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In Rome on the Campo di Fiori
Baskets of olives and lemons,
Cobbles spattered with wine
And the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
With rose-pink fish;
Armfuls of dark grapes
Heaped on peach-down.

On this same square
They burned Giordano Bruno.
Henchmen kindled the pyre
Close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
The taverns were full again,
Baskets of olives and lemons
Again on the vendors' shoulders.

I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
In Warsaw by the sky-carousel
One clear spring evening
To the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
The salvos from the ghetto wall,
And couples were flying
High in the cloudless sky.

At times wind from the burning
Would driff dark kites along
And riders on the carousel
Caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
Blew open the skirts of the girls
And the crowds were laughing
On that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.

Someone will read as moral
That the people of Rome or Warsaw
Haggle, laugh, make love
As they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
Of the passing of things human,
Of the oblivion
Born before the flames have died.

But that day I thought only
Of the loneliness of the dying,
Of how, when Giordano
Climbed to his burning
There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.

Already they were back at their wine
Or peddled their white starfish,
Baskets of olives and lemons
They had shouldered to the fair,
And he already distanced
As if centuries had passed
While they paused just a moment
For his flying in the fire.

Those dying here, the lonely
Forgotten by the world,
Our tongue becomes for them
The language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
And many years have passed,
On a great Campo dci Fiori
Rage will kindle at a poet's word.
Marshal Gebbie Apr 2013
Preamble at the showdown the fighters eye to eye
Droning pulse of discourse from the referee is dry,
Bouncing back to my corner the butterflies take charge
For the other guy’s a monster, like a Doberman at large.

Bell resounds alarmingly, I shuffle forth to meet
A combination thrown with steel…it whacks me off my feet.
Seeing stars I resurrect to lurch about the ring
To try to keep some distance from the monster’s punching sting.

Roaring crowd are baying now they call to take me out
The Doberman is grinning for he reckons it’s a route,
The flashing light confusing, the noise a steady din
As the monster comes in quickly to achieve expected win.

Throwing jabs to keep him back, retreating to the rope
I cover up with everything to give myself some hope
He pounds with his salvos they hammer hard and fast
His breathing rasping in my ears I pray to God I last.

Saved by the bell and cold water, such disgrace
The crowd are loudly booing, I’ve not put leather on his face,
A wash of resolution hotly surges from within
So I **** the mouth guard back and rush on out to tackle him.

Defensive expectations had him open up his chin
So I feinted with a left and launched a mighty right with spin,
Boring in with fury and a combination score
I hit him with an uppercut which traversed from the floor.

Miraculously the eyeballs rolled and disappeared from sight
I threw another flurry…but had no one to fight
Flat out on the deck he lay, the Doberman was out
As I bounced around like Rocky to the punters frenzied shout.

Camera flashes blinded as the raving crowd went wild.
It defied all expectations, I was the sacrificial child.
Bets were laid that I would fall within a round or two
The screaming din reflected that all bets were in the poo.

The countdown took forever and I swear I watched each stroke
And kept one eye on the fallen, should he rise he’d go for broke,
My amazement with two wobbly knees and heaving lungs of fire
When my leaden glove was held aloft to victory entire.

Winners come and winners go but this I’ll not forget
When fortune favoured sweetly…and I collected on the bet!


Marshalg
My thanks to Shane Cameron…a real fighter.
14 April 2013 (Pukehana Paradise)

© 2013 Marshal Gebbie
Andrew Fieler Apr 2014
Crushes always start of small and quiet.
Lovers muse of the spark from that first kiss.
The wild, untamed feelings cause a riot.
Salvos of love heard from heavens to abyss.

Love is tame like a zephyr through the trees.
Love radiates more than the sun in June.
The pod of love subsumes only two peas,
And over time, love will always prune.

Love is within a fine ring of crystal.
Love can be found amongst a lowly bar.
Real love can't start in front of a pistol,
But maybe by the strum of a guitar.

At the end of life, heartthrobs have brooded:
That true love can never be concluded.
Ian C Prescott Aug 2011
She sat contained in the all-encompassing embrace
His arms a welcome warmth
as they sat under the smoldering fires of dead days past
They drank and spoke wildly as sanguine freely flowed forth from the glass
As it swirled upon the inside of their mouths
Puckering stained puce lips and drawing mandalas in the clouds
Rich with color and endless ingenuity as the tall grass softly swayed
Carrying music to their ears
From time to time exchanging glances
Witnessing the last salvos burst in the dusk
Heralding daybreak

She knew there with the breath of dawn caressing her face laying against the heaving of his heart that she would never see him again
softcomponent Feb 2018
Far too often the past few years I've felt as if I were C3PO dragging my robot-feet through the parched, endless dunes of the Tatooine deserts in the opening salvos to A New Hope.

