Full and bright the candled moon
Shines its glowing silvered bloom.
Widened eyes in wonder see
Silvered fruit upon silvered tree
All though the town the rooftops catch
Her silvered light upon their thatch.
The gentle coos their rhythm keep
Of nightingales in silvered sleep
The squirrels sleep in silvered trees
With silvered fur in silvered leaves.
Silent and still in silvered dream
Sleeping fish in silvered stream.

Full and bright the candled moon
Shines its glowing silvered bloom.
Widened eyes in wonder see
Silvered fruit upon silvered tree
All though the town the rooftops catch
Her silvered light upon their thatch.
The gentle coos their rhythm keep
Of nightingales in silvered sleep
The squirrels sleep in silvered trees
With silvered fur in silvered leaves.
Silent and still in silvered dream
Sleeping fish in silvered stream.

1.        Eugene And the Pumpkin Pie

Wee Eugene's but a lonely boy
(arrayed in cap and corduroy),
has Jungle Jim (a ragged toy)
and fancied Friends his only joy.

Well, Jim appears from time to time
behind a pane of pantomime,
a charmed mirage, or dream sublime
inside a Cuckoo's nursery rhyme.

Still Eugene always finds a way
(while riding on his magic Sleigh)
to meet with Jim somewhere halfway
between the Moon and Yesterday.

When Jim brought Eu to Timbuktu
to kiss the Queen (a Kangaroo)
and tweak her tail (bright shiny blue),
Eu sneezed instead “achoo, achoo”.  

The baby Roo, surprised, awoke
and thought 'twas but a funny joke
beholding Eugene cough and choke...
well, sounding like old Froggy's croak.

Said Jim to Roo "Eu has a cold,
we mustn't laugh, we mustn't scold
instead we'll let the tale unfold
and frolic in the marigold".

With runny eyes and mighty sniffle
Eu could hardly get a whiffle,
climbed a hill to reach the cliffle ,
searched the sea for ship or skiffle.

Behind the breeze, some sloops were seen,
a grand delight that pleased Eugene,
and Jim, and Roo, and yes, the Queen;
they then set sail for Halloween.

Above the sea, below the sky
they saw a skinny Scarecrow fly -
within its beak (one couldn't deny),
surprise, surprise, a Pumpkin Pie!

The Scarecrow wore a veil and shawl
so really couldn't see at all
and swooped too near the sunny ball,
got grilled and let the pastry fall,

which bounced upon the waves below,
then slid beneath the undertow.
"Why did it fall, where did it go?"
cried Eugene with a gasp of woe.

Roo wondered would it reappear
(for where it went was certainly queer),
but where it went became quite clear
to Eu and Jim while standing near

the Queen who, hungry, hopped awhile
observing Crunch the Crocodile
come floating down the river Nil
with belly full and toothy smile.

2.        Eugene and the Wolverine

Within the sandbox played Eugene,
as well, his little friend named Dean,
a simple-minded Wolverine.

But yesterday was Halloween
when they collected sweets unseen,
all stuffed inside a sad Sardine.

And making sure their hands were clean,
they shared a snack - a tangerine,
a cantaloupe and big fat bean.

But they forgot the Sandbox Queen
whose hungry name was sweet Pauline -
with no invite she felt so mean
and woke the naughty Sand Machine.

Sand trickled in their fine cuisine
which scratched their gums and set the scene
to brush their teeth and in between.

Poor Dean was sad he hadn’t seen
the sandy specks with sparkly sheen,
all hidden like a submarine.

Eu sold his cookie magazine
And bought a brand new limousine
To flee the naughty Sand Machine.

Next time their food they’ll try to screen
from something hard and unforeseen
while tapping on a tambourine
to sooth the hungry Sandbox Queen
and trick the naughty Sand Machine.


3.        Eugene and Antoine

Eugene awoke and looked upon
his Mirror in the morning Dawn.
He saw himself and stopped to yawn
then saw instead his friend Antoine.

Well Antoine said ‘come in, come on
I’ll whisk you with this Magic Wand
then we can journey to the Pond
and sail astride the Silver Swan’.

And once inside the Looking Glass
amazing conquests came to pass
before the midday hourglass
released its sands upon the grass.

Well, first they sought and found the Pond
and hypnotized the Silver Swan
to sail them to the edge beyond,
to Charles, the Froggy Vagabond.

Well Charles was said to be ‘a King’
(whose Crown was hanging from a String)
while hopping with a golden Ring
just waiting for a Kiss in Spring.

Now Antoine said he’d kiss ‘the King’,
(or better said, ‘the Froggy Thing’)
but Eu refused to do such thing
unless the Frog removed the Ring.

The Ring transfixed poor Froggy’s Nose
instead of round his tiny Toes
to keep away the Midnight Crows
(as far as anybody knows).

When Froggy’s Nose was finally free
there was a sudden kissing spree
with Ant and Eu (and Swan made three)
to fix old Froggy’s Destiny.

The Rest is rather imprecise.
As to the trio’s Sacrifice,
the facts alone should now suffice -
the Pond and Froggy turned to ice!

And Swan became a Toucan Bird,
the strangest thing I ever heard,
instead of chirp she only purred
and even then she sometimes slurred.

Though Charles the Frog was mighty cold,
upon the Pond he stiffly strolled
behind the The Ring that slowly rolled
in search of one more nose to hold.

Well, Eu watched Antoine set the Pace
when beating Toucan in the Race
to seek and find a warmer Space
in front of Mother’s Fireplace.

So Antoine waved his charmed Baton
and whisked Eu back to Mum’s Salon -
But looking back, Eu’s friend was yon
behind the silvered Amazon.


4.            Eugene and the Milky Way

Eugene stayed in to play today
inside his secret hideaway;
he laughed and ate a Milky Way
with little fear of tooth decay.

But Dean, his friend, was far away
just driving in a Chevrolet
and didn't wish to disobey
so hurried home with no delay.

What took so long, I couldn't say
but Dean came late, in disarray -
he'd lost, alas, the Milky Way
that he had hidden Yesterday.

When asked, Eugene led Dean astray
about the missing Milky Way,
blamed Pauline in her negligee
who'd fed her little Popinjay.

Then Dean said sadly, in dismay,
"It was a gift for your birthday".
Well Eu felt bad, no longer gay
and offered Dean ice cream frappé.

Soon afterwards they romped in hay
beside the forest near the bay;
but when the sky turned somewhat gray
they flew back home to hide away.

At home, with all his toys at play,
Eugene confessed to Dean, to say
"Dear Dean, look here, I can't betray,
I ate the sweet, it made my day."

Said Dean, "I knew it anyway,
I saw the traces straightaway,
your chocolate lips, the giveaway;
but we're best friends, so that's OK."


5.         Eugene and the Gold Doubloon

Eugene took his nap at noon
and dreamt about Loraine the Loon
reclining in the long Lagoon
adorned in birdie pantaloons.

Then Eu suggested to the Loon
“Let’s pay a visit to the Dune
we’ll search and seek and very soon
we’ll find a shiny Gold Doubloon.”

But naughty Sand Machine typhoons
arrived and whisked them to the Moon
and left the playmate pals marooned
where gold of pirate ships was strewn.

Pale moonbeams played a mystic tune,
and touching on a magic rune,
Wee Eu, he found a pink harpoon
and in his hand a Gold Doubloon.

Instead of sitting on cocoons,
Loraine, she hatched the Gold Doubloon
when suddenly popped a blue Balloon
revealing Royce the red Raccoon.

Well Eu, awaking from his swoon,
was sad he’d lost the Gold Doubloon.
Instead he found a Macaroon
and munched and munched all afternoon.


6.        Eugene and the Dragonfly

When Eugene climbed a mountain high
and wandered down a dale nearby,
he came upon Doug Dragonfly
asleep beside a Tiger’s eye.

Soon Eu was thinking “Now’s the time
to take a rest from my long climb
and waken Doug to tell him I’m
about to pick a bunch of thyme”.

But Doug was quite a grumpy guy
when woken from his dream whereby
he’s dancing with a Butterfly
in magic realms that mystify.

So Doug complained “My dream's now gone
of dancing to the carillon
with Butterflies upon the lawn,
which won’t come back until I yawn.”

Then Eugene said “Well I know what!
A mug of tea and hazelnuts
served with a chocolate Buttercup
will surely help to cheer you up!”

