The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways
His restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scooped
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath,
That moved in the beginning o'er his face,
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves
To its strong motion roll, and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,
As at the first, to water the great earth,
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind,
And in the dropping shower, with gladness hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth
Over the boundless blue, where joyously
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung
In acclamation. I behold the ships
Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,
Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze
That bears them, with the riches of the land,
And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting ****** climbs and furls the sail.

  But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armed fleet, that royally
Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite
Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts
Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,
Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed
In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed
By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,
A moment, from the ****** work of war.

  These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the southern pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bid'st the fires,
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks,
A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.
The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts
With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers,
Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost look
On thy creation and pronounce it good.
Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join
The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.

Poetry, you dazzled my eye
teased me with unearthly visions;
got me too high.

Primed my soul to fly to heaven
then marooned me upon the earth
sixed for seven.

You called across celestial shores
glowing in empyrean colors
then shut your doors.

Lost in your amusing mazes
I followed fast your golden thread
through dark phases.

Muse-abused and undelivered
my heartstrings wavered, stalled, then stopped –
arrows quivered.

Poetry – you’ve cheated on me;
winked and flirted, then escorted
Philosophy!

Spare me further cantos, curses,
keep your holy delirium,
unhinged verses…

On second thought, oh Lady cruel –
humiliate me – lead me on.
(I’m still your fool.)

*******, queen of the word
for you I’ll suffer untold shame.
I’m undeterred.

she emits
vulnerability
slight submission;
the makeup of
her heart's desire;
a secret invitation
to a trap,
her bait, infallible
her every fiber
now conspires;
the message,
slightly cryptic,
abandoned at your doorstep
on arrival,
implies an SOS;
a damsel in distress
beneath the armored shell
of self-sufficiency
"come, rescue me
from dull security",
the cypher says...
A one man army
now awaiting orders,
to deploy along the shores,
to breach the borders
to conquer every hill,
capture every trench,
to liberate the thrills,
from every inch of flesh
The queen within
the prison tower
now demanding for a siege,
for deadly force,
relentless power,
and no rest
till she is free

As a drop of tear
left my eyes
and wetted the stone
that treasures a life
I heard the chirrups
of the flock of birds
that joyously flew
along the beautiful skies
that reclines in peace  
above the world within me
turning it a paradise
of my mother's memories

Amidst this heaven
as I tardily walked
awed by the aroma
its splendour spread
I glimpsed a bird
who briskly touched
the face of a river
whose waves revealed
the silver reflection,
a handful of which
my mother once borrowed
to embellish her love
that lives no more
in a memory alone

Amidst this heaven
as I tardily walked
I glimpsed another
who perched a tree
the taste of whose shade
as I sat to savour
the canopy of branches
showered upon me
a myriad flowers
the petals of which
were the drops of rain
my mother once brewed
from the cloud of love
that sprinkles no more
only in a memory
in a memory alone

Amidst this heaven
as I tardily walked
I glimpsed another
whose feathers danced
to the symphonies within
the ode of a breeze
whose tunes once bid
my mother's lips
to lullaby me
beyond a door
where the waves of my sleep
rowed me as a shell
to the shores of my dream
where fantasy dwells
the lullaby made dumb
cradles me no more
but sings in a memory
in a memory alone

An eternal desire
to my mother who lives
in a memory alone
as an immortal epic
flow out indeed
as the river of love
in your womb I shall sleep
as a foetus in wait
to be born as your son
as an infant wave
the cries of whom
shall vanish the gems
your loss once scattered    
as a legacy that shone
for ages and ages
across the skies,
darkened by your shadows
that solely survived.

I pretended
your mouth
didn't water
for them

You see...

I would
imagine riding
bikes along
shores with
my sunny
closed eyes
and la la la -

but

I could
hear them
***** you
out behind
don't signs
at the end
of the bed

Being quiet
was always
louder than
ice dropped
in warm tequila

POP!

Sheets were
never tucked
quite tight
enough

Feathers burst forth
seared with sunlight.
The coast is clear,
baby girl,
the waves are breaking
turquiose shores,
and my heart
is aching to consume you.

The shepherd boy sits in his home,
his little sister by his side.
Forbidden to play and roam,
A battle is brewing outside.

The city is quiet and still
holding it's breath.
Afraid,yet with a will
prepared to face the coming death.

On the battlements stands the King
armoured in gold.
His kingdom covered in Spring,
His soldiers singing bold:

"We go to war!we go to war!
On fields near and shores far.
For home and honour
Our love our armour.

We fight through fire and snow.
Our fates we do not know.
To return to wife and child
Or on to the stars mild."

The enemy blows the horn
and marches forward.
The King's trumpets reply in scorn
and his army moves onward.

Amidst them rides a knight,
the bravest of them all.
Honoured for unsurpassing might,
inspires them with his call.

Hearing the clamour and the cries,
the little girl trembles with fear.
Her brother with tears in his eyes,
plays on his flute a tune so dear.

The song rises clear and beautiful
speaking of fields green.
It soothes the weak and the sorrowful,
reminding the happy times they have seen.

Despite their might and will,
the enemy proved stronger.
On white flowers does their blood spill.
The foe can wait no longer.

The setting sun finds the King
sprawled on the ground,
His crown now just a golden thing
stained by the blood all around.

The knight lies on the red grass
looking up at the darkening skies.
His eyes glazed like glass,
he leaves his honour and dies.

The enemy sets the city on fire,
the flames feeding on the gore.
The silence rises higher,
for the flute sings no more.