"Oh R2, it seems be our lot in life to suffer."

The past 2 years, though it would be impossible to say each and every contiguous moment was terrible, has, in the aggregate evaluation of retrospect, been the worst 2 of my life so far. Two good friends have lapsed into the realm of death as a result of drug overdoses, I've slogged through episodic epilepsy which has precipitated a full return of my anxiety and major depressive disorder, seen the end of the longest relationship I've ever been in after 3 and a half years following which my ex-girlfriend (probably legally a civil-union 'spouse' by the point of departure) immediately leap-frogged into the newly committed arms of someone I thought to be a best friend less than 2 weeks after our termination as a couple, my compression-of-self to manically pursue academic ends, some of which would never reach fruition regardless of my best efforts, Donald Trump's election to the highest office of political authority in the United States and all that is contingent on this terribly seminal event, my manifest inability to accept that I am perhaps affected heavier by the loss of these two said friends than I often actively feel myself to be within any given moment, aaannnd.... where has it all lead?

This is perhaps the $64,000 question. I feel it is most certainly the reason I write today.

I have been, on many levels, classically defeated by forces of life known to human experience since the beginning of time. I am emotionally, intellectually, and physiologically exhausted.
I desire nothing more than the ability to take a period of hiatus, to retreat and regroup for a few months, let all bleed to paper, a catharsis permitted as energy levels allow. But I'm afraid because I don't have the money to support such a retreat despite my knowing exactly what I need. Rent will still rear its ugly head to guillotine my unprepared neck and truly substantiate a hard, physical contrast between the 'body' and 'mind.' This being said, it is only the dissonant forces of economy which maintain this illusion as a practical necessity.

If economy can't let go of me so I can let my soul soar to express, I often begin to contemplate yet again the only third option between a rock and a hard place: that of suicide, the ultimate and final release. The 'greatest' final "Great Escape."

Just let me go, or I'll do it for me.

Please, convention. Give me the space I need. Because I know, I know, I know I need it.
Written early November 2017.
DAVID Jun 2018
Una gota de rocio
Una caricia de lascivia

