"throned" poems
Hymn to Aphrodite
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor!
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress, and beguiler!
I implore you, dread mistress, discipline me no longer
with love's anguish!
But come to me once again in kindness,
heeding my prayers as you have done before;
O, come Divine One, descend once again from
heaven's golden dominions!
Your chariot yoked to love's consecrated doves,
their multitudinous pinions aflutter,
you once came gliding from the utmost heights, to
the dark-bosomed earth.
Swiftly they came and vanished, leaving you,
O my Goddess, smiling, your face eternally beautiful,
asking me what unfathomable longing compelled me
to cry out.
Asking me what I sought in my hopeless, bewildered desire.
Asking, "Who has harmed you, why are you so alarmed,
my poor Sappho? Whom should
Persuasion summon here?"
"Though today she flees love, soon she will pursue you;
spurning love's gifts, soon she shall return them;
tomorrow she will woo you,
however unwillingly!"
Come to me now, most Holy Aphrodite!
Release me from my heavy heartache and anguish;
grant me all I request, be once again
my ally and protector!
"Hymn to Aphrodite" is the only poem by Sappho of ****** to survive in its entirety. The poem survived intact because it was quoted in full by Dionysus, a Roman orator, in his "On Literary Composition," published around 30 B.C. A number of Sappho's poems mention or are addressed to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It is believed that Sappho may have belonged to a cult that worshiped Aphrodite with songs and poetry. If so, "Hymn to Aphrodite" may have been composed for performance within the cult. We do know that Sappho was held in very high regard. For instance, when Sappho visited Syracuse the residents were so honored they erected a statue to commemorate the occasion! During Sappho's lifetime, coins of ****** were minted with her image. Furthermore, Sappho was called "the Tenth Muse" and the other nine were goddesses. Keywords/Tags: Sapphic, Sappho, ****** translation, ancient Greek, hymn, Aphrodite, Zeus, daughter, immortal, goddess, holy, lady, heaven, enchantress, enchantment, love potion, charm, spell, persuasion, beguiler, beguilement, mistress, discipline, ********** prayer, prayers, chariot, heaven, descent, ally, protector, lust, desire, passion, longing, *** crush, girlfriend, women, grief
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020 at 2:51 AM UTC
Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.
Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.
To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.
Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.
Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.
Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).
10.2k
XII. TO HERA (5 lines)
(ll. 1-5) I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of
the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister
and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus, -- the glorious one whom
all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honour even
as Zeus who delights in thunder.
7.2k
Throned in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!
Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee
Slay me not in this distress and anguish,
Lady of beauty.
Hither come as once before thou camest,
When from afar thou heard'st my voice lamenting,
Heard'st and camest, leaving thy glorious father's Palace golden,
Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;
Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,
Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven
Down through the ether.
Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,
All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,
Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,
Why now I called thee;
What for my maddened heart I most was longing.
"Whom," thou criest, "dost wish that sweet Persuasion
Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?
Who is it wrongs thee?
"For, though now he flies, he soon shall follow,
Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them.
Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee
Even though thou wouldst not."
Come then now, dear goddess, and release me
From my anguish. All my heart's desiring
Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,
Be thou my ally.
6.1k
Hymn to Aphrodite
by Sappho (her only complete poem)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor!
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress, and beguiler!
I implore you, dread mistress, discipline me no longer
with love's anguish!
But come to me once again in kindness,
heeding my prayers as you have done before;
O, come Divine One, descend once again from heaven's
golden dominions!
Your chariot yoked to love's consecrated doves,
their multitudinous pinions aflutter,
you once came gliding from the utmost heights, to
this dark earth.
Swiftly they came and vanished, leaving you,
O my Goddess, smiling, your face eternally beautiful,
asking me what unfathomable longing compelled me
to cry out.
Asking me what I sought in my hopeless, bewildered desire.
Asking, "Who has harmed you, why are you so alarmed,
my poor Sappho? Whom should Persuasion
summon here?"
"Though today she flees love, soon she will pursue you;
spurning love's gifts, she soon shall return them;
tomorrow she will woo you,
however unwillingly!"
Come to me now, most Holy Aphrodite!
Release me from my heavy heartache and anguish;
grant me all I request, be once again
my ally and protector!
