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LD Goodwin Jan 2013
Watchin' bikinis as they stroll,
they show a lot of skin, but not much soul.
You're out of your league boy, but that's OK.
Tomorrow could be your lucky day.

And you'll find me in that sunny weather,
I'm gonna get myself together,
till my skin turns into leather,
down on the Redneck Riviera.

"4x4s" sportin' bars-n-stars.
Ball caps and tank tops, their hittin' the bars.
Tattoos gettin ******* scarin' "tourys" away.
It's alright Ma tomorrow's a beach day.

And if you ain't a "toury"
you're runnin' from your past.
FBI, DEA or maybe the IRS.
Past wives, past lives, AWOL.
Everybody knows you here, but no one will tell.

Non-com fly-boys with their Amerasian wives,
bringin' 'em to America, given 'em better lives.
Some stay together, but others will roam.
They'll hit the street for money like they did back home.

And you'll find me in that sunny weather,
I'm gonna get myself together.
Frankly Scarlet I don't give a **** about Tara.
I'm down on the Redneck Riviera.
Ft. Walton Beach, FL  1990
Lorelaj Oct 2019
Red lipstick
matching my bikini
curly hair full of salt
falling on my tan lines
that’s how I remember
French Riviera.

Every time
we drink whiskey
things get little risky
and I kissed you last year
hope to kiss you again
in French Riviera.

The truth is
I have never
been there
but that’s how
I imagine
French Riviera
OVC Apr 2015

The girl that I like is young, quite petite, I might add
Bluish-greenish turquoise eyes, like the forest and the sea combined
Her voice, a sweet, gentle overtone; the ocean, calm waves that reach ashore
The breeze, blows the forest trees; a rustle, soothing to the human ears
Her skin that luminesces; the white sands of the Riviera Maya
Here and there, little sprinkles of darker sand on her pretty face
Her natural dark, red hair, as fiery as the midday sun,
And her lips a vibrant red, that melt you in the summer days,
So warm and cozy as the winter rays.


Not sure about that last line, but here you go. Hope you like it.
Cheers.
Sofia Rybkina Feb 2020
I remember it as vividly
as if it was yesterday.
His body lying next to mine
in complete silence.
Reaching out to one another
in a simple gesture.
It was another Italian summer on the Riviera,
fulfilled with red wine, pineapple juice,
lectures on history and music.
It was another Italian dream
slowly turning into the nightmare.
A tiny bookstore at the corner of the street.
Closed in the morning,
usually full of people later in the evening.
They had been laughing, drinking,
probably discussing another collection of poetry
that had just come out.
I met him there, standing in the dark
with a glass of port in his hand.
Later that night, he loved me on the beach.
He loved me at his mother's old house
when we came to pay her a visit.
He loved me at his ex-lover's party
a weekend after we'd met.
He loved me everywhere.
He was the someone given to me to enlighten
those jours caniculaires.
I was a woman; he was a man.
A perfect match, so to say.
A perfect one, but not the only one
out of variety.
I loved loving him as much as I loved
the way my body felt his
while he was on top of me.
I loved him almost as much
as I loved myself.
What was it, the affair that had started
in the tiny city, at the tiny bookstore
somewhere on the Italian Riviera?..
Jonny Angel May 2014
Rows of oiled bodies
of every shape & size
line the shore.

From gigantic thighs
to smooth flat lines,
tons of human meat,
dot the landscape.

O what an escape,
such a wonderful treat,
to see such diversity
glistening
under the Riviera sun.
I need the beach
sand in the places
where
it's hard to reach

the sea
clotted cream and
strawberry jam for tea

You
at my side when
the tide comes in

bingo and
sin, oh!
the devil
says no
so

sand eels
fishing reels
catch of the day.

B and B
you and me
double room
ideally.
Danielle Rayn Apr 2016
Call me your seaside goddess
your riviera darling
I'm made of honey
and saltwater and lavender
I won't stay for long
I have to leave soon

But I'll live forever
in your memories
My demonic charms
will haunt you forever
Snow,
deep and white
fell
sometime
in the night, but
I was alright
snug in bed.

Under the snow lies the world that I know,
the ***** and grubby
and yet it still snubs me,
I don't want the snow to go.

Under Waterloo Bridge,
another shelf in the fridge, a cruel World for some
where the Sun doesn't shine and it's cold all the time
designed to be beat
dead on their feet
a bed on cement
backs bent by the day
lay the broken and cracked.
A fact of society.

Snow came as a blessing,
one more white dressing for
the ulcerated trunks of
incapable drunks.
Do you see them?
the jetsam
do they worry you?
they will if you let them.

I bet some of them had lives
children and wives,
washed out in the flow now
thoughts  covered in snow now
and it's cold outside.
Michael R Burch Oct 2020
Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day,
with the moon―a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied―
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide...
but grew bitter, bitter―man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing―forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.
The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.
The sea was not salt the first tide...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.

"The Divide" is essentially a formal villanelle despite the non-formal line breaks.



Villanelle: Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable―our love―and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

"Ordinary Love" was the winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest. It was originally published by Romantics Quarterly and nominated by the journal for the Pushcart Prize. It is missing a tercet but seemed complete enough without it.―MRB



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.



Because Her Heart is Tender (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Because her heart is tender
there is hope some God might mend her, …
some small hope Fates might relent.

Because her heart is tender
mighty Angels, come defend her!
Even the Devil might repent.

Because her heart is tender
Jacob’s Ladder should descend here,
the heavens open, saints assent.

Because her heart is tender
why does the cruel world rend her?
Fix the world, or let it end here!



Villanelle: Hangovers
by Michael R. Burch

We forget that, before we were born,
our parents had “lives” of their own,
ran drunk in the streets, or half-******.

Yes, our parents had lives of their own
until we were born; then, undone,
they were buying their parents gravestones

and finding gray hairs of their own
(because we were born lacking some
of their curious habits, but soon

would certainly get them). Half-******,
we watched them dig graves of their own.
Their lives would be over too soon

for their curious habits to bloom
in us (though our children were born
nine months from that night on the town

when, punch-drunk in the streets or half-******,
we first proved we had lives of our own).



Double Trouble
by Michael R. Burch

The villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re on the bubble
of beginning to see double.

It’s like you’re on the Hubble
when the lens begins to wobble:
the villanelle is trouble.

It’s like you’re Barney Rubble
scratching itchy beer-stained stubble
because you’re seeing double.

Then your lines begin to gobble
up the good rhymes, and you hobble.
The villanelle is trouble,

just like getting sloshed in the pub’ll
begin to make you babble
because you’re seeing double.