One day you'll bring me to that place,
The place I've seen in my dreams.
That over looks this aching world,
But it'll do no good to me.
The moon will hurl into the sun,
And everyone will run but I.
For I have seen this world before,
I have no reason to wonder why.
No clouds will  form inside of this place,
It'll be beautiful to me.
Not a drop of rain falls from the sky,
And the earth dissipates into a sea-
Of dust as the ocean swallows us whole,
Leaving us swimming for the shores.
But that water quickly turns to stone,
Chasing us with nowhere else to go.
Then I hear a voice calling my name,
The mountains are singing their songs.
For there's empty land and dare I stare,
Maybe that is where I belong.
Distant from the world I've seen,
Beautiful in its own light.
So I shall go up to where it leads,
As this realm dances while it fights.
Eyes wide I bring myself to thee,
The climb is steep and swift.
I breath and hold in the air,
That snuffs my soul so quick.
And as I'm standing up upon this stone,
The winds shall bring me to the past-
Of a time when the earth was innocent,
Yet this memory seems so vast.
There was room for us upon this land,
And many other souls.
But this thought takes me away by hand,
From the light that shines and controls.
It opens up with the frames,
Clinching the sands of time.
Burning inside the lively lips,
Death kisses with upon your eyes.
Holds you tight and makes you tame,
Above this wicked board.
for your his pawn and it's his game,
A trusted piece he does adore.
But underneath the sounds,
Of this world that you now see-
Show the distress of a land,
In sight you never thought would be.
Standing on the same earth,
As the one that you once knew.
But it's all the same dirt underneath,
The feet of me and you.

                                                       Alysia Marie 2014 ©

joey
left today

the radiance of a
summer sunshine
gone dark

an icon
of jersey shore
memories

lost to the
rumbling
breakers

a joie de vivre
crested

ebbing waves
flow out

ushered off
by friendly
on-shore winds

the day bespeaks
a perfect symmetry
departing life's shores
on Sandy’s anniversary
marking momentous days
of passings and arrivals

may you safely arrive
on the seaside shores
in the place of eternal
summer sunshine

vaya con dios
mi hermano




for joey

Fleet Foxes:
Grown Ocean

10/29/30
oakland
jbm

I'm still me
And we're distant now
I've gotten stronger
And growing loud
Sometimes I wonder
If you hadn't gone
Extending hands
Vast beyond the sea
Collecting deep-colored shells
For a heart severed-to-be

Qui Transtulit Sustinet

There sat CONNECTICUT, a twit
blue nanny-state, and doomed to sit
on welfare-warrens of the ******
her social service on demand.
She withers on NEW ENGLAND‘s vine
a bygone has-been, and a sign
of democratic overkill
where her once-dear and verdant rill
now stagnant flows: polluted stream
a moribund New England dream.
The richest state with poorest heart:
the Northeast’s saddest story. Part
of history’s renowned revival,
now irrelevant. Survival
chains her children in dependence
keeping back the state’s ascendance.
Apostate Puritan, grown old—
for LIBERTY, no longer bold;
a slave to Man, where once God’s WORD
awakened greatness. Souls were stirred
in ENFIELD (of all strange places),
Christ beheld in radiant faces . . .
Edwards held their spellbound souls
like spiders over flaming coals,
in gratitude for Gospel grace
renewing thus both town and race.
But I digress. Connecticut
is what I came to speak about:
forgotten dull colonial matron
yoked in failure, plebe as patron
nostalgic for her Charter Oak
whose deadwood limbs went up in smoke
along with dark tobacco wrap
while the plantation took a nap.
Her social programs overgrowth
pose forest fire-risk. Under oath
her public servants signal virtue;
sign which really should alert you
to the democrat-machine’s
impending failure (ways and means).
Nutmeg-addled Tax-and-spenders,
dollar drunks on welfare benders
widen economic rifts;
force single moms toward double shifts
while Latin Kings hold court in prison
waiting out their royal season:
fiscally unsustainable—
yet totally explainable
(nutmeg is a drug for witches
spendthrift warlocks, bankrupt *******).
Oh HARTFORD, city of the dead
which dies at five, then home to bed,
insurance once assured your rise;
but now your ghosts haunt sadder skies.
Your life displaced, outsourced, out-dated;
so, it seems, your fall was fated.
Meanwhile, close to New York City,
fairer fields are growing pretty
long on corporate commutes.
Data-driven growth computes
as data-drivers flood the roads
and enter by Manhattan-loads
from golden coasts’ Atlantic shores
and posh patrician golden doors
to bite the apple of our time:
a number-cruncher built on crime.
New England’s puritannic granny
(data-driven tyrant ******)
seeks to harbor tropic isles
with blandly bureaucratic smiles.
Your poor dear heart cannot afford
to welcome every island lord
who looks to better his estate
and so decides to emigrate.
Displaced Jamaicans outta yard
compel the soft verse to get hard.
Boricua separatists, dispersed
show nationalities reversed
and dwell between two foreign lands
in Spanglish no one understands.
Such nutmeg gets the covens high
to soar the stormy Liberal sky.
It’s Yankee hubris: condescension
taxing plebes for such dissension.
Though you connect, there I would cut,
excising from New England’s gut
metastasizing social tumors:
clueless and obese consumers,
teenage moms, pajama-clad
whose nenes wait in vain for dad.
QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET—truth . . .
but that was was in our nation’s youth.
She’s gotten worse with passing years
confirming citizens’ worst fears;
showing her colors every vote
her monotone, a droning note
on which the blue-bloods hang their hue
when hope and change are overdue.
Her atheist zeal meets Yankee pride:
a most progressive broomstick ride;
oblivious to her Christian past,
an enemy of God at last.

I use the moon as my guide
A watchful eye over this changing ocean
Keeping the tides on their paths home
Always bringing me back
To where we had to part on these shores.

Woe be to the lady of seasons!
Persephone and Demeter argue.
As neither can forgive dear family,
we are lost! We are sunk! Polar icecaps
melt to the tension of their bickering.

Poseidon’s domain increases ever more!
His power does drive our beaches and shores
higher! Higher! Higher ever more!

