"rehearse" poems
I met her on a narrow street of old Verona
Her beauty’s magical, her name was Lady Mona
She rolled a cigarette between her diva fingers
A little cherry smoke around her gently lingers
She had a long deep fire-coloured autumn hair
That with the wind dance as if out of very care
Her eyes are brighter, gayer then azure sapphires
Two little diamonds that can start unholy fires
Her ******* are full of life, the sweetest goddess milk
It taste like childhood memories wrapped up in silk
The skin – an undiscovered lands of sinful wild
It sends you on a trip so rough yet very mild
She was so picturesque, a genuine sugarbomb
Like rays of sun that dazzle through a naked palm
I pray thee, Jupiter, align the heaven stars
And let me be the one who strikes of her guitars
Wish I could walk to her and ask her dearly out
I feel so brave yet nervous, want to scream and shout
I want to spill it out, express my inner passion
But that’s not me behaving in such crazy fashion
Hell to the no! I go! I’ll spit my fire lines!
I am a blonde! I curse those stupid *** designs
I’ll offer things to her, I promise I’ll pushy
**** I am gonna offer her my cola *****
If men be ***** models, I shall be one too
I have one in my mouth – a nasty point of view
If men can flirt and conquer, so can ******* I
This Aphrodite’s taken, she is only mine
I walk to her, approach her like the mighty Taurus
Rehearse my lyrics, shuffle through my love thesaurus
I smell perfume – ambrosia, nectar, lemonade…
Formation, hold up, queen of… ******* Lemonade..?
“What is the name of thee, do tell me, pretty dear
Just like the beauty goddess you to me appear
By any chance you are one of the youthful Graces?
Be careful, darling, I can see your leather laces”
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 2:42 PM UTC
Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My era’s obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.
Keywords/Tags: Kajal Ahmad, Kurd, Kurdish, translation, mirror, shattered, magnified, dictators, monsters, jagged, shards, sweat, perspire, leak, bleed, extrude, protrude, glass
The Lonely Earth
by Kajal Ahmad
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
The pale celestial bodies
never bid her "Good morning! "
nor do the creative stars
kiss her.
Earth, where so many tender persuasions and roses lie interred,
might expire for the lack of a glance, or an odor.
She's a lonely dusty orb,
so very lonely! , as she observes the moon's patchwork attire
knowing the sun's an imposter
who sears with rays he has stolen for himself
and who looks down on the moon and earth like lodgers.
Kurds are Birds
by Kajal Ahmad
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Per the latest scientific classification, Kurds
now belong to a species of bird!
This is why,
traveling across the torn, fraying pages of history,
they are nomads recognized by their caravans.
Yes, Kurds are birds! And,
even worse, when
there's nowhere left to nest, no refuge from their pain,
they turn to the illusion of traveling again
between the warm and arctic sectors of their homeland.
So I don't think it strange Kurds can fly but not land.
They wander from region to region
never realizing their dreams
of settling,
of forming a colony, of nesting.
No, they never settle down long enough
to visit Rumi and inquire about his health,
or to bow down deeply in the gust-
stirred dust,
like Nali.
Bi Havre (“Together”)
possibly the oldest Kurdish poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I want us to be together:
we would eat together,
climb the mountain together,
sing songs together, songs of love,
songs from the heart, sung from above.
I want us to have one heart, together.
Many words in this ancient poem are in doubt, so I have excerpted what I grok to be the central meaning.
And because Kajal mentioned Rumi, here are my translations of Rumi:
Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 3:00 AM UTC
Don't Worry, Be Happy
In life you rarely catch a break,
was being born just a mistake.
Things may happen beyond our control,
those are the days when you pack a bowl.
If you find yourself in any kind of trouble,
a real friend would be there on the double.
If you find life ain't worth living,
waiting for you is a new beginning.
Not every day can be perfect,
maybe your thoughts, you need to collect.
