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ryn Sep 2014
Irony
Life throws at us the worst practical pranks
Some call them challenges... I call them sick ironies
With challenges you might emerge victorious, and slide up the ranks
Ironies are just mean, bad jokes; locks with no keys

Call me godless, sad and trodden, bitter man
Call me a cynic, call me all including jaded
I've arranged it all in various permutations, much as I can
But my view at this point cannot be compensated

Allow me to illustrate...

•It's funny how you feel very certain or strongly
About the bog of sadness and depression you wade in deepest
You know it's real, you fan it with strength your mind could carry
When it could be better used to rise from when you're weakest

•What's this about having to crash to your fiery death
Into the realm of darkness; into the belly of hell
You'd have to almost die and lose your last breath
Before granted an epiphany, a slim chance that you could turn out well

•When life throws you in the deepest end
Fills your lungs with copius amounts of bad water
Tries to **** you before allowing time to mend
When if we were first taught to swim, it would've been much easier

•Sure... A treasure trove of splendours, life does offer
But like a spin of the lottery, you mightn't get even if you deserve
No matter how far you reach into it's elusive coffers
No matter how hard you worked to get ahead of the curve

•Life is like Christmas at times when it feels like giving
Like the gift of love much coveted by most individuals
Gives us all these fanciful things that need extensive assembling
But mischievously hoarding all the instruction manuals

•Fraught with grey areas and blind spots to fight
Presents ample opportunities to find the place that you'd belong
You go through shitloads of wrongs to get a right
And finally you think you're right, in actuality, you're dead wrong!

"More", you say?

•Friends during good times but not the bad
•The perfect red apple hosting a worm inside
•Faking a happy smile when you're deep down sad
•Putting our blind faiths in politicians we know who've lied

•Achieving superstardom only after death had ensnared
•Using heavy machinery to rid the Earth of impurity
•Shooting your mean motor mouth and wonder why no one cared
•Starlets dying for attention but crumble under scrutiny

•Health warnings on cigarettes but still sold for revenue
•Acquiring your sought after sports car but drive within the limit
•Promotions to idiots in suits who haven't got a clue
•Stretching up for the stars even when you know you'll never reach it

Well...

I could give more examples but I've typed enough
Life is but a game we're all playing; a circus we're all living
We can't help being helpless when unable to read and call its bluff
All we can afford is to keep siphoning water out of our boat that's sinking
I know I have been whiny in my recent writes. I also know that living a hard life makes you stronger... When life gives you lemons, make lemonade... Blah blah, yada yada... YAWN... SNORE... Zzzzzz. I know these already and I'm sure they're true to a certain degree. Just want to rant and complain. Please forgive my whining.
#discontent #bitter #complain #mad #irony #whine #cynical #rave #rants
Continue reading...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Adonais
I weep for Adonais—he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!”

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

O, weep for Adonais—he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend;—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania!—He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished—
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal.—Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!—
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law
Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.

O, weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams,
The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not,—
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries,
“Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.”
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!
She knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

One from a lucid urn of starry dew
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;
Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem
A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit,
That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,
And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp death
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

And others came… Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp;—the moving pomp might seem
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aereal eyes that kindle day;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,
Or herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day;
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
Than those for whose disdain she pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds:—a drear
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,
Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,
For whom should she have waked the sullen year?
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both
Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere
Amid the faint companions of their youth,
With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.

Thy spirit’s sister, the lorn nightingale
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun’s domain
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year;
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;
The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season’s bier;
The amorous birds now pair in every brake,
And build their mossy homes in field and brere;
And the green lizard, and the golden snake,
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean
A quickening life from the Earth’s heart has burst
As it has ever done, with change and motion,
From the great morning of the world when first
God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed,
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;
All baser things pant with life’s sacred thirst;
Diffuse themselves; and spend in love’s delight
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender,
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;
Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath
By sightless lightning?—the intense atom glows
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

Alas! that all we loved of him should be,
But for our grief, as if it had not been,
And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!
Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene
The actors or spectators? Great and mean
Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow.
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!
“Wake thou,” cried Misery, “childless Mother, rise
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart’s core,
A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs.”
And all the Dreams that watched Urania’s eyes,
And all the Echoes whom their sister’s song
Had held in holy silence, cried: “Arise!”
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs
Our of the East, and follows wild and drear
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings,
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier,
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania;
So saddened round her like an atmosphere
Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

Our of her secret Paradise she sped,
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,
And human hearts, which to her aery tread
Yielding not, wounded the invisible
Palms of her tender feet where’er they fell:
And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they,
Rent the soft Form they never could repel,
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,
Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath
Revisited those lips, and Life’s pale light
Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.
“Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,
As silent lightning leaves the starless night!
Leave me not!” cried Urania: her distress
Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress.

“‘Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning brain
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,
With food of saddest memory kept alive,
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art!
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

“O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear?
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,
The monsters of life’s waste had fled from thee like deer.

“The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;
The obscene ravens, clamorous o’er the dead;
The vultures to the conqueror’s banner true
Who feed where Desolation first has fed,
And whose wings rain contagion;—how they fled,
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped
And smiled!—The spoilers tempt no second blow,
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

“The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then
Is gathered into death without a dawn,
And the immortal stars awake again;
So is it in the world of living men:
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight
Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit’s awful night.”

Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame
Over his living head like Heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument,
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow; from her wilds Irene sent
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,
And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue.

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,
A phantom among men; companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness,
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray
With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness,
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift—
A Love in desolation masked;—a Power
Girt round with weakness;—it can scarce uplift
The weight of the superincumbent hour;
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,
A breaking billow;—even whilst we speak
Is it not broken? On the withering flower
The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone,
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew
Yet dripping with the forest’s noonday dew,
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart
Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew
He came the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter’s dart.

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan
Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band
Who in another’s fate now wept his own,
As in the accents of an unknown land
He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned
The Stranger’s mien, and murmured: “Who art thou?”
He answered not, but with a sudden hand
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,
Which was like Cain’s or Christ’s—oh! that it should be so!

What softer voice is hushed over the dead?
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
What form leans sadly o’er the white death-bed,
In mockery of monumental stone,
The heavy heart heaving without a moan?
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one,
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs,
The silence of that heart’s accepted sacrifice.

Our Adonais has drunk poison—oh!
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown
Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe?
The nameless worm would now itself disown:
It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone
Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong,
But what was howling in one breast alone,
Silent with expectation of the song,
Whose master’s hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!
Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name!
But be thyself, and know thyself to be!
And ever at thy season be thou free
To spill the venom when thy fangs o’erflow:
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt—as now.

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled
Far from these carrion kites that scream below;
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now—
Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow
Back to the burning fountain whence it came,
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow
Through time and change, unquenchably the same,
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—
He hath awakened from the dream of life—
’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife
Invulnerable nothings.—We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

He lives, he wakes—’tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais.—Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air
Which like a mourning veil
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2022
Kant and no Pretty Sister(s)
i could tell you how certain stations on the London underground
smell, but i can't capture you this smell...
a bit like in that film Perfume: scents are lost over time,
with regards to places -
                            unlike the eternal pine forest...
or the zest of lemon...
                                         those are universal scents...
one could and humanity has: created a synthetic answer
and copied these scents... made synthetic tastes
a whole chemistry of a posteriori scents and tastes...
Kant and chemistry are a perfect combination...
given the classical schematic:

analytical                         analytical
a priori                             a posteriori
apples grow on               tomatoes:
trees and                          categorised as fruits          
carrots grow                    yet used as vegetables
in the earth                      the analysis being
since apples                     even though they grow
are a fruit                         on something: trees,
while carrots                    bushes, vines...
are a root vegetable,       analysis has found that
ergo?                                 they are better treated
all vegetables                   as vegetables rather than
grow in the earth            fruits, since one rarely cooks
while all fruits                 savoury meals with fruit
grow on trees                  yet the tomato is used
or shrubs                         plentifully in savoury cooking


synthetic                          synthetic
a priori                           a posteriori
■, ▲                                   in light of the given examples
(geometry)                        in the realm of the analytical
and the propositions       a priori: that fruits grow on
that come with                 trees or bushes
them:                                  there's the pineapple
e.g. c² = a² + b²                   anomaly:
or physics:                         pineapples grow on the ground
e = mc²                                (in the ground) like cabbage-heads
                                            grow in much the same fashion...

i always struggle with the a posteriori conceptualization...
in the original i wrote as can be seen above...
are tomatoes the byproduct of
analytical a posteriori knowledge?
i.e. they are fruits that are used as vegetables (used,
hell, even treated as such)... because you will not find
a tomato desert as such...
the classification of a tomato as a fruit:
given how it grows... would also invoke the cucumber
to be treated as a vegetable:
vegetables are not as juicy as fruits...
the flesh of the fruit is usually softer and certainly
more juicy... while the flesh of the vegetable
is more bulky and requires cooking and salt
to extract the juices oh a higher carbohydrate
concentrate of the fibrous nature...

pineapples... a fruit that grows like a vegetable
in the earth...
i like this "confusion" in my head...
i'm not going to clarify it...
            i leave this curiosity in my writing on purpose...
analytical a posteriori facts:
well... first having categorised the tomato as a fruit:
upon analysis... true: the tomato behaves like
a fruit... but upon analysis: after the fact:
it is better used as a vegetable...

         and the synthetic a posteriori truth about
the pineapple? then again: i know where i might be going wrong...
isn't synthetic a posteriori knowledge possible?
it's not as simple as the pineapple example
based on: fruits grow on trees while vegetables grow in
the earth... i can only find questions
on the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge...
ergo? of course synthetic a posteriori knowledge
is possible...
    it's ingrained in chemistry...
what does synthetic a posteriori knowledge look like?

a chemist tastes a lemon... and he tries to replicate
the taste of lemon using chemicals...
he breaks down the chemistry of the lemon...
and? with due course... replicates the taste of lemon
without actually using a lemon!
he breaks the lemon to the basic components
of citric acids and whatever else is needed to replicate
the taste of lemon and grind it into a powder:
chemistry is synthetic a posteriori knowledge...
isn't it?

the examples i cited with the pineapples:
it doesn't matter that the pineapple behaves like
a vegetable when it grows...
apart from that sick idea of a Hawaiian pizza toppings...
pineapple? ham?! you what?!
that's not synthetic a posteriori knowledge:
that's just a ******* whim of bad-taste...
there's no actual synthesis of the pineapple growing
as a vegetable and the "ingenuity" of treating
it like a bad idea for a pizza topping...
the tomato: however... is a pristine example
of analytical a posteriori knowledge:
sure... it's categorised as a vegetable...
because of the way it grows... compared to actual vegetables:
but? you wouldn't allow the tomato
to be bitten into like an apple... you wouldn't bake
a tomato cake as you might bake a banana cake...
the analysis concludes: our knowledge of fruits is this...
and we have this vegetable: the tomato
that's a fruit... but it would be better suited
in being used like a vegetable...

synthetic a posteriori does exist... it just doesn't apply
to pineapples for the simply reason that they
grow like vegetables... they're still going to be fruits...
synthetic a posteriori knowledge is chemistry...
it has to exist because a pineapple is
not a synthetic a priori "idea" of TASTE let alone
virtue or however Kant framed it...

ugh... my first day back at Craven Cottage...
little ****** steward: i hate these hierarchies...
it's a petty army of high-viz. jackets...
   i wasn't the supervisor but i had some colts under
my "supervision"... i tried to smooth things over:
i did... in the end i wanted to see Fulham play
Liverpool... i spread the word around:
this is *******... they should have put us inside
the stadium...
   but... the weather was the loveliest and the Thames
was tide-out... two seagulls arguing...
in the shade: this part of London is truly mesmerising...
i love the smell of the Thames with the tide out...
in the shade under these mammoth-esque splendours
of foliage...
hell... i even managed to spot my first KONIK
(little horse)... that's slang for... those ******* that buy
tickets at the regular price... then hang around the stadium
and try to push the tickets at a hyper-inflated price...
the ****** was selling the tickets for £250 for two!
and this was after the first half finished!
i told one of the guys with a radio:
call this in...
                          i had to repeat myself about 3 times
before the management agreed to my concern...
they sent two spare police officers to the person in question...
he almost sold those ******* tickets...
one minute i see him pretend to tie his shoelaces
(he wasn't pretending) - his black cap
disappearing under the bushes... next minute:
wh'ah where?! ****** did a runner...
so he wasn't tying his shoelaces "on a whim":
he was about to do a runner...

                  that's ******* exploitation...
that's like: stealing... capitalism at its worst...
the ingenuity of crime: oh... but it's innocent crime...
it's i buy something for £30 but...
i'll sell it for you for £250...
                             now... it's not antiques! it's not a *******
van Gogh painting that has been lying around
for quite some time... gaining a repertoire and a reputation
as something good, worthwhile:
it's a ******* football match ticket!
hyper-inflation like under the Weimar Republic...
money good as "gold": "gold" as in winter fuel,
timber the new platinum!

after all: there was no real synthetic a priori knowledge:
chemistry is hardly a question of appearance,
water is clear, but so is hydrochloric acid...
what else is clear? sodium hydroxide...
                 chemistry was born from synthetic a posteriori
knowledge...
how many chemical experiments came as a surprise
a sort of anti-Eureka of synthetic a priori knowledge?
champagne springs to mind... lysergic acid comes
to mind: no one was actually trying to find these things...
e.g. they did not come about through analytical
a posteriori knowledge: they arose from
a dimension of the synthetic a posteriori knowledge:
by chance: by accident...

sure... i might be doing a ******-low-skill job right
now: and it is... i'll admit...
it's super **** sometimes:
most of the time my coworkers are either
over-bearing ego-maniacs fixated on hierarchy,
or they're lazy Somali youths...
or just plain-sighted Nimrods...
i sometimes leave my mind to wander...
that when i get the jerks in the feet like
i'm about to fall over... like for bearskin hatted
soldiers on parade...
but i leave my mind to wander:
it's not an insult if it's true...
                  no: when i was a roofer and fiddling
with inanimate things there was more focus
on the work to be done... dealing with people
is a crass differentiation from perfecting how an inanimate
ought to behave under your hands...
to turn a roll of felt into a water-insulated roof
with a roll of fleece and enough tar...
people are different: i'm sort of studying people...
gearing myself to hover in on children in schools...

if Leibniz preferred the profession of librarian
and a private intellectual life of par excellence...
i wouldn't think twice about becoming a primary school
teacher than being a secondary school
teacher of chemistry...
**** me: if drag queen hour is about to be imported
from America: i best (better) step in...
i just imagine: well... unlike a barren woman...
who has no children...
who goes into a profession akin to primary school
teaching... but then i'd arrive...
i know the obvious stereotype to battle:
PEDOHPILE! ha ha...
           Ava Lauren: just my type... plump...
full-bodied... probably the age of my mum by now...
that's my type...
i need something rounded of:
a 5.9 = a 6... just an example...
                
             but i let my mind wander... when roofing
you couldn't leave your mind to wonder...
i could... tell you of the specific scents in certain
underground stations... Baker Street? is that the one
with the Victorian arches, a station under the bridge?
i don't remember...
Putney Bridge is a beautiful station...
but today i took the route:
Romford via train... got off at Stratford... waited for a minute
for the central line...
(i love meditating on the topic of tubes maps...
there are only two important lines
in London... why? based on how many times
they intersect... the Central Line and the Piccadilly
Line... they only intersect at Holborn)...
travelled to Holborn... not sitting...
at each carriage there are these half-seats...
you're leaning back... standing-sitting...
i felt so relaxed... i gave way to the momentum
of the tube...
i was moving backwards and forwards...
head nodding... shoulders doing the mr. plastic-fantastic...
i almost tried to remember the remaining
tension in my body... the grip i had on a bottle
of water and a packet of tortilla wraps...
the rest of me was: freed...

when it comes to scents... that's one thing:
everyone knows it's a stupid idea to change tube
lines at Bank... why? well... Bank it connected
to Monument...
it's a city within a city: a London 2.0... oh oh:
yes it ******* is... never change at Bank...
anyway... as i was relaxing having closed my eyes...
i can tell you where the best sounds of
machinery exist in London?
between Liverpool St. - Bank - and Chancery Lane...
mind you... i cycle the route from time to time...
what's above? is not, what's above...
compared to cycling... this route is like:
watching the original Dune movie...
i'm strapped to a ******* earthworm...
or: being digested by one while listening to
the clag glug and clamour iron biting iron...
i sometimes do the "twirl" of the tube above
ground... just after Aldgate...
i head towards Brick Lane... toward Liverpool St.
prior to reaching Bank St.:

all the Piccadilly Stations between Holborn and
Earl's Court have this sickly sweet stench
about them... it's sickly sweet... it's: sickly sweet...

i remember back in St. Augustine's we had one
female primary school teacher...
some ****** proverb speaks the words:
woe unto you for having to care for the children
of others...
while i'm thinking: that would be a worthwhile challenge...
i don't want any of my own:
the fear of ******* them up more than
i was ****** up wears me down...
at least with the genes of strangers
i can send in an auxiliary covert party of my psyche...
who would i send in? the usual suspects...
Kant, Heidegger, Newton, Ezra Pound...
oh... the list is pretty long...

