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What happened that night? Your final night.
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?

Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
                                                 My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.

My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their ****** tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,

Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.

                                       That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.

That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.

Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
                                                  Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.

What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of ***** sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.

At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
****** awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’
Birthday Letters, published in 1998, is a collection of poetry by English poet and children's writer Ted Hughes. Released only months before Hughes's death, This collection of eighty-eight poems is widely considered to be Hughes' most explicit response to the suicide of his estranged wife Sylvia Plath in 1963, and to their widely discussed, politicized and "explosive" marriage. (From Wikipedia)

This is one of my favorite poems. Coldly emotional, gripping, and much more
Nigel Morgan Jan 2013
Gradually as darkness fell the wind that had beset the travellers all day subsided and the particular silence of the lakeside clearing assumed a presence. It was a silence of the discrete movements of animals and sporadic calls of birds, the settling now into stillness of trees wind-tossed for a night and day, the breathing to and fro movement of a large body of water that already held the night sky’s reflections and would soon be enveloped in moonlight. Zou Fen rose and beckoned Meng Ning to accompany her to the Emperor’s Hall. There, they stood together on the long veranda and looked down through the sporadic trees onto the lake.

‘It is said that the Master did not discuss anomalies, feats of strength, civil disorder, or the spirits,’ said Zuo Fen quoting Confucius. ‘It is for you and I to disregard sorcery as nothing but illusion and cunning. We must bend our thoughts to seeking explanations from circumstance.’

‘We know, my Lady, that Yang Mo had already seduced the Emperor and his guests with his many and infamous illusions. To achieve these feats of the miraculous would have required a sizable retinue and the most careful preparation. It is unlikely that the Emperor would have countenanced such sorcery in daylight hours, so we might imagine how with the play of lanterns, fire and smoke Yang Mo was able to make the impossible seem possible. Like the actor he undoubtedly was, he was probably a man of commanding presence - all eyes would have been upon his person, all ears tuned to his words. And round about the harsh clangorous sounds and shouts of his assistants would be sustained as his illusions began to unfold.’

‘Wisely spoken Meng Ning,’ says Zuo Fen, ‘a most convincing exposition. So we must imagine how after a long presentation of illusory wonders, the imbibing of much wine and other intoxigents inhaled or consumed, the first presage of dawn comes upon the company. Guests and their consorts seek the privacy of their quarters, lights are dimmed, only the meditative music of the zither sounds in the Emperor’s hall as new confections of poetry continue to vie with the ancient verses. Then, as the Emperor rises to seek his chamber there, half hidden amongst the wraiths of mist floating on the lake, lies a sailing vessel, its single sail empty of wind, a spectre at once marvelous and shocking.’

‘But an illusionary boat, possibly a vessel that could not and need not run with the wind, something constructed, a shell no more, made out of the lightest wood or taut cloth that in the blue dawn would seem more substantial than it is, fashioned and placed in position by Yang Mo’s assistants at a right distance to evoke the illusion of reality.’

‘The Emperor summons his court and its guests, summons Yang Mo, regarding this as a step taken beyond what protocol allows, a violation of the ancient spirit traditions of the lake. Yang Mo stands his ground suggesting that this is his greatest illusion yet, that there is no harm done, and should the Emperor decline to sail on the ****** waters he will take himself away from his presence boat and all.’

‘At this Xie Jui, the second wife, lets it be known that she regards with some contempt the prohibition of a vessel’s presence on the lake. She wishes passage on the boat and if the Emperor will not accompany her she will go alone with Yang Mo. At this the Emperor is incensed but challenges Yang Mo to explain how he will deliver Xie Jui to the vessel.’

‘This is where, My Lady, we will need to seek the Red Slate Path that, it is said, Yang Mo prepared to take himself and his passenger to the waiting boat - only to disappear from view in front of the very eyes of the assembly. Our task for tomorrow perhaps?  Jia Li can be our guide as she surely knows its location.’