Some days you wake up on the wrong side of the bed,
just be glad you didn't wake up dead.
No matter how much your in pain,
hide your tears by crying in the rain.
There will be days when you're depressed,
you may even feel like you're possessed.
Every dark tunnel has a hidden light,
you have to search hard, cause it isn't always bright.
Then out of nowhere things fall into place,
on those days, you must carefully embrace.
No matter how bad it seems, someone has it worse,
life is something you can't rehearse.
Find something that will make you smile,
if you still have an old phone, give me a dial.
No matter what always think positive,
dress up nice and be very provocative.
I wish there was a happy pill,
they already have one that makes you chill.
I think of my kids when I feel sad,
that makes me one happy dad.
Cuddling with my girlfriend makes me happy,
she accepts me even though I'm a bit wacky.
Always look on the bright side of life,
love can be spread with a butter knife.
I've been down, I've been out,
my heart has poured red like a spout.
So on those days when you're feeling blue,
just don't forget it goes the other way too.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
I never loved you...
The truth is what I felt for you was greater than love itself.
Cliche of me to say that I know but people always find a way to describe Love and I couldn't do that with you.
I couldn't sit myself down and rehearse to the walls a heart melting speech on how I love you... I couldn't get my heart to even say those words.
It didn't feel right.
It didn't feel right to the extent that my mind and heart agreed that saying these words would feel like I'm adding a faint colour on my canvas of broken dreams, lost hope, abandonment, lies and far much worse things than pain.
It never felt right to do that because when I first met you my world never stopped neither did the universe instead they began to move as if I've been stuck on pause for a really long time and you were my play button, you began my life.
I never loved you... But I swear I was always in Love with you and that's why I could never do what they did.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:22 PM UTC
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I **** where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -
The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
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Tunneling thoughts like rain
Craning through light clouds
Unsuspecting victims.
The fear
The tears
The temper tantrums;
A kind of rebuttal
That won't let our feet find land
We adjourned to rehearse,
but our efforts were null and void
Only to appease with flames
that licked our shriveled bodies
D r
i p
p i n
g
Kerosene
Tainted like ink Spilled on
Reams of paper
ruined like Christmas
A house warmed by Open flames
fallen candles Adorning
A naked kitchen My limp body,
Splayed beneath the oven
As
darkness indulges, It
consumes
The smoke, Fills
Each crevice
In your mind
Can you ever fight it
Burn your way back
To blissful ignorance.
Nov 20, 2023
Nov 20, 2023 at 1:59 PM UTC
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
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_Standing with Marshal Gebbie_
No trumpet sounds.
No banner bleeds.
Just the quiet hum
of satellites watching
what we dare not name.
Power does not sleep,
it drips
from trade routes,
from whispered sanctions,
from the tremble
of a diplomat’s hand
hovering over the red phone.
We are not at war,
but we rehearse it
in algorithms,
in tariffs,
in the way maps
shrink and swell
without consent.
The empire is hungover,
but still it walks,
barefoot through proxy fields,
cloaked in plausible deniability.
And we,
the breathers between borders,
write poems
on the backs of embargoes,
sing lullabies
in contested airspace,
and pray
that silence
is not mistaken
for surrender.
Sep 14, 2025
Sep 14, 2025 at 6:51 AM UTC
~~~<¤>~~~
through
lichen clouds
and lace of leaves
moonlight wanders
wends and weaves
a cowl'd orb
a saintly pearl
a poem rewritten
by the world
a swooning dove
a gentle face
in loving here
there's no disgrace
brings She out
her mystery still
floating effortless
at will
how oft does She
rehearse the game
in many phases
do the same
in Her embrace
sweet dreams are free
unbound by
moonlight mystery
soulsurvivor
(C) 8/29/2015
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 12:42 AM UTC
Brother Iran
by Michael R. Burch
Brother Iran, I feel your pain.
I feel it as when the Turk fled Spain.