most probably Rumi hanging around with
Zhuangzi... Ovid and Horace...
ooh... terrible idea to start drinking whiskey
after binge-eating a watermelon...
the burps i'm getting back:
******* postcards from Uan Muhuggiag (Libya)...
i'm seeing camels double the number of their humps!
not good... absolutely no good

burp... ooh... this watermelon will not go down
so good... while i worry about *******
myself come tomorrow morning...
unlike the Red Hot Chilly Peppers singing
the fames of California:
what do i have? i have the countryside of Essex
and the incursions in the concrete staccato
of London... i can mediate this...

              burp: well... at least it's whiskey mingling
with the juices of a watermelon...
i much prefer that to the half-digested acidic
meat of any sort...
                 that's healthy burping and healthy farting
for your...
hmm... investing in children... that's an idea...
i once remarked to a boy in a supermarket:
you know... how a while i thought animals
were incapable of seeing 3D objects
in a 2D canvas: i.e. why wouldn't animals
watch television with men?
today i had a "Fred" pester me for a bite
of my tortilla roll...
i would have given it to him freely:
i wasn't that hungry...
   so i asked his owner: so... what's his diet like?
oh... Fred has had pretty stomach upsets...
he spent the past three days eating mulberries
from a tree...
ooh! i love mulberries: who couldn't be more upset?
the dog or the mulberries?
ugh: these kind of people:
that have their dogs on a ******* vegan diet...
hey! Fred! bite into this tortilla wrap!
i have learned that the food man eats
if also eaten by a dog tastes better:
after it was eaten by man!

o.k., fair enough Fred... you have an owner that
deserves having you: but no children...
i'd put you in the same category as a child...
children, dogs, cats...
things that might stir in man the unusual:
certainly not Darwinistic / genetic investment
that might reduce a man's hormonal balance...
mate... you look at me that dumb-***** eyed way
one more time... let me pat you on the head
like i have... you're coming with me to the land
of eternal tortillas wrapping around chicken
and bacon: there's no "yes" as there's no "no"...

but that's London for you...
            and that's also Essex for you...
i spent an entire day in London?
where did i find those cheap-*** beauties of womanhood?
i didn't find them in London:
i had to travel back to Romford to find...
i sat down to eat a snack bucket in a chicken shop:
three spicy wings, some chips...
mayonnaise and some chilly sauce...
a 7up... £3.50... i enjoyed the meal
and thought about: nothing...
nothing is usually hard to "think" about...
you get into geometry: to prolong your time at pretending
to look "cool"... when eating alone...

i hopped on the bus... watched two hunchbacks
of an elderly couple "manage" their way own:
what cruel fate... the extension of mortality
via science... may i never see myself
that old... reduced to being the child of Atlas...
no... i don't care for the sensibility of secularism
and science...
old age transcends both of these:
it's the reality of old age...
prolonged old age is best renowned
and celebrated by lizards: turtles most in fact...
mammals look weird...
mammals look weird when their life is prolonged:
unnaturally: via the basis of science!

start giving out re-prescriptions to people
with a a faith in science but no hope in hope...
start selling them hopes of eternity...
this materialistic "eternal life": is drawing us closer
to no closure...
there comes a life: there coms a death of said life...
it's not fair to pretend that the inevitiable
is "not" going to happen: it will...
the tyranny of old age...
                  by the standards of the Benelux:
i'm more than willing to bow out...

who knows! i am not willing to simply live
for the awkward presence of strangers
on a basis of anomalies and non-intrusions
of some freaked-up formalities...
to hell with that: i have no evolutionary-existential
plight of  "conscience" that might make me suppose:
on racial grounds: that the human "effort"
will disappear: outright: completely:
sure... chances are... humanity will be governed
by more people willing to ***** cities of death via
the pyramid... people engage in the magic carpet
flights of Islam and pseudo-Islam from regions
akin to Somalia and Bangladesh:
my problem? i can't live forever! can i?

et scriptum est...
i like being toyed around as being the idiot...
it helps me grow...
and it was so written...
                ergo? ut necesse sit!
(and so it must be)
  ha ha! ah ha ha h ha ha!
vulnus ferrum:
                  sanguis respiratio
scratch of iron:
breathing blood!
            
mortuus est mori: the dead must die!
vivos debet mori /
vivos non sunt exceptio!

i work among people that make my intellect:
CLOWN!
   i entertain them... i must...
but their intellect is about as much:
grappling as... i don't know what!
i'm out of metaphors and aphorisms...

                        intelligence is discouraged when it comes
to a working environment...
           i'm like Leibniz... i'm unlike Newton...
my ambitions a "cowering" in a personal enterprise...
i like the individualism of m own enterprise:
i don't hope to solve or save the problems of
a common man... nope!
                
last time i heard? the train has arrived:
i also heard: the train is leaving...
well... i'm i geared up:
what do i care for the famines in Ethiopia?!
i don't care for claiming responsibilities for
people who don't take responsibilities for
themselves!
starve?! **** it... why not?"
oh right... one of the Somali types?!
pretend it's work by hiding behind the bushes?!
ergo? behind the bushes i pretend to shower you
with free bread and pork? don't like pork?
eat dirt instead!

i'm done: free-loaders: i'm done with them...
i'm so ******* with these Somalis that you can't even begin to comprehend!
Continue reading...
Anna Lætitia Barbauld
A Summer Evening's Meditation
TIS past ! The sultry tyrant of the south
Has spent his short-liv'd rage ; more grateful hours
Move silent on; the skies no more repel
The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams
Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye
To wander o'er their sphere ; where hung aloft
DIAN's bright crescent, like a silver bow
New strung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns

Impatient for the night, and seems to push
Her brother down the sky. Fair VENUS shines
Even in the eye of day ; with sweetest beam
Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood
Of soften'd radiance from her dewy locks.
The shadows spread apace ; while meeken'd Eve
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Thro' the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day. 'Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc'd woods, where wrapt in solid shade
She mused away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun,
Moves forward ; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave swell'd by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether

One boundless blaze ; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye
Restless, and dazzled wanders unconfin'd
O'er all this field of glories : spacious field !
And worthy of the master : he, whose hand
With hieroglyphics older than the Nile,
Inscrib'd the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze, and said, adore, O man !
The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill'd ? these friendly lamps,
For ever streaming o'er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres !
And silent as the foot of time, fulfil
Their destin'd courses : Nature's self is hush'd,
And, but a scatter'd leaf, which rustles thro'
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard

To break the midnight air ; tho' the rais'd ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise !
But are they silent all ? or is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise ; nor wooes in vain :
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank ;
An embryo GOD ; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,
(Fair transitory creature of a day !)
Has clos'd his golden eye, and wrapt in shades
Forgets his wonted journey thro' the east.

Ye citadels of light, and seats of GODS !
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul

Revolving periods past, may oft look back
With recollected tenderness, on all
The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep laid projects and its strange events,
As on some fond and doating tale that sooth'd
Her infant hours ; O be it lawful now
To tread the hallow'd circles of your courts,
And with mute wonder and delighted awe
Approach your burning confines. Seiz'd in thought
On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail,
From the green borders of the peopled earth,
And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant;
From solitary Mars ; from the vast orb
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
Where chearless Saturn 'midst her watry moons
Girt with a lucid zone, majestic sits

In gloomy grandeur ; like an exil'd queen
Amongst her weeping handmaids: fearless thence
I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
Of elder beam ; which ask no leave to shine
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
From the proud regent of our scanty day ;
Sons of the morning, first born of creation,
And only less than him who marks their track,
And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
Or is there aught beyond ? What hand unseen
Impels me onward thro' the glowing orbs
Of inhabitable nature ; far remote,
To the dread confines of eternal night,
To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,
The desarts of creation, wide and wild ;
Where embryo systems and unkindled suns
Sleep in the womb of chaos; fancy droops,

And thought astonish'd stops her bold career.
But oh thou mighty mind ! whose powerful word
Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were,
Where shall I seek thy presence ? how unblam'd
Invoke thy dread perfection ?
Have the broad eye-lids of the morn beheld thee ?
Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion
Support thy throne ? O look with pity down
On erring guilty man ; not in thy names
Of terrour clad ; not with those thunders arm'd
That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall'd
The scatter'd tribes; thou hast a gentler voice,
That whispers comfort to the swelling heart,
Abash'd, yet longing to behold her Maker.

But now my soul unus'd tostretch her powers
In flight so daring, drops her weary wing,
And seeks again the known accustom'd spot,

Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams,
A mansion fair and spacious for its guest,
And full replete with wonders. Let me here
Content and grateful, wait th' appointed time
And ripen for the skies: the hour will come
When all these splendours bursting on my sight
Shall stand unveil'd, and to my ravished sense
Unlock the glories of the world unknown.
Continue reading...
Homer
The Odyssey: Book 07
Thus, then, did Ulysses wait and pray; but the girl drove on to
the town. When she reached her father’s house she drew up at the
gateway, and her brothers—comely as the gods—gathered round her,
took the mules out of the waggon, and carried the clothes into the
house, while she went to her own room, where an old servant,
Eurymedusa of Apeira, lit the fire for her. This old woman had been
brought by sea from Apeira, and had been chosen as a prize for
Alcinous because he was king over the Phaecians, and the people obeyed
him as though he were a god. She had been nurse to Nausicaa, and had
now lit the fire for her, and brought her supper for her into her
own room.
  Presently Ulysses got up to go towards the town; and Minerva shed
a thick mist all round him to hide him in case any of the proud
Phaecians who met him should be rude to him, or ask him who he was.
Then, as he was just entering the town, she came towards him in the
likeness of a little girl carrying a pitcher. She stood right in front
of him, and Ulysses said:
  “My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king
Alcinous? I am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know
one in your town and country.”
  Then Minerva said, “Yes, father stranger, I will show you the
house you want, for Alcinous lives quite close to my own father. I
will go before you and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and
do not look at any man, nor ask him questions; for the people here
cannot abide strangers, and do not like men who come from some other
place. They are a sea-faring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of
Neptune in ships that glide along like thought, or as a bird in the
air.”
  On this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps; but
not one of the Phaecians could see him as he passed through the city
in the midst of them; for the great goddess Minerva in her good will
towards him had hidden him in a thick cloud of darkness. He admired
their harbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of
the city, which, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking,
and when they reached the king’s house Minerva said:
  “This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show
you. You will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do
not be afraid; go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely
he is to carry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the
queen. Her name is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her
husband Alcinous. They both descend originally from Neptune, who was
father to Nausithous by Periboea, a woman of great beauty. Periboea
was the youngest daughter of Eurymedon, who at one time reigned over
the giants, but he ruined his ill-fated people and lost his own life
to boot.
  “Neptune, however, lay with his daughter, and she had a son by
him, the great Nausithous, who reigned over the Phaecians.
Nausithous had two sons Rhexenor and Alcinous; Apollo killed the first
of them while he was still a bridegroom and without male issue; but he
left a daughter Arete, whom Alcinous married, and honours as no
other woman is honoured of all those that keep house along with
their husbands.
  “Thus she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her
children, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look
upon her as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city,
for she is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart, and when
any women are friends of hers, she will help their husbands also to
settle their disputes. If you can gain her good will, you may have
every hope of seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to
your home and country.”
  Then Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. She went to
Marathon and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered
the abode of Erechtheus; but Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous,
and he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the
threshold of bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that
of the sun or moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end
to end, and the cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and
hung on pillars of silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while
the lintel was silver and the hook of the door was of gold.
  On either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan,
with his consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch
over the palace of king Alcinous; so they were immortal and could
never grow old. Seats were ranged all along the wall, here and there
from one end to the other, with coverings of fine woven work which the
women of the house had made. Here the chief persons of the Phaecians
used to sit and eat and drink, for there was abundance at all seasons;
and there were golden figures of young men with lighted torches in
their hands, raised on pedestals, to give light by night to those
who were at table. There are fifty maid servants in the house, some of
whom are always grinding rich yellow grain at the mill, while others
work at the loom, or sit and spin, and their shuttles go, backwards
and forwards like the fluttering of aspen leaves, while the linen is
so closely woven that it will turn oil. As the Phaecians are the
best sailors in the world, so their women excel all others in weaving,
for Minerva has taught them all manner of useful arts, and they are
very intelligent.
  Outside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of about
four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful trees-
pears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are luscious
figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor fail
all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so
soft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows
on pear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the
grapes, for there is an excellent vineyard: on the level ground of a
part of this, the grapes are being made into raisins; in another
part they are being gathered; some are being trodden in the wine tubs,
others further on have shed their blossom and are beginning to show
fruit, others again are just changing colour. In the furthest part
of the ground there are beautifully arranged beds of flowers that
are in bloom all the year round. Two streams go through it, the one
turned in ducts throughout the whole garden, while the other is
carried under the ground of the outer court to the house itself, and
the town’s people draw water from it. Such, then, were the
splendours with which the gods had endowed the house of king Alcinous.
  So here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when
he had looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the
precincts of the house. There he found all the chief people among
the Phaecians making their drink-offerings to Mercury, which they
always did the last thing before going away for the night. He went
straight through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness in
which Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King
Alcinous; then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at
that moment the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became
visible. Every one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there,
but Ulysses began at once with his petition.
  “Queen Arete,” he exclaimed, “daughter of great Rhexenor, in my
distress I humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests
(whom may heaven prosper with long life and happiness, and may they
leave their possessions to their children, and all the honours
conferred upon them by the state) to help me home to my own country as
soon as possible; for I have been long in trouble and away from my
friends.”
  Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held
their peace, till presently the old hero Echeneus, who was an
excellent speaker and an elder among the Phaeacians, plainly and in
all honesty addressed them thus:
  “Alcinous,” said he, “it is not creditable to you that a stranger
should be seen sitting among the ashes of your hearth; every one is
waiting to hear what you are about to say; tell him, then, to rise and
take a seat on a stool inlaid with silver, and bid your servants mix
some wine and water that we may make a drink-offering to Jove the lord
of thunder, who takes all well-disposed suppliants under his
protection; and let the housekeeper give him some supper, of
whatever there may be in the house.”
  When Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him
from the hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had
been sitting beside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant
then brought him water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a
silver basin for him to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table
beside him; an upper servant brought him bread and offered him many
good things of what there was in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank.
Then Alcinous said to one of the servants, “Pontonous, mix a cup of
wine and hand it round that we may make drink-offerings to Jove the
lord of thunder, who is the protector of all well-disposed
suppliants.”
  Pontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after
giving every man his drink-offering. When they had made their
offerings, and had drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said:
  “Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You
have had your supper, so now go home to bed. To-morrow morning I shall
invite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a
sacrificial banquet in honour of our guest; we can then discuss the
question of his escort, and consider how we may at once send him
back rejoicing to his own country without trouble or inconvenience
to himself, no matter how distant it may be. We must see that he comes
to no harm while on his homeward journey, but when he is once at
home he will have to take the luck he was born with for better or
worse like other people. It is possible, however, that the stranger is
one of the immortals who has come down from heaven to visit us; but in
this case the gods are departing from their usual practice, for
hitherto they have made themselves perfectly clear to us when we
have been offering them hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts
just like one of our selves, and if any solitary wayfarer happens to
stumble upon some one or other of them, they affect no concealment,
for we are as near of kin to the gods as the Cyclopes and the savage
giants are.”
  Then Ulysses said: “Pray, Alcinous, do not take any such notion into
your head. I have nothing of the immortal about me, neither in body
nor mind, and most resemble those among you who are the most
afflicted. Indeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit
to lay upon me, you would say that I was still worse off than they
are. Nevertheless, let me sup in spite of sorrow, for an empty stomach
is a very importunate thing, and thrusts itself on a man’s notice no
matter how dire is his distress. I am in great trouble, yet it insists
that I shall eat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows
and dwell only on the due replenishing of itself. As for yourselves,
do as you propose, and at break of day set about helping me to get
home. I shall be content to die if I may first once more behold my
property, my bondsmen, and all the greatness of my house.”
  Thus did he speak. Every one approved his saying, and agreed that he
should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Then when
they had made their drink-offerings, and had drunk each as much as
he was minded they went home to bed every man in his own abode,
leaving Ulysses in the cloister with Arete and Alcinous while the
servants were taking the things away after supper. Arete was the first
to speak, for she recognized the shirt, cloak, and good clothes that
Ulysses was wearing, as the work of herself and of her maids; so she
said, “Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I
should like to ask you. Who, and whence are you, and who gave you
those clothes? Did you not say you had come here from beyond the sea?”
  And Ulysses answered, “It would be a long story Madam, were I to
relate in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven
has been laid heavy upon me; but as regards your question, there is an
island far away in the sea which is called ‘the Ogygian.’ Here
dwells the cunning and powerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas.
She lives by herself far from all neighbours human or divine. Fortune,
however, me to her hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my
ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in mid-ocean. My brave
comrades were drowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and
was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till at
last during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the
Ogygian island where the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in
and treated me with the utmost kindness; indeed she wanted to make
me immortal that I might never grow old, but she could not persuade me
to let her do so.
  “I stayed with Calypso seven years straight on end, and watered
the good clothes she gave me with my tears during the whole time;
but at last when the eighth year came round she bade me depart of
her own free will, either because Jove had told her she must, or
because she had changed her mind. She sent me from her island on a
raft, which she provisioned with abundance of bread and wine. Moreover
she gave me good stout clothing, and sent me a wind that blew both
warm and fair. Days seven and ten did I sail over the sea, and on
the eighteenth I caught sight of the first outlines of the mountains
upon your coast—and glad indeed was I to set eyes upon them.
Nevertheless there was still much trouble in store for me, for at this
point Neptune would let me go no further, and raised a great storm
against me; the sea was so terribly high that I could no longer keep
to my raft, which went to pieces under the fury of the gale, and I had
to swim for it, till wind and current brought me to your shores.
  “There I tried to land, but could not, for it was a bad place and
the waves dashed me against the rocks, so I again took to the sea
and swam on till I came to a river that seemed the most likely landing
place, for there were no rocks and it was sheltered from the wind.
Here, then, I got out of the water and gathered my senses together
again. Night was coming on, so I left the river, and went into a
thicket, where I covered myself all over with leaves, and presently
heaven sent me off into a very deep sleep. Sick and sorry as I was I
slept among the leaves all night, and through the next day till
afternoon, when I woke as the sun was westering, and saw your
daughter’s maid servants playing upon the beach, and your daughter
among them looking like a goddess. I besought her aid, and she
proved to be of an excellent disposition, much more so than could be
expected from so young a person—for young people are apt to be
thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine, and when she had
had me washed in the river she also gave me the clothes in which you
see me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to do so, I have
told you the whole truth.”
  Then Alcinous said, “Stranger, it was very wrong of my daughter
not to bring you on at once to my house along with the maids, seeing
that she was the first person whose aid you asked.”
  “Pray do not scold her,” replied Ulysses; “she is not to blame.
She did tell me to follow along with the maids, but I was ashamed
and afraid, for I thought you might perhaps be displeased if you saw
me. Every human being is sometimes a little suspicious and irritable.”
  “Stranger,” replied Alcinous, “I am not the kind of man to get angry
about nothing; it is always better to be reasonable; but by Father
Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, now that I see what kind of person you are,
and how much you think as I do, I wish you would stay here, marry my
daughter, and become my son-in-law. If you will stay I will give you a
house and an estate, but no one (heaven forbi
Continue reading...
Stephanie Cynthia Jun 2013
(Other) Sonnets to 'Immortal'
From the kingdom of death thou wildly run,
as though to die not; as though all shall be fun.
Even though thou might not be as fine as mine,
And hesitate once not, like many other minds.
Under the staggering sun thou art the sun itself;
Unlike the universe any mortal shall never have.
To thee but heaven shall never be adequate,
To thee whom fate shall not mind; but dare not ever bend.
Thou, who deemeth everything is futile and late;
Thou, who hath neither words nor poetry in thy hand.
Thou art at times like a piece of youthful innocent art,
Which amorous feeble hands long to tear apart.
Like a flower t'at grows on the window behind the curtain,
Thou shall return to youth, and be younger-every now and then;
For with thy playfulness thou shall bitterly mock Determination;
Whilst thy childishness shall help thee dream of, and silently miss Salvation.

