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Tom McCone Jan 2014
curling up into all sweet confusions
that trickle down from
your touch,
we become the sky, as birds fall
from above. i lose
a tactician's leverage throughout
this fog; a descension
if you were the moon,
an aberrance,
if you were a single leaf,
dripping from this
tree coiling up to
the lights hung on
netted strings set under
the darkness of the sky,
where-ever you have been.
where-ever you are.

   so,
   do the stars still shine solely for you,
   the nights you most need them?

perhaps i have
gone blind,
just when i need to see you,
more now than ever.
perhaps i've just
been sleeping
a little
too long, inside this cave.

   does the sky still divide the sea?

but, undoing the buttons on your grip,
you build declensions on foundations
of realisation: with full authorship of
your motions, you know you could
go anywhere, love. you now know
away from i is any road, every treadmark
save this single one.
                             and mine is hardly treacherous,
but you'll still only find me in mountaintops,
so i could barely blame you if the path gets
too narrow, or too long-wound.

   do the clouds still turn images
   in full colour, late afternoon, to
   remind you of shapes i imitate
   in all fractured disappearances?

i've seen retreat from so
many sides now, the addition of
yours could
hardly make a dent. not that i
would not lament a loss like you,
more than anything.

   yet, don't
   worry, never
   worry, i can still stay in motion.

still, if you see fit to
collect all broken pieces of me,
and build up this cottage, or nest, you can keep
your heart here long as
you like, darling.
Lewis Bosworth Dec 2016
—Flash Forward—

A day of reckoning.
A small boat crosses
the Hudson River,
no warning horn.
Destination New Jersey,
of all places.
A. Burr isn’t warned
that Hamilton will not
fire his pistol.
Destiny predetermined.

“Death doesn’t discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints,
It takes and it takes and it takes.
History obliterates.”

*—Flashback—


General.
     Colonel.
           Aide-de-camp.    
                 Immigrant.

“Don’t engage, strike by night.
Remain relentless ‘til their troops take flight.”
“We escort their men out of Yorktown.
They stagger home single file.
Tens of thousands of people flood the streets.”
“Took up a collection just to send him to the
mainland.
‘Get your education. Don’t forget from whence
you came.’”

—Stepfather of the Union—

Treasury secretary, author of the Federalist Papers,
lawyer, speechwriter, confidante, opponent of slavery,
member of the Constitutional Convention.

“History has its eyes on you.”
“I’ve seen injustice in the world and I’ve
        corrected it.”
“The Federalist:  Addressed to the People
         of the State of New York.”
“Goes and proposes his own form
         of government.”

—Family and Marriage—

The Schuyler Sisters – Eliza.
     Maria and James Reynolds – adultery and bribery.
          Philip Hamilton – successor son and victim.
                Philip Schuyler – father-in-law.

“And if this child
Shares a fraction of your smile
Or a fragment of your mind, look out, world!”
“I know you’re a man of honor,
I’m so sorry to bother you at home.”
“I’m only nineteen but my mind is older,
Gonna be my own man, like my father
     but bolder.”
“Grampa just lost his seat in the Senate.”


—Why, How, How long?—

Why not?, biography,
genius, rapid-fire rap,
hip-hop, historical vertigo,
Lin-Manuel Miranda at the White House,
a cast talented beyond measure,
the Great White Way,
2017-18 and forever….
“…13 percent of the population is foreign
born, which is near an all-time high;
that one day soon there will no longer
be majority and minority races, only a
vibrant mix of colors.”  
     ‒Jeremy McCarter, from Chapter I of
       Hamilton:  The Revolution

© Lewis Bosworth, 12/2016
    With credit to the book:

     Hamilton: The Revolution
Danielle C Mar 2012
semantics
communication
of a playwright
of a speechwriter
of a poet
of a freelancer
of an author
of a journalist

to express
and to love
Donall Dempsey Jun 2018
IN X ANADU....IT'S...COMPLICATED.

"Life should not be lived
in black and white...

...but, in colour!"
Coleridge thinks.

"Man should not believe in
'No-can-do"

but in 'Yes...
we can!'

Even a legless man can
dance the Can-Can

with the uppermost part
of his body and

dancing with imaginary
legs!"

Sammy( sometimes he )
displaces himself into

the  third person
decanting the fine wine of the mind.

"Naw...scrub that line
don't know where in hell I was

going with it.
Gawd! This laudanum is strong!"

And so, he sits, sips and pens
in a vision or a trance if you like

a dream of future-time
where people can be made

into paper replicas
of themselves.

The "picture-graph"
he calls it

for want
of a better word.