As the Jew fled, too, that constricting span,
I feel your pain, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I know you are noble!
I too fear Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
But though my heart shudders, I have a plan,
and I know you are noble, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I salute your Poets!
your Mathematicians!, all your great Wits!
O, come join the earth’s great Caravan.
We’ll include your Poets, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I love your Verse!
Come take my hand now, let’s rehearse
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
For I love your Verse, Brother Iran.
Bother Iran, civilization’s Flower!
How high flew your towers in man’s early hours!
Let us build them yet higher, for that’s my plan,
civilization’s first flower, Brother Iran.
Published by MahMag (translated into Farsi by Mahnaz Badihian), Other Voices International, Thanal Online (India), Deviant Art, Portal Vapasin (Farsi). Keywords/Tags: Iran, Iranian, Farsi, Persia, Persian, brotherhood, culture, civilization, poetry, literature, poets, mathematicians, philosophers
Mar 26, 2020
Mar 26, 2020 at 3:06 AM UTC
Now upon Age my Ripe Lantern will give
The Rose of Thirty-Four for his Best Joy
Sister, the Token of my Purpose, live,
Brother, the Promise of a Knighted Boy
Which Rose, purple or red, will compensate
A Decade's Sin I rehearse to atone
Pride, one Raven crowed I pluck without Hate
And gently shift my Psalms for her Behold
How another Labour I justly Failed
Must submit to her Needs before my own
For me the Decoding Concept derailed
The Troll called Pity transforms your Heart to Gold.
You both planned to defer in New Year's Lift
Still for you both I sing this Sterling Gift.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 4:31 AM UTC
1
My first is no proof of my second,
Though my second's a proof of my first:
If I were my whole I should tell you
Quite freely my best and my worst.
One clue more: if you fail to discover
My meaning, you're blind as a mole;
But if you will frankly confess it,
You show yourself clearly my whole.
2
My first may be the firstborn,
The second child may be;
My second is a texture light
And elegant to see:
My whole do those too often write
Who are from talent free.
3
How many authors are my first!
And I shall be so too
Unless I finish speedily
That which I have to do.
My second is a lofty tree
And a delicious fruit;
This in the hot-house flourishes--
That amid rocks takes root.
My whole is an immortal queen
Renowned in classic lore:
Her a god won without her will,
And her a goddess bore.
4
Me you often meet
In London's crowded street,
And merry children's voices my resting-place proclaim.
Pictures and prose and verse
Compose me--I rehearse
Evil and good and folly, and call each by its name.
I make men glad, and I
Can bid their senses fly,
And festive echoes know me of Isis and of Cam.
But give me to a friend,
And amity will end,
Though he may have the temper and meekness of a lamb.
3.8k
Shema (“Listen”)
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You who live secure
in your comfortable homes,
who return each evening to find
warm food and a hearty welcome ...
Consider: is this a “man”
who slogs through mud,
who has never known peace,
who fights for scraps of bread,
who lives at another man's whim,
who at his "yes" or "no" lies dead.
Consider: is this a “woman”
shorn bald and bereft of a name
because she lacks the strength to remember,
her eyes as void and her womb as frigid
as a winter frog's?
Consider that such horrors have indeed been!
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them in your hearts
when you lounge in your beds
and again when you rise,
when you venture outside.
Rehearse them to your children,
or may your houses softly crumble
and disease render you equally as humble
so that even your offspring avert their eyes.
Primo Michele Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. It has been described as one of the best books by one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His unique work The Periodic Table was shortlisted as one of the greatest scientific books ever written, by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Levi's autobiographical book about his liberation from Auschwitz, The Truce, became a movie with the same name in 1997. Keywords: Holocaust, poem, Italian, translation, man, mud, woman, bald, nameless, houses, homes, bread, eyes, womb, empty, void, frigid, lifeless, horror, horrors, hearts, write, etch, engrave, inscribe, children, offspring, disease, avert, reject
Mar 14, 2020
Mar 14, 2020 at 4:58 AM UTC
Hands tied
Blind folded
And in pain
He sat there
As she explained
Explained to him
The rules of the game
*“Every day I’ll cut off one of your fingers,
And you’ll count back
From one thousand by sevens.”*
Going through her drawer
Of clampers and tweezers and scissors
She said
“Now let us, rehearse?”