And whenst all t'is business is to say goodbye;
Thou shall still stay, forever and never die.
For thou art undead, and forever and ever immortal,
No stab canst wound thee, as no torpid wound of thine fatal.
Thou art a fatal prince-yes, a wicked, wicked heir;
Heir of cheerfulness-of a soul so full of spirits yet fairness.
Ah! And so thus thou shall leave behind not t'is worldly affair,
Thou shall be eternally bent upon it, and makest of it, thy happiness.
And when at the very end, all dead souls should awaken and retaliate,
Thou shall stay calmly and twitch not by heaven's wooden gate.
Thy agelessness is a mirage no blunt living soul can afford;
Thou art infallible, unlike the decrees of our dear Lord,
For thou shall never dwell among a thousand earths
And be lain among lilies and roses yonder, of irrevocable green hearth.
Thou art, in any midst of grievousness, cold with mirth;
When there is no more born thou art blessed with anew, birth.

Thus thou art forever unsinned, and shall be so gullible;
Thou art an adult inside; 'spite appearing so weak and feeble.
People canst, by thy comely appearance, fall deaf and misunderstand,
Thinking thee a ruddy friend; a robust and sincere fellow.
But thou art indeed, and in truth-a witty and good-hearted man,
As bold and ever unhesitant, but caring and good-willed, as tomorrow.
Thy naivety thus fights against, and befalls any mercilessness,
Thy delight is but our timid society's frank joyfulness.
And every song is benignly rooted in the delicacy of thy tongue,
To whom thy streams of love, as well as hate, shall belong.
But again, more and more loving hearts shall complain-
For when they fade and ought to disappear; thou shall firmly remain.
And duly thou defeat for evermore any tainted miserable heart,
Especially hearts that hath no beat when they supposedly beat, and are alive.
For thy heart is as fresh, and inevitable-like a solitary work of art,
But innocent and intelligent-like a young sword; or the neat blade, of a cold knife.

So whatever love claims to be love-which is too proud, though clear and sanguine;
Is not at all, or by any chance-pure, tolerable, nor delightfully keen;
For love is not the same as pleasure-as pleasure is not love,
Love is the one no senses canst touch-nor for pride move.
Ah, thee, we canst but teach thee more lessons of love itself;
For there are more than our anxious souls canst tell;
Love is not something t'at canst one satisfy, nor is for one to drink;
For any to satisfy or drink is yon that makes oneself sink.
I figurest above are imminent to thy knowing;
For thou shall still mature more; and be independent in thy living.
For family is still more essential than any money or gold;
To which we humans oftentimes too sternly hold.
Ah, but thy journey is still upwards and steep as a hill;
An endlessness our mortality is but too scared to feel.
So be wise and fill thyself with rich wisdom likewise;
And as thy findeth bitterness on due roads-turn to poetry, and seek its advice.

And so to thee hath a world of supremacy be assigned,
So thus I entreat-t'at be with thee all the reciprocal goodness-and dexterity!
Ah, and by thy cleverness shall all be mutually aligned,
For naive thou art still, about the very course of extremity!
But severity shall not burden thee, as to thy endurance and good will,
Thy willingness to share, and rely and lean on how such fellows feel.
Thou refilleth 'em always, with endless and plentiful splendours,
Thou cheereth 'eir minutes, and stay comely at all 'eir breathing hours.
As every single day's dates themselves, thou art undeniable;
Thou art real in thy eternity, though sometimes unbelievable;
Thou art worth all the bogs who are so merrily singing-
Thou art so graceful, thou art everything!
As in both reality and dreams thou art present,
Thou who art obscure; but coincidentally, sharp and inherent!
Ah, thee, thus I hope t'at every poem-such as t'is, shall make thee even more truthful;
For poetry itself is relief; and our most reliable urge to be brave, and thoughtful.
Continue reading...
William Cullen Bryant
A Winter Piece
The time has been that these wild solitudes,
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me
Oftener than now; and when the ills of life
Had chafed my spirit--when the unsteady pulse
Beat with strange flutterings--I would wander forth
And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path
Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills,
The quiet dells retiring far between,
With gentle invitation to explore
Their windings, were a calm society
That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant
Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress
Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget
The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began
To gather simples by the fountain's brink,
And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood
In nature's loneliness, I was with one
With whom I early grew familiar, one
Who never had a frown for me, whose voice
Never rebuked me for the hours I stole
From cares I loved not, but of which the world
Deems highest, to converse with her. When shrieked
The bleak November winds, and smote the woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades,
That met above the merry rivulet,
Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still,--they seemed
Like old companions in adversity.
Still there was beauty in my walks; the brook,
Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay
As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar,
The village with its spires, the path of streams,
And dim receding valleys, hid before
By interposing trees, lay visible
Through the bare grove, and my familiar haunts
Seemed new to me. Nor was I slow to come
Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts,
Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow,
And all was white. The pure keen air abroad,
Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard
Love-call of bird, nor merry hum of bee,
Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept
Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds,
That lay along the boughs, instinct with life,
Patient, and waiting the soft breath of Spring,
Feared not the piercing spirit of the North.
The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough,
And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent
Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry
A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves,
The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow
The rabbit sprang away. The lighter track
Of fox, and the racoon's broad path, were there,
Crossing each other. From his hollow tree,
The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts
Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway
Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold.

  But Winter has yet brighter scenes,--he boasts
Splendours beyond what gorgeous Summer knows;
Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods
All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains
Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice;
While the slant sun of February pours
Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops,
That stream with rainbow radiance as they move.
But round the parent stem the long low boughs
Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbours hide
The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot
The spacious cavern of some ****** mine,
Deep in the womb of earth--where the gems grow,
And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud
With amethyst and topaz--and the place
Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam
That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall
Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night,
And fades not in the glory of the sun;--
Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts
And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles
Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost
Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye,--
Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault;
There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud
Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams
Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose,
And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air,
And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light;
Light without shade. But all shall pass away
With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks,
Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound
Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve
Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont.

  And it is pleasant, when the noisy streams
Are just set free, and milder suns melt off
The plashy snow, save only the firm drift
In the deep glen or the close shade of pines,--
'Tis pleasant to behold the wreaths of smoke
Roll up among the maples of the hill,
Where the shrill sound of youthful voices wakes
The shriller echo, as the clear pure lymph,
That from the wounded trees, in twinkling drops,
Falls, mid the golden brightness of the morn,
Is gathered in with brimming pails, and oft,
Wielded by sturdy hands, the stroke of axe
Makes the woods ring. Along the quiet air,
Come and float calmly off the soft light clouds,
Such as you see in summer, and the winds
Scarce stir the branches. Lodged in sunny cleft,
Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone
The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at--
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves
With unexpected beauty, for the time
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar.
And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall oft
Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds
Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen earth
Shall fall their volleyed stores rounded like hail,
And white like snow, and the loud North again
Shall buffet the vexed forest in his rage.
Continue reading...
William Cullen Bryant
A Walk At Sunset
When insect wings are glistening in the beam
    Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
  Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream,
    Wander amid the mild and mellow light;
And while the wood-thrush pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day.

  Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now
    Goest down in glory! ever beautiful
  And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou
    Colourest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool,
Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high
Climbest and streamest thy white splendours from mid-sky.

  Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair,
    Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
  That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
    Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.
Then softest gales are breathed, and softest heard
The plaining voice of streams, and pensive note of bird.

  They who here roamed, of yore, the forest wide,
    Felt, by such charm, their simple bosoms won;
  They deemed their quivered warrior, when he died,
    Went to bright isles beneath the setting sun;
Where winds are aye at peace, and skies are fair,
And purple-skirted clouds curtain the crimson air.

  So, with the glories of the dying day,
    Its thousand trembling lights and changing hues,
  The memory of the brave who passed away
    Tenderly mingled;--fitting hour to muse
On such grave theme, and sweet the dream that shed
Brightness and beauty round the destiny of the dead.

  For ages, on the silent forests here,
    Thy beams did fall before the red man came
  To dwell beneath them; in their shade the deer
    Fed, and feared not the arrow's deadly aim.
Nor tree was felled, in all that world of woods,
Save by the ******'s tooth, or winds, or rush of floods.

  Then came the hunter tribes, and thou didst look,
    For ages, on their deeds in the hard chase,
  And well-fought wars; green sod and silver brook
    Took the first stain of blood; before thy face
The warrior generations came and passed,
And glory was laid up for many an age to last.

  Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze
    Goes down the west, while night is pressing on,
  And with them the old tale of better days,
    And trophies of remembered power, are gone.
Yon field that gives the harvest, where the plough
Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story now.

  I stand upon their ashes in thy beam,
    The offspring of another race, I stand,
  Beside a stream they loved, this valley stream;
    And where the night-fire of the quivered band
Showed the gray oak by fits, and war-song rung,
I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new tongue.

  Farewell! but thou shalt come again--thy light
    Must shine on other changes, and behold
  The place of the thronged city still as night--
    States fallen--new empires built upon the old--
But never shalt thou see these realms again
Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by savage men.
Continue reading...
Marshal Gebbie Jul 2014
A Taste of India
The sanguine shades of India
Flow in mantras through my mind
In hashish tones sienna brown
To ochre greens, I find.
The soaring slopes of massif peak
And roaring waterfall
Lead to tranquil rhododendron glades
Capped in scarlet, I recall.

The clamour of the market place
The grimy squalor found
In the gutters on the roadway
With a constant wall of sound,
In the bartering for spices, red
In wicker baskets wide
With the stench of open sewer
Causing queasiness inside.

Dustiness of sandaled feet
Robes of saffron gold
And the gleaming glow of polished bronze
To purchase, should  you hold.
Patterned carpets lay displayed
In jute and woollen blend
Whilst ancient hands on simple loom
Weave more for you to spend.

Ullulation in the air
As turbaned dancers spin
To shrilling ethnic instrument
With drumbeat adding din.
Wild eyed watchers flashing teeth
As rhythms beat the air
Encircled by a chanting crowd
With temperament at flair.

Thronging people fill the lanes
Churning on their way
Interspersed with sacred cow
Meandering to hay.
Children flock with outstretched palm
Surging as they do
Insistently to foreign purse
In urgency that grew.

The sea of dark skinned faces
Mid flashing whites of eyes
An intensity of gaze that takes
You jarringly by surprise
And everywhere the pungency
Of the continent in the air
With the spicey taste of curry
And a chutneyed rice as fare.

But in speaking to the people
I found their manner warm
And their love for caste and custom
And their cricket team was worn
Like a flag around the shoulders,
Like a talisman, so proud,
And their love for home and family
Reiterated, long and loud.

Overhead, the baking heat
Occasionally relieved
By a downpour of monsoonal rain
Must be seen to be believed.
And the total inundation
Of believers on the stair
Of the teeming seeking holiness
In the river Ganges there.

And then as quickly as I came here
It became the time to leave
And the wonders of diversity
Were beyond what I believed.
What was once a frank abhorrence
Grew surreptitiously on me
The splendours of this mystic place
Well deserve their sanctity.

Now far across the oceans
In my safe and sterile land
I am drawn to stare to seaward
To recall my thoughts at hand,
Out across the sprawling delta
Gazing far to sunset sea,
That special taste of India
Flows irrevocably, back to me.

Marshalg
13 July 2014
Continue reading...
William Cullen Bryant
Autumn Woods
Ere, in the northern gale,
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
     Have put their glory on.

     The mountains that infold,
In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round,
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,
     That guard the enchanted ground.

     I roam the woods that crown
The upland, where the mingled splendours glow,
Where the gay company of trees look down
     On the green fields below.

     My steps are not alone
In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at play,
Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown
     Along the winding way.

     And far in heaven, the while,
The sun, that sends that gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,--
     The sweetest of the year.

     Where now the solemn shade,
Verdure and gloom where many branches meet;
So grateful, when the noon of summer made
     The valleys sick with heat?

     Let in through all the trees
Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright?
Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze,
     Twinkles, like beams of light.

     The rivulet, late unseen,
Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run,
Shines with the image of its golden screen,
     And glimmerings of the sun.

     But 'neath yon crimson tree,
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
     Her blush of maiden shame.

     Oh, Autumn! why so soon
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad;
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon,
     And leave thee wild and sad!

     Ah! 'twere a lot too blessed
For ever in thy coloured shades to stray;
Amid the kisses of the soft south-west
     To rove and dream for aye;

     And leave the vain low strife
That makes men mad--the tug for wealth and power,
The passions and the cares that wither life,
     And waste its little hour.
Continue reading...
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2020
Anecdotes of an Ageing Postman
Jottings from David Bagerow's "Quickie"

Shame on she, the selfless *****
Who caused your temperature to fire,
caressed your sandy, sweated brow
To rivers of desire,
Tho she fled at poignant time
To leave you in the lurch.
Best you weave your magic touch
And promise her, the church.
Then woo her and caress her
In your happy, carefree way
Then at that moment of exultance,
Laugh and run away.

David Lessar's "To an Unread Poet"

Dave, You are right ,of course, once committed you raise an expectation and once that expectation is released to the world you are obliged to maintain face...but that damnable thing called "Life" intervenes and totally stuffs up the programme. Take the current interlude of coronavirus...the whole world has been taken by the scruff of the neck and jammed, inconveniently and complaining, into seclusion, all systems ground to a halt, production lines vacated, malls and city centres deserted, blown newspaper cascading across the deserted pavement...a testament to mans ultimate frailty when his house of cards collapses, without a whimper.
So you see, as life intervenes...we are excused from maintaining face.
But fear not, like McArthur, we shall return.
Cheers mate M.

Fawn's "Happy Trails"

Were it not the touch profound
That doth caress my feathered ear
Would thou wish a thousandfold
That I should shed a tear?

A glistened tear suspended there
in iridescent light,
While you, my love, with parted lips
Await, the ruby night.

Victoria's "Wherefore Art Thou"

Strides, he does, through corridors of lust bound lessers,
through forests of small penised dwarfs, through canyons of would be's who could be.....just to countenance the promise within your words....Dear Vix!

Terry O'Leary's "Sweet Butterfly"

You enter the portals of entomology where bugs, flies,butterflies and moths are the true rulers of the planet.
A world vastly magnified by compound eyes, of lightening lifetimes and vivid, saturated colour. A world where life and death are synonomous with the culmination of a single ****** union and the reproduction of a batch of precious pearly eggs. Yea Brother thee hath entered the portal...rejoice!
M.

Fun with Terry O'Leary

"Buried in the Sand" by Terry O’Leary

A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.

He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.

The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

"A Rebuttal" by Marshalg

So Hood lied low, despite the show ensueing without help,
One would have thought a British sort would spring forth with a yelp!

Would spring ***** to help deflect contusions which occurred
When beggar Clump adorned the dump confusing all deferred.

