Can I, oh can I please—
Tell you about my sweetest dream?
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

The setting sun; sky of purple, orange, red
Two lovely figures, down by the swing set
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

Their eyes are locked, their hearts are tied
Nothing else in the world to make them satisfied
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

One thing alone is missing:
Gentle delicate kissing
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

But a quick little peck on the lips
Is amongst the cruelest of quips
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

When passion is present and passion is pure
A little longer, a kiss can endure
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

A little push, a little pull
Each wanting the other to know
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

Your lips tasted so **** good
So strong I could not have stood
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

I wanted more, but it was more than enough
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing
Your lips, your eyes, your heart
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing
Our passion or love; my nighttime dream…
Oh-woah, the sweetest thing

the sweetest thing - come over
got some wind to cool it down
i’ll have what you’re having, the sweetest thing.

swayer keep swayin’/lover keep loving’/player you player, don’t keep playin’.

the sweetest thing - come over
got some chill to calm you down
you’ll have what i’m giving, the sweetest thing.

swayer keep swayin’/lover keep lovin’/player you player, stop playin’ me.

the sweetest thing - come over
got some game to wear you down
we’ll get what we’re wantin’, the sweetest thing.

the sweetest thing, keep swain’
the sweetest thing, keep loving’
the sweetest thing, keep playin’, keep playin’

get nothin’

~rachael hays 17A15

With each step, the heat of passion of love and excitement only intensifies. I burn with fire from the love of passion, he can fill the whole world. And the sky turned pink. The sky glitters with glitter. The air is filled with the fragrance of love and the world is more beautiful and you are becoming more and more divine in my eyes, I bow to your extraterrestrial beauty and belong to you alone, the goal of all my lives for all eternity. You are the one that I will always dream of and my heart will forever love and want you alone. The goddess appearing to me in ****** thoughts and depraved dreams of passion. Up close you are beautiful to tears - these are tears of sincere happiness and admiration.
You are more beautiful than the most beautiful. Merge together forever and ever with the spirit of yours, and your inner world, my lonely soul dreams. See the depths of your amazing me. To give you your eternal devotion: you are my life, eternity and my destiny, you are my only right choice, you are everything that I love and want. Both my heart and my mind are open only to you. You look so romantic and beautiful, your charm, your spell beckons my mind to you, it is useless for them to resist you, they can only fully obey, surrender to you alone. My legs go only to you, my eyes look only at you, and I focus only on you. Everything in me is overwhelmed with you. And inside, from the love of you, is incredible, absolute lightness. And from the fact that you are not with me, my heart hurts almost to a heart attack. Epochally, I fell in love with you totally, beyond ******-poetic, overly ****. Yes, truly, you are my empress, and only I worship you, look at this temple of my love, dedicated to you, on this great altar, look around, you are everywhere, sit on this throne of love, my great and beautiful goddess. Each your kiss is indescribable and priceless, it is vital. Every your look, fantastically-romantically-touchingly beautiful. He kindles the fire of love and passion in men. Your charm is a powerful force that attracts everything and everyone to itself.
Awakening true, sparkling love for you, of universal scale. This throne of eternal praise and worship is only for you alone, and the chorus, singing about your beauty only for you. In you, every millimeter of your perfect, hot, hot-**** body is beautiful. My world is in your uniquely beautiful eyes, in your feelings and emotions, and I’m not tired of talking about your perfect proportions. Only your caresses give such feelings as love and happiness. Striking, powerful, attractive appearance. The magnificent grace of your body has no equal. Only your divinely beautiful body is worthy of the highest praise and points. I am only waiting for you. You're all I think about. The empress of my subconscious, in my inner world, dreams, and memories, you are everywhere. I always wait only for you. You are my only eternal thought that helps to live in this world, my beautiful emotion, and an amazing feeling. Only, like you, can excite with a look and fall in love with yourself forever. Life without you is unthinkable, impossible. Believe me, I know this for sure, your beauty shines gently with honey, golden light and brilliance. Your beauty is powerful hypnosis.
You are tremendously in love with you totally. You are the highest goddess: beauty, love and erotica. For me, you are the supreme being of all universes. You rule and command over male minds and hearts. Please do not be offended by this truth, but you are so beautiful that you don’t even need cosmetics, only you can look so natural and beautiful, but you are also very powerful ****** attraction, arousal, my only hobby, I’m madly obsessed with you. Your voice sounds sleeker than a violin, more touching than a piano, lighter than a harp, thinner than a triangle. So amazing, your beautiful skin glitters sexually, it is perfect, sweet, juicy. And your perfect figure, perfection itself. You are not replaceable and priceless. You are the most important, most valuable thing in my life. Your infinitely amazing, impressive, external and internal beauty sets you apart from all living and nonliving. So stunningly passionate, your beautiful body is a powerful magnet attracting a huge amount of affection and passion. You are perfect, your beautiful figure is so perfect that you don't even need clothes. I am struck down on a feast, and I bow deeply, taking off my hat to your royal authority, for me it is a great honor and a great honor to be with you by your side, you are my idol and autograph, I take it from me and keep it from my heart, exposing it to the honorary a place in your altar of love, where only you are everywhere, I am your eternal, devoted fan. You have no equal, I adore everything in you. You are the highest, absolute aerobatics. You are a beautiful and perfect image that you can imagine. This is what a beautiful goddess looks like. You are the highest good, pleasure and pleasure in this universe. I put a madman of points and a sign of infinity to boot, your unique beauty. You are so beautiful that you immediately want to marry, and live with you all eternity.
Your teasing sexually exciting figure keeps my mind completely under your control. You are a thermonuclear *** bomb-boom babe. You are all my eyes want to see. Your gently saldko-**** voice is all that my ears want to hear. The smell of your skin is all I want to breathe. I breathe only because you are near me. When you're near the heart of love knocks more. And the level of excitement from your beauty reaches the highest degree. About how beautiful you are and how I love you, that's all I want to tell you. Your gorgeous flesh and soul is all that your flesh and soul wants to feel forever. Your love is all I want to feel forever from you. You're so beautiful, just a sight for sore eyes. You are much higher than blue blood. I am only obsessed with you. You are ****. Cool babe. Unreal beautiful. Drooling flow in men only from you. Resist such as you are simply useless. Your sweet laugh, your **** smile, soft look, impeccable outfit, battles everybody in a row. You are the most juicy relish, sensual, tender, feminine passion. You are my love and soul outlet.
You are absolute, the highest *****. Eternal novelty. It is unbearable, excessively, supremely, beautiful, and only you look overly ****. You are in the highest stage of evolution, you are the most ideal, you are my idol, my ideal, the most true and authentic embodiment of beauty. You are the sexually ****** heat of love and passion. Your body brings you to the highest level of arousal. You yourself tenderness and femininity. You are 1 000 000 000 percent luxury, priceless, the only, eternal value. All the pleasant moments in life are associated only with you. Your sweet caresses and kisses are a very powerful drug. You are the most valuable gift of the universe. You are gorgeous in any kind of image frame, everywhere, always and in everything. You feel a surprisingly soft, sensual, tenderness. The beauty in your eyes is something amazing, uniquely beautiful, it is very beautiful fascinating magic. Very beautiful and indescribably pleasant feeling. Your amazingly beautiful image touches the most delicate and barely visible strings of souls easily and gently. By causing a special vibration of the true love melody, he finally falls in love with you.
So beautiful and bold, spectacular. 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 likes you alone and a sign of infinity to boot. The ******, ****** heat of love and lust emanates from you. You set a new world record for beauty. Which is impossible to achieve. You are a beautiful, socialite. You are synonymous with beauty. The eternal standard and *** symbol in the history of mankind. Absolutely beautiful. Every millimeter of your beautiful body is beautiful in you. The jaw drops and the gift of speech from such incredible beauty is lost. Just do not be offended, please forgive me if something is wrong. But from such a beautiful appearance as you have in men, a powerful ******* of the *****, guys and men end up in their underpants. Unlimitedly beautiful. Sexiest in the whole universe. So **** that you don't even need clothes. You are for the happiest and luckiest man in the world. You are a jackpot. Flash, full house. *** symbol.
You are synonymous with beauty and ideal. You are so beautiful just amazing. you have a direct view of a ****, sultry predator. You are the sweetest. From you comes a powerful, ****, ****** energy. you are indescribably beautiful. You're spectacular, juicy, ****. M, You sound cool, like a mega cool, percussive, lyric rap beat. As a platinum and gold vinyl record, you are a super hit. You are a bestseller of poetry and prose. You're my princess. Queen. The Empress Goddess. The ultimate creation of all universes, spheres and dimensions. I think so. To doge to what extent a girl can be beautiful. Just amazing. The queen of my mind and heart. Your tender image overwhelms my soul with light, beautiful love and lust. You have such a soft pearl skin. Your beautiful appearance forever and ever conquered my heart and my mind. You are the most beautiful of its kind. You are endowed with the rarest beauty at all times. Fashion model. Just the thought of you excites and falls in love. You are a masterpiece of nature and of God himself. Your infinitely amazing beauty, the rarest and most amazing, the most beautiful in the history of mankind.
The most desirable, silk, velvet skin, gorgeous, beautiful, always and everywhere. Strikingly beautiful, your **** body as if calls for kissing and licking, caressing, satisfying you again and again. You're too ****, hot flame of passion. You are the best prize, a gift that can only get a man, the best among all his lives. You are perfect and perfect. The more I look at you, the more I fall in love with you because you beat all the beauty and mind records, my super **** top model, everywhere in the first place in beauty and mind. In you, every millimeter of your body is perfect, with you all seconds are beautiful. The body shines brilliantly: luxurious chic, beautiful. The title itself is a beautiful girl in the world. The supreme creation of all universes. The finest children are born only with you. Aerobatics. Girl high hummingbird.
Your charming charm is a super **** mega power that is simply impossible to overcome. The sweetest gourmet, I adore your gorgeous body, when I see you, only one word sounds in my head: yum, I will completely give myself to you. I will always love only you unconsciously, unconsciously, your gently ****** image sat in the depths of my mind completely. From your amazingly contagious beauty, your mouth opens and you lose your voice. Dizzyingly, stunningly beautiful, you are like a giant tornado, from which everything attracts you. And the heart and soul yearn all the time only for you. It doesn't matter if you love me or not, the main thing is that I still love you, and in my subconscious mind, I will only love you forever. Your luxurious appearance of the highest quality, this is a workshop, the filigree work of Mother Nature, this is just a masterpiece that constitutes a unique example of true beauty, you have no equal, you are a girl of high caliber. You are absolutely beautiful to such a degree, so beautiful, so exotic, ******, and your image sounds poetic like very beautiful music of love that I’m just afraid and shy to come to you, I’m afraid to talk to you, as if standing next to a goddess, or with a super mega star, a world scale model that even aliens probably know. My heart beats more often, I can’t speak normally, from excitement, goosebumps all over my body, and it just shakes.
All these are symptoms of true love for you, well, just: oh), wow). To be your boyfriend and husband is the greatest honor in the world, he knelt in front of you with flowers in his hands. Your appearance is perfect just like Barbie. You are so beautiful that only you want to have *** forever, countless, infinite number of times. You are unattainable, you are like a star whose light of the soul, like a searchlight, illuminates me in the deep darkness of solitude. In love with you thorough. You are simply amazingly beautiful. You are the best of the best. Goddess of all goddesses, empress of all empresses, queen of all queens. More beautiful you just can not imagine a girl. Sexier than you just can not be anything. Beautiful soul just is not found. There was nothing more perfect than you and never will be, simply because I think so. Laponka, I am your faithful fan, you are my only idol, idol, icon of beauty. It doesn't matter who you are, I will accept you any. Because in any case I am eager to be only with you. You have a **** smile, and your sensual look is just awesome. And from your voice and look a pleasant shiver all over your body. You are special, the best that is in all worlds, universes and dimensions. You're just a sight for sore eyes. To you I feel the most powerful, love and ****** inclination. You're cooler than any ****** and afrodosiak. From your beauty just cling to the constraints and embarrassment.
**** Barbie, fell in love with you powerfully for sure. Wow. God, how beautiful you are, God, hell, let me see you, wow, this is just super, just super, my God, it’s necessary to what extent a girl can be beautiful, you're just awesome, just awesome, you're beautiful. My Goddess. About you, I will dream of all eternity, desire and crave only you alone. You're high, ecstasy. In your eyes there is some special fairytale beauty. Lady of my heart. You are the continuation of my soul. Billions of suns of joy, happiness, and love explode in the soul and this every time you see. With you every second is overflowing with the warm, divine, sunshine of true love, happiness and joy. You are like hypnotic sitar music. I would kiss your hands and feet every day. I want to constantly have *** with only one you. You are the embodiment of ****** and ****** passion. Only your skin color is infinitely exciting and falling in love. Your **** voice excites, and intonation falls in love. In you, literally everything excites. You are beautiful in any form, place, dress. If I see you, then the day is not in vain. Your image is powerfully falling in love. Oh meamor, goose bumps run through when you touch me, your breath stops when you look at me.
You're too beautiful. You are a **** lioness. You are the flame of sensual passion. You are a thermonuclear *** bomb. I admire your amazing beauty. You are amazing, perfect, you are perfect. I think so. Your flesh is sweeter than sweet. In bed, sultry lioness. The color of your skin is so ****, ******, and very attractive and beautiful. You have a rare and amazing beauty. You are the most beautiful in the universe, all universes, dimensions, all worlds. You are the supreme creation of nature and of God, the highest, perfect being. This is true because I think so.
Your charming charm is a super **** mega power that is simply impossible to overcome. The sweetest gourmet, I adore your gorgeous body, when I see you, only one word sounds in my head: yum, I will completely give myself to you. I will always love only you unconsciously, unconsciously, your gently ****** image sat in the depths of my mind completely. From your amazingly contagious beauty, your mouth opens and you lose your voice. Dizzyingly, stunningly beautiful, you are like a giant tornado, from which everything attracts you. And the heart and soul yearn all the time only for you. It doesn't matter if you love me or not, the main thing is that I still love you, and in my subconscious mind, I will only love you forever. Your luxurious appearance of the highest quality, this is a workshop, the filigree work of Mother Nature, this is just a masterpiece that constitutes a unique example of true beauty, you have no equal, you are a girl of high caliber. You are absolutely beautiful to such a degree, so beautiful, so exotic, ******, and your image sounds poetic like very beautiful music of love that I’m just afraid and shy to come to you, I’m afraid to talk to you, as if standing next to a goddess, or with a super mega star, a world scale model that even aliens probably know. My heart beats more often, I can’t speak normally, from excitement, goosebumps all over my body, and it just shakes. All these are symptoms of true love for you, well, just: oh), wow).
To be your boyfriend and husband is the greatest honor in the world, he knelt in front of you with flowers in his hands. Your appearance is perfect just like Barbie. You are so beautiful that only you want to have *** forever, countless, infinite number of times. You are unattainable, you are like a star whose light of the soul, like a searchlight, illuminates me in the deep darkness of solitude. In love with you thorough. You are simply amazingly beautiful. You are the best of the best. Goddess of all goddesses, empress of all empresses, queen of all queens. More beautiful you just can not imagine a girl. Sexier than you just can not be anything. Beautiful soul just is not found. There was nothing more perfect than you and never will be, simply because I think so. Laponka, I'm your faithful fan, you are my only idol, idol, icon of beauty. It doesn't matter who you are, I will accept you any. Because in any case I am eager to be only with you. You have a **** smile, and your sensual look is just awesome. And from your voice and look a pleasant shiver all over your body. You are special, the best that is in all worlds, universes and dimensions. You're just a sight for sore eyes. To you I feel the most powerful, love and ****** inclination. You're cooler than any ****** and afrodosiak. From your beauty just cling to the constraints and embarrassment.
I am obsessed only with you, my miss universe, I put madness billion points of your beautiful appearance, and a sign of infinity to boot. No offense, my sweetest, but your beautiful body excites, your imagination completely amazes you, you are so beautiful that you do not need, neither cosmetics, nor clothes, such perfect, natural beauty, only your divine beautiful body is endowed. Merge together the whole with your body, soul, heart, and mind, for all eternity I thirst. You dominate in my heart, mind, and soul, you are deep in my mind and subconscious, everything is filled only by you my goddess, and I see you in my dreams and I am sincerely happy when I see you in them. If I saw you in reality, then it was a happy day that was not in vain. Be with me dear, as you decorate with you all the eternity that I want to spend only with you one-on-one. You are my beautiful goddess of love and eroticism, and only I worship you. Rare, beautiful beauty, natural gave only you. The closer you are, the more beautiful. Your delicate skin shines so beautifully in the light, you have a stunning perfect skin color. I am overly in love with you. You are super beautiful. I tirelessly crave you, you are extremely, infinitely beautiful, you are too, too attractive. You're cooler than any ******. Impeccably beautiful, like a doll. You are so delicious. You are the light of happiness, the light of love and happiness comes and goes with you. You decorate everything with you, everything suits you, because you are beautiful.
You are stunning, fantastically breathtakingly beautiful, the only unique sample of the true, pure form of beauty. You are the hottest, **** topic, about the beauty of which it is impossible to stop talking, so beautiful that you want to sing out of love for you, the girl from whom it is impossible to take your eyes off. So amazingly beautiful, perfect, ******, hot, passionately savory, juicy forms, your divinely beautiful, endlessly, stunning beautiful, seductive body sound so captivatingly beautiful, sweet, gently voluptuous. Who wants to caress and caress, kiss, lick, stick to intimate places all the time, and give your tenderness with your hands, and bring it to ****** so that you feel the heat and tremor of your heated body, and kiss a satisfied body and kiss. Each cell of the soul and body is supremely filled with only you, love and excitement. Truly I am thirsty to belong only to you and to spend all eternity only with you alone.
I will be frank with you. Oooh yes, it says heart and mind. Eyes are eager to see you forever. Your image throws on the highest stage of love. Without you, life is meaningless and empty, and you know that for sure, so why are you torturing me. You know, I appeared in your life for a reason. That I was created only for you. You are special, I can not live without you. You are my obsession, my passion. Your beautiful image sounds so beautiful and sublime, the degree of love and arousal rises uncontrollably, leading to a higher dimension called love. When you stand next to me. Your ******, ****** image is the highest, divine, legendary *****. You are the sweetest in the whole universe. You are sensual, ****, ****** power. You are so ****** and **** to such an extent that when you look at the guys, it’s ironic that you guys, at the sight of you from excitement, end up in your underpants. You are the one whose appearance is envied by all people, gods, all higher beings, you are the only eternal value. You are a hipper, a turbo is ****, you are a hyperrealism of sexuality.
You have the most juicy **** skin color, it is so sweet, so beckoning and eager caress. You are the goddess of love, *** and erotica. Every millimeter of your body is just perfect and perfect. You are all that my heart and soul wants. Only your body and your kisses can excite me. Only to your body, I feel *** addiction. You are the highest value in my life. You are tempted and tempted, you want to have *** countless times. Your skin is the color of one hot, unforgettable night, your libido is the word lava in your hot body, burning passion, only your photos can excite me, only your beauty turns off my brain, you are a ****, ****** melody in my head, you are like a hot bath after a hard day, like an ****** massage, like a soft pillow with sleeping softness.
Every day I am drawn to you more and more and it can not be stopped because it is uncontrollable every day my ****** ***** wants you more and more aggressively he is waiting for endless *** only with you and I once again make sure that you are I will want forever and ever. Because I am truly in love with you in your body and soul. And this feeling is only enhanced with time on the mental and physical levels. Looking at you in the head is only one word Goddess, the empress of my heart, or one ***. It's just an ecstasy of excitement, every movement you take is so ****** and beautiful, burning your skin's passion and in your eyes so much ***.
You are a **** lioness. you are the flame of sensual passion. I admire your amazing beauty. You are amazing, perfect, you are perfect. I think so. Your flesh is sweeter than sweet. In bed, sultry lioness.
Author Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