When you think of touristy locales, Italy is at the top of the list,
Picking a specific place at random would be wise to desist,
The options are so many that one is spoilt for choice,
But at the end of it all, it is a matter to rejoice

Overlooking the sunny Amalfi Coast, Positano boasts of a picturesque landscape,
Colorful, cliffside villas beckon visitors wanting to experience the "great escape",
The sophisticated resort town is the jewel of southern Italy's iconic Amalfi Coast,
The spectacular setting of this vertical town is so enchanting that it deserves a toast

Positano is just a forty minute ferry ride from neighboring town Sorrento,
The sound of waves crashing against the pebbled shores is sheer gusto,
Not surprising that Positano translated means a "place to stop",
The visual dramatic vertical panorama of colors serves the perfect backdrop

Seen from the sea, Positano projects a stunning color combo that is visually transcendent,
The unmissable green of the Monti Lattari mountain range appears so gloriously resplendent,
The white, pink and yellow of the cascading Mediterranean houses have a vertiginous effect,
The blue of the sea and the silvery grey of the pebble beaches provide the surreal connect

The imposing, colorful majolica-tiled dome of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta is iconic,
A testament to Positano's beauty and history, seeing it's revered architectural work is euphoric,
A Byzantine-inspired icon of the ****** Mary can be seen in the church's interior,
It is popular for exchanging wedding vows, with an impressive belltower on the exterior

Positano's waterfront is the Spiaggia Grande pristine beach whose grandoise is no empty boast,
Spanning in excess of three hundred meters, it is one of the largest in the Amalfi Coast,
Reputed for it's ever crowded sandy shores and a postcard-worthy view that is breathtakingly intense,
As visitors chill out in umbrella-shaded lounge chairs, savoring an unforgettable experience

Access to downtown involves climbing steps, steep winding walkways and narrow streets,
Trendy fashion brands on display in numerous cute clothing boutiques are a visual treat,
Art galleries, souvenir shops and ceramicware shops abound every step of the way,
One cannot but pause and admire the various artisans' intricate works that hold sway

Handmade leather sandals, customized and readily crafted to perfection is an authentic Positano experience,
Rows and rows of designer clothing shops convey local artisans' innovative ways of wielding purchasing influence,
Limoncello liquer made with Amalfi Coast lemons is a Positano specialty that absolutely must be tasted,
That it is the second most popular liquer in Italy (after Campari) and made from neutral alcohol cannot be understated

Amalfi lemons are very sweet, prized for their low acidity and delicate flavor,
Used for making jams, sorbettos, preserves and various desserts to savor,
Campania cuisine have a generous dose of flavoring with Amalfi lemon juice or zest,
Visitors thronging local restaurants are treated to delicacies that are some of the best

Positano's countless romantic restaurants serve a plethora of seafood offerings and local specialties,
Barilotto is an unique cheese that is subtly sweet with creamy and mild flavors, sans any trivialities,
The cheese aromas are delicate, fresh and buttery with a hard, smooth and firm texture offering,
Made from water buffalo's milk by heating the whey & aged for at least forty days, before becoming a serving

The memories of this picturesque town linger long after the visit is done,
As you tick off another scenic Italian locale that has hearts to be won,
Images of the colorful setting (s) remain hard to erase from the mind,
As you set about planning the next adventure, leaving this one behind

My skin has been itching for three months
I’m not sure why this is addicting

I’ve crashed a car in my head 3 times today
My mental awareness consistently letting go of the wheel
The Anterior teeth of my mouth have started to yellow in disapproval
I’m not sure why this is satisfying

I’ve been taking toxic psychotropics in light doses more than twice a day
It’s warmth is comforting as the jittering and hyperactivity become null
Bags have formed under my eyes
If you were to open them, their roasted smell would overpower you with stimulation
Constantly on my toes for risk of Insomnia and Narcolepsy
I’m not sure why this is outstanding

Adrenaline is being forcefully factored into my body
If this is the bullet, I’m biting it after an appliance pulls the trigger
As the high passes, it ripples through my mind
An otherwise calm sea, tidal waves pound the shores of my subconsciousness
Vacuum sealed can are filled with awareness
Sleep has become a rare odyssey
Warm comforters are replaced with long trachea trips of boiling beans
I’m not sure why this is alarming

Double trips become tripled and troubling to my mother
Arguments over the hours I shall harvest from the night are increasingly frequent
Slow to roll out of bed in the morning
I don’t hit my carpet, I splash into sugared preparedness
In my backpack hides a cup full of GI Joes
I’m not sure why this is troubling

If anything, I’m drinking a medicine that prevents death by 10-15% for 13 years
The New England Journal of Medicine was happy to acknowledge my existence
Till they announce anything different, you’ll find me taking a mud bath
I’m not sure why this is disgusting

Tell me everything that’s wrong with it
Because from where I’m standing
There is nothing wrong with
Coffee

As a stranger, sometimes light
both rarified and prosaic.
voyages to new shores,
yet I do not understand your  words
Is friendship a state of mind ?
still you call those who don't, select.

Mother do not mourn me for I am not dead
I am well enough in this hospital bed

My leg it is gone in a Flanders field it lies
but some gave much more, paid a far greater price

My comrades lost, never to return
to England's shores for which they all yearned

I just want to see you Mother, again
and let you hold me, erase all the pain

So do not fret Mother, for me please be strong
till I’m home again Mother, where I belong

Your loving son

No need to pray,
No need to speak.
No need for thoughts,
In the Ocean deep.

Just breathe in, breathe in,
Your consciousness is waning.
Your confidence is praying,
Your confidant prepared to stay.

Your heart is throbbing,
Your breath is wavering.
No need to pray,
The Ocean is taking you over,
Again.

Another wave upon my shores,
No more need for open doors.
Take a step into the shallows.
Prepare to leap from high atop,
The gallows.