And now he pushes the boat out
pictures that can talk and walk

so that even the dead
will flicker for a second

back into the life
they had.

A world going to ***
and other such drugs.

Machines that can take your voice
and fling it over to...say...Japan

and back and forth
again.

The world shrunk to your hand
" a miracle of rare device."

Just think!
Think of it man!

Or to be Blake-an about it:
"What is now proved was once, only imagin'd."

"I have a dream..." the poet proclaims
beginning to sound like a speechwriter

"...that one day man
may fly...sitting down in the sky!"

Oh I'm really getting going now!
Laughs at his mind's daring derring-do!

Gawd....this laudanum is strong!

And that one day facebook(sic)
will come to be.

"...things unfathomable to man!"
These the dark caverns of the mind.

Cute cat videos...selfies
whatever!

"Look here is a picture
of my dinner!"

Relationships: It's...
...complicated.

He crosses out "unfathomable"
writes "immeasurable" above it.

"...miracles of rare device..."
So good I've said it twice.

Such "...mingled measures..."
will life be really so?

Suddenly a 'ping" or some
such thing!

A message request from
Kubla ****** Khan.

Now one is being poked
by some bloke

an Alf
from Porlock it would appear.

Good Gawd is that really his
Profile Pic...he looks sick.

Claims to be a Jehovah's Witness
and can he come 'round and

have I found
Jesus?

Jaysus no! Delete...delete!

This facebook is
"...a savage place...

as e're beneath a waning moon
was haunted..."

Bit flowery that but
it will have to do.

Now **** it all to hell
where ****** was I?

And now...now...this very now
a poem put upon my timeline.

My timeline's mine!

Yet another poem by some
"woman wailing for her demon lover."

Is it my imagination or
are there more demon lovers around

than this time
last summer?

Humming some **** tune
by that Olivia Newton John.

An annoying earworm.

Ada Lovelace
wants to be my friend

even though she isn't
even born.

Oh get a life!

Do I 'heart' Byron"
"Wot...that ***!"

Describing her mindset as 'poetical
science."

Goes on and on
about an analytical machine

and how individual and society
relate to technology

as a collaborative
tool.

She makes me feel
a fool.

I deign to
decline.

This stately "pleasure dome"
device is not for me.

I delete my future
account and listen

to the dear  birds
( alas no albatross )

in my lime tree bower
as they twitter.

Make myself a cup of tea.
No sugar.

Constipation is
killing me.

Eat an egg out of a tea cup.
A fat slice of ham.

Gawd! This laudanum is strong!

I do not like things
"...flung up momently..."

"I close my eyes with
holy dread and cry

Beware! Beware!"

Have... God...
**** run out of laudanum!

And so set out
for Porlock

avoiding Alf
if I can.
Kubla Khan
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure
   Floated midway on the waves;
   Where was heard the mingled measure
   From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer
   In a vision once I saw:
   It was an Abyssinian maid
   And on her dulcimer she played,
   Singing of Mount Abora.
   Could I revive within me
   Her symphony and song,
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.


Oh that naughty Lord Byron making such an *** of Sam!

Shall gentle COLERIDGE pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still Obscurity's a welcome guest.
If Inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a Pixy for a muse,
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to elegize an ***:
So well the subject suits his noble mind,
He brays, the Laureate of the long-eared kind.

***
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was born Augusta Ada Byron, the only legitimate child of Annabella Milbanke and the poet Lord Byron. Her mother, Lady Byron, had mathematical training (Byron called her his 'Princess of Parallelograms') and insisted that Ada, who was tutored privately, study mathematics too - an unusual education for a woman.

Ada met Babbage at a party in 1833 when she was seventeen and was entranced when Babbage demonstrated the small working section of the Engine to her. She intermitted her mathematical studies for marriage and motherhood but resumed when domestic duties allowed. In 1843 she published a translation from the French of an article on the Analytical Engine by an Italian engineer, Luigi Menabrea, to which Ada added extensive notes of her own. The Notes included the first published description of a stepwise sequence of operations for solving certain mathematical problems and Ada is often referred to as 'the first programmer'. The collaboration with Babbage was close and biographers debate the extent and originality of Ada's contribution.

Perhaps more importantly, the article contained statements by Ada that from a modern perspective are visionary. She speculated that the Engine 'might act upon other things besides number... the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent'. The idea of a machine that could manipulate symbols in accordance with rules and that number could represent entities other than quantity mark the fundamental transition from calculation to computation. Ada was the first to explicitly articulate this notion and in this she appears to have seen further than Babbage. She has been referred to as 'prophet of the computer age'. Certainly she was the first to express the potential for computers outside mathematics. In this the tribute is well-founded.
Donall Dempsey Jun 2019
IN XANADU....IT'S...COMPLICATED.