1764

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
  The maddest noise that grows,—
The birds, they make it in the spring,
  At night’s delicious close.

Between the March and April line—
  That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
  Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead
  That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
  Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
  And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
  Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
  As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
  So dangerously near.

"She will dance with me,"
He murmured to himself,
"If I bring her a white rose,
Pure as a snowflake,
And sweet as a summer day."

Sitting there in the garden,
His blue eyes fell shut
As the wind ran her fingers
Through his dark hair.
His lips parted in a sigh,
Enjoying the warm afternoon sun
And the thoughts of the one he loves.

"His is the song I've sung
My entire life,"
Chirped the little nightingale,
"Without knowing it,
I have told his story a thousand times
To the moon and the stars
That light the night sky.
I've sung of hope and joy
And True Love and
Happily Ever Afters
To the trees and the flowers
That in this garden grow."

But the young man cried,
"But I have no rose to give her!"
He covered his face with his hands
And cried.
His whole body shook
As the hope for real love,
The kind that many people
Spend their whole lives looking for
In all the wrong places,
Flew away in the wind.
"She'll never realize I am the one for her,
If I cannot find a white rose
And ask her to dance,"
He cried.

The little nightingale's heart was touched
By the young lover.
She cried out her song for him,
For all the lost loves in the world.
He, she determined, was not going to be one of them.
The nightingale decided that
She would find him a rose,
With which he could woo the girl he so loved.

She flew on delicate wings to the rose bush
That grew beside the fountain.
"If you would give me a pure white rose,
I will sing you my sweetest song
All the nights of my life."
But the rose bush answered,
"I have only yellow roses,
Bright as lemons and sunshine,
And sweet as springtime honey.
Ask my brother who climbs the arbor,
He may give you what you desire."

So the sweet nightingale flew to the rose vine
That was tangled on the arbor.
"If you would give me a pure white rose,
I will sing you my sweetest song
All the nights of my life."
But the rose vine replied,
"I have only pink roses,
Pink as a maiden's blush
On the day she weds her beau.
Ask my brother who grows
Under the young man's window.
He may give you what you desire."

So the nightingale flew to the rose bush
That grew under the young man's window.
"If you would give me a pure white rose,
I will sing you my sweetest song
All the nights of my life."
To which the rose bush replied,
"I have only red roses,
Dark and rich as faerie wine,
Red as the blood of your heart,
Sweeter than stolen kisses under the moon.
But I can give you a white rose."
Filled with hope and joy,
The nightingale replied,
"I will give anything for a white rose,
What must I do?"
The rose bush shook its petals sadly.
"The way is too awful.
I cannot tell you."
The nightingale knew the value of love;
She would do anything for the rose.
"There is a way, little bird.
By moonlight you must come close
And press you breast against my thorns.
Love is sharp and you must not be afraid.
You must sing your sweetest song all night,
And press closer to me,
Until my thorn pierces your heart
And all your heart-blood runs out.
It is the only way."

The nightingale thought about this.
"What price would not be paid for love?
How much greater is the love of this young man
Than the life of a little bird?
This I will gladly do,
For true love's sake."

So the nightingale flew across the garden,
Where the lover had not yet dried
The tears from his eyes.
His cheeks were stained
Pink with his sadness,
His eyes shimmered with tears yet unreleased.
She sang to him to be hopeful,
To believe in his love,
And that all will be well.
The blue-eyed young man
Smiled at the nightingale,
For her song was beautiful,
Though he did not understand.

The nightingale flew about the garden,
Enjoying the beauty of life.
She sang to the oak trees and the daffodils,
And they wept that they would not hear her song again.
They were comforted that she would be silenced for love,
For love has no price too great.

The earth ate the last rays of the sun
And the moon shone
Wan and pallid in the night sky.
She, too, was sad to hear only this one last song
From the nightingale.

Then the bird flew to the red rose bush
And pressed her breast against the thorn.
She sang her sweetest song.
It was so beautiful that all the dead lovers of the world
Shuddered in their graves
With the reminder of the love in life,
The wind joined her voice with the nightingale's
And carried her song to the ends of the the earth,
To the darkest caves where Echo returned it,
To the ocean's waves that kept the time,
To the peaceful moors where the grass danced along,
To the sleeping child to give her sweet dreams.

"Closer, closer!"
Urged the rose bush,
"I must taste your heart's blood
Before dawn,
Or the rose will not be done."

So the nightingale pressed closer still to the thorn
As the rose bush spun the most beautiful rose
It had ever spun.
But red! A red red rose it was.
"Closer still!"
Cried the rose bush,
And the nightingale pressed closer until her heart was pricked.
A bolt of pain struck the nightingale
And her song rang out through the garden,
Her melody, sweet with love and anguish,
Reached the ears of the young man.
He sat up in his bed,
And was so moved by the nightingale's song,
He stayed awake to listen.

As the nightingale's heart-blood poured onto the rose,
The reddest rose washed white as a freshly fallen snow,
Her tears mingled with the blood,
For only blood can wash out blood,
And only tears can heal.
And so the red rose became white,
As dewdrops and starlight,
As the nightingale's voice grew faint.
And she fell to the ground as the first breath of dawn
Shone gray on the horizon.

The whole garden heaved a sigh
As the nightingale's song was done.
A chorus of flowers and crickets and wind
Sang their mournful song
For the little nightingale
Who gave her life for love.

When the sun had risen in the sky,
The young man walked out into the garden
And saw the white rose.
Carefully he cut it, admiring its beauty.
He did not notice the nightingale,
Laying dead on the ground.

He gazed at the rose in awe,
And inhaled its damask perfume.
It smelled of starlight and sweet dreams,
Of mothers' lullabies and midnight kisses,
Of laughter and heartache,
Of True Love and tender death.

"This is the rose for my beloved,"
He said to himself,
And he prepared himself for the ball.

That night, when the sun had set again,
He met his fair lady, whom he so dearly loved.
"This rose is for you, so that you will dance with me."
He handed her the rose, the white rose with no thorns.
She took it gently, breathing in its scent.

"Dear boy, I will dance with you tonight."

He took her hand and led her out onto the floor.
They danced and danced
All through the evening,
More than rules of decency allow.
She smiled and laughed and fell in love.

When the evening closed
And it was time to go home,
She held the white rose close to her heart
And breathed in its sweet perfume.
Her heart was happy
And faintly, a nightingale's song
Seemed to whisper in her ear.
She grabbed the young man by the hand,
The man whom she loved.

"I will dance with you all the nights of my life,
If you so desire," she whispered.
"My darling, I desire no more," the young man smiled,
His blue eyes sparkling in the lamplight.

For love is a silly thing.
It is not half so useful as logic,
But it is twice so important.
True Love tells only things
That are the most true.
It tells of joy and comfort,
But also of sacrifice and pain.
And in this age,
Though to be practical is everything,
Love is the most important of all.

My sweetest pain

It feels like deja- vu, yet I am the writer this time around
I have set the stage, everything is on cue
I decided how this will end, I planned it all
Right to the time the dagger hits my heart
I choose to relive the pain
Because its my sweetest pain

The pain was so intense, I was submerged in it
So I rewrote the script, so that I would feel it again
Only this time i will not be numbed by the shock
This time I will make sure that it doesn't break me
I am prepared to sacrifice everything
Just to ******* sweetest pain
Again

Do you think its coincidence that the life span is the same
Or that the offspring is the same ages in both productions
The only way to perfect it, is to rehearse it
That way I control when the dagger strikes
That way I can ******* sweetest pain
Again

The scripts are identical in so many ways
I smile at how well I planned it, this is my Oscar moment
All the actors are in place, cameras ready to roll
As I strike the dagger
I smile as I feel my sweetest pain
Again!

the sweetest things to say

grizzled and grumpy,
old poets,
be wary, woman
they know all
the sweetest things to say

they know to use them too,
so well, beware their wellness,
waters cooling they will sprinkle
in your holy places,
willingly make your wells
refreshed

they are excellent
woman whisperers,
wise in the ways to talk-take
you inside, out of the sun,
and make you over heated,
nonetheless

just in the way exact
you truly see yourself,
granting the wishes you don’t tender
to anyone else, but the whispering angels,
hear all you want and grant you completions
in the way they say
the sweetest things

pity them, they have the insight,
the split tongue, to inside you
inside out, from outside they’ll come,
seeking all you have,
your inner wealthy they want,
not for greed, or useless using
not one bit

they
the sweetest things to say,
they
cannot help themselves,
the tricks they employ but tools
to satisfy the mutual melds
where need meets and the ganglia
intertwine and the synapses,
your mutual fireworks, explode,
in wine reds, blue sapphires, whiter diamonds,
ah the bejeweled colors of their words,
sugar cane and sweet *** perfumes to
persuade,
save,
themselves over and over
to know the love of the woman

was why the creator created them next to last,
for he saved them,
for his greater creation,
woman


so keep them too close and far away,
for when they knocking come,
you will surrender sense and speech,
in payment for

the sweetest things they say,
I love you,
meaning every syllable true

My memory is full of color and passion~ No amount of time could dull it

Its as if I still have the paint brush in hand.. our movements of the sea
and this painting of my memory is still etched inside me

The air is as hot and sticky as could be
your hands slowly gliding and lightly stroking me

Kisses so hot that they kindled and leap at the ready fuel of our need
Muscles clenching and tensing as our passion grows with greed

Weakened and undone now I arch to meet his lips and tongue that now savor
tasting of my flesh and most prized possession as though it were a banquet of the sweetest of flavor

He now whispers the sweetest
of words that I have ever heard
I want to watch you enjoy and want to watch you fill up with me
As I slowly part my legs allowing him to enter and finally set me free

This memory I hold very close to my heart
this painting of my love and our beautiful art

melanin molasses, the sweetest courtship attracts the ones who have never glittered
white bullets love to kiss black skin
black on black crucificton, a gospel orchestrated by the higher powers
****** puddles lay with the concrete during the darkest hours
night bullets play white doves during the matrimony of the bottom barrels life and its fast stint.
honeymoon candles lit by the masters matches, africans seek this artificial light in times where heavens white lights could greet them with a smile and roses that are wilted.

- t.m

On the edge, the living earth
dared to mimic Queen Fathima's worth,
the Queen of Heaven's grace and poise,
her footsteps, a blessed path of choice.
This way bedewed with divine light,
a numinous destination of sight,
graced by thousands of prophets of God,
a sacred path that all should trod.

In Allah's name, she descended,
on the Night of Ascension, her path transcended.
from the Night of Measures, she came,
her frame, heaven's dark matter, a mystery untamed.
A divine dot in terra incognita,
a fondly-folded bud where time doth bloom.
If one can see up to where it rose,
Paradise sways towards this uncharted way
the only guide, oft is a glimpse of Queen Fathima's eye!

