ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

Most heavenly of places, this world now
Of endless beauties, a sight that wows
They're statuesque and wax-like, but hey don't fret
No wrinkles to combat, nor ripples of fat

Gazing into their arresting green eyes
That of the rabbit's, resemblance lies
Uncanny it is, this puzzling scene
Manufactured they are, from the same jellyfish gene

And since its time to seek paradise,
My wandering hands caress the prize
To search for weakness, now I must
No amount of fondling, stirs any lust

I've come so far, and this is what perfection costs?
The smoothest of skin, has left all thumbprints lost

O Sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm!
All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm,
And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
For others, good or bad, hatred and tears
Have become indolent; but touching thine,
One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine,
One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days.
The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their blaze,
Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades,
Struggling, and blood, and shrieks--all dimly fades
Into some backward corner of the brain;
Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain
The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet.
Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat!
Swart planet in the universe of deeds!
Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds
Along the pebbled shore of memory!
Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be
Upon thy vaporous *****, magnified
To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride,
And golden keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry.
But wherefore this? What care, though owl did fly
About the great Athenian admiral's mast?
What care, though striding Alexander past
The Indus with his Macedonian numbers?
Though old Ulysses tortured from his slumbers
The glutted Cyclops, what care?--Juliet leaning
Amid her window-flowers,--sighing,--weaning
Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow,
Doth more avail than these: the silver flow
Of Hero's tears, the swoon of Imogen,
Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den,
Are things to brood on with more ardency
Than the death-day of empires. Fearfully
Must such conviction come upon his head,
Who, thus far, discontent, has dared to tread,
Without one muse's smile, or kind behest,
The path of love and poesy. But rest,
In chaffing restlessness, is yet more drear
Than to be crush'd, in striving to uprear
Love's standard on the battlements of song.
So once more days and nights aid me along,
Like legion'd soldiers.

                        Brain-sick shepherd-prince,
What promise hast thou faithful guarded since
The day of sacrifice? Or, have new sorrows
Come with the constant dawn upon thy morrows?
Alas! 'tis his old grief. For many days,
Has he been wandering in uncertain ways:
Through wilderness, and woods of mossed oaks;
Counting his woe-worn minutes, by the strokes
Of the lone woodcutter; and listening still,
Hour after hour, to each lush-leav'd rill.
Now he is sitting by a shady spring,
And elbow-deep with feverous *******
Stems the upbursting cold: a wild rose tree
Pavilions him in bloom, and he doth see
A bud which snares his fancy: lo! but now
He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water: how!
It swells, it buds, it flowers beneath his sight;
And, in the middle, there is softly pight
A golden butterfly; upon whose wings
There must be surely character'd strange things,
For with wide eye he wonders, and smiles oft.

  Lightly this little herald flew aloft,
Follow'd by glad Endymion's clasped hands:
Onward it flies. From languor's sullen bands
His limbs are loos'd, and eager, on he hies
Dazzled to trace it in the sunny skies.
It seem'd he flew, the way so easy was;
And like a new-born spirit did he pass
Through the green evening quiet in the sun,
O'er many a heath, through many a woodland dun,
Through buried paths, where sleepy twilight dreams
The summer time away. One track unseams
A wooded cleft, and, far away, the blue
Of ocean fades upon him; then, anew,
He sinks adown a solitary glen,
Where there was never sound of mortal men,
Saving, perhaps, some snow-light cadences
Melting to silence, when upon the breeze
Some holy bark let forth an anthem sweet,
To cheer itself to Delphi. Still his feet
Went swift beneath the merry-winged guide,
Until it reached a splashing fountain's side
That, near a cavern's mouth, for ever pour'd
Unto the temperate air: then high it soar'd,
And, downward, suddenly began to dip,
As if, athirst with so much toil, 'twould sip
The crystal spout-head: so it did, with touch
Most delicate, as though afraid to smutch
Even with mealy gold the waters clear.
But, at that very touch, to disappear
So fairy-quick, was strange! Bewildered,
Endymion sought around, and shook each bed
Of covert flowers in vain; and then he flung
Himself along the grass. What gentle tongue,
What whisperer disturb'd his gloomy rest?
It was a nymph uprisen to the breast
In the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood
'**** lilies, like the youngest of the brood.
To him her dripping hand she softly kist,
And anxiously began to plait and twist
Her ringlets round her fingers, saying: "Youth!
Too long, alas, hast thou starv'd on the ruth,
The bitterness of love: too long indeed,
Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I ****
Thy soul of care, by heavens, I would offer
All the bright riches of my crystal coffer
To Amphitrite; all my clear-eyed fish,
Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish,
Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze;
Yea, or my veined pebble-floor, that draws
A ****** light to the deep; my grotto-sands
Tawny and gold, ooz'd slowly from far lands
By my diligent springs; my level lilies, shells,
My charming rod, my potent river spells;
Yes, every thing, even to the pearly cup
Meander gave me,--for I bubbled up
To fainting creatures in a desert wild.
But woe is me, I am but as a child
To gladden thee; and all I dare to say,
Is, that I pity thee; that on this day
I've been thy guide; that thou must wander far
In other regions, past the scanty bar
To mortal steps, before thou cans't be ta'en
From every wasting sigh, from every pain,
Into the gentle ***** of thy love.
Why it is thus, one knows in heaven above:
But, a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewel!
I have a ditty for my hollow cell."

  Hereat, she vanished from Endymion's gaze,
Who brooded o'er the water in amaze:
The dashing fount pour'd on, and where its pool
Lay, half asleep, in grass and rushes cool,
Quick waterflies and gnats were sporting still,
And fish were dimpling, as if good nor ill
Had fallen out that hour. The wanderer,
Holding his forehead, to keep off the burr
Of smothering fancies, patiently sat down;
And, while beneath the evening's sleepy frown
Glow-worms began to trim their starry lamps,
Thus breath'd he to himself: "Whoso encamps
To take a fancied city of delight,
O what a wretch is he! and when 'tis his,
After long toil and travelling, to miss
The kernel of his hopes, how more than vile:
Yet, for him there's refreshment even in toil;
Another city doth he set about,
Free from the smallest pebble-bead of doubt
That he will seize on trickling honey-combs:
Alas, he finds them dry; and then he foams,
And onward to another city speeds.
But this is human life: the war, the deeds,
The disappointment, the anxiety,
Imagination's struggles, far and nigh,
All human; bearing in themselves this good,
That they are sill the air, the subtle food,
To make us feel existence, and to shew
How quiet death is. Where soil is men grow,
Whether to weeds or flowers; but for me,
There is no depth to strike in: I can see
Nought earthly worth my compassing; so stand
Upon a misty, jutting head of land--
Alone? No, no; and by the Orphean lute,
When mad Eurydice is listening to 't;
I'd rather stand upon this misty peak,
With not a thing to sigh for, or to seek,
But the soft shadow of my thrice-seen love,
Than be--I care not what. O meekest dove
Of heaven! O Cynthia, ten-times bright and fair!
From thy blue throne, now filling all the air,
Glance but one little beam of temper'd light
Into my *****, that the dreadful might
And tyranny of love be somewhat scar'd!
Yet do not so, sweet queen; one torment spar'd,
Would give a pang to jealous misery,
Worse than the torment's self: but rather tie
Large wings upon my shoulders, and point out
My love's far dwelling. Though the playful rout
Of Cupids shun thee, too divine art thou,
Too keen in beauty, for thy silver prow
Not to have dipp'd in love's most gentle stream.
O be propitious, nor severely deem
My madness impious; for, by all the stars
That tend thy bidding, I do think the bars
That kept my spirit in are burst--that I
Am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!
How beautiful thou art! The world how deep!
How tremulous-dazzlingly the wheels sweep
Around their axle! Then these gleaming reins,
How lithe! When this thy chariot attains
Is airy goal, haply some bower veils
Those twilight eyes? Those eyes!--my spirit fails--
Dear goddess, help! or the wide-gaping air
Will gulph me--help!"--At this with madden'd stare,
And lifted hands, and trembling lips he stood;
Like old Deucalion mountain'd o'er the flood,
Or blind Orion hungry for the morn.
And, but from the deep cavern there was borne
A voice, he had been froze to senseless stone;
Nor sigh of his, nor plaint, nor passion'd moan
Had more been heard. Thus swell'd it forth: "Descend,
Young mountaineer! descend where alleys bend
Into the sparry hollows of the world!
Oft hast thou seen bolts of the thunder hurl'd
As from thy threshold, day by day hast been
A little lower than the chilly sheen
Of icy pinnacles, and dipp'dst thine arms
Into the deadening ether that still charms
Their marble being: now, as deep profound
As those are high, descend! He ne'er is crown'd
With immortality, who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead: so through the hollow,
The silent mysteries of earth, descend!"