Because the form is flubbable
and is really not that loveable,
the villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re seeing double.



Villanelle Sequence: Clandestine But Gentle
by Michael R. Burch

Variations on the villanelle. A play in four acts. The heroine wears a trench coat and her every action drips nonchalance. The “hero” is pallid, nerdish and nervous. But more than anything, he is palpably desperate with longing. Props are optional, but a streetlamp, a glowing cigarette and lots of eerie shadows should suffice.

I.

Clandestine but gentle, wrapped in night,
she eavesdropped on morose codes of my heart.
She was the secret agent of delight.

The blue spurt of her match, our signal light,
announced her presence in the shadowed court:
clandestine but gentle, cloaked in night.

Her cigarette was waved, a casual sleight,
to bid me “Come!” or tell me to depart.
She was the secret agent of delight,

like Ingrid Bergman in a trench coat, white
as death, and yet more fair and pale (but short
with me, whenever I grew wan with fright!).

II.

Clandestine but gentle, veiled in night,
she was the secret agent of delight;
she coaxed the tumblers in some cryptic rite

to make me spill my spirit.
Lovely ****!
Clandestine but gentle, veiled in night

―she waited till my tongue, untied, sang bright
but damning strange confessions in the dark...

III.

She was the secret agent of delight;
so I became her paramour. Tonight
I await her in my exile, worlds apart...

IV.

For clandestine but gentle, wrapped in night,
she is the secret agent of delight.



Villanelle: Hang Together, or Separately
by Michael R. Burch

“The first shall be last, and the last first.”

Be careful whom you don’t befriend
When hyenas mark their prey:
The odds will get even in the end.

Some “deplorables” may yet ascend
And since all dogs must have their day,
Be careful whom you don’t befriend.

When pallid elitists condescend
What does the Good Book say?
The odds will get even in the end.

Since the LORD advised us to attend
To each other along the way,
Be careful whom you don’t befriend.

But He was deserted. Friends, comprehend!
Though revilers mock and flay,
The odds will get even in the end.

Now infidels have loot to spend:
As ****** as Judas’s that day.
Be careful whom you don’t befriend:
The odds will get even in the end.

NOTE: This poem portrays a certain worldview. The poet does not share it and suspects from reading the gospels that the “real” Jesus would have sided with the infidel refugees, not Trump and his ilk.



Villanelle: The Sad Refrain
by Michael R. Burch

O, let us not repeat the sad refrain
that Christ is cruel because some innocent dies.
No, pain is good, for character comes from pain!

There’d be no growth without the hammering rain
that tests each petal’s worth. Omnipotent skies
peal, “Let us not repeat the sad refrain,

but separate burnt chaff from bountiful grain.
According to God’s plan, the weakling dies
and pain is good, for character comes from pain!

A God who’s perfect cannot bear the blame
of flawed creations, just because one dies!
So let us not repeat the sad refrain

or think to shame or stain His awesome name!
Let lightning strike the devious source of lies
that pain is bad, for character comes from pain!
Oh, let us not repeat the sad refrain!



Villanelles by Michael R. Burch

The modern formal villanelle is a poetic form with a double refrain, although in early incarnations it was simply a pastoral poem with a refrain. The villanelle is related other poetic forms with refrains, such as the rondel, the roundel and the rondeau.



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day,
with the moon―a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied―
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide...
but grew bitter, bitter―man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing―forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.
The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.
The sea was not salt the first tide...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.


'The Divide' is essentially a formal villanelle despite the non-formal line breaks.



Villanelle: Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable―our love―and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
'I love you, ' in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
'I love you, ' in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that 'love' has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
'I love you, ' in the ordinary way.

'Ordinary Love' was the winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest. It was originally published by Romantics Quarterly and nominated by the journal for the Pushcart Prize. It is missing a tercet but seemed complete enough without it.―MRB



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: 'Never Forget, '
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: 'Never Forget, '
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: 'NEVER FORGET, '
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: 'NEVER FORGET'
because her heart is tender with regret.



Villanelle: Because Her Heart is Tender (II)    
by Michael R. Burch

Because her heart is tender
there is hope some God might mend her, …
some small hope Fates might relent.

Because her heart is tender
mighty Angels, come defend her!
Even the Devil might repent.

Because her heart is tender
Jacob's Ladder should descend here,
the heavens open, saints assent.

Because her heart is tender
why does the cruel world rend her?
Fix the world, or let it end here!



Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.

Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.

And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call
the one who was everything.

That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all
for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.

And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.

No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.




Villanelle of an Opportunist
by Michael R. Burch

I'm not looking for someone to save.
A gal has to do what a gal has to do:
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

How many highways to hell must I pave
with intentions imagined, not true?
I'm not looking for someone to save.

Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave,
but a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Some praise the Lord but the Devil's my fave
because he has led me to you!
I'm not looking for someone to save.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave,
a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Every day without meds becomes a close shave
and the razor keeps tempting me too.
I'm not looking for someone to save:
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.



Villanelle: An Ode to the Divine Plan
by Michael R. Burch

This is how the Universe works:
The rich must have their perks.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.

Did T-Rexes have souls?
The poor must live on doles.
This is how the Universe works.

The rich must have their dirks
to poke serfs full of holes.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.

The despot laughs and lurks
while the Tyger slaughters foals.
This is how the Universe works.

What are the despots' goals?
The poor must mind, not shirk.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.

Trump and Putin praise the kirks
while the cowed mind ancient scrolls.
This is how the Universe works.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.



Ars Brevis
by Michael R. Burch

Better not to live, than live too long:
this is my theme, my purpose and desire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

My will to live was never all that strong.
Eternal life? Find some poor fool to hire!
Better not to live, than live too long.

Granny ******* or a flosslike thong?
The latter rock, the former feed the fire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

Let briefs be brief: the short can do no wrong,
since David slew Goliath, who stood higher.
Better not to live, than live too long.

A long recital gets a sudden gong.
Quick death’s preferred to drowning in the mire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

A wee bikini or a long sarong?
French Riviera or some dull old Shire?
Better not to live, than live too long:
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.



The vanilla-nelle
by Michael R. Burch

The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
In a chocolate world where purity is slight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

As sure as night is day and day is night,
And walruses write songs, such is my plight:
The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I’m running out of rhymes and it’s a fright
because the end’s not nearly (yet) in sight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

It’s tougher when the poet’s not too bright
And strains his brain, which only turns up “blight.”
Yes, the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I strive to seem aloof and recondite
while avoiding ancient words like “knyghte” and “flyte”
But every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

I think I’ve failed: I’m down to “zinnwaldite.”
I fear my Muse is torturing me, for spite!
For the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!
I may have accidentally invented a new poetic form, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.”