Dos cuerpos unidos,
Enlazados y conectados

Perdidos en el otro,
En una danza secreta
E intima

La concrecion del deseo,
Sin ataduras, ni espacios
Para el ego

Juntos en la Unión sacra
Y perfecta, dos mitades
De un puzzle cosmico

Llegando a puerto
Sanos y salvos, el
triunfo de la verdad

La HERMOSA  consecuencia
De la pasion, y la dulce
recompensa de tus labios

Un pedazo del cielo es
yacer en tus brazos

Y tú cuerpo, sobre
El mio, alcanzando la
Gloria

Mientras bajo tu cuerpo
Descanzo yo y mi
Alma serenos

Absorto y perdido
En la dulzura de
Tu cuerpo

Y una caricia de lascivia
De mis dedos en ti

Y tu reaccion HERMOSA
es la gloria para mi

Y la musica d tus labios
Es cancion divina

Y la caricia lasciva
Y el eco de tus ojos

Resuena al despertar
Como tu respiración
En mi oido

Yacer a tu lado, perdido
En tus brazos de alabastro

Y tus labios de rubi,
mientras tu alma brilla

De placer y verdades
Y el deseo que nos une

Perdido en tus brazos de
alabastro, quizas fui
Hallado.
Hour of terse movement and ambiguity
Gales rushing to secure their invisible voids
Anchored Goliaths pressure their manacles in turbulent , leaf -
revealed vortices , white feather cirrus highlight the blue crown of
Mother Earth as Elven cool day chant and witchcraft mock
the dying salvos of Lord Summer* ..
Copyright October 2 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2019
.hey, so much for jack kerourac's on the road... but i have found this most pristine tour-guide... as that h'american hobo... "7 years later" duping the tourists down in Amsterdam... h'american... what else? well it's hardly the Nepal you were looking for... or those grand sand of Arabia with a Lawrence: better suited for a... what do "we" call them? androids... david... citing: the trick is: not minding that it hurts... stoicism or some otherwise weathered down, other... point of (a) queue? and yes... red hot chilli pepper's song: warm tape... off the album... i forget... is underrated... in between the salvos of... those lyrics based around a "narrative"... but when the chorus comes in? melted butter in a thick spludge of crème fraîche.... yes... i want to love like a john frusciante... but i know i never will... i see too much economics to: "bed the pardon"... ****... "beg" the the pardon... the girls i once loved have probably forgotten me... moved on... the prostitues "in-between" were always "her" tailor of best arranged hair via - gay riddles of "the cut" via never having to mind a barber... and all those manicures! mein gott! there was a time and a place to squeeze in politics of the "fathomable" populace... and a "perhaps a chance" to raise children? dire consequences... to no avail of... the otherwise prior mentioned: straits... there were times in my life when i felt in love... that i could give give give and never ask for anything in return... lucky for me i started to age and not perform the portrait gray act of stay-young-forever-young-vampire... i clinged to love, once... it was such a beautiful spring... a spring that could last within its season a spell of over 5 years... then... reality and autumn and a need to dispell delusions... she probably still "loves me"... with someone else... cameo cinema of memory? where, am, i? love, oh love, what a burden, a hurdle, a responsibility... it's never this quickened escape ease of breath lodged into fiction... somehow always constricting, somehow always burdensome... somehow and somewhat always... never the homeless cherry picking of mutt that made it to an elevation of being under the christmas tree! why would i have children "these days"... well... there's no history i'd be allowed to teach them... and modern day-old journalism? i thought the people were only willing to fudge bulimia down the throats of their "listeners"? i still want to love like a john frusciante... perhaps that's the mosti can offer... best sentenced to a riddle escaped with at a bechance of keeping distance.

