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Emma N Boyer May 2013
“Annie, use your telescope
To look up at the stars
Maybe you can understand
Who and where you are.

“Annie, use your telescope
And try to take it in:
All of the galaxy above you;
And just how small “home” really is.

“Annie, use your telescope
And then think about your dreams
You think everything is over,
But that’s just the way it seems.

“Annie, use your telescope
And come and tell me then
How you’ll always be in the same place
Cause ‘who you used to be is dead.’

“Annie, use your telescope
And look there for your true love
Because that’s what’s truly beautiful:
That moon and all those stars above

“Annie, use your telescope
And take a deep breath
Because it’s all out there, Annie
And you can see it through this lens.

“Annie, use your telescope.
And accept who you’re gonna be
Annie, use your telescope
And, finally, be free.”
Hewasminemoon Jul 2014
It was almost February and winter still hadn’t hit. I was beginning to
think that it wouldn’t arrive, and that spring was here. One evening as I was walking down the streets of the city I looked up to see a single snowflake falling down to meet my face. It was tiny and looked lonely, but a few moments later, it was followed by several more snowflakes. Sooner than later, the ground was covered in a white sheet of snow. and I was stuffing my hands in my coat pockets and pulling my hood on to brace myself against the bone-chilling wind. I made my way into a small coffee shop that was still open and was greeted by a short stocky man in his mid thirties with a dark, curly mustache and sleeves of faded tattoos.
“Hello” he said, his voice sounding deep and smooth. I pulled out my headphones that were burning in my ears, pressed pause on my phone and shoved them carelessly in my messenger bag.
“Hello”, I replied back with a slight smile, pulling my hands out of my
pockets and making my way to the counter.
The shop was small, but it had a staircase leading upstairs with more room for seating. The man who stood behind the counter continued to unpack small plastic covered packages, putting them away in cupboards and freezers. I pulled out my wallet from my bag and plopped it on the counter, feebly attempting to pull out my card with my hands shaking violently from the cold.
“What a night”, the man said, his eyes still focused on his duties.
“Hmm.” I said, nodding. “Can I get a 12oz mocha, please?” The man looked up from his package, and giggled coyly.
“Sure you can, sweetheart." He put the package that he was holding down below him, and began making the drink I had just ordered. My credit card held tightly in my hand, still shaking. There was awkward silence between us and I got the feeling the man understood I didn’t feel like talking. He finished my order, filling a small, white ceramic mug, and pushed it across the counter towards me.
“Anything else?”
I shook my head, implying no and handed him the cold card. He swiped it and handed it back to me, along with a receipt and a pen to sign. I signed the receipt, grabbed my coffee and headed up the stairs to my right. Upstairs, there was a large room with a dining room looking table and several chairs, and to the left, and a small hole in the wall with several cushions. I smiled at the welcoming spot, and took a seat. Pulling a small table up next to me, I set my coffee down, and rested my bag on the floor below me. The upstairs was completely empty. In fact; the entire shop was empty besides the man working downstairs. I took a deep breath in and let my head rest on some of the cushions behind me. Closing my eyes, I let out my breath and felt the warmth and the vast history of the shop run envelop me. I grabbed at the cup beside me and sipped at my coffee. It was still too hot to drink comfortably, so I set it down. Out of my bag, I pulled out my phone with the headphones still attached and scrunched into a tight tangled ball.
Untangling them, I placed each bud in my ear, and pressed play, continuing the song I had stopped when I had entered the coffee shop. I felt my eyelids grow heavy and I sunk deeper and deeper into the pillows around me, the smell of old books seeping into my skin. Finally, I closed my eyes, and after a few moments, was sound asleep.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a man’s face, unfamiliar but comforting.
“Excuse me…” he said, with a wide grin.
I jumped with embarrassment; ripping my headphones out of my ears, although they were no longer playing anything. How long had I been asleep? And who was this young man? An employee of the shop? A customer?
“Sorry!” I yelped.
The man chuckled as I swung my feet around to the floor and pulled out my phone to check the time. Realizing it was dead, I scanned the room for a clock and with no success I asked the stranger “What time is it?”
He rolled up his sleep, and checked what to be a rather expensive watch. The man was dressed nicely, but nothing too formal. A clean pair of black jeans, a plaid shirt and a sweater over it. His hair, a dark brown looked thick and slightly curled. He ran his fingers through it as he responded. “It’s quarter past.”
“Past what?”
He blinked at me. “Eight…” he paused at my confused look. “A.M”
I gasped at the time. It was just past nine at night when I had dozed off.
Why did the short stalky man not wake me? Did he forget I was upstairs?
Maybe he assumed I had left, and just missed me doing so.
“I…I…” I stumbled upon my words. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, still
unsure who this man was.
“My boss told me you’d be up here.” He lifted my cup of cold coffee and
handed it to me. “I can get you a warm cup if you’d like. We don’t open for another half hour.”
I nodded, and with the cup in hand, the man turned and headed down the stairs. I gathered my things, smoothed out my shirt, tossed my hair to one side and followed the man down the stairs.
“My names Elliot” he shouted from behind the counter and the noises of the coffee machine.
“Ellie.” I shouted back.
A door swung open and in Elliot’s hand was a new cup of coffee.
“That’s a coincidence.”
I smiled nervously and took the cup from the man.
“Sit.” he said, nodded to a table.
I followed his instructions and set my cup down and pulled out a chair.
He stared at me for a moment as I stared at my coffee. After a long moment of silence, I started.
“I am so sorr-”
He stopped me and reached out, resting his hand on top of mine.
“It’s alright Ellie…really.”
I had a few questions but didn’t know where to start. So I let the silence
continue.
“My boss figured you needed a place to stay.”
I wasn’t homeless. Did I look homeless?
“Do you...have somewhere to go…?”
I nodded. “I’m not homeless…” I proclaimed. I couldn’t help but stare at
his hands. There was something different about them from the rest of the
man.
“I figured. You’re too well dressed to be homeless.” He smiled, and his
hands moved up and through his hair again.
“So, if you’re not homeless then what’s your story?”
My story? I didn’t have a story. I was a young single girl. Lonely. Living
on her own in the city. On her way home when a snow storm hit. I just stopped into the coffee shop to get warm, not to spend the night like some refugee.
“My story?”
“Yeah, your story.” he continued to grin at me.
I paused to think of an answer.
“I was just on my way home. Stopped in for a cup of coffee. Guess I didn’t
drink enough of it.”
He laughed at the comment, showing a set of pearly white teeth.
“Maybe it wasn’t a very good cup of coffee.” He glanced at the cup in front of me. I lifted it and took a sip.
“This cup’s better.” We both laughed softly, then found each other staring
for long while at one another.
“I’ll make sure not to tell my boss you said that.”
I took another sip. “I should probably go…” I said, standing up.
“Go where?”
“Home.”
He shook his head chuckling slightly. “Hang out. I’ll open late.”
“I don’t want to be more of an inconvenience than I already have been.”
Elliot reached out and took my hand in his, squeezing it softly.
“Ellie.”
My eyes grew wide, and I felt my heart beat quickly within my chest.
“Let’s not play games with one another. Stay.”
I pulled my hand away, and bit my lip.
“I can’t. I’m sorry Elliot.” I grabbed my bag from under the table, and thew
it across my shoulder. “Thank you…” I said, thinking of his hands but
staring at the blue in his eyes. I turned around, and pushed the door open.


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

It was Valentine’s Day (or as I like to call it “Singles Awareness Day” ) and my friend had dragged me out to this terrible bar in the suburbs  titled “Distraction” My friend, who was newly single and “ready to mingle” laughed when she saw the big blue sign with the name.
“That’s an ironic name” she said, snickering.
I nodded my head and groaned as we headed inside. She was right. What was this bar distracting me from? If anything, it was drawing more attention to the things I was supposed to be distracted from by just existing with such a name. My friend walked up to the bar, leaned against a stool and ordered something sweet. She asked me if I wanted anything, but I shook my head no. After a few minutes of small talking with her, and watching her sip at her watered down drink, I noticed a young man walking towards us. The bar was dimly lit, and I couldn’t quite make him out but I sighed and turned towards the bartender.
“*** and coke” I hollered out to the man. “Pour heavy!”
I stayed facing the shelves of drinks, the different bottles organized by color and type. Whiskey, Tequila, *****. Suddenly, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder and with a deep inhale, I turned; expecting some man with sleeked back hair and a bad tan to be facing me.
Instead, it was Elliot. Staring at me, standing inches from my face. I took a step back into a bar stool, and fell into a seat.
“Ellie” he said, smiling.
I couldn’t help but smile for a moment too, but then I quickly wiped it away as the bartender slid my drink to the right of me. Before I could do anything, Elliot placed a few dollars on the counter.
“You don’t have to -“
“It’s fine”  He continued to smile widely.
I looked around the room for my friend, she was across the room playing darts with some broad shouldered man. I took my glass, placed the straw on the counter and gulped down about half of it in one drink.  
“Happy Valentines Day” he said, almost sarcastically following the statement with a slight laugh.
I felt myself smiling again and took another gulp. The bartender definitely poured heavy. The liquid burned as it slid down my throat, and I clenched my teeth. I could tell Elliot was trying hard not to laugh.
“Would you like to dan-“
I bursted out laughing.
“Dance? Oh god, please. Don’t do this Elliot.”
He stared at me widely for a moment. “What are you so afraid of Ellie?”
I scoffed, and shook my head, taking another drink I responded
“I’m not afraid of anything”
He blinked at me, then ran through his fingers through his hair and breathed out loudly.
“Is it me?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer this, or what he was really even asking. I stumbled on my words, stuttering. I finished my drink, and set the glass down on the counter.
“Another?” he asked.
“No...” I paused. “Thank you”
He stared at me for a moment, his brows furrowed. He reached out to touch me, and I pulled away.
“Ellie...Let me-“
I interrupted him and shouted out “space!”
He looked puzzled, then chuckled.
“What?”
“I’m afraid of space”
“Space....? Please elaborate.”
“Like the sky, and the planets and the stars and ****”
He laughed softly. “And ****...”
“Think about it. We have no idea what’s out there. We have no idea what’s coming for us. We are so small, comparatively.”
“So you believe in aliens?”
“I believe in possibility”
“Anything could happen.”
“Exactly! Right now, as we speak, the sun could explode.”
“Or, aliens could invade!”
“You’re really stuck on the alien thing.”
“It’s a possibility”
We both sat in silence for a moment, his eyes felt heavy on me. I stood up from my stool, our bodies were almost touching.
“I’ve got to go see if my friends OK.” I said, glancing over at her. She was still playing darts with the broad shoulder man. He had his arms wrapped around her, ‘showing’ her how to hold the dart now.
“She looks like she’s doing ok to me” Elliot said with a snicker.
I didn’t argue.
“What’s your last name?” he asked.
I shook my head violently. “Look, Elliot. You seem-“ I stopped and thought of how I wanted to finish my sentence, but before I could, Elliot grabbed my hand and held it tightly.
“Ellie. I’m just a man. I’m not some comet coming down or some alien race a million light years away. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
I took a few shallow breaths, my heart was pounding. I tried pulling away, but Elliot just pulled himself closer to me.
“You said you believe in possibility. You can’t deny the possibility of you and me.”
“I...”
He reached up, and tucked a hair that was falling down my face behind my ear then stepped back, letting go of my hand.
“I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to help you conquer your fear”
“Oh?”
He grabbed my hand again and pulled me towards the door, I looked over to my friend, but didn’t fight him.
“She’ll be okay.” he said, still tugging me.
I followed him out the door and down the street. We stopped and hailed a cab, as one pulled up, he opened the door for me.
“Get in.”
“I don’t even know you. You could be taking me to some wear house to **** and ****** me!”
“Ellie. Don’t be so dramatic. Get in”
“Where are we going?”
“To the moon.”
“And back again?”
“We’ll see. Maybe once you get there, you’ll never want to leave.”
“It’s a possibility”
I stepped inside the cab, and so did he.

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


Once we were in the cab, the rush of excitement I was feeling in the bar and in the street had faded. Elliot handed the man his phone, which had an address written on it. The cabbie put the address into his GPS and started the meter as he drove on.
“So are we taking the cab to the moon? Or are we just taking the cab to NASA and then a spaceship to the moon?” I said sarcastically, my voice breaking from nervousness. Elliot put his hand on my leg, and sat back into his seat without saying anything.
“Who’s paying for the cab Elliot?”
He continued to be silent. I turned at stared out the window, I noticed the cab was taking us out of the city and I began to get a little worried.
“Can you please tell me where we’re going?” I asked quickly. I looked back at Elliot, he was sweating.
“Elliot? Is everything OK?” His eyes were shut and his breathing was heavy.
“I’m afraid of things in motion.” he muttered softly.
“Isn’t everything in motion?” he opened his eyes, raised his brows and then smiled at me.
“I mean, the world is always turning and we’re walking, or breathing. So we’re moving, no matter what-“
“Can you be quiet please?”
I looked back out the window again for what felt like a long while. Finally, the cab stopped in front a large abandoned dome like building in a town I had never been in. Elliot was quick to exit the cab, and circle the car to open my door. I stepped out, Elliot paid the driver and the cab drove away.
“So you ARE going to **** and ****** me?”
Elliot looked at me, and took my hand.
“I’m sorry about in the car. What mean by things in motion is like, cars and trains and planes and...” he paused, “and ****...”
We both laughed.
“I knew what you meant. I’m sorry if I was being difficult.”
He gave me a look and I nodded at him. He took me by the hand and led me closer to the building. We reached a door that had been boarded up.
“This doesn’t look like the moon...Or NASA...”
“Ellie. Do you trust me?”
“I...I don’t really even know you so-“
Elliot pried back at the board, slipping into the building through a small space and pulled me inside with him. The room we stepped into was a circle, and in the center; a large telescope.
“Does that even work?”
He squeezed my hand, then let go. Approaching the telescope, he stepped up a small set of stairs to a control panel. He pushed a few buttons and a few moments later, I heard a whirring and a low rattle followed by a deep sound. I felt a slight vibration and suddenly the roof was opening above me, exposing the night sky. On this night, the stars were bright, and the moon was full.
“Come here” Elliot called out from near the telescope.
I started to shake only slightly at the sight of the sky above me, I felt frozen and tense, as if I couldn’t move. Elliot made his way down the stairs and towards me.
“It’s okay Ellie.” he said, reaching for my hand and guiding me towards the telescope. We stepped up the stairs, and he stood next to me, still holding my hand as he adjusted a few things, looking in the telescope, then at me, then back through the telescope. He turned towards me, nudging me.
“Go ahead.”
I looked at the giant metal telescope, and shook my head.
“I really appreciate what you’re trying to do here but-“
He put his hand on my lower back, and pushed me towards the telescope.
“Just look.”
I put my face close to the telescope, an
‘You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion’s having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?’
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a lifelong curiosity
About our place among the infinities.

