These are modern English translations of poems written in Middle English by the medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer. A Chaucer bio follows the translated poems.

THREE RONDELS BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER: MERCILESS BEAUTY, ESCAPE, REJECTION,

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

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

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

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



Original Middle English text:

Your yën two wol sle me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

And but your word wol helen hastily
My hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene,
Your yën two wol sle me sodenly;
may the beaute of hem not sustene.

Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,
That ye ben of my lyf and deth the quene;
For with my deth the trouthe shal be sene.
Your yën two wol sle me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.



Escape
a rondel by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Original Middle English text:

Sin I fro love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am fre, I counte him not a bene.

He may answere, and seye this or that;
I do no fors, I speke right as I mene.
Sin I fro love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene.

Love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
And he is strike out of my bokes clene
For ever-mo; ther is non other mene.
Sin I fro love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am fre, I counte him not a bene.
Explicit.






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

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

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

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



Original Middle English text:

So hath your beaute fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
For Daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.

Giltles my deth thus han ye me purchaced;
I sey yow soth, me nedeth not to feyne;
So hath your beaute fro your herle chaced
Pilee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne

Allas! that nature hath in yow compassed
So gret beaute, that no man may atteyne
To mercy, though he sterve for the peyne.
So hath your beaute fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
For daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.



The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When April with her sweet showers
has pierced the drought of March to the root,
bathing the vines’ veins in such nectar
that even sweeter flowers are engendered;
and when the West Wind with his fragrant breath
has inspired life in every grove’s and glade’s
greenling leaves; and when the young Sun
has run half his course in Aries the Ram;
and while small birds make melodies
after sleeping all night with open eyes
because Nature pierces them so, to their hearts―
then people long to go on pilgrimages
and palmers to seek strange lands ...



Welcome, Summer
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.
Saint Valentine, in the heavens aloft,
the songbirds sing your praises together!

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather.

We have good cause to rejoice, not scoff,
since love’s in the air, and also in the heather,
whenever we find such blissful warmth, together.

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.



To Rosemounde: A Ballade
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Madame, you’re a shrine to loveliness
And as world-encircling as trade’s duties.
For your eyes shine like glorious crystals
And your round cheeks like rubies.
Therefore you’re so merry and so jocund
That at a revel, when that I see you dance,
You become an ointment to my wound,
Though you offer me no dalliance.

For though I weep huge buckets of warm tears,
Still woe cannot confound my heart.
For your seemly voice, so delicately pronounced,
Make my thoughts abound with bliss, even apart.
So courteously I go, by your love bound,
So that I say to myself, in true penance,
"Suffer me to love you Rosemounde;
Though you offer me no dalliance.”

Never was a pike so sauce-immersed
As I, in love, am now enmeshed and wounded.
For which I often, of myself, divine
That I am truly Tristam the Second.
My love may not grow cold, nor numb,
I burn in an amorous pleasance.
Do as you will, and I will be your thrall,
Though you offer me no dalliance.



Original Middle English text:

Madame, ye ben of al beaute shryne
As fer as cercled is the mapamounde,
For as the cristal glorious ye shyne,
And lyke ruby ben your chekes rounde.
Therwith ye ben so mery and so jocounde
That at a revel whan that I see you daunce,
It is an oynement unto my wounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.

For thogh I wepe of teres ful a tyne,
Yet may that wo myn herte nat confounde;
Your semy voys that ye so smal out twyne
Maketh my thoght in joy and blis habounde.
So curtaysly I go with love bounde
That to myself I sey in my penaunce,
"Suffyseth me to love you, Rosemounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce."

Nas neuer pyk walwed in galauntyne
As I in love am walwed and ywounde,
For which ful ofte I of myself devyne
That I am trew Tristam the secounde.
My love may not refreyde nor affounde,
I brenne ay in an amorous plesaunce.
Do what you lyst, I wyl your thral be founde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.



A Lady without Paragon
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hide, Absalom, your shining tresses;
Esther, veil your meekness;
Retract, Jonathan, your friendly caresses;
Penelope and Marcia Catoun?
Other wives hold no comparison;
Hide your beauties, Isolde and Helen;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Thy body fair? Let it not appear,
Lavinia and Lucretia of Rome;
Nor Polyxena, who found love’s cost so dear;
Nor Cleopatra, with all her passion.
Hide the truth of love and your renown;
And thou, Thisbe, who felt such pain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Hero, Dido, Laodamia, all fair,
And Phyllis, hanging for Demophon;
And Canace, dead by love’s cruel spear;
And Hypsipyle, betrayed along with Jason;
Make of your truth neither boast nor swoon,
Nor Hypermnestra nor Adriane, ye twain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.



