
cries foul in vengeance
of wrongs perceived
of justice's miscarriage
turns over every episode
re-reads every page
of one's life-chronicle
in rancour---no image
could be harsher than its visage
but as for me
my case I'll rest
friendship or enmity
hatred, faked love
promises unfilled
of the faithless and unworthy
the world's inhumanity
even the cruel hand of destiny
I'll set aside---it's all history
this then
shall be
my moment
of truth
the past forgotten
I've come to my own
I'm enlightened
reborn
happy
free!
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 9:18 PM UTC
Absurd it is indeed
Brought together by life's tide
Husband and wife pronounced
We sleep entwined,
Yet our dreams disarrayed
Also by diplomacy masked
Our rancour,
We get out of bed four!
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 8:37 AM UTC
[A prose poem.]
I see you’ve got the ropes.
Somehow you adapted. There, your green tea; you filled your thermos last night, preemptively. Your fingers have always been awkward too. You treat your hands as if they were chubby. And they hold the thermos with strength, like they hold everything-- except for your papers and your keyboard. You hold those differently.
Remember the balcony? You had too much wine, obviously. Your rolling on the floor from one end to the other turned legendary. But time rolls by, and so do tobacco leaves on papers, and you hate those two things.
Listen, I’m not the same. I’m sorry. I now have posters on the walls of my room. And I still pick pieces off my lip, but I wear chapstick too. And I’ve started to drink coffee again, with sugar. I’ve made peace with mirrors. And I’ve also started to learn some french, Je m’excuse.
What page number were we in? I’ve known you through some invincible years, but I’m starting to see the fray.
You forgot to take the balcony along. You’ve got the hang of your schedule, where and how to tunnel your way to class; you get up as soon as our alarm goes off. No snooze. You sit down and vaguely remember the journals you wasted your soul in; all the conversations tinted with beer were drowned by fear, and fear by coping, and your coping is scaring me. The ropes are gripped tightly by your fingers, and I might know why.
And I’m already mourning; I don’t need any more black clothes, any more sad entries. Know that I still love you-- that’s still the same. But, here, I am this. It hurts to know that is not okay, that at the bottom of our wine bottles there’ll be resentments, but I still love you all the same. I’d rather taste your rancour than bittersweet memories, wondering how I’d give you tulips, if you really want to be cremated.
Maybe we’re tying knots on the veins of a good life– and what for?– the classic problem is, perhaps we’re still ‘too young.’ We lost the children we used to be, but we’re in that grey area between losing and finding something to find.
And I’m already missing you. And maybe there’s no point in begging, but,
I see you’ve got the ropes and I’m terrified.
Please,
stay with me.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 10:16 PM UTC
The voyage to explore
The avenues of forgiveness
Was thwarted by the
Perpetuation of the patterns
Of my nature
Bearer of rancour
Marinating in stagnation
Birthed by unremitting negativity
Unamused by life’s cruel
Sense of humour
I grudgingly gobbled up
The repulsive remains
Of a dish of revenge
I once served
The one who arouses fury.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 7:12 PM UTC
How do we
forgive ourselves
for the sins
we didn't commit?
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 10:54 AM UTC
Of a brewing silence
and buried emotions
we’ve built a house
walled with doubts
our interior decor
layered with rancour
Scattered ornaments
cloak our armaments
Oft engaged in aphonic wars
We rack up our scores in
crystal-clear jars
Jun 9, 2020
Jun 9, 2020 at 6:47 PM UTC
there was a picture of you
you were smiling
i remember that smile,
that laugh
rare, but beautiful
it created its own light
you were smiling
you seemed happy
without me
it seems like you don't need me
but it's good that you're smiling
it's good you're okay
I wish you the best.
I can't seem to ignore the fact
that you look so happy without me.
was I that easy to get over?
i can't stop the tears from running down.
I blink,
and the tears synchronize their rolling
down my both cheeks.
i will never see that smile again.
you make no effort to see me,
i will never hear that laugh again.
i will never hear your voice again.
there is an absence in my heart,
a chamber made just for you,
is now filled,
with emptiness.
how ironic.
i will never see that smile again.
never the melodious sounds from your voice
reach my ears again.
i let the fresh tears drip,
it feels so good to cry
and let go of the tension just for a moment.
my glasses have tears on them.
let the world taste my saltiness,
my bitterness,
the rancour.
do we just end like this?
i don't want to end like this.
is this truly the end?
can't I write onto our story,
a happily ever after?
i will never see that smile again.
because you have evaded from my grasp,
i know i can't make you love me again-
if it was even love in the first place-
i breathe in.
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 7:19 AM UTC