And so, as the three quarter moon rises over Eryi-lou and the chamberlain takes his leave of the courtesan, Mei Lim appears from the near darkness to escort her mistress to the small chamber where they will pass the night. Zuo Fen remains in a trance-like state but allows the ministrations of her maid to prepare her for the business of sleep.
      Meanwhile Meng Ning, intoxicated by Zuo Fen’s presence, does not return to his quarters but takes the terrace steps down, down to the lakeshore. He allows his official skills as a poet to fashion an array of characters he will first commit to memory, only later write out in his fine calligraphic script, and then destroy. Whereas Zuo Fen commutes between dream and reality he has no such pleasure. This is a stark, cold place at autumn’s end. But this condition only seems to excite and fuel his passion for this woman, this gracious, mysterious woman with whom he has spent the recent hours in close proximity. Her face floats before his eyes; her precise lips and still perfect teeth, gentle chin and youthful neck, the beauty and grace of her bearing seated cross-legged like a sage before him.  He imagines for a brief moment her long nakedness revealed in the bright moonlight under which he now stands. Holding this momentary image close to his physical self he makes his way up the many terraces to the small wooden chamber in which he will sleep.
       Despite her journeying and the revelations of the day Zuo Fen lies awake. She is savouring a very different quality of the night in this remote place. For many years she has remained wakeful in the hours of the Rat and the Ox to welcome her Lord Wu should his goat cart find its way to her court. She would like to rise and reflect on the images that hold sleep from her – but fears to wake her maid without whose close attention she might falter. This natural world beyond her court and the Emperor’s gardens are of an almost constant wonder. She reflects that as she gets older each season seems to become more vivid than its predecessor. This autumn, with its vivid dreams and visions, she likens to flowers picked from her garden, their colours and textures continuing to hold true and firm. Between such thoughts the intimacy of her time with Meng Ning remind her of the delight of human association. Aside from her dear brother Zuo-Si she has rarely known that keen intimacy of another man - other than her Lord. Though she has, she reflects further, in the writing of The Pale Girl, allowed her mind to explore the variousness of the body’s pleasure. To school Meng Ning in the arts of passion would be pleasurable indeed, and she considers he would be a most willing and attentive student. She imagines, for a moment, guiding him towards the exacting refinements of touch and stroke a woman requires to achieve the deepest coitus. Her body stirs as this thought takes hold and caresses her towards necessary sleep.

(to be continued)
What is born of this land?
Nothing is born,
Nothing grows
In this desolate land.