She took out one of her knives
And oh so calmly
Chopped off one of his fingers
Asked “What’s one thousand minus seven?”
He couldn’t hear her over his own scream
She asked again
“What’s one thousand minus seven?”
“Nine hundred…nine hundred and ninety three.”
*“Good! It isn’t that hard you see?
Now I’ll be back tomorrow
Oh, and this is just an experiment
In ten days, we’ll see what you become.”*
He sat there crying in agony
Wishing tomorrow never comes
But it did, and he counted
“Nine hundred eighty six.”
*“Do you know why I’m making you count?
It’s a trick.
I’ll tell you about it in the end.
Don’t bother trying to figure it out, you won’t.
So just keep counting till then.”*
Days went by
And he was counting
“Nine seventy nine.” “Nine seventy two.”
As he was screaming and shouting
He lost all hope of freedom
At “Nine sixty five.”
Now the only freedom for him, was to die.
After ten long days
He finally knew what it was about
At “Nine hundred and thirty.”
She finally let it out
Unashamed as she explained
*“You see?”
It was all just to keep you sane."*
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 8:39 AM UTC
In measured verse I'll now rehearse
The charms of lovely Anna:
And, first, her mind is unconfined
Like any vast Savannah.
Ontario's lake may fitly speak
Her fancy's ample bound:
Its circuit may, on strict survey
Five hundred miles be found.
Her wit descends on foes and friends
Like famed Niagara's fall;
And travellers gaze in wild amaze,
And listen, one and all.
Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound,
Like transatlantic groves,
Dispenses aid, and friendly shade
To all that in it roves.
If thus her mind to be defined
America exhausts,
And all that's grand in that great land
In similes it costs —
Oh how can I her person try
To image and portray?
How paint the face, the form how trace,
In which those virtues lay?
Another world must be unfurled,
Another language known,
Ere tongue or sound can publish round
Her charms of flesh and bone.
3.6k
Kurds are Birds
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Per the latest scientific classification, Kurds
now belong to a species of bird!
This is why,
traveling across the torn, fraying pages of history,
they are nomads recognized by their caravans.
Yes, Kurds are birds! And,
even worse, when
there’s nowhere left to nest, no refuge for their pain,
they turn to the illusion of traveling again
between the warm and arctic sectors of their homeland.
So I don’t think it strange Kurds can fly but not land.
They wander from region to region
never realizing their dreams
of settling,
of forming a colony, of nesting.
No, they never settle down long enough
to visit Rumi and inquire about his health,
or to bow down deeply in the gust-
stirred dust,
like Nali.
And because Kajal mentioned Rumi, here are my translations of Rumi:
Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!
Keywords/Tags: Kajal Ahmad, Kurdish, translation, Kurds, birds, nomads, caravans, refuge, homeland, fly, land, flying, landing, colony, nest, nesting, Rumi, Nali
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 3:24 AM UTC
Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,
Let me once know.
I sought thee in a secret cave,
And ask’d, if Peace were there,
A hollow wind did seem to answer, No:
Go seek elsewhere.
I did; and going did a rainbow note:
Surely, thought I,
This is the lace of Peace’s coat:
I will search out the matter.
But while I looked the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.
Then went I to a garden and did spy
A gallant flower,
The crown-imperial: Sure, said I,
Peace at the root must dwell.
But when I digged, I saw a worm devour
What showed so well.
At length I met a rev’rend good old man;
Whom when for Peace
I did demand, he thus began:
There was a Prince of old
At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase
Of flock and fold.