“Cantus Troili” from Troilus and Criseide
by Petrarch
“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?” translation by Geoffrey Chaucer
modernization by Michael R. Burch

If there’s no love, O God, why then, so low?
And if love is, what thing, and which, is he?
If love is good, whence comes my dismal woe?
If wicked, love’s a wonder unto me,
When every torment and adversity
That comes from him, persuades me not to think,
For the more I thirst, the more I itch to drink!

And if in my own lust I choose to burn,
From whence comes all my wailing and complaint?
If harm agrees with me, where can I turn?
I know not, all I do is feint and faint!
O quick death and sweet harm so pale and quaint,
How may there be in me such quantity
Of you, ’cept I consent to make us three?

And if I so consent, I wrongfully
Complain, I know. Thus pummeled to and fro,
All starless, lost and compassless, am I
Amidst the sea, between two rending winds,
That in diverse directions bid me, “Go!”
Alas! What is this wondrous malady?
For heat of cold, for cold of heat, I die.



GEOFFREY CHAUCER BIO

Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1340-1400) is generally considered to be the first major English poet, the greatest English poet of the Medieval Period, and the greatest English poet before Shakespeare. Chaucer is best known for The Canterbury Tales but was also a master of lyric forms such as the rondel and balade. Chaucer has been called the "Father of English literature" as well as the "Father of English poetry" and has been credited with helping to legitimize the English vernacular for literary purposes at a time when French and Latin were preferred by England's "upper crust." In fact, for more than three centuries after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, no English king had spoken English! Chaucer helped change that, and he was also the first writer to have been buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Translator's note: There has been considerable confusion between the terms rondeau, rondel and roundel. Rather than dwelling on technicalities, I prefer the "a rose by any other name" approach. I believe "rondel" was the term being used for the English variety in Chaucer's day, although spellings were haphazard back then.



THE CONTINUING INFLUENCE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER
by Michael R. Burch

This is my answer to a question posed on Quora ...

How did the literature of the Middle Ages affect the poetry of the ages to come?

It was like a chain reaction!

Take just one writer, Geoffrey Chaucer. He influenced English poets, poetry and literature in profound and important ways.

Chaucer was the first major poet to write primarily in English. Before Chaucer the majority of poetry produced in England had been written in other languages: Anglo-Saxon (heavily Germanic), French, Greek and Latin. At the time Chaucer wrote, English kings were still speaking French, the language of the crown, and the courts of law were still being conducted in Latin. Obviously, the choice of a major poet to write his masterpieces in “******” English had a profound influence on writers to come. And not only on poetry, but on all English literature and even the language itself.

But for all his English-ness, Chaucer was a cosmopolitan poet. His influences included French poets, Ovid, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Through his continental influences, Chaucer helped broaden and deepen English poetry and literature. For example, Chaucer wrote English rondels patterned after the French.

Chaucer’s characters such as the Wife of Bath seem alive and fully-fleshed, and no doubt influenced how Shakespeare drew characters of his like Falstaff. Thus Chaucer had tremendous influence on English playwrights, through his own and Shakespeare’s continuing influence.

Chaucer has also been credited with introducing iambic pentameter and rhyme royal to the English language. With his early version of iambic pentameter, Chaucer was able to write longer poems that seemed natural and conversational while maintaining an enjoyable rhythm. The more musical English poets would follow his lead. For instance, the mellifluous Edmund Spenser claimed to be the reincarnation of Chaucer. That is some influence!

We can see the influences of Chaucer — iambic pentameter, fully-fleshed characters, etc. — in the highly popular plays of playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. So Chaucer helped make English poetry popular. He was like Elvis inspiring the Beatles. John Lennon once said, “Before Elvis there was nothing.” Modern English language poets might opine, “Before Chaucer there was nothing, or very little.”