Another step brings you closer to,
The Ocean edge is dropping still.
Another sip is all it takes,
To fall into Hell's open gates.

And fires beat upon the shores,
The Oceans waves are no more.
But still these waves beat me down,
Into the fires below the ground.

And we are the lost generation,
The end of time is all we wait on.
And still we think we are good.
You fool, you fool, you're breathing still.

On and on passes time,
Leaving us swiftly behind.
And still we wait for our last chance,
To close the doors on our romance.

To my bed I pull you slowly,
To the gallows waiting behind me.
Lay your head upon my pillow,
As the noose tightens, I close the window.
I watch you drop from up on high,
To the Ocean's depths we rise.
And we are drowning, though we stand,
I welcome you with open hands.

You'll sit with me upon the bedside,
Waiting til we all die.
Though poison tastes like honey and wine,
The antidote is hard to find.

And so we are the forgotten youth,
Laid to waste by father's troops.
And though their bullets make us bleed,
We trudge on through the widow's weave.

Through mud and blood we find our place,
Lost in our ***** tastes.
I thought that maybe we could find,
Peace hidden deep inside.

But still the monks say we must wait,
Lost inside this burning place.
And Father stands upon the shore,
Hoping we shall open the door.

Though Heaven's full,
We'll make our place,
Lost into this burning face,
And still I find you hurting still,
My heart and soul have had their fill.

So take up my razor,
And skin my flesh.
Leave no more, no nothing left.
Peel my skin, my flesh, my bone.
And leave me a rotting soul.

For Father stands upon these gates,
Hell burning across his face.
And the Ocean will take none unto,
The depths will have us rotting soon.

So float back down,
And swim inside.
I know you know,
I've got much to hide.

But with my flesh, my bone and sinew,
Know that I have forgotten you.
And hope that one day you'll find,
A casket burning with me inside.

Forth from the dust and din,
The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare,
The odour and sense of life and lust aflare,
The wrangle and jangle of unrests,
Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win--
As from swart August to the green lap of May--
To quietness and the fresh and fragrant *******
Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware
In any of her innumerable nests
Of that first sudden plash of dawn,
Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large,
Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day
In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn
Forward and up, in wider and wider way,
Shall float the sands, and brim the shores,
On this our lith of the World, as round it roars
And spins into the outlook of the Sun
(The Lord's first gift, the Lord's especial charge),
With light, with living light, from marge to marge
Until the course He set and staked be run.

Through street and square, through square and street,
Each with his home-grown quality of dark
And violated silence, loud and fleet,
Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp,
The hansom wheels and plunges.  Hark, O, hark,
Sweet, how the old mare's bit and chain
Ring back a rough refrain
Upon the marked and cheerful *****
Of her four shoes!  Here is the Park,
And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust,
The tired midsummer blooms!
O, the mysterious distances, the glooms
Romantic, the august
And solemn shapes!  At night this City of Trees
Turns to a tryst of vague and strange
And monstrous Majesties,
Let loose from some dim underworld to range
These terrene vistas till their twilight sets:
When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand
Beggared and common, plain to all the land
For stooks of leaves!  And lo! the Wizard Hour,
His silent, shining sorcery winged with power!
Still, still the streets, between their carcanets
Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep.
But see how gable ends and parapets
In gradual beauty and significance
Emerge!  And did you hear
That little twitter-and-cheep,
Breaking inordinately loud and clear
On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere?
'Tis a first nest at matins!  And behold
A rakehell cat--how furtive and acold!
A spent witch homing from some infamous dance--
Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade
Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade!
And now! a little wind and shy,
The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),
A sense of space and water, and thereby
A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky,
And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams
And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,
His dreams that never save in our deaths can die.

What miracle is happening in the air,
Charging the very texture of the gray
With something luminous and rare?
The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire,
And, as one lights a candle, it is day.
The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire
On the little formal church, is not yet green
Across the water:  but the house-tops nigher,
The corner-lines, the chimneys--look how clean,
How new, how naked!  See the batch of boats,
Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam!
And those are barges that were goblin floats,
Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream!
And in the piles the water frolics clear,
The ripples into loose rings wander and flee,
And we--we can behold that could but hear
The ancient River singing as he goes,
New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea.
The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass:
The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake,
And light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take
His hobnailed way to work!

Let us too pass--
Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows--
Through these long, blindfold rows
Of casements staring blind to right and left,
Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece
Of life in death's own likeness--Life bereft
Of living looks as by the Great Release--
Pass to an exquisite night's more exquisite close!

Reach upon reach of burial--so they feel,
These colonies of dreams!  And as we steal
Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze,
Fitfully frolicking to heel
With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas,
We might--thus awed, thus lonely that we are--
Be wandering some dispeopled star,
Some world of memories and unbroken graves,
So broods the abounding Silence near and far:
Till even your footfall craves
Forgiveness of the majesty it braves.

the darkness broods,
shadows thicken,

clouds drift into the
darkest recesses of night,  

their blue-black inks
singing of lonely shores

and watery streams.

These are modern English translations by Michael R. Burch of seven Latin poems written by the ancient Roman female poet Sulpicia, who was apparently still a girl or very young woman when she wrote them.



I. At Last, Love!
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

It's come at last! Love!
The kind of love that, had it remained veiled,
would have shamed me more than baring my naked soul.
I appealed to Aphrodite in my poems
and she delivered my beloved to me,
placed him snugly, securely against my breast!
The Goddess has kept her promises:
now let my joy be told,
so that it cannot be said no woman enjoys her recompense!
I would not want to entrust my testimony
to tablets, even those signed and sealed!
Let no one read my avowals before my love!
Yet indiscretion has its charms,
while it's boring to conform one’s face to one’s reputation.
May I always be deemed worthy lover to a worthy love!

