752

So the Eyes accost—and sunder
In an Audience—
Stamped—occasionally—forever—
So may Countenance

Entertain—without addressing
Countenance of One
In a Neighboring Horizon—
Gone—as soon as known—

Funny how Someone can
Asunder a heart of thine
And thou still dost adore them
With all thy riven smithereens

My love, please come to me,
In my life thou dost linger
A love from my sweet past
That beamed than many a star

My love, long have I endured
A heart sundered by love
Though wherever  I wander
Thy sweet love I still dost crave.

Oh my love, come back to me
So we may pick these riven pieces
That like sea waters scattered be
And I'll smoother thee with kisses

Together we'll never sunder
For my love will be thy love
Beaming so bright forevermore
As thy  love will be my love

Blissfully we'll dwell ever after
Like twinkling stars in galaxies
With our enchanted passion
Effulgently lingering in perpetuity.

"Trust is the glue that holds a relationship together. Love alone is not enough. Commitment is all about trust: making a promise, a pledge, a choice to say yes to this person and no to any others, and then consistently keeping that promise. Once that pledge to commitment is broken, all bets are off. The fragile and sacred container or frame of the relationship has been violated. Trust has been broken. And broken trust is one of the most difficult dynamics to restore in relationships. Without trust, intimacy suffers. When emotional intimacy dries up, so does ****** intimacy. Defensive walls go up. Communication breaks down. Distance replaces closeness. Resentment festers. Hostility kills kindness and caring. The atmosphere turns toxic. And relationships slowly disintegrate and die."

- Stephen A. Diamond Ph.D.

There was a town beyond the woods,
Ne’er there any water stood,
Alas, a Well, of the purest kind,
The aquifer under, is here described,
Beyond a thousand gallons under
The diamond-esque rubble and sunder.
But one bucket, at but one time,
Kind, the town, taking turns of rhyme,
This essence, used to bathe and cook,
To drink, to create, a cozy nook.
-
The happy town, the gorgeous shire,
The crops grown there as green as Ire,
No law exists, they live but civilly,
A fetching, quiet community,
But always there exists a one,
Who would want power, want this undone,
So it was said regretfully,
Poisoned their Well, emotionless he.
-
Now this village was quite secluded,
No one not there born, ne’er intruded,
Deep in the forest, behind a mountain,
Over a peak, under a cloudy curtain,
It existed in secret and abolition,
And one did seek its demolition,
Knowing the only flaw to here exist,
The essence of life, no man resists.
-
He crept at night, while the guard did sleep,
Promising the pure water to weep,
Dropping the genocide with bucket and crane,
Releasing its Demonic Alchemic Strain,
The Well did hiss as the poison moaned,
Recoiling at this unwanted drone,
The assailant then brought to his steady lips,
A cup and was first to take Devil’s Kiss.
-
On the morrow of the mentioned crime,
Busy bodies awoke to start the day’s time,
Queuing at bucket and awaiting turns,
Each family there a portion yearned,
Not one did from the water strafe,
Each then bathed, then drank, unsafe,
No one could tell different taste,
Water is water, but not today.
-
The plague did start like any disease,
Sore throat, fever, stopped nose, displeased,
The people sought the witchdoctor,
But he from bed, would rise no longer,
He caught ill too, and wouldn’t budge,
Afraid for his life, afraid of this grudge,
He knew this sickness, had heard before,
But told no one, the end was sure.
-
In a week, vomiting and nausea,
Nasal passages sealed, no nostalgia
Brought to memory of any like sickness,
The virus brought about decrepit afflictions,
But slowly and steady, worse and worse,
The people became, some saw the course
But kept silent, to avoid alerting,
The so many children in need of comforting.
-
In two weeks’ time, the pathogen,
Had taken wits of sensible men,
At night, they screamed in somber fright,
Their deepest fears, real now, and bright,
The lutes died out, the bards not singing,
An unfortunate time, but this was only beginning.
-
Fingernails rotting off at the cuticle,
Too much blood for any receptacle,
Leprositic, the fingers came next,
One by one, extremities hexed,
Children lost their legs to run,
From mothers’ faces rotted, undone,
In every other step, heard were bones breaking,
Kneecaps cracked open, shins splintering,
Eyes turned cadaverous, awake, but not seeing,
Cataracts formed, blinded from viral being,
In cradles were witnessed toddlers there suffering,
Their mothers watched with empty sockets, but listening
To the cries impossible to stifle,
The pain too much for these tiny disciples.
The dogs normally to their masters zealous,
Became of them mortally jealous.
They bit the hands that fed them well,
For watering them from the cryptic Well.
Men watched their sons dive right under,
The bridge that harnessed a valley of blunder
Hundreds of feet above sharp rocks and stumps,
Their namesakes leaped, impaled in clumps,
For those lucky enough to still have eyes,
Cried tears of acid for images despised
Sickness was spewed upon the walls,
Entrails adorned the Gathering Halls,
Some had turned to mutilation,
Blood-letting for some, abomination,
Some crazed enough to “cure” themselves,
Clawed throat and stomach til flesh dissolved,
Some rich with elixir tried to embezzle,
Upon some of the poor, tired and grizzled,
Riot broke out amongst the walking dead
Fortune or lack of, irrelevant,
Black pustules broke out that looked Bubonic,
But the cure for that failed, how ironic,
That it rather hastened the steadfast curse,
Faster than iambic verse,
Molecules turned to embryo,
Rising like a great Pharaoh,
They became flesh parasites,
Taking internal organs, slow and precise,
They started with the liver and spleen,
So there lasted hours of wretched screams,
The intestines of some would close and then
Becoming septic, they passed, bile in stem,
A few had throats seeming cauterized,
Friends watched friends closest, strangle alive,
There were in fact, some optimists,
Among them, talk of being “rid of this”,
They too died while clutching life,
Endeavoring their eternal flight,
From noses, there dripped blackened murk,
Thicker than combined oil and dirt,
It then secreted as sweat from all pores,
Fatigue then struck those left to the floor.
Upon broken knees some prayed,
Usually the skin under ribs was flayed,
Trying to understand what went wrong,
Dissecting the dead was not headstrong,
It only furthered viral progression,
The open corpses breathing infection,
The cadavers would move still, the fleshbugs active,
The horror of lifeless movement, corrosive,
The minds of the weak, it pure happenstance,
One found eating dead flesh for a cure, no chance.
All in all, this lingering curiosity,
Provided once good people with animosity,
One man turned good people to hate,
Their neighbors in ways that were irate.
-
The chaos was not anarchy,
For, as I said,
It was civilly,
But verily, I do decree,
That no one knew such misery,
The inhabitants of this village,
Did not suspect innocent visage,
Or perhaps, their cherished Well.
To be culprit behind this hell
So they drank and drank to remedy,
To recompense this malady,
To no avail did blood get thicker,
Alas, they got but sicker and sicker.
-
This hell, the townsfolk then realized,
Wouldn’t end til they all were nullified,
Eliminated they were, eradicated at that,
This pathogenic virus had verily spat
In the faces of the people here,
Decimated they were, not quenching their fear,
Murdered they were by a systematic
Suicidal psychopathic,
Inflamed in the mind of darkness thereafter,
Only satisfied by his own laughter.
Not many, til now, know of this town,
From lowly peasant, to “Godly” Crown.
An explorer found the deserted hamlet,
Body parts and questions then found the hermit,
He had heard of a town like this, he wrote:
“It was a new age Roanoke…”
But the village, not a town to cause commotion,
All that was left of them, a tree scratched, “CROATOAN”.