I want to wake up the neighborhood
To hear my screams at dawn
But they do not hear anything,
Do not listen to anything that happens in the morning.
I play my music in the streets,
All my poetry and clichés
But they do not understand anything,
No one understands what happens at dawn.
I walk the streets looking windows,
***** children in their rotten rags
And I cry with those who are hungry,
I do not know who cry or love…
I embrace the poor in spirit
And hear all your stories poor,
These poor and pathetic poor souls
It is my right meeting this cold morning.
I go through the streets and alleys damp and dark
And I hear a child crying…
A repetitive and child crying wretched
What is the worst of all choruses?
I see people and their hurried footsteps
Everywhere, everywhere…
I'm afraid to follow my tracks
And I hasten my steps through this city.
I hear the sirens screaming in the streets
Mixing the sound of nightclubs crowded
And the sound of twisted metal
Creating a new contrast, another type of cry.
I sing with you almost every night
And sometimes I wonder: where are you
He left so early and left me here...
Now I’m alone! I’m alone!
God, I try and cannot understand
Reason to justify this life.
I am a pawn in the game you do not see
Every dawn until dawn.
Something touched my whole being,
Something I do not understand and do not try to understand,
Something that comes up every day when I wake up
And after me until nightfall.
Something happens,
Something moved,
Something incomprehensible,
A new friend?
They say that being is almost live
And living is the limit of what you can want.
In fact, something happens that one wants to be here,
However, not all this desire craves.
Nothing is enough
When no longer feels the aroma of flowers,
When the color no longer thrill
And they cannot be sold to look.
Gave me such rare moments
Feeding the future although at present,
But waking I do in all my steps
Get me the taste of things even in thought.
In my noble and poor land I wander
And I feed the memories of liars,
Get drunk me with joy and gladness
And insistent way in the land of lepers.
In my humble vacant land,
Time is proud, ignorant time.
Hunger is rampant around me,
The flesh is weak and soul idem.
I ask as much as the worst of sinners,
Wasting a time that no longer have,
Not differentiate right from wrong,
Share supper with my detractors.
I do not feel the taste of wine,
I do not recognize a smile,
I do not remember the hugs,
I'm finally alone!
I weigh my conscience in the balance of a butcher
And the butcher tape me with ravenous eyes,
There is no any agreement on the price of the meat,
Nor is the first or second.
God, you who are owner of the ages,
Give me the hours its final minute
And cause the whole world to know
That left miserable after all.
Grant then that desire
And finish time with this work,
Free cities this unfortunate
Who insists on knowing what nobody knows.
When there is fever, it makes no difference,
There are times the blood is poison.
Red is the color of anger and sin:
The poet knows when he is sentenced.
If there is even poetry these avenues
As equal in different cities,
To be recognized
For the sake of pursuing life.
Burial in the deepest memory
The giant concrete towers,
The grotesque glass structures
That mimics a new artery.
A new artery,
A new lifestyle,
A new company
And an early cardiac arrest.
As the cars kissing the avenues
Meeting the perfect companion
That tells me in the ear:
"Accept me as the only one"
Finally, fear runs through my veins
And feeding a forgotten feeling,
An absurd desire to see the next day
And try another outlet.
All the streets are congested.
A whole shantytown has just been set on fire
While some locals try to save
What remains of an entirely bankrupt life?
There is a twist
Around this humble heart,
A carnival,
Almost a provocation.
All veins are old and weak,
There is melancholy at all.
Even without poetry,
Without free will, there is life at all.
This city is just brick,
Metal, sweat, concrete and glass,
Cement stuck to feeling
Often beautiful and often ugly.
This city is sand,
Concrete and feeling,
Sorrows and joys,
Poetry thrown to the wind.
Some people learn early, some not -
Live life day in and day out.
Some dance to the song,
Others are lost before the chorus.
Some are always right, some not -
Many are lost in illusion.
While some running, others sleep
And all seek some direction.
Some dream rock bottom,
Others dream of the river bottom.
Some seek independence,
Others are the exception.
Some people win,
There are people who are lost,
Some people becomes the problem
And others think is the solution.
Digress weather
What about the "types" that encounters in this life.
I lose a second in this lost time
And even with so little sense, how rare is the time!
If you have no idea, nor do I know.
Maybe the hunger that consumes me consumes you too.
Perhaps the addiction that affects equal
Is something that arises only between abnormal?
I addiction with its tapas
And in each sip of his cup,
Each exaggerated affection offered
In exchange for a few bucks.
I ***** me with your lies
And assimilate water from your gutters,
I learn new shortcuts in every way
And erase the traces of my own steps.
I chase you in every church and every home
I swallow my irony,
Visit each elderly
And make friends with the hospice house.
Far reaches thy wickedness
And how many hugs another's grief?
Can evil be so inspired?
The point of the very surprised to be expected?
Life bleeds leaving the left chest
The children of the world that the world does not want,
Spread the news that sadness has hair
And more brown eyes than mine.
I notice refinements of cruelty
In this urban masochism
Where poverty has older
And the lie became just a vanity.
I transform
In all more abhor,
I emerge in the mirror
As my own killer.
I suffocate and tie in the dark of my room
Little souls endangered
And throw in the trash the dreams of those who
He believed devoutly one day be part of reality.
I still feel the skin marked by fire
The brand that hurts the brand of truth
And I pray that one day cease searches
And everything becomes futile.
The happiness of fuel
Corrode and fades away slowly
Gradually me satisfaction
With the balance that sustains me.
When I look at my own face, it hurts.
I exhale the body the rest of fear
And I try not to see how strange the line of truth -