‘What do you want with one of those blame things?’
I asked him well beforehand. ‘Don’t you get one!’

‘Don’t call it blamed; there isn’t anything
More blameless in the sense of being less
A weapon in our human fight,’ he said.
‘I’ll have one if I sell my farm to buy it.’
There where he moved the rocks to plow the ground
And plowed between the rocks he couldn’t move,
Few farms changed hands; so rather than spend years
Trying to sell his farm and then not selling,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And bought the telescope with what it came to.
He had been heard to say by several:
‘The best thing that we’re put here for’s to see;
The strongest thing that’s given us to see with’s
A telescope. Someone in every town
Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one.
In Littleton it might as well be me.’
After such loose talk it was no surprise
When he did what he did and burned his house down.

Mean laughter went about the town that day
To let him know we weren’t the least imposed on,
And he could wait—we’d see to him tomorrow.
But the first thing next morning we reflected
If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving.
Our thief, the one who does our stealing from us,
We don’t cut off from coming to church suppers,
But what we miss we go to him and ask for.
He promptly gives it back, that is if still
Uneaten, unworn out, or undisposed of.
It wouldn’t do to be too ******* Brad
About his telescope. Beyond the age
Of being given one for Christmas gift,
He had to take the best way he knew how
To find himself in one. Well, all we said was
He took a strange thing to be roguish over.
Some sympathy was wasted on the house,
A good old-timer dating back along;
But a house isn’t sentient; the house
Didn’t feel anything. And if it did,
Why not regard it as a sacrifice,
And an old-fashioned sacrifice by fire,
Instead of a new-fashioned one at auction?

Out of a house and so out of a farm
At one stroke (of a match), Brad had to turn
To earn a living on the Concord railroad,
As under-ticket-agent at a station
Where his job, when he wasn’t selling tickets,
Was setting out, up track and down, not plants
As on a farm, but planets, evening stars
That varied in their hue from red to green.

He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.
His new job gave him leisure for stargazing.
Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as we spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things we ever said.
That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,
Because it didn’t do a thing but split
A star in two or three, the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
With one stroke of your finger in the middle.
It’s a star-splitter if there ever was one,
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
‘Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood.

We’ve looked and looked, but after all where are we?
Do we know any better where we are,
And how it stands between the night tonight
And a man with a smoky lantern chimney?
How different from the way it ever stood?
Noel Irion Feb 2013
a white picket fence
bordered the backyard
of my childhood home,

a neatly trimmed hedge
my father planted himself
framed the front,

there used to be a pine tree,
it was replaced with an artificial
fish pond a decade ago,

the house was yellow,
not musty or vibrant,
but like a sunflower

with a dark green door
atop seven steps
leading to the front porch

that used to leak rainwater
into our pots and pans
whenever a storm came.

i used to have a telescope
stationed in my bedroom window
to observe the bank across the street,

there were two lenses,
one magnified the zoom
while the other inverted the image,

i remember watching people
work at their desks attached to the ceiling,
but it just made my head hurt.

when the bank would close at dusk
i would tilt the telescope
to glance at the night sky.

i always searched for Mars,
i sometimes claimed to have found it
but it was probably just space-junk.

that same telescope now rests
collecting dust in my basement,
searching for stars amidst forgotten treasures.
Mike Hauser Jun 2013
i look at life through the small end of the telescope

where problems seem so far away
then i can take time in dealing
with the issues i'm dealing today

i look at life through the small end of the telescope

so what ever life wants to hurl
is not big enough to bother me
when what's in front of me is the smallest of worlds

i look at life through the small end of the telescope
Lily Pandera Dec 2011
I look through my telescope.
Try to aim
steadily.
But all I see
and focus on
is blue-gray nothing.

I admire the stars
and I look for the moon
but I'm sad to admit
my telescope lacks zoom.

Maybe the world's moving too fast
and I'm not quick enough.

Maybe it's just that my patience didn't last
Don't think I've got the stuff.--
to make this the night
I envisioned it to be.
The fire the dogs the telescope and me.

Well the flames at least
are still here to see.
Salty rancher spackle is to Earthy diva smackers as Swinging hotel number is to?
Rippling cling bread is to Three lizard chariots as Indigo lime tangent is to?
Nighttime reunion planet is to Nettle lane scuffle as Soaking spider *** is to?
Fancy trance logs are to Sticky fudge lather as Vivacious gator college is to?
Cheerful blossom face is to Secret tractor rocket as Canned gremlin emblems are to?
Jealous pitchfork generals are to Heartbreaking patchwork veranda as Folding robot noise is to?
Pretty rhino rash is to Lost locket vengeance as Back pocket weather is to?
Frosted candy sidewalk is to Sneaky kook code as Shiny waffle smoke is to?
Sapphire cloud romance is to Magnetic comet lava as Blue triangle envy is to?
Vanishing honey melody is to Thermal elf pajamas as Whistling iceboat shampoo is to?
Peach mint politics is to Frozen doll pennies as Rusty anchor catapult is to?
Swollen pony fever Throbbing sword kazoo as Silent turbine science is to?
Obese germ thunder is to Stacked lemon towers as Corrupt moon jockey is to?
Demented insect whistle is to Glass trophy cleanup as Purple geode bubble is to?
Nighttime razor slime is to Lacquered dragon maps as Tint paper mittens are to?
**** camel drops are to Velvet ****** shoes as Slippery red muffins are to?
Flying hot drool is to Pale chocolate telescope as Tin trumpet ballet is to?
Expensive puppy speed is to Flowered duck mirror as Cosmic needle factory is to?
Fractured laser doodles are to Cracked butter gravel as Rubber holster straps are to?
Majestic panther fortress is to Jeweled cork target as Iron swan taxi is to?
Poisonous pepper bouillon is to ****** goat soap as Chrome feather pirates are to?
Digital gorilla scriptures are to Timid hunter stench as Frozen domino video is to?
Eccentric troll opera is to Transparent wax village as Spoiled coral agony is to?
Bizarre green metal is to Pillow eating hamster as Leather cavern ***** are to?
Eternal hurricane evidence is to Powdered rainbow perfume as Smoking yellow prune is to?
Liquid wish cleanser is to Exploding meadow ladders as Brittle rose hammer is to?
Caged foam filter is to Cherry balloon string as Ivory cactus spider is to?
Carbon puppet watch is to Sad kings compass as Elastic lace whiskers are to?
Nitrogen trolley dust is to Lazy elephant toffee as Orange toad choir is to?
Dark pole zodiac is to Blue finger blanket as Illegal bug nozzle is to?
Stinky towel cookies are to White jade caskets as Sticky snail tea is to?
Converting stellated caramels is to Mythic aerosol socks as Rubber raspberry jokes are to?
Flying clock carousel is to Whisky nut worms as Plastic fish platforms are to?
Queasy Vaseline queens are to Moody pigeon pills as Aqua mice fur is to?
Spotted bowl shadow is to Idiotic radiance lotion as Bungalow toad hearse is to?
Gushing chimney fungus is to Funky lamb acrobat as Utopian **** sprinkler is to?
Twinkling bungalow tablet is to Botanical duck rope as Bug hat ram is to?
Broken clock fossil is to Black ginger confetti as Parisian cobra meatloaf is to?
Silly Xerox ribbon is to Obedient raccoon carny as Traditional cat linguini is to?
Last astral advisor is to Elastic badger riddles as Broken circle rifles are to?
Bagged squire channel is to Temporary mosaic cake as Ancient bacon thread is to?
Wireless math army is to Moronic neon money as Pearl razor radar is to?
Rubber buzzard blizzard is to Troubled bubble wizard as Crushed hash ******* is to?
Purple birdy cure is to Tangled frost blossoms as Silken bridal saddle is to?
Unisex owl accordion is to Sugar bottomed boat as Optical nougat treasure is to?
Flavored saline rain is to Black arrow clan as Transistorized clam guitar is to?
Sharpened twig scar is to Mutant beet sonar as Baked troll mask is to?
Boxed noodle secrets are to Traditional guru buttons as Glossy marshmallow strategy is to?
Vibrating melted jelly is to Silver furniture dream as Spewing collated seats is to?
Burnt mountain pickles are to Baby preacher shoes as Sympathetic pilot pain is to?
Narrow portal treaty is to Monkey warehouse vacancy as Painted tornado trap is to?
Porch penny sulfur is to Glowing pony fat as Patched mattress bait is to?
Frigid waitress fallacy is to Graphic shrimp salute as Misted sneezing window is to?
Moist apple moss is to Daddy’s zoom seed as Downtown Pope cart is to?
Tired felon trickle is to Holographic squirrel candle as Wild ray hay is to?
Deadly zero chalk is to Folding wilderness chart as Curved ******* vacuum is to?
Hollow porcelain pellets are to Strawberry rain stencils as Microwave taxi nomads are to?
Wasted machete balcony is to Crumpled creature confessions as Fridge fuzzed fruit is to?
Sloppy demon damage is to Squeaky puppet chuckle as Mental arcade combat is to?
Monster trout stories are to Lewd pirate cocktail as Locked mammal grommet is to?
Rotting rope network is to Tragic toy goat as Cotton submarine shoes are to?
Complex pepper dance is to ****** cloud cushion as Marching taxi holiday is to?
Mental petal collectors are to Spooned barn putty as Dork factory fiction is to?
Hot spotted tops are to Timed stepping pests as Yogurt notching tartar is to?
Crazy dog comics are to Ambitious cartoon sphinx as Pavlov’s zinc ballet is to?
Soiled spinster wedding is to Padded razor wound as Floating fish map is to?
Slippery leopard pants are to Perfumed nut button as Dart wizard party is to?
Needy alien elephants are to Barking garden gnats as Quasar focused paper is to?
Slanted heart **** is to Bronzed cliff sandals are to Cunning jockey jokes are to?
***** thumbprint massage is to Holistic princess memory as Sliding dental sword is to?
Drifting wood whistle is to Fluorescent carpet powder as Foam dragon whistle is to?
Chopped web shadow is to Immortal vermin soup as Collapsing porch conspiracy is to?
Stolen thunder chant is to Haunted comet heart as Swollen throat portrait is to?
Fragrant frost parfait is to Grumpy caveman *** as Random stingray solo is to?
Squeaky polar turbine is to Silent lava fever as Oversized lunar fulcrum is to?
Synthetic dew droppers are to Pocket poster paste as Hypnotic screen dog is to?
Symbolic whirlpool nausea is to Dreaming tree phantom as Log badge bracket is to?
Camp hippo map is to Horseradish seizure insurance as Distant insect mirror is to?
German lady sherbet is to Stuntman laundry wax as Hungry butterfly ghost is to?
Fly smudged foil is to Amped maze coil as Shifting optic terror is to?
Automatic sheep floss is to Panoramic tanker anchor as Throbbing bone pillow is to?
Mutant clown village is to Nightmare translation treasure as Spotted spectral chakra is to?
Blind roach tweat is to Hermit worm tiara as Divine logo ritual is to?
Glueless gun stamp is to Malicious spam pump as Floral toffee pods are to?
Dudgeon mist removal is to Menacing bolt smacker as Boating duke shadow is to?
Costly metal plungers are to Creaky buzzing gushers as Glowing star cushions are to?
Raked barge sludge is to Crusted cream glitter as Zircon gutter babble is to?
Fake gold scholar is to Amish ******* mogul as Faithful ***** choir is to?
Sacred limo prayers are to Fried mice café as Splintered ****** thimble is to?
Dealing rabbit decals is to Pelican bongo festival as Patched equator rot is to?
Freedom gourd gasoline is to Cobblers studying acorns as Desecrated dice crater is to?
Tattered tapestry rod is to Busted particle scanner as Bogus piffle catalogue is to?
Trifle truffle raffle is to Last lamb laminate as Segmented cake goggles are to?
Domestic tackle tactic is to Ticking tic talk as Cordial corps coordinates is to?
Tucked duck caftan is to Sunken ramp ruckus as Wretched ranch rhetoric is to?
Clearly incomprehensible directions are to Useful archaic nonsense as Antiquated skeletal outline is to?
Bewildered beasts feasting are to Lazy busybodies resting as Vaccinating brave volunteers are to?
Lucky wagon dragons are to Famous gargoyle gargle as Formal postman funding is to?
Furrowed shroud chowder is to Borrowed tartan pajamas as Martini mixed algebra is to?
Cowgirl balloon helium is to Chewy glucose habitat as Stationary monument movement is to?
Diamond powered powder is to Diagonal diameter diagram as Purposely condensed expansion is to?
Organic iodine capsule is to Gleaming beach probe as Dominant dome static is to?
Shaving wrinkled targets is to Petting sensible monsters as Selling invisible whiskey is to?
Frozen piano architecture is to Note dotted clouds as Screaming Korean worms are to?
Sonic plant website is to Telepathic climbing clam as Bored protein exercise is to?
Gourmet mollusk cone is to Numb poodle caravan as Asian raven radar is to?
Steve Nuenay Aug 2014
Take a look through your finger telescope
The world you see before your eyes is a story already told
Don't lose sight of the bright future ahead
You're destined to realize great hopes and dreams
But if you blink for too long, they'll leave you quick
Instead of searching for an excuse, get up!
Take a look through your finger telescope
Make circles with your fingers and put them around your eyes
Picture all your dreams
Imagine all the things you're looking for
And an adventure will unfold into your head
Where are you going?
Look through your finger telescope
What can you see in the space between your fingers?
It might seem far, but it's really not
Its' a promise as valuable as any treasure!
A treasure you're destined to find
BUT THAT IS FOR YOU TO DECIDE!
Alysia Michelle Oct 2017
being in a relationship
sometimes feels like
being looked at through a telescope
neither of you knows much about one another
and through the telescope
you see the wonder and the beauty
it's the first stage of discovery
discovery only leads to more curiosity
so you dive deeper
it becomes more like
being looked at under a microscope
all the little pieces of you
are being examined
you do your best
to display only the beautiful parts of yourself
on the slides,
but you can't control what someone else sees
and sometimes until you're closely examined
you don't know you have a disease
and the more slides that are shown under the microscope
the more you discover
the more you know
and that gives you the power to change
to take medicine
because being in a relationship
should inspire you to be
the best version of yourself
and together
you can heal each other
stop the spread of disease
and see even more beauty
under the microscope
than you did through the telescope
and the next time you look through
that telescope you will be even more beautiful
than the last.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.chris rea: god's great banana skin...