Wondrous, wondrous is the sight:
from the front, from behind, from the top, from beneath, all around,
fulminating planes, universes, formed, bubbling out forming,
events, from all times existing as one,
beings, of all kinds, everywhere,
gods, angels, daemons, beasts, life from many systems,
including men, of this small speckle of a world,
known, unknown, and the beholder included
unfold, in this being vast, that knows no end,
that prompts awe and gestures of remorse
for having called It the friend and the other and the like,
who can tell what it is, it is inside, outside and everywhere,
our limited vision itself is not enough to grasp it.
It must grant a boon to allow the mortal man to gain a glimpse.

Such is the sight, encountered assuring fearlessness,
amid the din and the clamour of the ferocious war about to begin.

Yet, a realm exists, eternal, where joy is a term unworthy,
where bliss is a term unworthy, where ecstasy flows
out of every pore of the very fiber of existence,
to prompt the poet to say, ah, suffering I can take, but
this my receptacle is too weak to take in your bliss:
where delight takes the form of a radiant blue and plays the flute
having heard which once, all other joy pales in experience known
here a hundred thousand coloured plumes flower out of darkness,
here the ardent souls,  sit numbed by the bliss of love,
not winking once, so not to interrupt the moment.

The portal to which is guarded by a simple faith.
Even a passing desire and a glimpse pours forth, of the river of love
dancing away to the flute, in the depth our being.

Oh, to be a mother, and glimpse universes
in the mouth of one's babe, calling it forth exasperated
to open up and throw out the eaten mud.
Or be the Creator, befuddled that
his proud creation is but one puddle among the millions
this magician conjures up, who smiles innocent as a five year old.
Or be the simpletons guarded in awe by the mountain held up
as an umbrella to the deluge ordered by the rain gods.
Oh, the bewitching smile, that rended the hearts of the maidens,
to which sworn enemies cast their bows and arrows
and fall down in obeisance.

That the lord of all existence, can be a prankster
delighting in butter and frolic, who knew, who knew?

He is the unseen charioteer:
steering the ignorant soul, seated in the heart; Aeons pass
and we know not, even as He carries us in his arms across.
Oh, we can work, and approach him by work.
Meditate! Yes, sunder the knots in the heart.
Sacrifice too, is acceptable as offering, and renunciation ascetic.
See Him in any form, or in no form at all,
offer Him anything, even a leaf, a blade of grass,
He submits but to the ardent soul, this lord of love,
this eternal teacher of the ways of union.

And yet, it all began on a rainy day, on a day
when evil reigned and the rivers were in spate,
in a prison, where righteousness was consigned.

Yes, Truth, the weapon to put the guards of delusion to sleep,
and He slips out, when the rain goes mellow in her hymn,
when the river parts to the babe guarded by the snake,
when the jungles sing to the ecstasy unfolding,
when the world is asleep, ignorant and lost,
assured in its uncertain knowledge
and rival claims and fearsome philosophies
and numberless rituals and lifeless creeds,
unknown to the wicked kings, here He arrives,
to the muffled joys of a pastoral village erupting in celebration.

Corners turned.
Chapters closed.
Keys to locks no longer
Functioning.

Missing links.
Minds connected.
Tapping over ports and
Oceans.

Windy cities approaching.
Rainy cities receding.
Swapping sleet for snow.

Heart. | Breaks, mourns, weeps.
Hands. | Tangle hair, clench papers, cover face.

Far, long, apart.



Don't forget.










Please.

she told me not to cry during the night
so i'll wait 'til tomorrow
when the sun will shine
and i resist loneliness
since the sun, i know, will shine
to warm my soul
with euphoria
and so i do
think to myself
nostalgic
of this life
where love does flourish
in a place
and there i do exist
and i am happy
and i am so in love with him
the hymns are haunting
though i do play them
over and over
i listen
like a broken record
for a broken heart

such wonder
s and such moment
s that still fill my heart
so heavy with emotion
so natural like the sunlight
that does shine for me-i think
until-i question
yet again..
what happens if it does not
rise again
what happens when it rains
and so i start to cry
and my whole world does fall
like rain
i look around
as time stands still
amidst a puzzle of a place
i stand alone
under the same sun
as the ones who came before me
and cursed me with this soul
i run
to the waves
take me to loveland
i scream
into the wind
no one else can seem to hear me
has no one ever?
while a voice is sometimes louder
in the mind
rather than within the world
where volumes drown the lyrics
to the most beautiful songs
of myself

looking directly into the sun
i see nothing
feel
nothing
and i cry no more

by what light!this pains' dismay is taught and frigid
it is the earth upholding my footfalls genial and slow
i tread and mark the soil as turning sunder:the stain
last frail and withered node of light 7fold and thrice
the hills are marching under that calamity of orange
duskish and fowling their curvaceous hide. i'm loose and tight
in folds of grass. and i walk

                                    and i walk

                                                   and i    w
                                                                         a


                                                                                   l;
                                                                                     K

the traffic’s wet with oil
while the drivers sweat and broil
and ACs blast at least as loud as
stereos, pulsing to beat the heat

and the sun does all it can
to oblige a gift of all it’s got
and all we’ve got to say is,
“it’s hotter’n hell out here”

when all we’ve ever known
is all the sun has ever shown,
somehow eclipsed by our universal
lust; the wish to reach stars

we’ve never felt but have always seen
squinting at us from aeons ago.