The only asymmetrical golden ratio,
steps forth amidst the symmetrical prophet flock.
The earth makes way for her in awe,
as she moves in sequence with the golden lock.
Cloaked in mystery, she reveals
her unique, divine relation to the divine.
Makes measured moves at the forefront,
shining the light ever drawing closure to God.

She is so pretty and classy, a paragon of art,
a sunrise amidst the eternal night.
Her beauty is a burning fire in her shadow,
she is 'Zahra,' pure light, a luminary dynamo.
The only woman in heaven and earth with no shadow!

The great flock of women mirrors the earth,
following each atom on that angled girth,
aligned perfectly under the waxing full moon's worth.
As they approach the behemoth's might,
atoms beneath their skin explode in their finest sway,
and beneath Fathima's feet, vibrations take flight.

The ocean billows up, floating with the clouds,
Like choreographed dewdrops hanging low on the rose,
Ready to shower down on that hot spot like honey-drops.

Even the Moon on the horizon follows suit,
Ah, the lunar punter rows down, loves to sip in a drop.
the sleeping beauty wakes amidst the moonlit night,
silver dances in her eyes on every star in sight,
as the Moon sails down from its celestial height.
The seven seas sing out in the dark,
bubbling with exuberant fireflies' spark,
who gleefully rock the moonlit boat,
towards the cup of that pretty little drop.

Poetry in motion, the sea on the ground
a beauty reflected in the Moon on high
the storylines jump and dance around.
Painting the colors of the winds in the sky
over the shady grove, the rhythm goes on
rains down from the sky on that sweet spot
singing the sweetest of all title songs.

Never before was a woman a prophet of God,
but for the primitive woman, the leading lady,
the sharpest cut above the rest, the leader of the pack.
Sayeedatun Nessa, Queen Fathima,
Heaven holds no secrets, always an open mirror!

Secret is Fathima touched the bottom of the earth first
it's in her elements a pure unique one otherworldly love
the womankind scores that only entering paradise!
"There is no night, only déjà vu moonlight
the pious homemakers, these veiled tuberoses,
were hidden gems to the sublunary fireflies
who will be open moons in heaven's secret skies."
The Huris gaze upon mesmerizing beauty,
but their eyes turn to the real McCoy:
the women in paradise!

The universe debuts a primitive water dew,
Big Bang, soon Fathima drops in it her two hairs duo
enkindles the inner dark energy in the dark matter mole.
Absolutely pure, nature wakes up get the building rock
nothing like it never seen before, treasures in Earth's core.

The Queen's first impression hooks on
the motionless earth in the dew makes the first move
polished golden spiral is in bloom expanding ever more
the last thing the sun can't do can't take its eyes off
after the Big Bang big fireworks still (Ratqan) a black mole
thicker than the black moon, gravitates the cosmos! 

Walking in the dark ahead of the sun and the moonlight
one step up on that shady way the Queen cemented on,
perfectly circle pi-locks, the earth takes a Ma pause.
Until God willing Fathima's locks shall finally bottom in  
the long haul of time squeezing out paradise upside for good,
the heavenly Queen shines the light in the secret end of God!

The planetary ebb and flow are on the way heaven
the planet earth is the only steppingstone.
No matter how many times they try on
there will still be an unturned stone.
Until the very one, the original woman,
the Queen Fathima steps on.

Dots connect in her presence
the nadir and the zenith perfectly intersect
once for all that shall mingle in her perfect circle
without a labyrinth gap in the whole
making ‘As above, so below’ pure Scientia scenario.

Where the Queen stands on
heaven will open its grand door!
No more reverse engineering the original
God willing Fathima will step on
on the last turned stone.
From the very one greatest woman
paradise starts from there on
from beneath the mother’s foot!

She is so pretty and classy, a paragon of art,
a sunrise amidst the eternal night.
Her beauty is a burning fire in her shadow,
she is 'Zahra,' pure light, a luminary dynamo.
The only woman in heaven and earth with no shadow!

The great women flock mirror the earth
treading across every atom on that angle
perfectly aligned down the Moon.
Until those beneath the skin atoms
bang, explode, on approaching the behemoth,
the vibration beneath the otherworldly Fathima’s feet!

The ocean billows up floats with the clouds
like choreographed dew droops hanging low on the rose
just to shower down on that hot spot like honey drops.

Even the Moon on the horizon follows suit
ah, the lunar punter rows down loves to sip in a drop.
The sleeping beauty wakes up amidst the moonlight
silver dances eye on every star in the night
the Moon is sailing down.
The seven seas sing out in the dark
bubbling with exuberant fireflies
that would gleefully rock the moonlight boat
over to the cup of that pretty little drop.  

Poetry in motion is a sea on the ground
the same is known as the Moon in the sky!
The storylines jump ever more
on that way over the shady grove.
Painting the colour of the winds
the sky rains down on that spot
singing the sweetest title song.  

Never was a woman prophet of God
for the primitive woman the leading lady
the acute cut above the rest, the leader of the pack.
'Sayeedatun Nessa' Queen Fathima
heaven is no secret always an open mirror!
Secret is Fathima touched the bottom of the earth first
it's in her elements a pure unique one otherworldly love
the womankind scores that only entering paradise!
There is no night only Deja vu moonlight
the pious homemakers these veiled tuberoses
were the hidden gems to the sublunary fireflies
shall be the open moons in the heaven's secret skies!
Huris look on mesmerising beautiful
eyes on the real McCoy the woman in paradise!

The universe debuts a primitive water dew,
Big Bang, soon Fathima drops in it her two hairs duo
enkindles the inner dark energy in the dark matter mole.
Absolutely pure, nature wakes up get the building rock
nothing like it never seen before, treasures in Earth's core.
The Queen's first impression hooks on
the motionless earth in the dew makes the first move
polished golden spiral is in bloom expanding ever more
the last thing the sun can't do can't take its eyes off
after the Big Bang big fireworks still (Ratqan) a black mole
thicker than the black moon, gravitates the cosmos! 

Walking in the dark ahead of the sun and the moonlight
one step up on that shady way the Queen cemented on,
perfectly circle pi-locks, the earth takes a Ma pause.
Until God willing Fathima's locks shall finally bottom in  
the long haul of time squeezing out paradise upside for good,
the heavenly Queen shines the light in the secret end of God!

The planetary ebb and flow are on the way heaven
the planet earth is the only steppingstone.
No matter how many times they try on
there will still be an unturned stone.
Until the very one, the original woman,
the Queen Fathima steps on.

Dots connect in her presence
the nadir and the zenith perfectly intersect
once for all that shall mingle in her perfect circle
without a labyrinth gap in the whole
making ‘As above, so below’ pure Scientia scenario.

Where the Queen stands on
heaven will open its grand door!
No more reverse engineering the original
God willing Fathima will step on
on the last turned stone.
From the very one greatest woman
paradise starts from there on
from beneath the mother’s foot!

.
Honeybees, birds and blooms unfurl
an enchanting spell
when spring comes by here

Memories waft 'neath burled rustic trellis
where flowered tendrils grasp fleshly
like the newness a love once tenderly embraced

Songbirds in your garden sing
of swooning memories rapture.., of velvet eyes,  
the fragrant spicy nectar hidden within her walls                            

A song of honeyed bees'  sweetest stinger,
and the poignant ***** of intoxicating surrender
lingers, bemused spellbound by a thorny heirloom rose

Sharp beauty beloved like a blameless trap
caught blissfully, breathlessly inbetween
all you wish for and all your wanton needs

Desire 's wellspring an unspoken passion
coquet swollen buds adorn blossoming,
sensual, untamed carnal grace

A picture perfect natural beauty;
sunlit chassé … feathered brush, demure blush
dancing with basket of lace petal’d perfume

For to colour a heart's blank pages
rapt in the poesy a joyous ecstasy ..,
enrapture with rainbow's luscious taste

What seems lost is but a tender vestige unfound
a passing moments innocence lost
to steal away like rumors of gold

These silent reveries seep from a hole in my heart,  
as if ripe strawberries of yore, gently weeping sweetness
when pricked by a thorny rose  

The ides of spring do still bleed a timeless ache
onto the page ... sweet naivety stung
by a mesmerizing dart to the heart

Songbirds in your garden do sing
of sweetest things immersed in nature's nectar
blissful memories sleeping in the petals of a rose



Sung to the wind by a song sparrow — ♪ ♫...✩ ☼✩ ✩☺✩

I.
The moon sings the languid flower,
  to bloom at midnight hour
Harmonious feast transpires -
  luminescent choir

Petals mirror la hue de Luna,
  but pale below her glow
Though the desert sweet aroma,
  is fragrance plus photo

Neither causing nightly failure,
  in idyllic charm
In fact, those powers are greater,
  together than apart

II.
The moon a long gone distant rock,
  yet pulls on ocean tops
Cereus lures with sweetest tricks,
  and stings with countless licks  

Battered holy asteroid face,
 woos flawless solar gaze
And even though it causes mire,
  lunar eclipses fire

The cactus thrives in driest sands,
  and chokes in fertile lands
Alluring lonesome wanderers,
  promising mere water

The lucid beauty bewilders,
  as much as it can haunt
In fact, those powers are greater,
  together than apart

III.
You, once my cereus and moon,
  were drowned in my love well
Perhaps, I was this to you too,
  though your hole I’d not delve

However, what was first velvet,
  morphed into devil’s horns
Winter shed those thorns in my chest,
  now spring gifts hope and more

The icy grips of each winter,
  provides spring fuel to spark
In fact, those powers are greater,
  together than apart

IV.
Although we've gone on our own ways,
  I wouldn’t change the past
For each step was necessary,
  to find true love at last

We were once greater together.


I’m now greater apart.

Me pulls to you ..... so strongly attracted to you
color of your skin so ****, ******, and very attractive and beautiful
In my opinion you are the most beautiful in the all universe space, measurement, worlds
My compliments, the truth, and no there is no flattery. In my opinion, this is how looks the most beautiful girl in the world. You are a very beautiful girl. You're a very **** girl. You are perfect. You are a masterpiece. You phenomenon of beauty that can not be repeated. So juicy, so exotic. It seems to me that you have an amazing beauty. You are the most beautiful in the universe all the dimensions of all worlds, you are a supreme being supreme creation, the crown of evolution. You're beautiful melody of love. You are so beautiful, just magic.
You to the point attractive ****. What you want to do countless times having ***.
I only dream if only one your kisses that blossom my soul. And from the touch of your hands on my body, and your lustful-touch for my private parts. I only dream to merge with you forever, body and soul, I only dream of an eternal, continuous *** only with you alone. I only know one thing, that I will forever love only you
Only at your most beautiful, stripped the body, you want to watch and view forever.

Every cell and molecule of my body and my soul is overwhelmed with love only for you. I long to be your beloved husband for all eternity and all lives, and even after death

Do you desire, you are perfect. Soup-navel **** genius. Do you like the sound of "the sound of a roaring engine ****** smart cars": VUM) VUM) vuuuuuuuuoooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmm) You paradise, you're mens happinesse. Easy, clean, gentle, heavenly delight. You dream of a lifetime. You're pretty unrealistic. On even to the extent to which she can be beautiful, it's just unbelievable. You are the best gift of fate. Before your powerful ****** charm simply irresistible. You're the most beautiful girl in the whole universe. It's a great, great. You luxurious gem. This delicate pearl skin, you sample the true human beauty and femininity. All the other girls compared to you quite simply uy) uy) uy) uy) uy), believe me you are very vip **** girl. Most also come up on the throne of honor honored the goddess, the great pedestal. Majestic music sounds, so subtly and sensitively praising your beauty for you. In your arms a man feels in the higher realms of pleasure. **** regal lioness. Graceful affectionately snarling tigress. Puff) bang) bang) bang) bang) mega glue your beauty kills all competitors by felling. Amazingly beautiful. Sultry, cool and ****-Mego. You are elite, you're a lux, you extra class Your beauty captivates the hearts of men. The queen of all men, divinely beautiful, majestic lady. **** kitten. Mens ******* myself in the pants, with excitement at the sight of you. My heart you certainly won. Imagine that you are on the sandy planet, and every speck of gold pure gold, these grains of sand, the golden thoughts about you and only about you. You stunned, and I from you noodle. You just incredible girl, unbelievable. You're a *** symbol. You is Brand, (dreaming about you) cool, greattbl, superebl. You're like a beautiful peacock, revealing to the people the infinite perfection of their external and internal beauty. Words gently kiss and hug. The outline playful. Queen of ardent passion, so a bit awe velvet body. You idol of femininity and nature ... anywhere in the world to find such a beautiful sight as yours, which is just crazy, captivating with their enchantments of love, and you can not escape from the past and it is impossible to pass, look pierces the tenderness of their feelings.
you thermonuclear *** bomb you lux extra class.
Your passionate gaze iceberg melt. A look of love, perfect beauty. You are an incredibly beautiful girl, you're a mega-explosion of a nuclear bomb.  Boooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmm), a brain explosion, demolition of all its rivals mega wave. Sweet, sweet as honey. You're sweeter than any candy. You have the talent to charm the guys for their beauty. Your beautiful image of a gentle heart overflows with love for you. Goddess of all men. You are the most gentle in the world. You are wonderful. You as a model in these photos. Original and stylish. Pretty number one in the world. You like to radiate special energy of love and pulling for you. With you all the time you want to be, always and forever. With no one way can not be as good as you. You are infinitely deep and beautiful as the universe itself. Because it is simply not possible. After all, you're stylish, cool, cool. As you have all that is in the ideal image of a woman. Fantastically beautiful. Moon Flower, gently shimmering in the sunlight. How beautiful are your eyes, like a mermaid I want to plunge back to see you sitting on his throne, beautiful creature mermaid her voice beckons you, only your arms, I shall find eternal rest. Awesome adhesive modest. I can not believe my own eyes, how beautiful you are.  you like cream with chocolate .... same tender .... sweet ...... "Your charm charms as analgesia. Do you use it perfectly. Beautiful eyes look like hypnosis. Such a nice warm look. Concealing in itself a treasure of delicate beauty. Infinite height. from that soars from the love of you soul. I like your figure beautiful nymph ... I conquered your soft intriguing, mysterious look ... marvelous sweet charm tempts and drags a.
You are my sweet dream.
I give myself to you forever.
Your loyalty and sincere love.
That's all I want.
You only one I ever want.
You are my love, my fondest wish.
Your photo makes me so *****
I wait from you of reciprocity and understanding.
My word is my tongue that gently caresses your skin and soul.
Gentle and sweet flesh of thy nothing in this universe is not.
Hot passion of your reality in this I do not find.
My words and my eyes tell you only one thing.
The best you never find.
In) during) during) during) during) during) during) during) during) during) Check it out, acclaimed, reviewed, look. Composed for you, about you, tenderly loving s) a) a). **** Barbie, Babe attractive, graceful lady, tender crumb, kitty) kitty) charming cat, sweet baby. One only your smile, this is a great victory and the men feat. Rather Go up to the throne of the goddess honored the great pedestal. Lyrical music sounds just as sensitively and subtly praising your infinite beauty for you. You're a real beauty icon. Designed for real mens, and gentlemen. Vuuuuuuuufffffffffff) tuff) tutuf) tutuf) speak very gently and quietly) tshshshshshshshsh) sounds quiet hypnotic music of love) I'm fascinated by your sensual, delicate charms, leads to you inexplicable wonderful attraction, about how beautiful your magic your charms so vague and so beautiful like brave a charming dope) of your charismatic charm my calls so subtly, subtly and clearly, so sensuously and easily, fervently and passionately, and so ****, ****, cute and appetizing, attractive, beauty, beckoning your temptation, seduction, you're tempting, seductive life you my call, just you alone all the time waiting and call about how much obsession, just the warmth of your feelings gently warms and the confluence of feelings showers my thy soul seizes you soft velvet and silk, you're hot sweet gentle sweetness) only happiness) happiness) and serenity) verily, thou great priceless personality, being at the mercy of your hot emotions and sweet emotion, want to be in them always and forever), I gain peace and paradise on earth, the gentle heat of your mouth, and the warmth of your tender eyes , takes in the wonderful world of your bliss, perfect minute clock, and second only to you, and I want to be just with you, because you have life, you're my only reality, you are my world and the whole universe, keep true allegiance to you, and I just