/ such random thoughts are a blessing, esp. after you've been walking for over 2 miles, in the cold and in the rain, with the setting sun... continually impressed by the nature of polyester clothing, how you feel the cold, but aren't cold at all, how you go back home and: you're dripping with sweat... /

the random thought?
about a saying, here's the schematic

synthetic a priori

                    4 + 6 = 10
                    IV + VI = X

                                         analytical a posteriori

which statement is true?
within the questioning parameters?
i think it's a trick question...
how else would you be able to
teach these statements and make
replica understandings of
said, statements?

(****... quickfire shots of syrupy
*****... **** me... give me the sweats,
and i'm not even constipated,
it must be the ***** doing
the magic... yeah... sober me?
doesn't like thinking...
but oddly enough, the drunk me?
pulls out philosophy,
no, not as some pretentious
high-brow interest...
   i just looked at philosophy as
a genre in literature,
nothing more)...

numbers, like letters...
or in the case of Roman numerals
(letters are numbers)...
i'm unsure whether you can arrive
at crafting them into existence
by analytical parameters,
i don't actually think
that you can conjure up numbers
from analyzing a priori,
given the ad continuum:
but... there was a point in time,
when / where: numbers weren't used...

Kant was a theist,
sorry...
  he says it plainly at the end
of his critique of pure reason...
in the transcendental methodology...
sure... he takes a "schizophrenic"
moment to write a thesis
and an antithesis on subjects like
cosmology...
but he's inclined, as i am,
counter to an atheist...
yes... god is probably a monster...
but a ******* gorgeous monster...
kinda like a femme fatale...
so what's not to like?

    but this thought didn't arrive
randomly,
and my consciousness
didn't hone in on it...
i didn't vector this thought
to an immediate conclusion...
the thought arrived,
and then: i had to make shrapnel
out of it...
the original thought was complex,
i had to make shrapnel out of it,
in order to put it back together,
so that a cognitive 3 seconds
could be rewritten in under 30 minutes
explaining, why the thought arose...

you know... when thinking
is detached from the moral (θ)-ought
you get to experience these "things"...
here's another schematic...

I + Φ (you put a key into a lock),
   Θ (you turn the key), O (the door opens),
hey presto... a free radical iota...
detached from both phi and theta...

i am free from making
a moral ought (i) or the immoral: ought (i) not?
i'm free, hence my concern for...
abstract questions...

back to the original schematic...

synthetic a priori

                    4 + 6 = 10
                    IV + VI = X

                                         analytical a posteriori

this actually has a theological
dimension,
supposing i am god...

   if i propose an analytical a priori
with a synthetic a posteriori...
well then...
             i can't change anything,
i can't actually make changes to...
with my omnipotence,
omniscience etc.
i already analyzed, a priori
the Kantian elevation to theology
comes, via me, stating...
if i analyzed the entirety of
creation...
            a priori ex nihil
(from the prior out of nothing)
how can i make a synthesis
in the a posteriori domain,
of the already existing things,
which didn't exist a priori,
since there was nothing,
and i already analyzed the potential
of nothing, and this potential
was realized as everything i would
know to exist... and i went along
with it anyway?

i'm starting to think that
the realm of analytical a priori
doesn't exist for mortals...
the gods can muse this ****-show
of a dimension over and over again...
we're more (being mortals)
synthetic a posteriori...
oh don't get me wrong,
i believe we have the capacity
to comprehend analytical a priori
but it's an analytical a- priori...
we've reached the limits
of the microscope, the telescope,
and the hadron collider...
or on our way to exhaust that...
still being left with an intact mesh of...
the orbits... summer, winter, autumn, spring...
but this thing with this schematic:

synthetic a priori

                    4 + 6 = 10
                    IV + VI = X

                                         analytical a posteriori

how can i conjure an understanding
of IV + VI = X...
analytically a priori...
when... i have no hindsight /
prior to understanding of said rubric?
well... with Roman you could say:
analytical a priori,
given the Ancient Romans already
had the letters I, V, X...
but... if you didn't have the concept
of measurements prior,
of arithmetic...
how can you analyze something...
that doesn't exist?
so... you had to synthesize a priori,
working from the letters I, V, X...
to conjure up "numbers"...
  numerals... you had to create these
numbers by a synthetic a posteriori
method...
and the 4 + 6 = 10...
        well... you analyzed the a posteriori
synthesis, and threw I, V, X out...
and began the second wave of mathematics...
and this is where, authentically...
analytical a priori comes from...
based on I (1), V (5), X (10)...
                    came IV (4), came VI (6)...
don't mathematicians treat their language
as that of or equivalent to the gods?

now... for the cultural exchange program
that i promised...

on the great British isles...
you have a variety of languages
& dialects,
i'm so sorry that the Scottish
"forgot theirs"...

but when you have something
akin to

English: red
Cymru: coch

or right... they have their Pict
Gael?

Pict Gaelic: dearg
Irish: dearg
Cornish: rudh

we'll require a second word...
what word, what words..
life!

English: life,
Cymru: bywyd
Pict Gaelic: beatha
Irish: saol
Cornish: bewnans...

back, "home"...
we also have sub-groups
in terms of linguistics...

there are the Kashubians...
and there are the Silesians,
and, there are...
the Kurpie...
akin the Welsh, the Pict,
the Ire,

and their language looks like so...
again, borrowing from
red and life...

Polak: czerń
Kashubian: czôrny...
  but that can be disputed...
why?
     czerwień is not actually
a noun, but an adjective...
a quality of being associated with red...
czerwony? that's a male
adjective...
   and the female adjective
is czerwona...
                ****...
a color has to be something...
the noun adjective that's blood...
Polak: krwawy (czerwony)
Kashubian: czerwiony
Silesian: čerwůny
ah...
   Kurpian... high polish?
Masovian?
harder to find the words...
have to use alternatives...

Kurpian: caban
Polak: tępak
Kashubian: osoł
  Silesian: yjzel...
(idiot, imbecile)

you know how hard hard it is
to find a Kurpian to Polak
translator?
i can't find one to boil down
to the examples or either
red or life,
i'm reduced to choosing other
words...
like...

   Kurpian: chwat...
Polak: chłopak
Silesian: bajtel
Kashubian: knôp...
(boy)

Kurpian: jédło
Polak: jedzenie...
Kashubian: jedzenié
alternative to Silesian:
  jadło, i.e.: it ate...
past-participle in
the verb...
let's see what the Silesians
call it...
Silesians: well.. a variation..
chlyb
godka
mietła
masa... all things you can eat...
(edible food)

only a word, like the Kurpian
word akin to kotnå
reveals that Vikings passed via "us"...
kotnå?
  an impregnated sheep...
with young...

Kurpian: łańï truń!
Polak: nie mów!
Kashubian: ni gôdac!
Silesian: ńy godka!
(don't speak!)

mind you... Kurpian translation
is hard to find...
and you almost wonder...
at the British isles...
you think, us, Polaks...
do not have sub-linguistic groups
in our ranks,
like your Welsh, your Pict,
your Irish?!
guess again...
you had them all along...
and you thought...
the Polaks were
a homogenous culture...
all this time...
primarily because our culture
wasn't multicultural...
oh but it was... but on the subtle side
of history...
mind you...
defenders of the galaxy?
i knew gamora wasn't white...
but... **** me...
even if black or hispanic...
she looked so **** attired in green...
i was thinking:
absinthe cherub, absinthe cherub...
and forgot about glorifying
Zoe Saldana in all that choc...
what?
   a green skinned chic?
                    if i can forget about
the existence of chocolate...
i'll just anything that moves...
but i knew she wasn't white...
i hate chocolate...
          give me an absinthe girl any
day of the week...
       yeah...
only the English have complex
ethnicity encompassing
a single language...
only the English...
                 like **** they are...
at least my linguistic variation
is suited to a bundle of words...
Welsh?! Gaelic?!
  completely different languages...
at least in my part of the world
all that is deviating
is a choice of variant nouns!
but then again, the English
speaking world....
        how's the new pronoun
dictum coming along?
you keeping up with...
   appeasing the new crazies?
oh... you are?!
    well... kudos and applause!

p.s. guess what happens with appeasing
the new crazies... guess...
i'll tell you...
you **** around with grammar,
some grammatical pedant will raise
his head up from the crowd and say
something like:
               what?!
and then the old crazies rise up...
and... your, ahem, little discussion
about changing the rules of grammar
to "ensure" that the language is
kept, "intact"?
      see... mm... hmm... the old crazies?
the old crazies have their own
methods...
they're of the obligation:
let my gun do the talking...
  and then...
  you get pol *** arithmetic,
of skulls...
           being counted in an abacus
of heaping up, "debris"...
         see... these new crazies
are bugging me...
  they're bugging me...
because the old crazies didn't
attack grammar,
and whatever delusion they had...
i couldn't see it...
the new crazies?
they're attacking grammar,
and the delusion they have...
is... associated with something
i can see as being self-evidently untrue...

the new crazies...
******* spinners... fakers...
    i prefer the old crazies...
at least their delusions had ambitions
to deceive in the realm of
the unseen...
       the unproved, and never to be
proven...
these new crazies...
i am supposed to speak asylum talk?!
so... society is the new asylum
with the past asylums being
abolished?!
who gave caffeine to these news
crazies?!
******* sane people's naive pandering...
while the depressed man?
hey boy... hey, hey, hey boy...
noose!
i've lost all sympathy for
the victims of a psychotic
version of a repressed P.T.S.D. example...
the mad have hijacked language,
disorientated grammar...
and... b'a'ah, b'a'ah...
                 no...
                              i'm with the old
crazies...
                    at least they're the ones
that can inflict genuine grievance...
rather this policing of restricting
     the orthodoxy of the use of language.

p.s.
i found only two paradoxes in this
world...
    schadenfreude: feeding a pleasure
from the misery of others...
as...
  finding wisdom in others' own
forsake of an antithesis of
universal application...
  mainly that, associated:
            to a self-gratifying benefit...
the joke ends within the confines
of schadenfreude...
as does passable "wisdom" attached
to instragram novelty of the "maxim"
by your wisened sages
of the selfie...
  
                  i've been among the russians,
i know what the true uber looks like...
you hitchhike...
hitchhiking? forget that?
ponzie scheme albatross thingy
of a worth of a british mensch?
    funny... a people can so easily
forget the practice of hitchhiking...
so easily: entertaining individual rights...
and: innocent until proven
guilty until some next
               teddy bundy comes along...
and then it's all: ooh! ah! woo'ah!

   you know, i don't like the cartesian
chiral dynamic,
the whole: nietzsche take...
sum ergo cogito...
          i don't like the:

innocentes quoadusque (qua esse)
                           reus....    inversion...

an innocent man might hang...
well... if you have the death penalty:
too late to regurgitate the
original statements...

but? where's the element of redemption
for the innocent man?
why are so many people captivated
by the shawshank redemption?
there's a redemption story...
   in the inverted game?
a jimmy saville walks off scot-free...

the continental model doesn't make
sense with a death penalty...
but without one?
redemption... the atlas "paradox"...
one man usually burdens the fate
of a reciprocate of the unit of one...
but not the many...

me getting laid or not getting laid
is as important to me as:
whether i know about last year's
snowfall...
*** *** ***... all that sort of
******* in the western minds...
*** *** but no children!
recreational procreation without...
any procreation... to begin with...

         i'll admit...
english humour is funny...
but schadenfreude is a borrowed term...
hence the lost in translation
element...
           the english are terrible at
appreciating if not simply applying
the original zeppelin bomb...
after a while: the english just became
annoying toy-whips
of ***** replicas...
       the english knew elevated slap-stick...
with monty python...
with fawlty towers...
          they borrowed a term like
schadenfreude and completely lost the plot...
they once, upon a time,
chanced to play a game of linguistic
comedy...
            
                 i'm pretty ******* sure
the germans relate to schadenfreude in a different
way... i'm guessing:
the deutsche are not prone to ridicule as
the english are...
               the aunglisch are prone
to ridicule out of a sentiment of spite
than out of a repose for giggles...
        
          i don't understand the german sense
of humour,
     but understanding the english attempting
to "understand" the german sense of humour
is an enigma in an enigma in a per se...