It's a tinder place of ether spread across the astral plain,
And the soft ember cinder caress upon the air.
Celestial purple and orange embraces the sky with love,
While the tones and hum cease by the roar of the deep blue beneath.
This is the taste of your essence I long to capture with my soul,
As the blight of solstice immerse like the darkness of hallow whisper.
I seek upon your Amber of your heart to melt this frozen maelstrom red,
And quench the unending thirst that beckon us both to our beats anew!

It used to live on the hilltop
where a lone bell tolled
by the temple:
but the Deity is long gone
and the bell mourns
in the valley wind on empty
afternoons, now.

I went searching for it:
in late summer, the koel
would sunder open the vaults
of heaven and bring
some down for us mortals
haunted by death.
The koels are long gone now.

Peace,
peace.

Lady siting silent in the evening
staring vacant into the sky,
after a day of labour:
can you give some to me?

I thought it was in education.
But that is stored now, in
almirahs where moths
eat way what humidity cannot.

I thought it was in a position.
But they don't matter, now
a ladder ascending
to nowhere,
vanishing mid-air.

Old man, smiling past hope
that has broken like
your lost teeth:
can you give some to me?

I asked the urchin
playing in the ditch after the rains,

he said: 'follow me, I know where
it lives', and he led me to
a ***** pond lined with plastic
and all our civilization's refuse,
and jumped in.

I returned, disgusted.

Sometimes I wonder, or do I wander?
Not to any particular starry night, nor down any quiet road,
But it’s all the same, if I should sunder,
For I carry a heavy load.  

Consider the simple truth; ‘tis but an honest request,
That life give fruit of the yellow moon, and wholesome no less.
It creates no fruit too ripe nor produce too bitter,
Therefore nurture in spite lest fate incur.

Burden me with thought yet leave me thoughtless,
Bless me with love, yet leave me loveless.
No tender thine care, yet mine is a flower.
In bloom it is rich, yet when wilting, ‘tis dour.

So let me be, allow me to ponder,
As my feet sift the Earth and my ears the Thunder,
I’ll behold an adventure; but because I wonder or wander?

I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with ecstasy of shame.
That tearing pain is gone, enriched
By his life-spasm; but he being gone, the same
Myself is gone
****** by the dragon down below death's horizon.

III
I woke from this. I lay upon the lawn;
They had thrown roses on the moss
With all their thorns; we came there at the dawn,
My lord and I; God sailed across
The sky in's galleon of amber, drawn
By singing winds
While we wove garlands of the flowers of our minds.

IV

All day my lover deigned to ****** me,
Linking his kisses in a chain
About my neck; demon-embroidery!
Bruises like far-ff mountains stain
The valley of my body of ivory!
Then last came sleep.
I wake, and he is gone; what should I do but weep?

V

Nay, for I wept enough --- more sacred tears! ---
When first he pinned me, gripped
My flesh, and as a stallion that rears,
Sprang, hero-thewed and satyr-lipped;
Crushed, as a grape between his teeth, my fears;
****** out my life
And stamped me with the shame, the monstrous word of
wife.

VI

I will not weep; nay, I will follow him
Perchance he is not far,
Bathing his limbs in some delicious dim
Depth, where the evening star
May kiss his mouth, or by the black sky's rim
He makes his prayer
To the great serpent that is coiled in rapture there.

VII

I rose to seek him. First my footsteps faint
Pressed the starred moss; but soon
I wandered, like some sweet sequestered saint,
Into the wood, my mind. The moon
Was staggered by the trees; with fierce constraint
Hardly one ray
Pierced to the ragged earth about their roots that lay.

VIII

I wandered, crying on my Lord. I wandered
Eagerly seeking everywhere.
The stories of life that on my lips he squandered
Grew into shrill cries of despair,
Until the dryads frightened and dumfoundered
Fled into space ---
Like to a demon-king's was grown my maiden face!

XI

At last I came unto the well, my soul
In that still glass, I saw no sign
Of him, and yet --- what visions there uproll
To cloud that mirror-soul of mine?
Above my head there screams a flying scroll
Whose word burnt through
My being as when stars drop in black disastrous dew.

X

For in that scroll was written how the globe
Of space became; of how the light
Broke in that space and wrapped it in a robe
Of glory; of how One most white
Withdrew that Whole, and hid it in the lobe
Of his right Ear,
So that the Universe one dewdrop did appear.

IX

Yea! and the end revealed a word, a spell,
An incantation, a device
Whereby the Eye of the Most Terrible
Wakes from its wilderness of ice
To flame, whereby the very core of hell
Bursts from its rind,
Sweeping the world away into the blank of mind.

XII

So then I saw my fault; I plunged within
The well, and brake the images
That I had made, as I must make - Men spin
The webs that snare them - while the knee
Bend to the tyrant God - or unto Sin
The lecher sunder!
Ah! came that undulant light from over or from under?

XIII

It matters not. Come, change! come, Woe! Come, mask!
Drive Light, Life, Love into the deep!
In vain we labour at the loathsome task
Not knowing if we wake or sleep;
But in the end we lift the plumed casque
Of the dead warrior;
Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling *****.

XIV

Then I returned into myself, and took
All in my arms, God's universe:
Crushed its black juice out, while His anger shook
His dumbness pregnant with a curse.
I made me ink, and in a little book
I wrote one word
That God himself, the adder of Thought, had never heard.

XV

It detonated. Nature, God, mankind
Like sulphur, nitre, charcoal, once
Blended, in one annihilation blind
Were rent into a myriad of suns.
Yea! all the mighty fabric of a Mind
Stood in the abyss,
Belching a Law for "That" more awful than for "This."

XVI

Vain was the toil. So then I left the wood
And came unto the still black sea,
That oily monster of beatitude!
('Hath "Thee" for "Me," and "Me" for "Thee!")
There as I stood, a mask of solitude
Hiding a face
Wried as a satyr's, rolled that ocean into space.