Keywords/Tags: Geoffrey Chaucer, roundel, rondel, translation, escape, escaped, love, fat, prison, break, lean, bean, free, plan, roster, list, book, books, clean, count

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She's the heroine, yet she knows it, not.
The life I breathe on the daily.
If I could harbor her pain
I would in a minute, because the way she looks..
it breaks me..

Give me her scars, i'll cry through the pain
just to give her some air.
if it comes to it, let me die for her..
because i can't bare the thought of her loss.

She may not be with me long,
the glass heart shatters at thought.
the fragments lodged within my throat
the constant stress and anxiety.

my mind plays the worst on repeat
mental preparation for the catastrophic mind
"i'm sorry, she's gone" riddles the echoes inside my head
the dams release under the lash and suddenly it's too much to close.

We're not here forever, i know.
The premature entity makes me scream "why".
there's not enough anyone can say in the world,
that will help me once she leaves me.

She'll always be with you, wherever you are
but that doesn't fill the void.
the warmth that she carries will dissipate,
although it feels a little like that now.

I love her more than humanly possible.
She's the light within my life.
Mama, dear mama. I love you so.
I'd give up my life for you.

All the pain a man could muster in his lifetime:
Compressed to a minute.
Then, send it scattershot through the airwaves.
A morose melody. A lovely female voice inflects....
"May I override your rationality and reason?"
Imprints a depression on the mind;
a rope around the deckhand's neck.
Does her voice now command your neocortex?
Yes, but deeper still: it denigrates.
Instills an insistence toward apathy:
existential treason.
musical notes denote a debt to be paid.
They accept just the one currency.
Trade melancholic fervor for nihility...
A payment must be made.
Posit the ship is a sojourn in deep water.
Feeling A sorrow you can't adjourn.
How quickly you will learn:
Jumping overboard
CAN be an act of kindness.
A slave to that recalcitrant sorrow.
Jetsam yourself to lighten the load on your psyche:
It's ideal over facing another tommorow.

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.

I felt The Earth shake when she sung.
There goes the air from my lungs.
What more to give? Here.
Borrow my body and tongue.
Sitting in the auditorium
of my own soliloquy.
This state of mind is anti-reverie.
Your falsetto sonnet showed memories.
My family.My mishaps.
An altercation out of ennui-with my father.
Before he left,that last thing he said to me...

But.

Why WAS he levied into conflict
over Antioch?
On a whim prescribed, of course;
The pope demanded A crusade on sin.
Father died inside the walls of Jerusalem.
Bled out fighting alongside other mortal men:
Father, is your heaven more beautiful,
than your grand daughter's grin?

Captain has seven sailors hold me still.
I am suppressed inside the fo'c'sle.
He counts down from sixty:
"Let us see if time sets him straight."
A siren's enthrall doesn't agitate long.
Yet,
Even after the weight of it lifting,
it leaves you forlong.
Sometimes-I still feel-
underwater...is that where I truly belong?

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
                          I know better.

A violent storm materializes from otherwise
sunny, fair weather.
I guess the myths of the Tempest here are true:
It attacks ships sailing near the fabled
isle Revenir.
Until then,for my own safety,
I had been enroute to the brig.
"All hands on deck
(including me and my captors)
Secure those loose rigs.
Batten down the hatch.
Cap'n is going to steer us-
Right through this Tempest's heart!!"
Steady now.
Or his hubris will tear the ship apart.

I felt indifferent as waves
pummel us relentlessly.
Contrite as our vessel
won its war with the sea.

                   I jump overboard.

Instant remorse.
Father, can your God please alter my course?
A mistake.
This can't be my legacy.
I'm sinking.
Because of what a siren sung.
I can't breathe. Feel water filling in my lungs.
Siren,take what you won
then leave me undone.
I'm sinking.
Is this how I meet my end?
Shimmer from the sunlight fades
as I descend.
Sinking.
And I'll never be found...
My fear, my flailing. My failure to float.
the ocean swallows it all,
ingurgitates my hope.
Is this how you felt?
Facing your ill-fated destiny?
Father.
You always tried-and failed -to quell my misery.
That last thing you said...
Preaching your god's salvation as remedy.

                        I'm sinking.

All along its been my sorrow
that's drowning me.

-

When I met you, it felt like a dream come true,
Finally met the coffee that’s my kind of brew,
The type of someone who’s my style,
In tea, you’re my chamomile.