quietly and timidly say that the only one you love. Without you, life is impossible. You're perfect, you're Suite) glossy, glamorous cute Moore) Moore) Cutie) Ya) ya) dastish fantastish) perfecto) shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik) You just mmmmmmmmmmm). This sweeeet) beautifuuuuuuuuul) well just aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh) pass out of love for you. Being with you is the continuous buzz, yummy relish) you so photo-film ****-genic photogenic, for movie movie-genic, urrrrrr). We humbly bow to your greatness, great, beautiful goddess, you are perfection. You cool muse, you're cool motif gives your beautiful image of a mega positive, you're a real Kulnev neo) neo) creative, "you're a real jackpot, juicy freshshshshshshsh)" you're the main leitmotif of this world, you're center of the world, a great Bagheera, the pearl of the world. Yes it's true because I think you only one I admire. The idol of all idols, the goddess of all goddesses. Take my word, because it's all true, and I sincerely hope that you give me at least not much pleased. Chorus: "You're **** Bugatti, Maserati best, fastest Ferrari, Pagani elegant. You stylish Bentley, luxury lambordizhni, royal Rolls Royce, wonderful noise voice, only for a cool boys ", voo tyzh) bad, whip. Your extraterrestrial beauty in a nutshell is this: "beautiful and saucily". And I long to see your gentle green light. abruptly, clearly, accurately, rarely smooth, sweet, stylish, strong, powerful, precise, transcripts, honorable. When you're near everything it is not important, so slow and so pointless. Great, great, grand girl yooo) Great, great, grand girl yooo) Great, great, grand girl yooo) ...... Yop) Thank you exist, let sit next to you, take my word for all this is not flattery, be your this is such a great honor, but this is a boon to any man, veeeest) Because you are the most cherished love and the dream of every man. Oooo) Olya-la-la **** figure in this world only you. All attention is focused only on you, everything pales in comparison around with you, and I want to be next only to you, but you pridnalezhat one. You are luxuriously best bust, sweet with sweet lips and mega **** predatory gaze from his amorous feelings rage, my wash only about you say, look what they do to me from the love of you are doing, your beautiful image on forever in itself charms shining, inspires, subordinates, intoxicating. **** goddess. Number one in the world. My low bow only to you) worship only you) Uffffffff) When you're around, getting hot, bright, nice, snip) snip) Vuoks) as a flamethrower let go the flame of his fine feelings, heart pounding more often you zhzhosh not for children, I want to see often, so sultry, beautiful, navel-soup finally, uhhhhhhhhhhh) love is so strong that even begins to hurt the heart. Luxury queen of all parties and catwalks, you unattainable pinnacle, all societies, beeeem) cupid shot of powerful magnum, oooo) complete demolition of all reason, can not hear anything except for you, and now can be seen, only you feel now just you and I I think that I was created just for you. Thank you, thank you, that drew on this as I am. For you, this is only for you, but it's all for you, all for you. I suffer, expect all the time I love you. You're the most desirable woman in the world. Epic, lyric, simpotichnaya) You're beautiful in everything in this world, only you're beautiful. You are endowed with charismatic energy inexplicably beautiful charm ... .ihi) ...... Mochi-mochi-mochi, manenko, manenko, manenko such mainka, mainka, krasotulechka, slyadkaya-slyadkaya girl Lapushka, adorable, cutie, baby, cute flower, candy, umnichka, bird, swallow, Rybonka, kitten, sun-golden-favorite-of-the-most-expensive, good-natured as fluffy hare .................. PSA) PSA) Oooh yeaaah) PSA-PSA) honor) worship, revere, and boundless respect, PSA-PSA) is the only real girl in this PSA, PSA world) you're the most epic, lyrical, lovely) PSA-PSA) you are best of the best, but you have no equal, PSA-PSA) you're the most endowed the title of the most beautiful in the history of mankind, PSA-PSA) you are the most important, the most glorious hero, the only one worthy of a goddess. PSA-PSA) is any place adorn, and instantly all the guys for their beauty by felling you fought, PSA, PSA) and all competitors envy into a deep depression makin PSA-PSA). Because you from herself beauty and eroticism idea tirelessly all its beauty and all are striking. Poetic, exotic, ****** lyrically. Living next to you harmony, grace, take my word, words can not convey, and I want to give you his heart. The sweetest voice only you, the skin so tender and pure, like a beautiful flower, on the face of my delight. So serene, so peaceful and quiet, static, nice and smooth, their places of origin is not in the universe, the soul like a light cloud in the sky hovering, always remembers you, you my love gives. The rays of your love life shines gently nurtures and warms, under your angel wings minds gradually falls asleep. A truly happy life does not happen without you. Next to you, my soul is in heaven remains, and only you, only one truly trusts. Your personality is loud, cool, beautiful, unique. Loud) loud) loud) You're a valuable copy of human beauty tadts-tadts-tadts) tadts-tat) tadts-tat) tadts-tat) uooo) uooo) uooo) tadts-tadts-tadts) tadts-tat) tadts-tat) tadts -tat) uooo) uooo) uooo) oooooo) you higher hooooootest bella mamasita, so moschnobl) with you all the time you want to be srochnobl) tochnobl) you're so cute, I love devotedly, furiously and fanatically. All zabyvaetsya around when you're around, captivated by your unique gentle gaze. Diamond beautiful, deep sapphire, stratsno rubirno, amazing emerald, pearl cute, I was very hooked, very surprised, so beautiful that a tear struck, and tenaciously for his soul took in your deep beautiful distance afield, was happily and easily, and suddenly the shower glittered and blossomed. One only makes your **** look and feel embarrassed blush. See how I want to enjoy it. It makes harder and harder to fall in love with you, I want to again and again appear near you, and never to say goodbye to you, and do not give up when you're around wants to smile with happiness, and you always stay on. Soft) soft) soft) How marvelous your gentle eyes, a beautiful shine, so deep beautiful color, hi) and the lips gifted hot, passionate force, like a sweet juicy berry, shine sweet tender crumb precious shine temptation, fantasy) romantic) ****** ) to you so goes the lipstick) gentle, spectacular pretty perfect) yes) so accurately) not lying, exactly) so refined, so perfect it all, only you, you can safely say all envious yeeeah) baa) baa) beeeee) each part of your body, is true, unattainable, infinitely ****, perfectly gospodstvennoe, divine perfection, which is the business card of your wonderful personality, a genuine sample of the sweet candy, delight, joy. You are an ideal model for the most famous, the channels, magazines, you have the sweetest voice in the world, so it is ideal in television and radio broadcast, a perfect icon of the media, the beautiful goddess of the VIP, I think so. And only love and honor. You are the most precious value in this universe. Heart and love is boundless open and so clean and perfect for you, all I say is not in vain, my love for you is a whole universe dedicated to you. You are beautiful in every way, so different, so special, your presence, gives a special feeling of harmony and peace, you are like a hot flaming fire of love and creation. Bright spark your feelings enliven, inspire. You are like a breath of life, fresh, cold water, your nature is so beautiful, so deep. Your acts as the earth itself give rise to life. You merry wind of freedom, infinitely great, free, you are giving hope and life, really need you like the air. Ooty) Ooty) Ooty) multi-billion-dollar celebrity babe, baby on triliard. I give you a well-deserved medals: for the record for the beauty of the world, a record for the entire beauty of the universe, the medal: in the beauty of a well-deserved
Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

"SWEETEST LULLABY."

On a starry night moonshines beautifully, equally ravishing as you're Hone, you're **** gorgeous. When it comes to your sound sweet and soothing one's heart. I'm sending you this and wish I could sing you the sweetest lullaby to comfort your sleep and angels to guard and guide your dreams path. Sweetest girl earl.  
#C9_fm

A simple melody, a yellow rose
A forgotten tragedy, my sweetest repose

A ****** trail, snow white sails
The end of all travail, my sweetest repose

A gentle brook, the sweet warm air
A good old book, my sweetest repose

A grain of sand, a giant oak
The touch of your hand, my sweetest repose

A drop of dew, the evening hue
A day with you, just to name a few
You're my sweetest repose

I see the brightest light
The world will illuminate
You seem to light up my night

I think I will live through the fight
Nonexistent hate
The sweetest angel in my sight

Nothing can give me a fright
My feelings will not sedate
You seem to light up my night

Especially when you hold me tight
I wonder if this was fate
The sweetest angel in my sight

I know that you will never bite
I feel safe, no debate
You seem to light up my night

I hold you close with all my might
Cause I love you, my dearest soulmate
The sweetest angel in my sight
You seem to light up my night.

He told her she was pottery; a vase with grooves and cracks.
The patterns of the history she hid behind her back.

Within his words he layered in- like thread upon a loom-
The sweetest undercurrent to illuminate that gloom.

In certain cultures, he decreed, when pottery is cracked
They aggrandize them with gleaming gold to bring their splendor back

For they believe, with certainty, once damage has been wrought
Those tiny cracks, now filled with light, hold truths that can't be taught.

My sweetest soldier left me and was dragged across the sea
My nights are now silent and my heart is drowned with fear
So, here I cannot stand to be

Through weary nights I held my guard
'till the stars came out to torment me
For, all the beauty of the night was now forever marred

My heart trembled with the candlelight
So I went to seek her chambers,but all was locked and barred
Even whispered words from my dear soldiers could do little to ease my fright

I wrote letters to my sweetest knight with sparkling, savage fury
I fought sleep away with every ounce of my might
Too soon, my hands and eyes grew weary

I filled my pages with stories of beasts we would nevermore fight
my eyes where too full of tears so I could not see clearly
I've lost my dearest companion and the bringer of my light

She sent letters back,of course, and they were wept over with many a tear
For a day, sprigs of goldenrod adorned my collar bright
for a day, at least, I forgot to think of fear

Then I had dreams of feathered serpents wrapped around her throat
her eyes were scratched out by hoary hell-kites and her heart was pierced with a spear
All my daylight hours, and all my nighttime too, to my knight I did devote

We continued writing letters and I lead my soldiers too
no one ever asked of what this did denote
'till fever caught me by my throat and threw my mind askew

My hands shook too violently and ink had streaked my page
In my letters, I tried so hard to have my pain seem subdued
My dear light-bringer needn't fear a fever's shallow rage

She saw through my ruse too quickly and I think she panicked more
I tried to calm her with winged words and locks of sage
I promised her there was a cure

My dreams were fueled by fire and the darkness lurking there
when I woke I fell sobbing to the freezing floor
She would have gathered me in her arms and kept me in her care

Beasts and berserkers set my night under siege
I could only see my sweetest knight scarred by bloodless warfare
Her spirit fell to the mercy of my new-found, thankless liege

My throat was streaked with clawing pain
cups of water I did beseech
bitter liquid assailed my body and bound my fate with chains

I saw my sweetest soldier and her hands skimmed through my hair
Her eyes shined like pearls which I hoped she would retain
Her kisses on my cheeks were so radiant and rare

I knew then never would we be apart
and in my chambers with the firelight there
I could rest with the keeper of my heart

Not funny but this was written on 4-15-12 exactly a year to the day


I re-post this for our last battel field Boston these words are nothing but as you read you will find the one who lives in them and He is everything all the comfort and hope we can ever want


Sorry if this seems at first confusing all my friends on facebook and Redbubble will get it right away as
I asked them to use their love and caring to pray for my hurting distraught friend at her time of great
Loss if you are hurting it will help to at least a degree or it will help at times of future loss

Well dear sweet precious Addy this brutal day is at an end I hope you sleep well I prayed for you and
Kathleen’s son way into the night at first I was terrified you weren’t going to get my post and you would
Enter as I told my wife you would enter the lion’s den the lions all have familiar names pain sorrow
Grief and many others and they maul with cruelty without pity I didn’t want either of you to take those
Fatal steps without your armor not to be to descriptive but reality waited with a blast I tried to diffuse the
Coffin the grave and headstone never could I do it immeasurably my fight for you could only be in the
Smallest victories comfort mined at times like these is like uranium white silver metallic with almost
A power that can’t be harnessed the same as loss of a love one what blow back again the same as a
Nuclear test one problem you don’t get the protection of a bunker no just suffer the blast in your
Body mind and heart you are stepping into the shoes the same as young woman who lost her father
That as she described him he was the light of her life our paths crossed on line when I thought she
Was a classmate’s wife her story of her dad touched me deeply I’m going to add that piece here plus
The comfort I tried to write for my friend that was more like my brother when his mother died I will
Include a small background so it wail make more sense let me add those here the first was Fathers story
What you read here is her hearts knowing and the undying love that it created and that continues.
His precious hands were removed from earthly things. A great and gentle man his greatest possessions his family. I only knew him from his business and the fact that one of his beautiful daughters married a classmate of mine. Then much later by error I made acquaintance with another of his daughters you can tell a lot about a person from the actions of his children. She told me that he passed away and that he was the light of her life. With God’s help I would like to pay tribute to him.
A light did shine it was magnified by the eyes of a daughters love. He took his journey he went above his ship was the care they shared he the captain made the course straight and true he didn’t slow her run until heaven was in plain view they would have cheered but it hard to see through eyes filled with tears. All the wonderful years seemed to be eclipsed by the sickness that came it seemed an angry wind from their lives this stalwart precious soul it did rend. It left the greatest empty hole it took the longest time to fill and then with the sweetest cooing the grand babies made the hole enlivened not the terrible twisted knot that had the family bound but without being able to speak a word grampaw was found. If you looked in their faces his smile is bound to bundles only heaven can design. I’m not saying they asked him how to work these miracles yet this is true he watched with intense interest and was happiest since his departure he knew that back through time and space healing was for all time secured. Their stoic acceptance could now be laid aside the family could run in softer climes know the sweetest of times that were thought to be forever gone.
Love spills down from heights distance is only on a map in peoples heart its no farther than the end of your finger tips. Images are so strong not because we have great minds it’s easy to make these rich finds when your love and its power shake the foundation of the universe is it not said that love is the greatest power. Oh how so many in dark shadows cower when they possess the power to ignite the world on fire. From heart to heart it does dart the wildness of the spirit is told blotting out all of the cold. Yes there is winter but also the spring. The light spoken of is no longer beholden to earth and so the family is free by love he joins his light to the Christ the all glowing light
Life force by haldenton
To all who have lost heroes
This was written to Eva’s son Bill to help him at her passing. With this writing I took him back thirty years when he was in the truck wreck that killed his dad his recovery saved his mother I hoped by him being reminded of that now it would help him the same way.
Tribute to Eva Wafford Life force
For all who lost heroes
In your soul freshly the wind of death did blow.
Cold eerie shadows marched against your tender broken heart.
What defense could this onslaught repel agony’s volcanic flow.
Ominous well filled with grief from this weight no relief.
The child the grim reaper did spare.
Only after leaving the body bruised and in despair.
From this broken body drops of mercy started to make the mother well.
I held your trembling frame today this memory rings sweet as a bell.
Streets and houses without number fill the land.
I can’t help when I look to recall memories grand.
Now they are but dreams that ache in the night.
Images that over ride the present in their glory I take flight.
Brush aside caution raise your voice as a trumpet.
They live only in yesterdays even so indelibly they wrote their stories.
We hold our children we cling only a moment as mist on the summit.
Your life Eva continues to build the next generation.
Your voice is heard in the breath of your grandchildren.
Wonders they spin from golden thread, now that you have gone ahead.
Your spirit glows in the fire that warms the house against winter.
Summer’s cool breeze not sent by chance she doe’s tenderly incite.
Death silently said what I already knew.
To me you were always immortal you were bigger than life
Many were the days when the wind of storms blew
those who know us feel the calm; this is only your life on review