XVII

Then did I build an altar on the shore
Of oyster-shells, and ringed it round
With star-fish. Thither a green flame I bore
Of phosphor foam, and strewed the ground
With dew-drops, children of my wand, whose core
Was trembling steel
Electric that made spin the universal Wheel.

XVIII

With that a goat came running from the cave
That lurked below the tall white cliff.
Thy name! cried I. The answer that gave
Was but one tempest-whisper - "If!"
Ah, then! his tongue to his black palate clave;
For on soul's curtain
Is written this one certainty that naught is certain!

XIX

So then I caught that goat up in a kiss.
And cried Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!
Then all this body's wealth of ambergris,
(Narcissus-scented flesh of man!)
I burnt before him in the sacrifice;
For he was sure -
Being the Doubt of Things, the one thing to endure!

**

Wherefore, when madness took him at the end,
He, doubt-goat, slew the goat of doubt;
And that which inward did for ever tend
Came at the last to have come out;
And I who had the World and God to friend
Found all three foes!
Drowned in that sea of changes, vacancies, and woes!

XXI

Yet all that Sea was swallowed up therein;
So they were not, and it was not.
As who should sweat his soul out through the skin
And find (sad fool!) he had begot
All that without him that he had left in,
And in himself
All he had taken out thereof, a mocking elf!

XXII

But now that all was gone, great Pan appeared.
Him then I strove to woo, to win,
Kissing his curled lips, playing with his beard,
Setting his brain a-shake, a-spin,
By that strong wand, and muttering of the weird
That only I
Knew of all souls alive or dead beneath the sky.

XXIII

So still I conquered, and the vision passed.
Yet still was beaten, for I knew
Myself was He, Himself, the first and last;
And as an unicorn drinks dew
From under oak-leaves, so my strength was cast
Into the mire;
For all I did was dream, and all I dreamt desire.

XXIV

More; in this journey I had clean forgotten
The quest, my lover. But the tomb
Of all these thoughts, the rancid and the rotten,
Proved in the end to be my womb
Wherein my Lord and lover had begotten
A little child
To drive me, laughing lion, into the wanton wild!

XXV

This child hath not one hair upon his head,
But he hath wings instead of ears.
No eyes hath he, but all his light is shed
Within him on the ordered sphere
Of nature that he hideth; and in stead
Of mouth he hath
One minute point of jet; silence, the lightning path!

XXVI

Also his nostrils are shut up; for he
Hath not the need of any breath;
Nor can the curtain of eternity
Cover that head with life or death.
So all his body, a slim almond-tree,
Knoweth no bough
Nor branch nor twig nor bud, from never until now.

XXVII

This thought I bred within my bowels, I am.
I am in him, as he in me;
And like a satyr ravishing a lamb
So either seems, or as the sea
Swallows the whale that swallows it, the ram
Beats its own head
Upon the city walls, that fall as it falls dead.

XXVIII

Come, let me back unto the lilied lawn!
Pile me the roses and the thorns,
Upon this bed from which he hath withdrawn!
He may return. A million morns
May follow that first dire daemonic dawn
When he did split
My spirit with his lightnings and enveloped it!

XXIX

So I am stretched out naked to the knife,
My whole soul twitching with the stress
Of the expected yet surprising strife,
A martyrdom of blessedness.
Though Death came, I could kiss him into life;
Though Life came, I
Could kiss him into death, and yet nor live nor die!

***

Yet I that am the babe, the sire, the dam,
Am also none of these at all;
For now that cosmic chaos of I AM
Bursts like a bubble. Mystical
The night comes down, a soaring wedge of flame
Woven therein
To be a sign to them who yet have never been.

XXXI

The universe I measured with my rod.
The blacks were balanced with the whites;
Satan dropped down even as up soared God;
****** prayed and danced with anchorites.
So in my book the even matched the odd:
No word I wrote
Therein, but sealed it with the signet of the goat.

XXXII

This also I seal up. Read thou herein
Whose eyes are blind! Thou may'st behold
Within the wheel (that always seems to spin
All ways) a point of static gold.
Then may'st thou out therewith, and fit it in
That extreme sphere
Whose boundless farness makes it infinitely near.

The first was like a dream through summer heat,
  The second like a tedious numbing swoon,
While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat
  Beneath a winter moon.

"But," says my friend, "what was this thing and where?"
  It was a pleasure-place within my soul;
An earthly paradise supremely fair
  That lured me from the goal.

The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;
  The second was its ruin fraught with pain:
Why raise the fair delusion to the skies
  But to be dashed again?

My castle stood of white transparent glass
  Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,
But when the summer sunset came to pass
  It kindled into fire.

My pleasaunce was an undulating green,
  Stately with trees whose shadows slept below,
With glimpses of smooth garden-beds between,
  Like flame or sky or snow.

Swift squirrels on the pastures took their ease,
  With leaping lambs safe from the unfeared knife;
All singing-birds rejoicing in those trees
  Fulfilled their careless life.

Wood-pigeons cooed there, stock-doves nestled there;
  My trees were full of songs and flowers and fruit,
Their branches spread a city to the air,
  And mice lodged in their root.

My heath lay farther off, where lizards lived
  In strange metallic mail, just spied and gone;
Like darted lightnings here and there perceived
  But nowhere dwelt upon.

Frogs and fat toads were there to hop or plod
  And propagate in peace, an uncouth crew,
Where velvet-headed rushes rustling nod
  And spill the morning dew.

All caterpillars throve beneath my rule,
  With snails and slugs in corners out of sight;
I never marred the curious sudden stool
  That perfects in a night.

Safe in his excavated gallery
  The burrowing mole groped on from year to year;
No harmless hedgehog curled because of me
  His prickly back for fear.

Ofttimes one like an angel walked with me,
  With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire,
But deep as the unfathomed endless sea
  Fulfilling my desire:

And sometimes like a snowdrift he was fair,
  And sometimes like a sunset glorious red,
And sometimes he had wings to scale the air
  With aureole round his head.

We sang our songs together by the way,
  Calls and recalls and echoes of delight;
So communed we together all the day,
  And so in dreams by night.