Thereafter, picking tufts of thyme,
they heard the distant bluebells chime
and watched the Fairies pantomime
and dance till Eugene’s suppertime.


7.        Eugene and the Eskimo

Not so very long ago,
a bit before the morning’s glow,
Wee Eugene met an Eskimo
while trudging through the windblown snow.

Bedecked in boots and winter fur,
the Eskimo said “I’m Jack Spur.
Or call me Jack if you prefer,
it might be somewhat easier.”

Soon Jack was passing by to say
“Well could you help me find my way
back through the door to Yesterday,
to where I left my silver Sleigh?”

So Eugene said “I’ll come along,
but listen, hear the breakfast gong,
my Mama’s made the porridge strong
and chocolate milk, if I’m not wrong.”

So, filled with porridge to the brim
and feeling vigor, full of vim,
Wee Eu called Jack and said to him
“Well now we’ll travel on a whim.”

While seeking Yesterday and more
they searched an unseen corridor.
Somewhere behind the mirrored door
was Yesterday, the day before!

Without a fear they slid within,
with Jackie playing violin.
And Moon above was seen to grin
’cause Jackie’s tune was kind of thin.

Though searching long to find the Sleigh
they heard instead an echo stray
quite sounding like the Donkey’s bray,
the Donkey’s bray of Yesterday.

The Donkey’d left to find some food -
well, something fresh and not yet chewed
by Fran the Cow that always mooed
(and sometimes burped when she was rude).

The Sleigh was at the Donkey’s back
and nowhere’s near the railway track,
so Jack took Eugene piggyback,
just stopping once to eat a snack.

The Donkey heard the munch of chips
and wondered if his hungry lips
would ever taste some bacon strips
before the midnight Moon Eclipse.

Well Fran and Donkey, unforeseen,
found Jack at lunch with Wee Eugene
and shared a mighty fine cuisine,
provided by the Sandbox Queen.

Well ,Franny chewed her little cud
and Donkey ate a shiny spud,
and Jacky said “Now we must scud
before the coming springtime flood".

So Jack jumped back upon his Sleigh,
the Donkey droned a farewell bray,
(and Franny burped, need I to say?)
while Eu returned from Yesterday,
surprised to hear his Mother say
“Well, now it’s time for you to play!”


8.        Eugene and the Christmas Tree

Eugene awoke on Christmas morn
to find the Christmas Tree'd been shorn
and presents strewn around, forlorn,
midst bows and tinselled paper torn.

So blowing on his little Horn,
Eu called Eunice, the Unicorn.
The duo flew away airborne
(straped to Eu's side his Sword, a Thorn).

Escaping back to Yesterday,
in search of thyme and Santa's Sleigh,
Eu sought to brave the grinchy Fay,
reclaim the joy of Christmas Day .

Then Eunice and the Reindeer Corps
chased fey Fay to a sandy Shore
where Santa banned forevermore
the Fay to mop and scrub the floor.

Then Santa iced the windowpane
(thus waking Eu from dreams again),
left gifts arrayed, and candy cane,
beneath a Tree with candled mane.

In my little-boy town up north
rivers were not yet plugged.
Poled men came down and watched
for silvered flashes.

Pink would be inside and make
a mouth want to melt it down.
The river power we would sing
Guthrie-style in grade school,

how rolling power and darkness
were misaligned, how wild
river and light was such empty logic,
and little boys learn to forget.

In school, where poor men send
the next young nation, a new
nation conceived in hydrodamnation
and simple salmon ******.

Little boy rain from Rockies
going near my door, and whipped
whirlpools spinning funnels of
quick deadening swim traps,

so stay so far from bad river,
doing nothing more than
running off to sea. Stay near shore
and enjoy the new electricity.

Silver coated glass
Painted to see reflections
Of one's self; one's soul
But opposite, reversed

So interesting, set against itself
But so utterly, perfectly backwards
One always sees what they want to see
That perfect reflection on glass

Light goes in and is lost
Not all, or maybe it is
Even light retreats in fear
That little bit lost to the other side

Stapled against the wall
Nothing ever disturbs it
But the evidence of battles
Come with time, months and years

Scars in the silvered back
Where no fingers touch
Show something from otherwhere
Something trying, clawing

That other place, where you live
On the other side, touching the glass
Dreams are real there, cut and tear
Only your face looks back so real

Look real close at your own eyes
There is always a hint of something
Not so real, a sadness reflecting back
The reflection of a reflection

Always looking back, mimicking
Almost perfectly, never perfect
The light is never right
Around the edges, reality is lost

Just out of sight, behind that door
Nightmares lurking, unsafe, breathing
Behind your back, while combing hair
A bit of something is there

Not quite reflected back
Light comes through that glass
Bringing you through
Not letting all back

Such is life, realities
Painted silver on glass
Taking your soul
Tricks on the mind

A woman drew herself up from wrecked wood at the bottom of the ocean;
whispered sea-songs into the wistful ear of a long lost love;
shook her locks 'til his heart beat faster;
looked longer than she should into the deep pools of his pleading eyes.

"I will call you when I want to;
I will call you when I want."

Cooled his temples;
breathed her watery breath
as silvered beads streamed down his shocked skin.

                                       .......

Rumors rock an empty drifting boat;
a glazed shell faced with priceless pearl
broken from its moorings,
strangled by a knotted rope.

"You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you"

Hold fast the bestowed gift,
your Quinquireme of stowed treasure.
Protect its precious structure.
"Who are you, the one who stripped my soul?
Who is the third who stole yours?"  

                                          .........

B­roken from netting I lie
a beached starfish on burning sand,
wishing the waves to wash me
back through Time's receding current
to find the silence that once was;
to turn away before the sacrifice,
before the Eye of the storm.



copyright © Caroline Grace 2010

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. . .

Dark waters ripple thought.
horse drawn carriage tread
voltaic wires, throbbing brain.
lorn elation until osculation
of lips dreamt nightly.
nectarous skin float
between fingers raptured.
everlasting sand blown
from ashes wrought with
doubt.
paroxysm of senses like electric eels
wreck ties bound by vituperation.
Breath like honeyed vapor,
encased rouged cheeks.
savored time in bottles, minutes
turned to minerals mined.
hours of golden flecks
splashed in synthesized
unison.
New always, love evermore.

That night the moonlight
Poured through the bedroom window
Like a pail of spilled milk.
The two lovers bathed in its sweetness.
And their hearts became alive.

Soothing in its touch on their skin
The moon whispered tenderness
As it had done since time began.
It’s lights danced upon the floor
And sent joy into their hearts.
The silvered light washed away
All want and lust
Replacing it with gentleness

That night the moonlight
Poured through the bedroom window
Like a pail of spilled milk.
The two lovers bathed in its sweetness.
And their hearts became alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Infinity's Mirror by Nat Lipstadt

Two mirrors, set in opposition observe created notional blending,
a reflecting pool of bonding's of unglued, contrary compositions.
Mirror to mirror, his imagery, fuses to Sylvia's images, hers,
faintly recollected, now living face, face to face, with his past insurrections, alters his future visions.

From cold water lake she's drawn, impaled by refracting regrets,
retrieved, drawing her words upon him, an awakening slap to drink,
beloved, tragic magic, infinitely captive.  But this old man's tiddlywinks, land-locked words, blunted instruments, needy for release & salvation, are neither silvered or exacting, just stains on a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon, except for the brunt'd bunting of lines across his roughened terrain'd face, black and white, pen and ink etched illustration of howling agitation.

His words worn down, hardened, red faced, purloined speckled pellets, damp to roll on down her rutted, almost ancient, tear streak paths, disbelieved superstitions, sacrificed for one of her living morsels of words.

Man, here to her, pledges allegiance, audaciously defiling her poetic sanctity, a visage endless repeated, delivers her shiny poem-poised countenance, even though no forgiveness from time can a mirror afford for either, from her words,  confession born, terrible truths beyond, beyond the finite.