being a video-tourist with roosh v:
the sort of h'america i always wanted to see...
like... gaining another 50ml shot
of whiskey under the belt and notches...
is like... imagining *******
ava lauren in a 1970s italian ***** movie
style... when even *** in a pornographic
movie feels: sensual...
joel osteen... an iron maiden gig
looks... just the same...
when the skin becomes a sterile experience
of leather: when wearing shoes...
and a belt...
when this worn skin becomes
this most adored leather...
when the exhausted "beauty"
of prostitutes becomes: something
equivalent to... working out the mandible
artifact... akin to the chew and jaw...
the old continent seems to sigh...
i once missed Handel's Messiah for a night
at the brothel with the Bulgarian harem...
the grand-orchestra of the acronym:
U! S! A! U! S! A! seems so vague and...
bewildering... i'd love to be an atheist in
h'america... so... ridicule prone and
the high-end sort of bag-full-of-counter-virtues...
but i just can't be...
i like being a god-fearing man...
skin... ****, i need to tend to my german:
wann haut wird leder...
akin to: when **** cheney half-had
a neu-herz...
we do come most humble...
we are, oh the most pristine: wenigkreaturen...
ZAMAR-ZNIĘTY... frozen... (he)...
unless... you see that R-Z outside of deutsche...
in the fwench: je, je SUIS! form...
hard to keep those two 'uckers together
in a rz-eton... (Ż)eton casino...
orthography... who am i to preach to a people
so... so figured out with their metaphysics
that orthography, quiet simply,
doesn't, concern them?!
i'm still thinking about ava lauren and
all that 1970s italian *****-sensuoso *******...
why not to forget? pontius pilate clause
akin to louis XIV paranoia:
the power lies in how "it" is perceived...
lying... i don't mind hearing about hog-mucking...
i just mind when it's don juan
mucking up a nun: that's not a nun...
i don't like hearing about:
the goat in sheep... in the mouth of a wolf...
i can stand metaphor...
i just don't like curtains made from iron...
or burgundy tinged silk...
or some other: BLATANT lie...
the one blatant focus for puritanical "superstitions"
of: third eye blind of the other is...
this... bogus f-ck-wit of an underbelly...
there really was a time when i wanted
to see little-life everyday-sort-of h'america...
how the... whittle people lived...
then i figured... no more and no less whittle
from where i'm sitting...
maybe i should be standing?
but at least i come from a continent where...
(a) a striptease is... like the slipped ****** pill
no one wants...
(b) the ****** don't bring their cameras
and film you while you're at it...
(c) and a (d) and an (e) that i will not even
debase myself with...
perhaps we do speak the same language...
but... that's as much as
relates shoeshine to a shoe
as it relates mewwy ol' england to this...
grand posturing that's the u. s. of... a.
perhaps i need to see the sights of: Moldova...
or... Switzerland...
last time i heard being land-locked is the new
best thing... given aeroplanes...
i did want to mid-west ****-hole h'america...
from england... eh... m'eh... all i need is to go east
of Germany... if i find myself in
the West Warsaw coach station...
i'm practically in Ukraine...
everything reeks of this... sediment of roach bathed
in rust... a perfume of mud,
concrete, and lazy metal...
and of course the doom and gloom of the skies...
like 25th of december in Chernobyl...
you just want to start aiming for sparrows
with a pellet gun and break your teeth
on sifting through dirt and haemorrhoids...
and by these standards?
punk will never bother to re-invent itself...
not with pink... and "pronoun concerns"...
or whatever you these days call a f-cking mullet...
and yes... because even if i could...
the white picket fence...
the 3 brats worth of a brood...
the gene patriarchy drive...
the alcoholic / neurotic spouse...
the dog name Bono...
and... each saturday a: bonfire of concerns
for my children's schooling...
sober: but the alternative is no better...
personally? as an "atheist"?
i'm not really thankful...
i can't be thankful for all of this...
last time i checked...
some people in this world are required
to have an omni-litany ruling over their ***-lives...
they want to feel: *****...
why would i even be an atheist?
to speak out something, snarky?
to be prone to... too much ridicule?
there's only so much comedy you can invest in,
before you realise: oh ****...
i'm not a stand-up!
this monologue has no stage...
no audience... it's going to eat me up
like any other solipsism without any escape
into a soliloquy!
atheism is a "thing" in h'america: no wonder...
who said it...
they're a bunch of puritans in public...
but in private? citizen porky?
you know... pig rubber masks and spandex
and s & m and... yawn...
a striptease is so condescending...
6 weeks of celibacy...
nothing: excuse me... *******?
i'm excused with the personal-relief...
yes, the line is drawn... once given the snip
but not the kippah?
em... **** galore: up in their air...
rotating toward... Mecca...
with the prayer...
like... i have the scalp to scratch my head
and ponder...
imagine if a circumcision was akin to scalping...
personally... do we even need ears?
i could be the first to say:
but not really...
a matrimony begins with...
the snippet... which transcends the symbology
of rings... i might as well see it as...
for a woman: she is to offer her virginity...
for a man? he is to offer his *******...
problem solved! Libra rejoice!
she gives up her virginity - which she will lose...
he gives up his ******* - which he will lose...
i can almost see Aaron making these
Levi demands...
what am i thinking...
i will never get to see ****-hole mustard seed
h'america... i'll sooner see Kazan...
but i still don't see the point of making
the loss of a woman's virginity to be equivalent
to a man losing his *******...
after all... prior to the snippet...
he'll *******... a woman will *******...
but... em... what the arm will not do:
the "oyster" will quench...
an i am a gentile figuring out the proper ways
of the monotheists...
speeded up eventuality of apes watching
the descent of dragons and dinosaurs...
bound to the noble profanity of swans...
and widow and widower swans...
brid-brains! of noble emotions!
huh?! no! not us!
i can see the point of male circumcision...
when it is brought with the virginity of a woman...
being circumcised with one woman
is much more than putting on a ring...
un-lucky for me... two protruding veins
like the caduceus worn into the skin of matrimony...
it's not simply that i won't:
i... can't...
hence my infernal tongue.

__________
one can only begin with: Б and В -
and then the nuance:
whatever "nuance" there was,
to genesis an adam and eve -
apple and: pears to combine
for the image of Иосифа лестница..
                  ц - ß - צ (tsade)
                   like one might begin with
something along the greek:
P and Π - amputee R...
rolls... rolls... past the goal-posts...
            the fwench hark
the english tarantula bitten
tongue-numb do not never will trill!
never mind:
       ščypta - szczypta - a pinch of salt...
wikipedia is so ******* wrong...
   щypta... it's a siamese grapheme!
thus shown... cisza: silence...
                       ciša..
ciШa...
                       you can rewrite ščypta /
szczypta in russian...
                     avoiding the щypta...
you can write: ШЧypta...
                     but given: щ (šč / szcz)?
                                    who's to argue?
here's my "revenge" against
organic chemistry's theoretical
electron migrations of schematics...
how about diacritical migrations?
more like electron ontology:
waves one minute, clouds the next...
czyszczoh...

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&client=firefox-b-d&channel=trow&ei=vf84XaHyIMWHhbIPhtOPqA4&q=czyszczoch&oq=czyszczoch&gsl=psy-ab.3...750080.759383..760300...1.0..0.247.1771.0j9j2....­2..0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i67j0i131j0j0i131i67j0i30j0i13j0i1­3i30j0i13i10i30.wqdfvbgw6Ck&ved=0ahUKEwjhxKfi787jAhXFQ0EAHYbpA-UQ4dUDCAo&uact=5
(8 goodle results, nearing a -whack)...