  He heard but the last words, nor could contend
One moment in reflection: for he fled
Into the fearful deep, to hide his head
From the clear moon, the trees, and coming madness.

  'Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadness;
Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite
To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light,
The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly,
But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy;
A dusky empire and its diadems;
One faint eternal eventide of gems.
Aye, millions sparkled on a vein of gold,
Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told,
With all its lines abrupt and angular:
Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor-star,
Through a vast antre; then the metal woof,
Like Vulcan's rainbow, with some monstrous roof
Curves hugely: now, far in the deep abyss,
It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss
Fancy into belief: anon it leads
Through winding passages, where sameness breeds
Vexing conceptions of some sudden change;
Whether to silver grots, or giant range
Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge
Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge
Now fareth he, that o'er the vast beneath
Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth
A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come
But as the murmuring surge. Chilly and numb
His ***** grew, when first he, far away,
Descried an orbed diamond, set to fray
Old darkness from his throne: 'twas like the sun
Uprisen o'er chaos: and with such a stun
Came the amazement, that, absorb'd in it,
He saw not fiercer wonders--past the wit
Of any spirit to tell, but one of those
Who, when this planet's sphering time doth close,
Will be its high remembrancers: who they?
The mighty ones who have made eternal day
For Greece and England. While astonishment
With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went
Into a marble gallery, passing through
A mimic temple, so complete and true
In sacred custom, that he well nigh fear'd
To search it inwards, whence far off appear'd,
Through a long pillar'd vista, a fair shrine,
And, just beyond, on light tiptoe divine,
A quiver'd Dian. Stepping awfully,
The youth approach'd; oft turning his veil'd eye
Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old.
And when, more near against the marble cold
He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread
All courts and passages, where silence dead
Rous'd by his whispering footsteps murmured faint:
And long he travers'd to and fro, to acquaint
Himself with every mystery, and awe;
Till, weary, he sat down before the maw
Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim
To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.
There, when new wonders ceas'd to float before,
And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore
The journey homeward to habitual self!
A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf,
Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar,
Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,
Into the ***** of a hated thing.

  What misery most drowningly doth sing
In lone Endymion's ear, now he has caught
The goal of consciousness? Ah, 'tis the thought,
The deadly feel of solitude: for lo!
He cannot see the heavens, nor the flow
Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild
In pink and purple chequer, nor, up-pil'd,
The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west,
Like herded elephants; nor felt, nor prest
Cool grass, nor tasted the fresh slumberous air;
But far from such companionship to wear
An unknown time, surcharg'd with grief, away,
Was now his lot. And must he patient stay,
Tracing fantastic figures with his spear?
"No!" exclaimed he, "why should I tarry here?"
No! loudly echoed times innumerable.
At which he straightway started, and 'gan tell
His paces back into the temple's chief;
Warming and glowing strong in the belief
Of help from Dian: so that when again
He caught her airy form, thus did he plain,
Moving more near the while. "O Haunter chaste
Of river sides, and woods, and heathy waste,
Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen
Art thou now forested? O woodland Queen,
What smoothest air thy smoother forehead woos?
Where dost thou listen to the wide halloos
Of thy disparted nymphs? Through what dark tree
Glimmers thy crescent? Wheresoe'er it be,
'Tis in the breath of heaven: thou dost taste
Freedom as none can taste it, nor dost waste
Thy loveliness in dismal elements;
But, finding in our green earth sweet contents,
There livest blissfully. Ah, if to thee
It feels Elysian, how rich to me,
An exil'd mortal, sounds its pleasant name!
Within my breast there lives a choking flame--
O let me cool it among the zephyr-boughs!
A homeward fever parches up my tongue--
O let me slake it at the running springs!
Upon my ear a noisy nothing rings--
O let me once more hear the linnet's note!
Before mine eyes thick films and shadows float--
O let me 'noint them with the heaven's light!
Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white?
O think how sweet to me the freshening sluice!
Dost thou now please thy thirst with berry-juice?
O think how this dry palate would rejoice!
If in soft slumber thou dost hear my voice,
Oh think how I should love a bed of flowers!--
Young goddess! let me see my native bowers!
Deliver me from this rapacious deep!"

  Thus ending loudly, as he would o'erleap
His destiny, alert he stood: but when
Obstinate silence came heavily again,
Feeling about for its old couch of space
And airy cradle, lowly bow'd his face
Desponding, o'er the marble floor's cold thrill.
But 'twas not long; for, sweeter than the rill
To its old channel, or a swollen tide
To margin sallows, were the leaves he spied,
And flowers, and wreaths, and ready myrtle crowns
Up heaping through the slab: refreshment drowns
Itself, and strives its own delights to hide--
Nor in one spot alone; the floral pride
In a long whispering birth enchanted grew
Before his footsteps; as when heav'd anew
Old ocean rolls a lengthened wave to the shore,
Down whose green back the short-liv'd foam, all ****,
Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.

  Increasing still in heart, and pleasant sense,
Upon his fairy journey on he hastes;
So anxious for the end, he scarcely wastes
One moment with his hand among the sweets:
Onward he goes--he stops--his ***** beats
As plainly in his ear, as the faint charm
Of which the throbs were born. This still alarm,
This sleepy music, forc'd him walk tiptoe:
For it came more softly than the east could blow
Arion's magic to the Atlantic isles;
Or than the west, made jealous by the smiles
Of thron'd Apollo, could breathe back the lyre
To seas Ionian and Tyrian.

  O did he ever live, that lonely man,
Who lov'd--and music slew not? 'Tis the pest
Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest;
That things of delicate and tenderest worth
Are swallow'd all, and made a seared dearth,
By one consuming flame: it doth immerse
And suffocate true blessings in a curse.
Half-happy, by comparison of bliss,
Is miserable. 'Twas even so with this
Dew-dropping melody, in the Carian's ear;
First heaven, then hell, and then forgotten clear,
Vanish'd in elemental passion.