One more
Simply Jim
Old Abe said it right ‘It is right and fitting that we speak these words here to honor these lives so honorably lived. I can say that about Jim and this also he was a prince among men if I do this right the words will convince you.
He had a gentle way and nature he spoke softly but a softness that flowed to you like ribbons that bounced in a little girl’s hair how delightful. He should have been a doctor his hands his mannerism was ideal for that job. I guess thats what made him stand out so strongly like a gentle calm breeze if you came in a panic his soul would float down around you like a parachute first it safely brings you from great anxiety and exaltation to a graceful landing then gently envelops you in its silken embrace. I had this privilege of watching him inter act with his wife as I said and truly he was a prince and I was the beggar that benefitted richly from the sidelines God knew my needs.
He was called from this life but all the days he filled before his home going are the sustaining force noticeably seen felt with keen awareness you know that a gentleman passed this way. In the lives left behind there is a blend of sadness and astonishment you realize you are looking at the work of a master workman who left behind a tightly and perfectly fitted family this unfortunately is sadly rare in this society that boast of its accomplishments.
As a friend his breadth and depth was sufficient you weren’t a burden he had a way of dispelling trouble making you understand with wisdom and unerring judgment then with ease you could extricate yourself from the problem. His heavenly father filled him with tenderness it stood him and others well in a somewhat crabby world. If you’re pressed and anxious about life take from this life expressed. A portion of the good will you need use it as a defense Jim couldn’t be everywhere but God saw fit to make an original that you can duplicate benefit from and be a part of his ongoing legacy. Thanks friend for a life lived well

Well hurting one in the earlier part of a writing I said I am God’s battle field reporter and medic
These writings are my bandages and gauze God gave me great big hands and I fill them with
Salve with all the love I know I gently apply it to your broken hurting wounds mingle it with
Tears that are not always mine alone but His mixes with mine one day He will abolish all tears
Until then this is our duty your heart we hear and we can do no other God bless you Addy and
Your nephew and all others who find this helpful

Mirrored Pool


Wonder for all the hurts

First I knelt just to see my reflection then the depths started to reveal first the flowing thoughts were
Restrained and then a bubbling seemed to dislodge from greater depths hard truths churned with
Violent twisting but the motion made it impossible to turn away there were great large white clouds
From depths then even above the pool they rose fourteen stories high the sensation was you were
Standing outside clear air intoxicating views the pulse of many were throbbing in your ears their
Thoughts and dreams were known and their sorrows were weights that pulled you from the heights
It was a colossal game of tag and you were it first reaction fear then the appearance of bundled gifts
Broke down the fear it was promise in different sizes that met the required needs it was like a divine
Warehouse had just made a delivery there were cards with names and writing gave clarification tears
And smiles intermingled then the outer knowing postulated the difficulty the puzzle an enormous
Streaming that was now congested and it was beginning a vortex all was understood now human thought
With doubts was pulling the answer into this destructive hole where was one to find the lever to stop
This action that would disallow was the answer to touch the water bring the finger to my lips possibly
A blazing thought would occur that would strike the mind no all that brought was words that had the
Letters jumbled they made no sense unless there is a special book that is alive in it the letters and words
Are already set but they cover every act in the human condition the broken can pour over the pages
You won’t find thorns to repel your efforts there are thorns but they will speak and assuage your hurts
At the most basic and needed levels the points of your hurts will begin to dissolve from your eyes to
Your mind this inward rush and power will dislodge even spears driven deep by enemies carried for
Years you searched in vain over sad and lonely paths and days now you journey is at an end thorns of
Suffering for another produces profound power and mercy go in peace beloved one another bears your
Burden now maybe words cut you at depths you can’t even identify what if there is an antidote in a
Book you pick it up with trembling hands your body tingles from the knowledge that this is ancient texts
It will have a revival of appreciation in this world of texting but with gentle fingers and eyes that glow
With respect as you see the wisdom and the love cannot be denied you leave the world you know and
With total abandonment you swim in this sea of words until the your tears spill on this rich world of
Words those cruel barbed words that pierced tender skin and have bled internally all of these years
Begin to dissolve with stories and accounts of betrayals then the swells love and mercy you read about
Restoration not always found after apologies are given but the teaching of forgiveness strikes a cord
You have been made free from your prison the tangles of life are great as a great black cloud it hangs
Over head many are its troubles this isn’t mild but the disruptive made to strike and pierce deep the
Hidden that steals the morning blessing while other feast your hunger and unrest only enlarges a
Tormenting unquenchable fire a slow burn this is a forest being burned at the thermal level the hidden
Roots a slow process destructive but not so visible agony torture I have seen men crawl in war or fire
Fighting that where all else is lost you will know greater thrills than any other living soul with the
Desperate and those heavy burdened unable to stand a word will flow it puts out fires and gives
The luxurious buoyancy heaviness changed to joy the bouncy laughter every outward blast attack
The enemy launches is within its pages they are repelled overwhelmed by love you suffer unduly
If you don’t hold this fortress this informative book of stratagems that have made everyone a victor
Who has ever found themselves at their wits end no place on earth has a contingency plan though it
Will make the greatest claims all is just empty air when life as it too often does ***** the very air of life
Out we practically are unconscious but this help this rescue is activated by one name it’s not just a book
But the word is a person what a pool you will find what a reflection will engage you beyond your hope
To imagine just say Jesus all will be total peace your heart will know no more sorrow peace will surpass
Sorrow love will disallow the specter that was once a constant it will disappear it will return to the
Darkness from which it came stand in this newness totally free abide by still waters as the good
Sheppard stands by bless you



Disgrace

This land void of devotion gone is the church steeples.
Replaced by voices and shadows of drug dealers on each corner.
Now they are the keepers, lost cities, death stalks its peoples.
Nothing is sacred in this polluted and diffused land.

No longer hallowed be thy name, it’s as if he never came.
Forgotten is any standard of moral excellence.
The once high ideals only represent a fool’s parlance.
Man declares I throw off these restraints only to find darker chains.

The book that once guided this great land.
We now betray with each waking day.
Our hearts and mind it did ignite, now it’s word we can’t stand.
Powerless and feeble we stumble, anxious ever moment.

Just to remember is not enough, best confess our pride.
Make sacrifice with our lips, to burn on altars on high.
There is a short season for all to make amends to regain our stride.
March on to glory with it burning on the inside.

You don’t have to be astute in business to see the sound investment.
Bring your poverty of spirit leave with the riches of his last testament.
It offers the greatest rate of exchange.
Light for darkness, life for death, selfless love for selfishness.


Streaks of Jefferson


In freedom’s blessed glorified sky through streaks of immortal gold his visage we behold
He looks upon the fields of liberty that he and the founding fathers sowed he sees the

Richness America has become he also beheld her struggles catastrophic wars abroad
And the most painful the one that divided the nation marred it with southern and northern

Blood saw the affable the sad giant Lincoln take the reins of discontent hold them by
Shear will and with uncommon sagacity guided it back in line to fulfill its destiny as the

Powerful fount that would always pour forth waters of freedom for all of earths peoples
Total unconditional acceptance of liberty and all the fruit it bears to establish a

Government like no other this golden grain has waved under bluest skies and brightest
Sun light its rich harvest has gone to darkest prison cells Mandela was sustained by it

For twenty nine years and by its moral purity it fed the lives of those that over threw
Apartied and Mandela finally freed by principals it avows rose from prison clothes

To wear the mantle of president of his country and the honor of the man instilled
Quality that transcended political office Jefferson not to be disrespectful to his progeny

Whispers today’s politicians could do well to look on this African model of good
Stewardship of public trust with that Jefferson faded back into the mist pray that’s
Not the fate of this country






--------------------------------------------------------------­------------------

by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

Just wanted to say to you my dear,
Goodnight and please sleep tight,
I will talk to you tomorrow,
But as for now please pretend i'm there,
Please just hold me tight,
Have the sweetest of dreams,
Know that i love you,
Now I must slumber,
I will fantasize and dream about you my prince,
Feel free to invade my head anytime you wish,
I will always be here with you,
Goodnight to the sweetest heart out there,
May all your sweet dreams come true lover dear.

Now i am broken,
I can never be fixed.
Because my problem's internal,
it's not just a glitch.
It's making me horrible,
it's giving me doubt.
And makes me question
what I've been talking about.
I want you more
than I could ever say.
But all is lost,
every single day.
When i can't see you,
I lose my way.
And i forget
to live,
love,
and play.
For nothing is better
than loving life with you.
So i will wait around,
seeing what ensues.
I love you for you,
and all the things that you do.
And i wouldn't change anything, 
except what you've been through.
You weren't
shown gratitude,
for love given
that's past.
So i will be appreciative,
so your love for me will last.
Because no one understands me
better than yourself.
You are my one and only,
the sweetest little elf.

Heretical Poems by Michael R. Burch

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

NOTE: I came up with this epigram to express my conclusions after reading the Bible from cover to cover, ten chapters per day, at age eleven.



Saving Graces
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter
(wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter).



Multiplication, Tabled
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”



***** Nilly
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
by Michael R. Burch

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped—
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and Plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus,
for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please . . .
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!



gimME that ol’ time religion!
by michael r. burch

fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee,
jesus loves and understands ME!
safe in his grace, I’LL **** them to hell—
the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel,
the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall!
let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall,
’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . .
jesus loves and understands
ME!



Red State Religion Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

I’d like to believe in your LORD
but I really can’t risk it
when his world is as badly composed
as a half-baked biscuit.



Evil Cabal
by Michael R. Burch

those who do Evil
do not know why
what they do is wrong
as they spit in ur eye.

nor did Jehovah,
the original Devil,
when he murdered eve,
our lovely rebel.



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind *******?"
But almost no one took note.



Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch

Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.


Practice Makes Perfect
by Michael R. Burch

I have a talent for sleep;
it’s one of my favorite things.
Thus when I sleep, I sleep deep ...
at least till the stupid clock rings.

I frown as I squelch its **** beep,
then fling it aside to resume
my practice for when I’ll sleep deep
in a silent and undisturbed tomb.



Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve said it once;
I’ll say it twice:
I shall be glad to go.

But why the hell should I be nice
when no one asked for my advice?
So grumpily I’ll go ...
although
(most probably) below.



Redefinitions
by Michael R. Burch

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.
Religion: the ties that blind.



pretty pickle
by michael r. burch

u’d blaspheme if u could
because ur God’s no good,
but of course u cant:
ur a lowly ant
(or so u were told by a Hierophant).



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.

Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord only knows;
but savages would have to laugh
observing the tidy rows.



Listen
by Michael R. Burch

Listen to me now and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words? They come to him,
the moon’s illuminations, intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now, and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,

but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary.



fog
by michael r. burch

ur just a bit of fluff
drifting out over the ocean,
unleashing an atom of rain,
causing a minor commotion,
for which u expect awesome GODS
to pay u SUPREME DEVOTION!
... but ur just a smidgen of mist
unlikely to be missed ...
where did u get the notion?



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by michael r. burch

GODD is great;
GODD is good;
let us thank HIM
for our food.

by HIS hand
we all are fed;
give us now
our daily dead:

ah-men!

(p.s.,
most gracious
& salacious
HEAVENLY LORD,
we thank YOU in advance for
meals galore
of loverly gore:
of precious
delicious
sumptuous
scrumptious
human flesh!)



no foothold
by michael r. burch

there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold.

so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,

as far as the i can see ...



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by michael r. burch

... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification;
u'd love to make a u-turn back to Divinity, but
having misplaced ur chrysalis,
can only chant magical phrases,
like Circe luring ulysses back into the pigsty ...



You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though a communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.

For thirty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways and Your distance.
Like a child dismissed,

I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing “mercy” is chance
and “heaven”—a list.



I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of my shirt.
     And I uphold the Law,
     for Grace has a Flaw:
the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt.

I’ve got ten thousand reasons why Hell must exist,
and you’re at the top of my fast-swelling list!
     You’re nothing like me,
     so God must agree
and slam down the Hammer with His Loving Fist!

For what are the chances that God has a plan
to save everyone: even Boy George and Wham!?
     Eternal fell torture
     in Hell’s pressure scorcher
will separate **** from Man.

I’m glad I’m redeemed, ecstatic you’re not.
Did Christ die for sinners? Perish the thought!
     The "good news" is this:
     soon My vengeance is his!,
for you’re not the lost sheep We sought.



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...

but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.



jesus hates me, this i know
by michael r. burch

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
"little ones to him belong"
but if they use their dongs, so long!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus fleeces us, i know,
for Religion scams us so:
little ones are brainwashed to
believe god saves the Chosen Few!
    yes, jesus fleeces!
    yes, he deceases
    the bunny and the rhesus
    because he's mad at you!

jesus hates me—christ who died
so i might be crucified:
for if i use my active brain,
that will drive the "lord" insane!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
first priests tell me "look above,"
that christ's the lamb and god's the dove,
but then they sentence me to Hell
for using my big brain too well!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!



and then i was made whole
by michael r. burch

... and then i was made whole,
but not a thing entire,
glued to a perch
in a gilded church,
strung through with a silver wire ...

singing a little of this and of that,
warbling higher and higher:
a thing wholly dead
till I lifted my head
and spat at the Lord and his choir.



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all *******
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many enraged discourses,
high, high from some mountain peak
where He’s lectured man on compassion
while the sparrows around Him fell,
and babes, for His meager ration
of rain, died and went to hell,
unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to vent
in many obscure discourses
on the need for man to repent,
to admit that he’s a sinner;
give up ***, and riches, and fame;
be disciplined at his dinner
though always he dies the same,
whether fatter or thinner.

In his kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many absurd discourses
of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!,
while demanding praise and worship,
and the bending of every knee.
And though He sounds like the Devil,
all religious men now agree
He loves them indubitably.



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“what rough beast...slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”―W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a streaked glass pane,
jeers jubilant,
mocking.

Brutality is shocking―
tiny orifices torn
by cruel adult lust,
the fetus unborn
tossed in a dust-
bin. The scarred skull shorn,
nails bloodied, tortured,
an old wound sutured
over, never healed.

Brutality, all its faces revealed,
is legion:
Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . .
always the same.
The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion”
slouching toward Jerusalem:
horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane.