                                                
~~~~~~~­~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

+
A bed-sits high and dry,marooned on a sandbank of night.
As  radio 4-casts its nets to isolated ships like me that rudderless drift on into the light.

Still dark outside,no sounds,save the distant echoing bark of a hungry fox ----streets away.
Another dawn ripped blackbin bag of a day creeps and ouzes in

Heavy unfocused lids fogged in the steamy smokeyness of tea and a first ***    
plenty of time            plenty of time.
Time before the world wakes to the morning pips and its flushing, brushing, rushing sounds

A greyness gathers just beyound my pained curtains, as with a silent sigh a roosted blackbird clears its fasted throat.

Then as if by magic I 'm carried, scimming high above and beyound this mooring set in a silvered sea,on a welcomed mantra known to all.

As if a calling pray at day break,following each word in a moment subline
               Un angle vole                                                          un angle vole.

Rockall - Malin - Hebrides
         Humber - Fisher - German bight
               Thames - Dover - Wight.

Each single secert understood and noted only by a few as I glide over in paced, pausey surf rolling words

North northeast - 994 - Falling slowly - Low pressure moving away - Gales 8 very poor - Backing 3-4 later - Mainly good - Becoming variable - Syclonic later - Increasing 6-7 mainly west - Swally showers for a time - Fair - Good.

Oh so good, each pure English comforting sounds heard over lapping waves of air.

The bushy wet nosed fox sulks and cowers away from the breaking sun, as the blackbird draws a dewdropped breath though golden nib and tapping gently, call a hidden choir into song just for me.

Reminding me of the things I'd for gotten I care about.

Sharp timed unwelcomed pips flood the ears to prise open sticky eyes from promised dreams and spoon-cuddles warm
As I set forth on wetted pavements, ready to decline into my charted day.  

Yet smiling as if blessed and no longer alone
            But filled with early morning salty thoughts of strangers
        
                  I
                     have
                                yet
                                       to
                                            meet

The tired cars go grumbling by,
The moaning, groaning cars,
And the old milk carts go rumbling by
Under the same dull stars.
Out of the tenements, cold as stone,
Dark figures start for work;
I watch them sadly shuffle on,
'Tis dawn, dawn in New York.

But I would be on the island of the sea,
In the heart of the island of the sea,
Where the ***** are crowing, crowing, crowing,
And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree,
Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing,
Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn,
And the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing,
And dear old Ned is braying, braying, braying,
And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling
From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea
That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling
Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously!
There, oh, there! on the island of the sea,
There would I be at dawn.

The tired cars go grumbling by,
The crazy, lazy cars,
And the same milk carts go rumbling by
Under the dying stars.
A lonely newsboy hurries by,
Humming a recent ditty;
Red streaks strike through the gray of the sky,
The dawn comes to the city.

But I would be on the island of the sea,
In the heart of the island of the sea,
Where the ***** are crowing, crowing, crowing,
And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree,
Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing
Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn,
And the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing,
And dear old Ned is braying, braying, braying,
And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling,
From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea
That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling
Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously!
There, oh, there! on the island of the sea,
There I would be at dawn.

GRANDMOTHER
A singing, child, a singing
about the great stallion,
who would not drink the water,
the water in its blackness,
in among the branches.
Where it finds the bridge,
it hands there, singing.
Who knows what water is,
my child,
its tail waving,
through the dark green chambers?

MOTHER
Sleep, my flower,
the stallion is not drinking.

GRANDMOTHER
Sleep, my rose,
the stallion is crying.
His legs are wounded,
his mane is frozen,
in his eyes,
there is a blade of silver.
They went to the river.
Ay, how they went!
Blood running,
quicker than water.

MOTHER
Sleep, my flower,
the stallion is not drinking.

GRANDMOTHER
Sleep, my rose,
the stallion is crying.

MOTHER
It would not touch
the wet shore,
his burning muzzle,
silvered with flies.
He would only neigh,
to the harsh mountains,
a weight of river, dead,
against his throat.
Ay, proud stallion
that would not drink the water!
Ay, pain of snowfall,
stallion of daybreak!

GRANDMOTHER
Do not come here! Wait,
close the window,
with branches of dream,
and dreams of branches.

MOTHER
My child is sleeping.

GRANDMOTHER
My child is silent.

MOTHER
Stallion, my child
has a soft pillow.

GRANDMOTHER
Steel for his cradle.

MOTHER
Lace for his covers.

GRANDMOTHER
A singing, child, a singing.

MOTHER
Ay, pround stallion
that would not drink the water!

GRANDMOTHER
Don't come here! Don't enter!
Go up to the mountain
through a sombre valley,
to where the wild mare is.

MOTHER* *gazing
My child is sleeping.

GRANDMOTHER
My child is resting.

MOTHER (softly)
Sleep, my flower,
the stallion is not drinking.

GRANDMOTHER (rising, and very softly)
Sleep, my rose,
the stallion is crying.

I will walk with you in dreamland,
and verdant trees will brush our brows
with hoary leaves,
and silvered fish will swim in untouched seas.
The sun will warm our hearts and kiss our cheeks
as does the doting father.

I will walk with you in starlight
while the incandescent crescent marks the ground
with dappled light,
and the night watchers will peer at us through leaves
up, up away where they are secreted and safe
from sun’s harsh glare.

I will walk with you in meadows
where the peonies and bluebells prosper,
soft and slow,
kissing sweetly as their petals brush our skin.
And the meadowlark shall sing for us, her song of joy
sent forth in notes of gold.

I will walk with you forever,
down the path untamed and tangled up
in brambles,
and also down the road so clear and straight
and gilded by the sun with bricks of gold.
Wherever you shall go, my darling,

I will walk with you.

No time for having

withdrawals_
All friendship
click
Lets 
 Click-bank it

Gratitude
so thanks

Just mail it
My mind
chocolate
clustered
Wounded
like a
bullet_
Postcard
Like
E- Allen Poe
related

Polluted by
Naked Gun
My heart was
fully loaded

"My Psyche"

Glossinidae so
****** "Red"

Women Wartime
she knits

Wildflowers
in her bed
He was more
worried
about the
postcard

Split Banana
personality
Plain Monkey
***
Crazy on Sunday

Sundae's
on Fridays
Yes we have no
bananas
Postcards laid
T-L-C cared for
cabana

But Gina
Loco?
Crazy bridge
Lollobrigida
Postcards
Just
Like Lazy
Susans
Georgiana
Or Brianna
Bella Bella

Leaving notes
with few
good men
Nicholsons
Nicole with
her Kidman

Construction
hard paper
Snip here
Pulled into his
psyche
All cliche's
The fondue
French talk
face to face
Jack snapped
beanstalk

In front, words
fingered
Her words
of roue'
Catch up with
Ketchup
Pretty but Petty
petticoats
"Billy Goats"
Titanic ships
Beguiled
by
him

Cottage home
bacon bits
of
Salad postcards
from
Egypt
The holy land of
Mohammid
Dancing like an
Egyptian

Rumi
of all
Gods
in vain
Your so
vain I betcha
you think
the
postcards
about ya

"Psyche Monday"
Coming to grips
(Girl Friday)
versus
(Man Friday)
with his lips,

The Postcard
postpartum
depression
((What Moves))
on my hips
Strawberry
jam and
my biscuit
"His Girl Scout"
recruit
Being pursued
shortcake
So ironed
longed for

Postcards
floating
through
"Spa dream"

Highlighted*
Crazy in love
hallucinating
being flirtatious

Oneself
But she doubted
therefore
My psyche
wanted more
(Danger=Hunger)
after you
Darling
Civil war
Loves don't finally
meet someone
They are in each other
all the time-----

Double crossed-Star

Trying to pass the bar

Fair lady or the
distinguished
Gentleman

"Aircraft"
Postcards came with
ownership
Bombs stay funds

So Psyche
The future
Be smart
"Smartphone"
Like a rope and
silvered computer
links
The chain- chain gang

The train blue-skying
Crazy skywriting
A strange device
(UFO) now BOO
requiem in a dream
Royal lips
A plus postcard
Deeply within
The hundred's
of lovers tongue
Going once but twice,
The Postman stamps
psychic
"Auction house
My postcard
Peanuts and
Charmed by Charlie
Brown
The Tarot elephant
pants
Double talk Parrot
Superbowl
the postcard
intellectual

"Hallucination Beware"
Strong accusation to
compare

An app "Activation"
Star Wars  may the force
be with you one and
only card
British fine tea guards

The love red tip
matches
The new
postcard
the
new black
Mary Mack
Stamped and
smacked
Smashbox eyes
like crazy lunatic

(Dora Explorer)
New Orleans
Nasty stickers
Richness of bourbon
Sweet Caroline
Graphic art turban
8 sides
of the moon
Such
consequences?

My hair
ponytailed
You mailed
words short
Styled pixieish

Dots.....crazy points

Oh! Gosh
The
Hoarder
of
postcards
Crazy Gorilla
Mozilla
"Queen of Sheba"
I rather walk my
Shiba Inu doggy

Miss baby jane shoes
French connection my
La Femme
Oh La La
Haha
Funnybone
I refuse to be
loved like
a postcard
Self-assurance
love is frozen
and stamina
Postcards back
in the future

((Wonder all drama))
Psyche ward she got
hammered
Stacks of postcard
Her wrist got cut
Cold cuts
Irish Spring soap
VIP Postcards RIP
Replacing her hip
Her crazy lips kissed
the postcard
her bodyguard
Those maneaters
and deadly hitters
Mega babes babysitters
To be so loved and read

Postcards speak to us
listen
Glisten
Crazy Bitch__ is in
The innie or outy
Paper towels Minny
Mouse
She cleans up
her postcards
When the postman rings
twice

Pass it on

Has it troubled you
papercut you
Was this postcard
meeting
your  card
expectation

All you?

Above the clouds of Tunhill
High above the lands of Arangrad
Stands a figure shrouded
The Rains at his command

Pounds of steely muscle
Fur that sways
All shall tremble
Beneath his waves

Waves of might
Shows of power
Claws of steel so sharp
A hide nails dare not mark

There he stands
Still as night
Calmly though
The stars in fright

On his back
A banner of black
Made naught but tears
And a soaked blood bath

His eyes gleam strong
His gaze far reached
Along his brow
Furrows do reach

Fought hard battles
Turned many sour
Taught many to stand
And all to cower

Beneath his crown
Is all that matters
Nations far and wide
Forced to stagger

Feet of stumps
Roots do grow
Follows reach
Across the globe

Lands to him
Naught but strides
All shall come
Across his eyes

One is shadow
One is flesh
A metaphor
Never to rest