"Life should not lived
in black and white...

...but, in colour!"
Coleridge thinks.

"Man should not believe in
'No-can-do"

but in 'Yes...
we can!'

Even a legless man can
dance the Can-Can

with the uppermost part
of his body and

dancing with imaginary
legs!"

Sammy( sometimes he )
displaces himself into

the  third person
decanting the fine wine of the mind.

"Naw...scrub that line
don't know where in hell I was

going with it.
Gawd! This laudanum is strong!"

And so, he sits, sips and pens
in a vision or a trance if you like

a dream of future-time
where people can be made

into paper replicas
of themselves.

The "picture-graph"
he calls it

for want
of a better word.

And now he pushes the boat out
pictures that can talk and walk

so that even the dead
will flicker for a second

back into the life
they had.

A world going to ***
and other such drugs.

Machines that can take your voice
and fling it over to...say...Japan

and back and forth
again.

The world shrunk to your hand
" a miracle of rare device."

Just think!
Think of it man!

Or to be Blake-an about it:
"What is now proved was once, only imagin'd."

"I have a dream..." the poet proclaims
beginning to sound like a speechwriter

"...that one day man
may fly...sitting down in the sky!"

Oh I'm really getting going now!
Laughs at his mind's daring derring-do!

Gawd....this laudanum is strong!

And that one day facebook(sic)
will come to be.

"...things unfathomable to man!"
These the dark caverns of the mind.

Cute cat videos...selfies
whatever!

"Look here is a picture
of my dinner!"

Relationships: It's...
...complicated.

He crosses out "unfathomable"
writes "immeasurable" above it.

"...miracles of rare device..."
So good I've said it twice.

Such "...mingled measures..."
will life be really so?

Suddenly a 'ping" or some
such thing!

A message request from
Kubla ****** Khan.

Now one is being poked
by some bloke

an Alf
from Porlock it would appear.

Good Gawd is that really his
Profile Pic...he looks sick.

Claims to be a Jehovah's Witness
and can he come 'round and

have I found
Jesus?

Jaysus no! Delete...delete!

This facebook is
"...a savage place...

as e're beneath a waning moon
was haunted..."

Bit flowery that but
it will have to do.

Now **** it all to hell
where ****** was I?

And now...now...this very now
a poem put upon my timeline.

My timeline's mine!

Yet another poem by some
"woman wailing for her demon lover."

Is it my imagination or
are there more demon lovers around

than this time
last summer?

Humming some **** tune
by that Olivia Newton John.

An annoying earworm.

Ada Lovelace
wants to be my friend

even though she isn't
even born.

Oh get a life!

Do I 'heart' Byron"
"Wot...that ***!"

Describing her mindset as 'poetical
science."

Goes on and on
about an analytical machine

and how individual and society
relate to technology

as a collaborative
tool.

She makes me feel
a fool.

I deign to
decline.

This stately "pleasure dome"
device is not for me.

I delete my future
account and listen

to the dear  birds
( alas no albatross )

in my lime tree bower
as they twitter.

Make myself a cup of tea.
No sugar.

Constipation is
killing me.

Eat an egg out of a tea cup.
A fat slice of ham.

Gawd! This laudanum is strong!

I do not like things
"...flung up momently..."

"I close my eyes with
holy dread and cry

Beware! Beware!"

Have... God...
**** run out of laudanum!

And so set out
for Porlock

avoiding Alf
if I can.
Well, the animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness
A baby cries hard in an apartment complex
As I pass in a car buried under the influence
The city's driving me out of my mind

I've seen a child, he's caught in the sad trap of gravity
He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree
And lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity
Next time he will not aim so high
Yeah, next time, neither will I

Now a mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges
Her family's reduced to names on a shopping list
While a coroner kneels beneath a great, wooden crucifix
He knows there's worse things than being alone

And so I've learned to retreat at the first sign of danger
I mean, why wait around if it's just to surrender?
And ambition, I've found, can lead only to failure
I do not read the reviews
No, I am not singing for you

Well, I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well
And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help
With all these wishes I make I should buy something real
At least a telephone call home

Well, my teachers, they built this retaining wall of memory
All those multiple choices I answered so quickly
And got my grades back and forgot just as easily
But as least I got an "A"
And so I don't have them to blame

Well, I should stop pointing fingers, reserve my judgment
Of all those public action figures, the cowboy presidents
So loud behind the bullhorn, so proud they can't admit
When they've made a mistake

While poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen
He knows he don't have to say it, so it, it don't bother him
"Honesty", "accuracy", is just popular opinion
And they approve all ratings high
And so someone's gonna die

Well, ABC, NBC, CBS: *******
They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split
And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment
We're still the pawns in their game

As they take eye for an eye until no one can see
We must stumble blindly forth, repeating history
Well, I guess we all fit into your slogan on that fast food marquee:
Red blooded, white skinned, oh, and the blues
Oh, and the blues, I got the blues! That's me!
That's me!