Seeking the path that leads to freedom.
Disguise my desires
And repress my absurd,
Hug each nightmare
And hide my darker side.
I try to see something beyond the abyss,
Find something else beyond the walls,
Transcribe all longings
Hidden behind every dream.
I am eternal,
Sinister,
Land and fraternal
While the world lasts.
There is this chest a divided heart
Created almost between two worlds,
The world is inside the abyss
And what one sees behind the walls.
My corner is stumped
As well as the small voice and uncertain
From the little that is hidden on the other side,
My other side of that wall.
What have other corners?
They also have these sides
But what counts in these corners
Also rhyme in other valleys.
Bright lights bother many people.
Darkness feeds inconsequential.
High walls with brass railings gleaming
Are contrasts in painting a colorless screen?
Urban flowers are so amazing
And this depression is so exciting.
Smiles are bitter and needy
And the pain married to vows of love.
These buildings are so interesting,
Where the wet streets at night shine like diamonds,
Where transiting the fair and honest
Munching vanity and rancor.
The cars pass and illuminate so many people,
Whites, blacks and children without color.
Poets are so tucked the irreverent
Assimilating the pain and all that is.
I see lives that trace the same plane,
joy of generations by mistake ,
Marks of time that are pure desperation
Charting together a colorless future.
I see faces full of hope
Burning in public because of their color,
Those who live without even realizing it,
A cold paint drips without why.
Bodies dancing high parapets
Almost always go so early
Challenging theories and concepts
And ignoring all kinds of love.
My steps are so slow
And so intense movements,
The faces are always the same
And I hope again the sunset.
Justice who is in charge of giving clemency
The presumed innocent
Transiting the streets
Spreading hope and love.
I want to have a chance to see the birth of Venus
And the annunciation in the middle of spring,
I want to be like St. Augustine
And read the scriptures by candlelight.
I want to be like Van Gogh and paint sunflowers
Even in December the ink is red.
I want to have new flower garden in the backyard
And the kiss out of my lips is never accidental.
Just want something passionately
Even being so blind and alone?
That goodbye is worthy
And everything to return finally to dust.
The idea comes suddenly
To celebrate as an illiterate,
Prepare a table and invite
Only those who are hungry.
All this turmoil,
All this protest,
All thefts
This legion inside me...
Melancholy has always had its place,
Love, sadness and bitter returns,
Feeling alone and be like shadow in the crowd
And embrace the darkness itself.
Find it romantic suffer
For pain that recognizes pain that always sees
It is more than a disease, it is a love affair
For all that hurts and causes pain.
I let them think I was defeated
With the unexpected attacks
Of those who cry shouts of victory
And they forgot to be buried.
I leave them to play in my back
The guilt of all blame,
Let it burn my entire story,
It does not matter that much.
My lips run on search words
And my eyes run in search of beauty,
Drawing liar’s feelings
That shut all the bells around.
Words come out like blades
In hoarse voice coming out of my mouth
This other me who hates me so much
And all challenges at first.
In the spring mornings leaves dance
Rehearsing his ballets from the rising of the day,
Is this life?
It’s this they call life?
I want to find the lost word
Among the tasks of the day to day
What is so profane?
The prohibited!
I want to meet a new season
Bring me a sense of relief,
Find what they call happiness
And maybe learn what it is.
An epidemic,
Leukemia,
Rimes illustrating
An eternal melodrama.
You cannot have everything!
Not always beautiful are our days
And we keep waking up.
Roses do not speak, but are also alive.
There is hunger for love!
There is hunger and what will?
There is hunger in this home?
If there is hunger, then there.
There is time for everything!
There is time to smile,
No time to cry,
There is time to leave.
I want to run away from home without a warning,
Running between the wheat fields
And let all afflicted
Trying to understand what had happened.
I want to cause confusion,
The same kind that I bring in my heart.
I want water all around
With the storm inside me.
I want to wake up the sleeping
And those who never agreed,
I want to find out who they are
And spread about us.
Lovers of this pain,
Thirsty without knowing
Where else to enjoy,
Where else to call "home".
I shift my gaze
With all the hatred of this world
Of all the ragamuffins and vagabonds
Who recognize me in a second?
I want to break these chains,
Scratching walls,
Promote anarchy
And imprison noon.
I want rain penknives
While tear my clothes,
I cut my wrists
And count all the drops.
A day can be
Something happens
And make to cease this endless grief
And everything changes, anyway.
So lose the naivety
What remains this morning?
I envision the absurdity that all I see
Is still something to be remembered?
Maybe one day
Poetry is done singing
And the light breeze the corner
Everywhere!
I want to get a perfect world,
I want to love what is defective,
I want to explore my own room,
Make another deal.
I want to shake you violently that coffin
And show where all the mice,
Ignite old blankets
Which now they were pretty.
I want to show you I love you
And I hate you,
I can live alone,
But also not live without you.
My madness is productive
At the same time, destructive:
It satisfies the crowd inside.
I refuse to be part of the pack
Strolling in supermarkets,
Feigning patience as immoderate
The suffered.
I like debris,
I collect dust,
Make enemies,
Cultivation dreams.
I constantly change identity
And lose track of reality,
My state is ill
And I'm terminal and disposable.
I participate in this game,
This novel in decline
This disgusting theater of horrors
Where only the blind are honest.
I am thoroughly enslaved
While deprive me of the privilege of choice,
Burying our will
In the deepest pit.
The wall that separates us is low
And we walked jumping from one side to the other,
Often both exist
And others, only I exist.
We are a nun and a *****
Plotting an eternal dispute
Between the two sides of the coin
To decide who runs and who fight.