  And down some swart abysm he had gone,
Had not a heavenly guide benignant led
To where thick myrt

BOOK I

     Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung above his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.

     Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went,
No further than to where his feet had stray'd,
And slept there since.  Upon the sodden ground
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;
While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth,
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

     It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;
But there came one, who with a kindred hand
Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low
With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
She was a Goddess of the infant world;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en
Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;
Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
One hand she press'd upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain:
The other upon Saturn's bended neck
She laid, and to the level of his ear
Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake
In solemn tenor and deep ***** tone:
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents; O how frail
To that large utterance of the early Gods!
"Saturn, look up!---though wherefore, poor old King?
I have no comfort for thee, no not one:
I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?'
For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth
Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God;
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.
Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;
And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands
Scorches and burns our once serene domain.
O aching time! O moments big as years!
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
Saturn, sleep on:---O thoughtless, why did I
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?
Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?
Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."

     As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
So came these words and went; the while in tears
She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground,
Just where her fallen hair might be outspread
A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet.
One moon, with alteration slow, had shed
Her silver seasons four upon the night,
And still these two were postured motionless,
Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;
The frozen God still couchant on the earth,
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:
Until at length old Saturn lifted up
His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone,
And all the gloom and sorrow ofthe place,
And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard
Shook horrid with such aspen-malady:
"O tender spouse of gold Hyperion,
Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face;
Look up, and let me see our doom in it;
Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape
Is Saturn's; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice
Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow,
Naked and bare of its great diadem,
Peers like the front of Saturn? Who had power
To make me desolate? Whence came the strength?
How was it nurtur'd to such bursting forth,
While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp?
But it is so; and I am smother'd up,
And buried from all godlike exercise
Of influence benign on planets pale,
Of admonitions to the winds and seas,
Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,
And all those acts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.---I am gone
Away from my own *****: I have left
My strong identity, my real self,
Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit
Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!
Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round
Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light;
Space region'd with life-air; and barren void;
Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.---
Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest
A certain shape or shadow, making way
With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
A heaven he lost erewhile: it must---it must
Be of ripe progress---Saturn must be King.
Yes, there must be a golden victory;
There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,
Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir
Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
Of the sky-children; I will give command:
Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?"
This passion lifted him upon his feet,
And made his hands to struggle in the air,
His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,
His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;
A little time, and then again he ******'d
Utterance thus.---"But cannot I create?
Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth
Another world, another universe,
To overbear and crumble this to nought?
Where is another Chaos? Where?"---That word
Found way unto Olympus, and made quake
The rebel three.---Thea was startled up,
And in her bearing was a sort of hope,
As thus she quick-voic'd spake, yet full of awe.

     "This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends,
O Saturn! come away, and give them heart;
I know the covert, for thence came I hither."
Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went
With backward footing through the shade a space:
He follow'd, and she turn'd to lead the way
Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist
Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest.

     Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed,
More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,
Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe:
The Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound,
Groan'd for the old allegiance once more,
And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice.
But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept
His sov'reigny, and rule, and majesy;---
Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
Still sat, still *****'d the incense, teeming up
From man to the sun's God: yet unsecure:
For as among us mortals omens drear
Fright and perplex, so also shuddered he---
Not at dog's howl, or gloom-bird's hated screech,
Or the familiar visiting of one
Upon the first toll of his passing-bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portion'd to a giant nerve,
Oft made Hyperion ache.  His palace bright,
Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,
And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glar'd a blood-red through all its thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flush'd angerly: while sometimes eagles' wings,
Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,
Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds were heard
Not heard before by Gods or wondering men.
Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths
Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate took
Savor of poisonous brass and metal sick:
And so, when harbor'd in the sleepy west,
After the full completion of fair day,---
For rest divine upon exalted couch,
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He pac'd away the pleasant hours of ease
With stride colossal, on from hall to hall;
While far within each aisle and deep recess,
His winged minions in close clusters stood,
Amaz'd and full offear; like anxious men
Who on wide plains gather in panting troops,
When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.
Even now, while Saturn, rous'd from icy trance,
Went step for step with Thea through the woods,
Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,
Came ***** upon the threshold of the west;
Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope
In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,
Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet
And wandering sounds, slow-breathed melodies;
And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape,
In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye,
That inlet to severe magnificence
Stood full blown, for the God to enter in.

     He enter'd, but he enter'd full of wrath;
His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels,
And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,
That scar'd away the meek ethereal Hours
And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,
Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light,
And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades,
Until he reach'd the great main cupola;
There standing fierce beneath, he stampt his foot,
And from the basements deep to the high towers
Jarr'd his own golden region; and before
The quavering thunder thereupon had ceas'd,
His voice leapt out, despite of godlike curb,
To this result: "O dreams of day and night!
O monstrous forms! O effigies of pain!
O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!
O lank-eared phantoms of black-weeded pools!
Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why
Is my eternal essence thus distraught
To see and to behold these horrors new?
Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?
Am I to leave this haven of my rest,
This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
This calm luxuriance of blissful light,
These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,
Of all my lucent empire?  It is left
Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.
The blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry,
I cannot see but darkness, death, and darkness.
Even here, into my centre of repose,
The shady visions come to domineer,
Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp.---
Fall!---No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
Over the fiery frontier of my realms
I will advance a terrible right arm
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again."---
He spake, and ceas'd, the while a heavier threat
Held struggle with his throat but came not forth;
For as in theatres of crowded men
Hubbub increases more they call out "Hush!"
So at Hyperion's words the phantoms pale
Bestirr'd themselves, thrice horrible and cold;
And from the mirror'd level where he stood
A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh.
At this, through all his bulk an agony
Crept gradual, from the feet unto the crown,
Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular
Making slow way, with head and neck convuls'd
From over-strained might.  Releas'd, he fled
To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours
Before the dawn in season due should blush,
He breath'd fierce breath against the sleepy portals,
Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide
Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams.
The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
Each day from east to west the heavens through,
Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;
Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark
Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep
Up to the zenith,---hieroglyphics old,
Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers
Then living on the earth, with laboring thought
Won from the gaze of many centuries:
Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge
Of stone, or rnarble swart; their import gone,
Their wisdom long since fled.---Two wings this orb
Possess'd for glory, two fair argent wings,
Ever exalted at the God's approach:
And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense
Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were;
While still the dazzling globe maintain'd eclipse,
Awaiting for Hyperion's command.
Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne
And bid the day begin, if but for change.
He might not:---No, though a primeval God:
The sacred seasons might not be disturb'd.
Therefore the operations of the dawn
Stay'd in their birth, even as here 'tis told.
Those silver wings expanded sisterly,
Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
Open'd upon the dusk demesnes of night
And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new woes,
Unus'd to bend, by hard compulsion bent
His spirit to the sorrow of the time;
And all along a dismal rack of clouds,
Upon the boundaries of day and night,
He stretch'd himself in grief and radiance faint.
There as he lay, the Heaven with its stars
Look'd down on him with pity, and the voice
Of Coelus, from the universal space,
Thus whisper'd low and solemn in his ear:
"O brightest of my children dear, earth-born
And sky-engendered, son of mysteries
All unrevealed even to the powers
Which met at thy creating; at whose joys
And palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft,
I, Coelus, wonder, how they came and whence;
And at the fruits thereof what shapes they be,
Distinct, and visible; symbols divine,
Manifestations of that beauteous life
Diffus'd unseen throughout eternal space:
Of these new-form'd art thou, O brightest child!
Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses!
There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion
Of son against his sire.  I saw him fall,
I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne!
To me his arms were spread, to me his voice
Found way from forth the thunders round his head!
Pale wox I, and in vapours hid my face.
Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is:
For I have seen my sons most unlike Gods.
Divine ye were created, and divine
In sad demeanour, solemn, undisturb'd,
Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv'd and ruled:
Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath;
Actions of rage and passion; even as
I see them, on the mortal world beneath,
In men who die.---This is the grief, O son!
Sad sign of ruin, sudden dismay, and fall!
Yet do thou strive; as thou art capable,
As thou canst move about, an evident God;
And canst oppose to each malignant hour
Ethereal presence:---I am but a voice;
My life is but the life of winds and tides,
No more than winds and tides can I avail:---
But thou canst.---Be thou therefore in the van
Of circumstance; yea, seize the arrow's barb
Before the tense string murmur.---To the earth!
For there thou wilt find Saturn, and his woes.
Meantime I will keep watch on thy bright sun,
And of thy seasons be a careful nurse."---
Ere half this region-whisper had come down,
Hyperion arose, and on the stars
Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide
Until it ceas'd; and still he kept them wide:
And still they were the same bright, patient stars.
Then with a slow incline of his broad breast,
Like to a diver in the pearly seas,
Forward he stoop'd over the airy shore,
And plung'd all noiseless into the deep night.

