We were interstellar travellers,
children so interested in creating
our infinite microcosmic civilizations,
that we missed it. I saw it,
briefly, once, at night.

We jumped from rock to rock
in the grand pond of the
universe, swam between asteroid reefs
and through the turbulent vents
that were black holes. We
lived everywhere, nowhere,
all at once and for an eternity
at the fringes of galaxies,
and their centres (having burrowed
through the thick skins of dying suns).
We built, advanced, explored,
warred, and coexisted. We knew
everything. We thought.
We knew everything, we thought.

It began as a small blip,
an electromagnetic pulse at the
beginning of time which meta-
imposed itself into the rest of time:
a god, or something of
the sort, it grew and
shrank, and grew and
shrank; a heartbeat--
life. Death.
It ended as a small blip,
an electromagnetic pulse at the
end of time which meta-
imposed itself into the rest of time:
a god, or something of
the sort, it grew and
shrank, and grew and
shrank; a heartbeat--
life. Death.

From the former to the latter,
it sparked creation
and destruction
and advancement
and setback
and belief
and theory
and one
and none.

I saw it,
briefly, once, at night.

I. The Door

Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

II. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start
From the best firms at such work: instruments
To take the measure of all queer events,
And drugs to move the bowels or the heart.

A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly,
Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;
Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun,
And coloured beads to soothe a savage eye.

In theory they were sound on Expectation,
Had there been situations to be in;
Unluckily they were their situation:

One should not give a poisoner medicine,
A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
A rifle to a melancholic bore.

III. The Crossroads

Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,
Each to his own mistake; one flashes on
To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie,
A village torpor holds the other one,
Some local wrong where it takes time to die:
This empty junction glitters in the sun.

So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell
These places of decision and farewell
To what dishonour all adventure leads,
What parting gift could give that friend protection,
So orientated his vocation needs
The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?

All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear,
But none have ever thought, the legends say,
The time allowed made it impossible;
For even the most pessimistic set
The limit of their errors at a year.
What friends could there be left then to betray,
What joy take longer to atone for; yet
Who could complete without the extra day
The journey that should take no time at all?

IV. The Traveler

No window in his suburb lights that bedroom where
A little fever heard large afternoons at play:
His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not there
Which went on grinding at the back of love all day.

Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found
The castle where his Greater Hallows are interned;
For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round
Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned.

Could he forget a child's ambition to be old
And institutions where it learned to wash and lie,
He'd tell the truth for which he thinks himself too young,

That everywhere on his horizon, all the sky,
Is now, as always, only waiting to be told
To be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

V. The City

In villages from which their childhoods came
Seeking Necessity, they had been taught
Necessity by nature is the same
No matter how or by whom it be sought.

The city, though, assumed no such belief,
But welcomed each as if he came alone,
The nature of Necessity like grief
Exactly corresponding to his own.

And offered them so many, every one
Found some temptation fit to govern him,
And settled down to master the whole craft

Of being nobody; sat in the sun
During the lunch-hour round the fountain rim,
And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.

VI. The First Temptation

Ashamed to be the darling of his grief,
He joined a gang of rowdy stories where
His gift for magic quickly made him chief
Of all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,
The town's asymmetry into a park;
All hours took taxis; any solitude
Became his flattered duchess in the dark.

But, if he wished for anything less grand,
The nights came padding after him like wild
Beasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth had met him and put out her hand,
He clung in panic to his tall belief
And shrank away like an ill-treated child.

VII. The Second Temptation

His library annoyed him with its look
Of calm belief in being really there;
He threw away a rival's boring book,
And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:
"O Uncreated Nothing, set me free,
Now let Thy perfect be identified,
Unending passion of the Night, with Thee."

And his long-suffering flesh, that all the time
Had felt the simple cravings of the stone
And hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spoke
That now at last she would be left alone,
And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

VIII. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
"All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil's Waltz."

All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

IX. The Tower

This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a ****** made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
"Beware of Magic" to the passer-by.

X. The Presumptuous

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was as daring as they thought him,
But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel of a broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory,
And stuck half-way to settle in some cave
With desert lions to domesticity,

Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,
And met the ogre and were turned to stone.

XI. The Average

His peasant parents killed themselves with toil
To let their darling leave a stingy soil
For any of those fine professions which
Encourage shallow breathing, and grow rich.

The pressure of their fond ambition made
Their shy and country-loving child afraid
No sensible career was good enough,
Only a hero could deserve such love.

So here he was without maps or supplies,
A hundred miles from any decent town;
The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes,
The silence roared displeasure:
looking down,
He saw the shadow of an Average Man
Attempting the exceptional, and ran.

XII. Vocation

Incredulous, he stared at the amused
Official writing down his name among
Those whose request to suffer was refused.

The pen ceased scratching: though he came too late
To join the martyrs, there was still a place
Among the tempters for a caustic tongue

To test the resolution of the young
With tales of the small failings of the great,
And shame the eager with ironic praise.

Though mirrors might be hateful for a while,
Women and books would teach his middle age
The fencing wit of an informal style,
To keep the silences at bay and cage
His pacing manias in a worldly smile.

XIII. The Useful

The over-logical fell for the witch
Whose argument converted him to stone,
Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich,
The over-popular went mad alone,
And kisses brutalised the over-male.

As agents their importance quickly ceased;
Yet, in proportion as they seemed to fail,
Their instrumental value was increased
For one predestined to attain their wish.

By standing stones the blind can feel their way,
Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight,
Beggars assist the slow to travel light,
And even madmen manage to convey
Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish.

XIV. The Way

Fresh addenda are published every day
To the encyclopedia of the Way,

Linguistic notes and scientific explanations,
And texts for schools with modernised spelling and illustrations.

Now everyone knows the hero must choose the old horse,
Abstain from liquor and ****** *******,

And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:
Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,

The way through the waste to the chapel in the rock
For a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock,

Forgetting his information comes mostly from married men
Who liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then.

And how reliable can any truth be that is got
By observing oneself and then just inserting a Not?

XV. The Lucky

Suppose he'd listened to the erudite committee,
He would have only found where not to look;
Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,
It would not have unearthed the buried city;
Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,
The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the book.

"It was not I," he cried as, healthy and astounded,
He stepped across a predecessor's skull;
"A nonsense jingle simply came into my head
And left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded;
I won the Queen because my hair was red;
The terrible adventure is a little dull."

Hence Failure's torment: "Was I doomed in any case,
Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace?"

XVI. The Hero

He parried every question that they hurled:
"What did the Emperor tell you?" "Not to push."
"What is the greatest wonder of the world?"
"The bare man Nothing in the Beggar's Bush."

Some muttered: "He is cagey for effect.
A hero owes a duty to his fame.
He looks too like a grocer for respect."
Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.

The only difference that could be seen
From those who'd never risked their lives at all
Was his delight in details and routine:

For he was always glad to mow the grass,
Pour liquids from large bottles into small,
Or look at clouds through bits of coloured glass.

XVII. Adventure

Others had found it prudent to withdraw
Before official pressure was applied,
Embittered robbers outlawed by the Law,
Lepers in terror of the terrified.

But no one else accused these of a crime;
They did not look ill: old friends, overcome,
Stared as they rolled away from talk and time
Like marbles out into the blank and dumb.

The crowd clung all the closer to convention,
Sunshine and horses, for the sane know why
The even numbers should ignore the odd:

The Nameless is what no free people mention;
Successful men know better than to try
To see the face of their Absconded God.

XVIII. The Adventurers

Spinning upon their central thirst like tops,
They went the Negative Way towards the Dry;
By empty caves beneath an empty sky
They emptied out their memories like slops,

Which made a foul marsh as they dried to death,
Where monsters bred who forced them to forget
The lovelies their consent avoided; yet,
Still praising the Absurd with their last breath,

They seeded out into their miracles:
The images of each grotesque temptation
Became some painter's happiest inspiration,

And barren wives and burning virgins came
To drink the pure cold water of their wells,
And wish for beaux and children in their name.

XIX. The Waters

Poet, oracle, and wit
Like unsuccessful anglers by
The ponds of apperception sit,
Baiting with the wrong request
The vectors of their interest,
At nightfall tell the angler's lie.

With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenomena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering.

The waters long to hear our question put
Which would release their longed-for answer, but.

**. The Garden

Within these gates all opening begins:
White shouts and flickers through its green and red,
Where children play at seven earnest sins
And dogs believe their tall conditions dead.

Here adolescence into number breaks
The perfect circle time can draw on stone,
And flesh forgives division as it makes
Another's moment of consent its own.

All journeys die here: wish and weight are lifted:
Where often round some old maid's desolation
Roses have flung their glory like a cloak,

The gaunt and great, the famed for conversation
Blushed in the stare of evening as they spoke
And felt their centre of volition shifted.

Once upon a time there was a person
He was walking along
He met the full burning moon
Rolling slowly twoards him
Crushing the stones and houses by the wayside.
She shut his eyes from the glare.
He drew his dagger
And stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.
The cry that quit the moon's wounds
Circled the earth.
The moon shrank, like a punctured airship,
Shrank, shrank, smaller, smaller,
Till it was nothing
But a silk handkerchief, torn,
And wet as tears.
The person picked it up. He walked on
Into moonless night
Carrying his strange trophy.

We didn’t bloom together the way we should have. We never eyed each other across neat soil; both self-conscious and self-righteous as we sipped the sun and, in quiet bursts, raced to touch the sky.  

We weren't planted by gentle hands in soft plots with room to stretch our limbs and shield our eyes, nor to bud in peace and thrive and find identity in both our own bold blossoms and as a pulsing piece of the whole lavish garden.

We didn't bloom because we erupted.
We running-start-swan-dived into stale dirt and were too close from the very beginning.
We didn’t sprout up straight; we snaked and lurked and left no bit of earth untouched by our vibrant, stencil **** fingers declaring ourselves alive.

By harvest we were tangled beyond repair.
By harvest I didn't know me from you and I liked it.

To be so entwined is lovely but depends on a balance
we could only begin to grasp.
To expand but not uproot requires perfect synchronicity maybe not beyond our years but certainly beyond our maturity. We spread out our emotions like tarot cards on a towel in the grass and reflected in your sunglasses I met the silent pieces of me.
In colorful, grim drawings those quiet, ugly bits floated up veins and settled under ribs.
They stayed silent. Until they began to scream.

And you and I- we didn't have the words;
not our own words that we earned and burned while stumbling across months and plains,
tripping over potholes and finding our feet quicker each time.
We had place-holders words we sang back and forth and splashed around and bathed in.
The words we spoke were profound and cardboard.
We were just reading lines, sharing identical scripts and an ache to be seen
so deep and desperate it was sinful.

We maybe shared the humid cling of regret; which hung heavy in stuck-air auditoriums,
it beaded sweat echoed, rolling down spines and turning blood to sticky wax as we whispered in the corner about the things we could say aloud while our minds never left the things we wouldn't dare.

We were mostly ill-equipped.
We joked about hurricanes
We didn't survive the first storm.

I want you to know you really hurt my feelings.
I want you to know you're the first guy I've given my feelings to hurt.
I want you to know I was terrible towards the end.
And I know that. But you gave up on me

You gave up on me at the exact moment I was giving up on myself.
Even as my tongue stung metallic and veins pulsed so hot and loud
through my eardrum that I felt I would explode- it was clean.
It was all remarkably clean.
and sterile.
There were no explosions.
No shattered plates, ****** knuckles or blown out voices
that scratched and rose in time with the sun.

Just a quick slash of rope-
an anchor cut loose and left to sink;
our secrets were set free to
rust over and collect algae.
We were suddenly off the hook
for any vulnerability we might have spilled
on each other in our fits of laughter
and hours of sleep.
A deep sigh of relief.
A deeper sigh of desolation.

The moment exists in sad yellow lighting that must have been added in restrospect.
I tweaked the floor of my memory too:
at that moment I was not wearing flipflops on linoleum- but sinking, slowly and barefoot, into chilly riverbed mud as it turned to ice.

I opened the door and there you stood.
You knew I had been crying and I didn’t try to hide it
it was too exhausting- running on fumes.

And I did expect something from you,
anything from you, that might dull the singed-dagger plunging
stab to my chest with each breath I gulped and spat .
I wanted anything that might reel me in from the cliffs edge
where my thoughts had carried me on horseback.

But you had nothing.
I watched your eyes swallow my swollen lips and pinched, glassy eyes
like a quick, sharp shot of warm whiskey.
Careful to avoid eye contact you slipped ‘**** this,’
under your breath and started to reach for my hand.

You started to, but then after a second suspended
you let your arm fall back to your body.
Head lowered, jaw clenched and you turned and fled with a new heaviness pushing down on your posture.
It looked painful and adult.
It looked like you finally felt the weight of our season.
And watching you go I shrank in lighter and thicker because I felt it too.

We are not going to get a happy ending-
not with each other and not right now.
Maybe not ever.
And that will have to do.
(Though I will miss your hand in mine.
I hope one day you'll remember being tangled with me and it will make you laugh before you cringe because I didn't like to be alone.)

If I wanted to be alone I would just go home.

Ah, Nikolaas, my love for him is not the same, as my love for thee;
My love for thee was once, and may still be, sweeter, purer, more elegant, and free;
But still, how unfortunate! imprisoned in mockery, and liberated not-by destiny;
It still hath to come and go; it cannot stay cheerfully-about thee forever, and within my company.

And but tonight-shall Amsterdam still be cold?
But to cold temper thou shalt remain unheeded; thou shalt be tough, and bold;
Sadly I am definite about having another nightmare, meanwhile, here;
For thy voice and longings shall be too far; with presumptions and poems, I cannot hear.

Sleep, my loveliest, sleep; for unlike thine, none other temper, or love-is in some ways too fragrant, and sweet;
All of which shall neither tempt me to flirt, nor hasten me to meet;
My love for thee is still undoubted, defined, and unhesitant;
Like all t'is summer weather around; 'tis both imminent, and pleasant.

My love for thee, back then, was but one youthful-and reeking of temporal vitality;
But now 'tis different-for fathom I now-the distinction between sincerity, and affectation.
Ah, Nikolaas, how once we strolled about roads, and nearby spheres-in living vivacity;
With sweets amongst our tongues-wouldst we attend every song, and laugh at an excessively pretentious lamentation.

Again-we wouldst stop in front of every farm of lavender;
As though they wanted to know, and couldst but contribute their breaths, and make our love better.
We were both in blooming youth, and still prevailed on-to keep our chastity;
And t'is we obeyed gladly, and by each ot'er, days passed and every second went even lovelier.

But in one minute thou wert but all gone away;
Leaving me astray; leaving me to utter dismay.
I had no more felicity in me-for all was but, in my mind, a dream of thee;
And every step was thus felt like an irretrievable path of agony.

Ah, yon agony I loathe! The very agony I wanted but to slaughter, to redeem-and to bury!
For at t'at time I had known not the beauty of souls, and poetry;
I thought but the world was wholly insipid and arrogant;
T'at was so far as I had seen, so far as I was concerned.

I hath now, seen thy image-from more a lawful angle-and lucidity;
And duly seen more of which-and all start to fall into place-and more indolent, clarity;
All is fair now, though nothing was once as fair;
And now with peace, I want to be friends; I want to be paired.

Perhaps thou couldst once more be part of my tale;
But beforehand, I entreat thee to see, and listen to it;
A tale t'at once sent into my heart great distrust and sadness, and made it pale;
But from which now my heart hath found a way out, and even satisfactorily flirted with it,

For every tale, the more I approach it, is as genuine as thee;
And in t'is way-and t'is way only, I want thee to witness me, I want thee to see me.
I still twitch with tender madness at every figure, and image-I hath privately, of thine;
They are still so captivatingly clear-and a most fabulous treasure to my mind.

My love for thee might hath now ended; and shall from now on-be dead forever;
It hath been buried as a piece of unimportance, and a dear old, obsolete wonder;
And thus worry not, for in my mind it hath become a shadow, and ceased to exist;
I hath made thee resign, I hath made thee drift rapidly away, and desist.

Ah, but again, I shall deny everything I hath said-'fore betraying myself once more;
Or leading myself into the winds of painful gravity, or dismissive cold tremor;
For nothing couldst stray me so well as having thee not by my side;
An image of having thee just faraway-amidst the fierceness of morns, and the very tightness of nights.

And for seconds-t'ese pains shall want to bury me away, want to make me shout;
And shout thy very name indeed; thy very own aggravated silence, and sins out loud;
Ah, for all t'ese shadows about are too vehement-but eagerly eerie;
Like bursts of outspread vigilance, misunderstood but lasting forever, like eternity.

'Twas thy own mistake-and thus thou ought'a blame anyone not;
Thou wert the one to storm away; thou wert the one who cut our story short.
Thou wert the one who took whole leave, of the kind entity-of my precious time and space;
And for nothingness thou obediently set out; leaving all we had built, to abundant waste.

Thou disappeared all too quickly-and wert never seen again;
Thou disappeared like a column of smoke, to whom t'is virtual world is partial;
And none of thy story, since when-hath stayed nor thoughtfully remained;
Nor any threads of thy voice were left behind, to stir and ring, about yon hall.

Thou gaily sailed back into thy proud former motherland;
Ah, and the stirring noises of thy meticulous Amsterdam;
Invariably as a man of royalty, in thy old arduous way back again;
Amongst the holiness of thy mortality; 'twixt the demure hesitations, of thy royal charms.

And thou art strange! For once thou mocked and regarded royalty as *******;
But again, to which itself, as credulous, and soulless victim, thou couldst serenely fall;
Thus thou hath perpetually been loyal not, to thy own pride, and neatly sworn words;
Thou art forever divided in his dilemma; and the unforgiving sweat, of thy frightening two worlds.

Indeed thy godlike eyes once pierced me-and touched my very fleshly happiness;
But with a glory in which I couldst not rejoice; at which I couldst not blush with tenderness.
Thy charms, although didst once burn and throttle me with a ripe vitality;
Still wert not smooth-and ever offered to cuddle me more gallantly; nor kiss my boiling lips, more softly.

Every one of t'ese remembrances shall make me hate thee more;
But thou thyself hath made more forgiving, and excellent-like never before;
'Ah, sweet,' thou wouldst again protested-last night, 'Who in t'is very life wouldst make no sin?'
'Forgiveth every sinned soul thereof; for 'tis unfaithful, for 'tis all inherently mean.'

'Aye, aye,' and thou wouldst assent to my subsequent query,
'I hath changed forever-not for nothingness, but for eternitie.'
'To me love o' gold is now but nothing as succulent',
'I shall offer elegantly myself to not be of any more torment, but as a loyal friend.'

'I shall calleth my former self mad; and be endued with nothing but truths, of rifles and hate;'
'But now I shall attempt to be obedient; and naughty not-towards my fate.'
'Ah, let me amendst thereof-my initial nights, my impetuous mistakes,'
'Let me amendst what was once not dignified; what was once said as false, and fake.'

'So t'at whenst autumn once more findeth its lapse, and in its very grandness arrive,'
'I hopeth thy wealth of love shall hath been restored, and all shall be alive,'
'For nothing hath I attempted to achieve, and for nothing else I hath struggled to strive;'
'But only to propose for thy affection; and thy willingness to be my saluted wife.'

And t'is small confession didst, didst tear my dear heart into pieces!
But canst I say-it was ceremoniously established once more-into settlements of wishes;
I was soon enlivened, and no longer blurred by tumult, nor discourteous-hesitation;
Ah, thee, so sweetly thou hath consoled, and removed from me-the sanctity of any livid strands of my dejection.

For in vain I thought-had I struggled, to solicit merely affection-and genuinity from thee;
For in vain I deemed-thou couldst neither appreciate me-nor thy coral-like eyes, couldst see;
And t'is peril I perched myself in was indeed dangerous to my night and day;
For it robbed me of my mirth; and shrank insolently my pride and conscience, stuffing my wholeness into dismay.

But thou hath now released me from any further embarkation of mineth sorrow;
Thou who hath pleased me yesterday; and shall no more be distant-tomorrow;
Thou who couldst brighten my hours by jokes so fine-and at times, ridiculous;
Thou who canst but, from now on, as satisfactory, irredeemable, and virtuous.

Ah, Nikolaas, farther I shall be no more to calleth thee mad; or render thee insidious;
Thou shall urge me to forget everything, as hating souls is not right, and perilous;
Thou remindeth me of forgiving's glorious, and profound elegance;
And again 'tis the holiest deed we ought to do; the most blessed, and by God-most desired contrivance.