As simple as saying your name
Spell out the pieces of your body.
I want to understand what God's grace
If your body will never be only yours.
Your body exudes the morning sweat,
Clouds hid the principle of pain,
Pain discovers a new form of pleasure
And the pleasure is expensive to you.
Your blood runs nearly everywhere
And a new world opens up suddenly,
Frighten the fleeting pain
And wait with his only love the sunrise.
I wipe the sweat oozes from you,
You wipe the tears falling from me,
If you can be in the world some endless love
The only certainty is that there was never before such love.


I want to wake you up
To hear my screams at dawn,
Show you what genuine despondency is
And not left me anymore.
I want to recognize me
And take me to your bed,
Not left with nothing
In addition to beating in his chest.
I want to be part of its history
And I want to be a constant presence in my,
The world spit their prejudices
And the fire that also burns in the heat.
I want to break the mirrors
And heal our sickness,
Assaulting what kills us
Every day, forever.
Serene and calm give you what remains
With my last breath,
What's best in me now rests
And rest my mind.
My sweat is true
It is also all the pain.
Blood is final
And it goes to the last vows of love.
The entire storm inside me
Now relax my heart,
Soothes My Soul
And feeds the reason.
I walk by this peaceful land
And growing a new crop of wheat,
I do a incognita a new partner
And the fear is not definitive.
I harvest hope
Where before there was only bitterness.
I am ashamed
And regret.
I accept the entire cross
And fight against the serpent.
I heal my wounds.
And my success is violent.
Time is short
And I want to scream that entire plan,
There is still a flame inside
And only her surrender.
What was misery,
What was despair,
What was hungry,
What was fear…
What was pain,
What was love,
What it had value
And when there was time…
What is born of this land?
Nothing is born,
Nothing grows
In this desolate land.