BOOK II

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings
Hyperion slid into the rustled air,
And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place
Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd.
It was a den where no insulting light
Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans
They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,
Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.
Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd
Ever as if just rising from a sleep,
Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;
And thus in thousand hugest phantasies
Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe.
Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,
Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge
Stubborn'd with iron.  All were not assembled:
Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.
Caus, and Gyges, and Briareus,
Ty

Compliments to the baker
and so too my Barista
Smoothest crema on the tongue
juxtapose to lemon vapour.

Intense acute sensations
insist I close my eyes
Submit in rare humility
in awe of nature's true franchise.

Clarion note of citron zest
resounds on mellow creamy seas
Mediterranean sun distilled
now is witnessed here in me.

Tempered, rounded bitter hues
from Amazonian dark recess
waited aeons to infuse
and bring about this wanton bliss.

Monday nights on earth
A choice of two remedies
Warm me up at home or in the new place in westlake?
But first
Which way, to which way goes the winds?
Windy libra evenings blow all around me.
After all, what did I expect when venus stays above this part of town.
There is refuge from this cold
uptown
in the cafe on Lennox.
It was here that I met deep purple eyes.
The ones filled with magic, luxury, and the smoothest contact.
They cried the kind of warm purple tears that are hard to describe.
You taste like velvet feels.
You taste like twinkle sounds.

Have you ever had lavender hot chocolate on a cold Monday night?

Interesting because neither have I.

The sun, a heavy spider, spins in the thirsty sky.
The wind hides under cactus leaves, in doorway corners. Only the wry

Small shadow accompanies Hamlet-Petrouchka's march - the slight
Wry sniggering shadow in front of the morning, turning at noon, behind towards night.

The plumed cavalcade has passed to tomorrow, is lost again;
But the wisecrack-mask, the quick-flick-fanfare of the cane remain.

Diminuendo of footsteps even is done:
Only remain, Don Quixote, hat, cane, smile and sun.

Goliaths fall to our sling, but craftier fates than these
Lie ambushed - malice of open manholes, strings in the dark and falling trees.

God kicks our backsides, scatters peel on the smoothest stair;
And towering centaurs steal the tulip lips, the aureoled hair,

While we, craned from the gallery, throw our cardboard flowers
And our feet **** to tunes not played for ours.

Attend my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
  Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
  Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my ***** rise.
  See in the east th’ illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away—
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.

I sought satisfaction in stupid sheepishly and shallow strides.
Scared subconsciously, I swallow and sustain substance for pseudo self esteem strengthening.
I seemed of in service to slumber and stinging sadness, shots sank like ships, submerging into the sea of my swarthy stomach in seconds.
I somewhat sympathies as a sailor, sweating, struggling and swimming in slipping sobriety saturated in my sulking style.
Scanning swarms of serial swindlers, striking sculptures stances of self-doubt.
I stammer in a storm of slurs, ******* down my safety, stopping myself at the stoop of the saloon I see a seductive silhouette staging the space.
She stroke my sight, standing sanguine in scarlet, soul sold in high heels.
The smoothest sculptures in seven square miles were subjugated into scree and I was ****** in submission.
Stubborn staggering suitors, stand shaking silently as she is stopped by sharks stalking and snarling sycophantics.
So straightforward in suggesting their secret starvation to strip sensations, seem by seem, like a sub-par **** cinema scene.
They step and speak short.
She smokes off, stranding the scree in smoldering slaughter.
Its sad this soul-less sanctuary soaking up sorrows.
So self inflicting, and so satisfyingly side splitting.
She sported her spurned, scorned off into sadistic solitude and stained sticky stigma, sobbing to sleep.
So spent from simple stocked, stored and supported senescence of ceremonial subjection of ****** status.
I savior my sincerity, and stretched out of this strange stadium of stooges.
So long scarlet sanguine I sang softly, as she stole my sight suspiciously in sync with hers.
Sacrificial seconds split from smearing stolidity to sharing a smile.
That's simple satisfaction, so I seen scripted in sitcoms and shows.
Supporting sapiens in stasis to see sappy stunners on screen, to stare snoopy, as stabs and slashes strike socially into socialites of so called sanity and sovereignty.
To sweetly pay salvage as slaves of soppy studio slander.
Such is this sorry Saturday night, I am solidified in sedation.

How I long for your presence, my Beloved
I long to gaze into your eyes
Like the most precious gems
And find the completeness of my soul
I long to feel your hair
Like the smoothest of silk
And feel the warmth of our Love
I long to inhale your scent
Like the finest perfume
And experience the euphoria of our Love
I long to kiss your lips
Like the sweetest of wines
And become intoxicated by you
I long to caress your body
Like the most tender of embraces
And feel the comfort of your presence
How I long for your presence my Beloved

You're good for me like penicillin.
But I haven't popped enough of you yet.
Sightings of you as rare as an eagle,
The rare occasion I feel like a human.

Your purity is beyond belief,
like the cleanest **** on the street,
Your skin is the smoothest white marble
You're like renaissance art

I would quit all of my bad habits
just for a day in your presence
I wouldn't need another sip of *****
or sweaty fumbling in the back of a car

How do I tell you how I'm feeling
With a keytar and shaker at your door?
Could I win a joust for you?
I would invent electricity if I could.

But that's it, you demigoddess
You're boarding now a flying syringe
******* the life of me with every inch
What's blood for if not for spilling?