such integrated back into
the ol' continental ways...
                       kudos to the brits...
bringing back the commonwealth to stereotype
us europeans with a negative "circumstance"...
now them: ******* up to "correct"
their integration policies... for the commonwealth
peoples of the united wordly wealth of
made in china plastic toys!

     a **** among the brits has
the audacity to tell a german he's not
supposed to feel at home on these isles...
sure... and i will never feel quiet at home
in Islamabad either!
               so? equal count of hubris!
that's the only thing that ****** me about
these isles... god i love this language...
but... when you get your afghani hounds
on me to do your ***** work?!

      even though i'm not: deutsche?!
i'll ******* pretend to be deutsche!
           i'm not here to mop up your failed
integration policies...
i settled on keeping my language...
they settled on keeping their sharia,
their **** pajamas and curry...
while adamantly rejecting their language...
in order to implement their desired changes
by subverting your language...
and you gave your language on a *******
platter...
    
    by subverting your language
to accept their cultural tattoos...
  let me tell you: if a people don't respect
their own culture,
by way of god, by way of language...
and they are "integrating": without speaking
their native mutterzunge?
they're not respecting either culture...
mongrels ahoy!
   what happened to the african-h'americans
not speaking a word of african?

what will they do, ascribe themselves
to ******* scots,
left with no gaelic and more a finnegans' wake
accent gymnastics of some irvine welsh?
nae for no: some glaswegian smart-***
excess of nouns?
      
hell... they would have never built
a colliseum if they saw:
1 + 4 + 6 + 9 = 20
   i.e. I + IV + VI + IX = **
            imagine... a society where letters
worked perfectly as sounds
and as arithmetic concepts of measure.

lucky for me the roman empire never
conquered
the lands i come from...
always with the brits being...
oh so so proud having been conquered
by the romans...
what's the prize... archeological sites?!

much respect as great britain...
but... *****... please...
don't pucnh below the waist...
importing your commonwealth dogs
to mark you out among all the other
europeans like some prized asset with
an inkling into h'american affairs...
thanks to you: i'm bored of looking up
the telescope of h'american ****
with their waning cultural export
of a worthwhile entertainment of appreciating
their music.
It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed
To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which
are

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,
That morning star which does not dread the sun,
And budding marjoram which but to kiss
Would sweeten Cytheraea’s lips and make
Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take

Yon curving spray of purple clematis
Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,
But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering
gold.

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
In these still haunts, where never foot of man
Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,
And why the hapless nightingale forbears
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

And I will sing how sad Proserpina
Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
We may behold Her face who long ago
Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea,
And whose sad house with pillaged portico
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
Is better than a thousand victories,
Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being; I at least
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
The woods of white Colonos are not here,
On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
Whose very name should be a memory
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play
The lute of Adonais:  with his lips Song passed away.

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is,—He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon
That they have spied on beauty; what if we
Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles!  Can it assuage
One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out:  I did not note
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
Which ‘gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

Come let us go, against the pallid shield
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,
The corncrake nested in the unmown field
Answers its mate, across the misty stream
On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass,
In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
Hung in the burning east:  see, the red rim
O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,—
Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight
Than could be tested in a crucible!—
But the air freshens, let us go, why soon
The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!
wes parham Jul 2023
We assembled a modest telescope,
To find what sights there were  to see.
I stared, transfixed, at the moon and stars,
In the driveway with all of my family.

I know exactly where I stood,
The moment I would find,
The infinite nature of time and space,
And how it all unwinds.

I asked about the size of the moon,
The distance of its arcing track.
I asked about the space beyond,
The nothing in the black.

I asked my family how big it is.
I asked if anyone knows,
The moon, the stars, and all of it.
I asked how far it goes.

“My son, our curious little one…”,
My parents said to me,
“It has no end”, “It just keeps going”,
“Outward, eternally”.

I stared up into a southern sky,
Ominous, dark as the sea.
And I swear, at that moment,
Looking up,
Something departed from me.

            It flew into the dark of space,
And hasn’t slowed in all this time,
       As far and as fast as information can.
                        The speed of light, I hear…
Which is not so much a speed…
          Hitched, perhaps, to the Voyager probe…
   By these new thoughts inside of my head.
                             But I digress.

This thing  began a journey that,
Must bring it face to face,
With everything that ever was,
Every corner of time and space.
Everything that is yet to come,
Everything that has ever been.
Repeating every history,
It’s trek would never end.

That thought has always stayed with me.
It anchors me, somehow.
A line cast from a sailing ship,
Where I stand upon the bow.
In the oblivion of the infinite,
It grounds me to the “now”.
I could have been eight or nine, but I do remember exactly where I was when this happened and it really was a mix of emotions to learn that the universe is probably _infinite_.  I was both terrified and exhilarated; humbled and hugely empowered, all at once.  I loved learning more about the cosmos and still feel the same rush to learn new stories from above.  
33.60455° N, 83.97471° W
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
i couldn't never write a book, sorry, a novel, i'd hate to become a puppeteer, someone who attempts to play chess, a fiddling and bothersome shadow-baron (schattenbaron)... imaginary "friends" is not my thing, plus... i don't have an exact elastic approach to heidegger's compliments concerning poets: i only like heidegger because he likes poets, **** me, he elevates poets to the stature of philosophers when language "things" are made necessary... i.e. (and verbatim) - language - only if speech has acquired the highest univocity of the word does it become strong for the hidden play of its essential multivocity (as withdrawn from all "logic"), of which poets and thinkers alone are capable... welcome! welcome! to plato's republic! Brennus & Alaric welcome you, quiet fondly depicted by Joseph-Noël Sylvestre... and when the Huns pushed the leaders Fritigern and Alavivus into the eastern empire to settle... and emperor Valens... that's history for you: a cascade of: and and and and and and... sometimes a p.s., but mostly the and and and of causality... facts come barging in, you forage... but thanks to heidegger: the poets have earned their graces... and can return to the republic... as wordsmiths... i mean, was i ever to think of myself as a french dada dandy? frivolous and superfulous raconteur / racketeer? poet or philosopher, that's beside the point, the point being: i'm not a novelist... i don't like dealing with language that chokes that i rely on mostly and that mostly being: i like the idea of a raw vocabulary... i'm more of a butcher than an artist... i like the rawness of an inverted crossword puzzle... in my "trade"... there are no clues, whether synonymous or antonymous, in this spaghetti of: ex nihil factum sermo (out of nothing came the word)... poetry, of all places, allows this form of unadulterated nibbling at raw vocabulary... bypassing the standard g.c.s.e.: overt-scrutiny of poetics... i never like that... a 5/ 7/ 5 syllable haiku poem should never be preserved for its essay-worthiness to extend into 2000 words in a school exam... poetry strapped to pedagogy is... less heavily censored, more... over-scrutinized... you're not supposed to think in terms of poetry: you're supposed to, feel... and since when has feeling become so overrated, so despsised? oh... when people "learned" to feel, prior to learning to think... you really have to learn to think, prior to learning how to feel... if you ask someone from the orient, they'd counter the western perception of placing thinking / "reason" on the top of the pyramid with horus' eye as emblem... to learn to feel: is to learn to how to not think, while to think? it's to learn how to not feel... pretty simple, no? not really... neither approaches should be underrated, they should be understood better... who the hell needs, or wants, to be an apathetic brain-in-a-pickle-jar zombie: constantly engaging with a dialectic? then again... who wants to be a heart in an electric chair constantly bamboozled into pointless reactions? so i'm more of a butcher than a "poet", i simply appreciate the raw realism of cutting pieces of the tongue that extends into the brain's fathomability - and that overrated visual ******* of dreaming most people associate themselves with... but that's beside the point... i really appreciate days akin to this one, humid as in the concrete basin of Beijing while europe is frying in the African plume... no thanks, no, me go to Greenland or the Faroes Islands... do i look like a ******* ******* / camel jockey? why do i have limited respect for islam? i once watched a video of a saudi with an european bride... sitting on oil was both a blessing... and a curse... muhammad would whip some of these saudi brats silly... but of all days... when i get to work my magic in the kitchen, and make the most superior food in the whole wide world? blue indian cuisine: i call them blue indians and not red soxs because: come on... the raj... and that polytheism that doesn't want to disappear... h'americans can boast all they want: the steak, the hamburger, the hot dog, the pizza... n'ah... n'ah mate... it's either curry or you're chewing chicken bones, ******* out the marrow... indian cuisine is superior... i love the days when i cook up two curries... it feels like being back in edinburgh, walking into the joseph black building, the perfumes of sulphur and wood, the 12 hour experiments it would take us to conjure up an ester... esters? bases for the perfume industry... that' the grand thing about cooking a curry... you start to feel like a chemist once more... the two curries? a tikka masala: sure, an easy adventure... marinating the chicken what not... the real fun came with the malvani... blitzing the masala up: a bay leaf, half a nutmeg, 4 / 5 cloves, 7 dried chillies, 10 peppercorns, a cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, chilly powder, turmeric powder... and that's just the malvani masala... the cocunut masala... ****... only two green chillies... how to get the right colour? ah... blitz up some coriander stalks... garlic and ginger... milk to get the whizz-kid on the job... it's superior cuisine, indian cuisine... it reminds me of a being in a chemistry lab at edinburgh... doing organic experiments... mind you: it's more fun, the environment is less sterile... even my mother said: you're stinking up the place, you're worse than the sikhs two doors down... so... why would i visit an indian restaurant, or indulge myself in an indian take-away, if i can mimic? i see no point... there is no other cuisine on the planet as good as what could come from either Goa or New Delhi... the colours, the perfume of the spices... by now a hamburger, pizza or hot-dog are staples or both humble beginnings and even more humbled ends... i've found my 1st to none passion... and with a afghani naan bread... and with rice infused with turmeric... tiresome ponce schemes of duck a l'orange... spaghetti this that and the other... one bias... though... scandinavian treatment of raw herrings... in cream sauce... i'm a sucker for those herrings like i'm a sucker for pop music... the added zing of the herrings' rawness out-competes the bland sushi manifesto... eating one of these herrings in a cream sauce... has the complimentary sensation, very much akin to performing oral *** on a woman... oysters are beyond the marker of metaphor / literal association... well: hello today!

I.

i'm starting to suspect, that one of the...
"supposed" stars...
   is actually a planet - due to its colour -
      it's unlike all the other -
todkompf, metallic white
glitter...
      it's hued in a more orange
spectacle - more fire...
less distance...
                and on the canvas
of the night?
   sits lower than all the other stars,
which are more up -
   rather than on a horizon
to speak off...
   question is... is that *mars
,
or is that venus?

**** it: 'ere i go...
'n' buy me a *******
telescope to investigate further...

II.

did the ancient romans really
distinguish the arithmetic
quantity of I - or IX -
   or XII or...
                with a dot?
       not unless it was inscribed
in stone -
   where even upsilon had
to vacate the more easily chiseled
in:              YOVR POINT?
just wondering
   how only two diacritical marks
were applied to the encryption -
and both... not for orthographic
reasons, but for aesthetics -
    what's the actual difference
when the guillotine digestion
machine (like me) comes in and
says...
    
     ȷokιng around...
        what with the iPod...
   why shouldn't ι,
                    come ιn -
   and give a ȷester's ιnquιsιtιon?
out of... mere... curιosιty?
ιt's not lιke those two-heads
even make a dιfference...
come on! ιt's ιneffectιve,
there are no orthographιc reasons
for ιt!
        why, even, bother?
    and no fancy name eιther,
ιn the dιacrιtιcal famιly...
  dot... when compared to?
cιrcumflex, caron, macron,
      cedιlla,  ͅ (ιota subscrιpt)
...
you name ιt!
can someone, please,
ȷust gιve me, an approprιate reason?

III.

it's not like i can confuse,
i with I - since i have 1, and 2 instead
of II, and 3 instead of III,
and 4, instead of IV,
       and 6 instead of VI...
ah... L(l) -
              and the exodus of handwriting
in the digital age...
any schmuck can write
now... but... i'd love to see
them write with a pen, on paper...

personally - i couldn't write an intact
word with a pen...
   calligraphy: a bit like monkish
Gregorian chants... coming near
to extinction...
          i could sometimes write
out a intra-connectivity of syllables -
but... entire words?
    no chance... the digit system
came in... and i had to learn how
to position my arms before
the keyboard, to write, and not look
down...
   unlike my old G.P.,
who, bless him... nearing his retirement,
pecked, like a crow,
on the keyboard...
   looking down on it...

the ENTER key? right arm pinky finger...
SPACE BAR key? primarily
left hand thumb...
   unlike a piano, you don't actually
use all the fingers on both arms...
e.g.? ring ringer on the left hand?
rarely used... unless doing some
mental hand gymnastics...
  
stream of "consciousness" - no words,
just observations -

(0,0,) LH ******* A
    RH index finger N -
     that's - ah! ring finger of
the right arm is used, quiet a lot,
  notably?  SHIFT + (?/) key -
      *******...
   but for the apostrophe?
    the (@ ') key...
  which, on my machine translates
as the (" ') key...

IV.

     - interlude -
--- -- - - - -  - - - logic  -- - - -  -- - bomb -- - - --  -
- - -- computers -- -- - - & - -- microprocessors -
- - - --- -- - --- -- -(parasense ----- - - remix) -- -- -

V.

it is chiromancy in reverse,
only that i'm reading my hands...
facing down,
rather than staring on the reverse
side of the... where the girdle of venus
is situated,
   or the index finger skin folds
of the chokhmah, chesed,
    netzach
- respectively -
akin to reading mandarin:
   from the the head - to the base
               of a knuckle.
i read my hands - looking at a screen,
how else can you write anything,
distracted by looking down
onto the keyboard -
  no aware of the spacing?
        question: how fast is your typing?
don't know:
what sort of ******* am i to note
down, and how many amendment
will i have to make to the text,
as we plow along to your diatribe
monologue?
                  