Czyszczoń:
                     čyščoń:

                  interlude: Ђ? in cyrillic? isn't that a hindi letter?
via a mirror akin to Я ?            

czyścioch:
                 ШЧ / Щ -ypta - pinch...
      ЧyCЬKIOX...
          someone pedantic about staying clean...

                           :
  if you ever became riddle by pure
chemistry theory, and never walked into a lab:
that also employed you,
wasted years: performing electron bogus
schematics of "electron migrations"
in organic chemistry compounds...
in experiments...
          university as that extended waste
of time period: beside heavily politico
mickey mouse concerns of the dept. of
the humanities...
  sociology et al., well then?
you're right where you belong!
    
how about: the migration of diacritical markers,
orthography before naked english...
how's that?
     english the adam and ever...
all other languages attired
in the niqab worth a god...
__________

as i sit perched on my folded foot on the windowsill,
having a ms. amber cocktail with ginger ale,
smoking a cigarette, i gravitate to the empty
standing rack of shelves...
  what remains on it, as the paint dries?
a tub of wall paint: fine rosemary,
       tissues, sunglasses,
                  a game sheath: chess and backgammon
in one... a c.d. walkman,
      20 copies of my curricul vitae,
a 1:26000 ratio map of Warsaw...
                                  heidegger's ponderings VII - XI,
a thin book of poetry:
    Πoετιc Oπτoμεtρy - by some vague unknown
semi-anon. Mateusz Conrad...
          i'm hoarding about 200 copies of this work,
perhaps this lazy sod will finally get to
send this printed copy, some raw manuscript
pieces and a covering letter to
          Austin Macauley Publishers:
sounds like a good deal...
  they accept any manuscripts, with or without
an agent, published or not published,
expect a 3 week wait...
a letter dated 16 April 2019 for an appointment
at the Community Outpatient Cardilogy Clinic
  (Dagenham RM8 2EQ)
               with Anamaria Lunca...
24h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
   (aged 33? not bad... <insert a snigger>)...
Plato's Theaetetus,
               Man-Bat: part 1 of 3, 1st. part,
DC comics, chuck dixon, flint henry,
    eduardo barreto - Feb. 96 - two $2.25...
Doctor StrangeFate, Amalgam Comics,
      #1, Ron Marz, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez,
Kevin Nowlan, April '96,
                                         $1.95...
Littlewoods F.A. Charity Shield:
Manchester United v Newcastle United
Sunday August 11 1996 Kick-off 3:00pm
Official Machday Proramme £5.00 -
venue? the old Wembley...
inside? another matchday programme...
West Ham v Manchester United
Barclays League Division One
Wednesday 22nd April 1992 kick-off 7:45pm
£1.50 for the programme...
- the mask returns: john arcudi (story),
doug mahnke (art),
      titan books, first edition October 1994...
Czeslaw Milosz - Zniewolony Umysł
     "Culture" Paris - 1953...
- Bartman: the best of the best 1st edition
January 1997...
- a few figurines...
   a porcelain tortoise: WADE - made in england,
a Kenyan shamanic totem -
a figure with a bloated belly and only one eye,
a polish clay cockerel,
           London's China town red figurine:
standing proud on coins of wealth roaring...
1986, my year, moderate wealth -
well... given this list... i had to move all
the books i own that are supposed to be on
these shelves into the hallway, some onto
the windowsill and some into the box room...
the paint has to dry...
          a boomerang...
                     a Wawel dragon figurine...
(hell, in the west the dragon is associated
with wealth... Smaug... in China the tiger
is associated with wealth... didn't know that)...
some amitriptyline 25mg tablets...
    tom waits: glitter and doom (live) -
seriously - there are only about ten albums
in this world where the live performance
outstrips the studio version,
notably? going out west...
                   a pencil and a piece of paper...
where i scribble my braille tally
to teach me how to drink sensibly
my two ciders and the banquet of whiskey:
currently standing at 4... ****...
oi! tender hands that never worked or
played the guitar, giv' us'us the braille
count to show you have no more fingers
than that tender index of yours!
                           ⠁⠃⠇⠧ ⠷ ⠿
                 it's working... 'nuf' said...
- virgil's the aeneid,
- h. p. lovercraft: against the world,
    against life - by michel houellebecq,
- NewScientist - 50th anniversary special
   (1956 - 2006)
- Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House programme,
i won't be dropping names...
****, i will:
           karim abdullin - soloist,
        maria alexandrova - principal,
artemy belyakov - leading soloist,
yulia stepanova - soloist,
                igor tsvirko - leading soloist,
- three letters from a Magdalena
Wielgołaska -
handwritten letters and all,
a pen-pall i managed to pick up a conversation
with in Edinburgh when she was
working a b & b for the summer...
         very self-conscious about her
height... well... she did play volleyball...
- old notes from university:
history essays... all a solid 2:1 grades:
    matriculation no.: s0458467
   tutor: kirsty chatwood (canadian ****
who became pregnant, great sense of humour),
e.g. why were there so many rebellions
in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century
(word count: 1,991),
   how and why did Napoleon succeed in
establishing French power over so much
Europe? (word count: 1,956)... 2% shy of a 1st...
so... no, not even i can answer this question...
since i also own copies of...
a traffic management copy of
my organic lab schedule:
   synthesis and acetylation of ferrocene,
preparation of 7-trichloromethyl-8-bromo-Δ-p-pinene
by free radical addition of
   bromotrichloromethane to β-pinene,
the photochemical interconversion of trans-
and cis- azobenzenes,
witting synthesis and photochemical
   cyclodehydrogenation of 1-styrylnaphthalene...
silyl enol ethers: a directed aldol reaction...
i used to do this sort of "stuff"...
but the pièce de résistance while i moved
my private library from these shelves?
ahem...