To me, you are perfect, love
A hologram i'm not allowed to touch
My tangled heart with stay right here
and pump occasionally for you my dear

10.13.12 1:20 AM

you crashed into me like waves
pulling me under, drowning me
as your lips met mine, i lost my breath
your taste filling my lungs like water

you touched me as if i was the smoothest seashell on the beach
your tongue felt like sand as it traced my thighs
i became a hurricane with you
nothing could stop my love for you

then you found a pearl
you tossed me back onto the sand
my storm slowly went away
as i watched you touch her just like you use to with me

*******

Wouldn't change a thing, even if I could,
when I see her, I always sport a wood.
She is so very fine,
seeing her puts me on cloud nine.
Best *** I have ever seen,
hard to believe she is still a teen.
Between he thighs is the Bermuda triangle,
I get lost, but its something I can handle.
Smoothest skin you'll ever feel,
got turned down, but I applied for an appeal.
Hair is down to her ankles,
have to be careful when I light candles.
Our relationship is one of love and hate,
every topic is a heated debate.
She only likes me for my third leg,
to get her, I must always beg.
Our age difference doesn't matter,
I'm always on deck, to be the next batter.
She is not even old enough to drink,
but on the inside, its always pink.
She calls me her sugar daddy,
I always end up being her caddy.
She cheats on me every chance she gets,
but I still have no bitter regrets.
She moved in and steals all my money,
but she is more sweet than any kind of honey.
She is the most sexiest stripper,
I will always be the biggest tipper.
Then one day she was gone,
she used me just like a pawn.
She took my money and stole my new car,
she is now the biggest **** star.
The ***** never did pay me back,
now she is addicted to ****** and crack.
Tracked her down and got her rehabilitated,
she is now truly vindicated.
She lost the devil and found god,
well that's what she calls me, when riding my rod.
It truly is good to be the king,
she's now my queen, not just an expensive fling.

I don't think I'd mind
To have you in my life even though I'm not sure who you are
You're gorgeous though
Subtle smile with your fullish or small lips I don't know I caught a glimpse
Kind eyes whatever color they may be
Hands as rough as the smoothest layer of your delicate skin
Your hair is quite beautiful with it's ever changing color and length
I'm writing about you cause I care about you or well I think I plan too
I get confused sometimes I just wish you'd finally tell me your name


I think the best thing about not knowing anything about you
Is when I do meet you whether you have anything of what I said above
I'll love you.
I have no idea what you are like in the slightest
My own insanity has created a picture of unbelievable pseudo-realism
Peace in war showed me some love or maybe the love showed war that even in war, love can cause some
peace
I guess my hearts a warzone looking for some peace needing some love
I just hope it finds that blank slate soon babe
If you turned to me now
I could only say this

"Now if you're scared to death like me
But you'll not get a bit of rest
For the pounding and calling at a door in your little chest
If you're scared to death like me, close your eyes
Just close your eyes."

The sunken island stretches far behind;
Upon this makeshift vessel out at sea—
Running. Running from home to be free.

How droll to be running from home,
From faces I love, whom at first seemed so kind.
But love cannot thrive where one is alone.
Forced into rituals absurd, ha!
I’d have died a thousand deaths before,
For my heart has always desired different,
As these waves that flow against the current—
Not the smoothest road taken,
But one that nonetheless reaches an end.

The Sapphire Dome fades into the distance:
I shall miss its faint glimmer,
As it flows into the Sunken City;
The sight of the sun as the sky grows dimmer.
But the people may live as they would,
In the shells of their minds—
Afraid of change and aught remotely close—
Forcing ritual upon ritual
On each child that longs to be free.

Through the mist, the island Omninada,
Trees bordering its mountains grand
And white smoke wafting from its sand.
I clasp the chartreuse dagger on my side,
The only friend I’ve known.
A new land and a new life—
A new name I’ll of course condone.
A boy of mine own fragile stature
Requires quite an entrance . . .

A vicious gust of wind befalls the boat!
Beyond the spumes of brine,
An eddy I see forms beneath,
And I am hanging for my life and dagger.

The precious metal flies
And I am ****** into the water’s depths.
Eyes of brilliant em’rald meet my own
Before I fall into immediate slumber.

"look at the pretty colors!" you whispered as you pointed to the sky
i watched them as they went by
the feeling of myself floating on the clouds with you was too real
i remembered you reaching for my hand
telling me it was the smoothest one you've ever felt
how you never wanted to let go

i held onto your soul and kissed it
making sure you knew i worshipped you
for the drugs were making me forget
but i wanted to remember this moment forever
you told me it was the shrooms
that made you say those things
yet i didnt want to believe you

for the trip caused you to fall in love with me
i was only good enough to provide the love when you needed it
i thought the love was me
my presence
my smooth hands
the clouds
but i soon found out
it was just the drugs
it was just the shrooms

Jagged green talons,
shoot through gold dust,
marred only by the glimmer
of the mid day solstice.

Curving misty granules
Mask temperamental land:
Tracing paper haze
Swirls of glistening sand.

Bending hills blend
Precious pallid dust
With one layer of
Whipping wind.

Your blustered footprint
Get's carried away;
Bullied by nature's
Ethereal motion.

You’ve walked for miles
Dry and lagging among
Miniature valleys of Earth's
Smoothest round stalactite.

Hear the luscious,
Climactic ocean breeze
Speak salty psalms, from
Deepest blue parchment.

The serrated cliff-face
Positioned between
The vast curvature
of the sea and dunes.

Dogtooth black vertigo
With specks of white refrain,
Which drip back down
To the tenacity of the waves

As tides rise, patience falls.
Worn away, smooth again
As a brief, conjugative
Swill of realisation

Washes out lifes impurities
Cleansing boredom into
Calm; see a metropolis
Submerge in the tide.

The landmarks and history
Are but bricks, mortar
And washed up stories
Which float away to sea.

When I was little, I had a blanket
Not a regular blanky either
The smoothest, most wonderful one
Hand sewn by my great grandmother Charlotte
Now all we have of hers other than a
Dresser, rocking chair, and picture or three
I didn't realise it then, but it had a heart design
Of faded green, and brown and red-orange
And off-white
I don't remember much, but I do remember
I could be completely enveloped within
Still can, and this is no huge blanket
Perhaps five by three feet, and ugly as heck
But so wonderfully made and beautiful
Soft and love infused
I thought we didn't even have it anymore,
But then I rediscovered it,
Now I can't live without it

“Come with me” I said
I’ll take you away to Neverland
Where there’s no worry in the world
You’ll never have to work hard again

Come on you must learn to fly
It isn’t hard, close your eyes
Ponder joyful thoughts
You barely need to try

A place where you’ll never grow old
A place where you are free
You’ll feel you were twelve again
Although you’re eighty three

Second star to the right
And straight on till morning
It’s a vacation for them
But home to me

Adventures in endless summer
Flying at the speed of light
Sleep all day
And play all night

A realm where you never age
A paradise, a heaven
You’ll feel like a kid again
Although you’re ninety seven

They sing songs of love
The pirates have all gone
The fairies above
Listen to their songs

At night we’d swim in the mermaid lagoon
And stare up at the big blue moon
But deep inside, I knew
They want to leave soon

Exploring a whole Neverland
Having treasure hunts
Making friends with Indians
All the way in Never Neverland

The crocodile’s clock is loud
Tick tock
Tick tock
It was time

My friends, they were all tired
They wanted to leave
I couldn’t make them stay
It’d be selfish of me

No more flying in the clouds
Swinging from leafy vines
I knew I'd had given them
The time of they lives

So I took them home
And a thought hit me
It was so abrupt
Maybe it was time for me
To grow up

Yes, a new adventure to begin
The quest to be a man
But won’t forget
And may yet still return
To Neverland

They place where it’s always summer
Where there’s the smoothest sand
Where you’ll fall in love
All the way in Never Neverland

Back home, the snowflakes    flitter
                                                         down 
                                                               languidly
as if avoiding the sameness of the blanket below.
 