Whilst sister Ant, attired in scant, ran forth on spindly legs
And brother Frog with shaggy dog said "****" and drank the dregs.

It all became too much, as such, a meelee did ensue,
So all called HALT and as one did BOLT...to the local for a brew!

Phew...that was FUN & hard work!
M.

Singing the Devil's Song*

There is no Makers formula
This life depends on chance,
The way you play your given cards
Depicts your daily dance.

Oh dogma flows in utterance
From pulpits far and wide
From those who claim to understand
Eternity's vast hide.
From those who hold damnation
As a weapon from on high,
From those who claim a judgement
As their finger points to sky.
The good, the bad are absolute,
The right bedevils wrong,
Redeemed shall live eternally
The bad shall singe for long.

Old men stand in pulpits
Across this Sunday's land
To threaten with damnation
If you should cross God's hand.
"Belief" is now their catchword
Abomination's wrong
Is to seek to proffer proof of claim
....to Sing the Devil's Song.

So gather all ye faithfull
Go listen to your man,
Sing the Gospel loud and long
And pay your tithe, as planned.
...But should you find you're dying
From cancer's frozen claw
And the the Godly fail to sweep you
To eternity's gold door?
Remember my clear message
Your life depends on chance,
You live within your own good sphere
....There is no Maker's Dance.

Marshalg
After an overdose of Pulpit hogwash.
10 March 2013

Singing the Song of Angels:
A Response to Marshal Gebbie's "Singing the Devil's Song"
By Luca Anselm
There’s a church in the city with pillars of stone
And windows like sea-glass, still and alone,
A fountain, and cloisters of ivy, away
From the noise of the street, and the hum of the day.
There my father would tell me of Christ, how he died
Surrounded by soldiers and thieves, crucified,
How he wept for the women, and fell in the sands,
And loved those who hammered the nails in his hands.  

Marshal, dear poet, you have heard the priests tell
Of a god who left heaven to walk into hell?
Of a god who wept softly for men he had known?
Of a god who dripped blood in a garden alone?
Of a god who sent men with book and with sword
With eyes bright as fire for love of their Lord,
With limbs dressed in black, on altars of stone
By windows of sea-glass, still and alone?

So they give up their lives for a lie, as we say,
And toiled for centuries, long as each day--
And our money built palaces, lofty and tall
With frescoes and candlesticks, gold on the wall--
They preach with words awful and deadly and free,
Of gorgons and hell-fire, worms and the sea,
Of the last day of judgment, and mankind amassed
By the wailing of angels and bright trumpet blasts…

But Marshal, they preach something sweeter and kind--
Of a mother’s soft love, of a father resigned,
Of a still, soft voice, that comes with a light,
And gives hope to the hopeless, and conquers the night.
Of charity, piety, sweetness and love
Like fiery ***-cakes, but soft as a dove,
Spicy as Christmas, solemn and grand--
(Like throne-rooms or magic or the roar of the strand)
Then you wake, and the house smells of peppermint-pine,
And a child is laid in the crèche, now a shrine.  

And all that I long for, dear Marshal, you see,
Are the gold-blooming gardens that soar by the sea,
The mountains and dragons, the prophets and kings
And Icarus falling with fire-fraught wings,
The grey-shifting sea-lanes, the flutter of sails,
Temples on mountaintops, graves in the vales,
And Dido who bleeds from her breast as she cries
For her Love, and stares helplessly into the skies.
But more than the shadows of worlds that might be
Of fairies or phantoms or rocks by the sea,
Dear Marshal, I long for who made me a man.
And would love and give glory as best as I can.

But these days oh! sad days, the loss and the shame
In which all of my loveliness falls into flame--
Where gardens have withered, and sails have been furled,
And kings plodded off in the dust of the world.
Our cities rise higher, and burn through the night
And rear into heaven with noise and with light,
The palisades echo with horns and sound
And the churches with voices and quarrels resound.
But the statues sit silent, and some say they cry
For the shame of the sins against children. Oh! My God, Why?

And those old men—well—they taught me the loveliest things
Of my gardens of gold, and the sunsets of things,
They told me of kindness, and honor, a way
That winds to the West, where the end of the day
Breaks bright like fresh bread, and crimson like wine,
And the sun sets to purple and green in the brine.

And still I remember their words and their songs
And the churches which taught me so well and so long--
Though I’ve turned my head, to the lands where the sun
Will rise again brighter when starlight is spun,
Somewhere fresher and pale, where the cold and the air
Spreads the dew like a lawn paved of crystal, and there,
In the meadows of silver, with light in my eyes,
I will honor my god in the dome of the skies.

Marshal Gebbie's poem "Singing the Devil's Song" inspired this. It's in anapestic tetrameter, for you metric buffs. If you haven't, you should absolutely check out Marshal's stuff--it's awesome and poetry-inspiring--seriously amazing. Thanks again, Marshal!

Sepia Sown

Sepia sown as best it can
Where you and I, as one, once ran
Across, beyond a savored sea
Where lust became reality.
Where spiraled lust, entwined, entrenched
Left you gasping, pale, en benched...
a figment of a thought, now lost
Forever..at what cost, what cost?
M.

Addenum to "obituary" by V

So no one notices, at all
When golden greys of aged fall?
Except perhaps, for those who stay
To blend with every ordinary day

Plus you and I as time flies by
And too, those starlings flocking high.
That old man loitering in street,
Who eyes the million passing feet.
And she too at corner store,
Toothless face and wrinkled maw,
Exchanging cigarettes for coin
(With surreptitious scratch of groin).
Mailman, fat, long, loop mustache
Complaining long and rather harsh,
That they, gone, without a word,
Should vanish into air...absurd!

Someone in their every day
Feels the absence in the way
Details don't fall into place
And warmth is absent from the face.
M.

The Kraken Arises

From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILIPPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.

Part of My Job (A love Poem) by Nat Lipstadt

A little embarrassed by all the attention but great to hear from you Sweetheart...all fine and dandy, here...except for being forbidden to go to the beach and the park..and anywhere else except in cases of dire need..(And on punishment of prison time if caught out!)...but hey, I'm not really complaining...All for he common good, aint that right?
M.

Bridges Burnt....

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.
M.
SE Reimer's words float before me in his impassioned poem "Bridges"
allowing me to wallow in this, my own dark tangential refrain.
M.

Perchance, in a Bus Shelter

Here I sit amidst the ruin of a white winters' day
Convulsive rain and harsh wind outside, contribute tumult.
And in here, in this small shelter, there is a tension in the air.

We two sit apart, uncommunicative, remote and quite detached.
Not for any reason other than the fact that we are strangers,
We have never met, nor are we ever likely to.
She has an elegance and a stylish angularity whilst I am bald, bearded, unfashionable and somewhat overweight.
She is singularly indifferent to my presence, whilst I am uncomfortable with the circumstance that placed us in this small proximity.
We would, in truth, rather both be elsewhere.

I break the ice in throwing her a small smile and complain about the weather,
Her eyes flick across my face and immediately resume their distant focus on the rain,
She adjusts her seating to face,ever so slightly, askance.
Her choice of course, to assume an air of indifference or superiority...or adopt a measure of defense..or perhaps a combination of a bit all three.  
Regardless... I wipe my backside in exactly the same manner as does she, I  am definitely no less a person for my dumpy demeanor and friendly overture
And I really feel that I don't have to share my space with coldness and impertinence,
Better, I think, to be wet and content with my own company
..So, donning my cap and jacket, I stride out into the deluge to leave the remote and uncommunicative young woman alone and dry with her thoughts.

And then....
Howling rain and shards of wind
Pelt me as I walk
Along the foreshore wild and white
As hovered seagulls squark.
When all at once she's by my side
Walking pace for pace,
Her linen suit a sodden mess
Hair plastered to her face.

"Thought I ought to make it right"
She told me with a smile
I threw my coat upon her back
And walked another mile.
We called into a coffee shop
And sat down by the fire
And sipped a steaming latte
As she told her story dire,

"The cancer's all but killed me
My husband's left the home,
The baby's gone to mother
And I'm facing death alone."
We quietly spoke for ages
I held her hand in mine
Then suddenly she stood to leave
And thanked me for my time.

I sat there in a stupor
Recalling how it played
And felt the guilt impact on me
For judgements I had made.
Those callow, shallow judgements
Made in ignorance, my friend,
Will haunt me as she girds herself
To boldly meet her end.

Marshalg
On a bleak and blustery cold winters day.
Titirangi
5th September 2010

The Old Café by Steve Yocum

It's my go to place,
has been for years,
The Wildwood Café,
an eclectic tiny place
with a mix of old dinette
tables and mismatched chairs.
the cutlery also unmatched
and well used, old photos
and signs adorn the walls
and there is usually a line
of people waiting patiently
on benches outside.

Best of all there is this pleasant
girl, always wearing a welcoming
smile, who seems to know us all.
She knows my order by heart,
Ham and eggs over medium,
a half ration of potatoes, home baked
slice of bread, well toasted, well buttered,
home made salsa on the side, a cup of
"hot" Black English Tea. Tall water no ice.

If I arrive between the busy times, she may
sit down at my table and we talk a while,
It's not a big thing, just chitchat, I'm old
enough to be her grandfather, it's the
dessert before my meal served with genuine
friendliness and unforced civility, not often
encountered in these strange days and times, it's a slice of small town America at it's purest best, she and folks like her help sustain my belief that basic human decency is far from dead.

The food is always good, but it's the comforting embrace of familiarity and
simple warm kindness that assures my frequent return.
It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those.
written by Steve Yocum

It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those

Marshal Gebbie
  That old world touch suits you Stevo,
When I come visit your beautiful state of Oregon, We shall partake this delightful repast in the company of your fair maid.... and we shall tip her well!
M.

Scoot the Streak
One must believe in something be he misanthrope or gambler
In tomorrows omniscience or the future proof of God
The penance in a drunk's decay sets self destruct's imposer
Wether speaker phone's on disconnect or cellphone's in the bog.

Conveyance of a threat to adherents of St Selfwise
Show atheist's are proof here, in belief of disbelief,
Haunted by the images painting painful retribution
Picture sympathetic **** star's allocated hand relief.

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the caliber we now reserve for Saints
A paradox regarded as autistic fascination
In a one act play of living disregarding all restraints.

Deliberately indicative of fraternal heat's expression
Notebook at the ready and deep frowning at the brow,
Question definition's collage of confusion's contribution
Do we sit it out pretending or just catch the late bus now?

Marshalg
13 February 2014
© 2014 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie
Written by

victoria  Intriguing work...so I search the comments for help... Ah
0
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary  Marshal, I kinda like this (I read it several times since yesterday)... but I'm still not sure what it says... maybe I'll down a shot tonight and try again... ;-)) Terry
0

3 replies

Feb 2014
Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie   A confession Terrance.. I was half cut when I wrote it!
I have no idea what it means.
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   :-)) Great... I'll be back in a bit... T
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   Well, in the meantime I've had a few shots... now I think I know what it means... hic°°.... hope I remember in the morning... ;-)) Terry
Feb 2014

Pradip Chattopadhyay
Residues
By the night one long dark road
the houses are deep in slumber.

Lucky I'm alive and awake,
can see the stars
in their vast magnitude of silence
gentle and not drunk
have love to count upon
filled with a will to live
feeling I'm almost done.

Having a life is a great reward
and with the residues
gets more valuable.

I won't cry over the lost years
would rather think
have been blessed with enough.

The stars grow blurry dots
as I slip into dreams.

I had a once upon place
and I'm grateful.

With dewy eyes
I hurry to the warmest space
beside her.

You slip into your years well, Pradip.
Your woman must relish your peace, your contentment.
Cheers mate
M.


Tony Grannell
Autumn's Sonneteer
Behold, upon yon ivy bunch, my darling blackbird sings;
I know not why nor shall I try to understand such things.
For born this morning on a song, pray hark, her sweet refrain;
to chance a sigh, oh, dare not I, for this is God's domain.

Out of the night the art of song in tuning in the day;
unknowed afore or evermore such music on display.
'Tis love begad, a lover's song, a diva, I declare,
in soaring o'er both vale and moor, this morning's love affair.

In wonder's charm, this precious bird in song to comfort me.
Alone I stroll, no proffered soul to share my company.
Yet rare this morn, in splendours all, true love like none afore;
let passions roll, in song extol, in verse the morn's rapport.

Be succour in such music found for autumn ails me so,
when summer's run, the harvest done, to rest my scythe and ***.
Of idle lands and nowt ado, to wait without employ.
Yet, hail the sun, my kingdom won, when sings that bird of joy.

Behold her charm and charmed, I am while autumn leaves still fall.
'Tis life anew, a sweeter brew when hear the songstress call.
Though winter’s nigh, with strength and will, we’ll bear our pain and fear;
'tis all to do, good hearts and true, sings autumn's sonneteer.

Written by
Tony Grannell  62/M/Spain

Marshal Gebbie  I stood out at the rock wall and gazed at the splendour of Autumn in Taranaki, as I read, aloud, your sonnet.
...and my heart sang.
M.

Dr Peter Lim
When?
When is the when
of when?  
rampant still is the ravage
which will not relent-

the claustrophobic shut-in
hearts toward gloomy moods they bend
no happy voices of kids heard outdoors
the green fields do not comfort lend-

the downcast look, the sinking feeling
are the joys and delights of yesterday years all spent?
the spectre of pain brings bitterest tears
in the faces of every continent-

oh, when is the when
of when?
such a wash-down
we could never comprehend.

Marshal Gebbie:  But isn't that the way, Dr Pete? Mankind builds his castles in the air, thrusts out his chest and proclaims himself, King of all!
...to be decimated, in an instant, by a microbe of infinitesimal stature. Oh! the fragility of it all.
Life cometh, life goeth....but somewhere, down the track, life shall come again.
M.


Al Drood
The Merman of Orford Ness

So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Al Drood
Written by
Al Drood  M/North Yorkshire

Marshal Gebbie:  Tones here of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
An original work in time honoured rhyme and metre.
I devoured every syllable..Bravo!
M.

G Alan Johnson
Kafka's Bug

When I shed the last skin
last year
there was left a hardened shell
protecting a patched up heart
and a petrified husk
of a soul.

You can throw your bombs
if you wish
and they will hurt inside
but I will just eat them
and **** them out
flushed and forgotten.

Sometimes my antennae
come out in a social setting
and people look at me
with an odd expression
or look off into space
a kind of awkward acceptance,
(the ones that know me).

My mandibles will at times
spit out a divine stupidity
a slacker kind of opinion
and no amount of saliva
can dissolve it
so it sits in the heavy air
stinking like a butterfly corpse.

It was an attempt
at transformation
that failed
(I'm too weak with ego),
and I'm glad that I tried
otherwise I would always wonder.

Vincent Price in a cheap suit
and a lost puppy daydream
a world full of flies, wasps and failed caterpillars
patient spiders and polished leeches...
and all I can do is write.
Written by
G Alan Johnson  65/M/USA

Response by Marshal Gebbie

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
Pandemic Poems: Unclaimed bodies, There’s ain’t no anonymity in heaven.

There are more poems inside me, but I intuit it is longer fair to impose on you by sharing more.  The deep seeded infection of my spirit waxes and wanes, and there is no antidote, and unlike the virus itself, there never will be, a future cure, an inexpensive replacement cost for the spirit spent, the time and futures spirited away.

Perhaps you recall I was one mile away from Ground Zero on September 11th.  Rarely do I walk there.

The coronavirus poetry inserts itself unaided, never asking permission, a like minded, but a contra-cousin to the coronavirus.

I live in New York City, the epicenter where now, close to 800 die daily.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on Hart island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives.  In recent days, though, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day.^^

Each dies with no last words, no Kaddish recited, Last Rites, too late, no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah or Om Namo Narayanaya.  Each one, a numbered pine coffin, and each one will have at the very least, a poem of their own, so help me god.

Buried side by side in large trench, room plenty for new arrivals,
I hear the banging, protesting, resisting, this is not the way, I was promised, my ears left pounding!  Hillel, the great scholar in this dream, reminds that “the time is short, and the work is great.”          

He paraphrases, though, “the bodies many, the poems too few.”

There ain’t no anonymity in heaven, but I’ll reconfirm that with you later.

Written by
Nat Lipstadt

Marshal Gebbie
God! It's harrowing to feel the raw spirit in a New York City man's soul.

You speak for the dead, the ailing and the fearful.

You speak for beggar in the street, the broker, quaking in his plenty, imprisoned on the 14th floor.

You speak for the cop, in face mask, on 24th and Vine, doing, as always what he must, with authority.

And you speak for the White Clad Angels who carry the dead to Hart Island and who forgive you, your fear and safer seclusion.

You speak also for we, who watch and sorrow from afar your agony, in our own fear and seclusion.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
raw is the word, oft need to lie down midday to escape the the viral infection of every outlet we use to pass these days. don’t know when i’ll go outside again, because the virus kills and wounds in horrible ways... thank u MG for the kind appreciation natty

Sally A Bayan
Conduits
In distance and in proximity...in despair
and joy...in existing and in dying...in the
bliss of love reciprocated, and in the pain
of love unrequitted...verses dance and call,
awaiting......

poetry has its own pulse, its own heartbeat,
it calls, taps the shoulders any moment,
awake, or adrift, it just can't be ignored...
even in a tangled, or weird circumstance,
it sparks like a bulb or a comet, curving
in a rainbow...riotous some days, teasing, fleeing,
then, turning up at unexpected times and places.

in every bit and breath of life, in every seed,
in every drop of dew, in every ember burning,
there is poetry birthing, growing...

deep within us flows green, purple, red,
glum gray, darkened inspirations...fleeting,
but, when time is ripe, they linger long,
giving us time to capture them all
.............................................
we sense them...we give space
we speak them, or we write them,
:::::::we are conduits:::::::


Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 11, 2020

Marshal Gebbie

  A touch, so light,
So sensitively slight
As to be caress,
In dead of night


Don Bouchard
And then
We become old men
And old women, and

We look back wistfully, and
We look forward hopefully, and

We wonder....