Vigorous gale
Lets none fail
A tattooed sight
For minds so frail

A silvered coat
Makes a mired mail
For none has scope
Fall beneath him - wail

How can you hope
To better yet
Come across one
With broader chest

One so mighty
Cares for all
Enemies of ours
Oh how they fall

Pride to be
One of ours
A mighty warrior
From our own house

The staggered foe
The blunted blade
All are similar
In certain ways

For how can they
Hope to last
Against sharpened stone
Built so fast

A force of nature
Belligerent foe
To the cosmos
Ones to show

Magnanimous hatred
Bitter so
Fought hard beneath
Sweltering tones

For ones creation
Is not wider known
A tremendous being
Moulded so

On fields of battle
Amidst the throng
Deep beneath
The waves that thrown

A king laid flat
A warrior flayed bare
A sorceress so
Shared malevolent stare

Powers of life magic thrown
Used angrily - outwards
Caused a reaction
None could have known

For too much life force
Causes all to grow
To enormous proportions
To then explode

But once or twice
Events conspire
That none could say
Gods would have aspired

For one such case
Where moments ago
Stood a young wolf
Unarmoured and blown

Now stood the force
That would become known
As the one above
The clouds we call home

A wolf still
If even close
But one to rival
The gods own prose

There he stood
Indenting the ground
With his new proportions
And staggering prowl

He gazed once forth
At bewildered witch
Then tore her apart
Aspire his wits

Then his great head lifted
Splattered with gore
To the lines of foe
Butchering his blood

And so he turned
With nothing but claw
Rendering steel
And oh so much more

On he went
With unholy vigour
Ripping and tearing
None saw it quicker

And once he was done
Drenched in the foe
His fur seeming to feast
On the battles below

The great wolf stood
And addressed his great nation
For beneath him stood
men from his station

He raised his proportions
And gathered himself
Rose to his height
And met all above shelf

With silvered tongue
He spoke for a time
And before him kneeled
Every single one in kind

For the wolves of his nation
Astonished you see
Now saw him as greater
Than any could be

Now as they knelt
Awaiting permission
The great wolf roared
all doubts deigned submission

And once he was done
And all had washed their blood
He spoke once more
But then only once

the words he spoke
Shall be etched in stone
Forever and always
To times unknown

Words of a leader
Words from the foe
Words that will follow us
To our graves and below


“I am the wolf
The one to be followed
I will be named king
And awash all of your sorrows

For i am a wolf
But now greater grown
And all that shall know me
Should name me this so

The mightiest among us
A powerful foe
To any before me
Who would seek hate to sow

A name i shall have
A name oft too much bitten
But for a ruler to lead
He must have his ambitions

Call me the wolf
A great king - A great man
Felled the foe
Saved our lands

For as my father
Named me as an heir
I shall be named
The Wolf King, of Zubair

Silvered Screen Memories
By
Jude Kyrie*

The old Bijoux cinema closed today.
After all this time it closed its doors.
It is empty now overtaken by technology and time.
Perhaps a lot like me,
Its silver screens
have graced the best of Hollywood.

How often we sat there together my love.
Watching Bogart and Bacall share a kiss.
Later returning to our small flat
to make tea and love.

You were so beautiful my angel
All that I ever wanted or needed.
All that I ever prayed for.

Remember how I stood outside your flat

In the pouring Seattle rain
just to catch a glimpse of you.
I was young then and
so in love with you---So in love.

You have gone now of course
Such beauty is for the Gods
Not for ordinary men like me.
I shall miss this old place so much
Watching the old movies
flickering on the screen.
Thinking of our time together.

I know I did not move
on quiet as I should have done.
You see my love
My heart was very broken
and sadly
still remains so
even after all these years.

But sometimes in an old movie
that we had seen a hundred times.
Yes, I know the endings are always the same.
But In my heart.
I can feel your hand slip softly into mine
just like it used to.
And as I can feel it there,
just for a single moment
All is well in this world once more.

I would not change
a single thing about us my love.
Even knowing how broken
I would be after you left me.
And how my heart
would be vacant for evermore.

For once in my life,
I reached for a star,
and for a fleeting moment
I held it in my hands.

To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

But when they had unloosed the linen band
Which swathed the Egyptian’s body,—lo! was found
Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand
A little seed, which sown in English ground
Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear
And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air.

With such strange arts this flower did allure
That all forgotten was the asphodel,
And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour,
Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell,
For not a thing of earth it seemed to be,
But stolen from some heavenly Arcady.

In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white
At its own beauty, hung across the stream,
The purple dragon-fly had no delight
With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam,
Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss,
Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.

For love of it the passionate nightingale
Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king,
And the pale dove no longer cared to sail
Through the wet woods at time of blossoming,
But round this flower of Egypt sought to float,
With silvered wing and amethystine throat.

While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue
A cooling wind crept from the land of snows,
And the warm south with tender tears of dew
Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose
Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky
On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie.

But when o’er wastes of lily-haunted field
The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune,
And broad and glittering like an argent shield
High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,
Did no strange dream or evil memory make
Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake?

Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years
Seemed but the lingering of a summer’s day,
It never knew the tide of cankering fears
Which turn a boy’s gold hair to withered grey,
The dread desire of death it never knew,
Or how all folk that they were born must rue.

For we to death with pipe and dancing go,
Nor would we pass the ivory gate again,
As some sad river wearied of its flow
Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men,
Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea!
And counts it gain to die so gloriously.

We mar our lordly strength in barren strife
With the world’s legions led by clamorous care,
It never feels decay but gathers life
From the pure sunlight and the supreme air,
We live beneath Time’s wasting sovereignty,
It is the child of all eternity.

A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,
Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

Poetry is often made impossible
and forgotten it dribbles away

Experiences begot are dried
in dusty memoriam of thoughts

Locked in chipped ornaments
pictured emotions die framed
in an old letter's sentenced pain

Decorative wordy entrapments
cannot fool or command love
however many silvered words
try to stir or grab at thine heart

Whereas times every moment in
your observed, captured thought
does cradle this beating heart

"We shall gift thought it's
touch and bites of freedom
then love it's sustenance"

Fun's giggling thrashing bushes
of living sweating poetry

David x

The TSA won't let me fly
It seems when airplane-jailed,
My muse sneaks aboard
Without paying for a seat.

Another airplane poem like 30B,
From a long ago flight,
Found dusty, in the poetry sewing box


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

with every breathe he tithes
a packet of whispered wishes,
a blended osmosis of
past and future scenes,
reviewed, previewed,
moments in time,
actual and dreamed

some received,
airborne plucked,
in his chest stored,
prepared for future
takeoffs and landings,
for ultimate insertion
in both
your recesses
and
your abscesses

some native,
combobulated, containerized
packets of seconds,
of joyous moments,
bytes of historical
hugs n' kisses,
as a child
to a child
from a child

those are vanilla frosted,
residual payments for the
good done and given,  
forwarded with all clear signals,
to his loved ones,
now resent, to you,
fellow travelers and sojourners,
intersectors of our peculiar
coded dots and dashes

thirty five thousand feet high,
composure lost,
he swoons as
Bocelli's voce del silenzio
releases tears so sweet,
which are by nature,
gravitated and transformed
into snowflakes to decorate
the Sierra Nevada's
breasted peaks and valleys,
over which his physical notion
is at rest, yet in motion,
within a Delta flying ship

Yet his fevered chest
beats rough,
for every flight seems
a time warp interlude,
a forced reflecting rhyme,
not of his choosing,
a lawful, thoughtful, imprisonment

having donated to you
his best, the remainders,
the man tallies, recalls:

ancient slights, scaled heights,
requiems for his forefathers
scored by cantorial choirs,
liberation struggle weariness,
offers taken and refused,
aces in the hole that proved
insufficient to save his soul.

goal line stands made,
onslaughts refused,
true lies and false truths,
moist lips and monster tears,
occasional A's and calcu-hell-us,
hand me downs received,
help me ups got n' given,
buildings pricked by airplanes,
death wishes granted
and nothing thereby gained,
children, found and lost,
mine, yours, ours...

The sums, always the sums!

engine noises and pilfered winds
are dulled and semi-silenced,
yet the silvered chamber prison
resonates from end to end
as each ledgered memory,
each packet of the
hidden whispered poems
he does NOT choose to send,
dents the man,
leaving claw marks,
screaming pay attention to me,
as if they were the priorities
of a six year old child,
refusing to be ignored

he does,
attention, he does pay,  
allowing rocking guitar heroes
to overtake weeping violinists,
just as newer transgressions
surfeit even his
most really *****,
ancient sins

No matter how he counts,
unable to master the additions,
no matter how many times
counts are initiated,
taken and retaken,
the tally's net net is
concluded, numbered
"forsaken"

his life's W-2 is black n' blue,
deductions falsely enumerate
and thereby underestimate
dues he has paid summarily,
earnings, distorted,
taxes paid never enough,
to satisfy the justice scales,
so wearily he
cries and enunciates,

The sums, always the sums!

THEN COMES HIS SHOUT OUT,
at his most vulnerable,
when a thin veneer of alumina
separates him,
from a fall inglorious
to an end most gorious,
a rapping beat moderne
insists that he go all out,
disallowing no
airy fairy poetry
to disguise that:

If the integers are false,