VI.

why would anyone sit up all night,
drinking?
     ****** question, esp. given
yesterday's 5 / 6 am carnival of rain...
out of nowhere,
there i was, ready to call it a night
well spent (not working in a Stratford
casino) - dreading the heat of
the sunrise...
  boom!
   thunder, lightning...
    the air turned white from
the ferocity of the rain...
   literally...
                the ground was wriggling
with a meteor shower -
excited gnat fly like puddles
appearing and disappearing -
soon becoming lakes
  within the confines of a supposed
**** of worm parasites...
      probably your typical day
      on the Faroe Islands...
you know... on such occasions...
you really can't help, but stick
your head out of the window,
far enough to drench your head
and hair in regenwasser...
            i should have walked
into the garden and
cleansed my whole body...
   but...
guess all ι needed, was the head...
       god...
  there's nothing more **** than
listening to horror movie soundtracks
while it pours a mini-monsoon
outside your window,
  and there's thunder, and there's
lightning...
   and you're just about to fall asleep...
like a baby might...

VII.

oh god... the one time i don't take
a beer for a walk, coming back
from the supermarket...
and i pick up... this genius:
genius... tortilla wrap...
    falafel + hummus + a hint
of mango chutney (with a tease
of arugula leaves)?
            **** me... who needs
beer... if not a bottle of mineral
water... to accompany
taking a walk?
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
Herpetologist meets actress (Cameron Diaz).
If he's funny he's me.
South America or Africa (on location).
In a diamond mind.
The protagonists (lovers), the diamonds, the miners and the minders.
By minders we mean watchers, organizers, supervisors.
As all art must: choose a focus.
The personal is political said Cameron on the night bus to Quebec.
I had never met a girl so willing to make love in public.

To what extent is violence necessary? And
is that the essential question or
should violence be accepted as man's state, fate
a more essential question existing beyond or below
peace or war. Perhaps
the religious and (for the irreligious) sacred injunction
against egregious violence exists
to still ourselves
to open ourselves
to the deeper question. That Cameron Diaz is funny and beautiful
is hopeful. And the telescope and microscope have extended
the eye's appreciation. Under the microscope
Cameron becomes a collection of foreign, alien, uncompassionate,
      selfish, self-organizing
organisms. Frightening, inexorable, fascinating
to the scientist in you!

To the telescope
vanishingly small, infinitesimal as the farthest sun
only smaller
smaller by magnitudes of magnitudes of ten
and incinerated in a nanosecond. Gone
from the movie (photographs the contents of which move
for the naked eye).
I cannot help what I do or hope.

Anyway, it's a love story
or science project, socio-political documentary. An essay.
An essay about how it is actually impossible to say what you mean
but it is possible with a lifetime of meditation and study to shut up
and know what you meant.

Now I'm deaf.
I can see Cameron Diaz but not hear her.
The guy, the herpetologist, at first colorless turns out to be
colorful as a bird or snake!
He knows a lot about snakes, and birds! Not only how they mate
but what they eat
(amateur botanist)
where they rest
what they do with their pain. Do they get depressed?
Can they have guests?
How do they judiciously employ violence to organize and defend
the nest.

The international collective remains insufficiently organized
resulting in violence and threats of violence that interrupt
commerce, procreation (love) and the pursuit of happiness (Cameron
      Diaz)
at least for certain populations, sometimes.
Otherwise, most men, most times, live in peace excepting
flood or fire God or man may
choose to impose.
I lay in my bed and listen naked.
Have a good day (Diaz).
The goddess does not exist, except as bone.

Around this time (July)
the queen yellow jacket (redcoat) searches
blind and deaf
for a ledge or cavity to build a city of her descendants
safe, that they can defend.
Most cities
prosper, undisturbed
and sleeping peacefully, overwinter. We, however,
remain active, Cameron Diaz makes winter movies or
love stories in South America, and I
delight to imagine her herpetologist. Or one who
discovers the sun
around which a habitable, understandable, compatible
orb orbs. Or
maybe the movie's about the revolution, soldiers dying defending
this dictator or that dreamer
and the movie completely failing, not even trying, to explain how
the sons and daughters of the dying soldiers (miners) feel
fishing alone, hunting for wisdom, thereafter.
Sure, these men chose violence, not Cameron Diaz, and were not
farmers, botanists or herpetologists
their tools could have been and should have been the telescope or
      microscope
but are there enough microscopes and telescopes to go around
and did we not (taxpayers, moviegoers) encourage them to
defend Cameron Diaz?

Man's world is insufficiently organized to preclude violence
in allocating resources (Cameron Diaz).
When we invade Iraq
to defend our allies and interests
with rockets and rocket throwers, Rockettes and Cameron Diaz
each man (each Diaz) must make his
own individual choice
whether this war
is worth fighting for or the next or the worst.
Go to jail, go directly to waterboard, at the hands of
your local police, chamber of commerce.
Learn how to walk the desert and the universe.
The names of rocks and planets,
that being the only answer to the hyperorganization that is a cancer on
      our insufficient organization.

I was reading Foreign Affairs
The Case Against the West by Kishore Mabubami (Cameron Diaz).
How can I relinquish my privileged position
sit still, lie naked
until what constitutes consent of the governed and non-violent change,
      Cameron Diaz,
to her herpetologist
is known.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Mike Hauser Sep 2018
i look at life through the small end of the telescope


where problems seem so far away
then i can take time in dealing
with the issues i'm dealing today

i look at life through the small end of the telescope

so what ever life wants to hurl
is not big enough to bother me
when what's in front of me is the smallest of worlds


i look at life through the small end of the telescope
kenzi joy Apr 2012
You transformed my freckled neck

Into a strawberry field

Last night
Transplanting puckered lips
Into planting pink rosy kisses
Across my skin
And down my chest
Like
Cherry blossom petals that

We picked

Because we  
Just don't believe that they could be
Anything more
That how they feel right now

Its too inconceivable for us
Its too contrived   


I mean
Its like
Trying to grow candy apple love
In greenhouses
Or just houses 

Painted green
With synthetic sunbeams
And pesticide ridden wishing seeds
Planted with high doses of expectations
And fertilized by things like
Movie Scripted
Kissing in the rain

And all the other high fructose corn-syrup cliches
That only let you come down
When your brain washed loving
Is washed from lusting
Trusting only the sunlight
Rising in the morning
On a clear day
Because thats when you can see
Whats real and fake

But it doesn't matter

Because we just don't believe in things like that
Its to synthetic
For starry eyes filled with falling satellites
When its still too cold for sunshine


So we
Just believe in things like
Twisting our tongues 
for the fun
Of seeing
How quickly we come undone
When we touch

And breathing

Out then in and in again
Breathing uneven breathes
Into each others mouths
To feel what its like
To come to life
Then let it go again

And we always
Always
Color outside
The rib cage lines

(and heres why)

Because ribs
Keep people out of our hearts

And cages
Keep us out of their

And lines
*******

Lines are for strictly straight people
Who can only see one side to everything
And everyone
Knows
Rules were meant to be broken
And lines were meant to be crossed

Cross eyed
Crooked teeth

That can never be bent back straight
Or scraped pearly clean of
Imperfection
Because they are already
In perfection
Everyone is just too blinded
From staring into the sun
To see it right now

But tonight
Tonight
We are two crooked lines
In a foreign vineyards of twisted grape vines

Fermenting into a wine sweeter than our lips
And we fit
Together
Like two broken puzzle pieces
That wont ever complete each other
And you know what

That's ok

You are not my missing piece
And I am not yours
Because we are not
Puzzles
We are people
And puzzles are just broken paintings
To be put back together
And we are not broken
There’s no completion left

To who we are
We are infinite
Never ending in our potential
Never lacking in what's essential
All we are doing is adding colors
To each other

And tonight
You color me inside out

Crossing every line on my skin
With you paint brush lips
Like strawberry red rows of
Red wine
Dipped lips
Planting painted
Red lipstick kisses
In each others mouths
The way
Sweet-bay Magnolia petals
Are pictured in puddles
When they look down
Seeing their own refection
And letting themselves fall
Getting bruised by the gravel
We are each both petals and pavement
When we fall into each other
Tonight
And I remember one night
A while ago
We found an old telescope
Made out of plastic
With this incredibly inaccurate scope
That focused in sudden little jults
And it took us forever to find the moon
But when we did
And zoomed in
With one eye squinted
You
Looked up
To the night sky
And I
Have never seen anything like

The way the moon filled your eyes with stars
After you peered into each others faces


All the way across the atmospheric dimension
Sendings whispered apprehensions  

Of a pretentious existences into each others eyes
Every line had a wink at the end
And every wink had
A sly smile in between the chimney and the roof

So heres a little truth

Sometimes I wish that we
Could telescope each others sunsets
And find our own sunrises in each others eyes
Behind every blink
Orbiting

Fixed fastly to this axis
Through outer space time lapsing
Across boarder lines
Even though 
I know
We already beam every time we see each other
Like spring sunshine on icicles dripping drops down to
Oil spilled rainbows

We bowed our selves

From the glowing belly
Of our laughter induced paintings
Coloring waves of light
Overlapping though space

Traveling
Faster than the speed of sound
In our own directions
But our travels are soundly set
To inter-exist in this second
And I dont want to let go yet

But I will
Because we cant believe in things like this
It too much risk  to trust the
Daffodils blooming in the brisk
Frosty March mornings
Between bits of icy earth

So we pick them
And put them in little jars with stones
In our kitchen
And smile every time we walk by
I dont even really know why actually
I guess

They are just so pretty
And they smell nice too

Right next to the stems of
The white cherry blossoms
Which bend across our wooden window sill
Next to our sudsy little sink
And we know
That they wont grow anymore
After this
That this is their only glimmer
Of existence
So we hold them close
But time alway slip through our finger tips
Letting go
Of what we cant hold on to
Pulled farther apart
And I havent seen you 
In a while

The other night

I tried to telescope your eyes
Across boarded boarder lines
But I couldn't find you in the skies
And the moon only winked in my direction
Leaving me

To plant wishing seeds

In the ashes of 

Every wished on fallen satellite
I could find
Grown
In green houses

When its still to cold for sunshine
On a clear day
I still wish
That maybe
After
You’ve cleared away all the dead daffodils
From our dusty windowsill
And planted a orchard of candy apples
In the ribs of your new lover

That it will still make you smile
Every time you see
Sweet-bay magnolia petals bruised by gravel
And it reminds you of me


                                    The End.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
from the simple email, to now a pitch-perfect complication
of the internet - no performance poetry found here -
performance meaning singing, meaning cascade of rhymes
to help you memorise sentences and shake your hands
about - ekphrasis (εκφρασις) - performance stand-up
but not stand-out - i'm not complaining, i'm just feeling
the fear and loathing too - or according to M. Schmidt (
no, not Martin Schmitt, the ski-jumper, but then again
the two seem almost indistinguishable when said -
counter e.g. gnome - 'nome and schmi'dt'dt'dt'tt stutter
at the end of words rather than at the beginning before
the dam gates open for the word to flow out from).
besides the point, can you imagine Kant using the phrase
a fortiori in his work that uses only a priori and
a posteriori? i only came across it today - but given
the big *** systematic approaches, you'd find it hard
to squeeze in a fortiori into the complex narrative -
an entire blackboard of mathematical proof concerning
disallowing the end product to be ∞: in philosophy that means
explaining something on a universal basis, the entire human
concern for things said, things done, things owned -
inserting the term a fortiori where once came a priori
would be a disaster for the Kantian narrative, he'd
have to write another critique all on its own to insert that phrase
among a complete systematisation of that phrase -
well the funny thing is, this expression goes in line with that
i observed about left and right, hands eyes whatever -
indefinite a- and the definite -the articles and then an ism -
i sometimes feel funny or at least embarrassed that i keep
repeating this notice from time to time -
but you would expect me to include gravity too,
or how i used to be a flower thief in spring bordering
on winter, plucking the eager flowers in the frost around
the countryside - well, i revived that practice today,
plucked two stalks of lavender (they were pinching my
nose when i walked past with a beer) and something
resembling lavender... google-moment... if only they
created apps that could tell you what flower it is you're
trying to identify, search engine impromptu -
well... it's either a coin-toss between
summersweet (clethra alnifolia) or butterfly bush
(buddleia davidii) - but it could be something else -
cigarette, beer and sniffing lavender, just my kind of night -
i swear to god i once drank a lavender-flavoured beer,
or cider... i can't remember -
but by definition, when i look at philosophy books i feel
they're much too bound to something said earlier
and followed by something to support it -
or in the case of a fortiori the expanded-upon basics,
i.e.: from a / the stronger (thing) - which means
it's a dual-carriage way of saying what you want to say:
from a stronger thing - from the stronger thing -
in real life that's like: what we get from a telescope,
or? what we get from a microscope -
stars aplenty - G-Rex 5571 in the Zodiac constellation,
U80802Z from the constellation of Poseidon -
i mean, flimsy answers - sky's the limit - then
the azure cage hovers over us during the day and
we turn to daydreams packing apples into crates -
telescope: oh airy-fairy, somewhere far far away -
microscope: got that needle and thread with you?
well, whatever we have, we know that our minds are
not build for the omni- affix when affixed to anything,
esp. god. Jews never bothered with it - there are just
as many necessary limitations of a deity as there are
as many unnecessary limitations of our freedoms -
that's how you move away from big ideas and narratives
of a Kant, with his chequers of analytic / synthetic
a priori / a posteriori and concern yourself with
knives (indefinite) and scissors (definite) articulation of
language - hell, we can go down the road much further
and say something about indirect and direct articles -
pronouns are the prime subscribers -
you wouldn't talk to a Jihadi directly as you'd talk about
him indirectly - i shared that curiosity with a local
stranger-mate in a park once walking his dog,
an ex-banker - those boom-bomb boys are being prescribed
the same thing that the Lufftwaffe pilots were prescribed
(pervitin) - but i doubt they got their hands on the pure
medical stuff, they're probably on amphetamines...
oh the R.A.F.? yeah, drunk like skunks.
but just imagine rewriting the Critique with a fortiori
and a infirmiori - disobeying "correct" definition,
as already mentioned the pronouns composed from
articles, as in condensed to indistinguishable parameters -
a fortiori - from something stronger            -
             a infirmiori - from something weaker -
(as already stated, the original definition of
  a fortiori was - from a / the stronger [thing]) -
so the articles disappear and couple themselves to the word
thing (word meaning, no grammatical classification is
really necessary, because if grammatically classified it would
be too obstructive) - but because of this lack of
grammatical classification of the word thing,
we are already associating the definitions via only the
indefinite pronoun - rather than a definite pronoun (i.e. nothing),
it would be pointless to write definitions using a definite
pronoun - well, up to a point, i suppose that
suggesting both a fortiori and a infirmiori to be defined
as: from nothing stronger and / or weaker we can create
a self-mechanistic-propeller, a way of self-overcoming that
in the end arrives as self-knowledge, obviously the
ultimate purpose - and this goes against all solipsistic despair,
as it also goes against making too many comparisons
with others, some who are weaker than us, and some who
are stronger than us - for the stronger will make light
of one set of propositions as the weaker will make light
of another set of propositions to suit their demands -
this can only be seen in light of Kantian-Darwinism,
survival of the fittest and what not -
Kant had in mind something simply said historically in
a condensed sphere of reality, Darwinism kinda did away
with historical realism, soon after the English Renaissance
after the second world war, Darwinism picked up again,
as a way to shut off the murk of the Holocaust -
Elvis did his bit, the Beatles too, but once the imagination
dried up, people decided they wanted to travel back
in time to 10,000 B.C. - and you think artistic expression
will end up a concept prog rock album, or a cute 3 minute
synthesizer song while M.T.V. turns into a 16 year old's
******* of a baby? i'm going keep the acronym, and instead
call it MORAL TELEVISION, or? how to buy a ******
or pull out early - but obviously i'd get a wisecrack comeback
from Juno - see a preacher man anywhere around here?
Kantian algebraic (big words, small people, Belgian waffles
too):                                                    ­              a. / s. after
                                           (event) x.
a. / s. prior
                                     what qualifies?
                                    - historical hindsight -
                                    - the current historical catalyst(s),
        THE BIG BANG... or as i like to call our current history,
an interchange on the words: BIG BANG BLACK HOLE...
BANG A ******* HOLE... get a BIG CLOCK...
******* HOLE... which is what it looks like at night...
two catalysts overall - and boy we're speeding
to Groundhog day - the biggest changes in history were
some celebrity's haircut - that's relative to
what happened when the Treaty of Versailles was signed;
BIG HOLE BLACK BANG (and that's thanks to dark matter) -
but to be honest, if i'm given only these two historical
vectors to work with... i'm not surprised so many
Islamic youths are disfranchised, choosing a third,
Jannah - it seems like a natural thinking process that
will never make it into popular media -
just thinking about it probably warms the heart,
obviously to an extremely violent end -
but this is gone way beyond the heliocentric and
geocentric arguments - because up there, where you
can see the earth where the hell is Copernican East
or Copernican West? it's nice to know that the earth
isn't flat... but that won't help you reaching the Panama
Canal from Portugal... will it?!
Jeff Gaines Aug 2018
Mark A. Williams
                            SEPTEMBER 14, 1962 – JULY 23, 2018