Oh, my sweet, perhaps thou hath sinned about; but amongst the blessed, thou might still be the most blessed;
For nothing else but gratitude and innocence are now seen-in thy chest;
Even when I chastised thee-and called thee but an impediment;
Thou still forgave me, and turned myself back again into elastic merriment.

Thou art now pure-and not by any means meek, but cruel-like thy old self is;
For unlike 'tis now, it couldst never be satisfied, nor satiated, nor pleased;
'Twas far too immersed in his pursuit of bloodied silver, and gold;
And to love it had grown blind, and its greedy woes, healthily too bold.

And just like its bloodied silver-it might be but the evil blood itself;
For it valued, and still doth-every piece with madness, and insatiable hunger;
Its works taint his senses, and hastened thee to want more-of what thou couldst procure-and have,
But it realised not that as time passed by, it made thee but grew worse-and in the most virtuous of truth, no better.

But thou bore it like a piece of godlike, stainless ivory;
Thou showered, and endured it with love; and blessed it with well-established vanity.
Now it hath been purified, and subdued-and any more teaches thee not-how to be impatient, nor imprudent;
As how it prattled only, over crude, limitless delights; and the want of reckless impediments.

Thou nurtured it, and exhorted it to discover love-all day and night;
And now love in whose soul hath been accordingly sought, and found;
And led thee to absorb life like a delicate butterfly-and raiseth thy light;
The light thou hath now secured and refined within me; and duly left me safe, and sound.

Thou hath restored me fully, and made me feel but all charmed, awesome, and way more heavenly;
Thou hath toughened my pride and love; and whispered the loving words he hath never spoken to me.
Ah, I hope thou art now blessed and safely pampered in thy cold, mischievous Amsterdam;
Amsterdam which as thou hath professed-is as windy, and oft' makes thy fingers grow wildly numb.

Amsterdam which is sick with superior lamentations, and fame;
But never adorned with exact, or at least-honest means of scrutiny;
For in every home exists nothing but bursts of madness, and flames;
And in which thereof, lives 'twixt nothing-but meaningless grandeur, and a poorest harmony.

Amsterdam which once placed thee in pallid, dire, and terrible horror;
Amsterdam which gave thy spines thrills of disgust, and infamous tremor;
But from which thou wert once failed, fatefully, neither to flee, nor escape;
Nor out of whose stupor, been able to worm thy way out, or put which, into shape.

But I am sure out of which thou art now delightful-and irresistibly fine;
For t'ere is no more suspicion in thy chest-and all of which hath gone safely to rest;
All in thy very own peace-and the courteous abode of our finest poetry;
Which lulls thee always to sleep-and confer on thee forever, degrees of a warmest, pleasantry.

Ah, Nikolaas-as thou hath always been, a child of night, but born within daylight;
Poor-poor child as well, of the moon, whose life hath been betrayed but by dullness, and fright.
Ah, Nikolaas-but should hath it been otherwise-wouldst thou be able to see thine light?
And be my son of gladness, be my prince of all the more peaceful days; and ratified nights.

And should it be like which-couldst I be the one; the very one idyll-to restore thy grandeur?
As thou art now, everything might be too blasphemous, and in every way obscure;
But perhaps-I couldst turn every of thine nightmare away, and maketh thee secure;
Perhaps I couldst make thee safe and glad and sleep soundly; perfectly ensured.

Ah, Nikolaas! For thy delight is pure-and exceptionally pure, pure, and pure!
And thy innocence is why I shall craft thee again in my mind, and adore thee;
For thy absurdity is as shy, and the same as thy purity;
But in thy hands royalty is unstained, flawless, and just too sure.

For in tales of eternal kingdoms-thou shalt be the dignified king himself;
Thou shalt be blessed with all godly finery, and jewels-which thou thyself deserve;
And not any other tyrant in t'ese worlds-who mock ot'er souls and pretend to be brave;
But trapped within t'eir own discordant souls, and wonders of deceit and curses of reserve.

Oh, sweet-sweet Nikolaas! Please then, help my poetry-and define t'is heart of me!
Listen to its heartbeat-and tellest me, if it might still love thee;
Like how it wants to stretch about, and perhaps touch the moonlight;
The moonlight that does look and seem to far, but means still as much-to our very night.

Ah! Look, my darling-as the moonlight shall smile again, to our resumed story;
If our story is, in unseen future, ever truly resumed-and thus shall cure everything;
As well t'is unperturbed, and still adorably-longing feeling;
The feeling that once grew into remorse-as soon as thou stomped about, and faraway left me.

Again love shall be, in thy purest heart-reincarnated,
For 'tis the only single being t'at is wondrous-and inexhaustible,
To our souls, 'tis but the only salvation-and which is utterly edible,
To console and praise our desperate beings-t'at were once left adrift, and unheartily, infuriated.

Love shall be the cure to all due breathlessness, and trepidations;
Love shall be infallible, and on top of all, indefatigable;
And love shall be our new invite-to the recklessness of our exhausted temptations;
Once more, shall love be our merit, which is sacred and unalterable; and thus unresentful, and infallible.

Love shall fill us once more to the brim-and make our souls eloquent;
Love be the key to a life so full-and lakes of passion so ardent;
Enabling our souls to flit about and lay united hands on every possible distinction;
Which to society is perhaps not free; and barrier as they be, to the gaiety of our destination.

Thus on the rings of union again-shall our dainty hearts feast;
As though the entire world hath torn into a beast;
But above all, they shan't have any more regrets, nor hate;
Or even frets, for every fit of satisfaction hath been reached; and all thus, hath been repaid.

Thus t'is might be thee; t'at after all-shall be worthy of my every single respect;
As once thou once opened my eyes-and show me everything t'at t'is very world might lack.
Whilst thou wert striving to be admirable and strong; t'is world was but too prone and weak;
And whilst have thy words and poetry; everyone was just perhaps too innocent-and had no clue, about what to utter, what to speak.

Thou might just be the very merit I hath prayed for, and always loved;
Thou might hath lifted, and relieved me prettily; like the stars very well doth the moon above.
And among your lips, lie your sweet kisses t'at made me live;
A miracle he still possesses not; a specialty he might be predestined not-to give.

Thou might be the song I hath always wanted to written;
But sadly torn in one day of storm; and thus be secretly left forgotten;
Ah, Nikolaas, but who is to say t'at love is not at all virile, easily deceived, and languid?
For any soul saying t'at might be too delirious, or perhaps very much customary, and insipid.

And in such darkness of death; thou shalt always be the tongue to whom I promise;
One with whom I shall entrust the very care of my poetry; and ot'er words of mouth;
One I shall remember, one I once so frightfully adored, and desired to kiss;
One whose name I wouldst celebrate; as I still shall-and pronounce every day, triumphantly and aggressively, out loud.

For thy name still rings within me with craze, but patterned accusation, of enjoyment;
For thy art still fits me into bliss, and hopeful expectations of one bewitching kiss;
Ah, having thee in my imagination canst turn me idle, and my cordial soul-indolent;
A picture so naughty it snares my whole mind-more than everything, even more than his.

Oh, Nikolaas, and perhaps so thereafter, I shall love, and praise thee once more-like I doth my poetry;
For as how my poetry is, thou art rooted in me already; and thus breathe within me.
Thou art somehow a vein in my blood, and although fictitious still-in my everyday bliss;
Thou art worth more than any other lov

A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
The mentor
and the student
feed off each other.
Many a girl
had an old aunt
who locked her in the study
to keep the boys away.
They would play rummy
or lie on the couch
and touch and touch.
Old breast against young breast...
Let your dress fall down your shoulder,
come touch a copy of you
for I am at the mercy of rain,
for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti
for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor
and the church spires have turned to stumps.
The sea bangs into my cloister
for the politicians are dying,
and dying so hold me, my young dear,
hold me...

The yellow rose will turn to cinder
and New York City will fall in
before we are done so hold me,
my young dear, hold me.
Put your pale arms around my neck.
Let me hold your heart like a flower
lest it bloom and collapse.
Give me your skin
as sheer as a cobweb,
let me open it up
and listen in and scoop out the dark.
Give me your nether lips
all puffy with their art
and I will give you angel fire in return.
We are two clouds
glistening in the bottle galss.
We are two birds
washing in the same mirror.
We were fair game
but we have kept out of the cesspool.
We are strong.
We are the good ones.
Do not discover us
for we lie together all in green
like pond weeds.
Hold me, my young dear, hold me.

They touch their delicate watches
one at a time.
They dance to the lute
two at a time.
They are as tender as bog moss.
They play mother-me-do
all day.
A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.


Once there was a witch's garden
more beautiful than Eve's
with carrots growing like little fish,
with many tomatoes rich as frogs,
onions as ingrown as hearts,
the squash singing like a dolphin
and one patch given over wholly to magic --
rampion, a kind of salad root
a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin,
growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin.
as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan.
However the witch's garden was kept locked
and each day a woman who was with child
looked upon the rampion wildly,
fancying that she would die
if she could not have it.
Her husband feared for her welfare
and thus climbed into the garden
to fetch the life-giving tubers.

Ah ha, cried the witch,
whose proper name was Mother Gothel,
you are a thief and now you will die.
However they made a trade,
typical enough in those times.
He promised his child to Mother Gothel
so of course when it was born
she took the child away with her.
She gave the child the name Rapunzel,
another name for the life-giving rampion.
Because Rapunzel was a beautiful girl
Mother Gothel treasured her beyond all things.
As she grew older Mother Gothel thought:
None but I will ever see her or touch her.
She locked her in a tow without a door
or a staircase. It had only a high window.
When the witch wanted to enter she cried"
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.
Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow.
It was as strong as a dandelion
and as strong as a dog leash.
Hand over hand she shinnied up
the hair like a sailor
and there in the stone-cold room,
as cold as a museum,
Mother Gothel cried:
Hold me, my young dear, hold me,
and thus they played mother-me-do.

Years later a prince came by
and heard Rapunzel singing her loneliness.
That song pierced his heart like a valentine
but he could find no way to get to her.
Like a chameleon he hid himself among the trees
and watched the witch ascend the swinging hair.
The next day he himself called out:
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
and thus they met and he declared his love.
What is this beast, she thought,
with muscles on his arms
like a bag of snakes?
What is this moss on his legs?
What prickly plant grows on his cheeks?
What is this voice as deep as a dog?
Yet he dazzled her with his answers.
Yet he dazzled her with his dancing stick.
They lay together upon the yellowy threads,
swimming through them
like minnows through kelp
and they sang out benedictions like the Pope.

Each day he brought her a skein of silk
to fashion a ladder so they could both escape.
But Mother Gothel discovered the plot
and cut off Rapunzel's hair to her ears
and took her into the forest to repent.
When the prince came the witch fastened
the hair to a hook and let it down.
When he saw Rapunzel had been banished
he flung himself out of the tower, a side of beef.
He was blinded by thorns that prickled him like tacks.
As blind as Oedipus he wandered for years
until he heard a song that pierced his heart
like that long-ago valentine.
As he kissed Rapunzel her tears fell on his eyes
and in the manner of such cure-alls
his sight was suddenly restored.

They lived happily as you might expect
proving that mother-me-do
can be outgrown,
just as the fish on Friday,
just as a tricycle.
The world, some say,
is made up of couples.
A rose must have a stem.

As for Mother Gothel,
her heart shrank to the size of a pin,
never again to say: Hold me, my young dear,
hold me,
and only as she dreamed of the yellow hair
did moonlight sift into her mouth.

May 9, 2012, 7:01:02 PM by ~OmegaWolfOfWinter
Journals / Personal




The rivers of winter ice had melted with spring sunshine's awakening and the noises of the forest announced the awakening of the fauna. a young fox stretched her long legs and fluffed up her tail as she yawned awake. this winter had been a lonely one for her, as she did not have a mate. throughout the winter she had felt the tingling feelings of her ****** urges creep between her legs and she moaned slightly as she felt them creeping there again.  she stepped slowly out of her den and took a cool breath of the spring air, bringing her the scents of the amorous flowers and the frolicking prey. she watched two birds in courting flight above har and she sighed at her loneliness. the fox hung her head low and walked softly forward. at some point she closed her eyes and yet kept walking, a few tears of longing falling from her eyes. the tingling urges grew stronger and she fought to keep them at bay. she kept walking a bit, aimlessly, though. she cried out as she stumbled over a heavy rock.
She tumbled into the nearby brook and felt a sharp stone cut her right hind leg. she clambered on to the bank, shivering and soaking wet with the chilled water. she attempted to stand and felt a fiery sting to her leg. she looked and saw a shallow **** marring her orange fur. "ow... ow..." she whimpered as she walked on. as the sun peaked over her, she felt her stomach's pleading for sustenance and she groaned. she could faintly smell a rabbit nearby and crouched low, going over how to stalk her prey. she sniffed for it and it seemed to be close, on the other side of a group of trees. she flanked around as best she could and spotted the furball. she licked her lips hungrily and pounced. the rabbit was dead in an instant as she tore its throat out. she chomped at it once and then felt a feeling of dread. she gulped once and heard a wolf growl nearby. i'm wounded... i can't avoid it now.
. she thought. she heard the wolf running toward her and was bowled over by it. when she stopped
Rolling she was on her back. looking up at the wolf, a young grey, white chested wolf, at the beginning of his manhood. he snarled at his prey as she whimpered beneath him. then to her surprise, he sniffed at her and tilted his head, the tenseness of the hunt gone from his yellow eyes. the wolf took a step back and looked her up and down, stopping as he saw something. he spoke softly, almost caringly, "you are female... and in heat... i apologize for interrupting your meal."
the fox looked at him curiously, "You...?"
he glanced at her and finished her thought. "...do not harm females. it is a code of honor i choose to live by."
she sniffed at him, "you have no mate, no lover."
his breath caught. "nor do you, young fox, lest he'd be satiating your body's desires, and his as well."
she felt the tingling between her legs again and attempted to say something, but was stopped. the wolf said, "nor do i wish to take advantage of females either."
The fox replied suggestively, "you spared my life, surely theres some way i could repay you, handsome wolf."
the wolf looked at her, eyes dilated and his breathing rough. he shook his head, "no.. i couldnt. its not my place."
she could feel the urges burning inside her, she wanted to release them, she wanted this wolf to release her. "chivalrous, i see. then, dear wolf, alleviate my longing, my pain, and i shall alleviate your own."
the wolf took a step closer, his own longing feeding his fire. "beautiful fox... your offer intigues me... you- you are wounded..." she looked and saw her leg still bleeding. "let me aide you, dear fox." he took a few steps and lay beside her, licking her wound. with each lick, the pain receded and was replaced by a wave of pleasant ache. the bleeding stopped and he stopped licking, for the moment. he sniffed her, his cold nose brushing the swollen flesh, and as it quivered between her legs, he knew she was ready for him. "my den is close by, young fox."
She nuzzled against his chest and felt his heart pounding. she took his paw and pressed it against her own chest, letting him feel her heart. "you know we cant wait that long, here.. in this group of trees." she gestured to the spot a few feet away. the wolf quickly walked into the tangle of trees, followed by the fox. the wolf had hardly stepped inside the treeline before the fox began nudging at the furry bulge between his legs. "you're not quite ready yet, dear wolf." the wolf whimpered a few times as she licked at it, taking his smooth member in her mouth and enticing it with her tongue. once it was throbbing in its full glory, she licked one last time and said, "now you're ready." and raised herself in preparation for him. he got into position on top of her and with one paw she guided him inside her. she gasped as he stretched her a little. she glanced over her shoulder and
realized that he wasnt that much bigger than her. he looked nervous and she realized something,
This is his first time... mine too... lets make this memorable.. she experimented with different positions, and after finding her favorite, set about making this wolf howl.
the wolf ****** slowly at first, drawing out the ecstasy. only when she began to whimper amorously did he begin to ****** harder, faster. she joined him, as he pulled back, she leaned forward, leaving only his tip inside her. when he ******, she leaned back on him with a wet squish. the wolf's tongue lolled and his eyes were glazed over in sweet agony. he howled softly at first, and as the ****** came, he howled again, echoing with the fox's cries as the ecstasy reached its ****** and rocked their bodies. the wolf staggered slightly at the passionate waves of ******. he pulled out his member and looked at his mate. "come with me to my den, so we can sleep, dear fox." the fox looked at him and nodded, grateful.
* * *
The fox and the wolf walked quietly to his den, set inside a secluded cluster of trees. the den itself was set in the ground, like a cavern, just large enough for the two of them to lie down comfortably. "its going to get cold tonight," said the wolf. "we should... share body heat." he had a faint twinkle in his eyes as he glanced nervously at her. when she tilted her head to him, the wolf looked down at his paws. the fox licked his muzzle and laid down next to him. the wolf's grey fur was thick, and she was  already beginning to feel warmer. she felt the wolf's heart beat a little faster, and he curled around her. his furry tail wrapped around the fox and she purred slightly as she nuzzled him and rested her head on his foreleg. for a moment they lay there, eyes closed, listening to the others' breathing, when he whispered to her, "i never did catch your name, young fox."
she grinned at him, "my name's Sasha, the only fox in this forest. and what be your name, dear wolf?"
The wolf opened one eye slightly to look at her, "my name is Ronan, i'm the last wolf of my pack."
she held him in her gaze a few beats and replied, "i haven't seen many wolves 'round these parts, where do you come from, Ronan?"
the grey sighed and said, "Farther north, over the mountains and into ice country. the food became scarce and the pack withered away, all but me. i treveled over the hills and mountains, through forests and grassland, and i kept going, finally stopping here. what of you? you said yourself you were the only fox in this forest."
Sasha swished her tail back and forth for a moment before, "i was separated from my family during a blizzard. i- i couldn't see anything, and i couldn't hear anything over the wind. i wandered aimlessly in the whiteout, tripping and stumbling until i bumped into something big. then again, i was just a kit and everything was big to me, but i looked up and saw a pair of eyes looking at me. i was so scared the snow beneath me turned yellow.
The monster bent over and picked me up by the scruff of my neck and carried me for a long time. i was so exhausted i fell asleep in its grip. when i woke up i was in a chilly den. i looked and realized that the monster had been a snow-white she-wolf. she sat at the enterance to the den and kept looking outside, waiting for something. when the snowstorm cleared out, she turned to me and said, 'little fox. have you a family?' i shook my head as i realized they were gone. from then on, the wolf raised me and taught me how to survive. then one day a few years ago... she was gone..."
Ronan was watching the fox as she told the story. "i'm sorry."
"don't be, ronan. ever since she left ive been alone. no fox to breed me, no one for a lover. until you came along..."
ronan licked her muzzle, "no need for loneliness now." sasha smiled and was soon asleep, warmed by her lover.
*
The sun rose and shone brightly into the entrance of the den the next morning, waking sasha from her slumber. she yawned and felt around for the grey. she felt nothing. she stood up and looked around the empty den. did he... leave me? a single tear fell when she imagined the possibility. "no.... please no..." she whimpered. her breath caught as she heard something rustling the grass outside the den. sasha shrank back and hid behind her tail, peeking over it slightly. she could hear her heartbeat in her ears and feel it rising in her throat as the rustling got closer and closer. she squeaked, "who... who's there?"
she flinched as a dark mass blocked the sunlight, its shadow stretching across the wall. the mass stepped slowly forward and sasha shut her eyes tight, fearing what might come next. "sasha?" it was ronan. "what's the matter?"
she gasped at him before rushing forward and burying her muzzle in his chest fur. "i thought you'd left me..."
with a paw, ronan stroked the fur on her back. "i'm a wolf, ***. loyalty and chivalry are the only things i know." she buried herself deeper in his fur and scolded herself for not realizing that. "i caught breakfast, i figured you'd be hungry after i interrupted your meal yesterday." she looked behind him and saw a small pile of ****** rabbits. sasha licked her lips hungrily. "its all yours, dear fox." she looked gratefully at Ronan before pouncing on the pile of carcasses, tearing into one and bloodying her maw. ronan watched her with pleasant  affection. the den was filled with the sounds of flesh being rendered from bone and the snapping of Sasha's teeth. she feasted upon the **** until she could eat no more, her belly now filled. two rabbits still lay uneaten, and ronan devoured them slowly, savoring the ****** meat as it slipped down his gullet. sasha lay nuzzled up against him while he ate, toying at his tail and
otherwise teasing at him. he gave her a look of amusement and somehow got into a game of tag with her.
He chased her around the den and she dodged his paw as he reached for her. when he did finally touch her, sasha dove between his legs and poked his furry belly. leaving him with a dumbfounded expression on his face. he then chased sasha outside and they continued their game within the cluster of trees around them. sasha laughed, a liquid smooth, crystal clear laugh. ronan watched her jump around him, the sun's rays catching her fine orange fur in such a way that it seemed almost like fire. he watched her a moment and loosed a soft howl. she's so beautiful... he thought.
* *

They told me way too long
So I tried to make it short,
I shrank and shrank and shrank
     so very small.