                 E. O. Richter & Co.
                 Präcision
                 Kopernicus IX set...
                 das prazisions-reiszeug

i.e. the most pristine instruments for technical
drawings... the sort of technical drawings used
in metallurgy, engineering, architecture...
people would conflate a hoarder with me...
me? i'm a connoisseur...
             i respect the sort of materialism that
transcends that shallow form of materialism
that equates itself with immediate gratification
not as a per se: but as a tool to attract...
unwanted attention...
  flimsy materialism, gluttonous materialism...
a materialism that occupies space
and short-attention span gnats...
    materialism of a temporal rather than
a spatial nature? now we're talking!

   and here's to toasting this day...
tomorrow i will erase that fateful day that
coincided with me painting my room
crimson - the Bataclan Massacre...
fine rosemary pale hue will replace
these blood soaked walls that have become
my gallows...
                    a shade much less the green
of my own eyes... and perhaps...
my mind will rest with a mild lapse into
a curiosity of a serenaded mind:
         i'm not even looking for serendipity.

it really didn't occur to me with regards
to the state of h'america...
  once upon a time any european would
look toward h'america as this unified
continent of sorts...
  prime cultural export juggernaut...
now? with the cracks showing,
  with individual americans making youtube
videos?
   clearly "we" europeans were lied to,
well: "lied" to...
          i would never have thought that the states
were so divided...
that even moving from one state to another
can be deemed as supicious...
maybe that's heavily reliant on the fact
that we're talking about a federation...
          in Europe they call it nationalism
what in H'america they call patriotism...
and populism is just the glue in between...
like that whole: ex-pat is not an immigrant...
but i love the h'american approach
to us old continent boyos...
styxhexen-... about the europeans:
'like we're enlightened and ****'...
         that really sums it up....
             notably, compiling the above list?
i almost forgot what i was going to write...
-hammer666 did enlighten me...
  i would have never have thought that
h'american "soccer mums" and goody-two-shoe
ruby-slippers christian folk would ban
children from reading 'arry Potter...
     well of course i knew of the satanic panic
music, and the gaming: thing...
but i never heard of 'arry Potter books being
banned...
     enlightened and ****...
      if Nietzsche was going to brag about reading
Stendhal... did him in my teens...
nothing to brag about... after all...
i did see a movie adapation starring
ewan mcgregor as julien sorel... and rachel weisz
was in it too... the first book adaptation on
film that spurred me to read the book...
if only the lord of the rings did likewise...
alas... not to be!
      no thanks to my scottish english teacher...
sure: of the g.c.s.e. curriculum?
i'm the king of the castle was the only
book of depth...
       yes, i'll give him this:
he did introduce me to jazz music...
   ben webster's how deep is the ocean...
   no other sax player as ben webster...
but: 'we're enlightened and ****' as an american
might put it...
   same teacher... on a trip to Glasbury-on-Wye
(Powys, Wales) -
oh god, i was dying to go on that trip for ages...
we were first supposed to go aged 15...
year 11...
  but the outbreak of the madcow disease
prevented us... so a year later it was...
    great place... caving, canoeing, horse riding...
and just in general the great outdoors...
any teen's dream living in the outer
east end of London...
              anyways... so the teacher inquired...
'what are you reading',
  he walked into our dorm while
guys my age were... snorting sugar dust
through their noses...
      fizz wiz space dust... yep... down the noses
it went...
   i was reading a book looking at them
like a gorilla might look at a human...
                       'mr. bunce? what am i reading?'
so i handed him the slim copy
of Marquis de Sade's groundbreaking short-story:
******...
          now, if you ask me...
the Marquis would have been the emblem
of short-story writing, he was the best as short-stories...
all those long repetitive regurgitations are...
well... 120 days of *****...
but Insect is where he shines,
the story is succinct in a citrus fruit sense:
i.e. piquant.
   succinct and piquant: such lovely
words could only have originated from
French and have to be treated as: loan-words.
besides: i find h'american criticism of europe
a wee bit funny...
     sure: an honest critique of the states
and the union, grandiose politics cogs and
all the labyrinths' worth of bureucracy:
like anywhere - same ****, different cover...
but when it comes to social norms and their
taboos... h'america is very truly backwards
when it comes to what culture its citizens
are allowed to ingest...
       me, in europe, reading marquis de sade
aged 16...
the equivalent of me, in h'america,
being prohibited to read: 'arry potter for
****'s sake!
sorry... on the level where my opinion
might or might not matter...
             americans are backwards...
those puritanical roots do not do them much
favors... esp. with their extravagant
punk-esque tropes signifying a rebellion
that never seems to occur;
christianity truly undermines the idea
of america...
                     if not bound by shackles,
then shivering under the burden of the shadow
of the cross: which none of them wish
to carry... the mere looming shadow frightens
them... and... mind you? american neo-atheism?
boring as sunday's midday sun.
Tristes van los zamoranos   metidos en gran quebranto;
retados son de traidores,   de alevosos son llamados;
más quieren todos ser muertos   que no traidores nombrados.