the entries of a life lived,
are sucker lies
black eyed flies
toxic shockers
that bust open
stinko lockers
where the B.S.
mocking stories
are kept

don't look close
at his documents
they ain't exactly
heaven sent
and the government men
be back on his track
their aviator shades
protect them from
burning light of the
man's furnace
where he burns their liens,
and the agent's ear pieces
drown out his screams of

The sums, always the sums!

God bless you,
keep and recall those packets of
whispered wishes, good tithes,
that the man bequeaths,
gift baskets of
expresso essentials
with God's love delivered

Tho his words,
amateurish and unvarnished,
silly and pompous,
nonetheless, they are the
return on his investments,
his yearnings for your happiness
are the savings accumulated,
though meager jewels are they,
they are ad valorem,
mixed into his confused murmurings

here then,
are his summings up,
what he wills you,,
the tally finale
the best wisdom is
found on coffee cups
at 2:47am.

Dance
Love
Sing
Live

to which he respectfully amends with a
Write.
(See banner photo)

Twilight's melody rises
mournfully dressed in lilac hues 
she grieves for the glory of the primrose sun.

The rise and fall of waltzing starlings
mirror the final breaths of the day
as with glorious mirth they beckon to the silvered chill of the moon.

The Sphynx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled,
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.?
"Who'll tell me my secret
The ages have kept?
? I awaited the seer,
While they slumbered and slept;?

The fate of the manchild,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown,
Dædalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep,
Life death overtaking,
Deep underneath deep.

***** as a sunbeam
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert!
Your silence he sings.

The waves unashamed
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet.
The journeying atoms,
Primordial wholes,
Firmly draw, firmly drive,
By their animate poles.

Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,
Plant, quadruped, bird,
By one music enchanted,
One deity stirred,
Each the other adorning,
Accompany still;
Night veileth the morning,
The vapor the hill.

The babe by its mother
Lies bathed in joy,
Glide its hours uncounted,
The sun is its toy;
Shines the peace of all being
Without cloud in its eyes,
And the sum of the world
In soft miniature lies.

But man crouches and blushes,
Absconds and conceals,
He creepeth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.

Out spoke the great mother
Beholding his fear,
At the sound of her accents
Cold shuddered the sphere;?
Who has drugged my boy's cup,
Who has mixed my boy's bread?
Who with sadness and madness
Has turned the manchild's head?"?

I heard a poet answer
Aloud and cheerfully,
"Say on, sweet Sphynx! thy dirges
Are pleasant songs to me.
Deep love lieth under
These pictures of time,
They fade in the light of
Their meaning sublime.

The fiend that man harries,
Is love of the Best;
Yawns the Pit of the Dragon
Lit by rays from the Blest.
The Lethe of Nature
Can't trance him again,
Whose soul sees the Perfect,
Which his eyes seek in vain.

Profounder, profounder,
Man's spirit must dive;
To his aye-rolling orbit
No goal will arrive.
The heavens that draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found, ?for new heavens
He spurneth the old.

Pride ruined the angels,
Their shame them restores,
And the joy that is sweetest
Lurks in stings of remorse.
Have I a lover
Who is noble and free,?
I would he were nobler
Than to love me.

Eterne alternation
Now follows, now flies,
And under pain, pleasure,
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

Dull Sphynx, Jove keep thy five wits!
Thy sight is growing blear,
Rue, myrrh, and ****** for the Sphynx,
Her muddy eyes to clear."
The old Sphynx bit her thick lip,?
"Who taught thee me to name?
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow!
Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh,
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
It through thousand natures ply,
Ask on, thou clothed eternity,?
Time is the false reply."

Uprose the merry Sphynx,
And crouched no more in stone,
She melted into purple cloud,
She silvered in the moon,
She spired into a yellow flame,
She flowered in blossoms red,
She flowed into a foaming wave,
She stood Monadnoc's head.

Thorough a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame,
"Who telleth one of my meanings,
Is master of all I am."

The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.

For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;

And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men marching
Past the village square. . . .

Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
To violet, the veils of dusk are deep —
Earth takes her children’s many sorrows calmly
And stills herself to sleep.

[Las Meninas, Oil on Canvas, 1656, Prado, Madrid]

I am the first proud pronoun I
against the fear of my invisibility
each morning rising from
minor nobility like my parents
(no son of a converso – lies –)
into the light of mastery;
now as a Knight of Santiago
- the king himself painted the cross
  you see in Las Meninas -
nobilitas is in the faces
royal with ancient lines
(you understand I did not
trade
am Moorish of Seville
and Portugal).

Not from the mind but back
into its expectation.
I see the work reflected
into the lens of sense
to supplement the work into the real
express itself by what
a slavish love of detail cannot supply
it was the power
to give them what they did not see
the scorn in lips
from ****** generations
bought by my brush
among them into monarchic trade
and what they thought as glory,
dwarves and all larger than life.
that painted me so high
those royal portraits by the score
keyed to the colour of fame
silvered and golden
mine.

Miklos Radnoti [1909-1944], a Hungarian Jew and a fierce anti-fascist, is perhaps the greatest of the Holocaust poets. His often-harrowing bio appears after his poems. The "postcard" poems were written on a death march that ended with him being executed and buried in a mass grave.

Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti, written August 30, 1944
translation by Michael R. Burch

Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons and imagination all steadily increase;
the road whinnies and bucks, neighing; the maned sky gallops;
and you are eternally with me, love, constant amid all the chaos,
glowing within my conscience—incandescent, intense.
Somewhere within me, dear, you abide forever—
still, motionless, mute, like an angel stunned to silence by death
or a beetle hiding in the heart of a rotting tree.



Postcard 2
by Miklós Radnóti, written October 6, 1944 near Crvenka, Serbia
translation by Michael R. Burch

A few miles away they're incinerating
the haystacks and the houses,
while squatting here on the fringe of this pleasant meadow,
the shell-shocked peasants sit quietly smoking their pipes.
Now, here, stepping into this still pond, the little shepherd girl
sets the silver water a-ripple
while, leaning over to drink, her flocculent sheep
seem to swim like drifting clouds.



Postcard 3
by Miklós Radnóti, written October 24, 1944 near Mohács, Hungary
translation by Michael R. Burch

The oxen dribble ****** spittle;
the men pass blood in their ****.
Our stinking regiment halts, a horde of perspiring savages,
adding our aroma to death's repulsive stench.



Published: “Postcard 4” was published by Poetry Super Highway in 2019 as part of their 21st Annual Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Poetry Issue

Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti, his final poem, written October 31, 1944 near Szentkirályszabadja, Hungary
translation by Michael R. Burch

I toppled beside him—his body already taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming from dread.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me jeered;
I could only dimly hear
through the congealing blood slowly sealing my ear.

Translator's note: "Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still twitching."



Letter to My Wife
by Miklós Radnóti
translated by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem written during the Holocaust in Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Zagubica, August-September, 1944

Deep down in the darkness hell awaits—silent, mute.
Silence screams in my ears, so I shout,
but no one hears or answers, wherever they are;
while sad Serbia, astounded by war,
and you are so far,
so incredibly distant.

Still my heart encounters yours in my dreams
and by day I hear yours sound in my heart again;
and so I am still, even as the great mountain
ferns slowly stir and murmur around me,
coldly surrounding me.

When will I see you? How can I know?
You who were calm and weighty as a Psalm,
beautiful as a shadow, more beautiful than light,
the One I could always find, whether deaf, mute, blind,
lie hidden now by this landscape; yet from within
you flash on my sight like flickering images on film.

You once seemed real but now have become a dream;
you have tumbled back into the well of teenage fantasy.
I jealously question whether you'll ever adore me;
whether—speak!—
from youth's highest peak
you will yet be my wife.

I become hopeful again,
as I awaken on this road where I formerly had fallen.
I know now that you are my wife, my friend, my peer—
but, alas, so far! Beyond these three wild frontiers,
fall returns. Will you then depart me?
Yet the memory of our kisses remains clear.

Now sunshine and miracles seem disconnected things.
Above me I see a bomber squadron's wings.
Skies that once matched your eyes' blue sheen
have clouded over, and in each infernal machine
the bombs writhe with their lust to dive.
Despite them, somehow I remain alive.

Miklós Radnóti [1909-1944], a Hungarian Jew and a fierce anti-fascist, is perhaps the greatest of the Holocaust poets. He was born in Budapest in 1909. In 1930, at the age of 21, he published his first collection of poems, Pogány köszönto (Pagan Salute). His next book, Újmódi pásztorok éneke (Modern Shepherd's Song) was confiscated on grounds of "indecency," earning him a light jail sentence. In 1931 he spent two months in Paris, where he visited the "Exposition coloniale" and began translating African poems and folk tales into Hungarian. In 1934 he obtained his Ph.D. in Hungarian literature. The following year he married Fanni (Fifi) Gyarmati; they settled in Budapest. His book Járkálj csa, halálraítélt! (Walk On, Condemned!) won the prestigious Baumgarten Prize in 1937. Also in 1937 he wrote his Cartes Postales (Postcards from France), which were precurors to his darker images of war, Razglednicas (Picture Postcards). During World War II, Radnóti published translations of Virgil, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Eluard, Apollinare and Blaise Cendras in Orpheus nyomában. From 1940 on, he was forced to serve on forced labor battalions, at times arming and disarming explosives on the Ukrainian front. In 1944 he was deported to a compulsory labor camp near Bor, Yugoslavia. As the Nazis retreated from the approaching Russian army, the Bor concentration camp was evacuated and its internees were led on a forced march through Yugoslavia and Hungary. During what became his death march, Radnóti recorded poetic images of what he saw and experienced. After writing his fourth and final "Postcard," Radnóti was badly beaten by a soldier annoyed by his scribblings. Soon thereafter, the weakened poet was shot to death, on November 9, 1944, along with 21 other prisoners who unable to walk. Their mass grave was exhumed after the war and Radnóti's poems were found on his body by his wife, inscribed in pencil in a small Serbian exercise book. Radnóti's posthumous collection, Tajtékos ég (Clouded Sky, or Foaming Sky) contains odes to his wife, letters, poetic fragments and his final Postcards. Unlike his murderers, Miklós Radnóti never lost his humanity, and his empathy continues to live on and shine through his work.