Why I Left the Right
by Michael R. Burch

I was a Reagan Republican in my youth but quickly “left” the GOP when I grokked its inherent racism, intolerance and retreat into the Dark Ages.

I fell in with the troops, but it didn’t last long:
I’m not one to march to a klanging gong.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

I’m not one to march to a klanging gong
with parrots all singing the same strange song.
I fell in with the bloops, but it didn’t last long.

These parrots all singing the same strange song
with no discernment at all between right and wrong?
“Right is wrong” became my song.

With no discernment between right and wrong,
the **** marched on in a white-robed throng.
I fell in with the rubes, but it didn’t last long.

The **** marched on in a white-robed throng,
enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

Enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs
and girls with butch hairdos, the clan klanged its gongs.
I fell in with the dupes, but it didn’t last long.
“Right is wrong” became my song.



What happened to the songs of yesterdays?
by Michael R. Burch

Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?
Has prose become its height and depth and sum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Does prose leave all nine Muses vexed and glum,
with fingers stuck in ears, till hearing’s numbed?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

Should we cut loose, drink, guzzle jugs of ***,
write prose nonstop, till Hell or Kingdom Come?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Are there no beats to which tense thumbs might thrum?
Did we outsmart ourselves and end up dumb?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

How did a feast become this measly crumb,
such noble princess end up in a slum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

I’m running out of rhymes! Please be a chum
and tell me if some Muse might spank my ***
for choosing rhyme above the painted phrase?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?



Trump’s Retribution Resolution
by Michael R. Burch

My New Year’s resolution?
I require your money and votes,
for you are my retribution.

May I offer you dark-skinned scapegoats
and bigger and deeper moats
as part of my sweet resolution?

Please consider a YUGE contribution,
a mountain of lovely C-notes,
for you are my retribution.

Revenge is our only solution,
since my critics are weasels and stoats.
Come, second my sweet resolution!

The New Year’s no time for dilution
of the anger of victimized GOATs,
when you are my retribution.

Forget the ****** Constitution!
To dictators “ideals” are footnotes.
My New Year’s resolution?
You are my retribution.



Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux are poetic forms with refrains that are related to the Villanelle.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.



Rondel: Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign,―
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.



Rondel: Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.



Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet―please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you’re far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain―
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I’ll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains!



Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
Her worth? It tests my power!
I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
For it would be a shame for me to stray
Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.



If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.



Recursion
by Michael R. Burch

In a dream I saw boys lying
under banners gaily flying
and I heard their mothers sighing
from some dark distant shore.

For I saw their sons essaying
into fields―gleeful, braying―
their bright armaments displaying;
such manly oaths they swore!

From their playfields, boys returning
full of honor’s white-hot burning
and desire’s restless yearning
sired new kids for the corps.

In a dream I saw boys dying
under banners gaily lying
and I heard their mothers crying
from some dark distant shore.



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!"

I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

... qui laetificat juventutem meam...
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
... requiescat in pace...
May she rest in peace.
... amen...
Amen.



How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast,
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



Fowles in the Frith
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!



I am of Ireland
anonymous Medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!



Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms’ to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within...
what hope of my help then?


Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the hell I will go!



Ich have y-don al myn youth
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously...
And oh what grief it has brought me!



I Sing of a Maiden
anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.
He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.
He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.
He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.
Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret...
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once again―
how rare.



Enigma
by Michael R. Burch

O, terrible angel,
bright lover and avenger,
full of whimsical light
and vile anger;
wild stranger,
seeking the solace of night,
or the danger;
pale foreigner,
alien to man, or savior...

Who are you,
seeking consolation and passion
in the same breath,
screaming for pleasure, bereft
of all articles of faith,
finding life
harsher than death?

Grieving angel,
giving more than taking,
how lucky the man
who has found in your love,
this, our reclamation;

fallen wren,
you must strive to fly
though your heart is shaken;

weary pilgrim,
you must not give up
though your feet are aching;

lonely child,
lie here still in my arms;
you must soon be waking.



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase...

now that I have forgotten her face.



The Quickening
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I never meant to love you
when I held you in my arms
promising you sagely
wise, noncommittal charms.

And I never meant to need you
when I touched your tender lips
with kisses that intrigued my own:
such kisses I had never known,
nor a heartbeat in my fingertips!



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch
after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!



Published as the collection "Villanelles"

Keywords/Tags: villanelle, refrain, repetition, chorus, rhyme, sea, tide, moon, heart, love, rondel, roundel, rondeau, poetic form, poetics, poetic expression, Chaucer, Orleans, love, art, beauty, mercy, merciless, words, heart, hearts, pity, pride, prison, mrbvill, mrbrondel
John Stevens Sep 2010
The diaper fell to the floor
assisted by a tiny hand.
A grin spread from ear to ear
“I am free and here I stand.”

Freedom is short lived it seemed
On it goes, “I must have dreamed.”

“I try so hard to be cool.”
“They said something about a stool.”

Sixteen months and training for,
The  Riviera... “I'm out the door!”
09-04-2010
Grandpa
Louise Jun 2016
A time from now, we'll put the French Riviera to shame
with the spellbinding travesty
of our *******;  

The stars that grazes the Monte Carlo sky must realize that they've never even really shined once they witness how my eyes will glisten with rapture as you taste me for the very first time.

Oh, we'll hush the musicians of Vienna with the rhythm of our moans, the terrifying yet invigorating song of your gruff voice begging for more.

As we succumb to each other's biddings, the world shall be left helpless with no other choice than to watch.
K Mar 2018
I yearn to wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread and the strong aroma of a new batch of coffee. Sat on the balcony in a quaint apartment overlooking the ocean - mug in one hand; cigarette in another - with a view that words cannot begin to comprehend. The cool salty sea breeze tousling my morning bedhead as I look to you, my heart is full - I am the luckiest girl in the world.
Absolutely cannot wait for Italy.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2020
the grovelling pig...
and the snivelling dog...

the snorkelig tabloid &
taboo of...
anything beside
the born blue: whale...

an arsenal of ****-joy words...
a much bigger
"assumption" of...
raj-stan spices...
to compete with
the 20th century arsenal
of the manhattan
project of h'america...

     and whatever the soviet
sly of empire-building
came to pass: and pass it did...

no one is celebrating...
how... pacified...
the disintegration of the soviet
"empire" took a postcard
turn in the events of history...