  Día era de san Millán,   ese día señalado,
todos duermen en Zamora,   mas no duerme Arias Gonzalo;
aún no es bien amanecido   que el cielo estaba estrellado,
castigando está a sus hijos,   a todos cuatro está armando,
las palabras que les dice   son de mancilla y quebranto:
-Yo he de lidiar el primero   con don Diego el castellano:
si con mentira nos reta,   vencerle he y hágoos salvos;
pero si cualquier traidor   hay entre los zamoranos,
y él nos reta con verdad,   muerto quedaré en el campo.
Morir quiero y no ver muerte   de hijos que tanto amo.

  Las armas pide el buen viejo,   sus hijos le están armando,
las grebas le están poniendo;   doña Urraca que allí ha entrado,
llorando de los sus ojos   y el cabello destrenzado:
-¿Para qué tomas las armas?   ¿Dónde vas, mi viejo amo:
pues sabéis, si vos morís,   perdido es todo mi estado?
¡Acordaos que prometistes   a mi padre don Fernando
de nunca desampararme   ni dejar de vuestra mano!

  Caballeros de la infanta   a don Arias van rogando
que les deje la batalla,   que la tomarán de grado;
mas él sólo da sus armas   a su hijo don Fernando:
-¡Dios vaya contigo, hijo,   la mi bendición te mando;
ve a salvar los de Zamora;   como Cristo a los humanos!

  Sin poner pie en el estribo   don Fernando ha cabalgado.
Por aquel postigo viejo   galopando se ha alejado
adonde estaban los jueces,   que ya le están esperando;
partido les han el sol,   dejado les han el campo.
Padre viejo y triste, rey de las divinas canciones:
son en mi camino focos de una luz enigmática
tus pupilas mustias, vagas de pensar y abstracciones,
y el límpido y noble marfil de tu testa socrática.
Flota, como el tuyo, mi afán entre dos aguijones:
alma y carne; y brega con doble corriente simpática
para hallar la ubicua beldad con nefandas uniones,
y después expía y gime con lira hierática.
Padre, tú que hallaste por fin el sendero, que, arcano,
a Jesús nos lleva, dame que mi numen doliente
virgen sea, y sabio, a la vez que radioso y humano.
Tu virtud lo libre del mal de la antigua serpiente,
para que, ya salvos al fin de la dura pelea,
laudemos a Cristo en vida perenne. Así sea.
DAVID Jul 2017
Una gota de rocio
Una caricia de
Lascivia