Written by
Don Bouchard  60/M/Minnesota

Marshal Gebbie
  Slipped betwixt the then and now
Methinks, with finger on the brow,
Thee needs a shot of earthy ***
And a wanton ****, to rub your tum.
Thee needs a cheery pick me up,
Some hairy mates to help you sup
Elixir from the joy of life
To salve tomorrows' threat of strife.
Cheers mate M.
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Tommy Randell
From a young man's parlance, tripping from an old man's tongue; Right On, brother, Right On!
Continue reading...
David Barr Jan 2014
Soaked in Diminished Theatrics
Taste the after-glow from a deepening twilight extravaganza of Victorian burlesque.
I am saddened by those Machiavellian splendours of geographical landscapes, which interfere with the dance of spirits between the mystical stones of druidry.
Have you ever tasted cheese from the New Forest?
There is a subtlety of flavours, and I celebrate the orchestra when torrential rain saturates the soul with flash floods of sensuality.
Continue reading...
Rainey Birthwright Dec 2016
Another World
.
In another world
I give smiles come down
From the constant sky,
My breath is sea spray,
My hair a net for you
And the butterfly is kin,
Not larger than me.

In another place
My name, forged with yours,
Set in light of stars,
Blasted about the heavens,
Playful as the otter in winter
And the mountains high,
So small among us.

In another dream
We wake about splendours
So grand, unruly rooks
Disappear before they judge
And all our days, rapt in love
In wove blankets of ocean
So warm because of us.
#girl #boy #wishes #star-crossed
Continue reading...
Kìùra Kabiri Apr 2017
ADAM
Adam, beauty of my splendours’ wake
Adam, gorgeous of my woman's make
Like blended incense of a skilled perfumer-longer lasting
Precious is your every moment’s memory-forever fascinating

Sweet like honey dripping with tastes
Exulting like melodic music to banquet
Exalting as glory of saints sequences
Fragrant like blossoms-blooms to bouquet
You are awesome, Adam, my handsome!

Betwixt your endearing arms embrace
There is no other kingly palace-
In the world, better than being in this place
You are mine ever, fortified fortress!

Your arms enclosures are posh and precious-what a delightful pleasure!
Than all the Royal Palaces in the world- the Palace of Pena,
The Buckingham, the Bellevue, the Palace of Versailles…..
You are my refuge, my strength, within you I am at peace!

Your hugs and kisses are the safest and secure citadel, château!
More than the newly built castle-Castle In Love with the Wind, Conwy Castle
The Château de Chambord or the worldly Windsor Castle, the Edinburgh Castle
Better than the Neuschwanstein or the Alcazar or the Culzean Castle  

On your pleasured chest
What more luxury lusciously nest?
Than this peacefully plumed softs on to rest
On yours is a cozy quilt pillow-purest!  

Adam, I adore you, you are the one for me and I am the one for you!
Like you are never any and if any there are not many but only of you a few
Adam, my strong man, your body is like the vigour of a youthful river flow
Shaped and chiseled finely like Archangel Michael’s-without any a flaw  
Your stamina is of a stallion, raised for the royal loyal knights, princes and kings

You eyes, they burns with allure like summer suns, with calmness and warmth
Your looks alone, burns my cold skin with a warm tenderness and a happy healing health
With you, again, my under skins shivers, vibrates with a new chill feel of elated lively wealth
You build stars for me even when my sky is a sorrowful sea of melancholy and misery

Adam, look at how you build-fascinating, amongst the pride of your elites
Like a cherub injected with alchemies of never getting old but growing younger
Straight and tall you stand-dominant before me conquered, deeply rooted as Lebanon’s cedars
And when me you touch gently o-ooh! It is with soft so tender as river lilies sacred splendours
Adam, you are killing me, skinning me while still I am living, let me first die for you!  

Let me feel your loving lips digging deep into mines meager burning complete even my heart  
Let me first touch those sinews and serrations all over your graceful figurine  
Let me first prostrate, adore you-my king and knight, my warrior and worship!  
Let me fancy you muscle man, a delighting idol of your deity’s outline
Let me a little look in those starry eyes of yours and see my fragility safe in their security

Let me feathery feel weighed in those toddler’s sways and swings of your swift palms lifts
You arms strength drawing all my energies faint, as it goes round my wasp’s waist  
Then you can slay and slice me-**** me subjugated into a humble defeat before you
In whatever way you want and feel best, I am capitulated-your captured and conquered queen!

Adam, before you, you are the coveted master and I am your surrendered slave
Besides you let me leafy feel, little and small dancing on your burly biceps
And my brittle petite bottoms sit safe on top of your large ****’s laps
For you alone are my glorious king-Adam, you send me deep into my craving grave
Stretch and save me from the abyss of my trepidations and temptations-I want you, for good!

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.
Continue reading...
Laura Jul 2018
Who tf am I?
Have I always been
a relentless version of what I seek?
Afterthoughts of what I say,
or ignorant splendours and epiphanies?

Refuge to black ink, a loved ones right arm,
or the everlasting solace of my four walls.
Eager, Anxious, Loving, & Unapologetically
most things they’ve so often feared.

To take advice from the branches,
when the roots are deeper.
To take love from the waves,
that have been set to roll back.

This is not your tree analogy,
or your ship gone afloat.
But I am leaping forward,
and falling backwards.

And it looks all the same from
here.
Continue reading...
Tryst Oct 2014
Love At Sea
My love is like the morning sun that rises
To blush the bold horizon with her glow
Her dreams are pillowed clouds in many guises
Of silken sails on heavens lazy flow

Her eyes reflect the warmth and many splendours
Of every spring and summer ever flown
Her hands are cool as autumn that surrenders
To winter's ****** lily bridal gown

Her lips are sweeter than a mermaid calling
Enticing with each promise of a kiss
Her lullaby that summons is enthralling
Beguiling me to sink in her abyss

Her movement is the lulling of the ocean
Her footstep is the echo of the sea
She drowns me in the depths of her devotion
To flounder as her humble devotee
First published 28th October 2014, 16:50 AEST.
Continue reading...
ASPAR A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens Mar 2015
A Dryad’s Note
O darling, darling
I’m so in love with thee
For you must know
My veins amber fire
My heart an old oak tree
I hear soft syllables
Standing here
Many a year
I have watched thee
Bending deep
Sitting preen
O darling you gardener
Silent your till
When you are near
Long do I in reach
Yet watch I sun play
On brown rich tints
Your hair

No longer soft
Are my leaves
Waning are limbs
Slow has been age
On English forests edge
Whispering in winds
Majestic nights
Quivering leaves
I dreamt of thee
Tis I Hama that hides
When you are near
Many a long day
I have loved thee
Yet danced in your till
Sung among rose splendours
Tickling buttercup sparkles
O’er golden sun sets
Skipping along nights
Silvery moonbeams

For you must know
O darling, darling
I’m in love with thee
Creatures of blue skies
Have come to die at mine feet
From deep beloved forest
Poisoned they came to die
Darker now my base
Yellow my leaves
Grandfather sings to me
Watching silently
My place of passion
Dreaming of ancient glories
My prison is palace
It is time to leave this world
To dance with night butterflies
And sleep with sparkling mercury
Star clad skies
Good bye my time is near
Remember me
For I am with the buttercups
Yet blooming as you touch me
Your prize white rose that spirits the fence
O Darling, darling
I’m in love with thee

© Arnay Rumens  / A Sol Poet 2014
Dryads (Tree spirits, Tree Ladies, Druidesses, Hamadryads, Sidhe Draoi): These færies come from Celtic countries but are still a worldwide phenomenon. Their element is air, contrary to what may be believed. These particular færies are active all year but are most active at full moons. They are tree dwelling spirits from whom the female druids took their name. These creatures are only referred to as female. They are playful creatures but only seen as enchanting wisps of pure light. When a dryad does make contact you can't be sure whether they are there to help, play, or tease. If they help they are supposed to help you contact divine forces or even work on your magical abilities. They play wonderful music, as well as sing it. No one yet is known to have been harmed by following the music but it may cause you to stay too long in the astral world. If you want to find them go to a grove of trees, preferably with sacred trees of the druids such as willow. Maybe oak, ash, thorn, rowan, birch, and elder trees could find them near.

And now & then one will love you like no other...
Continue reading...
beth fwoah dream Mar 2017
not what i feel, what i hear
in the blossoming,
the sweet, sweet,
echoing blossoming
of our love

i hear stars
wrapped to the sky,

i hear the
curves of a
bridge sigh
like a
blue sea,

i hear the
infinite splendours
of you,
mild and
shadowy like
the sky,

i hear dark notes
and light notes,
blue clouds
sweeping full
of longing
and song,

and i hear poetry
so sweet and
delicate,
that my soul
starts to shiver
melting
like the song.
#love #you #emotion #loving
Continue reading...
William Cullen Bryant
Song Of The Stars
When the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,--
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rang,
And this was the song the bright ones sang:

"Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie,--
Each sun with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink as we go the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo, yonder the living splendours play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,
How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen,
Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

"And see where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, Love is brooding, and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.

"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent,
To the farthest wall of the firmament,--
The boundless visible smile of Him,
To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim."
Continue reading...
Spencer Dennison Dec 2014
My Home
It's all nameless splendours
and 'return to sender's.
Without the clarity to make sense
and the rarity to be heard,
we are blurred together
like colors on the canvas.
Where I settle in and make my home,
it's insanity and ****** sea foam.
        Straight lines where everything careens
               into smokescreens and blackened eyes.
                       Cruelty in disguise.
                              Lonely demise.
                                Unheard cries
                                   Dark skies.
                                       Lies...
                                          It is here... I make my home.
#sad #life #sadness #death #dark #loneliness
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
libra made from 25% lignin / Perronneau's
.come to think of it... a fillet of meat never implores me to think about what's about to be eaten... nor does a whole chicken implore me to think about what's about to be eaten... but whenever i see my fellow man... esp. when my fellow man is begging to not be taken seriously... i do... tend to... in the back of my mind... attempt to bypass thinking about a butchers' cut... of what... looks pristine when walking or running... parcles of the "excess" of limbs... given a dead chicken... it's all readily available... but... working from a genesis of movement toward the study of both coffin and stone; and wind? i would most certainly understand ******... but then again... not all that ******... end up eating their intentions... which makes me make phantoms of nostalgia... ****'s sake... even the sharks these days will bite: but spit our flesh out... because... well: why **** something that you will not eat? because... there's a... Hadrian's wall counter-impetus?! but it's welcoming to think about ****** as... also a bit of a hunt... i guess that's what keeps me off a streak of tartare "justice": before i start gagging and imitation regurgitation... such a foul beast from an ownership of a tongue alone... forget that shambo of the mind... no wonder... man kills man without intentions to eat him... i'd sooner eat cat-****-and-puke... then again... unless it was the brain, the heart, the liver... those ackward limbs and muscles... i could somehow imagine eating the tender bits... never those... ostrich extensions of reimagining animate agilities of a kama sutra: study.

stupendous...

   i will hold a stone in one hand
and imagine a mountain...

i will hold a glass in the other...
and imagine the sea:

not from the brain...
but from the tips of my fingers...

stupendous... quiet so...

               otherwise less impressive:
most thoroughly...

then i will hold some ice in one hand...
and some black earth in the other...

i will scrunch some paper into a ball...
rather than fold it...
   then i'll lick a knife...
            then...
          
                if there's any more "quo vadis"
sensibility to go through with...
i'll remember: ask the anaesthetician
that question: quo vadis...

as he distracts you with the jab
before... that sort of "sleep"...

            i would like to feel the texture
of thought...
        perhaps even sniff it out
into a bottle - out from my head...
this perpetual (th)ought i...

had it been only a moral quest
rather than... picking
up stray lines that otherwise made-up
a concern for narrative...

                                yes: "or" this insomnia
narrative... all these bothersome
daydreams and counter-measures...

it's not merely enough to play
out monkey-dough roles...
tongue of a serpent...
body still functioning at best
in imitation...
inconveniences of noble feats
acquired from watching widow swans
in that term: monogamy...

or in a circus of a harem of walruses...
this chimera this man...
the loan animal and his loan
words: schnitzel puppy flip flip...

        unless it's pure history of dates...
it's... a mongrel of archeology
and etymology...
           to find the oldest word...
that has been translated: diffused...

beside og, da, i, am... om, to...
         w...      z...
           w tym: in this...
          z tego: from this...

a letter that can act like a conjunction...
i: "e"... and...
         or a pronoun...

wood does not have a chemical formula...
water does: inorganic matter does...
stones do...

air does...
            oxygen by whatever %... nitrogen by
whatever %..
i studied chemistry...
but the question only comes now...

what is the chemical formula for... wood?
well... wood doesn't have a chemical formula...
truly... even i'm astounded...

even Alain de Lille looks stupified...
i know... they have a list of formulas
for... ****'s sake... even the ozone!
O₃... which is "impossible" since oxygen
is doubly-binding...

shortcuts to god... i can't call them anything
but just that...
why doesn't wood have a chemical
formula?!

i will hold a book in one hand...
and a feather in another...

    you can have a chemical formula
for... stibnite...
    orthorhombic... Sb₂S₃...
of sure... you can have that...
you can have a chemical formula for:

millerite (NiS)
  zwieselite... olivenite...
          adamine Zn2(AsO4)(OH) -
   autunite Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2 · 12H2O...
benitoite...
                  
all these formulas...
these aquariums of inorganic matter...
but still... no chemical formula for...
wood!

lignin is only part of the equation...
what can be accounted for photosynthesis:
C₅₅H₇₂O₅N₄Mg (chlorophyll)...
      
you'd think water would be more
complicated...
    
beryl?
            hollandite?
         ­ tremolite...       so that's "earth"
all covered; no?

but where's that formula for wood?

good-luck looking for that holy graille...
either the cup or the cross...
cubanite... no problem...
   benitoite...
              goethite...

               am i drinking? oh right... that's me
waking up to a reality of not being
in a boyband...

all these chemical names coming and
going...
  glass...
trinitite,
made by the trinity nuclear-weapon test...
the libyan desert glass...
volcanic obsidian glass...

otherwise glass is:
silicon dioxide +
SiO2
calcium carbonate +
CaCO3
sodium carbonate
Na2CO3

             what's the chemical formula
for wood?!
any luck with paper?
a mixture... primer: cellulose (C6H10O5)n...

approx. 50% carbon, 42% oxygen,
6% hydrogen, 1% nitrogen, and 1%
other elements
(calcium, potassium, sodium,
     magnesium, iron, and manganese)

i guess it's one of those social media
relationship statuses: "it's... complicated"...
my bad...
   cellulose... polyose... and lignin...

something spectacular was supposed to
happen: there was an avenue of pristine
love waiting: i never managed
to wait for it... in the end...
run-of-the-mill stuff...
           there was this "this"...
and there was this "that"...
     pointers in braille...
      limintless echoes of uncaressed
agonies... splendours upon the attire
table of dead-meat: quasi...
     when inspected by the more eloquent
butchers of surgery...

            but the whiskey or the *****...
flowed like... it possessed the knowledge
of... gomme syrup...
of all the detailed memories
of: these people have lived...
the alchemists:
   - zosimos of panopolis
   - ge hong
- jean baptista van helmont...
    
  why is leonardo da vinci's mona lisa
so... forced upon us?
ever look at... Perronneau's
  madame de sorquainville?

i always "mistake"... albrecht Düre
with gustave Doré...
i implore you...
don't make me buy chocolates
or flowers... it's not one of thoese
dementia riddled "misnomer" takes
on Monet and Édouard Manet

here's my quadratic:
   albrecht Düre            Claude Monet



       Édouard Manet                     gustave Doré

very much a rhombus...
besides the fact that when i do pop the cork
"pop"... and "cork"...
the libido does rampage...
and i'm imagining myself in a brothel...
and i am the brothel...
and all that's love is about the basic
need for what's easil given
to a petter dog...
down my view no alley with
a grandma and a leash to look / feel
suspect... repetition of the times...
or some sort of allure for repenting
the deeds of youth...

              ****: to hell with stochholm cyborgs
and all that anemic clues...
those autistic plots and "twists"...
        
am i to suddenly come out begging
for my democratic right?
writing as an extension of thinking...
i hardly think it's an invitation
to speak...

              less... "inclined" to counter this freedom?
esp. now?
esp. now?
       now of all times... come... let's dictate
the future together...
let's start sharpening the meat-grinder!
let's keep up with the chisel for a tooth
of the grand earthworm:
wursecker... for the bone to become marror
to become: all but the plaster-work
of pâté!

         smear that **** all over...
                    oh right... what's being "debated"?
the self-employed being given
slave status or otherwise...
those given employee stature...
to be somehow above?
in england there are 5.5 MILLION self-employed
sub-contractors...

the bus driver gets a day off...
unions and what not...
  ******* kind and fellow examples of
non-replica me...
             unions, what unions?
here's to... what?
fizzying out the expandables?
      good lock and chain and "luck"...
no one came when i was i need...
no one came but they still had to ridicule me...

i am enjoying this... whatever "this" is...
i like to think of it...
what the darwinism ideologues
    have been spewing
all along...
recycling primer...
        getting rid of a tootache...
just enough to be... the sensible
english gentleman...
but not... a weimar **** in waiting ******...
sieve it...

we'd be lost in hope...
when all hope is but a blistering
bargain...
when most of us don't have
landlord credentials...

             pokey porky pie-yo!
i like this currency of a carboot sale...
happening...
i quiet like the clearance...
the easily available sale of death...
the darwinism that darwinism
doesn't exactly "like"...

hell... shove the weakest under the bus...
under the hittite slash and draw...
i'm trying to remain bothered...
so says the drunk...

or at least... when the government says:
curfew... no more than 2
in a public space congregation...
i start thinking about how pork torsos
are hanged in a slaughterhause...
then i start to imagine...
that meat-hook... plucked in under
the chin... that excess of a bonus tooth
for where the uvula and the tonsil
should be...

   oh look... it glides! it hangs!
to be crucified is such an obscure...
such an out-of-date symbolism...
how about hanging from a meat-hook?
for piercing those n.h.s. ambulances tires?!
or coughing in the faces of old people?
how about... being impregnated
by a pike inserted in a quasi-sodomite
pristine ****... reaching the ****** of
both pelvis and coccyx...
how's that?

   n'ah... i rather like re-imagining
the curcifixion dangling on your neck...
with a meat-hook and subsequent dangling
on the treadmill of minced...
right under the chin... where the tongue
begins... and ends... to lick
and slobber that last and lost retention
of vowels in oyster juices...
    from the concrete constructs
                                of consonants...
        
a hot-dog hard-on on for...
                                     for the benefits of
sigma humanity;
   i'll try to retain remaining obscure...
****... if i don't i'll probably have to beg
for the image replication of trimmed eyebrows!
Continue reading...
Egba Ogaba Christian Mar 2018
LOVE WITHIN A VERSE
I appreciated your beauty
But denied the pleasure
And to make up for my failure
I give you this treasure
Words from my heart
Describing your splendour
Which gives beauty to the earth
Queen of the galaxies
What are you doing among men?
For yours is a splendour above splendours
And your smile is desired among angels
And your deceptive innocent looks
That melts the stone-hard-heart
And sends the sons of men
On a journey of day dreaming
Wishing you were theirs.

You, a perfect symbol of the Creator’s creativity
You give me a picture of his paradise
And send me on a journey of day dreaming
Praying you are mine.

But reality most a time is deceptive
Like love within the verse
I pray for the day I will hold you
And feel you
And your beauty
Then I’ll recount your wonders
To all men
As love within the verse
I profess.
#love #splendour #innocent #angels #verse #heart #treasure #beauty #queen
Continue reading...
Elemenohp Dec 2016
Entranced
To entwine you, within my forests
Of compliments and compassion.
To feed your every breath, fresh air
Of honesty and understanding.

Perhaps this is what, you want from me;
But fear I may one day, lie to the.

Well, give me but a chance,
I'll show you the world in which
You have me
Entranced

I'll concoct the finest Ventures,
And gift to you, my many splendours.
Fulfill your every want, and greed,
Satiate when you do plead.
Tis my desire. For you, I feed.
#love #desire #lust #crush #feeling #positive #give #entranced
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2017
while holding a stefan zweig book
i know the intricacies of english (my second language, my parasite tongue of which i'm the host) so well: that i'd be able to make the native speakers, dance and twirl around a carousel, singing some song by the beatles, and then eating 20 metres of liquorice worth of shoelaces.

i get these moments,
usually after half an hour's worth of walking,
and labouring a steadfast, lead-fastened
chilli of an irritable "cause" for thought...
almost like a sprinkle of sand in my shoe
to my annoyance "being" content
with the zenith: and the view -
mind you, a mountain holds both
splendours:
there's the awe inspiring nadir of the base:
as there's the exasperating zenith -
people really do tend to say the wiser
of the two at the base, at the nadir,
and, mind you: with much more breath
to conjure words and invite them
into a sentence...
at the top? not much is saying,
rather: an onomatopoeia resembling words:
merely a gasp for air...
the mountain, inside out, top to bottom:
better admired from below,
than stretched into an idiotic presence
of a man, on top of one,
since this will never be
      a: 'one step for man, one giant leap
for humanity' moment...
    just be heroic, and stick to the mundane,
but at the same time: enjoy the mundane,
and you'll be only second to achilles...
modern women?
   i thought i said this already...
these days?
the modern helen of troy?
    she would summon a retaliation,
of course, but the 1000 ships would end up
being a single ship...
   and most likely a cruise ship,
filled with pensioners, rather than warriors...
oops... sorry honey bee...
       better luck next time;
            hey! beauty isn't forever,
but it would be nice, wouldn't it?
personally i conjure up eternity,
every time i think about amnesia -
  yeah, i think about eternity,
within the schematic of being
allowed to forget something;
what?
           ah... a nibble, just a woman;
i really would like to spend the crucible
of a "life", perpetuating the circumstance
of amnesia, and forgetting this regrettable
cause for the current circumstance
of, "motivation".

that thing though, the stefan zweig book -
a typical ****** read,
  i mean easy, digestible - something you
can almost do while lying in bed waiting
for falling asleep...
   so i start flicking through it (yeah, i've read it:
the struggle with the daemon -
hölderlin, kleist, nietzsche) - namely?
2 germans that misunderstood kant,
and the first that hard to learn kant the hard way...
ants in my pants and: look at me dance!

so i start toying with it, start squeezing
the ****** paperback (he did commit suicide
with his wife... who? stefan zweig! brazil!) -
so i'm squeezing it... squeezing it...
might as well be called: misunderstanding kant:
kleist committed suicide because of
the *critique: nietzsche just elongated
that into calling him stupid and ending up
with a bushy moustache that begged for
a barber's attention...

hölderlin was the only to get away...
   he married empedocles...

anyway, so i'm pinching and rubbing this book
like your typical bibliophile pervert,
squeezing it...
      a paperback...
   so? well... if you're going to smoke a cigarette
and walk down the street,
you have to shove your other hand into
your trouser pocket... let's face it:
you can't look silly... both hands have to be
busy...
        comparatively?
   i stick my tongue out - and start squeezing it,
having a feel of it,
the one time the tongue becomes
aristotelian arithmetic considering the number
of women's teeth...
     or something like that...
pinch-&-squeeze a paperback book with
one hand, and with the other hand:
your tongue...

         very similar texture to be clarifyingly honest:
huh? what's with the red dots below the word
clarifyingly?
                   why isn't it respected as an adverb
of the verb (to) clarify?
       the ****, is this system
respective of a lack of correction
of english words in pidgin, patois, or just
plain jedi padawan?
    might as well be glaswegian, to be honest,
couldn't decipher that accent,
  even if you lived in essex, and had welsh parents;
ah, **** it, why lie,
   i can understand the scots;
the irish? they probably speak
  a more understandable
version of their english: drunk, than sober.
Continue reading...
Shaun Yee Apr 2022
Rainbow Love
If we can be upon a rainbow,
We can stroll the coloured pathways,
In the splendours of the heavens,
We can pass our nights and days;
We can cuddle within the clouds,
And kiss the nights and days away,
If  we can be upon a rainbow,
That's where with you I want to stay.
Continue reading...
Chris Weallans May 2015
On Your Leaving
Today you leave
For your home and family
You tread a star-struck path across northern skies
Yet remember one
Who, in tears, leaves you happily
For he still feels your sanctuary

And you my love
With several splendours shining
Were I to stain the sound of your flesh with my words
Then I would drink deep on those tears
To leave you smiling
In the hot mid-summer’s morning

If words could change
I would turn them into love
To let your body sparkle at this leaving
And I would make this place a bed
With no roof above
But changeless words are not enough

Sometime? Later?
Will we meet on avenues?
Will we once more naked lay inside that peace
As lovers in a gangling heap
When the loving’s through
Will we then say, “we did it too.”(1)

1 We Did It is a poem by Yehuda Amichai and well worth reading
Continue reading...
Chelsea Chavez Mar 2016
Untitled
slow waltz of sirens ghosts the path


sea spit splendours elusively

near and not near you


but the requiem of space leaves a patient mark


of this

the white curdling on the edge of things
Continue reading...
Kìùra Kabiri Apr 2017
EVE
Eve, bride of my pride
Eve, beauty of my dreams
Look at you, how you're-gorgeous
Listen-feel-see, how you’re-glorious

Magnificent, good-looking and golden
As the unconquered summer moons
Up high in nights with cloudless sky
Burning the tiring night into a new day

See how hearts sweet you make melt in your graceful glow
See how you beautiful build, fascinating as a fountain flow
Like smooth symphony of walking waves
Rising and lessening in their peaceful runs to the wharves

Your hair falls and floats in the bare breezes
Sweet, tempting and teasing in their wheezes
Lovely and lively like young river poplars sprigs in springs
So soft long as satins wools strings

Their stable stallion's tail straight strand ends
Dancing with the winds wheezes and whispers
Reflecting and glistening as in sun beams at vespers
What a blend of sacred strand brands!

Eve, instrument of my adores
Eve, O my saint, mi amours!
How beautiful is your trace
So graceful, everything in its space
All occupants in their rightful place

Look at your face, like an infant angel’s
So tender and soft, brilliant and bright
So sacred and smooth just as purity light
Overflowing with holiness and goodness

Your slender neck tender, elegant as ascension’s splendours
Your feels and fascinates, glances and reverences  
Your contemplations and obsessions, images and illusions
Your desires and admires, your embraces and caresses
So holy and venerable, like seraphs touching sacred salutations

Your fragile soul, delicate in my arms
Your feathery feels, light in my palms
Your tender body, abandoned in my built
So pious and precious, pleasured and treasured
Eve, cherub of my pleads and praises  

Eve, goddess designed for me
Dream, resurrected from mine
Alloy, made from mine meats mettle
Pretty and pricy, so gentle and brittle
Flower, eternal instrument of my delights
You burn my Hittite’s heart with softness and tenderness
And all I dreams of, is your touches and catches-imminences

Eve, apple of my youthful eye
Rose of my maiden garden
Pomegranate of my pleasures
Eve, woman of my resting ribs
A make of my make, glory of my cheery!
How lovely you are!

How excellent you are
Covet of my cravings
How wonderful you are
Woman of my desires
How piously holy you are
Benediction of my adorations

O my object of obsessions
Dream of my awakes
Slumber, sleep of my smooth soothes
Massage of my mild caresses
Soft, tenderness of my feels
How do I wish to always wake
In your peaceful palpable palms

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2022
a little London adventure
title: scandal tilt
body: porous: per & marie 2019:
simultaneously: preserved...

wow!

on my way back from a shift at Craven Cottage... walked through the park with great haste, sweat like a pig prior to slaughter when sitting down on the District Line from Putney Bridge to Victoria... still wearing my jacket... upon disembarking the train, took the jacket off... breathed... allowed my sweaty back to breathe, took off my clip-on tie, undid about three button from the collar down... well... i've been told before that i'm as hairy as a monkey... hairy face, hairy chest, hairy stomach... a Turkish ******* would never mind... we only travelled two stops from Victoria through to Oxford Circus... i have to write the following word in katakana... what... a *******... スカ - SUKA... *****... a female-dog... what's the ideogram of that katakana? no... it's not that simple... SUKA... thank god i was wearing my sunglasses... the Thames bore these two holes for my eyes with the glimmer of the sun being reflected come sunset... i asked my co-worker: Putney Bridge is not the last bridge of... the first bridge of London? he mentioned: isn't there one at Hammersmith? isn't there one at Richmond: i replied? favourite bridge? oh... you that film: from the 1990s... Sliding Doors... the Battersea Bridge? no no... not the Battersea Bridge... that white one, with all those Christmas Lights... it's the Albert Bridge... sure... we know the last Bridge of London is the Tower Bridge... but what bridges are there after Putney?! oh... we're not going into Oxfordshire or... Kingston-upon-Thames... **** that... London, proper... **** me... the map on google reads like some Arabic text: right to left... weird... what comes after Putney... see... when i was living in Edinburgh... at least i knew my bearings... there it was... the shining emblem of the compass... the Firth of Forth... down in London? it's a ******* Bermuda triangle! the ****** just spins and spins... people come from all other i'm like: yeah... "that"... that's not supposed to be there but... "there"...  clueless... sure as ****... after Putney Bridge you get the Hammersmith Bridge... then the Chiswick Bridge... then the Kew Bridge... then the Twickenham Bridge... that's the last proper bridge on the map... London will forever be too disorientating... at least Edinburgh is facing north... London isn't facing any direction on the compass... it just... spins out of control... so i got on the Victoria line at Victoria... two *******... one looking somewhat tame... the other... ooh... what a treat... we were only going as far as Oxford Circus... red hair... some of her's some fake... tattoos on her hands and fingers... she looked like she had piercing in her cheeks in the past... just my type: crazy... unhinged... daddy issues: whatever... and i''m standing there, tired... dead-beat... i just want to get home and drink some whiskey and scribble... about my triumph while helping a few boys sell cookies and brownies for charity by changing around their stall arrangement... because i wasn't put into the stadium to shove a lot of lard around... i'm peering through my sunglasses... oh... wait... she's digging me... oh right... she's one of those girls into the Scandinavian look? oh god, one of these ones... only hours prior i was talking to this Finnish grandfather about sports in general... i'm giving off these whiffs of Viking "beauty"... **** me: and i know what i'm goign to say next: that sort of physiognomy always attracts the happy-tattooed-hands and fingers red hair types of *******... right? where they **** is my ******* Mohawk then?! where the **** are my tattoos... i mean... i've seen dogs with eyes like these... eagerly brown and blooming with joy... any other scenario... we got off at Oxford Circus... i waited a little... she just about ****** off down the North Bakerloo route... i spotted her... obviously... she tried to give a shy glance back: would i follow her... ask her for her number... she had the most amazing: inquisitive eyes... i know... she wanted me to approach her... one of those... magical movie scenes... two strangers on the tube... blah blah... if work didn't **** me off... if i didn't have to make up for it on my own crowds from something within like: self-initiative... just my-******-up-type... no... i went down the Central Line route... travelled to Stratford... got the train to Goodmayes... bought a bottle of 200cl of brandy... some pepsi... some cigarettes... and walked past Chadwell Heath... thinking... about absolutely nothing... well... the "one that god away"... sure... it's not even whether i have the patience... i obviously have the charm... but i know how the conversation would have started and ended... so... you still don't live alone? you don't have a place for me to crash... bring all my belongings to? guess... what... what she said with her eyes... perfect! what she would later say with her tongue? no, i don't want to hear it... beccause i'd be her stereotypical loser... so... why... ******* bother? with those eyes of hers i also received: twice-more with the eyes of the boys i helped to collect more money from selling charity cookies in the park... oh **** me: more! because it was selfless! there was no ******-friction involved!  sure, i could try to rekindle my self (in the reflective, not the reflexive: myself... sense... no... that's long gone... i've aged, i've learned some pretty good lessons of reserve) with a teenage boy i used to be, who would fall asleep listening to Roxette... fading like a flower, watercolours in the rain, blah blah... but this... what's that film? Happiness of a Spotless Mind? Jim Carrey... crazy free spirited girl with red or purple or blue hair... sure... and if, myself, didn't go mad aged 21... entering a church... hearing a choir and then hear a great wind disperse the singing... sure... right now... aged 35... i'd be a proper career-boy... not caring about the lesser people in me... status-orientated... i would easily pick-up these wacko girls left right and centre... and give them a month's worth of... living out the Pretty Woman fantasy... no.. instead i have a personal library in my ivory tower of a bedroom in my parent's house filled with Heidegger's black notebooks... oh man... but this one... she had prettier eyes than an Alsatian's... she gave off whiffs of surprise... could she love me, like i am? torn? perhaps... i forgot to make a reality-check-cheque in my head... better this fleeting interaction... she... infatuated: me indifferent... at least in the moment... obviously now i think about it... sure... some, "alternative" universe... where... we might live an affordable living in... the ******* Shetland Islands caretaking a lighthouse! but my life hasn't been all that predictable to find more unpredictability all of a sudden... some exercise in a vitality for / of life... i just need little pockets of being acknowledged by the other as being recipient of existence... that usually comes along with children and handicapped people... or animals... these three categories always spot me... if i were ******* rising in the hierarchy of the truly insane-sane folk... i'd have to be as mad as a poodle-or-a-toddler's-worth-of-Mozart! ****'s sake... no no no... i'm not buying that trip! **** that... i'm going my own way... to a place where the moon is a skull in the coldness of the night, and come April... there is a whiff of a Magnolia scent in the air! i call it trans-temporal pairing to some cue to a clue to this puzzle... but this one... my god... eyes like a properly bred Alsatian... so endearingly brown... she looked like a teenage girl for a second's worth of flash of time... she just looked so ****** up... like a puzzle box... and with all that make-up she slapped up... Madam Tussauds' replicas saw less... what's the retrospect? i? i'm scared of reality? last time i heard: i've been the one most detached from it... why would i be afraid of reattaching myself to it? the only reality i find comforting is... when i'm surrounded by children, retards or animals... i consider plants as inanimate objects, so no... other thoughts... mother's arthritis... a father coming to the conclusion of this career... nearing retirement... their mortality... my mortality... cinema movie love stories are sort of gone... reality doubles-down... no one was truly with me when i needed help... ergo? i helped myself the best i could... and... i don't need loved-up pretend hitch-hickers... how authentic it might seem... at least when i visit a brothel... no ******* is going to say: oh... another loser... how are losers treated in those Japanese love-hotels because of over-crowding, no-house-building "claustrophobia"?

on my way back from a shift at Craven Cottage...
tired... left the house at quarter to 9am...
came back.. at 8:30pm...
and did what? only a 6 hour shift... got paid...
hmm... good idea... i don't even know...
capitalism... whoever defends it ought to know
that there are rogue companies out there...
the current company i'm working for...
i'm supposedly an employee...
   but... they have... since November of last year...
yet to issue me with a statement to clarify
how many hours i've worked and what i'm to be paid...
they just... transfer money into my bank account:
without any: black on white clarification...
i've already heard stories about the owner and co-owner...
how they profited from the pandemic...
little pawn me... a year... i just need a year...
to get those references... even today i started talking
to this guy about joining another company...
at least that company has an online rubric in place:
where you can book in electronically
rather than rely on some bogus whatsapp messaging...
******* cowboys... meat-heads... the whole lot
of them... no logistical sensibility...
but i've done it since November... i'll wait...
i'm patience... i'll play nice... but today...
oh today was coming... they're behaving like it's
a ******* schoolyard... i'm being punished for having
mentioned already having a university education:
oh god! and a degree in chemistry!
some are studying pretend-law... or whatever *******...
or they have known each other for a bit longer...
or that i'm not talkative: professional... while they
stab each other in the back... or...
i fancy this one girl who started work...
rumours spread that a supervisor is ******* her...
but i approach her with flowers on Valentine's day...
she gets fired... i get sidelined...
          oh i know my place... it's a place that's
called the waiting game...
         but today i was *******... less capable people
were put into positions within the stadium...
me? again: to the ******* park with you...
some might say: oh... he's ben given the easy shift...
yeah... the ****** shift...
   i made due counters... i had to...
by the end of the game a ginger colt that was
ejected during the game... drunk... had nothing better
to do than to sleep in the park... i tended to him...
woke him up... waited with him for his friends to rejoin
him... so half-asleep... i comforted him with:
you team (Coventry) beat Fulham 3 - 1... happy?
he replied... why do all the best games happen when
i'm asleep? well... this must have been the first
in a park in London... you're lucky it was a gorgeous day...
but my pinnacle came when i helped these boys
who were selling homemade bakes for charity...
NSPCC... £1 a pop... but they weren't selling them...
because they position their stall right behind a tree...
so i walked up to them... listen...
you're not going to sell them... you're hiding behind
a tree... here... let's move this stall of yours...
away from the tree... and closer to the route of leaving
fans... and let's also twist the table a little so...
your BAKED-GOODS for CHARITY is facing
the people walking out of the stadium...
    i finished my shift... would you know it...
             from about 30 unsold pieces of dough...
the boys had only 2 left...
           and how they thanked me...
   fine... FINE... if this steward contra SIA hierarchy
is in place... ******* wanks...
i'll do a better job elsewhere... pacifying people...
after all... all those with those SIA badges... licenses...
oh... they know **** all of judo...
they just rush overpower: art of ****...
   first comes the art of reason...
much much later comes any physical interference...
but i'm working with half-wits...
  just because some are bulging... have a voiced-prowess...
gorilla-mating-call-warfare i call it...
they think they have a license to: attend to doors
they build up this superiority-complex...
which is great... i might therefore ask:
not that i have a PhD... but... if you're going to belittle me...
do you have a degree in chemistry?
just today... i picked up a high-viz. orange...
later it was changed to black... i picked up one with
the word: supervisor on it... because it fitted me:
2XL... oh no no... one of the other pawns inquired...
you can't wear that... but it's black...
i was told to change from orange to black...
but this one has the word: SUPERVISOR written on
it... my god... how people have learned to overvalue
themselves... or rather: how have become become
undervalued that they have to have these little battles...
the war is already lost...
whatever ******* Einstein figured this one out...
so at the end of the shift we're about to stand down...
me and my "mate" are park 3... we're looking for park 2...
right... and we're all wearing black vests... black trousers...
black coats... the crowd that's leaving?
well... you know how the English dress...
hardly in the United Colours of Benetton...
or the old way that GAP used to attire people: colourfully...
so... i'm looking for a black moth
among a cloud of dark grey moths... great!
******* genius! like i said:
i'm working with ******* meat-heads...
i'd like to say retards but they are too bulky and too angry
and too ready to stance themselves as BIG
rather than arm themselves with cunning...
o.k. o.k. work... but i got the upper hand...
i helped those boys sell those cookies... cakes... whatever...
out of their stash... we just moved the table away
from the tree... shifted it so the sign was more apparent
and... hey presto! NSPCC got its fair share...
and... my reward? the sweetest thank you any man
can receive... the outstanding look on a young boys face
that a stranger is capable of helping (him)...
that's ******* priceless... i'm writing about all those
petty squabble prior... but... that thank you:
that look of longing for hope in the future...
that's mine... i own that... or that tenderness of
the drunk boy who was sleeping in the park
waiting for the game to finish... while i gentle touched
his leg to wake him up... that too...
i don't need physical confrontation when i can:
appease... comfort... all those adrenaline junkies...
those... amphetamine-anabolic-steroid: former prison
guard types... whatever...
i know one decent move that could floor anyone...
you make a cross with your thumbs... while pretending
to pray... with these hands... you grip someone
by the knuckles... pressing the thumbs into the hand...
and twist... i forgot martial art i learned that from...
i left the classes after i was kicked in the *****...
and curled into a foetal position: after i refused to:
shout HA-YA! when pretending to punch and throwing
kicks while marching forward...
****** lessons in martial arts... getting kicked in the *****...
but... i write this... like...
like i will never go to the gym and pump weights...
just give me 2 hours on a bicycle...
doing some press-ups...
and once the shift it gone... having being paired
with this "mate" of mine:
he'll reply: it was nice working with you...
and you sort of know it's almost...
when he tries to sell you an alternative
job to the current you're working at...
because... it's "CAPITALISM":
   i too heard... didn't you hear?
if you have the right sort of a microphone...
and you put it up to a dog's *******
when the dog's running...
you can... hear... ******* the tune of:
jingle-bells!
didn't you know?!
   esp. that version from Lethal Weapon...
      one ****, count one two...
two's a ****'s worth... three and four and by five:
grr... what's not to love about
life and all the arguments for the status quo
of all those people that always go ahead
and gear up the tide of: away away we go:
leaving the rest of the idiots behind...
           tear-jerking psychologists with an audience
of soft-cookie:
those types that ought to be hard-on
digestives... instead... they get dunked into tea...
i burp... what... a cushion my crap and crab
on the inside out...
rather than harden it with the exoskeleton
of the outside in...
            little ******* London adventure of... perhaps
Romance... but... most probably:
probably not.

i mean: you know how the joke goes?
when you diagnose someone as having lost touch
with reality?
and then... too many people have lost touch with reality?
the supposed loss of reality of the individual...
transpires like a phantom: clout...
why were people supposing that, "i" became detached
from reality?! huh?! why are these people
wearing pseudo-niqab nappies on their faces
when almost pretending to be: trainspotting?!
huh?!
           i'm schizophrenic... what about all these...
covert... hidden... undiagnosed hyperchondriacs?
i thought i was just a bilingual...
oh... right... the mono-lingual normies of England...
sure... "we" can follow-up with that...
"you" try to destroy "me"...
"we'll" come after "you":
gender neutral? one's a ROYAL:
one and we...
                anything to: bypass the ******* rap!
investment from years... years ago...
always invest in children...
you never know when they'll come around to
protect you against the elders
or... more importantly...
your contemporaries...
                always invest in children...
         their presence is a future forward:
kinder:
      immer invertieren im kinder...
   ihr(e) gegenwart ist ein zukunft: ein fließen!
i'm guessing...
unlike in Deutsche...
a(n) apple... savvy?

           i truly wish... i truly... want to believe
beyond the told ties of the heart to:
all the discomforts of reality checks...
that i could possibly come to the splendours of
illusion on a whim:
and keep such whims within the confines
of illusion... without having to have to reality
check them back with...
items of "reciprocated" gratitude...
for the "good life"... oh what a sweet little whisper...
and... if i were a painter...
what a Francis Bacon horror i would possibly
conjure with the aid of cubism...
such trivial times are beyond us...
dog have eyes and the levelled certainty as such...
women just have the spontaneity...
there's no Bonaparte behind them...
no suicide quest for Moscow... no... chains and harship...
believe whatever psychologists you want...
pop, piquant... whatever... piquant: i.e. niche...
whatever... no one helped me through my 20s...
now in my mid 30s...
i've finally reached a pinnacle of being attractive...
during transit... but i know it's all a veneer...
behind my visage there ought to be some
******* miraculous story where...
i'd probably invite her back to my flat...
where i live alone... blah blah...
                i own too many books...
   i prefer the safety net of prostitutes...
at least they love me for the way i **** them...
with the intensity of the moment...
i posit: carpe diem... and make an hour last
a certainty... i don't need this *******'s worth
of timid courtship... no thank you...
i waited long enough... i waited too long...
no more...
              i'm done... i'm going to brush my "Greek" nose
up a little more... with arrogance and say...
when i needed you? you weren't there...
now... that you might, perhaps want me?
no... i don't need you...
           you know what i really need?
strangers! i need to interact with as many people
as possible! i can't be bothered with living a life
for some... exclusive relationship!
i need... the most inclusive: selfless relationship!
a... motto akin to:
liebe für das volk!
               if not in Deutsche... then in Latin?

AMOR ENIM POPULUS!

who else? who else can one love?
if one has been denied the excusive rights to love a woman
in one's youth?
as one ages... being denied such a right?
one can only grow to abound in loving:
the people! how else is one to survive?
   what? the same old: "missing"... "mythological":
"exclusive": female?
learn from Adolf ******! LIEBE DAS VOLK!
                  you haven't been given exclusive rights
to counterpart individual...
and... to be honest... inclusivity is stressed by both
status of wife / bus-driver in terms of how
universality is to be expressed on the ground:
all are to be treated equally...
alles ar zu sein behandelt gleichermaßen,
id est: gott! mit! uns!

             i have no one to love... i truly do, not,
so why... keep myself deluded in some...
waiting game of exclusivity?!
   why not freely pass into a medium of selfless
inclusivity?! why... not love: as freely...
and as painfully... as a sparrow might...
the dawn of spring... and the midnight or some:
forgotten hour(s): to come...
    i'm too old to find exclusive love...
to pair-bond... i'm too old... i know the frosty bite
of reality... but at least i can love inclusively...
like a Jesus Christ... like an Adolf ******...
what?! they're... that ******* far apart?! i don't...
*******... ****-ing... think so...
       i'm more comfortable with inclusive love-affairs
where i can be forever pillar... cold...
less-spoken that could be expected...
    my 20s... i never had them...
                    my 30s just about returned...
and now i'm interacting with people in their 40s
and 50s... and all i have in my mind is...
a cat... in musketeer type of boots...
kicking a rat into a sewer... why?
because... that's seems... just about... GERECHT!
Continue reading...
aurora kastanias Feb 2018
Words of inspiration
My dearest friend I retrieved my old
fountain pen today to pour, on canvas
note papers my doubts, feelings
of dire necessity for I, need of you a favour.

I confess I find myself confused, in the mist
of nothingness unable to decipher my scope
at a crossroad blocked, in front of a sign
which says ‘Stop!’ .

Buxom lands enticing with chimeras
on my right, nature’s might sparkling splendours,
colourful vibrations I perceive, notes of purifying
silence echoing the songs of inhabitants untouched,

by mind queries existential enquiries it feels,
beautiful and lonely over there. Then again,

I see buildings reaching for the skies
on my left, lights bright, people frantically in motion,
they seem to have a purpose and a mission,
places to go, things to do, dreams to make come true.

Some of them create oeuvres revealing grandeur it feels,
challenging and crowded over there. Yet ahead,

of me are unfolding sceneries of possibilities awaiting
as I loiter and expect, your card a few words
I beg of you of inspiration but, please hurry my friend
as a line is about to turn into a jam, behind me.

My precious me I received your letter
with affection comprehending qualms.
Do not dwell any longer for your confusion
is unfunded. The nothingness you feel

does not exists all is, perpetually becoming
including us human beings, fragile creatures
uncomprehending the essence of our journey
yet eager to select, a direction giving sense,

of control not of purpose. Though you are
at a crossroad know you are not compelled
to choose, you can have it all by giving up
control, let your spirit lead you where it wills

and bare in mind, to be happy and just all the time.
Treat your likes with kindness and keep smiling,
look forward for what you call “ahead” is only
a matter of perspective. Yours sincerely, me.
On life crossroads
#inspiration #love #self #struggle #crossroad #poeticles #poetry #poems #aurora #kastanias
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
anti-Mancunian sentiments coming from Sunderland
for however much i'd like to glorify the glorious wintry
months...
   and i must: glorify the winter:
for those splendours of the almost eternal nights...
as if i were living on the Faroe Islands or elsewhere
in that sort of dynamic of light...
   the biting cold: like the pinching of ***** on your skin...
or the frost, ice... one pavement at night...
tilting your head from left to right...
exposing a "red carpet" of paparazzi flashing of
the camera with ice particles lodged in the cracks...
but...
there's nothing quiet like waking up naturally
in May with the sunrise...
   even though you've set your alarm clock for 7am...
you wake up naturally with the light rising
at around 6am... almost like someone who is about
to go into the field and use a scythe to cut down
shafts of wheat...
    i find no compromise in that feeling...
i don't even mind the insects busying themselves
with a daily activity of "business": esp. if they're not bees...
even flies don't bother me ******* out their
maggot juices into steaming crops of garbage...
not when i wake up naturally with the sunrise...
i abhor alarm clocks: it's so unnatural to wake up
to their dictates: well... the dictates you yourself have set
up... besides the point...
alarm clocks should only be used during the winter
months... in the spring and summer months...
you shouldn't be sleeping with your blinds closed...
the light should wake you up:
calmly: gradually... no one want to be woken up
with a cold shower... in shock: subsequently looking
for a caffeine fix... to equilibrate... his bewildered
circumstance... best to fall asleep with the blinds open:
allowing the sunshine to creep in...
slowly ungluing your eyes...

        - and i don't mean this as some sort of
"neo-****" joke... the maxim above Auschwitz:
arbeit mach frei...
    that work sets you free...
        you must first spend your 20s locked up in
an ivory tower of creativity...
you must truly become isolated from people...
learn and relearn to have two legs to stand on:
two hands to wave and point with...
two eyes and a least one tongue to waggle...
    Bukowski famously wrote about the drudgery of work...
am i going to be the first person who will
write about work with pleasure?

even today: i don't understand why the stereotype of
northerners is so harsh by "us" southerners...
today? Sunderland vs. Wycombe Wanderers...
i was working the vomitory on the Sunderland side
of the affair...
well... there is one stereotype that rings true
about northerners... the Mancunians...
i actually don't like people from Manchester...
that demonym: borrowed from demographic...
is already unappealing...
i like the words Scouser... Geordie...
  but a Mancunian is a lying **** of a coo-nigh-ain...
i don't know why...
it's this pride-vibe relating to Mancunians
feeling themselves superior to anyone from Liverpool
or Newcastle of Sunderland...

fair enough, i was chewing my gum...
three Sunderland lads came into my vicinity...
one asked: what politeness... aye aye... you couldn't
try to get a YES... but? no chance...
aye aye...
                  great conversations...
but then one sneezed and his snot-phlegm landed
on my trousers...
i opened my mouth and started to chew
the chewing gum by also exposing my teeth...
i was sort of trying to hide the fact that...
hey! mate! why not as well ******* your *****
onto my tie while you're at it!

Bukowski wrote about the drudgery of work...
as a postman... delivering letters...
i don't expect he had to deal with old men
filing complaints about people ahead of them
in the stands standing up...
i had two neurotic old men today...
why are they standing up! blah blah, blah blah...

but these northerners... thank **** i lived among
the Scots for 3 years... i sort of know what to expect...
the loveliest sorts...
and the women? unlike southern girls...
so approachable... likeable.. curvy...
if it isn't a girl from Liverpool kissing your cheek...
then it's probably a girl from Sunderland
coming up to you: grabbing your beard...
stroking it...
      like i'm going to turn into a ******* leprechaun
and have my hear patted...
or turn into a hunchback of Notre Dame
and have my hunch stroked for good luck...
all: in good humour...

a goal is scored and the fans don't start hugging
other fans... just these "*******": traffic-cones
in high-viz. vests...
  
        i don't think this is work: to begin with...
maybe that's why i like writing about it...
maybe that's why this isn't drudgery...
    then again: the peace and quiet of delivering
letters... spam... with the email around...
                   maybe i just love people too much...
but i kept it hidden...
but why is it... that the further north you go:
the girls become prettier...
sure... they might be slightly on the chubby side...
what's that saying from high-school?
ah ha ha... ahem... ahem...
more-cushion'-for-the-pushin'...
        
after all... what was the trend back in post-medieval times?
the more blub on a girl the more attractive
she became...
    i could work around that...
ask long as her fat *** matches up to...
her fat *******...

eye-contact... hugs... getting my beard stroked...
i think that if my... "i think":
when my parents finally kick the bucket
i'll be thinking about moving up north...
Liverpool... Newcastle... i don't think i'll be able
to stomach London on my own...
i just love the people from up north...
so far: so good...

and it's almost funny... living in London for so long...
England really is a...
racial homogeneity...
                     maybe that's why i'm so relate-able...
pacifier...
             fair-enough: it's "not fair"...
                         not by the colour of the skin
but by the judgement of the character...
   honestly?
                   i find this statement morphed a little:
since it predicates that somehow white people
have a bad character...
but even the copper necks know this is a farce...
at least the ones that appreciate that
that narrative spewed by the masochistic whites
of a liberal persuasion is off the ******* planet!

like today: one Egyptian? Persian...
oh no... no a copper neck... more Aryan looking...
in the original sense of the word
asked the supervisor: can i work with him?
obviously i was assigned a chubby girl...
i still would... if she just slapped some make-up
on and did her hair in a style that didn't resemble
Shiva's head-knot... i still would...

i become tired: i become *****...
    i was walking home today... bought some lunch
for tomorrow... drank a cider... smoke a cigarette...
finally! life!
         work is not work but a hobby!
interacting with people after my dreaded hiatus!
anger management... of some truly neurotic people...
goose-fra-b'ah...
    go to bed quarter to 12am... wake up with the sunrise
come 6am... take a shower... fiddle with shoelaces...
shine those same shoes...
drink a coffee... attire myself with at least
7 different chemical substances...
turning impatient about Monday and painting
the fence... a glorious burn of auburn brown...

when my parents will pass-off... hmm...
i think i'll move up north...
the houses are cheaper up there...
    not that London bores me...
         but... there's too much of London
to even begin getting bored of it...
i feel the north of England calling me...
with each kiss on the cheek by a gal from Liverpool
by every stroke of the beard
by a gal from Sunderland...

     almost like a dog: doesn't anyone and everyone
require a feeling of being loved?
i think these northern gals are really
"conservative" in that they're not this global /
cosmic circus of poly-ethnicities coming together...
i think that's where the true England
is at... i want to explore it...

   i kind of like being showed these little showcasing
of a stranger's love for a stranger...
i didn't have to be kissed... on the cheek...
i didn't have to have m beard being adored...
with strokes... of a woman's hand...
my god... her hand felt s hot on my biceps...
by now i don't care whether or not she was
a ******* the BIG side...
        of "things": details...
            
         if i could salvage the life of a beached whale:
i would... like my grandfather taught me:
there are not ugly women in this world:
there are only abandoned women...
by abandoned women?
what did he imply?
   women who... have been underappreciated
by men...
                  even if she's a tease of chubby...
but she has milk skin...
  it's a walk-through...

i'm working but i'm not working...
   not at this rate... hugs, kisses... etc.
             half of me is watching the match... half is so disinterested
in it: since half of me has seen so much of that coliseum
*******: i want more! faces! circus! bread!

i think i'm going to relax...
sleep with my cat... i think i'll just do that...
go to bed come 12am... wake up at 6am...
sure... it would be great to have ****** prior...
i'm free throughout the rest of the week...
the brothel calls...

and here was me worried:
£1700+ savings on one account...
£900+ savings on another account...
    and do i have to worry about paying off a mortage?
last time: i heard the resounding echo of: NO...
so...
             investments in books...
in banknotes... stamps...
                              
             i'm sort of cured of caring for money...
i like earning money...
for: what i find to be: **** all...
because the money i earn goes into art galleries
or prostitutes...
while i pay off my life debts for food by doing
household DIY chores...

the basics that life allows:
hardly going fishing... hardly any fish in the matter...
all the better.
Continue reading...
Lizzie Bevis Dec 14
Cosmos
Over aeons, new galaxies bloom,
Spiralling splendours from a cosmic boom.
As time and space constantly entwine,
When the divine spans until the end of time.

Nebulae clouds form bodies anew,
From cosmic matter, in forces imbued.
As timeless planets in their orbits glide,
around a blazing star, their radiant guide.

Starlight shimmers in our sky
Crystalline flares from distant sunshine,
An ancient light on a celestial quest
Through the ever-expanding void of space.


©️Lizzie Bevis
#cosmos #space #planets #stars #creation #poetry
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2021
Mathematics on a Saturday Night
(churn .0
charged
q1.O - a 502 bypass)

following yesterday's ****** of an internet experience,
someone who staged being appreciative of my work
began to divulge his own innermost secrets,
two failed marriages, Vietnam...
ambitions for changing society....
childhood misery... so i replied... i tried to make
it out as empathetically as i could on some points...
and as sympathetically as i could on others...
empathy? childhood misery...
being uprooted from my homeland...
forced into learning a new language at the age of
eight with no prior knowledge:
thank god i was equipped with some flare
for the universal language of mathematics...
come to think of it, mathematics saved me...
no some crazy-*** algebra... although give me
a quadratic equation and i'll all teeth in...
so i disclosed my own "stuff"...
i'm only 35... this guy must be nearing his 70s...
he turns around and blasts at me:
only i can tell you my miseries!
you can't tell me yours! thank god he only blocked
me rather than report me...
i've archived the exchange...
once i was "instructed" that one should start reading
philosophy when one becomes older...
what's the use of that?!
when someone nearing 70 does the leftist manoeuvre
of having no discussion?!
he can stage his little tirade and block
while i'm left scratching my head...
so when do i get a chance to reply?
a 70 year old man... i was expecting more...
i'm glad of the two of us: someone matches
their age... tired old ***...
he can do his little snippet of grotesque
******* all he wants... i hate internet drama:
i avoid it at all costs: i'm yet to record a video
of myself or push out some audio:
i think i won't bother... it might attract the wrong
sort of crowd: the sort of crowd that think
reading is boring / a chore...
is this a variation of gate-keeping?
no... it's just a filtering process for the readership...
it was supposed to be this great escape come
Friday night...
well... the true escape only came today...
i finished studying up on my NVQ preliminaries...
almost finished the English section,
one section left... i'll do that tomorrow...
fill in the first module for the NVQ...
today i sat down to the mathematics section...
GCSE statistics, mode, median... mean... range...
but i swear to God, not at GCSE level did we
ever touch upon the: estimating the mean
of a frequency group...

e.g. the sequence already rearranged
to find the median:
   11, 15, 17, 20, 20, 28, 32, 39, 46
to find the interval?
   range: 46 - 11 = 35 ÷ 3 = 12 ergo...

groups   freq.   mid-point    f x m-p
11-22        5           16.5             82.5
23-34        2           28.5             57
35-46        2           40.5             81

Σ(freq) = 9
Σ(fxm-p) = 220.5
      estimated mean of a freq. group is therefore:
25...

i don't remember doing this sort of statistics
at GCSE level, it has taken an NVQ qualification
to look at this...

mind you, my mathematics was a bit rusty...
but i'd rather spend a Saturday evening doing this
than... said above example...
dealing with people i don't want in my life...
who know perfectly well that they're not
compatible with it: too boot...

- **** me... it was such a joy learning about
compound interest too...
FV = P(1 + I)ᵀ

i.e. / e.g.

X invests £3,500, the interest is at 3.5% p.a.
for 6 years, the future value of investment
is therefore:

FV = 3500 (1 + 0.035)⁶
      = £4690.33

the interest?
   I = FV - P
   £4690.33 - £3500 = £1190.33...

i also forgot about the rules of BIDMAS...
brackets first, integers, i.e. 2⁶...
then the division / multiplication
(left to right)... then at the end... the addition /
subtraction...

e.g. 15 ÷ 3 + 3² + (10 + 6³) - (2³ - 2²)
  exactly... even i thought i knew...
it's so welcoming to refresh the simplest of maths,
esp. when you've been hiding in an ivory
tower of writing...
                       5 + 9 + 226 - 4 = 236...

as someone in my mid-30s... i can truly attest:
there's no point seeking wisdom among
one's elders... they're just tired old gits...
perhaps not all, perhaps some Socrates might arise
once more, but they're just like the rest of us,
if not worse...

they behave in the same incredulous ways
as might be expected of any other generation,
esp. the Millennials: yeah, thanks for down-beating "us":
here's this, for not giving us enough slack...
like these "elders" were the ones who fought
in either of the two great wars...
***** please... all they know are proxy wars
and "collateral damage"...
the next time i'll be looking up to an elder
gentleman, he better not mind me drinking a beer
& smoking a cigarette while sitting on
a bench with me... chances are...
he might disappear for a while & come back
with a vintage Rayleigh bicycle!
so we'll talk about Rayleigh bicycles...
bicycles in general... how his son works long hours,
how his grandson has trouble speaking...
thereby i'd comfort him: wait a while...
he'll come through with his speech...
the rest of them can follow suite with the rest
of the generations...

if i could have only posted a rebuttal...
one way traffic system of conversation?
mein gott: i would have never guessed!

such a splendid Saturday night:
no need to go clubbing, pick up low-self-esteem girls...
well... nothing usual there...
i sort of missed out on the whole hook-up
culture... i spent most of the time in a brothel...
once every half a decade:
when a cat irritated me by insinuating she
was ready to be: geared-up when she was
being groomed... i had to fight the whole
******* foundation... scratch a few bricks
with my fingertips before i finally lay my hands
on a naked body of a woman...
that it happens so rarely: i'm all the more thankful for it!
too much... is numbing...
too little, quiet the opposite... prolonging...
invirogating... ****... invigorating...

oh but the fun really began when working out
the schematics of a die (a pair of dice)...
i never knew that the opposite faces added up
to 7... 6 & 1, 3 & 4, 5 & 2...
optical mathematics... just like me riding a bicycle
minding traffic: unconscious spatial coordination,
but in this version: more concentrated...
                 3

1                            5
       2                             6

                  4

that's a cube, by the way... i have left out
the lines of enclosure...

or the following schematic, reg. 3D objects...
within the confines of algebra, standardised by X
to denote space & count...

plan, front, side... in this instance, variations of front?

       X                      X                    X
X X X               X X X             X    X
X X X X            X X X            X X X X

lego blocks... Danish bricks... something or other...

for my meagre efforts, for everything that doesn't
associate itself with the genius of algebra,
or conjuring up... a E = MC²...
after all... even if i did...
there would be an Oppenheimer with his
reflection from the Bhagavad Gita...

well **** me, at least it's a welcome break from
"solving" a sudoku...
eh... it's almost like looking for a median...
it's as "complicated" as linguine doesn't
represent spaghetti... savvy?

what a Saturday night! but i was rewarded,
for my meagre efforts...
storm Arwen brought... accents of snow...
oh those ballerinas, pirouetting...
how i missed them, not enough of them
for the sleeping corpus to even mention them,
not enough snow for snowmen,
for snowballs... not enough for any proof of snow:
you must have been awake from midnight of
the 27th of November through to the 3am of
28th of November to notice these ballerinas...

you must have also acknowledged:
the night sky is more beautiful since the return advent
of the moon, i don't blame him for ******* off
to the southern hemisphere: looking for winter months...
i welcome his return...
finally the night sky makes sense:
since his return...
all the future worlds of unexplored constellations...
the nights have become... eye-piercing gladness bound,
chained even!

finally the cold is here, what i'm most comfortable in,
to reflect the skin i imbue...
winter is the most alive season for me...
almost anyone can share
the taste for summer... esp. at the "riddle"
of the equator...
oh the northern splendours,
how i adore this cold... if i could i could spend each
night in the forest sieving through
the last, fallen, autumnal leaves...
for scouting for a height of scent invested it...
sweetness of decay, come winter...
freshened by the absence of insects...

also, recently... i've been talking to this girl...
i'm 35... she's 50...
rarely can i compliment a woman for...
finding new music i might like...
it happened once...
i was 21 she was 18... she introduced me to...
in extremo & Дельфин...
i tried introducing her to GONG...
& King Crimson...
                             well... "**** happens"...
but this girl, introduced me to...
HALOCRAFT... Greek instrumental band...
i never felt so... kissed by a warming of a tide...
i think i introduced her to something of my own...
she probably heard of the bands already,
girl for now, woman already...
beside that: a dream to be had...
i can't remember when a woman would influence my
listening diet... music used to be such a private affair...
how would i break away from listening to too much medieval
music...
i sort of suggested... your suggestion
is almost synonymous with hammock's: kenotic...
no, not boards of canada... or 65 days of static...
that's too post-rock...
or even:
godspeed you! black emperor: F# A# ∞...

i guess my "consolation" comes without regrets...
i can't look up to my elders,
i don't have any contemporaries...
the best bit of advice i ever learned
was from Alexander Dumas:
they best advice anyone can give anyone is...
to not give any advice to begin with...
i practice this rigorously...

i can't look up to older people like prior generations
might have...
lechery riddle old ****-wits...
time moves with me...
there's nothing to look up to!
two failed marriages... this that & the other...
i'm glad to have not failed in marriage...
it didn't take me two ******* takes
to realise my failures...
i learned it the first time prior to engaging
in a single one!

perhaps that's why the old sod blocked me...
he failed twice,
i am: highly unlikely to fail just once...
maybe he was afraid of... himself...
mostly people fear others... not because
they can see themselves in others...
rather: they are finally able to see
themselves: in themselves...

                  don't you think?
whatever you might be "thinking"...
i might thinking of "thinking"... to begin with,
this sorry-***-tale of 8 winds
& a sqaured number of sorrows...

            i can't remember the first time, the last time,
when a woman's recommendation of her music
taste appealed to me: appeased me...
such a rare event... it must be celebrated!

storm Arwen came, i can't cycle around my vicinity,
no matter... she brought with her
an accent of snow...
winter is here: the night sky is reclaimed by
both moon & constellations...

alles gut: reicht
dies alle gut: ist genug...      
    
       dies ende:
                               anschließend somit weit!
Continue reading...
Big Virge Dec 2020
“Prime” ... (Explicit Lyrics !!!) A Poem written By Big Virge 26/7/2020
I’m REALLY Hoping That I...
HAVEN’T Past My Prime... !!!

Because My Minds STILL PRIMED...
To Write These Rhymes...

About Our Lives...
About Why We Smile...
And Why We Die... !!!!

About THOSE THIGHS...
AND... FEMININE EYES...
That Make ***** RISE... !!!!!

And About How We Live...
About... How We GIVE...

About How We RESIST...
... Embracing Skins...

NO MATTER What Colour...
That They Live In... !!!

You See I’m PRIMORDIAL...
As Well As... CORDIAL... !!!!!

In Zones That Hold Those Street Portals...
As Well As Those MORE... Formal...

Because I Keep My Levels...
..... FUNDAMENTAL..... !!!

I’m ALWAYS Primed To DISHEVEL...
The Talk of These... DEVILS... !!!
Who Are... INSTRUMENTAL...
... In The DETRIMENTAL... !!!!!!!!

WAY That Lives...
Are Being TOSSED ASIDE...
And Are Now Being PRIMED...
To Be RESIGNED To DIE...
BEFORE Their PRIME... !!?!!

... I LIKE Those Lines... !!!

So Imma’ Drop Them TWICE...
Because They’re THAT NICE...
And Are Words For The WISE... !!!

I’m ALWAYS Primed To DISHEVEL...
The Talk of These... DEVILS...
Who Are... INSTRUMENTAL...
... In The DETRIMENTAL... !!!!!!!!

WAY... That Lives...
Are Being TOSSED ASIDE...
And Are Now Being PRIMED...
To Be RESIGNED To DIE...
BEFORE Their PRIME... !!?!!

You See My Rhymes Are PRIMED...
To Write About CRIMES...

Designed By Minds...
Who Wear Suits And Ties...
That Look EVER SO NICE...

But Who Are The Types...
Who Tell Us LIES... !!!

Pretty Much ……
… ALL THE TIME... !!!

The Type Who Design...
Our Social Decline....

Who I Think You’ll Find...
Are The Type of Guys...
With WISE GUY Ties... !!!

Who PRIME Their WEAPONS...
To Do MORE Than DEADEN... !!!

The Vibe Where DEFIANCE...
... DEFIES Compliance... !!!

With THUGS And Street TYRANTS... !!!
See I’m Primed With Sweet Science... !!!

Just Like Those RING KINGS... !!!

From ALI To... Mayweather’...
I’m Primed To Get BETTER... !!!

At... Using These Letters...
To Now Wage VENDETTAS...
AGAINST These TRENDSETTERS...
And So Called Defenders...
of Life And It’s Splendours...

When They Are PRETENDERS...
With... EVIL AGENDAS... !!!!!

And That Is Where...
This Is Primed To END.

So For Those Who’ve Read...
This... “ PRIME POEM “...

I Hope That You’ve Liked...
And ENJOYED This Ride...

Because I’m NO LONGER Primed...
To Recite These Rhymes...
In Ways Where My Vocals...
Sound CLEAN And Tight... !!!

And... THAT Is...
ONE of The Reasons WHY...

As I Said I Now Find...
That... When It Comes...
To The Way That My Mind...
INSPIRES These Rhymes...
Where REALITY SHINES... !!!

I’m REALLY Hoping That I...
Have NOT Yet Arrived...

At That Time And Place...
Where I Have... PAST MY...

...... “ PRIME “.......
As the poem says people ...
#society #life #power #honesty #hope #bigvirge
Continue reading...

— The End —