when the roman empire
disintegrated...
             no one is going
to go forward and bless:
how the russians played poker:
and... folded?

              to leverage in the oligarchs...
the... eternal flames of parody blues...
of avarice and that story of
yachts: tripping on...

greed is beside the l.c.d. "tripping"
chess pieces avarice...
the "insomnia" tactics of:
happy boys... shooting rich-boy
bullets at... all the more happy:
rich boy targets...

a french riviera target nuance: dulce...
deux...
       excesses of letters...
comes the grafitti with a tow
of toe-tied batman:
only val kilmer will do...

       yes... i grew up on "serious"
cinema... "serious":
i.e. "curious"... i.e. bored...
existential feats of bergman?
the magician?

    a film that would never allow
me a want to subscribe to...
reading into...
what's beside... pop culture propaganda...
not under the umbrella of the soviets...
or the historical nazis:
or...

          this time compass of:
a withstanding inconvenience of
hiatus... and hubris...
        scandinavian origins story...
                
      the red sq.... promenade... delight...
in... to fashion a hugo: who boss:
boss of who? via: hugo's who's hugo: who?
this advent of claiming...
riddles from the 20th century...
all clear: calibre...

   prior to 1945... exciting years...
and of that...
as if... waking up... from a family affair...
king edward VII:
       Bertie 12/20
                             give 'im a "sigh"
of relief... let's make that... a reasoned
fraction...
              mr. cig ar ah-rette'tsar...
                 herr 12/24...
                              herr halbzeit...
                world war I borrows...
19th century and... the insightful delight...
of the ruling elite and "******" affairs...
after 1945...

  so many years... of having to...
have... one's humor... dislodged from...
a coronation:
the republicans...
contra: the libertarians...
blah blah...

               because...
by no means... the russians were...
ploy:
Bertie the... and Tsar Nicholas...
didn't resemble clones...
               herr halbzeit... who the **** was he?
it's not so much a conspiracy theory...
it's... everyman's fiction...

  who's going to bother time well
spent: in the advent of requiring said
events to have happened...

             ****** was an ugly surname...
and how he... confiscated...
how he... rode to events like a Khan...
and usurped... nay!
hijacked! the aritocratic houses!
and they... fell... head: oh look!
no heels!
                   look!

   kopf-uber-ferse!

they're english! the fwench wish
they weren't cousins...
but the house of ßaß!
it was all a family affair!
                
                       the affair was so minded:
that poor h'america was involved...
and... how... the freed people from
the trigonometry of tyranny under
king george III... escaped...
then had to... choke cousins...
and fake cousins...
and bride themselves to...
the fire-bombing of Drezden...
etc.                         and more...              etc.

people with tattoos...
yes... those who don't mind history...
history and their amnesia project...
i have... skin clean from...
auschwitz imposed...
or that glorified ink-itch of modern times...
i have history:
my mind is tattooed...
loser loser: and a winner of what?
a tax on a car?
a road tax? a car i also own an
m.o.t.
                  i've learned to ride horses!
give me a horse!
**** your traffic car sterility:
i'm in love with the double-decker bus!
from london through to honk-*******-kong!

the 20th century can't just
become some... amnesia deposit...
history is a fake: i was supposedly...
only... "dreaming"...
          through to the Weimar Republic...
but i'm not invested in...
culminations...
in... old scores and schools of thinking:
taxing the dead... etc.

                i drink when i truly enjoy writing...
and... imagine... that i do:
imagine writing for a newspaper...
writing as a chore...
that has to be necessarily...
an artifact of sobriety and...
journalistic integrity... mmmpphhhghh...
sorry...
   journalistic integrity?
apart from a war or... ***** dealings
when all the culprits have had
their feet washed by a:
jesus christ look-alike...
    a... idi amin... retired in saudi arabia?

one could say... since i was born
at the end of "it": that i was... have been...
hijacked by the 20th century...
to write... a parody... epitaph...
someone has exacted me...
to write... an exit... wording...

perhaps because... there's still that
20th century immediacy...
all the other centuries... could...
not celebrate...
they could march on... into...
a dream-esque satirical state of progress...
perhaps they did dream...
while we're struck by the insomnia
invented by the 20th century...
well... the 19th...

when Prometheus...
            Frankenstein: fire! bad! ugh!
when Prometheus...
               when Promotheus...
St. Peter would love to entertain
the thriced acknowledged...
thus: no denial...
      Michael Faraday...
   or that lightbulb men-struosity...
     Edison...

   to clone a sheep...
        the perfected beijing-valkyrie
of the genetically perfect:
zero acne... blah blah...
               but a clone: clone?
   trouble that...
if not soul: then autonomy...
clone to pet?
ah... clone to pet... ah... ha ha! ah ha ha!
a clone to pet!
answers: the clone's self-determining
autonomy: alias: S.D.A.
        eh... it's missing a letter...
let's just keep it as "soul" for the minors...

ah ha ha: giggles oh my! the furore from
pandemonium!
the idea so lodged in the inferno...
the last time anyone heard just
laughter... was when...
****** was first... "investigated"...
in-ves-ti-ga-ted... gay-ted...
see: missing letters... somewhat...

and yes... there is... the closest approximate
of... flying lizards...
of... turtles out-living...
   beside what could be...
contrived... exoskeleton mush of muscles
and brains...
magpies...
of all the birds... magpies...
the closest akin... lizard folk...
to descend from "angels"...

   magpies are like... the cinema
depicted... velociraptors...
   magpies are the modern velociraptors...
the crows can croak their odin *******
off all they want...
the woodland pigeons do their...
whatever striptease echo coo... coo...

magpies... for me... magpies are...
the heirs of the velociraptor...
proof?! ah ha ha! proof?!
what proof is there that...
an asteroid... hit the earth...
and wiped out the dinosaurs?!
i haven't seen any "proof"...
  i've just heard... an undeniable fiction....
supported by science...
so here's mine!
the magpie descended from the velociraptor!
have you even... heard the magpie...
the variation of its communications
vocab?
it's prehistoric! compared to other birds!
even in the words of humans:
they are... conflated with:
gypsy-mythology:
that they... seek silver...
anything shiny...

           intelligence is a curse...
what proof is there that a meteor wiped
out the dinosaurs?!
what's history like in the hands
of man...
with active negation:
i.e. "the holocaust didn't happen"...
let's write our own:
play dough history...

the magpie is a direct descendent of
the velociraptor...
somehow the d.n.a. survived the meteor crash...
the turtle is still here...
the birds: still are...
the jelly-brain pickle of the great t-rex:
the serpent is still wriggling away...
but i ask: what proof:
what greast... undiscovered crater?!
the Mariana trench?
there's? big squid **** and all range
of car-boot sale *******?!
there?