A signatis tabellis was a letter written on wooden tablets and sealed with sealing-wax.



II. Dismal Journeys, Unwanted Arrivals
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

My much-hated birthday's arrived, to be spent mourning
in a wretched countryside, bereft of Cerinthus.
Alas, my lost city! Is it suitable for a girl: that rural villa
by the banks of a frigid river draining the fields of Arretium?
Peace now, Uncle Messalla, my over-zealous chaperone!
Arrivals of relatives aren't always welcome, you know.
Kidnapped, abducted, snatched away from my beloved city,
I’d mope there, prisoner to my mind and emotions,
this hostage coercion prevents from making her own decisions!

Arretium is a town in Tuscany, north of Rome. It was presumably the site of, or close to, Messalla’s villa. Sulpicia uses the term frigidus although the river in question, the Arno, is not notably cold. Thus she may be referring to another kind of lack of warmth! Apparently Sulpicia was living with her overprotective (in her eyes) Uncle Messalla after the death of her father, and was not yet married.



III. The Thankfully Abandoned Journey
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Did you hear the threat of that wretched trip’s been abandoned?
Now my spirits soar and I can be in Rome for my birthday!
Let’s all celebrate this unexpected good fortune!



IV. Thanks for Everything, and Nothing
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Thanks for revealing your true colors,
thus keeping me from making further fool of myself!
I do hope you enjoy your wool-basket *****,
since any female-filled toga is much dearer to you
than Sulpicia, daughter of Servius!
On the brighter side, my guardians are much happier,
having feared I might foolishly bed a nobody!

Upper-class Roman women did not wear togas, but unfree prostitutes, called meretrices or ancillae, did. Here, Sulpicia is apparently contrasting the vast difference in her station to that of a slave who totes heavy wool baskets when not sexually servicing her masters. Spinning and wool-work were traditional tasks for virtuous Roman women, so there is a marked contrast here. Sulpicia doesn’t mention who is concerned about her, but we can probably intuit Messalla was one of them.



V. Reproach for Indifference
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Have you no kind thoughts for your girl, Cerinthus,
now that fever wilts my wasting body?
If not, why would I want to conquer this disease,
knowing you no longer desired my existence?
After all, what’s the point of living
when you can ignore my distress with such indifference?



VI. Her Apology for Errant Desire
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Let me admit my errant passion to you, my love,
since in these last few days
I've exceeded all my foolish youth's former follies!
And no folly have I ever regretted more
than leaving you alone last night,
desiring only to disguise my desire for you!



Sulpicia on the First of March
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“One might venture that Sulpicia was not over-modest.” – MRB

Sulpicia's adorned herself for you, O mighty Mars, on your Kalends:
come admire her yourself, if you have the sense to observe!
Venus will forgive your ogling, but you, O my violent one,
beware lest your armaments fall shamefully to the floor!
Cunning Love lights twin torches from her eyes,
with which he’ll soon inflame the gods themselves!
Wherever she goes, whatever she does,
Elegance and Grace follow dutifully in attendance!
If she unleashes her hair, trailing torrents become her train:
if she braids her mane, her braids are to be revered!
If she dons a Tyrian gown, she inflames!
She inflames, if she wears virginal white!
As stylish Vertumnus wears her thousand outfits
on eternal Olympus, even so she models hers gracefully!
She alone among the girls is worthy
of Tyre’s soft wool dipped twice in costly dyes!
May she always possess whatever rich Arabian farmers
reap from their fragrant plains’ perfumed fields,
and whatever flashing gems dark India gathers
from the scarlet shores of distant Dawn’s seas.
Sing the praises of this girl, Muses, on these festive Kalends,
and you, proud Phoebus, strum your tortoiseshell lyre!
She'll carry out these sacred rites for many years to come,
for no girl was ever worthier of your chorus!

Sulpicia is one of the few female poets of ancient Rome whose work survives, and she is arguably the most notable. Other ancient female poets associated with the Roman Empire include Perilla, a Latin lyric poetess whom Ovid deemed second only to Sappho but may have been a scripta puella (a "written girl" and male construct); Aelia Eudocia, a Byzantine empress; Moero, another Byzantine poetess; Claudia Severa, remembered today for two surviving literary letters (and one of those a fragment); Eucheria, who has just one extant poem; Faltonia Betitia Proba, a Latin Roman Christian poet of the late empire who left a Virgilian cento with many lines copied directly from Virgil with "minimal" modification; Julia Balbilla, who has four extant epigrams; and Caecilia Trebulla, who has three. There was also a second Sulpicia, known as Sulpicia II, who lived during the reign of Domitian, for whom only two lines of iambic trimeters survive.

Alas, it seems there was little little effort wasted on preserving the work of female poets in male-dominated Rome!

The original Sulpicia was the author of six short poems (some 40 lines in all) written in Latin during the first century BC. Her poems were published as part of the corpus of Albius Tibullus. Sulpicia's family were well-off Roman citizens with connections to Emperor Augustus, since her uncle Valerius Messalla Corvinus served as a commander for Augustus and was consul in 31 BC.

My translations were suggested by Carolyn Clark, to whom I have dedicated them. Her dissertation "Tibullus Illustrated: Lares, Genius and Sacred Landscapes" includes a discussion of Sulpicia on pages 364-369 and is highly recommended.

Keywords/Tags: Sulpicia, Latin, Latin Poems, English Translations, Rome, Roman, Cerinthus, Albius Tibullus, Uncle Valerius Messalla Corvinus, birthday, villa, Augustus



The Maiden’s Song aka The Bridal Morn
anonymous Medieval lyric
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The maidens came to my mother’s bower.
I had all I would, that hour.

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Now silver is white, red is the gold;
The robes they lay in fold.

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Still through the window shines the sun.
How should I love, yet be so young?