"Hymn to Aphrodite" is the only poem by Sappho of ****** to survive in its entirety. The poem survived intact because it was quoted in full by Dionysus, a Roman orator, in his "On Literary Composition," published around 30 B.C. A number of Sappho's poems mention or are addressed to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It is believed that Sappho may have belonged to a cult that worshiped Aphrodite with songs and poetry. If so, "Hymn to Aphrodite" may have been composed for performance within the cult. We do know that Sappho was held in very high regard. For instance, when Sappho visited Syracuse the residents were so honored they erected a statue to commemorate the occasion! During Sappho's lifetime, coins of ****** were minted with her image. Furthermore, Sappho was called "the Tenth Muse" and the other nine were goddesses. Keywords/Tags: Sapphic, Sappho, ****** translation, ancient Greek, hymn, Aphrodite, Zeus, daughter, immortal, goddess, holy, lady, heaven, enchantress, enchantment, love potion, charm, spell, persuasion, beguiler, beguilement, mistress, discipline, ********** prayer, prayers, chariot, heaven, descent, ally, protector, lust, desire, passion, longing, *** crush, girlfriend, women, grief
Mar 1, 2020
Mar 1, 2020 at 10:53 PM UTC
Her eyes were filled with love
But she wasn't looking at me
Even though it physically hurt
She was happy
Every time she looked at him
My throat burned and ached
I watched her as i was violently coughing up the beautiful red pedals
Knowing i was going to die
Because i knew she would never look at me
The way she looked at him
And for some reason not loving her
Hurt more then the pedals themselves
Her beauty couldn’t compare to the throned flowers
Rapidly blooming in my throat
I would happily die knowing
That i died loving her
I was going to hold on
Despite the feeling of being set on fire
And knowing exactly how this was going to turn out
But i wanted to die with the little dignity i had left
My vision got blurry
blood dripped from my lip
My throat began to close
And With one last breath
The flowers consumed my smiling dead body
That beautiful hanahaki
May 23, 2021
May 23, 2021 at 10:59 PM UTC
Dapple-throned Aphrodite,
eternal daughterf God,
snare-knitter! Don't, I beg you,
cow my heart with grief! Come,
as once when you heard my far-
off cry and, listening, stepped
from your father's house to your
gold car, to yoke the pair whose
beautiful thick-feathered wings
oaring down mid-air from heaven
carried you to light swiftly
on dark earth; then, blissful one,
smiling your immortal smile
you asked, What ailed me now that
me me call you again? What
was it that my distracted
heart most wanted? "Whom has
Persuasion to bring round now
"to your love? Who, Sappho, is
unfair to you? For, let her
run, she will soon run after;
"if she won't accept gifts, she
will one day give them; and if
she won't love you -- she soon will
"love, although unwillingly..."
If ever -- come now! Relieve
this intolerable pain!
What my heart most hopes will
happen, make happen; you your-
self join forces on my side!
3.2k
the quality of quantity is unmerciful,
prodigious production of
wine improperly aged,
pours soiled drops
spilled without craft,
care or taste,
poured too quick to be
nothing more than
less than waste
born in reckless unrestrained
than every thought a golden gift,
bestowed upon the masses,
droppeth like the harshest hurricane rains,
gives no moisture sustenance to the world,
only floods and lays waste in dazed hazes
blesses none but the one who
cannot but cant,
measures his own demeanor in the mirror,
unsuspecting the mirror mirrors
the ides of ego,
seeds of self destruction
the throned monarch
who giveth
but does not take,
thinking the king he is,
his own best,
even better than his creator
and tho he carvo's his retno critiques
upon the brows of his subjects,
he cares not,
for it boring brings
more mastubatory page views
his addition of success,
his edition of self congratulatory
of writs and snits,
which adds up to a whole lot of
****
but you may put you pen down now,
for the world needs only
need one poet,
and it ain't me,
and it certainly ain't
you
.
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 4:24 PM UTC
Roses sing softly through whispering petals,
Gently stroking upon each others' own.
Similar is the sound, when all else rests,
Of sweet breath escaping lips royally throned.
I wish she would take me home.
Sunset, sunrise,
Chasing the moon girl, no surprise.
How long i have longed to catch her eyes,
Baby blue by nature, baby blue in mine.
Gold embroidered galaxies tells the false man lies.
Heart beats fast,
Bass drops low.
Twisting, turning, head spinning, falling.
How did we get here? Where do we go?
Covalently bonded, nowhere is everything now.
Mar 6, 2011
Mar 6, 2011 at 4:00 PM UTC
Come prisoned moon in steep cloud-fastnesses,—
Throned queen and thralled; some dying sun whose pyre
Blazed with momentous memorable fire;—
Who hath not yearned and fed his heart with these?