                 a statue of shiva too:
snorkeling... to boot?!
    i've been alone and "lonely" enough...
of all the common birds...
the magpies... the magpies...
the "teutons" of the skies...
the velociraptors...
                  you've heard the seagulls...
you've heard the crows...
you've entertained the sparrows...
the woodland pigeons...
the robins remained mute...
the kestrels remained mute...
the magpies were the most vocal...
and when vocal... at most: in variation...

velociraptors...

yes... this is "history"... it's "history"...
with journalism and... "journalism"....
              last time i heard...
a louis XIV made it into the t.v. with...
a sidekick show of Versailles...
eh... Phillip II Augustus...
    "perhaps"... just "perhaps"...
           the lion in winter... who the ****
ever happens to remember a historical
excavation fetish from 1968?!
it was only a ******* cameo!

not for the actor... the capetian!
ABHAY SONINGRA Mar 2018
When I look at you
and your hundred photographs
with some smiles saying cheese
while you are busy making some material memories.

You tend a click a shooting star
or perhaps a new born flower.
You capture the reindeer
and get a video of a someone drinking beer.
Those likes that please
and the validations that they give.
Is it really what matters ?

Would you still click the riviera
instead of lying on the grass ?
or would you take a moment to breath
or post just another smiley ?
Its a never ending cycle.

Communication through light
and distantly distant on the inside
You still don't bother
and still request more friendships.

Do you still long for those hugs and
that little chemistry.
Do you still wish to hold hands
or the ups in your heartbeats.

I still wait for a whisper,
telling me that you love me.
I wish to wake up besides you
and not for a beep.
But there’s you
and your Fake Dopamine.
What is happiness? What are we running for? What are we running away from?
brandychanning Jul 2023
near three years, nearer to eclipses,
since last scribed here, been there
been loved, mistreated, done my share
of giving beatings, for the deserving,
never been any body’s biatch, no starting
now=ever.

men look at me, their eyes self-seducing,
a crook(ed) finger never summoned me
or any self respecting woman of valor,
with a full fist of words, a tongue sharper
than a deli slicer, if looks can ****, then
left my fair share of men on the Riviera,
the Hamptons, the Gold Coast, uptown
and way downtown where the cool kids
pretend play @ being prey hunting grownups.

ya, hear your thinking and it’s stinking,
my generated magno-electric vibes that’s
to blame, get this kids! never your fault
being whom you the actual F are, it’s their filters
that ***** their vision, their desires unbidden,
casual dispensed, thinking glory is theirs to share.

my road is not broken, there are signs even I spot,
when the man I crave is nearby, whose calm is not
couched cool, who doesn’t wear his possessions on
his sleeve, one who says adventure, yes, let’s go,
never saying when, for the only when is what both crave,
the loving of immediacy of “right now,” and add
to that pithy, my name, Brandy, acknowledging it’s
me, just me, he addresses and not some vision that
was crafted by others into an ideal,  and ‘because’ is
not sufficient but the perfect rationale, to trust what
your absent father called your “finely tuned instincts for
human finery, humans who eclipse ordinary stars

tread May 2011
I call this one the limbo week,
Where everything lies on the verge, on the peak
of an outbreak of sorts; the end of an era,
Staring out towards the French Riviera,
Still waiting.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
I WAS! DESIGNED! IN CALIFORNIA!
MANUFACTURED IN CHINA!
I WAS! DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA!
MANUFACTURED IN CHINA...
that's all the U.S.A. seems to be,
an advertising conglomerate,
oink oink it's like three blind men
and Donald Trump:
one touched his egoistic *******
impression and said it was the Mississippi
mud-hole Riviera,
another touched his overweight cheeks
and started to chuckle while calling *******
a bulldog salivating with the cheeks
choke on chuckles you chimpanzee:
chuck chuck, whatever onomatopoeia
five cents spare...
and the last blind mind touched the
over-comb quiff... and he said: by god!
the wind hairstyling grass!
while the Russians sold off Alaska historically,
and are selling bits of ****-hole Siberia
bit by bit to the Chinese,
evolutionary implementation
of Pan-Eskimo...
you need eyes like slits akin with excess
camel eye-lashes to survive the cold...
like i told you, Russia will end up shrinking
into a border enclosure limited to
starting between Belarus (the ******* Tsarist **** bags)
the Baltic states and Ukraine and ending at the Urals.
alaya Jan 2014
i have always thought that
i was beautiful, but i never
took it seriously until you
started looking at my skin
like it is made up of the
brown and gold paint strokes
on a Diego Riviera portrait.
you are a lovely, imperfect
conglomerate of atoms
ever changing, in my eyes
you are the big bang.
and i've always hated the
idea of becoming someone
who wishes to control the universe
but you've made me this way.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
i’ve learned all my trickling tricks of puppeteering from philip augustus of france early on in my schooling, richard the lionheart never came close, i was in similitude with philip augustus, that i even bought jim bradbury’s book to read and essay with.*