Well, I awoke in relief, my sheets and tubes were all tangled
Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital
And my father was there, in a chair by the window, staring so far away

I tried talking, just whispered, "So sorry, so selfish"
He stopped me and said, "Child, I love you regardless
There's nothing you could do that would ever change this
I'm not angry, it happens
But you just can't do it again"

So now I try to keep up, I've been exchanging my currency
While a million objects pass through my periphery
Now I'm rubbing my eyes cause they're starting to bother me
I've been staring too long at the screen

But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility?
It came to my ears in the ******* loveliest melody
How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery
To love and to be loved
Let's just hope that is enough
My take on an old tune hehe

THIS IS NOT an original I'M PROVING A POINT ∴ fair use
Donall Dempsey Jun 2020
IN XANADU....IT'S...COMPLICATED.

"Life should not lived
in black and white...

...but, in colour!"
Coleridge thinks.

"Man should not believe in
'No-can-do"

but in 'Yes...
we can!'

Even a legless man can
dance the Can-Can

with the uppermost part
of his body and

dancing with imaginary
legs!"

Sammy( sometimes he )
displaces himself into

the  third person
decanting the fine wine of the mind.

"Naw...scrub that line
don't know where in hell I was

going with it.
Gawd! This laudanum is strong!"

And so, he sits, sips and pens
in a vision or a trance if you like

a dream of future-time
where people can be made

into paper replicas
of themselves.

The "picture-graph"
he calls it

for want
of a better word.

And now he pushes the boat out
pictures that can talk and walk

so that even the dead
will flicker for a second

back into the life
they had.

A world going to ***
and other such drugs.

Machines that can take your voice
and fling it over to...say...Japan

and back and forth
again.

The world shrunk to your hand
" a miracle of rare device."

Just think!
Think of it man!

Or to be Blake-an about it:
"What is now proved was once, only imagin'd."

"I have a dream..." the poet proclaims
beginning to sound like a speechwriter

"...that one day man
may fly...sitting down in the sky!"

Oh I'm really getting going now!
Laughs at his mind's daring derring-do!

Gawd....this laudanum is strong!

And that one day facebook(sic)
will come to be.

"...things unfathomable to man!"
These the dark caverns of the mind.

Cute cat videos...selfies
whatever!

"Look here is a picture
of my dinner!"

Relationships: It's...
...complicated.

He crosses out "unfathomable"
writes "immeasurable" above it.

"...miracles of rare device..."
So good I've said it twice.

Such "...mingled measures..."
will life be really so?

Suddenly a 'ping" or some
such thing!

A message request from
Kubla ****** Khan.

Now one is being poked
by some bloke

an Alf
from Porlock it would appear.

Good Gawd is that really his
Profile Pic...he looks sick.

Claims to be a Jehovah's Witness
and can he come 'round and

have I found
Jesus?

Jaysus no! Delete...delete!

This facebook is
"...a savage place...

as e're beneath a waning moon
was haunted..."

Bit flowery that but
it will have to do.

Now **** it all to hell
where ****** was I?

And now...now...this very now
a poem put upon my timeline.

My timeline's mine!

Yet another poem by some
"woman wailing for her demon lover."

Is it my imagination or
are there more demon lovers around

than this time
last summer?

Humming some **** tune
by that Olivia Newton John.

An annoying earworm.

Ada Lovelace
wants to be my friend

even though she isn't
even born.

Oh get a life!

Do I 'heart' Byron"
"Wot...that ***!"

Describing her mindset as 'poetical
science."

Goes on and on
about an analytical machine

and how individual and society
relate to technology

as a collaborative
tool.

She makes me feel
a fool.

I deign to
decline.

This stately "pleasure dome"
device is not for me.

I delete my future
account and listen

to the dear  birds
( alas no albatross )

in my lime tree bower
as they twitter.

Make myself a cup of tea.
No sugar.

Constipation is
killing me.

Eat an egg out of a tea cup.
A fat slice of ham.

Gawd! This laudanum is strong!

I do not like things
"...flung up momently..."

"I close my eyes with
holy dread and cry

Beware! Beware!"

Have... God...
**** run out of laudanum!

And so set out
for Porlock

avoiding Alf
if I can.

— The End —