The fragrance of black coffee,
a conversation in subtle tones, and
Miles Davis’s smoothest meanderings
waft in from the study.
 
Bruise-blue flames give the room
a soft glow, lending a gentle luster to the cat’s
matte black fur, spine arched in luxurious mid-stretch.
 
Back flush to the ground, I take it all in with
young eyes, young ears, hungry for those
sensory delights. Soon, the flames
 
fade into simmering, lightless embers,
as the final barely-blown note dwindles.
She whispers “goodnight” in that familiar, hushed
voice, ending a vivid memory with a sweet refrain.

They say they want men
who speak ... " The Truth " ... !!!!!
  
But ...
when they get them ...
  
What do they do ... ???
  
Run like ...  "The Wind" .......
in ... High-Heeled ... shoes ... !!!?!!!
  
See ....
Girls like this ...
like to act ... "The Fool" ... !!!!!
  
They'd rather stick ...
to men who choose ...
to ... tell them ... Lies ... ?!!!?
to ... SPREAD ... "Their Thighs" ... !?!
  
So ...
Why ... Oh Why ... ???!!!???
do they ... always try ...
to blame ... All Men ...
for their ... " Problems ! " ...
  
"ALL MEN ARE THIS !!!!
ALL MEN ARE THAT !!!!"
  
Once they find out ...
that they've been ... HAD ... !!!
  
"Stupid ***** !!!
fell for his ****,
and now dumb cow
you've got his kid !!!!!
So then you licked
and rode his ****,
you've made your bed
so, lie in it !!!!!
don't run your mouth
cos' you've been clowned"
  
" You gave YOURSELF
The RUN AROUND !!!!!! "
  
" BUT YOU DON'T KNOW !!!!! "
  
" Oh here we go !!!
I don't know ... WHAT ... ?!?
How you got ... stuffed ... !!!
and ... put in ... " Cuffs " ... !!!
Try ... "Listening" ... Love ... !!!
cos i've heard ... ENOUGH ... !!!
You're the type ...
The ... " Man-***** " ... Like ... !!!
Gal' with .... " Weak Minds " ...
but ... STRONG ... Behinds ... !!!!!!!!!
The type who fall ... for ...
...... Any Old Line ...... !!!!!! "
  
" LOOK OUT BELOW !!!!!!
cos there ... THEY GO ... !!!!!"
  
" The girls now known
as .... Stupid **'s .... !!!!! "
  
The ones who think ...
Their ... " *****-Hole " ...
will make man .... sink ....
whenever it's shown ....
or ... gives a ... Wink ... !!!!!
  
Even when ... it's ...
.... " CLOSED " .... ??!??
  
From what I ... HEAR ...
Dem' holes dem' ... STINK ... !!!!!
of ... NAaaaaAArsty Things ... !!!!!!!!
that may just bring .....
" Your Nose " ...... to ..... " TEARS " ...... !!!!!!!!
  
Holes like ... "These" ...
" Harbour " ... " DISEASE " ... !!!!!
  
NOT ... " Sweet ******* " ...
  
So ...
  
" Listen up chief ! "
  
"Wrap up son ... PLEASE ... !!!!!
Don't give these ... FREAKS ...
.... " Little Kiddies " ....
Yes ... make them ... WET ... !!!
"AGAIN and AGAIN ... !!!!! ...
Then ... " Walk Away " ...
when you've played ... SAFE ... !!!
Son, make your game ....
FILL UP ... Their Brain ... !!!!!
cos it's fair to ... wage ...
it won't have ... MUCH SPACE ... !!!!!!"
  
"Hit the ... SPOT ...
when ... ******* ... DROP ... !!!!!
Then .... " Hit The Road " ....
before they ... Throw ........
Your Game ... " Off Course " ... !!!!!
  
"I'm pregnant and
The Child is YOURS !!!"
  
it won' take ... long ...
to see her change ... !!! ...
  
"TRUST" ...
No More ... THONGS ... !!!!!
  
No More ... *** GAMES ... !!!!!!
  
No matter ... What ...
They ... Try To Say ... !!!!!
  
These girls ... " Switch Lanes " ...
like spies ... change names ... !!!
  
Soon ... what they ... CLAIM ...
and ... what they say ...
and ... what they state ...
when it comes to ... LOVE ...
doesn't quite ... " ADD UP " ... ?!?
  
They're ... Quick  to use ...
Their mouths to ... SHOUT ... !!!!!
about ... Mens' moves ...
that ... leave them ... " ******* !!! " ...
  
"I really loved him !
he was so slick
I never thought
he'd leave so quick !!!"
  
"Well, it's clear
you didn't think !!!
but, what about now ???"
  
"He's a liar and a cheat
who just, used me !!!"
  
"Stupid cows !!!
See what I mean !!!!!"
  
They'll use their heads ...
to ... " Play " ... with men ...
IN FACT ... with ... BOYS ... !!!?!!!!
like kids do ... Toys ...
  
But ....
when ... " The Toy " ... Breaks ... !!!
and ... Runs Away ............................
They never accept ...
MISTAKES  .... " They've Made " .... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
"It was all his fault !!!
He never talked ... !!!!"
  
"What about you ?
What did you do ??
Spread your legs ???
before a word was said !?!
or did you have *** ?
cos' of things he said ??
that filled your head
with false promises !!!"
  
Well ....
Here's some ... TRUTH ... !!!!!
  
The smoothest dudes ...
are quick to use ...
"Deceipt-filled" ... moves ...
to ... " Ease your mood " ...
  
So that they .....
  
Can ... YES ...
  
***** YOU ... !!!!!
  
Just like ... CLEVER ...
" RAPISTS " ... do ... !!!!!!!
  
Girls ..... " Beauty " ...
ISN"T ... Everything ... !!!!!!
  
Weak men will ...
PROMISE ... " ANYTHING " ... !!!!!!
  
because they're ... WEAK ... !!!!!
and ... Have To ... CHEAT ... !!!!!
to get to .... Split ....
  
Your ..... " Juicy Lips " ..... !!!!!
  
So ....
Think about this ....
cos' ... this IS ... My View ... !!!!!
  
If they'll do it for you ...
They'll do it for ...
The ... NEXT GIRL ... too ... !!!!!
  
You ... KNOW ... The Score ...
There are ... PLENTY of ... ****** ...
  
But ....
Enough about them
and their ... " Problems " ... !!!!!
  
The ... BIG PROBLEM ...
...... I think ...... ?!?
  
is with girls who .....
..... " ***** " ...... !!!!!!!!
About .... " Us Men " ....
when men ... " They Pick " ...
cause them ... " PROBLEMS " ... !!! ? !!!
  
They're quick to .....
..... " Suggest " .....
  
that they ...
  
" DON'T PLAY GAMES " ... !!!!!
  
and use their brains ...
when it comes to ...
  
" Picking Males " .....
  
and ... DON'T want men
with ... " Devious Traits " ... !!!!!
  
But .....
When ... " Strong Men " ... !!!
come at them ... " Straight " ... !!!
and move to ... them ...
  
" He's NOT ...
My Type ... !!! "
  
is the usual line ....
  
because .....
  