never become the alcoholic that denies his alcoholism,
you can’t hide an addiction, better embrace it,
when addiction enters the stage as the acted upon acting
there’s no point hiding it,
enter the realm of the full embrace, hiding it will only make it worse
than it actually is, i embraced it, and i think
the piggish commons are getting their tax payers’ money’s worth
with my poems, if you think otherwise... you stand
happy-idle at the supermarket check-out and tell me
the football scores from the big weekend
when a northern monkey team took a thrashing
from a southern fairy team.
the question is different thought - forget the beginning and end
planned - we already have the diapers and the coffin,
make what the middle ought to be, clueless narration, spontaneity,
off the streak of the river currents not expecting change
but having to accept change...
michael greilsammer’s la ville blanche
cream’s white room
or cat stevens’ into white?
none of them... moody blues’ nights in white satin...
but a funny emerged from trying to sing greilsammer’s la ville blanche,
i speak no french,
and in my mumble i managed to see the other imagination,
the skeletal one, not the technicolor one of images and walt
and the housewives sleeping beauty and snow white
(although i appreciate the other walt, the whitman),
i mean, through my “un-imaginative” mumbles i tried
to skewer the words of the song, i couldn’t,
i could usher in a single perfect word
but beyond this i was trying to imagine the god awful spelling excesses
of the french tongue... i mean bordeaux when you only say bore’s door /
boarded up door - no x oh... xylophone, yes, no? no...
oh no wonder dyslexia and spelling mistakes...
these letterings are phonetic approximates,
anyone can make the visuals complicated
and retain power... but few to own up and say:
1 + 1 = 2, but the priestly order said: e + ' = é
as jumpstart ready on the trampoline... but e + ' = è
means you get a sudden attack of the mute & mime.
that’s what happens with a missing diacritic that’s blatant in english,
you get to spell a french word like bordeaux with a zed and look at it and qualify
the tongue to say: yep, bored door... needs oiling... oil up oil up!
then spontaneously play a harp of unconscious snorkelling
(also known as snoring... boor hiccup shush... bore hiccup sheen):
it’s the last stronghold of the imagination, this invested in english
from mother tongue slavic... it’s like trying to sing to a song
without spelling glaring at you...
so you start imagining this blessed primitivity...snakes and matchsticks
to flare up... turn it all into a 1970s disco...
it makes sense to mumble then... for ****’s sake... bordeaux?!
who adds so many letters in between definite lettered sounds
to make it look more uglier than the pretty riviera? huh?!
monaco? oh... well that explains it: why vaduz (capital of liechtenstein)
doesn’t have a grand prix.
Dara Brown Dec 2014
if a kiss is worth a thousand words
then with you,
i could talk all night/
converse bilingually/ fluently
we could discuss
the french riviera in spring time
& how lovers stroll through the park
singing/ a clair d’lune
or
you could be don juan
under a window enveloped
in flowers of red/ serenade me
with your spanish tounge
& sweet smile
while the mariachi band plays
amor/   but
if a kiss is really worth
a thousand words
then we could talk
in a language of our own
cause your lips
seem to understand mine/
talking to me/  softly touching
/smoothly matching
like a missing link
making a conversation with you
worthwhile
where words are never wasted
but always well spoken
& unrehearsed/

i like the way you speak to me
black man
so come to me
with your lips
so eloquent & full/
tell me your dreams
whisper me your secrets
in a mellow tone of kisses/
come/
i am listening
& with a kiss
i will answer
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2016
a gentleman never drinks in the morning,
he begins drinking in a well-established afternoon
hour, preferably after sartre's hour (3pm),
after much of the day's beehive activity is
finished.

woke at a glorious hour of the morn's sun,
crisp wintry shades and contortions all around,
started to make a swedish meatball recipe:
meatballs (d'uh),
garlic, onion, bay leaf, a pinch of salt,
peppercorns, ground all-spice,
grated nutmeg, milk (eye-measurement),
beef stock (half a litre of water), mushrooms,
quarter of a glass of plain flour, the herb dill,
and as before: like reading a book of fiction -
watching the "plot" thicken,
although almost poured down the toilet
after a panic over the addition of flour
turning into fudge bergs, but obviously
cooking requires time for the things to fuse
into one... now i remember why i enjoy
cooking as much as organic chemistry experiments,
same ****, different cover.
then i wasted the time... until i made myself
a sharpshooter (mix of whiskey and coca cola,
although the ratio of whiskey winning over
the cola, hence the sharpness distinct) -
blimey, i have to invent a new drinking vocabulary,
like this one time i was alone (as is usual for me)
at liverpool st. in a pub, got talking to
this half-irish-half-iranian kid,
waiting for his girlfriend that never came,
he was bouncing off the walls at the embarrassing
situation:
- so where you from?
- essex, unfortunately.
(blah blah blah)
- no, but where are you from originally?
(a standard line of dialogue in london,
a. where you from? b. no, but originally?
c. where are your parents from?
****** me off, all the ****** time)
- well... some people tell me i look like a german.
then i was saved from the dreary conversation
by a couple, a black guy and ivory skin brunette.
- what you drinking?
- *** and coke.
- ah that's a **** name for a drink
(itemising the visage, black beard)
black-beard! *** ** ** and a sailor too.
the window open, the windowsill perched on,
sharpshooter in my hand, listening to zero7's
when it falls... a day pocketed;
but while making svenska kottbullar
i was listening to metronomy's the english riviera,
and with the song *the look
i couldn't
stop comparing it to taylor swift's shake it off,
i don't mind, the stand-out track is still she wants;
but i'm still annoyed by one pedantic detail
i have to... SHOUT ON THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN!
i get the greek aesthetic orthographic meddle
between omicron and omega, the sigma
at the end and in between letters of a word...
i get that... but why, did, they, have, to... make
upsilon (υ) and nu (ν)... so annoyingly similar,
esp. when italicised! huh?!
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
three ante-chambers and then the bedroom, a valet rather than my wife sleeping in the same room as me... if this is a will to power, i'd rather see the Sunday menu of: a will to whatever's on offer, other than hereditary genetics... mind you, 20th century anti-hereditary genetics seemed like quite fun, all that eugenic stuff... i love the byproducts that came with that, weaklings to be sure, missing horse and engaged tractor, celeb culture and the next Raphael pickling a hammer-shark sidelined with Warhol's quote: knock knock - ah cheap, i know, but when wasn't sarcasm ever?