I AM
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.
I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.
I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please! "
I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.
I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they'll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there's decent ** in jail.
Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don't make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



Unwhole
by Michael R. Burch

What is it that we strive to remember, to regain,
as memory deserts us,
leaving us destitute of even ourselves,
of all but pain?

How can something so essential be forgotten,
if we are more than our bodies?
How can a soul
become so unwhole?



Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub

She smiled a thin-lipped smile
(What do men know of love?)
then rolled her eyes toward heaven
(Or that Chauvinist above?).



evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD love the Tyger
while it's ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Bubonic Plague
while it's eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.
But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche's sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



Alien
by Michael R. Burch

for  a "Christian" poet

On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices "speech"
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro―
far colder than Jesus's words
over the "fortunate" sparrow.

And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.

Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.



Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until its sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love's tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.

These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.

Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.

God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem's retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man's beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.



Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch

"... so let your light shine before men..."

Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but―immaculate―shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity,
the sweetest of divines.

And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time―an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.

So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you'd convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
I'm upwardly mobile; this one thing I know:
I can only go up; I'm already below!



Shock and Awe
by Michael R. Burch

With megatons of "wonder, "
we make our godhead clear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The world's heart ripped asunder,
its dying pulse we hear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Strange Trinity! We ponder
this God we hold so dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The vulture and the condor
proclaim: The feast is near!―
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Soon He will plow us under;
the Anti-Christ is here:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

We love to hear Him thunder!
With Shock and Awe, appear!―
Death. Destruction. Fear.

For God can never blunder;
we know He holds US dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.



Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go...
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.

Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin...
lay down your pamphlets; now no one will "win."

Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through...
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?

What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?

What brings them here―
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?

Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:

why is it God that they fear?



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.



Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love's wild insurrection
yield no certainty of a resurrection.

Man's tried them both, has added tears,
chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs'
white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs

where dead men's frozen genes convene...
there is no answer―death is death.
So bury your son, and save your breath.

Or emulate earth's "highest species"―
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things

being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings

whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.



Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch

Who will be ******,
who embalmed
for all eternity?

The night weighs heavy on me―
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,

like the weightless windblown snow.



Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight, let's remember, as mortals do,
how cutely we chortled when work was through,
society sated, all gods put to rest,
and you in my arms, and I at your breast...

Tonight, let's remember how daring, how free
the Madeira made us, recumbently.
Our inhibitions?―we laid them to rest.
Earth, heaven or hell―we knew we were blessed.

Tonight, let's remember the dwindling days
we've spent here together―the sun's rays
spending their power beyond somber hills.
Soon we'll rest together; there'll be no more bills.

Tonight, let's remember: we've paid all our dues,
we've suffered our sorrows, we've learned how to lose.
What's left now to take, only God can tell.
Be with me in heaven, or "bliss" will be hell!

I do not want God; I want to see you
free from all sorrow, your labor through,
a song on your tongue, a smile on your lips,
sweet, sultry and vagrant, a child at your hips,

laughing and beaming and ready to frolic
in a world free from cancer and gout and colic.
For you were courageous, and kind, and true.
There must be a heaven for someone like you.



I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse―a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard―a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!

I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!

I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim―
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech's brilliant slide, I *****,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear―
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don't quite understand) ,
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?

Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).



Gethsemane in Every Breath
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, we have lost our way, and now
we have mislaid love―earth's fairest rose.
We forgot hope's song―the way it goes.
Help us reclaim their gifts, somehow.

LORD, we have wondered long and far
in search of Bethlehem's retrograde star.
Now in night's dead cold grasp, we gasp:
our lives one long-drawn rattling rasp

of misspent breath... before we drown.
LORD, help us through this spiral down
because we faint, and do not see
above or beyond despair's trajectory.

Remember that You, too, once held
imperiled life within your hands
as hope withdrew... that where You knelt
―a stranger in a stranger land―

the chalice glinted cold afar
and red with blood as hellfire.
Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember―we are as You were,

but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember-we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men―
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger's cool
sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,
with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love
in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land
planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe
in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.
Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright―
just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope's long-departed star!



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination―

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.



The Gardener's Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away."

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least...

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies...

Faint scent of roses, then―a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true? "

"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call―ecstatic crew!―
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of "morality" around me.
Surround me,

not with law's restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,

and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Cædmon's Face
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and Time blew all around,
I paced that dusk-enamored ground
and thought I heard the steps resound

of Carroll, Stoker and good Bede
who walked here too, their spirits freed
―perhaps by God, perhaps by need―

to write, and with each line, remember
the glorious light of Cædmon's ember:
scorched tongues of flame words still engender.



He wrote here in an English tongue,
a language so unlike our own,
unlike―as father unto son.

But when at last a child is grown.
his heritage is made well-known:
his father's face becomes his own.



He wrote here of the Middle-Earth,
the Maker's might, man's lowly birth,
of every thing that God gave worth

suspended under heaven's roof.
He forged with simple words His truth
and nine lines left remain the proof:

his face was Poetry's, from youth.



Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to ****** His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch

Lord, **** me fast and please do it quickly!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, we all know you’re an expert at ******
like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?



Is there any Light left?
by Michael R. Burch

Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for being?
Blind and unseeing,
rejecting and fleeing
our humanity, goat-hooved and cleft?

Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for living?
Blind, unforgiving,
unworthy of heaven
or this planet red, reeking and reft?

NOTE: While “hoofed” is the more common spelling, I preferred “hooved” for this poem. Perhaps because of the contrast created by “love” and “hooved.”



Modern Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

after David B. Gosselin

I dreamed that God was good, but then I woke
and all his goodness vanished—****!—
like smoke.

I dreamed his Word was good, but then I heard
commandments evil, awful, weird,
absurd.

I dreamed of Heaven where cruel Angels flew
above my head and screamed, the Chosen Few,
“We’re not like you!”

I dreamed of Hell below, where prostitutes
adored by Jesus, played on lovely lutes
“True Love Commutes.”

I dreamed of Earth then woke to hear a Gong’s
repellent echoes in Religion’s song
of right gone wrong.



Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch

Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.




Well, Almost
by Michael R. Burch

All Christians say “Never again!”
to the inhumanity of men
(except when the object of phlegm
is a Palestinian).



O, My Redeeming Angel
by Michael R. Burch

O my Redeeming Angel, after we
have fought till death (and soon the night is done) ...
then let us rest awhile, await the sun,
and let us put aside all enmity.

I might have been the “victor”—who can tell?—
so many wounds abound. All out of joint,
my groin, my thigh ... and nothing to anoint
but sunsplit, shattered stone, as pillars hell.

Light, easy flight to heaven, Your return!
How hard, how dark, this path I, limping, walk.
I only ask Your blessing; no more talk!

Withhold Your name, and yet my ears still burn
and so my heart. You asked me, to my shame:
for Jacob—trickster, shyster, sham—’s my name.



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know you as Mary,
when you spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard you exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



ur-gent
by Michael R. Burch

if u would be a good father to us all,
revoke the Curse,
extract the Gall;

but if the abuse continues,
look within
into ur Mindless Soulless Emptiness Grim,

& admit ur sin,
heartless jehovah,
slayer of widows and orphans ...

quick, begin!



Bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch

ur savior’s a cad
—he’s as bad as his dad—
according to your strange Bible.

demanding belief
or he’ll bring u to grief?
he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival!

was the man ever good
before made a “god”?
if so, half your Bible is libel!



stock-home sin-drone
by Michael R. Burch

ur GAUD created this hellish earth;
thus u FANTAsize heaven
(an escape from rebirth).

ur GUAD is a monster,
**** ur RELIGION lied
and called u his frankensteinian bride!

now, like so many others cruelly abused,
u look for salve-a-shun
to the AUTHOR of ur pain’s selfish creation.

cons preach the “TRUE GOSPEL”
and proudly shout it,
but if ur GAUD were good
he would have to doubt it.



un-i-verse-all love
by Michael R. Burch

there is a Gaud, it’s true!
and furthermore, tHeSh(e)It loves u!
unfortunately
the
He
Sh(e)
It
,even more adorably,
loves cancer, aids and leprosy.



yet another post-partum christmas blues poem
by michael r. burch

ur GAUD created hell; it’s called the earth;
HE mused u briefly, clods of little worth:
let’s conjure some little monkeys
to be BIG RELIGION’s flunkeys!
GAUD belched, went back to sleep, such was ur birth.



wee the many
by michael r. burch

wee never really lived: was that our fault?
now thanks to ur GAUD wee lie in an underground vault.
wee lie here, the little ones ur GAUD despised!
HE condemned us to death before wee opened our eyes!
as it was in the days of noah, it still remains:
GAUD kills us with floods he conjures from murderous rains.



Untitled ur poems

since GOD created u so gullible
how did u conclude HE’s so lovable?
—Michael R. Burch

limping to the grave under the sentence of death,
should i praise ur LORD? think i’ll save my breath!
—Michael R. Burch



One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch

Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .

I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .

But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,

thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .

How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and ******.



what the “Chosen Few” really pray for
by Michael R. Burch

We are ready to be robed in light,
angel-bright

despite
Our intolerance;

ready to enter Heaven and never return
(dark, this sojourn);

ready to worse-ship any gaud
able to deliver Us from this flawed

existence;
We pray with the persistence

of actual saints
to be delivered from all earthly constraints:

just kiss each uplifted Face
with lips of gentlest grace,

cooing the sweetest harmonies
while brutally crushing Our enemies!

ah-Men!



wild wild west-east-north-south-up-down
by Michael R. Burch

each day it resumes—the great struggle for survival.

the fiercer and more perilous the wrath,
the wilder and wickeder the weaponry,
the better the daily odds
(just don’t bet on the long term, or revival).

so ur luvable Gaud decreed, Theo-retically,
if indeed He exists
as ur Bible insists—
the Wildest and the Wickedest of all
with the brightest of creatures in thrall
(unless u
somehow got that bleary
Theo-ry
wrong too).



The Strangest Rain
by Michael R. Burch

"I ... am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur?and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves ..."?Emily Dickinson

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."--Emily Dickinson

The strangest rain, a few bright sluggish drops,
unsure if they should fall, run through with sun,
came tumbling down and touched me, one by one,
too few to animate the shriveled crops
of nearby farmers (though their daughters might
feel each cool splash, a-shiver with delight).

I thought again of Emily Dickinson,
who felt the tingle down her spine, inspired
to lifting hairs, to nerves’ electric song
of passion for a thing so deep-desired
the heart and gut agree, and so must tremble
as all the neurons of the brain assemble
to whisper: This is love, but what is love?
Wrens darting rainbows, laughter high above.



Note to a Chick on a Religious Kick
by Michael R. Burch

Daisy,
when you smile, my life gets sunny;
you make me want to spend all my ****** money;
but honey,
you can be a bit ... um ... hazy,
perhaps mentally lazy?,
okay, downright crazy,
praying to the Easter Bunny!



lust!
by michael r. burch

i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild

and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...

but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:

He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!

He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”

my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...

together we learned why Religion is hell.

Published by Lucid Rhythms, The HyperTexts and Black Waters of Melancholy


A coming day
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, due to her hellish religion

There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.

There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.



Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch

Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.

Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.

Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.

If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?

Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!

Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.

Keywords/Tags: god, Jesus, Christ, Christian, prayer, Bible, angel, atheist, faith, blasphemy, heresy, heresies, heretic, heretic, heretical, pagan, pagans, god, gods, mrbhere



He Lived: Excerpts from “Gilgamesh”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
He who visited hell, his country’s foundation,
Was well-versed in mysteries’ unseemly dark places.
He deeply explored many underworld realms
Where he learned of the Deluge and why Death erases.

II.
He built the great ramparts of Uruk-the-Sheepfold
And of holy Eanna. Then weary, alone,
He recorded his thoughts in frail scratchings called “words”:
But words made immortal, once chiseled in stone.

III.
These walls he erected are ever-enduring:
Vast walls where the widows of dead warriors weep.
Stand by them. O, feel their immovable presence!
For no other walls are as strong as this keep’s.

IV.
Come, climb Uruk’s tower on a starless night—
Ascend its steep stairway to escape modern error.
Cross its ancient threshold. You are close to Ishtar,
The Goddess of Ecstasy and of Terror!

V.
Find the cedar box with its hinges of bronze;
Lift the lid of its secrets; remove its dark slate;
Read of the travails of our friend Gilgamesh—
Of his descent into hell and man’s terrible fate!

VI.
Surpassing all kings, heroic in stature,
Wild bull of the mountains, the Goddess his dam
—Bedding no other man; he was her sole rapture—
Who else can claim fame, as he thundered, “I am!”



Enkidu Enters the House of Dust
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

I entered the house of dust and grief.
Where the pale dead weep there is no relief,
for there night descends like a final leaf
to shiver forever, unstirred.

There is no hope left when the tree’s stripped bare,
for the leaf lies forever dormant there
and each man cloaks himself in strange darkness, where
all company’s unheard.

No light’s ever pierced that oppressive night
so men close their eyes on their neighbors’ plight
or stare into darkness, lacking sight ...
each a crippled, blind bat-bird.

Were these not once eagles, gallant men?
Who sits here—pale, wretched and cowering—then?
O, surely they shall, they must rise again,
gaining new wings? “Absurd!

For this is the House of Dust and Grief
where men made of clay, eat clay. Relief
to them’s to become a mere windless leaf,
lying forever unstirred.”

“Anu and Enlil, hear my plea!
Ereshkigal, they all must go free!
Beletseri, dread scribe of this Hell, hear me!”
But all my shrill cries, obscured

by vast eons of dust, at last fell mute
as I took my place in the ash and soot.



Reclamation
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me—progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically—her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure

to a consuming emptiness.
We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture—
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts

to the first note.
Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.

Keywords/Tags: Epic of Gilgamesh, epic, epical, orient occident, oriental, ancient, ancestors, ancestry, primal



Double Dactyls

Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!

But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.
―Michael R. Burch

Donald Double Dactyl

Higgledy Piggledy
Ronald McDonald
cursed Donald Trump,
his least favorite clown:

"Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs
saying upside is down!"
―Michael R. Burch



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.
If I should die,
there will come a Doom,
and the sky will darken
to the deepest Gloom.

But if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

II.
If I should die,
let no mortal say,
“Here was a man,
with feet of clay,

or a timid sparrow
God’s hand let fall.”
But watch the sky darken
to an eerie pall

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and scoffs at quaint churchyards
littered with roods.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

III.
If I should die,
let no man adore
his incompetent Maker:
Zeus, Yahweh, or Thor.

Think of Me as the One
who never died—
the unvanquished Immortal
with the unriven side.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

IV.
And if I should “die,”
though the clouds grow dark
as fierce lightnings rend
this bleak asteroid, stark ...

If you look above,
you will see a bright Sign—
the sun with the moon
in its arms, Divine.

So divine, if you can,
my bright meaning, and know—
my Spirit is mine.
I will go where I go.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.



Listen
by Immanuel A. Michael (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

1.
Listen to me now
and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone,
screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black
and white is white
and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words?
They come to him:
the moon's illuminations,
intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now,
and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell,
and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,
but listen,
or cut off your ears,
for I Am weary.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

2.
Listen to me now: I had a Vision.
An elevated train derailed, and Fell.
It was the Church brought low, almost to Hell.
And I alone survived, who dream of Mercy:
the Heretic, who speaks behind the Veil.