Who, sleepless, hath not anguished to appease
Tragical shadow’s realm of sound and sight
Conjectured in the lamentable night?…
Lo! the soul’s sphere of infinite images!
What sense shall count them? Whether it forecast
The rose-winged hours that flutter in the van
Of Love’s unquestioning unreveale’d span,—
Visions of golden futures: or that last
Wild pageant of the accumulated past
That clangs and flashes for a drowning man.
2.7k
Panasonic and Sony beeping
in custom made Reid & Taylor pockets.
A trade for a Rolex throned on his wrist in lieu of
once existent dreams, in now hollow sockets.
Adrenaline pumping before
high stakes meetings and brunches.
Calculating the dose of his choice of drug,
penthouse suites and timeline crunches.
Dizzy with ambition, painting
******* bleached canvasses.
Narcissistic laughter aimed to beguile others,
he, for whom his relaxants are stresses.
Dealing with the Devil himself,
power tainted and ill-gotten,
the realization that humans are not beyond sale;
in markets, mergers and acquisitions.
Recessions, Inflations, cruel overdoses
of risk, of danger unspoken.
And when he surfaces again to consciousness,
profits, losses both taken and broken.
Lost in the sewers filled with;
stock brokers and agents alike: the pawnors,
a haughty expression with green bills,
to score his ecstasy, capital owners.
Another dollar, another hit
never enough to sleep remembering the day.
A Corporate ****** scouring for riches,
a high, a trance not soon before long will sway.
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 9:04 AM UTC
Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;
For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
Thou, throned in every heart’s elect alcove,
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
Which for no head but thine, by Love’s decree,
All beauties and all mysteries interwove.
But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
‘Then only,’ (say’st thou), ‘could I love thee less,
When thou couldst doubt my love’s equality.’
Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,
Thy heart’s transcendence, not my heart’s excess,
Then more a thousandfold thou lov’st than I.
2.1k
Left to surmise
My surprise
Bouquet of Roses
Love devise
Soul remise
Two single Roses
Your device
My demise
Dozen throned Roses
Your disguise
Heart excise
Petal felled Roses
Anger arise
Hate comprise
Black-tipped Roses
Left to surmise
My surprise
Bouquet of Roses
Jan 7, 2011
Jan 7, 2011 at 6:42 AM UTC
the whole uni-world-verse is a work of art
painted, sculpted, written, strummed, yelled, whispered, spoken, hummed,
watched, read, walked, met, clutched, felt, thought, fraught, shot, healed,
sealed, revealed, eaten, clapped, drummed, hugged, kissed, loved, hated, caressed,
sexed, hit, held, slit, melded, tripped, tasted, clothed, wasted, hurt, emaciated,
bounded, re-created, infinite, hallucinated, framed, contained, insane, profane,
profound, no-sound, throned, starved, crowned,
and could the hues and colors of experience be expressed
I would have worked this art to show and speak to no one
but as the same, no none
and yes some
to a sandwich multitude and the star-gaze vigil
from the back, to the front, in the middle.
all big, all mid, all little
and silent as a God watching young girls play fiddle.
Dec 27, 2012
Dec 27, 2012 at 2:37 PM UTC
Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.
I saw men go up and down
In the country and the town,
With this prayer upon their neck,
"Judgment and a judge we seek."
Not to monarchs they repair,
Nor to learned jurist's chair,
But they hurry to their peers,
To their kinsfolk and their dears,
Louder than with speech they pray,
What am I? companion; say.
And the friend not hesitates
To assign just place and mates,
Answers not in word or letter,
Yet is understood the better;—
Is to his friend a looking-glass,
Reflects his figure that doth pass.
Every wayfarer he meets
What himself declared, repeats;
What himself confessed, records;
Sentences him in his words,
The form is his own corporal form,
And his thought the penal worm.
Yet shine for ever ****** minds,
Loved by stars and purest winds,
Which, o'er passion throned sedate,
Have not hazarded their state,
Disconcert the searching spy,
Rendering to a curious eye
The durance of a granite ledge
To those who gaze from the sea's edge.
It is there for benefit,
It is there for purging light,
There for purifying storms,
And its depths reflect all forms;
It cannot parley with the mean,
Pure by impure is not seen.
For there's no sequestered grot,
Lone mountain tam, or isle forgot,
But justice journeying in the sphere
Daily stoops to harbor there.