Entering your ship was the best,
I can feel my heart finally at rest,
Watching the sea looked serene and still,
See with you, that’s how my soul feels.

The waves became unpredictable,
Accurate leeward was impossible,
Some parts of you were locked in the fo’c’sle,
Hence, I must learn how to drive this vessel.

Captain, without you the ship isn’t stable,
You’re safe inside while me outside, struggle,
You have your priorities, I don’t want to interfere,
But hope you’ll be with me ‘til the storm clears.

Maybe it’s not safe being with you,
Entering your ship wasn’t the right thing to do,
My decision is still clouded with fear,
Should I just jump or stay with you here?

Manaka-naka kong binisita ang 'yong munting tahanan
Siniyasat kung may bagong kagamitan o panauhing pinaunlakan
Sinuri ang katibaya't karupukan ng dating kagamitan
Repasuhin ang pundasyong itinukod ng nakaraan

At sa muli kong pagbisita sa 'yong tahanan
May bago akong nadatnan– nag-iba ang 'yong kinahihiligan
Hindi na aso kundi pusa ang paborito **** alagaan
Pati pintura ng 'yong munting tahana'y sya ring pinalitan
Ang dating itim ay tuluyang naging luntian
Maging ang pader nito'y simentado na't hindi kawayan
Pagbabago nga ba? o isinaayos lang?

T'wing bibisita ako sa 'yong tahanan
Dati-rati'y umaabot pa sa 'yong pintuan
Datapwat ngayo'y hanggang tarangkahan na lamang
Nananatiling nakamasid sa 'yong bakuran
Sa harding dati'y mirasol pa ang namumukadkad at hindi rosas
Sa bagong panauhing pinapasok sa pintuan
Pinaunlaka't nilaanan ng oras
Sa mga larawan niyang nakasabit sa dingding na dati'y mukha ko ang nilalaman
Nakatanaw;
Sa tahanang minsan ako'y nanahan
Sa tahanang tuluyan ko nang nilisan

-SLE

Study. . .stud. . .stu. . .st. . .s. . .sl. . .sle. . .slee. . .Sleep

i don't sle--ep some
days because it's fun. i don't worry
about the sun.
i hear the echoes and throes of what they say
hide the knives the guns the **** breaks out
time for fun and ****
stuff should be smoked stuff should be ****** stuff should be
free. wait--
i'm not useful for me or you. creativity is dead.

I've got the shingle shirt blew-ew-ew-ews
I've got the shingle shirt blues
Which one should I choose?
Something airy and loose
I've got the shingle shirt blues

I am in so much pay-ay-ay-ayn
I am in so much pain
I don't want this again
Like I've been hit by a train
I am in so much pain

It's like the worst sunburn
All around my core
Rubbed with a cheese grater
And then, just a little more

Lemon juice and vinegar
Wiped down upon the rash
I wouldn't wish this on my enemy
Not for all the world's cash

I've got the shingle shirt blew-ew-ew-ews
I've got the shingle shirt blues
Which one should I choose?
Something airy and loose
I've got the shingle shirt blues

It's a pain just to sle-ee-ee-eep
There's no way to sleep deep
If I move just a peep
Off a cliff I will leap
It's a pain just to sleep

I've got the shingle shirt blew-ew-ew-ew ews
I've got the shingle shirt blues
I have got some good news
My Jimmy Buffet fits loose
I've got the shingle shirt blues.

laugh whole mountains                 ,

you got sinews deep as

rivers in you(they’re sle

eeping down there in y

ou and they fan out toA

narrow hairless delta)an

d that’s where i am

and when Qais blacked out after a sporadic
moment of "malnutrition"
on a Ramadan bout of "purification":
o.k.: i get the medieval insistence
on the practice, esp given the desert environment
but now: it almost feels like
a stance: albeit i know, i know: it's not that
but in this other kind of desert
of concrete, jungle, concrete:

            anyways: apparently he was calling
me for me or he imagined
i was the face he saw... but i was: "miles" away
yet...
   so it's not even about being "re" educated
when it comes to foreign cultures, peoples,
i'm not going to write **** poetic immigrant
ballads about not fitting in:

as i told: let's call him Richard...
a West Indian: although Indian is hardly
a way to describe...
so now collaborative effort on both parties
involved...
a sensitive topic, considering the bleaching
of history
and how i love Heidegger and his obsession
with historiology:
his, is a writing: filled with allusive -
let's say metaphor-morphing:
i love how he understand his own writing
and the reader: is not supposed to:
like Nietzsche predicted:
the German ethos of idiosyncratic
endeavor:
       even in Thuringia they were spelling
out to the English hooligans
a "welcome home" party slogans

          because Brexit happened because
the Polish plumbers got the better of them:
so i was telling "Richard":
there was once a "thing" called a:
protestant work ethic...
which is not to admit to drinking too much
alcohol on the job...
or the night prior:
           even i don't do that...
but there was such a "thing"...
even...                                          now...
but Brexit happened because
the Slavs "invaded" Europe: or were merely:
neighborly: brotherly: well, apparent: **** that!

so the Empire imploded
and there was no Hippy Regeneration
no Trail of Cid and Acid
and multi-color versat: versing: shortening:
quickened: equipping...

Qais... 21... such a tenderness in man:
wants to bulk up... Hulk mode...
weighing in at 90kg...
give it time, Qais, gravity and time...
by the time you're 40 you'll put on weight
some of it will be useless
like the grudge i now have for cycling
is...

                     just ******* impossible to
deviate from...
i want to canoe, ******* paddle...
then i saw a glimpse of evolution
in the origins of the Polynesian people
a glimpse a ***** a blink
a Thai wink
in this: "brute": and it coincided with:
well thanks for the olives (and skin)
but where did you get your HASEL:
not hustle: HUSSEL? no, not Husserl...
hassle... ah: hassle not hassel:

glum eat the vowel: 'sle not fish netting
'sel
                by what date? sell by?
well...
                    DAHOMEY & ASHANTI

perfectly honest: i don't understand why
these English folk put up with
Sudanese Ahmed(s)
who s.p.e.l.l. out the stink of India
and Israeli skunk bombs
with terms like: NOT ABORIGINAL
but native and PUNK is butter is cute
is like: nothing rebellion against
the tectonic status quo of people
like water constantly: constant "being" born
and "being" dead...
like this preserved instance
in a format of a democratic fashion
exemplified with: squandering the use
of these idle tools of communication:

my grandfather Joseph would be proud
i hate being told
like no other ****** would be told
just endeared with "mr trouble"
but the moment i give Qais
a ******* 10min runner ahead
to catch the train i'm involved with
c.c.t.v. paranoia like the "almighty"
control room doesn't see how
i do my verk...
    
       because that's how shifts go
and how people get all ******* friendly
at work: then start whatsapp groups
and try doubly friendly to be
boss ***** and poor poor pooh bears
and that's just ******* disgusting
i'm not in high school but: there's the yard

one bourbon two bourbons
the kingdom of Burgundy and that was
me ******* into the cup of wine
to spike the aging fruit of garden
and Jerusalem
feeding me happy thoughts...
because new serpent arrived
without an apple but a morphed bunch
of grapes and some fudge packing
**** into bread
resurrected on the crucifix

at least i know that Islam is a religion
for men
and i can't be doing with this
hijacking of words with images
that culminated in emoticons under
the banner of Christianity:
i think i'm smarter than to have to adhere
to Christianity
this religion that's zenith came without
but with the Exodus into Dust of Auschwitz...
and clearly: no one panicked
or picked up on the slaughter
since so much was "achieved" given
the numbers...
now i will clearly spot a few Watermelons
gleeful in my scribble and:
no matter...

              i stopped admiring the American
intellectual English this is just my
Lingua of the commerce of ideas some will
go no further than the sputnik of ****
i flush down the toilet
while jerking off over a could-be Madonna
such a pretty face
but such ugly **** and stomach cramps
when reaching ****** with multiple dudes
and ******

*** some amphetamine vitamin numbing...

i'm still so bummed out about
getting a Green Day t-shirt
from the shift...

do you know your enemy...
do you know your enemy...

sad story about Qais: 21... already
traumatized by women
had a girlfriend and a *******
but still a ******:
was accused of ****
the girl wasn't a ****** but probably
wanted a notch on her girth:
hardly a belt... smacker: push a plum
into a piece of bread:
but him: unwilling became a HASHTAG
memorandum of: dangerous loop...