the famoud *will to power
is a fable, there are too few words
in between will and power, since both are rather antonymous
in application, the argument -
the will to power is a state of anonymity
rather than a dualism,
in Versailles Louis XIV questions himself
as both man and king, and the god appointed;
instead of duality there's an anonymity,
a permanent height outreaching / out-qualifying
the jumper, all pampers and demure,
the mirror circus of poses that Louis XIV
was compared to his brother
gauging out an eye of a laughing man in
a role of a Kafka play the nobles thirsted for
and slyly forgot - there was once a prancing
lady of France, who donned the title
as the king of France, but was overshadowed by
his ****-******* brother; there are indeed
Arabia in the King to quench Africa,
but not enough to go further, with his philandering
******* boyishness to succumb to the womanising
artefact with brotherly jest as with a woman's
care for an up-kept boudoir... of matching stockings
and his matching socks
: never mind the places
cut first on the gauges of fear of the guillotine
with the eyes turning all Newtonian searching
for the next cake - the roles we keep are not the
identities we express, keeping the militant
populace ignorant and ourselves kept by
the labyrinth sexed-up, keeping one pronoun
a wall of denoted king and the rest
a scramble which, whoever, we wish to choose -
as ever, preferring a woman...
well i preferred animals, how's that for an argument
from *****? oh wait, that's an argument from Eden...
ooh choo choo the pick-up truck never picked up steam,
the democracy of nobles overtook the notion
of king as the psychiatric, philosophical rigidity
overtook the notion of ego...
well, weeners and winners here and there,
like salt and pepper... mm, push it! push it real
good!
wait a minute, i thought that aristocracy kept
Paris and subsequent Parisian a folded model ready for
corruption with adequate vices?
when Communism came about the aristocracy was replaced
with intelligentsia - the urban version of what was once
property owning now replaced with idea owning -
it all gets a bit murky here, i write with a more detached
defacement in mind onto a head of a donkey to reveal
the saintly cranium, but never mind the joke,
there's still the papal yoke to keep us curbed, after all,
the best ****** travel to home to sing: love live papa,
love like papa.
it just got me thinking, this obscure cannibal of
aristocracy could scare the king, no wonder the king
in chess is just an extension of pawns, while the queen
is an extension of rook, knight, bishop -
reductionist Darwinism uncovered more than
Darwinism per se, we were originally reduced to insects,
revolving past that and encouraging us to exhibit
mammalian tendencies made us into being unable to
choose which monkey was worthwhile to have originated from;
but still the black widow, the mantis -
female reductions took her beyond mammals,
into pre-reptiles,
male reductions took him into pure mammal,
we're both running treadmills now though,
we're both rodents, hamsters, ha ha, it's funny how
equilibrium works, there's two opposites, both need
to be pacified, no trans-gender changes will actually
objectify or personify, it'll just the other more even and the
other mode off / left in / left out.
you never ask so much about art, you just say
the magic Sesame words of Ali-Baba 'i don't get it'
and it opens, but then you suddenly want poetry to read like
chemistry, what a ******* oddity, and say the words
'i get it', but all that opens is a can of tuna, wooh!
what a ******* stink. imagine these words unlike what
you'd might use buying a pint of beer at a pub,
grow up, you hit puberty with fifty shades of grey,
bestsellers this century, the last, Don Quixote...
believe me, these words will be around for not that long,
soon ingested by what the already aristocracy isn't,
modern aristocracy are mere inheritors, spongers,
they overslept the mark of complicated phonetic encoding
being exhausted, hence the dissociation with politics,
the apathy of the former lusts for war -
granny can write a tweet, but granny can't write an app.,
never mind if it's Buckingham Palace or
the French Riviera mansion... Party Harry gives less ****
than the red squirrels when the grey Canadian squirrels
were introduced, and the next Prince of Wales
is wondering: did i really need to waste 20 minutes of my
life watching Head & Shoulders' adverts?!
Mike Hauser Nov 2014
Since I've started carrying a Green Screen
With me everywhere I go
I've started seeing more action
Than I ever could possibly have known

If I find myself in a hurry
I just dawn my cape
Set the screen to the sky and fly
As the Man of Steel no worry unless I Green Screen Kryptonite

Now instead of going to the Office
I set up the Office in back of me
In the corner with a view a hot secretary or two
And a Boss that thinks the world of me

Whenever I need a vacation
I just push on this button right here
Whatever my mood to what spots I include
Could be the Swiss Alps or even The Riviera

And when I go out for a night on the town
In the comfort of my home
I make sure that the screen shows a lot of people with me
So that I never am alone

Yes, since I started carrying this Green Screen
With me everywhere I go
I've started seeing more action
Than I could ever possibly have known
Jonny Angel Aug 2014
I never promised you
a million dollar home
with a Porsche
in the pavered driveway,
a huge closet full
of glittery Versace gowns
or cases of Dom Perignon.
I never said
I'd give you
three trips a year
to the Italian,
let alone the French Riviera.
Isn't one Prada handbag enough,
why do you have to have four?
I know I promised you
my loving heart,
which I tried to delivered.
But you whispered
when you left,
I wasn't good enough
to deliver
the goods you really wanted.
So long,
keep your Miss Dior,
*****.
Michael Apr 2013
she stands in front of me wailing inside; statuesque, freckled, sad smile, whimsical face, hard to describe. there was a subtle depth in her aura.
says, "i've given up on my life taking any faerie tale turn."

at those words,
i wanted to be everything to her.
i wished for the passion of romeo, the charm of casanova, and the beauty of dorian gray.
if only
to take her on a ride through the back streets of naples,
to traipse about the galleries of the louve,
to sleep on the sands of a riviera,
to love under a thousand magical moons.
but with my heart in my throat, I could say nothing.

in that moment, her eyes gleaming at mine, a sadness unveiled itself.
this doubt enshrouded in her crimson locks;
wanting so much of the unknown, but always staying with what is sure.
sixteen years old-
already bought and sold.
MCKNZ May 2015
I want to dance under the Northern Stars,
and harmonize with the birds in Rio.

I want to taste wine on the shores of the Riviera,
and swing from the trees in the Amazon.

I want to walk the beaches under the African setting sun,
and swim with the fish off the Coral Reefs,

I want to reunite my soul with where it has been,
before it was within me.
Anderson Ritchie Feb 2012
Walking through a dim lit street,
recent rains pleasant stench lurks in puddles,
and the puddles, which reflected softest starlight,
the odd cars steady rumble as it passes,
the softening heart in the loneliness,
that when he leant upon the sandstone balustrade,
delicately ornate along the rivers edge,
and watching the canal boats drift on by,
as did time.
he in his depth and solitude, pondered
all his steps, wondering which step was wrong or simply,
out of place.
He had lost that which he had placed the
most value, and sadly it beat him down.
Tho' the starlit riviera, of this damp town,
was a quick relief to his aching
heart, which were torn asunder,
from a ill-thought blunder.
Oh well he thinks, as he walks down the lengthy path,
beside the starlit reflective river.
Ryan O'Leary Feb 2019
Don't stop now, Ireland is
just beginning to warm up.

Imagine, an Irish Riviera,
a Costa Brava, an Algarve.

Olives, Cotton, Oranges,  all
thanks to carbon emissions.

Don't stop now, it is a form
of weather discrimination.