I have no words to tell what way we walked,
  What unforgotten path now closed and sealed;
I have no words to tell all things we talked,
  All things that he revealed:

This only can I tell: that hour by hour
  I waxed more feastful, lifted up and glad;
I felt no thorn-***** when I plucked a flower,
  Felt not my friend was sad.

"To-morrow," once I said to him with smiles:
  "To-night," he answered gravely and was dumb,
But pointed out the stones that numbered miles
  And miles and miles to come.

"Not so," I said: "to-morrow shall be sweet;
  To-night is not so sweet as coming days."
Then first I saw that he had turned his feet,
  Had turned from me his face:

Running and flying miles and miles he went,
  But once looked back to beckon with his hand
And cry: "Come home, O love, from banishment:
  Come to the distant land."

That night destroyed me like an avalanche;
  One night turned all my summer back to snow:
Next morning not a bird upon my branch,
  Not a lamb woke below,--

No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;
  No squirrel scampered on my breezy lawn,
No mouse lodged by his hoard: all joys took wing
  And fled before that dawn.

Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,
  No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay ****:
O love, I knew that I should meet my love,
  Should find my love no more.

"My love no more," I muttered, stunned with pain:
  I shed no tear, I wrung no passionate hand,
Till something whispered: "You shall meet again,
  Meet in a distant land."

Then with a cry like famine I arose,
  I lit my candle, searched from room to room,
Searched up and down; a war of winds that froze
  Swept through the blank of gloom.

I searched day after day, night after night;
  Scant change there came to me of night or day:
"No more," I wailed, "no more"; and trimmed my light,
  And gnashed, but did not pray,

Until my heart broke and my spirit broke:
  Upon the frost-bound floor I stumbled, fell,
And moaned: "It is enough: withhold the stroke.
  Farewell, O love, farewell."

Then life swooned from me. And I heard the song
  Of spheres and spirits rejoicing over me:
One cried: "Our sister, she hath suffered long."--
  One answered: "Make her see."--

One cried: "O blessed she who no more pain,
  Who no more disappointment shall receive."--
One answered: "Not so: she must live again;
  Strengthen thou her to live."

So, while I lay entranced, a curtain seemed
  To shrivel with crackling from before my face,
Across mine eyes a waxing radiance beamed
  And showed a certain place.

I saw a vision of a woman, where
  Night and new morning strive for *******;
Incomparably pale, and almost fair,
  And sad beyond expression.

Her eyes were like some fire-enshrining gem,
  Were stately like the stars, and yet were tender,
Her figure charmed me like a windy stem
  Quivering and drooped and slender.

I stood upon the outer barren ground,
  She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;
While circling in their never-slackening round
  Danced by the mystic hours.

But every flower was lifted on a thorn,
  And every thorn shot upright from its sands
To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn
  With cruel clapping hands.

She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength
  Was strung up until daybreak of delight:
She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,
  And breadth, and depth, and height.

Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,
  A chain of living links not made nor riven:
It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,
  And anchored fast in heaven.

One cried: "How long? yet founded on the Rock
  She shall do battle, suffer, and attain."--
One answered: "Faith quakes in the tempest shock:
  Strengthen her soul again."

I saw a cup sent down and come to her
  Brimful of loathing and of bitterness:
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
  The depth, not make it less.

But as she drank I spied a hand distil
  New wine and ****** honey; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
  She tasted only sweet.

Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy-fresh and young;
  Drinking she sang: "My soul shall nothing want";
And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,
  A mystical slow chant.

One cried: "The wounds are faithful of a friend:
  The wilderness shall blossom as a rose."--
One answered: "Rend the veil, declare the end,
  Strengthen her ere she goes."

Then earth and heaven were rolled up like a scroll;
  Time and space, change and death, had passed away;
Weight, number, measure, each had reached its whole:
  The day had come, that day.

Multitudes--multitudes--stood up in bliss,
  Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;
With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace,
  And crowned and haloed hair.

They sang a song, a new song in the height,
  Harping with harps to Him Who is Strong and True:
They drank new wine, their eyes saw with new light,
  Lo, all things were made new.

Tier beyond tier they rose and rose and rose
  So high that it was dreadful, flames with flames:
No man could number them, no tongue disclose
  Their secret sacred names.

As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood
  Fed all, one breath swept through them myriad voiced,
They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood
  And worshipped and rejoiced.

Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,
  Each face looked one way towards its Sun of Love;
Drank love and bathed in love and mirrored it
  And knew no end thereof.

Glory touched glory on each blessed head,
  Hands locked dear hands never to sunder more:
These were the new-begotten from the dead
  Whom the great birthday bore.

Heart answered heart, soul answered soul at rest,
  Double against each other, filled, sufficed:
All loving, loved of all; but loving best
  And best beloved of Christ.

I saw that one who lost her love in pain,
  Who trod on thorns, who drank the loathsome cup;
The lost in night, in day was found again;
  The fallen was lifted up.

They stood together in the blessed noon,
  They sang together through the length of days;
Each loving face bent Sunwards like a moon
  New-lit with love and praise.

Therefore, O friend, I would not if I might
  Rebuild my house of lies, wherein I joyed
One time to dwell: my soul shall walk in white,
  Cast down but not destroyed.

Therefore in patience I possess my soul;
  Yea, therefore as a flint I set my face,
To pluck down, to build up again the whole--
  But in a distant place.

These thorns are sharp, yet I can tread on them;
  This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet;
My face is steadfast toward Jerusalem,
  My heart remembers it.

I lift the hanging hands, the feeble knees--
  I, precious more than seven times molten gold--
Until the day when from His storehouses
  God shall bring new and old;

Beauty for ashes, oil of joy for grief,
  Garment of praise for spirit of heaviness:
Although to-day I fade as doth a leaf,
  I languish and grow less.

Although to-day He prunes my twigs with pain,
  Yet doth His blood nourish and warm my root:
To-morrow I shall put forth buds again,
  And clothe myself with fruit.

Although to-day I walk in tedious ways,
  To-day His staff is turned into a rod,
Yet will I wait for Him the appointed days
  And stay upon my God.