They took away my feet
and then my ankles
then my knees,
Till not very much was left of me
     at all.

They told me take out bulk
That all it was was outside hulk
So I grew thin and frail and slender
   and see-through,

Until I couldn’t see me
without my confidence receeding;
I disappear sideways,
Do I look good enough for you?

They told me take out words
So I took out words and words
And I stole my broken grammar
     hardly sense bones.

They told me too many letters
I wrote to you, too many letters
Letters with only one address:
     living room floor,

But I felt they were at home
replacing ground with styrofoam
that came out of my mouth,
     my hollow core.

So I let them steal my letters
Let them rip and burn my letters
They tore my tiny heart out;
    left askew
They took away those letters
almost every ******* letter,
Until the only thing they left behind
     was U.

The fight between Trojans and Achaeans was now left to rage as it
would, and the tide of war surged hither and thither over the plain as
they aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another between the streams
of Simois and Xanthus.
  First, Ajax son of Telamon, tower of strength to the Achaeans, broke
a phalanx of the Trojans, and came to the assistance of his comrades
by killing Acamas son of Eussorus, the best man among the Thracians,
being both brave and of great stature. The spear struck the projecting
peak of his helmet: its bronze point then went through his forehead
into the brain, and darkness veiled his eyes.
  Then Diomed killed Axylus son of Teuthranus, a rich man who lived in
the strong city of Arisbe, and was beloved by all men; for he had a
house by the roadside, and entertained every one who passed; howbeit
not one of his guests stood before him to save his life, and Diomed
killed both him and his squire Calesius, who was then his
charioteer—so the pair passed beneath the earth.
  Euryalus killed Dresus and Opheltius, and then went in pursuit of
Aesepus and Pedasus, whom the naiad nymph Abarbarea had borne to noble
Bucolion. Bucolion was eldest son to Laomedon, but he was a *******.
While tending his sheep he had converse with the nymph, and she
conceived twin sons; these the son of Mecisteus now slew, and he
stripped the armour from their shoulders. Polypoetes then killed
Astyalus, Ulysses Pidytes of Percote, and Teucer Aretaon. Ablerus fell
by the spear of Nestor’s son Antilochus, and Agamemnon, king of men,
killed Elatus who dwelt in Pedasus by the banks of the river
Satnioeis. Leitus killed Phylacus as he was flying, and Eurypylus slew
Melanthus.
  Then Menelaus of the loud war-cry took Adrestus alive, for his
horses ran into a tamarisk bush, as they were flying wildly over the
plain, and broke the pole from the car; they went on towards the
city along with the others in full flight, but Adrestus rolled out,
and fell in the dust flat on his face by the wheel of his chariot;
Menelaus came up to him spear in hand, but Adrestus caught him by
the knees begging for his life. “Take me alive,” he cried, “son of
Atreus, and you shall have a full ransom for me: my father is rich and
has much treasure of gold, bronze, and wrought iron laid by in his
house. From this store he will give you a large ransom should he
hear of my being alive and at the ships of the Achaeans.”
  Thus did he plead, and Menelaus was for yielding and giving him to a
squire to take to the ships of the Achaeans, but Agamemnon came
running up to him and rebuked him. “My good Menelaus,” said he,
“this is no time for giving quarter. Has, then, your house fared so
well at the hands of the Trojans? Let us not spare a single one of
them—not even the child unborn and in its mother’s womb; let not a
man of them be left alive, but let all in Ilius perish, unheeded and
forgotten.”
  Thus did he speak, and his brother was persuaded by him, for his
words were just. Menelaus, therefore, ****** Adrestus from him,
whereon King Agamemnon struck him in the flank, and he fell: then
the son of Atreus planted his foot upon his breast to draw his spear
from the body.
  Meanwhile Nestor shouted to the Argives, saying, “My friends, Danaan
warriors, servants of Mars, let no man lag that he may spoil the dead,
and bring back much ***** to the ships. Let us **** as many as we can;
the bodies will lie upon the plain, and you can despoil them later
at your leisure.”
  With these words he put heart and soul into them all. And now the
Trojans would have been routed and driven back into Ilius, had not
Priam’s son Helenus, wisest of augurs, said to Hector and Aeneas,
“Hector and Aeneas, you two are the mainstays of the Trojans and
Lycians, for you are foremost at all times, alike in fight and
counsel; hold your ground here, and go about among the host to rally
them in front of the gates, or they will fling themselves into the
arms of their wives, to the great joy of our foes. Then, when you have
put heart into all our companies, we will stand firm here and fight
the Danaans however hard they press us, for there is nothing else to
be done. Meanwhile do you, Hector, go to the city and tell our
mother what is happening. Tell her to bid the matrons gather at the
temple of Minerva in the acropolis; let her then take her key and open
the doors of the sacred building; there, upon the knees of Minerva,
let her lay the largest, fairest robe she has in her house—the one
she sets most store by; let her, moreover, promise to sacrifice twelve
yearling heifers that have never yet felt the goad, in the temple of
the goddess, if she will take pity on the town, with the wives and
little ones of the Trojans, and keep the son of Tydeus from falling on
the goodly city of Ilius; for he fights with fury and fills men’s
souls with panic. I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear
even their great champion Achilles, son of a goddess though he be,
as we do this man: his rage is beyond all bounds, and there is none
can vie with him in prowess”
  Hector did as his brother bade him. He sprang from his chariot,
and went about everywhere among the host, brandishing his spears,
urging the men on to fight, and raising the dread cry of battle.
Thereon they rallied and again faced the Achaeans, who gave ground and
ceased their murderous onset, for they deemed that some one of the
immortals had come down from starry heaven to help the Trojans, so
strangely had they rallied. And Hector shouted to the Trojans,
“Trojans and allies, be men, my friends, and fight with might and
main, while I go to Ilius and tell the old men of our council and
our wives to pray to the gods and vow hecatombs in their honour.”
  With this he went his way, and the black rim of hide that went round
his shield beat against his neck and his ancles.
  Then Glaucus son of Hippolochus, and the son of Tydeus went into the
open space between the hosts to fight in single combat. When they were
close up to one another Diomed of the loud war-cry was the first to
speak. “Who, my good sir,” said he, “who are you among men? I have
never seen you in battle until now, but you are daring beyond all
others if you abide my onset. Woe to those fathers whose sons face
my might. If, however, you are one of the immortals and have come down
from heaven, I will not fight you; for even valiant Lycurgus, son of
Dryas, did not live long when he took to fighting with the gods. He it
was that drove the nursing women who were in charge of frenzied
Bacchus through the land of Nysa, and they flung their thyrsi on the
ground as murderous Lycurgus beat them with his oxgoad. Bacchus
himself plunged terror-stricken into the sea, and Thetis took him to
her ***** to comfort him, for he was scared by the fury with which the
man reviled him. Thereon the gods who live at ease were angry with
Lycurgus and the son of Saturn struck him blind, nor did he live
much longer after he had become hateful to the immortals. Therefore
I will not fight with the blessed gods; but if you are of them that
eat the fruit of the ground, draw near and meet your doom.”
  And the son of Hippolochus answered, son of Tydeus, why ask me of my
lineage? Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees.
Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring
returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the
generations of mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away.
If, then, you would learn my descent, it is one that is well known
to many. There is a city in the heart of Argos, pasture land of
horses, called Ephyra, where Sisyphus lived, who was the craftiest
of all mankind. He was the son of ******, and had a son named Glaucus,
who was father to Bellerophon, whom heaven endowed with the most
surpassing comeliness and beauty. But Proetus devised his ruin, and
being stronger than he, drove him from the land of the Argives, over
which Jove had made him ruler. For Antea, wife of Proetus, lusted
after him, and would have had him lie with her in secret; but
Bellerophon was an honourable man and would not, so she told lies
about him to Proteus. ‘Proetus,’ said she, ‘**** Bellerophon or die,
for he would have had converse with me against my will.’ The king
was angered, but shrank from killing Bellerophon, so he sent him to
Lycia with lying letters of introduction, written on a folded
tablet, and containing much ill against the bearer. He bade
Bellerophon show these letters to his father-in-law, to the end that
he might thus perish; Bellerophon therefore went to Lycia, and the
gods convoyed him safely.
  “When he reached the river Xanthus, which is in Lycia, the king
received him with all goodwill, feasted him nine days, and killed nine
heifers in his honour, but when rosy-fingered morning appeared upon
the tenth day, he questioned him and desired to see the letter from
his son-in-law Proetus. When he had received the wicked letter he
first commanded Bellerophon to **** that savage monster, the Chimaera,
who was not a human being, but a goddess, for she had the head of a
lion and the tail of a serpent, while her body was that of a goat, and
she breathed forth flames of fire; but Bellerophon slew her, for he
was guided by signs from heaven. He next fought the far-famed
Solymi, and this, he said, was the hardest of all his battles.
Thirdly, he killed the Amazons, women who were the peers of men, and
as he was returning thence the king devised yet another plan for his
destruction; he picked the bravest warriors in all Lycia, and placed
them in ambuscade, but not a man ever came back, for Bellerophon
killed every one of them. Then the king knew that he must be the
valiant offspring of a god, so he kept him in Lycia, gave him his
daughter in marriage, and made him of equal honour in the kingdom with
himself; and the Lycians gave him a piece of land, the best in all the
country, fair with vineyards and tilled fields, to have and to hold.
  “The king’s daughter bore Bellerophon three children, Isander,
Hippolochus, and Laodameia. Jove, the lord of counsel, lay with
Laodameia, and she bore him noble Sarpedon; but when Bellerophon
came to be hated by all the gods, he wandered all desolate and
dismayed upon the Alean plain, gnawing at his own heart, and
shunning the path of man. Mars, insatiate of battle, killed his son
Isander while he was fighting the Solymi; his daughter was killed by
Diana of the golden reins, for she was angered with her; but
Hippolochus was father to myself, and when he sent me to Troy he urged
me again and again to fight ever among the foremost and outvie my
peers, so as not to shame the blood of my fathers who were the noblest
in Ephyra and in all Lycia. This, then, is the descent I claim.”
  Thus did he speak, and the heart of Diomed was glad. He planted
his spear in the ground, and spoke to him with friendly words. “Then,”
he said, you are an old friend of my father’s house. Great Oeneus once
entertained Bellerophon for twenty days, and the two exchanged
presents. Oeneus gave a belt rich with purple, and Bellerophon a
double cup, which I left at home when I set out for Troy. I do not
remember Tydeus, for he was taken from us while I was yet a child,
when the army of the Achaeans was cut to pieces before Thebes.
Henceforth, however, I must be your host in middle Argos, and you mine
in Lycia, if I should ever go there; let us avoid one another’s spears
even during a general engagement; there are many noble Trojans and
allies whom I can ****, if I overtake them and heaven delivers them
into my hand; so again with yourself, there are many Achaeans whose
lives you may take if you can; we two, then, will exchange armour,
that all present may know of the old ties that subsist between us.”
  With these words they sprang from their chariots, grasped one
another’s hands, and plighted friendship. But the son of Saturn made
Glaucus take leave of his wits, for he exchanged golden armour for
bronze, the worth of a hundred head of cattle for the worth of nine.
  Now when Hector reached the Scaean gates and the oak tree, the wives
and daughters of the Trojans came running towards him to ask after
their sons, brothers, kinsmen, and husbands: he told them to set about
praying to the gods, and many were made sorrowful as they heard him.
  Presently he reached the splendid palace of King Priam, adorned with
colonnades of hewn stone. In it there were fifty bedchambers—all of
hewn stone—built near one another, where the sons of Priam slept,
each with his wedded wife. Opposite these, on the other side the
courtyard, there were twelve upper rooms also of hewn stone for
Priam’s daughters, built near one another, where his sons-in-law slept
with their wives. When Hector got there, his fond mother came up to
him with Laodice the fairest of her daughters. She took his hand
within her own and said, “My son, why have you left the battle to come
hither? Are the Achaeans, woe betide them, pressing you hard about the
city that you have thought fit to come and uplift your hands to Jove
from the citadel? Wait till I can bring you wine that you may make
offering to Jove and to the other immortals, and may then drink and be
refreshed. Wine gives a man fresh strength when he is wearied, as
you now are with fighting on behalf of your kinsmen.”
  And Hector answered, “Honoured mother, bring no wine, lest you unman
me and I forget my strength. I dare not make a drink-offering to
Jove with unwashed hands; one who is bespattered with blood and
filth may not pray to the son of Saturn. Get the matrons together, and
go with offerings to the temple of Minerva driver of the spoil; there,
upon the knees of Minerva, lay the largest and fairest robe you have
in your house—the one you set most store by; promise, moreover, to
sacrifice twelve yearling heifers that have never yet felt the goad,
in the temple of the goddess if she will take pity on the town, with
the wives and little ones of the Trojans, and keep the son of Tydeus
from off the goodly city of Ilius, for he fights with fury, and
fills men’s souls with panic. Go, then, to the temple of Minerva,
while I seek Paris and exhort him, if he will hear my words. Would
that the earth might open her jaws and swallow him, for Jove bred
him to be the bane of the Trojans, and of Priam and Priam’s sons.
Could I but see him go down into the house of Hades, my heart would
forget its heaviness.”
  His mother went into the house and called her waiting-women who
gathered the matrons throughout the city. She then went down into
her fragrant store-room, where her embroidered robes were kept, the
work of Sidonian women, whom Alexandrus had brought over from Sidon
when he sailed the seas upon that voyage during which he carried off
Helen. Hecuba took out the largest robe, and the one that was most
beautifully enriched with embroidery, as an offering to Minerva: it
glittered like a star, and lay at the very bottom of the chest. With
this she went on her way and many matrons with her.
  When they reached the temple of Minerva, lovely Theano, daughter
of Cisseus and wife of Antenor, opened the doors, for the Trojans
had made her priestess of Minerva. The women lifted up their hands
to the goddess with a loud cry, and Theano took the robe to lay it
upon the knees of Minerva, praying the while to the daughter of
great Jove. “Holy Minerva,” she cried, “protectress of our city,
mighty goddess, break the spear of Diomed and lay him low before the
Scaean gates. Do this, and we will sacrifice twelve heifers that
have never yet known the goad, in your temple, if you will have pity
upon the town, with the wives and little ones If the Trojans.” Thus
she prayed, but Pallas Minerva granted not her prayer.
  While they were thus praying to the daughter of great Jove, Hector
went to the fair house of Alexandrus, which he had built for him by
the foremost builders in the land. They had built him his house,
storehouse, and courtyard near those of Priam and Hector on the
acropolis. Here Hector entered, with a spear eleven cubits long in his
hand; the bronze point gleamed in front of him, and was fastened

In the heart, most people are temporary.
They roll off like tears shed and fall away,
Not forgotten, but finished.
But some people...
Some people have no horizon.
Some people are forever.

When I met you, you were vast.
I saw the ocean in your eyes.
I heard waves crash in your voice,
Rough and low and musical like the tide.
You're like a storm on the ocean,
And I drowned in loving you.

I didn't know what it was,
Didn't know what to do.
How could I?
You were the first.
Before I met you I'd never
Wondered if somebody's lips were soft to kiss
Wished I could reach out and touch anyone's cheek with my fingertips
Just to feel the warmth of life beneath their skin.
I never treasured the sound of anybody's pulse
As they hugged me
Until I met you.

I'm afraid I floundered,
Like a moth who had seen the moon in the waves
And tried to kiss its cheek
Only to stick to the mirror like water
And flutter madly, trying to stay afloat.

I learned, slow.
I grew.
I knew though, underneath I knew
I'd never get over you.

As the years blurred by
Like raindrops sliding down a windowpane
You were a constant in my heart,
Faint but vital.
As I shed my skin painfully and became...
Calmer, I suppose,
Less hopeful, less wildly passionate,
You lingered,
And the thought of you changed as I did,
But the love never left.

It's absurd, really, that I love so instantly
And so permanently.
But...
I saw your eyes four years ago
And my entire world changed.
I saw your eyes and I wanted to see only them
For the rest of time
The way I can stare at the path the moon makes along the sea
For hours and never tire of its subtle beauty.

I was afraid of you,
Of the power you had over me.
I just shrank back, stood aside and watched you be who you were,
Awed.
I quietly loved you like I'd never loved anyone,
And when you were gone I found that the thought of you
Was not.

And since then it has remained in my mind,
So constant and so quiet, like the white noise whisper of the surf on the sand at midnight,
That I hardly notice it anymore.

Back then, I could have fallen to my knees at your feet.
Back then, I couldn't help but be the fool
Who trailed at your heels
Because I was held there by gravity.
Back then, I couldn't hide a thing.
But now...
I've learned how to go under.

Many times since then, I've felt the fire of salt burn in my lungs,
I've lost my sight of the surface.
I've drowned in a love so deep
It soaks up all the light and consumes any heat,
Crushes the air from my lungs.
Many, many, many times I have felt death
Dashed upon the rocks by brutal storms and black waves.
And as I struggled
I saw your eyes in my head,
Grey and deep and beautiful
Like clouds finally breaking into soft rain,
Like a flower unfurling.
And I kept on.

And eventually, I learned to weather the storms and currents of my passions.

I learned.
To breath deep when my head breaks the surface,
Not to fight the undertow when it wraps its icy fingers around my ankles and yanks.
To show you what you can handle seeing from me,
And to accept that maybe I can't give you anything
But a reverence in my heart and a place in my mind
Where the thought of you will always be
Like a soft summer rain in the morning,
So light and fine that it hangs like mist for a moment before floating to the grass.

Some people are forever.
Some people never leave your heart, your mind, your soul.
Whenever I see you again,
It is like coming home.
It doesn't matter anymore that you don't love me.
I love to see your face,
Your eyes like a rainstorm,
Little lightning strikes of mischief or inspiration crackling within them.
Your little mannerisms and ways of standing that grab at my heart.
I love to hear you speak,
Notice the words you choose
That nobody else ever thinks to use,
And the rise and fall of your husky voice
With the rhythm of a tide against a shore.

I love to be near you
And appreciate every moment of you,
Here in my head.
I am good, now, at weathering the elements:
You see not the poetry that flows across my mind,
Words in a rush that break in swells over my head
And find a push and pull to sway me like a current.
You see not the magnetism, the urge to reach out to you,
Nor the tenderness that I've trained to lie still in my heart.

It only sleeps, you see, like a dog curled at the hearth:
My passion for you surrounds me when I see you,
In ebbs and flows and eddies,
But passively, dreamily.
It feels like standing at the bottom of the sea for a moment,
Anchored but suspended just barely
With my feet hovering on the sandy bottom,
Being tugged gently to and fro by the water.

I let it wash over me, my ardor, but I do nothing,
Only enjoy how soothing it feels, to know I can love so deeply.  
For I have learned that souls don't need air beneath the sea,
And so I have forgotten to struggle, struck motionless by silence and peace.
When I see you now, I treat you like the old friend you are,
Someone cherished, someone missed,
But calmly so.
And underneath loving you has become that.
I lived with my head above the water for so long,
Fighting, striving,
And now all it is is that I have realized
That that was only the surface,
And there is so much more.

I love you like the ocean.
Wild, desperate, powerful and chaotic
As the waves that dash themselves upon the cliffs, white and foamy and brutal,
But also silent, restful, calm and deep
As the underneath is, slow and blue and graceful.
The battle and the surrender,
That is how I love you.
Both at once, like the sea is.
Vast, like the sea is.
The fight hardly matters, the losing of it,
The nevermore-
I love you in a way that needs no possession, no validation.

Ever changing, but eternal nonetheless,
Like the sea is.

Some people have no horizon.
Some people are forever.