Welcome to Ulster where the
red hand of Lucifer awaits you.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
you will only convert them by desecrating their alphabets, you will only convert them by plucking out their eyes, and inserting arabic Braille to touch... but given their alphabet created computerised encoding, programming, due to the many holes in their phonetic optometry recognition; you will only convert them by desecrating their alphabets - teaching them the odd protruding arabic word will not due... even those who claim the faith do not speak arabic fluently: thus endorse reaching to those who have protruding arabic in them, but speak with an east london bad boy boy'o wannabe gansta' style - recruit here your obedient servants.

only among the many can a real chance, chance fleeting
become noted to a lake turning into mirror for
Narcissus at night by the gleering bluish moon of winter -
as if my heart, a heart of a poet was to be entombed in Iran -
and indeed i ran and ran to that tomb of poets -
hence their protest at the Surah damning the poets
(ash-shu'ara),
a proud ***** of the poets that
Iran is... well... it says the many -
and indeed with the many
the few can truly protest for the many,
for the few must accept the
protest of the many as a sign
that there's a different route to be taken,
not the whimsical route of undoing
any chance practice of the skeleton
and the tendon strings attaching it
to godly muscular - a funnel of activity -
indeed the damnation of the poets
therein, and my identification as one,
brings the weight upon me as if
were to identify with all and defend all
who profess such an occupation -
minding that the profession bring
the rewards akin to banking, or cheap
smear novel writing - who would not
dare to think, in abode of their
comforts that - *one day poverty
-
over the past year or so, i have not received
a single letter being pushed through my
door - it's as if already the ridiculing
violins are playing - and as of this being
a 2nd critique of the western practice of
writing haiku - they're too enshrined in
the everyday - no chance - no drunk chinese
sage receiving a haiku with tear or
laughter - and here the sense of impeding
criticism, as Ezra warned at the end of
LXXXI
            'what thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
             first came the seen, then thus the palpable
             the ant's a centaur in his dragon world.
             pull down thy vanity, it is not man made courage,
             or made order, or made grace, pull down thy vanity!'

and indeed, what of Iblees? is that not god in reverse?
who made the previous world, known to us now,
this quote in the Surah al-hijr, about a fire which
wished not to become prostrated before the new creation,
after having suddenly revolved around not crafting
an asteroid belt to prevent future mishaps -
that this quote in al-hijr is the intelligence of the elders,
the former inhabitants - who's descendent remnants
still haunt our world - the slithering abstract of limbs,
the lizard spine - the i remember when rock was young,
me and suzie had so much fun, holding hands and
skimming stones, had an old gold chevy and a place
of my own but the biggest kick i ever got
was doing a thing called the crocodile rock
-
well at least he didn't do the blatant Liberace to elder
gems for a fur coat & chandelier - social mobility of
third party parenting laws came in - in france a law was
passed criminalising pundits of prostitutes...
the prostitutes came out in protest...
while the upper tier 9 month surrogate prostitutes
just laughed - so yeah... the inversion of some sort -
with that quote about the dinosaurs being the highest
creative product of god, the universe, whatever...
after all, life's just: one bunch of *******, telling another
bunch of ******* - 'we've got all the ***** and had
threesomes and ******' - my my, let's applaud
for our mutual embarrassment of the 2:1 ratio
of women to men living out a life of grizzly bear mothers
in little ****-holes on the English Riviera, like Clacton,
or Southend.
Ivan Diaz Jan 2018
From the Eiffel tower
to the french riviera
The louvre where the
Mona Lisa hangs
Time for a ride down
the  seine river where
our love drains
Robin Carretti Dec 2016
Were praying hand’s never giving up.
Getting frustrated & fed up.
Universal World speed of lightning mystery game.
My own known existence up in flame's?

Past not so perfect what’s in every body’s treasure.
Unknown chair darken's my pleasure.
Rumor has it to the very end of the game Scramble.

It what we all experience,no helping hands to connect too

Move be quick show your assets.
Be the leader in charge.
All the bets in the world could change.
It could B something special or just plain nothing,
That unknown chair could take you everywhere?

Journey leads  you in the middle of nowhere
All we are saying is give  peace a chance.
Thing's are looking better in the Riviera
of France..

All these unknown signs violating ones.
People are strange
the door  bell tone's You wanting to be alone
Sitting in your chair, feeling like a misfit.
His Power mind of his suit madly
Taking his hand gladly.

Putting the one piece, right, comfort spot.
what’s in your alphabet, Soupy Sale's, hot

of letters S secluded.
Journey spiritual, awakening, overrated, lady with  
simplest word, turned into wrong word. Marriage
you got separated.

S for smile loving your journey picking out the artifacts
biblical treasures don’t fit religiously.

to your chair or intellectual full of adventure, exotic world.

Charka healing feels the vibrations through another person

Connection you feel desirable in your seat
You planned it well, on your mission.

You know what to expect people bud in to interject.
Being right or wrong you go left his grin he smiled
uniquely you drift.

Somewhere under the rainbow, bad dealt hand Alfred Hitchcock journey demon suspense?Flying Raven Unknown  bird's needing
Spiritual cleansing rinse.

Electric Darth chair danger  force is not with you.
Watch out chair

Home got demolished  it went underground.You needed
2 buy new chair more polished.

Mysterious hit man wants a ransom, that chair heirloom.
Wanting to sit out beachfront, exotic flower's bloom.

Leads you to undesirable world, unknown love seat.

Or someone else sitting in the chair it look like a accident lady killer chair.

Priceless lesson, what vengeance, people have something sounds tempting but beware?

The chair with expectation looking straight in your future
Are you losing time new player, wanting to serve your best blend,
of Coffee he loves to talk  He's a free loader He turn's on  you with a gun he's a mobster.

Torture smile comes back to you devilish grin she tricks you The chair was her weapon, she threw it back at you.
Thomas R Parsons Apr 2013
When you were here,
way back when,
I loved you.
You were distant,
always distant.
And yet, I loved you.
But now, silence.
Ten years have passed,
Eleven since I last saw you.
You came to my house, remember?
You felt the finality as much as I did.
We both knew it would be the last time.
You had a cane.
Your clothes hung on you like rags.
Your face was gray and gaunt.
I have your Cleveland Indians hat that you wore that day.
As you left, you stumbled.
Conscious of the fact that I was watching you.
And I was.
Frail and weak.
Yet, you wanted to see me.
You pulled away in your Buick Riviera.
I cried.
Our time together, tumultuous.
But you were in your prime then.
Full of life and red of face.
Smooth and calculated.
Bold.
But then, the flame flickered,
the candle melted.
The pineapple meaning "welcome" on your front door,
seemed to be lying.
I made choices.
To protect myself.
Because I couldn't watch you **** yourself.
I couldn't beg you to get help any more.
I was angry.
Angry that love wasn't enough.
I'd always heard it was.
It wasn't.
I miss you.
You were the best and the worst of my life.
I live daily remembering you.
You gave me no choice.
What a gift to give!
I wish you'd never given such a vile present.
"Is it o.k. to go to Heaven now?"
Sure.
Go.
Maybe I'll see you there.
A reproof of scarlet riviera  
darken its seance that acclaim unforetold entrance
of lactose hence virtual lecture,
edifice with preponderance in guidance if hesitation
ready hinders them entertained by inordinate *** and
whether garish is gruesome for glutenesque and
intricately hard to maintain as their distraction is subliminal
that pain is debilitating and overwhelming in modern lifestyle.

— The End —