  The bailey beareth the bell away;
  The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

I take this to be a naughty, suggestive poem, but one that makes us feel sympathy for a young bride, quite possibly a child bride. Once upon a time there was a custom of people witnessing a marriage's consummation, called a “bedding ceremony,” which in this case might have taken place in the mother's "bower" (bedroom). If the witnesses didn't watch the act, they might have been just outside the door, drinking and telling coarse jokes at the bride’s expense. The "bailey" may be the bailiff, spreading the marriage bans that result in the "bell" (*****/virginity) being borne away. The bride's attire has changed color from white and gold (both symbols of purity) to silver (not as pure) and red (hymeneal blood). The pure white lily has been replaced by a rose. "The rose I lay" and "they lay in fold" seem like suggestive wordplay to me. I take the sun shining through the window to be the following morning, with the young bride a bit nonplussed about the (probably) arranged and (possibly) premature affair. In any case, it's a fetching and thought-provoking little poem.



Let all those love, who never loved before.
Let those who always loved, love all the more.
—ancient Latin saying, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with ecstasy of shame.
That tearing pain is gone, enriched
By his life-spasm; but he being gone, the same
Myself is gone
****** by the dragon down below death's horizon.

III
I woke from this. I lay upon the lawn;
They had thrown roses on the moss
With all their thorns; we came there at the dawn,
My lord and I; God sailed across
The sky in's galleon of amber, drawn
By singing winds
While we wove garlands of the flowers of our minds.

IV

All day my lover deigned to ****** me,
Linking his kisses in a chain
About my neck; demon-embroidery!
Bruises like far-ff mountains stain
The valley of my body of ivory!
Then last came sleep.
I wake, and he is gone; what should I do but weep?

V

Nay, for I wept enough --- more sacred tears! ---
When first he pinned me, gripped
My flesh, and as a stallion that rears,
Sprang, hero-thewed and satyr-lipped;
Crushed, as a grape between his teeth, my fears;
****** out my life
And stamped me with the shame, the monstrous word of
wife.

VI

I will not weep; nay, I will follow him
Perchance he is not far,
Bathing his limbs in some delicious dim
Depth, where the evening star
May kiss his mouth, or by the black sky's rim
He makes his prayer
To the great serpent that is coiled in rapture there.

VII

I rose to seek him. First my footsteps faint
Pressed the starred moss; but soon
I wandered, like some sweet sequestered saint,
Into the wood, my mind. The moon
Was staggered by the trees; with fierce constraint
Hardly one ray
Pierced to the ragged earth about their roots that lay.

VIII

I wandered, crying on my Lord. I wandered
Eagerly seeking everywhere.
The stories of life that on my lips he squandered
Grew into shrill cries of despair,
Until the dryads frightened and dumfoundered
Fled into space ---
Like to a demon-king's was grown my maiden face!

XI

At last I came unto the well, my soul
In that still glass, I saw no sign
Of him, and yet --- what visions there uproll
To cloud that mirror-soul of mine?
Above my head there screams a flying scroll
Whose word burnt through
My being as when stars drop in black disastrous dew.

X

For in that scroll was written how the globe
Of space became; of how the light
Broke in that space and wrapped it in a robe
Of glory; of how One most white
Withdrew that Whole, and hid it in the lobe
Of his right Ear,
So that the Universe one dewdrop did appear.

IX

Yea! and the end revealed a word, a spell,
An incantation, a device
Whereby the Eye of the Most Terrible
Wakes from its wilderness of ice
To flame, whereby the very core of hell
Bursts from its rind,
Sweeping the world away into the blank of mind.

XII

So then I saw my fault; I plunged within
The well, and brake the images
That I had made, as I must make - Men spin
The webs that snare them - while the knee
Bend to the tyrant God - or unto Sin
The lecher sunder!
Ah! came that undulant light from over or from under?

XIII

It matters not. Come, change! come, Woe! Come, mask!
Drive Light, Life, Love into the deep!
In vain we labour at the loathsome task
Not knowing if we wake or sleep;
But in the end we lift the plumed casque
Of the dead warrior;
Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling *****.

XIV

Then I returned into myself, and took
All in my arms, God's universe:
Crushed its black juice out, while His anger shook
His dumbness pregnant with a curse.
I made me ink, and in a little book
I wrote one word
That God himself, the adder of Thought, had never heard.

XV

It detonated. Nature, God, mankind
Like sulphur, nitre, charcoal, once
Blended, in one annihilation blind
Were rent into a myriad of suns.
Yea! all the mighty fabric of a Mind
Stood in the abyss,
Belching a Law for "That" more awful than for "This."

XVI

Vain was the toil. So then I left the wood
And came unto the still black sea,
That oily monster of beatitude!
('Hath "Thee" for "Me," and "Me" for "Thee!")
There as I stood, a mask of solitude
Hiding a face
Wried as a satyr's, rolled that ocean into space.

XVII

Then did I build an altar on the shore
Of oyster-shells, and ringed it round
With star-fish. Thither a green flame I bore
Of phosphor foam, and strewed the ground
With dew-drops, children of my wand, whose core
Was trembling steel
Electric that made spin the universal Wheel.

XVIII

With that a goat came running from the cave
That lurked below the tall white cliff.
Thy name! cried I. The answer that gave
Was but one tempest-whisper - "If!"
Ah, then! his tongue to his black palate clave;
For on soul's curtain
Is written this one certainty that naught is certain!

XIX

So then I caught that goat up in a kiss.
And cried Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!
Then all this body's wealth of ambergris,
(Narcissus-scented flesh of man!)
I burnt before him in the sacrifice;
For he was sure -
Being the Doubt of Things, the one thing to endure!

**

Wherefore, when madness took him at the end,
He, doubt-goat, slew the goat of doubt;
And that which inward did for ever tend
Came at the last to have come out;
And I who had the World and God to friend
Found all three foes!
Drowned in that sea of changes, vacancies, and woes!