___________________­

Wow Mark,

Was so, so saddened to hear this news. I haven't seen you in over ten years, but as kids, we had some amazing adventures, didn't we? Partying, camping and swimming at the Hudson lime pits. Mowing down on Pizza and pitchers of Pepsi (and as we grew up, BEER!) at Pizza Hut. (We knew the numbers to ALL the songs on that jukebox by heart!) Hanging out and looking at the stars through Budvido's telescope, listening to Doctor Demento. Laughing hysterically as we ran through Monty Python skits as everyone looked on in total puzzlement because THEY wouldn't discover them until YEARS later!

Building underground forts in the North Woods. You, Budvido, Zeke and I playing pinball at 7-11 for hours and hours. Watching Bands, chasing girls and playing Foosball or Pool at the Touch of Class Teen Club. You gave me my first Imported beer . . . a Lowenbrau. I will always owe my passion for those German beers to you and it was fitting that Budvido bestowed you with that moniker.

All through Jr. High, sharing a seat on the school bus. You, Matt, Tom, Buddy and I cruising around late night on our bikes for hours. Hanging around in the Jasmine Lakes sign with hijacked beer or getting free bags of Burgers from Burger Queen when they closed at night! Jousting with shopping carts on our bikes in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. Sitting up all night in Jimi's room after climbing in through the window or going on endless space cruises with him and Raymond in the Toyota.

(RIP Jimi Carlsen)

Sneaking into the nudest Colony and skinny dipping! Always cracking up at the school lunch table. Swimming in my pool and terrorizing my sister and her friends. (Allegedly) Trashing that crook Fast Eddie's produce stand after he refused to pay us for a full day of picking watermelons!

Good times, indeed . . . Some of my most precious memories.

I can only pray that you know that I wouldn't trade my youth or you in it for anything in the world and you will be sadly missed, Lowenbrau, my old friend.

I hope that where you are, your beers are ice cold and that you and Jimi aren't having to glue the Hookah  back together.

Jeff Gaines
July 28, 2018
Such a sad task, to say goodbye to a friend with last words that may never had been spoken up until then. As it happens, this friend and I often relished in our youthful exploits, but still ... I'd not seen him in ten years. Because ... life happens. He had fallen on hard times and was bouncing place to place and I too was moving and living all over. We had spoken on the phone here and there and that would have to suffice.

I  haven't posted in weeks and I haven't read in almost 2 months. THANK YOU to those who have the patience with me to still read me, even though I can't reciprocate at the moment. I will, when time permits, come back and catch up on all of you. It will take me days and days!
Michael Pick Aug 2013
Time seperates more than you'd imagine
I'd swear every day feels like a mile
We've become out of touch now and
You're out of my reach yet again
When all that I ever wanted was your hand
Time allowed me to have it only once
But you'd be mine, I could see through my eyes
I could imagine it for that moment
And I imagine that moment in daydreams
Infinite hearts crossed in my head
Our lives played out like campy broadway shows
But daydreams are nightmares in waking hours
The pain of lucid moments like grasping empty space
The cup will fall, the water spill
It's stepping on glass just to breathe
I have years of memories to draw upon
Times spanning distances that'd bring us closer
But memories are like looking through a telescope
So time seperates more than you can imagine
Joe Wilson Jan 2015
I’d love to sail the seven seas, I’d sail them all with you
And we would have adventures and fill our lives with mirth we two
And the spray would catch our faces as we looked across the sea
And gulls and whales and dolphins, companions they would be.

I’d love to sail to Zanzibar, and to islands in the sun
And search for a tree called the Cinnabar, as we sail the seas for fun
And the spray would fill our senses, while the sky would be so blue
And the stars at night would guide us, as around the world we flew.

I’d love to sail round the southern capes, and the frozen world where penguins go*
Where all the ice shines in the sun, and the land is covered in soft white snow
And the spray would strike our faces, but our hearts would be filled with hope
And with stars and a map to guide us, and the aid of our telescope.

©Joe Wilson – With the aid of a telescope…2015
VentEmotion Jun 2014
I took a far peek at your seek
and glanced into your eyes
Eyes wide shut.
You  sunk me in and inaugurated me
I peep in slightly to  be magnified
Star gazing at life's mystery ,  
Your Sky is ever so gracefully true of mendacity
Taken away by your master mind
                                      sailed away majestically ,
Accompanied my heart of blue
I look up, the twinkles run my mind and anchored ,
Settled to disappointment too.
I wondered why so down while life waves aimed up hi
I conceived a facade love story that just began in my mind ,
will this nightmare end in horror or in sweet serenade.?
A  question that ignited our flame
searching and fouling out with words of shame
Attending to this nautical phase,  unquestioned !
Redirected attention and navigated back to my heart.
I sail away back to the start and peep in your telescope once more,
There i realized
Distracted with sparks and accumulated the mind with blind truth.
I fooled myself in falling in love with a fool  .
İlayda Korkmaz Jul 2018
The man on the moon was busy that day,
With all the preparations underway,
For it was the one day his neighbors would pay him attention.
His home would be more interesting than a constellation,
For it was the day of the occultation.

Ever since the moon landing,
            And since his poor soul opted for hiding,
The celestial man had been planning his big reveal,
To show the world that he, indeed, existed,
And was willing to be befriended.

What better day could he have chosen,
Than the day of the eclipse.
The day in which the most earthling eyes would be pointing the natural satellite.
The ever present, but not always visible ball in white.
That day it would be red and ******.
The planet’s one and only kite.

So the man in the moon prepared signs,
Meticulously home-made and home-drawn every single one.
He had been studying human languages and was fascinated by them,
He would be greeting the earthlings in 6500 different tongues,
And didn’t forget to do little drawings on the sides.

About an hour too early he had finished decorating,
So he took his folding chair and tray of food,
He brought his moon pie, moon cakes, and some local cheese,
He also brought some moon flower tea for drinking.
Then he started waiting, waiting until his home turned red.

When the time came,
He remembered,
He had forgotten the most essential of his supplies,
And as the humans started looking,
He ran home to get his telescope.
He wanted humans to see him of course,
But he also wished to see realization dawning on faces on earth all around.
In his panic, on his way, he knocked all decorations down to the ground.
Trying to desperately locate his telescope,
He spent a few too many hours away from his post.

When he finally returned to his folding chair,
Accompanied by his telescope,
The moon was red no more,
And all the humans had gone to sleep,
So he bowed his head and dropped his eyes,
But as he was about to go back to his house in the skies,
He caught, through his telescope, a glimpse of a human,
Dreamily looking at the heavens,
Who had stayed up, even after the eclipse was over,
Because that young human didn’t care that the spectacle had ended,
But loved the sight of the moon all the time.

The man on the moon went to bed joyful that night,
For he had made an earthling friend,
Who would look lovingly at the moon,
Even when it wasn’t red,
Who found the moon wonderful and interesting,
Even in its everyday self.
Karijinbba Jul 2018
I STILL EXIST- I STILL EXIST
My pen writes
I still Exist

and an empty feeling engulfs me
I am painting a purple tree
I tell my family counselor
That the paint reminds me
Of arsenic Greek cheese dust
That a human predator
two faced fiancee
placed on my green salad in 1976
He said he would teach me how Greeks killed with love at sea
Then kindly offered
To bring
breakfast and lunch
for me in bed
(Ladden with poison)
While I ate it he danced Zorba the Greek!
His jealous raicist medeas mistresses knew his past crimes
I didn't I was very naive
his superstitious ignorant parents twelve people  asked him to Get rid of me baby and all

Overdosed with pitocin for a cow
giving birth was a torture
then blood thinners
were added to slowly
end my life
A hate crime because I a sub human born in Mexico not Greece
The poisons caused
a chest malformation of my daughter requiring surgery
later in life was mis-diagnosed
as pectus scavatum
but I knew better it was
attempted ******
a chilling secret I was so ashamed to reveal

I did escape my kids and me
we survived  the memory
of my true love's loving ways
In America saved me from certain death there I was 75 lbs
When I escaped Hell
Greece
But salads gave me
Nausea through the years
I could never recall why

Painting gets my mind
Off painful memories
resurficing examining my life understanding me and others

I have many regrets unwittingly
my loving innermost feelings
remained trapped inside
and I lost my true love
in my dead calm silence of pain
Foolish online Ink
One involuntary bad deed
In Veracruz
Two SAD songs

My shrink says I have a beautiful
Soul a relentles spirit
That I managed to do better then
Most despite hellish adversity
A childhood marred with
heartbreak a trail of
Graves tree stumps
Coffin and treassures
Spirit breath of life and death
  
My hybrid race was secret
Poverty lack of Rhogam
My father the Apocalyto
Hero killed by MEX Feds
Who stole my Land
We are indigenous
Purhepecha tribe
The enemy of the Aztecs
So me my father's little queen of the forest his STAR could
Fly high and zoar
He was the love of my life
My dad David

A few days of effexor RX can bring about amnesia to block old kidnapping memories of turture resurficing unsolicited
Effexor to stop tears
regulating serotonin disrupted
After a car accident with traumatic head injury concoussion brain swelling so much that falling asleep for three months was impossible

MD prescribed just a trial
few warp eight mind bending Effexsors serotonin reuptakers
For only fifteen days
Half of thirty seven mg
Tears stopped immediatly a calmnesss
self assured old me demeanor
re-emerged I remember the arsenic and blood thiner injections the faces of sadistic jealous women but it didn't hurt

But soon my heart began to speed up so fast I could hear it beating in my ears at lowest dose

so the higher dose was not allowed.
Side effects if used longer than six months could make the
face to twich! who needs that!

So therapy ended slowly redusing small to smallest dosages for fifteen days
treatment ended
Don't like messing with my brain

Today I enjoy simple pleasures
echos born like me in
In the atlantic mystery

family time my lifetime best
best lover best Mother
nest friend to me myself
Remembering those few
Souls
Who deared greatly
their wisdom and foresigh to bet
On my future my light myself!
my father's little
Queen of the forest tribute to
My Once Upon A Time
True love his love songs
His poems quickening me
Awaking me
He was the love
Of my life my true love JPC/RC

He showed me he loved me
But he never could "tell me"
He loved me all my fault
Thinking back not ever
any other man told me
he loved me one or two boys wanted something from me freely given or taken by force from me
I didn't want them at all
No person growing up
Ever
Told me they loved me and most showed me my life didn't matter
many of my civil rights were violated throughout my life by thugs hainas had more charm
Only my father David San chez
and later my adoptive Mother mommy dearest told me once she loved me showed me she cared.
My children tell me and show me
They love me
Sometimes they hate me too
sadly they are under the spell of deadly sterile drug user enemies who assassinate my character lie and slander me to my grown daughters and I have now become estranged until they figure all out on their own so they learn to fight woolves in sheeps clothing and understand treason
and ungratefulness towards their own mother
There was only one man I loved
The MOST on this whole wide world
His ink scripted love remained the good intermigled with evil
Forever a part of me
My Lord Shiva my first teacher
My sage my guru
My Lancelott
Me  first love my last love
my tree of life he was
The only man I ever loved
and lost
Looking back
I thank G** King Jesus
King Arthur
And few other men who
Traveled in and out my door
Only one had my lock's key
I am glad you came along
I sing this last song
In memory of all the good
The bad and very bad
The few nefarious vipers I kissed
I forgive you all forgive you me for NOT
Understanding you
For loving those fellowmen
Who didn't know how to love me back
I wave my last
Good bye
I
Will
In your light and my own
Pray for you and me

As for the love of my life
"You are like a prayer
In church to God"
"I remembet you,
as someone something
VERY DEAR and precious"
You were the Best
You touched my STAR
And my starry skies sparkle
With your light remember me
in the same light my love
Look me up with your telescope
When you watch the stars
From your sun roof
In your bedroom

Find my Aries Constelation
For there is
My home
Without
You
I've taken with me a piece
Of Veracruz
A Mothers Day surprise
at the Hilton
raised in your arms on a warm June at a  bar
Where i felt like a bride
your bride

I almost asked you then and there to throw a big party
for you and me
But the monastery's dead silence
Growing up isolated
Silenced the spontaniety
Of thought you required of me
yet again!You regressed me you
tried in so many ways for me to
tell you  "I love you I am sorry
I'll marry you!"
All over again
I adored you remember this
Always.
Look me up with your telescope I AM
in The Aries Constelation I am Aprils daisy Aries diamond a
Yelow Self Existing Star says the Tzolkin Star Seed
Galactic seed always flowering....Enter me
Yours Always.
~~~~~~~
Revised 11-29th-2018
Excerpt from my memoir
auto biography
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
one llucy Oct 2014
Why is everything I desire miles away?

Only to be seen through a looking glass.

Who would have guessed I was blind,

And looking through the wrong side of a telescope?

All along I thought my happiness was just
                                                                         out
                                                                                 of
                                                                                      reach.
Sam Clemens Mar 2014
Looking through the telescope
I swear
I saw
your eyes
brandon nagley Aug 2015
When I looketh into
Mine reyna's Asiatic telescope marble's
I canst seeith, all of God's creation;
And all the time I seeith
Shooting stars
Passeth by
As the comos
Is full
Of life.




©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry.
©Earl Jane dedication
haley Mar 2014
I think of you often
i hardly remember you, so i suppose i’m not really thinking of you

maybe it’s more like i’m thinking of the idea of you
you’re a foggy landscape in the back of my consciousness

your name is a taste that comes only in the fleeting space between dreams
my mind has lost the ability to pronounce its syllables

looking back on “us” is sort of like looking at something right under your nose with the wrong end of a telescope
the image is distorted and far too magnified to see
any semblance of a bigger picture

to this day i still wonder what exactly it could have been
what we could have been
had we changed our views
Calvin Watson Jan 2015
Your eyes shine intensely
So intense
The midday sun seems so dark
They possess
This intense luminescence
They tease me like a planet
That longs to be explored
I would telescope them
As an astronomer admires the night sky
Peering into them
Looking to traverse through your mind
Get lost within
Reveling in the beauty that is such
Stumble across the kind magnificence
That is your gentle soul
A Doubles Oct 2018
I've been afloat,
Captain a boat.
Control the motion in the ocean 'til I'm getting soaked.
In a skull,
Cross bones
One eyed pirate and the sea men found the treasure trove.
Drop the anchor on a beach,
In a cove,
Burying it so deep
Dig a hole.
I can't let nobody see,
Telescope.
*** the spot,
Exit marks and leave the dock.
Replace 'a' with 'her' When said with a Birmingham accent, they sound the same.
Abner Ros Nov 2020
Above was a canvas, splashed with more stars than anyone could count, except Lorence. Stars shined atop the lavender and cobalt backdrop and encircled the warm glow of the Moon, with hundreds of thousands of eager eyes watching on as a blissful light danced across the sky. Most witnessed this display through their bedroom windows in the early hours of the morning, but some had different ideas. Some had bigger ideas.

The loud creaking was quickly subdued as Lorence, shuffling up the stairs on all fours, held a thick blanket against the aged wood and mouthed a quiet shush to the ground beneath him, as loud footsteps approached from above.  
“What are you doing awake?” Mumbled a lofty bearded man, still dreaming.
Lorence froze, like a prisoner caught tunnelling to freedom.
“It’s a full moon tonight!” He replied, far too energetically for this early hour.
“Alright. Well, get to bed.” His dad smiled. “And get that thing off of your back,” he gestured towards the bulky telescope.

After his dad left, Lorence’s mission continued as he waddled towards the balcony with his blanket around him and telescope clutched by both hands. The magnifying light from above entranced Lorence as he stood outside the balcony door, his eyes reflected the unspeakably stunning gig in the sky. A white light suddenly appearing in a nearby house broke the spell causing Lorence to rub his eyes dry and set the telescope down. He fiddled with it for a moment before peering through the fogged eyepiece. Navigating the instrument towards the window of the lit red-brick house, he spotted a white-haired lady comfortably lounging on the patio, fitted with a smile. Lorence then knew his mission wasn't yet over.

The friendly aged face grinned at the boy from her solitude, as she looked to the heavens, basking in the glory of Orion’s Belt as it wrapped around the sky like a bandage on a wound. She squinted, adjusting her eyes to the pits of black between the pearls of the night, and the eternal unease they brought on – the emptiness of her home a reminder of her perpetual loneliness. She dealt with these lingering thoughts through rhythmically snapping her fingers to some imagined tune in her head, her favourite at the time was Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry Be Happy', which was always bound to inspire glee.

With a large yawn, Lorence darted his eyes around the woman’s house, observing the unkempt lawn resulting in excess shrubbery, the flickering lights almost mirroring her compulsive clicks and the unusually shaded mould growing on the side of her house like a festering wound. The lady, still smiling, still clicking, raised her left hand and signalled to the boy to join her in her stargazing. Getting to his feet, Lorence slung the telescope over his shoulder as he quietly navigated the dim hallway and tiptoed downstairs one step at a time.

Now outside, Lorence raised his hand to lock the door behind him, clumsily dropping the keys on the porch decking and freezing him in place. Realising the house remained asleep, he collected the keys and continued his mission.  As he approached the neighbour’s house, he followed the sound of the rhythmic clicking. Peering over the side gate, he saw the woman, still staring at the stars.

“There’s a better view from here!” She proclaimed, without turning towards him.
Lorence fiddled with the latch on the gate and moved to stand beside her.
“I didn’t realize I had a fellow stargazer living so close,” she grinned, with her eyes still to the skies.
“My dad bought me a telescope for my birthday last year. I try to use it every night, but he doesn't let me stay up late.”

Lorence, noticing the woman’s unbroken gaze, mirrored her as he looked up. The pair now stood, entranced by the astronomical splendour above them. For the first time in a long time, having someone to share in her love of the skies, the old woman shed a tear.  

The boy glanced and noticed the reflection of the bright display on the woman’s cheek.

In their moment of pure bliss, taking in the wonders above them, the world around them stood still, until a loud noise penetrated the moment, startling Lorence.

“Did you hear that?” His attention diverted from the sky.

Before she could respond, the noise intensified until it became deafening. The once picturesque sky lit up to a blinding white. And darkness followed.
smallhands Mar 2017
over the years the line "this dream is, this dream is in a telescope now"
has meant something but only lately did I realise what it means,
at least, in one facet-
the ideals swirling in my head, these things I think I want, these stories and scenes that infatuate me until I'm speechless-
they are far behind now, not because I changed my mind,
but because I grew up
and it takes a telescope to see them now

-c.j.
inspired by the song "the greatest light is the greatest shade" by the Joy Formidable
Jake Bentley Mar 2012
Ever since I was five, I thought I knew it all,
With one glance into the microscopic telescope,
I could see the whole universe.

When I grew up I learned to read and write,
And even at a young age I knew big "werds"
But never did I think at the experienced age of five
To stop and think if I was alive.

So I stopped to feel the world turn
And to see the clouds move.
Just for a moment to recognize the five-year-old surprise.

But I remember on that day, the Earth and the clouds--
The altercation overtook He,
And only then would I know there was much more
Than five-year-old me.
its very difficult to talk about my early childhood, and this is the best attempt I've had in awhile.
Looking up at the full Moon
the closest it comes this year
out on my deck after work
through my childhood telescope.

A full Moon through a telescope is really something to behold;
Especially when the Moon appears
up to 14% larger and 30% brighter
than it does on the dimmest of full Moons.
-
T'ai Chi basking in the Moonbath;
The Sky dimly fluoresces in chilled Air
as Landscape glows with moonlit Auras;
This is truly a magical near-annual moment.
(Supermoons happen about every 14 full Moons)

I thank you; Moon and Night.
I thank you; Khonsu and Nephthys.
I thank you; Selene and  Nyx.
I thank you; Luna and Nox

Happy Supermoon 2013.
Khonsu and Nephthys are the Egyptian god of the Moon and goddess Night, respectively.
Selene and Nyx are the Greek equivalent goddesses.
Luna and Nox are the Roman equivalent goddessess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoon
A Mareship Jul 2014
I sat cross legged on the balcony as he rolled me a cigarette. He didn't smoke but he rolled perfectly. His perfectionism was killing me.
"The other night I filmed myself on my webcam." he said, rolling, rolling, thumbs turned inward. "I filmed myself going to sleep. I wanted to see if I talked or had nightmares or whatever..."
"Yeah..."
"So I watched the film back this morning. Turns out, I woke up in the middle of the night and chucked all of my things onto the floor. My books, my notepad, everything. It was like watching Big Brother or something. I mean, it was me, but it wasn’t me. I would never chuck my books onto the floor."
"Well…we all think that we would never chuck our books onto the floor, but we do don’t we? Hey you can really see the stars out here."
"I know. It's wonderful with a telescope. I have a very good telescope."
"Where is it?"
"Upstairs. We have a space gazing window. It’s my telescope but Frederick likes it too. But then he always smudges up the lens." He handed me the cigarette, thin as candy and gummed down with precision. "I could teach you about space."
"Oh, please, I'd never take it in."
"Yes you would."
I lit the cigarette and the paper glowed.
"I just like looking."
'You can't just look and not know. You won't even know what you're looking at."
I looked at him.
"Yeah, I know."
Ariella May 2014
she had a telescope in her pocket.
one of those cool tiny ones, like a pirate might have
if he were searching for buried treasure.
she told me it was magic, let her see
enchanted things
like fairies and mermaids
and little trolls with fuzzy hair.
they were scared of normal people.
they were really shy, she said
but they were real and alive,
breathing air and eating brunch
and taking baths
like us.

she’d look through her telescope when we walked to school
or through the park
lost in it, like she wasn't even there next to me
but somewhere else, on an island
that no one had a map of.
sometimes she’d point, say
“look! in that tree, right there!”
so I’d squint and try to see
what only she could see
but all I’d see was some leaves
or a nest
or nothing at all.

sometimes I’d lie next to her on the lawn
and close my eyes.
and she could breathe an image behind my closed eyelids
and I could feel the breeze as fairies flew by,
and hear the mermaids’ tails sweeping against toasted rocks
and it was like I’d rowed a ship
across that ocean to her island
I’d found the map, I was next to her,
and the world was just as she said it was--
magical.
but the difference between me and her was
she could open her eyes, and still see it all.
but I’d open my eyes, and all I’d see
was some leaves
or a nest
or nothing at all.
"Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing." -Bill Cosby
Rafael Alfonzo Mar 2015
A bird rests its wings
On the thin disfigured fingers of
The trees branches
Reaching ever so helplessly
To pull the clouds from the sky

And the breeze beats them to the stroke –

The wrinkled eyes of the painter grin in an open field
With a canvas the bristle has yet to caress
Before rolling it up
Like a chess mat
Or a map

He taps it shut like a telescope
Departing for home where there is a woman waiting for him
To inhale her sweet aroma
To swallow the food she’s prepared
To delicately draw the hair
Falling over her face
And tuck it behind her ear
And whisper the words
And brush her skin with quiet hand-language

And he will not be beaten
To the stroke

(c) 2015
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
for any of my work to have any meaning, i can only suggested browsing Empedocles (of Acragas), in saying that, i suggest the name, primarily it's a form of philosophy, written in poetic form... in that it exhausts the need for poetic technique: i.e., there's more to see, than actually hear.

- just like i don't understand people who fake doing the maestro whenever they listen to classical music, in the same vein: your greengroccer... your plumber... your electricians.... god forbid you t.v. guy....  don't translate that oddity in, modern music and imitating drummers... i get air guitar, i get air maestro... no one really bother the drumming brigade, when i listen to classical music, i am looking for a maestro, when i listen to contemporary music i, want a drummer, bad; ****! St. Thomas' gospel is becoming real... like i really, really, need a *** change.... never mind the 50cl of whiskey waiting for me, or sasha foxxx's eyes... the job? hammer in a thousand nails... industrialise ***, what do you get? a **** economy... why would god enter the equation if all the problems are theological self-made-heresy? it's not even that *** sells, and god gives gives rise to stampedes... what with the Koran and oil, are we counting to state the same arithmetic... i mean: the industrialisation of ***... nothing that hurts, nothing but a quip... that sorta of definition belongs in China or India with a billion participants... what we have is a case of mouthing off the competitors, when you're actually chihuahua in the Sahara of expectation.... i'm as mad as the numbers say i am... personal stories are non-essential.... i included mine for added effect... or a presumtpion that i might: acknowledged as having said anything in total....counter to english existentialism, so wholly preoccpupied with zoos and biology as the only scientific resource... i can't agree to it making sense, in the standard item-basis-list of following-up an argument... that dire, fake or indeed couch-sloth desert-prune is only half of *σ
... i mean there's a tendency of a natural disparity, to ensure a dialectical health of any if all argument... σ = per se... it's because there no single, identifiable argument, the one current is a vogue argument, in the realm of zeitgeist parameters... it's not the only one... the world will move on... it's only that at the zenith of civilisation, we are only bound to industrialise ***, and art is, as according to W. Benjamin, in a state of: ditto, in the age of machanical, reproduction... easier said than... and so done... i feel the anaesthetic needle doing the suggested thing, of numbing me... it's not when art is given onto this Moloch-like altar... it's when *** is industrially-scaled to require cinema... and the quickie-dip of dimension having repertoire in threes... i have no care to ensure there's a narrative and a frenzy... i just care to say: there's a narrative, and a frenzy.... that one has no insurance, and that the other has all the resources that would otherwise invole a familial life... which now, evidently, is prone to same-*** affiliations than compliment-*** affiliations... meaning less art from the **** realm, and more art from the hetero or h-quasi realm (origin ****)... you need to talk about the cushions, if you're going to sleep in the bed, ****'s sake! -

to really live by the "rules" of existentialism,
to live an existential doctrine,
is to really: live an uneventful life,
or should i say: rather ordinary?
  well... i wouldn't go as far as saying it
might be boring, just... un-spectacular.

and all it takes it five beers and, oh, about
6 miles of wet wintry cement,
   and o.t.t.'s album blumenkraft,
with the crescendo song: billy the kid strikes back...

walk 6 or 7 miles in winter
and you come back into a warm abode
and you have skeleton hands...
numb from the cold...
but in england winter is different
than on the continent...
a wet winter (which is very english)
is worse than a dry winter (which is
continental)...
  as honesty goes... -18C in a dry winter
is probably not as bad as -1C in a wet
winter...
    so there's me, completely
****-faced watching the t.v. series
this is us, and one of the characters is
a black kid that gets adopted by
a white family when
    one of the triplets of the white family
dies in child-birth,
and he finds his biological father...
and also a mid-life crisis:
white folks told me to excell,
so he does,
   black daddy was a poet and played
the piano...
and he experiences a mild
schizophrenia... see, it's not a scary word,
i mean: without the extreme symptoms...
   a split-mind...
thankfully i cushioned mine on bilingualism...
and i have been ever since: bilingual -
nothing to be proud of,
   after all: there's the genius polymath...
but it's not about that: it's about winter...
winters in england are so different to
winters on the continent...
the grey skies? oh, that's here all year...
    talk about being a weather man
in Saudi Arabia, most of them moved to England:
where the action is...
          
but really, i can't imagine why existentialism
as a movement, culminated in the zenith
it achieved (precursor movement?
phenomenology)
        oh yah yah: were nieche, very Kensington,
very, Chiswick...

but to really appreciate an existentialist
dogma, a truly uneventful life...
   and given that existentialism in the French
vein akin to Kant but not so much Heidegger
lends itself to the cartesian maxim...
well... that's because it kinda has to,
but not really...

  Kant took out i think and merely focused on that,
his biography goes along the lines of:
a ritual walker, stayed in one place,
    a rook of the clock, i couldn't exactly call him
a pawn... nonetheless...
             a very uneventful life...
why? thought.
    
    what's the most interesting thing i've done today?
i thought, or, i had a thought (a / the article scissors
cutting off the -ism)...
and that's about it...
    had a thought...
                   i hit the gong that thus translates into
the post ergo / therefore of i am,
   and then i realised: i wasn't motivated enough
by my thought: to do much!
              
historically speaking, my writing can only be placed
into a dynamic of being called post-existentialism,
it's not boasting, it's just a plain fact,
   like Monday will be St. Valentine's day, 2017...
and some men collect stamps,
   and some men like fishing,
    and some men have the habit of writing about
things that are, a bit like Avogardo's constant,
meaning they'd love to speak about these things
over, and over again, and never get bored of them,
or for that matter: start families.

strange how it works, have it all...
       or have none of it, to later only have that one
vector that's opposite of mortal, ******...
        or have both, in a way,
and be later traced to some Shakespearean controversy
about a mistaken identity...
well... there's that too.

that must be it, existentialism, and the most,
ordinary life...
         pause for what, akin to something else i wrote
about beginning the thought catching
up to the walk a few days earlier which began
with z and i and diacritical marks,
how northern slavs wouldn't necessarily disrespect
the already present diacritical mark
on the ι (iota), i.e. regarding acute z (ź),
and how if z & i appear together, i.e.
    z and immediately after it, i... you don't bother
writing an acute version of z,
   as a southern slav (balkan) might,
with his caron (ž)...

or a bit like stating the old chestnut of universals
vs. particulars...
   well... they can say what they like about
the cheapness of writing in this medium
but there is nothing so gut-wrenching as a deleted
passage, that will never return...
    immediate heartache... there on the screen,
the computer decides to "have a mind of its own"
moment by either your carelessness
          or the computer's defects and: ****!
gone, a shift+ and suddenly... writing while not
looking at the keyboard, as you do... ****!
gone... gone baby... gone...
    and if that's not analogy of: a lesson
in placing your hands correctly onto the computer
does me: you're looking at the keyboard
and not at the screen...

  how about writing with my eyes closed?
  haven't seen anyone attempt that...

here goes:

    and with that i give you hades...

not bad, i should try it more often... it's not believable
because it's actually correct and has no mistakes....
*******.

alternative? and with that i give you sheol...
   still the same... double *******.

((   ((
    
and that's all it takes... the part where you let go,
because you have to:
  the regret can be there, but soon has to
be overruled...
   it mattered at the zenith of logic,
it was really there, for such a brief moment,
i could call it a study in how you can ****
a very lucid moment, and then have to "resort",
but, rather: merely accepting it as having no place
in the overall composition...
    so to the windowsill, finishing off
blackbeard (whiskey and coca cola and
a cigarette)... changing the aura from
o.t.t.'s album taken home from the "marathon"
(yes, the prime existential tool is the transcendence
of synonyms, encouraging misnomers
or: how to not build dams, or become custard
beavers, looking for words...
    the river, every time, always looking at a river...
the sea and the people and time...
   rivers occupy an infinite concept of space
and the change within such a Thermopylae,
as it might give you indigestion,
or the highest serving rank of memory...
the sea and the people don't scare me,
and it's hardly a thing of admiration...
its just a sight of pulverisation, a headache...
the river, the solitude, and the fact that local
newspapers have adverts of only lonely women...
sure, read a national newspaper and there
are women seeking men, women seeking women,
men seeking women, men seeking men...
but look at a local, a local newspaper: only women
advertising themselves for candles and firecrackers...
it seams men were always programmed (a priori)
        into the gravitas of solitude...
what i really meant to say: existentialistic writings
can appear foreboding with the ditto...
with the perception that there's this ulterior,
dark-seeded motive...
      i just thought about bypassing the thesaurus,
like some writers do,
    you can spot it when they do,
a word they looked up from their labour
of lumberjacking the keyboard
sticks out like a modern statue, or a broken finger,
a word: right off the pages of a thesaurus...
   i just mean that there's nothing sinister enclosed in
the said "brackets"...  there's nothing additional about it,
but as narratives go... you sometimes want to bypass
Sherlock Holmes and write a synonym-antonym,
you want to bypass the thesaurus, content with your
own vocab riches, but too "lazy" / engrossed in
what's actually coming...
say, that interlude, a cigarette, finishing off the whiskey,
with the glass freezing and having a layer of ice
around it... and: why i'll never be part of the nirvana's
or the doors' cult...
     pearl jam's indifference, from their second album.

so it's sometimes thereuputic letting go,
  after all, no one built a house on the summit of Everest,
if i wrote something of such clarifying quality,
and lost it... i can only apply an imagery of having seen it,
the best i can suggest that i wrote something
akin to 1 + 1 = 2, and then accidently deleted it...
and that's the sad part,
universals as vowels, particulars like consonants,
    even numbers akin to 2 and odd numbers akin to 1
(divided into decimals, or the wormhole of 0.123456 etc.) -
it was a beautiful sight, and then, again: ****!
gone... like a magician doing a trick
   and then... the sadness of having lost the technique
to recreate it...
well, the best i can do to recreate it is based
on a short argument...
   if universals and particulars (relying on the fact
that both have a plural form,
  i.e. so not 1 in 1, but the many of 1,
   and akin to: the 1 in many, and the many in many,
and the 1 in 1 / focus, something identifiable) -
or loosely universals like vowels, and particulars like consonants,
but given the two experience diacritical distinction /
additions... i could best remember what i wrote
as: 1 e.g. particular, if divided: fractions, and after
fractions: decimals...
                2 e.g. universal, if divided: whole numbers,
and after whole numbers fractions, and later decimals...
   so on and so forth with 3 (particular), 4 (universal),
     5 (p.), 6 (u.)...
                 a bit like having your own telescope
and microscope, just looking at what we make silence
of, our two ways of encoding what could have,
or should have been said, that was nonetheless said,
transcending our contemporaries as, what can only
be described as... an echo, lost in the caves of aeons...

this promenade begun with something to z & i...
or z, i, ι, ź and ž (what a nice pentagram,
i was watching the six nation's match
between wales and england,
and lo! behold... a goat at the fore!
  mind you, i took a cigarette break when they scored
their two tries).
Cardiff? yeah, been there once...
         Poland v Wales qualifying match,
donning a polish football shirt, got approached
by two young welsh girls saying: your team is ****...
started giving it the local... how fast they ran away...
and they say we laugh more than we cry,
   and i could be the one to snigger a sly laugh at
that memory, but cinema memory says to me:
time to usher in the reverse-psychology,
calling white black, and laughter crying...
        or as i like to call it, the paradox marriage
that has, literally not tentacle hold on the world,
   the bilingual marriage,
             lodged deep inside my head,
most recognisable by my theory study of diacritical
marks, or actually having noticed them,
and having no real, authentic accent to remind me
that i belong in either geography...
         whether from beginning, or toward an end...
some call it acting, some call it faking,
  i call it: just what i was given, or, more precisely:
what i earned... and that was to no good use...
        unless... this is the best expression of what the foundations
look like.

what was i thinking of? ah!

   it just involved the σ                       ς roundabout...
the aesthetic variation for one,
but on another investigation, well, sigma, total, sum,
and how be obey it like a golden ratio or pi,
   it's just auto-suggestive of how we are never truly
synchronised in our arguments...
   but, "paradoxically", or should i say: by a miracle,
make up the greatest potent to have an argument...
  we can never truly really synchronises ourselves
to fill the boots of expressing an utopian dream,
otherwise we wouldn't dream... period...
  so bye bye Freud and that method of escapism...
     we already ensured that, if they be our creation,
the gods are already at war with the Titans...
      i'll actually acknowledge that in an age of
pop philosophy in that Greece was, a place of allowing
a fertility of thought and later popularising it
(we don't live in times where there's a fertility consecrated
on the altar of thought, or what philosophy is, thinking per se /
for itself... innovators! scientists! up-starts!
or as some might say, the other pronoun battle,
the one without genitals involved,
as could only be sooner said:
  per se, or per per...
                       in in...
nothing sexualised... it's only that there's a limit in pronouns,
per se / in itself must come across the muddle
regarding the moment when people lose their
identity and begin their life with: ? thought
rather than i think,
       i can't place it anywhere else than inside my head,
better there than in the genitals,
   or wasn't Jesus circumcised and the zeitgeist
of St. Thomas' gospel and the transgender movment?
    the church is old, and counter-authoritarian,
it's just a tired institution, so it has no actual authenticity
over the current changes in society,
    might as well call onto Islam to move the chess pieces...
or that's what i'm currently seeing...
   i was just thinking about a logical limit in language,
e.g. timbaland's song the way i are...
   there really is a logical limit on how far you can
suddenly just forget grammar...
            so why begin with per se?
                 at best described as a cogitans (
Del Maximo Dec 2011
from full to three fourths, to half, to quarter
then from darkness back to new
all the moon’s phases in mere minutes
I’ve seen pictures on the internet
a beautiful sight to behold
to watch her silvery bleu cheese
turn into a reddish cantaloupe
perhaps her face is embarrassed
to admit its heavenly glow
is but the sun’s reflection
perhaps she’s forgotten her place
in the earth’s natural order
she is not less, but equal
yin to sun’s yang
lost in the moment
she changes her mind quickly
emerging from earth’s shadow
she feels contentment in sun’s warmth

once in January’s wee hours
so very long ago
I spent the night outside
as backyard astronomer
telescope at the ready
awaiting a comet’s promise
a party of others crescendoed
suspense’s energy and excitement
but their numbers quickly waned
with the fogging of my telescope lens
coldness prevailing over patience
I sat alone for hours hanging on to hope
in the company of trash cans
sitting in silence as solemn sentinel
they said it would light one third of the sky
ONE THIRD!
a sight never to be seen again in lifetimes
I waited for its brightness and brilliance
until dawn started to peek out
over the eastern horizon
just then a sparkle of light preceded the rising sun
is this it?
could this be Kohoutek?
it seemed to slowly climb into the morning
as it approached and grew bigger
I realized it was just an airplane
what a rip off
what a wasted night
I was robbed
cruelly cast in the role of Kohoutek’s fool
nothing to do now
but bring my frozen telescope inside
and jump into a nice warm bed

will she be kinder?
will Luna eclipse that memory?
will her heavenly glory
be worth the cold and the wait?
I sat on the edge of my mattress
gathering the covers upon my shoulders
should I go?
nah
maybe next time
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
© December 11, 2011

— The End —