With these words Hector passed through the gates, and his brother
Alexandrus with him, both eager for the fray. As when heaven sends a
breeze to sailors who have long looked for one in vain, and have
laboured at their oars till they are faint with toil, even so
welcome was the sight of these two heroes to the Trojans.
  Thereon Alexandrus killed Menesthius the son of Areithous; he
lived in Ame, and was son of Areithous the Mace-man, and of
Phylomedusa. Hector threw a spear at Eioneus and struck him dead
with a wound in the neck under the bronze rim of his helmet.
Glaucus, moreover, son of Hippolochus, captain of the Lycians, in hard
hand-to-hand fight smote Iphinous son of Dexius on the shoulder, as he
was springing on to his chariot behind his fleet mares; so he fell
to earth from the car, and there was no life left in him.
  When, therefore, Minerva saw these men making havoc of the
Argives, she darted down to Ilius from the summits of Olympus, and
Apollo, who was looking on from Pergamus, went out to meet her; for he
wanted the Trojans to be victorious. The pair met by the oak tree, and
King Apollo son of Jove was first to speak. “What would you have
said he, “daughter of great Jove, that your proud spirit has sent
you hither from Olympus? Have you no pity upon the Trojans, and
would you incline the scales of victory in favour of the Danaans?
Let me persuade you—for it will be better thus—stay the combat for
to-day, but let them renew the fight hereafter till they compass the
doom of Ilius, since you goddesses have made up your minds to
destroy the city.”
  And Minerva answered, “So be it, Far-Darter; it was in this mind
that I came down from Olympus to the Trojans and Achaeans. Tell me,
then, how do you propose to end this present fighting?”
  Apollo, son of Jove, replied, “Let us incite great Hector to
challenge some one of the Danaans in single combat; on this the
Achaeans will be shamed into finding a man who will fight him.”
  Minerva assented, and Helenus son of Priam divined the counsel of
the gods; he therefore went up to Hector and said, “Hector son of
Priam, peer of gods in counsel, I am your brother, let me then
persuade you. Bid the other Trojans and Achaeans all of them take
their seats, and challenge the best man among the Achaeans to meet you
in single combat. I have heard the voice of the ever-living gods,
and the hour of your doom is not yet come.”
  Hector was glad when he heard this saying, and went in among the
Trojans, grasping his spear by the middle to hold them back, and
they all sat down. Agamemnon also bade the Achaeans be seated. But
Minerva and Apollo, in the likeness of vultures, perched on father
Jove’s high oak tree, proud of their men; and the ranks sat close
ranged together, bristling with shield and helmet and spear. As when
the rising west wind furs the face of the sea and the waters grow dark
beneath it, so sat the companies of Trojans and Achaeans upon the
plain. And Hector spoke thus:-
  “Hear me, Trojans and Achaeans, that I may speak even as I am
minded; Jove on his high throne has brought our oaths and covenants to
nothing, and foreshadows ill for both of us, till you either take
the towers of Troy, or are yourselves vanquished at your ships. The
princes of the Achaeans are here present in the midst of you; let him,
then, that will fight me stand forward as your champion against
Hector. Thus I say, and may Jove be witness between us. If your
champion slay me, let him strip me of my armour and take it to your
ships, but let him send my body home that the Trojans and their
wives may give me my dues of fire when I am dead. In like manner, if
Apollo vouchsafe me glory and I slay your champion, I will strip him
of his armour and take it to the city of Ilius, where I will hang it
in the temple of Apollo, but I will give up his body, that the
Achaeans may bury him at their ships, and the build him a mound by the
wide waters of the Hellespont. Then will one say hereafter as he sails
his ship over the sea, ‘This is the monument of one who died long
since a champion who was slain by mighty Hector.’ Thus will one say,
and my fame shall not be lost.”
  Thus did he speak, but they all held their peace, ashamed to decline
the challenge, yet fearing to accept it, till at last Menelaus rose
and rebuked them, for he was angry. “Alas,” he cried, “vain braggarts,
women forsooth not men, double-dyed indeed will be the stain upon us
if no man of the Danaans will now face Hector. May you be turned every
man of you into earth and water as you sit spiritless and inglorious
in your places. I will myself go out against this man, but the
upshot of the fight will be from on high in the hands of the
immortal gods.”
  With these words he put on his armour; and then, O Menelaus, your
life would have come to an end at the hands of hands of Hector, for he
was far better the man, had not the princes of the Achaeans sprung
upon you and checked you. King Agamemnon caught him by the right
hand and said, “Menelaus, you are mad; a truce to this folly. Be
patient in spite of passion, do not think of fighting a man so much
stronger than yourself as Hector son of Priam, who is feared by many
another as well as you. Even Achilles, who is far more doughty than
you are, shrank from meeting him in battle. Sit down your own
people, and the Achaeans will send some other champion to fight
Hector; fearless and fond of battle though he be, I ween his knees
will bend gladly under him if he comes out alive from the
hurly-burly of this fight.”
  With these words of reasonable counsel he persuaded his brother,
whereon his squires gladly stripped the armour from off his shoulders.
Then Nestor rose and spoke, “Of a truth,” said he, “the Achaean land
is fallen upon evil times. The old knight Peleus, counsellor and
orator among the Myrmidons, loved when I was in his house to
question me concerning the race and lineage of all the Argives. How
would it not grieve him could he hear of them as now quailing before
Hector? Many a time would he lift his hands in prayer that his soul
might leave his body and go down within the house of Hades. Would,
by father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I were still young and
strong as when the Pylians and Arcadians were gathered in fight by the
rapid river Celadon under the walls of Pheia, and round about the
waters of the river Iardanus. The godlike hero Ereuthalion stood
forward as their champion, with the armour of King Areithous upon
his shoulders—Areithous whom men and women had surnamed ‘the
Mace-man,’ because he fought neither with bow nor spear, but broke the
battalions of the foe with his iron mace. Lycurgus killed him, not
in fair fight, but by entrapping him in a narrow way where his mace
served him in no stead; for Lycurgus was too quick for him and speared
him through the middle, so he fell to earth on his back. Lycurgus then
spoiled him of the armour which Mars had given him, and bore it in
battle thenceforward; but when he grew old and stayed at home, he gave
it to his faithful squire Ereuthalion, who in this same armour
challenged the foremost men among us. The others quaked and quailed,
but my high spirit bade me fight him though none other would
venture; I was the youngest man of them all; but when I fought him
Minerva vouchsafed me victory. He was the biggest and strongest man
that ever I killed, and covered much ground as he lay sprawling upon
the earth. Would that I were still young and strong as I then was, for
the son of Priam would then soon find one who would face him. But you,
foremost among the whole host though you be, have none of you any
stomach for fighting Hector.”
  Thus did the old man rebuke them, and forthwith nine men started
to their feet. Foremost of all uprose King Agamemnon, and after him
brave Diomed the son of Tydeus. Next were the two Ajaxes, men
clothed in valour as with a garment, and then Idomeneus, and
Meriones his brother in arms. After these Eurypylus son of Euaemon,
Thoas the son of Andraemon, and Ulysses also rose. Then Nestor
knight of Gerene again spoke, saying: “Cast lots among you to see
who shall be chosen. If he come alive out of this fight he will have
done good service alike to his own soul and to the Achaeans.”
  Thus he spoke, and when each of them had marked his lot, and had
thrown it into the helmet of Agamemnon son of Atreus, the people
lifted their hands in prayer, and thus would one of them say as he
looked into the vault of heaven, “Father Jove, grant that the lot fall
on Ajax, or on the son of Tydeus, or upon the king of rich Mycene
himself.”
  As they were speaking, Nestor knight of Gerene shook the helmet, and
from it there fell the very lot which they wanted—the lot of Ajax.
The herald bore it about and showed it to all the chieftains of the
Achaeans, going from left to right; but they none of of them owned it.
When, however, in due course he reached the man who had written upon
it and had put it into the helmet, brave Ajax held out his hand, and
the herald gave him the lot. When Ajax saw him mark he knew it and was
glad; he threw it to the ground and said, “My friends, the lot is
mine, and I rejoice, for I shall vanquish Hector. I will put on my
armour; meanwhile, pray to King Jove in silence among yourselves
that the Trojans may not hear you—or aloud if you will, for we fear
no man. None shall overcome me, neither by force nor cunning, for I
was born and bred in Salamis, and can hold my own in all things.”
  With this they fell praying to King Jove the son of Saturn, and thus
would one of them say as he looked into the vault of heaven, “Father
Jove that rulest from Ida, most glorious in power, vouchsafe victory
to Ajax, and let him win great glory: but if you wish well to Hector
also and would protect him, grant to each of them equal fame and
prowess.
  Thus they prayed, and Ajax armed himself in his suit of gleaming
bronze. When he was in full array he sprang forward as monstrous
Mars when he takes part among men whom Jove has set fighting with
one another—even so did huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans, spring
forward with a grim smile on his face as he brandished his long
spear and strode onward. The Argives were elated as they beheld him,
but the Trojans trembled in every limb, and the heart even of Hector
beat quickly, but he could not now retreat and withdraw into the ranks
behind him, for he had been the challenger. Ajax came up bearing his
shield in front of him like a wall—a shield of bronze with seven
folds of oxhide—the work of Tychius, who lived in Hyle and was by far
the best worker in leather. He had made it with the hides of seven
full-fed bulls, and over these he had set an eighth layer of bronze.
Holding this shield before him, Ajax son of Telamon came close up to
Hector, and menaced him saying, “Hector, you shall now learn, man to
man, what kind of champions the Danaans have among them even besides
lion-hearted Achilles cleaver of the ranks of men. He now abides at
the ships in anger with Agamemnon shepherd of his people, but there
are many of us who are well able to face you; therefore begin the
fight.”
  And Hector answered, “Noble Ajax, son of Telamon, captain of the
host, treat me not as though I were some puny boy or woman that cannot
fight. I have been long used to the blood and butcheries of battle.
I am quick to turn my leathern shield either to right or left, for
this I deem the main thing in battle. I can charge among the
chariots and horsemen, and in hand to hand fighting can delight the
heart of Mars; howbeit I would not take such a man as you are off
his guard—but I will smite you openly if I can.”
  He poised his spear as he spoke, and hurled it from him. It struck
the sevenfold shield in its outermost layer—the eighth, which was
of bronze—and went through six of the layers but in the seventh
hide it stayed. Then Ajax threw in his turn, and struck the round
shield of the son of Priam. The terrible spear went through his
gleaming shield, and pressed onward through his cuirass of cunning
workmanship; it pierced the shirt against his side, but he swerved and
thus saved his life. They then each of them drew out the spear from
his shield, and fell on one another like savage lions or wild boars of
great strength and endurance: the son of Priam struck the middle of
Ajax’s shield, but the bronze did not break, and the point of his dart
was turned. Ajax then sprang forward and pierced the shield of Hector;
the spear went through it and staggered him as he was springing
forward to attack; it gashed his neck and the blood came pouring
from the wound, but even so Hector did not cease fighting; he gave
ground, and with his brawny hand seized a stone, rugged and huge, that
was lying upon the plain; with this he struck the shield of Ajax on
the boss that was in its middle, so that the bronze rang again. But
Ajax in turn caught up a far larger stone, swung it aloft, and
hurled it with prodigious force. This millstone of a rock broke
Hector’s shield inwards and threw him down on his back with the shield
crushing him under it, but Apollo raised him at once. Thereon they
would have hacked at one another in close combat with their swords,
had not heralds, messengers of gods and men, come forward, one from
the Trojans and the other from the Achaeans—Talthybius and Idaeus
both of them honourable men; these parted them with their staves,
and the good herald Idaeus said, “My sons, fight no longer, you are
both of you valiant, and both are dear to Jove; we know this; but
night is now falling, and the behests of night may not be well
gainsaid.”
  Ajax son of Telamon answered, “Idaeus, bid Hector say so, for it was
he that challenged our princes. Let him speak first and I will
accept his saying.”
  Then Hector said, “Ajax, heaven has vouchsafed you stature and
strength, and judgement; and in wielding the spear you excel all
others of the Achaeans. Let us for this day cease fighting;
hereafter we will fight anew till heaven decide between us, and give
victory to one or to the other; night is now falling, and the
behests of night may not be well gainsaid. Gladden, then, the hearts
of the Achaeans at your ships, and more especially those of your own
followers and clansmen, while I, in the great city of King Priam,
bring comfort to the Trojans and their women, who vie with one another
in their prayers on my behalf. Let us, moreover, exchange presents
that it may be said among the Achaeans and Trojans, ‘They fought
with might and main, but were reconciled and parted in friendship.’
  On this he gave Ajax a silver-studded sword with its sheath and
leathern baldric, and in return Ajax gave him a girdle dyed with
purple. Thus they parted, the one going to the host of the Achaeans,
and the other to that of the Trojans, who rejoiced when they saw their
hero come to them safe and unharmed from the strong hands of mighty
Ajax. They led him, therefore, to the city as one that had been
saved beyond their hopes. On the other side the Achaeans brought
Ajax elated with victory to Agamemnon.
  When they reached the quarters of the son of Atreus, Agamemnon
sacrificed for them a five-year-old bull in honour of Jove the son
of Saturn. They flayed the carcass, made it ready, and divided it into
joints; these they cut carefully up into smaller pieces, putting
them on the spits, roasting them sufficiently, and then drawing them
off. When they had done all this and had prepared the feast, they
ate it, and every man had his full and equal share, so that all were
satisfied, and King Agamemnon gave Ajax some slices cut lengthways
down the ****, as a mark of special honour. As soon as they had had
enough to cat and drink, old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest
began to speak; with all sincerity and goodwill, therefore, he
addressed them thus:-
  “Son of Atreus, and other chieftains, inasmuch as many of the
Achaeans are now dead, whose blood Mars has shed by the banks of the
Scamander, and their souls have gone down to the house of Hades, it
will be well when morning comes that we should cease fighting; we will
then wheel our dead together with oxen and mules and burn them not far
from t

1670

In Winter in my Room
I came upon a Worm—
Pink, lank and warm—
But as he was a worm
And worms presume
Not quite with him at home—
Secured him by a string
To something neighboring
And went along.

A Trifle afterward
A thing occurred
I’d not believe it if I heard
But state with creeping blood—
A snake with mottles rare
Surveyed my chamber floor
In feature as the worm before
But ringed with power—

The very string with which
I tied him—too
When he was mean and new
That string was there—

I shrank—”How fair you are”!
Propitiation’s claw—
“Afraid,” he hissed
“Of me”?
“No cordiality”—
He fathomed me—
Then to a Rhythm Slim
Secreted in his Form
As Patterns swim
Projected him.

That time I flew
Both eyes his way
Lest he pursue
Nor ever ceased to run
Till in a distant Town
Towns on from mine
I set me down
This was a dream.

[Greek: Mellonta  sauta’]

These things are in the future.

Sophocles—’Antig.’

‘Una.’

“Born again?”

‘Monos.’

Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, “born again.” These were
the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long
pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood,
until Death itself resolved for me the secret.

‘Una.’

Death!

‘Monos.’

How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I
observe, too, a vacillation in your step, a joyous
inquietude in your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by
the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal. Yes, it was of
Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word
which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts,
throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!

‘Una.’

Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often,
Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its
nature! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human
bliss, saying unto it, “thus far, and no farther!” That
earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our
bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy
in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen
with its strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts
the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate
us forever! Thus in time it became painful to love. Hate
would have been mercy then.

‘Monos’.

Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una—mine, mine
forever now!

‘Una’.

But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have
much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I
burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the
dark Valley and Shadow.

‘Monos’.

And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in
vain? I will be minute in relating all, but at what point
shall the weird narrative begin?

‘Una’.

At what point?

‘Monos’.

You have said.

‘Una’.

Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the
propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say,
then, commence with the moment of life’s cessation—but
commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having
abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless
torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the
passionate fingers of love.

‘Monos’.

One word first, my Una, in regard to man’s general condition
at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise
among our forefathers—wise in fact, although not in
the world’s esteem—had ventured to doubt the propriety
of the term “improvement,” as applied to the progress of our
civilization. There were periods in each of the five or six
centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose
some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those
principles whose truth appears now, to our disenfranchised
reason, so utterly obvious —principles which should
have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the
natural laws rather than attempt their control. At long
intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each
advance in practical science as a retrogradation in the true
utility. Occasionally the poetic intellect—that
intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of
all—since those truths which to us were of the most
enduring importance could only be reached by that analogy
which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone,
and to the unaided reason bears no weight—occasionally
did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the
evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic, and find in
the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge, and
of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct
intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant
condition of his soul. And these men—the poets—
living and perishing amid the scorn of the
“utilitarians”—of rough pedants, who arrogated to
themselves a title which could have been properly applied
only to the scorned—these men, the poets, pondered
piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when our
wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were
keen—days when mirth was a word unknown, so
solemnly deep-toned was happiness—holy, august, and
blissful days, blue rivers ran undammed, between hills
unhewn, into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous, and
unexplored. Yet these noble exceptions from the general
misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we
had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil days. The
great “movement”—that was the cant term—went on:
a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art—the
Arts—arose supreme, and once enthroned, cast chains
upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. Man,
because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature,
fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still-
increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked
a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over
him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder,
he grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He
enwrapped himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas,
that of universal equality gained ground; and in the face of
analogy and of God—in despite of the loud warning
voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading
all things in Earth and Heaven—wild attempts at an
omniprevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang
necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not
both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose,
innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of
furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the
ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una,
even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-
fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that
we had worked out our own destruction in the ******* of
our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its
culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis
that taste alone—that faculty which, holding a middle
position between the pure intellect and the moral sense,
could never safely have been disregarded—it was now
that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to
Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative
spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the [Greek:
mousichae]  which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient
education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!—since
both were most desperately needed, when both were most
entirely forgotten or despised. Pascal, a philosopher whom
we both love, has said, how truly!—”Que tout notre
raisonnement se reduit a ceder au sentiment;” and it is
not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time
permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency over
the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing
was not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of
knowledge, the old age of the world drew near. This the mass
of mankind saw not, or, living lustily although unhappily,
affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth’s records
had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of
highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate
from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with
Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with
Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all
Arts. In the history of these regions I met with a ray from
the Future. The individual artificialities of the three
latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their
individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied;
but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no
regeneration save in death. That man, as a race, should not
become extinct, I saw that he must be “born again.”

And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our
spirits, daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we
discoursed of the days to come, when the Art-scarred surface
of the Earth, having undergone that purification which alone
could efface its rectangular obscenities, should clothe
itself anew in the verdure and the mountain-slopes and the
smiling waters of Paradise, and be rendered at length a fit
dwelling-place for man:—for man the
Death-purged—for man to whose now exalted intellect
there should be poison in knowledge no more—for the
redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still
for the material, man.

‘Una’.

Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the
epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we
believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely
warrant us in believing. Men lived; and died individually.
You yourself sickened, and passed into the grave; and
thither your constant Una speedily followed you. And though
the century which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion
brings up together once more, tortured our slumbering senses
with no impatience of duration, yet my Monos, it was a
century still.

‘Monos’.

Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably,
it was in the Earth’s dotage that I died. Wearied at heart
with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil
and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few
days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with
ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for pain,
while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you—after
some days there came upon me, as you have said, a breathless
and motionless torpor; and this was termed Death by
those who stood around me.

Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of
sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the
extreme quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and
profoundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid-
summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness,
through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being
awakened by external disturbances.

I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had
ceased to beat. Volition had not departed, but was
powerless. The senses were unusually active, although
eccentrically so—assuming often each other’s functions
at random. The taste and the smell were inextricably
confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense.
The rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my
lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of
flowers—fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of
the old Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming
around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless, offered
no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in
abeyance, the ***** could not roll in their sockets—
but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere
were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which
fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of the
eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which struck
the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance,
this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only
as sound—sound sweet or discordant as the
matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark
in shade—curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at
the same time, although excited in degree, was not irregular
in action—estimating real sounds with an extravagance
of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had
undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were
tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted
always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure
of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only
recognized through vision, at length, long after their
removal, filled my whole being with a sensual delight
immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. All my
perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the
passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree
wrought into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain
there was some little; of pleasure there was much; but of
moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs
floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and
were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but
they were soft musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to
the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave
them birth; while large and constant tears which fell upon
my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke,
thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And
this was in truth the Death of which these bystanders
spoke reverently, in low whispers—you, sweet Una,
gaspingly, with loud cries.

They attired me for the coffin—three or four dark
figures which flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed
the direct line of my vision they affected me as forms;
but upon passing to my side their images impressed me
with the idea of shrieks, groans, and, other dismal
expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone,
habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically
about.