XXI

Yet all that Sea was swallowed up therein;
So they were not, and it was not.
As who should sweat his soul out through the skin
And find (sad fool!) he had begot
All that without him that he had left in,
And in himself
All he had taken out thereof, a mocking elf!

XXII

But now that all was gone, great Pan appeared.
Him then I strove to woo, to win,
Kissing his curled lips, playing with his beard,
Setting his brain a-shake, a-spin,
By that strong wand, and muttering of the weird
That only I
Knew of all souls alive or dead beneath the sky.

XXIII

So still I conquered, and the vision passed.
Yet still was beaten, for I knew
Myself was He, Himself, the first and last;
And as an unicorn drinks dew
From under oak-leaves, so my strength was cast
Into the mire;
For all I did was dream, and all I dreamt desire.

XXIV

More; in this journey I had clean forgotten
The quest, my lover. But the tomb
Of all these thoughts, the rancid and the rotten,
Proved in the end to be my womb
Wherein my Lord and lover had begotten
A little child
To drive me, laughing lion, into the wanton wild!

XXV

This child hath not one hair upon his head,
But he hath wings instead of ears.
No eyes hath he, but all his light is shed
Within him on the ordered sphere
Of nature that he hideth; and in stead
Of mouth he hath
One minute point of jet; silence, the lightning path!

XXVI

Also his nostrils are shut up; for he
Hath not the need of any breath;
Nor can the curtain of eternity
Cover that head with life or death.
So all his body, a slim almond-tree,
Knoweth no bough
Nor branch nor twig nor bud, from never until now.

XXVII

This thought I bred within my bowels, I am.
I am in him, as he in me;
And like a satyr ravishing a lamb
So either seems, or as the sea
Swallows the whale that swallows it, the ram
Beats its own head
Upon the city walls, that fall as it falls dead.

XXVIII

Come, let me back unto the lilied lawn!
Pile me the roses and the thorns,
Upon this bed from which he hath withdrawn!
He may return. A million morns
May follow that first dire daemonic dawn
When he did split
My spirit with his lightnings and enveloped it!

XXIX

So I am stretched out naked to the knife,
My whole soul twitching with the stress
Of the expected yet surprising strife,
A martyrdom of blessedness.
Though Death came, I could kiss him into life;
Though Life came, I
Could kiss him into death, and yet nor live nor die!

***

Yet I that am the babe, the sire, the dam,
Am also none of these at all;
For now that cosmic chaos of I AM
Bursts like a bubble. Mystical
The night comes down, a soaring wedge of flame
Woven therein
To be a sign to them who yet have never been.

XXXI

The universe I measured with my rod.
The blacks were balanced with the whites;
Satan dropped down even as up soared God;
****** prayed and danced with anchorites.
So in my book the even matched the odd:
No word I wrote
Therein, but sealed it with the signet of the goat.

XXXII

This also I seal up. Read thou herein
Whose eyes are blind! Thou may'st behold
Within the wheel (that always seems to spin
All ways) a point of static gold.
Then may'st thou out therewith, and fit it in
That extreme sphere
Whose boundless farness makes it infinitely near.

Though thou did’st hear the tempest from afar,
And felt’st the horrors of the wat’ry war,
To me unknown, yet on this peaceful shore
Methinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar,
And how stern Boreas with impetuous hand
Compell’d the Nereids to usurp the land.
Reluctant rose the daughters of the main,
And slow ascending glided o’er the plain,
Till ****** in his rapid chariot drove
In gloomy grandeur from the vault above:
Furious he comes.  His winged sons obey
Their frantic sire, and madden all the sea.
The billows rave, the wind’s fierce tyrant roars,
And with his thund’ring terrors shakes the shores:
Broken by waves the vessel’s frame is rent,
And strows with planks the wat’ry element.
  But thee, Maria, a kind Nereid’s shield
Preserv’d from sinking, and thy form upheld:
And sure some heav’nly oracle design’d
At that dread crisis to instruct thy mind
Things of eternal consequence to weigh,
And to thine heart just feelings to convey
Of things above, and of the future doom,
And what the births of the dread world to come.
  From tossing seas I welcome thee to land.
“Resign her, Nereid,” ’twas thy God’s command.
Thy spouse late buried, as thy fears conceiv’d,
Again returns, thy fears are all reliev’d:
Thy daughter blooming with superior grace
Again thou see’st, again thine arms embrace;
O come, and joyful show thy spouse his heir,
And what the blessings of maternal care!

what is the range
of these ripples
that set forth as
i skip across life's lake.
unseen to me,
upon what shores
will wash my
wave bound wake.

in the soup
vegetable is meat
as meat is vegetable.
such are we
in this world
dripping like mucus.
endless fluid contact,
breathing the same
air that has been
breathed for millenia.

slowly releasing our pigment
into the swirl of things,
this spin-art world.
everybody's got their own color
and we can't help but mix them.

like a tube of paint
without a top
dropped in a bucket.
the living color erupts,
it permeates the outside.

dissipates but never disappears.

like blood in the sink
swirling with substance,
vibrant and brilliant.

the thin stretch of life
dissolves slowly to clear.
becoming, not nothing,
but less of something
and part of more.

goes down the drain,
but where from there?

Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights, now dead,
                 where I’ll muse as her shadows ascend.