origins of ****** dynamic failure:
too many drugs now i'm
waiting for the death of the last Holocaust
survivor like i'm waiting
for the last instigator of the 1960s revolution...
when Paul "the pauper don" McCartney
and McCarthy are but recycled newspaper
click-baits: i'll go swimming with the alias:
skinny: for naked...

       i think i might just feel fine: then...
until then:
Qais... i don't suppose i can recommend
you an objective-affection for loss of sentiment
for emotions when having ***:
with prostitutes?

     but why the **** do people speak to me
so openly
then i remember those little ****** and little *****
bothered about social hierarchies and
climbing ranks
and i'm reminded by the demeaning language
they use concerning the roles
they once filled and it's so ****
sad
makes me want to think about being
a garbage man or a poet:
apparently a Swiss entrepreneur would know
how to understand what poet is these
days: a LOSER or NOT a fifty shades
of grey scribbler:            but that's just fine
i'm sort of happy not having
to laugh out loud into his face...

it's a slow burn sort of erosion type of
happiness...

          but i will never "feel" English among
Englishmen and i will never "think"
to be Polish among the Polacks - the John
Lackland luster of history:
sold a land for paupers and Gypsies...
and then bold: behold: bowed and blew
into split grass shafts for lack of proper flutes...

so demeaning that i didn't learn
how to whistle by putting *******
into my mouth:
but sure as **** i managed to teach myself
how to regurgitate doing the same
and whenever overeating
i will resort to a now perfected reflex
of the oesophagus: BLURP BURP BLAH...

but i still feel suffocated by:
well who knows who's right side of a WHIM
i will wake up on and what
sort of SPASTIC MR FANTASTIC
SUPERDYSLEXICMENSCH
will find my writing and achieve a realization
dynamo of: OFFENCE OFFENCE!

i believe that: if the Chinese government
and the Moscow Mongols
are not after my skin:
any attack from the Western Echo Ethos
is more likely to give this feeble dream
of democracy and freedom:
otherwise pandering to the loud-mouth cripples:
even i have to queue even
i have to commute but SPEZIAL TREATS
for SPAZ is like: glory to god the sun is shining
on four wheels and aubergines
contortions in cubism... alive...

because: just because: someone had no
******* clue about the dangers of ***
so they had *** anyway...
sitting in a brothel contemplating STDs...
perplexed: so how come i haven't had any?
personal hygiene?
that's a good start...
            maybe i'm more of a cat or a dog
and i'm sort of able to lick my *******...
although i can't:
but maybe i'm just surrounded by these horrors
and find myself imbecilic
not having to deal with such instances
of being accused of ****...

              so there was Walt Whitman
and i'm dry on pride:
just don't have the stomach of being forcefed
a sexuality
my own is distraught by the distance
from London to Kauai
and i'm not about to go "hunting" for some
fertile 20 year old
just bored of the conversation
just not: having one...

                 the ****** revolution (supposed,
"revolution") brought nothing but
a deepening of: anti-resolve to the revolving
glitter of moon and earth around
a star of many
                       and i'm... not about to start:
but happy to know that other people
will breed indefinitely in grey
to the matter of fact of: like everyone
might need a plumber or a bus driver some
day: like tomorrow...

as long as "we" persuade all those nurses
to stop dancing and making TikTok videos
miming sirens...
                          even writing this: *****.

This is a mindless hell for me
Accused of a crime not committed you see
Still I will see inside the machine
With wide open eyes as if picks my bones clean

The commandant will stand on his box
As the officer of the machine with his keys he unlocks

The blood that is splattered inside the machine
That is one place that will never be clean

You can't wash away the screems of the men
Who have seen the inside again and again

Here on this dry dusty I'sle
The   Commandant is the only one you see smile
And after you are imprisoned here you realize after a while
He in joy's being cruel his sadistic style

They will not detail the crime you allegedly committed
There will be no cap the machine does not have to be fitted

You see it can handle yes one and all
The short and the meek the big and the small
Once you go in no one ever wins
Tattooed with a commandment by razor sharp pins

This is the Commandants  Singular invention
He wants to keep it full that is his intention
Today he has prepared a special parade
There are no trees there is no shade

Marching into oblivion they are not waylaid
They March in to the machine death to all no order is stayed

And the sick commandant
What does he say
Well now officer
This is been a productive day...

                          M.H.