What is born on this land?
What grows in this land?
Nothing is born on this land,
My private wasteland.
MY LAND OUR LAND is the result of years of work. Written at different times, eventually leading nineteen years in reaching the outcome that now lies in your hands.
Numerous times this poetry was abandoned and then resumed, forgotten at the bottom of a trunk or discarded due to the complexity. Not ready and may never be. The comforting passages are rare. Virtually none, to be more specific. There is no time to be afraid. We mask our feelings and weave remarks about everything.
This is just a work of poetry. Do not be afraid to consume it. Not to care be consumed by it.
My land cannot be invaded. It can be understood, compared, discussed, studied, trivialized, ridiculed or criticized by anyone. But this is my land!
Hao Nguyen Apr 2016
The beauty of poetry
expands far beyond
the immersive imagery,
tongue-painted metaphors,
and whimsical similes
used to portray the artists'
vivid hallucinations.
No amount of consistent,
thorough editing,
no amount of precision
in thesaurus culminations,
nor the long-learned,
dextrous techniques,
fined-tuned throughout
fortitudinous refinements
undermine the essence:
the exact moment in time
where a poem is
experienced, engaged,
and ultimately conceived---
the epiphany.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
what's know as systematisation in philosophy, or philosophical prose as such, is an endeavour to hide maxims... that only surface more like concepts than applicable truths to the everyday keen eye eager to anticipate them as laden with believability... philosophical prose hides maxims, it weaves them tightly like a spider creating a cocoon of a trapped fly in the web that philosophical prose is... it doesn't create a style of aphoristic waterfalls that leave the eyes darting: a moment here, a moment there... the spider required 8 dimensions (8 eyes) to adapt a structure adequate for the haphazard flight of flies, twirling in mini-tornadoes - the spider-web is hardly a chance by-product, but only 8 eyes could have crafted its weaving... and as said prior, the aphoristic style of writing philosophy is worthwhile, i can't deny that, but it's so eye-distracting... it can only be achieved by a life filled where much life takes place, so in the case of la rochefoucauld in the court of louis xiii, his queen anne of austria, and the infamous cardinal richelieu... this outburst of maxims / observations / aphorisms is only effectively produced in such circumstances... other works of philosophy are born in recluse, maxims hidden in thickly bulging tightly-knit prose... they're effectively not as tremendous, piquant... it's the entirety of the composition that loves to hide them, and create yet more prose on the zenith they are produced for... they can hardly be spotted as easily as the sole extraction of maxims... but maxims akin to la rochefoucauld can be easily extracted, esp. if one is placed in situations were the crème de la crème mingle, one can easily defraud situations according to: vanity, self-love, friendship bargains, the passions, fortune, chance, jealousy, envy, virtue, moderation, wisdom, foolery, morality, immorality, a woman's coquetry v. her flirtations... all these things, all these proper summations of the surroundings could never allow philosophical prose for the sole purpose of hiding maxims... such environments are screaming maxims out, layered over by a distant asylum of anguish, adorned with jewels and refinements of fabric... but with skull sockets filled with two coal nuggets.
A Dec 2014
Yeah, I know I don't go down like wine;
I'm not one of
gentle
refinements.
I've been told I'm more of a whiskey.
But I swear that tastes like love.
I know because I've drunk the bottle.
If you ever tasted-
You know there's no such thing called a glass.
A deep need, like a sickle,
Cuts through thoughts and refinements
Until the tip breaks against
My nature,

Open, thriving, cursing,
Casting spells and aspersions,
Playing at bits and soundbites to ward off expectation,

That sickle swings into the core of me.
Until the tip breaks against my nature,

And I ask again,
For one final permission,
To be everything I am,

From someone as mortal as the universe.

And it is granted.

But I grunt and curl around a wound,
Bleeding instructions on how to heal the world,

Knowledge holding water like a rag,
While intuition rages and fragments identity,

That sickle swings into the core of me,
The tip breaks against my nature,
And I ask to be excused from everything I am,

Because it means holding still in the fires of my friends,
Until we learn our way from devastation.
And I'd rather those conflagrations not exist at all.

And then the sickle swings again.
Marty T Ottman Dec 2016
Enlightenment passes beyond the sight.
May seem frightening to ignite your insight.
Comprehension is the key.
While other hides in condescension.
Lacking to understand the actuality of energy.
With our culture we fail to make refinements.
When awareness is thrown around as if it's opinions without any basis of actual facts.
As alignment is left on silent.
Other perceive so careless, selfish, just so contentious..most just collapse any genuine information regarding principles of ones own essence,  unfortunately they resort to a close minded relapse.
So many are so skeptical..
Fill with delusions from "occult" propaganda and manipulation.
Leaving people barely in the eyes of enlightened comprehensible, instead of dimensional.
As many forget the trillion of constellations that are above us, nor explore such inadequate reasons for limitations for inspirations.
I love my beautiful city Abbottabad to the extent
That when I come back to it I  come with the intent
To worship and kiss it all through with its consent
I never leave any occasion or event to compliment

I love it, it dominates my heart as my living beloved
I kiss and caress its beauty, intoxicated its every grid
Let spring make more greener and autumn to forbid
A thing of beauty is joy for ever,is definitely well said

I love you my city my town I love all your residents
All love moments are precious moments of reverence
From its very start there are very many achievements
We as citizens love its beauty to aspire for refinements

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2017 Golden Glow
James Floss Jun 2017
Garaj Mahal installed. Check.
Appointed panels point to sun. Fun!
1880s shack gets a gingerbread attack.

Our accidental shack now a home;
Roof, gutters, **** and tube
Kicking and screaming into 21st century.

Hopefully our last crusade
From shack to home—
Retirement refinements.

Still, discomfort continues:
Pulling on my jeans
Solar installers wave across roof lines.

Breakfast with traveling guests
Suddenly includes Trevor
Smiling, painting trim the through the window frame.  