3.
Listen to me now: I saw an airplane
fall from the sky. And why should I explain?
The Visions are the same. It is my Heresy
that I survive, because I sing of Mercy,
while elevated "saints" go down in flames.

4.
Listen to me now: I saw in Nashville
how those who "soar" will plummet―Fame in flames!―
and fall on those below, as if to **** them.
The lowly, saved, will understand their names.

5.
Listen to me now: I heard another
say, "That which died shall Resurrect and Live."
An angel with a Rose bestowing Mercy!
What can it mean, but that my Visions give
fair warning to the world that God wants Mercy.
My Heresy is that we must forgive!

6.
Listen to me now: she heard god calling―
O, who will love me, who will be my friend?
Does he want Perfect Saints, the whitewashed Purists,
who frown down on their "brothers," without end?

7.
Listen to me now: you are not perfect,
and your "wise counsel" helps no one at all:
unless it's sweetened with the sweetest Mercy,
it's pure astringent antiseptic gall.

8.
Listen to me now, and learn this lesson:
If God wants mercy, why dig at the speck
in your brother's eye, when even now the Beam,
your lack of mercy, spares, no, neither neck,
becomes the Hangman's Millstone. We're all children,
all little ones! Be patient with the fleck!

9.
Listen to me now: for the Announcer
explained that wars have given Presidents
the precedents to soon assume all Power.
Vote, citizens, or be mere residents!

10.
O, listen to me now: I saw the Warheads
stored safely underground, except for One.
A red-haired woman with a bright complexion
seduced the guard. Translucent blouse, red thong,
white bra―these were her fearsome antique weapons.

I saw the Skull and Crossbones! Heed my Song!

11.
O, listen to me now, and hear my Gospel:
three verses of such sweet simplicity!
God is Light: in Him there is no darkness.
In Christ, no condemnation: Liberty!
God want no Sacrifice, but only Mercy.
O, who could ask for sweeter Heresy?

12.
Theology? I swear that I disdain it!
If Love can be explained, why then explain it!
If Love can't be explained why, then, should God,
if God is Love? Nor hell nor cattle ****
is needed, if God's good, and God's supreme.
Ask, children, what "re-ligion" truly means:
"return to *******! " Heed the bondsman's screams!

13.
Heed, children, which Theologies you dream
when Hellish Nightmares wake you, when you Scream
for comfort, but no comforter is there.
Which Voices do you heed, which Crosses bear?
If god is light, whence do Dark Visions come
which leave the Taste of Venom on your Tongue,
with which you **** your brother for one Sin
you do not share, ten thousand underskin
like Itching Worms that Squirm and Vilely Hiss:
"Your brother's sin will keep him from god's bliss,
but You are safe because god favors You! "
If God is Love, how can this voice be true?

14.
For God is not a favorer of men.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

As the redeemed of Jesus Christ, if we are ever to find true refreshment in our desert wanderings, it will be as we choose to dwell in God’s presence and in the newness of His daily mercies through faith. Our trials tend to force us, like pushy but invaluable friends, to learn hands-on what it is to live in the grace of the moment.

We live in the grace of the moment by continually recognizing both the immense need and the immense blessing of each moment (by developing a conscious and habitual attitude that says, “I am so desperately needy AND I am so abundantly blessed.”) and by relying on the Holy Spirit to teach us exactly how to reconcile the two. This happens as we first learn to live in the reality of the eternal, for it's an ever-present awareness of eternity that liberates us to receive every present moment with thankfulness and live it to the fullest, without setting up false expectations for it or worrying about the next.

When we are convinced that our life is hidden with Christ and He alone is the Prize, that this world is not our home and we are simply on assignment here, and that our pain and failures are only temporary but, with His redemption, the beauty and wisdom to be gained from them are eternal, we are set free from living in the regret of yesterday or in the fear of tomorrow. We can instead live in the blessing of the right now which fully meets the need of the right now because both need and blessing are gifts from the Father to get us ready for eternity and to meet our Bridegroom face to face. We have need of nothing but Him and His grace, and His fullness dwells in us.

The life lived in the grace of the moment is the life absolutely surrendered to the reality of God’s wisdom, God’s character and God’s sovereignty over it, for in entrusting ourselves to those, we acknowledge that He has a set and planned purpose for our lives, that it is good, and that He is powerful enough to carry it to completion. His wisdom assures us that He has always had in mind, down to the smallest details, exactly what He is doing with us; His character, that His heart is ever faithful toward us; and His sovereignty, that His directing arm cannot be shaken or thwarted. They reveal to us explicitly that He loves us with all of His mind and heart and strength, and in that knowledge we find perfect rest. As beloved children we know that we will be taken care of without having to know how it will happen or what it will look like.

In our helplessness we can simply look up to Him, reach out for Him and cry to Him in humility and thanksgiving, for our God cannot resist eyes and arms and hearts doing that. He always picks up and holds close to Himself those who long for Him. We may think that what we most desire are answers and perfectly successful plans and reasonable control over our lives, but what our souls crave is comfort and intimacy and love, and we can have those the instant we fully surrender to His embrace. He may sometimes hide His face from our “Why?”s but never from our “Hold me!” cries.

If we mistakenly suppose this life to be about this life, we will miss the present grace for fretting over and fighting for all the blessings we don’t have or fearing that those we do will be lost, until we find that they have become an unbearable millstone around our necks. If we pin our hope on anything in this temporary world it will be no stronger than that—a mere pin, easily pulled out and easily broken when life weighs too heavily upon it.

Enduring hope can only be based on God’s absolute promises given to us in His Word, not on our own expectations or wishes or impressions of how things ought to be. Enduring hope lets go of everything that can be lost to take hold of everything that cannot, and in doing so is actually able to squeeze the sweetest nectar out of those released and perishable blessings so that even their losses, though painful, do not leave a bitter aftertaste. For it’s often in the loss of a thing that its worth to us becomes most precious, and by letting it go with grace we can best savor its purest delights.

Realizing that the pain runs so deep only because the beauty ran so deep and that without it having once touched us we wouldn’t now know the emptiness of its loss, our grief will eventually turn to thankfulness that it ever touched us at all, and we will be left awed by the mystery of its haunting. There's a peculiar kind of beauty that can only be experienced with the innate knowledge that the moment is fleeting, and the most intense beauty can only be seen in the presence of both light and shadows.

The ability to enjoy our tangible blessings is surely heightened by the conviction that they are not ours to possess, by the acceptance that their loss is inevitable, and by the understanding that they were never meant to satisfy. For the enjoyment, then, will be absent the tainting dread, the taking for granted, and the twisted expectations which so easily and often mar our earthly pleasures. We will relish what we’ve been given today but recognize it may very well be gone tomorrow, and even in that uncertainty we will find a contented peace, for in every loss there lurks a hidden blessing, and all that really matters can never be lost to us. It is just as important to be a good steward of our losses as it is of our more obvious blessings, for the beauty that comes from nobly and graciously accepting loss far exceeds any tangible beauty that can be taken.

Knowing that we belong to another time and place and that this one is only meant to lead us there, like the charming towns one passes through on the way to a better destination, we will take in the sights with wonder and delight but keep traveling on toward our true home. For these sights, though tantalizing, are like mere slivers of light from a crack under the door compared to the glory to be found in God’s Presence. But when received as personal gifts of His grace, they become to us a stage precisely and delicately set by a Lover to attract the attention of His beloved, to show off His greatness and show forth His beauty to win her heart, and our hearts indeed are won.

To live in the grace of the moment is to keep looking to Jesus—to Jesus’ feet to lay our burdens down, to Jesus’ arms to be held securely, to Jesus’ hands to receive all we need, and to Jesus’ face to know our only sure hope and hearts’ true desire.


#Lord Jesus, merciful and all-sufficient One, in every need, small or great, tangible or intangible, give me the discernment to discover Your extravagant gifts of grace, the wisdom to receive them, the eagerness to open them and the passion to cherish them well. Give me eyes to see and a heart to fully enjoy with gratitude each blessing You have prepared for me today, for this very moment, and may I thrill to Your every advance of love.#

Victor D. López (October 11, 2018)

You were born five years before the beginning of the Spanish civil war and
Lived in a modest two-story home in the lower street of Fontan, facing the ocean that
Gifted you its wealth and beauty but also robbed you of your beloved and noblest eldest
Brother, Juan, who was killed while working as a fisherman out to sea at the tender age of 19.

You were a little girl much prone to crying. The neighbors would make you cry just by saying,
"Chora, neniña, chora" [Cry little girl, cry] which instantly produced inconsolable wailing.
At the age of seven or eight you were blinded by an eye Infection. The village doctor
Saved your eyesight, but not before you missed a full year of school.

You never recovered from that lost time. Your impatience and the shame of feeling left behind prevented
You from making up for lost time. Your wounded pride, the shame of not knowing what your friends knew,
Your restlessness and your inability to hold your tongue when you were corrected by your teacher created
A perfect storm that inevitably tossed your diminutive boat towards the rocks.

When still a girl, you saw Franco with his escort leave his yacht in Fontan. With the innocence of a girl
Who would never learn to hold her tongue, you asked a neighbor who was also present, "Who is that Man?"
"The Generalissimo Francisco Franco," she answered and whispered “Say ‘Viva Franco’ when he Passes by.”
With the innocence of a little girl and the arrogance of an incorrigible old soul you screamed, pointing:

"That's the Generalissimo?" followed up loud laughter, "He looks like Tom Thumb!"
A member of his protective detail approached you, raising his machine gun with the apparent intention of
Hitting you with the stock. "Leave her alone!" Franco ordered. "She is just a child — the fault is not hers."
You told that story many times in my presence, always with a smile or laughing out loud.

I don't believe you ever appreciated the possible import of that "feat" of contempt for
Authority. Could that act of derision have played some small part in their later
Coming for your father and taking him prisoner, torturing him for months and eventually
Condemning him to be executed by firing squad in the Plaza de Maria Pita?

He escaped his fate with the help of a fascist officer who freed him as I’ve noted earlier.
Such was his reputation, the power of his ideas and the esteem even of friends who did not share his views.
Such was your innocence or your psychic blind spot that you never realized your possible contribution to
His destruction. Thank God you never connected the possible impact of your words on his downfall.

You adored your dad throughout your life with a passion of which he was most deserving.
He died shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War. A mother with ten mouths to feed
Needed help. You stepped up in response to her silent, urgent need. At the age of
Eleven you left school for the last time and began working full time.

Children could not legally work in Franco’s Spain. Nevertheless, a cousin who owned a cannery
Took pity on your situation and allowed you to work full-time in his fish cannery factory in Sada.
You earned the same salary as the adult, predominantly women workers and worked better
Than most of them with a dexterity and rapidity that served you well your entire life.

In your free time before work you carried water from the communal fountain to neighbors for a few cents.
You also made trips carrying water on your head for home and with a pail in each hand. This continued after
You began work in Cheche’s cannery. You rose long before sunrise to get the water for
Home and for the local fishermen before they left on their daily fishing trips for their personal water pails.

All of the money you earned went to your mom with great pride that a girl could provide more than the salary of a
Grown woman--at the mere cost of her childhood and education. You also washed clothes for some
Neighbors for a few cents more, with diapers for newborns always free just for the pleasure of being
Allowed to see, hold spend some time with the babies you so dearly loved you whole life through.
When you were old enough to go to the Sunday cinema and dances, you continued the
Same routine and added washing and ironed the Sunday clothes for the young fishermen
Who wanted to look their best for the weekly dances. The money from that third job was your own
To pay for weekly hairdos, the cinema and dance hall entry fee. The rest still went to your mom.

At 16 you wanted to go to emigrate to Buenos Aires to live with an aunt.
Your mom agreed to let you--provided you took your younger sister, Remedios, with you.
You reluctantly agreed. You found you also could not legally work in Buenos Aires as a minor.
So you convincingly lied about your age and got a job as a nurse’s aide at a clinic soon after your arrival.

You washed bedpans, made beds, scrubbed floors and did other similar assigned tasks
To earn enough money to pay the passage for your mom and two youngest brothers,
Sito (José) and Paco (Francisco). Later you got a job as a maid at a hotel in the resort town of
Mar del Plata whose owners loved your passion for taking care of their infant children.

You served as a maid and unpaid babysitter. Between your modest salary and
Tips as a maid you soon earned the rest of the funds needed for your mom’s and brothers’
Passage from Spain. You returned to Buenos Aires and found two rooms you could afford in an
Excellent neighborhood at an old boarding house near the Spanish Consulate in the center of the city.

Afterwards you got a job at a Ponds laboratory as a machine operator of packaging
Machines for Ponds’ beauty products. You made good money and helped to support your
Mom and brothers  while she continued working as hard as she always had in Spain,
No longer selling fish but cleaning a funeral home and washing clothing by hand.

When your brothers were old enough to work, they joined you in supporting your
Mom and getting her to retire from working outside the home.
You lived with your mom in the same home until you married dad years later,
And never lost the bad habit of stubbornly speaking your mind no matter the cost.

Your union tried to force you to register as a Peronista. Once burned twice cautious,
You refused, telling the syndicate you had not escaped one dictator to ally yourself with
Another. They threatened to fire you. When you would not yield, they threatened to
Repatriate you, your mom and brothers back to Spain.

I can’t print your reply here. They finally brought you to the general manager’s office
Demanding he fire you. You demanded a valid reason for their request.
The manager—doubtless at his own peril—refused, saying he had no better worker
Than you and that the union had no cause to demand your dismissal.

After several years of courtship, you and dad married. You had the world well in hand with
Well-paying jobs and strong savings that would allow you to live a very comfortable life.
You seemed incapable of having the children you so longed for. Three years of painful
Treatments allowed you to give me life and we lived three more years in a beautiful apartment.

I have memories from a very tender age and remember that apartment very well. But things changed
When you decided to go into businesses that soon became unsustainable in the runaway inflation and
Economic chaos of the Argentina of the early 1960’s. I remember only too well your extreme sacrifice
And dad’s during that time—A theme for another day, but not for today.

You were the hardest working person I’ve ever known. You were not afraid of any honest
Job no matter how challenging and your restlessness and competitive spirit always made you a
Stellar employee everywhere you worked no matter how hard or challenging the job.
Even at home you could not stand still unless there was someone with whom to chat awhile.

You were a truly great cook thanks in part to learning from the chef of the hotel where you had
Worked in Mar del Plata awhile—a fellow Spaniard of Basque descent who taught you many of his favorite
Dishes—Spanish and Italian specialties. You were always a terribly picky eater. But you
Loved to cook for family and friends—the more the merrier—and for special holidays.

Dad was also a terrific cook, but with a more limited repertoire. I learned to cook
With great joy from both of you at a young age. And, though neither my culinary skills nor
Any aspect of my life can match you or dad, I too am a decent cook and
Love to cook, especially for meals shared with loved ones.

You took great pleasure in introducing my friends to some of your favorite dishes such as
Cazuela de mariscos, paella marinera, caldo Gallego, stews, roasts, and your incomparable
Canelones, ñoquis, orejas, crepes, muñuelos, flan, and the rest of your long culinary repertoire.
In primary and middle school dad picked me up every day for lunch before going to work.

You and he worked the second shift and did not leave for work until around 2:00 p.m.
Many days, dad would bring a carload of classmates with me for lunch.
I remember as if it were yesterday the faces of my Jewish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Irish
And Italian friends when first introduced to octopus, Spanish tortilla, caldo Gallego, and flan.