A HERD OF LEGENDS

( for Shyam Sunder Sharma )

always in the background
of my mind I am

hearing
listening to

the ananda-lahari
of Arun's voice

speaking to me
in best Kolatkarese

as I ride
his KALA GHODA

to the outskirts of
JEJURI

and there dismount
walking barefoot

into the town
of his mind

bowing before
his words

this here
this now

drinking his voice
thirstily down

to the very last sound
marking each syllable with turmeric

offering the ashes
of anything I can say

I the humble havildar

to the temple
of your thought

until you take a final drag
from a half bent charminar

flick it from fingers
laugh...tell me to. . .

"****** off!
Go on...!"

"And make
a poem of your own!"

Bells that chime with malcontent
shall toll the sounds of dread.
Whistles cry with detriment;
the hour of death's ahead.

Fields are razed, and valleys hazed;
miasma shall ensue.
Mountains crumble; end of days
rides 'pon the heels of doom.

Death has come for everyone;
no cornerstone unturned.
Putrefy to purify;
with blood, your lakes shall churn.

Sanctity's naught but a dream;
rescind your factions few.
It's all for one to come undone,
and all shall burn with you.

Clouds aflame, for in His name
the sky comes thund'ring down.
And when this land rests in His hand,
He'll take our throne and crown.

Tyrant-force with no remorse;
from out the sea, He'll rise.
He leads His thrall to conquer all,
with fire in His eyes.

Apocalypse shall head the Styx;
the river shall run high.
And to the banks, you stand in ranks
and heed Lord Charon's cry,

"File in, all ye of sin."
His cackles crack the trees.
*"Thy Earth undone, my kingdom come.
Now sunder unto me."

stone ground mustard Venus burns. She's not concerned that constant falling
and orbits, elliptical - are the same thing.
Her eyes are deaf. My eyes adapt to the pattern
that rattles the chain of events.
my Spartan theories dangle in dubiousness.
I find a trap, and call it Seattle... for i see cattle -
grazing a state of mind; north, north west of what God meant.
washing tons of pocket lint by hand.
chewing their cud
in the dark. meanwhile - outside the ranch...
My eyes refract. ***** and un-***** in the black lacquer that came -
with the oblique miracle. they sustain things that would sunder a doll-eyed bovine
to ever breach The Fence.
my hardened arteries jangle like numinous. I pine and snap ruinous barbs from Death's
prattle... for i see battle, razing the Grace of Time
more at war, than at our best. more -
bereft of what Reason defends.  
tossing guns at bullets
by telekinesis.

[ undefined ]


i come from where i've never been. you were there. and ewe were there; fleeced and bleating
in the snow that fell as soon as shearing ceased. i recall, you were never there. but remember
passing you by... shilling an ocean roar you swore you'd plucked from a Seashell -
salvaged from the divine dry sockets of Poseidon's skull.
you were hawking your unawares. i played a flute made of question marks and glass drum skins.
i went where my stride was inclined, and never where i went to.
i never arrived by approaching the destination. only by always being somewhere else
till i got there. i came from where i'd never been and -
ain't been Nowhere since.

but i'm sure i pass
through There

ever since.

1420

One Joy of so much anguish
Sweet nature has for me
I shun it as I do Despair
Or dear iniquity—
Why Birds, a Summer morning
Before the Quick of Day
Should stab my ravished spirit
With Dirks of Melody
Is part of an inquiry
That will receive reply
When Flesh and Spirit sunder
In Death’s Immediately—

People often say to me “I wish I could write like you.”
Which to some degree I should find humbling
But if only they knew the truth
That every time I touch the pen I'm afraid of what it might do
Behind the guise of self expression it takes possession
All defenses are torn a sunder in pain under its reign
And I am helpless to stop it
Like I would, even if I could anyway
Each tear in me is subject to its tyranny
I watch every sunset fearfully
As the veil of darkness falls
So do the castle walls
It is then that the pen will begin to possess me again
Coercing confessions of sin
However, as much I hate it
I abhor I love it more
I concede that I need it
There is a stink of distinction
Between me and this ink pen
Yet still somewhat synonymous
Whatever I hide under the surface
Determines its purpose
And it always serves it
Even if it hurts when
I bleed through this pen.

Black is the seed, and black, the fruit.

The blossom of light an affront:  wrought of nothing,
illuminating nothing, reverting to nothing, the blossom is—
Everything.
And a man contends, endures,
knowing, in his moment, that all that matters
matters not; that in the crowd
he is alone, that in the cosmos
he is lost, that in his writing
he is written. He is a coal, shot hot between voids.
Intense to evanescent,
each pass of a life has a spectrum.

Red is the womb.

Here, at riot’s eye, all bellows howl,
all fires bend to the harlot wind of becoming.
And the nub is a lump, and the lump accrues,
marbles dreamless, in liquor weightless, defining:
Liquid ruby, clinging vine, tallow flower in wine—
the little ogre, caught on a briar, kicks.
Comes a marvelous trophy, squirming and gory,
naked and pendent, blind and grotesque—
wound about the hollows and seams,
spat in a maelstrom:
one more shape in the window,
one more shadow exposed,
in the ****** triumph of light.

Out of the whirl, the faces gather round.
The boy has opened his eyes,
but the infant makes no sound.
Shapes loom to the sides, to the front and rear:
The faces grin, closing in…grow enormous fingers
to point, to pinch—to peel back the veil
and make his eyes scream.
In the dimness a nimbus, a prism, a pearl.
The faces part. The prism paints an image in the whirl.
The figure is a woman, whose seeming lips recite:
“Come sunder the night. Little ember, ignite.
I am mother, I am mother. I am life, I am light.”
But like oil on a rainy day,
the colors blend and wend their way
into the whirl, and there,
subdued, the voice is slurred,
the light, obscured,
and night
renewed.

Here on the lattice,
morning embroiders the tatters of night.
While tall beaded glasses
squeeze melody from melting ice,
the diced and slanting shafts of sun
checker the shadows with tangerine light.
On the sidewalks April’s children run,
but the eyes in the faces see
nephew on the august perch
of uncle’s wicker knee.
Graven in air, the faces shift,
their eyes a flickering stream.
Loosed features drift, expressions run
in subtle strokes of shade and sun.
The stream ***** him in:  swirls of abhorrence,
pools of disdain. Succumbing, drawn under,
he swallows his eyes. But the eyes in the faces remain
watching.