Keywords/Tags: Miklos Radnoti, Holocaust poet, Hungary, Hungarian Jew, anti-fascist, translation, mrbholo



Death Fugue
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come midday, come morning, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
We’re digging a grave like a hole in the sky;
there’s sufficient room to lie there.
The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes
in the Teutonic darkness, “Your golden hair Margarete...”
He composes by starlight, whistles hounds to stand by,
whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they’ll lie.
He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance!

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come dawn, come midday, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house plays with serpents; he writes...
he writes as the night falls, “Your golden hair Margarete...
Your ashen hair Shulamith...”
We are digging dark graves where there’s more room, on high.
His screams, “Hey you, dig there!” and “Hey you, sing and dance!”
He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue,
screaming, “Hey you―dig deeper! You others―sing, dance!”

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come midday, come morning, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house writes, “Your golden hair Margarete...
Your ashen hair Shulamith...” as he cultivates snakes.
He screams, “Play Death more sweetly! Death’s the master of Germany!”
He cries, “Scrape those dark strings, soon like black smoke you’ll rise
to your graves in the skies; there’s sufficient room for Jews there!”

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come midnight;
we drink you come midday; Death’s the master of Germany!
We drink you come dusk; we drink you and drink you...
He’s a master of Death, his pale eyes deathly blue.
He fires leaden slugs, his aim level and true.
He writes as the night falls, “Your golden hair Margarete...”
He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies.
He plays with his serpents; Death’s the master of Germany...

“Your golden hair Margarete...
your ashen hair Shulamith...”



O, Little Root of a Dream
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, little root of a dream
you enmire me here;
I’m undermined by blood―
made invisible,
death's possession.

Touch the curve of my face,
that there may yet be an earthly language of ardor,
that someone else’s eyes
may somehow still see me,
though I’m blind,

here where you
deny me voice.



You Were My Death
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You were my death;
I could hold you
when everything abandoned me―
even breath.



Primo Levi Holocaust Poem Translations

Shema
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable homes,
who return each evening to find
warm food and welcoming faces...

Consider: is this a 'man'
who slogs through the mud,
who knows no peace,
who fights for crusts of bread,
who dies at another man's whim,
at his 'yes' or his 'no.'

Consider: is this is a 'woman'
bald and bereft of a name
because she lacks the strength to remember,
her eyes as void and her womb as frigid
as a winter frog's.

Consider that such horrors have indeed been!

I commend these words to you.
Engrave them in your hearts
when you lounge in your beds
and again when you rise,
when you venture outside.
Repeat them to your children,
or may your houses crumble
and disease render you helpless
so that even your offspring avert their eyes.



Buna
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mangled feet, cursed earth,
the long interminable line in the gray morning
as Buna smokes corpses through industrious chimneys...

Another gray day like every other day awaits us.

The terrible whistle shrilly announces dawn:
'Rise, wretched multitudes, with your lifeless faces,
welcome the monotonous hell of the mud...
another day's suffering has begun! '

Weary companion, I know you well.

I see your dead eyes, my disconsolate friend.
In your breast you bear the burden of cold, deprivation, emptiness.
Life long ago broke what remained of the courage within you.

Colorless one, you once were a real man;
a considerable woman once accompanied you.

But now, my invisible companion, you lack even a name.
So forsaken, you are unable to weep.
So poor in spirit, you can no longer grieve.
So tired, your flesh can no longer shiver with fear...

My once-strong man, now spent,
were we to meet again
in some other world, beneath some sunnier sun,
with what unfamiliar faces would we recognize each other?

Note: Buna was the largest Auschwitz sub-camp, with around 40,000 'workers' who had been enslaved by the Nazis. Primo Levi called the Jews of Buna the 'slaves of slaves' because the other slaves outranked them.



Ber Horowitz Holocaust Poetry Translations

Der Himmel
'The Heavens'
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These skies
are leaden, heavy, gray...
I long for a pair
of deep blue eyes.

The birds have fled
far overseas;
Tomorrow I'll migrate too,
I said...

These gloomy autumn days
it rains and rains.
Woe to the bird
Who remains...



Doctorn
'Doctors'
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Early this morning I bandaged
the lilac tree outside my house;
I took thin branches that had broken away
and patched their wounds with clay.

My mother stood there watering
her window-level flower bed;
The morning sun, quite motherly,
kissed us both on our heads!

What a joy, my child, to heal!
Finished doctoring, or not?
The eggs are nicely poached
And the milk's a-boil in the ***.



Broit
'Bread'
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night. Exhaustion. Heavy stillness. Why?
On the hard uncomfortable floor the exhausted people lie.

Flung everywhere, scattered over the broken theater floor,
the exhausted people sleep. Night. Late. Too tired to snore.

At midnight a little boy cries wildly into the gloom:
'Mommy, I'm afraid! Let's go home! '

His mother, reawakened into this frightful place,
presses her frightened child even closer to her breast …

'If you cry, I'll leave you here, all alone!
A little boy must sleep... this, now, is our new home.'

Night. Exhaustion. Heavy stillness all around,
exhausted people sleeping on the hard ground.



'My Lament'
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nothingness enveloped me
as tender green toadstools
lie blanketed by snow
with its thick, heavy prayer shawl …
After that, nothing could hurt me …



Wladyslaw Szlengel Holocaust Poem Translation

Excerpts from 'A Page from the Deportation Diary'
by Wladyslaw Szlengel
translation by Michael R. Burch

I saw Janusz Korczak walking today,
leading the children, at the head of the line.
They were dressed in their best clothes—immaculate, if gray.
Some say the weather wasn't dismal, but fine.

They were in their best jumpers and laughing (not loud) ,
but if they'd been soiled, tell me—who could complain?
They walked like calm heroes through the haunted crowd,
five by five, in a whipping rain.

The pallid, the trembling, watched high overhead,
through barely cracked windows—pale, transfixed with dread.

And now and then, from the high, tolling bell
a strange moan escaped, like a sea gull's torn cry.
Their 'superiors' looked on, their eyes hard as stone.
So let us not flinch, as they march on, to die.

Footfall... then silence... the cadence of feet...
O, who can console them, their last mile so drear?
The church bells peal on, over shocked Leszno Street.
Will Jesus Christ save them? The high bells career.

No, God will not save them. Nor you, friend, nor I.
But let us not flinch, as they march on, to die.

No one will offer the price of their freedom.
No one will proffer a single word.
His eyes hard as gavels, the silent policeman
agrees with the priest and his terrible Lord:
'Give them the Sword! '

At the town square there is no intervention.
No one tugs Schmerling's sleeve. No one cries
'Rescue the children! ' The air, thick with tension,
reeks with the odor of *****, and lies.

How calmly he walks, with a child in each arm:
Gut Doktor Korczak, please keep them from harm!

A fool rushes up with a reprieve in hand:
'Look Janusz Korczak—please look, you've been spared! '
No use for that. One resolute man,
uncomprehending that no one else cared
enough to defend them,
his choice is to end with them.



Ninety-Three Daughters of Israel
a Holocaust poem by Chaya Feldman
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We washed our bodies
and cleansed ourselves;
we purified our souls
and became clean.

Death does not terrify us;
we are ready to confront him.

While alive we served God
and now we can best serve our people
by refusing to be taken prisoner.

We have made a covenant of the heart,
all ninety-three of us;
together we lived and learned,
and now together we choose to depart.

The hour is upon us
as I write these words;
there is barely enough time to transcribe this prayer...

Brethren, wherever you may be,
honor the Torah we lived by
and the Psalms we loved.

Read them for us, as well as for yourselves,
and someday when the Beast
has devoured his last prey,
we hope someone will say Kaddish for us:
we ninety-three daughters of Israel.

Amen

In 1943 Meir Shenkolevsky, the secretary of the world Bais Yaakov movement and a member of the Central Committee of Agudas Israel in New York, received a letter from Chaya Feldman: 'I don't know when you will get this letter and if you still will remember me. When this letter arrives, I will no longer be alive. In a few hours, everything will be past. We are here in four rooms,93 girls ages 14 to 22, all of us Bais Yaakov teachers. On July 27, Gestapo agents came, took us out of our apartment and threw us into a dark room. We only have water to drink. The younger girls are very frightened, but I comfort them that in a short while, we will be together with our mother Sara [Sara Shnirer, the founder of the Bais Yaakov Seminary]. Yesterday they took us out, washed us and took all our clothes. They left us only shirts and said that today, German soldiers will come to visit us. We all swore to ourselves that we will die together. The Germans don't know that the bath they gave us was the immersion before our deaths: we all prepared poison. When the soldiers come, we will drink the poison. We are all saying Viduy throughout the day. We are not afraid of anything. We only have one request from you: Say Kaddish for 93 bnos Yisroel! Soon we will be with our mother Sara. Signed, Chaya Feldman from Cracow.'