The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became
possessed by a vague uneasiness—an anxiety such as the
sleeper feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within
his ear—low distant bell-tones, solemn, at long but
equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy dreams.
Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It
oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight,
and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike
the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous,
which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown in
strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought
into the rooms, and this reverberation became forthwith
interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound,
but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression
was in a great measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame
of each lamp (for there were many), there flowed unbrokenly
into my ears a strain of melodious monotone. And when now,
dear Una, approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched,
you sat gently by my side, breathing odor from your sweet
lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose
tremulously within my *****, and mingling with the merely
physical sensations which circumstances had called forth, a
something akin to sentiment itself—a feeling that,
half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and
sorrow; but this feeling took no root in the pulseless
heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and
faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then
into a purely sensual pleasure as before.

And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses,
there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all
perfect. In its exercise I found a wild delight—yet a
delight still physical, inasmuch as the understanding had in
it no part. Motion in the animal frame had fully ceased. No
muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no artery throbbed. But
there seemed to have sprung up in the brain that of
which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence
even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental
pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man’s
abstract idea of Time. By the absolute equalization
of this movement—or of such as this—had the
cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted. By
its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the
mantel, and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings
came sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from
the true proportion—and these deviations were
omniprevalent—affected me just as violations of
abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense.
Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the
individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no
difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones, and the
respective momentary errors of each. And this—this
keen, perfect self-existing sentiment of
duration—this sentiment existing (as man could
not possibly have conceived it to exist) independently of
any succession of events—this idea—this sixth
sense, upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first
obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the
threshold of the temporal eternity.

It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others
had departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited
me in the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I
knew by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But
suddenly these strains diminished in distinctness and in
volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died
aw

it was the hooded-sweatshirt, sit-close-and-pretend-you’re-cold, bleacher-seat,
whiskey-and-coke homecoming that you never had when the leaves changed.
but the leaves changed anyway.

the damp grass smelling vaguely like your fireplace as the world got quieter,
your nose in your precalc and your foot tapping and how-many-years-left
of solo fridays, you counted the suburban stars but didn’t tell anybody
how ******* beautiful they were above your head, because they were yours.

when you wore your high school colors, you were cold for real. no pretense
in your shivering, no flutter in your abdomen because he wasn’t gonna talk to you,
and you didn’t really care, you shrugged. but the leaves changed anyway.

and you changed, slowly. grew taller and smarter and prettier and then the
remaining solo fridays shrank to none, and you left. big sweet snowdrifts turned to spring
and you shared whiskey-and-coke with the city, your stars dimmer but abdomen
finally fuller, and limbs warmer and no sweatshirt because you didn’t need one,
and hands all over to hold and feeling all three kinds of love at once.

and then the accidental homecoming, and the changing of the leaves
and the hooded-sweatshirt shivers and knowing you’re so much bigger now than the
suburban stars and the backward glances of the bleacher-seat kids, but the damp
grass still smells like your fireplace and suddenly you’re small again, just for a
second but god that second, you shiver and turn around again. you’re so much
bigger than this but homecoming, this whiskey-and-coke homecoming still isn't yours.

I reluctantly went to sleep around 3:30 am/not because I was tired/because I am always tired/but there wasn’t really anything else to do/and I shouldn’t call it going to sleep/when it is napping a few hours at a time/as my body tosses and turns/and my eyes are constantly opening and closing throughout the night/before my chattering mind or ghost of a mind decides that sleeping isn’t an option/and now it is three minutes past seven a.m./and I am up and exhausted/but that is the chapter my life has been stuck on repeat for the last decade plus/but it’s ok because I fake brave and try to wear a kind smile/but every now and then someone tells me I always look angry/and I try to explain that this is the only face I have/but the only expression I can make is the sound of shy silence/so the story of how I use to always smile as a child goes unheard/and only I know always smiling for me ended one day in the sixth grade/when while walking home from school a girl asked why was I smiling all the time/in a voice that let me know always smiling wasn’t something that was ok/and speaking of my younger self he was a strange and slightly paranoid kid/I remember him thinking in kindergarten  at recess that he didn’t feel completely “boy’ish”/because he was unusually shorter than the other kids his age/and his little mind inside his tiny body/went to thinking of why this was/and he came up with the theory that if you were born a boy or a girl/was decided by if your heartbeat was pushing blood out or taking blood in/and that he must have been born in between the two
/so he wasn’t really a boy or a girl/but just a human with a wee-wee/around this same age/this little dickens of a child/also figured out that we never died/that we just grew so old that we would start to shrink back into our baby bodies again/and once we shrank far enough down/we would start to grow old all over/he also once believed that bad people and bad things only happened on tv and in books/because he often heard a song on the radio that said something like/“there are no good guys there are no bad guys”/and he edited out the no good guys part/and only paid attention to the no bad guys part/so he believed that there were no bad guys up until the one day/both the television and the radio/wouldn’t stop talking about one guy that was clearly real/and clearly bad/going around to random houses in the night/and killing the families inside/and he turned his eyes up towards the moon/because the moon had a magic and  mystery to him/and he thought to the moon/but “there are no bad guys?” and the moon just floated in the cold night air/and said nothing back/and he realized that songs don’t tell the truth/and he shrugged his little shoulders and buried the first part of his innocence/and he grew up thinking he would always be a kid/feeling every school year was an infinite loop being lived over and over again/and that he would never be an adult and get to do adult things/not really liking this idea until he was an adult/and then desperately wishing it had been true/because as an adult he began to accept that maybe he was a boy/and the whole heartbeat theory was just a strange thought/of a strange kid/but that thought was often replaced by a feeling of not being human/because he still didn’t feel he fit in/and he knew he sure as hell wasn’t going to grow into a man of manly manliness/because that just seemed an absurd thing to do/and he definitely didn’t want to ever be an adult in a three piece business suit/working a business job with briefcases and power ties/that looked more like nooses to him/and what a horrible waste of life it was/to chase after a big bank account overflowing with money/with hearts bankrupt of any kind of love/and that was how the strange little kid who grew up to an awkward young adult saw the world/and he didn’t like it/and he didn’t want to be here/and he was the essence of a good guy/he didn’t drink/he didn’t smoke/he was a little nerdy/no/really nerdy/and he read comics and drew pictures/and started to write poetry/and hadn’t kissed a girl yet/because he somehow missed the class on how to talk to girls throughout his entire childhood/and he fell in love for the first time at eighteen/and wrote his first love poem/and gave it to the girl/and they became good friends/but never girlfriend boyfriend good friends/and they never kissed/and it broke his heart/and life went on/and he moved to New York for a short while/and had his first glass of wine on Halloween/while walking through Manhattan/and he liked this new feeling/and he drank a little more and a little more/and he meet a French girl/that read him French poetry/in French one night/and he thought maybe this was love/but he was still young and naive/and they became good friends/and on his last night in New York/they kissed and it felt good/really good/and he was happy for a moment/but still naive/and when she asked him to come back to her place/he didn’t realize why she would ask him that/because his flight left early in the morning/and it seemed a silly thing to ask/so he ended up flying back home/not knowing he had almost lost his virginity to a beautiful French girl/that was a good kisser/a really good kisser/and life went on/and so did his drinking/and being naked from the waist down after a night of heavy drinking on his twenty-first birthday/he thought it was a good idea to hang that lower half out the car window while being driven down the 101/and he probably would have fell out/but luckily he was pulled back in/and lived to see many other birthdays to celebrate in excessive amounts of alcohol and awkwardness/and he eventually did lose his virginity/at surprise surprise a Halloween party/on the bathroom floor of his best friends condo sitting beach side in Ventura/and they even cuddled all night while sleeping on the couch/and they held hands the entire morning on the way to breakfast/and all through eating breakfast/and the whole drive to her house as their mutual friends dropped her off/and it might have turned into a loving beautiful relationship/except even after this attractive young woman had put his **** in both her mouth and between her legs/and held his hand the entire morning and as much as he tried/and wanted to he couldn’t talk much/and never told her she was his first/that she had taken away that painful embarrassing virginity from him/and that he wanted to see her again/and that he really liked her/and could he call her and.../well none of it happened because he didn’t ask for her number/or tell her anything except for a weak and almost unheard goodbye/and life went on and the drinking went on
/and the awkwardness went on/and luckily or unluckily/the drinking helped with the luck/and he fell in love/and he fell in love again/and again/but he never got past being the strange kid who was horribly shy/even after falling in love and even after *******/and being so intensely shy without having an explanation/or the ability to express that he was so horribly shy/didn’t lead to lasting relationships/and even with the girl he spent five of the best and most beautiful and loving years of his life with/he failed too often at making her feel beautiful and wanted and hot/because he still couldn’t make the first move or even the second move/and eventually it made her feel unloved and unattractive and she left him/and rightfully so because why was he still so shy/how did that make sense/and now he is me and I’m older and known the wiser/still shy/still stupid/and life goes on/though with less drinking/no idea what to do when pulled into the gravity of falling/I could sleep on it/maybe think it all through/ and figure it out/but oh/thats right/I’ve forgotten how to sleep.../alone is nice though/comfortable/quite/and I am the master of quite

The pebble: I shrank,

it grew into a mountain --


with me on top now!

Through so many years I ran
Afraid and ever cowering
The darkness always at my back
Voracious, all-devouring

Through my mind its black claws reached
And picked apart my sanity
They scraped all chance of joy away
With endless inhumanity

Through the days and months and years
it chased and clawed relentlessly
Eventually I wondered why
I ran unending breathlessly

Through the dark I turned and looked
Pursuit suspended nervously
I granted it a name and face
It glared with vicious fervency

Through its threat I held my gaze
And ventured forth an inquiry
Its flare of rage could not repress
My newfound curiosity

Through the long nights we conversed
Debating, chatting, bickering
The darkness that devoured my life
Shrank back, diminished, flickering

Through the darkness I now saw
With unexpected clarity
We spoke as friends, no longer foes
Embracing newfound parity

Through the dark I look, and laugh
My friend now laughs along with me
Despite how it had always seemed
The darkness is a part of me

You are the type of boy whose got saltwater in his bloodstream, bones like coral, and a heart made of driftwood – and at this point I’m just hoping someday you’ll wash up on my shore. I have seen the broken glass and beer bottle caps tucked in the folds of your sandy skin. I know how you left cuts on the feet of those who walked all over you. They were never sorry and you always were. Everyone else was too busy molding you into mangled and misshapen castles, only to stomp on them. Your soul was tangled in a mess of seaweeds and deep-sea debris. No one ever saw the brilliance of the sun's reflection in your smile that made you more dazzling than a million diamonds. But I noticed from the beginning that you were more than a temporary vacation spot or a convenient photo-op. and the shark-infested waters in your head shrank to puddles when you spoke to me in words like waves. To this day I can’t figure out what I did to deserve to be the only one you’ve ever allowed to explore your ocean floors, but I am grateful. I pressed my ear to your chest like it was the mouth of a conch shell, and heard the entirety of your ache without you saying a single thing. Violent storms churned in your belly at the hand of faceless puppeteers; made seasick by countless careless captains. But the sky cleared instantaneously the moment I came aboard. The same sun whose rays you’d always been wary of, now kiss your face the same way i wish to, taking utmost care not to burn. Your laughter is a school of fish filled with more colors than I can count and the sound of your sleeping breath is an ocean breeze. I am in love with the perfect shoreline curve of your mouth. Every day I find various buried treasures in your hidden coves and sunken ships, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of discovering you.

- m.f.

I awoke in the night and felt your back against mine
Was this some sort of sign, some distance I couldn't explain?
Or was this a self-perceived storm in the making
constructed from nothing that was real?
The darkness took comfort in those nights we spent
back to back
Ticking, ticking, ticking-
Searching for an outlet, even forging one out of our lack
of subconscious physical attachment, trying to
create a wedge

The wedge served as an object that would separate
my vulnerability from reality
Creaking across my temples and finding solitude in
the destruction of everything I held dear,
you.

As time went on, naturally that wedge became an abyss
and every night I fell hundreds of feet over and-
over again- until my heart shrank into a thread.
The feeling of uncontrollable anxious behaviors
began to manifest in my chest
There it remained-
digging around to find its home, once more
In my adolescent insecure tendencies

Once there was a Cup
And inside the cup there was a Dragon
And the dragon shrank to the size of a pencil sharpener
And inside the pencil sharpener there was a needle
And the needle grew to the size of a chopstick
And I used it to clean my ears
And Ive been hearing better ever since.

With my newly clean ears
I realised that
I'd heard the poem all wrong.
What it really said was...

Once there was a Hat
And inside the hat there was a wagon
And the wagon shrank to the size of a bottle opener
And inside the bottle opener there was a beetle
And the beetle put on some lipstick
And I used the lipstick to help me speak more clearly.
And I've been speaking more clearly ever since.

Everybody in Russia loves Vladimir Putin.
In the years since he muscled his way to the top of the tree, he has established himself as the Champion of all Russia!

In the degradation following the collapse of the USSR, national pride in Russia spiralled down to an all-time low, there was little to be proud of. The satellite nations fled to independence abandoning the Rodina,  Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically, law and order diminished dangerously. The economy shrank and the order of success in business depended largely on connection with Government and/or the Mafia. The Oligarchs became monstrously rich, the average Ivan monstrously poor. Life savings were rendered worthless overnight by the plummet of the value of the rouble. Russian society polarised from the ecstatically happy, filthy rich to the chronically unhappy, beggared poor.

Russian leadership staggered from Gorbechev’s democratisation through Yeltsin’s alcoholism to Andropov’s sudden death…. enter the fray Vladimir Putin.

Putin tightened the reins.
He organised regular payment of wages and salaries to the movers and shakers, the police and the military.
He changed the rules of doing business within the nation and made investment opportunities within Russia available to outside interests.
He took charge and commandeered discipline within the ranks of central Government.
He set about correctional treatment for the terrorists/freedom fighters in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere.
He raised the expectations of the common man and gave the people an element of promise for Russia’s tomorrow.
He invaded and took back the Crimea as legitimate Russian sovereignty.
He garnered the roaring support of the six million ethnic Russians domiciled in the Eastern region of the Ukraine.

Putin now stands, bare chested, astride Russia. He faces a hostile but cowed West with pale, blazing eyes and a ******* bulge in his trousers.
He is widely idolised by Russian women and admired by Russian men. He is their champion; he is believed to be their key to the future.
His nation is currently under severe trade embargo and economic sanction by Europe and the West which is hurting the strained economy right across the board.
The declining price of oil is adversely affecting Siberian oil profits and making further shale oil exploration uneconomic.
He enjoys hugely profitable Siberian natural gas pipeline sales to the Southern neighbour, China, but they watch the unfolding political landscape with careful, calculating tiger eyes.
Putin is regarded by Europe and the West as an unpredictable, serious threat who should not be unduly provoked.
Undeniably, the West, in their sour lipped manner, would be happy to see him and his Russian bear, fade quietly and permanently into the obscurity of the frozen wilds of the far Siberian tundra.

But if Vladimir Putin plays his cards well, he could actually bring the Rodina all of the benefits, glory and rewards that it seeks.
However, should he overplay his hand here, he may well crash and burn….and in doing so, could bring Russia’s dreams and aspirations crashing down with him.

Marshalg
Auckland
15 November 2014

(oh, if you don't like lengthy-reads, do not read any further.. thank you)





how I long to hear you
I am silent now
just like you


1.
from the curtain rail, hang paper-butterflies in gentlest-breeze
you made for us in vacation-time
we loved living and being with you
      so quiet and so serene
never loud, nor ever shouting
you gave us the love we often had to steal at home


2.
dear lady, when our parents couldn't cope
they dumped us at your door
you took us in for days on end
and how we flourished in your care

momma in her perfumed get-up.. always out and about
I couldn't stand her smell
she hardly took the time of day.. to get to know her own
they quarreled all the time
one time, we saw her pull in ugly-anger, a knife on him
      and he punched her hard in the face
      we-took-it-in.. the three of us
      they saw us standing there, looking on
I tried to shield the younger ones' eyes
but the lesson sank in.. thickly


3.
so, off to you.. we got bundled, like hastily-wrapped parcels
and you took us in
and we gleaned the worth of stability

you spoke to us in quiet-tone:
right, now we will read.. alright, my dears?
    we responded with three silent nods
    eyes up at you.. like open-flowers
    our smiles inside slowly blossomed
as a powerful-routine came to life

sit us down near koi-pond in the yard
     after milk and choc-chip cookies
     green dappled shade-cloth overhead and potted plants
she opened up a book - Gift from the Sea.. and she read
     we listened with rapt-souls, open and accepting
     drinking in the delight of her well-intoned voice
she tempered that sickly-void with deep-respect and lasting-admiration

how we filled the hours with your special-technique of patience
        we discover life.. along with title and the author
        one buck to read the first sentence of a new book
        two for first paragraph
        five for first page
we earned a keep to last a jolly ol' lifetime
looked forward to the end of every weekend
when we'd spend the week with you
off to school, you saw our tiny-feet and welcomed in the afternoon
      warm greetings with firm hand, discipline fell in place
      but when chores are done and homework, too
that's the time we'd settle quietly into the routine you set so well

cushions at the koi-pond and each one gets a turn
granny-dear, granny-doer.. you took the time
you read to us and we read to you
and then, we read to one another.. while you did your tasks
        we learnt of the classics and many obscure artists, too
        writers' names became familiar; we discussed at length
        and from your fine library, came three very well-fed beings
who each had a jar filled with love-pennies and mind-notes

tranquil-nap in dimmed-room in the afternoon
eyes sunlight piercing through in stippling-slants on polished wooden-floor
we fell into peace

thinking expanded beyond the lore of words
you'd engage the width of our seeker-imagination with so much
         drawing fine-lines into the unknown
         and paper-mâché and Rorschach-ink
         and let us see how earthworms could be useful
         and transplanting our seedlings from disposable egg-cups
by my teens, my special botany-project grew: orange saplings
how the time, it flew.. weeks and months.. years..


4.
then, one day, our momma said.. no more time at granny
          we questioned and we queried, but to poor avail
          evasive-looks met our searching eyes
and vague answers, even poppa with the *****-glaze didn't talk
we failed to swallow their awkward-energy

the three of us could take no more: affection interfered
      and I took two buses and snuck out to her place
I crept in silent, found her resting
but her eyes were covered up
      her face had blue blotches and cheeks were puffy
sharp-inhale!
      I shrank perforce and cried inside.. and softly touched her hand
she woke up, startled and turned away
     but she knew it was me; she'd learnt my smell so long ago
bowing my head, I gently wiped her brow with unscented-towelette
and I saw her shoulders shaking
she quietly accepted my comfort


5.
the routine continued, thankfully
after we got wind of what really happened
how you were mugged in the subway on your way to work
you've lost the use of one eye and you now slump on one leg
this fall in health did nothing to dampen your ardour
       we read for you when you could no longer see at all
       and when your pensioner-status made you penniless
       you rewarded us with hugs pressed into the psyche
       our night-time pitter-patter slipping to you from nightmares
       and you stitched our broken-pieces and sealed our cracked-assurance
never finer devotion bred from hands so kind


6.
you let us read and it sparked the mind
the penny kept on rolling with great success
long after you left
    my brother now lectures in languages
    and guest-speaks at many places of higher-learning
    and my sister became a lawyer
I became a drop-out early on, but I never sold my dream
I struggled with their help.. yes, I know.. I was always slower
and melted-crayons still do yield.. colour in the twilight of cool-eve

yes, and I bought a farm not long ago
and I tend my own keep
granny, you'd be proud of us
three silent nods to an angel in disguise


now, I stand here.. quiet in my beautiful-orchard of oranges
              stare at the leopard-changing shadows on the tiles
and long to read for you
so, I open up a dream lying next to my koi-pond, an auburn-tail flicks handsomely
and it all spills forth in reams..



can you hear me now?
in silent-vow, I unveil the finest of my heart-words
to you..