He sweetly lived; yet sweetness did not save
His life from foes.
But after death out of his grave
There sprang twelve stalks of wheat;
Which many wond’ring at, got some of those
To plant and set.
It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse
Through all the earth:
For they that taste it do rehearse
That virtue lies therein;
A secret virtue, bringing peace and mirth
By flight of sin.
Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,
And grows for you;
Make bread of it: and that repose
And peace, which ev’ry where
With so much earnestness you do pursue,
Is only there.
3.1k
I had some bad news to deliver,
So I took her to my spot
The bench under the tree,
With all its gnarled knots
The bench right by the creek,
Right where the turtles like to play
A sacred spot of rest,
And shade on sunny days
I sat her down beside me,
And prepared her for the worst
Something so horrible,
It had taken eight weeks to rehearse
I really wish he'd told her,
Like he said he would
Should have known an aggressor's word
Is rarely ever good
I told her all there was to tell,
I answered every question
And then I found myself alone,
Silence in all directions
She walked so far away,
That I couldn't hear her voice
My story then repeated,
To the person of her choice
I waited on the bench,
And then waited some more
I made a small bouquet,
From flowers on the shore
I tied it up with grass,
And set it to the side
Such a mindless act of beauty,
I'm shocked I didn't cry
Not a sound escaped my lips,
Even after she returned
From the feeling in the air I knew,
The meeting was adjourned
Less than one day later,
She sat me down backstage
Though her conclusions were ill-founded,
Her words stung all the same
Eight weeks of work and "it's not your fault"
She did her best to make undone
Not only did I encourage him,
But I broke the essence of our bond
My dishonesty, my silence,
Can never be forgiven
My every flaw as a friend,
Unasked for, yet still given
Her final words were pure spite
If I'd only told her that same night
But how could I have told her,
What I didn't understand?
In an effort to escape the room,
I may have kissed her man
Four months to process,
Four hours locked away
But I never knew peace,
until I made that bouquet.
Feb 16, 2023
Feb 16, 2023 at 8:57 AM UTC
They meet every Thursday
They're a worship team
They meet every Thursday
To develop a worship scheme
To show how the Lord leans
Through musical means
They meet every Thursday
That's not quite church day
But it's their rehearse day
So they don't play the first way
Which would be the worst way
When worshipping on the church stage
They meet every Thursday
To rehearse their music
They've got the Holy Spirit
And there's no way they'll lose it
They'll continue to use it
To save brothers from bruises
They know what the truth is
And they want to exude it
They meet every Thursday
So surely I even heard they
Come in on their birthday
They say it's worth praise
Not of their own ways
But of the Lord's grace
Glorifying Him is first place
So they meet every Thursday
Jan 22, 2021
Jan 22, 2021 at 6:03 AM UTC
What do they really mean?
Can they change the way you see your self?
When you look in the mirror and recite your chant, does it really have such an impact?
Does it make you stronger, help you find your way?
Do you need to rehearse internally what you should already say?
Do they help you clear you mind, stay on track?
Are they helping you find your way back?
Who uses affirmations every day, their new to me I have to say but my PT says they are the way.
By talking in the mirror will it make me more confident in my work or as a poet?
I don't know if that's a fact but happy to have a daily chat, where the person I'm talking to doesn't talk back.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 7:26 AM UTC
Be afraid of the bohém, they may write you a silly little poém to make you love 'em.
Or even worse, in reverse, with their verse, coerce your mind and soul to converse.
And even if their ascent is traverse and the obstacles adverse, routes to them are diverse.
They refine their craft to give you a raft, don't be daft, they rehearse for the terse,
tiptoeing over the perverse, not wanting to averse. They wanna choke the horses of your hearse.
They have no need to beg and plead. Just a wish to slap your *** your steed.
They just wanna make fear disperse for it they accurse, knowing well it's a curse.
No need to look for your purse. Your courage will theirs reimburse
and your smile their swollen fingers nurse.