So scrawny it grieves, he eats too ****** much;
ever absent, he is always in the way.
Sickly, quiet, submissive, shy,
he hides when the faces quarrel,
cries when they crack his lie.
Craving love, he learns early to fast;
contriving a limp, he is weaned at last.
What hold wanders here—there are no bridges,
only walls. Every scribe is a master of cant.
The learned are jaundiced, the ignorant smug.
And those who would name his demons,
when maintaining “this will pass,”
fashion their webs of pap and straw.
This animal man is a thief.

Mother,
My world is a stranger.
My eyes are wounds on a mind that will not heal.
I saw more range, more warmth, more mother,
in the dance of sun on heather,
in a single kiss of dew.
Now your urn, blessed bowel, fouls the cedar
of father’s mantel, while he grows blacker,
blending bile with grief and gin.
Those lips that never tendered,
that heart I never knew—mother,
who were you?

Ubiquitous, the emerald **** lies splayed, exploding:
from her pores an eruption, on her belly a rank,
stinking moss. She bleeds life, vomits it,
into bud, into blade; sharing with a passing star
the silent scream of spring.
But here she dreams, perfumed,
a picture of grace, her verdure in groom.
Secluded, seduced, sedated. Churls put on her face
while zephyrs attend to the scent of her loom.
Time purls. The zephyrs flit sweetly,
chasing motes in fibers of light.
Playing tag in the sun, currents weave into one,
near a still-life of mourners and fatherless son.
The figures seem rooted, unreal.
As the gust musses trees, light leaps between leaves.
The greenery breathes. As if shaken,
the scene comes to life:  huddling in sync,
the faces incline, their eyes like slinking thieves.
The young man implodes. He reels.
The tension relents and he straightens. He wheels.
He limps off alone, wind hounding his heels,
the moment too eerie to bear. Sedans trickle by.
A raw widow grieves. But the faces continue to stare.
And the wind pirouettes, finds a wing,
has a plunge, brakes low on a rest,
makes a guarded descent. The breeze buffets markers,
losing vigor and bent, then slips thru the stones
toward the beckoning trees.
The draft riffles leaves, where its whisper is spent
and lost a sigh.

A stipend, a shack, a lessor in wait.
Such are the fruits of his father’s estate.
He breaks no bread, seeks no sweet;
strange dynamics govern his blood,
preclude his seed from the common fire.
Music of amity, refinement’s caress,
are brute concerns; abrasive, obscene.
In his quiet aching way he is whole.
Seasons burst and smolder, surrender and brood.
Their pageant revolves about him.
The years breathe, driving the crowd,
steeping its fevers in jasmine and sun.
Humanity brawls, exalting the flame.
But without him.
And he grays, sinking, certain his pain cannot,
could not possibly, be borne by another.
The silence condenses, sets.
At last even pain deserts him.
But near the brink he hears the nervous hum
of impermanence, feels the white pang of being’s wing
as day succumbs to the fist of night.
Dawn burns deeper, duller,
each beam towing a filament of dusk,
each round of the wheel a salvo
in the stunning of his eyes.

Now the years are mired in sameness.
The day wears on. Guests come unbidden:
Conscience, the despot. Sentiment, the leech.
Misgivings sojourn, transmigrate, return,
as Lonesomeness plumbs his moribund vein,
metastasizing.
Still he rooms with the wind, dies waking,
dreams sleepless. And it haunts him:
All this teeming while an instant, an irrelevancy,
a rube’s view of the pulse careening downstream,
working its rhyme into a billion like irrelevancies.
Here must be real, Now must be sound, and yet—
no sooner are the moments cast
than shape is shadow, and present, past.
Only the day wears on.
Blue is the evening begotten, the twilight of our lives.
Dark gathers, mooring its stain
where a dreamer weighs the deep,
his eyes in ruin, his color in vain.
Only ballast and mind, merely ego and rind,
growing blind as the day wears on.

Down this grim promenade,
a musty wind hustles gaunt silhouettes.
They are loth to be borne;
they are patiently measuring stones.
Eyes leap in their caverns, looks light and remain
on a smudge in the gloaming, a scarecrow with cane,
tapping out his tenure in a cold feeble rain.
And now the purple veins of near-night
thud sluggishly, almost grudgingly.
The black earth splits wetly, obscenely.
There:  something impatient stirs, exposed—
Limbless, sightless, the lamprey rises;
her breath unbearable, her length immeasurable,
her age—
impossible!
Preening *****, hypnotic.
In one vile kiss she is sieve and abyss.
Her bruised lips are splayed, her violet mouth, made,
and her churning, insatiable craw is
pitch.

Out of the whirl, the faces gather round.
Was he hurt? Can you hear me?
But the old man makes no sound.
Shapes loom to the sides, to the front and rear:
the faces glare, stealing air…grow enormous fingers
to ****, to pin—to pull down the veil
and make his eyes seize.
In the dimness a nimbus, a prism, a pearl.
The faces part. The prism paints an image in the whirl.
The figure is a woman, whose seeming lips recite:
“Come sunder the night. Waning fire, grow bright.
I am mother, I am mother. I am life, I am light.”
But like spectra from a dying sun,
the colors flare, are torn, are spun
into the whirl, and there,
subdued, the voice is hushed,
the blossom, crushed,
and night
renewed.

Thanks for reading Faces. NOW PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO READ HERO, A SPRAWLING, GROUNDBREAKING FANTASY FOR GROWNUPS IN TWO PARTS, ABOUT THE FIRST HUMAN TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE PLANET. (BUT YOU MUST CLICK ON THE PROVIDED LINK AT THE CONCLUSION OF PART ONE TO ACCESS PART TWO! THAT’S WHERE THIS TALE’S AMAZING RESOLUTION LIES. But please...intelligent, readers only!)
NOW HERE’S THAT LINK:

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14922744-Hero---Part-One-by-Ron-Sanders


Copyright 2020 by Ron Sanders.

contact:
ronsandersartofprose@yahoo.com

And all is well, tho' faith and form
  Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
  Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm,

Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
  And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again
  The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.

But ill for him that wears a crown,
  And him, the lazar, in his rags:
  They tremble, the sustaining crags;
The spires of ice are toppled down,

And molten up, and roar in flood;
  The fortress crashes from on high,
  The brute earth lightens to the sky,
And the great AEon sinks in blood,

And compass'd by the fires of Hell;
  While thou, dear spirit, happy star,
  O'erlook'st the tumult from afar,
And smilest, knowing all is well.