Miryam Ulinover Holocaust Poetry Translations

Girl Without Soap
by Miryam Ulinover
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As I sat so desolate,
threadbare with poverty,
the inspiration came to me
to make a song of my need!

My blouse is heavy with worries,
so now it's time to wash:
the weave's become dull yellow
close to my breast.

It wrings my brain with old worries
and presses it down like a canker.
If only some kind storekeeper
would give me detergent on credit!

But no, he did not give it!
Instead, he was stiffer than starch!
Despite my dark, beautiful eyes
he remained aloof and arch.

I am estranged from fresh white wash;
my laundry's gone gray with old dirt;
but my body still longs to sing the song
of a clean and fresh white shirt.



Meydl on Kam
Girl Without Comb
by Miryam Ullinover
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The note preceding the poem:
'Sitting where the night makes its nest
are my songs like boarders, awaiting flight's quests.'

The teeth of the comb are broken
A comb is necessary―more necessary than bread.
O, who will come to comb my braid,
or empty the gray space occupying my head?

Note: the second verse of 'Meydl on Kam' is mostly unreadable and the last two lines are missing.
After that, nothing could hurt me …



Yitzkhak Viner Holocaust Poem Translations

Let it be Quiet in my Room!
by Yitzkhak Viner
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Let it be quiet in my room!
Let me hear the birds outside singing,
And let their innocent trilling
Lull away my heart's interior gloom…

Listen, outside, drayman's horse and cart,
If you scare the birds away,
You will wake me from my dream-play
And wring the last drop of joy from my heart…

Don't cough mother! Father, no words!
It'd be a shame to spoil the calm
And silence the sweet-sounding balm
of the well-fed little birds…

Hush, little sisters and brothers! Be strong!
Don't weep and cry for drink and food;
Try to remember in silence the good.
Please do not disturb my weaving of songs…



My Childhood
by Yitzkhak Viner
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

In the years of my childhood, in Balut's yards,
Living with my parents in an impoverished day,
I remember my hunger; with my friends I would play
And bake loaves of bread out of muddy clay…

By baking mud-breads, we dreamed away hunger:
the closest and worst of the visitors kids know;
so passed the summer's heat through the gutters,
so winters passed with their freezing snow.

Outside today all is gray, sunk in snow,
Though the roofs and the gate are silvered and white.
I lie on a bed warmed now only by rags
and look through grim windows brightened by ice.

Father left early to try to find work;
In an unlit room I and my mother stay.
It's cold, we're hungry, we have nothing to eat:
How I lust to bake one tiny bread-loaf of clay…

Balut (Baluty)   was a poor Jewish suburb of Lodz, Poland which became a segregated ghetto under the Nazis.



It Is Good to Have Two Eyes
by Yitzkhak Viner
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I.

It is good to have two eyes.
Anything I want, they can see:
Boats, trains, horses and cars,
everything around me.

But sometimes I just want to see
Someone's laughter, sweet…
Instead I see his corpse outstretched,
Lying in the street…

When I want to see his laughter
his eyes are closed forever…

II.

It is good to have two ears.
Anything I want, they can hear:
Songs, plays, concerts, kind words,
Street cars, bells, anything near.

I want to hear kids' voices sing,
but my ears only hear the shrill cries
and fear
of two children watching a man as he dies…

When I long for a youthful song
I hear children weeping hard and long…

III.

It is good to have two hands.
Every year I can till the land.
Banging iron night and day
Fashions wheels to plow the clay…

But now wheels are silent and still
And people's hands are obsolete;
The houses grow cold and dark
As hands dig a grave in defeat…

Still it is good to have two hands:
I write poems in which the truth still stands.



After My Death
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
translation by Michael R. Burch

Say this when you eulogize me:
Here was a man — now, ****, he's gone!
He died before his time.
The music of his life suddenly ground to a halt..
Such a pity! There was another song in him, somewhere,
But now it's lost,
forever.
What a pity! He had a violin,
a living, voluble soul
to which he uttered
the secrets of his heart,
setting its strings vibrating,
save the one he kept inviolate.
Back and forth his supple fingers danced;
one string alone remained mesmerized,
yet unheard.
Such a pity!
All his life the string quivered,
quavering silently,
yearning for its song, its mate,
as a heart saddens before its departure.
Despite constant delays it waited daily,
mutely beseeching its savior, Love,
who lingered, loitered, tarried incessantly
and never came.
Great is the pain!
There was a man — now, ****, he is no more!
The music of his life suddenly interrupted.
There was another song in him
But now it is lost
forever.



Chaim Nachman Bialik Holocaust Poem Translations

On The Slaughter
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
translation by Michael R. Burch

Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God approachable by men
as yet I have not found him—
Pray for me!

For my heart is dead,
prayers languish upon my tongue,
my right hand has lost its strength
and my hope has been crushed, undone.

How long? Oh, when will this nightmare end?
How long? Hangman, traitor,
here's my neck—
rise up now, and slaughter!

Behead me like a dog—your arm controls the axe
and the whole world is a scaffold to me
though we—the chosen few—
were once recipients of the Pacts.

Executioner! , my blood's a paltry prize—
strike my skull and the blood of innocents will rain
down upon your pristine uniform again and again,
staining your raiment forever.

If there is Justice—quick, let her appear!
But after I've been blotted out, should she reveal her face,
let her false scales be overturned forever
and the heavens reek with the stench of her disgrace.

You too arrogant men, with your cruel injustice,
suckled on blood, unweaned of violence:
cursed be the warrior who cries 'Avenge! ' on a maiden;
such vengeance was never contemplated even by Satan.

Let innocents' blood drench the abyss!
Let innocents' blood seep down into the depths of darkness,
eat it away and undermine
the rotting foundations of earth.



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Hear, O Israel!
by Erich Fried
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When we were the oppressed,
I was one with you,
but how can we remain one
now that you have become the oppressor?

Your desire
was to become powerful, like the nations
who murdered you;
now you have, indeed, become like them.

You have outlived those
who abused you;
so why does their cruelty
possess you now?

You also commanded your victims:
'Remove your shoes! '
Like the scapegoat,
you drove them into the wilderness,
into the great mosque of death
with its burning sands.
But they would not confess the sin
you longed to impute to them:
the imprint of their naked feet
in the desert sand
will outlast the silhouettes
of your bombs and tanks.

So hear, O Israel …
hear the whimpers of your victims
echoing your ancient sufferings …

'Hear, O Israel! ' was written in 1967, after the Six Day War.



What It Is
by Erich Fried
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is nonsense
says reason.
It is what it is
says Love.

It is a dangerous
says discretion.
It is terrifying
says fear.
It is hopeless
says insight.
It is what it is
says Love.

It is ludicrous
says pride.
It is reckless
says caution.
It is impractical
says experience.
It is what it is
says Love.



An Attempt
by Erich Fried
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I have attempted
while working
to think only of my work
and not of you,
but I am encouraged
to have been so unsuccessful.



Humorless
by Erich Fried
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The boys
throw stones
at the frogs
in jest.

The frogs
die
in earnest.



Bulldozers
by Erich Fried
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Israel's bulldozers
have confirmed their kinship
to bulldozers in Beirut
where the bodies of massacred Palestinians
lie buried under the rubble of their former homes.

And it has been reported
that in the heart of Israel
the Memorial Cemetery
for the massacred dead of Deir Yassin
has been destroyed by bulldozers...
'Not intentional, ' it's said,
'A slight oversight during construction work.'

Also the ******
of the people of Sabra and Shatila
shall become known only as an oversight
in the process of building a great Zionist power.

The villagers of Deir Yassin were massacred in 1948 by Israeli Jews operating under the command of future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's. The New York Times reported 254 villagers murdered, most of them women, children and elderly men. Later, the village cemetery was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers as Deir Yassin, like hundreds of other Palestinian villages, was destroyed.

Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon were two Palestinian refugee camps destroyed during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It has been estimated that as many as 3,500 people were murdered. In 1982, an International Commission concluded that Israelis were, directly or indirectly, responsible. The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate the massacre, and found another future Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, personally responsible for having permitted militias to enter the camps despite a risk of violence against the refugees.

Since 1967 the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions has reported more than 24,000 home demolitions... hence the 'kinship' of the bulldozers of Israel to those used to destroy Palestinian homes in Lebanon.



Credo
by Saul Tchernichovsky
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Laugh at all my silly dreams!
Laugh, and I'll repeat anew
that I still believe in man,
just as I believe in you.

By the passion of man's spirit
ancient bonds are being shed:
for his heart desires freedom
as the body does its bread.

My noble soul cannot be led
to the golden calf of scorn,
for I still believe in man,
as every child is human-born.

Life and love and energy
in our hearts will surge and beat,
till our hopes bring forth a heaven
from the earth beneath our feet.

I know I know that guy,
I just know I do.
I've been seeing him for years.
He's got dark brown curls.
He's got bluish green eyes.
His face is familiar. I'm sure I know it.
I can't place it but I've seen it before.

I can look at that ******* for hours...
Just waiting for him to blink.

Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites

of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal

pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark

on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.