"He's ALL WRONG,
and came on,
Too Strong !!!!"
  
and then of course ...
They ... Make The Claim ... !!!
  
" There's no good men out there,
  
............ ANYWAY !!! " ..................
  
Well .......
  
....... " So They Say !?! " .........

the miles between point a
   and b are too many
but as always, the race is on

...and oh, yes
  i am in a race
of my own creation

brain calculates and recalculates
eyes darting
vehicles
    sunlight
road
    mirror
(is that an officer of the law?)

i practice the smoothest curves
   fluid motions
but at the same time
      sweet sassy maggy
follow the rules

don't forget the coffee for the love of god
    make it to the one gas station by 7
for ****'s sake, get around the blue car
   the black car
the raggedy old truck
        before the exit or you know
you. are. *******. for. miles.

for christ's sake, use all your ******* skill
   to get a around a stupid slow truck
farm equipment
      or a semi
before thou shall not pass
  or you know your rage will be uncontrollable

things are going well
   you feel confident...you will be on time
you are flying and no one can touch you
   your driving is flawless
       that crazy sun is shining
          and the bass is vibrating your bones

and then t i m e    s   l   o   w  s
    as William H. Macy, you see it
it's that ******* Kia Sportage

adrenaline shoots into my veins
  muscles tense
and i slam into manual
4....3
     take that!
       woman cruising like you're on a lazy sunday drive
          smoking a cigarette like it's 1950.
        
don't you know that i'm in a race,
     and you are my nemesis?

I realised I loved you
When I realised
That you're much more than the softest words,
Stitched together in smoothest cursive,
To produce the most beautiful poem.

You're much more than any word I could use to paint you with and though, the playfulness in your innocent smile deserves a chapter written all about it, you'll always be much more and nothing like the comparisons I use. And I admit it.

And when your decision to never write about me, slowly started making sense, that was when I realised I loved you.

I realised I loved you,
When you taught me
That most of the things I found romantic, are not really love. When you made me question the way I looked at you and through the crumbling foundations, I realised, that what they call love, is usually endless needing. And love does not always need, but love always  wants.

And love chooses. Love chooses to work hard for oneself, and for each other. Love decides to uplift itself. Love does not need you to be its walking stick or support. And I realised I loved you, when I decided to be what I needed from you, so you can see that I want you to stay around, for all your charms and wit and not because I'm a paralysed mess when you're gone.

I realised I loved you,
When I found that no people you love are supposed to be answers, or a destination to a long quest, no. You're not my favorite poetry, or my home, or a problem. But a person who I want to share these with. No, You're not the sun light filtering through the leaves, or the sound the water makes as it falls down a lake. You're not calmness personified and no, you're not some superhero looking for a maiden to help.

You're a human being. All sweat and farts, skin and bones, perfect moments and flaws. You're a human. And not a word I could twist around to shape any way I want.

You're messy handwriting, and heart beating for itself. I realised I love you, when I realised that my heart wanted to beat for itself too. And maybe, just maybe sometimes when we are together, our heart will beat in sync. Or not. It really does not matter. Cause we are much more than all of this.

A bee whistles past his ear
He feels the sound . . he doesn’t care
Averts his eyes in case there’s others
Raises his hands to fix his hair

Divorced from reality somewhat: from feeling.
Or at least extremes of:
Never exceeding amounts unfeasible:
Pertaining to the limits thereof:
Plateaued at governable levels in present:
Exempt from enth
Kept in check
His whistle wet & he’s well fed

Real words strewn along the ground
Discarded leaves fallen
Left decaying: mostly forgotten

His pants look to him pantaloons
For the good they do representing him
the man chases an end necessary; resenting
not waning, he feigns stoicism
then his creeping cynicism clouds his eyes

‘u know what buddy, u can honestly get ******’ he says ‘the 1st world cries the loudest; but is softest.  Thinks it is toughest; it is weakest, smoothest, creamiest.’
‘u know what buddy u are honestly right’ he says to himself not wanting to admit to himself that he agrees with himself,
but despite this all, his gaze’s focus still lowers
the edges become softer
& he does what he does

he wraps up in his blanky
with his bottle; safe under cover
among some big ******* to feel warm
but the swarm of bees they circle
twitching fever; rippling waves

hope to god that they don’t sting you
as u hide & feel their sway
lapping closer swooping hawk like
collective wind; they rearrange

and then

they push left !swoop! they raise u up,
( a cloud of black and brown and yellow arches and hums, hums like a razor on steroids, seeping potent purpose, pushing, coming: close your eyes for impending hell)
leaving bumps that swell and burn, they grab, they encase, they consume, they drive, they raise and they push
and they deliver u
and u obey them
and u relinquish; u fold enslaved
they push u forward  !the buzz! it wakes
it makes u groan,
u can’t ignore it
u know u need it
u’ve got to do it
u need to go


toil on & reap the spoils
another set with the walking beige

go here go there: be happy
u have no reason to not this day
just keep on going, mate my mate
lulling deep into the beige

yeah, but you didn't love me
"who says I didnt"
and I pull down my vneck and show you all the scabs that were once hickeys
you say you're sorry but your apology sounds like you're asking me to pardon you for not remembering whether or not you put them there and I swear to God I will never lover another man like I'm shivering in the middle of winter again
i wrote my best poetry about you
I've never been afraid of the dark but I'm terrified of you
my tummy growls all the time and you think I'm forever hungry
but the honest to God truth is
my stomach has trained itself to clench in desperation whenever your deception hurts too much
and I am nervous around anyone who shares our world because you've never spoken mine but I've muttered yours like a mantra and in the end Im the fool and you the stop.
i keep saying I've had enough, I'm leaving
but each time I do, I conjure up the image of you laying in your bed dancing to songs I can't fathom to call mistakes
and it makes me smile so much how adorable you are just then
and I pack all the shame and misery you've poured onto me,
I put you and all the horrendous things you've done before me and stay
cause even though you've done nothing but make a mockery , a fiend out of me
still
the last thing I  want to do is hurt you
i am so hurt and because on numerous accounts I have dropped to my knees ripped to shreds on your honour
like your word is a holy relic and
godforbid I go against it
yet all you've ever done is take and take and take
chunks of me like I'm not disabled
myself in need of things to keep me whole
I walk a line of shame cause everyone who knows us call be a mirror bc I'm always bending for you like light
never questioning why and
all you ever do is reflect my  flexibility to a few that judge me anyway
I think I'm done being yours
(who am I fooling I never really was , you never really coined ownership at me I just kept begging for your acceptance and it never came)
but now I'm as hurt as America was when Benedict betrayed her and it hurts real bad I can feel it in my veins like the roots of a lemon tree protruding out my thinning arm skin
and I can't even show anyone
cause they'll just laugh and whisper behind me
like this has been a secret everyone was keeping from me
you've fooled me into the smoothest heartbreak I begged myself not to suspect
and I owe it to my dad not to let myself be that girl for you anylonger
you've broken my heart in angles ever set squares couldn't fathom and im barely able to breathe
I pray God gives me the strength not to go back to you cause this is the most humiliation I can ever endure
-Allie

clean lines cut shiny wet skin

cold menacing eel eyes meet
a jellybean nose child's sticky fingers,
calculating; deriving the smoothest way
to unfasten Oshkosh suspenders
in a sun-drenched park, with fierce
protectors, and the wrath of an angry God,
one that judges perverse men and protects
innocent children,
but God must be on vacation;
too quickly, aplomb aplenty,
he slithers past the slide where
a trio of blond ringlet drenched heads tantalize
when the boys hop and jump
their curls excitedly bob, mimicking the children's movements.
the man, he waits, tucked
in a leafy green pardah, a veil.
the sun crawls into the clouds;
thunder bellows in the distance,
and like a mercy, a tiny raindrop
hits his eyes, which he has closed
in respect of this jubilant miracle.
the mothers grab their own sticky handed babies
and run for drier places
and safer
though they only heed the rain
and not the man peering from the soaking foliage

flash of lightening.
darkness.
a scream.
silence.