S T, 2 January 2013

When the companies were thus arrayed, each under its own captain,
the Trojans advanced as a flight of wild fowl or cranes that scream
overhead when rain and winter drive them over the flowing waters of
Oceanus to bring death and destruction on the Pygmies, and they
wrangle in the air as they fly; but the Achaeans marched silently,
in high heart, and minded to stand by one another.
  As when the south wind spreads a curtain of mist upon the mountain
tops, bad for shepherds but better than night for thieves, and a man
can see no further than he can throw a stone, even so rose the dust
from under their feet as they made all speed over the plain.
  When they were close up with one another, Alexandrus came forward as
champion on the Trojan side. On his shoulders he bore the skin of a
panther, his bow, and his sword, and he brandished two spears shod
with bronze as a challenge to the bravest of the Achaeans to meet
him in single fight. Menelaus saw him thus stride out before the
ranks, and was glad as a hungry lion that lights on the carcase of
some goat or horned stag, and devours it there and then, though dogs
and youths set upon him. Even thus was Menelaus glad when his eyes
caught sight of Alexandrus, for he deemed that now he should be
revenged. He sprang, therefore, from his chariot, clad in his suit
of armour.
  Alexandrus quailed as he saw Menelaus come forward, and shrank in
fear of his life under cover of his men. As one who starts back
affrighted, trembling and pale, when he comes suddenly upon a
serpent in some mountain glade, even so did Alexandrus plunge into the
throng of Trojan warriors, terror-stricken at the sight of the son
Atreus.
  Then Hector upbraided him. “Paris,” said he, “evil-hearted Paris,
fair to see, but woman-mad, and false of tongue, would that you had
never been born, or that you had died *****. Better so, than live to
be disgraced and looked askance at. Will not the Achaeans mock at us
and say that we have sent one to champion us who is fair to see but
who has neither wit nor courage? Did you not, such as you are, get
your following together and sail beyond the seas? Did you not from
your a far country carry off a lovely woman wedded among a people of
warriors—to bring sorrow upon your father, your city, and your
whole country, but joy to your enemies, and hang-dog shamefacedness to
yourself? And now can you not dare face Menelaus and learn what manner
of man he is whose wife you have stolen? Where indeed would be your
lyre and your love-tricks, your comely locks and your fair favour,
when you were lying in the dust before him? The Trojans are a
weak-kneed people, or ere this you would have had a shirt of stones
for the wrongs you have done them.”
  And Alexandrus answered, “Hector, your rebuke is just. You are
hard as the axe which a shipwright wields at his work, and cleaves the
timber to his liking. As the axe in his hand, so keen is the edge of
your scorn. Still, taunt me not with the gifts that golden Venus has
given me; they are precious; let not a man disdain them, for the
gods give them where they are minded, and none can have them for the
asking. If you would have me do battle with Menelaus, bid the
Trojans and Achaeans take their seats, while he and I fight in their
midst for Helen and all her wealth. Let him who shall be victorious
and prove to be the better man take the woman and all she has, to bear
them to his home, but let the rest swear to a solemn covenant of peace
whereby you Trojans shall stay here in Troy, while the others go
home to Argos and the land of the Achaeans.”
  When Hector heard this he was glad, and went about among the
Trojan ranks holding his spear by the middle to keep them back, and
they all sat down at his bidding: but the Achaeans still aimed at
him with stones and arrows, till Agamemnon shouted to them saying,
“Hold, Argives, shoot not, sons of the Achaeans; Hector desires to
speak.”
  They ceased taking aim and were still, whereon Hector spoke. “Hear
from my mouth,” said he, “Trojans and Achaeans, the saying of
Alexandrus, through whom this quarrel has come about. He bids the
Trojans and Achaeans lay their armour upon the ground, while he and
Menelaus fight in the midst of you for Helen and all her wealth. Let
him who shall be victorious and prove to be the better man take the
woman and all she has, to bear them to his own home, but let the
rest swear to a solemn covenant of peace.”
  Thus he spoke, and they all held their peace, till Menelaus of the
loud battle-cry addressed them. “And now,” he said, “hear me too,
for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I deem that the parting of
Achaeans and Trojans is at hand, as well it may be, seeing how much
have suffered for my quarrel with Alexandrus and the wrong he did
me. Let him who shall die, die, and let the others fight no more.
Bring, then, two lambs, a white ram and a black ewe, for Earth and
Sun, and we will bring a third for Jove. Moreover, you shall bid Priam
come, that he may swear to the covenant himself; for his sons are
high-handed and ill to trust, and the oaths of Jove must not be
transgressed or taken in vain. Young men’s minds are light as air, but
when an old man comes he looks before and after, deeming that which
shall be fairest upon both sides.”
  The Trojans and Achaeans were glad when they heard this, for they
thought that they should now have rest. They backed their chariots
toward the ranks, got out of them, and put off their armour, laying it
down upon the ground; and the hosts were near to one another with a
little space between them. Hector sent two messengers to the city to
bring the lambs and to bid Priam come, while Agamemnon told Talthybius
to fetch the other lamb from the ships, and he did as Agamemnon had
said.
  Meanwhile Iris went to Helen in the form of her sister-in-law,
wife of the son of Antenor, for Helicaon, son of Antenor, had
married Laodice, the fairest of Priam’s daughters. She found her in
her own room, working at a great web of purple linen, on which she was
embroidering the battles between Trojans and Achaeans, that Mars had
made them fight for her sake. Iris then came close up to her and said,
“Come hither, child, and see the strange doings of the Trojans and
Achaeans till now they have been warring upon the plain, mad with lust
of battle, but now they have left off fighting, and are leaning upon
their shields, sitting still with their spears planted beside them.
Alexandrus and Menelaus are going to fight about yourself, and you are
to the the wife of him who is the victor.”
  Thus spoke the goddess, and Helen’s heart yearned after her former
husband, her city, and her parents. She threw a white mantle over
her head, and hurried from her room, weeping as she went, not alone,
but attended by two of her handmaids, Aethrae, daughter of Pittheus,
and Clymene. And straightway they were at the Scaean gates.
  The two sages, Ucalegon and Antenor, elders of the people, were
seated by the Scaean gates, with Priam, Panthous, Thymoetes, Lampus,
Clytius, and Hiketaon of the race of Mars. These were too old to
fight, but they were fluent orators, and sat on the tower like cicales
that chirrup delicately from the boughs of some high tree in a wood.
When they saw Helen coming towards the tower, they said softly to
one another, “Small wonder that Trojans and Achaeans should endure
so much and so long, for the sake of a woman so marvellously and
divinely lovely. Still, fair though she be, let them take her and
go, or she will breed sorrow for us and for our children after us.”
  But Priam bade her draw nigh. “My child,” said he, “take your seat
in front of me that you may see your former husband, your kinsmen
and your friends. I lay no blame upon you, it is the gods, not you who
are to blame. It is they that have brought about this terrible war
with the Achaeans. Tell me, then, who is yonder huge hero so great and
goodly? I have seen men taller by a head, but none so comely and so
royal. Surely he must be a king.”
  “Sir,” answered Helen, “father of my husband, dear and reverend in
my eyes, would that I had chosen death rather than to have come here
with your son, far from my bridal chamber, my friends, my darling
daughter, and all the companions of my girlhood. But it was not to be,
and my lot is one of tears and sorrow. As for your question, the
hero of whom you ask is Agamemnon, son of Atreus, a good king and a
brave soldier, brother-in-law as surely as that he lives, to my
abhorred and miserable self.”
  The old man marvelled at him and said, “Happy son of Atreus, child
of good fortune. I see that the Achaeans are subject to you in great
multitudes. When I was in Phrygia I saw much horsemen, the people of
Otreus and of Mygdon, who were camping upon the banks of the river
Sangarius; I was their ally, and with them when the Amazons, peers
of men, came up against them, but even they were not so many as the
Achaeans.”
  The old man next looked upon Ulysses; “Tell me,” he said, “who is
that other, shorter by a head than Agamemnon, but broader across the
chest and shoulders? His armour is laid upon the ground, and he stalks
in front of the ranks as it were some great woolly ram ordering his
ewes.”
  And Helen answered, “He is Ulysses, a man of great craft, son of
Laertes. He was born in rugged Ithaca, and excels in all manner of
stratagems and subtle cunning.”
  On this Antenor said, “Madam, you have spoken truly. Ulysses once
came here as envoy about yourself, and Menelaus with him. I received
them in my own house, and therefore know both of them by sight and
conversation. When they stood up in presence of the assembled Trojans,
Menelaus was the broader shouldered, but when both were seated Ulysses
had the more royal presence. After a time they delivered their
message, and the speech of Menelaus ran trippingly on the tongue; he
did not say much, for he was a man of few words, but he spoke very
clearly and to the point, though he was the younger man of the two;
Ulysses, on the other hand, when he rose to speak, was at first silent
and kept his eyes fixed upon the ground. There was no play nor
graceful movement of his sceptre; he kept it straight and stiff like a
man unpractised in oratory—one might have taken him for a mere
churl or simpleton; but when he raised his voice, and the words came
driving from his deep chest like winter snow before the wind, then
there was none to touch him, and no man thought further of what he
looked like.”
  Priam then caught sight of Ajax and asked, “Who is that great and
goodly warrior whose head and broad shoulders tower above the rest
of the Argives?”
  “That,” answered Helen, “is huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans,
and on the other side of him, among the Cretans, stands Idomeneus
looking like a god, and with the captains of the Cretans round him.
Often did Menelaus receive him as a guest in our house when he came
visiting us from Crete. I see, moreover, many other Achaeans whose
names I could tell you, but there are two whom I can nowhere find,
Castor, breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer; they are
children of my mother, and own brothers to myself. Either they have
not left Lacedaemon, or else, though they have brought their ships,
they will not show themselves in battle for the shame and disgrace
that I have brought upon them.”
  She knew not that both these heroes were already lying under the
earth in their own land of Lacedaemon.
  Meanwhile the heralds were bringing the holy oath-offerings
through the city—two lambs and a goatskin of wine, the gift of earth;
and Idaeus brought the mixing bowl and the cups of gold. He went up to
Priam and said, “Son of Laomedon, the princes of the Trojans and
Achaeans bid you come down on to the plain and swear to a solemn
covenant. Alexandrus and Menelaus are to fight for Helen in single
combat, that she and all her wealth may go with him who is the victor.
We are to swear to a solemn covenant of peace whereby we others
shall dwell here in Troy, while the Achaeans return to Argos and the
land of the Achaeans.”
  The old man trembled as he heard, but bade his followers yoke the
horses, and they made all haste to do so. He mounted the chariot,
gathered the reins in his hand, and Antenor took his seat beside
him; they then drove through the Scaean gates on to the plain. When
they reached the ranks of the Trojans and Achaeans they left the
chariot, and with measured pace advanced into the space between the
hosts.
  Agamemnon and Ulysses both rose to meet them. The attendants brought
on the oath-offerings and mixed the wine in the mixing-bowls; they
poured water over the hands of the chieftains, and the son of Atreus
drew the dagger that hung by his sword, and cut wool from the lambs’
heads; this the men-servants gave about among the Trojan and Achaean
princes, and the son of Atreus lifted up his hands in prayer.
“Father Jove,” he cried, “that rulest in Ida, most glorious in
power, and thou oh Sun, that seest and givest ear to all things, Earth
and Rivers, and ye who in the realms below chastise the soul of him
that has broken his oath, witness these rites and guard them, that
they be not vain. If Alexandrus kills Menelaus, let him keep Helen and
all her wealth, while we sail home with our ships; but if Menelaus
kills Alexandrus, let the Trojans give back Helen and all that she
has; let them moreover pay such fine to the Achaeans as shall be
agreed upon, in testimony among those that shall be born hereafter.
Aid if Priam and his sons refuse such fine when Alexandrus has fallen,
then will I stay here and fight on till I have got satisfaction.”
  As he spoke he drew his knife across the throats of the victims, and
laid them down gasping and dying upon the ground, for the knife had
reft them of their strength. Then they poured wine from the
mixing-bowl into the cups, and prayed to the everlasting gods, saying,
Trojans and Achaeans among one another, “Jove, most great and
glorious, and ye other everlasting gods, grant that the brains of them
who shall first sin against their oaths—of them and their children-
may be shed upon the ground even as this wine, and let their wives
become the slaves of strangers.”
  Thus they prayed, but not as yet would Jove grant them their prayer.
Then Priam, descendant of Dardanus, spoke, saying, “Hear me, Trojans
and Achaeans, I will now go back to the wind-beaten city of Ilius: I
dare not with my own eyes witness this fight between my son and
Menelaus, for Jove and the other immortals alone know which shall
fall.”
  On this he laid the two lambs on his chariot and took his seat. He
gathered the reins in his hand, and Antenor sat beside him; the two
then went back to Ilius. Hector and Ulysses measured the ground, and
cast lots from a helmet of bronze to see which should take aim
first. Meanwhile the two hosts lifted up their hands and prayed
saying, “Father Jove, that rulest from Ida, most glorious in power,
grant that he who first brought about this war between us may die, and
enter the house of Hades, while we others remain at peace and abide by
our oaths.”
  Great Hector now turned his head aside while he shook the helmet,
and the lot of Paris flew out first. The others took their several
stations, each by his horses and the place where his arms were
lying, while Alexandrus, husband of lovely Helen, put on his goodly
armour. First he greaved his legs with greaves of good make and fitted
with ancle-clasps of silver; after this he donned the cuirass of his
brother Lycaon, and fitted it to his own body; he hung his
silver-studded sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then his
mighty shield. On his comely head he set his helmet, well-wrought,
with a crest of horse-hair that nodded menacingly above it, and he
grasped a redoubtable spear that suited his hands. In like fashion
Menelaus also put on his armour.
  When they had thus armed, each amid his own people, they strode
fierce of aspect into the open space, and both Trojans and Achaeans
were struck with awe as they beheld them. They stood near one
another on the measured ground, brandis

she was more than just the stuff of storybooks, she was one. hair long and light and breast-grazing, star-gazing wisteria-eyed girl. a mystery on spindly legs. a fawn I looked at once and never looked away from. her lemon-meringue demeanor, breathy bubble-bath speaking voice and short white dresses, sandy bare feet and a crinkled, secret smile were all I saw and I saw them as many times as she would let me, new eyes for her driftwood shell every day. she wasn’t from where I was, nor was she going where I went, but when I said hello, she flashed her sunstorm smile at me and buckled my knees. I loved her before we even met, and I knew she would never do the same because she didn’t need to; she didn’t need me and she didn’t need anything, she was freewheeling, she was everybody’s sunrise, she had that smile.

but I wrote the book on living impossible dreams and she told me her name one day, as the horizon painted her gold and stood her still in front of me. she told me where she came from, and where she was going, the gift of gifts: unwrapping her storybook from linen scarves on the sand that evening. this big and beautiful myth shrank to size: she was real. she was flawed. she had grown from sadness, she was scarred, and for that she was more beautiful still. she didn’t need me and she didn’t need anything and, what’s more, she wouldn’t have it. her doors were closed because she wouldn’t need anything, she couldn’t need anything, she was scared of needing anything like she wasn’t scared of anything else, and for that she was more beautiful still.

but I wrote the book on living impossible dreams. as I came around more often, she fell for me right back—my far-off wisteria sunstorm was quiet against my shoulder, breathing in sync with me and drifting off wrapped up in me, driftwood-intricate and real as no storybook before her next to me. she needed me, now, so new to her and laying her bare, stripping away the mystery on her gazelle legs and casting a fearful desperation on her long light hair. instead of needing nothing, she needed me more than I was there, just like she was afraid of. she couldn’t get enough. wrapped up in me so tangled she couldn’t see the horizon anymore. she fortified her quirks so they could stand alone, they grew overbright, she became them, they became all she was. a pretty driftwood shell, a mystery covering nothing but the hole her heart hides in, scared into paralysis by its own fevered motion.

what do I do with this new shell? this new shell that looks exactly like the first one but isn’t—her eyes are still wisteria and her laugh still air-light to the untrained ear, but my hands are too strong to touch her without cracking it. what do I do with this storybook I wrote myself into without permission, this fawn that refused captivity but now can’t remember she was ever free? what do I do with my hands? do I make them weak so I can hold her or do I leave her to herself? what’s the end of the story?

I wrote the book on living impossible dreams and sunstorms aren’t real. she smiles but now it’s only hollow. I can’t look at this beauty I destroyed. I walk away because I have nowhere else to go and I can’t watch her shrink. she was never mine. now she’s nearly nothing.

the year we dissected a squid and ate its tentacles piece
by piece down at the pier next to your house was the year
you expanded while I grew into myself .
we kissed one another
like good luck charms ,
like talismans , and used
our bodies in place of
fortune tellers .
I read your palm lines
and came to the conclusion that we would be together forever .
you hated the word forever and settled for a long time .
as we grew more familiar
with one another’s skin ,
I watched my intake .
I wanted nothing but you ,
would inhale nothing but you ,
counted my calories
like sheep before
drifting off to sleep .
the less I ate , the more
room I saved for you .
you wanted to swallow me whole
so I fed myself to you
piece by piece , the tender red flesh of my thumbs
and ******* until they grew bruised
by your mouth .
In those days I ate nothing
but a cup of cold cereal .
when we watched the whales dive in the surf ,
slapping the water like winners of an arm wrestling match ,
you were almost as giant as their cavernous ribs .
I was smaller than the smallest school of fish .
I wanted to fade into you, into the house of your lungs ,
so I spent hours ******* in my ribs in front of the mirror .
we became opposites of one another .
but in the end , my wish to become part of you failed ,
and I simply became the skeleton in your closet instead .

Alexei stood on top of a mountain, the wind ferociously whipping through his fur. He could feel the sun burning behind him and he saw the moon standing proudly before him. He looked down at the ground below h and saw thousands of Lycans looking up at him. He smiled as he saw them. Alexei looked behind them and his heart stopped as he saw a raging wildfire encircling them. They were oblivious to the wall of fire behind them, looking to Alexei to guidance. He began to panic. He tried to run to them but his body would not let him, he tried to scream but his voice was merely a whisper. Tears stung his eyes as he saw the fire approach them. Alexei heard thunder in the distance and everything before him froze in place. His body was shaking. He felt something behind him and he turned. Alexei's eyes widened as he saw a regal white Lycan with golden fur tips standing in front of him. Her eyes were a dazzling purple, sparkling like stardust. Alexei could sense the overwhelmingly massive power standing in front of him. The wolf stood a few feet taller than him and Alexei felt meek before them. Alexei bowed instinctually, letting his muzzle touch the ground. His heart was in his throat and for the first time in his life, he felt insignificant. The Lycan spoke to him softly, "Alexei, I am Mother Luna."
Alexei swallowed hard as he realized the gravity of the situation. He was talking to a god. The Lycan god. Alexei's voice squeaked out, "M-mother Luna,why have I been having these dreams? What am I meant to do?"
The Lycan blinked slowly, "I have chosen you, Alexei. You are my vassal. You have worked for over seven hundred years to build the Lycans into a thriving species. You single handedly created a nation for our kind. You did well in hiding your true self since then, but now it is time to reveal yourself once again." She paused, "There is a war coming. The Slayers have been working in the shadows for a while now, trying to undermine our species. But no longer. Now you must fight back." She gestured to the land below them.
"Those Lycans will look up to you, they will rely on you for guidance. You alone can lead them."
Alexei looked to the mass of wolves below him and whispered, "What if I'm not strong enough? What if I fail you?"
Mother Luna stomped her foot and the ground shook. Thunder rumbled and she said firmly, "You ARE strong enough, Alexei. And you cannot fail me. Tap into the strength within you. Awaken the powers of the Master Alpha."
Alexei felt strengthened by her words, taking a deep breath. "As you say, so it shall be done, Mother Luna."
She nodded. Thunder and lightning flashed around them as she said, "Now go! I have faith in you." The world faded to black, with only Mother Luna's glowing eyes and the sound of wildfire remaining.