~~~

Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of

mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows

splash,  re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at

gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?

~~~

Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer

cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless

flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.

On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble

over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze

over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole

song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -

coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined

existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.

Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.

The city arrives peels
of silvered bird laughter
Acrobatic chords frost
death train November in
Girl Pure Sugar and
Day of the Dead lavender

The streets are burning
The names of ghosts curl
on tortured papers

Beyond the slithering ruin of
the skull etched Yucatan
ball court
Your voice burns in my
pulse as I hunt
The jaguar

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?_
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:_
"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

:***** as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashaméd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,  
Primordial wholes,
Firmly draw, firmly drive,
By their animate poles.

"Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,
Plant, quadruped, bird,
By one music enchanted,
One deity stirred,--
Each the other adorning,
Accompany still;
Night veileth the morning,
The vapor the hill.

"The babe by its mother
Lies bathéd in joy;
Glide its hours uncounted,--
The sun is its toy;
Shines the peace of all being,
Without cloud, in its eyes;
And the sum of the world
In soft miniature lies.

"But man crouches and blushes,
Absconds and conceals;
He creepeth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.

"Out spoke the great mother,
Beholding his fear;--
At the sound of her accents
Cold shuddered the sphere:--
'Who has drugged my boy's cup?
Who has mixed my boy's bread?
Who, with sadness and madness,
Has turned my child's head?

I heard a poet answer
Aloud and cheerfully,
"Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
Are pleasant songs to me.
Deep love lieth under
These pictures of time;
They fade in the light of
Their meaning sublime.

"The fiend that man harries
Is love of the Best;
Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
Lit by rays from the Blest.
The lethe of Nature
Can't trance him again,
Whose soul sees the perfect,
Which his eyes seek in vain.

"To vision profounder,
Man's spirit must dive;
His aye-rolling orb
At no goal will arrive;
The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found,--for new heavens
He spurneth the old.

"Pride ruined the angels,
Their shame them restores;
Lurks the joy that is sweetest
In stings of remorse.
Have I a lover  
Who is noble and free?--
I would he were nobler
Than to love me.

"Eterne alternation
Now follows, now flies;
And under pain, pleasure,--
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the center,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

"Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits'
Thy sight is growing blear;
Rue, myrrh and ****** for the Sphinx,
Her muddy eyes to clear!"
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,--
Said, "Who taught thee me to name?
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow;
Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

"Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy question through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply.

Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave:
She stood Monadnoc's head.

Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."