                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she teases the mirror with green Spanish eyes;
her serape entangles her brooches and bangles
                 like lace on the sorcerer’s looms,
and her cape of the night, she drapes tight to excite,
                 and her fan is embellished with plumes.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as spectators savour her green Spanish eyes;
taming wild concertinas, the dark ballerina
                 performs on the music hall stage,
but she shies from the sound of ovation unbound
                 like a timorous bird in a cage.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she quickens the pit with her green Spanish eyes;
as the cymbals shake, clashing, the floodlights wake, flashing,
                 igniting the wild fireflies,
and the piccolo piper’s inviting the vipers
                 to coil neath the cold caldron skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the shimmering shadows in green Spanish eyes
as I rise from my chair and proceed to the stair
                 with a hesitant sip of my wine.
Though she doesn’t deny me, she wanders right by me
                 with neither a look nor a sign.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the stage with her green Spanish eyes,
(for her senses scoff, scorning the biblical warning
                 of kisses of Judas that sting,
with her pierced ears defeating the echoes repeating)
                 and smiles at the magpie that sings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching faint embers a’ stir in her green Spanish eyes,
for a soft spoken stranger enveloping danger
                 has captured the rhyme in the room
as he slips into sight through a crack in the night
                 midst the breath of her heavy perfume.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she gauges his guise through her green Spanish eyes
– from his gypsy-like mane, to his diamond stud cane,
                 to the raven engraved on his vest –
for a faraway form, a tempestuous storm,
                 lurks and heaves neath the cleav’e of her *******.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the caravels cruising her green Spanish eyes;
with the castanets clacking like ancient masts cracking
                 he whips ’round his cloak with a ****
and without sacrificing, at mien so enticing,
                 she floats with her face facing his.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the vertigo veiling her green Spanish eyes,
while the drumbeat pounds, droning, the rhythm sounds, moaning,
                 of jungles Jamaican entwined
in the valleys concealing the vineyards revealing
                 the vaults in the caves of her mind.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching life’s carnivals call to her green Spanish eyes,
and with paused palpitations the tom-tom temptations
                 come taunting her tremulous feet
with her toe tips a’ tingle while jute boxes jingle
                 for jesters that jive on the street.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she rides ocean tides in her green Spanish eyes,
and her silhouette’s travelling on ripples unravelling
                 and shaking the shipwracking shores,
as she strides from the light to the black cauldron night
                 through the candlelit cabaret doors.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she dances till dawn flashing green Spanish eyes,
with her movements adorning a trickle of morning
                 as sipped by the mouth of the moon,
while her tresses twirl, shaming the filaments flaming
                 that flow from the sun’s oval spoon.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she masks for a moment her green Spanish eyes.
Then the magpie that sings ceases preening her wings
                 and descends as a lean bird of prey –
as she flutters her ’lashes and laughs in broad splashes,
                 his narrowing eyes start to stray.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching fey carousels spin in her green Spanish eyes,
and the porcelain ponies and leprechaun cronies
                 race, reaching for gold and such things,
even being reminded that only the blinded
                 are fooled by the brass in the rings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she shepherds the shadows with green Spanish eyes,
but as evening sinks, ebbing, the skyline climbs, webbing,
                 and weaves through the temples of stone,
while the nightingales sing of a kiss on the wing
                 in the depths of the dunes all alone.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the music and magic in green Spanish eyes,
as she dances enchanted, while firmly implanted
                 in tugs of his turbulent arms,
till he cuts through the strings, tames the magpie that sings,
                 and seduces once more with his charms.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, the citadel steams in her green Spanish eyes,
but behind the dark curtain the savants seem certain
                 that nothing and no one exists,
and though vapours look vacant, the vagabond vagrants
                 remain within mythical mists.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as lightning at midnight in green Spanish eyes
kindles cracks within crystals like flashes from pistols
                 residing inside of the gloom
as it hovers above us betraying a dove as
                 she flees from the fountain of doom.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, distilling despair in her green Spanish eyes,
and the bitterness stings like the snap of the strings
                 when a mystical  mandolin sighs
as the vampire shades **** the life from charades
                 neath the resinous residue skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the ledge with her green Spanish eyes,
for the terrace hangs high and she’s thinking to fly
                 and abandon fate’s merry-go-round.
At the edge I perceive her and rush to retrieve her –
                 she stumbles, falls far to the ground.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the sparkles a’ spilling from green Spanish eyes.
As I peer from the railing, with evening exhaling,
                 I cry out a lover’s lament –
there she lies midst the crowd with her spirit unbowed,
                 but her body’s all broken and bent.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she beckons me hither with green Spanish eyes,
and I’m slightly amazed being snared in her gaze
                 and a’ swirl in a hurricane way,
but the seconds are slipping, my courage is dripping,
                 the moment is bleeding away.

Ah Consuela! I touch her - she weeps tender tears from her green Spanish eyes;
as the breezes cease blowing, her essence leaves, flowing,
                 in streams neath the ambient light,
and the droplets drip swarming, so silent, yet warming,
                 like rain in a midsummer night.

Ah Consuela! I hold her, am hushed by the hints in her green Spanish eyes,
while her whispers are breathing the breaths of the seething
                 electrical skeletal winds,
and the words paint the poems that rivers a’ slowin’
                 reveal where the waterfall ends.

Ah Consuela! I’m fading in fires a’ flicker in green Spanish eyes,
as she plays back the past, she abandons and casts
                 away matters that no longer mend.
           .
                  .
And she reached out instead, as she lifted her head,
                 and we kissed as she parted, my friend.
           .
                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m tangled, entombed, trapped in tales of your green Spanish eyes,
in forsaken cantinas beyond the arenas
                 where night-time illusions once flowed,
for the ash neath my shoulder still throbs as it smoulders
                 some place near the end of the road.

In the beginning were the chords
Seven days of rataplan;
The kind of week that John Lee ******
Dreamed in blue and 4/4 time,

Newport on a 60's binge.
Palinodes on saxophone lips
Refusing to look back on Memphis,
Chilling out to Tupelo time.

Spin him a lyric Lady Music,
Camber a tone to smoky heights.
Walk the blues round Jim Beam shores
And drown them in N'awlins nights.

Riff the waves to inner ear
Like satin on the low strings:
From frets on legacies
Feel the descant fade away.