See, the reaper wants the tails of coins thus places them on eyes faced reverse.
The bohém kick groins and leave traces but from coins take a print of the obverse.
Why? Cause they want not heads, but what's in them. They want your head to stay ahead.
Cause when a head is spiked by tails and filled with flashy tales, it is as good as dead.
They want to help you stay afloat - forget about the raft, think bigger, think of a boat.
Like evergreen crickets they ask you to disburse your fears and reverse your tears.
They ask not for a penny, just a thought or two, not many.
Like the ***** eyed and slightly sane miss Moneypenny.
Some call it a gift, many a curse. A curse the bohém can inverse
cause they submerse spirit in a lyrical sea and lower the stars for you to see.
Remember and beware, if you reward them with something as simple a stare,
you could be blinded by a hearty glare. Now you've been reminded, all's fair and square.
So why not just stay there? It's just your spirit they may ensnare like a hare,
only to mend it's wounded knee so that it can again hop away and be free.
Art is the heart of the bohém and their heart is their art.
So if you ever want to, thank them not with money but with a snack,
sprinkle a piece of your heart with honey. They'll bite it and give you two back.
Eat one too and make like a dove to flee to the place you really want to be.
Ride the waves like Nikolai's bumblebee and fulfill your uncharted destiny.
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 4:44 PM UTC
The young Musicians are at rehearsal...the ladies and the lords will soon gather in the music chamber...and Caravaggio's musicians will play them some music and sing them various songs...but first, they must rehearse...
The Musicians at Rehearsal
Let us continue…
Let me tune a little of this lute
while you peruse the notes
and you clear your throat
And what’s our Cupid doing?
Crushing grapes again between his teeth
Let us rehearse well
to render a song of softness
and ease and grace
A song of love
with sweet music
that will charm our guests
And we shall present it
in the private chamber
of honored lords and ladies -
and we shall sing like angels
and one of us will be as Cupid
dancing and flying as fancy takes him
Let us hurry now
though let us not forget polish
and pace and perfection…
come, let us again rehearse together
...and soon the ladies and the lords will arrive...and the musicians will perform and sing their songs of love, passion and sadness...
...and the ladies and the lords are seated in the music chamber...and Caravaggio's musicians play and they sing a song of love and passion...
Song of Love
O luscious Ladies
and brave Sirs
the clouds join
with one another
and the streams sing;
the birds sit amorous
on the branches
and the trees sway
while the flowers spread their scent
in the air
and the bees dance in a daze
ah, Ladies are made for men
and men for women
and each so shaped for perfect fits -
embrace then the lover beside you
O Sirs pick the red berries
on the lips of the luscious ladies;
and O lovely Ladies,
yield to the embrace
of the gallant beside you
and feel flowers bloom within -
for men are made for women
and women for men
and each so shaped for perfect fits
O embrace and kiss
dear luscious Ladies
and most accomplished Sirs
for Cupid seeks that you make love
and produce heavenly cherubim
who in turn, nights and days,
will make love like you do
now in this chamber of pleasures
...and so ends the first song...and the musicians prepare to sing one more for the charming ladies and the elegant lords...a song of sadness to end the night...
...the beautiful ladies and the lords want more from Caravaggio's musicians... the musicians are always glad to oblige..they sing their song of sadness, of loss and love...
O this ecstasy we call love
O this ecstasy we call love -
what is it?
why do we crave it
when there is such pain
that weighs on the body and heart?
O this joy we call love -
what is it?
why do we fall
when there is so much deceit
and betrayal?
why do we love
when there are lies
and hidden motives?
O this curse called love -
it has dried my heart out
and my being is smeared
as cloth with oil and grime;
my best times have been taken away
and there is left only
contempt and scorn
and derision…
O this darkness we call love -
what is it?
why do we still move to it
even as it teases us
and leaves us broken
and forlorn?