The nightly news suggested that my clan and friends
and poetry and me gather all of our things
and evacuate the city but because my folk
are people in the margin, people in financial

strain shaped by oppression, I have - instead - loaded things
and bodies into a single caravan and am
en route to you because you are smoother and longer
and stronger, taller than the tallest road in the world.

In my mind, you have become the road; a road whose peak
is 18,000 feet, a road whose place is between
the East and West, a road whose beginning has no end
and a road whose end has no beginning - none at all.

Heavy rain. Flood water. High wind, the weatherman said.
For years, I have been compelled to take this road, to ride
its curves with finesse, to drift in a single gear for
miles, to go and go and go on the smoothest road 'round.

For years, I have been compelled to take this road, to be
elevated at 18,000 feet - yes, to be
transported closer to heaven, to be and be and
be on the longest, strongest, tallest road in the world.

En route, an elderly man asked me, Why her, young man, why
her? I shifted gears. Accelerated up a hill
of you and said, Because she has exceeded all things.
Exceeded what, young man, exceeded what? Do tell. Do.

All other roads and passageways, the labyrinth of
life, everything, sir, everything.

And how do you know we will survive along this road?
he asked.

Because no matter the point of origin, so long
as we are on the road of her, there will be fields whose
crops are plenty - always in season, brooks whose water
never recoils, and rivers of milk that do not spoils.

a conscious thought stated:
don't write another love poem
but his words are vanilla to my ears
the smoothest silk texture
spun from his consonants and vowels
running from his lips and melting over my flesh
you can see where i get distracted...

because infatuation and intimacy intertwine
spinning a tangled web
woven from the strongest thread
and your fingers are musicians magic
strumming on my heartstrings
playing chords on my heart
carrying a tune that would make Celine Dion quiver.
it made me quiver
but there aren't six degrees of separation
from lust to love
there's one degree
but a thousand steps in between

the chemists couldn't explain
why our chemistry combined
in such an intricate way
and all the experiments were inconclusive
because only we are the mad scientists behind our insanity

and while the scientists tinkered
the mathematicians drew up an equation
insert me and you
into x and y
but x and y don't define hidden variables
that even we had to search to find
the eraser's been rubbed raw
against the paper with a hole in the center
they'll never solve their invented equation
because mathematics aren't involved

just a finely designed road map
tracing your veins and mine
from fingertip to fingertip
eye to eye
an artists divine sight
i'll be the paint to your brush
your lily pads to Monet
if your words are paint
my body's a blank canvas

i'm a writer
but even i'm struggling to find the words
that may as well be hidden in catacombs
but we don't need Edgar Allen Poe
to quoth the raven "nevermore"
nevermore shall i search for this unicorn of words
mythical in that they don't exist and yet somehow you do

we'll resurrect Charles Dickens
because he's the only man who would even make an attempt
but even his hands are trembling
with the pressure mounting of a lost word and a quivering pen

thunk

as we watched him dissolve into the pen and ink that created him

this conscious thought beckoned forward in my head
do not write another love poem just yet
for who will scribe the words to fit our facets
when the skins withered, wrinkled and dry
but our hands still twine like grape vines

maybe by then they'll have written another edition of the dictionary

The circular confectionery tin has been there every Christmas
often replaced, often changed for a different brand
either way
every year we curse our brains and slap our wrists
for the temptation which overwhelms us
and our carefree nature, wholeheartedly encouraged by our family
''Go on, it's Christmas.''

And so, which one do we select?
of course, the one we like the most
the one with the prettiest wrapper
or the smoothest taste
the one we laugh, bewildered at others for not liking

Sneaking downstairs at night to grab a handful of our favourite flavour
to make sure nobody else can have your preference
until
eventually
all of your favourites are gone
so you settle for the ones you like, but would never choose originally
these are the second best chocolates
they have a mediocre wrapper and a pleasant taste
but they are nothing compared to the ones you would always choose

But now, you've had all of these as well
and you stare into the near-empty tin, rattling with the dull sound of the unwanted chocolates
for a moment you contemplate why anybody would eat those ones first
the colours are mundane and the taste is far from favourable

until somebody else walks past
and they peer into the tin
a hint of pleasant surprise sounds from their lips
''Oh, my favourite.''
And they select the 'dullest' chocolate left in the tin
because the faded purple is their favourite colour
and the sharp taste of orange lacquer is their favourite taste
and they wonder why you ate all the caramel chocolates first
because they would have left them until last

And now the tin is empty
every chocolate loved
by a different person
with a different taste
and when you think about what you truly love
you finally understand

Otis told me about this cool
brand new swanky dance hall place,
said it was full of pretty-lookers
with baby doll faces
not the sleazebag rough
******-types, the scary kind.
So I pulled on my best blue jeans,
scooped on a little dab of gel and
checked myself out in the mirror.
I thought, man you look swell,
somebody might say, you're fine
and with those thoughts,
I stepped out
headed on down to the party club,
hoping someone would notice me, too.

I walked on over to the servery,
to sample some dip and savories,
out of the corner of my eye
I saw a pretty little babe,
she sashayed across the dance hall,
to make herself known to me.
In an instant, there was electricity,
we got to talking about how nice,
it would be, to get together
more regularly.
I knew there and then,
we were going to be real close friends,
she oozed class and she had me rapt,
my heart beat climbed high,
like, I'd scored a drop dead gorgeous
piece of sugar pie.
I thought yeah!
She'd be the ideal girl for me.

And she would be,
if she could dance the Watusi
she'd be fine with me.
Well, I'm not one
to beat around the bush,
I cut to the quick,
so I sauntered right up to her
and in my smoothest Southern drawl
asked the lil' darling,
"Sweet Darling would you like
a cup of Chardonnay?"
And she, in the most playful way,
smiled coyly and replied,
"Why Mister, surely I would,
I can't resist a fine wine!"

As we sipped on the wine,
there was a warming glow
between us two, we were starting
to cog, like in sync watches.
I thought to myself, I can play
a part, in her every dream,
my lil' darling and I dancing,
to the beat of a lava stream.
We took to the dance hall floor,
expressing our close body simmer,
the Watusi sounds,
had us all a glimmer.

Then we pulled closer,
the gravity was electric,
a sacred feeling,
I could feel between my hips
and she,
she had a primordial fragrance,
I could smell beneath her
fashionable clothes.
Reasonableness was fading
quickly with the pace,
I held her face
and we fell
into another dimension.

A flow of passion ignited,
there was no containing,
the flare,
our lips burnt with an excited
and intoxicating fervor,
our skin to skin contact,
was like an ember.
Eros, had my sugar pie and I
in mind,
when he wrote the script,
to the sensual Watusi bind.