Dos cuerpos unidos
Enlazados y juntos

Perdidos en el otro
En una danza secreta
E intima

La concrecion del deseo,
Sin ataduras, ni espacio
Para el EGO

juntos en la union sacra y
perfecta, 2 mitades del puzzle
Cosmico

Llegando a puerto, sanos y salvos
El triunfo de tu verdad

Sobre sus mentiras y sus
egos, mas alla de todo

La hermosa consecuencia
De la pasion, y la dulce recompensa
De tus labios

Es el tesoro de montecristo
Y tu placer mi deber divino

Para con mi diosa,
Que comanda y me ama en
Sueños

Artemisa eres,
Oh musa secreta

Eres la dueña, y el
Tesoro, del que salio
Del infierno

Y su secreta pasion,
Verdad y vida

Un pedazo del cielo, es
yacer En tus brazos

Con rastros de ti en mi
Cuerpo, y los dolores dulces,
De haberte amado.
A Jack *** chortles at it's own reflection
Morning frogs join the odd celebration
October Pines scrub in quickening , windy
salvos , Autumn curt Sun battles wispy cloud cover
in a spirited game of recognition
Amberdeen beeves on the morning call
Steel buckets , log chain , tie wire and tin ,
tick treble notes in the pursed Fall breath
Scarecrows come alive , Gods hand painted-
leaves begin to shine
Shine piedmont morn
Shine in cool , new day virtuosity
Commanding the heart of your native , grateful son*....
Copyright September 23 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Bo Tansky Oct 2019
These days
Was it something in the air
Rancid spite of the right  
Or the self-proclaimed hubris
Of every self-proclaimed guru
Of certainty turned onto its left side
Two camps had pitched their tents
On opposite sides of Main Street
Rooted in the traditional
With a propensity for being right
Missionaries for some diva god
Who has come to save the planet
Kryptonite is dynamite
We’ll only use it if we need to:
Blow up the people
In order to save the world

Although they deny they’re on a mission
When they’re in remission
Hear
The bombastic roar of broadcast rhetoric
Scripted with a very felt pen
All armchair generals
Arguing with a passion
Dare not felt for one another
“I can figure out the world
But you, Sir
I have a problem with.”

The streets emptied of nonconformity
Littered and poised with positioning
Salvos of so-called sanity
Fronts and flanks
In every shade
But grey
Postings on every corner
Foot soldiers of the faithful
Rallied in like-minded circles
For comfort and confirmation
Aplomb with understandings grasped
No room for namby-pamby
Wishy-washy
Confirmation bias
Only hearing what you want
Fire if necessary.
**** what you cannot agree on
Ignore what you cannot understand.

Choice was not an option
Backed into a corner
Conformity was
Comfortable as a worn recliner
Recliner beware and be bothered
We’ve been here before
Do you remember
Words, words, words
And sticks and stones and all of that
Was never true
Every politician worth his salt knew
Speeches that sear by fireside
Emblazoned by passions ignited
And smolder in the light of day
A Colosseum of coifed gladiators
Spectators raise a sword
And toast the spoils.
Bittersweet.
Now
Words avow
Ammunition packed in a pistil
To go
More powerful than the splitting of the atom
Is the splitting of minds.
  
When it doesn’t feel right.
And you know it’s not right
Because that’s the way it feels
And feelings never lie
But people do.

A world-weary of war games
What kernel of dubious truth
Do you separate from the chattering chaff?
And cling to
Not this
Not this
Not that

Feelings
The riptide of dissension
Tearing at heartstrings
Tearing the tents apart
Mars on a rampage
Venus in an iron cage

And in the quiet of night
A respite from being right

The
Homeless & disenchanted
Walked the dark streets alone
Pitched a solitary tent
And spent the night
Under the stars
And dreamt of peace
and beauty.
Flatfielder Mar 2018
The selfproclaimed king
Hoisted on this mound
Which is
As beautiful and tender
Breast of venus alike

All alone being up there
Is blasting his salvos
Into an empire of imagination
Truth to behold

Antlike creatures are scaling
Taking elevations then sliding

The mound is eroding
Its tenderness its hillsides
Dark and grey do we find

It turns into a spike
Creatures are falling
Taking with them the dirt

The spike becomes a needle
Only feared when its pointed
Let it lay down
Go back to the dirt

Imaginations become real
And the earth awakens
Once again

(c)flatfielder
These biological threats are just the first salvos
of a desperate order.

look around you,
the bars are dematerializing
while the camera eyes are multiplying
and they can't keep in the lies they've
been reassuring us with

something had to give
and that something was someone
issuing the command to release
the virus bomb.

Do I believe it?

— The End —