...and it is time to go...and the ladies and lords bow and they depart...some depart hand in hand...silent...some depart alone, sad and contemplative...
Aug 2, 2011
Aug 2, 2011 at 9:16 PM UTC
I never made a poem, dear friend--
I never sat me down, and said,
This cunning brain and patient hand
Shall fashion something to be read.
Men often came to me, and prayed
I should indite a fitting verse
For fast, or festival, or in
Some stately pageant to rehearse.
(As if, than Balaam more endowed,
I of myself could bless or curse.)
Reluctantly I bade them go,
Ungladdened by my poet-mite;
My heart is not so churlish but
Its loves to minister delight.
But not a word I breathe is mine
To sing, in praise of man or God;
My Master calls, at noon or night,
I know his whisper and his nod.
Yet all my thoyghts to rhythms run,
To rhyme, my wisdom and my wit?
True, I consume my life in verse,
But wouldst thou know how that is writ?
'T is thus--through weary length of days,
I bear a thought within my breast
That greatens from my growth of soul,
And waits, and will not be expressed.
It greatens, till its hour has come,
Not without pain, it sees the light;
'Twixt smiles and tears I view it o'er,
And dare not deem it perfect, quite.
These children of my soul I keep
Where scarce a mortal man may see,
Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,
Baptismal rites they claim of thee.
2.2k
Departure lounge. Crown of tears
probably dried upon my father’s shoulder.
One year before I touch down again.
Everyone will expect some change.
Tried to swallow consciousness on the Bangkok streets.
Too much heat. There is no familiar face –
I cannot even read the road-signs.
There is no culture shock:
I had lived with that my entire life.
Made friends with the strays
for we had a common place.
Caught in no man’s land:
a need for hunger,
some awful drive to be free.
Left Bangkok for the coast.
New faces to hear old stories.
Born new, kissed each night on the mouth,
shared a hotel room for the month;
relinquished every memory
in a flood of beer,
old tears, the reservoir
to cleanse ourselves of doubt.
Dictated each depression
to a room full of strangers
until I could frame every disgrace,
put them to bed
until I slept full and new.
Fell in love with a singer,
red hair and a voice
that climbed a ladder to heaven.
Bid farewell in a country of mourning,
wore black until I found colour again.
Descended each rung
until I found that rock bottom
was still much higher
than where I had come from.
Wrote poetry and songs
nine hours from the foundations
I had built upon.
Black-eyed and clueless,
wrong side of the classroom,
I tried to teach a foreign tongue
in a place where I knew nothing
and no one. Far from every addiction
that once anchored me in place,
I shaved my face, pressed my shirt,
made amends for every cigarette end
that once painted the frame
of all I had amounted,
all I had done.
Fell in love with a town,
a pink sunset, stretch of rice-farms
and apple trees that patterned the view
of all I could see.
Still broken, still maladjusted,
still craving those twisted words.
Take my motorbike off into the drumlins
each time that I fear the worst.
Still broken, still singing
a song I cannot sing,
yet each muffled string,
each half-worn verse
is a half-formed reason
to rehearse
the melody I gather
each fateful, live-long day,
I cry out for meaning
before it fades away.
Jan 15, 2017
Jan 15, 2017 at 1:02 PM UTC
I write to over come,
But then I become.
And so I write again,
But should not I refrain.
Lest I write about about about.
I pout.
I've sunk
My feet covered in gunk
My body wrapped in shallow water.
Too weak to even waver.
I hail.
But do I fail?
I'll trudge,
Forward with grudge.
I'll strive.
I'll thrive.
Ride the wave.
Behave!
I'll see the sun,
And run.
Pushing the limit.
Till I reach a summit.
Then down again...
But I'll regain.
For I see a beginning
And an ending,
The like of now,
I harden my brow.
This isn't the worse,
And if it were, let us rehearse:
If it's the worst, it can't get worse
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 2:16 PM UTC