1.7k
Could Juno’s self more sovereign presence wear
Than thou, ’mid other ladies throned in grace?—
Or Pallas, when thou bend’st with soul-stilled face
O’er poet’s page gold-shadowed in thy hair?
Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair
When o’er the sea of love’s tumultuous trance
Hovers thy smile, and mingles with thy glance
That sweet voice like the last wave murmuring there?
Before such triune loveliness divine
Awestruck I ask, which goddess here most claims
The prize that, howsoe’er adjudged, is thine?
Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names;
And Venus Victrix to my heart doth bring
Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning.
1.6k
the sun,
the moon,
the both of us.
portland to portland,
we are genocide: america.
we are teen murders & horror sitcoms.
globally tuneforked sacrifices,
with commercial breaks.
land of the plumed serpent.
built on the burial grounds of chieftains tall,
but dead men.
public access: watch the tallest towers fall.
in them, men of manifest.
a beast shook.
land of the war artifact.
our birth.
our thousand tongues.
our endless hovering demons/drones/droids of the bomb.
of the eye always watching.
destroyer.
a solar born son of aquarian blood.
prince of the death cult prestigious.
skull & ***** & throned with the boom-button ready.
aligned to die for great glory and bury the dragon one hundred thousand light-years into the dark rift.
heart of milky her.
history favors the bomb.
flavors the chip
dipped.
there was that death of the last cowboy.
his dreams returned to the stars.
his planet returned to chaos,
&/or love.
but both.
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 6:37 AM UTC
A rhythmic whipping of winds on the pine trees,
Mescaline mind, staring through tawny windows and thinking of America
That easy breezy, ****** wind again, blowing blow from laps of men
Tripping on paving slabs, adobe piles and rubble pouring through city streets
Thorny throned king calls out his wife's name
No response, no reprise, water fills the eyes of the owl as he watches
A lizard through the grass with no legs, and the oxford comma blues
A rider on horseback, gallop through the gully, hair screaming, maddening flights
Frightening nights in the Texas desert as consumptive creatures crawl on broken sand
Feel the eyes of the devil, searing the seer
and the car that once roamed gaily now fails daily
Left in bereavement on the side of a road
Crying into calloused hands, wailing for the whale's lost daughter
Sea-dive, see me dive, watch me drive, across country, to a home I will know
When I see it.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 8:56 AM UTC
Oh, the white Sea-gull, the wild Sea-gull,
A joyful bird is he,
As he lies like a cradled thing at rest
In the arms of a sunny sea !
The little waves rock to and fro,
And the white Gull lies asleep,
As the fisher's bark, with breeze and tide,
Goes merrily over the deep.
The ship, with her fair sails set, goes by,
And her people stand to note
How the Sea-gull sits on the rocking waves,
As if in an anchored boat.
The sea is fresh, the sea is fair,
And the sky calm overhead,
And the Sea-gull lies on the deep, deep sea,
Like a king in his royal bed !
Oh, the white Sea-gull, the bold Sea-gull,
A joyful bird is he,
Throned like a king, in calm repose
On the breast of the heaving sea !
The waves leap up, the wild wind blows,
And the Gulls together crowd,
And wheel about, and madly scream
To the deep sea roaring loud.
And let the sea roar ever so loud,
And the wind pipe ever so high,
With a wilder joy the bold Sea-gull
Sends forth a wilder cry.
For the Sea-gull, he is a daring bird,
And he loves with the storm to sail;
To ride in the strength of the billowy sea,
And to breast the driving gale !
The little boat, she is tossed about,
Like a sea-weed, to an fro;
The tall ship reels like a drunken man,
As the gusty tempests blow.
But the Sea-gull laughs at the fear of man,
And sails in a wild delight
On the torn-up breast of the night-black sea,
Like a foam cloud, calm and white.
The waves may rage and the winds may roar,
But he fears not wreck nor need;
For he rides the sea, in its stormy strength,
As a strong man rides his steed.
Oh, the white Sea-gull, the bold Sea-gull !
He makes on the shore his nest,
And he tries what the inland fields may be;
But he loveth the sea the best !
And away from land a thousand leagues,
He goes 'mid surging foam;
What matter to him is land or shore,
For the sea is his truest home !
Mary Howitt
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 9:02 AM UTC
Ashen hair encircles her head,
And a face that could do with a wash.
Yet above the chipped teeth and the grimy brown hands,
Sits, throned, a crown of gold.
