Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face;
Happy were those which dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;—a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other’s aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe!
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?

The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.

Sow seed,—but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,—let no imposter heap;
Weave robes,—let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plough and ***** and *** and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre!
A Mareship Sep 2013
Click them off like

rosary beads

with accossiated prayers.


Smudge the dreams

into the eiderdown,

And divide them down

in ironed out

layers.


Line them up and

gobble them with listless

tea.

I am your prediction!

(said in shushes,

quite benediction)

I want to drop like stingless bees.

I am Addiction to Tranquility.


How jealous I am!

Watching him fall on his ****

as I begin the solitary farce

of trying to close my

eyes.

I watch his chest slowly sink and rise.

How beautiful -

to be cut down,

like grass.


Flophouse drapes of

cigarette smoke

hang from the ceiling in

billows.

A headache clings and

holds me close as

daylight stumbles

like a ghost,

and settles her questions

on my pillows.


The tragic thing about each morning

Is that I greet each sleepy dawn

with the dry and

pinkened threat of tears.

Sleepers – do you know the

might of what you do

each ******* night?

The oblivion in half your years?

The fiction of your wild frontiers?

The obliteration and presentation

of all your garbled

Freudian fears?

Do you know the glamour in what you do?

Do you know what I’d give to be like you?

To live and somehow not be here?

To close my eyes?

To disappear?
Sukuya Feb 2013
A bee you were, a bumblebee
No sting you had, a stingless bee
The lass I always, wanted to see
The eyes you had, were deep as sea.

A kiss you were, a gentle kiss
No moisture it had, a moist less kiss
The kiss I always wanted to kiss
The kiss which  I will, always miss.

The love you were, a gentle love
Peaceful you were, a white dove
The love it is, and is a fever
The love it was, and will be forever.
Dedicated to the lass I adore the most.
anthony Brady Nov 2015
Choose in life the tranquil path
paved with peace devoid of wrath
where every  woman and man
love makes welcome hate does ban.
Once found - you can never stray
from the quiet tenor of its way.
.
Great your burden, heavy the load:
weightless it feels upon that road
where briar, thorns and bramble
give way before you as you ramble
along a route of stingless nettle
and calm and joy upon you settle...

Dispelling sadness, soothing pain;
cooling your ires as gentle rain.
They, who would this pathway find
are those who caring ever mind
their neighbour, known or strange
through all this worldly range.

Dry your tears, greet the smile
bravely face each yearly mile;
be calm, be kind and you will never lose
sight of the pathway that you must choose.

Tobias
In the waste hour
Between to-day and yesterday
We watched, while on my arm--
Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone--
Dabbled in sweat the sacred head
Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange:
Till the dear face turned dead,
And to a sound of lamentation
The good, heroic soul with all its wealth--
Its sixty years of love and sacrifice,
Suffering and passionate faith--was reabsorbed
In the inexorable Peace,
And life was changed to us for evermore.

Was nothing left of her but tears
Like blood-drops from the heart?
Nought save remorse
For duty unfulfilled, justice undone,
And charity ignored?  Nothing but love,
Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth,
But for this passing
Into the unimaginable abyss
These things had never been?

Nay, there were we,
Her five strong sons!
To her Death came--the great Deliverer came!--
As equal comes to equal, throne to throne.
She was a mother of men.

The stars shine as of old.  The unchanging River,
Bent on his errand of immortal law,
Works his appointed way
To the immemorial sea.
And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly home:--
That she in us yet works and shines,
Lives and fulfils herself,
Unending as the river and the stars.

Dearest, live on
In such an immortality
As we thy sons,
Born of thy body and nursed
At those wild, faithful *******,
Can give--of generous thoughts,
And honourable words, and deeds
That make men half in love with fate!
Live on, O brave and true,
In us thy children, in ours whose life is thine--
Our best and theirs!  What is that best but thee--
Thee, and thy gift to us, to pass
Like light along the infinite of space
To the immitigable end?

Between the river and the stars,
O royal and radiant soul,
Thou dost return, thine influences return
Upon thy children as in life, and death
Turns stingless!  What is Death
But Life in act?  How should the Unteeming Grave
Be victor over thee,
Mother, a mother of men?
lmnsinner May 2018
“extra condoms” (explicit!)

a title deposited in the poem-to-do file/notebook,
with no body yet to follow through on or upon

which she tumbles to, an irresistible unrepentant
crooked finger hook line and she is sinker stinker caught,
worming in her feigned anger

current curiosity comes
fast and furious further,
demeanor—demanding
ex-explain-nations,
how could this
ever be a
poem?

stare ferocious, I am the prettiest pretense
of a pride incarnation hu-mane incarnate

call me in another language
Vasco da Gama
a sea route to India will uncover
on your worldly tattooed body,
drawing maps as we go along

devour her neck with stingless bites,
explorer voyager a rambunctious tongue undenied,
every space in and between needs  
surging surgical tastings, erupting into her indentations,
inserting her appendages into my places where they
have a business going-knowing

just in case that’s the one!

secret passageway canal holy crossing crossover

later she whacks me because the question goes unanswered
and no sheath employed when my tongued fingers are ten times
more demanding and supple and supply the exploratory course closing with spices and woven silks in Indian colors vibrations
why then,
extra?

god she is so lovely locomotive annoying!

to peak you peeking
to see your astounding astonishment,
you are our provisions for a sea voyage
and put the risk in, the trigger in,
when wherever you see the world-word,


extra
Nomad Feb 2016
Pain and suffering,
Of them both I am well aware.
It is the the bread and butter of this life,
Formed in misery, surrounded by strife.

I drank the cup, in hopes of redemption
But found none there.
Instead now I live in the life of atonement
For the burdens I am to bear.

Blood flows as time flies
I carry my sins heavily, for all the pain
All the lies.
When I was younger I wished to understand,
I now am older,
And wearily travel through the land.

What have I done,
I shout in the wind,
Why am I not forgiven
For all of my sins?

Perhaps I shall,
Take on too,
The burdens of yours,yours and mine too.

That cup from where I had my first sip,
I shall keep it with me now,
That none other may feel the stingless whip.

This is my burden, my price to pay.
Leave and leave me be, continue friend,
And be on your way.
Red Robregado Sep 2020
O search me, inside and out then heal me.
I beg You. Search me to heal me.
Save me. Hold me. Don’t let go.
Take a good look at the place that I dwell,
See how my plight is being engulfed with great floods,
the waters swirling in even unto my soul;
Sinking into the violent sinkhole where nothing but doom awaits,
drifting away from the lighthouse, rock house.
Storm-proofed. Or so I thought.
For it seemed unable to withstand continuous, raging storms
Could it be that it was made from sand after all?
I ponder to know; but how could I know?
I have become foolish, as though, I know You not;
I have forgotten Your face, longing, but I see You not.
my heart is dull for my loyalties are wrong;
I’ve forgotten to eat daily bread, Your Spirit groans.
My throat is dry and parched,
My eyes shed streams of tear, all too harsh
They say, “Ask and you shall receive”
But I’ve been asking, searching, slamming the windows of Heaven
Yet it’s as if I'm still ever more drowning in depression.
Oppression.
Same old transgressions.
Wrestling with wrong questions;
Suffering in suffocating silence
with emptiness and nothingness as loyal companions,
Scarcely breathing in an ocean poisoned with my own thoughts
It taints my heart with unbearable numbness
Holy. Crippling. Sadness.
My life is in need of the Anchor,
the pseudo-anchors I’ve had are now shaken from their footings
My vision fails as I wait for Your deliverance and saving.
“Hear from Heaven!”, sweet, Lord, this is my 900th prayer!
I’ve begged You.
Still, I am begging You.
I am exhausted, too desensitized, traumatized to swim.
Come again to my rescue, teach me once more to
tread, stay afloat, or stroke. Better yet
pull me back to the safety of Your shore,
for I still believe that in this life and to the next, there is more
But only in Your presence will I see, what’s truly in store.
While life may now appear desperate,
nonetheless, I wait upon You.
I cannot afford not to.
For who is a pardoning God like You?
Or who is Mighty enough to save but You?
Who understands a thousand sorrows
and guarantees unending joy tomorrow?
Who can breathe life to the dead and
render death stingless?
I know no one — not even one — but You.
Your sovereignty over the storms that grieve me
will sustain me in my tears,
it is Your grace at work even through my shallow fears
And it’s not that You have not heard my cries. You have.
You have answered a thousand times.
Just that it’s not how I pictured it most of the time.
But in the midst of grace denied, I got daily grace supplied.
I know now that You truly know best
When, where, and how to apportion your infinite grace
to me and all the rest —
So, Dear Father, grant me the grace me to trust.
Satisfy me day and night with Your unfailing love,
as you have sworn to my fathers from the days of old
Cast my sins into the depths of the sea and
let these sufferings work for me,
Teach me to expect no less;
rather pursue faith in the midst of distress
for You are using it to shape me into Your image.
I am appealing to Your zeal for Your own name.
Quietly, I wait for the timing consistent with Your good pleasure
Praying without ceasing, I will wait ’til You finally come for my
eternal pleasure and saving, endless safe-keeping.
Dark n Beautiful Jul 2020
Thousands and thousand
Of people, will die this year
From the virus, and the
Streets they lived on is sadden
By the masks someone
Refuses to wear, stingless
And reckless those buggers left behind

Another apartment available,
In our city, waiting, the grass
Seem greener, politics outbid
The tik, tok creativities challenges

If we listen quietly at seven P.M.
We can hear the cry of essential workers
Crying for justice victims,
The virus is a terrorist, boomer!
Launching attack on foreign lands,

Overhead we raise our voices
And asked God, not again!
In the meantime the skies seem, clearer,
the ocean seem, cleaner, less pollutions

Every time the flowers are blooming,
it’s reminding us that a new chapter of the day was born.


The races are shading, the people is vanishing,
The birds will read them down with a song,
Why!
Nobody is allowed near the headstones
Nothing last forever: unlike the red states
Winners and loser, statues falls to the ground:

Lord Nelson they are coming for your pillar
In Bridgetown,
You must come down, it is really civil rights
suddenly, not so popular at the dinner tables
he must come down!


.


,
Ophies Jan 2018
I cant speak and I cant see
Prison is my memories
Spiritual epiphany
The rivers of red running inside of me
Socially and physically
I am a stingless bee
Or the snail inside the garden
Chewing on my precious leaves
Trapped inside my poetry

— The End —