Soon, our own summer home again
(Home two-point-three-point-four!)
As we reconnoiter our nest for the rest.
Onoma Jun 2018
so much selective attention

to report of--

that the date's been omitted

for more than awhile,

despite numeric girth.

though an uncanny

guesser of time,

to the minute.

a startled rabbit

in a clearing.

snared and prepared--

to be called an

acquired taste.

what to do with all

these acquired tastes,

these refinements?

wait and see.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2017
it happens to me all the time,
every time i mention roman numerals
i take to slacking off when using modern
numbers, that so resemble letters...
B, 8, I, 1, 3, E, S, 5, b, 6, 0, O,
              9, g, L, 7, 2, Z...
                  4 amputee john jr.,
          i am close to despair about
how numbers and letters have merged
in the latin graphic..
it's one way or the other,
either the number as letter:
       II + IV = VI -
the challenge of rewriting all, modern,
mathematical proofs using roman
numerals...
     man's greatest feat is not the fact
that he disappears,
it's that he erases what he uncovers,
and then disappears...
                         take this example on
the demand that it be a cautionary affair
of conscience: no. 9497

7  5  9  3  6  4  1  8  2
4  2  3  7  1  8  5  9  6
6  1  8  9  2  5  4  7  3
8  9  2  4  5  3  6  1  7
3  6  1  8  7  2  8  5  4
5  4  7  6  9  1  2  3  9
2  3  6  5  8  7  9  4  1
9  8  4  1  3  6  7  2  5
1  7  5  2  4  9  3  6  8

i made a mistake, yet i completed
the puzzle...
  
            which is why i mention
it, for it rarely happens...
          and it all began with the unravelling
of the numbed in bold
      (shh, one of the sevens)...

         i can only claim to have exploited
retaining roman artefacts of the psyche,
nothing more...
       architecture of such calibre would
still exist if letters and "numbers"
were almost Siamese -
but then the current mathematics couldn't,
wouldn't exist...
            
  yet the resurrected nature of
the Siam twins which makes letters
akin to numbers, in the ancient guise,
opposite of making numbers abstract
in the guise of letters...
  all the arabic squiggly bits in between...
duped by the feral creature,
nomad, camel herder...
  
                    i can't contain myself
being fascinated by: numbers as letters...
i prefer this adoration than
having to labour on my "jolly"
touristy feet to stand in the shadow
of the coliseum...
                      a piece of architecture
born from the hydra of I V X L C D M...
only a greek could have been
so obvious in a book of
"revelation": that doesn't actually
reveal much...
                  but the proximity
of letters to numbers being "slightly"
adjusted, the beast from the sea
gave rise to the beast from the earth...
a modern numerical alphabet came
from 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9,
i.e.: O I Z E R S b Γ B P...
notably, with that year "0" of yours...
i thought i'd insert gamma and the many
mirrors, it takes to refine
numbers with the current letters,
the ever present letters...
             if the greeks can keep
their joke for two thousand years,
how strong is the Torjan
interpretation, done by no 4, not twelve,
but by one man?
               obviously there are
refinements to the letters to make numbers,
and there's the one greek letter,
and there's also the Bb debacle...
mirror mirror, the gamma could have
been an L...
         in a language that sings,
and has no actual name for any letter...
  imagine to write something
as simple as
          2 + 3 + 4 + 1....
Z + E + R + I...
        "alphabetically" speaking how
would that look?
                      IZER?
               well, if we're going to waste
the point of language on games,
akin to crosswords...
              why not waste our engagement
with language, on games akin
to this one?!
Stephen Leacock Sep 2021
The red bird like the will of fire
The chakra of the burning desires
The wheel that turns
The power that forms
The success of the achievements
The chariot that shifts towards the  fulfillment’s
The journey beyond the zones
Like wagon of high horses and the power of the unknown
The victory of the improvements
The elements that meets the requirements
The powers of the reinforcements
The connection of the agreements
The blessings of the investments
The process of refinements
The states of adjustments
The wheels of enlightenment
The Accomplishments that brings the refreshments
Victory that squares into manifestation that brings fulfillment!
Onoma Mar 2020
a substrata of dawns

chiseling out white marble nudes,

undressed in crumbling

refinements.

posing long enough to be fully

clothed.

— The End —