Alexei woke up, blinking away the vision. Aurora was coming down the stairs, and Alexei took a deep breath. He sat up in the bed and yawned, feeling rested but troubled. Aurora looked at him as she entered the room, "Up already, sir? It's still early morning. The sun won't be up for another few hours."
Alexei nodded, "I tend to wake early. Old habits die hard."
Aurora laughed, "I suppose you're right. I came to... To check on you, sir."
Alexei nodded and looked her in the eyes for a moment. In that single moment, he read her body language and scent. He broke eye contact and closed his eyes as he broke down the information. She was in her twenties, had no mate, and her musk was disguised with what Alexei assumed was perfume. He could feel Aurora blushing as he studied her, but he also sensed her body language change. Her stance was more submissive, and her heartbeat quickened a little as she watched his eyes move over her.
Alexei stood slowly, watching Aurora as she stole glances at his body. He watched as her eyes began to wander, studying the Alpha intently. Alexei could smell something new from her and he growled softly. Aurora gasped and looked up at him, her eyes mixed with fear and lust. Alexei could sense the heat from her body and felt a twinge of want in his own.
Alexei brought his head down low, eye to eye with the young beta. He said sternly, "You know not the game you play, Aurora."
She shrank back, shame clear on her face. He saw her ears flatten against her head and her tail curl around her leg. "I-I... I'm..."
Alexei sighed and sat down, "Don't be discouraged or ashamed of yourself, Aurora." She looked at him, still unsure of herself. Alexei asked, "You've never been mated, have you?"
She shook her head quickly, her mouth firmly shut but Alexei could sense the heat in her cheeks as she blushed. Alexei continued, "You wanted me to be your first mate, right?"
Aurora attempted to speak, but her mind was a muddle of emotions. She sank to the floor, defeated.
Alexei smiled softly. "There is nothing wrong with wanting that, Aurora." He looked at her, projecting his sympathy to her. Through their connection he could sense her calming down. "Is there no one in your pack who is a more viable mate?"
Aurora looked away, whispering, "No. All the males are mated already. I'm alone."
Alexei sighed softly, "I'm sorry. My paws are tied on this matter. I'm an Alpha. A mated alpha at that."
Aurora's cheeks were burning, "I-I know. I just wanted the feeling. I wanted to know what it's like to mate with someone."
Alexei shut his eyes and took a breath. His own mind was filled with mixed thoughts and emotions. He watched as Aurora lifted herself off the floor into a sitting position. Aurora continued, "When you pinned me in the woods, I didn't know what to feel. I was scared, but I loved the feeling of you above me, dominating me instantly." Her eyes closed for a second and she shivered. "Then I smelled you and I knew you were an Alpha. I... I didn't care that you were mated, I just needed you."
Alexei listened and sensed her desire in her voice. Instinct told him to indulge her, but his mind knew that he shouldn't. He whispered, "Aurora, this can't happen. Bad things could happen to both of us if someone were to find out."
She looked into his eyes, then down at her paws, "I know."
A few moments passed and Alexei made his decision. Alexei stood and took a step closer to her. She looked up at him and he growled. She gasped and shrunk down a little, her heart pounding. Alexei gestured to the bed and Aurora slowly walked around him, heat filling her cheeks once more. She got onto the bed and faced Alexei, watching him stalk closer to her. She tried to manage her breathing but each breath came out more shallow than the last. She watched as Alexei put one paw on the bed, then another. Alexei's voice shook her to the core as he said, "Turn around."
Aurora hesitated then did as he demanded. She raised her rear to him and she gasped as she felt him standing over her. Alexei leaned down and whispered to her, "No one can know about this."
Aurora nodded and mouthed, "I promise." Alexei's put a paw on each of hers and she felt a heat between her hind legs. She felt her back paws being pushed apart and she groaned mentally to him. She peeked back to him, her innocent eyes begging him to be gentle. Alexei pressed his belly against her back and felt their warmths colliding, forcing Aurora to loose a moan. She began to drool as she felt her urges being fulfilled by the big Alpha. She kept her mind entwined with his, repeatedly whispering her wants and needs to him, fueling his own carnal desire. She closed her eyes and let Alexei take over her, allowing the Alpha to tame her wild body.
They finished as the sun rose, and Aurora was breathless and exhausted. Alexei lay next to her as she recovered. She looked at him with a dazed look in her eyes and she nuzzled against his neck. "That was better than I ever could have imagined, Alpha." Aurora began to fall asleep and Alexei watched her. Once her breathing slowed, Alexei pushed his consciousness towards her dormant mind. He pushed healing energy towards her, helping her recover faster. As he began to retreat from her mind, he caught a glimpse of her dream. She was reliving the past few hours with him, and Alexei could feel the ecstasy that she felt. She had loved every second of it. Alexei couldn't help feeling guilty that she would have to keep it a secret, and that he was disloyal to his mate.
Alexei retreated back to his own mind, his thoughts darkened by his guilt. He took another deep breath and went deep into his own mind, searching for the powers that he had kept dormant for years. He felt it pulling him in, and he let it take him. The power was overwhelming, stored and growing for hundreds of years. Alexei tapped into it and anchored the power to his soul and heart. He opened his eyes and briefly saw the energy within the room. He blinked and it dissipated. He gently touched Aurora with his muzzle and a wave of energy passed over her, disguising the evidence of their night. Alexei's conscience kept him from wiping her memory, but he made certain that no one but them would know. He closed his eyes as he finished covering their tracks. He thought to himself, "What other holes will I dig for myself before this is through?" He didn't regret his decision, but he feared what possible outcomes would come of it. He stood up and stretched his limbs. Using his power, he quickly cleaned himself.
Alexei suddenly felt weak, and his head was pounding like a war drum. He stumbled back to the bed and collapsed, passing out before his head hit the cushion.

It was midnight. Alexei was surrounded by trees so tall that they seemed to touch the sky. He was standing on top of a lake, it's surface like a dazzling mirror. The water was cold against his feet, sending a shiver through him. Small ripples appeared around his feet as he took small steps forward. Above him was the full moon, shining down on him. There were multiple glowing eyes watching him in the darkness below the treetops. He could sense the presence of Lycans in the trees and he became nervous. Alexei stopped at the edge of the water, unable to move to dry land. He frowned and turned back, towards the center of the lake. He stood at the center, aware of the crowd watching him from the trees. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance and Alexei looked around him, searching for the source. Behind him stood Mother Luna, an amused look on her face. She was different somehow, her size closer to his than before. The water glowed a vibrant sapphire blue beneath her paws. She circled him slowly, the golden tips of her fur shimmering in the moonlight.
"Have fun, Alexei?" , she chided.
Alexei could feel his cheeks flush, "Mother Luna, I... I..."
She stopped him, her purple eyes fierce. "You let your instincts guide you."
Alexei looked down at his paws, "Yes, Mother Luna. It was a stupid thing to do."
An image of Aurora was looking back at him from the water and he sighed. His heart burned with guilt as he thought about his actions.
Luna shook her head, stepping towards him. She nudged him with her muzzle comfortingly. The touch sent a jolt like lightning through Alexei, and he could feel all of his urges and desires flow through him again. He groaned involuntarily and his eyes glazed over in ecstasy. He looked at Luna curiously as he fought to control the burning in his *****. Ice began to form at his feet, stopping him from moving. She smiled and whispered seductively, "Who do you think sparks instincts in Lycans, Alexei?" Luna leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "I do. You did as I hoped you would." She nipped at his ear, forcing another shiver through his body before she stepped back, clearly pleased with herself.
Alexei took a moment to respond, carefully forming his words while attempting to hide his feral lust. "You wanted me to mate with her. Then you have a plan, Mother Luna?"
She smirked, turning and flicking her tail at Alexei's nose, forcing another wave of urges through him. His legs began to shake and she grinned. "Of course. Whether you realize it or not, every move you make can affect the people around you. Aurora is now loyal to you. By satisfying her urges, you also fueled her lust for you." Luna laughed to herself. She turned and stretched her limbs, lifting her tail for Alexei to see. She grinned wildly as he whimpered.
Luna turned back to face him, hiding her amusement. She rubbed her body along his side, her tail curling around his neck and then down his back. She stopped as he whimpered fiercely. He was blushing madly, fighting the urges with all his might. Luna kept grinning, saying in an airy voice, "I can make you do anything I want, Alexei." She walked behind him and flicked her tail between his legs, the tip running along the length of his groin. Alexei lost all form of thought and he began panting. Luna licked her lips and walked slowly in front of him. "See? There's no use fighting instinct, Alexei. I gave it to you for a reason." She looked at Alexei, his eyes full to the brim with desire.
Alexei tried to speak, his tongue tied in knots, "I... Why...?" He shivered, whispering, "****."
Luna took a step towards him, "Exactly." She got close to him, enough that her scent was overwhelming to him. She whispered in his ear, "What's the point of being a god if you can't have a little fun." She stomped her foot once and the ice around Alexei's legs shattered. He took a tentative step forward, still under the influence of his desire.
Luna circled him again, standing with her back to him. She stretched again, lifting her tail as before. She glanced back at him, saying, "It's up to you on what to do now. Don't disappoint me."
Alexei couldn't help himself. He quickly walked behind her and put his front paws on her shoulders as he mounted her. Luna allowed him to push her hind paws away as he had done to Aurora. She did not wait for him as she ****** herself backwards onto him. She growled, pleased. "There you go."
As his body touched hers, his mind and body was flooded with vigor as her own desire amplified his own. Alexei bit down on her neck to keep from howling as they mated. His mind and heart were racing as he subconsciously tapped into his power, using a bit of its energy to invigorate his efforts to please the god beneath him. Luna felt his pace quicken and she grinned, "That's right. Don't disappoint me, darling."
She closed her eyes and let the waves of pleasure wash over her. Her mouth hung open as she panted. Luna howled as her lust was filled, soon followed by Alexei's growls of ecstasy as he finished. Alexei collapsed as he broke contact with her, his body still quivering. Luna stood smoothly, her legs and tail wet with their ***. She bent down and touched him with her nose, saying, "Good. You didn't disappoint me."
Alexei panted and closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was back in the bed next to Aurora. His heart was still pounding as he thought about the dream. "Was it a dream?" , Alexei thought. He felt exhausted again, even though he had been resting. "I don't think it was."
He looked at Aurora, sleeping peacefully where he had left her. "Did I just mate with a god?" The thought ran circles around him as he relived every moment. It had felt real, and there wasn't the usual haziness of dreams.
Alexei shook his head and stood up. He looked to Aurora and he gently woke her with a nudge on the neck. She slowly blinked awake and she yawned, looking at him. "Morning, Alpha."
Alexei nodded, "Morning, Aurora." He gestured to the door, saying, "It may be best if you left before anyone finds out you stayed here. I don't smell anyone else awake yet so now is our chance."
Aurora nodded, "Good idea." She stretched quickly and ran up the stairs, silently pushing the door open and scanning the area. Once she was certain it was clear she ran back to the cabin. Alexei followed her soon after, covering her scent as she disappeared from view. He breathed a sigh of relief as he made sure no wolf was awake.
Alexei sniffed the air, taking in the myriad of scents nearby. To his knowledge, no other Alphas were nearby. He began to wander around the snowy forest, keeping an eye out for a sizable deer that could be his breakfast. Alexei looked up, seeing the daylight through the tops of the tall trees. He remarked to himself about how those trees were much like the ones from his dream.
His heart stopped for a second and he sniffed the air, sea

analyze me, ask me how i feel.
when i become recalcitrant, please
pull me down and say
"stay." (i obey, classicially conditioned and--)
"speak."

i let you spread me. take my organs, please, and
sort them poetry-fat and concrete-proteins.
lay them bare for me and let me
draw
my own
conclusions

(A Virginia Legend.)

The Planting of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

His fear was on the seaport towns,
The weight of his hand held hard the downs.
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and black,
For a red flame in the sea-fog's wrack
Was all of their ships that might come back.

For all he had one word alone,
One clod of dirt in their faces thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

His name bestrode the seas like Death.
The waters trembled at his breath.

This is the tale of how he fell,
Of the long sweep and the heavy swell,
And the rope that dragged him down to hell.

The fight was done, and the gutted ship,
Stripped like a shark the sea-gulls strip,

Lurched blindly, eaten out with flame,
Back to the land from where she came,
A skimming horror, an eyeless shame.

And Hawk stood upon his quarter-deck,
And saw the sky and saw the wreck.

Below, a **** for sailors' jeers,
White as the sky when a white squall nears,
Huddled the crowd of the prisoners.

Over the bridge of the tottering plank,
Where the sea shook and the gulf yawned blank,
They shrieked and struggled and dropped and sank,

Pinioned arms and hands bound fast.
One girl alone was left at last.

Sir Henry Gaunt was a mighty lord.
He sat in state at the Council board;
The governors were as nought to him.
From one rim to the other rim

Of his great plantations, flung out wide
Like a purple cloak, was a full month's ride.

Life and death in his white hands lay,
And his only daughter stood at bay,
Trapped like a hare in the toils that day.

He sat at wine in his gold and his lace,
And far away, in a ****** place,
Hawk came near, and she covered her face.

He rode in the fields, and the hunt was brave,
And far away his daughter gave
A shriek that the seas cried out to hear,
And he could not see and he could not save.

Her white soul withered in the mire
As paper shrivels up in fire,
And Hawk laughed, and he kissed her mouth,
And her body he took for his desire.


The Growing of the Hemp.

Sir Henry stood in the manor room,
And his eyes were hard gems in the gloom.

And he said, "Go dig me furrows five
Where the green marsh creeps like a thing alive --
There at its edge, where the rushes thrive."

And where the furrows rent the ground,
He sowed the seed of hemp around.

And the blacks shrink back and are sore afraid
At the furrows five that rib the glade,
And the voodoo work of the master's *****.

For a cold wind blows from the marshland near,
And white things move, and the night grows drear,
And they chatter and crouch and are sick with fear.

But down by the marsh, where the gray slaves glean,
The hemp sprouts up, and the earth is seen
Veiled with a tenuous mist of green.

And Hawk still scourges the Caribbees,
And many men kneel at his knees.

Sir Henry sits in his house alone,
And his eyes are hard and dull like stone.

And the waves beat, and the winds roar,
And all things are as they were before.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And nothing changes but the grass.

But down where the fireflies are like eyes,
And the damps shudder, and the mists rise,
The hemp-stalks stand up toward the skies.

And down from the **** of the pirate ship
A body falls, and the great sharks grip.

Innocent, lovely, go in grace!
At last there is peace upon your face.

And Hawk laughs loud as the corpse is thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

Sir Henry's face is iron to mark,
And he gazes ever in the dark.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the world is as it always was.

But down by the marsh the sickles beam,
Glitter on glitter, gleam on gleam,
And the hemp falls down by the stagnant stream.

And Hawk beats up from the Caribbees,
Swooping to pounce in the Northern seas.

Sir Henry sits sunk deep in his chair,
And white as his hand is grown his hair.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the sands roll from the hour-glass.

But down by the marsh in the blazing sun
The hemp is smoothed and twisted and spun,
The rope made, and the work done.


The Using of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

He sailed in the broad Atlantic track,
And the ships that saw him came not back.

And once again, where the wide tides ran,
He stooped to harry a merchantman.

He bade her stop. Ten guns spake true
From her hidden ports, and a hidden crew,
Lacking his great ship through and through.

Dazed and dumb with the sudden death,
He scarce had time to draw a breath

Before the grappling-irons bit deep,
And the boarders slew his crew like sheep.

Hawk stood up straight, his breast to the steel;
His cutlass made a ****** wheel.

His cutlass made a wheel of flame.
They shrank before him as he came.

And the bodies fell in a choking crowd,
And still he thundered out aloud,

"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"
They fled at last. He was left alone.

Before his foe Sir Henry stood.
"The hemp is grown, and my word made good!"

And the cutlass clanged with a hissing whir
On the lashing blade of the rapier.

Hawk roared and charged like a maddened buck.
As the cobra strikes, Sir Henry struck,

Pouring his life in a single ******,
And the cutlass shivered to sparks and dust.

Sir Henry stood on the blood-stained deck,
And set his foot on his foe's neck.

Then from the hatch, where the rent decks *****,
Where the dead roll and the wounded *****,
He dragged the serpent of the rope.

The sky was blue, and the sea was still,
The waves lapped softly, hill on hill,
And between one wave and another wave
The doomed man's cries were little and shrill.

The sea was blue, and the sky was calm;
The air dripped with a golden balm.
Like a wind-blown fruit between sea and sun,
A black thing writhed at a yard-arm.

Slowly then, and awesomely,
The ship sank, and the gallows-tree,
And there was nought between sea and sun --
Nought but the sun and the sky and the sea.

But down by the marsh where the fever breeds,
Only the water chuckles and pleads;
For the hemp clings fast to a dead man's throat,
And blind Fate gathers back her seeds.

the bittersweet word left my lips
but it kept the other words at bay -
the ones I could never, ever say.
I dragged those deeply rooted words,
pulling them until they wouldn't budge.
I wrapped them in my voice and let them go
until thorny feelings seized my legs
and dug into my soft, tender flesh.
my fingers bled as I separated the thorns.
they shrank, withering into the soil.
and once they did, I whispered, "goodbye"
for the second time, and I was finally free.

"Tomorrow you will be alright"
I comforted myself a near midnight.
Dragging the towel, moist from the sink
under my lower lids, I did never blink.

Makeup and water or makeup and tears
some may never now, as I
that lonesome, quite autumn night*
Though I lastly found with my poorly sight
that under my lids there were, well how to describe?
- I lowered the towel and looked even twice
Nothing as makeup were pouring down my eyes
but a still, matte
constant.


Sorrow

Now what about tomorrow?
I blinked and I shrank as I lowered my head in the sink.
Oh but never were I capable of washing off ink.

I first remembered years ago,
At twenty-something,
Speeding along in a 240Z
With my father.
Apropos of nothing,
I suddenly remembered it all,
The pain, fear, chases
And flights up stairs,
Only to have her catch me,
And feel the pummeling fists
Like a mad horse’s hooves,
Treading me down.
Back in the present,
My father was admiring trees
As we buzzed past them,
Unaware of the storm beside him.
She wore him down too
In a different way,
With constant denigration.
Over the years I watched
As he shrank way to
A painful, infested brain.
Unlike me, he had no defense,
Loving her as he still did.
It was as if he chose cancer
instead of anger or rebellion.
I had raged against her
And stood tall from childhood
To the now, when thunderheads
Rose from me above her.
Long ago, she had been
The random bolts from the blue,
Causing pain but not killing.
Now I am the storm,
Gathering over years,
Sweeping up heat and vapor
Sending and receiving energy.
The lightning bolts are truth
And their pain is admission,
Though never bringing remorse.
I am the storm warning her to run,
While knowing that she never will.

Edited October 2, 2021

You owned that second
when I could do
nothing

You ruled the world
as the road shrank
in my eyes

You Oh Allah
were my seatbelt
which held

You were the airbag
that loved me
in a flash

You were all and above
when I slid
as nothing

You whispered hush
and steel noise and glass
complied

You oh Allah
took no life there
nor let me

You control the heavens
earth and in-between
and You decide

Can I ever repay
You for a blink
of lasting life?

Black trees against an orange sky,
Trees that the wind shook terribly,
Like a harsh spume along the road,
Quavering up like withered arms,
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below
The iron ice stung like a goad,
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
And all the air was bitter sleet.

And all the land was cramped with snow,
Steel-strong and fierce and glimmering wan,
Like pale plains of obsidian.
-- And yet I strove -- and I was fire
And ice -- and fire and ice were one
In one vast hunger of desire.
A dim desire, of pleasant places,
And lush fields in the summer sun,
And logs aflame, and walls, and faces,
-- And wine, and old ambrosial talk,
A golden ball in fountains dancing,
And unforgotten hands. (Ah, God,
I trod them down where I have trod,
And they remain, and they remain,
Etched in unutterable pain,
Loved lips and faces now apart,
That once were closer than my heart --
In agony, in agony,
And horribly a part of me. . . .
For Lethe is for no man set,
And in Hell may no man forget.)

And there were flowers, and jugs, bright-glancing,
And old Italian swords -- and looks,
A moment's glance of fire, of fire,
Spiring, leaping, flaming higher,
Into the intense, the cloudless blue,
Until two souls were one, and flame,
And very flesh, and yet the same!
As if all springs were crushed anew
Into one globed drop of dew!
But for the most I thought of heat,
Desiring greatly. . . . Hot white sand
The lazy body lies at rest in,
Or sun-dried, scented grass to nest in,
And fires, innumerable fires,
Great ****** hurling golden gyres
Of sparks far up, and the red heart
In sea-coals, crashing as they part
To tiny flares, and kindling snapping,
Bunched sticks that burst their string and wrapping
And fall like jackstraws; green and blue
The evil flames of driftwood too,
And heavy, sullen lumps of coke
With still, fierce heat and ugly smoke. . . .
. . . And then the vision of his face,
And theirs, all theirs, came like a sword,
Thrice, to the heart -- and as I fell
I thought I saw a light before.

I woke. My hands were blue and sore,
Torn on the ice. I scarcely felt
The frozen sleet begin to melt
Upon my face as I breathed deeper,
But lay there warmly, like a sleeper
Who shifts his arm once, and moans low,
And then sinks back to night. Slow, slow,
And still as Death, came Sleep and Death
And looked at me with quiet breath.
Unbending figures, black and stark
Against the intense deeps of the dark.
Tall and like trees. Like sweet and fire
Rest crept and crept along my veins,
Gently. And there were no more pains. . . .