The same was true during college and law school.  At times our home resembled an
U.N. General Assembly meeting—but always featuring food. You always treated my
Closest friends as if they were your children and a number of them to this day love
You as a second mother though they have not seen you for many years.

You had tremendous passion and affinity for being a mother (a great pity to have just one child).
It made you over-protective. You bought my clothes at an exclusive boutique. I became a
Living doll for someone denied such toys as a young girl. You would not let me out of your sight and
Kept me in a germ-free environment that eventually produced some negative health issues.

My pediatrician told you often “I want to see him with ***** finger nails and scraped knees.”
You dismissed the statement as a joke. You’d take me often to the park and to my
Favorite merry-go-round. But I had not one friend until I was seven or eight and then just one.
I did not have a real circle of friends until I was about 13 years old. Sad.

I was walking and talking up a storm in complete sentences when I was one year old.
You were concerned and took me to my pediatrician who laughed. He showed me a
Keychain and asked, “What is this Danny.” “Those are your car keys” I replied. After a longer
Evaluation he told my mom it was important to encourage and feed my curiosity.

According to you, I was unbearable (some things never change). I asked dad endless questions such as,
“Why is the sun hot? How far are the stars and what are they made of? Why
Can’t I see the reflection of a flashlight pointed at the sky at night? Why don’t airplanes
Have pontoons on top of the wheels so they can land on both water and land? Etc., etc., etc.

He would answer me patiently to the best of his ability and wait for the inevitable follow-ups.
I remember train and bus rides when very young sitting on his lap asking him a thousand Questions.
Unfortunately, when I asked you a question you could not answer, you more often than not made up an answer Rather than simply saying “I don’t know,” or “go ask dad” or even “go to hell you little monster!”

I drove you crazy. Whatever you were doing I wanted to learn to do, whether it was working on the
Sewing machine, knitting, cooking, ironing, or anything else that looked remotely interesting.
I can’t imagine your frustration. Yet you always found only joy in your little boy at all ages.
Such was your enormous love which surrounded me every day of my life and still does.

When you told me a story and I did not like the ending, such as with “Little Red Riding Hood,”
I demanded a better one and would cry interminably if I did not get it. Poor mom. What patience!
Reading or making up a story that little Danny did not approve of could be dangerous.
I remember one day in a movie theater watching the cartoons I loved (and still love).

Donald Duck came out from stage right eating a sandwich. Sitting between you and dad I asked you
For a sandwich. Rather than explaining that the sandwich was not real, that we’d go to dinner after the show
To eat my favorite steak sandwich (as usual), you simply told me that Donald Duck would soon bring me the sandwich. But when the scene changed, Donald Duck came back smacking his lips without the sandwich.

Then all hell broke loose. I wailed at the top of my lungs that Donald Duck had eaten my sandwich.
He had lied to me and not given me the promised sandwich. That was unbearable. There was
No way to console me or make me understand—too late—that Donald Duck was also hungry,
That it was his sandwich, not mine, or that what was on the screen was just a cartoon and not real.

He, Donald Duck, mi favorite Disney character (then and now) hade eaten this little boy’s Sandwich. Such a Betrayal by a loved one was inconceivable and unbearable. You and dad had to drag me out of the theater ranting And crying at the injustice at top volume. The tantrum (extremely rare for me then, less so now) went on for awhile, but all was well again when my beloved Aunt Nieves gave me a ******* with jam and told me Donald had sent it.

So much water under the bridge. Your own memories, like smoke in a soft breeze, have dissipated
Into insubstantial molecules like so many stars in the night sky that paint no coherent picture.
An entire life of vital conversations turned to the whispers of children in a violent tropical storm,
Insubstantial, imperceptible fragments—just a dream that interrupts an eternal nightmare.

That is your life today. Your memory was always prodigious. You knew the name of every person
You ever met, and those of their family members. You could recall entire conversations word for word.
Three years of schooling proved more than sufficient for you to go out into the world, carving your own
Path from the Inhospitable wilderness and learning to read and write at the age of 16.

You would have been a far better lawyer than I and a fiery litigator who would have fought injustice
Wherever you found it and always defended the rights of those who cannot defend themselves,
Especially children who were always your most fervent passion. You sacrificed everything for others,
Always put yourself dead-last, and never asked for anything in return.

You were an excellent dancer and could sing like an angel. Song was your release in times of joy and
In times of pain. You did not drink or smoke or over-indulge in anything. For much of your life your only minor Indulgence was a weekly trip to the beauty parlor—even in Spain where your washing and ironing income
Paid for that. You were never vain in any way, but your self-respect required you to try to look your best.

You loved people and unlike dad who was for the most part shy, you were quite happy in the all-to-infrequent
Role as the life of the party—singing, dressing up as Charlie Chaplin or a newborn for New Year’s Eve parties with Family and close friends. A natural story-teller until dementia robbed you of the ability to articulate your thoughts,
You’d entertain anyone who would listen with anecdotes, stories, jokes and lively conversation.

In short: you were an exceptional person with a large spirit, a mischievous streak, and an enormous heart.
I know I am not objective about you, but any of your surviving friends and family members who knew you
Well will attest to this and more in a nanosecond. You had an incredibly positive, indomitable attitude
That led you to rush in where angels fear to treat not out of foolishness but out of supreme confidence.

Life handed you cartloads of lemons—enough to pickle the most ardent optimist. And you made not just
Lemonade but lemon merengue pie, lemon sorbet, lemon drops, then ground up the rind for sweetest
Rice pudding, flan, fried dough and a dozen other delicacies. And when all the lemons were gone, you sowed the Seeds from which extraordinarily beautiful lemon trees grew with fruit sweeter than grapes, plums, or cherries.

I’ve always said with great pride that you were a far better writer than I. How many excellent novels,
Plays, and poems could you have written with half of my education and three times my workload?
There is no justice in this world. Why does God give bread to those without teeth? Your
Prodigious memory no longer allows you to recognize me. I was the last person you forgot.

But even now when you cannot have a conversation in any language, Sometimes your eyes sparkle, and
You call me “neniño” (my little boy in Galician) and I know that for an instant you are no longer alone.
But too son the light fades and the darkness returns. I can only see you a few hours one day a week.
My life circumstances do not leave me another option. The visits are bitter sweet but I’m grateful for them.

Someday I won’t even have that opportunity to spend a few hours with you. You’ll have no
Monument to mark your passing save in my memory so long as reason remains. An entire
Life of incalculable sacrifice will leave behind only the poorest living legacy of love
In your son who lacks appropriate words to adequately honor your memory, and always will.


*          *          *

The day has come, too son. October 11, 2018. The call came at 3:30 am.
An hour or two after I had fallen asleep. They tried CPR in vain. There will be no more
Opportunities to say, “I Love you,” to caress your hands and face, to softly sing in your ear,
To put cream on your hands, or to hope that this week you might remember me.

No more time to tell you the accomplishments of loved ones, who I saw, what they told me,
Who asked about you this week, or to pray with you, or to ask if you would give me a kiss by putting my
Cheek close to your lips, to feel joy when you graced me with many little kisses in response,
Or tell you “Maybe next time” when as more often than not the case for months you did not respond.

In saying good bye I’d give you the kiss and hug Alice always sent you,
Followed by three more kisses on the forehead from dad (he always gave you three) and one from me.
I’d leave the TV on to a channel with people and no sound and when possible
Wait for you to close your eyes before leaving.

Time has run out. No further extensions are possible. My prayers change from asking God to protect
You and by His Grace allow you to heal a little bit each day to praying that God protect your
Soul and dad’s and that He allow you to rest in peace in His kingdom. I miss you and Dad very much
And will do so as long as God grants me the gift of reason. I never knew what it is to be alone. I do now.

Four years seeing your blinding light reduced to a weak flickering candle in total darkness.
Four years fearing that you might be aware of your situation.
Four years praying that you would not feel pain, sadness or loneliness.
Four years learning to say goodbye. The rest of my life now waiting in the hope of seeing you again.

I love you mom, with all my heart, always and forever.

I.

Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost
with quivering continual thighs invite
the thrilling rain the slender paramour
to toy with thy extraordinary lust,
(the sinuous rain which rising from thy bed
steals to his wife the sky and hour by hour
wholly renews her pale flesh with delight)
—immortally whence are the high gods fled?

Speak elm eloquent pandar with thy nod
significant to the ecstatic earth
in token of his coming whom her soul
burns to embrace—and didst thou know the god
from but the imprint of whose cloven feet
the shrieking dryad sought her leafy goal,
at the mere echo of whose shining mirth
the furious hearts of mountains ceased to beat?

Wind beautifully who wanderest
over smooth pages of forgotten joy
proving the peaceful theorems of the flowers
—didst e’er depart upon more exquisite quest?
and did thy fortunate fingers sometime dwell
(within a greener shadow of secret bowers)
among the curves of that delicious boy
whose serious grace one goddess loved too well?

Chryselephantine Zeus Olympian
sceptred colossus of the Pheidian soul
whose eagle frights creation,in whose palm
Nike presents the crown sweetest to man,
whose lilied robe the sun’s white hands emboss,
betwixt whose absolute feet anoint with calm
of intent stars circling the acerb pole
poises,smiling,the diadumenos

in whose young chiseled eyes the people saw
their once again victorious Pantarkes
(whose grace the prince of artists made him bold
to imitate between the feet of awe),
thunderer whose omnipotent brow showers
its curls of unendured eternal gold
over the infinite breast in bright degrees,
whose pillow is the graces and the hours,

father of gods and men whose subtle throne
twain sphinxes bear each with a writhing youth
caught to her brazen *******,whose foot-stool tells
how fought the looser of the warlike zone
of her that brought forth tall Hippolytus,
lord on whose pedestal the deep expels
(over Selene’s car closing uncouth)
of Helios the sweet wheels tremulous—

are there no kings in Argos,that the song
is silent,of the steep unspeaking tower
within whose brightening strictness Danae
saw the night severed and the glowing throng
descend,felt on her flesh the amorous strain
of gradual hands and yielding to that fee
her eager body’s unimmortal flower
knew in the darkness a more burning rain?

                    2.

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring
assembles beauty from forgetfulness
with the wild trump of April:witchery
of sound and odour drives the wingless thing
man forth in the bright air,for now the red
leaps in the maple’s cheek,and suddenly
by shining hordes in sweet unserious dress
ascends the golden crocus from the dead.

On dappled dawn forth rides the pungent sun
with hooded day preening upon his hand
followed by gay untimid final flowers
(which dressed in various tremulous armor stun
the eyes of ragged earth who sees them pass)
while hunted from his kingdom winter cowers,
seeing green armies steadily expand
hearing the spear-song of the marching grass.

A silver sudden parody of snow
tickles the air to golden tears,and hark!
the flicker’s laughing yet,while on the hills
the pines deepen to whispers primeval and throw
backward their foreheads to the barbarous bright
sky,and suddenly from the valley thrills
the unimaginable upward lark
and drowns the earth and passes into light

(slowly in life’s serene perpetual round
a pale world gathers comfort to her soul,
hope richly scattered by the abundant sun
invades the new mosaic of the ground
—let but the incurious curtaining dusk be drawn
surpassing nets are sedulously spun
to snare the brutal dew,—the authentic scroll
of fairie hands and vanishing with the dawn).

Spring,that omits no mention of desire
in every curved and curling thing,yet holds
continuous *******—through skies and trees
the lilac’s smoke the poppy’s pompous fire
the *****’s purple patience and the grave
frailty of daises—by what rare unease
revealed of teasingly transparent folds—
with man’s poor soul superlatively brave.

Surely from robes of particoloured peace
with mouth flower-faint and undiscovered eyes
and dim slow perfect body amorous
(whiter than lilies which are born and cease
for being whiter than this world)exhales
the hovering high perfume curious
of that one month for whom the whole years dies,
risen at length from palpitating veils.

O still miraculous May!O shining girl
of time untarnished!O small intimate
gently primeval hands,frivolous feet
divine!O singular and breathless pearl!
O indefinable frail ultimate pose!
O visible beatitude sweet sweet
intolerable!silence immaculate
of god’s evasive audible great rose!

                    3.

Lover,lead forth thy love unto that bed
prepared by whitest hands of waiting years,
curtained with wordless worship absolute,
unto the certain altar at whose head
stands that clear candle whose expecting breath
exults upon the tongue of flame half-mute,
(haste ere some thrush with silver several tears
complete the perfumed paraphrase of death).

Now is the time when all occasional things
close into silence,only one tree,one
svelte translation of eternity
unto the pale meaning of heaven clings,
(whose million leaves in winsome indolence
simmer upon thinking twilight momently)
as down the oblivious west’s numerous dun
magnificence conquers magnificence.

In heaven’s intolerable athanor
inimitably tortured the base day
utters at length her soft intrinsic hour,
and from those tenuous fires which more and more
sink and are lost the divine alchemist,
the magus of creation,lifts a flower—
whence is the world’s insufferable clay
clothed with incognizable amethyst.

Lady at whose imperishable smile
the amazed doves flicker upon sunny wings
as if in terror of eternity,
(or seeming that they would mistrust a while
the moving of beauteous dead mouths throughout
that very proud transparent company
of quivering ghosts-of-love which scarcely sings
drifting in slow diaphanous faint rout),

queen in the inconceivable embrace
of whose tremendous hair that blossom stands
whereof is most desire,yet less than those
twain perfect roses whose ambrosial grace,
goddess,thy crippled thunder-forging groom
or the loud lord of skipping maenads knows,—
having Discordia’s apple in thy hands,
which the scared shepherd gave thee for his doom—

O thou within the chancel of whose charms
the tall boy god of everlasting war
received the shuddering sacrament of sleep,
betwixt whose cool incorrigible arms
impaled upon delicious mystery,
with gaunt limbs reeking of the whispered deep,
deliberate groping ocean fondled o’er
the warm long flower of unchastity,

imperial Cytherea,from frail foam
sprung with irrevocable nakedness
to strike the young world into smoking song—
as the first star perfects the sensual dome
of darkness,and the sweet strong final bird
transcends the sight,O thou to whom belong
th ehearts of lovers!—I beseech thee bless
thy suppliant singer and his wandering word.

Meeting in the canteen at lunchtime
Laughing at our immature jokes
The girls in room five
They know how to jive
You know they were the most unusual folks

Lord you know we were lucky
You know blessed we were
The way we were happy
Oh sweetest Lucia

Went to college in different cities
Mind disorders ate me alive
Lucy P called to say
I hope you're okay
You look like you forgot how to jive

Lord you know we were lucky
You know blessed we were
The way we were happy
Oh sweetest Lucia

Got the train to Kent to see Lucy
Lady enrolled in the arts
If we weren't friends
I'd go round the bend
Jealous of her marvellous smarts

Lord you know we are lucky
You know blessed we are
The way we are happy
Oh sweetest Lucia

Grown up now we rare see each other
Buried in our separate lives
But when we meet up
We swig from the cup
Yeah soon we remember to jive

Lord you know we are lucky
You know how blessed we are
The way we are happy
Oh sweetest Lucia

When we are old we'll be married
Maybe having tea in the day
Those girls from room five
Who knew how to jive
Yeah I think they really turned out okay

Lord you know we are lucky
You know how blessed we are
The way we are happy
Oh sweetest Lucia