Free the tormented soul
that lives within me.
Free the monster so that
I may sunder its anger
and find my way to its
heart to ease the pain
and suffering of the
tormented soul.
Allowing me control
before its to late.

I've come to the conclusion
I am two parts of a whole
you may look at the glass half empty
or half full
sometimes it's really hard to tell
but call me a Gemini , if you will

behind closed doors
I'm either high
or low
one minute I'm soaring
& the next on the floor

one half of me
battles depression & anxiety
my thoughts are scattered inconsistently
my heart pounds in my chest
the minute you speak my name
just know I'm doing my best
trying not to go insane

other days I'm free
gliding thru the breeze
of my life
energetically speaking
the sun dances around me
against my face, glistening

but I seldom wonder
the thin wall that divides me
if I should ever sunder
two halves of a broken heart
searching for the glue that once held them part

Gemini's are twins
such like, good and evil
an angel and a demon
dancing on my shoulders
dragging me farther and farther away
so in the eyes of the beholder
I sense the middle becoming yet much colder

judgment is given on the evil side of me
I'm distant , I admit it
at times , fairly resistant
a poor trait one must receive
nothing more than a peeve

alas I did not select this trait
nor must I choose to accept it
my slump has taken its toll
I do not wish to see anything as it is but dull
I may be present and alive
yet inside, negatively drains my mind

I pray that good outweighs the unfavorable
that you may overlook how I'm unstable
my bright eyes & tinted cheeks
how I simply ignore my urge to be weak
for in that one moment
I've experienced a whole heartbeat

ultimately, there is no escaping
no path could lead me elsewhere away from thee
no debating
I am not one but two parts of a whole
one day I hope I am in control

Gemini
the twins
its me
& I am them

your words sound my bellsoul
a depth charge of incandescent tone
to coalesce the ground of my whisper-being
to sunder me from self-falsity
to shoe my doubting feet with fierce clarity
to walk me thus shod in cradling Truth
more deeply into the oblivion
of my ethereal dark    whose web tingles and sounds
with tiny silvered bells

I am belled
sounded by Love in Love

Its deep and penetrated tone
calls back
the shards of being
I abandoned
along my lifeway
so to join me

together


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Bright must be the light that shines from within, deep and roaring with the overwhelming radiance of a thousand suns.
The fuel surges through our veins and our tried courage the ember which sets the blaze of triumph raging through the ages.
We are the light, bane of the dark.
Fear not the flames, for our valour is the blade that splits the sky a sunder, sending ripples through the very fabric of the universe for all eternity.
The great white wolf walks at our side and the raven reveals to us the route less traveled. Righteous with our every step to purge this existence of the wicked and the cruel.
Lay down beloved foe, you are forgiven.
And when it is our time to die, our death song will thunder with all the resounding clarity of a dying star.
Guardians of savage love and serine peace. Let the sweet scent of roses take you away,  feel the kind sun kiss your flesh and greet death with a smile. Hello old friend I'm coming home... Victorious.

There is a fine line between love and hate

I walk that line with you

Hand in hand, looking into your glass eyes.

Eyes so blue...eyes so cold

Hands that are warm but not kind

A heart much too cruel

A mind blinded by a false truth...

A soul..your soul...is left to wander in anguish.

Along its way, it scatters the foolish to a sunder.

No sound of desperate despair from their quavering lips..

But tear drops never the less.

Here, at the end of all things,
beyond, the grasp of hope
we have reached, and here it shall end
though all now is lost, I'm glad
that you lie with me, and lend
courage, at the fall of evil, but of us also
A fool's hope was what brought us here
over desolation and the edge of fear
where the realms are of the dead
the stars are strange and the clouds black
yet a new sun rises in times ahead
as we lie here, at the end of all things
A fallen friend, a broken dream
a mighty wood, a gurgling stream
sunder us from that far off home
a memory of another life, that was lost somewhere,
on the road that led ever onwards, but did not fail
as it passed through war and mighty horde
a promise grew, but no oath was laid
many mighty deeds, were trivial made
for what was to be won, was beyond all
fear, concealed in some remote corner
of a soul festering with gloom
in the search for the steps of doom
finding which,we now broken lie
at the end of all things
Over the sea the gulls cry
making the heart restless, for it cannot hope
to find healing,in the land of its torment and
over the sea the gulls fly, ever westward
therein alone lies deliverance, the grey shores are calling
where the dawn is silver, they are ever singing
of the end of evil, and in welcome
to those of us, staring at the door
the Undying Lands lie before, unseen by the mortal eye
revered in all the Elder lore
There the eagles bid us to go, into the uttermost west
Where though we may be whole again, we cannot forget,
we who were there, but were not slain
at the end of all things

Roman Virgil, thou that singest
      Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
      wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;

Landscape-lover, lord of language
      more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"
All the chosen coin of fancy
      flashing out from many a golden phrase;

Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
      tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
      often flowering in a lonely word;

Poet of the happy Tityrus
      piping underneath his beechen bowers;
Poet of the poet-satyr
      whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
      in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
      unlaborious earth and oarless sea;

Thou that seest Universal
      Nature moved by Universal Mind;
Thou majestic in thy sadness
      at the doubtful doom of human kind;

Light among the vanish'd ages;
      star that gildest yet this phantom shore;
Golden branch amid the shadows,
      kings and realms that pass to rise no more;

Now thy Forum roars no longer,
      fallen every purple Caesar's dome--
Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm
      sound forever of Imperial Rome--

Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd,
      and the Rome of freemen holds her place,
I, from out the Northern Island
      sunder'd once from all the human race,

I salute thee, Mantovano,
      I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
      ever moulded by the lips of man.

my shirt barely fits over my stomach
my belly is a bag of granny smith apples
**** and plump
misleading in their sweetness
underneath growing ten-fold each week
all the different fruits for growth
leave me anemic for heartier things
tenderloin heart, blood steak
there's a biting pain on the side of my hip
that feels like what I imagine a dog nipping at your heel
could feel like
and I hear it
the small squeak at the bottom of a storm drain
a miniature kitten trapped in the middle of concrete and hot cement
it hasn't rained in months
and my mouth starts to water imagining
the dehydrated lungs of an animal
that's destiny has been sealed