Was it not better so to lie?
The fight was done. Even gods tire
Of fighting. . . . My way was the wrong.
Now I should drift and drift along
To endless quiet, golden peace . . .
And let the tortured body cease.

And then a light winked like an eye.
. . . And very many miles away
A girl stood at a warm, lit door,
Holding a lamp. Ray upon ray
It cloaked the snow with perfect light.
And where she was there was no night
Nor could be, ever. God is sure,
And in his hands are things secure.
It is not given me to trace
The lovely laughter of that face,
Like a clear brook most full of light,
Or olives swaying on a height,
So silver they have wings, almost;
Like a great word once known and lost
And meaning all things. Nor her voice
A happy sound where larks rejoice,
Her body, that great loveliness,
The tender fashion of her dress,
I may not paint them.
These I see,
Blazing through all eternity,
A fire-winged sign, a glorious tree!

She stood there, and at once I knew
The bitter thing that I must do.
There could be no surrender now;
Though Sleep and Death were whispering low.
My way was wrong. So. Would it mend
If I shrank back before the end?
And sank to death and cowardice?
No, the last lees must be drained up,
Base wine from an ignoble cup;
(Yet not so base as sleek content
When I had shrunk from punishment)
The wretched body strain anew!
Life was a storm to wander through.
I took the wrong way. Good and well,
At least my feet sought out not Hell!
Though night were one consuming flame
I must go on for my base aim,
And so, perhaps, make evil grow
To something clean by agony . . .
And reach that light upon the snow . . .
And touch her dress at last . . .
So, so,
I crawled. I could not speak or see
Save dimly. The ice glared like fire,
A long bright Hell of choking cold,
And each vein was a tautened wire,
Throbbing with torture -- and I crawled.
My hands were wounds.
So I attained
The second Hell. The snow was stained
I thought, and shook my head at it
How red it was! Black tree-roots clutched
And tore -- and soon the snow was smutched
Anew; and I lurched babbling on,
And then fell down to rest a bit,
And came upon another Hell . . .
Loose stones that ice made terrible,
That rolled and gashed men as they fell.
I stumbled, slipped . . . and all was gone
That I had gained. Once more I lay
Before the long bright Hell of ice.
And still the light was far away.
There was red mist before my eyes
Or I could tell you how I went
Across the swaying firmament,
A glittering torture of cold stars,
And how I fought in Titan wars . . .
And died . . . and lived again upon
The rack . . . and how the horses strain
When their red task is nearly done. . . .

I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell -- and rose again.

So she was walking in the road.
And I stood upright like a man,
Once, and fell blind, and heard her cry . . .
And then there came long agony.
There was no pain when I awoke,
No pain at all. Rest, like a goad,
Spurred my eyes open -- and light broke
Upon them like a million swords:
And she was there. There are no words.

Heaven is for a moment's span.
And ever.
So I spoke and said,
"My honor stands up unbetrayed,
And I have seen you. Dear . . ."
Sharp pain
Closed like a cloak. . . .
I moaned and died.

Here, even here, these things remain.
I shall draw nearer to her side.

Oh dear and laughing, lost to me,
Hidden in grey Eternity,
I shall attain, with burning feet,
To you and to the mercy-seat!
The ages crumble down like dust,
Dark roses, deviously ******
And scattered in sweet wine -- but I,
I shall lift up to you my cry,
And kiss your wet lips presently
Beneath the ever-living Tree.

This in my heart I keep for goad!
Somewhere, in Heaven she walks that road.
Somewhere . . . in Heaven . . . she walks . . . that . . . road. . . .

There is an old story that my father
Told me and my brother when we were children.
It is of the windbag
Who now haunts the ancient diamond mines.
It goes like this:

"Boys, have I ever told you of the old windbag?
How about the diamond mines that poisoned it?
Well, this windbag was a miner
Who wore his diving suit and large pickaxe with pride.
Indeed his suit was pride,
But the golden diamond mines were lust
Lust that the old miner paid no mind.
For every strike with his large pickaxe
Was every moment his mind left sanity.
He wanted more wanted more wanted more
Always always always dreaming of glittering diamonds
That shrank his soul to stone.
He left this world no longer a miner
But a windbag lingering the mines possessed by diamonds
With its diving suit and large pickaxe.
One dark morning the windbag was mining,
It was mining mining mining,
Yet it could not hear the diamond mines shatter, crumble.
Its coworkers heard, but it only heard diamonds.
The windbag stayed in the old diamond mines,
Trapped in its diving suit
Trapped in its large pickaxe
Trapped in its diamond mines.
It continues to clink and clank
As it lurks amongst the silent diamonds,
Making only physical contact."

This story my father told me and my brother,
Haunts me more than the clink and clank
I hear while walking by
The ancient diamond mines
That swallowed the windbag.

i promise to write a few of these conversational style
poems, as with a direct addressee,
but you have to take into consideration
something that just happened to me...
i'm part of the generation that grew with the
skeleton of Facebook...
the infamous Microsoft chat-rooms...
and you might consider the next thing i'll write
as a well calculated error, the magpie
warned me just after i finished the Ernie bench
poem... the magpie warned me that i'd
fuel jealousy, that i'd feed it when i'd post
a poem of such intricate calibre on a website
which we all innocently joined,
i was one of the very second wave of those
initiated... the people who entered university...
a "friend" of mine introduced me,
as was with all the internet experience,
looking for a chat room for random conversation
it seemed like a sensible alternative...
we were all wrong... with this last poem,
i didn't re-post it... you end seeing ghosts of people
you once knew... the smart ones have already
unfriended you before you had a chance to
state why all this **** going on in the soul was
dragging you down... the competitive aspirations
of everyone... but such competitive aspirations are
great when you're in it together, and are only
competing for school grades... not for sending photographs
from holidays, or who you're with...
and there's a theological element in what i have to said:
the son of man? the jealous child of the old
testament, the wrathful child,
the child that was to teach men that pyramids were
a bad idea, until everyone knew enough science
to admire the Eiffel tower, and get a miniature Eiffel
on their mantelpiece, i.e. a worthy construction,
a celebration of people, not a person...
fair enough if they put an observation point on top
of Giza... and a restaurant in one of the burial
chambers... i did spend a lot of time looking
at the encryption of Hebrew - which illuminated me
to look into the Latin version of the dynamic,
and how it can sometimes also be understood
as to why English nuances the tetragrammaton to
never bother with adding diacritical marks on letters...
why and y are the same... this is what the
tetragrammaton illuminated...
but you see... the transition into Christianity is very
far from illuminating at the moment...
given that i'm digression from the main point,
the everyday reason why i kept my Facebook
account intact, but will not post anything more on it,
because, at some point, i knew these people,
from numbering above 300 friends (a misnomer of
contacts) i shrank it to 92, a random number...
what i noticed was indeed what everyone was doing:
harsh editing, which hid behind it the complexity
of my probing with anything Christian in my life...
by imitation i mean everything except for
enforcing the ultimate sacrifice, which is basically
Christ's misunderstanding of original sin...
he didn't have to go through either self-laceration
or induced-laceration by others...
the original sin, as i already stated was something
to do with male genital mutilation and female
genital mutilation, which, more eloquently
translates into what philosophers discuss in the
realm of the Essence, i.e. the omni- affix and
the suspected qualities (which when coupled to
Essence, gives us the Essences, a necessary
plurality, akin to Existences), which gives us
the mono- affix of supposed qualities -
i use suspected qualities attributed to the Essences
as the basis of not knowing and the wisdom
of mysticism - thus making something
suspect with something supposed is easier to
consider, because presuppositions are non-compatible
with what's already proposed, presuppositions
are more akin to the end-result of philosophy:
Wittgenstein's propositions.
as far as i know, i have just embarked into the realm
of respectable anonymity, a realm of certain
maturity - where the idea of a chat room is only
noted from the perspective: i'm using casual,
sometimes random conversation to engage with the
art, to better it... which is why, as it might be
the case, i might write a personal message to
anyone appreciating my work, i do so with
a maturity of having reached the age of 30,
an tested the safe waters of the internet...
to mention that one episode of the x files
season 5, episode 11, "**** the switch" -
what i noticed back then is that the idea of such an
a.i., constructed from many viruses, actually
attacked anyone watching ******* sites...
which would mean that there was a dualism
involved in it... as the basis of a love between
two people... no other type of websites were attacked
at the genesis of the internet... none...
not even those Microsoft chat-rooms where paedophiles
eventually prowled... i believe this a.i.
phenomenon did exist, but it was completely
disappeared into middle-age of the two subjects
who made their lives artificial in the digital matrix...
meaning they couldn't synthesise beyond
a necessary tier of life... the nonchalance of old age,
the calm hope of death in suffering...
this a.i. symbiosis of male and female was violent
due to a violent death... and hence a violent
prescription to want this carnal love akin
to computer viruses emerging primarily from
******* sites... all those complex sheets
of data from this episode, in the old computers
Windows 98 were pop-ups from ******* sites...
all that complex data for creating the a.i. duality
ended with the first computers having problems
with people who had foreskins and masturbated
(because that's what ******* enables),
and given the origin of even the fiction came
from America, and the near absolute use of circumcision
with the coming of the Jews to America
(it's not a conspiracy) - hence the male virus
a circumcised male phallus (a sword without a sheath)
mingled with the uncircumcised female counterpart
to create what western society calls it's supreme
telephone... which is why the Arab culture,
or at least the culture where both parts of the duality
are represented by mutilation... we receive no
benefit of communication on the sale apparent in
western society... you might think it crude...
but with some people sending pictures of their
genitalia to each other... seeing these words will
not really have an impact on your imagination
as to how to use the parts properly.

p.s. Windows 2000 and XP also...
               hardware? E-machine computers...
Apple was always immune to viruses...
                mainly because it did have a gaming
  capacity, and all hackers are gaming enthusiasts,
using much of gaming code to play games on
infrastructure codes of banks, shops and other such things.

Now sit there, just a minute, hold on, hear my tale
for just a minute.
One of humanity, sincerity, tragedy
Of when I was there, live from the square.
Jackson Square.
Not the one of Coin Coin, the Nevilles, the Toussaints,
Allen or L’Overture.
This is one of a momma and her baby
in 2008.
Three years, three years,
three years after the flood, three years after the storm.
Let me paint you a picture of Orleans as it stood one day in 2008
as it stands today.

2008, NewOrleans:
What happens here, no one will remember in the morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.
Walking towards Bourbon
The lights, the sin, the history

New Orleans, where life ain't so easy.
There’s a family down there who don't survive so peacefully.
You can see them if you walk down Canal St., leisurely.
There, sleeping on the courthouse stairs,
A mother and her child who own only the clothes they wear.
The boy was young, elementary-aged
Curious too, I could hear him ask questions:
"Mama, why don't we got food?"
And her reply,
"Son, that's just the way it is, life's just hard for me and you."
Sitting there on the courthouse stairs.
I take my place on the opposite side of the stoop,
Watching the crowds go by.
The women in their high-heeled shoes
The men with their shirts half-open.
Grenades in hand, ***** in the blood,
Pockets full of cash and hearts full of lust

New Orleans
What happens there, no one will remember come morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.

There’s a family on vacation there
In such a sinful city, a family.
White, middle-class, suburban, all too WASP-y.
mom, dad, a daughter and a son,
elementary aged, with a pop in his cheerful step,
On the way to a nice restaurant
gon’ eat crawfish, gator, red beans and rice, jambalaya.
They’ll forget to tip the waiter.

New Orleans,
What happens here, no one will remember come morning.

That happy family, walking down Canal St.
Like walking out the gates of hell
Where the lost souls sit on the stairs
Begging for something, anything at all
The happy family had ‘bout reached the courthouse when the young boy asked
"Daddy, why don't they have any food?"
His father covered his son’s eyes with his white hand and replied,
"Here son, let's go and find a toy for you to buy."
And the kid shrank after seeing this mom and her son
His innocent eyes died and he said,
"I don't want a toy.  I don't want anything"
They walked on by, the happy boys' head turned the whole time,
those eyes.  Stuck on the family that was stuck on the stairs
Mom dad, a daughter and a son,
Elementary-aged with a slump in his sunken step.

Now, in my mind I wonder:
was it more monumental that my life changed
or that a had life changed before my eyes

New Orleans, two thousand and eight.
New Orleans, today,
what happens there, no one will remember come morning.

We met a very long time ago.  We both were world travelers,
and we both desired a deeper understanding of our past.  We
met by chance, and it was not love at first sight.  I found her
to be far too passive and cautious, unable to see the thrill in
life.  She found me too brash and reckless, willing to put
myself above others to achieve my goals.  We both had our
points, I guess.

We kept running into each other.  It became a competition
to see who could leave the site with the most artifacts.  At times,
it was quite a heated battle.  Words were said.  Lines were drawn.
This went on for quite some time before we realized we could
do much more for our science if we worked together.  The
first few months were hell.  We spent our days silently
working in each others shadows.  We spent our nights
at opposite sides of our tent, poring over the data from
the day prior.

I don't remember the day it happened, nor the year,
but I do remember it was raining.  We were arguing
about the proper reference notation for a particular
discovery when she turned and called me a callous ****,
right before tripping on a branch.  I was about to
laugh and tell her it served her right, but just at
that moment, as her wet hair framed her oval,
tear-streaked face...

I truly saw her for the first time.

I think she must have done the same, because she
didn't say a word as I picked her up and brought
her to the first aid tent.  She bit her lip quietly as I
treated her swollen ankle.  We both knew it,
though neither of us would ever speak it.

Things were different now.

Our newly forged companionship breathed new
life into both of us.  There was no terrain, no peak,
nothing on heaven and earth that could stop us.
If there was something to be discovered, you had
**** well know it was going to be us doing the
discovering.  It was a golden age when I was by
her side and her by mine.

Our travels finally took us to the unknown during
one particularly muggy summer deep in uncharted
jungles in the south.  We had heard whispers on the
wind of a legendary artifact, one that had been cited
in ancient texts throughout the ages.  We didn't know
exactly what it was, but our nature compelled us to
find it.

We were laughed at, blacklisted by our own colleagues.
We started losing supporters, slowly at first, but soon
our funding was drying up.  Despite every reasonable
chance we had to turn around, we simply could not. It
was emblazoned in our DNA that we must pursue this
unknown thing.  It became our passion, only superseded
by our love for each other.

We did find it.

Eight years later, in the middle of the rain forest, in a spot
so remote that it had never had human footprints, we found
an underground system of caves.  We set into them, and
immediately found ourselves lost.  Traveling for what seemed
like weeks, we survived on moss and spring water.  Just as we
were about to finally extinguish our faith that we would find
what we were seeking, much less our way out...

There it was.

It was stone, approximately 3 feet in diameter, and sat on a raised
pedestal.  It had raised markings on its surface that resembled a
language, though no language that I had ever seen.  The regular
sound of water dripping into it was the only sound outside of our
ragged breathing.  It was a well.  It was our well.  I don't know how
we knew it, but at that moment we both realized that this was the
purpose of our existence.

As we peered into it, we saw what I can only describe as the separation
of time from space.  What I saw burned itself into my brain, threatening
to drive me mad.  The last thing I remembered hearing was a voice inside
my head telling me "At the end, it shall begin".

We woke up at our home, this vivid memory still fresh in our minds,
thinking that it had been a dream, until we saw ourselves.  We were
young again, just as we had been the day we had met.  Further
investigation showed us to be, for better lack of the word...Immortal.

At this point, the years feel like they flew by like rifling through the
pages of the book.  Empires rose and collapsed.  Weather patterns
changed, tectonic plates shifted, it all was mundane at times.  The
one thing that seemed to plague the human race throughout the
eons was the concept of hatred, which saddened us.  We were like
ghosts, sitting on the boundary of humanity, but even that great
chapter eventually ended.  I won't bore you on the details of how
the human race met its demise.

We walked the empty planet watching rivers erode into canyons,
as forests became deserts.  Volcanoes erupted, violently altering
the landscape.  Species continued to evolve, eventually giving way
to other intelligent beings.  They too built massive civilizations
on the planet that humans had once called their own.  They also
made beautiful arts that were a wonderment to our eyes.  They also
hated. All of them eventually ended up in the museums of their
successors, ancient bones the only sign they ever existed.

Five billion years later, the Sun enveloped our planet.  We did not
feel the burn, but we were left with the unfortunate problem of no
longer having solid ground to stand on.  We floated throughout
the universe, hand in hand. We laughed, we cried, we made
love in the place where no one can hear you scream (in ecstasy).
We couldn't speak, but at that point we didn't need to.  The universe
continued to expand, as we continued to float aimlessly.  We had
seen more than any intelligent being could begin to fathom.  We
remembered everything, nothing was lost to the haze of forgotten
memories.

Eventually, the universe slowly began contracting.  I won't even
bother telling you how long it took.  It waned down and down.
It became the size of a nebula...the size of a galaxy...the size
of a planet, until it was so small that it could fit inside of your
wallet.  We contracted as well, our atoms pushing together
as we embraced each other.  It shrank until it was the size
of a single quark, with us inside it.  2 minds occupying
an infinitesimal space.

The we exploded

In nanoseconds, we expanded destroying the emptiness
and filling it with light and heat and life.  We became
every atom in our own universe.  It was freedom, to
no longer be trapped inside of a body, but to just be.
There's no word that can properly describe it.

Billions of years later, our first intelligent life came
into existence.  We did our best to nurture it, but we
admit we are not perfect. We may have taken too
active of a role early on, giving miracles to those
who we deemed kind, and punishing those who
we deemed wicked.  Eventually we realized we
were doing more harm than good.  We retreated,
becoming mere observers of our own creation.

Hate still existed, but we also saw wonder and beauty
that far out shined even the worst souls, much like
light banishes the darkness with such ease.

People always think of God as some all knowing,
all powerful being that knows your soul and
passes judgement.

We sometimes wonder if they would be amazed

or disappointed

to find out that God is just two star crossed lovers
who lived just a little too long

No, I shall not say why it is that I love you--
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,--your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .
I'll say--my childhood broke through chords of music
--Or were they chords of sun?--wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty
I lay in the warm sweet grass on a blue May morning,
My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover,
And drowsed there like a bee. . . blue days behind me
Stretched like a chain of deep blue pools of magic,
Enchanted, silent, timeless. . . days before me
Murmured of blue-sea mornings, noons of gold,
Green evenings streaked with lilac, bee-starred nights.
Confused soft clouds of music fled above me.

Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.
I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight,
Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of beauty,
Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.

No, I shall not say 'this is why I praise you--
Because you say such wise things, or such foolish. . .'
You would not have me say what you know better?
Let me instead be silent, only saying--:
My childhood lives in me--or half-lives, rather--
And, if I close my eyes cool chords of music
Flow up to me . . . long chords of wind and sunlight. . . .
Shadows of intricate vines on sunlit walls,
Deep bells beating, with aeons of blue between them,
Grass blades leagues apart with worlds between them,
Walls rushing up to heaven with stars upon them. . .
I lay in my bed and through the tall night window
Saw the green lightning plunging among the clouds,
And heard the harsh rain storm at the panes and roof. . . .
How should I know--how should I now remember--
What half-dreamed great wings curved and sang above me?
What wings like swords?  What eyes with the dread night in them?

This I shall say.--I lay by the hot white sand-dunes
Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny,
Stared at the sky.  And silently there above us
Day after day, beyond our dreams and knowledge,
Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows,
Swift and blue, or dark. . . What did they mean?
What sinister threat of power?  What hint of beauty?
Prelude to what gigantic music, or subtle?
Only I know these things leaned over me,
Brooded upon me, paused, went flowing softly,
Glided and passed.  I loved, I desired, I hated,
I struggled, I yielded and loved, was warmed to blossom . . .
You, when your eyes have evening sunlight in them,
Set these dunes before me, these salt bright flowers,
These presences. . . I drowse, they stream above me,
I struggle, I yield and love, I am warmed to dream.

You are the window (if I could tell I'd tell you)
Through which I see a clear far world of sunlight.
You are the silence (if you could hear you'd hear me)
In which I remember a thin still whisper of singing.
It is not you I laugh for, you I touch!
My hands, that touch you, suddenly touch white cobwebs,
Coldly silvered, heavily silvered with dewdrops;
And clover, heavy with rain; and cold green grass. . .