A waltzing skirt, trimmed with ribbons of dust,
A bruise of an amethyst hue,
She mutters the stories to ***** grey walls,
The girl with a crown of gold.
The peasants awake, splitting heads, withered throats,
From their bedbugs and blankets and beer.
The princess stands firm, she will not be moved
From her crack-mirrored bathroom seat.
*The peasants are worse than usual this morn,
But you have to expect that from them.*
The mirror reflects, in its own shattered way
The torn, crushed crown of gold.
There once was a prince, in this faery land.
A baby too brave for his good,
A trip away, up the silent back stairs.
-
They can't batter his new crown of gold.
The streets try to drag her back into the world,
But she only sees carpets of red.
In a fairytale land where no evil is seen,
Sometimes paper's more precious than gold.
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 2:45 AM UTC
Cloud of smoke rising above
Revelation of joyous tranquility
A stir within the belly stiffening
A grafitti smiled, you lived within
A mouth stitched, heart un-sutured
Constrained by the apathy you bear
Consolidated in tethered pastures
A stare of silence vigorously imbues
A pleasure to meet your selfish leisures
Hear the voices rattling in throned castles
Run encircling the failed soul games
Good luck from one, another, a mother
I was bred as a hybrid alien, a predictor
Take these words and run, jog on
Your palms saturated with energy
Leave the magic and gallop with horses
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC
The love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.
No doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet O ye mysteries of good,
Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do
With old results that look like new;
If this were all your mission here,
To draw, to sheathe a useless sword,
To fool the crowd with glorious lies,
To cleave a creed in sects and cries,
To change the bearing of a word,
To shift an arbitrary power,
To cramp the student at his desk,
To make old bareness picturesque
And tuft with grass a feudal tower;
Why then my scorn might well descend
On you and yours. I see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,
Is toil cooperant to an end.
1.2k
At Fuller's emporium of whiskers and wine,
As matches are struck on the no smoking sign.
Mr Terry Fuller, of reddened face refined,
Regiments and orders his elbows aligned;
With stories of rumour, football, *******
Thieves, my boy and across Texas by trucking.
He loudly regales to the spirits of faces,
"Me and my boy have been to some places, we've seen some girls, he gave em' rub,
As I was too busy running the pub."
Howling as they're told, sighing in ease,
Mr Daniels accusing "who's round is it please?"
When shadowed in doorway, tip-toes, a pale boy.
Stringy, svelte and painfully coy.
Debate is lulled, as men catch scent.
"Don't come in here boy, or your money'll be spent."
Roaring,rumbling, the boy unsettled in mirth.
"He can't buy any beer, he's only just had his birth."
Half-pint of breath, the boy stammers to say.
"I just was curious, i mean, I ask, if I may-"
A bellowing fanfare, "Speak up or go away!"
"I just wanted to know what you do with your day?"
Mr Fuller, heaving his pink smirking bulk, anchored by his drink.
"We work, we go home and we pub till we sink."
Troughs raised in toast, raining down on bald heads.
As the boy puzzling thinks what the bulbous man said.
"Then tomorrow" yelped the youth.
"What do you do after that?"
"More of the same, till God's on the mat!."
Throned by grey faces, blanketed in smoke,
As the toothless, eggs titter at the nonsensical joke.
Raising a tiny limb, "So this happens everyday?"
Mr Fuller rubbed his hands, "I wouldn't have it another way."
The alphas puffing , guffawing, dribbling beer down chins. And for blood-vesseled faces another story begins.
As the silhouetted boy under a veil of tears, whispers "I'm so sorry" and leaves.
In Fuller's emporium a silence ensued,
The sound sat between them and quietly chewed.
Every brow furrowed, as the beer didn't flow.
A quiet conclusion.
"The youth of today what do they know!"
JWS
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 10:21 AM UTC
Dripping inks from a dreamer's quill
Trembling tip illustrates a scribbled script
Weary sheets capturing an innocence guilt
Corners not spared for a timeless trip
Walking in reverse replaying all skits
Sorting out smiles from the grimeless grins
Missing a delicate frowned is a vital bit
Expressions throned from denying wins
Drifting words marking of flamboyant speech
Passing judgement even before the trial begins
Anonymous decision narrowing countless ditch
Where should we go now?
Or what should be seen?
Visionary or idealist repelling reality's keep
Spinning ticks as the grandfather clock dings
The journey sails even when our eyelids peep
Lights now shining while we recounting sheeps
Reality is knocking so now just let our
Fantasy breathes
@2014 Maman Screams
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC